Empirical assessment and improvement of fault detection techniques for conurrent software

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Ensuring the quality of concurrent programs is a very difficult problem that is becoming increasingly pertinent due to advances in hardware technology. Advances like multi-core processors have resulted in an increase in the need for concurrent software development. Unfortunately, developing correct concurrent code is much more difficult than developing correct sequential code. The objective of the proposed research program is to enhance our understanding of different fault detection techniques for concurrent software and to leverage our understanding to improve and customize the use of these techniques. The research is divided into three topics: 1) empirical assessment and comparison of different fault detection techniques for concurrent systems; 2) domain-specific customization of fault detection techniques like model checking and testing; 3) improving the combined use of different fault detection tools in large software projects. The underlying theme of all topics within the proposed research program is the use of empirical research methods to facilitate better tool usage as well as the development of more effective and efficient fault detection tools. The greatest significance of this work is to the field of software engineering and specifically software quality assurance. In the short term our research program will provide better understanding of today's fault detection tools. The long-term benefit of this research is the development of combined quality assurance approaches that use tools automatically optimized to a particular domain or a particular class of faults.