6675274
Software Testing Based on SDL Specifications with Save
The signal save construct is one of the features distinguishing SDL from traditional high-level specification and programming languages. However, this feature increases the difficulties of testing SDL-specified software. We present a testing approach consisting of the following three phases: SDL specifications are first abstracted into finite state machines with save constructs, called SDL-machines; the resulting SDL-machines are then transformed into equivalent finite state machines without save constructs if this is possible; and, finally, test cases are selected from the resulting finite state machines. Since there are many existing methods for the first and third phases, we mainly concentrate upon the second phase and come up with a method of transforming SDL-machines into equivalent finite state machines, which preserve the same input/output relationship as in the original SDL-machines. The transformation method is useful not only for testing but also for verifying SDL-specified software. >
62478850
Test generation with respect to distributed interfaces
Abstract In the area of testing communication systems, the interfaces between systems to be tested and their testers have great impact on test generation and fault detectability. Several types of such interfaces have been standardized by the International Standardization Organization (ISO). A general distributed test architecture, containing distributed interfaces, has been presented in the literature for testing distributed systems based on the Open Distributing Processing (ODP) Basic Reference Model (BRM), which is a generalized version of ISO distributed test architecture. We study in this paper the issue of test selection with respect to such a test architecture. In particular, we consider communication systems that can be modeled by finite state machines with several distributed interfaces, called ports. A test generation method is developed for generating test sequences for such finite state machines, which is based on the idea of synchronizable test sequences. We then apply this method to generate test sequences for a so-called quorum protocol. Starting from the initial effort by Sarikaya, a certain amount of work has been done for generating test sequences for finite state machines with respect to the ISO distributed test architecture, all based on the idea of modifying existing test generation methods to generate synchronizable test sequences. However, none studies the fault coverage provided by their methods. We investigate the issue of fault coverage and point out a fact that the methods given in the literature for the distributed test architecture cannot ensure the same fault coverage as the corresponding original testing methods. We also study the limitation of fault detectability in the distributed test architecture.
44490004
Fault Models in Testing
22377735
Failure-Equivalent Transformation of Transition Systems to Avoid Internal Actions
Abstract Labelled transition systems are often used as a theoretical framework for modelling communication protocols or distributed software systems. In order to model the deadlock properties of the systems, the internal transitions of the submodules are often represented globally by so-called internal actions. However, certain verification and testing methods assume that the specification of the system is given in the form of a transition system without internal actions. This paper shows that most labelled transition systems with internal actions can be transformed into a failure-equivalent labelled transition system without internal actions. A sufficient condition is given, and an algorithm is described which does the transformation for any transition system which satisfies the condition. This algorithm can be applied to use the above verification and testing methods also for specification including internal actions.
5329853
Generating Tests for Control Portion of SDL Specifications
ABSTRACT The signal SAVE construct is one of the features distinguishing SDL from convent specification and programming languages. On the other hand, this feature increase testing SDL-specified software. We present a testing approach consisting of the foll SDL specifications are first abstracted into finite state machines with save constructs machines are transformed to equivalent finite state machines without save construc are selected from the resulting finite state machines. In particular, we give a fault m selection. We come up with an equivalent transformation method which works for constructs for which equivalent FSMs exist. We also investigate the detection of fa queue.
8980668
Generating Synchronizable Test Sequences Based on Finite State Machine with Distributed Ports
In the area of testing communication systems, the interfaces between systems to be tested and their testers have great impact on test generation and fault detectability. Several types of such interfaces have been standardized by the International Standardization Organization (ISO). A general distributed test architecture, containing distributed interfaces, has been presented in the literature for testing distributed systems based on the Open Distributing Processing (ODP) Basic Reference Model (BRM), which is a generalized version of ISO distributed test architecture. We study in this paper the issue of test selection with respect to such an test architecture. In particular, we consider communication systems that can be modeled by finite state machines with several distributed interfaces, called ports. A test generation method is developed for generating test sequences for such finite state machines, which is based on the idea of synchronizable test sequences. 
 
Starting from the initial effort by Sarikaya, a certain amount of work has been done for generating test sequences for finite state machines with respect to the ISO distributed test architecture, all based on the idea of modifying existing test generation methods to generate synchronizable test sequences. However, none studies the fault coverage provided by their methods. We investigate the issue of fault coverage and point out a fact that the methods given in the literature for the distributed test architecture cannot ensure the same fault coverage as the corresponding original testing methods. We also study the limitation of fault detectability in the distributed test architecture.
