Software

About: Software is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 130577 publications have been published within this topic receiving 2028987 citations. The topic is also known as: computer software & computational tool.

Computer and telephone apparatus with user friendly computer interface and enhanced integrity features

Abstract: A telephone configured as a programmable microcomputer (2) (telephone-computer) which operates in most circumstances through a standard telephone 12-key keypad input (3). The telephone-computer (2) has the overall appearance of a telephone and includes telephone electronics and a microprocessor unit operated in conjunction with other computer elements, including memory devices, a programmable gate array (PGA) chip which can be initially programmed and then fixed, and enhanced integrity features. The PGA has the capability of being configured to accomodate various types of software which require different hardware configuration, but without actually reconfiguring the hardware. The telephone-computer (2) delivers data processing capabilities and services through an ordinary telephone instrument via conventional telephone lines (78) with a network host computer (68) which communicates with a vast panoply of service bureaus (80a-80d). Specifically, operating software is downloaded to the telephone-computer (2) by the network host computer (68) to format the microcomputer to conform to the software format used by the service bureaus (80a-80d).

Specification matching of software components

Abstract: : Specification matching is a way to compare two software components. In the context of software reuse and library retrieval it can help determine whether one component can be substituted for another or bow one can be modified to fit the requirements of the other. In the context of object-oriented programming, it can help determine when one type is a behavioral subtype of another. In the context of system interoperability, it can help determine whether the interfaces of two components mismatch. We use formal specifications to describe the behavior of software components, and hence, to determine whether two components match. We give precise definitions of not just exact match, but more relevantly, various flavors of relaxed match. These definitions capture the notions of generalization, specialization, substitutability, subtyping, and interoperability of software components. We write our formal specifications of components in terms of pre-and post-condition predicates. Thus, we rely on theorem proving to determine match and mismatch. We give examples from our implementation of specification matching using the Larch Prover.

Psi4 1.4: Open-source software for high-throughput quantum chemistry

Abstract: PSI4 is a free and open-source ab initio electronic structure program providing implementations of Hartree-Fock, density functional theory, many-body perturbation theory, configuration interaction, density cumulant theory, symmetry-adapted perturbation theory, and coupled-cluster theory. Most of the methods are quite efficient, thanks to density fitting and multi-core parallelism. The program is a hybrid of C++ and Python, and calculations may be run with very simple text files or using the Python API, facilitating post-processing and complex workflows; method developers also have access to most of PSI4's core functionalities via Python. Job specification may be passed using The Molecular Sciences Software Institute (MolSSI) QCSCHEMA data format, facilitating interoperability. A rewrite of our top-level computation driver, and concomitant adoption of the MolSSI QCARCHIVE INFRASTRUCTURE project, makes the latest version of PSI4 well suited to distributed computation of large numbers of independent tasks. The project has fostered the development of independent software components that may be reused in other quantum chemistry programs.

ITS4: a static vulnerability scanner for C and C++ code

Abstract: We describe ITS4, a tool for statically scanning security-critical C source code for vulnerabilities. Compared to other approaches, our scanning technique stakes out a new middle ground between accuracy and efficiency. This method is efficient enough to offer real-time feedback to developers during coding while producing few false negatives. Unlike other techniques, our method is also simple enough to scan C++ code despite the complexities inherent in the language. Using ITS4 we found new remotely-exploitable vulnerabilities in a widely distributed software package as well as in a major piece of e-commerce software. The ITS4 source distribution is available at http://www.rstcorp.com/its4.

Software errors and complexity: an empirical investigation

Abstract: The distributions and relationships derived from the change data collected during the development of a medium scale satellite software project show that meaningful results can be obtained which allow an insight into software traits and the environment in which it is developed. Modified and new modules were shown to behave similarly. An abstract classification scheme for errors which allows a better understanding of the overall traits of a software project is also shown. Finally, various size and complexity metrics are examined with respect to errors detected within the software yielding some interesting results.