A Bootstrap Method for Software Reliability Assessment Based on a Discretized NHPP Model

We discuss a bootstrap method for software reliability assessment based on a discretized no homogeneous Poisson process (NHPP) model. Ordinarily, model parameters of the discretized NHPP model are estimated by using the regression analysis based on the regression equation derived from a difference equation of the discretized NHPP model. However, it is not so easy to derive some information for the statistical inference on software reliability assessment by the existing estimation approach for the model parameters because it is very difficult to identify the probability distribution function for the parameter estimates analytically. In this paper, we discuss a method for statistical inference on software reliability assessment based on the discretized NHPP model by applying a bootstrap method to the regression analysis, and show numerical examples of interval estimations for the several software reliability assessment measures by using actual data.