Embedded systems are used in many critical applications where a failure can have serious consequences. Therefore, achieving a high level of dependability is an ultimate goal. However, in order to achieve this goal we are in need of understanding the interrelationships between the different dependability quality attributes and other embedded systems’ quality attributes. This research study provides indicators of the relationship between the dependability quality attributes and other quality attributes for embedded systems by identifying the impact of architectural tactics as the candidate solutions to construct dependable embedded systems.

It is next to impossible to let a day go by without coming into contact with a computer system in some way, either by direct usage, or making a telephone call that is directed by computer systems. Due to the importance of computer systems we are all concerned with their quality, directly or indirectly, a malfunctioning system will disturb our lives in more or less drastic ways. Each stakeholder promotes his qualities and priorities for the system, and this will eventually lead to conflict, depending on relations between qualities. There is no simple solution to the problem of relating and conflicting quality attributes. But by making an informed decision it is possible to soften the effects of the trade-offs and gain a higher level of total software quality. The way to make an informed decision is to have knowledge about the relations between quality attributes along with insights of the consequences of the decision. This report gives a short introduction to the problem, and surveys both the relations stated within academia, and industry. The intention is to explore the knowledge present within academia and collect and present the established relations found by researchers. Further this report presents a survey carried out at companies working in different areas with software engineering, to show which relations that are visible to industry and how they are handling the relations between quality attributes. This gathered knowledge intends to support the ambition towards higher quality in software engineering.

<p>With the increased use of computers in every-day live, the demand for newer and better software is increasing day by day. This advancement has resulted in that many developers are searching for ways to decrease their development time. One approach is to use design patterns when designing applications. Design pattern are acknowledged solutions to known design problems that can be reused over and over again without ever doing the same thing twice. The most recent advancement of identifying design patterns has been within the domain of concurrent systems.</p><p>Design pattern within concurrent systems are of interest in this project because of its young age. Development of concurrent applications has often been compared to constant reinvention of the wheel, because code reuse is very low and solutions to design problems are being rediscovered over and over again. By using design pattern, an attempt is made to avoid that. The question is if design patterns are capable of standing under that load.</p><p>This project takes as a case study the problem of protecting a shared resource in a concurrent application, and implements two different solutions to that problem using a special design pattern. These two implementations are then evaluated, with consideration to certain software quality attributes, in a qualitative way.</p><p>This project shows how a pattern can be used to solve a common synchronization problem. It discusses the nature of design patterns, what needs to be considered when they are implemented and how a pattern language can affect the implementation.</p>

With the increased use of computers in every-day live, the demand for newer and better software is increasing day by day. This advancement has resulted in that many developers are searching for ways to decrease their development time. One approach is to use design patterns when designing applications. Design pattern are acknowledged solutions to known design problems that can be reused over and over again without ever doing the same thing twice. The most recent advancement of identifying design patterns has been within the domain of concurrent systems. Design pattern within concurrent systems are of interest in this project because of its young age. Development of concurrent applications has often been compared to constant reinvention of the wheel, because code reuse is very low and solutions to design problems are being rediscovered over and over again. By using design pattern, an attempt is made to avoid that. The question is if design patterns are capable of standing under that load. This project takes as a case study the problem of protecting a shared resource in a concurrent application, and implements two different solutions to that problem using a special design pattern. These two implementations are then evaluated, with consideration to certain software quality attributes, in a qualitative way. This project shows how a pattern can be used to solve a common synchronization problem. It discusses the nature of design patterns, what needs to be considered when they are implemented and how a pattern language can affect the implementation.

Software architecture has been identified as an increasingly important part of software development. The software architecture helps the developer of a software system to define the internal structure of the system. Several methods for evaluating software architectures have been proposed in order to assist the developer in creating a software architecture that will have a potential to fulfil the requirements on the system. Many of the evaluation methods focus on evaluation of a single quality attribute. However, in an industrial system there are normally requirements on several quality aspects of the system. Therefore, an architecture evaluation method that addresses multiple quality attributes, e.g., performance, maintainability, testability, and portability, would be more beneficial. This thesis presents research towards a method for evaluation of multiple quality attributes using one software architecture evaluation method. A prototype-based evaluation method is proposed that enables evaluation of multiple quality attributes using components of a system and an approximation of its intended runtime environment. The method is applied in an industrial case study where communication components in a distributed realtime system are evaluated. The evaluation addresses performance, maintainability, and portability for three alternative components using a single set of software architecture models and a prototype framework. The prototype framework enables the evaluation of different components and component configurations in the software architecture while collecting data in an objective way. Finally, this thesis presents initial work towards incorporating evaluation of testability into the method. This is done through an investigation of how testability is interpreted by different organizational roles in a software developing organization and which measures of source code that they consider affecting testability.

