Journal of Systems and Software最新文献

{"title":"Symbolic testing of floating-point bugs and exceptions","authors":"Dongyu Ma ,&nbsp;Zeyu Liang ,&nbsp;Luming Yin ,&nbsp;Hongliang Liang","doi":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112226","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112226","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Numerical software are susceptible to floating-point bugs and exceptions, which may lead to severe threats like denial of service attacks. Static analysis techniques such as symbolic execution are effective in detecting general bugs which often cause memory error or program crash. Unfortunately, these methods do not deal well with numerical code as they do not support floating-point constraints and math functions symbolically. In this paper, we propose a new analysis framework YUSE, which can detect floating-point bugs by constructing constraints and exploring paths which contain floating-point expressions. Specifically, we introduce interval computation and interval constraint propagation in non-relational numerical abstract domains, and symbolically model math functions, to accurately detect floating-point bugs and exceptions. Moreover, we leverage two-phase constraint solving to enhance YUSE’s performance. Experimental results show that YUSE outperforms two state-of-the-art tools, Frama-c and Fpse-study, in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, with 1.4<span><math><mo>×</mo></math></span> and 7.1<span><math><mo>×</mo></math></span> faster than Frama-c and Fpse-study, respectively. Moreover, YUSE found 20 new bugs in real-world software, 12 of which were assigned CVE IDs and 8 of which were confirmed by developers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51099,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Systems and Software","volume":"219 ","pages":"Article 112226"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142427415","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A generalized, rule-based method for the detection of intermittent faults in software programs","authors":"Panagiotis Sotiropoulos,&nbsp;Costas Vassilakis","doi":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112228","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112228","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Intermittent faults are a very common problem in the software world, and are very hard to locate and correct, due to the fact that they manifest their presence only under certain circumstances. Most of the existing approaches for intermittent fault identification assume that suitable instrumentation has been provided in the program, typically in the form of assertions that dictate which program states are considered to be erroneous, by examining variable values. This approach is, however, inefficient, since only errors for which appropriate instrumentation has been provided will be uncovered. In this paper we propose a method that can be used to detect probable sources of intermittent faults within a program. Our method proposes certain points in the code, whose data interdependencies combined with their execution interweaving indicate that they could be the root cause of intermittent faults. The approach presented in this paper extends our previous work, by examining shared variable access sequences and taking into account not only direct dependencies between shared variables, but additionally indirect ones, i.e. cases where values of local variables are computed using values of some shared variable(s), and subsequently the local variable values are used to set the value of other shared variables. The detection of suspicious access pattern, which may indicate the presence of intermittent faults, is formalized through the introduction of generalized rules; these rules are combined with model-based checking to ensure that all program execution paths are covered. The list of suspicious locations within the code is finally presented to the developer, who will decide after a thorough examination of the code, to accept or reject each of the proposals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51099,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Systems and Software","volume":"219 ","pages":"Article 112228"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142427416","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Model-based safety analysis of requirement specifications","authors":"Konstantinos Mokos ,&nbsp;Panagiotis Katsaros ,&nbsp;Preben Bohn","doi":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112231","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112231","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Model-based design primarily aims to establish a communication framework throughout a system’s design. Moreover, models with formal semantics allow verification based on rigorous methods, including the analysis of system safety. However, building formal models is a tedious manual process and cannot be easily applied to real problems.</div><div>A key gap that hinders automation of model development is that there is no systematic way to connect system requirements with the activity of model-based design. In this article, we introduce a workflow to tackle this gap and ultimately automate the analysis of system safety using formal methods.</div><div>We extend our previous work on boilerplate-based specification of system requirements with ontological semantics towards specifying FDIR (Failure, Detection, Isolation, Recovery) requirements. The workflow is centered around the automated generation of a model skeleton in SLIM, a component-based formal modeling language, from a set of ontology-based requirement specifications. Our approach has been implemented into a dedicated tool, which not only provides visualization of the ontology relations, but also supports traceability of the analysis findings back to the requirements specification. Finally, we provide results on the safety analysis of a real star-tracker system based on a SLIM model derived by minimally changing the auto-generated model skeleton.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51099,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Systems and Software","volume":"219 ","pages":"Article 112231"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142427418","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"CoMPers: A configurable conflict management framework for personalized collaborative modeling","authors":"Mohammadreza Sharbaf ,&nbsp;Bahman Zamani ,&nbsp;Gerson Sunyé","doi":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112227","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112227","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Context:</h3><div>Modeling is an activity in the software development life cycle where experts and stakeholders collaborate as a team. In collaborative modeling, adhering to the optimistic versioning paradigm allows users to make concurrent changes to the same model, but conflicts may arise. To achieve an integrated and consistent merged model, conflicts must be resolved.</div></div><div><h3>Objective:</h3><div>The primary objective of this study was to provide a customizable and extensible framework for conflict management in personalized change propagation during collaborative modeling.