Research

We strongly believe that trustworthy intelligent software systems are the driving force for technology innovation in the future. To achieve this, we recognize that it is not enough to rely solely on the foundational research from the AI community. Instead, it requires the contribution of many communities, such as software engineering, control, and others, to develop a new interdisciplinary emerging field - Machine Learning System Engineering.

We are committed to continuously updating our research results and sharing our findings with the broader scientific community. With our exciting and demanding area of research, we welcome collaboration with other research labs, industry partners, and government agencies to make significant advancements in Machine Learning System Engineering.

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2023

DeepSeer: Interactive RNN Explanation and Debugging via State Abstraction

Zhijie Wang, Yuheng Huang, Da Song, Lei Ma, Tianyi Zhang

Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems   ·   19 Apr 2023   ·   doi:10.1145/3544548.3580852

DeepLens: Interactive Out-of-distribution Data Detection in NLP Models

Da Song, Zhijie Wang, Yuheng Huang, Lei Ma, Tianyi Zhang

Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems   ·   19 Apr 2023   ·   doi:10.1145/3544548.3580741

GraphSearchNet: Enhancing GNNs via Capturing Global Dependencies for Semantic Code Search

Shangqing Liu, Xiaofei Xie, Jingkai Siow, Lei Ma, Guozhu Meng, Yang Liu

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering   ·   01 Apr 2023   ·   doi:10.1109/TSE.2022.3233901

FalsifAI: Falsification of AI-Enabled Hybrid Control Systems Guided by Time-Aware Coverage Criteria

Zhenya Zhang, Deyun Lyu, Paolo Arcaini, Lei Ma, Ichiro Hasuo, Jianjun Zhao

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering   ·   01 Apr 2023   ·   doi:10.1109/TSE.2022.3194640

Towards understanding quality challenges of the federated learning for neural networks: a first look from the lens of robustness

Amin Eslami Abyane, Derui Zhu, Roberto Souza, Lei Ma, Hadi Hemmati

Empirical Software Engineering   ·   11 Feb 2023   ·   doi:10.1007/s10664-022-10262-y

Evading DeepFake Detectors via Adversarial Statistical Consistency

Yang Hou, Qing Guo, Yihao Huang, Xiaofei Xie, Lei Ma, Jianjun Zhao

arXiv   ·   01 Jan 2023   ·   doi:10.48550/arXiv.2304.11670

Neural Episodic Control with State Abstraction

Zhuo Li, Derui Zhu, Yujing Hu, Xiaofei Xie, Lei Ma, Yan Zheng, Yan Song, Yingfeng Chen, Jianjun Zhao

arXiv   ·   01 Jan 2023   ·   doi:10.48550/arXiv.2301.11490

2022

DeepRepair: Style-Guided Repairing for Deep Neural Networks in the Real-World Operational Environment

Bing Yu, Hua Qi, Qing Guo, Felix Juefei-Xu, Xiaofei Xie, Lei Ma, Jianjun Zhao

IEEE Transactions on Reliability   ·   01 Dec 2022   ·   doi:10.1109/TR.2021.3096332

Breaking Neural Reasoning Architectures With Metamorphic Relation-Based Adversarial Examples

Alvin Chan, Lei Ma, Felix Juefei-Xu, Yew-Soon Ong, Xiaofei Xie, Minhui Xue, Yang Liu

IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems   ·   01 Nov 2022   ·   doi:10.1109/TNNLS.2021.3072166

DARTSRepair: Core-failure-set guided DARTS for network robustness to common corruptions

Xuhong Ren, Jianlang Chen, Felix Juefei-Xu, Wanli Xue, Qing Guo, Lei Ma, Jianjun Zhao, Shengyong Chen

Pattern Recognition   ·   01 Nov 2022   ·   doi:10.1016/j.patcog.2022.108864

A ³ GAN: Attribute-Aware Anonymization Networks for Face De-identification

Liming Zhai, Qing Guo, Xiaofei Xie, Lei Ma, Yi Estelle Wang, Yang Liu

Proceedings of the 30th ACM International Conference on Multimedia   ·   10 Oct 2022   ·   doi:10.1145/3503161.3547757

