• Automotive Cybersecurity

    • Socio-technical strategies: collaboration with MSU School of Criminal Justice

      Collaborators: Nick Polanco, Tom Holt, Jay Kennedy
      • “Automotive Cybersecurity and Situational Crime Prevention: Assessing a New Platform for Cybercrime and Malicious Hacking” (Jay P. Kennedy, Thomas J. Holt, and Betty H.C. Cheng) Journal of Crime and Justice (submitted), 2019.

    • Security Design Patterns for Automotive Cybersecurity

      Collaborators: Matt Pasco, Nick Polanco, Brad Doherty
      • “Security Patterns for Automotive Systems,” (Betty H.C. Cheng, Bradley Doherty, Nick Polanco, and Matthew Pasco), in Proc. of Workshop for Modeling for Automotive Soft- ware Engineering (MASE), co-located with Proceedings of IEEE / ACM 22nd Inter- national Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS), September 2019, Munich, Germany.

  • X-PLORE: Addressing assurance of autonomous systems

    X-PLORE:Combining Model-Driven Engineering, Bio-Inspiration, and Formal Analysis to Mitigate Uncertainty in High-Assurance Software Systems.
    Collaborators: AFRL, BBN, UMich, UVa

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  • A robust computing-based system must be able to monitor its environment, adapt to changing conditions, withstand component failures and attacks, and continuously deliver acceptable and trusted behavior. However, the designer of such a system is faced with a challenging set of tasks: anticipating and characterizing conditions in which the system will operate; enabling the system to accommodate changing requirements, both functional and non-functional; and ensuring that existing and newly added functionality (possibly from third-party providers) will produce expected overall system behavior. These tasks are particularly difficult for systems that must operate safely and securely in the face of uncertainty.
    The primary objective of the X-PLORE project is to harness the power of evolutionary computing (EC) and symbolic analysis (SA) in software engineering in order to advance the field to be able to support the modeling, analysis, and mitigation of two broad categories of uncertainty in software systems. External uncertainty includes aspects of the operating environment (including adverse conditions in the physical environment and unexpected human interaction) that can lead to suboptimal, and possibly catastrophic, results as the system tries to adapt to mischaracterized conditions. Internal uncertainty includes (unwanted) feature interaction among system components as well as unexpected component behavior due to software updates and reconfiguration.
    This project will involve collaboration with other funded projects from Carnegie Mellon University, BBN, and FIU, just to name a few, working with rovers and drones.

    • Assurance for Learning-enabled components

      Collaborators: Michael Langford, Philip McKinley
      • “Enhancing Learning-Enabled Software Systems to Address Environmental Uncertainty” Michael Austin Langford and Betty H. C. Cheng, 16th IEEE International Conference on Autonomic Computing (ICAC), pp. 115-124, June 2019, Umea, Sweden.
      • “Applying evolution and novelty search to enhance the resilience of autonomous systems, ” Michael Austin Langford, Glen A. Simon, Philip K. McKinley, Betty H. C. Cheng, Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-managing Systems SEAMS@ICSE 2019: 63-69.
      • “An Evolutionary Approach to Discovering Execution Mode Boundaries for Adaptive Controllers,” Anthony J. Clark, Byron DeVries, Jared M. Moore, Betty H.C. Cheng, and Philip K. McKinley, in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Evolv- able Systems, held in conjunction with the 2016 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence (SSCI), pp. 1-8, Athens, Greece, December 2016, peer-reviewed full paper.

    • Detecting N-way Feature Interactions

      Collaborators: Byron DeVries
      • “Towards the detection of partial feature interactions” Byron DeVries, Betty H. C. Cheng, Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-managing Systems SEAMS@ICSE 2019: pp. 146-152
      • “Automatic Detection of Feature Interactions Using Symbolic Analysis and Evolutionary Computation,” Byron DeVries and Betty H.C. Cheng, in Proceedings of The 18th IEEE International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability, and Security (QRS), July 2018, Lisbon, Portugal, pp. 257–268.
      • “Run-time Monitoring of Self-Adaptive Systems to Detect N-way Feature Interactions and their Causes,” Byron DeVries and Betty H.C. Cheng, Proceedings of the 10th Inter- national Symposium on software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-managing Systems (SEAMS), 2018, Gothenburg, Sweden, pp. 94–100 (short paper).
      • “A Toolchain for the Detection of Structural and Behavioral Latent System Properties” (Adam Jensen, Betty H.C. Cheng, Heather J. Goldsby, and Edward Nelson), Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS 2011), pp. 683–698, Wellington, New Zealand, October, 2011. (Nominated for Best Paper).
      • “Automatically Exploring How Uncertainty Impacts Behavior of Dynamically Adaptive Systems” (Andres J. Ramirez, Adam C. Jensen, Betty H.C. Cheng and David Knoester,), in Proceedings of 26th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2011), pp. 568–571, November, 2011, Lawrence, Kansas.

