Abstract 1: Context-Oriented Behavioral Programming

(1) Modern systems require programmers to develop code that dynamically adapts to different contexts, leading to
the evolution of new context-oriented programming languages. (2) These languages introduce new software-
engineering challenges, such as: how to maintain the separation of concerns of the codebase? how to model the
changing behaviors? how to verify the system behavior? and more. (3) This paper introduces Context-Oriented
Behavioral Programming (COBP) — a novel paradigm for developing context-aware systems, centered on natural
and incremental specification of context-dependent behaviors. (4) As the name suggests, we combine behavioral-
programming (BP) — a scenario-based modeling paradigm — with context idioms that explicitly specify when
scenarios are relevant and what information they need. (5) The core idea is to connect the behavioral model with a
data model that represents the context, allowing an intuitive connection between the models via update and select
queries. (6) Combining behavioral - programming with context-oriented programming brings the best of the two
worlds, solving issues that arise when using each of the approaches in separation. (7) We begin with providing
abstract semantics for COBP and two implementations for the semantics, laying the foundations for applying
reasoning algorithms to context-aware behavioral programs. (8) Next, we exemplify the semantics with formal
specifications of systems, including a variant of Conway’s Game of Life. (9) Then, we provide two case studies of
real-life context-aware systems (one in robotics and another in IoT) that were developed using this tool. (10)
Throughout the examples and case studies, we provide design patterns and a methodology for coping with the
above challenges. (11) The case studies show that the proposed approach is applicable for developing real-life
systems, and presents measurable advantages over the alternatives — behavioral programming alone and context-
oriented programming alone. (12) We present a paradigm allowing programmers and system engineers to capture
complex context - dependent requirements and align their code with such requirements.

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Abstract 2: Variability models for generating efficient configurations of functional quality attributes
(1)Quality attributes play a critical role in the architecture elicitation phase. (2) Software Sustainability and energy
efficiency is becoming a critical quality attribute that can be used as a selection criteria to choose from among different
design or implementation alternatives. (3) Energy efficiency usually competes with other non-functional requirements,
like for instance, performance. (4) This paper presents a process that helps developers to automatically generate
optimum configurations of functional quality attributes in terms of energy efficiency and performance. (5) Functional
quality attributes refer to the behavioral properties that need to be incorporated inside a software architecture to fulfill
a particular quality attribute (e.g., encryption and authentication for the security quality attribute, logging for the
usability quality attribute). (6) Quality attributes are characterized to identify their design and implementation variants
and how the different configurations influence both energy efficiency and performance. (7) A usage model for each
characterized quality attribute is defined. (8) The variability of quality attributes, as well as the energy efficiency and
performance experiment results, are represented as a constraint satisfaction problem with the goal of formally reasoning
about it. (9) Then, a configuration of the selected functional quality attributes is automatically generated, which is
optimum with respect to a selected objective function. (10) Software developers can improve the energy efficiency
and/or performance of their applications by using our approach to perform a richer analysis of the energy consumption
and performance of different alternatives for functional quality attributes. (11) We show quantitative values of the
benefits of using our approach and discuss the threats to validity. (12) The process presented in this paper will help
software developers to build more energy efficient software, whilst also being aware of how their decisions affect other
quality attributes, such as performance.

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Abstract 3: Software landscape and application visualization for system comprehension with ExplorViz
(1) The number of software applications deployed in organizations is constantly increasing. Those applications
– often several hundreds – form large software landscapes. (2) The comprehension of such landscapes and
their applications is often impeded by, for instance, architectural erosion, personnel turnover, or changing
requirements. (3) Therefore, an efficient and effective way to comprehend such software landscapes is
required. (4) In our ExplorViz visualization, we introduce hierarchical abstractions aiming at solving system
comprehension tasks fast and accurately for large software landscapes. (5) Besides hierarchical visualization
on the landscape level, ExplorViz provides multi-level visualization from the landscape to the level of
individual applications. (6) The 3D application-level visualization is empirically evaluated with a comparison
to the Extravis approach, with physical models and in virtual reality. (7) To evaluate ExplorViz, we conducted
four controlled experiments. (8) We provide packages containing all our experimental data to facilitate the
verifiability, reproducibility, and further extensibility of our results. (9) We observed a statistical significant
increase in task correctness of the hierarchical visualization compared to the flat visualization. (10) The time
spent did not show any significant differences. (11) For the comparison with Extravis, we observed that solving
program comprehension tasks using ExplorViz leads to a significant increase in correctness and in less or
similar time spent. (12) The physical models improved the team-based program comprehension process for
specific tasks by initiating gesture-based interaction, but not for all tasks. (13) The participants of our virtual
reality experiment with ExplorViz rated the realized gestures for translation, rotation, and selection as highly
usable. (14) However, our zooming gesture was less favored. (15) The results backup our claim that our
hierarchical and multi-level approach enhances the current state of the art in landscape and application
visualization for better software system comprehension, including new forms of interaction with physical
models and virtual reality.

