REU Site: Verification and Validation for Software Safety

软件安全对许多由私营企业和政府开展的项目至关重要。挑战者号事故发生后，NASA根据国家研究委员会的一份报告采取了一项安全政策，要求每个项目采取有组织和系统的方法来识别安全危险或不安全的情况和做法，并遵循适当的步骤来确保足够的安全。在即将建立的REU站点，本科生参与软件安全验证和确认的研究：从最初的一系列关于必要背景知识的培训研讨会，到根据他们的兴趣参与到几个特别设计的研究主题之一。课程包括安全分析、模型构建和模拟、验证测试生成和执行等。强调了学生和教师导师之间的互动。暑期项目结束后，还与学生进行了跟踪，以准备他们的结果在会议和出版损伤中展示。研究主题是软件安全，重点是故障条件与功能规范的分析和集成，形式规范中断言的使用，以及不仅对正常条件下的测试软件的验证，而且还表明软件不会因为单一或多个错误输入而产生不安全状态。该项目允许来自代表性不足的群体或研究机会有限的大学的学生体验软件工程方面的尖端研究，并熟练掌握广泛适用的技能，包括批判性思维、研究方法、解决问题以及口头和书面交流--所有这些都对研究生项目的成功和科学技术研究的职业非常重要。

Software safety is critical to many projects conductedby both private industry and the government. After theChallenger accident, NASA adopted a safety policy basedon a National Research Council report that requires everyproject to take an organized and systematic approach toidentify safety hazards or unsafe situations and practices,and to follow appropriate steps to assure adequate safety.At the REU site to be established undergraduates participatein research on verification and validation for softwaresafety: from, initially, a series of training seminars onthe necessary background knowledge, to becoming involvedin one of several specially designed research topicsaccording to their interests. Topics include safety analysis,model construction and simulation, validation test generationand execution, etc. Interaction between the students andfaculty mentors is emphasized. Follow-ups are also conductedwith the students after the summer program to prepare theirresults for presentation at conferences and publication injournals.The research subject is software safety with a focus on theanalysis and integration of failure conditions with functionalspecifications, the use of assertions in formal specifications,and validation not only for testing software under normalconditions but also for showing that unsafe states cannot begenerated by the software as the result of single or multipleerroneous inputs. This project allows students fromunderrepresented groups or universities with limited researchopportunities to experience cutting-edge research in softwareengineering and to gain proficiency in a broadly applicableskill set, including critical thinking, research methods,problem solving, and oral and written communication -- all ofwhich are very important for success in graduate programs andcareers in science and technology research.