APSEC 2020

Welcome to the website of the 27th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC 2020)

The Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC) has long been established as a premier regional conference that brings together researchers and practitioners from academia, industry and government to share the state of the art and the practice of software engineering, and to explore emerging challenges and solutions in software engineering innovation. APSEC 2020 will continue in the tradition of previous editions of this regional conference. As past APSEC series, the main research track features the most recent and significant innovations in the field of software engineering and all its sub-disciplines. We invite submissions of high quality research papers that describe original and unpublished results on all topics of both theoretical and empirical software engineering research.

APSEC 2020 will offer an extensive program of interest to academia, government and industry. It will include several distinguished keynote speakers and conference days of paper presentations, panels, and demos. A series of exciting tutorials to develop skills in various aspects of software engineering practices is of particular interest to industry. Co-located workshops as well as Software Engineering Postgraduates Workshop (SEPoW) offer forums for participants to present novel techniques and methods in particular sub-disciplines of software engineering.

We look forward to your contribution and participation.

Important notice: Due to the uncertainty of COVID-19 situation, virtural presentation will be considered (with discounted registration fee) if physical presentation is not feasible at the time of the conference.

	Author	Non-author
Price	300 SGD	100 SGD

Program

Download the program here: pdf version.

Keynote Speakers

Abhik Roychoudhury is a Professor (Provost's Chair) of Computer Science at the National University of Singapore. He is the Director of the National Satellite of Excellence in Trustworthy Software Systems at Singapore. He is also the Lead Principal Investigator of the Singapore Cyber-security Consortium, which is a consortium of over 30 companies in the cyber-security space engaging with academia for research and collaboration. His research focuses on software testing and analysis, software security and trust-worthy software construction. His research on automatically repairing programs at a large scale contributes to the vision of self-healing software. Many of his recent research works have led to usage such as the research on program repair has been used for teaching of introductory programming via the Prutor system in India, and his research on fuzz testing in the form of the AFLFast tool has been integrated into the American Fuzzy Lop (AFL) fuzzer which is used by corporations for finding software vulnerabilities. He has served as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE) during 2014-18, and is currently serving as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC), ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM). His former doctoral students have been placed at universities all over the world as academics and have received various awards for their doctoral research including an ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award. Abhik received his own Ph.D. in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2000.

Title: Trustworthy Software and Automated Program Repair

Abstract: Symbolic analysis of programs were first studied for the purpose of program verification. In recent decades, symbolic execution technology has witnessed renewed interest due to the maturity of Satisfiability Modulo Theory (SMT) solvers. We have leveraged the back-end solvers to systematically navigate large search spaces leading to application of symbolic analysis in test generation. In this talk, we will first study the power of state-of-the-art symbolic execution based approaches for detecting software vulnerabilities, such as tools for finding zero-day vulnerabilities and crash reproduction. We compare the symbolic analysis approaches to grey-box fuzz testing approaches which are routinely employed in industrial settings for finding vulnerabilities in programs, to understand the ongoing work in industry practice.

In the later part of the talk, we will conceptualize the use of symbolic approaches and tools for purposes beyond guiding search. We will sketch the usage of symbolic execution in inferring specification of intended program behavior, even when no formal models are available.This is done by analyzing a buggy program against selected tests. Such specification inference capability can be combined with program synthesis technology to automatically repair programs. Automated program repair via symbolic execution goes beyond search-based approaches which lift patches from elsewhere in the program. Such an approach can construct ìimaginativeî patches and serves as a test-bed for the grand-challenge of automated programming, It contributes to the vision of self-healing software of the future, where un-trustworthiness of learning components can be compensated via self-healing.

ZhenJiang Hu is Chair Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Technology, Peking University. He received his BS and MS degrees from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1988 and 1991, respectively, and PhD degree from University of Tokyo in 1996. He was a lecturer (1997–2000) and an associate professor (2000–2008) in University of Tokyo, a full professor at NII (2008-2018), and a full professor at NII & University of Tokyo in (2018-2019), before joining Peking University in 2019. His main research interest is in programming languages and software engineering in general, and functional programming, parallel programming, and bidirectional programming in particular. He is Fellow of JFES (Japan Federation of Engineering Society), Fellow of IEEE, Member of Academy of Europe, and Member of Engineering Academy of Japan.