    • Detecting Incomplete Requirements

      Collaborators: Byron DeVries
      • “Using Models at Run Time to Detect Incomplete Requirements,” Byron DeVries and Betty H. C. Cheng, Workshop on Models at Run time (MART), co-located with ACM/IEEE 18th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS 2017), Austin, Texas, 2017, pp. 201-209.
      • “Automatic Detection of Incomplete Requirements Using Symbolic Analysis and Evolu- tionary Computation.” Byron DeVries, Betty H. C. Cheng, Proceedings of International Symposium on Search-based Software Engineering (SSBSE’17), 2017, Paderborn, Ger- many, pp. 49-64.
      • “Automatic Detection of Incomplete Requirements via Symbolic Analysis,” Byron DeVries, Betty H. C. Cheng, Proceedings of ACM/IEEE 18th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS 2016), St. Malo, France, pp. 385–395.

    • Assurance Cases

      • MAPE-SAC: Framework to manage the adaptation of security assurance case (SAC)

        Collaborators: Philip McKinley and Rose Gamble
        • “MAPE-SAC: A Framework to Dynamically Manage Security Assurance Cases” Sharmin Jahan, Matthew Pasco, Rose Gamble, Philip McKinley and Betty H.C. Cheng. 1st International Workshop on Self-Protecting Systems (SPS'19), pp. 146-151, June 2019, Umea, Sweden.
        • ``MAPE-K/MAPE-SAC: Interaction Framework for Adaptive Security Assurance Cases,'' Sharmin Jahan, Ian Riley, Charles Walter, Rose F. Gamble, Matthew Pasco, Betty H.C. Cheng, and Philip K. McKinley, submitted to special issue Special Issue on Self-Protecting Systems in Journal of Future Generation Computer Systems.

      • Confidence of certification of assurance cases

        Collaborators: Wuwei Shen
        • “Measuring Confidence of Assurance Cases in Safety-Critical Domains” (Chung-Ling Lin, Wuwei Shen, and Betty H.C. Cheng) (to appear in) Proceedings of 53rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), Cybersecurity and Software Assurance Minitrack, January 7-10, 2020.
        • “Measure Confidence of Assurance Cases in Safety-Critical Domains,” Chung-Ling Lin, Wuwei Shen, Steven Drager, Betty H.C. Cheng, Proceedings of IEEE 40th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), (NIER track), May 2018, Gothenburg, Sweden, pp. 13–16.

    • Adaptive Testing for Autonomous Systems

      Collaborators: Erik Fredericks
      • “Towards run-time adaptation of test cases for self-adaptive systems in the face of uncertainty,” (Erik M. Fredericks, Byron DeVries, and B. H. C. Cheng), in the Pro- ceedings of the 9th International Symposium on software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-managing Systems (SEAMS), 2014, pp. 17–26.
      • “Validating Code-Level Behavior of Dynamic Adaptive Systems in the Face of Uncer- tainty,” (Erik M. Fredericks, Andres J. Ramirez, and Betty H. C. Cheng), in the Pro- ceedings of International Symposium on Search-based Software Engineering (SSBSE’13), 2013, pp. 81–95, Springer.
      • “Towards run-time testing of dynamic adaptive systems,” (Erik M. Fredericks, Andres J. Ramirez, and Betty H. C. Cheng), in Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-Managing Systems (SEAMS), 2013, pp. 169-174.

    • Run-time monitoring of Autonomous Systems

      • “Run-time Monitoring of Self-Adaptive Systems to Detect N-way Feature Interactions and their Causes,” Byron DeVries and Betty H.C. Cheng, Proceedings of the 10th Inter- national Symposium on software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-managing Systems (SEAMS), 2018, Gothenburg, Sweden, pp. 94–100 (short paper).
      • “Using Models at Run Time to Detect Incomplete Requirements,” Byron DeVries and Betty H. C. Cheng, Workshop on Models at Run time (MART), co-located with ACM/IEEE 18th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS 2017), Austin, Texas, 2017, pp. 201-209.
      • Automatic Derivation of Utility Functions for Monitoring Software Requirements” (An- dres J. Ramirez and Betty H.C. Cheng), Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS 2011), pp. 501–516, Wellington, New Zealand, October, 2011.
      • “Adaptive Monitoring of Software Requirements,” (Andres J. Ramirez, Betty H.C. Cheng, and Philip K. McKinley), In the Proceedings of First International Workshop on Requirements Engineering (RRT10), Sydney, Australia. September, 2010.
      • “Evolving Models at Run Time to Address Functional and Non-Functional Adaptation Requirements,” (Andres J. Ramirez and Betty H.C. Cheng), In the Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Models at Run Time (MaRT09), Denver, Colorado, USA, October, 2009.

    • Managing Uncertainty for Autonomous and Cyber-physical Systems

      We have several projects that address how to manage uncertainty for autonomous systems.

