PWiseHA: Application of Harmony Search Algorithm for Test Suites Generation using Pairwise Techniques

Pairwise testing is an approach that tests every possible combinations of values of parameters. In this approach, number of all combinations are selected to ensure all possible pairs of parameter values are included in the final test suite. Generating test cases is the most active research area in pairwise testing, but the generation process of the efficient test suite with minimum size can be considered as one of optimization problem. In this research paper we articulate the problem of finding a pairwise final test suite as a search problem and the application of harmony search algorithm to solve it. Also, in this research paper, we developed a pairwise software testing tool called PWiseHA that will generate test cases using harmony search algorithm and this PWiseHA is well optimized. Finally, the result obtained from PWiseHA shows a competitive results if matched with the result of existing pairwise testing tools. PWiseHA is still in prototype form, an obvious starting point for future work

Using LTE-Sim in New Hanover Decision Algorithm for 2-Tier Macrocell-Femtocell LTE Network

Deployment of mini macrocell base stations can also be referred to as femtocells improve quality of service of indoor and outdoor users. Nevertheless, mobility management remains a key issue with regards to their deployment. This paper is leaned towards this issue, with in-depth focus on the most important aspect of mobility management - handover. In handover management, making a handover decision in the LTE two-tier macrocell femtocell network is a crucial research area. Decision algorithms in this research, are classified and comparatively analyzed according to received signal strength, user equipment speed, cost function and interference. However, it was observed that most of the discussed decision algorithms fail to consider cell selection with hybrid access policy in a single macrocell multiple femtocell scenario, another observation was a majority of these algorithms lack the incorporation of user equipment residence parameter. Not including this parameter boosts the number of unnecessary handover occurrence. To deal with these issues, a sophisticated handover decision algorithm is proposed. The proposed algorithm considers the user’s velocity, received signal strength, residence time as well as the femtocell base station’s access policy. Simulation results have shown that the proposed algorithm reduces the number of unnecessary handovers when compared to conventional received signal strength based handover decision algorithm

EFFICIENT AND GUARANTEED QUALITY OF SERVICE (QOS) ROUTING ALGORITHM FOR VEHICULAR NETWORKS (VANETS)

The vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) is a technology that provides mobile vehicles with endless possibilities of applications, including safety messaging exchange, real-time traffic information sharing and route condition updates etc. This network is characterized by rapid topology changes due to the high displacement of vehicles making Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning a challenging task especially for real-time and multimedia applications. Providing priority to certain traffic types has been widely used in V ANET for selecting a stable route with QoS constraints. This brings along another challenging task in V ANET environment. In an effort to provide QoS in VANET, the IEEE 802.1lp physical layer (regarded as VANET MAC protocol) experiences a huge amount of packet loss rate as a result of data collisions. Somehow its performance can be improved by using Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) techniques

EFFICIENT AND GUARANTEED QUALITY OF SERVICE (QOS) ROUTING ALGORITHM FOR VEHICULAR NETWORKS (VANETS)

The vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) is a technology that provides mobile vehicles with endless possibilities of applications, including safety messaging exchange, real-time traffic information sharing and route condition updates etc. This network is characterized by rapid topology changes due to the high displacement of vehicles making Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning a challenging task especially for real-time and multimedia applications. Providing priority to certain traffic types has been widely used in V ANET for selecting a stable route with QoS constraints. This brings along another challenging task in V ANET environment. In an effort to provide QoS in VANET, the IEEE 802.1lp physical layer (regarded as VANET MAC protocol) experiences a huge amount of packet loss rate as a result of data collisions. Somehow its performance can be improved by using Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) techniques

SCIPOG: Seeding and constraint support in IPOG strategy for combinatorial t-way testing to generate optimum test cases

Combinatorial t-way technique is efficient in generating test data and addressing the problem of combinatorial explosion. When constructing a test case, numerous literatures classified t-way strategies into two basic approaches as either One-test-at-a-time approach (OTAT) and One-parameter-at-a-time approach (OPAT). At least three major challenge groups can be encountered when creating test cases. The first one is provision of parameters seeding support that will improve the software quality. The second involves automatically obtaining data regarding parameter constraints and identifying interactions between system components. The last one is the execution speed and the test suite size. However, in all the existing OPAT t-way strategies, given that the system is loaded with this information, testing present-day software systems is made difficult or impossible. This study presents an effective combinatorial t-way test case generation strategy named Seeding and Constraint support in In-Parameter-Order Generalized (SCIPOG), to develop an improved paired testing approach. However, the study examines the present state-of-the-art and compares several OPAT strategies found in the literature. Moreover, experiments are discussed as part of this process to demonstrate the correctness of the implementation. When statistically analyzing the findings, two non-parametric tests—the Wilcoxon Rank and Friedman tests–were run. SCIPOG, however, produced competitive results. Finally, SCIPOG showed the efficiency of the two proposed methods, which are seeding and constraint support in IPOG strategy

Development of Robot to Improve Learning of Programming Skills among Students

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR4.0) has shifted the mindsets of engineering students on the importance of IT skills for current and future engineering related jobs. Nowadays, programming is the most fundamental skill that needs to be learnt by the students using mBot technology. The mBot technology is consider as programmable educational robot designed for beginners to learn basic programming concepts which can be assessed and evaluated via bloom's taxonomy framework. It can be a daunting task to learn programming, especially to new students who do not have any prior experience in coding. Average and low performing students are lacking algorithmic skills, where they could not visualize how the programming concepts work. Therefore, this paper presents the effectiveness of using robot to improve students’ learning of the programming concepts. In designing the learning modules, bloom’s taxonomy model and problem-based learning are adopted using mBot. Moreover, a low-cost and pre-programmed line follower robot has been used to demonstrate the outputs from the programs written in a more interactive manner. For the evaluation, pre-test and post-test of Quasi experimental design have been applied involving 40 students who were identified and categorized as average and low performing groups in the course.  The findings show that a significant improvement has been observed from students’ performance and motivation.  As such, the students’ performance is measured based on two phases of experiments. Whereas the students’ motivation is measured based on four motivation attributes: self-efficacy, active learning strategy, programming learning value and performance goal