Highly-cited papers in software engineering: The top-100

ContextAccording to the search reported in this paper, as of this writing (May 2015), a very large number of papers (more than 70,000) have been published in the area of Software Engineering (SE) since its inception in 1968. Citations are crucial in any research area to position the work and to build on the work of others. Identification and characterization of highly-cited papers are common and are regularly reported in various disciplines.ObjectiveThe objective of this study is to identify the papers in the area of SE that have influenced others the most as measured by citation count. Studying highly-cited SE papers helps researchers to see the type of approaches and research methods presented and applied in such papers, so as to be able to learn from them to write higher quality papers which will likely receive high citations.MethodTo achieve the above objective, we conducted a study, comprised of five research questions, to identify and classify the top-100 highly-cited SE papers in terms of two metrics: total number of citations and average annual number of citations.ResultsBy total number of citations, the top paper is "A metrics suite for object-oriented design", cited 1817 times and published in 1994. By average annual number of citations, the top paper is "QoS-aware middleware for Web services composition", cited 154.2 times on average annually and published in 2004.ConclusionIt is concluded that it is important to identify the highly-cited SE papers and also to characterize the overall citation landscape in the SE field. We hope that this paper will encourage further discussions in the SE community towards further analysis and formal characterization of the highly-cited SE papers.     

Software engineering article types: An analysis of the literature

The software engineering (SE) community has recently recognized that the field lacks well-established research paradigms and clear guidance on how to write good research reports. With no comprehensive guide to the different article types in the field, article writing and reviewing heavily depends on the expertise and the understanding of the individual SE actors.In this work, we classify and describe the article types published in SE with an emphasis on what is required for publication in journals and conference proceedings. Theoretically, we consider article types as genres, because we assume that each type of article has a specific function and a particular communicative purpose within the community, which the members of the community can recognize. We draw on written sources available, i.e. the instructions to authors/reviewers of major SE journals, the calls for papers of major SE conferences, and previous research published on the topic.Despite the fragmentation and limitations of the sources studied, we are able to propose a classification of different SE article types. Such classification helps in guiding the reader through the SE literature, and in making the researcher reflect on directions for improvements.     

Research in software engineering: an analysis of the literature

In this paper, we examine the state of software engineering (SE) research from the point of view of the following research questions:

• 1.What topics do SE researchers address?
• 2.What research approaches do SE researchers use?
• 3.What research methods do SE researchers use?
• 4.On what reference disciplines does SE research depend?
• 5.At what levels of analysis do SE researchers conduct research?

To answer those questions, we examined 369 papers in six leading research journals in the SE field, answering those research questions for each paper.From that examination, we conclude that SE research is diverse regarding topic, narrow regarding research approach and method, inwardly-focused regarding reference discipline, and technically focused (as opposed to behaviorally focused) regarding level of analysis.We pass no judgment on the SE field as a result of these findings. Instead, we present them as groundwork for future SE research efforts.     

A systematic mapping study of web application testing

ContextThe Web has had a significant impact on all aspects of our society. As our society relies more and more on the Web, the dependability of web applications has become increasingly important. To make these applications more dependable, for the past decade researchers have proposed various techniques for testing web-based software applications. Our literature search for related studies retrieved 147 papers in the area of web application testing, which have appeared between 2000 and 2011.ObjectiveAs this research area matures and the number of related papers increases, it is important to systematically identify, analyze, and classify the publications and provide an overview of the trends in this specialized field.MethodWe review and structure the body of knowledge related to web application testing through a systematic mapping (SM) study. As part of this study, we pose two sets of research questions, define selection and exclusion criteria, and systematically develop and refine a classification schema. In addition, we conduct a bibliometrics analysis of the papers included in our study.ResultsOur study includes a set of 79 papers (from the 147 retrieved papers) published in the area of web application testing between 2000 and 2011. We present the results of our systematic mapping study. Our mapping data is available through a publicly-accessible repository. We derive the observed trends, for instance, in terms of types of papers, sources of information to derive test cases, and types of evaluations used in papers. We also report the demographics and bibliometrics trends in this domain, including top-cited papers, active countries and researchers, and top venues in this research area.ConclusionWe discuss the emerging trends in web application testing, and discuss the implications for researchers and practitioners in this area. The results of our systematic mapping can help researchers to obtain an overview of existing web application testing approaches and indentify areas in the field that require more attention from the research community.     

