Praxis High Integrity Systems

Praxis High Integrity Systems (formerly known as Praxis Critical Systems) is a British software house that specialises in critical systems. They are based in Bath, England and since 2001 also have offices in London and Loughborough.

The company Praxis Systems Limited was founded by Martyn Thomas and David Bean in 1983. It was incorporated on June 1, 1983 and commenced business on July 1, 1983. On June 28, 1985 it became a Public limited company Praxis Systems plc. Until 1988 Praxis was owned almost entirely by its staff. In 1988 Praxis obtained venture capital finance in order to provide funds for future acquisitions and working capital for continued growth. On November 27, 1992 Praxis was acquired by Deloitte Consulting (then known as Touche Ross), an international firm of accountants and management consultants. The critical systems part of the company was acquired by the Altran Group in 1997. In 2004, Praxis Critical Systems and HIS Consulting merged to form Praxis High Integrity Systems, a leading specialist in critical systems engineering.

A distinguishing feature of the company is its extensive use of formal methods such as the Z notation and the SPARK toolset (acquired through the takeover of the developers Program Validation Limited in 1993) in its approach to improving the reliability of software engineering. A major project using Z has been a small piece of the United Kingdom's National Air Traffic Services (NATS).

Apple Software Update

Software Update is a software tool by Apple Inc. that installs the latest version of Apple software on computers running Mac OS X. It was originally introduced to Mac users in Mac OS 9. A Windows version has been available since the introduction of iTunes 7, under the name "Apple Software Update". Software Update automatically informs users of new updates. It is part of the CoreServices in OS X, found at /System/Library/CoreServices/Software Update.app, or by choosing Software Update from the Apple menu. Software Update can be set to check for updates daily, weekly, monthly, or not at all; in addition, it can download and store the associated .pkg file (the same type used by Installer) to be installed at a later date and maintains a history of installed updates.

Software Updates consist of incremental updates of the Mac OS and its applications, Security Updates, device drivers and firmware updates. All software updates require a password, as with all consequential system changes. Some updates require a system restart. Starting with Mac OS X 10.5, updates that require a reboot log out the user prior to installation and automatically restart the computer when complete; in earlier versions, the updates are installed, but critical files are not replaced until the next system startup.

Constructionist design methodology

The Constructionist Design Methodology (CDM) was developed by artificial intelligence (AI) researcher Kristinn R. Thórisson and his students at Columbia University and Reykjavik University for use in the development of cognitive robotics, communicative humanoids and broad AI systems. The creation of such systems requires integration of a large number of functionalities that must be carefully coordinated to achieve coherent system behavior. CDM is based on iterative design steps that lead to the creation of a network of named interacting modules, communicating via explicitly typed streams and discrete messages. CDM has been used in the creation of many systems including robotics, facial animation, large-scale simulation and virtual humans. One of the first systems was MIRAGE, a simulated human in an augmented-reality environment that could interact with people through speech and gesture.

Extreme Programming

Extreme Programming (or XP) is a software engineering methodology (and a form of agile software development) prescribing a set of daily stakeholder practices that embody and encourage particular XP values (below). Proponents believe that exercising these practices—traditional software engineering practices taken to so-called "extreme" levels—leads to a development process that is more responsive to customer needs ("agile") than traditional methods, while creating software of better quality.

Proponents of Extreme Programming and agile methodologies in general regard ongoing changes to requirements as a natural, inescapable and desirable aspect of software development projects; they believe that adaptability to changing requirements at any point during the project life is a more realistic and better approach than attempting to define all requirements at the beginning of a project and then expending effort to control changes to the requirements.

However, XP has been noted for several potential drawbacks, as compared to more document-based methodologies, including problems with unstable requirements, no documented compromises of user conflicts, and lack of an overall design spec or document (see below: Controversial aspects).

Information Engineering

Information Engineering (IE) or Information Engineering Methodology (IEM) is an approach to designing and developing information systems. It has a somewhat chequered history that follows two very distinct threads. It is said to have originated in Australia between 1976 and 1980, and appears first in the literature in 1981 in the Savant Institute publication 'Information Engineering' by James Martin and Clive Finkelstein.

Information Engineering first provided data analysis and database design techniques that could be used by database administrators (DBAs) and by systems analysts to develop database designs and systems based upon an understanding of the operational processing needs of organizations for the 1980s.

