INESC-ID

About: INESC-ID is a nonprofit organization based out in Lisbon, Portugal. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Field-programmable gate array & Control theory. The organization has 932 authors who have published 2618 publications receiving 37658 citations.

To the attention of mobile software developers: guess what, test your app!

Abstract: Software testing is an important phase in the software development lifecycle because it helps in identifying bugs in a software system before it is shipped into the hand of its end users. There are numerous studies on how developers test general-purpose software applications. The idiosyncrasies of mobile software applications, however, set mobile apps apart from general-purpose systems (e.g., desktop, stand-alone applications, web services). This paper investigates working habits and challenges of mobile software developers with respect to testing. A key finding of our exhaustive study, using 1000 Android apps, demonstrates that mobile apps are still tested in a very ad hoc way, if tested at all. However, we show that, as in other types of software, testing increases the quality of apps (demonstrated in user ratings and number of code issues). Furthermore, we find evidence that tests are essential when it comes to engaging the community to contribute to mobile open source software. We discuss reasons and potential directions to address our findings. Yet another relevant finding of our study is that Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines are rare in the mobile apps world (only 26% of the apps are developed in projects employing CI/CD) – we argue that one of the main reasons is due to the lack of exhaustive and automatic testing.

I Know What I Did Last Summer: Autobiographic Memory in Synthetic Characters

Abstract: According to traditional animators, the art of building believable characters resides in the ability to successfully portray a character's behaviour as the result of its internal emotions, intentions and thoughts. Following this direction, we want our agents to be able to explicitly talk about their internal thoughts and report their personal past experiences. In order to achieve it, we look at a specific type of episodic long term memory. This paper describes the integration of Autobiographic Memory into FAtiMA, an emotional agent architecture that generates emotions from a subjective appraisal of events.

Low-sensitivity to process variations aging sensor for automotive safety-critical applications

Abstract: In this paper, circuit failure prediction by timing degradation is used to monitor semiconductor aging, which is a safety-critical problem in the automotive market. Reliability and variability issues are worsening with device scaling down. For safe operation, we propose on-chip, on-line aging monitoring. A novel aging sensor (to be selectively inserted in key locations in the design and to be activated from time to time) is proposed. The aging sensor is a programmable delay sensor, allowing decision-making for several degrees of severity in the aging process. It detects abnormal delays, regardless of their origin. Hence, it can uncover “normal” aging (namely, due to NBTI) and delay faults due to physical defects activated by long circuit operation. The proposed aging sensor has been optimized to exhibit low sensitivity to PVT (Process, power supply Voltage and Temperature) variations. Moreover, the area overhead of the new architecture is significantly less than the one of other aging sensors presented in the literature. Simulation results with a 65 nm sensor design are presented, ascertaining its usefulness and its low sensitivity, in particular to process variations.

Adaptive Error-Prediction Flip-flop for performance failure prediction with aging sensors

Abstract: This paper presents a new approach on aging sensors for synchronous digital circuits. An adaptive error-prediction flip-flop architecture with built-in aging sensor is proposed, performing on-line monitoring of long-term performance degradation of CMOS digital systems. The main advantage is that the sensor's performance degradation works in favor of the predictive error detection. The sensor is out of the signal path. Performance error prediction is implemented by the detection of late transitions at flip-flop data input, caused by aging (namely, due to NBTI), or to physical defects activated by long lifetime operation. Such errors must not occur in safety-critical systems (automotive, health, space). A sensor insertion algorithm is also proposed, to selectively insert them in key locations in the design. Sensors can be always active or at pre-defined states. Simulation results are presented for a balanced pipeline multiplier in 65 nm CMOS technology, using Berkeley Predictive Technology Models (PTM). It is shown that the impact of aging degradation and/or PVT (Process, power supply Voltage and Temperature) variations on the sensor enhance error prediction.