A systematic mapping study of software product lines testing

Context

In software development, Testing is an important mechanism both to identify defects and assure that completed products work as specified. This is a common practice in single-system development, and continues to hold in Software Product Lines (SPL). Even though extensive research has been done in the SPL Testing field, it is necessary to assess the current state of research and practice, in order to provide practitioners with evidence that enable fostering its further development.

Objective

This paper focuses on Testing in SPL and has the following goals: investigate state-of-the-art testing practices, synthesize available evidence, and identify gaps between required techniques and existing approaches, available in the literature.

Method

A systematic mapping study was conducted with a set of nine research questions, in which 120 studies, dated from 1993 to 2009, were evaluated.

Results

Although several aspects regarding testing have been covered by single-system development approaches, many cannot be directly applied in the SPL context due to specific issues. In addition, particular aspects regarding SPL are not covered by the existing SPL approaches, and when the aspects are covered, the literature just gives brief overviews. This scenario indicates that additional investigation, empirical and practical, should be performed.

Conclusion

The results can help to understand the needs in SPL Testing, by identifying points that still require additional investigation, since important aspects regarding particular points of software product lines have not been addressed yet.     

Genetic algorithms to solve the power system restoration planning problem

This study reports the use of a Genetic Algorithm (GA) to solve the Power System Restoration Planning Problem (PSRP). The solution to the PSRP is described by a series of operations or a plan to be used by the Power System operator immediately on the occurrence of a blackout in the electrical power supply. Our GA uses new initialization and crossover operators based on the electrical power network, which are able to generate and maintain the plans feasible along GA runs. This releases the Power Flow program, which represents the most computer demanding component, from computing the fitness function of unfeasible individuals. The method was designed for large transmission systems and results for three different electrical power networks are shown: IEEE 14-Bus, IEEE 30-Bus, and a large realistic system.     

Adaptive quasi-interpolating quartic splines

We present an adaptive quasi-interpolating quartic spline construction for regularly sampled surface data. The method is based on a uniform quasi-interpolating scheme, employing quartic triangular patches with C ¹-continuity and optimal approximation order within this class. Our contribution is the adaption of this scheme to surfaces of varying geometric complexity, where the tiling resolution can be locally defined, for example driven by approximation errors. This way, the construction of high-quality spline surfaces is enhanced by the flexibility of adaptive pseudo-regular triangle meshes. Numerical examples illustrate the use of this method for adaptive terrain modeling, where uniform schemes produce huge numbers of patches.     

A Bayesian solution to the multiple composite hypothesis testing for fault diagnosis in dynamic systems

This paper is concerned with model-based isolation and estimation of additive faults in discrete-time linear Gaussian systems. The isolation problem is stated as a multiple composite hypothesis testing on the innovation sequence of the Kalman filter (KF) that considers the system operating under fault-free conditions. Fault estimation is carried out, after isolating a fault mode, by using the Maximum a Posteriori (MAP) criterion. An explicit solution is presented for both fault isolation and estimation when the parameters of the fault modes are assumed to be realizations of specific random variables (RV).     

An integration experience of a software architecture and a monitoring infrastructure to deploy applications with non‐functional requirements in computing grids

Resource management is an important aspect to consider regarding applications that might have different non‐functional or operational requirements, when running in distributed and heterogeneous environments. In this context, it is necessary to provide the means to specify the required resource constraints and an infrastructure that can adapt the applications in light of the changes in resource availability. We adopted a contract‐based approach to describe and maintain parallel applications that have non‐functional requirements in a Computing Grid context, called ZeliGrid. To form the supporting infrastructure we have designed a software architecture that integrates some of the Globus services, the LDAP and the NWS monitoring services. Some modules that map the contract approach into software artifacts were also integrated to this architecture. This paper addresses the architecture and integration issues of our approach, as well as how we put the pieces together highlighting deployment and implementation details, which have to consider diverse aspects such as monitoring, security and dynamic reconfiguration. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A team algorithm for robust stability analysis and control design of uncertain time‐varying linear systems using piecewise quadratic Lyapunov functions

A team algorithm based on piecewise quadratic simultaneous Lyapunov functions for robust stability analysis and control design of uncertain time‐varying linear systems is introduced. The objective is to use robust stability criteria that are less conservative than the usual quadratic stability criterion. The use of piecewise quadratic Lyapunov functions leads to a non‐convex optimization problem, which is decomposed into a convex subproblem in a selected subset of decision variables, and a lower‐dimensional non‐convex subproblem in the remaining decision variables. A team algorithm that combines genetic algorithms (GA) for the non‐convex subproblem and interior‐point methods for the solution of linear matrix inequalities (LMI), which form the convex subproblem, is proposed. Numerical examples are given, showing the advantages of the proposed method. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Secure Grid Medical Data Manager Interfaced to the gLite Middleware

The medical community is producing and manipulating a tremendous volume of digital data for which computerized archiving, processing and analysis is needed. Grid infrastructures are promising for dealing with challenges arising in computerized medicine but the manipulation of medical data on such infrastructures faces both the problem of interconnecting medical information systems to Grid middlewares and of preserving patients’ privacy in a wide and distributed multi-user system. These constraints are often limiting the use of Grids for manipulating sensitive medical data. This paper describes our design of a medical data management system taking advantage of the advanced gLite data management services, developed in the context of the EGEE project, to fulfill the stringent needs of the medical community. It ensures medical data protection through strict data access control, anonymization and encryption. The multi-level access control provides the flexibility needed for implementing complex medical use-cases. Data anonymization prevents the exposure of most sensitive data to unauthorized users, and data encryption guarantees data protection even when it is stored at remote sites. Moreover, the developed prototype provides a Grid storage resource manager (SRM) interface to standard medical DICOM servers thereby enabling transparent access to medical data without interfering with medical practice.     

Locally perceiving hard global constraints in multi-agent scheduling

We propose how to model enterprise facilities (like factories, warehouses, etc.) in a multi-product production/distribution network, capacity management at those facilities, and scheduling agents which act as enterprise managers, taking decisions that affect the available capacity. A coordination mechanism through which scheduling agents can locally perceive hard global temporal constraints is also proposed.     

Quasi-elastic light scattering of carnauba wax in the liquid phase: dynamics 2

Quasi-elastic light scattering of carnauba wax in the liquid phase is obtained in a heterodyne setup, and dynamic processes are analyzed through electrophoresis. Nonspherical polar clusters are found, containing a net electrical charge. An applied square-wave electric field induces drift and rotation of these clusters.These effects are dependent on strength and frequency of the applied electric field. At 373 K and in the low frequency limit the local electric field strength is approximately 70 times the strength of the applied one. This enhancement is believed to be caused by collective orientation of the clusters. The electrophoretic mobility is 1.1 X 10(-12) m2/V sec in the high frequency limit and 7.4 X 10(-11) m2/V sec in the low frequency limit. The electric dipole moment is 6.3 X 10(-16) N(-1/2) m(-1/2) where N is the cluster density/cubic meter and the net charge is about one or two elementary charges.     

FISH ASSEMBLAGES IN NON‐REGULATED AND REGULATED RIVERS FROM PERMANENT AND TEMPORARY IBERIAN SYSTEMS

The effects of river regulation on the hydrological cycle of a river and on the respective fish assemblage may differ according to dam operation purpose and type of river analysed. To assess the spatial and temporal variation of fish assemblages and their response to the hydrological changes caused by two different types of flow regulation, we selected three sampling sites in four rivers with different levels of regulation, two in a permanent river system and another two on a temporary one, which we sampled in four different annual seasons. In the permanent system, hydroelectrical regulation decreased hydrological variability, which affected fluvial specialist species, benefitting the generalist ones, and created a more homogeneous community that presented less intra‐annual variation. In the temporary system, agricultural regulation caused an inversion of the hydrological cycle, maintaining a moderate flow volume throughout the drought period that benefited the introduced, generalist and more tolerant species. Monthly volume was recognized, in a temporal scale, as the most important hydrological feature for assemblages’ structure, predicting the intra‐annual variation of several ecological guilds. This study provides important considerations for dam management and riverine ecosystems conservation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.