Software Engineering Journal 

About: Software Engineering Journal is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Software development & Software construction. It has an ISSN identifier of 0268-6961. Over the lifetime, 390 publications have been published receiving 11995 citations.

Applying new scheduling theory to static priority pre-emptive scheduling

Abstract: The paper presents exact schedulability analyses for real-time systems scheduled at runtime with a static priority pre-emptive dispatcher. The tasks to be scheduled are allowed to experience internal blocking (from other tasks with which they share resources) and (with certain restrictions) to release jitter, such as waiting for a message to arrive. The analysis presented is more general than that previously published and subsumes, for example, techniques based on the Rate Monotonic approach. In addition to presenting the relevant theory, an existing avionics case study is described and analysed. The predictions that follow from this analysis are seen to be in close agreement with the behaviour exhibited during simulation studies.

Applicability of modified condition/decision coverage to software testing

Abstract: Modified condition/decision coverage is a structural coverage criterion requiring that each condition within a decision is shown by execution to independently and correctly affect the outcome of the decision. This criterion was developed to help meet the need for extensive testing of complex Boolean expressions in safety-critical applications. The paper describes the modified condition/decision coverage criterion, its properties and areas for further work.

Software testing based on formal specifications: a theory and a tool

Abstract: This paper addresses the problem of constructing test data sets from formal specifications. Starting from a notion of an ideal exhaustive test data set which is derived from the notion of satisfaction of the formal specification, it is shown how to select by refinements a practicable test set, i.e. computable, not rejecting correct programs (unbiased), and accepting only correct programs (valid), assuming some hypotheses. The hypotheses play an important role: they formalize common test practices and they express the gap between the success of the test and correctness ; the size of the test set depends on the strength of the hypotheses. The paper shows an application of this theory in the case of algebraic specifications and presents the actual procedures used to mechanically produce such test sets, using Horn clause logic. These procedures are embedded in an interactive system which, given some general hypotheses schemes and an algebraic specification, produces a test set and the corresponding hypotheses.

Automatic structural testing using genetic algorithms

Abstract: Genetic algorithms have been used to generate test sets automatically by searching the domain of the software for suitable values to satisfy a predefined testing criterion. These criteria have been set by the requirements for test data set adequacy of structural testing, such as obtaining full branch coverage and controlling the number of iterations of a conditional loop. This technique has been applied successfully to several problems, varying in complexity from a quadratic equation solver to a generic sort module that comprises several procedures. In these cases, full branch coverage was obtained. Genetic algorithms could be applied to approaches other than structural testing, provided that the goal of the testing is clearly defined, and a fitness function which relates to this goal can be devised to give a single numeric value for the fitness. The quality of the test data is enhanced by designing the fitness function to generate data close to a subdomain boundary where the likelihood of revealing an error is higher.

ACRE: selecting methods for requirements acquisition

Abstract: A framework is presented that assists requirements engineers in choosing methods for requirements acquisition. Practitioners are often unaware of the range of methods available. Even when practitioners are aware, most do not foresee the need to use several methods to acquire complete and accurate requirements. One reason for this is the lack of guidelines for method selection. The ACRE framework sets out to overcome these limitations. Method selection is achieved using questions driven from a set of facets which define the strengths and weaknesses of each method. The framework provides guidelines for requirements engineering practitioners. It has undergone evaluation through its presentation to highly experienced requirements engineers. Some results from this evaluation have been incorporated into the presented version of ACRE.