Software Engineering Problems Research Articles

A Disruptive Research Playbook for Studying Disruptive Innovations

As researchers today, we are witnessing a fundamental change in our technologically-enabled world due to the advent and diffusion of highly disruptive technologies such as generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). In particular, software engineering has been profoundly affected by the transformative power of disruptive innovations for decades, with a significant impact of technical advancements on social dynamics due to its socio-technical nature. In this paper, we reflect on the importance of formulating and addressing research problems in software engineering through a socio-technical lens, thus ensuring a holistic understanding of the complex phenomena in this field. We propose a research playbook with the aim of providing a guide to formulate compelling and socially relevant research questions and to identify the appropriate research strategies for empirical investigations, with an eye on the long-term implications of technologies or their use. We showcase how to apply the research playbook. Firstly, we show how it can be used retrospectively to reflect on a prior disruptive technology, Stack Overflow, and its impact on software development. Secondly, we show how it can be used to question the impact of two current disruptive technologies: AI and AR/VR. Finally, we introduce a specialized GPT model to support the researcher in framing future investigations. We conclude by discussing the broader implications of adopting the playbook for both researchers and practitioners in software engineering and beyond.

ПОКРАЩЕННЯ ДЕТЕРМІНОВАНОГО МЕТОДУ ГЕНЕРУВАННЯ КОРПУСІВ ТЕКСТОВИХ ДАНИХ

This paper is devoted to the issue of generating corpora of text data for their use in solving software engineering problems in the context of developing information systems for natural language processing (NLP). One of the methods intended for this is the basic CorDeGen method, however, the analysis revealed certain disadvantages. Such a disadvantage is that NLP methods at the pre-processing stage can remove part of the terms generated by this method from the texts, treating them as stop words of a certain language. Removing part of the terms leads to the fact that the distribution of terms between the texts predicted by the CorDeGen method is distorted and the obtained result of processing the corpus with a certain NLP method is significantly different from the expected one. To solve this disadvantage, a new modified CorDeGen+ method is proposed in the paper, which introduces an additional, language-dependent stage of checking each generated term for admissibility, and if necessary, replacing it with another one. At the same time, all the advantages of the basic CorDeGen method are preserved by the proposed method, as well as other possible disadvantages, except for the corrected one. The paper examines language variations of the proposed method for the four most common European languages and a variation for languages that use non-Latin letters. The conducted experimental test showed the effectiveness of the CorDeGen+ method in terms of correcting the described disadvantage of the basic CorDeGen method. Also, this test showed that the degree of slowdown of the corpora generation process due to the introduction of an additional stage depends on the corpus size. In the case of micro-corpora (100 unique terms), the degree of slowdown reaches 39%, but as the size of the corpus increases, the degree drops sharply, and for super-large corpora (312500 unique terms) it reaches a maximum of 6.8%.

On the Practical Power of Automata in Pattern Matching

Many papers in the intersection of theoretical and applied algorithms show that the simple, asymptotically less efficient algorithm, performs better than the bestcomplex theoretical algorithms on random data or in specialized “real world” applications. This paper considers the Knuth–Morris–Pratt automaton, and shows a counter-intuitive practical result. The classical pattern matching paradigm is that of seeking occurrences of one string—the pattern, in another—the text, where both strings are drawn from an alphabet set Σ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\Sigma$$\\end{document}. Assuming the text length is n and the pattern length is m, this problem can naively be solved in time O(nm). In Knuth, Morris and Pratt’s seminal paper of 1977, an automaton, was developed that allows solving this problem in time O(n) for any alphabet. This automaton, which we will refer to as the KMP-automaton, has proven useful in solving many other problems. A notable example is the parameterized pattern matching model. In this model, a consistent renaming of symbols from Σ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\Sigma$$\\end{document} is allowed in a match. The parameterized matching paradigm has proven useful in problems in software engineering, computer vision, and other applications. It has long been believed that for texts where the symbols are uniformly random, the naive algorithm will perform as well as the KMP algorithm. In this paper, we examine the practical efficiency of the KMP algorithm versus the naive algorithm on a randomly generated text. We analyze the time under various parameters, such as alphabet size, pattern length, and the distribution of pattern occurrences in the text. We do this for both the original exact matching problem and parameterized matching. While the folklore wisdom is vindicated by these findings for the exact matching case, surprisingly, the KMP algorithm always works significantly faster than the naive in the parameterized matching case. We check this hypothesis for DNA texts and image data and observe a similar behavior as in the random text. We also show a very structured exact matching case where the automaton is much more efficient.

