Press report, lab opening

Dominion Post, March 3, 2007:

Grand opening

The recently completed Applied Technology Laboratory at West Virginia University is the next step in an important partnership between WVU researchers and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Facility in Fairmont.

The focus of the laboratory and partnership is the advancement of software engineering for space exploration and aeronautics research.

The laboratory, located in Room G-29 of Eiesland Hall on WVU’s Downtown Campus, will host a grand opening at 1:30 p.m. Friday, March 2.

The event is free and open to the public.

"NASA engineers and scientists are now facing software challenges they have never seen or experienced," said Tim Menzies, ATL director and WVU professor of computer science and electrical engineering. "This laboratory will place particular emphasis on software engineering technologies that improve and advance the way NASA produces reliable and safe system software."

The new laboratory, which was previously a standard computer teaching lab, was renovated with funds from NASA, and houses an array of computer hardware and software provided by WVU. The important thing about the facility is not so much the equipment, though, said Menzies.

"The critical thing is that we are providing diverse groups of software engineering researchers with a space in which to come together and collaborate on projects," he said. "This fills an important need and will enhance the growth of this area of research at WVU."

The NASA IV&V Facility was established in 1993 with the goal of enhancing the safety and cost-effectiveness of mission-critical software, and has been partnering with WVU since 1994 to explore technologies that will help it model and explore new software systems.

"This laboratory is the next step in our important partnership with WVU," said Marcus Fisher, head of research at the IV&V Facility. "It will allow us to mature our research products so that they can be more easily integrated into NASA missions."

In addition to facilitating collaborative research, the newly renovated laboratory will help WVU attract high-quality students, said Menzies.

"We are confident that having this facility here at WVU will help us attract and inspire the best and the brightest of the next generation of software engineers and software engineering researchers," he said.

For more information, visit http://atl.wvu.edu/ or e-mail tim@menzies.us.

Pavan Rajagopal

Pavan Rajagopal is the Project Manager for the NASA IV&V Facility Tools Lab. Mr. Rajagopal has a background in Aerospace, SW Engineering, and Systems Engineering. He has developed and tested embedded systems for the Remote Sensing industry and both performed and led teams in the conduct of IV&V.

WVU Physics grad finds extraterrestrial weather

It was the first interstellar weather report of its kind outside our solar system, and a West Virginia University-trained physicist helped lead the three NASA teams that pulled it off.

Dr. Jeremy Richardson’s work with the high-tech Spitizer Space Telescope revealed scorching, dark and windy conditions on two planets light-years away from Earth.

It was the first examination ever of the atmospheres of planets rotating about stars other than our own Sun, said Richardson, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. - and it was significant, the 1997 WVU physics graduate said - for what it didn’t reveal: water.

The team’s findings were published this week (Feb. 22) in the journal Nature and also featured in a Feb. 22 New York Times article.

The Barrackville, Marion County native, was active in the Honors Program at WVU and considers retired professor and Honors Program Director Bill Collins as one of his mentors, along with current WVU physics professors Marty Ferer and Mark Koepke.

For more, see NASA Goddard news.

How can I book the lab?

If you have the atl password, you can go to our calendar
Google calendar, find a blank spot, and add an event.

Make sure your event notice includes a contact name. Events without contact names will be deleted.

Who can use the lab?

Anyone blessed by the NASA or WVU lead for the lab (Wes Deadrick or Dr. Tim Menzies). Usually, this means that you are involved in a project funded up the NASA/WVU UI co-operative agreement.

The lab can be used by any blessed person or group, providing no one has a prior booking (see the calendar).

The lab seats are not permanent- you can't claim a seat and "own" it. Frist in, best dressed.

How do I change my password?

1 - In Ubuntu go to: Applications>Accessories>Terminal

2 - At command prompt type: ssh username@csee.wvu.edu

3 - A warning will appear and ask you to type yes/no. type: yes

4 - Type your current password (note: When entering passwords, no characters will appear)

5 - Type: ldap-passwd

6 - Type your current password at the prompt, for example:
LDAP password:"current password"

7 - Type new password at the following prompt:
Enter new password: "new password"

8 - Type new password again for confirmation at the prompt:
Enter new password again: "new password"

9 - Congratulations. Your password is now changed. Type: exit to disconnect from csee.wvu.edu

Where is the printer?

The printer's name in the ATL lab "psg29eie".

To access that printer under Windows, go to "Run.." and type "\\printers.csee.wvu.edu". Wait for a pop-up window then click on "psg29eie" go to "Printer >> Set as Default Printer".

**Update 4/10/08**
The above procedure is no longer necessary. Users can print documents as they normally would through any application.

Where is my UNIX drive?

To access your 500MB UNIX hard drive, under Windows, go to "z:" drive.

Welcome to the ATL !!

The next generation of NASA's software systems are going to provide opportunities for our engineers and scientists to explore challenges they have never seen or experienced.

To meet these needs, as well as provide these opportunities, NASA's Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Facility in Fairmont granted WVU to build the NASA/WVU Applied Technology Laboratory (ATL).

A key element of NASA's IV&V Facility is its research partnerships. Research priorities are driven by the technical and operational challenges being experienced with today's missions and tomorrow's endeavors.

