On the estimation of adequate test set size using fault failure rates

Test set size in terms of the number of test cases is an important consideration when testing software systems. Using too few test cases might result in poor fault detection and using too many might be very expensive and suffer from redundancy. We define the failure rate of a program as the fraction of test cases in an available test pool that result in execution failure on that program. This paper investigates the relationship between failure rates and the number of test cases required to detect the faults. Our experiments based on 11 sets of C programs suggest that an accurate estimation of failure rates of potential fault(s) in a program can provide a reliable estimate of adequate test set size with respect to fault detection and should therefore be one of the factors kept in mind during test set construction. Furthermore, the model proposed herein is fairly robust to incorrect estimations in failure rates and can still provide good predictive quality. Experiments are also performed to observe the relationship between multiple faults present in the same program using the concept of a failure rate. When predicting the effectiveness against a program with multiple faults, results indicate that not knowing the number of faults in the program is not a significant concern, as the predictive quality is typically not affected adversely.     

Simulations, models, and testbeds: A mutual catalysis

Recent developments in the area of decentralized and infrastructureless systems opened avenues for novel applications. Along with these new technologies, new questions regarding their operational bounds in terms of e.g. scalability and security arose. Due to the sparse presence of real-world decentralized and infrastructureless systems, new protocols and applications have to be scrutinized by means of simulation, in (small-scale) testbeds, and by analytical models. In this paper, we discuss challenges of evaluating security mechanisms for mobile ad hoc networks and peer-to-peer systems. We focus on harmonizing predictions of analytical models and results obtained from simulation studies and testbed experiments.     

Robustness of representations in multilayer feedforward neural networks

Recent research has shown that multilayer feedforward networks with sigmoidal activation functions are universal approximators, and that this holds for more general activations as well. The mathematical underpinning for these results has been various: Kolmogorov's resolution of Hilbert's thirteenth problem; the Stone-Weierstrass theorem; approximation of Fourier and Radon integral representations; and convergence of probability measures. This paper

Performance evaluation of priority CSMA-CA mechanism on ISA100.11a wireless network

The International Society of Automation recently released ISA100.11a as an open standard for reliable wireless networks for industrial automation. ISA100.11a uses the TDMA scheme in the medium access layer to provide deterministic services. However, ISA100.11a adopts the CSMA-CA mechanism with priorities for retransmission from failure on dedicated links, sporadic data, and network configuration.This paper evaluates ISA100.11a CSMA-CA by simulation, considering the effects of backoff procedures and priority settings to probability of collision and successful use of slots. It's demonstrated that a high number of priority classes enable better network utilization resulting in less number of packets exceeding their lifetime.     

Micromechanical Modeling of the Effective Viscoelastic Properties of Inhomogeneous Materials Using Fraction-exponential Operators

A new analytical approach for’ micromechanical modeling of the effective viscoelastic behavior of a’ composite material is presented. Fractionexponential operators are. used to describe the viscoelastic properties of the constituents. To construct the corresponding elastic solution, effective field method is used. Effective viscoelastic operators are obtained from the Volter ra’s elasticity-viscoelasticity correspondence principle. Incompatible deformation that often occurs during the manufacturiig process is taken intp account. All the formulas are obtained in explicit ready-to-use form.     

Facial motion cloning

We propose a method for automatically copying facial motion from one 3D face model to another, while preserving the compliance of the motion to the MPEG-4 Face and Body Animation (FBA) standard. Despite the enormous progress in the field of Facial Animation, producing a new animatable face from scratch is still a tremendous task for an artist. Although many methods exist to animate a face automatically based on procedural methods, these methods still need to be initialized by defining facial regions or similar, and they lack flexibility because the artist can only obtain the facial motion that a particular algorithm offers. Therefore a very common approach is interpolation between key facial expressions, usually called morph targets, containing either speech elements (visemes) or emotional expressions. Following the same approach, the MPEG-4 Facial Animation specification offers a method for interpolation of facial motion from key positions, called Facial Animation Tables, which are essentially morph targets corresponding to all possible motions specified in MPEG-4. The problem of this approach is that the artist needs to create a new set of morph targets for each new face model. In case of MPEG-4 there are 86 morph targets, which is a lot of work to create manually. Our method solves this problem by cloning the morph targets, i.e. by automatically copying the motion of vertices, as well as geometry transforms, from source face to target face while maintaining the regional correspondences and the correct scale of motion. It requires the user only to identify a subset of the MPEG-4 Feature Points in the source and target faces. The scale of the movement is normalized with respect to MPEG-4 normalization units (FAPUs), meaning that the MPEG-4 FBA compliance of the copied motion is preserved. Our method is therefore suitable not only for cloning of free facial expressions, but also of MPEG-4 compatible facial motion, in particular the Facial Animation Tables. We believe that Facial Motion Cloning offers dramatic time saving to artists producing morph targets for facial animation or MPEG-4 Facial Animation Tables.     

Sliding mode control for two-time scale systems: stability issues

The paper presents some results on global exponential stability of linear time invariant systems with different time scales. The full system is decomposed in two reduced ones by means of singular perturbations and a smooth approximation of a Variable Structure Control is synthesized for each of them using Reaching Law approach. The global closed loop stability is then proved for the whole system using Lyapunov methods and a particular state space decomposition. Moreover a literal form for ε∗ (a parameter which measures the minimum separation between time scales) is derived.     

Dynamic anti-windup based control method for state constrained systems

Based on the dynamic anti-windup strategy, an alternative control methodology for state constrained systems is presented. The proposed method is an a posteriori approach for state constrained systems, which is differentiated from the usual a priori approach. That is, first a linear controller is designed to show a desirable nominal performance by ignoring state constraints. Then, an additional compensator is introduced to account for state constraints. By minimizing a reasonable performance index, a dynamic compensator is derived explicitly, which is expressed in plant and controller parameters. The proposed method not only provides a graceful performance degradation, but it also guarantees the total stability of the resulting systems. An illustrative example is given to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Numerical Modeling of Grain Boundary Effects in the Diffusional Creep of Copper Interconnect Lines

We propose a numerical simulation technique to model the process of diffusional creep and stress relaxation that occurs in Cu-damascene interconnects of integrated circuit devices in processing stage. The mass flow problem is coupled to the stress analysis through vacancy flux and equilibrium vacancy concentration. The technique is implemented in a software package that seamlessly integrates the problem-oriented code with commercially available finite element program MSC.Marc. It is utilized to model the Coble creep phenomenon by introducing the nanoscale grain boundary region having the thickness on the order of several layers of atoms. As an illustration, the two-dimensional problem of stress relaxation in a single grain subjected to prescribed displacements and tractions is examined.     

Characterization of indoor wireless channel at 5 GHz U-NII bands

The paper reports on the experiments undertaken at the University of Wollongong to characterise fading profiles and delay parameters of an indoor wireless channels at 5 GHz U-NII bands. The measurements were undertaken at different locations around the campus with results recorded for a post-processing to calculate the Rician K-factor, the level crossing rate and the average fade duration as well as mean excess delay, rms delay spread, and the coherence bandwidth of the channel. The presented measurement results can be useful in developing a Markov chain based model of the transport channel for IEEE802.11a or HYPRLAN-2 networks. The results also indicate scenarios where the coherence bandwidth of the channel is smaller than the width of the sub-carrier OFDM channels in either of the mentioned systems.