Software eng

Elysium Technologies Private Limited ISO 9001:2008 A leading Research and Development Division Madurai | Chennai | Trichy | Coimbatore | Kollam| Singapore Website: elysiumtechnologies.com, elysiumtechnologies.info Email: [email protected]

IEEE Final Year Project List 2011-2012

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A b s t r a c t SOFTWARE ENGINEERING 2011 - 2012

01 A Controlled Experiment for Program Comprehension through Trace Visualization

Software maintenance activities require a sufficient level of understanding of the software at hand that unfortunately is not

always readily available. Execution trace visualization is a common approach in gaining this understanding, and among our

own efforts in this context is EXTRAVIS, a tool for the visualization of large traces. While many such tools have been

evaluated through case studies, there have been no quantitative evaluations to the present day. This paper reports on the

first controlled experiment to quantitatively measure the added value of trace visualization for program comprehension. We

designed eight typical tasks aimed at gaining an understanding of a representative subject system, and measured how a

control group (using the Eclipse IDE) and an experimental group (using both Eclipse and EXTRAVIS) performed these tasks

in terms of time spent and solution correctness.

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02 A General Software Defect-Proneness Prediction Framework

BACKGROUND—Predicting defect-prone software components is an economically important activity and so has received a

good deal of attention. However, making sense of the many, and sometimes seemingly inconsistent, results is difficult.

OBJECTIVE—We propose and evaluate a general framework for software defect prediction that supports 1) unbiased and 2)

comprehensive comparison between competing prediction systems. METHOD—The framework is comprised of 1) scheme

evaluation and 2) defect prediction components. The scheme evaluation analyzes the prediction performance of competing

learning schemes for given historical data sets. The defect predictor builds models according to the evaluated learning

scheme and predicts software defects with new data according to the constructed model. In order to demonstrate the

performance of the proposed framework, we use both simulation and publicly available software defect data sets.

03 An Attack Surface Metric

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Measurement of software security is a long-standing challenge to the research community. At the same time, practical

security metrics and measurements are essential for secure software development. Hence, the need for metrics is more

pressing now due to a growing demand for secure software. In this paper, we propose using a software system’s attack

surface measurement as an indicator of the system’s security. We formalize the notion of a system’s attack surface and

introduce an attack surface metric to measure the attack surface in a systematic manner. Our measurement method is

agnostic to a software system’s implementation language and is applicable to systems of all sizes; we demonstrate our

method by measuring the attack surfaces of small desktop applications and large enterprise systems implemented in C and

Java.

04 Assessing, Comparing, and Combining State Machine-Based Testing and Structural Testing: A Series of Experiments

A large number of research works have addressed the importance of models in software engineering. However, the

adoption of model-based techniques in software organizations is limited since these models are perceived to be expensive

and not necessarily cost-effective. Focusing on model-based testing, this paper reports on a series of controlled

experiments. It investigates the impact of state machine testing on fault detection in class clusters and its cost when

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compared with structural testing. Based on previous work showing this is a good compromise in terms of cost and

effectiveness, this paper focuses on a specific state-based technique: the round-trip paths coverage criterion. Round-trip

paths testing are compared to structural testing, and it is investigated whether they are complementary.

05 Automatically detecting and tracking inconsistence in software design Model

Software models typically contain many inconsistencies and consistency checkers help engineers find them. Even if

engineers are willing to tolerate inconsistencies, they are better off knowing about their existence to avoid follow-on errors

and unnecessary rework. However, current approaches do not detect or track inconsistencies fast enough. This paper

presents an automated approach for detecting and tracking inconsistencies in real time (while the model changes).

Engineers only need to define consistency rules—in any language—and our approach automatically identifies how model

changes affect these consistency rules. It does this by observing the behavior of consistency rules to understand how they

affect the model. The approach is quick, correct, scalable, fully automated, and easy to use as it does not require any special

skills from the engineers using it.

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06 Deriving a Slicing Algorithm via FermaT Transformations

In this paper, we present a case study in deriving an algorithm from a formal specification via FermaT transformations. The

general method (which is presented in a separate paper) is extended to a method for deriving an implementation of a

program transformation from a specification of the program transformation. We use program slicing as an example

transformation since this is of interest outside the program transformation community. We develop a formal specification

for program slicing in the form of a WSL specification statement which is refined into a simple slicing algorithm by applying

a sequence of general purpose program

07 Developing a Single Model and Test Prioritization Strategies for Event-Driven Software

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Event-Driven Software (EDS) can change state based on incoming events; common examples are GUI and Web applications.

These EDSs pose a challenge to testing because there are a large number of possible event sequences that users can

invoke through a user interface. While valuable contributions have been made for testing these two subclasses of EDS, such

efforts have been disjoint. This work provides the first single model that is generic enough to study GUI and Web

applications together. In this paper, we use the model to define generic prioritization criteria that are applicable to both GUI

and Web applications. Our ultimate goal is to evolve the model and use it to develop a unified theory of how all EDS should

be tested. An empirical study reveals that the GUI and Web-based applications, when recast using the new model, show

similar behavior.

