NCSU ASE REU

Wolfpack Football FAN app

2012-01-27T07:37:00.001-08:00

The newest additions and latest updates to the Wolfpack Football app consist of image insertion for players. As stated once before Graduating players, newcoming players, etc. buttons being changed to tabs above the 2011 roster is still under construction. Working on gathering information for player bio input of the players. Pictures for current prototype for player image view, player bio as well as roster tabs should be uploaded soon.

Elements in Elemens/Customization Engine Model Documents

2012-01-23T08:08:00.000-08:00

The latest upgrades to Elemens have provided a few additions to the core setup. I've introduced in this version one of the core elements of game play. Elements will be used to add an additional flair to battles. Each Skill will possess a single Element, which will alter the damage the move does when hitting Elemens, and colliding with other Skills. The differences in damage caused will be based on the element of the Skill or Elemen. There will be a variety of Elements introduced that can be imbued to Skills in addition to the initial four that have been introduced right now. As per the latest v1.1.0 Referring to the following chart will provide a visual sense of how the mechanics will work.

An arrow represents that a Skill containing a particular Element (starting at the top going clockwise: Wind, Earth, Water, and Fire) deals a greater amount of damage to Elemens or Skills when they collide. Whenever for example a Ball, which is a basic projectile Skill that damages an Elemen, collides with another Ball of the same Element, the two should then immediately dissolve upon contact with each other. However, if a Wind Ball collides with an Earth Ball, then the Wind Ball should destroy the Earth Ball and continue on for the remaining duration of time that it had left before disappearing. If an Earth Elemen is hit with a Wind Skill, then the damage done by the Skill will be greater than normal. The exact scale of damage is not known as of yet.

In addition, I have been battling with choosing an exact damage battle system, or a system where the values of damage done are based on a set range of damages calculated by each Elemen's Statistics. By exact damage battle system, I mean that certain Skills such as Ball would always deal a constant amount of damage opposed to altering by a few points. I'm going to have to continue analyzing the benefit of this system opposed to the slight damage alteration system.

In addition, it is my desire to begin releasing the information I've gathered on the video games I have been studying and testing as part of the Customization Engine Model this week. After a few more revisions, I plan to start by releasing information obtained from analyzing the Soul Calibur and RPG Maker video game series.

You Are Smart!

2012-01-18T23:38:00.000-08:00

It's okay to admit, we all feel down in the dumps every now and then. You Are Smart! is a mobile app I've developed just to help alleviate those depressing feelings on our gloomiest of days! You Are Smart! was recently developed for the I-Cubed Convertigo Mobilizer App Development Challenge. I-Cubed, an innovative, Raleigh-based company that specializes in software development launched their challenge with the prospects of drawing programmers to their Convertigo Mobilizer product. The Convertigo Mobilizer is slated to be the future for mobile application development, with the same set of coding being able to be used to deploy applications for a variety of mobile operating systems, including iOS, Android, and BlackBerry OS. Built on Eclipse, the Convertigo Mobilizer IDE takes a programmer's Javascript and HTML codes and utilizes a few libraries constructed by the I-Cubed team to produce applications for different markets. The You Are Smart! app is one of the three applications currently in the running, and will be judged by the professional software engineers at I-Cubed in five days. You Are Smart! features over 50 different compliments and praises to remind you of your value and worth. Sometimes people take for granted the power of simple positive reinforcement, and it is the goal of this app to ensure that no soul is left without the potential to be positively inspired.

Wish me luck on the competition, as details can be found here, more info on I-Cubed can be found here, info on the Convertigo Mobilizer can be found here, and the page for You Are Smart! is right here! Please continue to work hard and have a very successful semester! Remember, you are smart!

Wolfpack Football (Football Fan App)

2012-01-06T09:29:00.001-08:00

Wolfpack Football (Football Fan App)

A fan based application used primarily for team promotion giving the user information about the team such as,

Roster info

Coach info (coming soon..)
Team Schedule

Statistics

Player Bio (coming soon..)

Throughout this applications progress and creation the user should be able to view information as well as images of the team and individual players.

Elemens Game Functionality Demo (Light Flare v1.0.0)

2011-12-06T16:32:00.000-08:00

As I've stated numerous times before, the video game Elemens that I'm developing in Microsoft XNA as part of my research will provide the opportunity to battle miniature creatures known as Elemen while heavily modifying and upgrading your Elemen to adapt to a massive amount of battle variables. I am now releasing a stable version of what I refer to as a "Test Skeleton" of the Elemens game, with this Test Skeleton featuring nothing more than the essentials of a battle. Download the file here, and read more on the installation and the location for other releases here.

The released Version 1.0.0, codenamed Light Flare, features basic instances of the battle mechanics with dummy sprites and images used until the actual game's images are finalized. This version does not focus on the customization of the Elemens, which will be analyzed more heavily in upcoming releases. The players have the option of battling on one of two randomly selected stages while controlling two Elemen, Susie and Jams. With this release, one can test out the capability of the movements, the usage of the Skill system, and view all of an Elemen's statistics as depicted below.

Elemen Statistics

Elemens battle by utilizing their Skills to whittle down the HP of opposing Elemens. Elemens possess a variety of statistics that determine the effectiveness of their usable Skills. Providing an Elemen with Skills that correspond to its best stats with will provide ease in obtaining victories.

HP: Hit Points. Determines the vitality of an Elemen. When this is completely depleted during battle, an Elemen will no longer be able to fight.

Strength: Determines the power of physically based Skills.

Mind: Determines the strength of magically based Skills.

Soul: Determines the effectiveness of moves that have status or healing effects.

Defense: Determines the resilience of an Elemen.

Speed: Determines how swiftly an Elemen can move in battle.

Spirit: The amount of energy an Elemen has to use its Skills.

Currently, I plan to develop Elemens so that each Elemen will be initialized to have a random set of statistics, with all stats starting near predetermined model values. In addition to these statistics, an Elemental System will play a role of heavy importance in Elemens, which will be developed and tested later.

Skills

Elemens fight via utilizing an assortment of skills. It will be developed so there is a plethora of Skills available for an Elemen to select from and unlock to use in battles, each varying in power and purpose. In Light Flare, there are three specific Skills both Susie and Jams have in their arsenal.

Burst: An Elemen shoots out a burst of energy. It is a Mind-type Skill.

Punch: An Elemen lunges forward and unleashes a punch. It is a Strength-type Skill.

Shield: An Elemen produces a barrier from oncoming Skills. It is a Soul-type Skill.

By utilizing these Skills effectively, an Elemen can effectively reduce an opponents HP. Skills in upcoming versions of Elemens will all be imbued with specific Element Class. Each of the Classes such as Fire, Water, Earth, etc., will have disadvantages and advantages to other Elemental Classes, meaning certain Skills will reduce in strength or completely dissolve if colliding with a Skill with a stronger Class. Each Elemen will also become imbued with a specific Elemental Class that will maintain the same weaknesses and resistances to specific Skills.

Elemens Game Structure

Being an XNA developed game, the Elemens coding will be required to follow a particular structure. The above chart represents the five different sections of coding which XNA games must adhere to in order to function properly. The Initialize method is for the instantiation of the necessary objects and statistics for the game. Load Content is used by the XNA software to assign images and other materials to specific sprites, and musical tracks and sound effects to appropriate sound files. Unload Content is essentially used to save data acquired in game to a specified location on file. Update is used to update any necessary variables in the game. Finally, the Draw method is used to display the visual aspects of the game on screen.

The main file Game.cs is the primarily encapsulating coding, in which all other code is played. It is from this file that all coding is run. I've developed a BattleManager.cs class which contains all the information regarding a Battle. It possesses and relays information about all Elemen that are currently battling to each other, while updating information about its current stage in Stage.cs. Lastly, Elemen.cs functions as the coding that maintains each Elemen, including its personal Skills and statistics, and eventually its customized appearance and Elemental Class among other specifics.

As I continue to work on updates to Elemen, they will be released here. Continue to check this spot for the latest updates.

Customization Engine Model

2011-10-23T16:29:00.001-07:00

REU PRIMARY OBJECTIVE AND PURPOSE:

My current REU focuses on the development and application of three projects. The first project is a video game developed in the Microsoft XNA Game Development Studio, titled Elemens. Elemens is a continuation of the game started during this Summer 2011’s REU, and will continue the same theme of heavy player customization to strengthen small Elemental Creatures, or Elemens, for high octane battles. The second portion of the project will be to construct a template to assist in construction of player customized graphics for the Video Game Development community, dubbed the Customization Engine Model. The last project of the REU will be to assist Jonathan Fisher with the Football Fan App by using it as a platform to strengthen our Android Developmental skills.

CUSTOMIZATION ENGINE MODEL

The purpose of the Customization Engine Model is to provide a platform by which members of the Video Game Development Community can utilize a provided layout to assist with the graphical construction of in game images, specifically player customized characters. I plan to develop this template by comparing the most relevant games with thorough and intensive character customization features and extracting the most efficient portions of each. I will perform an extensive analysis of specific video games and note the potential benefits to character customization provided by each. I will construct pseudo code based interpretations along with theoretical assumptions of how to apply these methods, ultimately combining each set of coding to obtain a model with characteristics to help develop a working in game, character image producer based on player customizations.

There are a multitude of games that have a heavy level of character customization, expanding through several different video game genres. Video games that I currently plan to analyze include games from The Sims Franchise, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Soul Calibur IV, MapleStory, and Madden NFL 12. From this selection, we have two Role Playing games (The Sims and Elder Scrolls series), one fighting game (Soul Calibur IV), one MMORPG (MapleStory), and one sports game (Madden). By not limiting the selection of video games to one or two specific genres, I will be able to fully encompass a multitude of features that may be specifically invented with features that may prove necessary for different genres. This week, I’d like to devise a strategy to appropriately categorize several important factors that go into player customization in video games, such as how the images of customized players are rendered, and whether a player’s sprite is merely a combination of overlapped images or actually one single fully rendered model based on a player’s input. I will be starting with the The Sims series this week to begin this process.

