A document based traceability model for test management

Software testing has became more complicated in the emergence of distributed network, real-time environment, third party software enablers and the need to test system at multiple integration levels. These scenarios have created more concern over the quality of software testing. The quality of software has been deteriorating due to inefficient and ineffective testing activities. One of the main flaws is due to ineffective use of test management to manage software documentations. In documentations, it is difficult to detect and trace bugs in some related documents of which traceability is the major concern. Currently, various studies have been conducted on test management, however very few have focused on document traceability in particular to support the error propagation with respect to documentation. The objective of this thesis is to develop a new traceability model that integrates software engineering documents to support test management. The artefacts refer to requirements, design, source code, test description and test result. The proposed model managed to tackle software traceability in both forward and backward propagations by implementing multi-bidirectional pointer. This platform enabled the test manager to navigate and capture a set of related artefacts to support test management process. A new prototype was developed to facilitate observation of software traceability on all related artefacts across the entire documentation lifecycle. The proposed model was then applied to a case study of a finished software development project with a complete set of software documents called the On-Board Automobile (OBA). The proposed model was evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively using the feature analysis, precision and recall, and expert validation. The evaluation results proved that the proposed model and its prototype were justified and significant to support test management

Reverse Engineering Heterogeneous Applications

Nowadays a large majority of software systems are built using various technologies that in turn rely on different languages (e.g. Java, XML, SQL etc.). We call such systems heterogeneous applications (HAs). By contrast, we call software systems that are written in one language homogeneous applications. In HAs the information regarding the structure and the behaviour of the system is spread across various components and languages and the interactions between different application elements could be hidden. In this context applying existing reverse engineering and quality assurance techniques developed for homogeneous applications is not enough. These techniques have been created to measure quality or provide information about one aspect of the system and they cannot grasp the complexity of HAs. In this dissertation we present our approach to support the analysis and evolution of HAs based on: (1) a unified first-class description of HAs and, (2) a meta-model that reifies the concept of horizontal and vertical dependencies between application elements at different levels of abstraction. We implemented our approach in two tools, MooseEE and Carrack. The first is an extension of the Moose platform for software and data analysis and contains our unified meta-model for HAs. The latter is an engine to infer derived dependencies that can support the analysis of associations among the heterogeneous elements composing HA. We validate our approach and tools by case studies on industrial and open-source JEAs which demonstrate how we can handle the complexity of such applications and how we can solve problems deriving from their heterogeneous nature

Intensional Cyberforensics

This work focuses on the application of intensional logic to cyberforensic analysis and its benefits and difficulties are compared with the finite-state-automata approach. This work extends the use of the intensional programming paradigm to the modeling and implementation of a cyberforensics investigation process with backtracing of event reconstruction, in which evidence is modeled by multidimensional hierarchical contexts, and proofs or disproofs of claims are undertaken in an eductive manner of evaluation. This approach is a practical, context-aware improvement over the finite state automata (FSA) approach we have seen in previous work. As a base implementation language model, we use in this approach a new dialect of the Lucid programming language, called Forensic Lucid, and we focus on defining hierarchical contexts based on intensional logic for the distributed evaluation of cyberforensic expressions. We also augment the work with credibility factors surrounding digital evidence and witness accounts, which have not been previously modeled. The Forensic Lucid programming language, used for this intensional cyberforensic analysis, formally presented through its syntax and operational semantics. In large part, the language is based on its predecessor and codecessor Lucid dialects, such as GIPL, Indexical Lucid, Lucx, Objective Lucid, and JOOIP bound by the underlying intensional programming paradigm.Comment: 412 pages, 94 figures, 18 tables, 19 algorithms and listings; PhD thesis; v2 corrects some typos and refs; also available on Spectrum at http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/977460

