Practical Application Of Uml Activity Diagrams For The Generation Of Test Cases

Software testing and debugging represents around one third of total effort in development projects. Different factors which have influence on poor practices of testing have been identified through specific surveys. Amongst several, one of the most important is the lack of efficient methods to exploit development models for generating test cases. This paper presents a new method for automatically generating a complete set of functional test cases from UML activity diagrams complementing specification of use cases. Test cases are prioritized according to software risk information. Results from experiences with more than 70 software professionals/experts validate benefits of the method. Participants also confirm its interest and effectiveness for testing needs of industry

The Impact of Cultural Familiarity on Students’ Social Media Usage in Higher Education

Using social media (SM) in Higher education (HE) becomes unavoidable in the new teaching and learning pedagogy. The current generation of students creates their groups on SM for collaboration. However, SM can be a primary source of learning distraction due to its nature, which does not support structured learning. Hence, derived from the literature, this study proposes three learning customised system features, to be implemented on SM when used in Higher Education HE. Nevertheless, some psychological factors appear to have a stronger impact on students’ adoption of SM in learning than the proposed features. A Quantitative survey was conducted at a university in Uzbekistan to collect 52 undergraduate students’ perception of proposed SM learning customised features in Moodle. These features aim to provide localised, personalised, and privacy control self-management environment for collaboration in Moodle. These features could be significant in predicting students’ engagement with SM in HE. The data analysis showed a majority of positive feedback towards the proposed learning customised SM. However, the surveyed students’ engagement with these features was observed as minimal. The course leader initiated a semi-structured interview to investigate the reason. Although the students confirmed their acceptance of the learning customised features, their preferences to alternate SM, which is Telegram overridden their usage of the proposed learning customized SM, which is Twitter. The students avoided the Moodle integrated Twitter (which provided highly accepted features) and chose to use the Telegram as an external collaboration platform driven by their familiarity and social preferences with the Telegram since it is the popular SM in Uzbekistan. This study is part of an ongoing PhD research which involves deeper frame of learners’ cognitive usage of the learning management system. However, this paper exclusively discusses the cultural familiarity impact of student’s adoption of SM in HE

A typology categorization of millennials in their technology behavior

Hay un interés creciente por los millennials; y sin embargo, hasta la fecha hay escasas segmentaciones de los millennials en cuanto a su comportamiento en relación a la tecnología. En este contexto, este estudio trata las siguientes cuestiones:”¿Son los millennials monolíticos o hay diferentes segmentos en esta generación en cuanto a su comportamiento tecnológico?”. Y si este fuera el caso: “¿Existen diferencias importantes en cuanto a la forma en que los millennials usan la tecnología?”. Nuestro objetivo consiste en examinar los potenciales perfiles de los millennials en relación a su comportamiento y uso de la tecnología. Los datos obtenidos de una muestra de 707 millennials se analizaron mediante un análisis de componentes principales y análisis clúster. A continuación, los segmentos se caracterizaron mediante un análisis MANOVA. Nuestros resultados revelan la existencia de cinco segmentos o tipologías de millennials en cuanto a su comportamiento tecnológico: los “devotos de la tecnología”, los “espectadores”, los “prudentes”, los “adversos” y los “productivos”. Este estudio contribuye de forma detallada al conocimiento sobre cómo las diferentes categorías de millennials usan la tecnología.There is an increasing interest for millennials; however, to date millennials’ segmentations regarding their technology behavior are scarce. In this context, this study addresses the following questions: “Are millennials monolithic, or are there segments within this generation group regarding the technology behavior?”. And if so: “Are there important variances in the way that millennial segments use technology?”. Our purpose is to examine the potential profiles of millennials regarding their technology use and behavior. Data from a sample of 707 millennials was gathered and analyzed through principal component analysis and cluster analysis. Then, millennials’ segments were profiled using a MANOVA analysis. Our findings revealed five different segments or typologies of millennials regarding their technology behavior: technology devotees, technology spectators, circumspects, technology adverse users and productivity enhancers. This study contributes with a detailed perspective of how different millennial segments use technology

Intangible trust requirements - how to fill the requirements trust "gap"?

Previous research efforts have been expended in terms of the capture and subsequent instantiation of "soft" trust requirements that relate to HCI usability concerns or in relation to "hard" tangible security requirements that primarily relate to security a ssurance and security protocols. Little direct focus has been paid to managing intangible trust related requirements per se. This 'gap' is perhaps most evident in the public B2C (Business to Consumer) E- Systems we all use on a daily basis. Some speculative suggestions are made as to how to fill the 'gap'. Visual card sorting is suggested as a suitable evaluative tool; whilst deontic logic trust norms and UML extended notation are the suggested (methodologically invariant) means by which software development teams can perhaps more fully capture hence visualize intangible trust requirements

Maintenance of Automated Test Suites in Industry: An Empirical study on Visual GUI Testing

