Using Genetic Improvement and Code Transplants to Specialise a C++ Program to a Problem Class

Genetic Improvement (GI) is a form of Genetic Programming that improves an existing program. We use GI to evolve a faster version of a C++ program, a Boolean satisfiability (SAT) solver called MiniSAT, specialising it for a particular problem class, namely Combinatorial Interaction Testing (CIT), using automated code transplantation. Our GI-evolved solver achieves overall 17 percent improvement, making it comparable with average expert human performance. Additionally, this automatically evolved solver is faster than any of the human-improved solvers for the CIT problem

Efficient Combinatorial Test Generation Based on Multivalued Decision Diagrams

Abstract. Combinatorial interaction testing (CIT) is an emerging test-ing technique that has proved to be effective in finding faults due to the interaction among inputs. Efficient test generation for CIT is still an open problem especially when applied to real models having meaningful size and containing many constraints among inputs. In this paper we present a novel technique for the automatic generation of compact test suites starting from models containing constraints given in general form. It is based on the use of Multivalued Decision Diagrams (MDDs) which prove to be suitable to efficiently support CIT. We devise and experiment several optimizations including a novel variation of the classical greedy policy normally used in similar algorithms. The results of a thorough comparison with other similar techniques are presented and show that our approach can provide several advantages in terms of applicability, test suite size, generation time, and cost.

Impactos da tecnologia de informação sobre o trabalho de "colarinho branco" Impacts of information technology on "white collar" work

Grandes investimentos em tecnologia de informação (TI) vêm sendo canalizados para a melhoria dos processos empresariais. Esses investimentos limitam-se, em geral, à automação pura e simples dos processos já existentes na companhia, os quais continuam sendo realiza-dos pelos mesmos profissionais e regidos pelos mesmos princípios anteriores à TI. Um corolário deste tipo de automação é o pequeno ganho de produtividade do trabalho de colarinho branco. Uma alternativa para este problema é a reengenharia de processos, que por meio do uso criativo da TI e da gestão por processos procura estabelecer novas formas muito mais eficientes de realizar o trabalho. Entretanto, tais formas alteram, freqüente e fundamentalmente, o perfil do profissional e a natureza de seu trabalho. É sobre estes impactos que estaremos discorrendo ao longo deste artigo.<br>Huge investiments in information technology (IT) have been directed to business process improvements. Generally, such investments are limited to the sole automation of already existing processes, which continue to be performed according to the same rules and by the same professionals prior to IT. A consequence of this kind of automation is the low producti-vity increase in white collar work. An alternative to this problem is business process reengi-neering, which, via the creative use of IT, strives to establish much more effective ways of performing work. However, very often such new ways affect the professional skills and the nature of the work. This paper discusses the impacts of IT on white collar work