Title: Dependable Bidirectional Programming

Abstract: Programs usually run unidirectional; computing an output from an input and the output is not changeable. It is, however, becoming more and more important to develop programs whose output is subject to change. One typical example is data synchronization, where we may wish to have a consistent schedule information by synchronizing calendars in different formats on various systems, make a smart watch by synchronizing its configuration with the environment, or achieve data interoperability by synchronization data among subsystems. In this talk, I'd briefly review the work on bidirectional programming, discuss languages for supporting construction of dependable bidirectional transformations, and show some new applications of bidirectional transformations.

Zhendong Su is a Professor in Computer Science at ETH Zurich. Previously, he was a Professor and Chancellor's Fellow at UC Davis. He received his PhD in Computer Science from UC Berkeley. His research spans programming languages and compilers, software engineering, computer security, deep learning and education technologies. His work was recognized by an ACM SIGSOFT Impact Paper Award, a Google Scholar Classic Paper Award, multiple best/distinguished paper/artifact awards at top venues (e.g., PLDI, OSDI, OOPSLA, and ICSE), an ACM CACM Research Highlight, an NSF CAREER Award, a UC Davis Outstanding Faculty Award, and multiple industrial faculty awards (e.g., Cisco, Google, IBM, Microsoft, and Mozilla). He served on the steering committees of ISSTA and ESEC/FSE, served as an Associate Editor for ACM TOSEM, co-chaired SAS 2009, program chaired ISSTA 2012, and program co-chaired SIGSOFT FSE 2016.

Title: Solidifying the Software Foundations

Abstract: Software applications and technologies are built on top of foundational systems such as compilers, databases, and theorem provers. Such foundations form the trusted computing base, and fundamentally impact software quality and security. Thus, solidifying them is a critical challenge. This talk highlights general, effective techniques, and extensive, impactful efforts on finding hundreds of critical issues in widely-used compilers, database management systems, and SMT solvers. It focuses on the high-level principles and core techniques, their significant practical successes, and future opportunities and challenges.

Submission and Publication

Technical Research papers

The APSEC 2020 technical research track invites high quality submissions of papers describing original research studies and results in the discipline of software engineering. All accepted papers will be submitted to the IEEE-CS Digital Library as the APSEC 2020 conference proceedings.

Technical research papers must not be more than 10 pages. Submissions will be evaluated by at least three program committee members. The evaluation will focus on the novelty, originality, importance to the field, proper use of research methods, and presentation of the submissions.

All submissions must be in English, and must come in A4 paper size PDF format and conform, at time of submission, to the IEEE Conference Proceedings Formatting Guidelines (title in 24pt font and full text in 10pt font, LaTeX users must use \documentclass[10pt,conference]{IEEEtran} without including the compsoc or compsocconf option). Also, papers must comply with the IEEE Policy on Authorship.

Submissions must be submitted electronically in PDF before the due date via EasyChair.

The Chairs reserve the right to reject submissions (without reviews) that are not in compliance or out of scope for the conference.

For your paper to be published in the APSEC 2020 conference proceedings, at least one of the authors of the paper must register for the conference and confirm that she/he will present the paper in person at the conference venue.

Software Engineering in Practice (SEIP) Papers

APSEC 2020 will feature a Software Engineering in Practice (SEIP) track, in a similar fashion the ICSE SEIP (International Conference on Software Engineering, Software Engineering in Practice) track. This track will gather quality empirical studies as well as experience reports from real-world software practice. This encourages both industrial and research participants to communicate and share challenges of software engineering in practice. The papers in the SEIP track follow the general topics specified in the technical research track. All accepted papers will be submitted to the IEEE-CS Digital Library as the APSEC 2020 conference proceedings. For your paper to be published in the APSEC 2020 conference proceedings, at least one of the authors of the paper must register for the conference and confirm that she/he will present the paper in person at the conference venue.

SEIP papers must not be more than 10 pages. Submissions will be reviewed by at least two members of the Program Committee of the SEIP track, and they will be evaluated on the basis of industry relevance, originality, soundness, empirical and-or practical validation, quality and consistency of presentation.

