Hybrid Particle Swarm and Ranked Firefly Metaheuristic Optimization-Based Software Test Case Minimization

Software testing is a valuable and time-consuming activity that aims to improve the software quality. Due to its significance, combinatorial testing focuses on fault identification by the interaction of small amount of input factors. But, deep testing is not sufficient due to time or resources availability. To select the optimal test cases with least computation time, Hybrid Multi Criteria Particle Swarm and Ranked Firefly Metaheuristic Optimization(HMCPW-RFMO) technique are introduced. Initially, the population of the test cases is randomly initialized. Then the fitness is calculated by the pairwise coverage, execution cost, fault detection capability and average execution frequency. RFM approach starts with ‘n’ fireflies. The light intensity of each firefly gets initialized.If the light intensity of one firefly is minor than the other one, it moves near the brighter one. Next, the rank is given to the firefly based on their light intensity. Lastly, the high ranked firefly is chosen as a global best solution.The result reveals that HMCPW-RFMO technique improves the software quality.

Centralized Algorithms Based on Clustering with Self-tuning of Parameters for Cooperative Target Observation

Clustering on target positions is a class of centralized algorithms used to calculate the surveillance robots' displacements in the Cooperative Target Observation (CTO) problem. This work proposes and evaluates Fuzzy C-means (FCM) and Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN) with K-means (DBSk) based self-tuning clustering centralized algorithms for the CTO problem and compares its performances with that of K-means. Two random motion patterns are adopted for the targets: in free space or on a grid. As a contribution, the work allows identifying ranges of problem configuration parameters in which each algorithm shows the highest average performance. As a first conclusion, in the challenging situation in which the relative speed of the targets is high, and the relative sensor range of the surveillance is low, for which the existing algorithms present a substantial drop in performance, the FCM algorithm proposed outperforms the others. Finally, the DBSk algorithm adapts very well in low execution frequency, showing promising results in this challenging situation.

Effect of Daily Forecasting Frequency on Rolling-Horizon-Based EMS Reducing Electrical Demand Uncertainty in Microgrids

Accurate forecasting is a crucial task for energy management systems (EMSs) used in microgrids. Despite forecasting models destined to EMSs having been largely investigated, the analysis of criteria for the practical execution of this task, in the framework of an energy management algorithm, has not been properly investigated yet. On such a basis, this paper aims at exploring the effect of daily forecasting frequency on the performance of rolling-horizon EMSs devised to reduce demand uncertainty in microgrids by adhering to a reference planned profile. Specifically, the performance of a sample EMS, where the forecasting task is committed to a nonlinear autoregressive network with exogenous inputs (NARX) artificial neural network (ANN), has been studied under different daily forecasting frequencies, revealing a representative trend relating the forecasting execution frequency in the EMS and the reduction of uncertainty in the electrical demand. On the basis of such a trend, it is possible to establish how often is convenient to repeat the forecasting task for obtaining increasing performance of the EMS. The obtained results have been generalized by extending the analysis to different test scenarios, whose results have been found coherent with the identified trend.

Locating Core Modules through the Association between Software Source Structure and Execution

To improve software quality, the source code that composes software has to be improved, and improving the important code that largely affects the software quality should be a cost-effective method. Static analysis defines important codes as those that occupy important positions in the source network, while dynamic analysis defines important codes as those with high execution frequency. However, neither method analyzes the association between network structure and execution frequency, and both have their disadvantages. Thus, this study analyzed the association between source network structure and execution frequency to solve their disadvantages. The source function of Notepad++ was analyzed, and the function ranking was derived using the association between network structure and execution frequency. For verification, the Spearman correlation between the newly derived function ranking and the function ranking of the network and execution frequency obtained with the conventional method was measured. By measuring the Spearman correlation, the newly derived function ranking had strong correlations with execution frequency and included the network structure’s characteristics. Moreover, similar to the Pareto principle, the analysis showed that 20% of Notepad++’s functions could be categorized as important functions, largely affecting the software’s quality.

