Internal Proposal - Oklahoma State University Research

Internal - Oklahoma State University - Research Proposal Example The paper "Internal Proposal - Oklahoma State University" concerns the Oklahoma State University, Mechanical Engineering department and aims to research on the cancellation of online classes. The cancellation of online classes leads to a lose-lose situation in both student and institution bodies. The main goal of this proposal paper is to find out why the online classes was cancelled and also to supply sufficient information to the reader; Miss Kristi Wheeler. Who is the manager of distance education programs in Oklahoma State University so as to solve the predicament relating to the cancellation of online classes. Methodology method is inclusive of the collection of three facts points of primary research. This included interviews with the proper administration, questioners with students and evaluation with consultants. Data collected will aid in the evaluation for the need for maintaining online classes. Three essential features are based on those students who use online classes, de partments which offer online classes, and other people who use online classes. Approach based on the collection of data is explained from these three features. In the course of the research, Director of Disability services was interviewed; the findings are in this section. A summary of the secondary research sources follows finally. This includes the online classes’ literature, benchmarking and online classes’ statistics. A questionnaire consisting of several questions was made up for the students. The aim was to know how the students perceive the issue of withdrawing or maintaining online classes and its benefits to students. The questions ranged from asking the students if they have taken online classes, the reasons for taking online classes, and a section for grading reasons for taking online classes on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest (poor) score and 5 being the highest score (excellent). The students were also asked to comment on several aspects regardi ng online classes. The other part of the questionnaire asked the students if they planned to take online classes in future, if they thought online classes were worthwhile and if they thought online classes should be banished. The questionnaire also contained a section that required the students to comment more about the issue of online classes, their individual suggestion concerned the improvement and benefits of online classes. Distribution of questionnaires to the students was done by one of the administrators of the Engineering Department. The questionnaires were completed over a period of a week (March 4-11) and set in a selected place in the department. Surveys were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. In regard to quantitative analysis, each aspect of the online classes was conducted on how the students rated it; poor (1), fair (2), good (3), exceptionally good (4) and excellent (5). Total rating number for every location was also calculated. This was done because not ev ery student uses writing center. In regard to qualitative analysis, the students’ comments for each aspect of online classes were compiled. Observations and recommendations of the students were linked so as to obtain a better understanding of the need to maintain online classes. Broader categories and themes were generated by us the researchers. Secondary research Results from the data collected The

Tuberculosis infection rates as a global and local public health issue Essay

Tuberculosis infection rates as a global and local public health issue - Essay Example To achieve this end, the partnership has undertaken a multi-faceted approach. The main mission objectives are to stop the spread of TB, to lessen the social and economical cost of TB, and to develop and implement new methods and ways to diagnose, prevent and treat TB. The partnership targets to reduce the occurrence and death rate of TB by 50% by the year 2015 relative to 1990 estimates. Another target is to have the world free from TB by the year 2050 (Actions for Life: Towards a world free of tuberculosis, 2006). To achieve this dream, the Stop TB Partnership developed a Global Plan to Stop TB in the year 2006. The proper implementation is expected to save about 14 million lives, provide treatment for 50 million people, and offer better access to diagnosis and treatment for everyone. The Plan identifies the challenges in achieving this target and has developed seven working groups to address the challenges directly. The TB facts As per World Health Organisation reports, one-third o f the world’s population is currently infected with TB bacillus bacteria. According to reports, the number of people who died from TB in the year 2009 is 1.7 million. In addition, as Sharma and Mohan (2004) state, the estimates are that between 2002 and 2020, the number of newly infected people will be about 1,000 million and the number of tuberculosis deaths will be 36 million. As Ewbank and Gribble (1993), and National Research Council (US) Working Group on the Effects of Child Survival and General Health Programs on Morality observe, tuberculosis may be responsible for more deaths than any other single pathogen. In addition, it is found that one-six of the tuberculosis infections happen in people who are infected with HIV (ibid). The WHO aims The World Health Organisation report ‘Global Tuberculosis Control (2010)’ identifies its major targets to reach its goal of 50% reduction of disease by 2015. The targets are diagnosis, notification and treatment of approx imately 7 million cases, a 90% success rate in treatment, 100% detection of HIV in TB patients, providing co-trimoxazole preventive therapy to HIV positive TB patients, testing all previously treated TB patients for MDRTB, those who are identified with MDRTB are provided new treatment according to international guidelines, and to spend US$ 7 billion per year for the purpose, and an additional US$ 1.3 billion on research and development (ibid). Challenges ahead Murray (2006), in American Medical Association, writes about the challenges of tuberculosis control in the present world. The problems identified are divided into five key areas: inefficient diagnostics and treatment, the need for expansion of the World Health Organisation Directly Observed Therapy, short course (DOTS) program, multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDRTB), and HIV co-infection (ibid). In addition, as Boogaard, Kibiki, Kisanga, Boeree, & Aarnoutse (2009) report, the existing diagnostic test- sputum microscopy- ide ntifies only advanced pulmonary TB and the remaining cases go unidentified. In addition, the DOTS strategy developed by World Health Organisation is expensive and labor-intensive, and hence less effective in developing nations (ibid). Now, taking the economic side of the disease into consideration, a study by Grimard and Harline prove that even a 10% fall in the

Macro & Micro Environmental Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Macro & Micro Environmental Analysis - Essay Example This report stresses that considering the analysis of the above five industry forces, the hotel industry holds moderate to high level of attractiveness as three out of the five forces are in beneficial state and the threat of new entrants is also not high but moderate. Only adversely positioned industry force is the high rivulet levels within the industry and companies who specialize in their marketing and differentiating strategies and build strong brands will be able to counter this force as well. Thus, organisations with high internal capabilities will be able to enjoy strong profits within this industry. This paper makes a conclusion that it can be noted that the organisations and its performances are affected by a myriad of factors in its macro and micro- environments. While the factors within the micro environment is within the reach of organisational influence, the macro factors tend to affect the organisation but remain beyond the control of the company. Organisations can assess the conditions of its macro environment through application of SPECTLE analysis while the microenvironment can be assessed through stakeholder analysis or Porters five force concepts. While these analysis will only yield an insight in to the conditions of the environment, its the strategic responses which the company makes in relation to the environmental conditions which will decide how successful the company be in surviving and thriving in the turbulent business environment.

Response to 3 students with 2 references for each response Coursework

Response to 3 students with 2 references for each response - Coursework Example Streeter is comprehensive in comparing surveys, and experiments, by exploring both similarities and differences such as variations in intentions of the methods. The post corresponds to other literature’s opinion that experimental methods focus on relationships while survey focuses on descriptive features of data (McConville and Chui, 2007). I therefore feel that the writer has comprehensive background information on the subject (Creswell, 2003). Another post, written by Butler Mirlande, is titled ‘A comparison between survey and experimental strategies of inquiry.’ Butler succeeds in organizing the post that systematically reviews scopes and similarities of the two methods. The author for example identifies the need to collect reliable and valid data as a common objective of both methods even though their approaches vary as Gropper, Smith, and Groff (2007) and McConville and Chui (2007) explain. I strongly agree with Butler’s post because it is deeply explorative and its reliability is supported by triangulation of

Changes to womens lifes in inter-war Britain Essay

Changes to womens lifes in inter-war Britain - Essay Example These changes contributed immensely to the attainment of equal rights with men. The purpose of this paper is to explore the changes in women’s lives during the interwar period in Britain. More specifically, the paper will examine the changes in women’s lives with regard to health, work, and politics. In the interwar period, women’s lives in Britain improved, especially in the realms of work, health, and politics. Women suffrage movements gained momentum, and their popularity gained widespread recognition throughout Britain. Consequently, women oppression declined considerably as women sought equal representation in the various aspects of their daily life (Laybourn 1999, p.114). One of the areas in which women made remarkable progress was in the field of employment. Unlike the years before the war, the interwar period saw women work issues addressed with numerous efforts being put in place to ensure that employment rights of women in Britain were looked into with a lot of keenness (Constantine 1983, p.33). From 1918 to 1939, the number of British working in industries