Towards Reliable AI: Adequacy Metrics for Ensuring the Quality of System-level Testing of Autonomous Vehicles

AI-powered systems have gained widespread popularity in various domains, including Autonomous Vehicles (AVs). However, ensuring their reliability and safety is challenging due to their complex nature. Conventional test adequacy metrics, designed to evaluate the effectiveness of traditional software testing, are often insufficient or impractical for these systems. White-box metrics, which are specifically designed for these systems, leverage neuron coverage information. These coverage metrics necessitate access to the underlying AI model and training data, which may not always be available. Furthermore, the existing adequacy metrics exhibit weak correlations with the ability to detect faults in the generated test suite, creating a gap that we aim to bridge in this study. In this paper, we introduce a set of black-box test adequacy metrics called "Test suite Instance Space Adequacy" (TISA) metrics, which can be used to gauge the effectiveness of a test suite. The TISA metrics offer a way to assess both the diversity and coverage of the test suite and the range of bugs detected during testing. Additionally, we introduce a framework that permits testers to visualise the diversity and coverage of the test suite in a two-dimensional space, facilitating the identification of areas that require improvement. We evaluate the efficacy of the TISA metrics by examining their correlation with the number of bugs detected in system-level simulation testing of AVs. A strong correlation, coupled with the short computation time, indicates their effectiveness and efficiency in estimating the adequacy of testing AVs.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

Identifying and Explaining Safety-critical Scenarios for Autonomous Vehicles via Key Features

Ensuring the safety of autonomous vehicles (AVs) is of utmost importance and testing them in simulated environments is a safer option than conducting in-field operational tests. However, generating an exhaustive test suite to identify critical test scenarios is computationally expensive as the representation of each test is complex and contains various dynamic and static features, such as the AV under test, road participants (vehicles, pedestrians, and static obstacles), environmental factors (weather and light), and the road's structural features (lanes, turns, road speed, etc.). In this paper, we present a systematic technique that uses Instance Space Analysis (ISA) to identify the significant features of test scenarios that affect their ability to reveal the unsafe behaviour of AVs. ISA identifies the features that best differentiate safety-critical scenarios from normal driving and visualises the impact of these features on test scenario outcomes (safe/unsafe) in 2D. This visualization helps to identify untested regions of the instance space and provides an indicator of the quality of the test suite in terms of the percentage of feature space covered by testing. To test the predictive ability of the identified features, we train five Machine Learning classifiers to classify test scenarios as safe or unsafe. The high precision, recall, and F1 scores indicate that our proposed approach is effective in predicting the outcome of a test scenario without executing it and can be used for test generation, selection, and prioritization.Comment: 28 pages, 6 figure

Domestic violence against infertile women in Karachi, Pakistan

This study investigates the prevalence of physical and psychological violence against infertile women in Karachi, Pakistan. A total of 400 infertile women attending the selected infertility clinics in Karachi, Pakistan were interviewed using the to investigate their experiences of physical and psychological violence. Out of 400 infertile women, 278 (64%) reported to be the victims of violence during the last 12 months before they were interviewed. Nearly one quarter (23.1%) reported facing physical violence. All women reported their husbands and their family members to be the perpetrators. It is concluded that Clinicians should identify the abused women and provide them with medical care and supportive counseling