Conceptualization, Customization, Elementation, and Education

2011-07-30T07:33:00.000-07:00

The preceding clip demonstrates the implementation of a defined video game concept through the Microsoft XNA game development environment. "Elemens", as I have dubbed it, is the latest project in development that I plan to implement into my REU research. The clip provided represents the current status of the project, still in it's early stages of development, and containing models used merely as visual references for testing purposes. When I attempted previously to begin the construction of an XNA game for REU, I lacked what I feel is the pivotal instrument used in the creation of today's great games: a strong concept.

I will admit that my initial introduction to XNA was not as smooth as I hoped it would be in 2009; I was honestly intimidated by the massive capabilities for game creation that the software harbored. An engine such as XNA could quite literally be used to create whatever possibly could be imagined, and as I've stated before, the only potent limitation for the games would be the creativity of the designer. Albeit I've always considered myself a creative person, the possibility alone to do anything I desired with this software left me conceptually impaired. I attempted to create games to merely test the possibilities of XNA without having a firm concept on which to build, which resulted in several restarted projects with nearly the same process. Now, after thoroughly conceptualizing an idea which I've harbored for years, I feel certainly capable of constructing and testing a complete video game. "Elemens" is currently designed to be a single and multi-player game which will focus thoroughly on player customization utilizing lighter graphics, while focusing on intensely detailed animations and battle scenes.

Players will control Elemen, standing for Elemental Men, who will be pitted together in elementally charged, high-octane battles. Player customization of Elemens is key for victory, as each Elemen will be fitted with a certain Elemental Affinity which will cause it to possess a natural advantage or disadvantage to Elemens of other Elements. In addition to an Element, each Elemen will possess a slew of statistics such as Speed, Health, and Power that will help them during battle, and gradually improve as they gain victories. Players will have full control over the statistics of Elemens, along with the growth provided for "Leveling-Up", or gaining enough victories to earn a reward in terms of statistical growth.

Customization is a factor that I personally feel is necessary in today's games. The completely linear plot line and player involvement that is all too common in several of today's popular games causes me to lose my interest after successive plays. In addition to building and testing Elemens, I'd like to also research the capabilities of the XNA engine in terms of the customization possibilities. Several of today's best character customization engines rely on the use of 3D models which are rendered during the game for use, with characteristics which modify specific portions of models. This is not often the easiest to visualize programmatically for a 2D game, as generally, all intended usable images must generally be included into the game prior to loading and cannot be significantly altered during game play. Only basic manipulations such as size, tint, and rotation changes seem to be the possible for 2D game character customization. I'd like to research the possibility to have heftier systems of manipulation in XNA which will result in a more thorough, and firm character customization experience for players, with less work for programmers.

Lastly, I'd also like to utilize this project source as a base to view how the integration of education into video games can yield benefits to the community. After a previous meeting with Dr. Xie, it became apparent how video games could potentially utilize their massive influences to leave an educational or beneficial impact onto those who play them frequently. From personal experiences, I've viewed games which were designed with the sole purpose of serving as educational platforms do not lure me into potential purchase as heavily as other games do. In fact, I can say that I expressly purchased the two educational games Brain Age, and its successor Brain Age 2. These two video games are the only 2 games in my arsenal of literally over 100 video games for various systems which were designed to be educationally stimulating. I plan to test the effects of integrating an educational complex into an existing game which was not explicitly made for educational purposes, and finding whether players would prefer to enjoy such a game opposed to a specifically education based one. I also plan to make comparisons to the current levels of educationally stimulating material in today's common games, and find what makes educational games differ. This will be an interesting topic to discuss, especially since several popular games such as Portal, which are not labeled as educational games, most certainly challenge the player to think intuitively to solve the game's challenges.

Overall, the various aspects discussed in this post will become the driving force behind this new project I'll be undertaking. The progress of the observations will be thoroughly recorded, and the advancement of "Elemens" will be frequently released for review.

"Football Fan" App Prototype

2011-07-16T07:57:00.000-07:00

Completion of the "Football Fan" App's basic components draws nears. It possesses four distinct processes to select, including viewing Stats, Roster, Coaches, and Schedule.

Pressing Stats will provide the user with the option to select from either Team, Individual, Defensive, or Combined Stats. The Player Stats when pressed will provide the user with a complete biography of each player, along with their total accumulated statistics on their own separate page.

The Player Roster provides a list of all of the current players listed on the Roster. During this current developmental period where we are relying on manually inputted player data, we utilize an Excel spreadsheet to convert data from the table format found on the official website to one that can easily be copied and pasted into an array of Strings. At any time there is a change of the current football roster by the school, updating Roster.xls, and then copying the new output data will allow for almost instantaneous updating of the roster inside of the App.

The Coaches function will work similar to the Player Bios, and will display a screen with information in regards to all of the current Football coaches. Lastly, the completed Schedule feature displays the current schedule for the upcoming semester! It provides destinations of games, along with scores and times they will be aired.

Additional features including Player Search, Coach Search, Roster sorting functions, and overall best statistics sorting functions have been considered and will be worked on upon completion. Aesthetics will also be concentrated on more heavily upon the completion of the primary components. Working on the version for WSSU will become as simple as updating the information in Roster.xls along with a few other features for Coaches to update the information to appropriately represent each school.

2011-07-14T19:30:00.000-07:00

More Visual Studio 2010 Experimenting

Over these past couple of weeks, I have been experimenting with a feature in VS 2010 called IntelliTrace. IntelliTrace makes debugging easier by recording the series of events happening within it and in turn alows you to play these back. However IntelliTrace collects less information than one might need at debugging and also has a slight performance overhead when turned on. I tried debugging a couple of programs for practice utilizing this feature and some without it and I must say that IntelliTrace is a rather convenient addition.

Systematic Testing For Robotic Car Systems

2011-07-11T18:04:00.000-07:00

These past couple weeks I have working with and testing robot car systems with the Tekkotsu platform. I have moved, from that stage of the process, to putting the work that I have done into a paper. I have also been communicating with Khiry Arnold about developing a football app on the Android Market in which he talked about in a previous post.

Khendr'a Reid

"Football Fan" App Prototype

2011-07-07T09:23:00.000-07:00

During this Summer, I am working alongside Jonathan Fisher and Khendr'a Reid to develop an Android platform application whose purpose is to serve the user with a variety of collegiate football related information. This application entitled "Football Fan", will provided data including Team Schedules, Team Rosters, Player Statistics, Team Statistics, among other information. This code will be used as a basis to perform and examine the capabilities of various forms of testing on a newly developed Android code base (which is written in Java). By utilizing existing reviews on the analysis of White and Black Box Testing for Android apps, I will begin to develop my own manners on these forms of testing, and record results for these. The App upon completion will be capable of displaying these stated statistics for two Universities: North Carolina State University along with Winston Salem State University. It will also be considered for release on the Android Market if it is deemed efficient.

Football Fan is intended to utilize an XML Parsing code to obtain information online from the official websites representing each school's football data. However, due to the volume of the data within each webpage's source, parsing XML from them via coding is proving difficult. While we work on effectively completing the XML parsing for Android via SAX Parser, we plan to manually enter information for each player and team.

Khiry Arnold

REU progress

2011-06-20T22:02:00.000-07:00

Exploration of Python

After meeting with Dr. Xie, I started my research by exploring the depths of use python coding in various venues. The main venue I was introduced to was Visual Basic 2010 and I combined this with my previous knowledge of IDLE platforms such as VPython and Pygame. I created graphic, animated,non animated, and interactive (games) programs. After trying out these various Python platforms, although Visual Studio 2010 is easy on the eyes, basic IDLE platforms seem to still be easier to use, this could be biased based on my previous familiarity, but after extensive testing I believe this to be true. My next endeavor will be comparing ease of use of and efficiency of python to other languages and platforms.

FSM-based testing for robotic programs

2011-06-20T17:17:00.000-07:00

In these past two weeks I have met with Dr. Xie. He helped me focus my research in FSM based testing for robotic programs. I am currently developing different programs with the Tekkotsu platform using C++ style programming as well as creating black box testing techniques for each program. These programs are being executed on with the iCreate Robot.

Text Mining

2010-12-02T08:07:00.000-08:00

After having a great dinner and talk with Dr. Tao Xie I became interested with Text Mining, and read through the information that he gave me. Text mining is a very useful tool that I believe will be in high demand in the near future. The ability to summarize and group large amounts of text such as emails, customer complaints, and surveys is very valuable to small businesses to big corporations.

SAS Text Miner gives you the capability to perform both descriptive and predictive text mining. From my understanding SAS does this by first processing the data using %TMFILER macro which creates a SAS data set. The data set is used in the text ming node for text parsing and then transformed into a informative format. Then it is analyzed for predictive and descriptive purposes.

Text Mining is a very powerful tool and is well on its way to become a high demand software. The %TMFILTER macro is so powerful and useful especially with the support of several languages, the possibilities are endless.

Travis W.

End of the sprint...

2010-08-11T06:25:00.000-07:00

IBM has incorporated agile into their design structure and for me, this is nearing the end of this sprint. It has proved to be a very rewarding experience here at IBM.

That being said. I have been overloaded with work here and have found myself little time to work on research. I am hoping that the end of this sprint will allow me sometime to focus on returning to working on the research.

Itutor Update

2010-08-10T16:21:00.000-07:00

The past two weeks made it very difficult for me to work on the iTutor eclipse plugin, because of my recent move from my old apartment. Limiting my accessibility to many of my necessary resources such as the internet, and not being in Raleigh. Now I am situated and continuing working on the plugin.

The previous version of the iTutor plugin decompiled the teacher's solution (.class) and the students solution (.class) and displayed method information of the decompiled classes. Currently I have been working on changing the GUI to read in the source directory and path directory of the TA solution and Student solution as requested by Jcute in order to create and run regression test on both solutions and display where the two solutions differ, and give the student an idea where they went wrong and what they need to correct.