An enhanced salp swarm optimizer boosted by local search algorithm for modelling prediction problems in software engineering

An enhanced salp swarm optimizer boosted by local search algorithm for modelling prediction problems in software engineering

SEAL: Integrating Program Analysis and Repository Mining

Software projects are complex technical and organizational systems involving large numbers of artifacts and developers. To understand and tame software complexity, a wide variety of program analysis techniques have been developed for bug detection, program comprehension, verification, and more. At the same time, repository mining techniques aim at obtaining insights into the inner socio-technical workings of software projects at a larger scale. While both program analysis and repository mining have been successful on their own, they are largely isolated, which leaves considerable potential for synergies untapped. We present SEAL, the first integrated approach that combines low-level program analysis with high-level repository information. SEAL maps repository information, mined from the development history of a project, onto a low-level intermediate program representation, making it available for state-of-the-art program analysis. SEAL’s integrated approach allows us to efficiently address software engineering problems that span multiple levels of abstraction, from low-level data flow to high-level organizational information. To demonstrate its merits and practicality, we use SEAL to determine which code changes modify central parts of a given software project, how authors interact (indirectly) with each other through code, and we demonstrate that putting static analysis’ results into a socio-technical context improves their expressiveness and interpretability.

METHOD FOR SELECTING A SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY TAKING INTO ACCOUNT PROJECT CHARACTERISTICS

Context. With the development of the software industry, the number of applied methodologies and hybrid approaches based on them constantly increases, that is why, the choice of the most suitable/optimal methodology for the project is an urgent problem of software engineering, since the selection process is poorly formalized, requires sufficient experience of the person who will make this decision and depends on many related factors.
 Objective. The support of decision-making in the process of choosing a methodology for the software project development and increase of the level of adequacy of the above choice.
 Method. Based on the previously developed algorithm by the author, a generalized method for selecting the best software development methodology is proposed, which consists of 14 steps and takes into account the characteristics of the project, based on the multi-criteria analysis approaches, taking into consideration the opinions of experts for a more reasonable choice of the most suitable methodology for this project. The method uses the aggregated expert evaluation. It was decided to use the AHP to calculate the criteria weights. Based on the established values of criteria, their weights and expert evaluation, the score is calculated for each methodology using the weighted sum and TOPSIS methods.
 Results. The application of the developed method to the data of actual projects showed a match in 83% of cases (in five out of six cases, the application of the method resulted in the selection of methodology that corresponded to the one actually used in an existing project). In cases when the methodology chosen by the proposed method differed from the one that was actually used, the application of the proposed method recommends going to the stage of the initial determination of criteria and their weights, which will allow making a more adequate choice of methodology.
 Conclusions. The proposed method can be applied in practice by software project managers to support the decision-making process, and will allow reducing time spent on project management.

A survey on blockchain for intelligent governmental applications

Blockchain technology has attracted a lot of attention lately because it is seen as an all-purpose method for conducting online transactions between unidentified parties without the need for a centralized authority. Modern developers and businesspeople think it will disrupt or even change both the government and industry. In this setting, government-focused blockchains are becoming increasingly prevalent. Several recent studies highlighted use cases in the public sector for decentralized information infrastructures. Blockchain is expected to revolutionize or at least simplify many governmental functions. However, because blockchain use has yet to be widely adopted in government or industrial settings, the question arises: what are the technical hurdles impeding blockchain adoption? To that purpose, a systematic literature assessment of 29 academic articles investigating software engineering problems in blockchain technology for government applications has been done. The papers are initially inductively analyzed in order to illustrate and identify the issues frequently highlighted in academic literature. Furthermore, a theoretical framework is discussed by relying on models used in traditional software development, which is then followed by deductive analysis to map out the blockchain use cases and future trends connected to the difficulties.

