Research

Current research areas: Cyber-Physical Systems, Empirical Software Engineering, Software Evolution, Software Testing, Open Source Software

• Smart Grids Testing Processes and co-simulations. The aim of the research is to look at the improvement of testing processes in the context of Smart Grids. Main results achieved: reviewed different testing process frameworks to be applied to SGs, different aspects of simulations (co-simulations) by means of several frameworks that can be adopted, development of a platform, the Smart Grids Testing Management Platform (SGTMP) for SG testing, adaptation of Mosaik co-sim framework for the usage within the platform (SAC, SEAA, SMC, SCSP, FedCSIS, Applied Sciences, Cyber-Physical Systems, Sustainable Computing)
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• Anomaly detection on Smart Grids data. The aim of the research is to support the decision making process within a Smart Grids Infrastructure by an evaluation of possible anomalies from Smart Meters. The proposed approach is based on frequent itemset mining and unsupervised clustering submitted at the SMC conference. A Big Data platform based on Apache Flink was implemented helping with scaling-up the approach to allow online learning (more info on (private) BitBucket page). Tools used: R-project scripting. The paper Smart Grids Data Analysis: A Systematic Mapping Study reviewing data analysis for the Smart Grids area was published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics with an Impact Factor of 10.215. Main results achieved: anomaly detection for smart grids datasets, data analysis approaches for smart grids problems, big data analysis platform for smart grids power consumption analysis and the benchmarking of the platform (IEEE TIII, FedCSIS, IoTBDS, SEAA)
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• Mining Software repositories The aim of the research is the evaluation of code quality of software projects with relation to pull requests, code reviews and accumulation of Technical Debt (TD): what is the impact of accumulating TD? Comparison of different ways to measure TD and software metrics - understaning about how the source code reviews process works on a large-scale evaluation (SEAA,SAC,Scientific Programming, Journal of Software: Evolution and Process)
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Older research topics:

• Automated Bug Triaging. We have currently finishedhad the collaboration with a Czech-based company to explore the introduction of an automated bug triaging system. The interest is on looking into aspects that differ in proposing such systems within the context of industry, compared to usual open source software projects evaluations. Tools used: mostly Python scripting with NLTK libraries. Cost Sensitive Classification for Severity of Bug Tracking. Following SEAA'14 paper, we are looking into the evaluation of several cost sensitive classification schemes to deal with the problem of data imbalance - quite relevant in the context of issue trackers considering bugs severity. Tools used: mostly Python with NLTK libraries;
• Software Design Pattern Implementation Violations: Looking into violations of design pattern implementation that due to code aging as a form of technical debt: provision of a software tool that can mine software repositories and providing scoring for design patterns integrity. Tools used: mostly Java implementation;
• Software Requirements Prioritization and Machine Learning. The interest is into looking about the application of machine learning and data mining for the requirements prioritization process, that is what we can still use from the research on issue trackers (severity, triaging), and what are specific challenges in the way requirements are elicited. We are mostly interested in the different open source software projects communities and the differences in requirements management for the prioritization process;
• Adoption of Agile Methodologies and Open Source Software Systems (OSS), and the study of the OSS development model. The aim was to explain why users decide to select and use OSS software, which are the motivations, and which are the factors that could ease the adoption of OSS over traditional proprietary software. The aim of the second research area was to derive the characteristics of the OSS phenomenon, and which are successful development practices that could be applied to industry. We had several important papers in this area: the paper Scaling Agile in Large Organizations: Practices, Challenges and Success Factors, was in the list of the top-20 downloaded papers from the Journal of Software: Practice and Experience in 2018. The paper Agile to Lean Software Development Transformation: a Systematic Literature Review won the best paper award at FedCSIS 2018.