Might reach conflict with previous code when requesting for the solutions, for the simple fact that JCute requires (.java) files and the previous code request for the (.class) files. Which I believe is a simple fix.

Co-op and GUI

2010-07-25T10:13:00.000-07:00

Since last week was my first week at IBM co-oping, I was not able to put in many hours. I have also decided to move my updates to Sunday. This will better allow me to make meaningful updates.

Travis has made a class that will actually run jCute. The problem is, it seems to be hard coded and we need a flexible way to modify input files. I have been looking at plugins with eclipse and have spent about 4 hours trying to create a GUI interface for what Travis has worked on. I hope to have it submitted this Saturday into the SVN so there is a deliverable for work accomplished.

BERT

2010-07-16T14:44:00.000-07:00

For the second part of my summer research I began working with BERT. So i put a pause on implementing JCute into iTutor. BERT is an eclipse plugin for regression testing. Bert allows you to select several projects in your workspace and checks behavioral differences in new versions of your project. This could be a very good tool to implement with iTutor when comparing the teachers "Golden Solution" with a students solution. The BERT view also displays the logs of version comparisons winch will also be very useful.

BERT also brought about some adversity. The plug-in was written on a Linux machine, and the programmers did not make the plug-in Windows friendly. As instructed by Dr.Xie I began trying to debug the code. This was a very daunting task that I didn't spend too much time on. we decided that it would be better for me to continue working with JCute.

iTtutor JCute Integration

2010-07-15T10:39:00.000-07:00

I have been working on running the JCute batch file in iTutor for testing the given programs path coverage. I hard coded the batch file and ran it using a command runner class, and was successful printing out the path coverage information in the console.

The next step in the process will be creating a batch file with the users choice of options, location of the source directory, and class file. Currently I plan to create the Batch.java file then run it using the command prompt. The most difficult part in this task is creating the Batch file, and being able to display results in the iTutor perspective.I later plan to alter the iTutor properties, in order for it to include JCute options.

Linux/Windows

2010-07-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

For the last week I have been trying to modify an existing code to work under windows. Now the process itself is not too difficult if the programmers of the original program intended for the program to be cross platform. That way the inherent program will leave room for a different operating system and commands.

Now the norm with most code is that there is a timetable required for deliverables. I would assume the same issue was with the existing code. The portion that I wanted to make working within windows had the top half hard coding some values and the second half using a more robust system. I would imagine there would have been two people working on this and trying to has it together to get it working.

I have mostly given up on trying to do the work of integrating their system with windows. If I have time I will take a look at it and modify it until I can get it working, but there seem to be a lot of underlying work.

Since I myself have a timetable to work with, I am moving my focus to working on iTutor itself. I am hoping that I will get some tangible work done so that there is a deliverable.

iTutor

2010-07-08T11:47:00.000-07:00

The second step of my research was working on the Eclipse plug-in iTutor. Currently iTutor is able to create drivers to be run through JCute. JCute uses concolic execution to explore all distinct execution paths with data input.

Currently I am using command prompt in order to run the drivers in JCute and display the branch coverage statistics. Discovered that a better way to integrate iTutor with JCute with the a batch file. This will make it a lot easier to change the options the waye the user wants. The next step after jcute is correctly integrated will be to figure out how to display the results of the automated JUnit test.

First two weeks with ASE REU

2010-07-08T08:11:00.000-07:00

It has been a fun challenge to be thrown into a project that has been on-going for a while. I have had to, with little instructions from the Dr. Xie, acquire all the code base as well as policies for the group as well as familiarize myself with the research done by both my research partner as well as with Dr. Orso from Georgia.

I have just come aboard and will now be working with iTutor. For the initial stages, I have been working to integrate BERT from Dr. Orso, a BEhavioral Regression Testing tool, into iTutor. Most of the initial issues I have run into have come from Windows platform compatibility. A lot of the code have been hard coded to run on a specific machine or a specific environment. Working around that has been an enlightening experience.

I will continue to familiarize myself with the code base from both plugins and if spending too much time on BERT proves to be an issue, will disregard BERT and move focus back on improving iTutor.

The Beginning of my Research C# and Pex

2010-07-07T10:11:00.000-07:00

I began my research by studying the differences between C# and Java. I realized that these are two very similar languages. Though the differences are minute, I believe Microsoft designed C# to be a little more programmer friendly. Doing so with a few different variations from Sun's Java language such as the use of namespaces, but both languages are strongly typed object oriented languages. Familiarizing with C # also introduced me to Visual Studio. I enjoyed working with Pex and Visual studio and will continue becoming familiar with the powerful Pex tool.

Conclusion of Research During Freshman Semester

2010-05-11T10:21:00.000-07:00

I have now concluded the bulk of my Undergraduate Research for my Freshman year, which was primarily spent studying the capabilities of the Java Programming Language. My work with it varied from producing simple text-based programs, to simulating the effects of gravity on "Rain Drops" in animated JFrames. As of May 11, 2010, I've constructed 118 working programs. A portion of my research was also spent analyzing the effectiveness of Java as the first language learned by a beginning programmer, and as such I proposed various queries and methods to obtain information regarding this concept. I plan to continue working and studying Java as to provide myself with more expertise in the subject, so that I will eventually be able to construct and fix issues related to Java in Automated Software Engineering.

For my Summer session, I plan to begin working on a series of new games in Java to continue building my familiarity with the Java language, and the quintessential component of programming, the GUI. I also plan to expand my knowledge into other areas such as advanced class construction, recursion, and the collections framework.

Java Studies/Personal Research

2010-04-06T10:35:00.000-07:00

Continued on in my extensive studies of Java through a continuation of the Arrays class. Constructed 10 programs which deal with the capabilities of Arrays, and range in capabilities from counting letters in a String or separate file to encrypting the data held within a String or separate file.

Apart from my programming studies, I have also been researching two topics: the effectiveness of learning Java as a programmer's first language of choice, and the most common type of coding used for extensive game developing projects. For the first topic, I've constructed a plethora of questions which I could ask a group of Java Professionals of regarding this query. For the latter topic, I've realized that a majority of game developing projects require a sturdy foundation in the knowledge of C or C++. Various projects such as, Battle for Wesnorth, Blender, FreeDroidRpg, and Crystal Space are online collaborative projects which specialize in designing video games (Blender and Crystal Space also specialize in developing Graphics Rendering software). C# is another popular game developing language, and is most prominently seen in the field via the use of Microsoft's Visual C# Studio, which has a library built specifically for the construction of games with their XNA subsection. Java seems to be popular in the creation of smaller games which are often embedded into web pages. Will continue to study Java, and may begin to look into C++ as well.

iTutor Updates: Formal Writing

2010-04-05T08:20:00.001-07:00

After finding a good amount of time to work on the research over the break, I incorporated all of the feedback I have received thus far into the formal writing. I aim to submit it to Dr. Xie so that he can look over it and share his opinions with me. I am really striving to get this work completed and published and hope to accomplish that before my time in the university is up.

Outside of the writing, I have been looking into the project and familiarizing myself with how I went about its implementation. I am documenting as I go through so that anyone in the future may know what I did in my methods of the project. I hope to also extend this to important methods that were there long before I worked on the project, but for some reason, were not documented.

2010-03-21T21:52:00.000-07:00

I have primarily continued my studies in Java by constructing programs which have introduced me to new concepts. I have recently produced within the previous period 24 programs, which bring my total created during research to 86. The programs most recently constructed have dealt with importation and exportation of files, and also reading the data from separate files to be processed by the various commands in my programs. My studies have also given me the knowledge on how to properly use arrays, more capabilities of GUIs, solving complex tasks with programming, and utilizing the various classes in the extensive Java libraries to find specialized problem solving methods.
I've also began researching a more practical cause in my research, being the benefits and general practicality of learning Java as a beginning programmer. When dealing with the various forms of Object Oriented Programming, it is common concept that the different languages will have their own specializations, but overall similar syntax. My interest in the subject deals with primarily finding out if there are any particular benefits or drawbacks from learning a specific language first? Perhaps the syntax of Java could be a bridge to easily interpret other OOP languages. Perhaps the naming clauses and variable declaration styles will lead a budding computer scientist to be more prepared for other languages. My research has yielded no concrete results, yet I have obtained data indicating the various specialties (more commonly used for Internet development, etc.) of Java. Will continue my studies of Java until I've obtained proficient mastery and will continue to look into this inquiry.

C Programming

2010-03-21T21:47:00.000-07:00

For my current coursework I am learning C. I want to incorporate what I learn in my coursework into my research but before I can do this I need to have a greater understanding of C. I've decided to go above what I have been learning in class and do programs outside of class to increase my understanding of C and how it works. For my studies I will use the book C Programming by K.N. King. I will start from the beginning and work my way through the book while completing programs at the end of each chapter. Starting from the beginning will help me to better grasp the concept of subjects that we may have already covered in class but I may not fully understand. I have just began my independent studies in C and will continue until I feel that I have mastered C.

Java Studies

2010-02-25T07:30:00.000-08:00

In my extensive studies, as of now, I have created over 70 full Java Programs. Their levels of difficulty range from simple "Hello World" type programs, to Credit Card Verifyers in GUI format, BMI Calculators, and a simple Text Editor "MiKhirySoft Word". I can conclude that as of now, I am fairly proficient in solving simple problems presented to me, and transforming them into fully functional text based Java Programs. I've also come to a good understanding on how to create functioning GUIs. I plan on continuing enhancing my skills by completely covering the book Building Java Programs by Reges, and proceeding into a slightly more advanced book, Big Java. Upon completion of these goals, I will have obtained a level of proficiency in which I can begin White Box Testing for various sources.

iTutor Updates: Formal Writing & Project Documentation

2010-02-23T15:04:00.001-08:00

After being somewhat swamped with coursework over the last two weeks, I believe I'll be able to make significant progress on the iTutor project over the next two weeks. After looking over the iTutor project code itself, I found that it is lacking in terms of documentation.

