Towards Improving the Quality of Requirement and Testing Process in Agile Software Development:An Empirical Study

Software testing is a critical phase due to misconceptions about ambiguities in the requirements during specification,which affect the testing process.Therefore,it is difficult to identify all faults in software.As requirement changes continuously,it increases the irrelevancy and redundancy during testing.Due to these challenges;fault detection capability decreases and there arises a need to improve the testing process,which is based on changes in requirements specification.In this research,we have developed a model to resolve testing challenges through requirement prioritization and prediction in an agile-based environment.The research objective is to identify the most relevant and meaningful requirements through semantic analysis for correct change analysis.Then compute the similarity of requirements through case-based reasoning,which predicted the requirements for reuse and restricted to error-based requirements.Afterward,the apriori algorithm mapped out requirement frequency to select relevant test cases based on frequently reused or not reused test cases to increase the fault detection rate.Furthermore,the proposed model was evaluated by conducting experiments.The results showed that requirement redundancy and irrelevancy improved due to semantic analysis,which correctly predicted the requirements,increasing the fault detection rate and resulting in high user satisfaction.The predicted requirements are mapped into test cases,increasing the fault detection rate after changes to achieve higher user satisfaction.Therefore,the model improves the redundancy and irrelevancy of requirements by more than 90%compared to other clustering methods and the analytical hierarchical process,achieving an 80%fault detection rate at an earlier stage.Hence,it provides guidelines for practitioners and researchers in the modern era.In the future,we will provide the working prototype of this model for proof of concept.

ProTSA: A Testing Process for Automotive Software Domain

This study evaluates the development of a testing process for the automotive software domain, highlighting challenges stemming from the absence of adequate processes. The research demonstrates the application of Design Science Research methodology in developing, an automotive software testing process—ProTSA, using six functional testing modules. Additionally, the study evaluates the benefits of implementing ProTSA in a specific Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) using an experimental single-case approach with industry professionals’ participation through a survey. The study concludes that combining testing techniques with effective communication and alignment is crucial for enhancing software quality. Furthermore, survey data indicates that implementing ProTSA leads to productivity gains by initiating tests early, resulting in time savings in the testing program and increased productivity for the testing team. Future work will explore implementing ProTSA in cybersecurity, over-the-air software updates, and autonomous vehicle testing processes. .

Life-Cycle Bearing Capacity for Pre-Stressed T-beams Based on Full-Scale Destructive Test

To investigate the evolution of load-bearing characteristics of pre-stressed beams throughout their service life and to provide a basis for accurately assessing the actual working state of damaged pre-stressed concrete T-beams,destructive tests were conducted on full-scale pre-stressed concrete beams.Based on the measurement and ana-lysis of beam deflection,strain,and crack development under various loading levels during the research tests,combined with the verification coefficient indicators specified in the codes,the verification coefficients of bridges at different stages of damage can be examined.The results indicate that the T-beams experience complete,incom-plete linear,and non-linear stages during the destructive test process.In the complete linear elastic stage,both the deflection and bottom strain verification coefficients comply with the specifications,indicating a good structural load-bearing capacity no longer adheres to the code’s requirements.In the non-linear stage,both coefficients exhi-bit a sharp increase,resulting in a further decrease in the structure’s load-bearing capacity.According to the pro-visions of the current code,the beam can be in the incomplete linear stage when both values fall within the code’s specified range.The strain verification coefficient sourced from the compression zone at the bottom of theflange is not recommended for assessing the bridge’s load-bearing capacity.

Generating test cases for software configuration testing

Software configuration testing is used to test a piece of software with all kinds of hardware to ensure that it can run properly on them. This paper generates test cases for configuration testing with several common methods, such as multiple single-factor experiments, uniform design, and orthogonal experiment design used in other fields. This paper analyzes their merits and improves the orthogonal experiment design method with pairwise testing, and decreases the testing risk caused by incomplete testing with a method of multiple-factors-covering. It presents a simple factor cover method which can cover all the factors and pairwise combinations to the greatest degree. Some comparisons of these methods are made on the aspects of test suite scale, coverage, and usability, etc..

文献“Software Testing in Space Programs”点评

作者以他个人的观点,对该文献中重要部分进行了点评,指出:空间软件地面可靠性测试尽管困难重重且有诸多限制,但不能放松甚至放弃执行现有的软件地面测试标准;应从"精神号"火星探测器飞行失败中吸取教训,加强软件地面测试,包括传统软件黑盒和白盒测试方法中的典型测试项目(如:健壮测试、应力测试、极值测试、随机测试等);已经公布的新软件研发标准——Aerospace Report No.TOR-2004(3909)-3537,Software Development Standard for Space Systems值得我们参考。

On modeling approach for embedded real-time software simulation testing

Modeling technology has been introduced into software testing field. However, how to carry through the testing modeling effectively is still a difficulty. Based on combination of simulation modeling technology and embedded real-time software testing method, the process of simulation testing modeling is studied first. And then, the supporting environment of simulation testing modeling is put forward. Furthermore, an approach of embedded real-time software simulation testing modeling including modeling of cross-linked equipments of system under testing （SUT）, test case, testing scheduling, and testing system service is brought forward. Finally, the formalized description and execution system of testing models are given, with which we can realize real-time, closed loop, mad automated system testing for embedded real-time software.

Software Test Case Generation with Adequacy Analysis on Scenario-Based Testing

This paper studies the software scenario testing, which is commonly used in black-box testing at present. In the paper, the workflow model based on task-driven, which is very common in scenario testing, is analyzed. According to test adequacy criteria in scenario testing, the model is designed to correspond test cases in the light of logic block(LB). The final test cases that conform to the test adequacy criteria can be obtained through test case combination and test case reduction. In the last part of the paper, example of actual workflow is to design the efficient test case. Therefore the method is proved to be effective.

Real-time embedded software testing method based on extended finite state machine

The reliability of real-time embedded software directly determines the reliability of the whole real-time embedded sys- tem, and the effective software testing is an important way to ensure software quality and reliability. Based on the analysis of the characteristics of real-time embedded software, the formal method is introduced into the real-time embedded software testing field and the real-time extended finite state machine （RT-EFSM） model is studied firstly. Then, the time zone division method of real-time embedded system is presented and the definition and description methods of time-constrained transition equivalence class （timeCTEC） are presented. Furthermore, the approaches of the testing sequence and test case generation are put forward. Finally, the proposed method is applied to a typical avionics real- time embedded software testing practice and the examples of the timeCTEC, testing sequences and test cases are given. With the analysis of the testing result, the application verification shows that the proposed method can effectively describe the real-time embedded software state transition characteristics and real-time requirements and play the advantages of the formal methods in accuracy, effectiveness and the automation supporting. Combined with the testing platform, the real-time, closed loop and automated simulation testing for real-time embedded software can be realized effectively.

Empirical Measurement of the Software Testing and Reliability

The meanings of parameters of software reliabi- lity models are investigated in terms of the process of the software testing and in terms of other measurements of software. Based on the investigation, the empirical estimation of the parameters is addressed. On one hand, these empirical estimates are also measurements of the software, which can be used to control and to optimize the process of the software development. On the other hand, by treating these empirical estimates as Bayes priors, software reliability models are extended such that the engineers’ experience can be integrated into and hence to improve the models.

Managing Software Testing Technical Debt Using Evolutionary Algorithms

Technical debt(TD)happens when project teams carry out technical decisions in favor of a short-term goal(s)in their projects,whether deliberately or unknowingly.TD must be properly managed to guarantee that its negative implications do not outweigh its advantages.A lot of research has been conducted to show that TD has evolved into a common problem with considerable financial burden.Test technical debt is the technical debt aspect of testing(or test debt).Test debt is a relatively new concept that has piqued the curiosity of the software industry in recent years.In this article,we assume that the organization selects the testing artifacts at the start of every sprint.Implementing the latest features in consideration of expected business value and repaying technical debt are among candidate tasks in terms of the testing process(test cases increments).To gain the maximum benefit for the organization in terms of software testing optimization,there is a need to select the artifacts(i.e.,test cases)with maximum feature coverage within the available resources.The management of testing optimization for large projects is complicated and can also be treated as a multi-objective problem that entails a trade-off between the agile software’s short-term and long-term value.In this article,we implement a multi-objective indicatorbased evolutionary algorithm(IBEA)for fixing such optimization issues.The capability of the algorithm is evidenced by adding it to a real case study of a university registration process.

Modified Harris Hawks Optimization Based Test Case Prioritization for Software Testing

Generally,software testing is considered as a proficient technique to achieve improvement in quality and reliability of the software.But,the quality of test cases has a considerable influence on fault revealing capability of software testing activity.Test Case Prioritization(TCP)remains a challenging issue since prioritizing test cases is unsatisfactory in terms of Average Percentage of Faults Detected(APFD)and time spent upon execution results.TCP ismainly intended to design a collection of test cases that can accomplish early optimization using preferred characteristics.The studies conducted earlier focused on prioritizing the available test cases in accelerating fault detection rate during software testing.In this aspect,the current study designs aModified Harris Hawks Optimization based TCP(MHHO-TCP)technique for software testing.The aim of the proposed MHHO-TCP technique is to maximize APFD and minimize the overall execution time.In addition,MHHO algorithm is designed to boost the exploration and exploitation abilities of conventional HHO algorithm.In order to validate the enhanced efficiency of MHHO-TCP technique,a wide range of simulations was conducted on different benchmark programs and the results were examined under several aspects.The experimental outcomes highlight the improved efficiency of MHHO-TCP technique over recent approaches under different measures.