18783200
A Novel Low-Power Clock Skew Compensation Circuit
The clock is a periodic synchronization signal used as a time reference for data transfers in synchronous digital systems. However, the clock skew constrains the improvement of clock frequencies and affects the reliability of systems. One skew reduction technique is the use of clock deskew circuits. They can be classified into two methods: delay-locked loop (DLL) deskewing and synchronous mirror delay (SMD) deskewing. The DLL deskewing achieves a fine accuracy, but suffers from slow locking. Reversely, the adjustment of the SMD deskewing is fast, but suffers from a poor accuracy. In this paper, a low-power full-digital hybrid clock deskew circuit is presented. It uses a SMD as coarse delay line and a digital-DLL as a fine delay line. The SPICE simulation shows that the proposed clock deskew circuit achieves fine accuracy , fast locking, and low power.
11082409
Answering relationship queries on the web
Finding relationships between entities on the Web, e.g., the connections between different places or the commonalities of people, is a novel and challenging problem. Existing Web search engines excel in keyword matching and document ranking, but they cannot well handle many relationship queries. This paper proposes a new method for answering relationship queries on two entities. Our method first respectively retrieves the top Web pages for either entity from a Web search engine. It then matches these Web pages and generates an ordered list of Web page pairs. Each Web page pair consists of one Web page for either entity. The top ranked Web page pairs are likely to contain the relationships between the two entities. One main challenge in the ranking process is to effectively filter out the large amount of noise in the Web pages without losing much useful information. To achieve this, our method assigns appropriate weights to terms in Web pages and intelligently identifies the potential connecting terms that capture the relationships between the two entities. Only those top potential connecting terms with large weights are used to rank Web page pairs. Finally, the top ranked Web page pairs are presented to the searcher. For each such pair, the query terms and the top potential connecting terms are properly highlighted so that the relationships between the two entities can be easily identified. We implemented a prototype on top of the Google search engine and evaluated it under a wide variety of query scenarios. The experimental results show that our method is effective at finding important relationships with low overhead.
8938753
Toward a progress indicator for program compilation
For user-friendliness purposes, many modern software systems provide progress indicators for longrunning tasks. These progress indicators continuously estimate the percentage of the task that has been completed and when the task will finish. However, none of the existing program compilation tools provide a non-trivial progress indicator, although it often takes minutes or hours to build a large program. In this paper, we investigate the problem of supporting such progress indicators. We first discuss the goals and challenges inherent in this problem. Then we present a set of techniques that are sufficient for implementing a simple yet useful progress indicator for program compilation. Finally, we report on an initial implementation of these techniques in GNU Make. Copyright c © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
10289907
Partial Materialized Views
Early access to partial query results is highly desirable during exploration of massive data sets. However, it is challenging to provide transactionally consistent, immediate partial results without significantly increasing queries' execution time. To address this problem, this paper proposes a partial materialized view (PMV) method to cache some of the most frequently accessed results rather than all the possible results. Compared to traditional materialized views, the proposed PMVs do not require maintenance during insertion into base relations, and have much smaller storage and maintenance overhead. Upon the arrival of a query, the RDBMS first searches the PMV and returns to the user the cached partial results. Since a large portion of the PMV is cached in memory, this usually finishes within a millisecond. Then the RDBMS continues to execute the query to find the remaining results. The efficiency of our PMV method is evaluated through a simulation study, a theoretical analysis, and an initial implementation in PostgreSQL.
61361852
Locking Protocols for Materialized Aggregate Join Views
The maintenance of materialized aggregate join views is a well-studied problem. However, to date the published literature has largely ignored the issue of concurrency control. Clearly, immediate materialized view maintenance with transactional consistency, if enforced by generic concurrency control mechanisms, can result in low levels of concurrency and high rates of deadlock. While this problem is superficially amenable to well-known techniques, such as fine-granularity locking and special lock modes for updates that are associative and commutative, we show that these previous high concurrency locking techniques do not fully solve the problem, but a combination of a "value-based" latch pool and these previous high concurrency locking techniques can solve the problem.