The purpose of this study was to establish a predictive model of the factors that contribute to the decision-making process when purchasing denim by 13- to 19-year-old adolescents living in the U.S. The researcher created an online survey through Qualtrics and administered it to an opt-in panel of adolescents, through Centiment. There were 460 survey responses collected. Important denim attributes to respondents included comfort and fit, price, durability, and body perception. Significant predictors that increased respondents’ intention to purchase denim jeans included intrinsic attributes-appearance of fabric on the body, cognitive attributes, tighter fit, and purchased denim in the last three months. Significant predictors that decreased respondents’ intention to purchase denim jeans included if the price was increasingly more than $40 and gender. The information gathered in this study could help manufacturers focus on what adolescents consider important in denim jeans and adjust production and marketing strategy as needed. Future research should determine which attributes were contributing to the significance of intrinsic attributes-appearance of fabric on the body and cognitive attributes. Another future research study could conduct the research with physical examples of denim jeans present.

ITC/USA 2010 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Sixth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 25-28, 2010 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / X-Tools is a collection of utilities for validation, translation, editing and report generation designed to enable the Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI) community to quickly adopt the XidML 3.0 meta-data standard. This paper discusses the challenges of developing such software that meets the current and future needs of the FTI community, and meets the increasingly high quality standards expected of modern software. The paper first starts by discussing the needs of the FTI community and the specific functional requirements of software. These include the ability to fit in with legacy systems, the ability to handle many tens of thousands of parameters, support for new networked-based technologies and support for hardware from any vendor. The non-functional requirements of FTI orientated software are also described and it is suggested that the key non-functional requirements include testability, modifiability, extensibility and maintainability. Finally, as a case study, the X-Tools from ACRA CONTROL are presented. The paper discusses their design, and the tactics used to meet the functional and non-functional requirements of the FTI industry. The paper then outlines how the rigorous quality standards were met and describes the specific mechanisms used to verify the quality of the software.

Context: - Machine learning is a part of artificial intelligence, this area is now continuously growing day by day. Most internet related services such as Social media service, Email Spam, E-commerce sites, Search engines are now using machine learning. The Quality of machine learning output relies on the input data, so the input data is crucial for machine learning and good quality of input data can give a better outcome to the machine learning system. In order to achieve quality data, a data scientist can use a data quality model on data of machine learning. Data quality model can help data scientists to monitor and control the input data of machine learning. But there is no considerable amount of research done on data quality attributes and data quality model for machine learning. Objectives: - The primary objectives of this paper are to find and understand the state-of-art and state-of-practice on data quality attributes for machine learning, and to develop a data quality model for machine learning in collaboration with data scientists. Methods: - This paper mainly consists of two studies: - 1) Conducted a literature review in the different database in order to identify literature on data quality attributes and data quality model for machine learning. 2) An in-depth interview study was conducted to allow a better understanding and verifying of data quality attributes that we identified from our literature review study, this process is carried out with the collaboration of data scientists from multiple locations. Totally of 15 interviews were performed and based on the results we proposed a data quality model based on these interviewees perspective. Result: - We identified 16 data quality attributes as important from our study which is based on the perspective of experienced data scientists who were interviewed in this study. With these selected data quality attributes, we proposed a data quality model with which quality of data for machine learning can be monitored and improved by data scientists, and effects of these data quality attributes on machine learning have also been stated. Conclusion: - This study signifies the importance of quality of data, for which we proposed a data quality model for machine learning based on the industrial experiences of a data scientist. This research gap is a benefit to all machine learning practitioners and data scientists who intended to identify quality data for machine learning. In order to prove that data quality attributes in the data quality model are important, a further experiment can be conducted, which is proposed in future work.

