DC SIGAda
Program for Tuesday, 10 February 2004

The presentation will start at 7:30 P.M. (Refreshments and Social at 7:00 P.M.) at the Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. Please RSVP, so that we will know how many to accommodate or if you have special needs. To RSVP electronically mailto: Charlene.Hines@jhuapl.edu or by telephone to (Washington area 240-228-6598, Baltimore area 443-778-6598).

Munchies and soft drinks will be served at 7:00 PM, the general meeting will start at 7:30 PM, followed by the program.

Robert will present an example of using Rational Rose Real-Time models with the Unified Modeling Language to demonstrate socket interface techniques. Robert has also developed a Rose Real-Time Modeling Standard and associated coding standard in support of modeling efforts. Bob has also presented a series of Rose Real-Time demos and lectures showcasing different capabilities that may be implemented using the Rose Real-Time modeling tool.

Robert developed software with the Rational Rose Real-Time tool using the Unified Modeling Language for five vehicle-based subsystems. Robert developed a Rose Real-Time Modeling Standard and associated coding standard. As a Team Lead for a Software Safety Working Group performed Software Hazard Risk Assessment assigning Risk Indexes based on Mil-Std-882C and correlated with the standard software engineering Principles adopted from IEE12207/RTCA DO-178B based on Level A Catastrophic Level B Critical Hazardous, Level C Critical/Major, Level D Minor, Level E No influence. Robert also researched Software Safety Architectures depicting safety architectures using the Unified Modeling Language implementing techniques such as diverse and homogenous redundancy, and watchdog timers and software safety techniques such as partitioning and titanium wrappers.

Robert O'Brien has 15 plus years of technical experience in Space Systems, Air Traffic Control, Military Combat Systems, and Ground Data systems compliant to the SEI CMMI process model. He has performed many roles during this time, including lead software engineer, team mentor, process engineer, software quality engineer, software tester and software developer. Bob has significant experience with the Ada and C programming languages on various platforms including UNIX and Windows. He has several years of C++ experience as well as experience developing embedded real-time software subsystems using Rational Rose Real-Time.

At the DC SIGAda meeting on 8 January 2004, Lester Sussman of ceBerg, Incorp. gave an excellent presentation titled: Writing and Filing US Patents - From a Software Perspective. Slides from his presentation are available online as a PDF Presentation at http://www.acm.org/sigada/locals/dc/200401_Sussman_Patents.pdf (pdf, 273KB).

• 11 March 2004 - The next meeting of the ACM DC SIGAda Chapter Meeting for Thursday - TBD will be speaking on TBD. Please save Wednesday, 10 March as a possible date for this meeting. Stay tuned for details!
• 13 April 2004 - The next meeting of the ACM Baltimore SIGAda Chapter Meeting for Tuesday - TBD will be speaking on TBD.
• 14-18 November 2004 - SIGAda 2004 will be held in Atlanta, Georgia. Details at http://www.acm.org/sigada/conf/sigada2004

Please provide suggestions on the Web site and its contents. We are particularly interested in ways the DC SIGAda Home Page can serve you better.

Consider subscribing to our e-mail list. Simply send an email to:

with the body containing:

To be removed from the list, send an email request to:

with the body containing:

Please forward this message to people who might be interested in attending. We welcome all new members as our attendance and interests grow.

Many thanks to all earlier participants, contributors, speakers, advisors, and friends, who are involved in helping to produce and attend the meetings.