rose significantly. In 1914, the number of women employed in British industries and other casual occupations was only 2000; by 1920, the number stood at 247, 000. The increase in the number of working women in Britain led to an increment in the real wages; this had an impact on household incomes, which increased considerably. Consequently, the status of women improved as they had the ability to provide for themselves and not necessarily depend on their husbands. The industrial position of women experienced some revolution as a result of the war. Women got an opportunity to work in the paid labour market, where they could be fairly remunerated for the work they did. British women gained profound freedom during the interwar period. They formed trade unions and lobby groups, which advocated for their rights at the workplace and their recognition as crucial players in economic deve lopment (Eichengreen 1988, p. 149). The formation of trade unions was mostly precipitated by the efforts of the League and Guild women. Some of the most influential trade unions formed during this period included the National Federation of Women Workers (NFWW), the Railway Women’s Guild (RWG) and Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL). The number of women working in the civil service also increased significantly. In 1911, the number of British women in the workplace used to be 33, 000, but this number had increased to 102, 000 in 1921. British women had an opportunity to advocate for their rights in the workplace through the introduction of "Sex Disqualification Removal Act, in 1919. This act gave women a chance to enter certain professions, which were previously preserved for men. In addition, about two million British women replaced men in employment positions. From July 1914 to December 1918, the total number of employed women in Britain increased from 24 percent to 37 p ercent. Working conditions of women in Britain also improved considerably during the interwar period (Constantine 1983, p.34). The enactment of the Industrial Courts Act of 1919 also heightened trade union activities during the interwar period (Eichengreen 1988, p.151). Between 1918 and 1930, Britain witnessed the passing of about 23 legislations, which aimed at according women equal rights with men. The influx of women in

Sociological perspective Essay Example for Free

Sociological perspective Essay Marxism, Functionalism and Feminism are sociological theories alongside several others, they are fundamental to the whole discipline of sociology. Functionalism is a structural theory they argue that society is made up of interrelated and interdependent institutions such as education, work, religion, law, the family etc. The main function of these institutions is to maintain social equilibrium. They see society similar to a human body with all the internal parts working together to bring out equilibrium. Functionalists see individual action as the product of social institutions such as the family and education socializing the young into cultural values and norms, this means people believe in much the same thing and consequently their actions and patterns are predictable. Durkheim believed the very core of society is it values which are passed on and reinforced by family, school religion etc. Individuals behave similarly in the same social context because they have been socialized into the same cultural rules and goals. However Functionalist see institutions such as education and work organizations allocating people to roles in which they would make an effective contribution to the day to day running of society, they believe there is a class system and people gain their job, money etc through their own merit. Therefore functionalists believe human action is shaped and controlled by social forces such as value consensus and the need to maintain social order, beyond the individuals control , they results on this conformity is social stability and the reproduction of society generation by generation. However it is argued that functionalists over emphasis consensus and order, and play down conflict. They tend to focus on functions or benefits of social institutions and consequently neglect the dysfunctions or harm that institutions can cause. Marxism is a macro approach based on a conflict between capital and wage labour. Society splits into an infrastructure (economic base) and  superstructure (social institutions). Ideology (distorted beliefs) is transmitted through the superstructure to justify inequalities. Marx focused on the inequalities of capitalism. In capitalist society, the bourgeoisie own the means of production (own large amounts of capital and therefore have power), whereas the proletariat sell their labour power for a wage. This is where the conflict rests. The system dictates that the ruling class generates more profit (achieved by decreasing wages). Overtime, the worsening of conditions, exploitation and lowering of wages results in a situation where the working class become aware of their class position and unite in a state of revolutionary consciousness. Revolution is, therefore, inevitable. Gramsci argues that middle class maintain dominance by using the government to persuade people, and also by propagating ideologies ( continuously feeding ideas so dey grow strength through things like media, churches, schools and family in order to win peoples consent. For the middle class to be ideologically dominant these ideologies need to be tied in to the