AUTOSIM: An automated repetitive software testing tool

AUTOSIM is a software tool which automates the repetitive run testing of software. This tool executes programming tasks previously performed by a programmer with one year of programming experience. Use of the AUTOSIM tool requires a knowledge base containing information about known faults, code fixes, and the fault diagnosis-correction process. AUTOSIM can be considered as an expert system which replaces a low level of programming expertise. Reference information about the design and implementation of the AUTOSIM software test tool provides flowcharts to assist in maintaining the software code and a description of how to use the tool

Towards a Tool-based Development Methodology for Pervasive Computing Applications

Despite much progress, developing a pervasive computing application remains a challenge because of a lack of conceptual frameworks and supporting tools. This challenge involves coping with heterogeneous devices, overcoming the intricacies of distributed systems technologies, working out an architecture for the application, encoding it in a program, writing specific code to test the application, and finally deploying it. This paper presents a design language and a tool suite covering the development life-cycle of a pervasive computing application. The design language allows to define a taxonomy of area-specific building-blocks, abstracting over their heterogeneity. This language also includes a layer to define the architecture of an application, following an architectural pattern commonly used in the pervasive computing domain. Our underlying methodology assigns roles to the stakeholders, providing separation of concerns. Our tool suite includes a compiler that takes design artifacts written in our language as input and generates a programming framework that supports the subsequent development stages, namely implementation, testing, and deployment. Our methodology has been applied on a wide spectrum of areas. Based on these experiments, we assess our approach through three criteria: expressiveness, usability, and productivity

Midwifery education and technology enhanced learning: Evaluating online story telling in preregistration midwifery education

Background A major issue regarding the implementation of blended learning for preregistration health programmes is the analysis of students' perceptions and attitudes towards their learning. It is the extent of the embedding of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) into the higher education curriculum that makes this analysis so vital. Objectives This paper reports on the quantitative results of a UK based study that was set up to respond to the apparent disconnect between technology enhanced education provision and reliable student evaluation of this mode of learning. Design Employing a mixed methods research design, the research described here was carried to develop a reliable and valid evaluation tool to measure acceptability of and satisfaction with a blended learning approach, specifically designed for a preregistration midwifery module offered at level 4. Methods Feasibility testing of 46 completed blended learning evaluation questionnaires - Student Midwife Evaluation of Online Learning Effectiveness (SMEOLE) - using descriptive statistics, reliability and internal consistency tests. Results Standard deviations and mean scores all followed predicted pattern. Results from the reliability and internal consistency testing confirm the feasibility of SMEOLE as an effective tool for measuring student satisfaction with a blended learning approach to preregistration learning. Conclusions The analysis presented in this paper suggests that we have been successful in our aim to produce an evaluation tool capable of assessing the quality of technology enhanced, University level learning in Midwifery. This work can provide future benchmarking against which midwifery, and other health, blended learning curriculum planning could be structured and evaluated

mrstudyr: Retrospectively Studying the Effectiveness of Mutant Reduction Techniques

Mutation testing is a well-known method for measuring a test suite’s quality. However, due to its computational expense and intrinsic difficulties (e.g., detecting equivalent mutants and potentially checking a mutant’s status for each test), mutation testing is often challenging to practically use. To control the computational cost of mutation testing, many reduction strategies have been proposed (e.g., uniform random sampling over mutants). Yet, a stand-alone tool to compare the efficiency and effectiveness of these methods is heretofore unavailable. Since existing mutation testing tools are often complex and languagedependent, this paper presents a tool, called mrstudyr, that enables the “retrospective” study of mutant reduction methods using the data collected from a prior analysis of all mutants. Focusing on the mutation operators and the mutants that they produce, the presented tool allows developers to prototype and evaluate mutant reducers without being burdened by the implementation details of mutation testing tools. Along with describing mrstudyr’s design and overviewing the experimental results from using it, this paper inaugurates the public release of this open-source tool

Evaluating Decentralized Policies: How to Compare the Performance of Economic Development Programs across Different Regions or States

This paper proposes an empirical method to evaluate decentralized economic development programs with heterogeneous characteristics implemented in different regions or states. The evaluation design developed in the paper is a comparative analysis that operationalizes differences in regional policy features and controls for pre-intervention heterogeneous characteristics of targeted areas. The proposed method is illustrated and tested through the evaluation of the U.S. Enterprise Zone (EZ) programs. The results of the analysis show that the proposed evaluation design is an effective tool for turning the heterogeneity of decentralized economic development programs from a threat to the validity of the analysis into a great opportunity for testing the effectiveness of a variety of region (or state) specific policy implementation features.comparative evaluation, economic development programs, decentralized policies, longitudinal data, propensity score.

Rancang Bangun Aplikasi E-Monitoring Alat Perekam Transaksi Wajib Pajak Pada Kantor Badan Pengelola Pajak Dan Retribusi Daerah Kota Palangka Raya Berbasis Website

The Office of the Regional Tax and Levy Management Agency often monitors or monitors the tax recording device used by the Taxpayer (WP). Sometimes the Taxpayer also reports by contacting the office via telephone. Based on this, an E-Monitoring Application for Taxpayer Transaction Recorder Tools was made at the Office of the Palangka Raya City Regional Tax and Retribution Management Agency Based on a Website to assist the office in monitoring and assisting Taxpayers to report constraints on tax recording devices. The methodology used in developing the E-Monitoring Application Design for Taxpayer Transaction Recorder Tools at the Office of the Regional Tax and Levy Management Agency of Palangka Raya City Based on this Website is using the Waterfall method. The stages are Requirements Definition such as making flowcharts, System and Software Design such as database design, Implementation and Unit Testing, namely the language used such as PHP, Javascript and Css, Integration and System Testing, which is testing using the black box testing method. The methodology used in the E-Monitoring Application of Taxpayer Transaction Recording Tools at the Office of the Regional Tax and Retribution Management Agency of Palangka Raya City Based on this Website is using the Waterfall method. The stages are Requirements Definition such as making flowcharts, System and Software Design such as database design, Implementation and Unit Testing Integration and System Testing and blackbox testing.The result of this research is an application of E-Monitoring Application of Taxpayer Transaction Recording Tool at the Office of the Regional Tax and Levy Management Agency of Palangka Raya City Based on a Website that can be used to report problems experienced by taxpayers in the use of taxpayer transaction recording devices and can assist the BPPRD to monitor the tool in case of damage and repair