Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Testing Homogeneous Spreadsheet Grids With The “What You See Is What You Test” Methodology, Margaret Burnett, Andrei Sheretov, Gregg Rothermel

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

Although there has been recent research into ways to design environments that enable end users to create their own programs, little attention has been given to helping these end users systematically test their programs. To help address this need in spreadsheet systems - the most widely used type of end-user programming language - we previously introduced a visual approach to systematically testing individual cells in spreadsheet systems. However, the previous approach did not scale well in the presence of largely homogeneous grids, which introduce problems somewhat analogous to the array-testing problems of imperative programs. In this paper, we present two …

A Generator For Random Non-Binary Finite Constraint Satisfaction Problems, Hui Zou, Berthe Y. Choueiry, Amy M. Davis

CSE Technical Reports

The paper describes an implementation of a generator of random instances of non-binary constraint satisfaction problems that meets a given set of specifications. This is a continuation of the work we started in Hui Zou, Amy M. Beckwith, and Berthe Y. Choueiry. A Generator of Random Instances of Binary Finite Constraint Satisfaction Problems with Controllable Levels of Interchangeability. Working note, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2001. July, 2001.

The program is designed to generate random instances of Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs) that meet a set of specified parameters, such as the number of variables, domain size, …

Test Case Prioritization: A Family Of Empirical Studies, Sebastian Elbaum, Alexey G. Malishevsky, Gregg Rothermel

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

To reduce the cost of regression testing, software testers may prioritize their test cases so that those which are more important, by some measure, are run earlier in the regression testing process. One potential goal of such prioritization is to increase a test suite’s rate of fault detection. Previous work reported results of studies that showed that prioritization techniques can significantly improve rate of fault detection. Those studies, however, raised several additional questions: 1) Can prioritization techniques be effective when targeted at specific modified versions; 2) what trade-offs exist between fine granularity and coarse granularity prioritization techniques; 3) can the …

Cxquery: A Novel Xml Query Language, Peter Revesz, Yi Chen

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

XML is becoming the data exchange standard on the Internet. Previously proposed XML query languages, such as XQuery, Quilt, YALT, Lorel, and XML-QL, lack schema definition of the query result; therefore, they are limited for defining views, integrating data, updating, and further querying, all of which are often needed in e-Business applications. We propose a novel XML query language called CXQuery, which defines the schema of the query results explicitly and can easily define views, and integrate, update, and query XML data. In addition, CXQuery can express spatial and spatio-temporal queries using a constraint-based querying approach.

An Analytical Model For Virtual Topology Reconfiguration In Optical Networks And A Case Study, Xi Yang, Byrav Ramamurthy

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

An analytical model for Virtual Topology Reconfiguration (VTR) in optical networks is developed. It aims at the optical networks with a circuit-based data plane and an IPlike control plane. By identifying and analyzing the important factors impacting the network performance due to VTR operations on both planes, we can compare the benefits and penalties of different VTR algorithms and policies. The best VTR scenario can be adaptively chosen from a set of such algorithms and policies according to the real-time network situations. For this purpose, a cost model integrating all these factors is created to provide a comparison criterion independent …

Constraint Modeling And Reformulation In The Context Of Academic Task Assignment, Robert Glaubius, Berthe Y. Choueiry

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

We discuss the modeling and reformulation of a resource allocation problem, the assignment of graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) to courses. Our research contributes the following:

• Formulation of the GTA assignment problem as a nonbinary CSP.

• Design of a new convention for consistency checking to deal with over-constrained problem.

• Definition of a new network-decomposable nonbinary confinement constraint.

• Evaluation of the reformulation of confinement and equality constraints on 3 real-world data sets.

Automated Ontology Learning For A Semantic Web, Christopher N. Hammack, Qingfeng Lin, Hai Huang, Stephen Scott, Sharad C. Seth

CSE Technical Reports

By expressing web page content in a format that machines can understand, the semantic web provides huge possibilities for the Internet and for machine reasoning. Unfortunately, there is a considerable distance between the present-day World Wide Web and the semantic web of the future. The process of annotating the Web to make it semantic web-ready is quite long and not without resistance. In this paper one mechanism for semanticizing the Web is presented. This system is known as AutoSHOE, and it is capable of categorizing pages according to one of the present HTML semantic representations (Simple HTML Ontology Extensions) by …

Centralized Vs. Distributed Connection Management Schemes Under Different Traffic Patterns In Wavelength-Convertible Optical Networks, Lu Shen, Byrav Ramamurthy

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

Centralized and Distributed methods are two connection management schemes in wavelength convertible optical networks. In the earlier work, the centralized scheme is said to have lower network blocking probability than the distributed one. Hence, much of the previous work in connection management has focused on the comparison of different algorithms in only distributed scheme or in only centralized scheme. However, we believe that the network blocking probability of these two connection management schemes depends, to a great extent, on the network traffic patterns and reservation times. Our simulation results reveal that the performance improvement (in terms of blocking probability) of …

Dynamic Traffic Grooming Algorithms For Reconfigurable Sonet Over Wdm Networks, Shu Zhang, Byrav Ramamurthy

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

The emergence of Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology provides the capability for increasing the bandwidth of Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) rings by grooming low-speed traffic streams onto different high-speed wavelength channels. Since the cost of SONET add-drop multiplexers (SADM) at each node dominates the total cost of these networks, how to assign the wavelength, groom in the traffic and bypass the traffic through the intermediate nodes has received a lot of attention from researchers recently.

