Acceptance Criteria for Critical SoftwareBased on Testability Estimates and Test Results

By Antonia Bertolino and Lorenzo Strigini;Proc. SAFECOMP 96, 15th International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security, Vienna, Austria, Springer, 1996, pp. 83-94.

ABSTRACT
Testability is defined as the probability that a program will fail a test, conditional onthe program containing some fault. In this paper, we show that statements about thetestability of a program can be more simply described in terms of assumptions onthe probability distribution of the failure intensity of the program. We can thus stategeneral acceptance conditions in clear mathematical terms using Bayesianinference. We develop two scenarios, one for software for which the reliabilityrequirements are that the software must be completely fault-free, and another forrequirements stated as an upper bound on the acceptable failure probability.

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