Message from the RAIS 2022 Chairs: ISSREW 2022

Yan-Fu Li, Yinxing Xue, Lei Ma, Shengjian Guo, Guozhu Meng

2022 IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering Workshops (ISSREW)   ·   01 Oct 2022   ·   doi:10.1109/ISSREW55968.2022.00026

An Empirical Analysis of Compatibility Issues for Industrial Mobile Games (Practical Experience Report)

Zihe Song, Yingfeng Chen, Lei Ma, Shangjie Lu, Honglei Lin, Changjie Fan, Wei Yang

2022 IEEE 33rd International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE)   ·   01 Oct 2022   ·   doi:10.1109/ISSRE55969.2022.00030

Vulpedia: Detecting vulnerable ethereum smart contracts via abstracted vulnerability signatures

Jiaming Ye, Mingliang Ma, Yun Lin, Lei Ma, Yinxing Xue, Jianjun Zhao

Journal of Systems and Software   ·   01 Oct 2022   ·   doi:10.1016/j.jss.2022.111410

On the usage and development of deep learning compilers: an empirical study on TVM

Xiongfei Wu, Jinqiu Yang, Lei Ma, Yinxing Xue, Jianjun Zhao

Empirical Software Engineering   ·   20 Sep 2022   ·   doi:10.1007/s10664-022-10221-7

GBGallery : A benchmark and framework for game testing

Zhuo Li, Yuechen Wu, Lei Ma, Xiaofei Xie, Yingfeng Chen, Changjie Fan

Empirical Software Engineering   ·   27 Jul 2022   ·   doi:10.1007/s10664-022-10158-x

An Empirical Study on Data Distribution-Aware Test Selection for Deep Learning Enhancement

Qiang Hu, Yuejun Guo, Maxime Cordy, Xiaofei Xie, Lei Ma, Mike Papadakis, Yves Le Traon

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology   ·   12 Jul 2022   ·   doi:10.1145/3511598

Byzantine-Resilient Decentralized Stochastic Gradient Descent

Shangwei Guo, Tianwei Zhang, Han Yu, Xiaofei Xie, Lei Ma, Tao Xiang, Yang Liu

IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology   ·   01 Jun 2022   ·   doi:10.1109/TCSVT.2021.3116976

Countering Malicious DeepFakes: Survey, Battleground, and Horizon

Felix Juefei-Xu, Run Wang, Yihao Huang, Qing Guo, Lei Ma, Yang Liu

International Journal of Computer Vision   ·   04 May 2022   ·   doi:10.1007/s11263-022-01606-8

When Cyber-Physical Systems Meet AI: A Benchmark, an Evaluation, and a Way Forward

Jiayang Song, Deyun Lyu, Zhenya Zhang, Zhijie Wang, Tianyi Zhang, Lei Ma

2022 IEEE/ACM 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice (ICSE-SEIP)   ·   01 May 2022   ·   doi:10.1109/ICSE-SEIP55303.2022.9794128

Oracle-Supported Dynamic Exploit Generation for Smart Contracts

Haijun Wang, Ye Liu, Yi Li, Shang-Wei Lin, Cyrille Artho, Lei Ma, Yang Liu

IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing   ·   01 May 2022   ·   doi:10.1109/TDSC.2020.3037332

An Empirical Study of the Impact of Hyperparameter Tuning and Model Optimization on the Performance Properties of Deep Neural Networks

Lizhi Liao, Heng Li, Weiyi Shang, Lei Ma

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology   ·   09 Apr 2022   ·   doi:10.1145/3506695

Towards Robustness of Deep Program Processing Models—Detection, Estimation, and Enhancement

Huangzhao Zhang, Zhiyi Fu, Ge Li, Lei Ma, Zhehao Zhao, Hua’an Yang, Yizhe Sun, Yang Liu, Zhi Jin

