From: sc@bnr.co.uk (S.Carter)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets
Subject: Summary: Request for info about NNs in software engineering
Date: 18 Dec 1992 10:45:58 GMT
Organization: BNR Europe Ltd, London Road, Harlow, England.
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.199.202.53

Hi,

A while ago I posted a request for information on neural
networks being used to help in software engineering type
problems. Here is the summary that I promised that I would
post. (Sorry that it took so long).

Thanks to everyone who took the time to respond and if
anyone has any more information, I would be very grateful
if you could pass it on.

I have included the original article followed by the
responses.

Thanks,
Susan.

-------------------------------------------------------

From: sc@bnr.co.uk (S.Carter)
Hi,

I am doing a small study into the potential usefulness of
neural networks being used to help in software engineering
type problems - in hybrid systems or standalone. Is there
anyone out there working on such applications or know of
any?

The sort of applications I have in mind would be for
example in Analysis and Design aids, CASE tools, reverse
engineering, performance modeling, testing, object
oriented approaches, etc ...

I will summerize any emailed responses.

Thanks very much,
Susan.
Susan Carter    Susan.Carter@bnr.co.uk +44-279-429531 Ext 3702

-------------------------------------------------------

From: karun@thumper.bellcore.com (N. Karunanithi)

Look for July 1992 issues of IEEE Software and IEEE Transactions on Software
Engineering for my articles on using neural networks for
modelling the software realibility growth process.

-Karun

-------------------------------------------------------

From: Geraldo Xexeo <xexeo@dxcern.cern.ch>
Hi Susan,

  I've been thinking about it, but without too much ideas. I never
heard about SE applications done with Neural Networks also... But
I would like to discuss it AND will give some of the ideas I am
developing.

  First you have to imagine what are the uses of Neural Networks.
Mainly I see two areas: classification and associative memory.
Others areas of interest would be more connected with AI. 

  In the classification area I believe one can build a system that would 
learn characteristics of various different software. I did some work
on classification of programming languages (not using neural networks)
where the idea was to classify the languages accordingly to some characteristics, and them ask the user which characteristics he expects from a language, finding the most appropriate for him latter. This would be a kind
of System to Support Decision.

  In the associative memory, I am working with the idea of passing different
(thousands?) program specification through a NN and them using the NN to
find the specification that is more similar. Some difficulties in the
representation mechanisms make this work very difficult for me.

  Other area that I discovered just now is in the papers: 
"The Connectionist Scientist Game:Rule Extraction and Refinement in a
Neural Network", by McMIllan, Mozer and Smolensky (to appear in
Proc. of the 13th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society)
and 
"rule Induction through Integrated Symbolic and SubSymbolic Processing"
(same authors) Advances in Neural INformation Processing Systems IV.

In this paper they use RuleNet to learn explicit symbolic condition action
rules, i.e., learning grammars from examples of the language!

  SO, what are your ideias?

             Jerry
-- 
Geraldo Xexeo | xexeo@dxcern.cern.ch        | In Virtual Reality: MindWeb 
CERN-PPE Div  | xexeo@rio.cos.ufrj.br (*)   | (*) after Dec. 22
1211 Geneva 23| bt268@cleveland.freenet.edu | I am going back to Brazil !!
Switzerland   | gxexeo@cernvm.bitnet        | "...Rio eu gosto de voce..."

-------------------------------------------------------

From: whitley@CS.ColoState.EDU (darrell whitley)

See Karuananith,  Whitley and Malaiya,
IN  IEEE Software, July 1992
and
IEEE Trans on Software Reliability.

D. Whitley

-------------------------------------------------------

--
Susan Carter    Susan.Carter@bnr.co.uk +44-279-429531 Ext 3702
Grammer and punctuation in above article is left as an exercise for the reader.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets