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Sandhu, Harjinder. "Relational specification as a testing oracle." Morgantown, W. Va. : [West Virginia University Libraries], 2001. http://etd.wvu.edu/templates/showETD.cfm?recnum=1849.
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Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2001.Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 75 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-54).
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Machado, Patricia D. L. "Testing from structured algebraic specifications : the oracle problem." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/378.
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Work in the area of specification-based testing has pointed out that testing can be effectively used to verify programs against formal specifications. The aim is to derive test information from formal specifications so that testing can be rigorously applied whenever full formal verification is not cost-effective. However, there are still several obstacles to be overcome in order to establish testing as a standard in formal frameworks. Accurate interpretation of test results is an extremely critical one. This thesis is concerned with testing programs against structured algebraic specifications where axioms are expressed in first-order logic with equations, the usual connectives and quantifiers. The main issue investigated is the so-called oracle problem, that is, whether a decision procedure can be defined for interpreting the results of tests according to a formal specification. In this context, testing consists in checking whether specification axioms are satisfied by programs. Consequently, tests exercise operations referred to by the axioms and oracles evaluate the axioms according to the results produced by the tests. The oracle problem for flat (unstructured) specifications often reduces to the problem of comparing two values of a non-observable sort, namely the equality problem, and also how to deal with quantifiers which may demand infinite test sets. Equality on non-observable sorts is interpreted up to behavioural equivalence with observational equivalence as an important special case. However, a procedure for implementing such a behavioural equality may be hard to define or even impossible. In this thesis, a solution to the oracle problem for flat specifications is presented which tackles the equality problem by using a pair of approximate equalities, one finer than behavioural equality and one coarser, and taking the syntactic position of quantifiers in formulae into account. Additionally, when structured specifications are considered, the oracle problem can be harder. The reason is that specifications may be composed of parts over different signatures, and the structure must be taken into account in order to interpret test results according to specification axioms. Also, an implementation of hidden (non-exported) symbols may be required in order to check axioms which refer to them. Two solutions to the oracle problem for structured specifications are presented in this thesis based on a compositional and a non-compositional style of testing, namely structured testing and flat testing respectively. Structured testing handles the oracle problem more effectively than flat testing and under fewer assumptions. Furthermore, testing from structured specifications may require an approach which lies in between flat and structured testing. Therefore, based on normalisation of ordinary specifications, three normal forms are presented for defining a more practical and combined approach to testing and also coping more effectively with the oracle problem. The use of normal forms gives rise to a style of testing called semi-structured testing where some parts of the specification are replaced by normal forms and the result is checked using structured testing. Testing from normal forms can be very convenient whenever the original specification is too complex or oracles cannot be defined from it.
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Kudari, Sheetal. "An Ontology-based Automated Test Oracle Comparator for Testing Web Applications." Thesis, Malmö högskola, Fakulteten för teknik och samhälle (TS), 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-20586.
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Traditional test oracles have two problems. Firstly, several test oracles are needed for a single software program to perform different functions and maintaining a large number of test oracles is tedious and might be prone to errors. Secondly, testers usually test only the important criteria of a web application, since its time consuming to check with all the possible criteria. Ontologies have been used in a wide variety of domains and they have also been used in software testing. However, they have not been used for test oracle automation. The main idea of this thesis is to define a procedure for how ontology-based test oracle automation can be achieved for testing web applications and minimize the problems of traditional test oracles. The proposed procedure consists of the following steps: first, the expected results are stored in ontology A by running previous working version of the web application; second, the actual results are stored in ontology B by running the web application under test at runtime; and finally, the results of both ontology A and B are compared. This results in an automated test oracle comparator. Evaluation includes how the proposed procedure minimizes the traditional test oracle problems and by identifying the benefits of the defined procedure.
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Bångerius, Sebastian, and Felix Fröberg. "Functional testing of an Android application." Thesis, Linköpings universitet, Institutionen för datavetenskap, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-131936.
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Testing is an important step in the software development process in order to increase the reliability of the software. There are a number of different methods available to test software that use different approaches to find errors, all with different requirements and possible results. In this thesis we have performed a series of tests on our own mobile application developed for the Android platform. The thesis starts with a theory section in which most of the important terms for software testing are described. Afterwards our own application and test cases are presented. The results of our tests along with our experiences are reviewed and compared to existing studies and literature in the field of testing. The test cases have helped us find a number of faults in our source code that we had not found before. We have discovered that automated testing for Android is a field where there are a lot of good tools, although these are not often used in practice. We believe the app development process could be improved greatly by regularly putting the software through automated testing systems.
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Pobuda, Tomáš. "Ladění a testování databázových systémů pro potřeby digitálního archivu SAFE." Master's thesis, Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze, 2008. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-165222.
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Thesis deal with tuning of database Oracle, which is used by digital archive SAFE. In the concrete deal with setting parameters of database. It is divided to three parts. In first part it characterizes factors that influence performance of database. In second part it describes possibilities of tuning and setting Oracle database. In third part it is first introduced digital archive SAFE, after that it is chosen suitable testing tool for workload generation and described test scenarios and last are performed tests and compared results at different database database settings. Goal of thesis is description and trial tuning of Oracle database, which is used by digital archive SAFE. Other goal is test of files inserting into digital archive at different settings (saving to the database, on file system). These goals are achieved by testing tool workload generation and compare response time at different settings. Contribution of this thesis is above all trial of tuning Oracle database, which is used by digital archive SAFE. Document can be used like handbook for implementatory of tested implementation of digital archive SAFE.
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Castañeda, Lozano Roberto. "Constraint Programming for Random Testing of a Trading System." Thesis, KTH, Programvaru- och datorsystem, SCS, 2010. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-44908.
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Financial markets use complex computer trading systems whose failures can cause serious economic damage, making reliability a major concern. Automated random testing has been shown to be useful in finding defects in these systems, but its inherent test oracle problem (automatic generation of the expected system output) is a drawback that has typically prevented its application on a larger scale. Two main tasks have been carried out in this thesis as a solution to the test oracle problem. First, an independent model of a real trading system based on constraint programming, a method for solving combinatorial problems, has been created. Then, the model has been integrated as a true test oracle in automated random tests. The test oracle maintains the expected state of an order book throughout a sequence of random trade order actions, and provides the expected output of every auction triggered in the order book by generating a corresponding constraint program that is solved with the aid of a constraint programming system. Constraint programming has allowed the development of an inexpensive, yet reliable test oracle. In 500 random test cases, the test oracle has detected two system failures. These failures correspond to defects that had been present for several years without being discovered neither by less complete oracles nor by the application of more systematic testing approaches. The main contributions of this thesis are: (1) empirical evidence of both the suitability of applying constraint programming to solve the test oracle problem and the effectiveness of true test oracles in random testing, and (2) a first attempt, as far as the author is aware, to model a non-theoretical continuous double auction using constraint programming.Winner of the Swedish AI Society's prize for the best AI Master's Thesis 2010.
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Benharrat, Nassim. "Model-Based Testing of Timed Distributed Systems : A Constraint-Based Approach for Solving the Oracle Problem." Thesis, Université Paris-Saclay (ComUE), 2018. http://www.theses.fr/2018SACLC021/document.
