Maintaining the Health of Software Monitors

Software health management (SWHM) techniques complement the rigorous verification and validation processes that are applied to safety-critical systems prior to their deployment. These techniques are used to monitor deployed software in its execution environment, serving as the last line of defense against the effects of a critical fault. SWHM monitors use information from the specification and implementation of the monitored software to detect violations, predict possible failures, and help the system recover from faults. Changes to the monitored software, such as adding new functionality or fixing defects, therefore, have the potential to impact the correctness of both the monitored software and the SWHM monitor. In this work, we describe how the results of a software change impact analysis technique, Directed Incremental Symbolic Execution (DiSE), can be applied to monitored software to identify the potential impact of the changes on the SWHM monitor software. The results of DiSE can then be used by other analysis techniques, e.g., testing, debugging, to help preserve and improve the integrity of the SWHM monitor as the monitored software evolves

An evaluation of energy expenditure estimation by three activity monitors

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in European Journal of Sport Science, 13(6), 681 - 688, 2013 [date of publication] [copyright Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/ 10.1080/17461391.2013.776639.A comparative evaluation of the ability of activity monitors to predict energy expenditure (EE) is necessary to aid in the investigation of the effect of EE on health. The purpose of this study was to validate and compare the RT3, the SWA and the IDEEA at measuring EE in adults and children. Twenty-six adults and 22 children completed a resting metabolic rate (RMR) test and performed four treadmill activities at 3 km.h−1, 6 km.h−1, 6 km.h−1 at a 10% incline, 9 km.h−1. EE was assessed throughout the protocol by the RT3, the SWA and the IDEEA. Indirect calorimetry (IC) was used as a criterion measure of EE against which each monitor was compared. Mean bias was assessed by subtracting EE from IC from EE from each monitor for each activity. Limit of agreement plots were used to assess the agreement between each monitor and IC. Limits of agreement for resting EE were narrowest for the RT3 for adults and children. Although the IDEEA displayed the smallest mean bias between measures at 3 km.h−1, 6 km.h−1 and 9 km.h−1 in adults and children, the SWA agreed closest with IC at 6 km.h−1, 6 km.h−1 at a 10% incline and 9 km.h−1. Limits of agreement were closest for the SWA at 9 km.h−1 in adults representing 42% of the overall mean EE. Although the RT3 provided the best estimate of resting EE in adults and children, the SWA provided the most accurate estimate of EE across a range of physical activity intensities

A feasibility study of wearable activity monitors for pre-adolescent school-age children.

IntroductionUnderstanding physical activity is key in the fight against childhood obesity. The objective of this study was to examine the feasibility of using certain wearable devices to measure physical activity among children.MethodsA qualitative study was conducted with 25 children aged 7 to 10 years to assess acceptability and compliance of wearable activity devices in this age group. During March through August 2012, children participated in a 4-week study of 3 accelerometer models and a heart rate monitor. Children were asked to use a different device each week for 7 consecutive days. Children and their parents completed structured interviews after using each device; they also completed a final exit interview.ResultsThe wrist-worn Polar Active was the device most preferred by children and was associated with the highest level of compliance. Devices that are comfortable to wear, fit properly, have engaging features, and are waterproof increase feasibility and are associated with higher levels of compliance.ConclusionThe wrist-worn device was the most feasible for measuring physical activity among children aged 7 to 10 years. These findings will inform researchers in selecting tools for measuring children's physical activity

Data Mining in Health-Care: Issues and a Research Agenda

While data mining has become a much-lauded tool in business and related fields, its role in the healthcare arena is still being explored. Currently, most applications of data mining in healthcare can be categorized into two areas: decision support for clinical practice, and policy planning/decision making. However, it is challenging to find empirical literature in this area since a substantial amount of existing work in data mining for health care is conceptual in nature. In this paper, we review the challenges that limit the progress made in this area and present considerations for the future of data mining in healthcare

