An experimental study of hyper-heuristic selection and acceptance mechanism for combinatorial t-way test suite generation

Recently, many meta-heuristic algorithms have been proposed to serve as the basis of a t -way test generation strategy (where t indicates the interaction strength) including Genetic Algorithms (GA), Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Simulated Annealing (SA), Cuckoo Search (CS), Particle Swarm Optimizat...

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Main Authors: Zamil, Kamal Z., Din, Fakhrud, Kendall, Graham, Ahmed, Bestoun S.
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2017
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Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49538/
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author Zamil, Kamal Z.
Din, Fakhrud
Kendall, Graham
Ahmed, Bestoun S.
author_facet Zamil, Kamal Z.
Din, Fakhrud
Kendall, Graham
Ahmed, Bestoun S.
author_sort Zamil, Kamal Z.
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Recently, many meta-heuristic algorithms have been proposed to serve as the basis of a t -way test generation strategy (where t indicates the interaction strength) including Genetic Algorithms (GA), Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Simulated Annealing (SA), Cuckoo Search (CS), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), and Harmony Search (HS). Although useful, metaheuristic algorithms that make up these strategies often require specific domain knowledge in order to allow effective tuning before good quality solutions can be obtained. Hyperheuristics provide an alternative methodology to meta-heuristics which permit adaptive selection and/or generation of meta-heuristics automatically during the search process. This paper describes our experience with four hyper-heuristic selection and acceptance mechanisms namely Exponential Monte Carlo with counter (EMCQ), Choice Function (CF), Improvement Selection Rules (ISR), and newly developed Fuzzy Inference Selection (FIS),using the t -way test generation problem as a case study. Based on the experimental results, we offer insights on why each strategy differs in terms of its performance.
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spelling nottingham-495382020-05-04T19:04:20Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49538/ An experimental study of hyper-heuristic selection and acceptance mechanism for combinatorial t-way test suite generation Zamil, Kamal Z. Din, Fakhrud Kendall, Graham Ahmed, Bestoun S. Recently, many meta-heuristic algorithms have been proposed to serve as the basis of a t -way test generation strategy (where t indicates the interaction strength) including Genetic Algorithms (GA), Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Simulated Annealing (SA), Cuckoo Search (CS), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), and Harmony Search (HS). Although useful, metaheuristic algorithms that make up these strategies often require specific domain knowledge in order to allow effective tuning before good quality solutions can be obtained. Hyperheuristics provide an alternative methodology to meta-heuristics which permit adaptive selection and/or generation of meta-heuristics automatically during the search process. This paper describes our experience with four hyper-heuristic selection and acceptance mechanisms namely Exponential Monte Carlo with counter (EMCQ), Choice Function (CF), Improvement Selection Rules (ISR), and newly developed Fuzzy Inference Selection (FIS),using the t -way test generation problem as a case study. Based on the experimental results, we offer insights on why each strategy differs in terms of its performance. Elsevier 2017-08-31 Article PeerReviewed Zamil, Kamal Z., Din, Fakhrud, Kendall, Graham and Ahmed, Bestoun S. (2017) An experimental study of hyper-heuristic selection and acceptance mechanism for combinatorial t-way test suite generation. Information Sciences, 399 . pp. 121-153. ISSN 0020-0255 Software testing ; t-way testing ; Hyper-heuristics ; Meta-heuristics ; Fuzzy Inference Selection https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0020025517305820 doi:10.1016/j.ins.2017.03.007 doi:10.1016/j.ins.2017.03.007
spellingShingle Software testing ; t-way testing ; Hyper-heuristics ; Meta-heuristics ; Fuzzy Inference Selection
Zamil, Kamal Z.
Din, Fakhrud
Kendall, Graham
Ahmed, Bestoun S.
An experimental study of hyper-heuristic selection and acceptance mechanism for combinatorial t-way test suite generation
title An experimental study of hyper-heuristic selection and acceptance mechanism for combinatorial t-way test suite generation
title_full An experimental study of hyper-heuristic selection and acceptance mechanism for combinatorial t-way test suite generation
title_fullStr An experimental study of hyper-heuristic selection and acceptance mechanism for combinatorial t-way test suite generation
title_full_unstemmed An experimental study of hyper-heuristic selection and acceptance mechanism for combinatorial t-way test suite generation
title_short An experimental study of hyper-heuristic selection and acceptance mechanism for combinatorial t-way test suite generation
title_sort experimental study of hyper-heuristic selection and acceptance mechanism for combinatorial t-way test suite generation
topic Software testing ; t-way testing ; Hyper-heuristics ; Meta-heuristics ; Fuzzy Inference Selection
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49538/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49538/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49538/