JUGE: An Infrastructure for Benchmarking Java Unit Test Generators

Researchers and practitioners have designed and implemented various automated test case generators to support effective software testing. Such generators exist for various languages (e.g., Java, C#, or Python) and for various platforms (e.g., desktop, web, or mobile applications). Such generators exhibit varying effectiveness and efficiency, depending on the testing goals they aim to satisfy (e.g., unit-testing of libraries vs. system-testing of entire applications) and the underlying techniques they implement. In this context, practitioners need to be able to compare different generators to identify the most suited one for their requirements, while researchers seek to identify future research directions. This can be achieved through the systematic execution of large-scale evaluations of different generators. However, the execution of such empirical evaluations is not trivial and requires a substantial effort to collect benchmarks, setup the evaluation infrastructure, and collect and analyse the results. In this paper, we present our JUnit Generation benchmarking infrastructure (JUGE) supporting generators (e.g., search-based, random-based, symbolic execution, etc.) seeking to automate the production of unit tests for various purposes (e.g., validation, regression testing, fault localization, etc.). The primary goal is to reduce the overall effort, ease the comparison of several generators, and enhance the knowledge transfer between academia and industry by standardizing the evaluation and comparison process. Since 2013, eight editions of a unit testing tool competition, co-located with the Search-Based Software Testing Workshop, have taken place and used and updated JUGE. As a result, an increasing amount of tools (over ten) from both academia and industry have been evaluated on JUGE, matured over the years, and allowed the identification of future research directions