Information ecology research: past,present, and future

This paper examines the status of information ecology research through studying the published papers on the topic of information ecology included in Social Sciences Citation Index and Science Citation Index database from 1992 to 2013. It applies bibliometrics and knowledge mapping to analyze the changes in the number of published papers as time goes on, in terms of country and geographic area, research topics, research methods, funding sources, hot research spots, and research trends. In addition, this paper summarizes the origin and the evolution of information ecology research and introduces institutions that conduct information ecology research. The results indicate that information ecology is an emerging field with vigorous development in recent years, and information ecology research is a multi-disciplinary subject. The research also reveals that information ecology research mainly focuses on information ecosystems, information ecology in e-commerce, and information ecology in a network. This paper calls for wider and deeper research on information ecology, in order to explore information ecology issues caused by the rapid development of new technologies.     

Investigations about replication of empirical studies in software engineering: A systematic mapping study

ContextTwo recent mapping studies which were intended to verify the current state of replication of empirical studies in Software Engineering (SE) identified two sets of studies: empirical studies actually reporting replications (published between 1994 and 2012) and a second group of studies that are concerned with definitions, classifications, processes, guidelines, and other research topics or themes about replication work in empirical software engineering research (published between 1996 and 2012).ObjectiveIn this current article, our goal is to analyze and discuss the contents of the second set of studies about replications to increase our understanding of the current state of the work on replication in empirical software engineering research.MethodWe applied the systematic literature review method to build a systematic mapping study, in which the primary studies were collected by two previous mapping studies covering the period 1996–2012 complemented by manual and automatic search procedures that collected articles published in 2013.ResultsWe analyzed 37 papers reporting studies about replication published in the last 17 years. These papers explore different topics related to concepts and classifications, presented guidelines, and discuss theoretical issues that are relevant for our understanding of replication in our field. We also investigated how these 37 papers have been cited in the 135 replication papers published between 1994 and 2012.ConclusionsReplication in SE still lacks a set of standardized concepts and terminology, which has a negative impact on the replication work in our field. To improve this situation, it is important that the SE research community engage on an effort to create and evaluate taxonomy, frameworks, guidelines, and methodologies to fully support the development of replications.     

全同态加密文献计量分析研究

全同态加密在不解密的情况下,能够对密文数据进行任意处理。这种特殊的性质能够立竿见影地解决数据隐私安全问题。目前全同态加密已经成为学术界、工业界乃至商业界的热门话题。随着全同态加密技术的不断成熟,尤其是目前全世界对个人信息隐私安全的重视,如何从知识体系的角度对其进行详细分析对社会各界有重要的意义。文献计量分析方法是分析某项科研主题现有研究工作的重要方法,鉴于目前在全同态加密领域缺少基于文献计量分析的研究工作,从文献计量学的角度开展全同态加密文献计量研究。选取Web of Science（WoS）与中国知网（CNKI）作为参考文献数据库,对2009年到2020年的所有全同态加密相关论文筛选后进行文献计量分析。对收集到的论文运用CiteSpace进行了辅助的统计分析,给出了对同态加密近年来的发展、发文期刊、高引用论文、基金资助机构以及实际应用趋势的分析,为全同态加密的应用与实践提供指导。     

Fault prognosis of discrete event systems: An overview

Fault prognosis of discrete event systems (DES) is an active field of research and has become important due to the high demand on systems’ safety and reliability. The aim of this paper is to provide the state-of-the-art on fault prognosis of DES, as well as quick directions regarding many aspects of the research on this topic. This overview was carried out using a systematic approach, which allowed us to find and select papers with minimum bias. In total, 74 papers were selected and analyzed in this overview. A classification and an analysis of these papers are made regarding the modeling formalism and decision structure of prognosis of DES. Specific notions of prognosis are also presented. A survey on these papers was performed, regarding practical applications and related problems of prognosis. Results show that most papers present solutions based on languages & automata (56), and most papers consider the centralized decision structure (45). Also, we have found 17 different papers with examples of practical applications of prognosis of DES. We have identified research gaps, such as applications of distributed prognosis and distributed prognosis of Petri nets. Finally, the research activity on prognosis of DES is growing 16.14% by year on average, accordingly to the number of published papers on this topic between 2006 and 2020.     