The tasks that require attention are as follows:

iTutor formal writing: further incorporating feedback, revising, and updating the draft as necessary. My goal is to have a completed, revised draft ready to be submitted to Dr. Xie.
Project documentation: After looking at the iTutor project and exploring, while trying to determine my next steps, I found it somewhat difficult due to the lack of documentation. In order to properly continue the project, I shall first document all of my current features.

iTutor Draft Revisions

2010-02-04T00:27:00.001-08:00

After receiving the reviewed draft from Suresh, I am in the process of updating and improving it. I failed to include important examples, such as an example test driver, which give somewhat of a preview in the introductory section of the paper. I also made the mistake of somewhat rambling in my introduction. As much as I present a problem, I took took too long when explaining it. I shall complete the review and submit my current draft to Dr. Xie by the end of this week!

Medical Software Metrics 1/04/10 - 1/20/10

2010-02-02T15:23:00.000-08:00

During this period I began to tie the papers together for clarity and overall understanding of the subject matter. I also worked with LaTex, ran into problems with getting it working and spent plenty of time trying to debugging it because there was some issue with it on my pc. At this time I reread a couple of the papers and wrote an abstract and introduction for the survey.

Medical Software Metrics 12/28/09 - 1/04/10

2010-02-02T15:04:00.000-08:00

During this time period, I searched for more papers related to our topic and begin to look through adverse reports on the FDA database. The purpose was to retrieve more background information and attempt to categorize device failures based on the information given in the FDA database. The papers that were read during this time included, "A Framework for Software Quality Measurement," "Software Quality Metrics and Their Impact on Embedded Software," "Report on the IEEE Standard for a Software Quality Metrics Methodology," "IEEE Standard for a Software Quality Metrics Methodology," and "Ranking of Tools Use, Software Logical Complexity, Requirement Volatility, Quality Requirements, Efficiency Requirements in Software Development."

Medical Software Metrics 12/14/09 - 12/28/09

2010-02-02T14:51:00.000-08:00

As I finished my finals, I started reading related research papers to prepare me for writing a medical software metrics survey paper. The first two papers that were read during this period was "A Survey of Software Engineering Techniques in Medical Device Development" and "Failure Modes in Medical Device Software: an Analysis of 15 Years of Recall Data."

2010-01-26T10:23:00.000-08:00

So far in my extensive programming learning, I've shifted my focus to concentrate primarily on one language. Attempting to learn both Java and C# simultaneously resulted in several instances in confusion, and multiple debugging errors as I unintentionally used the syntax of one language for another. I've concentrated primarily on learning Java, but do plan to eventually concentrate on C# to possess a similar level of skill in each language.
In my studies in Java, I believe I've obtained enough practice in several areas to declare that I have reached mastery in programming concepts such as Creation and calling of Methods, Loops, Embedded Loops, Declaration of Variables, Declaration of Constants, Scope of Variables, Concatenation of Strings and other Variables, Method Parameters, and Obtaining Return Values from Methods. In my upcoming studies, I plan on better familiarizing myself with the Math class in the JDK, along with String Index and Length determining, and the inclusion of Graphics in my programs.

iTutor Formal Writing

2010-01-16T07:22:00.000-08:00

In the past few weeks, the writing behind my iTutor project was has served as my first priority. As far as my progress, I have written all up to the next step in the project, which is executing the generated test drivers through JCUTE. Even before this step, there are tasks that remain unaddressed from long before and require some attention. I hope to address these issues as soon as possible, as well as keep up with the writing behind any changes in implementation.

2010-01-14T07:41:00.001-08:00

Over the course of Winter Break I came to the realization that I did not have a concretely established goal in terms of my Undergraduate Research. Although I was given the task to perform various forms of automated code testing utilizing .Net's Pex, it was difficult to comprehend the expectation and overall purpose of such an exercise, considering my low level of programming knowledge. I've determined that I'd like my goal during my Undergraduate Research to be the pursuance of a primary interest of mine, which is Game Design and Game Programming.

Without a great knowledge of programming, my goals in relation to Game Design, or most things Computer Science related, are practically irrelevant, and as such I plan to greatly expand my knowledge in the programming languages of Java and C#. I've been studying C#, and can also utilize the tutelage of experienced C# programmer Charles, who also has similar interests in Game Design, to help my knowledge on the subject. Java is a language which has similar structure to C# and differs slightly in terms of convention and functionality, and it also coincides with my current academic pursuits. Due to their great similarities, learning these languages simultaneously will (if I can bypass the confusion caused by their likeness) provide me with skills of two of today's most commonly used Programming languages, from where I can begin more extensive research in this department.

As such, I will be spending a majority of my free time during the second semester of my freshman year practicing Java and C# programming, primarily through the aid of Rob Miles' C# Yellow Book and Stuart Reges' Building Java Programs. For all programs I perform, I intend on coding them in both Java and C# to ensure I understand the differences between them.

I believe that focusing on strenuously building my programming skills will allow me to be capable of properly utilizing Pex and starting my more detailed research in Game Design and Game Programming by the beginning of Sophomore year.

An Empirical Study of Uncaught Exceptions in Open Source Projects

2009-12-26T04:25:00.000-08:00

As the title suggests, my current research is an empirical study of uncaught exceptions in Open Source projects. Here is a brief summary of the research.

Summary:

Use Pex to generate tests on Open Source C# codes
Take statistics on exceptions being thrown. Report the number of exceptions and type of exceptions that Pex exposes.
It is expected that the values that cause the exceptions are generally shallow values.
By shallow values we mean invalid values/parameters.
The alternative to shallow values are "time bomb" values
"time bomb" - earlier method call with invalid parameters does not cause immediate exception but a method call later on with valid parameters causes exception due to the earlier method call.
The "Fix It" feature of Pex may help to determine if the exceptions are caused by shallow values or "time bombs"
Main procedure

Run Pex on Open Source Project
Classify and group exceptions as either shallow or "time bomb"
Find cases where the "Fix It" feature of Pex can fix whatever is causing the exception to be thrown.

2009-12-14T11:15:00.000-08:00

My ability to work has been severely hindered by my preparation for finals. As of now, I've received two grades, both being A's. I'd like to ensure that I maintain these grades for now. I believe I'll be granted more time next semester to work on my Undergrad Research.

The Calculator interface with which I previously began working on turned to be too complicated for my level of experience with C#. Instead of attempting to rewrite the entire program myself, I used the sample version which was provided with the tutorial. I ran the program in the Visual Studio compiler while highlighting key portions of the program to stop at to better interpret the flow of Object Oriented Programming. The code, which consisted of 554 lines of coding became far too lengthy and difficult to comprehend by myself. I'll save the creation of a calculator with a Graphical Interface for my next meeting with Charles. Instead, I began reviewing the abysmally simple tutorials provided here to reinforce the knowledge of C# which was fractured by the overall confusing coding of the "Beginner Calculator". Also for the first time in my coding experience, I did not rely solely on Visual Studio for the construction and compiling of my programs, but made the majority of it in the Command Prompt. Realized I needed to reinstall the .Net Framework in order for the command to compile to activate successfully as well.

Webpages for iTutor

2009-12-13T22:29:00.000-08:00

These past few weeks have been very busy as far as school work but I have managed to work on the webpages for iTutor. Basically I am making a webpage for each program that we have been assigned in my CSC 216 class. Now, that we are finished with the semester all the projects have been assigned and I now have all the necessary information to finish these pages. I have completed the webpage for our first project which was a program that read in xml files and compared students musical likings by using a graphing function in java called Jung. I'm currently working on the webpage for our second program which modeled population changes of animals over time. The webpages for the other projects are soon to be finished.

iTutor Formal Writing

2009-11-16T17:56:00.000-08:00

In the following 2 weeks, my first priority will be to compile the writing behind the current tool development, with the goal being to encompass all efforts up until this point.

I shall implement this by executing the following steps:
1) Finding publications in a similar area to either cite (i.e., statistics) or compare approaches
2) Write abstract and introduction sections
3) Write related work section
4) Write implementation section

Teaching OOP part 2

2009-11-16T12:04:00.000-08:00

The past two weeks has only been involving teaching Khiry OOP. We went over methods, the parts of declaring a method, what are parameters, return values and how objects use methods. We started with simple methods and went into more complicated methods to make sure he understands if he sees alot of code that he can understand what is going on. He established a great understanding of how to create different objects of different types and how to use methods within those objects. We will go over this again when we meet again this week.

Teaching OOP

2009-11-16T12:00:00.000-08:00

So the past two weeks I submitted my research paper and taught our new freshman student Khiry Arnold some Object Oriented Programming. We went over the definition of what is an object and what is a class and the differences between them. We did a little exercise to also understand how they work together. I gave a little quiz to see if he can try to figure out how to solve a problem with the tools given. He seems that he has the capability to learn OOP, he just needs time so I am working with him slowly and making sure that each time we meet we go over what we discussed the last time.

iTutor Improvements (continued)

2009-11-16T11:53:00.000-08:00

After the last 2 weeks, the remaining iTutor goals are as follows:

iTutor needs to check whether it can find equivalent public methods in the student solution, if not, it can flag error.
When the methods under test accept non-primitive types, a deep copy of the argument should be made. If not, the method under test of teacher solution may modify the argument before passing it to student solution. Similar techniques need to developed for comparing non-primitive return types.
A problem arises where methods can be overloaded, leading to multiple possibilities when instantiating each solution. iTutor shall generate numerous test drivers, each of which focuses on one constructor.
The logging feature now sends the data to files. The data could be formatted in a fashion where it is easier to comprehend.

For the next two weeks, I shall address the above points, as well as improving on other features as required by the addition of the above.

Microsoft Help with Pex

2009-11-16T11:52:00.000-08:00

So the past two weeks have been very productive on how Pex works. So I met with Nikolai from Microsoft Pex group and he helped me with my problem that I was having with my complex object. He also told me that I would run into alot of problems because I use a lot of float point arithmetic within my program and Pex has problems with floats. Unfortunately, video games do generally use floating points for movement of objects and placement of objects so this is something that I cannot avoid.