Context: Verification and validation (V&V) activities make up 20 to 50 percent of the total development costs of a software system in practice. Test automation is proposed to lower these V&V costs but available research only provides limited empirical data from industrial practice about the maintenance costs of automated tests and what factors affect these costs. In particular, these costs and factors are unknown for automated GUI-based testing. Objective: This paper addresses this lack of knowledge through analysis of the costs and factors associated with the maintenance of automated GUI-based tests in industrial practice. Method: An empirical study at two companies, Siemens and Saab, is reported where interviews about, and empirical work with, Visual GUI Testing is performed to acquire data about the technique's maintenance costs and feasibility. Results: 13 factors are observed that affect maintenance, e.g. tester knowledge/experience and test case complexity. Further, statistical analysis shows that developing new test scripts is costlier than maintenance but also that frequent maintenance is less costly than infrequent, big bang maintenance. In addition a cost model, based on previous work, is presented that estimates the time to positive return on investment (ROI) of test automation compared to manual testing. Conclusions: It is concluded that test automation can lower overall software development costs of a project whilst also having positive effects on software quality. However, maintenance costs can still be considerable and the less time a company currently spends on manual testing, the more time is required before positive, economic, ROI is reached after automation

The future prospects of muon colliders and neutrino factories

The potential of muon beams for high energy physics applications is described along with the challenges of producing high quality muon beams. Two proposed approaches for delivering high intensity muon beams, a proton driver source and a positron driver source, are described and compared. The proton driver concepts are based on the studies from the Muon Accelerator Program (MAP). The MAP effort focused on a path to deliver muon-based facilities, ranging from neutrino factories to muon colliders, that could span research needs at both the intensity and energy frontiers. The Low EMittance Muon Accelerator (LEMMA) concept, which uses a positron-driven source, provides an attractive path to very high energy lepton colliders with improved particle backgrounds. The recent study of a 14 TeV muon collider in the LHC tunnel, which could leverage the existing CERN injectors and infrastructure and provide physics reach comparable to the 100 TeV FCC-hh, at lower cost and with cleaner physics conditions, is also discussed. The present status of the design and R&D efforts towards each of these sources is described. A summary of important R&D required to establish a facility path for each concept is also presented.Comment: 29 pages, 17 figure

Knowledge politics and new converging technologies: a social epistemological perspective

The “new converging technologies” refers to the prospect of advancing the human condition by the integrated study and application of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and the cognitive sciences - or “NBIC”. In recent years, it has loomed large, albeit with somewhat different emphases, in national science policy agendas throughout the world. This article considers the political and intellectual sources - both historical and contemporary - of the converging technologies agenda. Underlying it is a fluid conception of humanity that is captured by the ethically challenging notion of “enhancing evolution”

The Curious Case of the PDF Converter that Likes Mozart: Dissecting and Mitigating the Privacy Risk of Personal Cloud Apps

Third party apps that work on top of personal cloud services such as Google Drive and Dropbox, require access to the user's data in order to provide some functionality. Through detailed analysis of a hundred popular Google Drive apps from Google's Chrome store, we discover that the existing permission model is quite often misused: around two thirds of analyzed apps are over-privileged, i.e., they access more data than is needed for them to function. In this work, we analyze three different permission models that aim to discourage users from installing over-privileged apps. In experiments with 210 real users, we discover that the most successful permission model is our novel ensemble method that we call Far-reaching Insights. Far-reaching Insights inform the users about the data-driven insights that apps can make about them (e.g., their topics of interest, collaboration and activity patterns etc.) Thus, they seek to bridge the gap between what third parties can actually know about users and users perception of their privacy leakage. The efficacy of Far-reaching Insights in bridging this gap is demonstrated by our results, as Far-reaching Insights prove to be, on average, twice as effective as the current model in discouraging users from installing over-privileged apps. In an effort for promoting general privacy awareness, we deploy a publicly available privacy oriented app store that uses Far-reaching Insights. Based on the knowledge extracted from data of the store's users (over 115 gigabytes of Google Drive data from 1440 users with 662 installed apps), we also delineate the ecosystem for third-party cloud apps from the standpoint of developers and cloud providers. Finally, we present several general recommendations that can guide other future works in the area of privacy for the cloud

Commercialisation of Sustainable Energy Technologies

Commercialization efforts to diffuse sustainable energy technologies (SETs) need to be sustainable in terms of replication, spread and longevity, and should promote goal of sustainable development. Limited success of diffusion through government driven pathways illustrates the need for market-based approaches to SET commercialization. This paper presents a detailed treatment of the pre-requisites for adopting a private sector driven business model approach for successful diffusion of SETs. This is expected to integrate the processes of market transformation and entrepreneurship development with innovative regulatory, marketing, financing, incentive and intermediary mechanisms. Further, it envisages a public-private partnership driven-mechanism as a framework for diffusion leading to technology commercialization.Commercialisation, Energy, Financing, technology, Sustainable