Mutation testing on an object-oriented framework: An experience report

This is the preprint version of the article - Copyright @ 2011 ElsevierContext The increasing presence of Object-Oriented (OO) programs in industrial systems is progressively drawing the attention of mutation researchers toward this paradigm. However, while the number of research contributions in this topic is plentiful, the number of empirical results is still marginal and mostly provided by researchers rather than practitioners. Objective This article reports our experience using mutation testing to measure the effectiveness of an automated test data generator from a user perspective. Method In our study, we applied both traditional and class-level mutation operators to FaMa, an open source Java framework currently being used for research and commercial purposes. We also compared and contrasted our results with the data obtained from some motivating faults found in the literature and two real tools for the analysis of feature models, FaMa and SPLOT. Results Our results are summarized in a number of lessons learned supporting previous isolated results as well as new findings that hopefully will motivate further research in the field. Conclusion We conclude that mutation testing is an effective and affordable technique to measure the effectiveness of test mechanisms in OO systems. We found, however, several practical limitations in current tool support that should be addressed to facilitate the work of testers. We also missed specific techniques and tools to apply mutation testing at the system level.This work has been partially supported by the European Commission (FEDER) and Spanish Government under CICYT Project SETI (TIN2009-07366) and the Andalusian Government Projects ISABEL (TIC-2533) and THEOS (TIC-5906)

Selection and Application of Distorted Risk Measures

This thesis develops and illustrates a methodology for the selection of probability distributions and distortion functions associated with risk scenarios resulting from military capability shortfalls. Distorted (or transformed) risk measures are analyzed and applied to account for loss scenarios that may occur with low frequency but result in catastrophic outcomes. After reviewing the rudimentary concepts of distortion, four well-known continuous distributions, suitable for modeling risk scenarios, are chosen using defined criteria. Based on subject matter expert inputs, a simple method for assigning exactly one of the four distributions to any risk scenario is proposed. Four parametric distortion functions from the finance and insurance literature are then selected and applied to each of the chosen distributions. The distortion effects are examined analytically, graphically, and empirically, and broad-based recommendations are recorded as to the instances when one distortion function might be preferred over others. An end-to-end notional problem - in which a subset of available mitigation measures are selected to counteract a multi-faceted risk environment - illustrates the means by which the proposed methodology may be used to affect future systems acquisition through the Capabilities Review and Risk Assessment (CRRA) process of the United States Air Force

A CONSIDERATION OF THE DEVOLUTION OF FEDERAL AGRICULTURAL POLICY

Diverse needs and preferences across the United States provide justification for the devolution, or decentralization, of many Federal Government programs to the State or local level. The move toward devolution, however, has not been evidenced in U.S. agricultural policy, despite significant differences across States in such areas as commodity production, production costs, income distribution, and opportunities for off-farm work. The existing structure of USDA funding and program delivery already reflects an appreciation of the gains from devolution, with some programs accommodating differences in State and regional preferences. This report considers the implications of devolving $22 billion in 2003 budget outlays, mostly for domestic commodity and natural resource programs and rural development and housing programs. The local knowledge of needs and references is valuable and can provide the basis for increased program efficiency.Public policy, devolution, agricultural policy, program delivery, Agricultural and Food Policy,

Overcoming the Hypolimnion: Stakeholder Influence in Transboundary Water Quality Governance

Global surface water quality has been degrading with predictions of negative trends in meeting the Sustainable Development Goal ambient water quality targets (Mead, 2019; WWAP & UN Water, 2019). These water quality impacts can cross borders and impact populations in world’s 204 transboundary lake and reservoir basins (ILEC & UNEP, 2016). With risks including potential chronic health effects and impaired livelihoods, water quality trends have direct implications for local communities and can create domestic pressure on the states that manage the resource (Warner & Zawahri, 2012). Although water quality impairments are shared, they are experienced differently by all users. Various structural factors can shape local stakeholders’ exposure, impact, and influence on the state’s response. Simultaneously, these factors are influenced by the state practices that address the contamination in transboundary lakes. As a result, countries’ interactions over water quality are integral to understand how they impact local communities and, consequently, the extent to which communities’ needs are represented in the transboundary discourse. This research interrogates this dynamic to evaluate how local actors influence states’ behavior over transboundary water quality. Through utilization of a novel conceptual framework, the impact of stakeholder distributions of power, vulnerability, and risk are assessed for their capacity to shape conflictive and cooperative water interactions between states. Based on an analysis of three case studies in transboundary lakes, stakeholder vulnerability drove states to initiate cooperation under a narrative of development. As risk increased, the states responded by engaging in high-intensity cooperation to address water quality. Finally, as power increased, stakeholders’ concerns became more represented at the transboundary level, initially causing state conflict and resulting in continued cooperation. While stakeholders’ distributions showed a clear impact on state action, they were not the sole driver of interactions in the basin. Dynamics between states and international actors also exerted pressure to promote high-intensity transboundary cooperation. These multiple pressures were mutually influencing and created a mixing of scale that drives state interactions. This understanding of stakeholder influence informs the larger body of literature on transboundary interactions. By understanding triggers for cooperation and conflict, targeted interventions and management strategies can be employed (De Stefano, Petersen-Perlman, Sproles, Eynard, & Wolf, 2017). Through knowledge of stakeholders’ role in transboundary processes, information can be harnessed to promote positive cooperation and effectively address global water quality impairments

Inoculation studies related to breeding for resistance to bacterial wilt in lespedeza

... cooperative investigation between the Department of Field Crops, Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Missouri, and Forage and Range Section, Field Crops Branch, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture...--P. [2].Digitized 2007 AES.Includes bibliographical references (page 47)

Barriers to Usable Security? Three Organizational Case Studies

Usable security assumes that when security functions are more usable, people are more likely to use them, leading to an improvement in overall security. Existing software design and engineering processes provide little guidance for leveraging this in the development of applications. Three case studies explore organizational attempts to provide usable security products

Class mutation operators for C++ object-oriented systems

Mutation testing is a fault injection testing technique around which a great variety of studies and tools for different programming languages have been developed. Nevertheless, the mutation testing research with respect to C++ is pending. This paper proposes a set of class mutation operators related to this language and its particular object-oriented (OO) features. In addition, an implementation technique to apply mutation testing based on the traversal of the abstract syntax tree (AST) is presented. Finally, an experiment is conducted to study the operator behaviour with different C++ programs, suggesting their usefulness in the creation of complete test suites. The analysis includes a Web service (WS) library, one of the domains where this technique can prove useful, considering its challenging testing phase and that C++ is still a reference language for critical distributed systems WS

Mutation Testing as a Safety Net for Test Code Refactoring

Refactoring is an activity that improves the internal structure of the code without altering its external behavior. When performed on the production code, the tests can be used to verify that the external behavior of the production code is preserved. However, when the refactoring is performed on test code, there is no safety net that assures that the external behavior of the test code is preserved. In this paper, we propose to adopt mutation testing as a means to verify if the behavior of the test code is preserved after refactoring. Moreover, we also show how this approach can be used to identify the part of the test code which is improperly refactored