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Le test à base de modèles des systèmes réactifs est le processus de vérifier si un système sous test (SUT) est conforme à sa spécification. Il consiste à gérer à la fois la génération des données de test et le calcul de verdicts en utilisant des modèles. Nous spécifions le comportement des systèmes réactifs à l'aide des systèmes de transitions symboliques temporisées à entrée-sortie (TIOSTS). Quand les TIOSTSs sont utilisés pour tester des systèmes avec une interface centralisée, l'utilisateur peut ordonner complètement les événements (i.e., les entrées envoyées au système et les sorties produites). Les interactions entre le testeur et le SUT consistent en des séquences d'entrées et de sortie nommées traces, pouvant être séparées par des durées dans le cadre du test temporisé, pour former ce que l'on appelle des traces temporisées. Les systèmes distribués sont des collections de composants locaux communiquant entre eux et interagissant avec leur environnement via des interfaces physiquement distribuées. Différents événements survenant à ces différentes interfaces ne peuvent plus être ordonnés. Cette thèse concerne le test de conformité des systèmes distribués où un testeur est placé à chaque interface localisée et peut observer ce qui se passe à cette interface. Nous supposons qu'il n'y a pas d’horloge commune mais seulement des horloges locales pour chaque interface. La sémantique de tels systèmes est définie comme des tuples de traces temporisées. Nous considérons une approche du test dans le contexte de la relation de conformité distribuée dtioco. La conformité globale peut être testée dans une architecture de test en utilisant des testeurs locaux sans communication entre eux. Nous proposons un algorithme pour vérifier la communication pour un tuple de traces temporisées en formulant le problème de message-passing en un problème de satisfaction de contraintes (CSP). Nous avons mis en œuvre le calcul des verdicts de test en orchestrant à la fois les algorithmes du test centralisé off-line de chacun des composants et la vérification des communications par le biais d'un solveur de contraintes. Nous avons validé notre approche sur un cas étude de taille significativeModel-based testing of reactive systems is the process of checking if a System Under Test (SUT) conforms to its model. It consists of handling both test data generation and verdict computation by using models. We specify the behaviour of reactive systems using Timed Input Output Symbolic Transition Systems (TIOSTS) that are timed automata enriched with symbolic mechanisms to handle data. When TIOSTSs are used to test systems with a centralized interface, the user may completely order events occurring at this interface (i.e., inputs sent to the system and outputs produced from it). Interactions between the tester and the SUT are sequences of inputs and outputs named traces, separated by delays in the timed framework, to form so-called timed traces. Distributed systems are collections of communicating local components which interact with their environment at physically distributed interfaces. Interacting with such a distributed system requires exchanging values with it by means of several interfaces in the same testing process. Different events occurring at different interfaces cannot be ordered any more. This thesis focuses on conformance testing for distributed systems where a separate tester is placed at each localized interface and may only observe what happens at this interface. We assume that there is no global clock but only local clocks for each localized interface. The semantics of such systems can be seen as tuples of timed traces. We consider a framework for distributed testing from TIOSTS along with corresponding test hypotheses and a distributed conformance relation called dtioco. Global conformance can be tested in a distributed testing architecture using only local testers without any communication between them. We propose an algorithm to check communication policy for a tuple of timed traces by formulating the verification of message passing in terms of Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP). Hence, we were able to implement the computation of test verdicts by orchestrating both localised off-line testing algorithms and the verification of constraints defined by message passing that can be supported by a constraint solver. Lastly, we validated our approach on a real case study of a telecommunications distributed system
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Fong, Fredric, and Mustafa Raed. "Performance comparison of GraalVM, Oracle JDK andOpenJDK for optimization of test suite execution time." Thesis, Mittuniversitetet, Institutionen för data- och systemvetenskap, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:miun:diva-43169.
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Testing, when done correctly, is an important part of software development sinceit is a measure of the quality of a software in question. Most of the highly ratedsoftware projects therefore have test suites implemented that include unit tests,integration tests, and other types of tests. However, a challenge regarding the testsuite is that it needs to run each time new code changes are proposed. From thedeveloper’s perspective, it might not always be necessary to run the whole testsuite for small code changes. Previous studies have tried to tackle this probleme.g., by only running a subset of the test suite. This research investigates runningthe whole test suite of Java projects faster, by testing the Java Development Kits(JDKs) GraalVM Enterprise Edition (EE) and Community Edition (CE) againstOracle JDK and OpenJDK for Java 8 and 11. The research used the test suiteexecution time as a metric to compare the JDKs. Another metric that wasconsidered was the test suites number of test cases, used to try and find a breakingpoint for when GraalVM becomes beneficial. The tests were performed on twotest machines, where the first used 20 out of 48 tested projects and the secondused 11 out of 43 projects tested. When looking at the average of five runs,GraalVM EE 11 performed best in 11 out of 18 projects on the first test machine,compared to its closest competitor, and in 7 out of 11 projects on the second testmachine both for JDK 8 and 11. However GraalVM EE 8 did not give anybenefits to the first test machine compared to its competitors, which might indicatethat the hardware plays a vital role in the performance of GraalVM EE 8. Numberof test cases could not be used to determine a breaking point for when GraalVM isbeneficial, but it was observed that GraalVM did not show any benefits forprojects with an execution time of fewer than 39 seconds. It is observed thatGraalVM CE, does not perform well as compared to the other JDKs, and in allcases, its performance is not countable due to less non-satisfied and inefficientbehavior.
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Agarwal, Deepam. "A comparative study of artificial neural networks and info fuzzy networks on their use in software testing." [Tampa, Fla.] : University of South Florida, 2004. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/SFE0000445.
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Sieber, Lukáš. "Návrh frameworku pro automatické testování webových stránek." Master's thesis, Vysoké učení technické v Brně. Fakulta elektrotechniky a komunikačních technologií, 2014. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-221042.
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This master's thesis is based on automated web applications testing with freeware instrument utilization developed under Google code project. It is called Selenium webdriver and become very popular during last years. Selenium webdriver is frequently used for web pages automation. Indisputable advantages of this solution are low entry cost, selenium is broadly used and also live community around that instrument with many useful informations. Main goal of this thesis is creation of automation framework created by Java programming language. This final framework will integrate Selenium webdriver and guarantee easy creation of testing scenarios. Because of this goal is placed mainly on separation of web page programmatic description and description of testing scenario.
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Nardi, Paulo Augusto. "On test oracles for Simulink-like models." Universidade de São Paulo, 2013. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/55/55134/tde-26032014-104734/.
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Embedded systems are present in many fields of application where failure may be critical. Such systems often possess characteristics that hampers the testing activity, as large amount of produced data and temporal requirements which must be specified and evaluated. There are tools that support the development of models for analysis and simulation still in the design stage. After being evaluated, a model may be used as basis to the implementation. In this case, it is important to ensure that the model is consistent with the specification. Otherwise, a divergence will be propagated to the final code. Therefore, the model must be tested prior to the codification. Simulink is a standard development and simulation tool for models of embedded systems. Its wide application in the industry has promoted the creation of free-software alternatives, as XCos. In the literature, there are researches which seek to improve the testing activity for Simulink-like models. The proposed solutions usually focus on test case selection strategies. However, little efforts have been directed to the oracle problem, that is, the difficulty in evaluating if an execution agrees with the specification. The objective of this doctorate proposal is to provide an oracle generation approach for Simulink-like models which addresses the characteristics previously summarized. Specifically, it is proposed a process, methods, procedures and a tool that enable the partially-automated generation of oracles for such models. As a main contribution, it is expected an improvement in the evaluation process of embedded systems in terms of quality, cost and timeSistemas embarcados estão presentes em diversas áreas de aplicação em que falhas podem ser críticas. Tais sistemas frequentemente possuem características que tornam a fase de teste particularmente desafiadora, como a produção de grande quantidade de dados e requisitos temporais que precisam ser validados de acordo com a especificação. Existem ferramentas que auxiliam no desenvolvimento de modelos para análise e simulação do comportamento de sistemas embarcados ainda na fase de design. Após ser avaliado, o modelo pode ser usado como base para a implementação. Neste caso, deve-se buscar garantir que um modelo esteja de acordo com a especificação. Do contrário, tal divergência será propagada para a implementação. Portanto, e importante que o modelo seja testado antes da fase de implementação. Simulink e uma ferramenta-padrão de desenvolvimento e simulação de modelos de sistemas embarcados. Sua ampla aplicação na indústria incentivou a criação de alternativas de software livres como XCos. Na literatura, existem pesquisas que visam a aprimorar a atividade de teste de modelos Simulink-like. As soluções propostas geralmente focam em estratégias de seleção de casos de teste. Mas pouco esforço tem sido direcionado ao problema do oráculo, isto e, na dificuldade em avaliar se a execução está de acordo com a especificação. O objetivo desta proposta de doutorado é prover uma abordagem de geração de oráculos de teste para modelos simulink-like que contemple as características previamente resumidas. Especificamente, é proposto um processo, métodos, procedimentos e uma ferramenta que viabilizem a geração parcialmente automatizada de oráculos de teste para modelos Simulink-like. Como contribuição principal, é esperada a melhora da qualidade, custo e tempo do processo de validação de sistemas embarcados suportados por modelagem em Simulink e ferramentas similares
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Purvinis, Julius. "Žiniatinklio informacinių sistemų regresinio testavimo algoritmo realizavimas ir tyrimas." Master's thesis, Lithuanian Academic Libraries Network (LABT), 2013. http://vddb.library.lt/obj/LT-eLABa-0001:E.02~2012~D_20131105_093025-05980.