A systematic review of systematic review process research in software engineering

ContextMany researchers adopting systematic reviews (SRs) have also published papers discussing problems with the SR methodology and suggestions for improving it. Since guidelines for SRs in software engineering (SE) were last updated in 2007, we believe it is time to investigate whether the guidelines need to be amended in the light of recent research.ObjectiveTo identify, evaluate and synthesize research published by software engineering researchers concerning their experiences of performing SRs and their proposals for improving the SR process.MethodWe undertook a systematic review of papers reporting experiences of undertaking SRs and/or discussing techniques that could be used to improve the SR process. Studies were classified with respect to the stage in the SR process they addressed, whether they related to education or problems faced by novices and whether they proposed the use of textual analysis tools.ResultsWe identified 68 papers reporting 63 unique studies published in SE conferences and journals between 2005 and mid-2012. The most common criticisms of SRs were that they take a long time, that SE digital libraries are not appropriate for broad literature searches and that assessing the quality of empirical studies of different types is difficult.ConclusionWe recommend removing advice to use structured questions to construct search strings and including advice to use a quasi-gold standard based on a limited manual search to assist the construction of search stings and evaluation of the search process. Textual analysis tools are likely to be useful for inclusion/exclusion decisions and search string construction but require more stringent evaluation. SE researchers would benefit from tools to manage the SR process but existing tools need independent validation. Quality assessment of studies using a variety of empirical methods remains a major problem.     

Services computing as the foundation of enterprise agility: Overview of recent advances and introduction to the special issue

The advancement of web services in the last few years has spurred a number of revolutionary concepts in information technology and management including service-oriented architectures, service-oriented computing, and services science, management and engineering, which can be collectively called as “services computing.” Services computing is a new research field that goes beyond traditional computing disciplines as it includes not only architectural, programming, deployment, and other engineering issues, but also management issues such as business component modeling, business process design, and service delivery. In this paper, we provide an overview of emerging research concepts in services computing without attempting to unify them as it will take sometime for the field to become mature. In addition, we take a position that the ultimate goal of services computing is to create the necessary technological and managerial foundation to support enterprise agility. In this short paper, we give an overview of services computing, describe its relationship to enterprise agility, and discuss basic technical and managerial issues. Finally, we introduce the papers that are published in this special issue.

基于动态分析的软件不变量综合技术

软件不变量是软件的重要属性，在软件验证、软件调试和软件测试等领域有重要作用.自20世纪末以来，基于动态分析的不变量综合技术成为相关领域的一个研究热点，并且取得了一定的进展.本文收集了90篇相关论文对该领域进行系统总结.基于动态分析的不变量综合技术是该领域的核心问题，本文提出了”学习者-预言”框架统一描述相关方法，并且在此框架内根据学习者的归纳方法将综合技术大致分为4类，分别是基于模板穷举的方法、基于数值计算的方法、基于统计学习的方法以及基于符号执行的方法.其次，本文讨论基于动态分析综合的不变量在软件验证和软件工程等领域的重要应用.随后，总结不变量生成技术中常用的实验对象程序和开源的不变量综合工具.最后，总结该领域并展望未来的研究方向.     

A Survey of Information Visualization Books

Information visualization is a rapidly evolving field with a growing volume of scientific literature and texts continually published. To keep abreast of the latest developments in the domain, survey papers and state‐of‐the‐art reviews provide valuable tools for managing the large quantity of scientific literature. Recently, a survey of survey papers was published to keep track of the quantity of refereed survey papers in information visualization conferences and journals. However, no such resources exist to inform readers of the large volume of books being published on the subject, leaving the possibility of valuable knowledge being overlooked. We present the first literature survey of information visualization books that addresses this challenge by surveying the large volume of books on the topic of information visualization and visual analytics. This unique survey addresses some special challenges associated with collections of books (as opposed to research papers) including searching, browsing and cost. This paper features a novel two‐level classification based on both books and chapter topics examined in each book, enabling the reader to quickly identify to what depth a topic of interest is covered within a particular book. Readers can use this survey to identify the most relevant book for their needs amongst a quickly expanding collection. In indexing the landscape of information visualization books, this survey provides a valuable resource to both experienced researchers and newcomers in the data visualization discipline.     