Submitted papers must have been neither previously accepted for publication nor concurrently submitted for review in another journal, book, conference, or workshop.

Submissions must be submitted electronically in PDF before the due date via EasyChair.

The Chairs reserve the right to reject submissions (without reviews) that are not in compliance or out of scope for the conference.

Early Research Achievements (ERA) Papers

The Early Research Achievements (ERA) track invites submissions of papers that present current work-in-progress and be based on either research, practice or experience. Papers in the ERA track do not always need to report such complete results as full conference papers and so can be a good way to fast track new technical work.

The ERA track follows the general topics specified in the technical research track. For your paper to be published in the APSEC 2020 conference proceedings, at least one of the authors of the paper must register for the conference and confirm that she/he will present the paper in person at the conference venue.

ERA papers must not be more than 5 pages. All paper submissions are rigorously reviewed by at least three reviewers and evaluated based on originality, technical quality, and relevance to software engineering concepts and technologies. All submissions must describe unpublished work that is not currently submitted for publication elsewhere – any violation of this rule will result in the desk reject (without any reviews).

All submissions must be in English, and must use the IEEE dual column conference template with 10pt font and not exceed the page limit (including all figures, references and appendices). Submissions must be submitted electronically in PDF before the due date via EasyChair.

The Chairs reserve the right to reject submissions (without reviews) that are not in compliance or out of scope for the conference. All accepted papers will be submitted to the IEEE-CS Digital Library.

Poster Papers

Poster papers should present work in progress and be based on either research, practice or experience. Poster papers are not required to report complete results as full conference papers, so they are a good way to fast track new technical work. Posters will be presented during a special session at APSEC 2020.

The poster session at APSEC 2020 aims to bring like-minded people together in an interactive setting. Effectively designed posters convey the essence of an idea, an experience or a piece of research in an appealing manner. The work presented in a poster does not have to be fully developed and can be a good way to get early feedback on new ideas. A good poster will encourage conference participants to interact with others who are also attracted to the poster topic, and could be a catalyst for developing and extending topic networks.

Poster proposals must not exceed 2 pages. Each submission will be rigorously reviewed by the poster review panel, and evaluated based on the relevance to software engineering concepts and technologies. All submissions must describe unpublished work that is not currently submitted for publication elsewhere – any violation of this rule will result in a desk reject (without any reviews).

All submissions must be in English, and must use the IEEE dual column conference template with 10pt font and not exceed the page limit (including all figures, references and appendices). Paper must be submitted electronically in PDF by the due date via EasyChair.

The chairs reserve the right to reject submissions (without reviews) that are not in compliance or out of scope for the conference. All accepted papers will be submitted to the IEEE-CS Digital Library as the APSEC 2020 conference proceedings. For your paper to be published in the APSEC 2020 conference proceedings, at least one of the authors of the paper must register for the conference and confirm that she/he will present the paper in person at the conference venue.

Call for Workshops

The APSEC 2020 workshops will provide a forum to discuss current topics in software engineering research and practice, offering opportunities for researchers to exchange and discuss innovative scientific and engineering ideas at a stage before they have matured to warrant conference or journal publication, as well as new developments in the field. APSEC workshops also serve as incubators for scientific ideas or new scientific communities that form and share a particular research agenda. APSEC Workshops should not be seen as an alternative forum for presenting full research papers.

We encourage those interested in organizing a workshop to submit proposals focusing on any aspect of APSEC 2020. Each workshop can be full or half day and should highlight a specific topic of interest related to ongoing research or industrial projects on software engineering.

Evaluation Criteria: Workshop proposals will be judged on their originality, relevance to the topics of APSEC 2020, the expected level of interest in the topic, and the organizers’ ability to lead a successful workshop. The accepted workshops will be scheduled by the APSEC Organizing Committee to fit the overall program of the conference.