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Kasdieninis žiniatinklio informacinių sistemų (toliau – IS) naudojimas paprastų vartotojų, verslo ir vyriausybinių organizacijų tarpe, reikalauja vis aukštesnės tokių IS kokybės. Žiniatinklio IS dažniausiai yra tokia programinė įranga, kurios sudėtingumas, dėl keleto apjungiamų technologijų, yra aukštas, o pokyčių greitis yra didelis. Vykdant palaikymo ir priežiūros darbus, gali atsirasti begalė klaidų, kurias iššaukia atlikti pakeitimai. Regresinio testavimo paskirtis yra užtikrinti, jog įdiegus programinės įrangos pakeitimus, tokius kaip naujo funkcionalumo pridėjimas ar jau egzistuojančio taisymas, ankstesnėje IS versijoje veikęs funkcionalumas veiks taip pat gerai ir naujojoje versijoje. Šiame darbe tiriami iš HTML žymų sudarytą IS atsaką galintys palyginti regresinio testavimo algoritmai (toliau – testų orakulai). HTML ãtsako kaip teksto lyginimas pateikia per daug klaidingai teigiamų (angl. false positives) rezultatų – testuotojas užverčiamas pranešimais apie netikras klaidas. Mūsų realizuotas testų orakulas HTML žymų atsaką nagrinėja kaip medžio struktūrą. Toks algoritmo veikimas leidžia tikrinti arba netikrinti aprašytas HTML semantines savybes, ko pasekoje yra sumažinamas klaidingai teigiamų ir klaidingai neigiamų rezultatų kiekis. Realizuotas testų orakulas nuo literatūroje aprašomų ir rinkoje siūlomų testų orakulų skiriasi tuo, jog nepraneša apie klaidą, kai HTML atsakas būna papildytas naujomis žymomis, kurios nekeičia pradinės medžio struktūros. Žiniatinklio IS... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]Common usage of web information systems among consumers, business and governmental organizations require higher quality of such systems. Web information systems is such a software, which has high complexity because of the multiple technology usage and tends to rapid changes. Errors may occur because of the changes that have been made through maintenance period. Regression testing purpose is to ensure, that software changes such as new functionality or previously existed functionality modification, did not affect functionality, which was well working in the older version. In these master thesis we analyze test oracle comparators which can compare HTML response. HTML as a text comparison produces too many false positives. Meanwhile our test oracle comparator analyses HTML response as is was a tree structure. Thus implementation of the test oracle comparator algorithm enables opportunity to validate or not to validate described HTML semantic features. Therefore, we get fewer false positives and false negatives. Our implemented test oracle comparator differs from the ones described in literature or the ones proposed in market by capability not to warn tester about changes such as newly added HTML tag, which do not change overall tree structure. In this way the introduction of natural functionality growth is allowed. After improvement our test oracle comparator detects 90 % errors with the 90 % precision, whereas in the market existing test oracle comparator of the regression... [to full text]
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Ho, Chun-fai Jeffrey. "Towards automatic oracles for the testing of mesh simplification software." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2005. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B36393228.
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Ho, Chun-fai Jeffrey, and 何晉輝. "Towards automatic oracles for the testing of mesh simplification software." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2005. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B36393228.
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Jeunesse, Paulien. "Estimation non paramétrique du taux de mort dans un modèle de population générale : Théorie et applications. A new inference strategy for general population mortality tables Nonparametric adaptive inference of birth and death models in a large population limit Nonparametric inference of age-structured models in a large population limit with interactions, immigration and characteristics Nonparametric test of time dependance of age-structured models in a large population limit." Thesis, Paris Sciences et Lettres (ComUE), 2019. http://www.theses.fr/2019PSLED013.
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L’étude du taux de mortalité dans des modèles de population humaine ou en biologie est le cœur de ce travail. Cette thèse se situe à la frontière de la statistique des processus, de la statistique non-paramétrique et de l’analyse.Dans une première partie, centrée sur une problématique actuarielle, un algorithme est proposé pour estimer les tables de mortalité, utiles en assurance. Cet algorithme se base sur un modèle déterministe de population. Ces nouvelles estimations améliorent les résultats actuels en prenant en compte la dynamique globale de la population. Ainsi les naissances sont incorporées dans le modèle pour calculer le taux de mort. De plus, ces estimations sont mises en lien avec les travaux précédents, assurant ainsi la continuité théorique de notre travail.Dans une deuxième partie, nous nous intéressons à l’estimation du taux de mortalité dans un modèle stochastique de population. Cela nous pousse à utiliser des arguments propres à la statistique des processus et à la statistique non-paramétrique. On trouve alors des estimateurs non-paramétriques adaptatifs dans un cadre anisotrope pour la mortalité et la densité de population, ainsi que des inégalités de concentration non asymptotiques quantifiant la distance entre le modèle stochastique et le modèle déterministe limite utilisé dans la première partie. On montre que ces estimateurs restent optimaux dans un modèle où le taux de mort dépend d’interactions, comme dans le cas de la population logistique.Dans une troisième partie, on considère la réalisation d’un test pour détecter la présence d’interactions dans le taux de mortalité. Ce test permet en réalité de juger de la dépendance temporelle de ce taux. Sous une hypothèse, on montre alors qu’il est possible de détecter la présence d’interactions. Un algorithme pratique est proposé pour réaliser ce testIn this thesis, we study the mortality rate in different population models to apply our results to demography or biology. The mathematical framework includes statistics of process, nonparametric estimations and analysis.In a first part, an algorithm is proposed to estimate the mortality tables. This problematic comes from actuarial science and the aim is to apply our results in the insurance field. This algorithm is founded on a deterministic population model. The new estimates we gets improve the actual results. Its advantage is to take into account the global population dynamics. Thanks to that, births are used in our model to compute the mortality rate. Finally these estimations are linked with the precedent works. This is a point of great importance in the field of actuarial science.In a second part, we are interested in the estimation of the mortality rate in a stochastic population model. We need to use the tools coming from nonparametric estimations and statistics of process to do so. Indeed, the mortality rate is a function of two parameters, the time and the age. We propose minimax optimal and adaptive estimators for the mortality and the population density. We also demonstrate some non asymptotics concentration inequalities. These inequalities quantifiy the deviation between the stochastic process and its deterministic limit we used in the first part. We prove that our estimators are still optimal in a model where the mortality is influenced by interactions. This is for example the case for the logistic population.In a third part, we consider the testing problem to detect the existence of interactions. This test is in fact designed to detect the time dependance of the mortality rate. Under the assumption the time dependance in the mortality rate comes only from the interactions, we can detect the presence of interactions. Finally we propose an algorithm to do this test
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Hoskin, Sara. "Foreclosures and Crime: Testing Social Disorganization Theory in the Suburbs." Doctoral diss., University of Central Florida, 2012. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETD/id/5308.
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Foreclosures have increased in the US since the 1970's. The increase in foreclosures has caused concern among some researchers on their affect on crime. Social disorganization theory measures the effect various structural characteristics, such as poverty, residential instability/mobility, racial/ethnic heterogeneity, and family disruption have on crime. This study, though, is concerned with residential instability/mobility, or the presence of foreclosed houses in neighborhoods. Although most studies using this theory look at low-income neighborhoods, the following research looks at middle- and upper-income neighborhoods, which have been greatly affected by foreclosures. The theory also argues that the level of collective efficacy can reduce crime even in neighborhoods that are otherwise considered to be socially disorganized. Using ArcGIS mapping, the following research investigated 30 neighborhoods in Orange County, Florida that have high foreclosures in neighborhoods for the years of 2005-2009. Canvasses were conducted in all 30 neighborhoods to measure the level of collective efficacy within the neighborhoods to help explain the presence of high or low residential burglary. Thirteen neighborhoods stood out as noteworthy because they fell at the far end of the spectrum – high foreclosures and high crime, and high foreclosures and low crime. Some of the neighborhoods with high residential burglary did have strong indicators of low collective efficacy, while neighborhoods with low residential burglary had indicators of high collective efficacy. The majority of the indicators found in this research support previous research on various indicators of collective efficacy.ID: 031001271; System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader.; Mode of access: World Wide Web.; Adviser: John Lynxwiler.; Title from PDF title page (viewed February 21, 2013).; Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Central Florida, 2012.; Includes bibliographical references (p. 238-255).
Ed.D.
Doctorate
Sociology
Sciences
Sociology
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Nilsson, Holmgren Sebastian. "Real-Time Test Oracles using Event Monitoring." Thesis, University of Skövde, School of Humanities and Informatics, 2005. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:his:diva-952.
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To gain confidence in that a dynamic real-time system behaves correctly, we test it. Automated verification & validation can be used to conduct testing of such systems in an effective and economic way.
An event monitor can be used as a part of a test oracle to monitor the system that is being tested. The test oracle could use the data (i.e., the streams of events) derived from the tested system, to determine if an executed test case gave a positive or negative result. To do this, the test oracle compares the streams of events received from the event monitor with the event expressions derived from the formal specification, and decides if the executed test case has responded positive or negative. Any deviations between observed behaviour and accepted behaviour should be reported by the test oracle as a negative result. If the executed test case gave a negative result, the monitor part should signal this to the reporter part of the test oracle.