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology   ·   09 Apr 2022   ·   doi:10.1145/3511887

NPC: N euron P ath C overage via Characterizing Decision Logic of Deep Neural Networks

Xiaofei Xie, Tianlin Li, Jian Wang, Lei Ma, Qing Guo, Felix Juefei-Xu, Yang Liu

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology   ·   09 Apr 2022   ·   doi:10.1145/3490489

Towards Benchmarking GUI Compatibility Testing on Mobile Applications

Jiaming Ye, Mulong Xie, Siyuan Chen, Fuyuan Zhang, Lei Ma, Zhenchang Xing, Jianjun Zhao

arXiv   ·   01 Jan 2022   ·   doi:10.48550/arXiv.2212.13424

An Exploratory Study of AI System Risk Assessment from the Lens of Data Distribution and Uncertainty

Zhijie Wang, Yuheng Huang, Lei Ma, Haruki Yokoyama, Susumu Tokumoto, Kazuki Munakata

arXiv   ·   01 Jan 2022   ·   doi:10.48550/arXiv.2212.06828

AI-driven Mobile Apps: an Explorative Study

Yinghua Li, Xueqi Dang, Haoye Tian, Tiezhu Sun, Zhijie Wang, Lei Ma, Jacques Klein, Tegawende F. Bissyande

arXiv   ·   01 Jan 2022   ·   doi:10.48550/arXiv.2212.01635

Common Corruption Robustness of Point Cloud Detectors: Benchmark and Enhancement

Shuangzhi Li, Zhijie Wang, Felix Juefei-Xu, Qing Guo, Xingyu Li, Lei Ma

arXiv   ·   01 Jan 2022   ·   doi:10.48550/arXiv.2210.05896

Decompiling x86 Deep Neural Network Executables

Zhibo Liu, Yuanyuan Yuan, Shuai Wang, Xiaofei Xie, Lei Ma

arXiv   ·   01 Jan 2022   ·   doi:10.48550/arXiv.2210.01075

DARTSRepair: Core-failure-set Guided DARTS for Network Robustness to Common Corruptions

Xuhong Ren, Jianlang Chen, Felix Juefei-Xu, Wanli Xue, Qing Guo, Lei Ma, Jianjun Zhao, Shengyong Chen

arXiv   ·   01 Jan 2022   ·   doi:10.48550/arXiv.2209.10381

Aries: Efficient Testing of Deep Neural Networks via Labeling-Free Accuracy Estimation

Qiang Hu, Yuejun Guo, Xiaofei Xie, Maxime Cordy, Lei Ma, Mike Papadakis, Yves Le Traon

arXiv   ·   01 Jan 2022   ·   doi:10.48550/arXiv.2207.10942

A Survey on Automated Driving System Testing: Landscapes and Trends

Shuncheng Tang, Zhenya Zhang, Yi Zhang, Jixiang Zhou, Yan Guo, ..., Shengjian Guo, Yan-Fu Li, Lei Ma, Yinxing Xue, Yang Liu

arXiv   ·   01 Jan 2022   ·   doi:10.48550/arXiv.2206.05961

CodeS: Towards Code Model Generalization Under Distribution Shift

Qiang Hu, Yuejun Guo, Xiaofei Xie, Maxime Cordy, Lei Ma, Mike Papadakis, Yves Le Traon

arXiv   ·   01 Jan 2022   ·   doi:10.48550/arXiv.2206.05480

NPC: Neuron Path Coverage via Characterizing Decision Logic of Deep Neural Networks

Xiaofei Xie, Tianlin Li, Jian Wang, Lei Ma, Qing Guo, Felix Juefei-Xu, Yang Liu

arXiv   ·   01 Jan 2022   ·   doi:10.48550/arXiv.2203.12915

Machine Learning Testing: Survey, Landscapes and Horizons

Jie M. Zhang, Mark Harman, Lei Ma, Yang Liu

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering   ·   01 Jan 2022   ·   doi:10.1109/TSE.2019.2962027