Application of Crowdsourcing in User Experience collection – a case study of Malayalam mobile applications

PurposeThis paper aims to prove the following hypothesis Problem Statement: HYPOTHESIS (1) User Experience collection of mobile applications can be done using the Crowdsourcing mechanism; (2) User Experience collection of mobile applications are influenced by the mindset of Crowdmembers, culture/ethnicity/social background, ease of interface use and rewards, among other factors.Design/methodology/approachThe authors of this paper, did a literature review first to find if Crowdsourcing was applicable and a used method to solve problems in Software Engineering. This helped us to narrow down the application of Crowdsourcing to the Requirements Engineering-Usability (User Experience) collection. User experience collection of two Malayalam language-based mobile applications, AarogyaSetu and BevQ was done as the next step. Incorporating findings from Study I, another study using AarogyaSetu and Manglish was launched as Study II. The results from both cases were consolidated and analyzed. Significant concerns relating to expectations of Crowd members with User Experience collection were unraveled and the purpose of Study was accomplished.Findings(1) Crowdsourcing is and can be used in Software Engineering activities. (2) Crowd members have expectations (motivating factors) of User Interface and other elements that enable them to be an effective contributor. (3) An individual’s environment and mindset (character) are influential in him becoming a contributor in Crowdsourcing. (4) Culture and social practices of a region strongly affects the crowd-participating decision of an individual.Originality/valueThis is purely self-done work. The value of this research work is two-fold. Crowdsourcing is endorsed significant in Software Engineering tasks, especially in User Experience collection of mobile applications. Two, the Crowd service requesters can be careful about designing the questionnaire for Crowdsourcing. They have to be aware and prepared to meet the expectations of the Crowd. This can ensure the active participation of potential contributors. Future researchers can use the results of this work to base their research on similar purposes.

Just-in-time defect prediction for mobile applications: using shallow or deep learning?

Just-in-time defect prediction (JITDP) research is increasingly focused on program changes instead of complete program modules within the context of continuous integration and continuous testing paradigm. Traditional machine learning-based defect prediction models have been built since the early 2000s, and recently, deep learning-based models have been designed and implemented. While deep learning (DL) algorithms can provide state-of-the-art performance in many application domains, they should be carefully selected and designed for a software engineering problem. In this research, we evaluate the performance of traditional machine learning algorithms and data sampling techniques for JITDP problems and compare the model performance with the performance of a DL-based prediction model. Experimental results demonstrated that DL algorithms leveraging sampling methods perform significantly worse than the decision tree-based ensemble method. The XGBoost-based model appears to be 116 times faster than the multilayer perceptron-based (MLP) prediction model. This study indicates that DL-based models are not always the optimal solution for software defect prediction, and thus, shallow, traditional machine learning can be preferred because of better performance in terms of accuracy and time parameters.

Managing Technical Debt Using Intelligent Techniques - A Systematic Mapping Study

Technical Debt (TD) is a metaphor reflecting technical compromises that can yield short-term benefits but might hurt the long-term health of a software system. With the increasing amount of data generated when performing software development activities, an emergent research field has gained attention: applying Intelligent Techniques to solve Software Engineering problems. Intelligent Techniques were used to explore data for knowledge discovery, reasoning, learning, planning, perception, or supporting decision-making. Although these techniques can be promising, there is no structured understanding related to their application to support Technical Debt Management (TDM) activities. Within this context, this study aims to investigate to what extent the literature has proposed and evaluated solutions based on Intelligent Techniques to support TDM activities. To this end, we performed a Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) to investigate to what extent the literature has proposed and evaluated solutions based on Intelligent Techniques to support TDM activities. In total, 150 primary studies were identified and analyzed, dated from 2012 to 2021. The results indicated a growing interest in applying Intelligent Techniques to support TDM activities, the most used: Machine Learning and Reasoning under uncertainty. Intelligent Techniques aimed to assist mainly TDM activities related to identification, measurement, and monitoring. Design TD, Code TD, and Architectural TD are the TD types in the spotlight. Most studies were categorized at automation levels 1 and 2, meaning that existing approaches still require substantial human intervention. Symbolists and Analogizers are levels of explanation presented by most Intelligent Techniques, implying that these solutions conclude a general truth after considering a sufficient number of particular cases. Moreover, we also cataloged the empirical research types, contributions, and validation strategies described in primary studies. Based on our findings, we argue that there is still room to improve the use of Intelligent Techniques to support TDM activities. The open issues that emerged from this study can represent future opportunities for practitioners and researchers.