This work aims to investigate how the event expressions can be derived from the formal specification, and in particular, how the event specification language Solicitor can be used to represent these event expressions.
We also discuss the need for parameterized event types in Solicitor, and any other event specification languages used in event monitoring. We also show that support for parameterized event types is a significant requirement for such languages.
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Andersson, Oscar. "Tor och webbplatsorakel : Konstruktion och utvärdering av webbplatsorakel från DNS-tidtagning i Tor-nätverket." Thesis, Karlstads universitet, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-82564.
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This paper discsusses the question: is website oracles in Tor from timing DNS something we have to worry about? This paper builds apon the findings done by Rasmus Dahlberg and Tobias Pulls in thier paper Website Fingerprinting with Website Oracles. A website oracle is a side channel attack that answers the predicate: has this website been visited before? The website oracle is constructed and test are carried out, with great outcome, resulting in that website oracles from timing DNS is not an attack that puts individuals using Tor at risk, but certanly challanges the idea of an anonymity network when such a lot of data can be derived from DNS.Den här uppsatsen diskuterar frågan: är ett webbplatsorakel från DNS-tidtagning i Tor en attack att oroa sig för? Uppsatsen bygger på tidigare forskning utförd av Rasmus Dahlberg och Tobias Pulls i rapporten Website Fingerprinting with Website Oracles. Ett webbplatsorakel är en sidokanalsattack som svarar på predikatet: är denna webbsida besökt av en specifik delmängd användare? Tor är ett anonymitetsnätverk för gemene man, en viktig teknik för ett utvecklande samhälle där den enskilde individens rätt över sin egen information på internet är under konstant hot. I uppsatsen förklaras vad ett webbplatsorakel är i detalj, hur webbplatsorakel fungerar i Tor-nätverket och hur detta konstrueras i detalj. Resultat presenteras och en diskussion förs med anknytning till dagens teknik och samhälle i stort. Resultaten tyder inte på någon större risk för enskilda användare av Tor men visar på en riskfylld utveckling av perceptionen av hur Tor uppfattas och hur dess rykte kan skadas om attacker likt den presenterad i uppsatsen kan vidareutvecklas.
Presentation utfördes online p.g.a. coronapandemi.
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Yang, Liu. "Mathematical Theories of Interaction with Oracles." Research Showcase @ CMU, 2013. http://repository.cmu.edu/dissertations/559.
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Ramdas, Aaditya Kumar. "Computational and Statistical Advances in Testing and Learning." Research Showcase @ CMU, 2015. http://repository.cmu.edu/dissertations/790.
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This thesis makes fundamental computational and statistical advances in testing and estimation, making critical progress in theory and application of classical statistical methods like classification, regression and hypothesis testing, and understanding the relationships between them. Our work connects multiple fields in often counter-intuitive and surprising ways, leading to new theory, new algorithms, and new insights, and ultimately to a cross-fertilization of varied fields like optimization, statistics and machine learning. The first of three thrusts has to do with active learning, a form of sequential learning from feedback-driven queries that often has a provable statistical advantage over passive learning. We unify concepts from two seemingly different areas—active learning and stochastic firstorder optimization. We use this unified view to develop new lower bounds for stochastic optimization using tools from active learning and new algorithms for active learning using ideas from optimization. We also study the effect of feature noise, or errors-in-variables, on the ability to actively learn. The second thrust deals with the development and analysis of new convex optimization algorithms for classification and regression problems. We provide geometrical and convex analytical insights into the role of the margin in margin-based classification, and develop new greedy primal-dual algorithms for non-linear classification. We also develop a unified proof for convergence rates of randomized algorithms for the ordinary least squares and ridge regression problems in a variety of settings, with the purpose of investigating which algorithm should be utilized in different settings. Lastly, we develop fast state-of-the-art numerically stable algorithms for an important univariate regression problem called trend filtering with a wide variety of practical extensions. The last thrust involves a series of practical and theoretical advances in nonparametric hypothesis testing. We show that a smoothedWasserstein distance allows us to connect many vast families of univariate and multivariate two sample tests. We clearly demonstrate the decreasing power of the families of kernel-based and distance-based two-sample tests and independence tests with increasing dimensionality, challenging existing folklore that they work well in high dimensions. Surprisingly, we show that these tests are automatically adaptive to simple alternatives and achieve the same power as other direct tests for detecting mean differences. We discover a computation-statistics tradeoff, where computationally more expensive two-sample tests have a provable statistical advantage over cheaper tests. We also demonstrate the practical advantage of using Stein shrinkage for kernel independence testing at small sample sizes. Lastly, we develop a novel algorithmic scheme for performing sequential multivariate nonparametric hypothesis testing using the martingale law of the iterated logarithm to near-optimally control both type-1 and type-2 errors. One perspective connecting everything in this thesis involves the closely related and fundamental problems of linear regression and classification. Every contribution in this thesis, from active learning to optimization algorithms, to the role of the margin, to nonparametric testing fits in this picture. An underlying theme that repeats itself in this thesis, is the computational and/or statistical advantages of sequential schemes with feedback. This arises in our work through comparing active with passive learning, through iterative algorithms for solving linear systems instead of direct matrix inversions, and through comparing the power of sequential and batch hypothesis tests.
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O'Sullivan, Barry. "Towards a model of performance in oral language testing." Thesis, University of Reading, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.312577.
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Ellerton, Alan W. "Considerations in the validation of semi-direct oral testing." Thesis, University of Reading, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.388584.
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Sardharwalla, Imdad Sajjad Badruddin. "Topics in computing with quantum oracles and higher-dimensional many-body systems." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2017. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/264956.
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Since they were first envisioned, quantum computers have oft been portrayed as devices of limitless power, able to perform calculations in a mere instant that would take current computers years to determine. This is, of course, not the case. A huge amount of effort has been invested in trying to understand the limits of quantum computers---under which circumstances they outperform classical computers, how large a speed-up can be gained, and what draws the distinction between quantum and classical computing. In this Ph.D. thesis, I investigate a few intriguing properties of quantum computers involving quantum oracles and classically-simulatable quantum circuits. In Part I I study the notion of black-box unitary operations, and procedures for effecting the inverse operation. Part II looks at how quantum oracles can be used to test properties of probability distributions, and Part III considers classes of quantum circuits that can be simulated efficiently on a classical computer. In more detail, Part I studies procedures for inverting black-box unitary operations. Known techniques are generally limited in some way, often requiring ancilla systems, working only for restricted sets of operators, or simply being too inefficient. We develop a novel procedure without these limitations, and show how it can be applied to lift a requirement of the Solovay-Kitaev theorem, a landmark theorem of quantum compiling. Part II looks at property testing for probability distributions, and in particular considers a special type of access known as the \textit{conditional oracle}. The classical conditional oracle was developed by Canonne et al. in 2015 and subsequently greatly explored. We develop a quantum version of this oracle, and show that it has advantages over the classical process. We use this oracle to develop an algorithm that decides whether or not a mixed state is fully mixed. In Part III we study classically-simulatable quantum circuits in more depth. Two well-known classes are Clifford circuits and matchgate circuits, which we briefly review. Using these as inspiration, we use the Jordan-Wigner transform to develop new classes of non-trivial quantum circuits that are also classically simulatable.
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Ashby, Deborah. "Feasibility of testing recombinant oral attenuated Salmonella vaccines in rabbits." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/6248.
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An effective vaccine against chancroid could take the place of therapeutic control programs, offering long-lasting protection without the risk of widespread drug resistance. Orally administered recombinant attenuated Salmonella strains are used as vaccine vectors to deliver heterologous, pathogen-derived antigens to intestinal mucosal associated lymphoid tissue, and to provide vaccine adjuvancy. Chancroid vaccines are tested in a temperature-dependent rabbit model of experimental H. ducreyi infection. However, testing of recombinant attenuated Salmonella strains as vaccine vectors has never been done in rabbits; it is usually done in mice. Anatomic and physiologic differences may limit this approach to the demonstration of vaccine feasibility in rabbits. A three-part study was designed to assess the feasibility of testing attenuated Salmonella vector vaccines in rabbits. The questions asked were, (1) what is the maximum tolerated oral dose and minimum immunogenic oral dose of attenuated Salmonella in rabbits, (2) can a recombinant antigen expressed in the attenuated vector be recognized by the rabbit immune system, and (3) will experimental H. ducreyi infection in rabbits after oral Salmonella vaccination function as a comparative quantitative virulence assay to permit vaccine evaluation? (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
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Zietsman, Sharon Lynne. "An investigation into development of a stable aqeous suspension of Metronidazole Benzoate for oral use." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/456.
