A methodology for producing reliable software, volume 1

An investigation into the areas having an impact on producing reliable software including automated verification tools, software modeling, testing techniques, structured programming, and management techniques is presented. This final report contains the results of this investigation, analysis of each technique, and the definition of a methodology for producing reliable software

Exact Gap Computation for Code Coverage Metrics in ISO-C

Test generation and test data selection are difficult tasks for model based testing. Tests for a program can be meld to a test suite. A lot of research is done to quantify the quality and improve a test suite. Code coverage metrics estimate the quality of a test suite. This quality is fine, if the code coverage value is high or 100%. Unfortunately it might be impossible to achieve 100% code coverage because of dead code for example. There is a gap between the feasible and theoretical maximal possible code coverage value. Our review of the research indicates, none of current research is concerned with exact gap computation. This paper presents a framework to compute such gaps exactly in an ISO-C compatible semantic and similar languages. We describe an efficient approximation of the gap in all the other cases. Thus, a tester can decide if more tests might be able or necessary to achieve better coverage.Comment: In Proceedings MBT 2012, arXiv:1202.582

Consciosusness in Cognitive Architectures. A Principled Analysis of RCS, Soar and ACT-R

This report analyses the aplicability of the principles of consciousness developed in the ASys project to three of the most relevant cognitive architectures. This is done in relation to their aplicability to build integrated control systems and studying their support for general mechanisms of real-time consciousness.\ud To analyse these architectures the ASys Framework is employed. This is a conceptual framework based on an extension for cognitive autonomous systems of the General Systems Theory (GST).\ud A general qualitative evaluation criteria for cognitive architectures is established based upon: a) requirements for a cognitive architecture, b) the theoretical framework based on the GST and c) core design principles for integrated cognitive conscious control systems

Hybrid analysis techniques for software fault detection

Since the question "Does program P obey specification S" is undecidable in general, every practical software validation technique must compromise accuracy in some way. Testing techniques admit the possibility that a fault will go undetected, as the price for quitting after a finite number of test cases. Formal verification admits the possibility that a proof will not be found for a valid assertion, as the price for quitting after a finite amount of proof effort. No technique so dominates others that a wise validation strategy consists of applying that technique alone; rather, effective validation requires applying several techniques

Developing a distributed electronic health-record store for India

The DIGHT project is addressing the problem of building a scalable and highly available information store for the Electronic Health Records (EHRs) of the over one billion citizens of India

Program Model Checking: A Practitioner's Guide

Program model checking is a verification technology that uses state-space exploration to evaluate large numbers of potential program executions. Program model checking provides improved coverage over testing by systematically evaluating all possible test inputs and all possible interleavings of threads in a multithreaded system. Model-checking algorithms use several classes of optimizations to reduce the time and memory requirements for analysis, as well as heuristics for meaningful analysis of partial areas of the state space Our goal in this guidebook is to assemble, distill, and demonstrate emerging best practices for applying program model checking. We offer it as a starting point and introduction for those who want to apply model checking to software verification and validation. The guidebook will not discuss any specific tool in great detail, but we provide references for specific tools