popular culture of working class. The extent to which such hegemony is achieved varies over time but its unlikely 2 ever be complete. There are two reasons for dis. firstly middle class are often divided and secondly the proletariat as a dual consciousness. One part which reflects the ideas of the middle class and the other which reflects their everyday experiences. He believes the proletariat to make alliances with other groups for Marxists to win the hearts and minds of subordinate classes by connecting Marxist ideas to popular culture. Hes optimistic that the struggle for hegemony. People will eventually be persuaded of the need for a revolution. For Frankfurt school theirs two main characteristics which distinguish humans from animals- the ability to transform the environment and the ability to make a rational decision about our lives. Capitalists societies dont allow humans to exercise their creativity and reason and thus warrant criticisms 4 being unfair n unreasonable. He agrees with Gramisci that attention needs to  be paid to ideologies which are integrating people into capitalists system. Two developments are highlighted as crucial here- the growth on instrumental reasons whichs seen as the dominant way of thinking in a capitalist society and the development of mass culture. Peoples acceptance of instrumental reasons is explained by Frankfurt school in terms of developments of mass culture. It reached the mass of population through media The Frankfurt school comes to a negative conclusion- people are dominated not only at work but also in their leisure. The over riding picture is of society as a mass of isolated individuals who are manipulated by big business. Their seems to be no way out. It has been argued that Marxists put too much emphasis on conflict. Capitalism has improved the standard of living working class. It may be that the working class are aware of inequality and exploitation but they feel that their standard of living compensates for this. So they may therefore actively choose to go to work despite this knowledge. They have also been criticized for economic reductionism i.e. reducing behaviour to class relationships. They may neglect the fact that social behaviour can also be influenced by religious, patriarchal, nationalism and ethnic structures. Interactionalists focus upon the way in which individuals (or social actors as Interactionists like to call them) consciously act rather than simply react to social stimulation. The way in which different social actors interpret the behaviour of others is significant as a means of understanding the way in which the world is socially constructed. This social construction of the world is focused upon the meanings people give to behaviour and the way in which they interpret the meaning of behaviour. Mead argued that whilst we are each conscious, thinking, individuals, the way in which we choose to behave is conditioned by the social context of that behaviour. In this, he said that our behaviour as individuals is conditioned by two aspects of our self-awareness (that is, the ability to see ourselves as others see us). A) The I aspect which largely consists of spontaneous actions and B) The Me aspect which consists of an awareness  of how other people expect us to behave at any given moment. The I and the Me are parallel parts of what Mead called The Self and it is the ability of human beings to develop a self-concept that makes us different to most animals. In animals, for example, the I is dominant (to the almost total exclusion of the Me in most animals). This means, in effect, that most animal behaviour is instinct-based rather than socially-constructed. In humans, on the other hand, the reverse is true. The Me is dominant to the almost total exclusion of the I. This means, in effect, that most human behaviour is socially-constructed rather than instinct-based.

Artificial Bee Colony Algorithms And Software Testing Computer Science Essay

Artificial Bee Colony Algorithms And Software Testing Computer Science Essay The emerging area in the field of optimization is swarm intelligence. Various meta-heuristics algorithms based on swarm intelligence have been developed by many researchers. These algorithms have been developed by modeling the behaviors of swarm of animals and insects such as birds, bees, ants, fishes etc. The main focus of these algorithms is on the collective behavior which results from the local interactions between the individuals and with their environment. The Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm which has been recently introduced [1] is also a swarm based meta-heuristic algorithm. The algorithm models the intelligent foraging behavior of honey bees and has been introduced for optimizing various numerical problems. This paper gives a brief introduction about Artificial Bee Colony algorithm and also presents a review of applications of Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm in the field of software testing. Keywords Swarm Intelligence, Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm, Software Testing. 