Dr Chris Meudec

SETU logo Department of Computing logo

I am a software engineering academic at the Department of Computing of South East Technological University - Carlow Campus, Ireland. My research interests are the static and dynamic analysis of software code based on Symbolic Execution using Constraint Logic Programming; the design, development and usage of novel teaching technologies. I also dabble in early startups, in reading and in running marathons.

My working place: SETU, Ireland.

Contact me: Chris Meudec.

Software Engineering, Year 3.

Software Project / Work Placement, Year 3.

Agile Software Verification, Year 4.

Software Project, Year 4.

Home: Chris Meudec.

Teaching.

Software Engineering - Year 3

In the fast paced area of software development for Web, Cloud and Mobile platforms, specific techniques must be applied as well as a specific software process strongly tied to the overall product development.

This module lasts 12 weeks with 4 contact hours per week.

Agile Software Verification - Year 4

Software verification, ensuring that software conforms to its specification, is a difficult task. Combining carefully it with agile practices is essential for the development of successful software products.

This module is delivered over 12 weeks and includes 4 contact hours per week.

Software Project - Year 4

Research, Analyse, Design, Implement and Test your own software product for your platform of choice with a supervisor.

All project lasts 24 weeks.

Software Project / Work Placement - Year 3

A supervised software project of your choice, alone or as a pair, or a work placement depending on what suits the student.

The project lasts 10 weeks full time, the work placement normally lasts 4 months.

A Lean Reference Guide to the UML

This is my version (Google Doc Version or Web version) of a lean reference and agile usage guide of the UML.

3rd Year Software Development Projects Showcase

We have had many good projects over the years in our 3rd year software development course. Have a look at our show case page.

Agile Software Development - Year 4

Developing successful software products requires a disciplined agile approach at all times: during project management, code design, UI design and later, operations.

This module lasts 12 weeks with 4 contact hours per week.

Master of Arts in Teaching and Learning - Curriculum Design

Curriculum Design and its impact on teaching and learning; or is it the other way round?

This half module is delivered over one and half full day.

Master of Arts in Teaching and Learning - Research Methods

Research Methods for small scale educational research

This half module is delivered over one and half full day

Research.

The PTC Solver

Over the years I have developed a constraints solver for software code analysis. I used it as part of my research into automatic test data generation from Ada, C and Java Bytecode. Feel free to take a look.

Teaching and Learning

I have a strong interest in teaching and learning research and have developed over several years a Blended Collaborative Cloud Learning approach to teaching. This guide on how to use Google Docs at third level may be of help. A couple of short presentations illustrate the rationale and present some research findings. My masters thesis (Google doc version for commenting) offers a much more comprehensive overview.

Symbolic Execution

I have an old penchant for symbolic execution due to its amazing potential for code analysis: it has an aesthetic that appeals to my Cartesian mind. It also, of course, ties up with my work on constraints solving. A brief introduction to symbolic execution.

Publications

Past publications, reports etc. things with my name on them basically. It includes what I consider my best paper so far: "Automatic Test Data Generation from Embedded C Code" published at the 23rd International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security.

PhD Thesis

My PhD thesis, undertaken at the Queen's University of Belfast, was about trying to generate test cases from formal specifications, a rather novel idea at the time. I have written a brief introduction which mentions recent developments and contains a pdf of the full thesis. The title of the thesis is "Automatic Generation of Software Test Cases From Formal Specifications".

Worst Case Execution Time

Estimating the Worst Case Execution Time (WCET) of a computation task is an interesting research area in real-time systems. A variety of approaches combining mathematical analysis, symbolic execution, constraints solving, Artificial Intelligence evolutionary search algorithms may be used. My brief introduction to Worst Case Execution Time determination, mentioning my work on C and Ada programs, should get you started. The need for low level considerations (right down to machine code!) make this an unusual, and refreshing, area of moderm software engineering research.

Future Research

I'll keep you posted! But at the moment I am developing a powerful (more powerful than my previous one as it includes MC/DC test data generation, automatic test driver generation and handles a larger subset of Ada) test data generation tool for Ada. In the future I hope to collaborate with others on similar tools targeted at C or Java programmers.

Introductory Videos on My Research

I have created a couple of introductory videos on my current research into code analysis. Here is the 3 minutes short version: and a longer one:

Musings.

My People Care

I, along with a couple of former students, launched a service for the tracking of your private medical data in a secure cloud that you could access from anywhere. While this start up adventure, My People Care, has ended we learnt a tremendous amount through it. A short video summary of the service remains.

Rock Diary

I have completed a few MOOC Coursera courses, here are my notes on the history of rock part one.

Running History

I have ran a few road races since 2013, here is my running history and personal bests document.

Get in touch.

Hey this is just for fun and is mindblowingly complicated to render.

Don't miss the real beast with dynamic smoke and sound: click on the image above—for the sound further click on speaker icon in top right...

The real thing was created by Tim Pietrusky

My CV

ChrisMeudec

This is my web page