Structural profiling of Web sites in the wild

The paper reports results of a large-scale survey of 708 websites, in order to measure various features related to their size and structure: DOM tree size, maximum degree, depth, diversity of element types and CSS classes, among others. The goal of this research is to serve as a reference point for studies that include an empirical evaluation on samples of web pages

Event Stream Processing with Multiple Threads

Current runtime verification tools seldom make use of multi-threading to speed up the evaluation of a property on a large event trace. In this paper, we present an extension to the BeepBeep 3 event stream engine that allows the use of multiple threads during the evaluation of a query. Various parallelization strategies are presented and described on simple examples. The implementation of these strategies is then evaluated empirically on a sample of problems. Compared to the previous, single-threaded version of the BeepBeep engine, the allocation of just a few threads to specific portions of a query provides dramatic improvement in terms of running time

ReDeCheck: An Automatic Layout Failure Checking Tool for Responsively Designed Web Pages

Since people frequently access websites with a wide variety of devices (e.g., mobile phones, laptops, and desktops), developers need frameworks and tools for creating layouts that are useful at many viewport widths. While responsive web design (RWD) principles and frameworks facilitate the development of such sites, there is a lack of tools supporting the detection of failures in their layout. Since the quality assurance process for responsively designed websites is often manual, time-consuming, and error-prone, this paper presents ReDeCheck, an automated layout checking tool that alerts developers to both potential unintended regressions in responsive layout and common types of layout failure. In addition to summarizing ReDeCheck’s benefits, this paper explores two different usage scenarios for this tool that is publicly available on GitHub

Enabling Proactive Adaptation through Just-in-time Testing of Conversational Services

Service-based applications (SBAs) will increasingly be composed of third-party services available over the Internet. Reacting to failures of those third-party services by dynamically adapting the SBAs will become a key enabler for ensuring reliability. Determining when to adapt an SBA is especially challenging in the presence of conversational (aka. stateful) services. A conversational service might fail in the middle of an invocation sequence, in which case adapting the SBA might be costly; e.g., due to the necessary state transfer to an alternative service. In this paper we propose just-in-time testing of conversational services as a novel approach to detect potential problems and to proactively trigger adaptations, thereby preventing costly compensation activities. The approach is based on a framework for online testing and a formal test-generation method which guarantees functional correctness for conversational services. The applicability of the approach is discussed with respect to its underlying assumptions and its performance. The benefits of the approach are demonstrated using a realistic example

A one dimensional thermal model for evacuated tubes-based solar collectors

Paper presented to the 3rd Southern African Solar Energy Conference, South Africa, 11-13 May, 2015.This paper presents a one dimensional thermal model for an evacuated tube under transient conditions. The first order differential equations derived are solved with a fully explicit scheme using a fourth order Runge-Kutta algorithm. The comparison between simulated and experimentally measured outlet air temperature showed a good agreement as a root mean square error on the outlet air temperature of about 0.52 °C and a mean bias difference of 0.20 °C were observed on a bright sunny day. Finally, the validated model applied for steady state heat transfer is used to conduct an analysis on different parameters. The airflow rate is the most important parameter acting on the defined performance indicators. Higher is the airflow, better is the efficiency and lower is the outlet air temperature. On the other side, a low airflow can lead to as much as 100 °C of temperature gain, but the efficiency is then reduced to values as low as 45 %.dc201

Comprehension of spacecraft telemetry using hierarchical specifications of behavior ⋆

Abstract. A key challenge in operating remote spacecraft is that ground operators must rely on the limited visibility available through spacecraft telemetry in order to assess spacecraft health and operational status. We describe a tool for processing spacecraft telemetry that allows ground operators to impose structure on received telemetry in order to achieve a better comprehension of system state. A key element of our approach is the design of a domain-specific language that allows operators to express models of expected system behavior using partial specifications. The language allows behavior specifications with data fields, similar to other recent runtime verification systems. What is notable about our approach is the ability to develop hierarchical specifications of behavior. The language is implemented as an internal DSL in the Scala programming language that synthesizes rules from patterns of specification behavior. The rules are automatically applied to received telemetry and the inferred behaviors are available to ground operators using a visualization interface that makes it easier to understand and track spacecraft state. We describe initial results from applying our tool to telemetry received from the Curiosity rover currently roving the surface of Mars, where the visualizations are being used to trend subsystem behaviors, in order to identify potential problems before they happen. However, the technology is completely general and can be applied to any system that generates telemetry such as event logs.

The benefits of flushing for mitigating Legionella spp. in non-chlorinated building plumbing systems

Flushing is a common corrective action recommended by Legionella management guidelines to remove stagnant water and replenish disinfectant. Due to water age and different local regulations, buildings may receive water with low or no residual disinfectant. In such situations, the evidence for flushing efficacy is often anecdotal, and the benefits are poorly quantified. Using a pilot-scale premise plumbing system, flushed shower outlets were evaluated against non-flushed outlets during simulated periods of both active and low water demand. Water and biofilm concentrations of total bacteria, Legionella spp., and Vermamoeba vermiformis were quantified using real-time quantitative PCR. Even after all outlets returned to active water demand, flushed shower outlets continued to have lower quantities of Legionella compared to non-flushed outlets for several days, but the decrease was of little practical benefit (<0.5 log10[copies/L]). During prolonged periods of low water demand, however, there was no apparent benefit to flushing. Total bacteria grew to stationary phase within 3 ± 1 days, while Legionella spp. took 12 ± 6 days, regardless of whether the pipes had recently been flushed or not. Flushing with hot or cold water had little to no effect on the concentrations of total bacteria and Legionella in pipe wall biofilms. Flushing with cold water (9.6 and 13.2°C) decreased total bacteria concentrations in the water by 0.96 and 1.00 log10[copies/L], respectively and by 1.27 and 1.74 log10[copies/L] with hot water (49 and 60°C, respectively) but the difference in Legionella spp. concentrations between flushing with cold (1.55 log10[copies/L] for both) and hot water (1.32 to 1.88 log10[copies/L], respectively) was negligible. This suggests that hot water flushing, even at 60°C, provides little or no added benefit for managing Legionella in non-chlorinated building plumbing systems versus cold water flushing. Finally, the immediate benefits of flushing in terms of reductions in total bacteria and Legionella in the water were comparable as well as the rates at which those populations recovered during post-flush or post-shower stagnation

Analysis and Verification of Service Interaction Protocols - A Brief Survey

Modeling and analysis of interactions among services is a crucial issue in Service-Oriented Computing. Composing Web services is a complicated task which requires techniques and tools to verify that the new system will behave correctly. In this paper, we first overview some formal models proposed in the literature to describe services. Second, we give a brief survey of verification techniques that can be used to analyse services and their interaction. Last, we focus on the realizability and conformance of choreographies.Comment: In Proceedings TAV-WEB 2010, arXiv:1009.330

Runtime verification of parametric properties using SMEDL

Parametric properties are typical properties to be checked in runtime verification (RV). As a common technique for parametric monitoring, trace slicing divides an execution trace into a set of sub traces which are checked against non-parametric base properties. An efficient trace slicing algorithm is implemented in MOP. Another RV technique, QEA further allows for nested use of universal and existential quantification over parameters. In this paper, we present a methodology for parametric monitoring using the RV framework SMEDL. Trace slicing algorithm in MOP can be expressed by execution of a set of SMEDL monitors. Moreover, the semantics of nested quantifiers is encoded by a hierarchy of monitors for aggregating verdicts of sub traces. Through case studies, we demonstrate that SMEDL provides a natural way to monitor parametric properties with more potentials for flexible deployment and optimizations