Advances in Computers, Volume 107, the latest volume in a series published since 1960, presents detailed coverage of innovations in computer hardware, software, theory, design and applications. Chapters in this updated volume include Advances in Model-based Analysis and Testing, Advances in Software Quality Assurance, Advances in Handling Uncertainty in Testing, Advances in Testing of Communicating Systems, and Advances in Formal Verification and Cyber-physical Systems. This book provides contributors with a medium in which they can explore their subjects in greater depth and breadth than journal articles usually allow. - Provides in-depth surveys and tutorials on new computer technology - Presents well-known authors and researchers in the field - Includes extensive bibliographies with most chapters - Volumes are devoted to single themes or subfields of computer science

Practical Model-Based Testing gives a practical introduction to model-based testing, showing how to write models for testing purposes and how to use model-based testing tools to generate test suites. It is aimed at testers and software developers who wish to use model-based testing, rather than at tool-developers or academics. The book focuses on the mainstream practice of functional black-box testing and covers different styles of models, especially transition-based models (UML state machines) and pre/post models (UML/OCL specifications and B notation). The steps of applying model-based testing are demonstrated on examples and case studies from a variety of software domains, including embedded software and information systems. From this book you will learn: - The basic principles and terminology of model-based testing - How model-based testing differs from other testing processes - How model-based testing fits into typical software lifecycles such as agile methods and the Unified Process - The benefits and limitations of model-based testing, its cost effectiveness and how it can reduce time-to-market - A step-by-step process for applying model-based testing - How to write good models for model-based testing - How to use a variety of test selection criteria to control the tests that are generated from your models - How model-based testing can connect to existing automated test execution platforms such as Mercury Test Director, Java JUnit, and proprietary test execution environments - Presents the basic principles and terminology of model-based testing - Shows how model-based testing fits into the software lifecycle, its cost-effectiveness, and how it can reduce time to market - Offers guidance on how to use different kinds of modeling techniques, useful test generation strategies, how to apply model-based testing techniques to real applications using case studies

More accurate forecasts of climate conditions over time periods of weeks to a few years could help people plan agricultural activities, mitigate drought, and manage energy resources, amongst other activities; however, current forecast systems have limited ability on these time- scales. Models for such climate forecasts must take into account complex interactions among the ocean, atmosphere, and land surface. Such processes can be difficult to represent realistically. To improve the quality of forecasts, this book makes recommendations about the development of the tools used in forecasting and about specific research goals for improving understanding of sources of predictability. To improve the accessibility of these forecasts to decision-makers and researchers, this book also suggests best practices to improve how forecasts are made and disseminated.

With the demand for more advanced fighter aircraft, relying on unstable flight mechanical characteristics to gain flight performance, more focus has been put on model-based system engineering to help with the design work. The flight control system design is one important part that relies on this modeling. Therefore, it has become more important to develop flight mechanical models that are highly accurate in the whole flight envelope. For today’s modern fighter aircraft, the basic flight mechanical characteristics change between linear and nonlinear as well as stable and unstable as an effect of the desired capability of advanced maneuvering at subsonic, transonic and supersonic speeds. This thesis combines the subject of system identification, which is the art of building mathematical models of dynamical systems based on measurements, with aeronautical engineering in order to find methods for identifying flight mechanical characteristics. Here, some challenging aeronautical identification problems, estimating model parameters from flight-testing, are treated. Two aspects are considered. The first is online identification during flight-testing with the intent to aid the engineers in the analysis process when looking at the flight mechanical characteristics. This will also ensure that enough information is available in the resulting test data for post-flight analysis. Here, a frequency domain method is used. An existing method has been developed further by including an Instrumental Variable approach to take care of noisy data including atmospheric turbulence and by a sensor-fusion step to handle varying excitation during an experiment. The method treats linear systems that can be both stable and unstable working under feedback control. An experiment has been performed on a radio-controlled demonstrator aircraft. For this, multisine input signals have been designed and the results show that it is possible to perform more time-efficient flight-testing compared with standard input signals. The other aspect is post-flight identification of nonlinear characteristics. Here the properties of a parameterized observer approach, using a prediction-error method, are investigated. This approach is compared with four other methods for some test cases. It is shown that this parameterized observer approach is the most robust one with respect to noise disturbances and initial offsets. Another attractive property is that no user parameters have to be tuned by the engineers in order to get the best performance. All methods in this thesis have been validated on simulated data where the system is known, and have also been tested on real flight test data. Both of the investigated approaches show promising results.

Glacier Science and Environmental Change is an authoritative and comprehensive reference work on contemporary issues in glaciology. It explores the interface between glacier science and environmental change, in the past, present, and future. Written by the world’s foremost authorities in the subject and researchers at the scientific frontier where conventional wisdom of approach comes face to face with unsolved problems, this book provides: state-of-the-art reviews of the key topics in glaciology and related disciplines in environmental change cutting-edge case studies of the latest research an interdisciplinary synthesis of the issues that draw together the research efforts of glaciologists and scientists from other areas such as geologists, hydrologists, and climatologists color-plate section (with selected extra figures provided in color at www.blackwellpublishing.com/knight). The topics in this book have been carefully chosen to reflect current priorities in research, the interdisciplinary nature of the subject, and the developing relationship between glaciology and studies of environmental change. Glacier Science and Environmental Change is essential reading for advanced undergraduates, postgraduate research students, and professional researchers in glaciology, geology, geography, geophysics, climatology, and related disciplines.

Stellar Astrophysics contains a selection of high-quality papers that illustrate the progress made in research into the structure and evolution of stars. Senior undergraduates, graduates, and researchers can now be brought thoroughly up to date in this exciting and ever-developing branch of astronomy.