Deriving Compact Test Suites for Telecommunication Software Using Distance Metrics

This paper proposes a string edit distance based test selection method to generate compact test sets for telecommunications software. Following the results of previous research, a trace in a test set is considered to be redundant if its edit distance from others is less than a given parameter. The algorithm first determines the minimum cardinality of the target test set in accordance with the provided parameter, then it selects the test set with the highest sum of internal edit distances. The selection problem is reduced to an assignment problem in bipartite graphs

The relationships among coping strategies, trait anxiety, and performance in collegiate softball players

Efforts have been made to understand more about the psychological characteristics that differentiate between more and less successful athletes, but little research exists examining the relationships between specific coping strategies and performance. The purpose of this investigation was to examine how athletes cope with stress and how their coping strategies influence their performance. One hundred and forty eight collegiate softball players from 13 teams competing across the Southeastern United States participated in this investigation. They completed the COPE, a questionnaire designed to assess various coping strategies, the Sport Anxiety Scale, a measure of trait anxiety, and a demographic questionnaire. Their coaches also completed a demographic questionnaire assessing each athlete's coping ability, the impact it had on her performance, and the effort it took her to cope. Results revealed that athletes used a wide variety of coping skills to deal with the stress of sports. Specifically, subjects reported greater use of adaptive and emotion-focused strategies than maladaptive or problem-focused coping strategies. In addition, high trait anxiety levels were related to the type of coping strategy selected

Undergraduate Information Systems (IS) Curriculum and Career Track Development in United States Colleges and Universities: Assessment of Adherence to IS 2010 Curriculum Guidelines

The purpose of this study was to survey information systems (IS) curriculum in Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accredited information systems programs across the United States, to evaluate current adherence to the IS 2010 curriculum guidelines, and to assess the number and type of career track developments initiated as a result of less stringent requirements in the new curriculum guidelines. In addition, an analysis was conducted to see if curriculum in AACSB-accredited information systems programs across the United States changed significantly since other similar evaluations reported in 1996 and 2006, and whether it is closer in adherence to the IS 2010 curriculum guidelines. The results of this study provided a current-state description of IS curriculums in the United States, specifically: (a) percentage adherance relationships and between AACSB-accredited information systems programs to IS 2010 curriculum guidelines; (b) defined curriculum profiles or latent class cluster characteristics of recent career track developments that have emerged; and (c) perceptions of adherence by the IS department faculty compared to the assessed adherence to IS 2010 curriculum guidelines. In the findings, a comprehensive view of the landscape for adherence to IS curriculum guidelines is discussed, including the following. (a) There is a wide range of adherence to the IS curriculum guidelines. In addition, none of the IS program assessed were either entirely compliant or not compliant at all. (b) Some topics are widely covered (over half) as core curriculum while other topics are offered as core curriculum in less than half of IS programs. (c) Very few IS programs have formally implemented the IS 2010 career track guideline recommendations. (d) IS programs implementing formal career tracks specify a reasonably small number of track options for students to consider. (e) IS programs that include career tracks provide unique offerings beyond the proposed sample tracks depicted in the IS 2010 curriculum guidelines. (f) There appear to be reasonably well-defined categories or clusters of IS programs as related to IS 2010 curriculum guideline adherence. (g) IS program faculty describe a higher perceived adherence to IS curriculum guidelines than what is actually assessed in this study. (228 pages

OMG! l2spell online: The creative vocabulary of cyberlanguage s(~_^)--b

Increasing use of the Internet has led to a proliferation of online communication and information sharing media. These media, each with its own set of affordances and limitations, are thought to encourage new ways to communicate. Interlocutors refashion general English into abbreviated and often pictographic representations of existing concepts. Prior research has made suppositions about the effects these media have on communication; for example, that synchronous media (e.g., chat) encourage interlocutors to use more abbreviations (e.g., acronyms) than in asynchronous media (e.g., email). These suppositions, however, have not been fully tested because most studies focus on a single medium. Yet a more comprehensive understanding of this language--hereafter referred to as cyberlanguage--as it manifests across various online media is needed as users increasingly employ the Internet for communications. Furthermore, such an understanding may help information professionals improve information tools (e.g., search engines, summarization, surveillance) that currently rely on more standard forms of writing for their success. The research described here addresses this need by creating and linguistically analyzing a corpus of texts containing 136,529 tokens (23,912 types) that span multiple media (forums, email, text messaging, instant messaging, and chat) and communication situations (business, virtual reference, hobbies, health/well-being). Terms were classified according to linguistic feature (e.g., acronyms, emoticons). Chi-square tests were used to compare the frequencies of features across media and communication situation. Contrary to current thinking abut technological determinism, results show that cyberlanguage feature use varies based on medium and situation, which validates the notion that technology and other situational variables exert influence over communication behavior. New terms are being created all the time online and this suggests rapid language change and linguistic creativity. Interlocutors create new terms to bridge the physical distance between them, such as using surrogate face-to-face cues to make the text seem more like face-to-face speech. However, some cyberlanguage terms and features are quite ordinary and conventional, and may be considered online staples. The number of tokens that contained cyberlanguage features assumed a small portion of the language used online, so fears about cyberlanguage signaling the demise of proper English can be allayed.Doctor of Philosoph