Milestones In Computer Science Distinguished Lecture Series

Dr. Elaine J. Weyuker

April 9, 2004
11 a.m. - 12 noon
Perreault Hall, Fuller Labs
100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA

For Information & Directions call: (508) 831-5357 or visit www.cs.wpi.edu

Presents

Predicting Where the Bugs are Hiding

Abstract

The ability to predict which files in a large software system are most likely to contain the largest numbers of faults in the next release can be a very valuable asset. To accomplish this, a statistical model using information from previous releases has been developed and used to predict the numbers of faults for a large industrial inventory system. The files of each release were sorted in descending order based on the predicted number of faults and then the first 20% of the files were selected. This was done for each of fifteen consecutive releases, representing more than four years of field usage. The predictions were extremely accurate, correctly selecting files that contained between 71% and 92% of the faults, with the overall average being 83%. In addition, the same model was used on data for the same system's releases, but with all fault data prior to integration esting removed. The prediction was again very accurate, ranging from 7\% to 93%, with the average being 84%. Predictions were made for a second system, and again the first 20% of files accounted for 83% of the identified faults. Finally, a highly simplified predictor was considered which correctly predicted 73% and 74% of the faults for the two systems.

Biography

Elaine Weyuker received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Rutgers University, and an M.S.E. from the Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania. She is currently a Technology Leader at AT&T Labs - Research in Florham Park, NJ., and an AT&T Fellow. Before moving to AT&T Labs in 1993, she was a professor of Computer Science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University, NY, where she had been on the faculty since 1977. Prior to that she was a faculty member at the City University of New York, and was a Systems' Engineer at I.B.M. and a programmer at Texaco, Inc.

Dr. Weyuker has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, is a Fellow of the ACM, a Fellow of the IEEE, and an AT&T Fellow. She is the 2004 recipient of the IEEE Harlan D. Mills award for long-standing, sustained and meaningful contributions to the theory and practice of the information sciences. She was also awarded the YWCA Woman of Achievement Award, and was named the Outstanding Alumni at the Rutgers University 50th Anniversary celebration.

She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Computing Research Association (CRA). She also serves on the Technical Advisory Board of Cigital Corporation. She is a member of the editorial boards of IEEE Spectrum, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, the Empirical Software Engineering Journal and the Journal of Systems and Software, and was a founding editor of the ACM Transactions of Software Engineering and Methodology. She has been the Secretary/Treasurer of ACM SIGSOFT and was an ACM National Lecturer.

Her research interests are in software engineering, particularly software testing and reliability, and software performance and metrics. She has published more than 120 papers in journals and refereed conference proceedings in those areas, and has been a frequent keynote speaker at software engineering conferences. She is also interested in the theory of computation, and is the author of a book (with Martin Davis and Ron Sigal), "Computability, Complexity, and Languages, 2nd Ed", published by Academic Press.

She has been heavily involved with mentoring young women, and encouraging them to enter and remain in computer science for many years. She served as a member of the inaugural Computing Research Association Committee on the Status of Women, as well as the ACM Committee on the Status of Women and Minorities and served as the liaison between the two groups. For the last several years she has served as a mentor for MentorNet and had a number of successful mentoring relations over the years.

Host

Prof. Stanley Selkow

Refreshments will be served.

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