Toward a Theory of Assurance Case Confidence

September 2012 • Technical Report

John B. Goodenough, Charles B. Weinstock, Ari Z. Klein

In this report, the authors present a framework for thinking about confidence in assurance case arguments.

Publisher:

Software Engineering Institute

CMU/SEI Report Number

CMU/SEI-2012-TR-002

DOI (Digital Object Identifier):

10.1184/R1/6585362.v1

Subjects

Abstract

Assurance cases provide an argument and evidence explaining why a claim about some system property holds. This report outlines a framework for justifying confidence in the truth of such an assurance case claim. The framework is based on the notion of eliminative induction—the principle first put forward by Francis Bacon that confidence in the truth of a hypothesis or claim increases as reasons for doubting its truth are identified and eliminated. Possible reasons for doubting the truth of a claim arise from analyzing an assurance case using defeasible reasoning concepts. Finally, the notion of Baconian probability provides a measure of confidence based on how many defeaters have been identified and eliminated.

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Cite This Report

SEI

Goodenough, John; Weinstock, Charles; & Klein, Ari. Toward a Theory of Assurance Case Confidence. CMU/SEI-2012-TR-002. Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. 2012. http://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?AssetID=28067

IEEE

Goodenough. John, Weinstock. Charles, and Klein. Ari, "Toward a Theory of Assurance Case Confidence," Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Technical Report CMU/SEI-2012-TR-002, 2012. http://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?AssetID=28067

APA

Goodenough, John., Weinstock, Charles., & Klein, Ari. (2012). Toward a Theory of Assurance Case Confidence (CMU/SEI-2012-TR-002). Retrieved June 10, 2023, from the Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University website: http://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?AssetID=28067

CHI

John Goodenough, Charles Weinstock, & Ari Klein. Toward a Theory of Assurance Case Confidence (CMU/SEI-2012-TR-002). Pittsburgh, PA: Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 2012. http://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?AssetID=28067

MLA

Goodenough, John., Weinstock, Charles., & Klein, Ari. 2012. Toward a Theory of Assurance Case Confidence (Technical Report CMU/SEI-2012-TR-002). Pittsburgh: Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. http://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?AssetID=28067

BibTex

@techreport{GoodenoughTowarda2012,
title={Toward a Theory of Assurance Case Confidence},
author={John Goodenough and Charles Weinstock and Ari Klein},
year={2012},
number={CMU/SEI-2012-TR-002},
institution={Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University},
address={Pittsburgh, PA},
url={http://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?AssetID=28067} }

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