Curt,

You might wish to check out  Nancy Levison's book, Safeware: System Safety
and Computers

She is one of the primer authorities on software safety in the country, if
not the world.
She addresses the Therac 25 incident in her book, not necessarily from an
ethical point of view but after checking out the book you might want to
contact her personally.
I have found her to be most approachable and I'm sure that she would be
willing to discuss this with you.

Her name is mentioned in the following technical report (CMU/SEI-93-TR-13)
Software Product Liability, by Jody Armor and Watts S. Humphrey of the
Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. See chapter
9, page 17, Improvement Opportunities.
(http://www.sei.cmu.edu/pub/documents/93.reports/pdf/tr13.93.pdf)


Here is a short bio of her to help you determine if it might be worthwhile
contacting her.

Nancy Leveson is Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and also
Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT. She is an elected member of the
National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Prof. Leveson conducts research on
the topics of system safety, software safety, software and system
engineering, and human-computer interaction. In 1999, she received the ACM
Allen Newell Award for outstanding computer science research and in 1995
the AIAA Information Systems Award for "developing the field of software
safety and for promoting responsible software and system engineering
practices where life and property are at stake." In 2005 she received the
ACM Sigsoft Outstanding Research Award. She has published over 200 research
papers and is author of a book, "Safeware: System Safety and Computers"
published by Addison-Wesley. She consults extensively in many industries on
the ways to prevent accidents.

Prof. Leveson will present a tutorial titled "STAMP and STPA: A New
Approach to System Safety for Complex, High-Tech Systems" on Monday, 25
August 2008, 8am to 2:30pm at the 26th International System Safety
Conference to be held in Vancouver, Canada.
(http://www.system-safety.org/~issc2008/)

(This is not a paid political endorsement. I have just worked with her a
couple of times and know her capabilities and willingness to assist.)

You might also check out another speaker at this conference, Dr. Richard
Cook.
"Dr. Richard Cook is a physician, educator, and researcher at the
University of Chicago . His current research interests include the study of
human error, the role of technology in human expert performance, and
patient safety. Dr. Cook's most often cited publications are "Gaps in the
continuity of patient care and progress in patient safety", "Operating at
the Sharp End: The complexity of human error", "Adapting to New Technology
in the Operating Room", and the report "A Tale of Two Stories: Contrasting
Views of Patient Safety."


Oscarr Overton
Product Safety



                                                                           
             "Bender, Curtis"                                              
             <Curtis.Bender@TE                                             
             NNANTCO.com>                                               To 
             Sent by:                  <emc-p...@ieee.org>                 
             emc-p...@ieee.org                                          cc 
                                                                           
                                                                   Subject 
             05/07/2008 10:57          Ethics grad work Therac-25          
             PM                                                            
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           





Greetings fellow IEEE PS forum members. I am a Grad student writing an
ethics paper on the Therac-25 radiation machine.

http://www.computingcases.org/case_materials/therac/therac_case_intro.html



My paper is focusing on the ethical situation from the manufacturer's point
of view and hypothetically what they should or could have done differently
to solve the issue if I was their "consultant."



Primarily I am interested in the ISO/IEC or international safety standards
for software programming of industrial equipment or medical devices. Not
necessarily to reference them but to understand the scope and to realize
what the manufacturer needed/needs to do. This would also hypothetically be
presented to the business management team that "contracted" me.



I am a little curious too as to what extent this event has taken the
existing industry. I have read that the standards have "added unnecessary
time to an already laborious process."



I look forward, as always, to your comments.



Best regards,

Curt Bender


Curtis BenderTennant companycurtis.ben...@tennantco.com

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