Enhancing the performance of Decoupled Software Pipeline through Backward Slicing

The rapidly increasing number of cores available in multicore processors does not necessarily lead directly to a commensurate increase in performance: programs written in conventional languages, such as C, need careful restructuring, preferably automatically, before the benefits can be observed in improved run-times. Even then, much depends upon the intrinsic capacity of the original program for concurrent execution. The subject of this paper is the performance gains from the combined effect of the complementary techniques of the Decoupled Software Pipeline (DSWP) and (backward) slicing. DSWP extracts threadlevel parallelism from the body of a loop by breaking it into stages which are then executed pipeline style: in effect cutting across the control chain. Slicing, on the other hand, cuts the program along the control chain, teasing out finer threads that depend on different variables (or locations). parts that depend on different variables. The main contribution of this paper is to demonstrate that the application of DSWP, followed by slicing offers notable improvements over DSWP alone, especially when there is a loop-carried dependence that prevents the application of the simpler DOALL optimization. Experimental results show an improvement of a factor of ?1.6 for DSWP + slicing over DSWP alone and a factor of ?2.4 for DSWP + slicing over the original sequential code

BRAHMS: Novel middleware for integrated systems computation

Biological computational modellers are becoming increasingly interested in building large, eclectic models, including components on many different computational substrates, both biological and non-biological. At the same time, the rise of the philosophy of embodied modelling is generating a need to deploy biological models as controllers for robots in real-world environments. Finally, robotics engineers are beginning to find value in seconding biomimetic control strategies for use on practical robots. Together with the ubiquitous desire to make good on past software development effort, these trends are throwing up new challenges of intellectual and technological integration (for example across scales, across disciplines, and even across time) - challenges that are unmet by existing software frameworks. Here, we outline these challenges in detail, and go on to describe a newly developed software framework, BRAHMS. that meets them. BRAHMS is a tool for integrating computational process modules into a viable, computable system: its generality and flexibility facilitate integration across barriers, such as those described above, in a coherent and effective way. We go on to describe several cases where BRAHMS has been successfully deployed in practical situations. We also show excellent performance in comparison with a monolithic development approach. Additional benefits of developing in the framework include source code self-documentation, automatic coarse-grained parallelisation, cross-language integration, data logging, performance monitoring, and will include dynamic load-balancing and 'pause and continue' execution. BRAHMS is built on the nascent, and similarly general purpose, model markup language, SystemML. This will, in future, also facilitate repeatability and accountability (same answers ten years from now), transparent automatic software distribution, and interfacing with other SystemML tools. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Automated Testing For Software Process Automation

Robotic Process Automation is a way of automatizing business processes within short timespans. At the case company the initial automation step is implemented by business experts, rather than software developers. Using developers with limited software engineering experience allows for high speed but raises concerns of automation quality. One way to reduce these concerns is extensive testing, which takes up much time for integration developers. The aim of this thesis is to increase the quality of the development process, while minimizing impact on development time through test automation. The research is carried out as a part of the Robotic Process Automation project at the case company. The artifact produced by this thesis is a process for automatically testing software automation products. Automated testing of software automation solutions was found to be technically feasible, but difficult. Robotic process automation provides several novel challenges for test automation, but certain uses such as regression and integration testing are still possible. Benefits of the chosen approach are traceability for quality, developer confidence and potentially increased development speed. In addition, test automation facilitates the adoption of agile software development methods, such as continuous integration and deployment. The usage of continuous integration in relation to Robotic Process Automation was demonstrated via a newly developed workflow.Ohjelmistoautomaatio on nopea tapa automatisoida liiketoimintaprosessien rutiineja. Tapausyrityksessä automaation luovat ohjelmistonkehittäjien sijasta liiketoiminnan asiantuntijat. Käyttämällä alkukehittäjiä, joilla on vähäisesti kokemusta ohjelmistokehityksestä, saadaan nopeita ratkaisuja, mutta samalla yrityksellä on huolia laadusta. Laatua voidaan mitata testaamalla automaatioratkaisuja laajasti, mutta tähän menee huomattavasti aikaa. Tämän tutkielman tarkoituksena on testiautomaatiota käyttämällä nostaa kehitysprosessin laatua ilman että työmäärä kasvaa merkittävästi. Tutkimus suoritettiin osana tapausyrityksen ohjelmistorobotiikkaprojektia. Tutkielmassa luotiin prosessi, jossa automaattisesti testataan ohjelmistoautomaatioprosesseja. Testaus todettiin tutkimuksessa mahdolliseksi mutta käytännössä haasteelliseksi. Testauksessa ilmeni useita ongelmia, mutta muutamat ratkaisut kuten regressio- ja integraatiotestaus todettiin kuitenkin hyödyllisiksi. Lähestymistavan hyödyiksi todettiin laadun jäljitettävyyden, kehittäjien itseluottamuksen ja kehitysnopeuden kasvu. Lisäksi testiautomaatio mahdollistaa nykyaikaisten ketterien menetelmien kuten jatkuvan integraation käytön. Jatkuvan integraation käyttömahdollisuus demonstroitiin uudistetulla työtavalla