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Anchor bolts are often used for fixing information boards, supports, and soundproof walls in various facilities. Corrosion of anchor bolts and fatigue cracks occur frequently due to the various external environments, and visual inspection and hammering inspection are mainly used. In visual inspection, it is difficult to confirm corrosion or fatigue cracks of anchor bolts in the area where foundations, nuts, and base plates are installed. Additionally, the hammering inspection is easily affected by the surrounding environment and the subjective reaction of the tester. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a method that can easily and accurately detect defects such as cracks and corrosion occurring in anchor bolts installed in road facilities using non-destructive testing techniques. In this paper, the possibility and reliability of anchor bolt defects such as corrosion and cracks were experimentally verified by applying ultrasonic inspection among non-destructive inspection techniques for anchor bolt maintenance.

U ovom diplomskom radu analizira se učinkovitost i efikasnost ručnog i automatiziranog testiranja na primjeru web aplikacije „Swag Labs“ korištenjem alata za automatizirano testiranje „Playwright“. Daje se prikaz testnih slučajeva za ručno testiranje i testnih skripti za automatizirano testiranje. Temeljem rezultata istraživanja jasno se ističe razlika između navedenih vrsta testiranja te se daje zaključak o najboljim praksama za osiguravanje kvalitete proizvoda. Time se ističe važnost testiranja softvera kao primarnog koraka za osiguravanje kvalitete programskog proizvoda. Osim toga pojašnjavaju se različite metodologije i tehnike testiranja, kao što je testiranje crne, bijele i sive kutije te unakrsno testiranje, jedinično testiranje i regresijsko testiranje. Kako bi se važnost testiranja softvera u potpunosti razumjela prikazana je evolucija testiranja softverskih proizvoda kroz povijest. Time se ukazuje na razliku u testiranju softvera nekad i danas te se zaključuje da osiguravanje kvalitete programskog proizvoda ovisi o uključivanju testiranja od najranijih faza razvoja softvera. This thesis analyzes the effectiveness and efficiency of manual and automated testing on the example of the web application "Swag Labs" using the automated testing tool "Playwright". Test cases for manual testing and test scripts for automated testing are presented. Based on the results of the research, the difference between the mentioned types of testing is clearly highlighted, and a conclusion is given on the best practices for ensuring product quality. This highlights the importance of software testing as a primary step for ensuring the quality of a software product. In addition, various testing methodologies and techniques are explained, such as black, white, and gray box testing, as well as cross-testing, unit testing, and regression testing. In order to fully understand the importance of software testing, the evolution of software product testing throughout history is presented. This indicates the difference in software testing then and now, and it is concluded that ensuring the quality of the software product depends on the inclusion of testing from the earliest stages of software development.

The significant impact of TCP congestion control on the Internet highlights the importance of testing congestion control algorithm implementations (CCAIs) in various network environments. Many CCAI testing problems can be solved by exploring the numerical state space of CCAIs, which is defined by a group of numerical (and nonnumerical) state variables of the CCAIs. However, the current practices for automated numerical state space exploration are either limited by the approximate abstract CCAI models or inefficient due to the large space of network environment parameters and the complicated relation between the CCAI states and network environment parameters. In this paper, we propose an automated numerical state space exploration method, called ACT, which leverages the model-agnostic feature of random testing and greatly improves its efficiency by guiding random testing under the feedback iteratively obtained in a test. Our experiments on five representative Linux TCP CCAIs show that ACT can more efficiently explore a large numerical state space than manual testing, undirected random testing, and symbolic execution based testing, while without requiring an abstract CCAI model. ACT detects multiple design and implementation bugs of these Linux TCP CCAIs, including some new bugs not reported before.

Information is more susciptible than ever, and each technology advancement creates a new security issue that necessitates a new approach to solving the problem. Penetration testing is used to assess the security of an IT infrastructure by exposing its vulnerabilities in a safe manner. It also aids in acquiring access to the effectiveness of existing defense systems, tactics, and policies. The Penetration testing is carried out on a regular basis in order to detect and control risks to achieve ethics to be possessed by the testing crew involved in penetration test. This research uses a qualitative research methodology for investigating manual testing and automated testing. It further aims at critically investigation penetration testing and its importance with tools available for it. KEYWORDS: IT Security, Penetration test, IT governance, Vulnerability assessment.

Model-based test case generation (MB-TCG) and prioritization (MB-TCP) utilize models that represent the system under test (SUT) for test generation and prioritization in software testing. They are based on model-based testing (MBT), a technique that facilitates automation in testing. Automated testing is indispensable for testing complex and industrial-size systems because of its advantages over manual testing. In recent years, MB-TCG and MB-TCP publications have shown an encouraging growth. However, the empirical studies done to validate these approaches must not be taken lightly because they reflect the results' validity and whether these approaches are generalizable to the industrial context. This systematic review aims at identifying and reviewing the state-of-the-art for MB-TCG, MB-TCP, and the approaches that combined MB-TCG and MB-TCP. The needs for this review were used to design the research questions. Keywords extracted from the research questions were utilized to search for studies in the literature that will answer the research questions. Prospective studies also underwent a quality assessment to ensure that only studies with sufficient quality were selected. All the research data of this review are also available in a public repository for full transparency. 122 primary studies were finalized and selected. There were 100, 15, and seven studies proposed for MB-TCG, MB-TCP, and MB-TCG and MB-TCP combination approaches, respectively. One of the main findings is that the most common limitations in the existing approaches are the dependency on specifications, the need for manual interventions, and the scalability issue.

Testiranje softvera postupak je utvrđivanja da softver ne sadrži greške. Dvije su vrste, ručno i automatizirano. Ručno testiranje softvera razvojem dodatnih značajki softvera postaje neisplativo i dugotrajno; kako bi se skratilo vrijeme testiranja uvodi se automatizirano testiranje. Za razvoj automatiziranih testova potreban je alat. Cypress je alat za razvoj automatiziranih testova i automatizirano testiranje internet aplikacija i stranica. U cypress alatu razvijena je biblioteka s dodatnim funkcijama za brži i lakši razvoj automatiziranih testnih slučajeva. Korištenje je prikazano na primjeru internet aplikacije Software testing is an act of determining that software does not contain errors. There are two types of testing, manual and automated. Manual software testing becomes unprofitable and takes too long to execute while software gets new features. To shorten time needed for testing, automated testing is introduced. For developing automated test there is a need of a tool. Cypress is a tool for developing and running automated tests for Internet apps and websites. Cypress is used to develop new library of advanced function that can be used to speed up and ease up development of automated tests. Example of its use is shown on Internet app

U ovom radu je izrađeno programsko rješenje koje omogućuje studentima praktičnu spoznaju o testiranju na studijskom primjeru aplikacije. U radu se prolazi kroz teorijske dijelove testiranja poput podjele na razine i načine testiranja programske podrške, ali i njihovom direktnom praktičnom primjenom. Cilj je bio oblikovati zadatke u sklopu laboratorijske vježbe da se studentima približi cilj i svrha testiranja. In this thesis, a software solution has been developed that provides students with practical knowledge about software testing based on case-study application. The paper goes through the theoretical parts of testing, such as the levels and methods of testing software, but also their direct practical application. The aim was to design tasks as part of laboratory exercises to bring students closer to the goal and purpose of testing.