I worked on trying to make Pex and Scurvy.Test work together a little bit more but with no sucess. I also had a meeting with Xusheng of our research group and he gave me alot of help on my game and that same MapEngine method. He had given me a way to try to make Pex understand the code better and search better paths by constraining the variables used in the factory methods.

Beginning my first paper

2009-11-16T11:41:00.000-08:00

The past two weeks I've gathered my current information in order to find a topic for me to discuss for the SIGSCE student research project. I met with Justin Gorham for some help with Pex on how to use it with my game since he worked with Pex over the summer with the government. I also had help from Bellanov Apilli to learn how to use LaTeX. I had alot of problems just setting it up but got it working later on.

My topic of the paper was on how to deal with complex objects within a game using Pex. I have an example of this which I discussed in an earlier post (the MapEngine) that I will use as my example in the paper.

Continuation of Studies in OOP

2009-11-16T10:25:00.000-08:00

My most recent research has been conducted with Charles regarding Object Oriented Programming. Primarily, I've been solidifying my knowledge in Object Oriented Programming, particularly in C# by consistently differentiating between the various aspects which compose a simple program.

Our most recent meetings had me perform several assignments of deciphering coding created by Charles, and explain the capabilities of each class. Inversely, I was given the instructions to create the coding for some assignments based on classes that Charles had defined.

The most prominent (and longest) example involved me creating the portion of a video game which assigned the values of location and velocity to two player characters.

I believe I had taken pictures of this example, but I am having difficulty locating it. When I find it I will upload it into this post, as it was particularly lengthy and will be trouble replicating. I will also ensure that my following posts will contain visual references to better visualize my experiences.

Take Care.

iTutor Improvements

2009-11-02T14:06:00.000-08:00

The feedback compiled from the iTutor demo is as follows:

iTutor accepts three classes as inputs: Teacher solution, Student solution, and an interface common to them. The users of iTutor can be relieved by removing the interface as input. This interface can automatically be inferred from the public methods of Teacher solution. Also, before processing these solutions, iTutor needs to check whether it can find equivalent public methods in the student solution, if not, it can flag error.
iTutor currently renames the solutions to Student and Teacher. This can be easy if there is a single class. But situation can be difficult if there are many classes. Bellanov needs to investigate and develop features to address this issue.
Currently, the length of method-call sequences in tests has been limited to three. This can be made configurable.
Add "assertions" to all case statements, this would help in automatically generating test cases with variable number of sequences (as assertions exist right after the method-call invocations)
Make the index used in the switch statement as symbolic and remove it as a parameter for the driver method
Remove arguments passed to method calls as parameters from the driver method.
When the methods under test accept non-primitive types, a deep copy of the argument should be made. If not, the method under test of teacher solution may modify the argument before passing it to student solution. Similar techniques need to developed for comparing non-primitive return types.
A problem arises where methods can be overloaded, leading to multiple possibilities when instantiating each solution. iTutor shall generate numerous test drivers, each of which focuses on one constructor.
The logging feature that currently uses print line statements shall be implemented to send that information to a file, which can be accessed and analyzed later.

For the next week, I shall address as much of the following as possible. I predict that I will be able to cover and address points 1, 3, and 5. First and foremost, I am developing a test suite to properly test all of iTutor's present functionality to ensure correct behaviors. After I am convinced that the tool is in proper shape, I shall move on to address the points above.

Going forward

2009-10-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

After having a meeting with the graduate students, and Dr. Xie. I need to write better PUTs since my skills on that area is lacking. I need to start out at unit testing and then from there do a PUT because without knowing how to write a correct PUT, I may never find anything of interest on how to test game applications using the XNA framework. I also need to get my research game Tears on graduate student computers so that I may get further feedback from them and continue to teach Khiry Object Oriented Programming. Above anything else, I need to find XNA specific research areas, so far I have been unproductive in finding anything of interest that is specific to the XNA framework, so that is my goal going forward.

Scurvy.Test and XNA

2009-10-29T10:21:00.001-07:00

(August 2nd - August 15th)

Another part of the summer I worked with a Test Framework called Scurvy. It's an open source framework that lets you do unit tests specifically for the XNA framework. I was able to test that a loading function worked. The thing is that loading with XNA is different from different measures of loading because you have to use the XNA Content Pipeline. Well you don't necessarily have to use it but it would be in your best interest if you do to keep production of your game fast and easy and reliable. Here is a simple example:

Now it doesn't seem like much with this test but you will be able to get the correct result with this framework. I've tried other frameworks, including Pex, and .NET unit testing tools and they cannot get this simple test to work. I believe that with a little more digging around with Pex and Scurvy, I can find something that could be interesting with testing game applications using the XNA framework.

Pex and XNA cont'd

2009-10-29T10:03:00.000-07:00

(July 19th - August 1st)

During the second half of my I started using Pex with Tears (my personal video game). Continuing from my last post on XNA and Pex, I discovered a problem with objects that are very complex (my MapEngine object) and testing my collision detection algorithm. In my game, which is a 2D platform game like Super Mario Bros. or Sonic the Hedgehog, collision detection and response is described as a way to keep all entities within a "world", to be able or not go through objects/areas that are labeled as such. So for the next couple of weeks I tried different possible ways in order to get Pex to work with this hardship and work with Scurvy.Test to test XNA specific objects.

*Update*
After meeting with Xusheng, I discovered that if you can make your PUTs smaller and constrain Pex a little, you may be able test these objects. Why do we have to constrain Pex in order to do this (and when is it necessary to do it), I don't know but that is another research topic.

Game Engine Demonstration and More C# Practice

2009-10-20T07:46:00.000-07:00

After having made a request with my teacher, Dr. Michael Young, I was allowed to demonstrate the capabilities of one of my favorite non-program based engines, RPG Maker 2003. I was allowed to demonstrate the differences between it and Game Maker 7, by primarily comparing the organization of the sprites (charsets), variables, switches. I demonstrated the abilities which are intended for by the engine, (which is to create an RPG obviously), but also displayed a few of my games which were centered around Platforming and Third-Person Shooter styles.

Although it is often argued that non-code based Game Engines are detrimental to the growth of a game designer, I argue that these engines are in fact beneficial to a degree. I believe that they can lay the foundation for a smoother transition into programming, by introducing to the player the concepts which a game revolves around. It also allows an early programmer to experiment with their creativity and manipulate the various aspects of an engine (such as switches and variables in RPG Maker 2003) to create new methods of interaction. However, I will attest that a person who is seriously interested in becoming a Game Designer stray away from solely using these engines. The likelihood that they will create a mega-hit or controversial game is unlikely using an engine which anyone has the capabilities of using. Unless of course, you are Danny Ledonne.

I also began to differentiate between Console.Write() and Console.WriteLine with C#, and continued experimenting with the Console.ReadLine(). It can be used for entering text into the command line, and can also be used to separate lines.

Next Steps: JCute & Some Minor Adjustments

2009-10-19T22:45:00.001-07:00

I met with Suresh and Kunal today, and we discussed the current implementation of the test driver, as well as the next steps. The concept of my test driver seemed to be mostly correct, and my next task involves incorporating JCute as per the sample code available on the website. After meeting with Dr. Xie, he exposed a problem in my implementation that pertained to inefficient code that would be costly in exhaustive situations. He proposed simply making the comparisons as the method sequences are generated and breaking out of the sequence once a failing test case has been encountered. For now, void methods have little impact on sequence but implementations using observer methods will be a future task.

Summarizing, my activities after the meetings are as follows:
1) Integrate JCute into the test driver, enabling it to choose all values, avoiding random testing
2) Converting test driver implementation to compare solutions during the method sequence generation, ending the sequence generation process when either a failing case or a completed sequence is encountered.

Outside of these tasks, I shall also begin the writing for this project.

The Beginning of my C# Tutelage

2009-10-17T08:05:00.000-07:00

As a first semester Freshman, I believe it is my responsibility to not only maintain high levels of academic performance, but also make preparations for my designated career choice. These preparations will be done by learning programming languages from skilled programmers. Charles Woelfel has begun assisting me with C# programming.

Yesterday, October 16, 2009, we began with the reintroduction of Classes, Objects, and Methods. From my learning, I reviewed that Classes are basically a set of instructions which hold any set of instructions. Methods are the processes which are to be carried out in the Class. Objects seem to be objects, or items, which basically are a duplicate of another class or method, but renamed. These seem to be used most frequently in other classes.

My task for today, October 17, is to read a few more tutorials regarding command-line input. I'll also make preparations for another upcoming lessons by reviewing the information which I've learned, and attempting to create a few C# Programs of my own.

Method Sequence Generation

2009-09-28T05:54:00.000-07:00

Throughout last week, I was working on the method sequence generation component of the test driver. I believe I am finished implementing this component, but I am still in the testing phases. I shall write and run concrete unit tests through this week. Some things I have been thinking about are intelligent ways on determining the method sequences. As of now, I am only thinking of generating the sequences randomly.

Outside the actual tool, I have received and began reading some papers in a similar field as my research. I am also developing the contents of the website pages I shall soon add to the course web. I hope to complete all, or at least a majority, of this during this week.

Working PDP

2009-09-13T21:21:00.000-07:00

I have successfully built a PDP that is capable of using the RAdAC policies I have been working on. The only thing I don't like is that it is difficult to change the risk associated with a particular factor. For example, someone with Top Secret clearance is more trustworthy than someone with no clearance, but each level has a numeric value of risk associated with it. To change the numeric value, you must change the source. I'm thinking of storing the values of risk in a file that would be easy to edit or, even better, making a GUI. In any event, now that it is working I can begin working on the testing portion of the project. I will begin that this week.

