Atomic Action Refinement in Model Based Testing

In model based testing (MBT) test cases are derived from a specification of the system that we want to test. In general the specification is more abstract than the implementation. This may result in 1) test cases that are not executable, because their actions are too abstract (the implementation does not understand them); or 2) test cases that are incorrect, because the specification abstracts from relevant behavior. The standard approach to remedy this problem is to rewrite the specification by hand to the required level of detail and regenerate the test cases. This is error-prone and time consuming. Another approach is to do some translation during test execution. This solution has no basis in the theory of MBT. We propose a framework to add the required level of detail automatically to the abstract specification and/or abstract test cases.\ud \ud This paper focuses on general atomic action refinement. This means that an abstract action is replaced by more complex behavior (expressed as a labeled transition system). With general we mean that we impose as few restrictions as possible. Atomic means that the actions that are being refined behave as if they were atomic, i.e., no other actions are allowed to interfere

Component based testing with IOCO

Component based testing concerns the integration of components which have already been tested separately. We show that, with certain restrictions, the ioco-test theory for conformance testing is suitable for component based testing, in the sense that the integration of fully conformant components is guaranteed to be correct. As a consequence, there is no need to re-test the integrated system for conformance. This result is also relevant for testing in context, since it implies that every failure of a system embedded in a test context can be reduced to a fault of the system itself

Action refinement in testing with UIOCO

In model based testing test cases are derived from a specification of the implementation that we want to test. In general the specification is given on a more abstract level than the implementation. This may result in test cases that are not executable, because their actions are too abstract; the implementation does not understand them. One approach is to rewrite the specification to the required level of detail and regenerate the test cases. Rewriting a specification by hand is an error-prone and time consuming exercise that is not always favorable. Very often there is a good reason for the level of abstraction in a specification, for example to illustrate the structure of the system or to separate concerns. In this paper we present an approach to automatically obtain test cases of the required level of detail by means of action refinement. Action refinement is a way to add information to the abstract specification. The extra information relates actions from the abstract specification to concrete actions of the implementation. We will apply this approach to a simple case of action refinement, so called atomic linear input-inputs refinement. For this type of action refinement our approach enables us to automatically refine traces and transition systems. Furthermore, we present an implementation relation that relates an abstract specification with its concrete implementation and show that it is equivalent with the UIOCO implementation relation on the refined specification

Explainability Design Patterns in Clinical Decision Support Systems

This paper reports on the ongoing PhD project in the field of explaining the clinical decision support systems (CDSSs) recommendations to medical practitioners. Recently, the explainability research in the medical domain has witnessed a surge of advances with a focus on two main methods: The first focuses on developing models that are explainable and transparent in its nature (e.g. rule-based algorithms). The second investigates the interpretability of the black-box models without looking at the mechanism behind it (e.g. LIME) as a post-hoc explanation. However, overlooking the human-factors and the usability aspect of the explanation introduced new risks following the system recommendations, e.g. over-trust and under-trust. Due to such limitation, there is a growing demand for usable explanations for CDSSs to enable the integration of trust calibration and informed decision-making in these systems by identifying when the recommendation is correct to follow. This research aims to develop explainability design patterns with the aim of calibrating medical practitioners trust in the CDSSs. This paper concludes the PhD methodology and literature around the research problem is also discussed

Action Refinement in Testing with uioco

In model based testing test cases are derived from a specification of the implementation that we want to test. In general the specification is more abstract than the implementation. This may result in test cases that are not executable, because their actions are too abstract; the implementation does not understand them. One approach is to rewrite the specification to the required level of detail and regenerate the test cases. Rewriting a specification by hand is an error-prone and time consuming exercise that is not always favorable. Very often there is a good reason for the level of abstraction in a specification, for example to illustrate the structure of the system or to separate concerns. In this paper we present an approach for action refinement. We will apply this approach to a simple case of action refinement, so called atomic linear input-inputs refinement. For this type of action refinement our approach enables us to automatically refine traces, transition systems and test cases. Furthermore, we present an implementation relation that relates an abstract specification with its concrete implementation and show that it is equivalent with the uioco implementation relation on the refined specification. I

Mate choice copying in guppies: females avoid the place where they saw courtship

Recent evidence shows that females of many species may copy the mate choice of other females, potentially resulting in the cultural inheritance of mating preferences. The best evidence of mate choice copying has been obtained from studies on guppies, but studies on some guppy populations have failed to find evidence of copying. I report on an experiment in which I found no evidence of mate choice copying in a feral Australian population, either in a traditional 'dichotomous choice tank' design or when females had an opportunity to swim and interact freely with the males. Instead, I found that females tended to avoid the side of the tank on which they had seen a male courting a female. This may not be a mate choice strategy, but possibly a predator avoidance or foraging strategy

Extending the Finite Domain Solver of GNU Prolog

This paper describes three significant extensions for the Finite Domain solver of GNU Prolog. First, the solver now supports negative integers. Second, the solver detects and prevents integer overflows from occurring. Third, the internal representation of sparse domains has been redesigned to overcome its current limitations. The preliminary performance evaluation shows a limited slowdown factor with respect to the initial solver. This factor is widely counterbalanced by the new possibilities and the robustness of the solver. Furthermore these results are preliminary and we propose some directions to limit this overhead

Defect registration tools as knowledge base 10

Ed Brandt Proving test coverage at requirements level 15 Han van Gerwen Automatic on-the-fly testing of reactive systems 1