Home | About Me | Research | Teaching | Students | Activities | ESQuaReD
  • An open source release of our new constrained Covering Array Generator with benchmarks from several of our papers.
    Recent Publications (ACM DL Listing , DBLP Listing , Google Scholar)
    • I am interested in problems that apply theoretical constructs to solve a practical problem. My general areas of interest are in software testing, search based software engineering and applications of combinatorial designs .

    My current research focus is configuration-aware software testing . We are developing sets of techniques to ensure dependability in highly-configurable software systems, which includes user configurable software such as web browsers and databases, as well as architecturally configurable software such as software product lines. These types of systems have very large configuration spaces, and potentially late configuration binding times. Furthermore, test suites may behave differently when testing different configurations. To ensure dependability across the configuration space, we use a sampling technique called combinatorial interaction testing or CIT. This ensures that a systematic and quantifiable set of configurations are tested. Current threads of my research include algorithmic extensions to existing CIT algorithms to handle constraints between options, prioritization of CIT test suites for regression testing, and empirical studies on the effectiveness of CIT on configurable software for both fault detection and fault localization. We are also working on architectural models to define families of test adequacy criteria over the lifetime of a software product line. My research combines ideas from combinatorial design, meta-heuristic search, statistical design of experiments and software engineering.

    My research is supported by

    My Ph.D. dissertation was entitled: "Designing Test Suites for Software Interaction Testing".

    Computer Science Publications:

    Copyright Notice: This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. Note that the definitive versions of all published papers appearing here are those that actually appeared in print. In some cases, the versions presented here may differ in minor ways. When citing any published papers provided here, please reference the published versions.

    Journals:

    1. H. Srikanth, M. Cashman, Myra B. Cohen, Test Case Prioritization of Build Acceptance Tests for an Enterprise Cloud Application: An industrial Case Study, Journal of Systems and Software 119,pp. 122-135 (2016).
    2. Z. Xu, Y. Kim, M. Kim, M. B. Cohen, G. Rothermel, Directed Test Suite Augmentation: An Empirical Investigation, Journal of Software Testing, Verification and Reliability , 25(2), pp. 77-114, 2015.
    3. C. Yilmaz, E. Dumlu, M. B. Cohen, A. A. Porter, Reducing Masking Effects in Combinatorial Interaction Testing: A Feedback Driven Adaptive Approach, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering , 40(1), 2014, pp. 43-66.
    4. S. Anand, E. Burke, T. Y. Chen, J. Clark, M. B. Cohen, W. Grieskamp, M. Harman, M. J. Harrold and P. McMinn, An Orchestrated Survey on Automated Software Test Case Generation, Journal of Systems and Software, 86(8), 2013, (invited entry on Combinatorial Testing), pp. 1985 - 1988.
    5. X. Yuan, M.B. Cohen and A.M. Memon, GUI Interaction Testing: Incorporating Event Context, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering , 37(4), 2011, pp. 559-574, draft.
    6. B.J. Garvin, M.B. Cohen, and M.B. Dwyer, Evaluating Improvements to a Meta-Heuristic Search for Constrained Interaction Testing, Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE), 16(1), 2011, pp.61-102.
    7. M.B. Cohen, M.B. Dwyer and J. Shi, Constructing interaction test suites for highly-configurable systems in the presence of constraints: a greedy approach, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering , 34(5), 2008, pp. 633-650, pre-print.
    8. M.B. Cohen, C.J. Colbourn, and A.C.H. Ling, Constructing strength three covering arrays with augmented annealing, Discrete Mathematics, 308(2008),pp. 2709-2722. Draft version.
    9. C. Yilmaz, M.B. Cohen and A. Porter, Covering arrays for efficient fault characterization in complex configuration spaces, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 31(1), 2006, pp. 20-34.
    10. M.B. Cohen and C.J. Colbourn, Ladder orderings of pairs and RAID performance, Discrete Applied Mathematics , 138(1-2),2004, pp. 35-46.
    11. M.B. Cohen and C.J. Colbourn, Optimal and pessimal orderings of Steiner triple systems in disk arrays, Theoretical Computer Science, 297(2003), 103-117.
    12. M.B. Cohen, C.J. Colbourn, L.A. Ives, and A.C.H. Ling, Kirkman triple systems of order 21 with nontrivial automorphism group, Mathematics of Computation, 71(238),2002, 873-881.

    Magazines:

    1. C. Yilmaz, S. Fouché, M B. Cohen, A. A. Porter, G. Demiroz, U. Koc, Moving Forward with Combinatorial Interaction Testing, IEEE Computer , 47(2), 2014, pp. 37-45.

