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Criteria and tools for scientific software quality measurements

Abstract

Not all software used in the nuclear industry needs the rigorous formal verification, reliability testing and quality assessment that are being applied to safety critical software. Recently, however, there is increasing recognition that systematic and objective quality assessment of the scientific software used in design and safety analyses of nuclear facilities is necessary to support safety and licensing decisions. Because of the complexity and large size of these programs and the resource constraints faced by the AECB reviewer, it is desirable that appropriate automated tools are used wherever practical. To objectively assess the quality of software, a set of attributes of a software product by which its quality is described and evaluated must be established. These attributes must be relevant to the application domain of software under evaluation. To effectively assess the quality of software, metrics defining quantitative scale and method appropriate to determine the value of attributes need to be applied. To cost-effectively perform the evaluation, use of suitable automated tools is desirable. In this project, criteria for evaluating the quality of scientific software are presented; metrics for which those criteria can be evaluated are identified; a survey of automated tools to measure those metrics was conducted and the  More>>
Authors:
Tseng, M Y [1] 
  1. Previse Inc., Willowdale ON (Canada)
Publication Date:
Dec 01, 1995
Product Type:
Technical Report
Report Number:
INFO-0615
Reference Number:
SCA: 990200; PA: AIX-27:057457; EDB-96:124728; NTS-97:000721; SN: 96001635310
Resource Relation:
Other Information: PBD: Dec 1995
Subject:
99 MATHEMATICS, COMPUTERS, INFORMATION SCIENCE, MANAGEMENT, LAW, MISCELLANEOUS; NUCLEAR INDUSTRY; COMPUTER CODES; QUALITY ASSURANCE; FORTRAN; SAFETY
OSTI ID:
265901
Research Organizations:
Atomic Energy Control Board, Ottawa, ON (Canada)
Country of Origin:
Canada
Language:
English
Other Identifying Numbers:
Other: ON: DE96632403; CNN: Project 2.229.1; TRN: CA9600430057457
Availability:
INIS; OSTI as DE96632403
Submitting Site:
INIS
Size:
105 p.
Announcement Date:
Aug 16, 1996

Citation Formats

Tseng, M Y. Criteria and tools for scientific software quality measurements. Canada: N. p., 1995. Web.
Tseng, M Y. Criteria and tools for scientific software quality measurements. Canada.
Tseng, M Y. 1995. "Criteria and tools for scientific software quality measurements." Canada.
@misc{etde_265901,
title = {Criteria and tools for scientific software quality measurements}
author = {Tseng, M Y}
abstractNote = {Not all software used in the nuclear industry needs the rigorous formal verification, reliability testing and quality assessment that are being applied to safety critical software. Recently, however, there is increasing recognition that systematic and objective quality assessment of the scientific software used in design and safety analyses of nuclear facilities is necessary to support safety and licensing decisions. Because of the complexity and large size of these programs and the resource constraints faced by the AECB reviewer, it is desirable that appropriate automated tools are used wherever practical. To objectively assess the quality of software, a set of attributes of a software product by which its quality is described and evaluated must be established. These attributes must be relevant to the application domain of software under evaluation. To effectively assess the quality of software, metrics defining quantitative scale and method appropriate to determine the value of attributes need to be applied. To cost-effectively perform the evaluation, use of suitable automated tools is desirable. In this project, criteria for evaluating the quality of scientific software are presented; metrics for which those criteria can be evaluated are identified; a survey of automated tools to measure those metrics was conducted and the most appropriate tool (QA Fortran) was acquired; and the tool usage was demonstrated on three sample programs. (author) 5 refs.}
place = {Canada}
year = {1995}
month = {Dec}
}