1. INTRODUCTION Swarm intelligence as a discipline deals with the artificial and natural systems which are composed of many individuals and they coordinate using the decentralized control and self organization [2]. The main focus of the discipline is on the collective behavior. Local interaction amongst the individuals and with their environment results into collective behavior. Some of the swarm based meta-heuristics algorithms are Particle Swarm Optimization, Ant Colony Optimization, and Artificial Bee Colony Optimization. Dervis Karaboga [1] in 2005 defined the artificial bee colony algorithm, which is the most recently introduced swarm based meta-heuristics algorithm. Since its inception, artificial bee colony algorithm has been applied in various fields. It also finds application in the field of software testing, which is one of the most indispensible phase of the software development lifecycle. This paper is divided into five sections. The next section gives a brief introduction about the nature of bees. Section 3 describes the artificial bee colony algorithm. Section 4 presents a review of application of artificial bee colony algorithm in the field of software testing and the last section give the comparative analysis of the applications on different parameters. 2. BACKGROUND 2.1 Components of Bee Colony The bee (Apis Mellifera) native to Europe and Africa is a social and domestic animal. Bees feed on nectar and pollens, where nectar is the prime source of energy and pollens act as supplements of proteins and other nutrients. Pollen is mostly used as food for larvae [3]. Generally the bee colony consists of a single queen bee that is responsible for laying eggs, thousand of male bees called drones and thousands of worker bees, which are the sterile bees and the young bee larvae called broods. 2.2 Bees Dance Bees randomly searches for food source positions with good supply of nectar. Once a bee finds such a position, it goes back to the hive and communicates about the food source position by dancing in the comb. If the foraging bee finds the food source position close to hive, it performs a simple round dance and if the food source position is far from the hive, then it performs waggle dance. Waggle dance basically forms an eight like figure and the distance and the direction of the food source is indicated by this dance. The speed of the dance conveys the distance. The inclination of the dance (angle between the sun, relative to hive and the food source) indicates the direction of the food source [4]. 3. Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm The artificial bee colony algorithm consists of 3 types of bees- the employed bee, onlooker bee and the scout bee. Scout bee is responsible for carrying out random searches in the environment. A bee who visits the food source visited by it previously is called an employed bee and the bee that waits in the beehive for decision making is called the onlooker bee. Both exploration and exploitation processes are carried out by all the three bees. In the ABC algorithm it is assumed that the colony consists of equal number of employed bees and onlooker bees and for every food source there is an employed bee in the hive. The bee whose food source has been exhausted by other bees becomes a scout bee [5]. The bee has the capability of memorizing the location of the food source once it has been discovered and then immediately starts exploiting it. The foraging bee returns to the hive with load of nectar from the source and then unloads the nectar to a food store. The bee has the following three options after unloading the nectar [1]: It becomes an uncommitted follower once the food source has been abandoned. It dances and recruits other nest mates while returning to the same food source. Without recruiting other bees, it continues to forage at the food source. The search consist a cycle of three steps [1]. In the beginning, some food sources are randomly selected by the bees and the amount of nectar is also determined. Then these bees return to the hive and share this information by performing the waggle dance. In second stage, each employed bee goes to the food source visited by her in previous cycle and then by means of visual information, chooses a new food source in the neighborhood. In the third stage, an onlooker bee visits the food source position depending on the nectar information shared by the employed bees. The food source with maximum nectar quantity is selected by the onlooker bee. After arriving at the selected food source, the onlooker bee according to visual information chooses a new food source in the neighborhood of the selected food source. Once the food source is abandoned by the bee, a new food source is randomly selected by a scout and then the abandoned source is replaced by this new food source. Depending upon the probabilistic value onlooker bee selects a food source. This value pi is calculated as [5]: where SN is the number of food sources which is also equal to employed bees number (BN) and fiti is the fitness value of the solution i evaluated by its employed bee. The fitness value is proportional to the nectar amount of the food source. To produce a candidate food position from the old one, the algorithm uses the following expression [5]: Where the random chosen indexes are k â‚ ¬ {1, 2. . . BN} and j â‚ ¬ {1, 2. . . D} and k is different from i. φij is a random number between [−1, 1]. It controls the production of a neighbor food source position around xij and the modification represents the comparison of neighbor food positions visually by the bee [5]. 