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Abstract 4: Using simulated annealing for locating array construction

(1)Context: Combinatorial interaction testing is known to be an efficient testing strategy for computing and
information systems. (2) Locating arrays are mathematical objects that are useful for this testing strategy, as
they can be used as a test suite that permits fault localization as well as fault detection. (3) In this application,
each row of an array is used as an individual test. (4) This paper proposes an algorithm for constructing locating
arrays with a small number of rows. (5) Testing cost increases as the number of tests increases; thus the problem
of finding locating arrays of small sizes is of practical importance. (6) The proposed algorithm uses simulated
annealing, a meta-heuristic algorithm, to find locating array of a given size. (7) The whole algorithm repeatedly
executes the simulated annealing algorithm with the input array size being dynamically varied. (8)
Experimental results show (a) that the proposed algorithm is able to construct locating arrays for problem
instances of large sizes and (b) that, for problem instances for which nontrivial locating arrays are known, the
algorithm is often able to generate locating arrays that are smaller than or at least equal to the known arrays.
(9) Based on the results, we conclude that the proposed algorithm can produce small locating arrays and scale
to practical problems.

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Abstract 5: Cloud applications monitoring: An industrial study
(1)Modern software systems employ large IT infrastructures hosted in on-premise clouds or using “rented”
cloud resources from specific vendors. (2) The unifying force across any cloud strategy is incremental product
and application improvement against conservation of those resources. (3) This is where monitoring of cloud
applications becomes a key asset. (4) To shed light over the status of monitoring practices in industry, we
study: (a) monitoring practices and tools adoption in industry; (b) size and complexity of industrial monitoring
problems; (c) the role of software architecture and software process with respect to monitoring strategies. (5)
We conduct mixed-methods empirical research featuring interviews and a web survey featuring 140+
practitioners from over 70 different organizations. (6) Even if the market makes available a significant set of
monitoring tools, our results show a rather unappealing picture of industrial monitoring: (a) industrial decision-
makers do not perceive monitoring as a key asset even though the downtime of their applications correlates
heavily with the level of automation and responsiveness enabled by monitoring; (b) monitoring is done with
crude technology, mostly MySQL querying or similar (e.g., Nagios); finally, (c) incidents are discovered by
clients rather than application owners. (7) We conclude that the road toward the industrial adoption of cutting-
edge monitoring technology is still one of the less travelled, presumably in connection to the considerable
investment required. (8) Furthermore, the lack of industrial cloud monitoring standards does not help in
addressing the proliferation of multiple tool combinations, with varying effectiveness. (9) Further research
should be invested in looking into and addressing these major concerns.

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Abstract 6: Governance and Management of Green IT: A Multi-Case Study

(1) The changes that are taking place with respect to environmental sensitivity are forcing organizations to
adopt a new approach to this problem. (2) Implementing sustainability initiatives has become a priority for the
social and environmental awareness of organizations that want to stay ahead of the curve. (3) One of the
business areas that has, more than others, proven to be a vital asset and a potential ally of the environment, is
the area of Information Technology (IT). (4) Through this area, Green IT practices advocate sustainability in
and by IT. (5) However, organizations have a significant handicap in this regard, due to the lack of specific
Green IT standards and frameworks that help them carry out this type of sustainability practices. (6) Objective:
We have developed the “Governance and Management Framework for Green IT” (GMGIT), which establishes
the necessary characteristics to implement Green IT in organizations, from the point of view of the governance
and management of this area. (7) After developing and validating a first version of this framework, we have
performed a set of improvements, obtaining the GMGIT 2.0, which we want to validate. (8) We have conducted
a series of empirical validations at international level based on case studies, whose characteristics and results
are presented in this study. (9) The results of this multi-case study show an example of the current situation of
organizations in Green IT, as well as the resolution of problems encountered during the validations conducted
with the GMGIT 1.0. (10) The findings obtained demonstrate the usefulness, applicability, and validity of the
framework when implementing, auditing, and improving Green IT in organizations in a systematic and
progressive manner.