Machine/Deep Learning for Software Engineering: A Systematic Literature Review

Since 2009, the deep learning revolution, which was triggered by the introduction of ImageNet, has stimulated the synergy between Software Engineering (SE) and Machine Learning (ML)/Deep Learning (DL). Meanwhile, critical reviews have emerged that suggest that ML/DL should be used cautiously. To improve the applicability and generalizability of ML/DL-related SE studies, we conducted a 12-year Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on 1,428 ML/DL-related SE papers published between 2009 and 2020. Our trend analysis demonstrated the impacts that ML/DL brought to SE. We examined the complexity of applying ML/DL solutions to SE problems and how such complexity led to issues concerning the reproducibility and replicability of ML/DL studies in SE. Specifically, we investigated how ML and DL differ in data preprocessing, model training, and evaluation when applied to SE tasks, and what details need to be provided to ensure that a study can be reproduced or replicated. By categorizing the rationales behind the selection of ML/DL techniques into five themes, we analyzed how model performance, robustness, interpretability, complexity, and data simplicity affected the choices of ML/DL models.

A graph-based framework for model-driven optimization facilitating impact analysis of mutation operator properties

Optimization problems in software engineering typically deal with structures as they occur in the design and maintenance of software systems. In model-driven optimization (MDO), domain-specific models are used to represent these structures while evolutionary algorithms are often used to solve optimization problems. However, designing appropriate models and evolutionary algorithms to represent and evolve structures is not always straightforward. Domain experts often need deep knowledge of how to configure an evolutionary algorithm. This makes the use of model-driven meta-heuristic search difficult and expensive. We present a graph-based framework for MDO that identifies and clarifies core concepts and relies on mutation operators to specify evolutionary change. This framework is intended to help domain experts develop and study evolutionary algorithms based on domain-specific models and operators. In addition, it can help in clarifying the critical factors for conducting reproducible experiments in MDO. Based on the framework, we are able to take a first step toward identifying and studying important properties of evolutionary operators in the context of MDO. As a showcase, we investigate the impact of soundness and completeness at the level of mutation operator sets on the effectiveness and efficiency of evolutionary algorithms.

Balancing Constraints and Objectives by Considering Problem Types in Constrained Multiobjective Optimization.

Constrained multiobjective optimization problems widely exist in real-world applications. To handle them, the balance between constraints and objectives is crucial, but remains challenging due to non-negligible impacts of problem types. In our context, the problem types refer particularly to those determined by the relationship between the constrained Pareto-optimal front (PF) and the unconstrained PF. Unfortunately, there has been little awareness on how to achieve this balance when faced with different types of problems. In this article, we propose a new constraint handling technique (CHT) by taking into account potential problem types. Specifically, inspired by the prior work, problems are classified into three primary types: 1) I; 2) II; and 3) III, with the constrained PF being made up of the entire, part and none of the unconstrained counterpart, respectively. Clearly, any problem must be one of the three types. For each possible type, there exists a tailored mechanism being used to handle the relationships between constraints and objectives (i.e., constraint priority, objective priority, or the switch between them). It is worth mentioning that exact problem types are not required because we just consider their possibilities in the new CHT. Conceptually, we show that the new CHT can make a tradeoff among different types of problems. This argument is confirmed by experimental studies performed on 38 benchmark problems, whose types are known, and a real-world problem (with unknown types) in search-based software engineering. Results demonstrate that within both decomposition-based and nondecomposition-based frameworks, the new CHT can indeed achieve a good tradeoff among different problem types, being better than several state-of-the-art CHTs.