Health seeking behavior of couples with secondary infertility

OBJECTIVE: To determine the factors affecting the health-seeking behavior of couples with secondary infertility in Karachi. DESIGN: A descriptive case series. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY: The data was collected from women attending infertility clinics in five tertiary care hospitals in Karachi from March to June 2003. PATIENTS AND METHODS: All currently married women, between the age of 15-35 years, with at least one previous conception, irrespective of outcome, attending an infertility clinic and consenting to participate in the study, were included. Women with corrective surgery on vagina and uterus, and cases of primary infertility, were excluded. Multiple logistic regression models were used to determine the association of various factors, affecting the health-seeking behavior, with statistical significance set at p \u3c 0.05 for the covariates and the interaction terms between various factors. RESULTS: The women consulted multiple health care providers for treatment of secondary infertility. The main reasons for seeking treatment were couple s wish (54.2%), family pressure (22.6%) and want of a son by husbands or in-laws (20.4%). The most commonly sought providers were physicians (74.7%), Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA, 39.5%), Spiritual healers (26%), Hakeems (23%) and Homeopaths (17.2%). Most of the women who consulted non-physicians were illiterate (69.4%) as compared to those who consulted a physician (37.8%, p-value = 0.00). The non-physicians were more commonly consulted by women belonging to low socioeconomic group. The posttreatment complications were more common among women who consulted non-physicians. CONCLUSION: Pressure from husbands and in-laws compels women for consulting multiple providers. Health seeking behavior for infertility is affected by the literacy and socioeconomic status of the women

Reproductive tract infections among married women in peri-urban areas of Karachi, Pakistan: A population-based study

Background: Reproductive Tract Infections (RTIs) is a major public health problem. In Pakistan, there is dearth of information about the prevalence of RTIs among women and their health seeking behavior. A study was conducted to determine the prevalence, number and types of RTIs among women residing in squatter settlements in Karachi and their health seeking behavior.Methods: The respondents were married non-pregnant women aged 15–49 years residing in peri-urban areas of Karachi, Pakistan. The interviews with women were followed by their physical and pelvic examinations. Samples swabs collected from vagina and endocervix were tested in laboratory.Results: Overall, 23.8% of the women had laboratory-diagnosed RTIs. Nearly 2.6% had trichomoniasis and 1.7% were positive for syphilis. Bacterial vaginosis was diagnosed in 8.8% and vaginal candidiasis in 13.2 %.Conclusion: The study indicates a high prevalence of RTIs among women with Bacterial vaginosis and trichomoniasis to be the most prevalent endogenous infection and STI respectively. The women considered many symptoms as normal and did not seek treatment. These are the cases that have a potential to remain infected for a long time

Psycho-social consequences of secondary infertility in Karachi.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the experiences of social consequences among women suffering from secondary infertility. METHODS: Descriptive case series of 400 women with secondary infertility attending tertiary care hospitals in Karachi, Pakistan. RESULTS: More than two thirds (67.7%) of women stated that their inability to give live births or give birth to sons had resulted in marital dissonance. The respondents had been threatened for divorce (20%), husband\u27s remarrying (38%) or to be returned to their parent\u27s home (26%) by their in laws or husbands. Majority (68%) of the women threatened did not have any live births. However, those who had live births (32%) had a girl child only followed by difficulty in conceiving again. Secondary infertility was described as a cause of violence against infertile women. The women reported that they were being physically and verbally abused by husbands (10.5%) and in-laws (16.3%) for being infertile. Nearly 70% of women facing physical abuse and 60% of the women facing verbal abuse suffered severe mental stress. CONCLUSION: The experience of infertility is a stressful condition itself. This becomes particularly traumatic with previous pregnancies ending up in abortions, stillbirths and neonatal/infant deaths or the live births being daughters only. However, it subjects the woman to contempt and exploitation resulting in severe psychological

Perceptions and Experiences of Women in Karachi, Pakistan Regarding Secondary Infertility: Results from a Community-Based Qualitative Study

Background. The prevalence of infertility in Pakistan is 22% with primary infertility at 4% and secondary infertility at 18%. This study explored perceptions and experiences of women in Karachi, Pakistan regarding the causes, treatment-seeking behavior for and consequences of secondary infertility. Methods. Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with married women explored their perceptions and experiences for issues related to secondary infertility. Results. The knowledge of women about the causes and scientific treatment options for infertility was limited resulting in inclination for traditional unsafe health care. Infertility was stated to result in marital instability, stigmatization and abuse specially for women with no live child. Conclusions. Since infertility can have a serious effect on both the psychological well-being and the social status of women in Pakistan, effective interventions are the need of the day. There is a dire need for health education and counseling to be integrated into infertility management plans

Adoption practices among couples with secondary infertility in Karachi: a triangulation study design

