Stevens graduate student finds reliable cure for bugged software
Software failures plague our lives. Software Engineering experiments at Stevens Institute of Technology recently proved that bug infested software can be run with great reliability without having to fix the bug.
A wireless communication protocol was implemented in C++ by a master's student, Kevin Yao, under the direction of Industry Research Professor Larry Bernstein of Stevens' Computer Science Department, along with Associate Professor Yu-Dong Yao of Stevens Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The complexity of the algorithm led to a memory leak that was undetected until the wireless software package was stressed. Rather than finding and fixing the leak, a fault tolerant library was bound into the package and the defect was contained. The package ran reliably.
"This is a clear before-and-after case," said Professor Bernstein, "that will convince skeptics of the merits of improving the reliability of software by constraining the execution domain of the software product. The merits of software engineering concepts of architecture design, functional testing, scalability, stress testing and reliability testing were demonstrated in the project."
Those wishing to contact Professors Bernstein and Yao, or Mr. Yao, for further information on the project may arrange an interview through the media contact listed above the headline.
About Stevens Institute of Technology
Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.
Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students, with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.
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