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ICSE 2020
Wed 24 June - Thu 16 July 2020
Wed 8 Jul 2020 15:45 - 15:57 at Silla - A9-Traceability Chair(s): Andrea Zisman

Traceability is a fundamental component of the modern software development process that helps to ensure properly functioning, secure programs. However, traceability tasks incur high costs in terms of effort and time and are often prone to errors. This has prompted a wealth of research on automated approaches that draw relationships between pairs of textual software artifacts using similarity measures. Despite the progress made toward practical automation, such approaches currently have two major drawbacks that inhibit their effectiveness. Namely, current techniques typically only utilize a single measure of artifact similarity, and cannot simultaneously model (implicit and explicit) relationships across groups of diverse structured and unstructured development artifacts.

In this paper, we illustrate how these limitations can be overcome through the use of a tailored probabilistic model. To this end, we design and implement a HierarchiCal PrObabilistic Model for SoftwarE Traceability (Comet) that is able to predict candidate trace links. Comet is capable of modeling relationships between artifacts by combining the complimentary observational prowess of multiple measures of textual similarity. Additionally, our model can holistically incorporate information from a diverse set of sources, including developer expertise and transitive (often implicit) relationships among groups of software artifacts, to improve prediction accuracy. We conduct a comprehensive empirical evaluation of Comet that illustrates our approach is consistently more effective across datasets than existing baseline techniques, and outperforms past approaches on average when considering multiple information sources. Additionally, we worked with a major telecommunication company to develop a Continuous Integration (CI) plugin implementing Comet. A survey with industry developers who used the Comet plugin illustrates its potential for practical applicability.

Wed 8 Jul

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15:00 - 16:00
15:00
12m
Talk
A Novel Approach to Tracing Safety Requirements and State-Based Design ModelsTechnical
Technical Papers
Mounifah Alenazi University of Cincinnati, Nan Niu University of Cincinnati, Juha Savolainen Danfoss
15:12
12m
Talk
Establishing Multilevel Test-to-Code Traceability LinksArtifact ReusableTechnicalArtifact Available
Technical Papers
Robert White University College London, UK, Jens Krinke University College London, Raymond Tan University College London
15:24
6m
Talk
Synthesis of Assurance Cases for Software CertificationNIER
New Ideas and Emerging Results
Hamid Bagheri University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA, Eunsuk Kang Carnegie Mellon University, Niloofar Mansoor University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Pre-print
15:30
3m
Talk
TimeTracer: A Tool for Back in Time Traceability ReplayingDemo
Demonstrations
Christoph Mayr-Dorn Johannes Kepler University Linz, Michael Vierhauser Johannes Kepler University Linz, Felix Keplinger Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Stefan Bichler Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Alexander Egyed Johannes Kepler University, Linz
15:33
12m
Talk
Lack of Adoption of Units of Measurement Libraries: Survey and AnecdotesSEIP
Software Engineering in Practice
Steve McKeever Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University, Sweden, Omar-Alfred Salah Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University, Sweden
15:45
12m
Talk
Improving the Effectiveness of Traceability Link Recovery using Hierarchical Bayesian NetworksTechnical
Technical Papers
Kevin Moran William & Mary/George Mason University, David Nader Palacio William & Mary, Carlos Bernal-Cárdenas William and Mary, Denys Poshyvanyk William and Mary, Daniel McCrystal William & Mary, Chris Shenefiel Cisco Systems, Jeff Johnson Cisco Systems
Pre-print Media Attached