August 2016 Edition

Recent Headlines:

Defense:

Navy’s Newest Aircraft Carrier, Already Behind Schedule, Still May Not Be Ready For A Fight – National Security News

It has cost taxpayers nearly $13 billion, making it the most expensive warship in history, but the Pentagon’s weapons-tester says in a new memo the ship may not yet be ready to fight.

Despite Objections, Pentagon Takes Step Toward Buying New Nuclear Weapons – Defense One

The U.S. Air Force took a first step toward buying controversial new nuclear weapons Friday, asking defense companies to submit bids to design and build cruise missiles and ICBMs.

Face of Defense: Crew Chief Keeps Air Force Jets Flying – Department of Defense

In the depths of a hangar, an Air Force crew chief worked diligently to solve the most recent maintenance challenge placed in his path.

Mothballed by Air Force, Cargo Planes Find New Life with Coast Guard – DoD Buzz

Three years after getting sent to the boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, a freshly refurbished C-27J Spartan sported Coast Guard colors on the flight line at the Farnborough International Air Show this week.

Picatinny Engineers Modify M119A3 Howitzer to Make it Safer, Simpler, More Reliable – U.S. Army

After a year of re-designing the recoil system on the M119A3 Howitzer, Picatinny engineers have made the howitzer safer, simpler and more reliable while also reducing the cost of the recoil system.

US Army To Ditch Android In Favor Of iPhone 6s Because iPhones Are Faster & Reliable – Redmond Pie

It appears that the U.S. Army Special Operations Command is to embark on the process of “dumping its Android tactical smartphone” in favor of adopting the iPhone 6s in its place.

Labour ‘Saddled Navy Ships with Dodgy Engines’ – The Telegraph

The former Labour Government ignored concerns about the reliability of the engines for the Royal Navy’s most powerful warships in order to buy from a British manufacturer, a former head of Britain’s Maritime Warfare Centre has said.

Automotive:

Deployment of New Crash Report Interface Improves Data Quality, Reliability – University of Minnesota

Researchers at the U of M’s HumanFIRST Laboratory are helping to make it faster and easier for Minnesota law enforcement officers to log the data they collect at the scene of a crash.

Mass Transit:

Did China Firm ‘Secretly Recall’ Defective Singapore Trains? – The Diplomat

Over the past few days, Singapore has been rocked by allegations that a Chinese manufacturer may have “secretly” recalled defective subway trains from the city-state with the complicity of its officials, threatening to fuel popular frustrations about the state of public transportation.

Railcars Key to Cutting Down on Metro Delays – WTOP

Even as round-the-clock work zones rotate across the Metro system to improve basic track conditions, improving basic maintenance of railcars could do much more to improve everyday commutes, an outside consultant told the Metro Board Finance Committee this week.

Rolling Stock:

Keeping Reliability and Quality on Track for Rail Industry – The Engineer

More and more travelers use modern train services because of their ease, cost effectiveness, comfort and safety.

Space/Aviation:

Ensuring the Reliability of NFPA 11 Systems in Aircraft Hangars – Consulting – Specifying Engineer

Damage caused from an accidental discharge in one of these occupancies can be costly, easily reaching into the millions. These costs are related to damage to aircraft, foam resupply, removal of contaminant, cleanup and manpower, and the potential loss of future business.

Medical/Health:

FDA Explains Plans to Use Real-World Data in Medical Device Regulatory Decisions – RAPS

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday released new draft guidance clarifying how it plans to determine cases when real-world data may be sufficient for use in premarket and postmarket regulatory decisions, without changing the standards used to make those decisions.

Industrial:

How Reliability Excellence Can Help You Reduce Costs and Eliminate Waste – GP Strategies

Organizations today are under constant pressure to reduce costs and eliminate waste. It’s estimated that U.S. industries needlessly waste in excess of $200 to $500 billion each year because of unreliability due to lost opportunities, poor product quality, scrap, and ineffective maintenance practices.

Electronics:

Leveraging Reliability-Focused Foundry Rule Decks – SM&D Community

Not that long ago, all designers had for integrated circuit (IC) reliability verification was a plethora of home-brewed scripts and utilities they combined with traditional design rule checking (DRC), layout vs. schematic (LVS) comparison, and electrical rule checking (ERC) tools.

Commercial:

Achieve Customer Experience Maturity Through Customer Data Reliability – CMS Wire

We’ve all heard the boasts that companies make about their superlative customer experience (CX) goals and missions, promising customer delight and surpassing customer expectations. And while most companies acknowledge the value of a good customer experience, many find it hard to meet customer expectations.

Software:

Determination of the Optimal Allocation of Testing Resource for Modular Software Reliability Growth Using LINGO – JSoftware

In this paper four optimization problems are discussed for optimal allocation of testing resources for a modular software system.

A New Method to Optimize the Reliability of Software Reliability Growth Models using Modified Genetic Swarm Optimization – IJCA Online

Software reliability is one of the key attributes to determine the quality of a software system. Finding and minimizing the remaining faults in software systems is a challenging task.

Measuring Software Reliability – IJCTER

In this author’s opinion, following are the most important software quality attributes – Reliability, Usability, Performance and Availability.

New Paradigm in Ensuring the Reliability of Software Applications introduced by Thinking Software – PRWEB

What if people never again had to worry about software applications generating unreliable results? A new product and service, Race Catcher by Thinking Software, leaves this task behind and lets applications analyze themselves.

Explain Software Reliability, Models, Metrics and Types – Careers Play

Software Reliability can be defined as the probability of the failure-free software operation in a system under specific environment.

Sensors:

Polymer Nanofiber-Based Reversible Nano-Switch/Sensor Schottky Diode (nanoSSSD) Device – Tech Briefs

This microsensor has applications in biomedical devices, combustion engines, and detection/switching devices used in mass transit systems.

PIEZO Effect Boosts Mems Microphones, Fingerprint Sensors – Applied Materials

The MEMS industry is getting a push from companies interested in taking advantage of the piezoelectric effect to build next-generation microphones and fingerprint sensors—two high-volume products that could have a major impact on the 200mm semiconductor landscape.

ADUX1020: Optical Sensor for Improving Reliability of Gesture Recognition Applications – ElectronicsForU

Analog Devices, announced an optical sensor for gesture recognition, which improves sensing accuracy and reliability over existing solutions by measuring a subject’s position, proximity, and gestures from a single sensor.

Level Sensing Technologies – Engineering Specifier

One of the most common functions for process control is level sensing, but it also uses a wide range of technologies to achieve the same goal.

Cypress Debuts Reliable, Secure Fingerprint Sensing Solution for Mobile Devices – ElectroIQ

Cypress Semiconductor Corp., in conjunction with its strategic partner IDEX ASA, today introduced a fingerprint reader solution designed to bring reliable, easy-to-use user authentication to smartphones, tablets, wearables and other mobile devices.

Hazardous Gas Monitoring: Key Elements of a Safety Requirement Specification – Hallam ICS

Developing a Safety Requirement Specification (SRS) or functional “cause & effect” matrix for a Hazardous Gas Monitoring System is absolutely critical to identify and then eliminate potential gas related hazards.

Research:

New Study Calls the Reliability of Brain Scan Research Into Question – Smithsonian Mag

New research suggests that software used to analyze fMRI results could invalidate up to 40,000 brain activity studies.

Preclinical Workshop: Reproducibility and Reliability of preclinical research: All in the design? – BAP

Preclinical Workshop that included very interesting talks relevant to reproducibility and reliability of preclinical research.