The types of the testing methods were analyzed from the side of development. If changes are made to the code, even minor ones, bugs can appear anywhere in the system. The cost of fixing bugs increases with the time they are discovered. Using effective web testing can prevent unexpected costs. Modern web applications are indeed a place where all the type of the testing is vital for the high-quality product. At the moment, traditional front and back office applications are increasingly moving from desktop computers to web interfaces, so testing web applications is becoming extremely relevant. Thus, learning what to automate and how is an important component of successful web application testing. Web application testing is a software practice that is designed to ensure quality by verifying that the functionality of a particular web application works correctly or according to fixed requirements. Web testing makes it possible to find bugs at any point in time, before release or on a daily basis. On the one hand there are wide range of tools that could be used to pursue this goal by means of using best decisions present for now but on the other hand there are essential advantages and disadvantages present in these tools, which are all in the approach to it, so there are always cons and pros of using one or another. For now, despite on having the ability to test using both black and white box testing it looks like the second one is not the best choice. There are several points on each board for both of them, but black box approach that is being represented with react testing library is more successful and efficient way to cover and application with high- and low-level tests, that could be easily maintained and understood. But white box testing is now the most used decision due to the historic development of the industry. So, it also has some great features and could be chosen to be used on the project, but it should be precise choice with the understanding of all the consequences standing behind., Види методів тестування були проаналізовані з боку розробки. Якщо в код вносяться зміни, навіть незначні, помилки можуть виникнути будь-де системі. Вартість виправлення помилок зростає з часом їх виявлення. Використання ефективного веб тестування може запобігти непередбаченим витратам. Сучасні веб застосування дійсно є місцем, де весь тип тестування є життєво важливим для якісного продукту. На даний момент традиційні фронт та бек-офісні програми все частіше переходять з настільних комп’ютерів на веб інтерфейси, тому тестування веб застосувань стає вкрай актуальним. Таким чином, вивчення того, що і як автоматизувати, є важливим компонентом успішного тестування веб застосувань. Тестування веб застосувань є практикою програмного забезпечення, яка призначена для забезпечення якості за рахунок перевірки того, що функціональні можливості певного веб програми працюють правильним чином або відповідно до зафіксованих вимог. Веб тестування дає можливість знаходити помилки в будь-який час, до релізу або щодня. З одного боку, є широкий спектр інструментів, які можна було б використовувати для досягнення цієї мети за допомогою використання найкращих рішень, присутніх на даний момент, але з іншого боку, є суттєві переваги і недоліки, присутні в цих інструментах, які всі в підході до нього, тому завжди є мінуси і плюси використання того чи іншого. Поки що, незважаючи на можливість тестування з використанням як чорної, так і білої скриньки, останній метод має багато недоліків та не рекомендується до використання. Ці два методи мають місце бути у окремих проєктах, але підхід чорної скриньки, який представлений бібліотекою тестування React є найбільш успішним і ефективним способом покрити і застосування з високими і низькими тестами, які можна легко підтримувати і розуміти. Але тестування білої скриньки в даний час є найбільш вживаним рішенням у зв’язку з історичним розвитком галузі. Отже, воно також має деякі позитивні риси і може бути обрано, щоб бути використаним на проєкті, але повинно бути точним вибором з розумінням всіх наслідків, що за ним слідують.

В роботі визначено фактори, що впливають на проектування та якість відтворення веб-ресурсів, систематизовано технології створення веб-ресурсів та види їх тестування, проведено експериментальне дослідження автоматизованого та ручного тестування, увиразнено процедуру тестування веб-ресурсів, розроблено тест-кейс для перевірки веб-сторінок, досліджено час, потрібний для розроблення односторінкових веб-ресурсів. Надано рекомендації з особливостей наповнення контентом веб-сторінок для найшвидшого їх відтворення на пристроях користувачів. The paper identifies the factors influencing the design and reproduction of web resources, systematizes technologies for creating web resources and types of testing, conducted an experimental study of automated and manual testing. Typical page structures have been developed for selected species. The procedure for testing web resources was clarified, a test case to verify web pages was developed, the time required to develop one-page web resources was explored. Recommendations on the features of filling the content of web pages for the fastest playback on users’ devices were developed.

