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The most important definitions around AI, software, IT, EDP and programming

What is a blockchain, and does it mean IP, DNN or ERP? We explain terms from the fields of AI, software, IT, IT and programming - from AES and ECC to AI, PQC and TLS to beyond VM and XML.

The following compilation contains short explanations and definitions for important abbreviations (e.g. AI, DNN, ERP or IP) and terms such as blockchain - from the subject areas of AI, software, IT, EDP and programming. Links to subject-related specialist articles as well as to further websites provide many more details and inform about the state of the art.

AES, Advanced Encryption Standard

The AES encryption standard from 2000, further developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is a block cipher and successor to DES (Data Encryption Standard). AES is also called the Rijndael algorithm after its developers. With this symmetrical encryption method, the keys for encryption and decryption are identical. The algorithm is freely available and may be used without license fees and implemented in software and hardware. AES-192 and AES-256 are approved in the United States for top-class government documents. Cryptographic methods also play an important role in product and know-how protection in intelligent production. Other cryptographic standards includeDES and FAME.

AI, artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence in machines, see AI

ALM, Application Lifecycle Management

Application Lifecycle Management

APT, Advanced Persistent Threats

Advanced security threats; cyber threat

ASK, amplitude shift keying

Amplitude shift keying (ASK) is one of the digital modulation methods in communications engineering. The amplitude of a carrier is changed in leaps and bounds in order to transmit different values. The simplest form of amplitude keying is on-off keying (OOK), in which the carrier is turned on and off to transmit a 1 or 0. Different amplitude jumps allow several bits to be encoded per symbol step (four different amplitudes represent two bits: 00, 01, 10 and 11). Higher data rates use multiple carriers in parallel.

Bare Metal Server

A bare metal server is a standalone computer server for a single customer. The term differs from forms of virtualization and cloud hosting. Bare metal servers have a single customer and are not shared between multiple customers. Each bare metal server offered for rent constitutes a self-contained logical server running on self-contained physical hardware, as opposed to a virtual server running on shared hardware. Also note the term bare metal virtualization in connection with virtualization architecture.

Bare Metal Virtualization

Bare metal virtualization is a virtualization architecture with direct hardware access. Next to the host virtualization is the bare metal variantthe second most common virtualization architecture. Here the VMM (Virtual Machine Monitor, Hypervisor) software communicates directly with the hardware without an intervening host operating system. This allows the hypervisor to communicate directly with I/O devices. In contrast to the host solution, the installation effort with the bare metal approach is significantly higher, because the hypervisor must have the device drivers and the necessary drivers for the different hardware platforms. In particular, Bare Metal supports real-time operating systems, which can be run in parallel with a universal operating system. A technical article on the virtualization of embedded industrial systems discusses various hardware virtualization methods for process automation.Bare Metal Server.

BER, Bit Error Rate

German terms for bit error rate (BER) are bit error rate (BFR) or bit error frequency (BFH). In communications engineering, it is a measure of the quality of digital signal transmission. Influencing factors are noise, interference, signal distortion or bit synchronization errors. The unit is "number of errors per time unit".

Blockchain

In principle, a blockchain is a block-by-block concatenation of transaction data. A blockchainis a continuously expandable list of data records, called blocks, which are linked together using cryptographic methods. Each block typically contains a cryptographically secure hash (scatter value) of the previous block, a time stamp and transaction data. As a decentralized database, this concept enables transactions to be processed quickly and stored in a particularly forgery-proof manner. The data stored in blocks are linked chronologically and build on one another in terms of content. In the event of individual data being manipulated at a later date, this can be determined using simple means using the following blocks. The blockchain can be stored decentrally in many places at the same time, which protects it from manipulation,

BOL, Beginning of Life

Beginning of the (product) lifespan. A term from battery technology.

BPSK, Binary Phase Shift Keying

Modulation methods in communications engineering --> see PSK.

BSI, Federal Office for Information Security

The BSI was founded on January 1, 1991 and is part of the portfolio of the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The authority, headquartered in Bonn, is an independent and neutral body for questions about IT security in the information society. More than 800 computer scientists, physicists, mathematicians and other employees are currently employed there.