Next Steps

2009-09-09T05:23:00.000-07:00

When I've found time to work on the project, I spent it mapping out the series of steps required to implement this correctly. I met with Suresh to briefly discuss utilizing JCute. We decided taking an interface as input (or as one of them) may be beneficial, seeing as we cannot account for the student's possible helper methods. Using the interface to generate tests may be beneficial, since the behavioral differences span the methods defined in the interface. All that is required from respective solutions, outside the interface, are the constructors, which cannot be defined in the interface. Summarizing, this results in taking both solutions, as well as the interface being implemented. This results in 3 inputs. I shall post more information as I go on and implement this.

Back to Square One...

2009-08-31T09:12:00.000-07:00

Today, I met with Yoonki in order to deploy and configure iTutor. The most recent version of the API we were able to recover, unfortunately, is the initial version. My next move is to discuss the limitations of the JPF tool with Suresh and Kunal. I recall problems in the previous implementation of the project, where I had the tool generating code that JPF would be unable to execute (i.e., switch statements). I will strive to quickly and efficiently have a working demo of the iTutor tool very soon, before my workload increases greatly. On a side note, I will also work on the tool's website, where instructions about using the tool will be available.

New Semester

2009-08-23T16:41:00.001-07:00

I've updated the RAdAC project website. It now has everything that I've done so far. Last week I prepared my abstract for publication. Apparently I used the wrong template and I had a few grammatical errors to correct, but that is finished now and is submitted. I'm excited about starting a new semester. Between classes and research I will be busy! We had our first group meeting of the semester Friday. It was nice to meet everyone (some were new to me) in the group.

Modifications of REU policy

2009-08-22T15:25:00.000-07:00

Besides the policy posted earlier, when an undergrad student requests payment on spent research hours for working on REU research over a certain two-week period, the following three conditions need to be satisfied:

(1) Within one week after the two-week period, the student should prepare recorded wiki entries for these spent research hours in the REU log. On these entries, describe sufficient information for the advisor to check out the details as below:

*. if the student requests paid REU research hours for writing source code for a tool, the location for the tool source code needs to be specified (e.g., in a subdirectory under /afs/eos.ncsu.edu/lockers/research/csc/ase/research/reu or another location or as attachment to the wiki page) and the specific portions (e.g., specific classes or methods) that were written by the student during the claimed hours.

*. if the student requests paid REU research hours for writing some portions for a paper, the location for the paper PDF needs to be specified (e.g., in a subdirectory under /afs/eos.ncsu.edu/lockers/research/csc/ase/research/reu or another location or as attachment to the wiki page) and the specific portions (e.g., specific sections or paragraphs) that were written by the student during the claimed hours.

*. if the student requests paid REU research hours for putting up new information for a web page (such as a project web page), the location for the web page needs to be specified (e.g., URL) and the specific portions (e.g., specific sections or paragraphs) that were written by the student during the claimed hours.

*. if the student requests paid REU research hours for applying some tools on some open source code, the locations for the open source code and the descriptions of the study results need to be specified.

*. For other type of task items that the student requests paid REU research hours for, check with the advisor on the wiki entry requirements on these task items ahead of time.

(2) Within one week after the two-week period, the student should prepare at least one REU blog entry at the REU blog.

(3) Within one week after the two-week period, the student should arrange and hold a meeting with the advisor to go through the preceding Items (1) and (2) to gather feedback from the advisor and plan on the work to be conducted for the upcoming two-week period.

For other information on the policy, please refer to the earlier REU policy in addition to the above new modifications to the policy.

Fall 2009 Begins!!!

2009-08-21T16:24:00.000-07:00

Today, the undergraduate and graduate students met with Dr. Xie for our regular group meeting. We were debriefed as to our summer activities and planned the projects that we will pursue in the future. It was decided that I and Kamar pursue the iTutor (name's probably going to change) project under Kunal's guidance. I briefly recall problems we ran into pertaining to JPF and hope that we shall resolve them this time around.

My initial task is to come up with somewhat of a prototype to display to anyone interested in the tool's functionality. Although it may not be a perfect exhibition of the final product, having something prospective to show is good enough for now.

Low code coverage doesn't always mean low test confidence

2009-08-19T07:22:00.000-07:00

Code coverage is not always the best indicator of a test suite's usefulness, expressiveness, etc.

Contrary to the popular belief, there are cases in which high test coverage is not a good measure of test quality. In fact, high test coverage is not always possible.

Consider the following situation:

public class Container {
object a_1;
object b_1;
object c_1;
⁞
⁞
object z_1;

public object A_1{
get
{
return a_1;
}
set
{
a_1 = value;
}
}
⁞
⁞
⁞
⁞

}

public class A {
Container container;

public A (Container c)
{
container = c;
}

/*all methods of class A interact with container.A_1 ONLY*/

}

The other lettered classes follow the same format.
When Pex tests the Container class it will more than likely get 100% test coverage.
When Pex tests the lettered classes, however, it will not get 100% code coverage. The test coverage report includes coverage of the Container class, which does not require 100% coverage to test the lettered classes. The classes could arguably be written so that they are more easily testable; however, I did not write this code. I actually observed code similar to this in a real application. The lettered classes get 100% block coverage themselves but overall block coverage is never 100%.

Policy Rework and XACML Inefficiencies

2009-08-08T17:57:00.000-07:00

I've had to rework the policy format I made earlier this week, mainly because it would have required an excessive amount of Java methods to make it work. I've decided to stay away from adding to the XACML specification wherever possible (with a few exceptions), because it cannot support all the possible rules that could occur in an RAdAC policy. Instead, only individual risk/need factors are calculated by Java methods; how they are combined is determined by the XACML policy. I did run into one problem with this approach, which was that the policy needs to use the risk and need measurements multiple times throughout the policy to make a decision. It is very inefficient to copy-and-paste the part of the policy that calculates risk and need each time they are used. I found a solution in the XACML 2.0 specification, the <VariableDefinition> and <VariableReference> tags. They store the result of a calculation for use throughout the policy. The only snag with using this, if we decide to go this route, is we will have to use the CVS version of Sun's XACML implementation to get the 2.0 features, which, according to their website, is stable.

Design Document

2009-07-26T20:22:00.000-07:00

This week I've made a simple XACML template that contains the information needed by an RAdAC policy. I have yet to find a paper with concrete details on how anything dealing with RAdAC should be done; I've only found high-level descriptions of it. I think as long as it implements some mechanism to allow "operational need" to trump "security risk" it falls under RAdAC. Most of the papers I've read discuss multiple policies converging to determine risk, need, and ultimately a final decision. I am using a simple model that describes the basic functionality of RAdAC using a single policy. I have started working on a design document and will finish it soon.

Pex and XNA

2009-07-22T11:21:00.000-07:00

(July 12th - July 18th)

Had another meeting with Dr. Xie about the unit testing using Pex with my game. I didn't have a good test (I need to write more unit tests with Pex to get tightly controlled test). Over the week I kept looking at the code and it seems that the way that the parameter is used and the way Pex uses parameters seems to have some conflict.

The class/method is:
public class Entity
{
...
public void handle_collision(MapEngine e)
{ ...}
...
}

The method basically handles the collision of the Map and the entity using it. Inside the method, if the position of the entity's collision box intersects with the a "wall" on the map, the entity's collision state changes to being hit and the entity's position is moved.

Now the problem is that the MapEngine object is only used as a reference for the character to see where it is on the map. It doesn't "change" per se, it only changes which map is the current map (and it has references to the previous and next map if any). The map itself doesn't change, the thing that does, is the entity's position. Depending on the position of the entity on the current map, it will collide or not, not depending on the current map.

The problem with Pex is that it uses different inputs to get high code coverage. In this case, the MapEngine is pretty much static in that the map is not changing everytime the method is called but the position of the entity is (and it is automatically changed in another method). If the input was the position value, then Pex would be able to test it. In order for collision detection in my game to work and for Pex to analyze it, I would have to change the implementation significantly. I am going to write up a thorough explanation of my problem to Dr. Xie next week and also test to see if there is anything I could do without having to test just in case I missed something.

Unit Testing with XNA continued.

2009-07-22T11:09:00.000-07:00

(June 28th - July 11th)

I met with Dr. Xie and we reviewed on what I've been working on in the previous weeks. Instead of looking at the overall picture of Game Testing Automation, I'll focus more on certain things that game application use with xna and try to find anything that is an area of we interest like why can't we use certain things (Pex) for xna games in certain situations and write up why we can't. I did create a unit test that didn't use any content loading in my game that passed just as any other application. Earlier I had a problem with doing unit testing anything that used the Content Pipeline to load content for my game Tears (independently made but just used for researching purposes), I found a framework called Scurvy that alleviates that problem. I will retry previous tests that included content loading to test it out. Dr. Xie also recommended to look at GUI testing automation techniques to see if it's applicable to game applications.

Novaleaf Software & Unit Testing with XNA

2009-07-22T11:08:00.001-07:00

(June 14th - June 27th. Late)

I interviewed Jason Swearingen, founder and president of Novaleaf Software (http://games.novaleaf.com/). His company tried model-based testing on his games but felt that it was wasting time and that he would rather just design the game and then go from there. Not really helping me at all. I tried to do some unit testing with XNA using Visual Studio Team System 2008's integrated Unit Testing software. I couldn't get anything that used loading content to work properly. Did some more debugging on my PongGame using NModel, still a little confused on the use of "features" but still working on it. Tried Pex a little bit but didn't spend expensive time with it. I will in the next two weeks. Going over and fixing some grammatical errors to my paper for Dr. Xie.

NModelling and Dishwasher

2009-07-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

(May 31st - June 13th, late)

I continued to search for articles on anything related to game testing automation or any automation techniques that are used in the game industry to see why they used that technique or why they couldn't use another. Had to do some debugging on the GameModel program I made with the NModel Framework. I used that program to start implementation of a Pong game so that it will be easy to fill in. NModel has an aspect of it's framework called "Features" where you can add or take out parts of the program in a modular fashion. Just have to reread the chapters on it to get a good grasp on how to implement it since their code didn't seem to exactly explain on how to use it.

