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Myra Cohen: Research

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
  • National Science Foundation CAREER Award CCF-0747009
  • Layman Award 2007/8
  • EPSCoR:
    • NSF EPSCoR First Awards (2005 and 2006)
    • NSF EPSCoR Small Grant Program (May-Dec 2005)

Recent Publications

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



  • I will be giving a talk at the 4th International Workshop on Software Product Line Testing SPLIT 2007 in Kyoto, Japan.
  • I was the publications chair for ICSE 2007.

Recent Program Committees:

  • International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2009) - Research Demonstrations Track
  • International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA 2009)
  • International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE 2008).
  • First International Workshop on Search-Based Testing (SBST 2008)
  • International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation ICST 2008, 2009
  • 4th International Workshop on Software Product Line Testing SPLIT 2007
  • Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2006,2007,2008) SBSE Track
  • Testing Academia and Industrial Conference TAIC PART 2006,2007,2008
  • Trends in Enterprise Application Architecture TEAA
  • Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering FASE 2007

I was a lecturer for the:

The First Annual International Summer School on Tool-based Rigorous Engineering of Software Systems STRESS 2006


Computer Science Publications:

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Journals:

  1. 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 , to appear.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. M.B. Cohen and C.J. Colbourn, Ladder orderings of pairs and RAID performance, Discrete Applied Mathematics , 138(1-2),2004, pp. 35-46.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.

Conference and Workshop Proceedings:

  1. X. Qu, M.B. Cohen and G.Rothermel, Configuration-aware regression resting: an empirical study of sampling and prioritization, International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA) , July 2008 (to appear).
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. 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.
  16. 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 .
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
  20. 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.