Publications

@article{Foalem2025MLLogging,

title = {Logging Requirement for Continuous Auditing of Responsible Machine Learning-based Applications},

author = {Patrick Loic Foalem and Leuson Da Silva and Foutse Khomh and Heng Li and Ettore Merlo},

url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.17851, Preprint},

doi = {10.1007/s10664-025-10656-8},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-01-01},

urldate = {2025-01-01},

journal = {Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE)},

volume = {30},

number = {97},

pages = {1--37},

publisher = {Springer},

keywords = {Logging, MLOps, Observability},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Jin2025BrowserPerf,

title = {Impact of Extensions on Browser Performance: An Empirical Study on Google Chrome},

author = {Bihui Jin and Heng Li and Ying Zou},

url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.06827, Preprint},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-01-01},

urldate = {2025-01-01},

journal = {Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE)},

volume = {30},

number = {103},

pages = {1--41},

publisher = {Springer},

keywords = {Performance, Sustainability},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{liu2025adversarial,

title = {Adversarial attack classification and robustness testing for large language models for code},

author = {Yang Liu and Armstrong Foundjem and Foutse Khomh and Heng Li},

url = {https://www.arxiv.org/abs/2506.07942, Preprint},

doi = {10.1007/s10664-025-10693-3},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-01-01},

urldate = {2025-01-01},

journal = {Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE)},

volume = {30},

number = {154},

pages = {1–57},

publisher = {Springer},

keywords = {LLM4Code, Robustness},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{ma2025understanding,

title = {Understanding and estimating the execution time of quantum programs},

author = {Ning Ma and Heng Li},

url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.15631, Preprint

https://github.com/mooselab/Quantum-Execution-Time-Prediction, Data},

doi = {10.1145/3778031},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-01-01},

urldate = {2025-01-01},

journal = {ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) (accepted)},

keywords = {Performance, Quantum computing},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{majidi2025MLOpsMaintenance,

title = {An Efficient Model Maintenance Approach for MLOps},

author = {Forough Majidi and Foutse Khomh and Heng Li and Amin Nikanjam},

url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.04657, Preprint},

doi = {10.1007/s10664-025-10744-9},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-01-01},

urldate = {2025-01-01},

journal = {Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE) (accepted)},

keywords = {MLOps, Model Maintenance},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{QIN2025107876,

title = {Representation-based fairness evaluation and bias correction robustness assessment in neural networks},

author = {Qiaolin Qin and Benjamin Djian and Ettore Merlo and Heng Li and Sébastien Gambs},

doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2025.107876},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-01-01},

urldate = {2025-01-01},

journal = {Information and Software Technology (IST)},

volume = {188},

number = {107876},

pages = {1–14},

keywords = {Fairness, MLOps},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{shahedi2025tracing,

title = {Tracing optimization for performance modeling and regression detection},

author = {Kaveh Shahedi and Heng Li and Maxime Lamothe and Foutse Khomh},

url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.17548, Preprint

https://github.com/mooselab/replication-package-tracing-optimization-performance-modeling, Data

},

doi = {10.1145/3749839},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-01-01},

urldate = {2025-01-01},

journal = {ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) (accepted)},

publisher = {ACM},

keywords = {Observability, Performance, Tracing},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{wu2025information,

title = {What information contributes to log-based anomaly detection? Insights from a configurable transformer-based approach},

author = {Xingfang Wu and Heng Li and Foutse Khomh},

url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.20503, Preprint

https://github.com/mooselab/suppmaterial-CfgTransAnomalyDetector,  Data},

doi = {10.1007/s10515-025-00527-3},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-01-01},

urldate = {2025-01-01},

journal = {Automated Software Engineering (ASE)},

volume = {32},

number = {58},

pages = {1–29},

publisher = {Springer},

keywords = {Log analysis, Observability},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Batoun2024LogSurvey,

title = {A Literature Review and Existing Challenges on Software Logging Practices - From the Creation to the Analysis of Software Logs},

author = {Mohamed Amine Batoun and Mohammed Sayagh and Roozbeh Aghili and Ali Ouni and Heng Li},

doi = {10.1007/s10664-024-10452-w},

year  = {2024},

date = {2024-01-01},

urldate = {2024-01-01},

journal = {Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE)},

volume = {29},

number = {103},

pages = {61 pages},

publisher = {Springer},

keywords = {Log analysis, Logging, Observability},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Foalem2024MLLogging,

title = {Studying Logging Practice in Machine Learning-based Applications},

author = {Patrick Loic Foalem and Foutse Khomh and Heng Li},

url = {https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.04234.pdf},

doi = {10.1016/j.infsof.2024.107450},

year  = {2024},

date = {2024-01-01},

urldate = {2024-01-01},

journal = {Information and Software Technology (IST)},

volume = {170},

pages = {1–17},

publisher = {Elsevier},

keywords = {Logging, MLOps, Observability},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Ghadesi2024MLException,

title = {What Causes Exceptions in Machine Learning Applications? Mining Machine Learning-Related Stack Traces on Stack Overflow},

author = {Amin Ghadesi and Maxime Lamothe and Heng Li},

url = {https://arxiv.org/pdf/2304.12857, Preprint

https://github.com/mooselab/ML_StackTrace, Data

},

doi = {10.1007/s10664-024-10499-9},

year  = {2024},

date = {2024-01-01},

urldate = {2024-01-01},

journal = {Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE)},

volume = {29},

number = {107},

pages = {37 pages},

publisher = {Springer},

keywords = {MLOps, Technical Q&A},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Lyu2024AIOpsUpdate,

title = {On the Model Update Strategies for Supervised Learning in AIOps Solutions},

author = {Yingzhe Lyu and Heng Li and Zhen Ming Jiang and Ahmed E. Hassan},

url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.03213},

doi = {10.1145/366459},

year  = {2024},

date = {2024-01-01},

urldate = {2024-01-01},

journal = {ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM)},

volume = {33},

number = {7},

pages = {1–38},

publisher = {ACM},

keywords = {AIOps, Model Maintenance},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Noei2024MLRefScanner,

title = {Detecting Refactoring Commits in Machine Learning Python Projects: A Machine Learning-Based Approach},

author = {Shayan Noei and Heng Li and Ying Zou},

url = {https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.06572, Preprint},

doi = {10.1145/3705309},

year  = {2024},

date = {2024-01-01},

urldate = {2024-01-01},

journal = {ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) (accepted)},

volume = {34},

number = {3},

pages = {1–25},

publisher = {ACM},

keywords = {Refactoring},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Wu2024PostIntention,

title = {Characterizing and Classifying Developer Forum Posts with their Intentions},

author = {Xingfang Wu and Eric Laufer and Heng Li and Foutse Khomh and Santhosh Srinivasan and Jayden Luo},

url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.14279, Preprint

https://github.com/mooselab/suppmaterial-TechnicalPostIntention, Data

},

doi = {10.1007/s10664-024-10487-z},

year  = {2024},

date = {2024-01-01},

urldate = {2024-01-01},

journal = {Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE)},

volume = {29},

number = {84},

pages = {34 pages},

publisher = {Springer},

keywords = {Technical Q&A},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{xia2024reducing,

title = {Reducing the Length of Field-replay Based Load Testing},

author = {Yuanjie Xia and Lizhi Liao and Jinfu Chen and Heng Li and Weiyi Shang},

doi = {10.1109/TSE.2024.3408079},

year  = {2024},

date = {2024-01-01},

urldate = {2024-01-01},

journal = {IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE)},

volume = {50},

number = {8},

pages = {1967–1983},

publisher = {IEEE},

keywords = {Performance},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Aghili2023AIOps,

title = {Studying the characteristics of AIOps projects on GitHub},

author = {Roozbeh Aghili and Heng Li and Foutse Khomh},

url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.13245, Preprint

https://github.com/mooselab/studying_aiops_github, Data

},

doi = {10.1007/s10664-023-10382-z},

year  = {2023},

date = {2023-01-01},

urldate = {2023-01-01},

journal = {Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE)},

volume = {28},

number = {143},

pages = {49 pages},

publisher = {Springer},

keywords = {AIOps},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Bhagya2023SportsApps,

title = {A Large-Scale Exploratory Study of Android Sports Apps in the Google Play Store},

author = {Bhagya Chembakottu and Heng Li and Foutse Khomh},

url = {https://github.com/mooselab/Sports-Apps-Analysis, Data},

doi = {10.1016/j.infsof.2023.107321},

year  = {2023},

date = {2023-01-01},

urldate = {2023-01-01},

journal = {Information and Software Technology (IST)},

volume = {164},

number = {107321},

pages = {1–18},

publisher = {Elsevier},

keywords = {Mobile apps, Sports analytics},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Ding2022CodeEmbeddingGCN,

title = {Towards Learning Generalizable Code Embeddings using Task-agnostic Graph Convolutional Networks},

author = {Zishuo Ding and Heng Li and Weiyi Shang and Tse-Hsun Chen},

doi = {10.1145/3542944},

year  = {2023},

date = {2023-01-01},

urldate = {2023-01-01},

journal = {ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM)},

volume = {32},

number = {2},

pages = {1–43},

publisher = {ACM},

keywords = {Code representation},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Ding2023LoGenTextPlus,

title = {LoGenText-Plus: Improving Neural Machine Translation-based Logging Texts Generation with Syntactic Templates},

author = {Zishuo Ding and Yiming Tang and Xiaoyu Cheng and Heng Li and Weiyi Shang},

doi = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3624740},

year  = {2023},

date = {2023-01-01},

urldate = {2023-01-01},

journal = {ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM)},

volume = {2},

number = {33},

pages = {1–45},

publisher = {ACM},

keywords = {Logging, Observability},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Noei2023RefactoringRhythmsTactics,