</div></div><div><h3>Methods:</h3><div>We propose CoMPers, a customizable and extensible conflict management framework designed to address various conflicts encountered in collaborative modeling. We present the duel algorithm for automatically detecting and resolving conflicts according to user preferences. The framework utilizes personalized change propagation to customize collaboration and supports the conflict management process by executing the duel algorithm based on user preferences. As a proof-of-concept, we have implemented the CoMPers framework and extended the EMF.cloud modeling framework to demonstrate its applicability.</div></div><div><h3>Results:</h3><div>We have constructed a proof-of-concept implementation and conducted a real-world case study, a benchmark experiment, and a user experience evaluation. Our findings demonstrate that: (1) CoMPers enables collaborators to configure propagation strategies according to their habits; (2) CoMPers successfully identifies all anticipated conflicts and achieves a 100% accuracy in conflict handling; (3) The majority of participants agreed that CoMPers is user-friendly for collaborative modeling.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusion:</h3><div>This paper presents the CoMPers framework, which is based on personalized change propagation, and helps collaborators customize conflict management activities. The results confirm the feasibility and advantages of consistent and concurrent modeling within the collaborative CoMPers platform, with an acceptable functionality for approximately ten collaborators.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51099,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Systems and Software","volume":"219 ","pages":"Article 112227"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142358798","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assessing gender bias in the software used in computer science and software engineering education","authors":"Lyndsey O’Brien ,&nbsp;Tanjila Kanij ,&nbsp;John Grundy","doi":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112225","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112225","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Women are underrepresented in Computer Science (CS)/ Software Engineering (SE) and other technology related degrees. As undergraduates, they are also less likely to persist with CS/SE studies than men enrolled in those same courses. Gender correlated differences in personal characteristics, behaviour, and preferences mean that course design decisions may introduce unintended bias. To address this issue, we drew inspiration from the GenderMag method. GenderMag uses personas with evidence-based gender differences in problem-solving traits to detect usability issues in software. In this paper we investigate the personal qualities of CS and SE students, and how these influence their CS/SE learning journey. A series of persona development workshops were held to gather an extensive and unique qualitative dataset capturing the prior experiences, preferences, learning styles, motivations, goals, frustrations, and constraints of CS/SE students. Gender differences were used to construct preliminary male and female student personas. These personas were used in cognitive walkthroughs of software applications commonly used in education, and their performance compared to GenderMag’s Tim and Abi. While the student personas were less effective and lacked specificity compared to Abi, they were able to identify issues not detectable with GenderMag. Furthermore, the findings show the utility of persona development workshops as a data collection method and introduce a comprehensive list of CS/SE student qualities that may inspire future investigations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51099,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Systems and Software","volume":"219 ","pages":"Article 112225"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142427417","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evaluation of time-based virtual machine migration as moving target defense against host-based attacks","authors":"Matheus Torquato ,&nbsp;Paulo Maciel ,&nbsp;Marco Vieira","doi":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112222","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112222","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Moving Target Defense (MTD) consists of applying dynamic reconfiguration in the defensive side of the attack-defense cybersecurity game. Virtual Machine (VM) migration could be used as MTD against specific host-based attacks in the cloud computing environment by remapping the distribution of VMs in the existing physical hosts. This way, when the attacker’s VM is moved to a different machine, the attack has to be restarted. However, one significant gap here is how to select a proper VM migration-based MTD schedule to reach the desired levels of system protection. This paper develops a Stochastic Petri Net (SPN) model to address this issue. The model leverages empirical knowledge about the dynamics of the attack defense in a VM migration-enabled setup. First, we present the results of an experimental campaign to acquire knowledge about the system’s behavior. The experiments provide insights for the model design. Then, based on the model, we propose a tool named <em>PyMTDEvaluator</em>, which provides a graphical interface that serves as a wrapper for the simulation environment of the model. Finally, we exercise the tool using Multi-Criteria Decision-Making methods to aid the MTD policy selection. Hopefully, our results and methods will be helpful for system managers and cybersecurity professionals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51099,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Systems and Software","volume":"219 ","pages":"Article 112222"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142358797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Improve cross-project just-in-time defect prediction with dynamic transfer learning","authors":"Hongming Dai ,&nbsp;Jianqing Xi ,&nbsp;Hong-Liang Dai","doi":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112214","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112214","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Cross-project just-in-time software defect prediction (CP-JIT-SDP) is a prominent research topic in the field of software engineering. This approach is characterized by its immediacy, accuracy, real-time feedback, and traceability, enabling it to effectively address the challenges of defect prediction in new projects or projects with limited training data. However, CP-JIT-SDP faces significant challenges due to the differences in the feature distribution between the source and target projects. To address this issue, researchers have proposed methods for adjusting marginal or conditional probability distributions. This study introduces a transfer-learning approach that integrates dynamic distribution adaptation. The kernel variance matching (KVM) method is proposed to adjust the disparity in the marginal probability distribution by recalculating the variance of the source and target projects within the reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS) to minimize the variance disparity. The categorical boosting (CatBoost) algorithm is used to