A long term goal of the series of CESI workshops is to create a vibrant research and practice community with focus on conducting quality empirical studies in industry hoping that their results will lead to improved software engineering practices, techniques, methods, processes, technologies, products systems and services

Developing secure software requires the integration of numerous methods and tools into the development process, and software design is based on shared expert knowledge, claims, and opinions. Empirical methods, including data analytics, allow extracting knowledge and insights from the data that organizations collect from their processes and tools, and from the opinions of the experts who practice these processes and methods. This book introduces the reader to the fundamentals of empirical research methods, and demonstrates how these methods can be used to hone a secure software development lifecycle based on empirical data and published best practices.

This book presents contemporary empirical methods in software engineering related to the plurality of research methodologies, human factors, data collection and processing, aggregation and synthesis of evidence, and impact of software engineering research. The individual chapters discuss methods that impact the current evolution of empirical software engineering and form the backbone of future research. Following an introductory chapter that outlines the background of and developments in empirical software engineering over the last 50 years and provides an overview of the subsequent contributions, the remainder of the book is divided into four parts: Study Strategies (including e.g. guidelines for surveys or design science); Data Collection, Production, and Analysis (highlighting approaches from e.g. data science, biometric measurement, and simulation-based studies); Knowledge Acquisition and Aggregation (highlighting literature research, threats to validity, and evidence aggregation); and Knowledge Transfer (discussing open science and knowledge transfer with industry). Empirical methods like experimentation have become a powerful means of advancing the field of software engineering by providing scientific evidence on software development, operation, and maintenance, but also by supporting practitioners in their decision-making and learning processes. Thus the book is equally suitable for academics aiming to expand the field and for industrial researchers and practitioners looking for novel ways to check the validity of their assumptions and experiences. Chapter 17 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Because of the growing reliance on software, concerns are growing as to how reliable a system is before it is commissioned for use, how high the level of reliability is in the system, and how many vulnerabilities exist in the system before its operationalization. Equally pressing issues include how to secure the system from internal and external security threats that may exist in the face of resident vulnerabilities. These two problems are considered increasingly important because they necessitate the development of tools and techniques capable of analyzing dependability and security aspects of a system. These concerns become more pronounced in the cases of safety-critical and mission-critical systems. System Reliability and Security: Techniques and Methodologies focuses on the use of soft computing techniques and analytical techniques in the modeling and analysis of dependable and secure systems. It examines systems and applications having complex distributed or networked architectures in such fields as: ■ Nuclear energy ■ Ground transportation systems ■ Air traffic control ■ Healthcare and medicine ■ Communications System reliability engineering is a multidisciplinary field that uses computational methods for estimating or predicting the reliability aspects of a system and analyzing failure data obtained from real-world projects. System security is a related field that ensures that even a reliable system is secure against accidental or deliberate intrusions and is free of vulnerabilities. This book covers tools and techniques, cutting-edge research topics, and methodologies in the areas of system reliability and security. It examines prediction models and methods as well as how to secure a system as it is being developed.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering, ENASE 2015, held in Barcelona, Spain, in April 2015. The 10 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 74 submissions. The papers reflect a growing effort to increase the dissemination of new results among researchers and professionals related to evaluation of novel approaches to software engineering. By comparing novel approaches with established traditional practices and by evaluating them against software quality criteria, the ENASE conferences advance knowledge and research in software engineering, identify most hopeful trends, and propose new directions for consideration by researchers and practitioners involved in large-scale software development and integration.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Similarity Search and Applications, SISAP 2020, held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in September/October 2020. The conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 19 full papers presented together with 12 short and 2 doctoral symposium papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 50 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections named: scalable similarity search; similarity measures, search, and indexing; high-dimensional data and intrinsic dimensionality; clustering; artificial intelligence and similarity; demo and position papers; and doctoral symposium.

Like other sciences and engineering disciplines, software engineering requires a cycle of model building, experimentation, and learning. Experiments are valuable tools for all software engineers who are involved in evaluating and choosing between different methods, techniques, languages and tools. The purpose of Experimentation in Software Engineering is to introduce students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners to empirical studies in software engineering, using controlled experiments. The introduction to experimentation is provided through a process perspective, and the focus is on the steps that we have to go through to perform an experiment. The book is divided into three parts. The first part provides a background of theories and methods used in experimentation. Part II then devotes one chapter to each of the five experiment steps: scoping, planning, execution, analysis, and result presentation. Part III completes the presentation with two examples. Assignments and statistical material are provided in appendixes. Overall the book provides indispensable information regarding empirical studies in particular for experiments, but also for case studies, systematic literature reviews, and surveys. It is a revision of the authors’ book, which was published in 2000. In addition, substantial new material, e.g. concerning systematic literature reviews and case study research, is introduced. The book is self-contained and it is suitable as a course book in undergraduate or graduate studies where the need for empirical studies in software engineering is stressed. Exercises and assignments are included to combine the more theoretical material with practical aspects. Researchers will also benefit from the book, learning more about how to conduct empirical studies, and likewise practitioners may use it as a “cookbook” when evaluating new methods or techniques before implementing them in their organization.