The Finkelstein thread evolved after 1980 into the data processing (DP)-driven variant of IE. From 1983 till 1986 IE evolved further into the business-driven variant of IE, which was intended to address a rapidly changing business environment. The then Technical Director, Charles M. Richter, from 1983 to 1987, played a significant role by revamping the IE methodology as well as designing the IE software product (User-Data} which helped automate the IE methodology, opening the way to next generation Information Architecture.

The Martin thread was strategy-driven from the outset and from 1983 was focused on the possibility of automating the development process through the provision of techniques for business description that could be used to populate a data dictionary or encyclopedia that could in turn be used as source material for code generation. The Martin methodology provided a foundation for the CASE (Computer-Aided Software Engineering) tool industry. Martin himself had significant stakes in at least four CASE tool vendors - InTech (Excelerator), Higher Order Software, KnowledgeWare, originally Database Design Inc, (Information Engineering Workbench) and James Martin Associates, originally DMW and now Headstrong (the original designers of the Texas Instruments' Information Engineering Facility and the principal developers of the methodology). At the end of the 1980s and early 1990s the Martin thread incorporated Rapid Application Development (RAD) and Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) and soon after also entered the object oriented field.

Information Engineering Methodology is an architectural approach to planning, analysing, designing, and implementing applications within an enterprise. It aims to enable an enterprise to improve the management of its resources, including capital, people and information systems, to support the achievement of its business vision. It is defined as: "An integrated and evolutionary set of tasks and techniques that enhance business communication throughout an enterprise enabling it to develop people, procedures and systems to achieve its vision".

Information Engineering has many purposes, including organisation planning, business re-engineering, application development, information systems planning and systems re-engineering.

Top-down and bottom-up design

Top-down and bottom-up are strategies of information processing and knowledge ordering, mostly involving software, but also other humanistic and scientific theories (see systemics). In practice, they can be seen as a style of thinking and teaching. In many cases top-down is used as a synonym of analysis or decomposition, and bottom-up of synthesis.

A top-down approach is essentially breaking down a system to gain insight into its compositional sub-systems. In a top-down approach an overview of the system is first formulated, specifying but not detailing any first-level subsystems. Each subsystem is then refined in yet greater detail, sometimes in many additional subsystem levels, until the entire specification is reduced to base elements. A top-down model is often specified with the assistance of "black boxes" that make it easier to manipulate. However, black boxes may fail to elucidate elementary mechanisms or be detailed enough to realistically validate the model.

A bottom-up approach is piecing together systems to give rise to grander systems, thus making the original systems sub-systems of the emergent system. In a bottom-up approach the individual base elements of the system are first specified in great detail. These elements are then linked together to form larger subsystems, which then in turn are linked, sometimes in many levels, until a complete top-level system is formed. This strategy often resembles a "seed" model, whereby the beginnings are small but eventually grow in complexity and completeness. However, "organic strategies" may result in a tangle of elements and subsystems, developed in isolation and subject to local optimization as opposed to meeting a global purpose.

Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method

Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method (SSADM) is a systems approach to the analysis and design of information systems. SSADM was produced for the CCTA, a UK government office concerned with the use of technology in government, from 1980 onwards. The names "Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method" and "SSADM" are now Registered Trade Marks of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), which is an Office of the United Kingdom's Treasury.

Techniques

The 3 most important techniques that are used in SSADM are:
1.Logical Data Modeling. This is the process of identifying, modeling and documenting the data requirements of the system being designed. The data are separated into entities (things about which a business needs to record information) and relationships (the associations between the entities).
2.Data Flow Modeling. This is the process of identifying, modeling and documenting how data moves around an information system. Data Flow Modeling examines processes (activities that transform data from one form to another), data stores (the holding areas for data), external entities (what sends data into a system or receives data from a system), and data flows (routes by which data can flow).
3.Entity Behavior Modeling. This is the process of identifying, modeling and documenting the events that affect each entity and the sequence in which these events occur.

(Redirected from Structured Systems Analysis and Design Methodology)

Structured programming

Structured programming can be seen as a subset or subdiscipline of procedural programming, one of the major programming paradigms. It is most famous for removing or reducing reliance on the GOTO statement.