      • RELAX Specification Language for capturing uncertainty

        Collaborators: Jon Whittle, Jean-Michel Bruel, Nelly Bencomo, Pete Sawyer, A. Ramirez, B. DeVries
        • “AutoRELAX: Automatically RELAXing a Goal Model to Address Uncertainty” (Erik Fredericks, Byron DeVries, and Betty H.C. Cheng), Journal of Empirical Software Engineering, vol. 19, no. 5, pp. 1466–1501, 2014.
        • “RELAX: A Language to Address Uncertainty in Self-Adaptive Systems Requirements,” Jon Whittle, Pete Sawyer, Nelly Bencomo, Betty H.C. Cheng, and Jean-Michel Bruel,” Requirements Engineering Journal, Springer, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 177-196, 2010.
        • “RELAXing Claims: Coping with Uncertainty While Evaluating Assumptions at Run Time,” (Andres J. Ramirez, Betty H.C. Cheng, Nelly Bencomo, and Pete Sawyer), in Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Model Driven Engineering and Language Systems (MODELS12), pp. 53–69, Innsbruck, Austria, October 2012.
        • “A Language for Self-Adaptive System Requirements” (Jon Whittle, Pete Sawyer, Nelly Bencomo, and Betty H.C. Cheng), Proceedings for SOCCER’08: International Workshop on Service-Oriented Computing Consequences for Engineering Requirements (co-located with RE08), Barcelona, Spain, September 2008.
        • “Automatically RELAXing Goal Models to Cope with Uncertainty” (Andres J. Ramirez, Erik M. Fredericks, Adam C. Jensen, and Betty H.C. Cheng), Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Search-based Software Engineering (SSBSE’12), pp. 198– 212, Riva del Garda, Italy, September 2012.

      • Goal-based modeling of autonomous systems

        Collaborators: Jon Whittle, Nelly Bencomo, Pete Sawyer, B. DeVries
        • “Goal-Based Modeling and Analysis of Non-Functional Requirements,” Byron DeVries, Betty H. C. Cheng, in Proceedings of IEEE / ACM 22nd International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS), Practice and Innovation Track, September 2019, Munich, Germany.
        • “RELAXing Claims: Coping with Uncertainty While Evaluating Assumptions at Run Time,” (Andres J. Ramirez, Betty H.C. Cheng, Nelly Bencomo, and Pete Sawyer), in Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Model Driven Engineering and Language Systems (MODELS12), pp. 53–69, Innsbruck, Austria, October 2012.
        • “A Goal-Based Modeling Approach to Develop Requirements of an Adaptive System with Environmental Uncertainty” (Betty H.C. Cheng, Pete Sawyer, Nelly Bencomo, Jon Whittle), the Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MoDELS 2009), pp. 468–483, Denver, Colorado, 2009. (Full paper, 16% acceptance rate. 10 year Most Influential Paper Award)
        • “Goal-based Modeling of Dynamically Adaptive System Requirements,” (Heather J. Goldsby, Pete Sawyer, Nelly Bencomo, Betty H.C. Cheng, and Danny Hughes), Engi- neering of Computer-Based Systems (ECBS08), Ulster, Northern Ireland, April 2008 (full paper).
        • “Visualizing the Analysis of Dynamically Adaptive Systems Using i* and DSLs*,” (Pete Sawyer, Nelly Bencomo, Danny Hughes, Paul Grace, Heather J. Goldsby, and Betty H.C. Cheng), Proceedings of Second International Workshop on Requirements Engineering Visualization (REV07), New Delhi, India, October 2007.

    • Modeling for Sustainability

      Collaborators: J. Kienzle et al.

        “Towards Model-Driven Sustainability Evaluation,” (J ̈org Kienzle, Gunter Mussbacher, Lucy Bastian, Nelly Bencomo, Jean-Michel Bruel, Benoit Combemale, Christoph Becker, Stefanie Betz, Ruzanna Chitchyan, Betty H. C. Cheng, Sonja Klingert, Richard F. Paige, Birgit Penzenstadler, Norbert Sey↵, Eugene Syriani, and Colin C. Venters), Communications of the ACM (CACM) (in press).

      • “Modeling for sustainability,” Benoit Combemale, Betty H. C. Cheng, Ana Moreira, Jean-Michel Bruel, and Je↵ Gray. 2016. . In Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Modeling in Software Engineering (MiSE ’16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 62-66.

    • Supporting collaborative model-driven engineering for Visually-Impaired Developers

      • Collaborators: Brad Doherty and Tia Fowlkes

        We have developed a process and prototype to support 3D printing of UML diagrams and textual annotations created from commercial off- the-shelf tools, without having to redraw them in a 3D modeling tool, including text annotations that have been automatically translated to and printed in 3-D Braille. Our next step identifying technologies that support the haptic display of the 3D models on tablet-based devices, augmented with audio support for the textual information in order to address scalability issues encountered with the 3D printing of the graphical models and Braille for the textual annotations.

      • “UML Modeling for Visually-Impaired Persons,” (Brad Doherty and Betty H.C. Cheng), Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Human Factors in Modeling co- located with ACM/IEEE 18th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS 2015), Ottawa, Canada, pp. 4-10.