    Refereed Book Chapters:

    1. B. J. Garvin, M. B. Cohen and M. B. Dwyer, Failure Avoidance in Configurable Systems Through Feature Locality, in Assurances for Self-Adaptive Systems (ASAS), LNCS 7740, p.266--296, 2013.
      Supplementary data http://www.cse.unl.edu/~myra/artifacts/locality

    Conference and Workshop Proceedings:

    2017

    1. J. A. Saddler and M. B. Cohen, EventFlowSlicer: A Tool for Generating Realistic Goal-Driven GUI Tests, IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE), Tool Demo, October, 2017.
    2. Z. Sakkaff, J. L. Catlett, M. Cashman, M. Pierobon, N. Buan, M. B. Cohen, C. Kelley, End-to-end Molecular Communication Channels in Cell Metabolism: an Information Theoretic Study, ACM International Conference on Nanoscale Computing and Communication (NanoCom), September, 2017, Received Best paper award.
    3. M. Cashman, J. L. Catlett, M. B. Cohen, N. R. Buan, Z. Sakkaff, M. Pierobon, C. Kelley, BioSIMP: Using Software Testing Techniques for Sampling and Inference in Biological Organisms, ICSE International Workshop on Software Engineering for Science (SE4Science), May, 2017, pp. 2-8.
    4. M. B. Cohen, The Evolutionary Landscape of SBST: a 10 Year Perspective, ICSE International Workshop on Search-Based Software Testing (SBST), May, 2017, pp. 47-48.

    2016

    1. J. Saddler and M.B. Cohen, EventFlowSlicer: Goal Based Test Generation for Graphical User Interfaces, FSE Workshop on Automated Test Case Design, Selection and Evaluation (A-TEST) , November, 2016, pp. 8-15.
    2. M. B. Cohen, A. Pavan and N. V. Vinodchandran, Budgeted Testing through an Algorithmic Lens, November, Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE): Visions and Reflections Track, 2016, pp. 948-951.
    3. K. J. North, A. Sarma and M. B. Cohen, Understanding Git History: A Multi-Sense View, FSE Workshop: International Workshop on Social Software Engineering (SSE), November 2016, pp. 1-7.
    4. T. Thianniwet, M. B. Cohen,Scaling up the Fitness Function for Reverse Engineering Feature Models, International Symposium on Search Based Software Engineering (SSBSE), October, pp. 128-143, 2016.
    5. M. B. Cohen, J. Firestone, M. Pierobon, The Assurance Timeline: Building Assurance Cases for Synthetic Biology, International Workshop on Assurance Cases for Software-intensive Systems (ASSURE), to appear, September, pp. 75-86, 2016.
    6. H. Luo, H. Jiang, M.B. Cohen, Why Do We Always Blame the Storage Stack?, The 8th USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Storage and File Systems (HotStorage), Denver, CO, June, 2016, pp. 1-5.
    7. T. Yu, X. Qu, M. B. Cohen, VDTest: An Automated Framework to Support Testing for Virtual Devices, The 37th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), Austin, TX, May, 2016, pp. 583-594, ACM-SIGSOFT Distinguished paper award.

    2015

    1. E. Kowalczyk, A. M. Memon, and M. B. Cohen, Piecing Together App Behavior from Multiple Artifacts: A Case Study, The 26th IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE), Washington, DC, November, 2015.
    2. F. Behrang, M.B. Cohen, A. Orso, Users Beware: Preference Inconsistencies Ahead, The European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE), Bergamo, Italy, Sept. 2015, 295-306, ACM-SIGSOFT Distinguished paper award.
    3. K. North, S. Bolan, A. Sarma, M.B. Cohen, GitSonifier: Using Sound to Portray Developer Conflict History, The European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE), New Ideas Track (NIER), Bergamo, Italy, Sept. 2015, pp. 886-889.
    4. Y. Jia, M. B. Cohen, M. Harman and J. Petke, Learning Combinatorial Interaction Test Generation Strategies using Hyperheuristic Search, International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) , Florence, Italy, May,2015, pp. 540-550, a preprint.
    5. Z. Gao, Y. Liang, M. B. Cohen, A. M. Memon, Z. Wang, Making System User Interactive Tests Repeatable: When and What Should we Control?, International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) , Florence, Italy, May, 2015, pp. 55-65, a preprint.
    6. T. Yu and M.B. Cohen, Guided Test Generation for Finding Worst-Case Stack Usage in Embedded Systems, International Conference on Software Testing (ICST), Graz, Austria, April, 2015, a preprint.
    7. T. Thianniwet and M.B. Cohen, SPLRevO: Optimizing Complex Feature Models in Search Based Reverse Engineering of Software Product Lines , First North American Search Based Software Engineering Symposium (NasBASE), Dearborn, MI, February 2015, to appear.

