Mutation 2022

Mutation analysis involves mutation of software artifacts that are then used to evaluate the quality of software verification tools and techniques. It is considered the premier technique for evaluating the fault revealing effectiveness of test suites, test generation techniques and other testing approaches. Ideas derived from mutation analysis have also been used to test artifacts at different levels of abstraction, including requirements, formal specifications, models, architectural design notations and even informal descriptions. Recently, mutation has played an important role in software engineering for AI, such as in verifying learned models and behaviors. Furthermore, researchers and practitioners have investigated diverse forms of mutation, such as training data or test data mutation, in combination with metamorphic testing to evaluate model performance in machine learning and detecting adversarial examples.

Mutation 2022 aims to be the premier forum for practitioners and researchers to discuss recent advances in the area of mutation analysis and propose new research directions. We invite submissions of both full-length and short-length research papers and especially encourage the submission of industry practice papers.

Accepted Papers

Call for Papers

NOTICE (23 Jan 2022): Starting from this year, it has been decided to introduce the double-blind review process as a pilot. See the double-blind QnA page for more information. By default, author information will not be provided to reviewers on the submission system. Authors are recommended to anonymize their papers to hide their identities throughout the review process. However, since it is only a pilot and considering this late notice, revealing author information in the paper is also not a problem. Please note that even those who have already submitted their papers can update the submissions before the submission deadline (28 Jan 2022).

Mutation analysis involves mutation of software artifacts that are then used to evaluate the quality of software verification tools and techniques. It is considered the premier technique for evaluating the fault revealing effectiveness of test suites, test generation techniques and other testing approaches. Ideas derived from mutation analysis have also been used to test artifacts at different levels of abstraction, including requirements, formal specifications, models, architectural design notations and even informal descriptions. Recently, mutation has played an important role in software engineering for AI, such as in verifying learned models and behaviors. Furthermore, researchers and practitioners have investigated diverse forms of mutation, such as training data or test data mutation, in combination with metamorphic testing to evaluate model performance in machine learning and detecting adversarial examples.

Mutation 2022 aims to be the premier forum for practitioners and researchers to discuss recent advances in the area of mutation analysis and propose new research directions. We invite submissions of both full-length and short-length research papers and especially encourage the submission of industry practice papers.

Topics of Interest

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Evaluation of mutation-based test adequacy criteria, and comparative studies with other test adequacy criteria.
• Formal theoretical analysis of mutation testing.
• Empirical studies on any aspects of mutation testing.
• Mutation based generation of program variants.
• Higher-order mutation testing.
• Mutation testing tools.
• Mutation for mobile, internet, and cloud based systems (e.g., addressing QoS, power consumption, stress testing, performance, etc.).
• Mutation for security and reliability.
• Novel mutation testing applications, and mutation testing in novel domains.
• Industrial experience with mutation testing.
• Mutation for artificial intelligence (e.g., data mutation, model mutation, mutation-based test data generation, etc.)

Types of Submissions

Three types of papers can be submitted to the workshop:

• Full papers (10 pages): Research, case studies.
• Short papers (6 pages): Research in progress, tools.
• Industrial papers (6 pages): Applications and lessons learned in industry.

Each paper must conform to the two columns IEEE conference publication format (please use the letter format template and conference option) and must be submitted in PDF format via EasyChair. Submissions will be evaluated according to the relevance and originality of the work and to their ability to generate discussions between the participants of the workshop. Each submission will be reviewed by three reviewers, and all accepted papers will be published as part of the ICST proceedings.

Important Dates

• Submission deadline: Fri 28 Jan 2022 (extended)
• Notification of acceptance: Fri 18 Feb 2022 (extended)
• Camera-ready: Fri 4 Mar 2022
• Workshop date: Mon 4 Apr 2022

Organization

• Amin Alipour, University of Houston, United States
• Donghwan Shin, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Mutation Analysis for Cyber-Physical Systems: Scalable Solutions and Results in the Space Domain

by Fabrizio Pastore

Abstract

Software testing plays an essential role in validating and verifying cyber-physical systems’ software (e.g., embedded software developed for spaceflight systems - space software); however, the definition and assessment of test cases is mainly human-driven. Regulatory agencies thus need automated solutions to assess software testing activities to minimize the risk of human mistakes.

Mutation analysis might be a solution to assess software testing activities; however, there is still uncertainty regarding its applicability to embedded software for CPS. For example, we lack studies applying mutation analysis techniques to CPS software.

This keynote will overview our work towards enhancing mutation analysis techniques to enable their applicability to space software and, more in general, embedded software for CPS. Our work is part of a research project funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) involving private companies in the space sector. We defined and evaluated a mutation analysis pipeline that includes innovative optimizations. We evaluated our solutions with a benchmark provided by ESA and our industry partners: GomSpace, a manufacturer and supplier of nanosatellites, and LuxSpace, a developer of infrastructure products for space.

Bio

Fabrizio Pastore is Chief Scientist II/Associate Prof. at the SnT Centre of the University of Luxembourg. His research interests concern software testing, program analysis, and automated debugging. He is the principal investigator of projects supported by ESA and the National Research Fund - Luxembourg; also, he manages the research activities in EU projects and several industrial partnerships in the space and automotive sectors. He serves as a reviewer for top software engineering journals and conferences.

When

TBD