I also interviewed the creator of The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, which was made with XNA. It's a Microsoft published game. James Silva, the creator, didn't use any automated test techniques, just the regular manual testing. I'm having a hard time finding any information on automated game testing techniques anywhere online but will continue searching. I started my paper for Dr. Xie on what I have been looking for.

First Post

2009-07-21T11:07:00.000-07:00

(May 17- May 30)

So this is my first post concerning testing in video game application using Microsoft's XNA Framework. Dr. Xie recommended me to look at and read Model-Based Software Testing and Analysis with C#. It basically tests the model of your application and see if it can finds an errors like dead states and live states . They developed their own framework called NModel so that you can test out your application. I implemented a very simple application called LightSwitch, with a simple on and off state to get familiar with the framework. I then implemented a control flow of the game loop within a XNA developed application. I also contacted Shawn Hargreaves of the XNA Development Team at Microsoft for some information on any (if any) game testing automation techniques.

XACML and RAdAC

2009-07-18T21:40:00.000-07:00

This week I have been familiarizing myself with XACML. It seems to be a very flexible policy language; albeit a bit complex. I've found the programmer's guide for Sun's XACML implementation to be a good introduction, but I'll be skimming the OASIS documentation to get a more thorough grasp of the standard. I am to use XACML to implement an RAdAC policy. To do so, two metrics will have to be calculated: a 'Security Risk' and an 'Operational Need'. I'm sure they will be calculated by some sort of function.

Paper Completion and OOPSLA

2009-07-12T16:18:00.000-07:00

I've finished writing my paper. Last weekend was spent converting it to the ACM Proceedings format and reducing it to two pages. After reading Dr. Xie's PowerPoint, “Common Technical Writing Issues,” I found many grammatical mistakes in my own writing. It was very helpful in getting the review process started. After I addressed Dr. Xie's comments and fixed the errors discussed in his presentation, I submitted it to the OOPSLA Student Research Competition; I also submitted a poster describing the approach discussed in the paper.

Working Implementation

2009-06-26T18:47:00.000-07:00

I've written a series of batch files and shell scripts to automate the testing process, so I now have a working implementation. The output is a series of text files (each corresponding to a partially masked rule) consisting of packets and their associated decisions. The number of packets generated depends on the number of rules involved in the masking, but on the policies I've been testing it with, they seem to be relatively low in number. I'm confident that the algorithm I am using to generate the packets is thorough. Most of this past week, I've been catching up on writing and doing classwork.

First Post

2009-06-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

This is my first post in the REU blog. I received JeeHyun's tool from his SRDS08 paper this week. So far, I've been able to modify his tool to generate packets that target rule intersections. I've got to work a bit on making the output of the FireMAN tool useful to JeeHyun's tool though. This could be a bit awkward, since they run on different platforms (JeeHyun's tool uses a constraint solver by MS, simple Linux replacement available?), and use different firewall formats. In any event, paper writing is definitely more difficult than I originally anticipated. Now that I have everything I need (and know how it all fits together), hopefully the writing will become easier.

Semester Conclusion and Follow Up

2009-05-08T09:16:00.000-07:00

At the conclusion of the spring semester, I came home greatly anticipating my grades. I ended up doing fairly well, receiving score of either an A or A- in all of my courses. Although my GPA went up quite a bit, it wasn't as much as I had hoped. Overall, I think I did well for myself.

I met with Dr. Xie to further discuss my work and the critical importance of citations. I learned it is very simple to plagiarize, even if it is unintentional. Regardless of intentional or unintentional plagiarism, it is still very wrong and carries dire consequences in research. Another issue that was addressed was communication. I will strive to improve and keep Dr. Xie and the graduate students informed of my activities.

We also discussed the research I shall be conducting this summer, deciding on my looking and familiarizing myself with the Pex tool. Thus I have been looking over C# and Pex tutorials since I have not done a lot of programming involving the two. I am constantly talking with Chris as far as the tool and his research is involved. The tool is very interesting and I hope I can apply it well in my summer research.

Outside of all this, I am updating my personal documents (i.e. my resume and website). Thinking back on all I have done at state, I seem to have done a lot outside of research as well. I shall compile all of my activities in an updated resume and ask for Dr. Xie's and the graduate students' opinions. The same applies for the website, although my summer research shall also be documented on it. I shall be making posts to this blog linking to my website about my progress or interesting findings I come across during my summer research.

STARS Banquet

2009-04-23T22:10:00.000-07:00

At the STARS banquet, I presented a short overview of the research on Combinatorial Testing. I was glad when Dr. Xie said I did a good job and also commented on my flaws. The main flaw was I did not focus on the selling point of our approach, which is the fault-detection capability. The presentation would have been a lot better if I had made that point clearer. Overall, the banquet went very well and I met Ken Tate, one of the Director of Development & External Relations in the Department of Computer Science. This banquet served as a great networking opportunity, but unfortunately, I left my business cards in my room.

Readings & Poster

2009-03-11T04:42:00.001-07:00

I have been reading further in the book on pragmatic thinking and am trying to apply its teachings towards aspects of research, (i.e. the paper and poster). I am still in the process of revising the paper, focusing on its lack of logical flow in order to improve it. Although I have the content in the poster paper, I am still plaguing myself with questions as far as converting the information into an actual poster. JeeHyun has been a great help and, with his help, I'm sure we shall create a great poster to present at the Tapia 2009 conference.

Functionality of Driver

2009-01-30T23:24:00.000-08:00

I have a question regarding how the tool JPF would operate on the test driver I am writing.

Referring to the sample code Suresh sent me...

static testDriver(){
sequence generation;
}

One of my supposed testMethods...

testAdd(){
testDriver()

conduct testing operations & report differences
}

My question pertains to simply calling the testDriver method in each testMethod in order to generate the sequences, as opposed to reproducing the same code found in the testDriver in each and every test method.

iTutor Approach & Other Ideas

2009-01-09T21:24:00.000-08:00

I've compiled my thoughts on the approach and began writing the paper. This section includes my understanding of the tool's functionality as well as possible routes the project may take, if feasible. I have also included a file which contains what I perceive as an example test driver and emailed it along with the paper to Suresh & Kunal for their approval.

I have also picked up the Pragmatic Thinking & Learning text Dr. Xie put on the shelf last week. I shall begin reading this weekend, as I wait for a response.

iTutor: Method Sequences/Declarations

2008-12-27T10:46:00.000-08:00

Posted on Saturday December 20, 2008 by Bellanov Apilli

I met with Dr. Xie to discuss my progress on the project. We decided that I should begin writing the "examples" section on the paper as a means to confirm the correctness of my possible implementation. As such, I will create examples and what I expect their output to look like. As far as parameters that each method may require go, Dr. Xie suggested declaring methods after analyzing its contents. For now, I will write the paper and submit my writing to Kunal and Suresh for verification.

iTutor: passing of parameters

2008-12-27T10:43:00.000-08:00

Posted on Wednesday December 03, 2008 by Bellanov Apilli

While continuing on the test driver and implementing each method's respective switch statement, the problem I've come across relates to the passing of parameters. Take the following case:

case 1:{
addItem(item);
break;
}

It simply invokes the addItem method, sending the parameter "item". As you've instructed, this parameter should go in the method declaration, which brought about another question.

In my mind, the proposed method declaration would be as follows:
addItem(int a, int item1, int item2, int item3, ... )

Where each "item" will map with its respective method call (the method that needs the said parameter). I am formulating to append to this "item" information into the data structure, assigning each item value soon after the class decompression. I just wish for confirmation so that everything I've been doing isn't in vain.

iTutor - Next Steps - Sequence Generation

2008-12-27T10:41:00.000-08:00

Posted on Sunday November 23, 2008 by Bellanov Apilli

Kunal has recently showed me how the method sequences will be generated using a switch statement. As I've come to find yet again, the passing of parameters makes things more complex. My question pertains to whether or not JCute can work with variables declared locally in each test driver method.

For instance, take into account that this is the testAddItem method.

void testAddItem(int a)

case 1: {
int item = 0;
stObj.add(item);
taObj.add(item);
break;
}

I initially have a parameter coming in (int a) but am unsure as to whether or not it is useful anymore. My question still lies in whether or not I can declare parameters I may need within each case block, as opposed to sending them all to the method declaration (where (int a) is).

Other than the above, I am beginning to see how this will come in altogether and will try to complete the test driver over the upcoming break.

iTutor, Toster, & Next Steps

2008-12-27T10:40:00.000-08:00

Posted on Thursday November 13, 2008 by Bellanov Apilli

I met with Suresh and Kunal today to discuss the contents of a poster I will be creating, as well as my progress regarding the tool. As far as the poster is concerned, we decided on following a similar format to one of Kunal's previous works. Although we technically do not have results (which we are unsure as to what a "result" is), we do have a solid methodology, which we will stress in the poster.

Regarding the iTutor tool, I have compiled all of the elements (from both TA & ST) solutions into a data structure and am focusing on writing them out to the test driver. I should also be able to generate a skeleton with my data structure and will do so after my current task. I went ahead and addressed the issue of having multiple parameters so the tool can keep track of that as well. The problem we encountered regarded testing void methods. The solution we came up with involved invoking the constructor in each solution, calling the void method, and then checking for any changes present within methods containing return values. Another problem we discussed pertained to non-primitive types, where we decided an "equals" method would be predefined in the TA solution.

I am now faced with:
1) Generating Test Cases
2) Using JPF to execute test cases
3) Using Kunal's poster as a basis for my current poster

iTutor

2008-12-27T10:39:00.000-08:00

Posted on Monday October 27, 2008 by Bellanov Apilli

After finally finding some time, I have started implementing my ideas on the iTutor project. I am planning to isolate the method data, compiling all method-related data into a single ArrayList. I will then use the list to parse and generate the compilable test driver files. While writing my implementation, I came across a problem. The problem lies in the fact that I can only work with one file at any given time (either the TA or Student solution, not both). This problem led me to program based on certain assumptions.