Historically, several different structuring techniques or methodologies have been developed for writing structured programs. The most common are:
Edsger Dijkstra's structured programming, where the logic of a program is a structure composed of similar sub-structures in a limited number of ways. This reduces understanding a program to understanding each structure on its own, and in relation to that containing it, a useful separation of concerns.
A view derived from Dijkstra's which also advocates splitting programs into sub-sections with a single point of entry, but is strongly opposed to the concept of a single point of exit.
Data Structured Programming, which is based on aligning data structures with program structures. This approach applied the fundamental structures proposed by Dijkstra, but as constructs that used the high-level structure of a program to be modeled on the underlying data structures being processed. There are at least 3 major approaches to data structured program design proposed by Jean-Dominique Warnier, Michael A. Jackson, and Ken Orr.

The two latter meanings for the term "structured programming" are more common, and that is what this article will discuss. Years after Dijkstra (1969), object-oriented programming (OOP) was developed to handle very large or complex programs (see below: Object-oriented comparison).

Software extension

A software extension is a computer program designed to be incorporated into another piece of software in order to enhance, or extend, the functionalities of the latter. On its own, the program is not useful or functional.

Examples of software applications that support extensions include the Mozilla Firefox Web browser, Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Windows Explorer shell extensions. It is common to find that applications whose scope is potentially unbounded will feature an extensions interface (API), and the API description will often be published so that third-party developers can produce extensions.

Extension mechanisms can also be found in some operating systems such as with Linux kernel modules. The runtime environment of some programming languages also support extensions, such as PHP with support for extensions that provide an interface to third party libraries, and extensions to offer debugging, profiling, security and performance enhancement.

Other popular terms used to denote extensions are add-ons, add-ins or plugins.

The terms modules and components are also used, but they don't stress the aspect of extending. They are terms to generally describe the structure of programs and can be used for the extended core program as well.

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Columbia (supercomputer)

supercomputer built by Silicon Graphics for NASA. The supercomputer was installed at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility in 2004.

According to the TOP500 list of the fastest supercomputers, it entered the list in November 2004 at position 2,^[1] running at 51.87 teraflops, or 51.87 trillion floating point calculations per second. By June 2007 it had dropped to position 13, and by June of 2008 was at position 25^[2]. It is composed of twenty SGI Altix 3000 nodes running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9^[3] each of which have 512 Intel Itanium 2 processors bringing the total number of processors to 10,240. It has 20 terabytes of RAM, 440 terabytes of storage, and 10 petabytes of archive storage.^[4] It was named in honor of the crew STS-107, who were killed in the Columbia disaster.

The SGI Altix platform was selected due to a positive experience with Kalpana, a single Altix 512-CPU system operated by NASA Ames which was integrated into the Columbia supercomputer system.

The computers are connected together with a Voltaire InfiniBand ISR 9288 288 port switch with transfer speeds of up to 10 gigabits (or 1250 megabytes) per second, 10 gigabit Ethernet and multiple 1 gigabit Ethernet nodes.

Alloy Analyzer

In computer science and software engineering, the Alloy Analyzer is a software tool which can be used to analyze specifications written in the Alloy specification language.[1] The Analyzer can generate instances of model invariants, simulate the execution of operations defined as part of the model, and check user-specified properties of a model. The Alloy Analyzer supports the analysis of partial models. As a result, it can perform incremental analysis of models as they are constructed, and provide immediate feedback to users.

The Alloy Analyzer, and the associated Alloy language, were developed by a team led by Daniel Jackson at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States.

Taksi (software)

Taksi is a screencasting program that can take screenshots and record video clips of game sessions and other similar 3D-graphics applications. Originally inspired by Fraps, Taksi aims to provide an open source alternative for video capture (screencasting).

As of the version 0.7.6, DirectX versions 8 and 9, OpenGL and GDI-based applications are supported by Taksi. Fullsize or half-size video recording is also possible.

Features:
Live video compression possible with any VFW video codec installed and usable on a Windows system (including but not limited to Xvid, DivX, etc), which can reduce the usually heavy load (associated with video capture) on hard disks.
Supports user-specified key binding.
Custom video settings supported and available on a per-game basis.
Video capture
Real-time computing
Screencasting
Screen capturing, formats available are PNG or 24-bit BMP

Tag Editor

A tag editor (or tagger) is a piece of software that supports editing metadata of multimedia file formats, rather than the actual file content. These are mainly taggers for common audio tagging formats like ID3, APE, and Vorbis comments (for example Windows Media Player and iTunes), but can also be taggers for JPEG and TIFF metadata, for example (iPhoto).

A common purpose of tag editors is to correct and sort multimedia files, for example music collections. This often happens in a batch processing mode so that one doesn't have to manually edit every file on its own.