Data Driven Adaptation of Heterogeneous Service-Oriented Processes

Η με βάση τα δεδομένα προσαρμογή διαδικασιών αποτελεί μια επέκταση της έννοιας των Δυναμικών και με βάση τα Δεδομένα Καθοδηγουμενων Συστήματων (DDDAS) όπως αυτά έχουν καθοριστεί από την Δαρεμά. Συγεκριμένα όπως και στα DDDAS συστήματα η προσέγγιση μας επιτρέπει την προσφορά προσαρμοζόμενων διαδικασιών χρησιμοποιώντας διαθέσιμες πληροφορίες και υπηρεσίες. H προσφορά προσαρμοζόμενων διαδικασιών περιλαμβάνει την αναγνώριση και χρήση πιθανών εναλλακτικών μονοπατιών εκτέλεσης (ή διαδρομών) για την επίτευξη των στόχων και υπό-στόχων της κάθε διαδικασίας. Τα εναλλακτικά μονοπάτια λαμβάνουν υπόψη και χρησιμοποιούν σχετικές πληροφορίες ή/και υπηρεσίες (ή συνθέσεις υπηρεσιών). Για την αναζήτηση των πιθανών εναλλακτικών χρησιμοποιούνται τεχνικές από το χώρο της Τεχνητής Νοημοσύνης Σχεδιασμού (AI Planning) και της υπολογιστικής Πλαισίου (Context-Aware computing) κατά τον χρόνο διάθεσης της διαδικασίας. Κατά τον υπολογισμό των πιθανών εναλλακτικών, στόχος της προσέγγισης μας είναι η μείωση των βημάτων εκτέλεσης, δλδ του πλήθους των εργασιών της διαδικασίας που έχουν οριστείIn principle the Data-Driven Process Adaptation (DDPA) approach is based on the concept of Dynamic Data Driven Application Systems (DDDAS) as this is stated by Darema in [8]. In accordance to the DDDAS notion such systems support the utilization of appropriate information at specific decision points so as to make real systems more efficient. In this regard, DDPA accommodates the provision of adaptable service processes by exploiting the use of information available to the process environment in addition to existing services. Adaptation in the context of our approach includes the identification and use of possible alternatives for the achievement of the goals and sub-goals defined in a process; alternatives include the utilization of available related information and/or services (or service chains). Data-Driven adaptation incorporates AI planning and Context-Aware Computing techniques to support the identification of possible alternatives at deployment time. When calculating the possible alternatives the goal of our approach is to reduce the number of steps, i.e. number of process tasks, defined in the original process

Políticas de Copyright de Publicações Científicas em Repositórios Institucionais: O Caso do INESC TEC

A progressiva transformação das práticas científicas, impulsionada pelo desenvolvimento das novas Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC), têm possibilitado aumentar o acesso à informação, caminhando gradualmente para uma abertura do ciclo de pesquisa. Isto permitirá resolver a longo prazo uma adversidade que se tem colocado aos investigadores, que passa pela existência de barreiras que limitam as condições de acesso, sejam estas geográficas ou financeiras. Apesar da produção científica ser dominada, maioritariamente, por grandes editoras comerciais, estando sujeita às regras por estas impostas, o Movimento do Acesso Aberto cuja primeira declaração pública, a Declaração de Budapeste (BOAI), é de 2002, vem propor alterações significativas que beneficiam os autores e os leitores. Este Movimento vem a ganhar importância em Portugal desde 2003, com a constituição do primeiro repositório institucional a nível nacional. Os repositórios institucionais surgiram como uma ferramenta de divulgação da produção científica de uma instituição, com o intuito de permitir abrir aos resultados da investigação, quer antes da publicação e do próprio processo de arbitragem (preprint), quer depois (postprint), e, consequentemente, aumentar a visibilidade do trabalho desenvolvido por um investigador e a respetiva instituição. O estudo apresentado, que passou por uma análise das políticas de copyright das publicações científicas mais relevantes do INESC TEC, permitiu não só perceber que as editoras adotam cada vez mais políticas que possibilitam o auto-arquivo das publicações em repositórios institucionais, como também que existe todo um trabalho de sensibilização a percorrer, não só para os investigadores, como para a instituição e toda a sociedade. A produção de um conjunto de recomendações, que passam pela implementação de uma política institucional que incentive o auto-arquivo das publicações desenvolvidas no âmbito institucional no repositório, serve como mote para uma maior valorização da produção científica do INESC TEC.The progressive transformation of scientific practices, driven by the development of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), which made it possible to increase access to information, gradually moving towards an opening of the research cycle. This opening makes it possible to resolve, in the long term, the adversity that has been placed on researchers, which involves the existence of barriers that limit access conditions, whether geographical or financial. Although large commercial publishers predominantly dominate scientific production and subject it to the rules imposed by them, the Open Access movement whose first public declaration, the Budapest Declaration (BOAI), was in 2002, proposes significant changes that benefit the authors and the readers. This Movement has gained importance in Portugal since 2003, with the constitution of the first institutional repository at the national level. Institutional repositories have emerged as a tool for disseminating the scientific production of an institution to open the results of the research, both before publication and the preprint process and postprint, increase the visibility of work done by an investigator and his or her institution. The present study, which underwent an analysis of the copyright policies of INESC TEC most relevant scientific publications, allowed not only to realize that publishers are increasingly adopting policies that make it possible to self-archive publications in institutional repositories, all the work of raising awareness, not only for researchers but also for the institution and the whole society. The production of a set of recommendations, which go through the implementation of an institutional policy that encourages the self-archiving of the publications developed in the institutional scope in the repository, serves as a motto for a greater appreciation of the scientific production of INESC TEC