2 research outputs found
Software Fault Localization Using N -gram Analysis
Abstract. A major portion of software development effort is spent in testing and debugging. Execution sequence collected in the testing phase can be a rich source of information for locating the fault in the program, but the exact execution sequence of a program, i.e., the actual order of execution of the statements in the program, is seldom used due to the huge volume. In this study, we apply data mining techniques on this data to reduce the debugging time by narrowing down the possible location of the fault. Our method applies N -gram analysis to rank the executable statements of a software by level of suspicion. We conducted three case studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method. We also present comparison with other approaches, and illustrate the potential of our method
A normative inference approach for optimal sample sizes in decisions from experience
“Decisions from experience” (DFE) refers to a body of work that emerged in
research on behavioral decision making over the last decade. One of the major
experimental paradigms employed to study experience-based choice is the
“sampling paradigm,” which serves as a model of decision making under limited
knowledge about the statistical structure of the world. In this paradigm
respondents are presented with two payoff distributions, which, in contrast to
standard approaches in behavioral economics, are specified not in terms of
explicit outcome-probability information, but by the opportunity to sample
outcomes from each distribution without economic consequences. Participants
are encouraged to explore the distributions until they feel confident enough
to decide from which they would prefer to draw from in a final trial involving
real monetary payoffs. One commonly employed measure to characterize the
behavior of participants in the sampling paradigm is the sample size, that is,
the number of outcome draws which participants choose to obtain from each
distribution prior to terminating sampling. A natural question that arises in
this context concerns the “optimal” sample size, which could be used as a
normative benchmark to evaluate human sampling behavior in DFE. In this
theoretical study, we relate the DFE sampling paradigm to the classical
statistical decision theoretic literature and, under a probabilistic inference
assumption, evaluate optimal sample sizes for DFE. In our treatment we go
beyond analytically established results by showing how the classical
statistical decision theoretic framework can be used to derive optimal sample
sizes under arbitrary, but numerically evaluable, constraints. Finally, we
critically evaluate the value of deriving optimal sample sizes under this
framework as testable predictions for the experimental study of sampling
behavior in DFE