75,311 research outputs found
Evolution of statistical analysis in empirical software engineering research: Current state and steps forward
Software engineering research is evolving and papers are increasingly based
on empirical data from a multitude of sources, using statistical tests to
determine if and to what degree empirical evidence supports their hypotheses.
To investigate the practices and trends of statistical analysis in empirical
software engineering (ESE), this paper presents a review of a large pool of
papers from top-ranked software engineering journals. First, we manually
reviewed 161 papers and in the second phase of our method, we conducted a more
extensive semi-automatic classification of papers spanning the years 2001--2015
and 5,196 papers. Results from both review steps was used to: i) identify and
analyze the predominant practices in ESE (e.g., using t-test or ANOVA), as well
as relevant trends in usage of specific statistical methods (e.g.,
nonparametric tests and effect size measures) and, ii) develop a conceptual
model for a statistical analysis workflow with suggestions on how to apply
different statistical methods as well as guidelines to avoid pitfalls. Lastly,
we confirm existing claims that current ESE practices lack a standard to report
practical significance of results. We illustrate how practical significance can
be discussed in terms of both the statistical analysis and in the
practitioner's context.Comment: journal submission, 34 pages, 8 figure
Regression modeling for digital test of ΣΔ modulators
The cost of Analogue and Mixed-Signal circuit
testing is an important bottleneck in the industry, due to timeconsuming
verification of specifications that require state-ofthe-
art Automatic Test Equipment. In this paper, we apply
the concept of Alternate Test to achieve digital testing of
converters. By training an ensemble of regression models that
maps simple digital defect-oriented signatures onto Signal to
Noise and Distortion Ratio (SNDR), an average error of 1:7%
is achieved. Beyond the inference of functional metrics, we show
that the approach can provide interesting diagnosis information.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2007-68072/MICJunta de Andalucía TIC 5386, CT 30
A Process to Implement an Artificial Neural Network and Association Rules Techniques to Improve Asset Performance and Energy Efficiency
In this paper, we address the problem of asset performance monitoring, with the intention
of both detecting any potential reliability problem and predicting any loss of energy consumption
e ciency. This is an important concern for many industries and utilities with very intensive
capitalization in very long-lasting assets. To overcome this problem, in this paper we propose an
approach to combine an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) with Data Mining (DM) tools, specifically
with Association Rule (AR) Mining. The combination of these two techniques can now be done
using software which can handle large volumes of data (big data), but the process still needs to
ensure that the required amount of data will be available during the assets’ life cycle and that its
quality is acceptable. The combination of these two techniques in the proposed sequence di ers
from previous works found in the literature, giving researchers new options to face the problem.
Practical implementation of the proposed approach may lead to novel predictive maintenance models
(emerging predictive analytics) that may detect with unprecedented precision any asset’s lack of
performance and help manage assets’ O&M accordingly. The approach is illustrated using specific
examples where asset performance monitoring is rather complex under normal operational conditions.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad DPI2015-70842-
Application of portable delayed neutron activation analysis equipment in the evaluation of gold deposits
The attributes of a gold analysis system which could act as a panacea for the needs of the explorationist and the miner alike would include:
i) The capability of being used as a qualitative as well as a quantitative tool yielding accurate results in respect of large samples.
ii) The capability of generating results on site either in the field or within a prospect or mine.
iii) An identifiable cost effectiveness in relation to other methods.
iv) The capability of being housed in an equipment package which combines ruggedness, portability and reliability with operational options which permit measurements to be made on outcrops, mine faces, borehole cores as well as direct in-situ down-the hole determinations. The portable x-ray fluorescence gold analyser is on the threshold of meeting all the criteria cited above. Since the system is non-destructive in so far as the sample is concerned check assays employing conventional techniques can be run on a small percentage of the sample population. This report by its very nature is a state of the art review which sets out to describe the current instrument package, the principles by which it functions, its performance compared with detailed chip channel sampling and then suggests how the system may evolve in terms of its application to the investigation of hard-rock and placer deposits.Introduction -- Development of the gold analyser -- Basic principles of the system -- The instrument package -- Hand held probe -- Electronic pack -- Control module -- Liquid nitrogen supply -- Operational safety -- Review of operating results -- Sampling practice -- Broader applications -- Conclusions and recommendations -- Costs -- Acknowledgements -- Appendixes 1 and 2 -- References and information sources
Soft computing for intelligent data analysis
Intelligent data analysis (IDA) is an interdisciplinary study concerned with the effective analysis of data. The paper briefly looks at some of the key issues in intelligent data analysis, discusses the opportunities for soft computing in this context, and presents several IDA case studies in which soft computing has played key roles. These studies are all concerned with complex real-world problem solving, including consistency checking between mass spectral data with proposed chemical structures, screening for glaucoma and other eye diseases, forecasting of visual field deterioration, and diagnosis in an oil refinery involving multivariate time series. Bayesian networks, evolutionary computation, neural networks, and machine learning in general are some of those soft computing techniques effectively used in these studies
Fairness Testing: Testing Software for Discrimination
This paper defines software fairness and discrimination and develops a
testing-based method for measuring if and how much software discriminates,
focusing on causality in discriminatory behavior. Evidence of software
discrimination has been found in modern software systems that recommend
criminal sentences, grant access to financial products, and determine who is
allowed to participate in promotions. Our approach, Themis, generates efficient
test suites to measure discrimination. Given a schema describing valid system
inputs, Themis generates discrimination tests automatically and does not
require an oracle. We evaluate Themis on 20 software systems, 12 of which come
from prior work with explicit focus on avoiding discrimination. We find that
(1) Themis is effective at discovering software discrimination, (2)
state-of-the-art techniques for removing discrimination from algorithms fail in
many situations, at times discriminating against as much as 98% of an input
subdomain, (3) Themis optimizations are effective at producing efficient test
suites for measuring discrimination, and (4) Themis is more efficient on
systems that exhibit more discrimination. We thus demonstrate that fairness
testing is a critical aspect of the software development cycle in domains with
possible discrimination and provide initial tools for measuring software
discrimination.Comment: Sainyam Galhotra, Yuriy Brun, and Alexandra Meliou. 2017. Fairness
Testing: Testing Software for Discrimination. In Proceedings of 2017 11th
Joint Meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM
SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE),
Paderborn, Germany, September 4-8, 2017 (ESEC/FSE'17).
https://doi.org/10.1145/3106237.3106277, ESEC/FSE, 201
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