Computer Software and Applications Conference 

About: Computer Software and Applications Conference is an academic conference. The conference publishes majorly in the area(s): Software development & Software. Over the lifetime, 5853 publications have been published by the conference receiving 55994 citations.

A user-oriented software reliability model

Abstract: A user-oriented reliability model has been developed to measure the reliability of service that a system provides to a user community. It has been observed that in many systems, especially software systems, reliable service can be provided to a user when it is known that errors exist, provided that the service requested does not utilize the defective parts. The reliability of service, therefore, depends both on the reliability of the components and the probabilistic distribution of ulitization of the components to provide the service. In this paper a user-oriented reliability figure of merit is defined to measure the reliability of a software system with respect to a user environment. The effects of the user profile, which summarizes the characteristics of the users of a system, on system reliability is discussed. A simple Markov model is formulated to determine the reliability of a software system based on the reliability of each individual module and the measured inter-modular transition probabilities as the user profile. Sensitivity analysis techniques are developed to determine modules most critical to system reliability. The applications of this model to develop cost-effective testing strategies and to determine the expected penalty cost of failure are also discussed. Some future refinements and extensions of the model are presented.

N-gram-based detection of new malicious code

Abstract: The current commercial anti-virus software detects a virus only after the virus has appeared and caused damage. Motivated by the standard signature-based technique for detecting viruses, and a recent successful text classification method, we explore the idea of automatically detecting new malicious code using the collected dataset of the benign and malicious code. We obtained accuracy of 100% in the training data, and 98% in 3-fold cross-validation.

Using artificial life techniques to generate test cases for combinatorial testing

Abstract: Combinatorial testing is a specification-based testing criterion, which requires that for each t-way combination of input parameters of a system, every combination of valid values of these t parameters be covered by at least one test case. This approach is motivated by the observation that in many applications a significant number of faults are caused by interactions of a smaller number of parameters. In this paper, we propose new test generation algorithms for combinatorial testing based on two artificial life techniques: a genetic algorithm (GA) and an ant colony algorithm (ACA). The usefulness of these algorithms is demonstrated through experiments. In the case t = 3 in particular, our algorithms exhibited impressive results

Interactive Augmented Reality Game for Enhancing Library Instruction in Elementary Schools

Abstract: Due to limited budgets and manpower, most elementary schools in Taiwan do not plan or provide library instruction for students. Although students can use libraries, they typically lack the knowledge needed to use library resources effectively. Consequently, students have difficulty finding the books they need and can easily become overwhelmed by the massive amount of information in libraries. Computer-assisted instruction for teaching basic library skills to large numbers of students is an appealing method. Particularly, game-based learning has garnered considerable attention in education research. Many researchers and scholars believe that integrating teaching and games enhances student learning performance and motivation. This work develops an educational gaming system based on situated learning theory, and applies innovative augmented reality interactive technology to a library's learning environment. Student library knowledge can be enhanced via the proposed game-based augmented reality library instruction system (GARLIS). Experimental results demonstrate that student learning performance is improved significantly by using the proposed GARLIS. Moreover, this work demonstrates that using the proposed GARLIS for library instruction results in the same learning performance as conventional librarian instruction. The proposed library instruction system overcomes shortcomings of personal teaching skills of librarians that may adversely affect student learning performance by conveying the same learning content to all students. Additionally, the proposed system results in better learning performance for learners with the field-dependent cognitive style than learners with the field-independent cognitive style. Further, the proposed system provides more benefits in terms of library skills training than conventional librarian instruction.

A field guide to boxology: preliminary classification of architectural styles for software systems

Abstract: Software architects use a number of commonly-recognized "styles" to guide their design of system structures. Each of these is appropriate for some classes of problems, but none is suitable for all problems. How, then, does a software designer choose an architecture suitable for the problem at hand? Two kinds of information are required: (1) careful discrimination among the candidate architectures and (2) design guidance on how to make appropriate choices. In this paper, we support careful discrimination with a preliminary classification of styles. We use a 2D classification strategy with control and data issues as the dominant organizing axes. We position the major styles within this space and use finer-grained discriminations to elaborate variations on the styles. This provides a framework for organizing design guidance, which we partially flesh out with rules of thumb.