8007887
An application of decision theory for the evaluation of software prototypes
Abstract There is a need to quantify management decision making in software development. To this end, this article presents an application of concepts from economic decision theory to an aspect of this problem currently under study by many in the software engineering community—how to prototype a design and evaluate the effectiveness of this prototype. The role of prototyping as an experimental tool is analyzed and techniques for defining what to prototype and when it is cost effective are introduced. We demonstrate some of these decision theory techniques to define a model that management can use to select solutions from a set of alternative designs.
19924236
Test-Execution-Based Reliability Measurement and Modeling for Large Commercial Software
The paper studies practical reliability measurement and modeling for large commercial software systems based on test execution data collected during system testing. The application environment and the goals of reliability assessment were analyzed to identify appropriate measurement data. Various reliability growth models were used on failure data normalized by test case executions to track testing progress and provide reliability assessment. Practical problems in data collection, reliability measurement and modeling, and modeling result analysis were also examined. The results demonstrated the feasibility of reliability measurement in a large commercial software development environment and provided a practical comparison of various reliability measurements and models under such an environment. >
16987100
Measuring Prime Program Complexity
Abstract This paper uses the prime program decomposition of a program as the basis for a measure that closely correlates with our intuitive notion of program complexity. This measure is based upon the information theory ideas of randomness and entropy such that results about structured programming, data abstractions, and other programming paradigms can be stated in quantitative terms, and empirical means can be used to validate the assumptions used to develop the model. As a graph-based model, it can be applied to several graphical examples as extensions not otherwise available to source-code based models. This paper introduces the measure, derives several properties for it, and gives some simple examples to demonstrate that the measure is a plausible approximation of our notions concerning structured programming.
18396642
Defect handling in medium and large open source projects
Open source projects have resulted in numerous high-quality, widely used products. Understanding the defect-handling strategies such projects employ can help us use the publicly accessible defect data from these projects to provide valuable quality-improvement feedback and to better understand the defect characteristics for a wider variety of software products. We conducted a survey to understand defect handling in selected open source projects and compared the particular approaches taken in different projects. We focused on defect handling instead of the broader quality assurance activities other researchers have previously reported. Our results provided quantitative evidence about the current practice of defect handling in an important subset of open source projects.
37297978
Analyzing and Improving Reliability: A Tree-Based Approach
Tree-based reliability models integrate the benefits of software reliability growth models and input domain reliability models, offering a framework to assess reliability and guidance to improve it. The authors studied five large systems to test their approach.
29205217
Improving the Reliability of Object-Oriented Software through Object-Level Behavioral Simulation
In this paper we propose an Object-level Behavior Simulation Model (OBSM) that simulates the behavior of each object according to the message pattern exhibited by behavioral design pattern to verify it for its correctness. The model evaluates the existing reliability of the object-oriented software and allows developer to improve it during early phases of the development.
206622046
Fingerprint Alignment Using Similarity Histogram
The performance of fingerprint matching algorithm relies heavily on the accuracy of fingerprint alignment. Falsely aligning two feature sets extracted from two finger images of a fingerprint will increase the false rejection rate (FRR). In order to improve the performance of fingerprint matching algorithm, we present a new fingerprint alignment algorithm called similarity histogram approach (SHA). First, we calculate the local similarity matrix based on minutiae and associate ridges between two fingerprints. Then, similarity histograms of transformation parameters are constructed from local similarity matrix. In the end, the optimal transformation parameters are obtained using a statistical method. Experimental results on FVC databases show that our method is effective and reliable.
14734990
Reversible data-embedding with a hierarchical structure
Reversible data-embedding embeds data into a digital content (such as digital image, audio or video) such that an authorized party could decode the embedded data and completely restore the original content. In this paper, we present a hierarchically structured, multi-layer algorithm for digital images. Its basic component is an invertible sharpen filter called the difference expansion. The embedding capacity of this algorithm is substantially higher than results reported in previous reversible data-embedding algorithms. The visual quality of images after data-embedding is also among the best in the literature.
31406629
Fingerprint Matching with Registration Pattern Inspection
The "registration pattern" between two fingerprints is the optimal registration of each part of one fingerprint with respect to the other fingerprint. Registration patterns generated from imposter's matching attempts are different from those patterns from genuine matching attempts, although they may share some similarities in the aspect of minutiae. In this paper, we present an algorithm that utilizes minutiae, associate ridges and orientation fields to determine the registration pattern between two fingerprints and match them. The proposed matching scheme has two stages. An offline, training stage, derives a genuine registration pattern base from a set of genuine matching attempts. Then, an online matching stage registers the two fingerprints and determines the registration pattern. Only if the pattern makes a genuine one, a further fine matching is conducted. The genuine registration pattern base was derived using a set of fingerprints extracted from the NIST Special Database 24. The algorithm has been tested on the second FVC2002 database. Experimental results demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm.
393156
A general identification condition for causal effects
This paper concerns the assessment of the effects of actions or policy interventions from a combination of: (i) nonexperimental data, and (ii) substantive assumptions. The assumptions are encoded in the form of a directed acyclic graph, also called "causal graph", in which some variables are presumed to be unobserved. The paper establishes a necessary and sufficient criterion for the identifiability of the causal effects of a singleton variable on all other variables in the model, and a powerful sufficient criterion for the effects of a singleton variable on any set of variables.
15872261
Identifying Direct Causal Effects in Linear Models
This paper deals with the problem of identifying direct causal effects in recursive linear structural equation models. Using techniques developed for graphical causal models, we show that a model can be decomposed into a set of submodels such that the identification problem can be solved independently in each submodel. We provide a new identification method that identifies causal effects by solving a set of algebraic equations.