Contribution to Community

I am/have been in the Program Committee/Reviewer of the following conferences/journals:

• Jrnl Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE) Journal
• Jrnl Information and Software Technology Journal
• Jrnl IEEE Software
• Jrnl IEEE Internet of Things Journal
• Jrnl Wiley Journal of Software: Evolution and Process
• Jrnl Information Technology & People Journal
• Jrnl IET Software
• Jrnl International Journal of System Assurance Engineering and Management
• Conf Product-Focused Software Process Improvement (PROFES)
• Conf Software, System and Service Engineering (S3E) Track at Conference on Computer Science and Intelligence Systems (FedCSIS)
• Conf Free/Libre/Open Source Software Track @ International Symposium on Open Collaboration (OpenSym)
• Conf the International Workshop on Foundations and Techniques for Open Source Software Certification (OpenCert)
• Conf The International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS);
• Conf Hawaii International Conference On System Sciences (HICSS);
• Conf International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN);
• Conf The Congress on Nature and Biologically Inspired Computing (NABIC);
• Conf The International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM);
• Conf The World Congress on Information and Communication Technologies (WICT 2012)

I have been Chair of the following conferences/events:

• Conf Student Research Competition (SRC'22) at ACM SAC'22
• Conf Critical Infrastructures (CI) Track at ACM SAC'22
• Conf Quality Assurance and Software Mining (QASM'21) at SAC'21
• Conf Student Research Forum (SRF'21) at SOFSDEM'21

I have been Local Chair of the following conferences:

• Conf Internet of Things, Big Data and Security (IoTBDS'22)

I have been Co-Chair of the following conferences:

• Conf The 7th International Workshop on Foundations and Techniques for Open Source Software Certification (OpenCert 2013)

I have been Proceedings Chair of the following conferences:

• Conf The 7th International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS2011);
• Conf The 4th International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM2010);

I have been Web Chair of the following conferences:

• Conf The 8th International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS2012);
• Conf The 4th International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM2010);
• Conf The 1st International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS2005);

I have been sub-reviewer for the following conferences:

• Conf The Australasian Software Engineering Conference (ASWEC 2014, 2015)
• Conf MOBILESoft2016 co-located ICSE2016

I have been in the Doctoral Symphosium Committee of the PROFES2013 conference;

I have been one of the facilitators for the PhD Consortium during the OSS2011 Conference;

Projects

I have been involved in the following Research / Contractual Projects. I am currently leader of subprogramme 3 of the C4e project.

• 2018-2023: Prj CyberSecurity, CyberCrime and Critical Information Infrastructures Center of Excellence (C4e) (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000822)
• 2017-2021: Prj CERIT Scientific Cloud (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001802)
• 2018 (8m): Prj Smart Grid Testing Management Platform (MUNI33/012018 (ID 41386), Students Research and Development Projects FI MU);
• 2016-2018: Prj Analýza, návrh řešení simulací v laboratoři pro AMM/SG technologie instalované v distribuční soustavě (SGLAB), ČEZ Distribuce, a.s.;
• 2015-2016: Prj Zpracování projektu přípravných rešerší k AMM, Finanční podpora: Smluvní výzkum pro spol. ČEZ Distribuce, a.s.;
• 2012-2013: Prj M4SPI "Software Metrics for Process Improvement" - Started Oct 2013;
• 2011-2012: Prj AngelEye.it - Support to their Auto-Tuning System;
• 2011-2012: Prj QMSee - Workflow support;
• 2010-2011: Prj Italian Stato Maggiore Esercito (SME) - Web-system implementation of Strategical Decision Support;
• 2010-2011: Prj Progetto Interreg IV A Italia-Austria, Risk Management and Communication on Local and Regional Level (RiMaComm) - Collaboration with the Civil Protection of Bolzano;
• 2008-2011: Prj ARTDECO (Adaptive Infrastructure for Decentralized Organizations), FIRB 36Months Project;
• 2004-2006: Prj COSPA (Consortium for the introduction of the Open Source Software and the Open data standards in Public Administration) – STREP - FP6 Program project nr. 2002-2164.