Hybrid intelligent systems for predicting software reliability

In this paper, we propose novel recurrent architectures for Genetic Programming (GP) and Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH) to predict software reliability. The effectiveness of the models is compared with that of well-known machine learning techniques viz. Multiple Linear Regression (MLR), Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS), Backpropagation Neural Network (BPNN), Counter Propagation Neural Network (CPNN), Dynamic Evolving Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (DENFIS), TreeNet, GMDH and GP on three datasets taken from literature. Further, we extended our research by developing GP and GMDH based ensemble models to predict software reliability. In the ensemble models, we considered GP and GMDH as constituent models and chose GP, GMDH, BPNN and Average as arbitrators. The results obtained from our experiments indicate that the new recurrent architecture for GP and the ensemble based on GP outperformed all other techniques. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.