This article analyzes the existing applications that implement block texture compression algorithms. Based on it, the most optimal variant of technical implementation is introduced. A set of technologies for the implementation of the prototype is selected and substantiated and its architecture is developed on the basis of the principles that ensure the maximum extensibility and purity of the code. With the development of technology and the integration of computerized systems into all possible areas of human activity, more and more software with three-dimensional graphics is being used. Such programs have long since ceased to be used only in the entertainment field for tasks such as computer game development or special effects for cinema. Now with their help doctors can plan the most complex operations, architects check the developed plans of constructions and engineers to model prototypes without use of any materials. On the one hand, such a rapid increase can be explained by the increase in the power of components for personal computers. For example, modern graphics processors, which play a key role in the operation of graphics software, have become much faster in recent decades and have increased their memory hundreds of times. However, no matter how many resources the system has, the question of their efficient use still remains. It is to solve this problem that block texture compression algorithms have been created. In fact, they made it possible to create effective software when computer resources were still quite limited. And with increasing resources allowed to develop software with an incredible level of detail of the models, which led to its active implementation in such demanding areas as medicine, construction and more. The end result of this work is a developed application that takes into account the modern needs of the user. During the development, the most modern technologies were used for the highest speed and relevance of the application. The main advantages and disadvantages of existing solutions were also taken into account during the development. The capabilities of the system were tested using manual testing on a local machine.

The peculiarities of software product testing processes while working in the Scrum-team were studied. The types of testing characteristic of the flexible testing technique are singled out, that make it possible to make the testing process constantly integrated into teamwork, both at the stage of requirements formation and design, and at the stage of coding and generation of test sets. This is possible by making the tester's recommendations in the process of creating user stories, planning the release of the software version in terms of testing and defects, planning a sprint based on user stories and defects, performing a sprint with continuous testing, regression testing after sprint ends and reporting of results of testing. The article highlights the stages of the flexible testing process in the Scrum team. It is proposed to automate the process of flexible testing for a training team project in the Visual Studio software environment based on Team Foundation Server. Author demonstrates an example of automation of the process of flexible testing by dividing it into four quadrants to comply with the principles of working on a flexible methodology of software development. In the first quadrant there is a study of the quality of the internal code of the software product, the modular testing. To implement modular testing in Visual Studio, a new solution is created in order to generate a class for testing, where the conditions for testing are prescribed in the body of the class. The second quadrant implements the principles of system testing. At this stage the features of creating such a test artifact as test cases are demonstrated. That provides for the fulfillment of certain conditions to verify the functionality of the developing software product; linking between created test cases to user stories presented as team project tasks Product Backlog. The study demonstrates an example of manual testing using a special tool Microsoft Test Manager, which allows you to create plans, add and update test cases, perform manual tests. In the third quadrant, it was performed a trial test in Microsoft Test Manager and it was created another test artifact - error reports. The fourth quadrant automatically tests non-functional software requirements.

The aerospace industry has established the Automated Fiber Placement process as a common technique for manufacturing fibre reinforced components. In this process multiple composite tows are placed simultaneously onto a tool. Currently in such processes manual testing requires often up to 50% of the manufacturing duration. Moreover, the accuracy of quality assurance varies significantly with the inspector in charge. Thus, inspection automation provides an effective way to increase efficiency. However, to achieve a proper inspection performance, the segmentation of layup defects need to be examined. In order to improve such defect detection systems, this paper performs a comprehensive ranking of segmentation techniques. Thus, 29 statistical, spectral and structural algorithms from related work were evaluated based on nine substantial criteria as assessed from literature and process requirements. For reasons of determinism and easy technology transferability without the need of much training data, the development of new Machine Learning algorithms is not part of this paper. Afterwards, seven of the most auspicious algorithms were studied experimentally. Therefore, laser line scan sensor depth maps from fibre placement defects were utilised. Furthermore noisy images were generated and applied for testing algorithm robustness. The test data contained five defect categories with 50 samples per class. It was concluded that Adaptive Thresholding and Cell Wise Standard Deviation Thresholding work best yielding detection accuracies mostly $$> 97$$ > 97 %. Noteworthy is that influenced input data can affect the detection results. Feasible algorithms with sensible parameter settings were able to perform reliable defect segmentation for layed material.

