Mutation Analysis for the Evaluation of AD Models

UML has became the industry standard for analysis and design modeling. Model is a key artifact in Model Driven Architect (MDA) and considered as an only concrete artifact available at earlier development stages. Error detection at earlier development stages can save enormous amount of cost and time. The article presents a novel mutation analysis technique for UML 2.0 Activity Diagram (AD). Based on the AD oriented fault types, a number of mutation operators are defined. The technique focuses on the key features of AD and enhances the confidence in design correctness by showing the absence of control-flow and concurrency related faults. It will enable the automated analysis technique of AD models and can potentially be used for service oriented applications, workflows and concurrent applications

Effect of the addition of alginate and/or tetracycline on brushite cement properties

Calcium phosphate cements have the advantage that they can be prepared as a paste that sets in a few minutes and can be easily adapted to the shape of the bone defect, which facilitates its clinical application. In this research, six formulations of brushite (dicalcium phosphate dihydrated) cement were obtained and the effect of the addition of sodium alginate was analyzed, such as its capacity as a tetracycline release system. The samples that contain sodium alginate set in 4 or 5 min and showed a high percentage of injectability (93%). The cements exhibit compression resistance values between 1.6 and 2.6 MPa. The drug was released in a range between 12.6 and 13.2% after 7 days. The antimicrobial activity of all the cements containing antibiotics was proven. All samples reached values of cell viability above 70 percent. We also observed that the addition of the sodium alginate and tetracycline improved the cell viability.Imaging- and therapeutic targets in neoplastic and musculoskeletal inflammatory diseas

Towards Pervasive Supervision for Autonomic Systems

Abstract One of the key motivations for the provisioning of autonomic communication features in next generation services is to reduce the need of human inference for management tasks. This however means essentially that system control is delegated to the system itself, i.e., the system operator gives up control to a certain extent. The consequence is that autonomic systems might deviate from intended behavior, may show inconsistent or unwanted states and behavior. We propose an approach to develop control structures complementary to distributed, heterogeneous services. We concentrate on necessary properties of those control structures, and furthermore on issues like selfapplicability and self-evolution

Parallel algorithms for generating distinguishing sequences for observable non-deterministic FSMs

A distinguishing sequence (DS) for a finite state machine (FSM) is an input sequence that distinguishes every pair of states of the FSM. There are techniques that generate a test sequence with guaranteed fault detection power and it has been found that shorter test sequence can be produced if DSs are used. Despite these benefits, however, until recently the only published DS generation algorithms have been for deterministic FSMs. This paper develops a massively parallel algorithm, which can be used in GPU Computing, to generate DSs from partial observable non-deterministic FSMs. We also present the results of experiments using randomly generated FSMs and some benchmark FSMs. The results are promising and indicate that the proposed algorithm can derive DSs from partial observable non-deterministic FSMs with 32,000 states in an acceptable amount of time.This work is supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) under Grant #1059B191400424 and by the NVIDIA corporation

Is CADP an Applicable Formal Method?

International audienceCADP is a comprehensive toolbox implementing results of concurrency theory. This paper addresses the question, whether CADP qualifies as an applicable formal method, based on the experience of the authors and feedback reported by users

An Access Control Model Based Testing Approach for Smart Card Applications: Results of the {POSÉ} Project

International audienceThis paper is about generating security tests from the Common Criteria expression of a security policy, in addition to functional tests previously generated by a model-based testing approach. The method that we present re-uses the functional model and the concretization layer developed for the functional testing, and relies on an additional security policy model. We discuss how to produce the security policy model from a Common Criteria security target. We propose to compute the tests by using some test purposes as guides for the tests to be extracted from the models. We see a test purpose as the combination of a security property and a test need issued from the know-how of a security engineer. We propose a language based on regular expressions for the expression of such test purposes. We illustrate our approach by means of the IAS case study, a smart card application dedicated to the operations of Identification, Authentication and electronic Signature

An Access Control Model Based Testing Approach for Smart Card Applications: Results of the {POSÉ} Project

International audienceThis paper is about generating security tests from the Common Criteria expression of a security policy, in addition to functional tests previously generated by a model-based testing approach. The method that we present re-uses the functional model and the concretization layer developed for the functional testing, and relies on an additional security policy model. We discuss how to produce the security policy model from a Common Criteria security target. We propose to compute the tests by using some test purposes as guides for the tests to be extracted from the models. We see a test purpose as the combination of a security property and a test need issued from the know-how of a security engineer. We propose a language based on regular expressions for the expression of such test purposes. We illustrate our approach by means of the IAS case study, a smart card application dedicated to the operations of Identification, Authentication and electronic Signature

Using formal methods to support testing

Formal methods and testing are two important approaches that assist in the development of high quality software. While traditionally these approaches have been seen as rivals, in recent years a new consensus has developed in which they are seen as complementary. This article reviews the state of the art regarding ways in which the presence of a formal specification can be used to assist testing

On testing concurrent systems through contexts of queues

Concurrent systems, including asynchronous circuits, computer networks, and multi-threaded programs, have important applications, but they are also very complex and expensive to test. This thesis studies how to test concurrent systems through contexts consisting of queues. Queues, modeling buffers and communication delays, are an integral part of the test settings for concurrent systems. However, queues can also distort the behavior of the concurrent system as observed by the tester, so one should take into account the queues when defining conformance relations or deriving tests. On the other hand, queues can cause state explosion, so one should avoid testing them if they are reliable or have already been tested. To solve these problems, we propose two different solutions. The first solution is to derive tests using some test selection criteria such as test purposes, fault coverage, and transition coverage. The second solution is to compensate for the problems caused by the queues so that testers do not discern the presence of the queues in the first place. Unifying the presentation of the two solutions, we consider in a general testing framework partial specifications, various contexts, and a hierarchy of conformance relations. Case studies on test derivation for asynchronous circuits, communication protocols, and multi-threaded programs are presented to demonstrate the applications of the results