Adobe Director

Adobe Director (formerly Macromedia Director) is a media application created by Macromedia—now part of Adobe Systems. It allows users to build applications built on a movie metaphor, with the user as the "director" of the movie. Originally designed for creating animation sequences, the addition of a powerful scripting language called Lingo made it a popular choice for creating CD-ROMs and standalone kiosks. Adobe Director supports both 2D and 3D multimedia projects.

Features
Its scripting language motivated some to use this application. Many companies deliver demonstrations or use it as a user interface (UI) for content on CDs and DVDs. It can incorporate many different bitmap, audio and video file formats making it possible to integrate media. It also supports vector graphics and 3D interactivity (via Shockwave 3D). Since Version 8, Director also natively incorporates Flash animation files.

Director's functionality can be extended through plug-in applications named Xtras. These can be created by users or purchased from third party vendors. They are created using Macromedia's XDK (Xtra Development Kit), a C++ SDK.

One type of file created by Director can be viewed in a web browser using the Shockwave plugin. These files have a .DCR extension.

Director can also create stand-alone executable applications from a project, called projectors, which can be compiled for Macintosh or Windows operating systems.

CamCutter

CamCutter is a digital video camera made by Avid Technology for recording broadcast quality video to hard disk, dubbed a Digital Disk Recorder. First revealed in 1995 at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, it used a camera mechanism by Ikegami and a special FieldPack unit instead of a tape transport unit.

Features
Some of the features of being hard disk based was in-camera editing, faster than real time transfer of footage and the RetroLoop, which used a circular buffer to constantly record footage, and allowed saving a "take" after the action happened.

Cost
The price of the unit was between US $40,000 to $600,000.

jetAudio

jetAudio is a multimedia player software offers advanced playback option and multimedia file editor even burning capabilities. It sold as 2 version: Basic and Plus. The Plus version has additional bonus packs and unlocked video/audio conversion. It comes bundled with every player produced by Cowon.

New features
1. New album manager, bookmarking a current position in the song and a Repeat Playlist feature
2. New balloon tooltip
3. Support new file formats

Main features
1. Supports all major file formats (playing/converting)
2. Burning/Ripping
3. Recording/Tag Editing
4. Download information from Internet
5. Advancing sound effects

Device from Radio in Internet

Internet radio devices can be divided into several product categories:
1. Products which are mainly targeted at listening to music stored on a local network. These devices are usually called network music players. These devices are usually sold with server software in order to play the music from the network. Examples of such devices are the Slim Devices Squeezebox, Roku SoundBridge and the Philips Streamium WACS700 and SLA5520. Some of these devices also have the ability to listen to Internet radio stations. As these devices may not have an integrated loudspeaker, they need to be connected to an audio system in order to listen to the music.
2. Standalone products like the Squeezebox, Terratec Noxon iRadio[1], Grace Digital Audio Radio[2],SoundBridge Radio[3], Streamit, Freecom MusicPal[[1]] or the Phoenix WiFi IP Radio [4] devices which are targeted at users who do not want to be dependent on a computer (or computer knowledge) for their Internet radio listening. Most products include a dynamically updated stations list. There are variants of these devices with and without integrated speaker(s). The Streamit device offers dial-up capability.
3. Wireless Internet Radio and Media Players like Sonowave Internet Radio Player [5]. Sonowave is a device made specifically for those who enjoy listening Internet Radio from their personal computer. SonoWave is a small portable radio that connects to a computer wirelessly, providing access to any music on the PC or to thousands of internet radio stations.

Black Duck Software

Black Duck Software pioneered the automation of mixed-origin software component reuse management. The company’s products and services allow organizations to analyze the composition of software source code and binary files, search for reusable code, manage open source and third-party code approval, honor the legal obligations associated with mixed-origin code, and monitor related security vulnerabilities. Black Duck is considered a technology industry leader and often cited in media articles about open source.

Computer-aided design

Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computer technology to aid in the design and especially the drafting of a part or product. It is both a visual (or drawing) and symbol-based method of communications whose conventions are particular to a specific technical field.
Drafting can be done in 2d and 3d.
Drafting is the integral communications of technical drawings and is the Industrial arts sub-discipline which underlies all involved technical endeavors. In representing complex, three-dimensional objects in two-dimensional drawings, these objects have traditionally been represented by three projected views at right angles.
Current CAD software packages range from 2D vector base drafting systems to 3D solid and surface modellers. Modern CAD packages can also frequently allow rotations in three dimensions, allowing viewing of a designed object from any desired angle, even from the inside looking out. Some CAD software is capable of dynamic mathematic modeling, in which case it may be marketed as CADD — Computer Aided Design and Drafting.

