Review I (DASC)
Montag, 22. Juni 2020
23:27
Dear Darbaz Nawzad Darwesh,
Your paper number 1061 entitled "An Assessment Framework for Development Processes of SafetyCritical System Functions Applied to a Model-Based Safety-Critical Middleware", has received an
Editorial Review. The review comments are included at the bottom of this message.
Please note that you must still submit your final manuscript by Jul 17, 2020 23:59 (GMT -0700), and
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Thank you for your contribution to the 39th DASC!
Best Regards,
39th DASC Technical Program Chairs
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Reviewer #1 Comments
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How does you approach compare to modular unikernels, such as MirageOS. That is, rather than
constructing only the middleware, why not construct the entire system with yoru knowlegdge-based
tool?
Abstract
=========
First sentence: You are quantifying the impact of middleware, but impact on what? impact on
Safety? impact on performance? impact on cost?
by "proofing" do you mean verification?
fault tolerance and redundancy are desirable properties, but degradation is not, so should not be in
same list.
The abstract is meant to be a summary of the entire paper, not simply an introduction. Thus, you
should also state the main results that you found.
I. Intro:
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I. Intro:
============
First sentence, impact on what? Cost?
"even the guidelines" does not make grammatical sense.
"Model-based generated airborne software is already used for avionic functions, for instance
SCADE" -- SCADE is an example of the tool, not an example of the airborne software.
"benefits in e.g. in Spiral Model" should be "benefits in iterative approaches e.g. a Spiral Model"
"However, making a qualitative statement about how" -- do you mean "quantitative"?
"two category groups" should be "two categories"
"secondly they primarily intended for new software development" should be "secondly they are
primarily intended for new software development"
"which both major inputs to existing assessment methods." should be "which are both major inputs
to existing assessment methods."
I suggest that you do not provide so much detail on the four evaluation views here in the
introduction, since you provide even more details later in the paper.
It is not clear what a "high-lift system" is. Please provide a short explanation at this point.
II. methods under eval
============
A. FAP
======
"The platform management is not completely detached from the operating system and must have
full control over all hardware resources as well as the operating system," -- I found this confusing.
The OS manages the HW, so how can the platform management have full control of hardware
resources (except via the OS)?
It is not unusual to manually review the outputs of a tool rather than qualify the tool itself. The
paper may spend too much time on the AAA process for something that is not really novel.
Figure 1 has many terms and labels that are not explained in the text of the document. I am not
sure of the value of this figure.
B. CM
=========
"Due to the increasing the aircraft system functions in terms of quantity and complexity over the last
few decades, it was inevitable to solve this situation compared to federated development strategy."
should be "Due to the increasing complexity of aircraft system functions over the last few decades,
it was inevitable that IMA would be developed to solve this situation compared to federated
development strategy."
"Therefore, according to the DO-297
a comprehensive guideline is defined for IMA platform technology" should be "This led to the
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a comprehensive guideline is defined for IMA platform technology" should be "This led to the
publication of DO-297, a comprehensive guideline defining IMA platform technology"
"Since the IMA provide a well-defined API, the applications software can be developed in an
independent process." -- it is not the API that allows independence. It is the guaranteed isolation
that allows independent verification of each application.
"The conventional process is assumed as a manual development approach e.g. manual writing of
requirements, test cases and configurations with word processors e.g. Microsoft Office." -- Although
I have witnessed requirements written in MS Word, the much more common approach is to use a
requirements management system such as DOORS.
C. Selective Middleware approach
=======================================
"enables using the FAP
into the standardized IMA modules" -- I do not know what this means. Please re-word to make your
meaning clear.
IV. Assessment
=============
A. Project View
================
"The FAA proposes a
set of criteria as quality metrics for avionics applications software [24]. Out of these relevant criteria
are selected for the purpose of this research" -- why didn't you use all the criteria from the FAA?
What drove your selections?
"(5) With the second point" -- what was the first point?
B. Analysis method
======================
It is not clear who makes the assessment of efficiency. Did you use multiple experienced avionics
developers to obtain a more credible estimation?
equastion (ii) says that "i" is the numbe of criteria, yet in the equation is appares to simply be the
index.
V. Evaluation Results
=========================
In Figure 6, you should not use a pie chart to illustrate percentages that do not add up to 100%. A
bar chart would be more appropriate for your data.
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