The financial reports of the automotive companies' are measured in a standardized manner; therefore, they are transparent and comparable to each other, but this is not valid for the sustainability reports and it is not possible to compare their sustainability performances. Standard-setting organizations are currently searching for better reporting procedures. This study aims to investigate the connection between sustainability and financial reports for the most dominant European car manufacturers. It reviews the traceability of the sustainability elements back to the financial statements, which helps transparency, comparability, and impact measurement of the disclosed items and issues. This investigation allowed us to additionally review whether these companies are targeting to disclose the most harmful pollution impacts, or only focus to disclose the required obligatory items. Given the financial and sustainability reports magnitude manual testing would not provide complete and proper coverage, therefore we utilized an automated and AI-assisted content analysis with natural language processing. In this new review method, the sustainable elements of the textual reports were automatically retrieved following the 5-stage model of Landrum & Ohsowski (2018). The study highlights the lack of true sustainability information content of reports and the potential discrepancies and connections between the financial and the sustainability reports. Findings concluded that sustainability disclosures at the reviewed companies from several aspects could be improved and quantified, traced back to the financial disclosures, and to be comparable to each other if they apply a similar review method. Graphic abstract

Usually, planning a software testing requires solving the basic dilemma: how to provide quality of testing and spend optimal amount of resources. Typically, resources include components such as personnel, software, technical equipment, time, consumables and others. The Armed Forces of Ukraine have the same problems in planning and testing of programs that are expected to be used in the interests of troops and arms command and control. Testing can be performed by manual method and computer-aided method. The computer-aided method is faster but has its drawbacks. In particular, this method requires the development and then verification of a special program that will be involved in testing. In addition, this program may not detect certain problems that a person can notice. Therefore, the authors of the article propose to use the method of manual testing. It is proposed to apply a rational approach for reducing the time for planning and testing using this method. It refers to a significant reduction in the range of input values which will be checked. This approach provides a high quality testing program at the same time. The approach is based on the fact that the range (or list) of all possible values of each input variable is divided into several groups (equivalence classes). The separation is carried out by the principle that each equivalence class includes such input values, which will give the similar results after processing them by program. This approach is widely used by experts in the field of testing. It also meets the standards requirements applicable in Ukraine. There are two general classes of equivalence: accepted values and nonaccepted values. Each of them is divided into more specific ones. The separation is done leaning upon knowledge, skills and predictions of a specialist who is planning the testing. This article provides an example of dividing the input values of four variables into equivalence classes. The approach proposed by the authors of the publication allows to perform software testing faster and more rationally. It is assumed that such a method should be used during testing software that is intended to be used in the interests of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In nuclear power plant (NPP), the digital control system introduced nuclear safety software, whose fault tolerance and reliability directly affect the safety of nuclear power plant facilities. Current manual, simulation and testing strategies all have limitations. An effective method to test the system with software plays an important role to ensure the safe operation of NPP. In this paper, a digital control system software test strategy based on real platform is proposed. Taking the RPS system as an example, this strategy analyzes the system function and software logic path characteristics, then identifies the system state by threshold boundary analyzing, and designs a test method based on the random combination of logical combination paths and parameter value intervals, and builds a real platform test environment. This paper has tested the typical functions of Pressurized water reactor (PWR) protection system. The test results show that the test strategy has significantly improved the coverage of paths and parameters. Compared with manual testing, test efficient has been improved obviously in this test platform. At present, this strategy solves the problem of the low efficiency in manual testing, low real-level in simulation testing, and the insufficient coverage in simple automated testing strategy. This strategy also provides good practice for the control system testing and lays the foundation for the reliability evaluation of the system and software.