2021

AdvFilter: Predictive Perturbation-aware Filtering against Adversarial Attack via Multi-domain Learning

Yihao Huang, Qing Guo, Felix Juefei-Xu, Lei Ma, Weikai Miao, Yang Liu, Geguang Pu

Proceedings of the 29th ACM International Conference on Multimedia   ·   17 Oct 2021   ·   doi:10.1145/3474085.3475171

An Empirical Study on Common Bugs in Deep Learning Compilers

Xiaoting Du, Zheng Zheng, Lei Ma, Jianjun Zhao

2021 IEEE 32nd International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE)   ·   01 Oct 2021   ·   doi:10.1109/ISSRE52982.2021.00030

Issue Categorization and Analysis of an Open-Source Driving Assistant System

Shuncheng Tang, Zhenya Zhang, Jia Tang, Lei Ma, Yinxing Xue

2021 IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering Workshops (ISSREW)   ·   01 Oct 2021   ·   doi:10.1109/ISSREW53611.2021.00057

Learning to Adversarially Blur Visual Object Tracking

Qing Guo, Ziyi Cheng, Felix Juefei-Xu, Lei Ma, Xiaofei Xie, Yang Liu, Jianjun Zhao

2021 IEEE/CVF International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV)   ·   01 Oct 2021   ·   doi:10.1109/ICCV48922.2021.01066

An empirical study of GUI widget detection for industrial mobile games

Jiaming Ye, Ke Chen, Xiaofei Xie, Lei Ma, Ruochen Huang, Yingfeng Chen, Yinxing Xue, Jianjun Zhao

Proceedings of the 29th ACM Joint Meeting on European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering   ·   18 Aug 2021   ·   doi:10.1145/3468264.3473935

Proceedings of the 1st ACM International Workshop on AI and Software Testing/Analysis

[no author info]

ACM   ·   11 Jul 2021   ·   doi:10.1145/3464968

Deepmix: Online Auto Data Augmentation for Robust Visual Object Tracking

Ziyi Cheng, Xuhong Ren, Felix Juefei-Xu, Wanli Xue, Qing Guo, Lei Ma, Jianjun Zhao

2021 IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME)   ·   05 Jul 2021   ·   doi:10.1109/ICME51207.2021.9428185

Identifying Bug Patterns in Quantum Programs

Pengzhan Zhao, Jianjun Zhao, Lei Ma

2021 IEEE/ACM 2nd International Workshop on Quantum Software Engineering (Q-SE)   ·   01 Jun 2021   ·   doi:10.1109/Q-SE52541.2021.00011

Automatic Web Testing Using Curiosity-Driven Reinforcement Learning

Yan Zheng, Yi Liu, Xiaofei Xie, Yepang Liu, Lei Ma, Jianye Hao, Yang Liu

2021 IEEE/ACM 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE)   ·   01 May 2021   ·   doi:10.1109/ICSE43902.2021.00048

A Search-Based Testing Framework for Deep Neural Networks of Source Code Embedding

Maryam Vahdat Pour, Zhuo Li, Lei Ma, Hadi Hemmati

2021 14th IEEE Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST)   ·   01 Apr 2021   ·   doi:10.1109/ICST49551.2021.00016

On the Effectiveness of Signal Rescaling in Hybrid System Falsification

Zhenya Zhang, Deyun Lyu, Paolo Arcaini, Lei Ma, Ichiro Hasuo, Jianjun Zhao

Lecture Notes in Computer Science   ·   01 Jan 2021   ·   doi:10.1007/978-3-030-76384-8_24

Effective Hybrid System Falsification Using Monte Carlo Tree Search Guided by QB-Robustness

Zhenya Zhang, Deyun Lyu, Paolo Arcaini, Lei Ma, Ichiro Hasuo, Jianjun Zhao

Computer Aided Verification   ·   01 Jan 2021   ·   doi:10.1007/978-3-030-81685-8_29