08 Dynamic Qos Management and Optimization in Service-Based Systems

Service-based systems that are dynamically composed at runtime to provide complex, adaptive functionality are currently

one of the main development paradigms in software engineering. However, the Quality of Service (QoS) delivered by these

systems remains an important concern, and needs to be managed in an equally adaptive and predictable way. To address

this need, we introduce a novel, tool-supported framework for the development of adaptive service-based systems called

QoSMOS (QoS Management and Optimization of Service-based systems). QoSMOS can be used to develop service-based

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systems that achieve their QoS requirements through dynamically adapting to changes in the system state, environment,

and workload. QoSMOS service-based systems translate high-level QoS requirements specified by their administrators into

probabilistic temporal logic formulae, which are then formally and automatically analyzed to identify and enforce optimal

system configurations. The QoSMOS self-adaptation mechanism can handle reliability and performance-related QoS

requirements, and can be integrated into newly developed solutions or legacy systems. The effectiveness and scalability of

the approach are validated using simulations and a set of experiments based on an implementation of an adaptive service-

based system for remote medical assistance.

09 Efficient Consistency Measurement Based on Behavioral Profiles of process Model

Engineering of process-driven business applications can be supported by process modeling efforts in order to bridge the

gap between business requirements and system specifications. However, diverging purposes of business process modeling

initiatives have led to significant problems in aligning related models at different abstract levels and different perspectives.

Checking the consistency of such corresponding models is a major challenge for process modeling theory and practice. In

this paper, we take the inappropriateness of existing strict notions of behavioral equivalence as a starting point. Our

contribution is a concept called behavioral profile that captures the essential behavioral constraints of a process model. We

show that these profiles can be computed efficiently, i.e., in cubic time for sound free-choice Petri nets w.r.t. their number of

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places and transitions.

10 Securing Cookies with a MAC Address Encrypted Key Ring

Most web services providers use cookies to personalize the customers’ access to the website. A cookie contains a user’s privacy

and important identification which can be used to identify the user. However, cookies are not as safe as we take it for granted. There

are still some potential safety hazards in cookies. For example, the contents in the cookies can be easily changed, thus it will result

in some safety threats to the user or the website. This paper proposes a new cookie security policy based on a MAC address

encrypted key ring. It can make the cookies have higher confidentiality and higher efficiency. It is also easy to deploy and meets the

user’s higher security requirements.

11 From UML to Petri Nets: The PCM-Based Methodology

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In this paper, we present an evaluation methodology to validate the performance of a UML model, representing software

architecture. The proposed approach is based on open and well-known standards: UML for software modeling and the OMG

Profile for Schedulability, Performance, and Time Specification for the performance annotations into UML models. Such

specifications are collected in an intermediate model, called the Performance Context Model (PCM). The intermediate model

is translated into a performance model which is subsequently evaluated. The paper is focused on the mapping from the PCM

to the performance domain.

12 Genetic Algorithms for Randomized Unit Testing

Randomized testing is an effective method for testing software units. The thoroughness of randomized unit testing varies

widely according to the settings of certain parameters, such as the relative frequencies with which methods are called. In

this paper, we describe Nighthawk, a system which uses a genetic algorithm (GA) to find parameters for randomized unit

testing that optimize test coverage. Designing GAs is somewhat of a black art. We therefore use a feature subset selection

(FSS) tool to assess the size and content of the representations within the GA. Using that tool, we can reduce the size of the

representation substantially while still achieving most of the coverage found using the full representation. Our reduced GA

achieves almost the same results as the full system, but in only 10 percent of the time. These results suggest that FSS could

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significantly optimize metaheuristic search-based software engineering tools.

13 Improving Source Code Lexicon via Traceability and Information Retrieval

The paper presents an approach helping developers to maintain source code identifiers and comments consistent with high-

level artifacts. Specifically, the approach computes and shows the textual similarity between source code and related high-

level artifacts. Our conjecture is that developers are induced to improve the source code lexicon, i.e., terms used in

identifiers or comments, if the software development environment provides information about the textual similarity between

the source code under development and the related high-level artifacts. The proposed approach also recommends candidate

identifiers built from high-level artifacts related to the source code under development and has been implemented as an

Eclipse plug-in, called COde Comprehension Nurturant Using Traceability (COCONUT). The paper also reports on two

controlled experiments performed with master’s and bachelor’s students. The goal of the experiments is to evaluate the

quality of identifiers and comments (in terms of their consistency with high-level artifacts) in the source code produced

when using or not using COCONUT.

