Student Projects 2010

Photo: PhillipC

These are my project proposals for student projects in 2010. Most of the topics can be scaled to small student projects, bachelor thesis projects, master thesis projects and in some cases up to dissertation subjects. The projects are not isolated but fit the current research agenda of my group. The students are supervised in weekly meetings.

• MOMUTSIP - Model-based Mutation Testing of the SIP Protocol: Model-based Mutation Testing is a black-box testing technique, where mutation testing is applied on the modeling level. We have developed an automated test case generator based on this technique. The aim of this project is to evaluate the tool and technique for the Session Initiation Protocol used in Voice-Over-IP applications. This project is related to our FP7 MOGENTES project.


• MOMUTCON - Model-based Mutation Testing of the Conference Protocol: Model-based Mutation Testing is a black-box testing technique, where mutation testing is applied on the modeling level. We have developed an automated test case generator based on this technique. The aim of this project is to evaluate the tool and technique for the Conference Protocol, a simple multicast chat box protocol. This project is related to our FP7 MOGENTES project.


• MOMUTSUR - Model-based Mutation Testing Survey: Model-based Mutation Testing is a black-box testing technique, where mutation testing is applied on the modeling level. We have developed an automated test case generator based on this technique. The aim of this project is to research related work and write a survey on the topic. This includes the study of related literature as well as the evaluation of other existing tools. This project is related to our FP7 MOGENTES project.


• SEMU - Semantic Mutations of UML State Chart Diagrams: Model-based Mutation Testing is a black-box testing technique, where mutation testing is applied on the modeling level. In model-based mutation testing a model is mutated by changing its syntax. The mutants represent bugs and test cases are generated to detect such bugs in an implementation. In this project we consider semantic mutations of models, i.e. what are the possible faulty interpretations of a given model. It is well-known that there are several possible interpretations of UML state charts. The student shall investigate the state of the art on this topic and describe the possible semantic variations. This semantic variations will be build into our UML-Action System translator for generating test cases. The idea is to generate test cases that will detect faulty behavior due to semantic misinterpretations. This project is related to our FP7 MOGENTES project.


• COCA - Concolic Execution of Action Systems: Concolic stands for concrete and symbolic execution and is a technique for systematically exploring the paths of a program. Prominent tools that use this technique are jCute and PEX. The aim of this project is to develop a concolic executor for Action Systems. Action systems are a modeling framework well suited for modeling reactive systems, e.g. control logics of embedded systems. The student will study the problem and develop a prototype for a subset of the language. We currently use Action Systems as input to our model-based testing tools in the FP7 project MOGENTES.


• SYMPRO - Symbolic Execution in Prolog: Symbolic execution is a technique we currently use for automated test case generation. In symbolic execution a program is executed with symbolic values. The result of such a symbolic execution is a formula describing all possible outputs dependent on the symbolic inputs. Prolog is well-suited to implement such a symbolic interpreter. The aim of this project is to use the professional prolog system Sicstus to develop a prototype symbolic interpreter for a small programming language. The idea is to exploit the Constraint Solvers of Sicstus Prolog in the style of constraint logic programming.


• MUTO - Mutation Operators for Object-Oriented Action Systems: (in progress) Model-based Mutation Testing is a black-box testing technique, where mutation testing is applied on the modeling level. In model-based mutation testing a model is mutated by changing its syntax. The mutants represent bugs and test cases are generated to detect such bugs in an implementation. The mutants are generated by so called mutation operators. A mutation operator is a rule how a certain syntactic term, e.g. a programming statement, should be changed. This changes or mutations represent faults. The aim of this project is to define a set of mutation operators for our Object-Oriented Action System modeling language. Based on this, a tool shall be developed that takes a model and the set of mutation operators and produces a number of mutated versions of this model (mutants). We use such mutants as input for our test case generator.