Computerized Maintenance Management System

Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS)

is also known as Enterprise Asset Management.
A CMMS software package maintains a computer database of information about an organization’s maintenance operations. This information is intended to help maintenance workers do their jobs more effectively (for example, determining which storerooms contain the spare parts they need) and to help management make informed decisions (for example, calculating the cost of maintenance for each piece of equipment used by the organization, possibly leading to better allocation of resources). The information may also be useful when dealing with third parties; if, for example, an organization is involved in a liability case, the data in a CMMS database can serve as evidence that proper safety maintenance has been performed.

SofTech, Inc.

SofTech, Inc., (NASDAQ: SOFT, is a multinational computer software company with offices in the United States, Italy, Germany and France with a worldwide annual revenue of US$ $12.1 million. Headquartered in Lowell, Ma. SofTech has provided Product Lifecycle Management / Product Data Management CAD / CAM solutions since 1969, one of the earliest software/consulting companies in the US. In December 2002, SofTech acquired Workgroup Technology Corporation (WTC), developer of ProductCenter, the company's PDM/PLM solution. WTC was one of the earliest PDM/PLM providers in the industry, having delivered PLM software products beginning with its first software product CMS in the early 1990s, along with many technology firsts, including the first independent PLM integration to Pro/ENGINEER. In 1996 WTC’s CMS software solution was renamed to ProductCenter.

Software house

Types of software houses

There are a number of different types of software houses:
1. Large and well-known companies such as Microsoft, Oracle Corporation, HP, Adobe Systems, Apple Inc. and Red Hat 2. Companies producing specialized Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software, such as Panorama, Hyperion, Siebel Systems
3. Companies producing software components, such as Developer Express, Dundas, ComponentOne
4. Application Service Providers, such as SalesForce
5. Companies focused on delivering bespoke software solutions for vertical industries or particular geographical regions
All of these may be categorized in one or many of the following [1]:
1. in-house - the target is to deliver software for internal purposes (for the other departments)
2. contractual - when the software house is contracted to deliver some particular software from outside (software

outsourcing)
3. product development - when it produces ready to use, packaged software; Commercial off-the-shelf

Universal Audio

UREI was a designer and manufacturer of recording, mixing and audio signal processing hardware for the professional recording studio, live sound and broadcasting fields. UREI was responsible for many innovations in the recording and sound reinforcement industry including the modern mixing console layout, per channel EQ and effects send buses. The firm began as Universal Audio in Chicago, started in the 1950s by Bill Putnam, Sr. as a design and manufacturing adjunct to Universal Recording, his recording studio business.[1] When Putnam moved to Hollywood in 1957, the manufacturing company was renamed UREI.

WUF Networks

WUF Networks, Inc. developed solutions that simplified the control and access of digital content — music, photos,and video — among networked devices, including consumer electronics, mobile devices and personal computers.
The company was probably the first to introduce the concept of Personal Networks - the freedom to access all of your digital content wherever and whenever. WUF Networks software solution allowed digital content to follow its owner regardless of where the content is originally stored. The software solution automatically aggregated and publicized the digital content across a consumers’ Personal Network including their home PC, media center or mobile phone. Because the content was streamed, WUF's solution avoided copyright and IP concerns over the copying of music and video.
With the advent of Apple's iPod, there was a race to enable mobile phones - and all hand held/portable devices - with the ability to access music (and subsequently video) over the network in a legal manner. The company was founded by Turochas "T" Fuad and Francois Dumas and was acquired by Yahoo in late 2004.

Elgg (software)

Elgg is a white label, open source social networking platform. It offers blog, networking, community, collecting of news using feeds aggregation and file sharing features. Everything can be shared among users with access controls and everything can be cataloged by tags as well.

Elgg is licensed under the GPL, and runs on the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) platform. It can be setup to integrate with MediaWiki, Vanilla (forum) and Drupal, as well as use plug-ins to provide a calendar, a wiki and more. Details can be found on the main project website. Elgg was originally started by Ben Werdmuller and David Tosh, who subsequently founded Curverider. It has been under development