Technology Assessment of eVTOL Personal Air Transportation System

This thesis intended to provide a holistic vision on the potential consequences of the introduction of emerging electrical Vertical Takeoff and Landing (e VTOL) Personal Air Transportation System (PATS) to contribute to the forming of public and policy opinion, and to assess the impacts and the feasibility of that. Instead of looking from a detailed vehicle design viewpoint, we tried to understand the need, the impacts, and the perceptions and the concerns of stakeholders. Thus, it was set a framework and methodology starting with a technology assessment point of view in the light of transportation system analysis. Limitations of the current ground and airline transportation systems, increasing congestion, poor block speed, combined with expanding population and demand for affordable on- demand mobility are driving the development of future transportation technology and policy. The third wave of aeronautics might be the answer and could bring about great new capabilities for society that would bring aviation into a new age of being relevant in daily lives since eVTOL PATS is envisioned as the next logical step in the natural progression in the history of disruptive transportation system innovations. However, there are a lot of questions. Although there was difficulty since the system was an emerging air transportation mode, an interdisciplinary study has been conducted to assess the impacts of developing such a capability. The research questions were determined to address the research objectives. What is the current state of mobility and eVTOL air transportation mode? What are the potential benefits of eVTOL air transportation mode for user and society? What are the perceptions of service providers, regulator, and user? What are the main challenges including technology, regulation, operation, social and environment aspects to enable the system? What are the enabling technologies? Nevertheless, with the results obtained lately from the research activities, revolutionary technologies and regulations are bringing us closer to eVTOL PATS reality every day. It can be argued that a new socio-technical transition will come about like the transition from horse drawn carriers to cars. Even if it is still a long way to go, it seems rather likely that the time has been arriving in the next decade. Their existence and operation would therefore need to be taken into consideration for today’s planning considerations and construction projects to be able to have this emerging air transportation mode available in the future. As the technology underlying eVTOL PATS evolves, wider eVTOL adoption across various markets is likely to be supported further if a set of key challenges such as safety and security, ease of use and autonomy, noise, infrastructure, and air traffic management are overcome. Achieving drastic improvements in ease of use, safety and community acceptable noise are the most critical steps towards the future feasibility of this market. Multi-use demos and demonstrating successful operation with early vehicles, namely eVTOL PATS prototype field operations, will create public acceptance and understanding of potentials in emerging air transportation mode for public good, use and learn in multiple applications. The overall perception of the user, service provider and regulator are positive, and the support is high. Shortly, a successful implementation and sustainable transition will depend on overcoming technological hurdles, regulatory frameworks, operational safety, cost competitiveness, and sensibilities of the affected communities. There is a need to enable people and goods to have the convenience of on-demand, point-to-point safe travel, further, anywhere in less travel time, through a network of pocket airports/vertiports, and there is a significant potential benefit so that policy makers, regulators and metropoles’ transportation planning departments should consider an inclusion of eVTOL air transportation mode into the scenarios and policies of the future.Esta tese pretende fornecer uma visão holística sobre as potenciais consequências da introdução do Sistema de Transporte Aéreo Pessoal (PATS) de Decolagem e Pouso Vertical elétrico emergente (e VTOL) para contribuir para a formação de opinião pública e política, e para avaliar os impactos e a viabilidade disso. Em vez de olhar de um ponto de vista detalhado o projeto do veículo, tentamos entender a necessidade, os impactos, as percepções e as preocupações das partes interessadas. Assim, foi definido um quadro e uma metodologia partindo de um ponto de vista de avaliação de tecnologia à luz da análise do sistema de transporte. As limitações dos atuais sistemas de transporte terrestre e aéreo, o aumento do congestionamento, a baixa velocidade do tráfego, combinados com a expansão da população e a mobilidade com procura acessível estão impulsionando o desenvolvimento de futuras tecnologias e políticas de transporte. A terceira onda da aeronáutica pode ser a resposta e pode trazer grandes novas capacidades para a sociedade que trariam a aviação para uma nova era de ser relevante na vida cotidiana, uma vez que o VTOL PATS é visto como o próximo passo lógico na progressão natural na história das inovações disruptivas do sistema de transporte. No entanto, há muitas perguntas. Embora tenha havido dificuldade por se tratar de um modo de transporte aéreo emergente, um estudo interdisciplinar foi realizado para avaliar os impactos do desenvolvimento de tal capacidade. As questões de investigação foram determinadas para atender aos objetivos do projeto. Qual é o estado atual da mobilidade e do modo de transporte aéreo eVTOL? Quais são os benefícios potenciais do modo de transporte aéreo eVTOL para o utilizador e a sociedade? Quais são as percepções dos provedores de serviços, regulador e utilizador? Quais são os principais desafios, incluindo tecnologia, regulamentação, operação, aspectos sociais e ambientais para habilitar o sistema? Quais são as tecnologias facilitadoras? No entanto, com os resultados obtidos ultimamente nas atividades de pesquisa, tecnologias e regulamentações revolucionárias estão nos aproximando cada dia mais da realidade do VTOL PATS. Pode-se argumentar que uma nova transição sócio-técnica ocorrerá como a transição de carruagens puxadas por cavalos para automóveis. Mesmo que ainda seja um longo caminho a percorrer, parece bastante provável que a hora esteja chegando na próxima década. A sua existência e operação, portanto, precisam ser levadas em consideração para as questões de planeamento e projetos de construção de hoje para poder ter esse modo de transporte aéreo emergente disponível no futuro. À medida que a tecnologia subjacente ao eVTOL PATS evolui, é provável que a adoção mais ampla do eVTOL em vários mercados seja ainda mais apoiada se um conjunto de desafios importantes, como segurança e proteção, facilidade de uso e autonomia, ruído, infraestrutura e gestão de tráfego aéreo forem superados. Alcançar melhorias drásticas na facilidade de uso, segurança e ruído aceitável pela comunidade são os passos mais críticos para a viabilidade futura deste mercado. Demonstrações multi-uso e demonstração de operação bem- sucedida com veículos iniciais, ou seja, operações de campo do protótipo eVTOL PATS, criarão aceitação pública e compreensão dos potenciais no modo de transporte aéreo emergente para o bem público, uso e aprendizado em várias aplicações. A percepção geral do utilizador, prestador de serviço e regulador é positiva, e o suporte é alto. Uma implementação bem-sucedida e uma transição sustentável dependerá da superação de obstáculos tecnológicos, estruturas regulatórias, segurança operacional, competitividade de custos e sensibilidade das comunidades afetadas. Há uma necessidade de permitir que pessoas e mercadorias tenham a conveniência de viagens seguras de que necessitam, ponto a ponto, e além disso, em qualquer lugar em menos tempo de viagem. Isso pode ser feito por meio de uma rede de aeroportos/vertiports, e há um benefício potencial significativo para que os formuladores de políticas, reguladores e departamentos de planeamento de transporte das grandes metrópoles considerem a inclusão do modo de transporte aéreo eVTOL nos cenários e políticas do futuro