Automated Graphical User Interface (GUI) testing is a fundamental part of the Verification and Validation process of every software, but it is often linked to notable maintenance costs, especially for mobile applications. The literature reports a general lack of automated testing adoption among mobile developers in the industry. In this article, we present the outcome of seven interviews centered on how companies automate the testing process of mobile applications. The interviews confirmed that automated testing is still not widely adopted and rarely formalized by industry, with manual testing being still the primary form of testing. Test fragility and evolution of the user interface are seen as a relevant issue by developers, with a cost of around 30% of the overall maintenance performed on test suites. Some clear shared needs emerged during our interviews that can be considered hints for the added research effort from academia in meeting the needs of industry.

PurposeAny business that opts to adopt a recommender engine (RE) for various potential benefits must choose from the candidate solutions, by matching to the task of interest and domain. The purpose of this paper is to choose RE that fits best from a set of candidate solutions using rule-based automated machine learning (ML) approach. The objective is to draw trustworthy conclusion, which results in brand building, and establishing a reliable relation with customers and undeniably to grow the business.Design/methodology/approachAn experimental quantitative research method was conducted in which the ML model was evaluated with diversified performance metrics and five RE algorithms by combining offline evaluation on historical and simulated movie data set, and the online evaluation on business-alike near-real-time data set to uncover the best-fitting RE.FindingsThe rule-based automated evaluation of RE has changed the testing landscape, with the removal of longer duration of manual testing and not being comprehensive. It leads to minimal manual effort with high-quality results and can possibly bring a new revolution in the testing practice to start a service line “Machine Learning Testing as a service” (MLTaaS) and the possibility of integrating with DevOps that can specifically help agile team to ship a fail-safe RE evaluation product targeting SaaS (software as a service) or cloud deployment.Research limitations/implicationsA small data set was considered for A/B phase study and was captured for ten movies from three theaters operating in a single location in India, and simulation phase study was captured for two movies from three theaters operating from the same location in India. The research was limited to Bollywood and Ollywood movies for A/B phase, and Ollywood movies for simulation phase.Practical implicationsThe best-fitting RE facilitates the business to make personalized recommendations, long-term customer loyalty forecasting, predicting the company's future performance, introducing customers to new products/services and shaping customer's future preferences and behaviors.Originality/valueThe proposed rule-based ML approach named “2-stage locking evaluation” is self-learned, automated by design and largely produces time-bound conclusive result and improved decision-making process. It is the first of a kind to examine the business domain and task of interest. In each stage of the evaluation, low-performer REs are excluded which leads to time-optimized and cost-optimized solution. Additionally, the combination of offline and online evaluation methods offer benefits, such as improved quality with self-learning algorithm, faster time to decision-making by significantly reducing manual efforts with end-to-end test coverage, cognitive aiding for early feedback and unattended evaluation and traceability by identifying the missing test metrics coverage.

A drug–drug interaction or drug synergy is extensively utilised for cancer treatment. However, prediction of drug–drug interaction is defined as an ill‐posed problem, because manual testing is only implementable on small group of drugs. Predicting the drug–drug interaction score has been a popular research topic recently. Recently many machine learning models have proposed in the literature to predict the drug–drug interaction score efficiently. However, these models suffer from the over‐fitting issue. Therefore, these models are not so‐effective for predicting the drug–drug interaction score. In this work, an integrated convolutional mixture density recurrent neural network is proposed and implemented. The proposed model integrates convolutional neural networks, recurrent neural networks and mixture density networks. Extensive comparative analysis reveals that the proposed model significantly outperforms the competitive models.

Automation of test data generation is of prime importance in software testing because of the high cost and time incurred in manual testing. This paper proposes an Improved Crow Search Algorithm (ICSA) to automate the generation of test suites using the concept of mutation testing by simulating the intelligent behaviour of crows and Cauchy distribution. The Crow Search Algorithm suffers from the problem of search solutions getting trapped into the local search. The ICSA attempts to enhance the exploration capabilities of the metaheuristic algorithm by utilizing the concept of Cauchy random number. The concept of Mutation Sensitivity Testing has been used for defining the fitness function for the search based approach. The fitness function used, aids in finding optimal test suite which can achieve high detection score for the Program Under Test. The empirical evaluation of the proposed approach with other popular meta-heuristics, prove the effectiveness of ICSA for test suite generation using the concepts of mutation testing.