A Novel Method To Improve The Test Efficiency Of Vlsi Tests, Hailong Cui, Sharad C. Seth, Shashank K. Mehta

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

This paper considers reducing the cost of test application by permuting test vectors to improve their defect coverage. Algorithms for test reordering are developed with the goal of minimizing the test cost. Best and worst case bounds are established for the performance of a reordered sequence compared to the original sequence of test application. SEMATECH test data and simulation results are used throughout to illustrate the ideas.

Dynamic Routing In Translucent Wdm Optical Networks, Xi Yang, Byrav Ramamurthy

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

Translucent WDM optical networks use sparse placement of regenerators to overcome the impairments and wavelength contention introduced by fully transparent networks, and achieve a performance close to fully opaque networks with much less cost. Our previous study proved the feasibility of translucent networks using sparse regeneration technique. We addressed the placement of regenerators based on static schemes allowing only fixed number of regenerators at fixed locations. This paper furthers the study by proposing a suite of dynamical routing schemes. Dynamic allocation, advertisement and discovery of regeneration resources are proposed to support sharing transmitters and receivers between regeneration and access functions. …

Constraint Modeling And Reformulation In The Context Of Academic Task Assignment, Robert Glaubius, Berthe Y. Choueiry

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

We discuss the modeling and reformulation of a resource allocation problem, the assignment of Graduate Teaching Assistants to courses in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Computer Science Department. We formulate this problem as a non-binary Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) and provide a new convention for consistency checking to deal with the over-constraindness of the problem and the practical requirement of our application. We introduce a new decomposable non-binary constraint, which we call confinement constraint, and describe its relevance in practical requirements of our application. We introduce an new decomposable non-binary constraint, which we call confinement constraint, and describe its relevance in …

Techniques For Bundling The Solution Space Of Finite Constraint Satisfaction Problems, Berthe Y. Choueiry, Amy Beckwith

CSE Technical Reports

We study the backtrack-search procedure with forward checking (FCBT) for finding all solutions to a finite Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP). We describe how to use dynamic interchangeability to enhance the performance of search and represent the solution space in a compact manner. We evaluate this strategy (FC-DNPI) in terms of the numbers of nodes visited, constraints checked, and solution bundles generated by comparing it, theoretically and empirically, to other search strategies. We show that FC-DNPI is equivalent to search with the Cross Product Representation (FC-CPR) of [Hubbe and Freuder 1992] in terms of the numbers of solution bundles and constraint …

Two Algorithms For Shaped-Based Porosity Measures, Leen-Kiat Soh

CSE Technical Reports

In this paper, we present two algorithms for shape-based porosity measures. Specifically, we describe two innovative attributes called perimeter porosity and area porosity as feature descriptors. Perimeter porosity refers to how “porous” or “weak” an image object is, while area porosity determines the degree of “branchiness” of an object. We show the applicability of the two measures through a SAR sea ice image classification example.

A Set Of New Sea Ice Feature Descriptors For Sar Images, Leen-Kiat Soh

CSE Technical Reports

In this paper, we present a set of algorithms for describing sea ice features in SAR images. These algorithms we have implemented and incorporated in the ARKTOS software package, an intelligent sea ice classification. These algorithms have unique characteristics. Some are extensions or adaptations of existing image processing techniques to the specific problem domain of satellite sea ice classification, while some are innovative designs, inspired by the aforementioned problem domain. These feature descriptors may be generalized to other remote sensing applications.

Negotiation-Based Coalition Formation Model For Agents With Incomplete Information And Time Constraints, Leen-Kiat Soh

CSE Technical Reports

In this paper we describe a coalition formation model for a cooperative multiagent system in which each agent has incomplete information about its dynamic and uncertain world and must respond to sensed events within time constraints. With incomplete information and uncertain world parameters while lacking time, an agent cannot afford organizing a rationally optimal coalition formation. Instead, our agents use a two-stage methodology. When an agent detects an event in the world, it first compiles a list of coalition candidates that it thinks would be useful, and then negotiates with the candidates. A negotiation is an exchange of information and …

Arktos: An Intelligent System For Satellite Sea Ice Image Analysis, Leen-Kiat Soh

CSE Technical Reports

We present an intelligent system for satellite sea ice image analysis named ARKTOS (Advanced Reasoning using Knowledge for Typing Of Sea ice). The underlying methodology of ARKTOS is to perform fully automated analysis of sea ice images by mimicking the reasoning process of sea ice experts and photo-interpreters. Hence, our approach is feature-based, rule-based classification supported by multisource data fusion and knowledge bases. A feature can be an ice floe, for example. ARKTOS computes a host of descriptors for that feature and then applies expert rules to classify the floe into one of several ice classes. ARKTOS also incorporates information …