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Abstract 7: A unified framework for declarative debugging and testing
(1) Debugging is the most challenging and time consuming task in software development. (2) However, it is
not properly integrated in the software development cycle, because the result of so much effort is not available
in further iterations of the cycle, and the debugging process itself does not benefit from the outcome of other
phases such as testing. (3) We propose to integrate debugging and testing within a single unified framework
where each phase generates useful information for the other and the outcomes of each phase are reused. (4)
We consider a declarative debugging setting that employs tests to automatically entail the validity of some
subcomputations, thus decreasing the time and effort needed to find a bug. (5) Additionally, the debugger
stores as new tests the information collected from the user during the debugging phase. (6)This information
becomes part of the program test suite, and can be used in future debugging sessions, and also as regression
tests. (7) We define a general framework where declarative debugging establishes a bidirectional collaboration
with testing. (8) The new setting preserves the properties of the underlying declarative debugging framework
(weak completeness and soundness) while generating test cases that can be used later in other debugging
sessions or even in other cycles of the software development. (9) The proposed framework is general enough
to be instantiated to very different programming languages: Erlang (functional), Java (imperative, object-
oriented), and SQL (data query); and the experimental results obtained for Erlang programs validate the
effectiveness of the framework. (10) We propose a general unified framework for debugging and testing that
simplifies each phase and maximizes the reusability of the outcomes in the different phases of the software
development cycle, therefore reducing the overall effort.

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Abstract 8: What skills do IT companies look for in new developers? A study with Stack Overflow jobs
(1) There is a growing demand for information on how IT companies look for candidates to their open
positions. (2) This paper investigates which hard and soft skills are more required in IT companies by analyzing
the description of 20,000 job opportunities. (3) We applied open card sorting to perform a high-level analysis
on which types of hard skills are more requested. (4) Further, we manually analyzed the most mentioned soft
skills. (5) Programming languages are the most demanded hard skills. (6) Communication, collaboration, and
problem-solving are the most demanded soft skills. (7) We recommend developers to organize their resum´e
according to the positions they are applying. (8) We also highlight the importance of soft skills, as they appear
in many job opportunities.

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Abstract 9: A Method to Estimate Software Strategic Indicators in Software Development: An Industrial
Application

(1) Exploiting software development related data from software-development intensive organizations to
support tactical and strategic decision making is a challenge. (2) Combining data-driven approaches with
expert knowledge has been highlighted as a sensible approach for leading software-development intensive
organizations to rightful decision-making improvements. (3) However, most of the existing proposals lack of
important aspects that hinders their industrial uptake such as: customization guidelines to fit the proposals to
other contexts and/or automatic or semi-automatic data collection support for putting them forward in a real
organization. (4) As a result, existing proposals are rarely used in the industrial context. (5) Support software-
development intensive organizations with guidance and tools for exploiting software development related data
and expert knowledge to improve their decision making. (6) We have developed a novel method called SESSI
(Specification and Estimation of Software Strategic Indicators) that was articulated from industrial experiences
with Nokia, Bittium, Softeam and iTTi in the context of Q-Rapids European project following a design science
approach. (7) As part of the industrial summative evaluation, we performed the first case study focused on the
application of the method. (8) We detail the phases and steps of the SESSI method and illustrate its application
in the development of ModelioNG, a software product of Modeliosoft development firm. (9) The application
of the SESSI method in the context of ModelioNG case study has provided us with useful feedback to improve
the method and has evidenced that applying the method was feasible in this context.

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Abstract 10: Case Study Research in Software Engineering—It is a Case, and it is a Study, but is it a
Case Study?
(1) Case studies are regularly published in the software engineering literature, and guidelines for conducting
case studies are available. (2) Based on a perception that the label ‘‘case study’’ is assigned to studies that are
not case studies, an investigation has been conducted. (3) The aim was to investigate whether or not the label
‘‘case study’’ is correctly used in software engineering research. (4) To address the objective, 100 recent articles
found through Scopus when searching for case studies in software engineering have been investigated and
classified. (5) Unfortunately, the perception of misuse of the label ‘‘case study’’ is correct. (6) Close to 50% of
the articles investigated were judged as not being case studies according to the definition of a case study. (7)
We either need to ensure correct use of the label ‘‘case study’’, or we need another label for its definition. (8)
Given that ‘‘case study’’ is a well-established label, it is probably impossible to change the label. (9) Thus, we
introduce an alternative definition of case study emphasising its real-life context, and urge researchers to
carefully follow the definition of different research methods when presenting their research.

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