Objetivou-se determinar os efeitos de dietas contendo três fontes de lipídeos (semente de girassol, caroço de algodão e soja em grão \"in natura\") e duas de selênio (orgânico ou inorgânico) sobre o desempenho animal, características de carcaça e qualidade da carne de bovinos da raça Nelore (Bos taurus indicus). Foram utilizados 54 machos, castrados, com idade média de 30 meses e com peso vivo médio de 458 ± 39 kg no início do experimento. Os animais foram distribuídos em blocos, de acordo com o peso inicial, com delineamento em arranjo fatorial de tratamentos do tipo 3x2, cujos fatores de variação foram três fontes de lipídeos e duas fontes de selênio. Cada grupo de três animais foi alojado em uma baia por um período de 120 dias. As características de rendimento de carcaça, área de olho de lombo, espessura de gordura subcutânea, índice de marmorização, perdas totais ao cozimento e maciez objetiva não foram influenciadas pelo tipo de fontes de lipídeos ou de selênio na dieta. A inclusão de fonte orgânica de selênio resultou em maior concentração deste elemento no tecido muscular, quando comparada à fonte de selênio inorgânica. As fontes de lipídeos utilizadas na dieta influenciaram o atributo de suculência e sabor estranho da carne dos animais estudados enquanto a fonte de selênio influenciou apenas no atributo de sabor estranho. / This study was carried out to determine the effects of the inclusion of three sources of fat (sunflower seed, whole cottonseed and raw soybean ) and two sources of selenium (organic or inorganic) in the diets fed to Nellore cattle (Bos taurus indicus) on the animal performance and carcass and meat quality characteristics. Fifty-four bovine males, castrated, with an average age of 30 months and 458 ± 39 kg at the beginning of the experiment were distributed, according to initial weight, in blocks with a 3x2 factorial arrangement: three sources of lipids and two sources of selenium. The animals were housed in stalls, three per pen, during 120 days. Carcass characteristics (carcass yield, the rib eye area, fat thickness, marbling index and shear force) were not influenced by the fat or selenium sources in the diet. The inclusion of organic source of selenium resulted in higher concentration in the muscle, compared to the inorganic source. The fat source used in diet influenced the attribute of juiciness and strange flavor of the animals meat studied, however the selenium source influenced only the attribute of taste.

Contemporary software engineering practice overemphasizes the distinction of software design from software implementation, and designer (“software architect”) from implementor (“computer programmer”). In this contemporary meme, software architects are concerned with large-grained system structures, quality attributes that arise from these structures (security, availability, performance, etc.) and quality attribute tradeoff to satisfy conflicting stakeholder needs; programmers are concerned with low–level algorithms and data structures, program functionality, and with satisfying architectural intent. However, software is unique in that design and implementation are not cleanly separable. While architect and programmer may have many different design concerns, they also have many complementary and interacting concerns; their respective design practices must be well–integrated. Instead, contemporary architecture and programming practices are diverging. Architects are likely to regard programming as a routine production activity, while programmers are likely to regard architecture as a routine management activity; communication is hindered by a lack of shared vocabulary or appreciation of mutual concerns. Instead of effective integration, a gap has opened in software architecture and programming practice. The research reported here defines the architecture/program seam (“the Seam”), a region of overlap in software architecture and programming practice. The Seam emphasizes design concerns centered on achieving predictable runtime behavior. For a behavior to be predictable it must be described in a theory that must ultimately be consistent with basic theories of computation, and each such theory must have objective evidence to demonstrate that theory observations correspond to system observations. The validity of a theory will likely depend on invariants that can be expressed, and enforced, by means of theory–induced design rules. A system that satisfies the design rules of a theory is then regarded as having behavior that is predictable by construction with respect to that theory. Predictability by construction reduces uncertainty, and hence risk in design, and helps designers explain complex design decisions. The research reported here also defines prediction–enabled component technology (PECT) as a foundation technology to support the Seam, and demonstrates a prototype on industrial problems in electric grid substation control, industrial robot control, and desktop streaming audio. The prototype PECT extends a basic component technology of pure assembly (“Pin”) with theory extension points (“reasoning frameworks”) that are used to achieve predictability by construction. Reasoning frameworks for real–time performance and temporal–logic model checking have been developed, with statistical confidence intervals providing evidence of predictive quality for the former, and code–embeddable proof certificates providing evidence for the latter. Finally, the research reported here defines the Seam itself as inducing a new kind of evolutionary design problem, whose solutions require the integration of programming language theory, design theory, specialized theories of system behavior and deep systems expertise.