• MOMUTCAR - Model-based Mutation Testing of a Car Alarm System: (in progress) Model-based Mutation Testing is a black-box testing technique, where mutation testing is applied on the modeling level. We have developed an automated test case generator based on this technique. The aim of this project is to evaluate the tool and technique for an industrial case study of a car alarm system. This project is related to our FP7 MOGENTES project.

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SYANCO Winter School, Feb 8-12, Berlin

Photo: alles-schlumpf

I have been invited to lecture on the upcoming SYANCO Winter School in Berlin.

The International Winter School on Synthesis and Analysis of Component Connectors is taking place from 8 till the 12 of February 2010 at Park Inn Berlin-Alexanderplatz, Berlin, Germany. It is jointly organized by Coordination Languages Research Group (SEN3), Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), the Netherlands and Faculty of Computer Science, TU Dresden, Germany.

I will give a two hours lecture on Model-based Mutation Testing: Foundations and Applications. This lecture gives an introduction to mutation testing on the modelling level.

The original idea of mutation testing on the source-code level goes back to the late 1970s and works as follows: The tester injects faults into a program under test, by deliberately changing its source code. This faulty versions of the program are called mutants. Then, test cases are executed on these mutants. If all the faults are detected, the set of test cases can be considered adequate. If the tests fail this quality assessment, then additional test cases should be designed until all faults are detected. The assumption is that other faults in the original program can be caught as well, if it is able to detect the injected faults. We show how this technique can be applied in model-based testing. The idea is to automatically generate test cases from mutated formal models. The test cases are designed to detect those bugs in a system under test that have been anticipated on the modelling level. In the course we will present (1) the general theory behind our technique, based on program semantics and refinement preorders, (2) map the theory to different modelling styles, including contracts and process algebras, and (3) discuss the model-based mutation testing of protocols and embedded systems.

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SEFM 2010, 13-17 September, Pisa, Italy

Photo: Pisa 2007

I have been invited to serve on the Program Committee of SEFM 2010, the 8th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering and Formal Methods. SEFM 2010 will take place in Pisa. Submission deadline for abstracts is 22 March 2010. The PC-chairs are Jose Luis Fiadeiro and Stefania Gnesi.

The aim of the conference is to bring together practitioners and researchers from academia, industry and government to advance the state of the art in formal methods, to facilitate their uptake in the software industry and to encourage their integration with practical engineering methods. Papers that combine formal methods and software engineering are especially welcome.

I served as a PC-Cochair for SEFM 2005. For information on the past SEFM conferences visit the general SEFM webpage.

Here the call for papers will be published as soon as it is out.

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Fault-based Test Case Generation for Component Connectors

Photo: Matthew Stinson

Sun Meng at CWI had the idea to translate my UTP-theory of mutation testing to REO connectors. This resulted in a TASE 2009 paper published in July:

Bernhard K. Aichernig, Farhad Arbab, Lacramioara Astefanoaei, Frank S. de Boer, Sun Meng, and Jan Rutten. Fault-based test case generation for component connectors. In TASE 2009, Third IEEE International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Software Engineering, Tianjin, China, July 29–31, pages 147–154. IEEE Computer Society, July 2009. Copyright by IEEE. (PDF) (doi:10.1109/TASE.2009.14)

The paper demonstrates that the idea of formalizing basic software engineering concepts in Hoare and He's Unifying Theories of Programming really helps to transfer knowledge and technology. In this case mutation testing found a new application domain: component connectors for modeling coordination in service-oriented architectures.

Abstract. The complex interactions appearing in service-oriented computing make coordination a key concern in serviceoriented systems. In this paper, we present a fault-based method to generate test cases for component connectors from specifications. For connectors, faults are caused by possible errors during the development process, such as wrongly used channels, missing or redundant subcircuits, or circuits with wrongly constructed topology. We give test cases and connectors a unifying formal semantics by using the notion of design, and generate test cases by solving constraints obtained from the specification and faulty connectors. A prototype symbolic test case generator serves to demonstrate the automatizing of the approach.

More conference papers.

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