Here at the ATL, special emphasis is placed on software engineering technologies that improve and advance the way NASA produces reliable and safe system software- technologies that will help NASA model their systems and explore their behaviors.

Robustness Testing of Off-The-Shelf Software

The NASA IV&V Facility has been engaged in research collaboration with a Portugal based company, Critical Software, and the University of Coimbra to perform robustness testing of a type of COTS software known as Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS).

Research to date has included the robustness testing of the Real-Time Executive for Multiprocessor Systems (RTEMS) operating system. RTEMS is an open source real-time operating system commonly used in embedded systems and found on several NASA missions. Preliminary results have identified a number of RTEMS directives that may be candidates for concern when used on mission critical systems. It is important to note that these functions do not always fail under execution, only in the presence of certain input parameters. Results such as these provide the IV&V Facility with a means for assuring that NASA flight software using COTS components, such as RTEMS, does not execute in a fashion that could result in a failure in the operating system.

This research endeavor has resulted in a capability that the IV&V Facility did not previously possess. Presently this new capability is being made available to three different NASA projects thus providing IV&V analysts with more information to support their efforts. Future work will target the VxWorks real-time operating system.

This research is being conducted on-site at the WVU/NASA Applied Technologies Lab and the NASA IV&V Facility in Fairmont, WV. Students interested in participating in this research should contact Wes Deadrick.

Wes Deadrick

Wes is the NASA manager of the WVU/NASA Applied Technology Lab (ATL) and a Senior Research Engineer at the NASA IV&V Facility. As the NASA manager of the ATL, Wes is ultimately responsible for the identification and execution of projects and experiments conducted at the lab, the scheduling and conduct of training performed in the lab, and the capabilities available though the lab.

Wes has served as a member of the NASA IV&V Facility Research and Development Program since 2002. He holds a MS in Software Engineering from West Virginia University's Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

Off-line (update)

Currently broken (and we are fixing):

• Windows
• Visio
  
• Can't demo stateflow
• Worldwind
  
• Teleconference phone
  

Coming on-line:

• Feb 24
• User group for Lab power users to access /projects/atl (?)
  
• RapidSVN, Octave on menu (Linux): (?)
  
• RapidSVN (Windows): (?)
  
• Eclipse (Windows): (?)

• March 7

• Servers (ssh to linux)
  

• March 14 (remote desktop access)
• Unix home directory on linux desktop
  
• attach drive letter to atl drive (and projects/atl)
  
• Remote desktop (Fairmont IV&V) to Eisland
  
• Remote desktop Eisland to IV&V
• 
  
• March 21
  
• Wireless (parts arriving v.soon to wvu csee)

• Mid-april
• Matlab licenses 2 more
  
• Stateflow licenses
• Matlab on Unix

• TBD
• email addresses for atl
• adding vpm to the image
• Redesign of desks into "islands"

Stuff we are considering, no current plan

• Nothing right now.

Not considering, no current plans

• renew Reactis license
  

What's online (update)

• Account maintenance
• See David Krovich, Eisland lab, wed 10am
  
• Or email helpdesk helpdesk@csee.wvu.edu
  
• Hardware
• Printer in Eisland (name = psg29eie)
  
• 10 dual boot Linux /Windows machines
• 2.8GHz Pentium
• 1GB ram
• Graphics: Intel 82865G Integrated Graphics Controller
• Hard drive: 80GB SATA drives
  
• Software
• Linux (Ubuntu)
• Eclipse
• Firefox
• OpenOffice
• Java
• wxMaxima
• Umbrello (UML modeling)
• Glade (GUI builder C, C++, Ada95)
• Meld (the ultimate "diff" tool)
  
• The entire UNIX development toolkit (gcc, etc etc etc)
• The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program)
• Dia (Program for drawing structured programs)
  
• Windows (XP)
• svn: command-line in cygwin + RapidSVN
  
• Matlab (on eight machines)
  
• Office 2003
• Open Office
• Acrobat Reader 8
  
• Java (JSDK 6.0)
  
• Eclipse
• SSH secure shell
  
• putty
• Firefox
  
• cygwin
  
• Latex,gnuplot, etc etc
  
• X-windows: xemacs, etc
  

Hero(in)es of science

Here's a small set of scientists to inspire you away from football and into a career is science.

Seminars

Often

Marcus Fisher

Over the past ten years, Marcus Fisher has been involved in the project management functions of planning, scheduling, performance management and risk management, as well as the analysis of system software. He is currently the lead for the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA) Software Assurance Research Program as well as the lead for the Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Research Program. This entails supervising and leading multiple project managers, scientists and engineering teams to ensure research projects produce products that help NASA develop safe and reliable system software.

Marcus also holds a position at West Virginia University (WVU) where he teaches Embedded Software Engineering and Verification and Validation to graduate students seeking a Masters of Science in Software Engineering.

Dr. Tim Menzies, Ph.D.

Tim is the director of the WVU/NASA applied technology lab.He has been working on advanced modeling and AI since 1986. He received his PhD from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia and is the author of over 160 research papers.

A former research chair for NASA, he is now a associate professor at the West Virginia University's Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

For more information, visit his web page at http://menzies.us or email him at tim@menzies.us.