Device-Centric Monitoring for Mobile Device Management

The ubiquity of computing devices has led to an increased need to ensure not only that the applications deployed on them are correct with respect to their specifications, but also that the devices are used in an appropriate manner, especially in situations where the device is provided by a party other than the actual user. Much work which has been done on runtime verification for mobile devices and operating systems is mostly application-centric, resulting in global, device-centric properties (e.g. the user may not send more than 100 messages per day across all applications) being difficult or impossible to verify. In this paper we present a device-centric approach to runtime verify the device behaviour against a device policy with the different applications acting as independent components contributing to the overall behaviour of the device. We also present an implementation for Android devices, and evaluate it on a number of device-centric policies, reporting the empirical results obtained.Comment: In Proceedings FESCA 2016, arXiv:1603.0837

GSO: Designing a Well-Founded Service Ontology to Support Dynamic Service Discovery and Composition

A pragmatic and straightforward approach to semantic service discovery is to match inputs and outputs of user requests with the input and output requirements of registered service descriptions. This approach can be extended by using pre-conditions, effects and semantic annotations (meta-data) in an attempt to increase discovery accuracy. While on one hand these additions help improve discovery accuracy, on the other hand complexity is added as service users need to add more information elements to their service requests. In this paper we present an approach that aims at facilitating the representation of service requests by service users, without loss of accuracy. We introduce a Goal-Based Service Framework (GSF) that uses the concept of goal as an abstraction to represent service requests. This paper presents the core concepts and relations of the Goal-Based Service Ontology (GSO), which is a fundamental component of the GSF, and discusses how the framework supports semantic service discovery and composition. GSO provides a set of primitives and relations between goals, tasks and services. These primitives allow a user to represent its goals, and a supporting platform to discover or compose services that fulfil them

WEB Server monitoring

This paper introduces web-server monitoring, explaining its importance and describing various monitoring concepts and types. A set of reasons of web-server monitoring are enumerated. Then, in a monitoring strategy, various types of monitor are presented along with a comparison between deep and shallow monitors. Monitoring process meaning and elements are described, revealing that the monitoring process is largely dictated by the monitoring software package in use. A comparison between internal and external monitoring methods, benefits and limitations of each of them, is done. The managing problems are discussed, and the importance of maintain highest possible website uptime and availability is revealed. Finally, we argue that an immediate notification of problems will significantly increase the chance that the problem can be fixed without affecting customers or users.monitoring systems, web server, monitoring process

Tracking Chart 2009 Top of the World, Bangladesh

Outlines the specific problems that were found by monitors and the action taken by Top of the World in response to an FLA audit of a factory in Bangladesh

Tracking Report 2009 Outdoor Cap, Bangladesh 38020586DVV

This document is part of a digital collection provided by the Martin P. Catherwood Library, ILR School, Cornell University, pertaining to the effects of globalization on the workplace worldwide. Special emphasis is placed on labor rights, working conditions, labor market changes, and union organizing.FLA_2009_Outdoor_Cap_TC_Bangladesh_38020586DVV.pdf: 22 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Dogs are not better than humans at detecting coherent motion

The ability to perceive motion is one of the main properties of the visual system. Sensitivity in detecting coherent motion has been thoroughly investigated in humans, where thresholds for motion detection are well below 10% of coherence, i.e. of the proportion of dots coherently moving in the same direction, among a background of randomly moving dots. Equally low thresholds have been found in other species, including monkeys, cats and seals. Given the lack of data from the domestic dog, we tested 5 adult dogs on a conditioned discrimination task with random dot displays. In addition, five adult humans were tested in the same condition for comparative purposes. The mean threshold for motion detection in our dogs was 42% of coherence, while that of humans was as low as 5%. Therefore, dogs have a much higher threshold of coherent motion detection than humans, and possibly also than phylogenetically closer species that have been tested in similar experimental conditions. Various factors, including the relative role of global and local motion processing and experience with the experimental stimuli may have contributed to this result. Overall, this finding questions the general claim on dogs' high performance in detecting motion