| Modern people are becoming more and more dependent on computers in their daily lives. Most industries, from automobile, avionics, oil, and telecommunications to banking, stocks, and pharmaceuticals, require computers to function. As the tasks required become more complex, the complexity of computer software and hardware has increased dramatically. As a consequence, the possibility of failure increases. As the requirements for and dependence on computers increases, the possibility of crises caused by computer failures also increases.; High reliability is an important attribute for almost any software system. Consequently, software developers are seeking ways to forecast and improve quality before release. Since many quality factors cannot be measured until after the software becomes operational, software quality models are developed to predict quality factors based on measurements collected earlier in the life cycle.; Due to incomplete information in the early life cycle of software development, software quality models with fuzzy characteristics usually perform better because fuzzy concepts deal with phenomenon that is vague in nature. This study focuses on the usage of fuzzy logic in software reliability engineering. Discussing will include the fuzzy expert systems and the application of fuzzy expert systems in early risk assessment; introducing the interval prediction using fuzzy regression modeling; demonstrating fuzzy rule extraction for fuzzy classification and its usage in software quality models; demonstrating the fuzzy identification, including extraction of both rules and membership functions from fuzzy data and applying the technique to software project cost estimations.; The following methodologies were considered: nonparametric discriminant analysis, Z-test and paired t-test, neural networks, fuzzy linear regression, fuzzy nonlinear regression, fuzzy classification with maximum matched method, fuzzy identification with fuzzy clustering, and fuzzy projection. Commercial software systems and the COCOMO database are used throughout this dissertation to demonstrate the usefulness of concepts and to validate new ideas. |