BSIMM, Building Security In Maturity Model

BSIMM is an initiative around software security in the real world.

BV, image processing

Although it is a German abbreviation, BV is quite common in German because the abbreviation of the English counterpart, image processing, has already been used several times (IP: Internet Protocol, Intellectual Property)

CA, Conditional Access

In information security, this organization issues digital certificates. Such a certificate is used to assign a specific public key to a person or organization, which the certification authority certifies by providing the key with its own digital signature. This technical article describes how this works in the networked automobile.

CA, Certificate Authority

Conditional access (for pay TV and similar content)

CbM, condition-based monitoring

Condition-based Monitoring (CbM), by evaluating the operating condition of the machine in question, ensures that maintenance costs are reduced compared to a planned maintenance system that is based on a fixed and often quite conservative schedule. Further details on the practical implementation of CbM can be found here

CC, Common Criteria

The Wikipedia page linked here defines CC in a wonderfully compact way: The CC are general criteria for assessing the security of information technology; CC are an international standard for testing and evaluating the security properties of IT products.

CERT, Computer Emergency Response Team

The C programming language software coding standard was developed by the CERT Coordination Center at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) to improve the reliability and security of software systems. The secure coding guidelines are linked to several other standards, including CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration) entries and MISRA. CERT or CSIRT (Computer Security Incident Response Team) is a group of IT security professionals who act as a coordinator or are involved in solving specific IT security incidents (new security gaps in applications or operating systems, new types of virus spread, spam or cyber attacks). deals with computer security in general, issues warnings about security gaps and offers solutions. Guidelines regarding reliability and security also apply to medical software, as this article shows.

CFD, Computational Fluid Dynamics

Software solution for flow simulation

CFM, Control Flow Monitoring

Control flow monitoring (in the area of ​​model-based development)

CG, carrier grade

Carrier grade is an informal indication of a system's resiliency. It is used in particular in the field of network components for computer and telecommunications networks and means that the device fails less than 5 minutes on average per year. This corresponds to an availability of 99.999% of the total time, which is often referred to as five nines.

CISPA, Center for IT Security, Privacy and Accountability

CISPA emerged from the BMBF competence center Center for IT Security, Privacy and Accountability, which has existed since 2011, and now acts as the Helmholtz Center for Information Security (under the abbreviation CISPA) as a major German federal research institution within the Helmholtz Association

CMMI, Capability Maturity Model Integration

a systematic collection of reference models

CNN, Convolutional Neural Network

An implementation of the neural network used in artificial intelligence for machine learning. The Nvidia Keynote in Ludwigsburg 2017 and Wikipedia provide background information on the use of CNNs in cars.

CRC, Cyclic Redundancy Check

The test method called CRC (cyclic redundancy check) adds additional redundancy in the form of a CRC value to each data packet before storage or transmission in order to be able to detect transmission errors. A receiver applies the same calculation method to the data block including the attached CRC value to verify the data. If the result is zero, the data block is considered uncorrupted. Ideally, the process can even correct the received data independently in order to avoid retransmission.

CSMS, Cyber ​​Security Management System

You can find more information here.

CWE, Common Weakness Enumeration

The CWE is aimed at (software) developers and security professionals and is a formal collection for types of software vulnerabilities. It serves as a common language for describing software vulnerabilities in terms of architecture, design or code; is a benchmark for software security tools and provides common baseline standards for vulnerability detection, mitigation and prevention.

DES, Data Encryption Standard

A cryptographic standard. See also AES and FAME

DevOps, Development – ​​IT Operations

DevOps aims to improve the interaction between software development and the IT infrastructure.