Task-Level Aware Scheduling of Energy-Constrained Applications on Heterogeneous Multi-Core System

Minimizing the schedule length of parallel applications, which run on a heterogeneous multi-core system and are subject to energy consumption constraints, has recently attracted much attention. The key point of this problem is the strategy to pre-allocate the energy consumption of unscheduled tasks. Previous articles used the minimum value, average value or a power consumption weight value as the pre-allocation energy consumption of tasks. However, they all ignored the different levels of tasks. The tasks in different task levels have different impact on the overall schedule length when they are allocated the same energy consumption. Considering the task levels, we designed a novel task energy consumption pre-allocation strategy that is conducive to minimizing the scheduling time and developed a novel task schedule algorithm based on it. After getting the preliminary scheduling results, we also proposed a task execution frequency re-adjustment mechanism that can re-adjust the execution frequency of tasks, to further reduce the overall schedule length. We carried out a considerable number of experiments with practical parallel application models. The results of the experiments show that our method can reach better performance compared with the existing algorithms.

Analysis of the execution of core tactical principles and technical efficiency of primary school futsal players

The study aimed to analyze the core tactical offensive principles and technical efficiency of primary school futsal players. Thirty-three students from a school in Paraná participated in the study. The System of Tactical Assessment in Soccer (FUT-SAT) and the System of Notational Analysis in Small-sided Soccer Games were used for tactical-technical analysis. It was found that the tactical principle “offensive coverage" was most frequently executed by the primary school futsal players (p = 0.01), followed by "width and length" without ball (p < 0.01). Moderate and strong significant correlations were identified between the execution frequency of the core tactical principles “penetration”, “offensive coverage”, “width and length without ball”, “offensive unity” and efficiency in technical skills (from r = 0.43 to r = 0.82, p < 0.05). It is concluded that there is a model of playing near the game center in the presented age group, and that the efficiency of executing technical skills is associated with tactical behavior in game situation.

The Use of Color Gradation on Program Visualization for Learning Programming

According to several works, Program Visualization (PV) enhances student understanding further about how a particular program works. However, to our knowledge, no PVs utilize color gradation as a part of their features, even though color plays an important role in visualization. Therefore, two uses of color gradation on PV are proposed on this paper. On the one hand, color gradation can be used to display execution frequency of each instruction; instruction with higher execution frequency will be assigned with more-prominent color. Such piece of information is expected to help student for understanding program complexity. On the other hand, color gradation can also be used to display access frequency of each variable; variable with higher access frequency will be assigned with more-prominent color. Such piece of information is expected to help student for understanding program-to-variable dependency. Both uses are proved to be effective for learning programming according to our evaluation. Index Terms—program visualization, color gradation, program complexity, program-to-variable dependency, computer science education

Sexual behavior of 'morada nova' breeding sheep under semi-intensive rearing during the mating season in the brazilian semiarid

This study aimed to evaluate the sexual behavior of 'Morada Nova' breeding sheep reared in the Brazilian semi-arid during dry and rainy seasons in a semi-intensive system. The behavioral data were gathered from 4 rams and 114 ewes, among which 55 during the rainy season and the other 59 females in the dry season. The behavioral observations were conducted from 6 am to 5 pm, during both periods. The observations were carried out continuously and split into 'event' (execution frequency) and 'state' (execution time). During the rainy season, the breeding sheep showed the most efficient sexual behavior, with a shorter reaction time (RT) and less frequent mount attempts (MA), being of 122 sec and 2.97, respectively. However, throughout the dry period, some sexual behaviors such as sniffing the urogenital of females (SUF), penis exposure (EXP), head tossing (HT), and courting of females (FC) became more frequent, mainly in the afternoon, as with the flehmen response (FR). Male courting behavior was more evident in the rainy season during the end of the day, remaining less active during the dry period. Sexual behavior intensity in 'Morada Nova' sheep varies throughout the day, especially in the dry season.