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Metronidazole is a synthetic, nitroimidazole-derivative antibacterial and antiprotozoal agent (ed. McEvoy, 2001). It has been reported that crystallization occurs in aqueous suspensions of metronidazole benzoate, a bland-tasting prodrug of metronidazole, as a result of conversion from the anhydrous to the monohydrate form, thereby compromising the stability and clinical efficacy of the substance due to the particle size growth (Hoelgaard & Moller, 1983). A generic South African based pharmaceutical company commenced formulation of an aqueous metronidazole benzoate suspension and experienced problems with crystallization that occurred in products stored at 2 to 8 °C. This study aimed to continue development of the product in order to identify a formulation that prevents formation of the hydrate form of metronidazole benzoate and the accompanying crystal growth. A variety of metronidazole benzoate suspensions were manufactured on a laboratory scale using a number of natural and synthetic suspending agents, including magnesium aluminium silicate, povidone K90, xanthan gum and Avicel® RC-591 (microcrystalline cellulose and carboxymethylcellulose sodium), over a range of concentrations. Analytical quantification methods were developed and validated, and the physicochemical properties of the raw material and finished products were fully characterized. Rheological tests were performed in order to characterize the suspension flow properties. Real-time and accelerated stability studies and a temperature cycle study were conducted in accordance with the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) guidelines. Conversion of metronidazole benzoate to the monohydrate form took place in suspensions containing xanthan gum 0.65 percent m/v under real-time and accelerated storage conditions. The suspensions containing Avicel® RC-591 were found to be physically and chemically stable after the temperature cycle and over the 12-week period whilst stored at 25 ºC / 60 percent RH and 5 ºC. The suspensions were chemically stable whilst stored at 40 ºC / 75 percent RH but showed sedimentation at this accelerated condition. The metronidazole benzoate contained in these products remained in the anhydrous state under all storage conditions and were consequently concluded to be the most stable formulations out of all the products analyzed in the current study. The suspending agent system consisting of microcrystalline cellulose and carboxymethylcellulose sodium thus shows promise in preventing the conversion of metronidazole benzoate from the anhydrate to the monohydrate form, thereby inhibited the subsequent increase in particle size due to crystal growth.
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Mikhailova, Julia V. "Comparison of interpersonal and presentational description in Russian oral proficiency testing." Connect to this title online, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1117225383.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005.Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xiv, 284 p.; also includes graphics (some col.) Includes bibliographical references (p. 274-284). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center
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Brantley, Kimberly Anne. "Oral and Written Symbol Comprehension Testing: The Benefit of Cognitive Interview Probing." NCSU, 2005. http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/theses/available/etd-10212005-101601/.
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Traditionally, symbol comprehension is tested using open-ended, written responses. However, responses are often so brief that they may fail to indicate a participant?s true understanding of some symbols. In the present study, several test methods were compared to the standard written method to determine if they produce better symbol comprehension performance. The four alternative methods included: written test with probe questioning after all responses were provided, oral test without probe questioning, oral test with probe questioning after responses for all symbols were provided, and oral test with probe questioning after each partially correct or incorrect response. The probe or follow-up questioning technique is taken from the cognitive interview procedure used in eyewitness identification research to elicit more detailed responses. Participants reported their interpretations of 31 safety symbols in one of the five test method conditions. Results showed that the test methods that included follow-up questioning elicited more information from participants, and increased comprehension rates in both oral and written test formats. The results have implications for cost-effective symbol design and evaluation
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Li, Wing-yan Michelle, and 李穎昕. "Understanding the relationship between rapid automatized naming and reading in Chinese." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10722/209658.
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This study aimed to investigate the relationship between rapid automatized naming (RAN) and reading in Chinese through manipulating four processes involved in RAN’s production: access and retrieval, articulation, naming and serial processing, as well as the developmental pattern of this relationship. A total of 126 Hong Kong children with 42 in Grade 1, 41 in Grade 3 and 43 in Grade 5 were assessed on both the digit and picture versions of Discrete RAN, Continuous RAN, Yes/No Naming and Cancellation tasks, in addition to Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices, Chinese word and text reading fluency. The results of the regression analyses suggested serial processing and articulation were core component processes that underlied the RAN-reading relationship in Chinese across all three grades, while naming, i.e. the oral production of names of stimuli, was found to be a significant underlying process in Grades 1 and 3 only. Comparison between the present findings and those of a past research on an alphabetic language, i.e. Greek, indicated serial processing and naming were common component processes of their RAN-reading relationships, while the role of articulation was only significant in Chinese. Implications for developing visual scanning and articulation training for Chinese poor readers were suggested.published_or_final_version
Educational Psychology
Master
Master of Social Sciences
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Chen, Grace Show-ying. "Diagnostic testing and teaching of oral communication in English as a foreign language." Thesis, University of Sunderland, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.260624.
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Mullan, Patrick Joseph. "A microbiological study of novel anti-plaque agents." Thesis, University of Bristol, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.299397.
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Kim, Youn-Hee 1979. "An investigation into variability of tasks and teacher-judges in second language oral performance assessment /." Thesis, McGill University, 2005. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=111931.
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Chen, Shu Hua. "The oral performance of Chinese speakers on the International English Language Testing System (IELTS)." Thesis, University of Macau, 2002. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b1636600.
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Maciel, Ana Claudia. "Avaliação da qualidade de oráculos de teste utilizando mutação." Universidade de São Paulo, 2017. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/55/55134/tde-24072017-142852/.
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No desenvolvimento de software, a qualidade do produto está diretamente relacionada à qualidade do processo de desenvolvimento. Diante disso, atividades de Verificação, Validação & Teste (VV&T) realizadas por meio de métodos, técnicas e ferramentas são de extrema necessidade para o aumento da produtividade, qualidade e diminuição de custos no desenvolvimento de software. Do mesmo modo, técnicas e critérios contribuem para a produtividade das atividades de teste. Um ponto crucial para o teste de software é sua automatização, tornando as atividades mais confiáveis e diminuindo significativamente os custos de desenvolvimento. Na automatização dos testes, os oráculos são essenciais, representando um mecanismo (programa, processo ou dados) que indica se a saída obtida para um caso de teste está correta. Este trabalho de mestrado utiliza a ideia de mutação para criar implementações alternativas de oráculos de teste e, assim, avaliar a sua qualidade. O teste de mutação se refere à criação de versões do sistema em desenvolvimento com pequenas alterações sintáticas de código. A mutação possui alta eficácia na detecção de defeitos e é bastante flexível na sua aplicação, podendo ser utilizada em diversos tipos de artefatos. Adicionalmente, este trabalho propõe operadores de mutação específicos para oráculos, implementa uma ferramenta de apoio à utilização desses operadores para oráculos e também descreve um estudo empírico dos operadores, destacando benefícios e desafios associados ao seu uso.In software development, product quality is directly related to the quality of the development process. Therefore, activities of Verification, Validation & Testing (VV&T) performed by methods, techniques and tools are urgently required to increase productivity, quality and cost reduction in software development. Similarly, testing technique and criteria contribute to the productivity of test activities. A crucial point for the software testing automation is making the most reliable activities and significantly reducing development costs. Regarding software testing automation, test oracles are essential, representing an mechanism (program, process or data) to indicate whether the actual output for a given test case is correct. This masters thesis aims to explore concepts of mutation testing to create alternative implementations of the oracle procedure and thus assess their quality. Mutation testing refers to the creation of system development versions with minor syntactic code changes. It has high efficiency on defects detecting and it is very flexible in its application and it is being used in various types of artifacts. This work also proposes specific mutation operators for oracles, implements an useful support tool for using these oracle mutation operators and conducts an empirical study of operators, highlighting benefits and challenges associated with their use.
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Oliveira, Rafael Alves Paes de. "Test orales for systems with complex outputs: the case of TTS systems." Universidade de São Paulo, 2017. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/55/55134/tde-13092017-085208/.