Objective: To explore the perceptions and experiences of couples with secondary infertility regarding adoption practices; to estimate the prevalence of adoption among couples with secondary infertility, and to study the adopted child preference pattern. Methods: To fulfill the objectives of the study both qualitative and quantitative study designs were utilized. In qualitative explorative study design, three Focus Group discussions were conducted with married fertile women to explore their perceptions for adoption practices. Moreover, eight in-depth interviews were conducted with women with secondary infertility to explore their experiences. For quantitative methodology, a case series of 400 secondary infertile couples was conducted. Results: Qualitative methodology result suggests that adoption is the last option for infertile couples. Couples often take this as a Totka , that when they adopt a child, they could end up having their own baby. The husband\u27s family is usually preferred for adopting a child. The results of quantitative component suggest that the prevalence of adoption among 400 women is 7%. Less than half of the respondents (49.3%) reported to ever having thought of adopting a child to cope with the secondary infertility. The main decision maker for adoption of child is the husband (17%) and the mother-in-law (68%). Though majority of these women (72.5%) were supported by their husbands, however, in-laws and relatives were reluctant to pursue this option and less than one third (29%) of these women had a support from them. Conclusions: This study concludes that couples ever thought of or opted for adoption after prolonged duration of secondary infertility. In cses where the condition cannot be treated, it is necessary to counsel, not only the couple but also the in-laws (JPMA 57:55;2007)

Synthesis and evaluation of antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of Schiff base tin (II) complexes

Purpose: To synthesize and evaluate Schiff base Tin (II) complexes for antioxidant and antimicrobial activitiesMethods: The complexes of Tin (II) chloride with various Schiff base derivative of 2-Hydroxy-1- naphthaldehyde (HN) were synthesized and characterized by various physiochemical techniques, including elemental analysis, ultraviolet–visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H–NMR), carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance (13C-NMR), electron ionization mass spectrometry (EIMS) and conductance studies. Agarwell diffusion and agar-well dilution techniques were used for antimicrobial assessment. Evaluation of the antioxidant activity of the ligands and complexes was accomplished by DPPH radical scavenging assay.Results: The results indicate coordination of deprotonated phenolic oxygen and nitrogen of azomethine with Tin (II) chloride led to the formation of stable complexes. The Tin (II) complexes showed good antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. Compounds (HNPA and [Sn(HNPA)Cl2(H2O)2) were noteworthy (p < 0.05) in this regard with antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus, while [Sn(HNCA)Cl2(H2O)2 and [Sn(HNPT)Cl2(H2O)2 were active against Klebsiella pneumoniae..Conclusion: All synthesized Schiff bases and their Tin (II) complexes showed high antimicrobial and antioxidant activities than their corresponding ligands.Keywords: Schiff base, Ligand, Tin (II) complexes, Antimicrobial, Antioxidant, Deprotonated phenolic oxyge

Development of markers and crop improvement programmes

            The development of markers for genetic analysis of different plant species, for monitoring the variations in and among species, to create new source of genetic variations by introducing new and favorable traits from landraces and related species, to develop the evolutionary tree among plant species and more importantly to increase the production of crops is painstaking efforts of plant breeders started from initial years of last century. Improvement in marker detecting systems and in the techniques used to identify markers linked to useful traits -Marker assisted selection (MAS) and Quantitative trait loci (QTL) - has enabled great advancements in recent years and can be utilized for more advanced research in future. Identification of markers linked to useful traits is based on complete linkage maps which helped to understand the basics of epistasis, pleiotropy and heterosis. . While morphological markers have been the basics of most work in marker development system but presently the molecular markers like RFLP (restriction fragment length polymorphism), RAPD (random amplified polymorphic DNA), and AFLP (amplified fragment length polymorphism) has generated the valuable marker systems. SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) and SSR (simple sequence repeat) marker systems have been developed and is predicted to lead advance study by their implementation in breeding programmes. In this review emphasis has been laid on the current stage of marker development and to reveal the potential uses of supplementing the molecular and biochemical marker systems with morphological markers