Testing theory in practice: a simple experiment

In this paper we discuss the experiences gained in conducting a simple testing experiment. The goal of this experiment is to apply the abstract, formal testing framework [8] in a practical setting, and to indicate the critical aspects in its application to realistic testing situations. For that purpose a formal description of the system under test (SUT) is made from which tests are systematically derived. These tests are interpreted and executed by a tester against concrete implementations, thereby giving an indication about the correctness of these implementations

Testing refinements by refining tests

One of the potential benefits of formal methods is that they offer the possibility of reducing the costs of testing. A specification acts as both the benchmark against which any implementation is tested, and also as the means by which tests are generated. There has therefore been interest in developing test generation techniques from formal specifications, and a number of different methods have been derived for state based languages such as Z, B and VDM. However, in addition to deriving tests from a formal specification, we might wish to refine the specification further before its implementation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between testing and refinement. As our model for test generation we use a DNF partition analysis for operations written in Z, which produces a number of disjoint test cases for each operation. In this paper we discuss how the partition analysis of an operation alters upon refinement, and we develop techniques that allow us to refine abstract tests in order to generate test cases for a refinement. To do so we use (and extend existing) methods for calculating the weakest data refinement of a specification

Report on the Standardization Project ``Formal Methods in Conformance Testing''

This paper presents the latest developments in the “Formal Methods in Conformance Testing” (FMCT) project of ISO and ITU–T. The project has been initiated to study the role of formal description techniques in the conformance testing process. The goal is to develop a standard that defines the meaning of conformance in the context of formal description techniques. We give an account of the current status of FMCT in the standardization process as well as an overview of the technical status of the proposed standard. Moreover, we indicate some of its strong and weak points, and we give some directions for future work on FMCT

Test Model Coverage Analysis under Uncertainty

In model-based testing (MBT) we may have to deal with a non-deterministic model, e.g. because abstraction was applied, or because the software under test itself is non-deterministic. The same test case may then trigger multiple possible execution paths, depending on some internal decisions made by the software. Consequently, performing precise test analyses, e.g. to calculate the test coverage, are not possible. This can be mitigated if developers can annotate the model with estimated probabilities for taking each transition. A probabilistic model checking algorithm can subsequently be used to do simple probabilistic coverage analysis. However, in practice developers often want to know what the achieved aggregate coverage, which unfortunately cannot be re-expressed as a standard model checking problem. This paper presents an extension to allow efficient calculation of probabilistic aggregate coverage, and moreover also in combination with k-wise coverage

Assessment of personal care and medical robots from older adults' perspective

Demographic reports indicate that population of older adults is growing significantly over the world and in particular in developed nations. Consequently, there are a noticeable number of demands for certain services such as health-care systems and assistive medical robots and devices. In today's world, different types of robots play substantial roles specifically in medical sector to facilitate human life, especially older adults. Assistive medical robots and devices are created in various designs to fulfill specific needs of older adults. Though medical robots are utilized widely by senior citizens, it is dramatic to find out into what extent assistive robots satisfy their needs and expectations. This paper reviews various assessments of assistive medical robots from older adults' perspectives with the purpose of identifying senior citizen's needs, expectations, and preferences. On the other hand, these kinds of assessments inform robot designers, developers, and programmers to come up with robots fulfilling elderly's needs while improving their life quality