Aspect-Oriented Programming for Test Control

Distributed and multithreaded systems are usually much more complex to analyze or test due to the nondeterminism involved. A possible approach to testing nondeterministic systems is to direct the execution of the program under test to take a certain path for each test, so that a unique output can be observed. Considering specification-based testing, we assume that a test case is given together with a test constraint for directing the internal nondeterministic choices. To instruct the program under test to execute according to a given test constraint, the program under test needs to communicate with the tester. In this thesis, we propose to use the features in Aspect-Oriented Programs to realize such communication. This solution does not require the availability of the source code of the program under test. We provide an automated translation from a test constraint to a set of aspects using AspectJ

Development of confirmatory testing strategies for suspect false PRRS-positive reactors in diagnostic serology

The commercial ELISA kit (IDEXX HerdChecky PRRS) has been the main serodiagnostic tool for PRRS virus (PRRSV) in North America and many pig producing regions throughout the world. Although the kit has been mostly a reliable test for detecting PRRSV exposure at the herd level, the specificity of the kit has been frequently challenged by the occurrence of unexpected false positive results at varying rates. An indirect fluorescent antibody (IFA) test has been commonly employed to confirm or disprove the suspect false positive reactivity in the ELISA. However, the reliability of test results have been often questioned due to the subjectivity in determination of test result and perceived lower sensitivity. The current study was conducted first to develop immunoassays (Western immunoblot and microsphere immunoassay) based on recombinant N protein of PRRSV as well as bELISA using the existing commercial ELISA kit (2XR). Then diagnostic performances of four different serologic assays (Western immunoblot, microsphere immunoassay, bELISA and new IDEXX\u27s PRRS ELISA kit X3) was evaluated on the same set of experimental and field serum samples in comparison to ELISA 2XR kit to establish a confirmatory testing algorithm when suspect false positive (SFP) results occur in ELISA 2XR. All assays showed excellent performance on experimental samples, meaning that all tests are valid for specific and sensitive detection of the target antibody. Diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of the assays related to ELISA 2XR, however, varied on the field samples, although all of them greatly reduced the number of SFP samples. By combining two different assays (particularly ELISA X3 and Western immunoblotting), the SFP results could be reduced by as high as 73.5% which provide higher confidence in determining the PRRS status of animal when SFP results occur

Examining Elementary Teachers’ Attitudes toward the Teacher Ranking System in China

This study examined the general teachers’ attitudes toward the teacher ranking system in China and whether this ranking system can motivate teachers to work harder. One hundred and eighty-seven teachers from 54 elementary schools in Beijing of China were surveyed using Charlotte Danielson Frame Work for Teaching Evaluation. The result showed that the relationship between years of teaching and higher titles is a positive correlation, which means with more teaching years of experience, teachers will get higher titles. A negative correlation was revealed between years of teaching and education levels, which means teachers who taught more years tend to get lower education levels. Teachers with higher titles also considered as more structural and skilled teachers. In general, most teachers hold positive attitudes towards this ranking system

Few-Shot Image Recognition by Predicting Parameters from Activations

In this paper, we are interested in the few-shot learning problem. In particular, we focus on a challenging scenario where the number of categories is large and the number of examples per novel category is very limited, e.g. 1, 2, or 3. Motivated by the close relationship between the parameters and the activations in a neural network associated with the same category, we propose a novel method that can adapt a pre-trained neural network to novel categories by directly predicting the parameters from the activations. Zero training is required in adaptation to novel categories, and fast inference is realized by a single forward pass. We evaluate our method by doing few-shot image recognition on the ImageNet dataset, which achieves the state-of-the-art classification accuracy on novel categories by a significant margin while keeping comparable performance on the large-scale categories. We also test our method on the MiniImageNet dataset and it strongly outperforms the previous state-of-the-art methods

Housing Choice Vouchers and Neighborhood Effects: A Case Study of Allentown

In order to research the changing geography of the Housing Choice Vouchers (HCV) program and the neighborhood environments voucher-users experience, this paper analyzes the spatial distribution of Allentown\u27s minority and low-income voucher-holders from 2000 to 2016, using ArcMap and z-score as tools. I find that the concentration of voucher-holders in the city center significantly declined after 2008, replaced by new concentrations on the eastern side of the city. This article then compares the neighborhood conditions, both the socioeconomic status and characteristics of the built environment, in the city center and the eastern region. I find that the city’s eastern neighborhoods offered voucher-holders access to better environments and more opportunities