Submission Instructions: Please send your proposal via email to malei@ait.kyushu-u.ac.jp and foutse.khomh@polymtl.ca

Workshop proposals should include the following information, with a maximum of two pages in IEEE proceedings format:

Workshop title
Main contact for the workshop
Workshop organizing committee
Brief description of workshop topic and goals
Expected numbers of submissions and participants
Expected number of accepted papers
Draft workshop schedule including duration (full day or half day), format of sessions and discussions
Paper selection criteria and mechanism
Plan to publish the proceedings
Special requirements regarding facilities, equipment, and materials if applicable
Information regarding previous instances of the workshop/similar workshops by the organizers (if any)

Each workshop organizing committee will be responsible for:

Creating a web page for the workshop for publicity and communication. The call must make it clear that the workshop will be open to all participants of APSEC 2020.
Providing a brief description of the workshop for the conference web page and program.
Publish the proceedings. The workshop proceedings are NOT included in the main conference proceedings, and can be published via a free open-access publication service, such as CEUR.org (link: http://ceur-ws.org/).

Important Dates

Proposal Submissions Due: 20 July 2020 (AoE)

Proposal Notification: 27 July 2020

Steering Committee

Sooyong Park, Sogang University, Korea
Muhammad Ali Babar, University of Adelaide, Australia
Sundeok (Steve) Char, Korea University, Korea
William C. Chu, Tung Hai University, Taiwan
Jin Song Dong, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Jun Han, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
Jackey Keung, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Karl R. P. H. Leung, Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education, Hong Kong
Deron Liang, National Central University, Taiwan
Katsuhisa Maruyama, Ritsumeikan University, Japan
Pornsiri Muenchaisri, Chulalonghorn University, Thailand
Danny Poo, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Steve Reeves, The University of Waikato, New Zealand
Shamsul Sahibuddin, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia
Ashish Sureka, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi IIITD, India
Hironori Washizaki, Waseda University, Japan
He (Jason) Zhang, Nanjing University, China

Honorary Chairs

Danny Poo, NUS, Singapore
Jin Song Dong, NUS and Griffith University, Singapore/Australia

General Chair

Jun Sun, Singapore Management University, Singapore

Program Chair

Yang Liu, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Shang-Pin Ma, National Taiwan Ocean University, Taiwan

Proceeding Chair

Sen Chen, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Track Chairs

Early Research Achievements (ERA) Co-chairs

Sen Chen, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Bihuan Chen, Fudan University, China

Poster Co-chairs

Lingling Fan, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Wei Yang, The University of Taxas at Dallas, USA

Local Chair

Yi Li, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Xiaofei Xie, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Publicity Chair

Jie M. Zhang, University College Londong, UK

Workshop Co-chairs

Lei Ma, Kyushu University, Japan
Foutse Khomh, Polytechnique Montreal, Canada

Financial Chair

Lingling Fan, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Registration Chair

Jian Wang, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Program Committee Members

Bernhard Scholz, The University of Sydney, Australia
David Lo, Singapore Management University, Singapore
Deron Liang, National Central University, Taiwan
Doo-Hwan Bae, KAIST, Korea
Foutse Khomh, Polytechnique Montréal, Canada
Fuyuki Ishikawa, National Institute of Informatics, Japan
Hironori Washizaki, Waseda University, Japan
In-Young Ko, KAIST, Korean
Jinqiu Yang, Concordia University, Canada
Jun Han, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
Jun Xu, Stevens Institute of Technology, USA
Junjie Chen, Tianjin University, China
Katsuhisa Maruyama, Ritsumeikan University, Japan
Lei Bu, Nanjing University, China
Lei Ma, Kyushu University, Japan
Lingxiao Jiang, Singapore Management University, Singapore
Paul Strooper, The University of Queensland, Australia
Pornsiri Muenchaisri, Chulalonghorn University, Thailand
Sudipta Chattopadhyay, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore
Van-Thuan Pham, University of Melbourne, Australia
Xiaoning Du, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Yann-Gaël Guéhéneuc, Concordia University, Canada
Yu Jiang, Tsinghua University, China
Yu-Fang Chen, Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
Yulei Sui, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Yuting Chen, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
Hiroyuki Nakagawa, Osaka University, Japan
Jie M. Zhang, University College London, UK
Cuiyun Gao, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Ming Fan, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China
Chunyang Chen, Monash University, Australia
Guozhu Meng, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Xiang Chen, Nantong University, China
Lili Wei, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China
Bihuan Chen, Fudan University, China
Kui Liu, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China
Ruitao Feng, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

The 27^th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference