6104187
Binary analysis and automated hot patching for Web-based applications
Patching technologies are commonly applied to improve the dependability of software after release. This paper reports the design of an automated hot patching (AHP) framework that fully automates reasoning for the causes of failures and patching the binary code of Web-based applications. AHP admits the hardness for rooting out all faults before product release, and autonomously patches problems of application programs. By directly operating on binary code, AHP is universal to virtually all applications. A promising application of AHP is to shortcut a function of the remote maintenance center (RMC) and hence to reduce the turn around time for patches.
3132727
Query Processing over Incomplete Autonomous Databases
Incompleteness due to missing attribute values (aka "null values") is very common in autonomous web databases, on which user accesses are usually supported through mediators. Traditional query processing techniques that focus on the strict soundness of answer tuples often ignore tuples with critical missing attributes, even if they wind up being relevant to a user query. Ideally we would like the mediator to retrieve such possible answers and gauge their relevance by accessing their likelihood of being pertinent answers to the query. The autonomous nature of web databases poses several challenges in realizing this objective. Such challenges include the restricted access privileges imposed on the data, the limited support for query patterns, and the bounded pool of database and network resources in the web environment. We introduce a novel query rewriting and optimization framework QPIAD that tackles these challenges. Our technique involves reformulating the user query based on mined correlations among the database attributes. The reformulated queries are aimed at retrieving the relevant possible answers in addition to the certain answers. QPIAD is able to gauge the relevance of such queries allowing tradeoffs in reducing the costs of database query processing and answer transmission. To support this framework, we develop methods for mining attribute correlations (in terms of Approximate Functional Dependencies), value distributions (in the form of Naive Bayes Classifiers), and selectivity estimates. We present empirical studies to demonstrate that our approach is able to effectively retrieve relevant possible answers with high precision, high recall, and manageable cost.
37282807
Testing Web Services Using Progressive Group Testing
This paper proposes progressive group testing techniques to test large number of Web services (WS) available on Internet. At the unit testing level, the WS with the same functionality are tested in group using progressively increasing number of test cases. A small number of WS that scored best will be integrated into the real environment for operational testing. At the integration testing level, many composite services will be constructed and tested by group integration testing. The results of group testing at both unit and integration levels are verified by weighted majority voting mechanisms. The weights are based on the reliability history of the WS under test. A case study is designed and implemented, where the dependency among the test cases in WS is analyzed and used to generate progressive layers of test cases.
5650965
L-Tree: A Dynamic Labeling Structure for Ordered XML Data
With the ever growing use of XML as a data representation format, we see an increasing need for robust, high performance XML database systems While most of the recent work focuses on efficient XML query processing, XML databases also need to support efficient updates To speed up query processing, various labeling schemes have been proposed However, the vast majority of these schemes have poor update performance In this paper, we introduce a dynamic labeling structure for XML data: L-Tree and its order-preserving labeling scheme with O(log n) amortized update cost and O(log n) bits per label L-Tree has good performance on updates without compromising the performance of query processing We present the update algorithm for L-Tree and analyze its complexity.
2511748
QPIAD: Query Processing over Incomplete Autonomous Databases
Incompleteness due to missing attribute values (aka "null values") is very common in autonomous Web databases, on which user accesses are usually supported through mediators. Traditional query processing techniques that focus on the strict soundness of answer tuples often ignore tuples with critical missing attributes, even if they wind up being relevant to a user query. Ideally we would like the mediator to retrieve such relevant uncertain answers and gauge their relevance by accessing their likelihood of being relevant answers to the query. However, the autonomous nature of the databases poses several challenges, such as the restricted access privileges, limited query patterns, and sensitivity of database and network resource consumption in the Web environment. We introduce a novel query rewriting and optimization framework QPIAD that tackles these challenges to retrieve relevant uncertain answers. Our technique involves reformulating the user query based on approximate functional dependencies (AFDs) among the database attributes and ranking these queries using value distributions learned from naive Bayes classifiers. Empirical studies demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in retrieving relevant uncertain answers with high precision, high recall and manageable cost.
5453537
Testability of Software in Service-Oriented Architecture
Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a system architecture in which a collection of loosely coupled services communicate with each other using standard interfaces and message-exchanging protocols. As an emerging technology in software development, the SOA presents a new paradigm, and it affects the entire software development cycle including analysis, specification, design, implementation, verification, validation, maintenance and evaluation. This paper proposes several testability evaluation criteria for SOA software, which serves as a reference for both service providers and application builders to evaluate the test support to SOA software. The proposed evaluation criteria are illustrated in a stock-trading case study
207108480
Weakest Specifunctions for BSP
This paper introduces a calculus of weakest specification for supporting reuse of established components in deriving a design (in the sense of formal methods). The weakest specifunction generalizes the notions of weakest pre-specification and weakest parallel environment; but instead of calculating the weakest required component of a target specification, it calculates the weakest specification function whose value refines the target when applied to an established component. In particular it overcomes the restriction of those other calculi to taking merely one required component at a time. The theory of specifunctions is applied to a new weakest-design calculus in the context of BSP. The calculus is based on the par-seq specifunction which involves two required components: it places one established component in parallel with one required component and the result in sequence with another required component to meet a given specification. A calculus is provided for the par-seq specifunction and it is applied to the derivation of a distributed BSP algorithm for greatest common divisor.
7632435
Multi-level Semantic Analysis for Sports Video
There has been a huge increase in the utilization of video as one of the most preferred type of media due to its content richness for many significant applications including sports. To sustain an ongoing rapid growth of sports video, there is an emerging demand for a sophisticated content-based indexing system. Users recall video contents in a high-level abstraction while video is generally stored as an arbitrary sequence of audio-visual tracks. To bridge this gap, this paper will demonstrate the use of domain knowledge and characteristics to design the extraction of high-level concepts directly from audio-visual features. In particular, we propose a multi-level semantic analysis framework to optimize the sharing of domain characteristics.
53249448
Efficiently generating test vectors with state pruning
22185885
Artificial Life for Image Segmentation
Artificial life has been successfully used for understanding biological systems and in many applications in robotics, computer graphics, etc. In this paper, we pioneer the use of artificial life for image segmentation, a challenging area in image processing. Our method associates each pixel in an image with a life and it evolves according to a system of rules. The segmented partitions emerge when the state of the lives reaches an equilibrium. The artificial life approach is promising in image processing because it is inherently parallel and coincides with the self-governing biological process. In addition, it has the advantage of the integration of both detail preservation and noise removal. The experiments demonstrate the feasibility of the artificial life approach on both intensity images and color images. We also compared the approach with other four commonly used methods for three different kinds of noise corrupted images.
14613142
Coupled Bayesian Framework for Dual Energy Image Registration
Image registration for X-ray dual energy imaging is challenging due to the overlaid transparent layers (i.e., the bone and soft tissue) and the different appearances between the dual images acquired with X-rays at different energy spectra. Moreover, subpixel accuracy is necessary for good reconstruction of the bone and soft-tissue layers. This paper addresses these problems with a novel coupled Bayesian framework, in which the registration and reconstruction can effectively reinforce each other. With the reconstruction results, we can design accurate matching criteria for aligning the dual images, instead of treating them as multi-modality registration. Furthermore, prior knowledge of the bone and soft tissue can be exploited to detect poor reconstruction due to inaccurate registration; and hence correct registration errors in the coupled framework. A multiscale freeform registration algorithm is implemented to achieve subpixel registration accuracy. Promising results are obtained in the experiments.