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Automatic Software Test Data Generation
Date: 2002-12
Creator: Munugala, Ajay Kumar
Description: In software testing, it is often desirable to find test inputs that exercise specific program features. Finding these inputs manually, is extremely time consuming, especially, when the software being tested is complex. Therefore, there have been numerous attempts automate this process. Random test data generation consists of generating test inputs at random, in the hope that they will exercise the desired software features. Often the desired inputs must satisfy complex constraints, and this makes a random approach seem unlikely to succeed. In contrast, combinatorial optimization techniques, such as those using genetic algorithms, are meant to solve difficult problems involving simultaneous satisfaction of many constraints.
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A Comparison of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering Frameworks and Methodologies
Date: 2003-12
Creator: Lin, Chia-En
Description: Agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE) covers issues on developing systems with software agents. There are many techniques, mostly agent-oriented and object-oriented, ready to be chosen as building blocks to create agent-based systems. There have been several AOSE methodologies proposed intending to show engineers guidelines on how these elements are constituted in having agents achieve the overall system goals. Although these solutions are promising, most of them are designed in ad-hoc manner without truly obeying software developing life-cycle fully, as well as lacking of examinations on agent-oriented features. To address these issues, we investigated state-of-the-art techniques and AOSE methodologies. By examining them in different respects, we commented on the strength and weakness of them. Toward a formal study, a comparison framework has been set up regarding four aspects, including concepts and properties, notations and modeling techniques, process, and pragmatics. Under these criteria, we conducted the comparison in both overview and detailed level. The comparison helped us with empirical and analytical study, to inspect the issues on how an ideal agent-based system will be formed.
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DADS - A Distributed Agent Delivery System
Date: 2002-12
Creator: Cozzolino, Clifford Joseph
Description: Mobile agents require an appropriate platform that can facilitate their migration and execution. In particular, the design and implementation of such a system must balance several factors that will ensure that its constituent agents are executed without problems. Besides the basic requirements of migration and execution, an agent system must also provide mechanisms to ensure the security and survivability of an agent when it migrates between hosts. In addition, the system should be simple enough to facilitate its widespread use across large scale networks (i.e Internet). To address these issues, this thesis discusses the design and implementation of the Distributed Agent Delivery System (DADS). The DADS provides a de-coupled design that separates agent acceptance from agent execution. Using functional modules, the DADS provides services ranging from language execution and security to fault-tolerance and compression. Modules allow the administrator(s) of hosts to declare, at run-time, the services that they want to provide. Since each administrative domain is different, the DADS provides a platform that can be adapted to exchange heterogeneous blends of agents across large scale networks.
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Nodal Resistance Measurement System
Date: 2005-05
Creator: Putta, Sunil Kumar
Description: The latest development in the measurement techniques has resulted in fast improvements in the instruments used for measurement of various electrical quantities. A common problem in such instruments is the automation of acquiring, retrieving and controlling the measurements by a computer or a laptop. In this study, nodal resistance measurement (NRM) system is developed to solve the above problem. The purpose of this study is to design and develop a compact electronic board, which measures electrical resistance, and a computer or a laptop controls the board. For the above purpose, surface nodal points are created on the surface of the sample electrically conductive material. The nodal points are connected to the compact electronic board and this board is connected to the computer. The user selects the nodal points, from the computer, between which the NRM system measures the electrical resistance and displays the measured quantity on the computer.
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An Analysis of the Effect of Environmental and Systems Complexity on Information Systems Failures
Date: 2001-08
Creator: Zhang, Xiaoni
Description: Companies have invested large amounts of money on information systems development. Unfortunately, not all information systems developments are successful. Software project failure is frequent and lamentable. Surveys and statistical analysis results underscore the severity and scope of software project failure. Limited research relates software structure to information systems failures. Systematic study of failure provides insights into the causes of IS failure. More importantly, it contributes to better monitoring and control of projects and enhancing the likelihood of the success of management information systems. The underlining theories and literature that contribute to the construction of theoretical framework come from general systems theory, complexity theory, and failure studies. One hundred COBOL programs from a single company are used in the analysis. The program log clearly documents the date, time, and the reasons for changes to the programs. In this study the relationships among the variables of business requirements change, software complexity, program size and the error rate in each phase of software development life cycle are tested. Interpretations of the hypotheses testing are provided as well. The data shows that analysis error and design error occur more often than programming error. Measurement criteria need to be developed at each stage of the software development cycle, especially in the early stage. The quality and reliability of software can be improved continuously. The findings from this study suggest that it is imperative to develop an adaptive system that can cope with the changes to the business environment. Further, management needs to focus on processes that improve the quality of the system design stage.
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A Discrimination of Software Implementation Success Criteria
Date: 1999-08
Creator: Pryor, Alan N.