Empowering the Human as the Fitness Function in Search-Based Model-Driven Engineering

In Search-Based Software Engineering, more than 100 works have involved the human in the search process to obtain better results. However, the case where the human completely replaces the fitness function remains neglected. There is a good reason for that; no matter how intelligent the human is, humans cannot assess millions of candidate solutions as heuristics do. In this work, we study the influence of using the Human as the Fitness Function (HaFF) on the quality of the results. To do that, we focus on Search-Based Model-Driven Engineering (SBMDE) because inspecting models should require less human effort than inspecting code thanks to the abstraction of models. Therefore, we analyze the impact of HaFF in a real-world industrial case study of feature location in models. Furthermore, we also consider a reformulation operation (replacement) in the evaluation because a recent work reported that this operation significantly reduces the number of iterations required in comparison to the widespread crossover and mutation operations. The combination of HaFF and the reformulation operation (HaFF_R) improves the results of the best baseline by 0.15% in recall and 14.26% in precision. Analyzing the results, we learned how to better leverage HaFF_R, which increased the improvement with regard to the best baseline to 1.15% in recall and 20.05% in precision. HaFF_R significantly improves precision because humans are immune to the main limitations of the baselines: vocabulary mismatch and tacit knowledge. A focus group confirmed the acceptance of HaFF. These results are relevant for SBMDE because feature location is one of the main activities performed during maintenance and evolution. Our results, and what we learned from them, can also motivate and help other researchers to explore the benefits of HaFF. In fact, we provide a guideline that further discusses how to apply HaFF to other software engineering problems.

A Model-Driven Methodology to Accelerate Software Engineering in the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) aims for connecting. This assumption brings about several software engineering challenges that constitute a serious obstacle to its wider adoption. The main feature of the IoT is genericity w.r.t the variability of software and hardware technologies. Model-driven engineering (MDE) is a paradigm that advocates using models to address software engineering problems. It can help to meet the genericity of the IoT from a software engineering perspective. Existing MDE approaches for the IoT focus only on modeling the internal behavior of things but lack a comprehensive approach dedicated to network modeling. In the present article, we introduce a network-oriented methodology based on MDE to unify the IoT’s heterogeneous concepts. Fundamentally, we avoid the intrinsic heterogeneity of the IoT by separating the network’s specification (i.e., the things, the communication scheme, and its constraints) from its concrete implementation (i.e., the low-level artifacts, such as source code and documentation). Technically, the methodology relies on a model-based domain-specific language (DSL) and a code generator. The former enables the modeling of the network’s specification, and the latter provides a procedure to generate the low-level artifacts from this specification. Our results show that this methodology makes iot’s software engineering more rigorous, helps prevent bugs earlier, and saves time.

Optimizing the Energy Consumption of Blockchain-Based Systems Using Evolutionary Algorithms: A New Problem Formulation

Blockchain technology has gained recognition in industrial, financial, and various technological domains for its potential in decentralizing trust in peer-to-peer systems. A core component of blockchain technology is a consensus algorithm, most commonly Proof of Work (PoW). PoW is used in blockchain-based systems to establish trust among peers; however, it does require the expenditure of an enormous amount of energy that affects the environmental sustainability of blockchain-based systems. Energy minimization, whilst ensuring trust within blockchain-based systems that use PoW, is a challenging problem. The solution has to consider how energy consumption can be minimized without compromising trust, whilst still ensuring, for instance, scalability, security, and decentralization. In this paper, we represent the problem as a subset selection problem of miners in a blockchain-based system. We formulate the problem of blockchain energy consumption as a Search-Based Software Engineering problem with four objectives: energy consumption, carbon emission, decentralization, and trust. We propose a model composed of multiple fitness functions. The model can be used to explore the complex search space by selecting a subset of miners that minimizes the energy consumption without drastically impacting the primary goals of the blockchain technology (i.e., security/trustworthiness and decentralization). We integrate our proposed fitness functions into five evolutionary algorithms to solve the problem of blockchain miners selection. Our results show that the environmental sustainability of blockchain-based systems (e.g. reduced energy use) can be enhanced with little degradation in other competing objectives. We also report on the performance of the algorithms used.

