Ph.D
Group : Formal Testing and System Exploration

Test Generation and Animation Based on Object-Oriented Specifications

Starts on 01/01/2009
Advisor : WOLFF, Burkhart

Funding : CDD sur contrat UPS
Affiliation : Université Paris-Saclay
Laboratory : INRIA Saclay

Defended on 09/12/2011, committee :

Research activities :

Abstract :
The goal of this thesis is the development of support for test generation and animation based on object-oriented specifications. We aim particularly to take advantage of state-of-the-art satisfiability solving techniques by using an appropriate representation of object-oriented data. While automated test generation seeks a large set of data to execute an implementation on, animation performs computations that comply with a specification based on user-provided input data. Animation is a valuable technique for validating specifications.

As a foundation of this work, we present clarifications and a partial formalization of the Object Constraint Language (OCL) as well as some extensions in order to allow for test generation and animation based on OCL specifications.

For test generation, we have implemented several enhancements to HOL-TestGen, a tool built on top of the Isabelle theorem proving system that generates tests from specifications in Higher-Order Logic (HOL). We show how SMT solvers can be used to solve various types of constraints in HOL and present a modular approach to case splitting for deriving test cases. The latter facilitates the introduction of splitting rules that are tailored to object-oriented specifications.

For animation, we implemented the tool OCLexec for animating OCL specifications. OCLexec generates from operation contracts corresponding Java implementations that call an SMT-based constraint solver at runtime.

CAUSAL LEARNING FOR DIAGNOSTIC SUPPORT


CAUSAL UNCERTAINTY QUANTIFICATION UNDER PARTIAL KNOWLEDGE AND LOW DATA REGIMES


MICRO VISUALIZATIONS: DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF VISUALIZATIONS FOR SMALL DISPLAY SPACES
The topic of this habilitation is the study of very small data visualizations, micro visualizations, in display contexts that can only dedicate minimal rendering space for data representations. For several years, together with my collaborators, I have been studying human perception, interaction, and analysis with micro visualizations in multiple contexts. In this document I bring together three of my research streams related to micro visualizations: data glyphs, where my joint research focused on studying the perception of small-multiple micro visualizations, word-scale visualizations, where my joint research focused on small visualizations embedded in text-documents, and small mobile data visualizations for smartwatches or fitness trackers. I consider these types of small visualizations together under the umbrella term ``micro visualizations.'' Micro visualizations are useful in multiple visualization contexts and I have been working towards a better understanding of the complexities involved in designing and using micro visualizations. Here, I define the term micro visualization, summarize my own and other past research and design guidelines and outline several design spaces for different types of micro visualizations based on some of the work I was involved in since my PhD.