Eisuke Itoh

Test-case generation for concurrent programs with the testing criteria using interaction sequences

Test-cases play an important roll for high quality software testing. Inadequate test-cases may cause bugs remaining after testing. Overlapped test-cases lead to increases in testing costs. The paper proposes a test-case generation method with the EIAG (Event InterActions Graph) and the ISTC (Interaction Sequences Testing Criteria). The EIAG represents behavior of concurrent programs. It consists of Event Graphs and Interactions. An Event Graph is a control flow graph of a program unit in a concurrent program. The Interactions represent interactions (synchronizations, communications and waits) between the program units. The ISTC proposed are based on sequences of Interactions. The cooperated paths (copaths) on the EIAG as test-cases satisfying the ISTC are generated. The generated copaths can detect dead (unreachable) statements which concern interactions, and they can find some communication errors and deadlocks in testing. It is, however, necessary to validate feasibility of the generated copaths.

A prototype of a concurrent behavior monitoring tool for testing of concurrent programs

Testing of concurrent programs is much more difficult than that of sequential programs. A concurrent program behaves nondeterministically, that is, the program may produce different results with the same input data according to execution timings of the program. In testing of concurrent programs, test data must specify not only input data but also sequences of statements. Ordered Sequence Testing Criterion for length k (OSC/sub k/), which was proposed by the authors, requires execution of all sequences of length k of concurrency statements which cause concurrent actions in a concurrent program. A monitoring tool has been developed for applying the testing criterion OSC/sub k/ to the testing of C concurrent programs on UNIX system. The tool measures coverage with regard to k-tuples of concurrency statements (OSC/sub k/) in source codes of a C concurrent program using a probe insertion method. The analysis of the tools output for a practical C concurrent program shows not only applicability of the tool for testing of concurrent program but also the necessity of a supporting tool for forcing execution of concurrency statements.

An Approach to Analyzing Correlation between Songs/Artists Using iTMS Playlists

Digital audio devices have been changing music entertainment environment. Those devices are bundled with music jukebox software, such as Apples iTunes, Sonys CONNECT player. Jukebox software not only enables us to recode, play, search, purchase music on PC, but also to manage playlist. Anybody can make his/her own playlists, and play music according to the list. In this paper, we focus on iTMS (iTunse Music Stroe) playlists and use them as the data mining resources for a music recommendation system, then developing correlation measuring methods. We have retrieved about 13,000 playlists, and analyzed the frequency of artists/songs, co-occurrence of artists/songs in the playlists. Through the result data, we found out that all graphs we drew are follow the Zipfs law. Furthermore, we have analyzed the hierarchical relation between songs according to their popularity. We proposed a basic idea of popularity measuring method

Ordered sequence testing criteria for concurrent programs and the support tool

Testing of programs is important to increase the reliability of programs. Coverage is a ratio of the number of worked test events to all test events, and it is used as a metric of testing sufficiency and reliability. The test events are defined by a testing criterion. Some testing criteria are proposed for evaluating testing sufficiency of sequential programs. However, the criteria are inadequate for concurrent programs. New testing criteria must be introduced for concurrent programs. The paper proposes new testing criteria, ordered sequence criteria (OSC) for concurrent programs. OSC are concerned with interprocess communication and synchronization. An OSC/sub k/ selects k-length sequences of statements related to communication or synchronization. The sequences should be executed at least once in testing. OSC/sub k/ presents various levels of testing according to values of k. The OSC/sub 2/ is reliable for a program which is correct or which includes communication errors. A prototype is implemented for coverage measuring based on OSC/sub 2/.<<ETX>>

Semi-automatic construction of metadata from a series of web documents

Metadata plays an important role in discovering, collecting, extracting and aggregating Web data. This paper proposes a method of constructing metadata for a specific topic. The method uses Web pages that are located in a site and are linked from a listing page. Web pages of recipes, real estates, used cars, hotels and syllabi are typical examples of such pages. We call them a series of Web documents. A series of Web pages have the same appearance when a user views them with a browser, because it is often the case that they are written with the same tag pattern. The method uses the tag-pattern as the common structure of the Web pages.

Aspects of IntelligentBox as an Internet-supported tutoring system

This paper treats a 3D graphics software development system called IntelligentBox. Especially it presents its aspects as an Internet-supported tutoring system. Using IntelligentBox, end-users can develop interactive 3D graphics applications by combining already existing 3D software components through direct manipulations on a computer screen. Since every software component of IntelligentBox is visible and manually operable, composite components are also visible and manually operable. A network communication facility is also provided as a certain software component. Using these software components, it is possible to rapidly develop a distributed 3D virtual environment where a tutor can teach a learner how to operate a target object of tutoring, which is represented as a 3D composite component, by real-time demonstrations via a network. This paper describes the availability of IntelligentBox as an Internet-supported tutoring system.