title = {An Empirical Study of Refactoring Rhythms and Tactics in the Software Development Process},

author = {Shayan Noei and Heng Li and Stefanos Georgiou and Ying Zou},

doi = {10.1109/TSE.2023.3326775},

year  = {2023},

date = {2023-01-01},

urldate = {2023-01-01},

journal = {IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE)},

volume = {49},

number = {12},

pages = {5103–5119},

publisher = {IEEE},

keywords = {Refactoring},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Wu2023LogRepresentation,

title = {On the Effectiveness of Log Representation for Log-based Anomaly Detection},

author = {Xingfang Wu and Heng Li and Foutse Khomh},

url = {https://github.com/mooselab/suppmaterial-LogRepForAnomalyDetection, Data},

doi = {10.1007/s10664-023-10364-1},

year  = {2023},

date = {2023-01-01},

urldate = {2023-01-01},

journal = {Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE)},

volume = {28},

number = {137},

pages = {39 pages},

publisher = {Springer},

keywords = {Log analysis, Observability},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{YOUSEFIFESHKI2023107196,

title = {Studying the challenges of developing hardware description language programs},

author = {Fatemeh Yousefifeshki and Heng Li and Foutse Khomh},

url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0950584923000502},

doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2023.107196},

issn = {0950-5849},

year  = {2023},

date = {2023-01-01},

urldate = {2023-01-01},

journal = {Information and Software Technology (IST)},

volume = {159},

publisher = {Elsevier},

keywords = {Software/Hardware, Technical Q&A},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Ding2022CodeEmbeddings,

title = {Can Pre-trained Code Embeddings Improve Model Performance? Revisiting the Use of Code Embeddings in Software Engineering Tasks},

author = {Zishuo Ding and Heng Li and Weiyi Shang and Tse-Hsun Chen},

doi = {10.1007/s10664-022-10118-5},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-01-01},

urldate = {2022-01-01},

journal = {Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE)},

volume = {27},

number = {63},

pages = {38 pages},

publisher = {Springer},

keywords = {Code representation},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Lamothe2021APIMisuse,

title = {Assisting Example-based API Misuse Detection via Complementary Artificial Examples},

author = {Maxime Lamothe and Heng Li and Weiyi Shang},

doi = {10.1109/TSE.2021.3093246},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-01-01},

urldate = {2022-01-01},

journal = {IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE)},

volume = {48},

number = {9},

pages = {3410–3422},

publisher = {IEEE},

keywords = {API},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Li2021StackTrace,

title = {Studying the Practices of Logging Exception Stack Traces in Open-Source Software Projects},

author = {Heng Li and Haoxiang Zhang and Shaowei Wang and Ahmed E. Hassan},

doi = {10.1109/TSE.2021.3129688},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-01-01},

urldate = {2022-01-01},

journal = {IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE)},

volume = {48},

number = {12},

pages = {4907–4924},

publisher = {IEEE},

keywords = {Logging, Observability},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Liao2021DNNPerformance,

title = {An Empirical Study of the Impact of Hyperparameter Tuning and Model Optimization on the Performance Properties of Deep Neural Networks},

author = {Lizhi Liao and Heng Li and Weiyi Shang and Lei Ma},

doi = {10.1145/3506695},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-01-01},

urldate = {2022-01-01},

journal = {ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM)},

volume = {31},

number = {3},

pages = {1–40},

publisher = {ACM},

keywords = {MLOps, Performance},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Liao2021LocatePerfReg,

title = {Locating Performance Regression Root Causes in the Field Operations of Web-based Systems: An Experience Report},

author = {Lizhi Liao and Jinfu Chen and Heng Li and Yi Zeng and Weiyi Shang and Catalin Sporea and Andrei Toma and Sarah Sajedi},

doi = {10.1109/TSE.2021.3131529},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-01-01},

urldate = {2022-01-01},

journal = {IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE)},

volume = {48},

number = {12},

pages = {4986–5006},

publisher = {IEEE},

keywords = {Performance},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Locke2021LogAssist,

title = {LogAssist: Assisting Log Analysis Through Log Summarization},

author = {Steven Locke and Heng Li and Tse-Hsun Peter Chen and Weiyi Shang and Wei Liu},

doi = {10.1109/TSE.2021.3083715},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-01-01},

urldate = {2022-01-01},

journal = {IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE)},

volume = {48},

number = {9},

pages = {3227–3241},

publisher = {IEEE},

keywords = {Log analysis, Observability},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Raed2022QuantumBugs,

title = {Bug Characteristics in Quantum Software Ecosystem},

author = {Mohamed Raed and Heng Li and Foutse Khomh and Lionel Tidjon},

doi = {https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2204.11965},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-01-01},

urldate = {2022-01-01},

journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2204.11965},

keywords = {Quantum computing},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}