An Approach to Event-Driven Software Testing

In this paper, the testing technology of event-driven software is focused. It is first analyzed the difference between event-driven software and the traditional procedure-oriented software, and based on the above analysis, the mechanism of event-driven and the effect of introduction of event-driven mechanism on software testing are unveiled. Then based on the characteristic of the event-driven software, the traditional software testing method is improved, and testing policy of event based test is presented in this paper.Moreover the event coverage criteria are defined and given here. At the same time the event executing rule are further uncovered, such as ordinal event, non-ordinal event, predecessor event and concurrent event etc., and also the methods of testing according to event executing rule are studied.

NHPP-based software reliability model considering testing effort and multivariate fault detection rate

In recent decades,many software reliability growth models（SRGMs） have been proposed for the engineers and testers in measuring the software reliability precisely.Most of them is established based on the non-homogeneous Poisson process（NHPP）,and it is proved that the prediction accuracy of such models could be improved by adding the describing of characterization of testing effort.However,some research work indicates that the fault detection rate（FDR） is another key factor affects final software quality.Most early NHPPbased models deal with the FDR as constant or piecewise function,which does not fit the different testing stages well.Thus,this paper first incorporates a multivariate function of FDR,which is bathtub-shaped,into the NHPP-based SRGMs considering testing effort in order to further improve performance.A new model framework is proposed,and a stepwise method is used to apply the framework with real data sets to find the optimal model.Experimental studies show that the obtained new model can provide better performance of fitting and prediction compared with other traditional SRGMs.

Research and Practice of Hybrid Teaching for Software Testing based on Interactive Learning

To address the problems of insufficient number of personalized exercises and cases and teachers’lack of grasp of students’weak knowledge points in the current software testing online courses,we study the strategy of establishing and updating intelligent exercise sets and case libraries and analyze the answers and dig out the weak points of knowledge through group intelligence reasoning and interactive machine learning methods.This will help teachers to make uniform and targeted explanations,reduce manual judgment,and achieve intelligent teaching quality reform,and implement the educational concepts of“keeping up with the times”and“teaching according to students’abilities”.

Incorporating S-shaped testing-effort functions into NHPP software reliability model with imperfect debugging

Testing-effort（TE） and imperfect debugging（ID） in the reliability modeling process may further improve the fitting and prediction results of software reliability growth models（SRGMs）. For describing the S-shaped varying trend of TE increasing rate more accurately, first, two S-shaped testing-effort functions（TEFs）, i.e.,delayed S-shaped TEF（DS-TEF） and inflected S-shaped TEF（IS-TEF）, are proposed. Then these two TEFs are incorporated into various types（exponential-type, delayed S-shaped and inflected S-shaped） of non-homogeneous Poisson process（NHPP）SRGMs with two forms of ID respectively for obtaining a series of new NHPP SRGMs which consider S-shaped TEFs as well as ID. Finally these new SRGMs and several comparison NHPP SRGMs are applied into four real failure data-sets respectively for investigating the fitting and prediction power of these new SRGMs.The experimental results show that：（i） the proposed IS-TEF is more suitable and flexible for describing the consumption of TE than the previous TEFs;（ii） incorporating TEFs into the inflected S-shaped NHPP SRGM may be more effective and appropriate compared with the exponential-type and the delayed S-shaped NHPP SRGMs;（iii） the inflected S-shaped NHPP SRGM considering both IS-TEF and ID yields the most accurate fitting and prediction results than the other comparison NHPP SRGMs.

Software Operational Profile Based Test Case Allocation Using Fuzzy Logic

Software operational profile （SOP） is used in software reliability prediction, software quality assessment, performance analysis of software, test case allocation, determination of ＂when to stop testing,＂ etc. Due to the limited data resources and large efforts required to collect and convert the gathered data into point estimates, reluctance is observed by the software professionals to develop the SOP. A framework is proposed to develop SOP using fuzzy logic, which requires usage data in the form of linguistics. The resulting profile is named fuzzy software operational profile （FSOP）. Based on this work, this paper proposes a generalized approach for the allocation of test cases, in which occurrence probability of operations obtained from FSOP are combined with the criticality of the operations using fuzzy inference system （FIS）. Traditional methods for the allocation of test cases do not consider the application in which software operates. This is intuitively incorrect. To solve this problem, allocation of test cases with respect to software application using the FIS model is also proposed in this paper.

