Embarking on my research internship fills me with anticipation! I am eager to hone my research skills and immerse myself in meaningful projects. During my first week, I spent most of my time setting up my workspace and learning about the fundamentals of my project.

Progress Update for this Week:

• 5/19/2024
  • Arrived to Auburn, Alabama to prepare for a meeting with Dr. Ghanbari tomorrow. Dr. Ghanbari is a professor at Auburn University. He is my mentor for the summer intern project.
• 5/20/2024
  • Met with Dr. Ghanbari, discussing about the logistics of the project that I am going to work on.
  • Set up the WSL Environment, Java, and Maven. I ran into a bit of trouble with setting up Maven, but with some hands-on guidance from Dr. Ghanbari, I managed to get my problems resolved by the end of the day.
• 5/21/2024
  • As planned, my project starts with literature research. I will read a series of published research paper.
  • Set up Defects4J on Linux and learned how to checkout bugs, which is an important skill needed for the project.
  • Began reading a research paper on Defects4J. This paper presents Defects4J, a database that provides real bugs to support software testing research. Defects4J aims to address the issue of comparability, reproducibility, and relevance in empirical studies by offering a large, extensible collection of real bugs from open-source Java programs. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a comprehensive framework that ensures each bug is reproducible and isolated, accompanied by a detailed test suite demonstrating the bug. After reading this paper, I now understood why I needed to install Defects4J. Defects4J provides a repository of real-world bugs and test suites that are essential in evaluating the effectiveness of mutation-based assessments.
• 5/22/2024
  • Started reading a research paper about Mutation Testing. This paper provides a detailed survey of the advancements in mutation testing, a technique where artificial defects, or mutants, are introduced into a program to assess the quality of the test suites. It discusses about the theoretical foundations, practical applications, and tools developed for mutation testing, highlighting both its strengths and limitations. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of the developments in mutation testing, identifying best practices and future research opportunities for mutation testing.
• 5/23/2024
  • Travelled back to Houston, as I will be working remotely from home for the rest of the intern.
• 5/24/2024
  • Continued reading the research paper about Mutation Testing. After reading this paper, I gained a deeper understanding on what mutation testing is and better insights into the methodologies and tools used for mutation testing. This will help me apply effective analysis in evaluating the correctness of automated repair patches and ensure that they maintain the overall program functionality when I begin working on my project.