An automated knowledge structure construction approach: Applying information retrieval and genetic algorithm to journal of Expert Systems with Applications

In this study, information retrieval and genetic algorithm are integrated to propose a new knowledge structure construction method and this method is further applied to the papers published on the journal of Expert Systems with Applications (ESWA). The purpose of this method is to explore the major topics as well as the related techniques and methods of the papers published in various periods of time and help understand the research tendencies among these published papers. We use vector space model to present the published papers and feature and adopt chi-square test to examine the independence of topics. Then we apply genetic algorithm to facilitate automatic topic selections used to construct the knowledge structures for the journal in study.We select ESWA as the source of samples mainly because the papers published on this journal feature an extensive use of methods and techniques and have been widely applied in many domains. Moreover, it is also a SCI listed journal. In recent years, more and more outstanding scholars have published their papers on this journal, so citation of the papers on this journal by other papers is frequent. It can be viewed as an internationally prominent journal.In our experiment, knowledge structures are constructed and analyzed. The representativeness of the selected topics and whether published papers have been classified into appropriate topics are also evaluated. From the experimental results, we discover that the constructed knowledge structures could not only effectively present representative topics, related techniques and issues, but also help understand the research tendencies.     

s-HITSc: an improved model and algorithm for topic distillation on the Web

Topic distillation on the Web, namely, finding quality information sources related to a given query topic with hyperlink analysis, has been shown to be useful in Web IR. Based on the analysis of three deficiencies of classical topic distillation algorithm HITS, this paper presents an improved model and algorithm named s-HITSc. Given a query topic, the improved algorithm can model a neighborhood graph at site granularity, compute the relevance weights of the nodes to the topic with content analysis, and apply weighted I/O operations in its iterative hyperlink analysis. Theoretical analysis and experimental results show that s-HITSc can control topic drift and identify more reasonable and meaningful authority and hub sites on a given topic.

Unraveling the capabilities that enable digital transformation: A data-driven methodology and the case of artificial intelligence

Digital transformation (DT) is prevalent in businesses today. However, current studies to guide DT are mostly qualitative, resulting in a strong call for quantitative evidence of exactly what DT is and the capabilities needed to enable it successfully. With the aim of filling the gaps, this paper presents a novel bibliometric framework that unearths clues from scientific articles and patents. The framework incorporates the scientific evolutionary pathways and hierarchical topic tree to quantitatively identify the DT research topics’ evolutionary patterns and hierarchies at play in DT research. Our results include a comprehensive definition of DT from the perspective of bibliometrics and a systematic categorization of the capabilities required to enable DT, distilled from over 10,179 academic papers on DT. To further yield practical insights on technological capabilities, the paper also includes a case study of 9,454 patents focusing on one of the emerging technologies - artificial intelligence (AI). We summarized the outcomes with a four-level AI capabilities model. The paper ends with a discussion on its contributions: presenting a quantitative account of the DT research, introducing a process-based understanding of DT, offering a list of major capabilities enabling DT, and drawing the attention of managers to be aware of capabilities needed when undertaking their DT journey.     