4. Application of Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm to Software Testing Software testing is a type of multi variable optimization problem where generation and selection of efficient test cases cannot be achieved within permissible time bounds. Hence for solving these types of problems, meta-heuristics search algorithms have been proposed [6]. These algorithms help in finding the near optimal solution in reasonable running time. The artificial bee colony algorithm, which is also a meta-heuristics search algorithm, is capable of locating efficient solutions. The algorithm models the food foraging behavior of honey bees. The main focus of software testing is on uncovering as many errors as possible in the given time, as this would help in conforming the product to the requirement specifications and also to validate the quality of the software produced [7]. The following paragraphs give the review of application of artificial bee colony algorithm in the field of software testing. Mala et al [6] applied artificial bee colony algorithm in the field of software test suite optimization. The approach is based on population based algorithm where every test case represents a possible solution for the optimization problem. A happiness value has been introduced for each test case corresponding to the fitness or quality of the associated solution. Here the three bees are replaced by search agent, selector agent and optimizer agent. Various properties of agents are autonomy, inter-operability and social ability [11]. These agents help in selecting efficient test cases from infinite number of test cases. The parallel behavior of the agents helps in generating the solution faster. Path coverage has been described as the test adequacy criteria. Initially random test cases are generated for all test paths or sequences. Along the path, as the search agent goes to an executable state, it monitors each test case and also determines a neighbor state. The happiness value is upda ted for every test case, along every test path. If a particular node is not covered by a particular test case, then that node gets eliminated. The selector agent starts a new search for locating the node with highest feasibility in that path. Only the test case with maximum happiness value is remembered and rests are removed from the memory. Based on the happiness value, the optimizer agent chooses one of the test cases and also selects a neighbor around that for evaluating its happiness value. Abandoned test cases are replaced with the new test cases as discovered by the selector agent and this is repeated until all the nodes have been visited once. This algorithm was implemented on few sample problems and the results were compared to the results of application of Ant colony Optimization for test suite optimization. It was observed that ABC algorithm provided consistent results and the problems faced in ACO such as pheromone updation, memory and time overheads were not faced by ABC algorithm. McCaffrey [8] applied simulated bee colony algorithm for generation of pair wise test sets. A pair wise test set is generally a collection of test vectors where all possible combination of pairs of values has been captured from different parameters. Here a bee has been modeled as a bee object with four types of data fields and the entire colony is represented as a hive object consisting of an array of bee objects [8]. An enumeration type which specifies the current role (active, scout and inactive) is the first field. The second field defines a 2-D array representing a bees memory, which in turn would represent a partial solution. An integer value representing the quality of food source associated with data in bees memory is the third field type and the fourth field is represented by the number of times a particular food source has been visited by the bee object without locating a neighbor source with higher quality value. The algorithm requires an initial seed value which can be any value equal or greater to number of test vectors which are representing a minimal solution. In the proposed algorithm, when the scout bee is in active role, then it leaves the hive and selects a random food location and compares the quality of food. If the quality of the food location is greater than the one in its memory, the memory gets updated with new food location. The simulated scout bee performs the waggle dance in hive and these dances are visible to all the inactive bees in the hive. In the algorithm, the number of times an active foraging bee visits a source has been fixed. Global counter variable helps in tracking the number of simulated bees in each role. Therefore when an active bee becomes inactive, then randomly an inactive bee is selected and gets transitioned to an active state. The algorithm was run against seven pairwise tests set generation benchmark problem. The approach yielded good result in terms of test set size but the performance of the algorithm was slower as compared to other deterministic algorithms. Mala et al [9] again proposed the use parallel behavior of the three bees for automated software test optimization. The main focus was to generate efficient test suite which can cover the software under test within time and less cost. The artificial bee colony algorithm system combines the local search conducted by the employed and onlooker bees with the global search carried out by scout bee. Hence it helps in attaining global or near-global optima. The test adequacy criteria applied here is ensuring the state coverage, path coverage and branch coverage. The cyclomatic complexity of the given program is known and it also indicates the number of independent paths. Three bees functionality gets extended to three agents- search agent, selector agent