Some are as follows:
1) I initially chose to use the TA solution to extract data from since the methods present here follow the interface correctly (as should the student solution)
2) Being able to work with (or decompress) only one file at a time leaves the "_TA" and "_ST" suffixes. I believe inserting code to remove the suffix (given that I am working with the TA solution) would enable me to generate the test driver code, using only the data from the TA solution. I would obviously reinsert them when it comes time to write the output file so that the code distinguishes between the two solutions.

I believe what I am formulating should work, since both implementations follow the same interface. I am questioning whether or not being limited to working with one file at a could lead to problems in the future.

P.S. I'm also have ideas regarding this problem, but it all storms from decompressing only the TA solution.

Policies on Undergraduate Research at NCSU ASE

2008-12-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

Posted on Wednesday October 15, 2008

(1). Each undergraduate student to be supported by our REU grants can be supported with their hours spent on research up to N hours per week during a normal semester, where N is predefined by the advisor in an invidiaul base based on the student's course load, past course performance, and current other responsibilities (such as TA hours, tutoring hours, and other social/service responsibilities). The advisor will communicate with the student individually on their N maximum research hours being supported by our REU grants.

***Only up to N hours actually spent by the student per week can be paid with our REU grants.***

(2). Each undergraduate student to be supported by our REU grants must document a research log on a weekly basis and submit such a log as a textual file (such as a Word, PDF, or plain text file) when requesting for payment for spent research hours. On an entry for each week, the student must document (1). the **actual** hours being spent on research (only up to the maximum N hours can be paid by our REU grants), and (2). a brief description of how the claimed actual hours are spent. The description is expected to be brief but not too brief. Here is one criterion for the student to determine how detailed the description should be: if the advisor cannot tell the semantic differences between two entries' descriptions, the student must refine the descriptions to make them distinct. For example, if a student writes two entries' descriptions as both "implementation of test generation", then these two descriptions are not satisfctory, and the student shall refine them as ones such as one being "implementation of parameter generation" and the other being "implementation of method-sequence generation".

***The REU grants cannot pay for the actual hours documented for a week whose description cannot be distinguished from another paid week's description.***

(3). Each undergraduate student to be supported by our REU grants must write at least one blog entry every **two** weeks with non-zero actual spent research hours (on our NCSU ASE REU blog http://blogs.lib.ncsu.edu/page/asereu). In a blog entry, the student can summarize these two weeks' activities, or write on any topics of the student's choice or interest. It is acceptable (but not recommended) for the student to write late blog entries long after the actual two weeks as "late assignment submissions" for these two weeks.

*** The REU grants cannot pay for the actual hours documented for those two weeks that don't have at least one corresponding blog entry.***

(4). Under very special circumstances, the advisor may approve a request from an undergraduate student who request to work more than N hours (being M hours) being paid by our REU grants for a certain week. Such a request should be sent to the advisor before the student actually spends the M hours. But to avoid the student's over-commiting on research and negatively impacting his or her normal course performance, the advisor generally tends not to approve a request unless really necessary.

(5). During winter breaks or summer breaks, each undergraduate student to be supported by our REU grants must discuss with the advisor ahead of time on the appropriate maximum N hours to be paid by our REU grants for certain weeks during the breaks. Again, the advisor will decide on N based on various factors similar to the ones for a normal semester.

(6). The advisor can have the authority to make special cases for a certain week for paying extra hours more than the predefined maximum N hours even when the student hasn't submitted a request for paid-hour extension for that week ahead of time. Such special cases can be granted only when the advisor is strongly convinced the necessity and importance of spending extra hours on research beyond N for the week. But to avoid the student's over-commiting on research and negatively impacting his or her normal course performance, the advisor generally tends not to make special cases.

** The student should document the actual hours spent on research on the weekly log even when the hours exceed the predefined N hours. But the advisor generally tends not to make special cases on paying extra hours.**

Intelligent Tutor System

2008-12-27T10:37:00.000-08:00

Posted on Wednesday September 10, 2008 by Bellanov Apilli

My role is to synthesize a test driver that is capable of exposing behavioral differences between two versions of a class. This test driver will be executing similar method call sequences on both versions of the class in order to expose possible differences. A problem Justin and I encountered was that we cannot constraint test values within the test driver. We have to be as generic as possible and let the test driver choose the values that are to be tested. I also learned that combinatorial testing could be applied in the test driver because the problem of having a large number of parameters (method calls) still exists. Thus I hope I will be able to incorporate the FireEye tool within this project. Through FireEye, I can focus on unique test cases, eliminating those that are similar to one another. As of now, I believe incorporating combinatorial testing into the test driver could result in better and more efficient tests.

Discussion about Intelligent Tutoring System

2008-12-27T10:36:00.000-08:00

Posted on Wednesday September 10, 2008 by THUMMALAPENTA, SURESH

Participants: Dr. Tao Xie, Yoonki Song, Kunal Taneja, Suresh Thummalapenta, Bellanov Apilli, Justin Gorham

Discussed about how to start the project and initial set of tasks:

Tools used:
1. ASM : For analyzing class files
2. Eclipse plugin for JPF

@Yoonki: Create a project "ITutor" based on UnitPlus and provide API called "ASMProxy" for accepting a class file as input and set of interface methods for getting the details of the class such as the name, parent class name, public methods, observer methods etc., The ASMProxy interface is based on ASM tool for analyzing byte code.
@Kunal: Provide a BinarySearchTree example to use as a running example through the project. Also explore the format of the driver required by JPF.
@Justin: Checkout the ITutor project and extend the project to use the ASMProxy class provided by Yoonki to generate a compilable interface that can be used by student to put the code.
@Bellanov: Checkout the ITutor project and extend the project to use the ASMProxy to generate a compilable test driver.

Writing The Paper

2008-12-27T10:35:00.001-08:00

Posted on Sunday August 17, 2008 by Bellanov Apilli

I had dinner with Professor Tao today and discussed the conclusion of the project, the paper. We went over how each section of the paper should be addressed, as well as the content and proper format, and plagiarism. After covering each section in detail, I have a better perspective of how research papers should be. I will be receiving slides containing a general outline of the paper-writing process. Until then, I will be summing up any ideas I come across.

Bit Vector Input (cont'd)

2008-12-27T10:33:00.000-08:00

Posted on Friday August 08, 2008 by Bellanov Apill

I have implemented the ideas JeeHyun and I discussed, deciding on "$" as the delimiting character in the output format. I kept the existing feature, which was insufficient, but have also implemented the bit vector method successfully, sending that data to a separate file. The files are denoted differently (original input as *.input & the vector as *.inputVector). I have sent the program(s) to JeeHyun and he will convert the data into the request format for testing.

Bit Vector Input

2008-12-27T10:17:00.001-08:00

Posted on Thursday August 07, 2008 by Bellanov Apilli

I met with JeeHyun today to address the format the bit vectors will be in, deciding on a format he could easily convert from.We decided no a format comprising of both the attribute and its type. We also discussed the so-called complex file types (true & false) and decided to implement them as individual attributes. I implemented the idea into the FireEye conversion class I wrote. The format I chose is as follows: attribute : type. I kept the spaces between to make it more readable for JeeHyun when it comes time for him to convert it. This process is complete for code A - D, conference, and pluto. The remaining two (continue a & b) will soon be finished, once I correctly ignore the irrelevant lines.

Next Step(s)

2008-12-27T10:15:00.000-08:00

Posted on Monday August 04, 2008 by Bellanov Apill

I met with professor Tao today to discuss the necessary steps to take in order to achieve our goal, the coverage testing. As of now, my implementation is able to handle all combinations, given that one value is taken for subject, research, and action each time. Although this method may cover a significant number of requests, it will not be sufficient. It fails in covering cases where more than one of each type (subject, resource, value) were taken. The solution we came up with was similar to what we discussed the very first day, a bit vector whose length is as long as the number of attribute values. I will implement this idea as soon as I am fully complete with the current task, which is converting the FireEye output back into request format. Converting these values will enable us to test coverage, although it may be only for primitive case (one subject, resource, and action at a time). Once I am finished with implementing the conversion on the primitave cases, I will do the same for the complex (more than one subject/resource/action taken at once). In order to successfully convert the files into requests, I need to find some way to map the attributes to their other components, such as their type, id, etc, so I can keep track of their relationships.

FireEye Input Conversion

2008-12-27T10:14:00.000-08:00

Posted on Sunday July 27, 2008 by Bellanov Apilli

I have now completed a program that extracts the attribute data from the policies, compiles them into lists, and writes the data to a text file that is compatible with FireEye. The program, thus far, works correctly for the simplest samples (codeA - codeD as well as pluto). JeeHyun has informed me that some of the policies contain complex names (such as those with numerous occurrences of the "true" attribute) and I am now trying to figure out a way to incorporate these attributes. I have some ideas and will discuss them with JeeHyun before attempting to implement them.

Attributes & FireEye

2008-12-27T10:12:00.000-08:00

Posted on Friday July 18, 2008 by Bellanov Apilli

I met with JeeHyun today to further discuss applying FireEye to the policies. He noted that he possessed a program that extracted data from the policies, compiling them into a tree structure. This tree structure is used by the classes in the project to for numerous tasks, including the creation of the requests. I believe utilizing this program would simplify the process of converting it into FireEye input. I am supposing isolating each type of attribute (subject, resource, action) into it's own respective file. After this isolation will come the compilation of each of these into appropriate FireEye input. As of now, I have been experimenting in FireEye, trying to get a feel of what the generic format of the input file will be. I've got a general idea and will implement it as soon as I receive the program from JeeHyun.

NSF REU project on "Testing and Verification of Security Policies"

2008-12-27T10:10:00.000-08:00

Posted on Sunday July 13, 2008

We recently recieved an NSF REU supplement grant for my existing NSF grant on Testing and Verification of Security Policies.

Bellanov Apilli, an undergraduate student from our NCSU CS department, has recently joined our project team to work on this REU project. Welcome!

(Sorry that my this annoucement of the project comes in later than Bellanov's first post on his progress below. Bellavnov, keep up the good work in keeping your progress posted here along the way!)