Matching Items (2)
Filtering by

Clear all filters

154160-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
Exhaustive testing is generally infeasible except in the smallest of systems. Research

has shown that testing the interactions among fewer (up to 6) components is generally

sufficient while retaining the capability to detect up to 99% of defects. This leads to a

substantial decrease in the number of tests. Covering arrays are combinatorial

Exhaustive testing is generally infeasible except in the smallest of systems. Research

has shown that testing the interactions among fewer (up to 6) components is generally

sufficient while retaining the capability to detect up to 99% of defects. This leads to a

substantial decrease in the number of tests. Covering arrays are combinatorial objects

that guarantee that every interaction is tested at least once.

In the absence of direct constructions, forming small covering arrays is generally

an expensive computational task. Algorithms to generate covering arrays have been

extensively studied yet no single algorithm provides the smallest solution. More

recently research has been directed towards a new technique called post-optimization.

These algorithms take an existing covering array and attempt to reduce its size.

This thesis presents a new idea for post-optimization by representing covering

arrays as graphs. Some properties of these graphs are established and the results are

contrasted with existing post-optimization algorithms. The idea is then generalized to

close variants of covering arrays with surprising results which in some cases reduce

the size by 30%. Applications of the method to generation and test prioritization are

studied and some interesting results are reported.
ContributorsKaria, Rushang Vinod (Author) / Colbourn, Charles J (Thesis advisor) / Syrotiuk, Violet (Committee member) / Richa, Andréa W. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
153127-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
Many web search improvements have been developed since the advent of the modern search engine, but one underrepresented area is the application of specific customizations to search results for educational web sites. In order to address this issue and improve the relevance of search results in automated learning environments, this

Many web search improvements have been developed since the advent of the modern search engine, but one underrepresented area is the application of specific customizations to search results for educational web sites. In order to address this issue and improve the relevance of search results in automated learning environments, this work has integrated context-aware search principles with applications of preference based re-ranking and query modifications. This research investigates several aspects of context-aware search principles, specifically context-sensitive and preference based re-ranking of results which take user inputs as to their preferred content, and combines this with search query modifications which automatically search for a variety of modified terms based on the given search query, integrating these results into the overall re-ranking for the context. The result of this work is a novel web search algorithm which could be applied to any online learning environment attempting to collect relevant resources for learning about a given topic. The algorithm has been evaluated through user studies comparing traditional search results to the context-aware results returned through the algorithm for a given topic. These studies explore how this integration of methods could provide improved relevance in the search results returned when compared against other modern search engines.
ContributorsVan Egmond, Eric (Author) / Burleson, Winslow (Thesis advisor) / Syrotiuk, Violet (Thesis advisor) / Nelson, Brian (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014