Symbolic execution-based test generation is gaining popularity for software test generation. The increasing complexity of the software program is posing new challenges in software execution-based test generation because of the path explosion problem. We present a new 2-phase symbolic execution driven strategy that achieves high branch coverage in software quickly. Phase 1 follows a greedy approach that quickly covers as many branches as possible by exploring each branch through its corresponding shortest path prefix. Phase 2 covers the remaining branches that are left uncovered if the shortest path to the branch was infeasible. In Phase 1, a basic conflict driven learning is used to skip all the paths that may have any of the earlier encountered conflicting conditions, while in Phase 2, a more intelligent conflict driven learning is used to skip regions that do not have a feasible path to any unexplored branch. This results in considerable reduction in unnecessary SMT solver calls. Experimental results show that significant speedup can be achieved, effectively reducing the time to detect a bug and providing higher branch coverage for a fixed time out period than previous techniques. / Master of Science

Yes / Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), commercially known as drones, have received great attention. This is due to their versatility and applicability to a large number of domains such as surveillance system, aerial photography, traffic control, flyable base stations to provide a broadband coverage and even for future urban transportation services. In this paper, the optimal distance between multiple aerial base stations has analytically been derived, based on an aerial coverage area computation. This is a fundamental wireless metric that can significantly minimise the intra-overlapped coverage and also can enhance wireless coverage connectivity and performance of aerial wireless networks. The novelty of our approach brings a better aerial optimal design understanding for UAVs communications performance without the need for establishing an aerial deployment setup.

A time-effective coverage path can be decisive in catastrophic and war scenarios for saving countless lives where UAVs are used to scan an area looking for an objective. Given an area shaped as a polygon, a quadratic decomposition method is used to discretize the area into nodes. A model of the optimization problem constraint is created and solved using mixed-integer linear programming, taking into consideration simple dynamics and coverage path planning definitions. Simulations in different scenarios are presented, showing that the presence of no-fly zones can negatively affect the coverage time. The relationship between coverage time and the number of UAVs employed is nonlinear and converges to a constant value. The result has a direct impact on the evaluation of benefits and the cost of adding UAVs to a search mission.

This study views the media as a powerful agent which constructs the narratives of political candidates. In order to determine whether the media constructs the narratives of male and female political candidates differently, newspaper articles were analyzed for two 1994 Congressional races, each involving a male and a female candidate (Thurman versus Garlits and Byrne versus Davis). The first research question posed the following question: Does the media devote more coverage to male or female candidates? The next question concerned media endorsements of the candidates. Third, the settings in which the media portrayed the male and female candidates were compared. Finally, differences in the media's attitude toward male and female candidates were analyzed.

Yin, Xiani. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-59). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / 摘要 --- p.iii / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.iv / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / Chapter Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.8 / Chapter Chapter 2. --- Literature Review --- p.14 / Chapter Chapter 3. --- Institutional Background of the Political Control of Chinese Media --- p.19 / Chapter Chapter 4. --- Data and Sample Selection --- p.24 / Chapter 4.1 --- Data source --- p.24 / Chapter 4.2 --- Sample selection --- p.25 / Chapter 4.3 --- News collection --- p.28 / Chapter Chapter 5. --- Summary Statistics --- p.29 / Chapter Chapter 6. --- Methodology --- p.33 / Chapter 6.1 --- Event study --- p.33 / Chapter 6.2 --- Using CAR to calculate the overall market response after earnings announcement --- p.36 / Chapter 6.3 --- Measuring announcement date effects on stock performances --- p.36 / Chapter 6.4 --- Measuring news effect using CAR and Statistical Inference --- p.37 / Chapter Chapter 7. --- Empirical Results --- p.39 / Chapter 7.2 --- Overall market response after the earnings announcement --- p.42 / Chapter 7.3 --- Market reaction to official earnings announcements --- p.43 / Chapter 7.4 --- Market reaction to news report ´ؤ event study --- p.44 / Chapter 7.5 --- Differentiate higher circulation news effects on the market from lower circulation news --- p.47 / Chapter 7.6 --- Differentiate regional publications news effects on the market from national publications news --- p.48 / Chapter 7.7 --- Relationship between the number of news items and Cumulative Abnormal Return --- p.49 / Chapter 7.8 --- Relationship between “news influence coefficient´ح and Cumulative Abnormal Return: --- p.51 / Chapter 7.9 --- "Relationship between “news influence coefficient´ح, CAR, and number of restructuring activities in the second year" --- p.53 / Chapter 7.10 --- "Relationship between the number of restructuring activities, CAR, different news influence coefficient, and the third year ROE change" --- p.55 / Chapter Chapter 8. --- Conclusion --- p.57 / Tables --- p.61 / Table 1 Summary Statistics on Basic Information of the Sample --- p.61 / Table 2 Summary Statistics on ROE Change --- p.61 / Table 3 Two-sample Mean Comparison Test of the Earnings Performance Between the Subgroup with Negative News and the Subgroup Without Negative News --- p.62 / Table 4 Statistics about the number of restructuring activities of the companies with negative news --- p.63 / Table 5 Daily Average CAR over Different Periods --- p.64 / Table 6 Two-sample Mean Comparison Test --- p.65 / Table 7 Average Abnormal Returns From 3 Days Before Announcement to 10 Days After Announcement --- p.66 / Table 8 Abnormal Returns on the First Headline News Date and First Negative News Date --- p.67 / Table 9 Cumulative Abnormal Returns 10 Days After the First Headline News and First Negative News in a Clean Comparison --- p.68 / Table 10 Cumulative Abnormal Returns 10 Days After the First Headline News and First Negative News --- p.69 / Table 11 Comparisons of the CAR Between Higher and Lower Circulation News --- p.71 / Table 12 Comparisons of CAR Between Regional and National First Headline News --- p.72 / Table 13 Linear Regression Results With Dummy Variables --- p.73 / Table 14 Linear Regression Results with Number of News Items --- p.77 / Table 15 Linear Regression Results With “news influence coefficient´ح --- p.80 / Table 16 Poisson Regression Results with Number of News --- p.84 / Table 17 Linear Regression Results with Number of News --- p.86 / Table 18 Final Event Study Results --- p.88 / "Figure 1: Average CAR across Sample over (-3, 90) Days" --- p.92 / Appendix 1: Sample Companies --- p.93 / Appendix 2: Record of News Reports for Each Firm --- p.96 / Appendix 3: Number of Restructuring Activities During the Second Year --- p.99

