Pairwise testing for software product lines: comparison of two approaches

Software Product Lines (SPL) are difficult to validate due to combinatorics induced by variability, which in turn leads to combinatorial explosion of the number of derivable products. Exhaustive testing in such a large products space is hardly feasible. Hence, one possible option is to test SPLs by generating test configurations that cover all possible t feature interactions (t-wise). It dramatically reduces the number of test products while ensuring reasonable SPL coverage. In this paper, we report our experience on applying t-wise techniques for SPL with two independent toolsets developed by the authors. One focuses on generality and splits the generation problem according to strategies. The other emphasizes providing efficient generation. To evaluate the respective merits of the approaches, measures such as the number of generated test configurations and the similarity between them are provided. By applying these measures, we were able to derive useful insights for pairwise and t-wise testing of product lines.     

Death and Memory: Clothing Bequests in English Wills 1650–1830

Specific clothing bequests form a distinct and often intimate feature in a range of English wills during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Carefully and symbolically allocated to new owners, garments were thus imbued with commemoration as well as financial worth. This paper suggests that gender differentials in this practice have been exaggerated as individual men could be as committed to the process as their female counterparts. Crucially, men and women without children or partners were most disposed to draw up detailed wills reallocating a range of possessions, especially clothing. In this creation of stewardship for chosen garments, individual personality and familial situation were more decisive than any general social or economic considerations.     

Efficient disparity vector prediction schemes with modified P frame for 2D camera arrays

An efficient disparity estimation algorithm for multi-view video sequences, recorded by a two-dimensional camera array in which the cameras are spaced equidistantly, is presented. Because of the strong geometrical relationship among views, the disparity vectors of a certain view can for most blocks be derived from the disparity vectors of other views. A frame constructed using that idea is called a D frame in this work. Three new prediction schemes which contain D frames are proposed for encoding 5 × 3 multi-view video sequences. The schemes are applied to several multi-view image sequences taken from a camera-array and they are compared in terms of quality, bit-rate and complexity. The experimental results show that the proposed prediction schemes significantly decrease the complexity of the encoder at a very low cost of quality and/or bit-rate.     

Poly(vinyl alcohol) functionalization with aldehydes in organic solvents: Shining properties of poly(vinyl acetals)

Poly(vinyl alcohol) has been functionalized with aldehydes in tetrahydrofuran (THF) with a good control of the grafting. A wide library of poly(vinyl acetals) could be obtained in order to study some structure/property correlations. The influence of the aldehyde nature on the functionalization rates has been studied, in particular for optical properties by measurement of the shininess for further applications in the cosmetic field. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131, 40677.     

Effect of different cranberry extracts and juices during cranberry juice processing on the antiproliferative activity against two colon cancer cell lines

The effect of cranberry extracts and juices during cranberry juice processing on the antiproliferative properties against colon cancer cells was investigated. Two colon cancer cell lines HT-29 and LS-513 were treated with different concentrations of cranberry phenolic extracts from fruits, puree, depectinised puree and pomace and different concentration of three juices (raw, filtered and concentrated juices). The phenolic extracts consisted of water-soluble phenolic compounds, apolar phenolic compounds and anthocyanins. These phenolic extracts and juices were tested against two cell lines at pH 2.5 (natural juice pH) and at pH 7.0 (physiological pH). All cranberry extracts and juices could inhibit the growth of both cell lines with the IC₅₀ values (the concentration of phenolic content required to inhibit 50% the growth of cancer cells) varied from 3.8 to 179.2 μg gallic acid equivalent/ml. It was found that three types of extracts from fruit at pH 7.0 were the most effective at inhibiting the growth of HT-29 cell line. Extracts containing anthocyanins from fruit and from pomace were the most and the least efficient, respectively, in inhibiting the growth of both cancer cell lines. Further, three juices at natural pH (pH 2.5) were more effective at inhibiting the growth of two cell lines as compared to juices at pH 7.0. Concentrated juice at both pH values was the most effective at growth inhibition of two cancer cell lines compared to two other juices.     

Bayesian density estimation from grouped continuous data

Grouped data occur frequently in practice, either because of limited resolution of instruments, or because data have been summarized in relatively wide bins. A combination of the composite link model with roughness penalties is proposed to estimate smooth densities from such data in a Bayesian framework. A simulation study is used to evaluate the performances of the strategy in the estimation of a density, of its quantiles and first moments. Two illustrations are presented: the first one involves grouped data of lead concentration in the blood and the second one the number of deaths due to tuberculosis in The Netherlands in wide age classes.     

A 3D domain decomposition approach for the identification of spatially varying elastic material parameters

The post‐treatment of (3D) displacement fields for the identification of spatially varying elastic material parameters is a large inverse problem that remains out of reach for massive 3D structures. We explore here the potential of the constitutive compatibility method for tackling such an inverse problem, provided an appropriate domain decomposition technique is introduced. In the method described here, the statically admissible stress field that can be related through the known constitutive symmetry to the kinematic observations is sought through minimization of an objective function, which measures the violation of constitutive compatibility. After this stress reconstruction, the local material parameters are identified with the given kinematic observations using the constitutive equation. Here, we first adapt this method to solve 3D identification problems and then implement it within a domain decomposition framework which allows for reduced computational load when handling larger problems. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Toward a generic approach to build up air drying models

Few versatile software programs allowing for the precise simulation of drying processes in a whole industrial plant are available. This work was done during the creation of a generic convective drying simulator for food solid particle in ProSimPlus, a chemical engineering software. Modeling approaches are discussed, and among them a compromise between first-principle modeling, reduced lab work, ability to accurately predict kinetics for a wide range of drying conditions, and low simulation time is presented. Predictive models of some required food product properties are examined. Two toolboxes were created: one estimating physical properties of foodstuffs and another simulating transfers in air and in the product. This approach is validated on four food products (with various formulations and shapes).     

Effect of composition on the matrix transformation of the Co-Re-Cr-Ta-C alloys

Neutron diffraction measurement was performed in-situ at high temperatures on Co-Re-Ta-C alloys with and without Cr addition. This included alloys containing different C content with the C/Ta ratio varying between 0.5 and 1.0. The Co-Re-solid solution matrix of the experimental alloys is polymorphic (like in pure cobalt) and transformed from low temperature hexagonal ? phase to high temperature cubic γ phase on heating. This transformation is reversible and show hysteresis. The main alloying addition, Re, stabilizes the ? Co-phase and increases the transformation temperature to above 1273 K. The onset of the \(\varepsilon \rightleftharpoons \gamma\) transformation during heating and cooling was found to differ depending on the alloy composition. In alloys without Cr addition the transformation was not completed on cooling and the high temperature γ phase was partly retained at room temperature in metastable state with the amount depending on the cooling rate from high temperature. The diffraction and microstructural results showed that Cr is ? stabilizer (similar as Re) but the role of Ta is not clear. The C/Ta ratio has no direct effect on the matrix phase transformation. Nevertheless, it influences indirectly by determining the amount of Ta which is freely available in the matrix.