Proceedings of the 9th Arab Society for Computer Aided Architectural Design (ASCAAD) international conference 2021 (ASCAAD 2021): architecture in the age of disruptive technologies: transformation and challenges.

The ASCAAD 2021 conference theme is Architecture in the age of disruptive technologies: transformation and challenges. The theme addresses the gradual shift in computational design from prototypical morphogenetic-centered associations in the architectural discourse. This imminent shift of focus is increasingly stirring a debate in the architectural community and is provoking a much needed critical questioning of the role of computation in architecture as a sole embodiment and enactment of technical dimensions, into one that rather deliberately pursues and embraces the humanities as an ultimate aspiration

Istanbul: the making of a global city between East and West

From the outset global cities have been primarily seen as outcomes of changes in global economic capitalism. This has led to critical responses arguing for the need to consider more centrally the role of politics in global city formation, and in particular the need to critically analyse city-state relations in varying geographical contexts. Three dominant strands of critique have emerged: a literature on state rescaling (primarily based on experiences of North American and Western European cities), a literature on developmental states (on East Asian cities) and a literature on postcolonial urban theory (primarily on cities in the Global South). Although these approaches all argue for a re-focusing on the role of the political in global city formation, they do not easily fit other geographical and geopolitical contexts. This thesis aims to contribute to the debate by focusing on the case of Istanbul as Turkey s emerging global city. Based on semi-structured interviews, this research challenges some key assumptions of global cities research, state rescaling approach, developmental approach and postcolonial urban theory through the case of Istanbul. It also provides a critical conceptual understanding of Istanbul s globalisation, argues the role of actors in global city making and will demonstrate that contrary to what is generally claimed in the literature, the relationship between Istanbul (city) and Turkey (state) could be assessed as more harmonious rather than tension-filled. Furthermore, the research goes beyond revealing the points where Istanbul conforms or does not conform to the existing approaches, and addresses the very recent academic debates between those who believe that we need new theories to understand the dynamics and impacts of the actual global urbanisation and those who suggest that instead of calling for new theories there is a need to examine and improve the existing approaches. To do that, my research develops an alternative conceptualisation -- the in-between city - that might cover the cities located in the region spreading from Eastern Europe to Central Asia. The argument behind this concept is that owing to their intersectional positions between East and West, and the continual links between their imperial and global periods, cities such as Istanbul, Vienna, Budapest, St. Petersburg or Moscow, present more hybrid characteristics in comparison to the cities categorised by the existing approaches

Internationalizing Honors

This monograph takes a “holistic approach to internationalization. [It] highlights how honors programs and colleges have gone beyond providing often one-time, short-term international experiences for their students and made global issues and experiences central features of their honors curricular and co-curricular programming. It presents case studies that can serve as models for honors programs and colleges seeking to initiate and further their internationalization efforts and highlights the latest research on the impact of internationalization on our students, campuses, and communities.” * * * “Our hope is that this monograph will serve multiple audiences: faculty wishing to develop new globally focused courses or partnerships; administrators looking to inspire and support faculty; advancement officers working to encourage donors to recognize the value of internationalizing campuses; and international education professionals striving to create and advance programs for some of the most talented and motivated students on their campuses. Without doubt, as we face the increasingly complicated global challenges of the twenty-first century, societal needs escalate—the need for greater understanding of the common concerns of all humanity; the need for celebrating, not fearfully shrinking from, the rich diversity of our world; and the need for broader education than the traditional classroom can provide to prepare our students to tackle pressing global issues and to lead in a complex and interdependent world. These crucial needs can be met, at least in part, through the internationalization of higher education and, specifically, of honors education.” Acknowledgments Introduction • Mary Kay Mulvaney and Kim Klein PART I: Internationalizing Honors at Home Making the Global Familiar: Building an International Focus into the Honors Curriculum • Erin E. Edgington and Daniel C. Villanueva Internationalizing with Intention: A Case Study of the Mahurin Honors College • Craig T. Cobane and Audra Jennings Honors Internationalization at Washington State University: A Comprehensive Experience • Kim Andersen and Christine K. Oakley Intercultural Conversations: Honors-Led Partnerships to Engage International Students on Campus • Robert J. Pampel Keeping the Program Alive: Internationalizing Honors through Post-Travel Programming • Kevin W. Dean and Michael B. Jendzurski PART II: Internationalizing Honors through International Partnerships “Let’s Get a Coffee!”: A Transformative International Honors Partnership • Leslie Kaplan, Sophia Zevgoli, and Andres Gallo Balancing International Aspirations with Honors Expectations: Expanding Honors to a Branch Campus in Florence, Italy • James G. Snyder and Vanessa Nichol-Peters “Same Same, But Different”: Trans-Nationalizing Honors in a U.S. Branch Campus • Jesse Gerlach Ulmer The Fulbright International Education Administrators Seminars: Pathways to International Partnerships • Rochelle Gregory, Kyle C. Kopko, and M. Grant Norton Transformative Learning Abroad for Honors Students: Leveraging High-Impact Practices at Global Partner Institutions • Craig Wallace Drawing on Gifts of International Students to Develop International Partnerships • Kevin W. Dean The Honors Thesis for Health Sciences Students: A Service Abroad Model • Misty Guy, Heidi Evans Knowles, Stephanie Cook, Zane Cooley, and Ellen Buckner Honors Abroad through Third-Party Providers • Susan E. Dinan PART III: Assessing Honors Internationalization Early Impact: Assessing Global-Mindedness and Intercultural Competence in a First-Year Honors Abroad Course • Michael Carignan and Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler Assessing Honors Internationalization: A Case Study of Lloyd International Honors College at UNC Greensboro • Chris J. Kirkman and Omar H. Ali The Long-Term Impact of Study Abroad on Honors Program Alumni • Mary Kay Mulvaney About the Authors About the NCHC Monograph Serie

Sustainability of engineered rivers in arid lands: Euphrates-Tigris and Rio Grande/Bravo

This publication arose from a Policy Research Project on the sustainability of river systems. Our team of faculty members and graduate students studied water management issues in two river systems—Euphrates-Tigris (ET) and Rio Grande/Bravo-Conchos (RG). (The Rio Grande is called the Ri´o Bravo in Mexico, hence we often use both names). Occasionally we also refer to the Colorado River because it is managed together with the Rio Grande/Bravo by the same international agency, the International Border and Water Commission (IBWC). These rivers are part of a ten-river project called Sustainability of Engineered Rivers in Arid Lands (SERIDAS)

Advanced Signal Processing Techniques Applied to Power Systems Control and Analysis

The work published in this book is related to the application of advanced signal processing in smart grids, including power quality, data management, stability and economic management in presence of renewable energy sources, energy storage systems, and electric vehicles. The distinct architecture of smart grids has prompted investigations into the use of advanced algorithms combined with signal processing methods to provide optimal results. The presented applications are focused on data management with cloud computing, power quality assessment, photovoltaic power plant control, and electrical vehicle charge stations, all supported by modern AI-based optimization methods