The paths to homelessness are complex and attributable to a combination of structural issues associated with poverty that can magnify personal vulnerabilities. However, as homelessness became more prominent in news media during the 1980s, media discourse increasingly focused on personal characteristics within the homeless population which cast people as personally responsible for their plight. Simultaneously, media explanations for homelessness that called attention to structural conditions that contribute to homelessness decreased during the decade. Scholars explain this shift by situating it within the social and political climate of the time. This study extends the line of research on homelessness in news media in order to understand how coverage of homelessness has changed between the 1980s and the 2010s. A quantitative content analysis examines newspaper articles in two cities in the western United States -- Portland, Oregon, and San Diego, California -- where homelessness is a prominent and enduring social and political issue. News articles are examined for changes between two time periods (1988-1990 and 2014-2016) in mentions of personal and structural factors as well as changes in the discussion of solutions for homelessness. Results show an increase over time in portrayals of structural factors that contribute to homelessness as well as an increase in talk about permanent housing solutions. However, mentions of personal problems and behaviors, such as mental illness and substance abuse, have also increased. This suggests that, while news discourse may be moving toward more nuanced portrayals that acknowledge societal factors, news media still tend to focus on characteristics of homelessness that can cast people as personally culpable.

<p>The aim of the study was to describe immunization coverage for DPT, Polio and Measles among children of ages between 12 to 18 months in Kawempe Division and to investigate factors associated with immunization coverage. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 239 households with children aged between 12-18 months in five villages that were selected through multi-stage cluster sampling. Information on demographic and socio-economic factors and immunization status was obtained from mothers and caretakers. Immunization coverage and analysis of associations between immunization coverage and demographic and socio-economic factors were done.</p>

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have recently achieved a great deal of attention due to its numerous attractive applications in many different fields. Sensors and WSNs possesses a number of special characteristics that make them very promising in many applications, but also put on them lots of constraints that make issues in sensor network particularly difficult. These issues may include topology control, routing, coverage, security, and data management. In this thesis, we focus our attention on the coverage problem. Firstly, we define the Sensor Energy-efficient Scheduling for k-coverage (SESK) problem. We then solve it by proposing a novel, completely localized and distributed scheduling approach, naming Distributed Energy-efficient Scheduling for k-coverage (DESK) such that the energy consumption among all the sensors is balanced, and the network lifetime is maximized while still satisfying the k-coverage requirement. Finally, in related work section we conduct an extensive survey of the existing work in literature that focuses on with the coverage problem.

<p>The aim of the study was to describe immunization coverage for DPT, Polio and Measles among children of ages between 12 to 18 months in Kawempe Division and to investigate factors associated with immunization coverage. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 239 households with children aged between 12-18 months in five villages that were selected through multi-stage cluster sampling. Information on demographic and socio-economic factors and immunization status was obtained from mothers and caretakers. Immunization coverage and analysis of associations between immunization coverage and demographic and socio-economic factors were done.</p>

Media critics and scholars have questioned and tried to define the role newspapers play in society for many years. Answers range from impartial observer to watchdog to social advocate. To understand how newspapers' roles are defined, this study looked at agenda-setting research, social responsibility theory, and conflict-reporting research. This study focused on coverage of a protest that turned violent. The objective was to evaluate newspaper content and identify paragraphs of coverage as issue-centered, event-centered, or neutral.Two coders evaluated 5,383 paragraphs of coverage in 300 articles that appeared in five newspapers between Nov. 29, 1999, and Dec. 5, 1999. The articles covered the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting that took place during that time in Seattle, Washington. Thousands of demonstrators went to Seattle to protest a variety of issues, including globalization, child labor, free-trade barriers, and pollution.Two local newspapers and three national newspapers were analyzed. Local newspapers were found to favor event coverage over issue coverage. National newspapers were found to favor issue coverage over event coverage.Chi-square analysis confirmed significant difference between issue and event coverage at each newspaper. Further analysis revealed an even greater difference between page-one stories' issues and events at the local newspapers. National newspapers showed balanced coverage in their page-one paragraphs. / Department of Journalism