and replace agent. The algorithm in [6] was implemented on 10 benchmark problems and the results were compared to sequential ABC, random testing and Genetic Algorithm. It was found that the performance of parallel ABC algorithm is better th an the other approaches. In some cases random testing also produced better results as compared to genetics algorithm. For 100% coverage, the number of test cases needed was very less in parallel ABC as compared to other approaches. GA gave only 50% coverage due to strike up local optimal solution. Dahiya et al [10] presented an ABC algorithm based approach for automatic generation of structural software tests. The working of the honey bee is reported as robust and adaptive by [12].The paper applied artificial bee colony based search algorithm for generating test data using symbolic execution technique of static structural testing and therefore corresponding to every path a compound predicate was constructed by anding all the branch predicates of a path. The compound predicate should be evaluated to true by a candidate solution to become a valid test case. For test data generation, random population of candidate solution is generated. Solutions are represented by position of flower patches. The profitability related to each flower is also measured. This profitability is replaced by the fitness of the positions in computer modeling. It includes various parameters such as nectar content in the flower, distance of flower from the beehive and sugar content in nectar etc. In the first phase of the algorithm; the employed bees modify elite flower patches position w.r.t. neighborhood. In the second phase, the onlooker bees modify their patches position w.r.t. elite patches position. A greedy selection process is repeated after every phase where solution or flower patches compete among themselves for retention in the selected or elite flower patches, based on their fitness. Hence some solutions or flowers may migrate from one patch to another patch and some may get abandoned. These search phases of the bees are repeated until some termination criteria are met. The algorithm was implemented on ten real world problems. The output suggested that the proposed algorithm had performed satisfactorily for most of the programs except for the programs having large input domains and various equality based path constraints. 5. Analysis and Discussion Four different applications of Artificial Bee Colony algorithm in the field of software testing has been reviewed and based on the analysis a table has been formulated which compares all the applications on different parameters. Parameters Application by D Jeya Mala (2009)[6] Application by James D McCaffrey (2009)[8] Application by D Jeya Mala (2010)[9] Application by S S Dahiya (2010)[10] Main Objective Test suite optimization Generation of pairwise test sets Automated software test optimization Automatic generation of structural software tests. Output obtained Generated optimal results and it converges within less number of test runs. Good results in terms of test set size and suggests the use where test sets are intended to be reused. Generated global or near global optimal results and it converges within less number of test runs. Generated test cases for all paths. Tool used for implementation Java PICT in C++ QICT in C# Java MATLAB Output Comparison With Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm With published results of 7 benchmark problems. With Sequential ABC, Random Testing and Genetics Algorithm No Comparison made Behavior of Bees Parallel behavior of bees Sequential behavior Parallel behavior Sequential behavior Cyclomatic complexity YES NO YES YES Type of bees Search Agent, Selector Agent, Optimizer Agent Employed bee, Onlooker bee, Scout bee Search agent, Selector agent, Replace Agent Employed bee, Onlooker bee, Scout bee Test Adequacy Criteria Path Coverage Not Mentioned Path coverage, Branch Coverage, State coverage Path coverage Drawbacks Not Mentioned Longer generation time Not mentioned Did not perform well on programs having large input domain and many equality based path constraints. Benchmark problem used 6 problems 7 benchmark problems Many 10 real world problems Table1. Comparison of various applications of ABC algorithm Mala et al [6] applied artificial bee colony algorithm for test suite optimization and the results obtained were better than the use of Ant Colony Optimization. McCaffrey [8] applied ABC algorithm for generation of pairwise test sets and suggested the use where test sets are intended to be reused. Mala et al [9] again applied ABC algorithm for automated software test optimization and compared the output with that of sequential ABC algorithm, Random Testing and Genetics Algorithm. For 100% coverage the number of test cases needed was very less in parallel ABC algorithm. Dahiya et al [10] used ABC algorithm for automatic generation of structural software tests. The algorithm performed satisfactorily except for programs with large input domains. 6. Conclusion In this research the artificial bee colony algorithm has been studied and a review based on application of the artificial bee colony algorithm in the field of software testing has been performed. Based on review a table has been formulated which compares all the applications on different parameters. It was also observed that the current application of artificial bee colony algorithm is in the field of structural testing and for test suite optimization only.