The Ohio State University

Full Title of Seminar:

"Integrating Software Risk Contributions into Classical Probabilistic Risk Assessment: Focus on Software/Hardware Interactions"

ABSTRACT

PRA is a methodology consisting of techniques to assess the probability of failure or success of a system. It has been proven to be a systematic, logical, and comprehensive methodology for risk assessment of complex technological systems such as nuclear power plants, chemical installations and transportation systems. The methodology has however mostly focused on purely hardware-based systems. This does not reflect the current design of complex systems since the percentage of functionality requiring software has been increasing steadily. As a consequence the risk associated to software intensive systems is not well understood. To address this shortage, this seminar presents elements of a framework to analyze the impact of software risk on the system within classical PRA. More specifically, it discusses a taxonomy of software-related failures and its validation within the NASA environment. It briefly discusses integration procedures. It then zooms onto one specific type of software related-failure and its quantification methodology, i.e. that which depends upon interaction between software and hardware computer platform. 

BIO

Dr. Carol Smidts is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Nuclear Engineering Graduate Program, at The Ohio State University and the current deputy director of the DOE Center for Academic Excellence in Instrumentation, Controls and Safety.  She holds a BS/MS and a Ph.D. in Engineering Physics from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.  Dr. Smidts has extensive research credentials both in software reliability modeling and probabilistic risk assessment. She has published more than 100 refereed journal and conference papers on these topics. She is currently an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Reliability and a senior member of IEEE. She holds three patents and is the recipient of multiple research awards.