Evolutionary design assistants for architecture

In its parallel pursuit of an increased competitivity for design offices and more pleasurable and easier workflows for designers, artificial design intelligence is a technical, intellectual, and political challenge. While human-machine cooperation has become commonplace through Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools, a more improved collaboration and better support appear possible only through an endeavor into a kind of artificial design intelligence, which is more sensitive to the human perception of affairs. Considered as part of the broader Computational Design studies, the research program of this quest can be called Artificial / Autonomous / Automated Design (AD). The current available level of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for design is limited and a viable aim for current AD would be to develop design assistants that are capable of producing drafts for various design tasks. Thus, the overall aim of this thesis is the development of approaches, techniques, and tools towards artificial design assistants that offer a capability for generating drafts for sub-tasks within design processes. The main technology explored for this aim is Evolutionary Computation (EC), and the target design domain is architecture. The two connected research questions of the study concern, first, the investigation of the ways to develop an architectural design assistant, and secondly, the utilization of EC for the development of such assistants. While developing approaches, techniques, and computational tools for such an assistant, the study also carries out a broad theoretical investigation into the main problems, challenges, and requirements towards such assistants on a rather overall level. Therefore, the research is shaped as a parallel investigation of three main threads interwoven along several levels, moving from a more general level to specific applications. The three research threads comprise, first, theoretical discussions and speculations with regard to both existing literature and the proposals and applications of the thesis; secondly, proposals for descriptive and prescriptive models, mappings, summary illustrations, task structures, decomposition schemes, and integratory frameworks; and finally, experimental applications of these proposals. This tripartite progression allows an evaluation of each proposal both conceptually and practically; thereby, enabling a progressive improvement of the understanding regarding the research question, while producing concrete outputs on the way. Besides theoretical and interpretative examinations, the thesis investigates its subject through a set of practical and speculative proposals, which function as both research instruments and the outputs of the study. The first main output of the study is the “design_proxy” approach (d_p), which is an integrated approach for draft making design assistants. It is an outcome of both theoretical examinations and experimental applications, and proposes an integration of, (1) flexible and relaxed task definitions and representations (instead of strict formalisms), (2) intuitive interfaces that make use of usual design media, (3) evaluation of solution proposals through their similarity to given examples, and (4) a dynamic evolutionary approach for solution generation. The design_proxy approach may be useful for AD researchers that aim at developing practical design assistants, as has been examined and demonstrated with the two applications, i.e., design_proxy.graphics and design_proxy.layout. The second main output, the “Interleaved Evolutionary Algorithm” (IEA, or Interleaved EA) is a novel evolutionary algorithm proposed and used as the underlying generative mechanism of design_proxybased design assistants. The Interleaved EA is a dynamic, adaptive, and multi-objective EA, in which one of the objectives leads the evolution until its fitness progression stagnates; in the sense that the settings and fitness values of this objective is used for most evolutionary decisions. In this way, the Interleaved EA enables the use of different settings and operators for each of the objectives within an overall task, which would be the same for all objectives in a regular multi-objective EA. This property gives the algorithm a modular structure, which offers an improvable method for the utilization of domain-specific knowledge for each sub-task, i.e., objective. The Interleaved EA can be used by Evolutionary Computation (EC) researchers and by practitioners who employ EC for their tasks. As a third main output, the “Architectural Stem Cells Framework” is a conceptual framework for architectural design assistants. It proposes a dynamic and multi-layered method for combining a set of design assistants for larger tasks in architectural design. The first component of the framework is a layer-based, parallel task decomposition approach, which aims at obtaining a dynamic parallelization of sub-tasks within a more complicated problem. The second component of the framework is a conception for the development mechanisms for building drafts, i.e., Architectural Stem Cells (ASC). An ASC can be conceived as a semantically marked geometric structure, which contains the information that specifies the possibilities and constraints for how an abstract building may develop from an undetailed stage to a fully developed building draft. ASCs are required for re-integrating the separated task layers of an architectural problem through solution-based development. The ASC Framework brings together many of the ideas of this thesis for a practical research agenda and it is presented to the AD researchers in architecture. Finally, the “design_proxy.layout” (d_p.layout) is an architectural layout design assistant based on the design_proxy approach and the IEA. The system uses a relaxed problem definition (producing draft layouts) and a flexible layout representation that permits the overlapping of design units and boundaries. User interaction with the system is carried out through intuitive 2D graphics and the functional evaluations are performed by measuring the similarity of a proposal to existing layouts. Functioning in an integrated manner, these properties make the system a practicable and enjoying design assistant, which was demonstrated through two workshop cases. The d_p.layout is a versatile and robust layout design assistant that can be used by architects in their design processes