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Software testing is one of the most important Software Engineering processes, being the primary activity to check the conformance between the software requirements and its actual behavior. The automation of software testing activities is essential to certify productivity and effectiveness in such activities. Test automation leads testing activities to be conducted under systematic and accurate criteria, raising the chance of testers to reveal faults or inconsistencies. Test oracles are elementary members in software testing automation, being the mechanism responsible for indicating the correctness of software outputs. In testing environments, test oracles can be effectively implemented based on several sources of information about the Software Under Testing (SUT): software specifications, assertions, formal methods (Finite State Machines (FSM), formal specifications, etc, machine-learning methods, and metamorphic relations. Regardless of the implementation strategy, test oracles are vulnerable to false positive/negative verdicts, configuring what the literature describes as the oracle problem. Therefore, test oracles are a non-trivial and challenging object of studies of the software engineering research area. SUTs outputs in unusual formats make it harder the oracle problem. Audio, images, three-dimensional objects, virtual reality environments, complex statistical compositions, etc, are examples of non-trivial output formats. In the software testing context, SUTs with unusual outputs can be called complex-output systems. In this doctorate dissertation, we propose and evaluate a novel test oracle approach for complex-output systems called feature-based test oracles. The purpose of feature-based test oracles is the appropriation of a processing image technique called Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) to collect information from features extracted from the SUTs outputs to compose test oracles. Given a query image, CBIR combines feature extraction and similarity functions to alleviate the problem of searching for digital images in large databases. In previous research, we have integrated CBIR concepts in a testing framework to support the automation of testing activities in processing image systems and systems with Graphical User Interfaces (GUI). In this doctorate dissertation, we extended that framework and its concepts to general complex-output systems, addressing the feature-based test oracle approach. We use Text-To-Speech (TTS) systems to validate empirically our test oracle technique. Through the results of five empirical analyses, three of them conducted in line with problems of a real-world industry TTS system, show the proposed technique is a valuable instrument to automate testing activities and alleviate practitioners efforts on testing complex output systems. We conclude the proposed test oracles are effective because they systematically evaluate the SUTs sensorial output rather than produce verdicts based on subjective specifications. As future work, we plan to conduct investigations towards the reduction of false positives/negatives and the association of the test oracles with machine learning techniques and metamorphic relations.Teste de Software é um dos processos mais importantes da Engenharia de Software, sendo a principal atividade para averiguar a conformidade de requisitos de software e suas saídas. A automatização das atividades de teste é essencial para conferir produtividade e efetividade em tais atividades. A automatização faz com que atividades de teste sejam conduzidas sob critérios sistemáticos e precisos, aumentando a chance dos testadores de revelarem falhas ou inconcistências. Oráculos de teste são membros elementares na automatização do teste de software, sendo o mecanismo responsável por indicar a corretude das saídas do softwre. Em ambientes de teste, oráculos de teste podem ser efetivamente implementados com base em diversos fontes de informação sobre o sistema em teste: especificações de software, assertivas, métodos formais (máquinas de estados finitas, especificações formais, etc), métodos de aprendizagem de máquina e relações metamórficas. Independente da estratégia de implementação, oráculos de teste são vulneráveis a veridictos de falsos positivos/negativos, configurando o que é apresentado na literatura como O problema do Oráculo. Então, na área de engenharia de software, oráculos de teste são objetos de estudo não-triviais e desafiadores. O problema de oráculo é potencializado quando as saídas do sistema em teste são dadas em formatos não triviais como, por exemplo, audio, imagens, objetos tridimensionais, ambientes de realidade virtual, composições estatísticas complexas, etc. No contexto do teste de software, sistemas com saídas não triviais podem ser chamados de sistemas com saídas complexas. Esta tese de doutorado propões e avalia uma nova estratégia de oráculo de teste para sistemas com saídas complexas. O propósito de tal estratégia é a apropriação da técnica de processamento de imagem conhecida como CBIR (Recuperação de Imagem Basead em Conteúdo CBIR) para coletar informações de características extratídas do sistema em teste, compondo oráculos de teste. A partir de uma imagem de busca, o CBIR combina extração de características e funções de similaridade para aliviar problemas de busca em grandes based de imagens digitais. Em pesquisas anteriores, conceitos de CBIR foram integrados em um arcabouço de teste para apoiar a automatização de atividades de teste em systemas de processamento de imagens e sistemas com interfaces gráficas. Esta tese de doutorado estende o arcabouço e seus conceitos para sistemas com saídas complexas em geral. Sistemas Texto-Fala (TTS) foram utlizados para validações empíricas. Os resultados de seis análises empíricas, duas delas condizidas em consonância com problemas de um TTS industrial, revelam que a técnica proposta é um valioso instrumento para automatizar atividaes de teste e aliviar esforços de profissionais da indústria ao teste sistemas com saídas complexas. Conclui-se que a efetividade dos oráculos de teste propostos são devido às sistemáticas análises do conteúdo das saídas dos sistemas em teste, em vez da análises de especificações subjetivas. Os trabalhos futuros vislumbrados devem ser conduzidos no intuito de reduzir número de falsos positivos/negativos e a associação dos oráculos de teste com técnicas de aprendizado de máquina e relações metamórficas.
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Moulton, Sara E. "Elicited Imitation Testing as a Measure of Oral Language Proficiency at the Missionary Training Center." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2012. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/3137.
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This research study aimed to create an alternative method of measuring the language proficiency of English as a Second Language (ESL) missionaries at the Missionary Training Center (MTC). Elicited imitation (EI) testing was used as this measure of language proficiency and an instrument was designed and tested with 30 ESL missionaries at the MTC. Results from the EI test were compared with an existing Language Speaking Assessment (LSA) currently in use at the MTC. EI tests were rated by human raters and also by a computer utilizing automatic speech recognition technology. Scores were compared across instruments and across scoring types. The EI test correlated highly with the LSA using both scoring methods providing initial validity for future testing and use of the instrument in measuring language proficiency at the MTC.
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Cartledge, Jonathan David. "Unresponsive HIV-related oral candidosis : clinical interpretation of susceptibility testing; risk assessment and treatment strategies." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.395154.
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Oliveira, Rafael Alves Paes de. "Apoio à automatização de oráculos de teste para programas com interfaces gráficas." Universidade de São Paulo, 2012. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/55/55134/tde-30032012-144613/.
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Estratégias para automatização de atividades de teste de software são bem aceitas tanto pela indústria quanto pela academia. Um elemento essencial para automatizações de teste são oráculos de teste. Oráculos, que podem ser mecanismos, funções, execuções paralelas, etc, são fundamentais por determinarem se as saídas de uma aplicação em teste estão corretas. A automatização de mecanismos de oráculos é um ponto crítico quando as saídas dos sistemas se manifestam por meio de formatos não triviais como, por exemplo, uma Interface Gráfica com o Usuário (GUI - do ingês Graphical User Interface). Para esses casos, estratégias tradicionais de teste costumam ser custosas e exigir esforços consideráveis dos testadores. Este trabalho de mestrado propõe um método alternativo para a automatização de oráculos de teste para sistemas com GUIs. Para tanto, exploram-se conceitos de Recuperação de Imagens Baseada em Conteúdo para a composição de um método de automatização chamado de oráculos gráficos (Gr-O - do inglês Graphical Oracle). Como contribuição, desenvolveram-se extratores de características visuais de GUIs. A condução e análise de estudos empíricos revelaram que o uso do Gr-O pode reduzir os custos para definições de oráculos de teste para sistemas com GUIs. Deste modo, o método proposto pode ser alternativo ou complementar às técnicas de teste tradicionais identificadas na literaturaStrategies for automated software testing activities are well accepted by both industry and the academy. Essential elements for automation of testing are test oracles. Oracles, which may be mechanisms, functions, parallel executions, etc., are crucial in determining whether the output of an application under test is correct. The automation of oracles is critical when the output system manifested by non-trivial formats, for example, a Graphical User Interface (GUI). For these cases, traditional testing strategies tend to be costly and require considerable efforts of the testers. This master thesis proposes an alternative method for the automation of test oracles for systems with GUIs. To this end, we explore the concepts of Content-Based Image Retrieval for the composition of an automated method called Graphical Oracles (Gr-O). As a contribution, we developed characteristics extractors of GUIs. The conduct and analysis of empirical studies have shown that using of Gr-O can reduce costs for definitions of test oracles for systems with GUIs. Thus, the proposed method may be alternative or complementary to traditional testing techniques found in the literature
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Gatto, Daniela. "Oral proficiency testing for Grade Six students in a German-English bilingual school in Edmonton, Alberta." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape3/PQDD_0005/MQ59718.pdf.
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Ramineni, Sandeep K. "MUCOADHESIVE FILMS FOR TREATMENT OF LOCAL ORAL DISORDERS: DEVELOPMENT, CHARACTERIZATION AND IN VIVO TESTING." UKnowledge, 2014. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/cbme_etds/19.
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Mucoadhesive drug delivery systems which are being used from 1980’s to avoid first pass metabolism of drugs, commercially exist for only systemic drug delivery with fast erosion times (15-60 min), that may not be appropriate for local oral disorders. The goal of this research was to develop and characterize mucoadhesive films with flexibility of carrying different drugs and proteins and provide sustained release for local treatment of oral disorders.
Mucoadhesive films composed of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and carboxymethlycellulose (CMC) were formulated with imiquimod, an immune response modifier. Problems such as solubilization of imiquimod to increase drug loading, uniformity in films and total amount of drug released into supernatants were addressed by use of acetate buffer after investigating multiple methods.