A qualitative analysis of themes in instant messaging communication of software developers

Software developers use instant messaging (e.g., Slack, Gitter) to collaboratively discuss software engineering problems and solutions. This communication takes place in chat rooms that generally contain a description of the main topic of discussion and the messages exchanged. To analyze whether and how the knowledge accumulated in these chat rooms is relevant to other developers, we first need to understand the themes discussed in these chat rooms. In this paper, we used thematic analysis to manually identify software engineering themes in the description of 87 chat rooms of Gitter, an instant messaging tool for software developers. Then, we checked whether these themes also occur in 184 public chat rooms of Slack, another instant messaging tool. We identified 47 themes in Gitter chat rooms, and regarding the applicability of themes, we could relate 36 of our themes to 173 Slack chat rooms. Our results indicate that, in the context of our study, chat rooms in developer instant messaging communication are mostly about software development technologies and practices rather than development processes. Furthermore, most chat rooms are topic- rather than project-related (e.g., a chat room used by developers of a particular software development project).

A systematic mapping study of source code representation for deep learning in software engineering

The usage of deep learning (DL) approaches for software engineering has attracted much attention, particularly in source code modelling and analysis. However, in order to use DL, source code needs to be formatted to fit the expected input form of DL models. This problem is known as source code representation. Source code can be represented via different approaches, most importantly, the tree-based, token-based, and graph-based approaches. We use a systematic mapping study to investigate i detail the representation approaches adopted in 103 studies that use DL in the context of software engineering. Thus, studies are collected from 2014 to 2021 from 14 different journals and 27 conferences. We show that each way of representing source code can provide a different, yet orthogonal view of the same source code. Thus, different software engineering tasks might require different (combinations of) code representation approaches, depending on the nature and complexity of the task. Particularly, we show that it is crucial to define whether the DL approach requires lexical, syntactical, or semantic code information. Our analysis shows that a wide range of different representations and combinations of representations (hybrid representations) are used to solve a wide range of common software engineering problems. However, we also observe that current research does not generally attempt to transfer existing representations or models to other studies even though there are other contexts in which these representations and models may also be useful. We believe that there is potential for more reuse and the application of transfer learning when applying DL to software engineering tasks.

A new evolutionism based self‐adaptive multi‐objective optimization method to predict software cost estimation

AbstractOne of the major challenge that organizations face in the present environment is having an efficient model for software cost estimation (SCE). In this article, the significance of the meta‐heuristic algorithm in addressing various optimization challenges faced in mathematical models and software applications is discussed. The proposed method uses the new evolutionism‐based self‐adaptive mutation operator to solve the multi‐objective optimization problems. This approach addresses the issues that exist in multi‐objective differential evolution algorithms. To improve diversity among candidate solutions, the Pareto optimality principle is integrated with the evolutionism‐based self‐adaptive mutation operator in a multi‐objective DE algorithm. To reduce the time complexity of Pareto dominance, we have adopted the non‐dominated sorting algorithm. We used eight benchmark test functions to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method, and it outperformed the most recent multi‐objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs). Furthermore, this article explores software engineering problems like SCE by using the proposed approach, where SCEs are accurately predicted by optimizing the tuning parameters of the multi‐objective constructive cost model. The proposed algorithm achieves better cost prediction as compared to the other standard benchmark algorithms for all objective problems in terms of prediction, mean absolute error, and root mean square error.

Exploration strategies for balancing efficiency and comprehensibility in model checking with ant colony optimization

ABSTRACT Model checking is a formal and automated verification technique to show that a software system behaves in accordance with the given specification. Traditional model checking uses exhaustive search techniques for finding violative behaviours of the specification. The techniques, however, often do not work for huge systems because it demands a huge amount of computational resources. Search-Based Software Engineering is known to effectively solve many software engineering problems including model checking. It pursues the good balance between efficiency and qualities of solutions by using swarm intelligence and metaheuristic search methodologies. This article focuses on the state-of-the-art model checking with Ant Colony Optimization. Ant Colony Optimization is a metaheuristic, population-based and stochastic optimization algorithm. We propose two exploration strategies to further improve the balance in model checking based on Ant Colony Optimization. The proposed strategies introduce different kinds of randomized selection mechanisms to diversify solutions found by many agents. The strategies help the search algorithm extend the reachable regions effectively. Through numerical experiments, we confirmed that the proposed strategies require less computation time and memory as compared to the existing model checking with Ant Colony Optimization at the cost of finding slightly less qualified solutions.