    2014

    1. J. Swanson, M.B. Cohen, M.B. Dwyer, B.J. Garvin and J. Firestone, Beyond the Rainbow: Self-Adaptive Failure Avoidance in Configurable Systems, Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE) , November 2014, Hong Kong, pp. 377-388, a pre-print .
    2. D. Jin, X. Qu, M.B. Cohen and B. Robinson, PrefFinder: Getting the Right Preference in Configurable Software Systems, Automated Software Engineering (ASE) , September 2014, pp. 151-162. A pre-print .
    3. D. Jin, X. Qu, M.B. Cohen and B. Robinson, Configurations Everywhere: Implications for Testing and Debugging in Practice, International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), Software Engineering in Practice Track (SEIP), June 2014, pp. 215-225 (companion volume) a pre-print and our teaser video . Awarded Best SEIP paper.
    4. T. Yu, W. Srisa-an, M. B. Cohen, G. Rothermel, SimLatte: A Framework to Support Testing for Worst-Case Interrupt Latencies in Embedded Software, Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Testing (ICST), March, 2014, pp. 313-322.
    5. Y. Kim, Z. Xu, M. Kim, M. B. Cohen, G. Rothermel, Hybrid Directed Test Suite Augmentation: An Interleaving Framework, Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Testing (ICST), March, 2014, pp. 263-272.

    2013

    1. J. Petke, S. Yoo, M. B. Cohen and M. Harman Efficiency and Early Fault Detection with Lower and Higher Strength Combinatorial Interaction Testing, The European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE),August 2013, pp. 26-36.
    2. Z. Xu, M. B. Cohen, W. Motycka, G. Rothermel, Continuous Test Suite Augmentation in Software Product Lines, International Software Product Line Conference (SPLC), August, 2013, 52-61.
    3. A. M. Memon and M. B. Cohen. Automated testing of GUI applications: models, tools, and controlling flakiness. Tutorial : International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) , May 2013, pp. 1479-1480.
    4. A. Swearngin, Myra B. Cohen, Bonnie E. John and Rachel K. E. Bellamy, Human Performance Regression Testing, International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), San Francisco, May 2013, pp. 152-161.
    5. X. Qu and Myra B. Cohen, A Study in Prioritization for Higher Strength Combinatorial Testing, International Workshop on Combinatorial Testing (IWCT 2013), Luxembourg, March 2013.

    2012

    1. M. B. Cohen, S. Huang and A. M. Memon, AutoInSpec: Using Missing Test Coverage to Improve Specifications in GUIs, International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE), November 2012, pp. 251-260. A preprint .
      Supplementary data http://www.cse.unl.edu/~myra/artifacts/autoinspec_2012
    2. A. Swearngin, Myra B. Cohen, Bonnie E. John and Rachel K. E. Bellamy, Easing the Generation of Predictive Human Systems Performance Models from Legacy Systems, ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), May 2012, pp. 2489-2498. a preprint. Final version in ACM Digital Library
    3. J. Shi, Myra B. Cohen and Matthew B. Dwyer, Integration Testing of Software Product Lines Using Compositional Symbolic Execution, International Conference on Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering (FASE), March 2012, pp. 270-284. a preprint

    2011

    1. B. J. Garvin and M. B. Cohen, Feature Interaction Faults Revisited: An Exploratory Study , International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE), November 2011, pp. 90-99. Supplementary data
      http://www.cse.unl.edu/~myra/artifacts/issre2011
    2. H. Srikanth and M.B. Cohen, Regression Testing in Software as a Service: An Industrial Case Study, International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM), Industry Track , September 2011, pp. 372-381.
    3. B. J. Garvin, M. B. Cohen and M. B. Dwyer, Using Feature Locality: Can We Leverage History to Avoid Failures During Reconfiguration? ESEC/FSE Workshop on Assurances for Self-Adaptive Systems (ASAS), September 2011, pp. 24-33.
    4. E. Dumlu, C. Yilmaz, M.B. Cohen and A. Porter,Feedback Driven Adaptive Combinatorial Testing, International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA) , July 2011, pp. 243-253.

    2010

    1. Z. Xu, Y. Kim, M. Kim, G. Rothermel, M. B. Cohen, Test Suite Augmentation: Techniques and Tradeoffs , International Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering, November, 2010, pp. 257-266.
    2. I. Cabral, M.B. Cohen and G. Rothermel, Improving the Testing and Testability of Software Product Lines , 14th International Software Product Line Conference , September 2010, pp. 241-255.
    3. Z. Xu, M.B. Cohen and G. Rothermel, Factors Affecting the Use of Genetic Algorithms in Test Suite Augmentation, Proceedings of the ACM Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, (GECCO-2010), Search Based Software Engineering Track , Portland, Oregon, July 2010, pp.1365-1372.
    4. S. Huang, M.B. Cohen and A.M. Memon, Repairing GUI Test Suites Using a Genetic Algorithm, International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST), April 2010, pp. 245-254. The paper's website
    5. W. Srisa-an, M.B. Cohen, Y. Shang and M. Soundararaj, A Self-Adjusting Code Cache Manager to Balance Start-Up Time and Memory Usage, The International Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization (CGO), April, 2010, pp. 82-91.

    2009

    1. H. Srikanth, M.B. Cohen and X. Qu, Reducing Field Failures in System Configurable Software: Cost-Based Prioritization, International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE), November 2009, pp. 61-70.
    2. W. Grieskamp, X. Qu, X. Wei, N. Kicillof, M. B. Cohen, Interaction Coverage meets Path Coverage by SMT Constraint Solving, International Conference on Testing of Communicating Systems and Interntional Workshop on Formal Approaches to Testing of Software (TESTCOM /FATES), November 2009, pp. 97-112.
    3. S. Fouché , M.B. Cohen and A. Porter, Incremental Covering Array Failure Characterization in Large Configuration Spaces, International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA) , July 2009, pp. 177-187.
    4. B. J. Garvin, M.B. Cohen and M. B. Dwyer, An improved meta-heuristic search for constrained interaction testing, International Symposium on Search Based Software Engineering (SSBSE), , May 2009, pp. 13-22.
    5. X. Yuan, M.B. Cohen and A.M. Memon, Towards dynamic adaptive automated test teneration for graphical user interfaces, First International Workshop on TESTing Techniques & Experimentation Benchmarks for Event-Driven Software (TESTBEDS) , April, 2009, pp 1-4.

    2008

    1. X. Qu, M.B. Cohen and G.Rothermel, Configuration-aware regression testing: an empirical study of sampling and prioritization, International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA) , July 2008, pp. 75-85.

    2007

    1. X. Yuan, M.B. Cohen and A.M. Memon, Covering array sampling of input event sequences for automated GUI testing, Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE) (short paper), Atlanta, GA, November 2007, pp. 405-408.
    2. X. Qu, M.B. Cohen and K.M. Woolf, Combinatorial interaction regression testing: a study of test case generation and prioritization, IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM) , Paris, October 2007, pp. 255-264.
    3. M.B. Cohen, M.B. Dwyer and J. Shi, Exploiting constraint solving history to construct interaction test suites, Testing: Academic and Industrial Conference-Practice and Research Techniques (TAIC PART), London, September 2007, pp. 121-130.
    4. S. Fouché , M.B. Cohen and A. Porter, Towards incremental adaptive covering arrays, The Joint Meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE) (Poster Paper), September 2007,pp. 557-560.
    5. M.B. Cohen, M.B. Dwyer and J. Shi, Interaction testing of highly-configurable systems in the presence of constraints, International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA), London, July 2007, pp. 129-139.

    2006

    1. M.B. Cohen, J. Snyder and G. Rothermel, Testing across configurations: implications for combinatorial testing, Workshop on Advances in Model-based Software Testing (A-MOST) , Raleigh, North Carolina, November 2006, pp 1-9.
    2. M. Diep, M. Cohen, and S. Elbaum, Probe distribution techniques to profile events in deployed software , Proceedings of the International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE), Raleigh, North Carolina, November 2006, pp. 331-340.
    3. M. B. Cohen, M. B. Dwyer and J. Shi, Coverage and adequacy in software product line testing , Proceedings of the ISSTA Workshop on the Role of Software Architecture for Testing and Analysis (ROSATEA), Portland, Maine, July 2006, pp 53-63.
    4. M. Cohen, S. Kooi and W. Srisa-an, Clustering the heap in multi-threaded applications for improved garbage collection, Proceedings of the ACM Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, (GECCO-2006), Search Based Software Engineering Track , Seattle Washington, July 2006, pp. 1901-1908. Nominated for best paper in the SBSE track.

    2005

    1. R. Bryce, C.J. Colbourn, M.B. Cohen. A framework of greedy methods for constructing interaction tests. The 27th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2005), St. Louis, MO, May 2005, pp. 146-155.