Subsequently, other relevant properties of mucoadhesive systems, such as adhesion (shear, pull-off), tensile properties, swelling profiles, transport kinetics, and subsequent changes in release profiles as a function of film composition were characterized. The potential of the system for local retention of imiquimod, determined in oral mucosa of hamsters showed time dependent decrease in imiquimod amount through 12 hours, with no traces of drug in blood. Further testing in humans revealed that the residence time of the mucoadhesive films depended on the application site, increasing in the order of tongue < cheek < gingiva.
In parallel, mucoadhesive films loaded with epidermal growth factor (EGF) were developed to promote treatment of oral mucosal wounds. Bioactivity was tested in vitro on buccal tissues by creating a wound followed by application of films. Although EGF-loaded films did not accelerate wound healing, but rather elicited a hyperparakeratotic response. In vitro buccal tissues may not be appropriate for testing the effects of EGF in wound healing without incorporation of other biochemical factors.
Overall, a mucoadhesive system capable of delivering bioactive small molecules and proteins in sustained manner was developed in this work. A thorough understanding of the system properties was achieved to further tune for future applications. In vitro studies and in vivo studies in hamsters and humans clearly showed the potential and usefulness of the system to translate in to clinic for treatment of oral precancerous lesions.
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McNutt, Stephen Bishop. ""If I'm so smart...": memories of assessment and the role of standardized testing in forming an intellectual identity." Diss., University of Iowa, 2014. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2244.
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Written at a time when the number of students taking standardized tests in U.S. public schools is at an all-time high, this dissertation presents and analyzes the contribution of standardized testing to intellectual identity formation as portrayed within the oral histories of four adults from the post-"A Nation at Risk" (1983) and pre-"No Child Left Behind" (2001) eras. The study uses methods from discourse analysis and oral history research to find stories that serve as artifacts of the history of standardized testing and related educational and testing policies. Each oral history is unique and has a connection to the University of Iowa and its role in the history of testing. The five participants share stories exploring their experiences with the SAT, ACT, Iowa Test of Basic Skills, intelligence tests, and tests for Attention Deficit Disorder and placement exams. Each story explores what can happen to a person's intellectual identity when standardized testing forms relationships with that individual's history with trauma, race, class, gender, hetero-normativity and self-esteem. By design, this study is less focused on providing broad extrapolations than in placing individual oral histories in conversation with one another and contextualizing them within the history of intelligence testing and achievement testing. It does so with the goal of conveying the long-term effects of standardized testing on each of the four storytellers, and suggests researchers have not given enough attention to examining ways standardized tests interact with how individuals shape their intellectual identity. In doing so, it complicates the arguments of standardized testing advocates who claim the tests can achieve cultural neutrality even though they have sprung from norms and methods and measures deemed valuable by a culture. This study invites future research on similar questions, including how a belief in the objectivity of standardized testing imbues it with credibility and shapes the expectations we have of others and ourselves.
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Thompson, Carrie A. "The Development and Validation of a Spanish Elicited imitation Test of Oral Language Proficiency for the Missionary Training Center." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2013. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/3602.
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The Missionary Training Center (MTC), affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, needs a reliable and cost effective way to measure the oral language proficiency of missionaries learning Spanish. The MTC needed to measure incoming missionaries' Spanish language proficiency for training and classroom assignment as well as to provide exit measures of institutional progress. Oral proficiency interviews and semi-direct assessments require highly trained raters, which is costly and time-consuming. The Elicited Imitation (EI) test is a computerized, automated test that measures oral language proficiency by having the participant hear and repeat utterances of varying syllable length in the target language. It is economical, simple to administer, and rate. This dissertation outlined the process of creating and scoring an EI test for the MTC. Item Response Theory (IRT) was used to analyze a large bank of EI items. The best performing 43 items comprise the final version MTC Spanish EI test. Questions about what linguistic features (syllable length, grammatical difficulty) contribute to item difficulty were addressed. Regression analysis showed that syllable length predicted item difficulty, whereas grammar difficulty did not.
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Munday, Dale Leslie. "Design, development and evaluation of encapsulated oral controlled release theophylline mini-tablets." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003255.
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Conventional solid dosage forms often lead to fluctuations which exceed the maximum safe therapeutic level and/or decline below the minimum effective level. It is recognised that many drugs for chronic administration should be administered on a schedule that maintains plasma drug concentration within the therapeutic window. Research in controlled release dosage forms aims at designing a system with a zero-order input (eg, ideally to deliver 8.33% of the dose per hour over a 12 hour duration), producing steady state plasma drug levels. Oral dministration of drugs prepared as a controlled release formulation is extremely popular, and has attracted the attention of pharmaceutical scientists during the last decade. This has been due to the simultaneous convergence of various factors (eg, discovery of novel polymers and devices, better understanding of formulation and physiological constraints, expiration of existing patents, prohibitive cost of developing new drug entities), involved in the development of these delivery systems. Controlled release oral products can be formulated as single or multiple unit dosage forms and the relative merits of multiple unit forms with their own rate controlling systems are well established. This work describes the development of a relatively inexpensive multiple-unit capsule dosage form of theophylline containing coated mini-tablets for drug delivery throughout the gastrointestinal tract. Preformulation studies on theophylline anhydrous included solubility and dissolution rate determinations. Techniques including X-ray powder diffraction, differential scanning colorimetry and infrared spectroscopy provided no evidence of true polymorphism after recrystallisation from various solvents. However, scanning electron micrographs showed the effects of solvent polarity and cooling rate on the size and shape of recrystallised particles. Theophylline granules were manufactured by using various binders and were film coated by fluidised bed technology with various proportions of ethylcellulose, containing varying amounts of PEG 1540. In vitro release rates were dependent upon coating thickness and the proportion of PEG, which, being water soluble, created pores in the coating during dissolution studies as observed by a scanning electron microscope. However, substantial proportions of the drug remained unreleased from the granules. In order to overcome the problems of drug retention, plain granules were used and theophylline mini-tablets (3 mm diameter, weighing 15 - 20 mg) were manufactured and film coated with various Eudragits ® and other polymeric mixtures (soluble and insoluble). In vitro dissolution profiles from samples enclosed in hard gelatin capsules were determined using the USPXXI paddle apparatus in test media at pH 1.2 (HCI), pH 5.4 and 7.4 (phosphate buffers) at 37'C. Monitoring of in vitro theophylline release over 12 h, under identical hydrodynamic conditions, showed that the dissolution rate at pH 1.2 is substantially greater (95% of total drug content released in < 10 h) than that in phosphate buffers. The maximum release after 12 h was approximately 20 and 30% of total drug content of the tablet at pH 5.4 and 7.4, respectively. However, in vivo bioavailability after oral administration of tablets to rabbits corresponded to over 95% of total drug, compared with the same dose administered intravenously. The retarded drug release during in vitro dissolution in phosphate buffer was attributed to a possible interaction of phosphate ions with theophylline molecules at the tablet core-coat interface. These findings indicate that both rate and extent of theophylline release from the slow release coated mini-tablets are highly sensitive to phosphate buffers. The data also emphasise the usefulness of an animal model for assessment of in vivo drug release and subsequent absorption during the development of modified release dosage forms. Mini-tablets were subjected to isothermal and cyclic stresses to reach conditions for up to 6 months at different temperatures and relative humidity. The film integrity was maintained but ageing of the coating occurred which impeded dissolution. Reduced drug release was temperature related while the effect of relative humidi% was insignific~t. Encapsulated mini-tablets (uncoated and coated with Eudragit RL and RS 2% w/w) equivalent to a 300 mg dose, were evaluated both in vitro and in vivo using beagle dogs. The pharmacokinetic parameters from single and multiple dose studies showed several advantages over Theo-Dur® 300 mg tablets. Precise dosage titration is possible by careful adjustment of the number of encapsulated mini-tablets. This multiple unit mini-tablet delivery system will allow for greater flexibility in dosage adjustment compared to the currently available preparations, allowing individualised fine dose titration in those patients requiring therapeutic drug monitoring. The developmentof the multiple unit mini-tablet formulation appears to provide an optimal dosage form with maximum flexibility in respect of dose, duration range and ease of production.
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Kwak, Jae H. "The effects of HIV-1 on oral health and the role of dentists in HIV-1 testing and early diagnosis." Thesis, Boston University, 2012. https://hdl.handle.net/2144/12461.