Extended research on software hybrid testing combining reliability and directed testing

The software reliability testing has many disadvantages in practice, such as high complexity of constructing operational profiles and poor fault detection efficiency. Oppositely, the directed testing with a high fault detection rate is incapable of estimating reliability quantificationally. To solve this problem, a hybrid testing combining reliability and directed testing as well as a reliability model based on the order statistic （OS） model were presented by Mitchell. An extended research on Mitchell＇s work is proposed. Firstly, the most proper distribution of the fault＇s failure rate which tends to be Iognormal is suggested, and a detailed form of the OS model based on Iognormal and the corresponding parameter estimation method are proposed, respectively. Secondly, an im- plementing framework for the hybrid testing is proposed. Finally, the hybrid testing and the OS model are applied on a real website system. The experimental results indicate： the hybrid testing has more efficient fault detection power and lower testing cost than the reliability testing; compared with three traditional software reliabil ity growth models, the OS model has a best or pretty estimation or prediction power for each data set; and for the failure data set collected from hybrid testing, the OS model also achieves an ac- ceptable estimation result.

Analysis on testing and operational reliability of software

Software reliability was estimated based on NHPP software reliability growth models. Testing reliability and operational reliability may be essentially different. On the basis of analyzing similarities and differences of the testing phase and the operational phase, using the concept of operational reliability and the testing reliability, different forms of the comparison between the operational failure ratio and the predicted testing failure ratio were conducted, and the mathematical discussion and analysis were performed in detail. Finally, software optimal release was studied using software failure data. The results show that two kinds of conclusions can be derived by applying this method, one conclusion is to continue testing to meet the required reliability level of users, and the other is that testing stops when the required operational reliability is met, thus the testing cost can be reduced.

Using Test Employee Capability Maturity Model for Supporting Gaps Bridging in Software Testing

This study addresses the challenge of assessing gaps among the differences of test people in eight groups by matching them based on four scenarios. The proposed model called Test Employee Capability Maturity Model (TEC-MM) helps find the gaps and measure the capability and maturity levels of each sub-maturity models in four dimensions as technicality, management, business, and personality. We applied TEC-MM to a software company which has instituted test people improvement strategy and plans to be a front runner in software testing industry. The findings reveal that gaps existed and consequently affect software testing process quality.

Inverse modelling of aquifer parameters in basaltic rock with the help of pumping test method using MODFLOW software

The origin and movement of groundwater are the fundamental questions that address both the temporal and spatial aspects of ground water run and water supply related issues in hydrological systems.As groundwater flows through an aquifer,its composition and temperature may variation dependent on the aquifer condition through which it flows.Thus,hydrologic investigations can also provide useful information about the subsurface geology of a region.But because such studies investigate processes that follow under the Earth's shallow,obtaining the information necessary to answer these questions is not continuously easy.Springs,which discharge groundwater table directly,afford to study subsurface hydrogeological processes.The present study of estimation of aquifer factors such as transmissivity(T)and storativity(S)are vital for the evaluation of groundwater resources.There are several methods to estimate the accurate aquifer parameters(i.e.hydrograph analysis,pumping test,etc.).In initial days,these parameters are projected either by means of in-situ test or execution test on aquifer well samples carried in the laboratory.The simultaneous information on the hydraulic behavior of the well(borehole)that provides on this method,the reservoir and the reservoir boundaries,are important for efficient aquifer and well data management and analysis.The most common in-situ test is pumping test performed on wells,which involves the measurement of the fall and increase of groundwater level with respect to time.The alteration in groundwater level(drawdown/recovery)is caused due to pumping of water from the well.Theis(1935)was first to propose method to evaluate aquifer parameters from the pumping test on a bore well in a confined aquifer.It is essential to know the transmissivity(T=Kb,where b is the aquifer thickness;pumping flow rate,Q=TW(dh/dl)flow through an aquifer)and storativity(confined aquifer:S=bS_s,unconfined:S=S_y),for the characterization of the aquifer parameters in an unknown area so as to predict the rate of drawdown of the groundwater table/potentiometric surface throughout the pumping test of an aquifer.The determination of aquifer's parameters is an important basis for groundwater resources evaluation,numerical simulation,development and protection as well as scientific management.For determining aquifer's parameters,pumping test is a main method.A case study shows that these techniques have been fast speed and high correctness.The results of parameter's determination are optimized so that it has important applied value for scientific research and geology engineering preparation.