    2004

    1. C. Yilmaz, M.B. Cohen and A. Porter, Covering arrays for efficient fault characterization in complex configuration spaces, Intl. Symp. on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA 2004), Boston, July 2004, pp. 45-54.
    2. C.J. Colbourn, M.B. Cohen, and R.C. Turban, A Deterministic density algorithm for pairwise interaction coverage, IASTED Proc. of the Intl. Conference on Software Engineering (SE 2004), Innsbruck, Austria, February 2004, pp. 345-352.

    2003

    1. M.B. Cohen, C.J. Colbourn and A.C.H. Ling, Augmenting simulated annealing to build interaction test suites, 14th IEEE Intl. Symp. on Software Reliability Engineering(ISSRE 2003), Denver CO, November 2003, pp. 394-405.
    2. M.B.Cohen, C.J. Colbourn, J.S. Collofello, P.B. Gibbons and W.B. Mugridge, Variable strength interaction testing of components, Proc. of 27th Intl. Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC 2003), Dallas, TX, November 2003, pp. 413-418.
    3. M.B.Cohen, C.J. Colbourn, P.B. Gibbons and W.B. Mugridge, Constructing test suites for interaction testing, Proc. of the Intl. Conf. on Software Engineering (ICSE 2003),Portland, Oregon, May 2003, pp. 38-48 .

    2000-2002

    1. M.B. Cohen, C.J. Colbourn and D. Froncek, Cluttered orderings for the complete graph, COCOON 2001, August 2001, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2108(2001) 420-431.
    2. M.B. Cohen and C.J. Colbourn, Ordering disks for double erasure codes, Proc. Symp. Parallel Algorithms and Architectures (SPAA01), Crete, July 2001, pp. 229-236.
    3. M.B. Cohen and C.J.Colbourn, Optimal and pessimal orderings of Steiner triple systems in disk arrays. LATIN 2000, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1776 (2000), 95-104.
    4. M.B. Cohen and C.J. Colbourn, Steiner triple systems as multiple erasure correcting codes in disk arrays, Proceedings of IPCCC 2000 (19th IEEE International Conference on Performance, Computing and Communications), 2000, pp. 288-294.

    Technical Reports:

    1. M. Diep, S. Elbaum and M.B. Cohen, Profiling Deployed Software: Strategic Probe Placement, Technical Report CSE-05-08-01/CSE-2005-0005, CSE UNL, August 2005.

    Other Publications:

    1. M.B. Cohen, Advances in combinatorial interaction testing, Proc. of the Doctoral Symposium, Intl. Conf. on Software Engineering (ICSE 2003), Oregon, May 2003, pp. 35-38.

    Trauma Publications:

    1. Kennith H. Sartorelli, MD, Frederick B. Rogers, MD, Turner M. Osler, MD, Steven R. Shackford, MD, Myra Cohen, and Dennis W. Vane, MD. Financial aspects of providing trauma care at the extremes of life. The Journal of Trauma Injury, Infection and Critical Care 46(3), pp 483-487. March 1999.
    2. Frederick B. Rogers, MD, Turner M. Osler, MD, Steven R. Shackford, MD, Myra Cohen, Lorelei Camp, RN, CCRN and Margaret Lesage. Study of the outcome of patients transferred to a Level I hospital after stabilization at an outlying hospital in a rural setting. The Journal of Trauma Injury, Infection and Critical Care 46(2), pp 328-333. February 1999.
    3. Turner M. Osler, MD, Frederick B. Rogers, MD, Laurent G. Glance, MD, Myra Cohen, Robert Rutledge MD, and Steven R. Shackford, MD. Predicting survival, length of stay and cost in the surgical intensive care unit: APACHE II versus ICISS. The Journal of Trauma Injury, Infection and Critical Care 45(2), pp 234-238. August 1998.
    4. Turner M. Osler, MD, Myra Cohen, Frederick B. Rogers, MD, Lorelei Camp, RN CCRN, Robert Rutledge, MD, and Steven R. Shackford, MD. Trauma registry injury coding is superfluous: a comparison of outcome prediction based on trauma registry international classification of diseases - ninth revision (ICD-9) and hospital information system ICD-9 codes. The Journal of Trauma Injury, Infection and Critical Care 43(2), pp 253-257. August 1997.
    5. Frederick B. Rogers, MD, Turner M. Osler, MD, Steven Shackford, MD, Myra Cohen, and Lorelei Camp, RN CCRN. Financial Outcome of treating trauma in a rural environment. The Journal of Trauma Injury, Infection and Critical Care 43(1), pp 65-73. July 1997.