The article describes the process of mechanical correction of cold-formed fittings produced in coils on industrial rightsized cutting machines of rotary and roller types. The main qualitative characteristics of the reinforcement are given, such as: ultimate tensile strength, offset yield stress, the ratio of ultimate tensile strength offset yield stress, conditional yield strength, total elongation at maximum load and the relative area of crumpling. To assess the effect of mechanical correction on the properties of cold-formed periodic profile fittings, statistical data is used for testing samples of fittings produced in coils and straightened before manual testing and samples of the same fittings transferred from consumer companies after mechanical correction on right-sized rotary type cut machines.Tensile testing of samples was performed on testing machines in the laboratory of physical and mechanical tests No. 3 of the OJSC «BSW – Management Company of the Holding «BMC» in accordance with the requirements of ISO 15630-1:2010 «Steel for concrete reinforcement and pre-stressing. Test method. Part 1. Reinforcing rods, wire rod and wire» and ISO 6892:2016 «Metal Materials. Tensile test. Part 1. Method of test at ambient room temperature».

Construction of Non-Habitable Homes (RTLH) is a government program managed by thesupervision of the Social Service (Dinas Sosial) in the form of housing construction assistancefunds for the poor. In its realization, assistance is still often found to be lacking on target. It isbecause the determination of beneficiaries is not correctly selected, and there are no standardmethods based on existing criteria. These problems require a system that can providerecommendations that conform to clear standards and use techniques that accounted. FuzzySimple Additive Weighting (SAW) method is one method used in decision making. This methodcalculates criteria to get ranking weights to support decision making. The process of selectingcriteria and determining fuzzy variables carried out as a primary process in this method. Afterthe fuzzification weight value obtained, ranking done to use as a reference in the decision makingof recipients. Based on the results of manual testing, the system made is under the effects ofmanual calculations with a level of accuracy reaching 100%, so that implemented as a basis formaking decisions. While testing, the black box system found that all the requirements tested canrun following the overall system functionality. With this recommendation system, it can help thedecision to find the recipients of the Fund for Non-Occupable Homes Construction Assistanceso that it is more targeted.

Objective Determine whether an electronic tablet-based Wireless Automated Hearing-Test System can perform high-quality audiometry to assess schoolchildren for hearing loss in the field in Nicaragua. Study design Cross-sectional. Setting A school and hospital-based audiology clinic in Jinotega, Nicaragua. Subjects and methods Second and third graders (n = 120) were randomly selected for hearing testing in a school. Air conduction hearing thresholds were obtained bilaterally using a Wireless Automated Hearing-Test System at 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz. Referral criteria were set at more than 25 dBHL at one or more frequencies. A cohort of children was retested with conventional audiometry in a hospital-based sound booth. Factors influencing false-positive examinations, including ambient noise and behavior, were examined. Results All children with hearing loss were detected using an automated, manual, or two-step (those referred from automated testing were tested manually) protocol in the school (sensitivity = 100%). Specificity was 76% for automated testing, 97% for manual testing, and 99% for the two-step protocol. The variability between thresholds obtained with automated testing was greater than manual testing when compared with conventional audiometry. The percentage of participant responses when no stimulus tone was presented during automated testing was higher in children with false-positive examinations. Conclusion A Wireless Automated Hearing-Test System identified all children with hearing loss in a challenging field setting. A two-step protocol (those referred from automated testing are tested manually) reduced false-positive examinations and unnecessary referrals. Children who respond frequently when no tone is presented are more likely to have false-positive automated examinations and should be tested manually.