Page type: staff

Jon Damon Reese's Home Page;Jon Damon Reese;Post-Doctoral Researcher; Safety-Critical Software Group;Department of Computer Science and Engineering;University of Washington;Box 352350;Seattle,; WA; 98195; Office:; 106 Chateau (Guggenheim Annex); Phone:; (206) 616-1844; FAX:; (206) 543-2969; E-mail:;jdreese@cs.washington.edu; Research;; I am interested in the problem of safety-critical; software. We are all aware of devices, systems, and; structures that can cause catastrophes when they fail. As; computer hardware becomes less expensive and as more expectations; are placed on software, computers are being placed in control of a; wider range of these applications. Software has advantages over; conventional technologies, e.g., flexibility.; But these advantages come at a price. Software behavior can be; very complex and unpredictable. Perhaps the best publicized example is; the Three Mile Island incident, in which operators had great; difficulty in diagnosing the state of the system during an emergency.; The requirements stage of software development is key to a project's; success, especially with respect to safety. For that reason,; my colleagues and I have concentrated on requirements, especially; the communication of requirements via a requirements specification.; To that end we have developed a state-based language called;;Requirements State Machine Language, or RSML.; We have validated the usefulness of this language by; specifying TCAS II,; an avionics system.; For my doctoral thesis I invented a hazard analysis procedure; based on the Hazard and Operability (HAZOP) study.; The most significant concept that this new procedure borrows from; HAZOP is that of a deviation, hence the name deviation; analysis. See below for a link to an HTML transcription of; the dissertation.; Current Projects; Deviation Analysis;; Write conference article summarizing deviation analysis.; Make deviation analysis software available to UW Safety-Critical; Software group.; Study the possibility of dynamic display and control of; deviation analysis searches. (With Siang Lin Loo);; RSML Tool Set;; Integrate deviation analysis software with RSML tool set.; (With Kurt Partridge); Make alpha version of RSML tool set publicly available.; (With Kurt Partridge and Sean Sandys);; RSML semantics;; Draft semantics document, including discussion of RSML variants; Develop example of improved semantics;; Academic History; Ph.D. (1996),; Information and Computer Science,; University of California, Irvine; Dissertation: Software Deviation Analysis;(Postscript); B.A. (1989), Computer Science/Linguistics,; Rice University.; Waxahachie High School (1985), Waxahachie, TX.; Publications; Nancy G. Leveson, Mats P.E. Heimdahl, Holly Hildreth, and Jon Reese.; Requirements Specification for Process-Control Systems.; IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, SE-20(9),; September 1994.;(Postscript); Steven B. Dolins and Jon D. Reese.; A Curve Interpretation and Diagnostic Technique for Industrial Processes.; IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, 28(1),; January/February 1992.; N.G. Leveson, M.P.E. Heimdahl, H. Hildreth, J.D. Reese, and R. Ortega.; Experiences Using Statecharts for a System Requirements Specification.; Sixth International Workshop on Software Specification and Design,; Como, Italy, October 1991.; Etc.;jdreese@cs.washington.edu;