Description: Software implementation projects struggle with the delicate balance of low cost, on-time delivery and quality. The methodologies and processes used to create and maintain a quality software system are expensive to deploy and result in long development cycle-time. However, without their deployment into the software implementation life-cycle, a software system will be undependable, unsuccessful. The purpose of this research is to identify a succinct set of software implementation success criteria and assess the key independent constructs, activities, carried out to ensure a successful implementation project. The research will assess the success of a software implementation project as the dependent construct of interest and use the software process model (methodology) as the independent construct. This field research involved three phases: (1) criteria development, (2) data collection, and (3) testing of hypotheses and discriminant analysis. The first phase resulted in the development of the measurement instruments for the independent and dependent constructs. The measurement instrument for the independent construct was representative of the criteria from highly regarded software implementation process models and methodologies, e.g., ISO9000, Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model (SEI CMM). The dependent construct was developed from the categories and criteria from the Delone and McLean (1992) MIS List of Success Measures. The data collection and assessment phase employed a field survey research strategy to 80 companies involved in internal software implementation. Both successful and unsuccessful software implementation projects (identified by the Delone/McLean model) participated. Results from 165 projects were collected, 28 unsuccessful and 137 successful. The third phase used ANOVA to test the first 11 hypotheses and employed discriminant analysis for the 12th hypothesis to identify the "best set" of variables, criteria, that discriminate between successful and unsuccessful software implementation projects. Twelve discriminating variables out of 67 were identified and supported as significant discriminators between successful and unsuccessful projects. Three of the 11 constructs were found not to be significant investments for the successful projects.
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Resource Efficient and Scalable Routing using Intelligent Mobile Agents
Date: 2003-05
Creator: Amin, Kaizar Abdul Husain
Description: Many of the contemporary routing algorithms use simple mechanisms such as flooding or broadcasting to disseminate the routing information available to them. Such routing algorithms cause significant network resource overhead due to the large number of messages generated at each host/router throughout the route update process. Many of these messages are wasteful since they do not contribute to the route discovery process. Reducing the resource overhead may allow for several algorithms to be deployed in a wide range of networks (wireless and ad-hoc) which require a simple routing protocol due to limited availability of resources (memory and bandwidth). Motivated by the need to reduce the resource overhead associated with routing algorithms a new implementation of distance vector routing algorithm using an agent-based paradigm known as Agent-based Distance Vector Routing (ADVR) has been proposed. In ADVR, the ability of route discovery and message passing shifts from the nodes to individual agents that traverse the network, co-ordinate with each other and successively update the routing tables of the nodes they visit.
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Adaptive planning and prediction in agent-supported distributed collaboration.
Date: 2004-12
Creator: Hartness, Ken T. N.
Description: Agents that act as user assistants will become invaluable as the number of information sources continue to proliferate. Such agents can support the work of users by learning to automate time-consuming tasks and filter information to manageable levels. Although considerable advances have been made in this area, it remains a fertile area for further development. One application of agents under careful scrutiny is the automated negotiation of conflicts between different user's needs and desires. Many techniques require explicit user models in order to function. This dissertation explores a technique for dynamically constructing user models and the impact of using them to anticipate the need for negotiation. Negotiation is reduced by including an advising aspect to the agent that can use this anticipation of conflict to adjust user behavior.
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Extensions to Jinni Mobile Agent Architecture
Date: 2001-05
Creator: Tyagi, Satyam
Description: We extend the Jinni mobile agent architecture with a multicast network transport layer, an agent-to-agent delegation mechanism and a reflection based Prolog-to-Java interface. To ensure that our agent infrastructure runs efficiently, independently of router-level multicast support, we describe a blackboard based algorithm for locating a randomly roaming agent. As part of the agent-to-agent delegation mechanism, we describe an alternative to code-fetching mechanism for stronger mobility of mobile agents with less network overhead. In the context of direct and reflection based extension mechanisms for Jinni, we describe the design and the implementation of a reflection based Prolog-to-Java interface. The presence of subtyping and method overloading makes finding the most specific method corresponding to a Prolog call pattern fairly difficult. We describe a run-time algorithm which provides accurate handling of overloaded methods beyond Java's reflection package's limitations.
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An Annotated Bibliography of Mobile Agents in Networks
Date: 2002-12
Creator: Sriraman, Sandhya
Description: The purpose of this thesis is to present a comprehensive colligation of applications of mobile agents in networks, and provide a baseline association of these systems. This work has been motivated by the fact that mobile agent systems have been deemed proficuous alternatives in system applications. Several mobile agent systems have been developed to provide scalable and cogent solutions in network-centric applications. This thesis examines some existing mobile agent systems in core networking areas, in particular, those of network and resource management, routing, and the provision of fault tolerance and security. The inherent features of these systems are discussed with respect to their specific functionalities. The applicability and efficacy of mobile agents are further considered in the specific areas mentioned above. Although an initial foray into a collation of this nature, the goal of this annotated bibliography is to provide a generic referential view of mobile agent systems in network applications.
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