construct models, while the improved CORrelation ALignment (CORAL) method is applied to develop the loss function to address the difference in the conditional probability distribution. This method is abbreviated as KCC, where the symbol K represents KVM, the symbol C represents CatBoost, and the next symbol C represents improved CORAL. The KCC method aims to optimize the joint probability distribution of the source project so that it closely agrees with that of the target project through iterative and dynamic integration. Six well-known open-source projects were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The empirical findings indicate that the KCC method exhibited significant improvements over the baseline methods. In particular, the KCC method demonstrated an average increase of 18% in the geometric mean (G-mean), 105.4% in the Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC), 25.6% in the F1-score, and 16.9% in the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) when compared to the baseline methods. Furthermore, the KCC method demonstrated greater stability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51099,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Systems and Software","volume":"219 ","pages":"Article 112214"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142358796","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Program Dependence Net and on-demand slicing for property verification of concurrent system and software","authors":"Zhijun Ding ,&nbsp;Shuo Li ,&nbsp;Cheng Chen ,&nbsp;Cong He","doi":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112221","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112221","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>When checking concurrent software using a finite-state model, we face a formidable state explosion problem. One solution to this problem is dependence-based program slicing, whose use can effectively reduce verification time. It is orthogonal to other model-checking reduction techniques. However, when slicing concurrent programs for model checking, there are conversions between multiple irreplaceable models, and dependencies need to be found for variables irrelevant to the verified property, which results in redundant computation. To resolve this issue, we propose a Program Dependence Net (PDNet) based on Petri net theory. It is a unified model that combines a control-flow structure with dependencies to avoid conversions. For reduction, we present a PDNet slicing method to capture the relevant variables’ dependencies when needed. PDNet and its on-demand slicing in verifying linear temporal logic are used to significantly reduce computation cost. We implement a model-checking tool based on PDNet and its on-demand slicing and validate the advantages of our proposed methods.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51099,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Systems and Software","volume":"219 ","pages":"Article 112221"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142427421","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Centralization potential of automotive E/E architectures","authors":"Lucas Mauser ,&nbsp;Stefan Wagner","doi":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112220","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112220","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Current automotive E/E architectures are subject to significant transformations: Computing-power-intensive advanced driver-assistance systems, bandwidth-hungry infotainment systems, the connection of the vehicle with the internet and the consequential need for cyber-security drives the centralization of E/E architectures. A centralized architecture is often seen as a key enabler to master those challenges. Available research focuses mostly on the different types of E/E architectures and contrasts their advantages and disadvantages. There is a research gap on guidelines for system designers and function developers to analyze the potential of their systems for centralization. The present paper aims to quantify centralization potential reviewing relevant literature and conducting qualitative interviews with industry practitioners. In literature, we identified seven key automotive system properties reaching limitations in current automotive architectures: busload, functional safety, computing power, feature dependencies, development and maintenance costs, error rate, modularity and flexibility. These properties serve as quantitative evaluation criteria to estimate whether centralization would enhance overall system performance. In the interviews, we have validated centralization and its fundament – the conceptual systems engineering – as capabilities to mitigate these limitations. By focusing on practical insights and lessons learned, this research provides system designers with actionable guidance to optimize their systems, addressing the outlined challenges while avoiding monolithic architecture. This paper bridges the gap between theoretical research and practical application, offering valuable takeaways for practitioners.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51099,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Systems and Software","volume":"219 ","pages":"Article 112220"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142270242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A model-driven formal methods approach to software architectural security vulnerabilities specification and verification","authors":"Quentin Rouland ,&nbsp;Brahim Hamid ,&nbsp;Jason Jaskolka","doi":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112219","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jss.2024.112219","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Detecting and addressing security vulnerabilities in software designs is crucial for ensuring the reliable and safe operation of systems. Existing approaches for vulnerability specification lack the necessary flexibility for practical use. To tackle this issue, we propose an integrated model-driven approach for vulnerability detection and treatment during software architecture design. The approach involves specifying vulnerabilities as properties of a modeled system in a technology-independent language, expressing conditions for vulnerability detection using a language supported by automated tools, and recommending security requirements to mitigate detected vulnerabilities. Formalized vulnerabilities and security requirements are presented as model libraries to facilitate reuse. Our methodology employs first-order and modal logic as a technology-independent formalism, with Alloy as the tool-supported language for modeling and software development. We have developed a Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) tool to implement this approach. To validate our work, we apply it to representative vulnerabilities based on the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications within the context of secure component-based software architecture development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51099,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Systems and Software","volume":"219 ","pages":"Article 112219"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142315504","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}