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14 Loupe: Verifying Publish-Subscribe Architectures with a Magnifying Lens

The Publish-Subscribe (P/S) communication paradigm fosters high decoupling among distributed components. This

facilitates the design of dynamic applications, but also impacts negatively on their verification, making it difficult to reason

on the overall federation of components. In addition, existing P/S infrastructures offer radically different features to the

applications, e.g., in terms of message reliability. This further complicates the verification as its outcome depends on the

specific guarantees provided by the underlying P/S system. Although model checking has been proposed as a tool for the

verification of P/S architectures, existing solutions overlook many characteristics of the underlying communication

infrastructure to avoid state explosion problems. To overcome these limitations, the Loupe domain-specific model checker

adopts a different approach.

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15 A Web Development Platform Comparison by an Exploratory Experiment Searching for Emergent Platform Properties

Background: For developing Web-based applications, there exist several competing and widely used technological

platforms (consisting of a programming language, framework(s), components, and tools), each with an accompanying

development culture and style. Research question: Do Web development projects exhibit emergent process or product

properties that are characteristic and consistent within a platform, but show relevant substantial differences across

platforms or do team-to-team individual differences outweigh such differences, if any? Such a property could be positive

(i.e., a platform advantage), negative, or neutral, and it might be unobvious which is which. Method: In a nonrandomized,

controlled experiment, framed as a public contest called “Platforms,” top-class teams of three professional programmers

competed to implement the same requirements for a Web based application within 30 hours. Three different platforms (Java

EE, PHP, or Perl) were used by three teams each. We compare the resulting nine products and process records along many

dimensions, both external (usability, functionality, reliability, security, etc.) and internal (size, structure, modifiability, etc.)

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16 Self-Supervising BPEL Processes

Service compositions suffer changes in their partner services. Even if the composition does not change, its behavior may

evolve over time and become incorrect. Such changes cannot be fully foreseen through prerelease validation, but impose a

shift in the quality assessment activities. Provided functionality and quality of service must be continuously probed while

the application executes, and the application itself must be able to take corrective actions to preserve its dependability and

robustness. We propose the idea of self-supervising BPEL processes, that is, special-purpose compositions that assess

their behavior and react through user-defined rules. Supervision consists of monitoring and recovery. The former checks the

system’s execution to see whether everything is proceeding as planned, while the latter attempts to fix any anomalies..

17 Semi-Proving: An Integrated Method for Program Proving, Testing, and Debugging

We present an integrated method for program proving, testing, and debugging. Using the concept of metamorphic relations,

we select necessary properties for target programs. For programs where global symbolic evaluation can be conducted and

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the constraint expressions involved can be solved, we can either prove that these necessary conditions for program

correctness are satisfied or identify all inputs that violate the conditions. For other programs, our method can be converted

into a symbolic-testing approach.

.18 Software Module Clustering as a Multi-Objective Search Problem

Software module clustering is the problem of automatically organizing software units into modules to improve program

structure. There has been a great deal of recent interest in search-based formulations of this problem in which module

boundaries are identified by automated search, guided by a fitness function that captures the twin objectives of high

cohesion and low coupling in a single-objective fitness function. This paper introduces two novel multi-objective

formulations of the software module clustering problem, in which several different objectives (including cohesion and

coupling) are represented separately. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the multi-objective approach, a set of

experiments was performed on 17 real-world module clustering problems.

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19 Systematic Review and Aggregation of Empirical Studies on Elicitation Techniques

We have located the results of empirical studies on elicitation techniques and aggregated these results to gather empirically

grounded evidence. Our chosen surveying methodology was systematic review, whereas we used an adaptation of

comparative analysis for aggregation because meta-analysis techniques could not be applied. The review identified 564

publications from the SCOPUS, IEEEXPLORE, and ACM DL databases, as well as Google. We selected and extracted data

from 26 of those publications. The selected publications contain 30 empirical studies. These studies were designed to test

43 elicitation techniques and 50 different response variables. We got 100 separate results from the experiments. The

aggregation generated 17 pieces of knowledge about the interviewing, laddering, sorting, and protocol analysis elicitation

techniques. We provide a set of guidelines based on the gathered pieces of knowledge.

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20 Verifying the Evolution of Probability Distributions Governed by a DTMC

We propose a new probabilistic temporal logic, iLTL, which captures properties of systems whose state can be represented

by probability mass functions (pmfs). Using iLTL, we can specify reachability to a state (i.e., a pmf), as well as properties

representing the aggregate (expected) behavior of a system. We then consider a class of systems whose transitions are

governed by a Markov Chain—in this case, the set of states a system may be in is specified by the transitions of pmfs from

all potential initial states to the final state. We then provide a model checking algorithm to check iLTL properties of such

systems. Unlike existing model checking techniques, which either compute the portions of the computational paths that

satisfy a specification or evaluate properties along a single path of pmf transitions, our model checking technique enables

us to do a complete analysis on the expected behaviors of large-scale systems

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