Rust语言安全研究综述

Rust是为了解决系统编程领域的安全性问题, 而设计的一门面向系统编程的兼具类型安全、内存安全和并发安全的新型程序设计语言, 强调安全性和高性能, 已经在操作系统内核、Web浏览器、网络协议栈、数据库和区块链等底层软件系统的构建中得到了越来越广泛的应用。现有研究表明, 尽管Rust的设计目标是保证安全性, 但其自身仍然存在许多安全问题。作为一门系统编程语言, Rust的安全性直接影响到基于Rust开发的软件系统的安全性。随着Rust的广泛应用, 对Rust语言安全的研究显得尤为重要。Rust语言安全研究正在成为研究热点, 并且在近几年已经取得了较大研究进展。本综述基于该研究领域已经公开发表的46篇研究论文,对该领域的相关研究进行了系统整理、分析和总结: 首先, 研究分析了Rust的核心安全特性, 包括函数式编程范式、强多态类型系统、基于所有权模型的自动内存管理、对非安全代码的显式标记和隔离; 其次, 提出了Rust语言安全研究领域的分类学, 将已有研究分为安全实证研究、漏洞检测研究、安全增强研究和形式化验证研究四个热点方向, 并分别对这四个方向上的相关研究进行了综述、深入分析和总结, 同时分析了四个研究方向的内在联系; 最后, 指出了该研究领域的待解决的科学问题, 并对未来可能的研究方向进行了展望, 提出了四个潜在的研究方向, 以期为相关领域的研究者提供有价值的参考。     

Survey of Surveys (SoS) ‐ Mapping The Landscape of Survey Papers in Information Visualization

Information visualization as a field is growing rapidly in popularity since the first information visualization conference in 1995. However, as a consequence of its growth, it is increasingly difficult to follow the growing body of literature within the field. Survey papers and literature reviews are valuable tools for managing the great volume of previously published research papers, and the quantity of survey papers in visualization has reached a critical mass. To this end, this survey paper takes a quantum step forward by surveying and classifying literature survey papers in order to help researchers understand the current landscape of Information Visualization. It is, to our knowledge, the first survey of survey papers (SoS) in Information Visualization. This paper classifies survey papers into natural topic clusters which enables readers to find relevant literature and develops the first classification of classifications. The paper also enables researchers to identify both mature and less developed research directions as well as identify future directions. It is a valuable resource for both newcomers and experienced researchers in and outside the field of Information Visualization and Visual Analytics.     

A survey of code‐based change impact analysis techniques

Software change impact analysis (CIA) is a technique for identifying the effects of a change, or estimating what needs to be modified to accomplish a change. Since the 1980s, there have been many investigations on CIA, especially for code‐based CIA techniques. However, there have been very few surveys on this topic. This article tries to fill this gap. And 30 papers that provide empirical evaluation on 23 code‐based CIA techniques are identified. Then, data was synthesized against four research questions. The study presents a comparative framework including seven properties, which characterize the CIA techniques, and identifies key applications of CIA techniques in software maintenance. In addition, the need for further research is also presented in the following areas: evaluating existing CIA techniques and proposing new CIA techniques under the proposed framework, developing more mature tools to support CIA, comparing current CIA techniques empirically with unified metrics and common benchmarks, and applying the CIA more extensively and effectively in the software maintenance phase. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Past and future of software architectural decisions – A systematic mapping study

ContextThe software architecture of a system is the result of a set of architectural decisions. The topic of architectural decisions in software engineering has received significant attention in recent years. However, no systematic overview exists on the state of research on architectural decisions.ObjectiveThe goal of this study is to provide a systematic overview of the state of research on architectural decisions. Such an overview helps researchers reflect on previous research and plan future research. Furthermore, such an overview helps practitioners understand the state of research, and how research results can help practitioners in their architectural decision-making.MethodWe conducted a systematic mapping study, covering studies published between January 2002 and January 2012. We defined six research questions. We queried six reference databases and obtained an initial result set of 28,895 papers. We followed a search and filtering process that resulted in 144 relevant papers.ResultsAfter classifying the 144 relevant papers for each research question, we found that current research focuses on documenting architectural decisions. We found that only several studies describe architectural decisions from the industry. We identified potential future research topics: domain-specific architectural decisions (such as mobile), achieving specific quality attributes (such as reliability or scalability), uncertainty in decision-making, and group architectural decisions. Regarding empirical evaluations of the papers, around half of the papers use systematic empirical evaluation approaches (such as surveys, or case studies). Still, few papers on architectural decisions use experiments.ConclusionOur study confirms the increasing interest in the topic of architectural decisions. This study helps the community reflect on the past ten years of research on architectural decisions. Researchers are offered a number of promising future research directions, while practitioners learn what existing papers offer.