DFKI, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence

The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) is a public-private partnership with large companies, medium-sized companies, the states of Rhineland-Palatinate, Bremen and Saarland as shareholders and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research as project sponsor

DGN, Deep Grid Net

As a deep learning system, DGN understands the context in which an autonomous vehicle is moving. The Deep Grid Net algorithm predicts this context by analyzing local occupancy grids (OG) constructed from fused raw sensory data. The Elektrobit company coined the term DGN

DNN, Deep Neural Network

In the technical world, complex neural networks are used in machines and control processes with artificial intelligence (AI, AI) or to cope with immense floods of data in data processing. After a learning or training phase, inference machines can understand data contexts and derive forecasts. The powerful hardware for DNN uses GPU and GSP architectures.

DOE, Design of Experiments

a modeling method within the framework of model-based application

DoIP, diagnostics over IP

Diagnosis via IP connection

DPA, Differential Power Analysis

This cryptanalysis can be used to determine the encryption of smart cards or other encryption components. The DPA method picks up the voltage level at various pins in order to subject them to a statistical analysis. The encryption method and the secret key can thus be derived from the computing effort over time. The DPA is a side channel attack.

DPM, Defects Per Million or Defects Per Million Opportunities (DPMO)

In contrast to the specification of errors per unit (errors/ppm), the number of all possible errors per unit is included in DPMO in order to make units of different complexes easier to compare.

DRM, Digital Rights Management

Digital rights management

DTLS, Datagram Transport Layer Security

A TLS-based encryption protocol. Details on DTLS can be found here.

EAL, Evaluation Assurance Level

EAL defines seven levels of trustworthiness from EAL 1 to EAL 7 as part of the Common Criteria (CC).

ECC, Elliptic Curve Cryptography

The data encryption method (elliptic curve cryptography) is an asymmetric encryption method. The encryption algorithm developed in 1985 is based on elliptical curves. The method is safe only if discrete logarithms in the set of elliptic curve points cannot be computed efficiently.

ECDH, Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellman

The data encryption method ECDH is based on the encryption algorithm of the Diffie-Hellman method (DH), which is based on the exponentiation of the data to be encrypted with large exponents. The method, which is based on ECC, offers a high level of security with relatively short key lengths. For example, a particularly security-critical Bluetooth communication uses this encryption method.

ECDSA, Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm

A variant of the DSA method in the context of cryptography is the ECSDA method.

ERP, Enterprise Resource Planning

In business resource planning, ERP systems are used as business software solutions to control business processes. With them, operational resources such as capital, personnel or means of production are controlled and managed in the best possible way, which is intended to ensure an efficient operational value-added process and constantly optimized control of operational processes. The core function of ERP in manufacturing companies is material requirements planning, so that all materials required for product manufacture are available at the right time, place and in the right quantity

EXI, Efficient XML Interchange

XML Interchange is a format proposed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for the binary representation of XML information sets (the structuring of an XML document). Compared to text-based XML documents, documents in EXI format can be processed faster and require less bandwidth when transferred over a network. In addition to EXI, there are other approaches to establish a binary representation for XML, eg Binary XML.

FAME, Fast Attribute-based Message Encryption

A cryptographic standard that competes directly with AES and DES.

Framework, basic structure, framework

In software engineering, a framework is not an independent program, but a framework that supports the programmer in his application programming. The framework is mainly used in object-oriented programming and includes libraries, interfaces, runtime environments and various tools. It influences the development of the software architecture and provides the basic design structure for basic building blocks in the form of abstract and concrete classes.

FTA, Failure Tree Analysis

Failure tree analysis, also known as fault tree analysis, is a method of analyzing the reliability of technical equipment and systems.

GAN, Generative Adversarial Networks

GAN is a special algorithm for unsupervised learning.

GCC, Global Chassis Control

a term initiated by Conti

GDB, GNU Debugger

Open debugger that supports various programming languages ​​such as C, C++, Fortran or Java.

GLPL, GNU Lesser General Public License

special variant of GPL

GNU, an open software project

GNU is an open, Linux-like operating system. As free software, users are free to use, distribute, modify and examine the program as they wish. See also GPL, GNU General Public License.

GPL, GNU General Public Licence

Form of licensing for freely accessible software. Details on the GNU General Public License can be found here.

GUI, Graphical User Interface

Graphic interface to the user/user

HDCP, High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection

HDCP is a cryptographic encryption system developed by Intel in 2003, which is intended for the DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort interfaces for the protected transmission of audio and video data. HDCP is to become the standard for HDTV in Europe and is used for Blu-ray discs as well as HD-DVD. The encryption process is intended to prevent the video and audio material being tapped within the connection between the sender and recipient. According to the specification, every HDCP-compliant device has stored 40 keys, each with a length of 56 bits.

ICA, Independent Component Analysis; independence analysis

Method from multivariate statistics for calculating independent components in a mixture of statistically independent random variables

ICU, Intelligent Cryptographic Unit

Renesas calls the crypto coprocessor in the MCUs an intelligent cryptographic unit.

IDPS, Intrusion Detection and Prevention System

Security system for detecting and preventing intrusion (attempts) into a system.

IDS, Intrusion Detection System

The attack detection system detects intruders in computer systems or computer networks. IDS can supplement a firewall or run directly on the computer to be monitored, thus increasing the security of networks and systems.

IP, intellectual property

The term intellectual property often appears in the digital and electronic world in connection with software and hardware development.

IP, Internet Protocol

The network protocol, which is widespread in computer networks, forms the basis of the Internet. It is the implementation of the Internet layer of the TCP/IP model and corresponds to the network layer of the OSI model. IP is a connectionless protocol, which means that no status is established for the communication partners. Using the IP address and subnet mask (subnet mask) for IPv4, or prefix length for IPv6, computers within a network can be grouped into logical units, the subnets.

IPC, Industrial Personal Computer

Typical areas for industrial PCs are process visualization, robotics, industrial automation, test benches for industry or safety technology and quality assurance. An IPC is more robust than an office PC with regard to environmental influences and electromagnetic interference and is generally designed to be largely fail-safe. As a result of mass production, conventional PCs have a high degree of standardization – both in terms of hardware and software. Due to the high flexibility, a PC can be used for the operation, programming, visualization, long-term archiving and simulation of processes and can also be combined with conventional industrial controls or PLCs.

ITE, Integrated Test Design Environment

The Integrated Environment for Test Design and Test Execution is a product of Vector Informatik.

JIT, just in time

Used in manufacturing (delivery only when a part is needed) and in software development (JIT compilers only translate code at runtime of a program)

JSON, Javascript Object Notation

JSON is a textual data format for data exchange

AI, artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI), also known as artificial intelligence (AI), is a sub-area of ​​computer science that deals with the automation of intelligent behavior and machine learning. The term cannot be clearly defined insofar as there is already a lack of a precise definition of intelligence. Nevertheless, it is used in research and development. With regard to the already existing areas of application and the areas of application that are emerging as potential, artificial intelligence is one of the pioneering driving forces of the digital revolution. A technical paper on the subject of graph streaming processingbreaks with the traditional methods of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) development and introduces the approach of a highly efficient, parallel, data-flow and diagram-based task architecture.

LSB, Least Significant Bit

The bit that represents the lowest power of two, i.e. in the practice of our notation the rightmost (last) digit of a binary number.

MIL, Model in the Loop

Test as part of model-based software development (general term: XiL)

MILS, Multiple Independent Levels of Security

see EURO-MILS

ML, Machine Learning

The generic term stands for the artificial generation of knowledge from experience: an artificial system learns from examples and can generalize these after the learning phase has ended. It does not learn the examples by heart, but recognizes patterns and laws in the learning data and can assess unknown data (learning transfer) or fail to learn unknown data (overfitting). From the wide range of possible applications, the following should be mentioned here: automated diagnostic methods, detection of credit card fraud, stock market analyses, classification of nucleotide sequences, speech and text recognition as well as autonomous systems. A technical article on graph streaming processing breaks with traditional development methodsartificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) and presents the approach of a highly efficient, parallel, data flow and daigram-based task architecture. Various frameworks are available for software development in the field of AI/ML: TensorFlow, CAFFE, PyTorch or TORCH, Apache Spark, Apache Singa, Microsoft CNTK, Amazon Machine Learning, Apache Mahout, Scikit-Learn, Accord.NET.

MTBF, mean time between failures

Mean service life/operating time between failures of components, systems and other components.

NLP, Natural Language Processing

Machine language processing in the context of computational linguistics. NLP systems are used to understand normal sentences and, for example, to carry out an action: "System, turn on the light in the living room!"

NLU, Natural Language Understanding

Natural language understanding is important for NLP, even if the pronunciation is not perfect.

NN, Neural Network

Neural network (in the context of AI)

OOP, object-oriented programming

OOP is a method for modularizing programs that differs greatly from classic procedural programming. The goal is to make OOP software easier to maintain and extend than procedural ones. The strict modularization of unit tests simplifies reuse of software parts and follows the programming paradigm of imperative programming programming

divides programs into units called objects. Each object has a status that is described by its properties (object attributes). Only the functions (called methods) present in the object itself can manipulate its data and thus change its state. Objects can send messages to other objects (by calling their methods) asking them to change their state. Ultimately, however, it is up to the object itself whether it complies with the request. Thus, the object is always in a well-defined, self-controlled state.

OpenCL, Open Computing Language

The specification was created by the Khronos Group in 2008 and simplifies the programming of highly parallel processors (CPU), graphics processing units (GPU) and process/data accelerators. OpenCL helps to efficiently process large amounts of independent data with high computing power. In this context with GPGPU (General Purpose Computation on Graphics Processing Unit), high-performance GPUs with countless processor cores can handle new high-performance calculations beyond the simple task of image synthesis (rendering), for example in neural networks for AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning).

OSLC, Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration

Lifecycle Collaboration Open Service is a technical initiative that specifies the integration of software development tools. It's about simplifying the work of tool providers and users through standardization. Since June 2013, the OSLC initiative has been a member of OASIS, an organization for the further development of e-business and web services standards. Other subject areas of OSLC are Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), operation of IT systems and others.

OSS, open source software

Software whose source code can be viewed, modified and used publicly and by third parties. Open source software can usually be used free of charge. Software can be made open source software by individuals for altruistic motives, as well as by organizations or companies to share development costs or gain market share.

OT, Operational Technology

OT is a package consisting of hardware and software, which on the one hand recognizes changes and on the other hand also initiates changes. This is done by directly monitoring and/or controlling processes, physical units and events in the overall system

PCA, Principal Component Analysis; principal component analysis

Methods from multivariate statistics for structuring, simplifying and illustrating extensive data sets.

PiP, Picture in Picture

Picture-in-picture display

PKI, Public Key Infrastructure

System to issue cryptographic certificates

PMHF, Probabilistic Metric for Random Hardware Failures

In the context of functional safety, the ISO26262 standard recommends methods for determining the probability metric for random hardware failures (PMHF), i.e. a residual error rate. This includes calculating system failure rates; an FTA (Failure Tree Analysis), the assessment of the ASIL for functional safety and case studies.

PMT, Process Methods and Tools

Process methods and tools

PQC, Post-Quantum Cryptography

Encryption algorithms that should even withstand quantum computers.

PUF, Physically Unclonable Functions

Functions that cannot be physically cloned are hardware structures in a semiconductor that are used to enable the semiconductor to be uniquely identified or to secure keys for cryptographic processes. Chip manufacturers such as Microchip (formerly Microsemi), Intel and Maxim rely on this process.

QM, quality management

For example according to DIN EN ISO 9000

RCP, Rapid Control Prototyping

Rapid control prototyping describes a computer-aided design method for rapid regulation and control development. Typical design steps in RCP include the specification and modeling of the target device, the control design in the model and implementation on the control device, as well as testing using simulation and on the real system.

REST, Representational State Transfer

REST is a programming paradigm for distributed systems.

RNN, Recurrent Neural Network

Feedback neural network

RSA

The asymmetrical cryptographic encryption method, named after its developers Rivest, Shamir and Adleman (RSA), is still considered secure with very large key lengths. See also AES. The asymmetric cryptographic method is used both for encryption and for digital signing. It uses a key pair consisting of a private key used to decrypt or sign data and a public key used to encrypt or verify signatures. The private key is kept secret and cannot be calculated from the public key. Cryptographic methods also play an important role in product and know-how protection in intelligent production.

RTC, Real Time Clock

The real-time clock is a self-contained, battery-backed digital clock chip that provides a system-independent time to a device or computer system. Essentially, this is a digital, crystal-clocked counter whose registers are read out on demand.

RTE, Runtime Environment

A runtime environment or execution environment represents a platform on which application programs coded for your system can run. For RTE architecture specifications for the automotive environment, Autosar.

RWT, Remote Wireless Tampering

Remote cyber attack on an electronic system over the air interface.

SAAM, Software Assurance Maturity Model

Maturity model to ensure software quality

SaaS, software as a service

software as a service within the framework of cloud computing

SCADA, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition

System for monitoring and controlling processes in various technical environments

SDK, Software Development Kit

An SDK supports the software developer with frameworks, configuration specifications, application notes, code examples and various programming tools. Some electronics manufacturers include small evaluation boards, simple programming adapters, debuggers, SIM card contingents for mobile communications, cloud contingents for IoT-KITs and provide additional hardware accessories.

SOA, Service-Oriented Architectures

Service-oriented architectures (SOA) have been used in the IT industry for years to describe and structure distributed systems, but the topic is also becoming increasingly important in the automotive industry.

SOM, Self Organizing Map; Self-organizing map or Kohonen map

Denotes a type of artificial neural network; their functional principle is based on the biological knowledge that many structures in the brain have a linear or planar topology.

SPM, Security Policy Management

SPOF, Single Point of Failure

A single point of failure is a component of a technical system, the failure of which results in the failure of the entire system. With high-availability systems, it must be ensured that all components of a system are designed redundantly. Diversity and the geographically distributed placement should play a role here. If systems with different structures (e.g. different manufacturers) are used for the same task, a simultaneous failure for a single reason is less likely. One of the goals of on-premises cloud solutions in medicine is large amounts of data, for example href="https://www.all-electronics.de/abkuerzungsverzeichnis/ct/" target="_blank">CT, MRT, PETsafe from destruction and theft.

TCO, Total Cost of Ownership

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO, total cost of operation) is a billing method that is intended to help consumers and companies to estimate all costs incurred for capital goods (such as software and hardware in IT).

TLS, Transport Layer Security

An encryption protocol used to securely transmit data, for example over the Internet.

TRA, Threat and Risk Analysis

TRA is an attack and risk analysis and the security counterpart to HARA

TRNG, True Random Number Generator

True random number generator

TTM, time to market

The time from product development to placing the product on the market. During this time, costs are incurred for the product – but it does not generate any sales. You can find out more about the time-to-market here.

UI, user interface

A human interacts with a machine via the user interface (see HMI). On the PC, for example, these are all input and output devices (keyboard, screen, etc.). A further development is the graphical user interface (GUI).

UML, Unified Modeling Language

Unified Modeling Language

VM, Virtual Machine (for software)

This can be, for example, an operating system that runs as an encapsulated process within another system or on a part of a server.

WORM, Write Once Read Multiple

WORM elements are tamper-proof read-only data memories that can only be written to once, but can be read as often as required. Similar to the PROM (Programable Read Only Memory), a safety precaution permanently excludes the deletion, overwriting and changing of data on a storage medium (semiconductor, CD). WORM can be implemented in different ways: With hardware WORM (True WORM), the write-once property is physically given, the systemic variant achieves this by addressing or management by the internal controller. Soft-WORM can be implemented in a network storage system as a pure software functionality.

XML, Extensible Markup Language

XML is a markup language for representing hierarchically structured data in the form of a text file that is readable by both humans and machines.

ZETA, Zero Day Exploit Attack

Such an attack on networked IT systems takes place via a software vulnerability immediately (on the same day) after its discovery. In this case, the vulnerability is exploited before the software manufacturer can close it with a fix. ZETAs are particularly risky in the area of ​​connected and autonomous vehicles.