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Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University
PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you.The growing numbers of HIV-1 infected individuals in the past thirty years have increasingly become a global concern. The virus has cost us more than 20 million lives since its identification in the early 1980s. HIV compromises the health of the infected individuals by decreasing CD4+ T helper lymphocytes, a crucial component of the immune system. The body implements cellular and humoral immune responses in an attempt to fight the infection. This chronic infection can persist for weeks, or even over a decade until the immune system is finally overcome. The condition can advance to Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), which manifests through life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers. This fatal disease has many routes of transmission: sexual, injection drug use, and mother-to-child. The clinical signs of HIV-1 infection are often overlooked because it can be nonspecific such as, fever, muscle soreness, and joint pain. However, one area of common HIV-1 manifestations is in the oral cavity. Oral mucosa is a natural habitat for many microorganisms. It can serve as a delicate expression of the body's immune status. For example, oral lesions and periodontal conditions are observed in patients with low CD4 T-cell count, corresponding with the decrease in immune defense mechanism during HIV-1 infection. Dentists can help in ameliorating the HIV-1/AIDS pandemic by using their expertise to identify oral signs of the deadly infection. This review aims to evaluate the effects of HIV-1 infection on oral health and to then examine how dentists can play a crucial role in HIV-1 testing and early diagnosis. Currently, 2.7 million new HIV-1 infections occur per year. High active antiretroviral therapy has improved many lives of those afflicted with this condition and will continue to do so. However, the key to ending this HIV-11AIDS pandemic is through education, early diagnosis and the cooperation between the general population and the health care providers.
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Tshuma, Mboneni Ona. "An exploration of the perceptions and experiences of community members on acceptability and feasibility of HIV Self-Testing Oral Fluid Test in Neta ward Mberengwa District, Zimbabwe." University of the Western Cape, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/6875.
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Master of Public Health - MPHBackground: The identification of undiagnosed HIV positive individuals through HIV testing services is one of the key measures in ensuring that the UNAIDS/ WHO 90 90 90 targets are achieved by the year 2020. The identification and subsequent initiation of HIV positive individuals on ART helps to minimise or prevent HIV transmission following viral suppression. Around 25% of people living with HIV globally are unaware of their positive status. In many countries, critical gaps exist in HIV services including prevention, testing and treatment. In Africa, the East and Southern region has a high burden of HIV/ AIDS where 50% of people are living with HIV, with 800,000 new infections in 2017. Despite concerted efforts in rolling out HIV testing services in Zimbabwe, a significant number of the population, especially men and young people, remain with an unknown HIV status, which is hindering progress towards the control and prevention of the HIV pandemic. A recent study confirmed that HIV testing in men is lower as compared to women. Consequently, progress is slower in trying to achieve the year 2020 milestone. The identification of suitable options for reaching out to these groups and the general population is important to achieve a reduction HIV prevalence. HIV self-testing oral fluid sample is thought to have the capacity to increase uptake of HIV testing. However, it still requires evidence on its acceptability and feasibility for those with undiagnosed HIV. Aim: The aim of this study was to explore the perceptions and experiences of the accessibility and feasibility HIV self-testing kits for individuals who received and used this method in Neta ward in Mberengwa District, Zimbabwe. The study identified some key factors that led to individuals accepting the kits and using them. The findings of this study will hopefully be able to inform policy makers’ decision-making about the importance of rolling out HST in the country.
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Vyse, Andrew J. "The epidemiology of vaccine preventable virus infections : studies of rubella virus and hepatitis B virus infections performed by oral fluid testing." Thesis, Open University, 2000. http://oro.open.ac.uk/58090/.
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This thesis presents studies on the epidemiology of vaccine preventable VIruS infections investigated by oral fluid testing. It involved studies of both rubella and hepatitis B virus infections by the detection of specific IgG in oral fluid and of rubella virus by PCR detection and genotyping of viral nucleic acid. To select an oral fluid collection device with optimal performance for these studies three (Orasure, Omni- SAL, Oracol) were compared. Each device collected oral fluid of sufficient quality for qualitative analysis of virus specific IgG, but DracoI was most acceptable to the subjects being tested. IgG capture ELISA (GACELISA) tests were developed for detection of rubella and anti-HBc specific IgG in oral fluid. Their sensitivity was less than that of corresponding serum ELiSAs, with sensitivity decreasing with increasing age of subjects. Whilst the performance of the rubella GACELISA was shown to be an improvement over the existing radioimmunoassay and was particularly sensitive with samples from paediatric populations, the performance of the anti-HBc GACELISA was not considered good enough for further use. The development of an RT-PCR assay targeting the El gene of rubella virus enabled the molecular epidemiology of rubella to be investigated using samples from the UK, China, Greece, and Brazil. By comparison to previously reported strains, the majority of strains were assigned to three banches of a phylogenetic tree. Those assigned to branches 1 (UK, Greece, China) and 2 (China) were not closely related to any previously reported strains. The timing of oral fluid collection and subsequent storage was critical for PCR detection. Ideally oral fluid samples should be collected within 14 days of the onset of symptoms and stored at least at -20°C prior to testing.
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Torrie, Heather Colleen. "A Web-based Tool for Oral Practice and Assessment of Grammatical Structures." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2007. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd1972.pdf.
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Jeong, Tae-Young. "Assessing and interpreting students' English oral proficiency using d-VOCI in an EFL context." Columbus, OH : Ohio State University, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1045462461.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2003.Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xii, 151 pages : ill. (some col.) Includes abstract and vita. Advisor: Charles R. Hancock, College of Education. Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-125).
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Ducher, Jeannie. "Experiences of Foreign Language Teachers and Students Using a Technology-Mediated Oral Assessment." Scholar Commons, 2010. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/3542.
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The development of the speaking skill at the lower levels of proficiency is seldom assessed as a matter-of-fact in the foreign language classroom, for reasons of impracticality and difficulty of implementation. Although the practice of the speaking skill is an important part of current approaches to the teaching of foreign languages, issues of time and logistics often prohibit the direct evaluation of the skill in a manner consistent with best practices, which purport that practice and assessment must be closely aligned, and that students benefit from self-evaluation and teacher feedback. Classroom research has shown that a skill that is not assessed, although practiced in class, sends the implicit message that this skill is not as valued as others that are the object of evaluation. This project presents the rationale, background literature and methodology to use current computer technologies in an attempt to offset these preventative issues, and to offer foreign language students and teachers a flexible model to conduct evaluations of students’ oral development in a practical, authentic and valid manner, with opportunities for constructive feedback and tracking of students’ progress.
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Chang, Man-si Menzie, and 張汶詩. "Gaps-In-Noise and pitch pattern sequence tests: norms for Mandarin-speaking adolescents." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2010. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B44489584.
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Shao, Jing. "Glycated haemoglobin A1c compared to fasting plasma glucose and oral glucose tolerance testing for diagnosing type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes : a meta-analysis." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/43240.
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BACKGROUND
In 2010, glycated haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) was officially recommended as a screening tool to diagnose type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and pre-diabetes, with cut-off points 6.5% and 5.7% to 6.4% respectively. The implications of using the HbA1c criterion, compared to the general diagnostic criteria: fasting glucose test (FPG) and oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), is however still being debated.
OBJECTIVES
The objectives of this study were to evaluate and compare the pooled prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and pre-diabetes, as measured by the Haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) test, or the fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). Secondly, to determine and compare the diagnostic test characteristics (sensitivity, specificity) of these tests.
METHODS
Published papers, with a cross sectional study design, were selected for a systematic review and meta-analysis. The search strategy was an electronic review of journal articles listed on MEDLINE, PubMed and Google scholar between 1996 and 2012. Reference lists were checked, journals were hand searched and experts were contacted when necessary. Initially all studies related to the validation of HbA1c as a tool to detect pre-diabetes or T2DM in humans, published in English, were examined.
Studies were excluded if they did not meet the above mentioned criteria, and/or were conducted with pregnant women. Further analysis was done if FPG or OGTT was compared to HbA1c. The diagnosis of diabetes had to have been based on ADA or WHO criteria. These criteria are: HbA1c 5.7%-6.4% for pre-diabetes and >=6.5% for T2DM; FPG 5.6mmol-7mmol/l for pre-diabetes and >=7mmol/l for T2DM; OGTT 7.8mmol-11.1mmol/l for pre-diabetes and >=11.1mmol/l for T2DM). The OGTT and FPG tests were used as the reference tests and the prevalence reflected as a positive or negative proportion.
The sensitivity and specificity of HbA1c >=6.5% among cases defined by OGTT or FPG should have been reported, or it was possible to calculate these from the data provided. Study results relating to diagnostic accuracy were extracted and synthesized using multivariate random effects meta-analysis methods. This study focused on patients who were suspected of having T2DM, from two sub-groups (a community-based group and a high-risk group) to compare the detection rate of HbA1c with FPG and OGTT.Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2014.
lk2014
School of Health Systems and Public Health (SHSPH)
MSc
Unrestricted