- SEG-staff - INF Mailman

INF Annual Report 24/25: Check
by van Dok, Yael Annika (INF) 23 Sep '25

23 Sep '25

Dear all, Please check whether all your activities and publications from 01.08.2024 - 31.07.2025 are included. Be very mindful of the timeframe: Activities * For Scientific Boards and Steering Committee, you must be a member during the timeframe above. * For Conference Chairing and Organization, Program Committees, Reviewing Acitivities, the conference must take place in the timeframe above.* * For Presentations, the presentation must have been held in the timeframe above (ex.: at a conference during that timeframe). * Even for the longer activities such as reviewing, we need a cut-off date to decide if the activity is included in the current report or the report of the next academic year. This is why we use the conference date/journal publishing date, since this makes things very clear. Ergo, as an example, no ICSME reviewing in this report, since it takes place at the end of Sept 2025. I did not communicate this clearly in my first email, my apologies. Publications * For conference publications, the conference must take place in the timeframe above. (Ex.: No ICSME publications, since it takes place at the end of Sept 2025.) * For journal publications, the publish date must be in the timeframe above. For awards, you must have received the award during the timeframe above. You'll find the document here<https://unibe365.sharepoint.com/:b:/r/teams/unibe-479.az/Freigegebene%20Dok…>. Please include directly in the document your corrections: If there are things that do not match the criteria above, mark them with red marker as "to delete". If there are things missing, please include the full info in the comments. * For presentations, this includes the full title, conference, location, date. * For publications, this includes the full title, authors, conference/journal, date, DOI. Please make the corrections and confirm to me when you are done as soon as possible. Thank you! Best Yael

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Fwd: [FSE 2026] Review Assignment and Instructions (Half Review Deadline: *October 17*)
by Timo Kehrer 21 Sep '25

21 Sep '25

Dear all, I just received the FSE reviewing assignments, with alomst all the papers falling directly into our areas of interest and research. If you'd like to review a paper, please let me know. I think most of the papers are really worth internal discussions.. Best, Timo #401 MetaFSM: Transforming FSM-based Legal Contracts into Smart Contracts Using One-shot Learning with LLMs #472 Surprising Behaviors in Git Diff, Merge, and Rebase #525 DiffInk: Optimizing Source Code Tree Differencing by Leveraging Byte-Level Textual Differencing #576 AutoMerge: Search-Based Model Merging Framework for Effective Model Reuse #664 The Impact of Language Independence on Structured Merge Accuracy and Efficiency #787 The Influence of Prompt Engineering Techniques on the Security and Energy Efficiency of LLM-Generated Code #889 FastGumTree: Speeding Up Long Code Differencing with Hypertree Representation of Abstract Syntax Tree #1400 Janus: A Collaborative Development Framework for Foundation Models with Mergeability-Aware Adaptation #1897 Are Newer Library Versions Greener? An Empirical Study on Energy Patterns of Data Processing Libraries #2323 Bridging Textual and Structured Merge: Evaluating Language-Specific Separator-Based Merge across Languages #2326 Structure-Aware Delta Debugging with Geometric--Information Weights #2779 Failing with Purpose: Coverage-Guided Negative Test Generation from a Mechanized P4 Type System -------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht -------- Betreff: [FSE 2026] Review Assignment and Instructions (Half Review Deadline: *October 17*) Datum: Sun, 21 Sep 2025 15:28:19 +0000 Von: FSE 2026 HotCRP <noreply-fse2026(a)hotcrp.com> Antwort an: julia.lawall(a)inria.fr, ctreude(a)smu.edu.sg An: Timo Kehrer <timo.kehrer(a)unibe.ch> Dear colleague, Thank you again for serving on the FSE 2026 program committee! After desk rejects and withdrawals, we received 925 submissions to review. You are selected as a Rapid Response Reliable Reviewer (RRRR). Thank you for indicating your preference in the acceptance form! For this reason, you are receiving a reduced review load (12 submissions) in exchange for 0 to 3 additional reviews before the rebuttal period. As RRRR, you will help mitigate the impact of missing or low-expertise reviews. Your review assignment is now available on HotCRP. Please start reviewing now. Site: https://fse2026.hotcrp.com/ Your reviews: https://fse2026.hotcrp.com/search?q=re:me TO DO NOW: Please download your assignment as soon as possible. We have checked papers for formatting, scope, and double-blind violations. If you notice any other issues or violations, including a clearly missed conflict of interest, please email the designated paper administrator immediately. The paper administrators are indicated in each paper's tags: #julia for Julia Lawall julia.lawall(a)inria.fr, #christoph for Christoph Treude ctreude(a)smu.edu.sg, and #darko for Darko Marinov marinov(a)illinois.edu. Darko is handling submissions for which both PC chairs are in conflict. DOUBLE-BLIND: Please do NOT try to actively identify the authors. In particular, please: (1) do not attempt to mine identities from Git logs, (2) do not click on DOI links that some authors have included in ACM references on the first page, (3) do not deliberately check document properties, and (4) do not perform detective work. Please note that we thoroughly checked all the papers for double-blind violations, but we cannot guarantee that we spotted every single violation. Hence, if you spot any such violations, we would greatly appreciate it if you contact the PC chairs as soon as possible, before even submitting your review for that paper. REVIEW PROCESS AND DEADLINES: You can review papers from your list in any order you prefer. Please do not wait until the 50% deadline and start reviewing right away. To maximize the soundness and quality of our review process, we will be actively monitoring the quality of the reviews as they come in and will let you know if we spot any reviews that need additional clarifications, details or revisions. PC members are expected to complete ****** half of their reviews by Friday, October 17, 2025, AoE ******* PC members are expected to complete ****** all of your reviews by Thursday, November 13, 2025, AoE ****** Please do *not* be late, because it creates hardship for your fellow PC members and the entire reviewing process. It is imperative that you complete your reviews on time so that we can proceed with the following author response and discussion phases. Please submit your reviews as soon as possible; you should not bunch up reviews offline to upload in one go, but upload them as soon as they become available. You can always update them until the deadline. Having reviews early on will really help us with the reviewing process. If you do anticipate any problems with submitting your reviews on time, you should let us know as soon as possible and not wait until the deadline. REVIEW SCORES: We will be scoring the papers as follows: 1. Reject 2. Weak reject 3. Weak accept 4. Accept 5. Award quality If you believe that a paper should be accepted and presented at the conference, please assign a score of 4 or 5. If you believe a paper should be considered for an ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper award, please assign it a score of 5. Please feel free to assign high scores even if you don't have high expertise; there is a separate scoring mechanism for reviewer expertise. We expect to see some papers with diverse opinions, and your score is simply a starting point for the online discussion. Please focus on *constructive criticism* and provide *strengths and weaknesses* with evidence to defend those points. REVIEWING CRITERIA: Originality/Novelty: The extent to which the contributions are sufficiently original with respect to the state-of-the-art Importance of contribution: The extent to which the paper's contributions can impact the field of software engineering, and if needed, under which assumptions Soundness: The extent to which the paper's contributions and/or innovations address its research questions and are supported by rigorous application of appropriate research methods Evaluation (if relevant): The paper's claimed contributions are supported by empirical evidence Quality of presentation: The quality of writing, including clear descriptions, adequate use of the English language, absence of major ambiguity, clearly readable figures and tables, and adherence to the formatting instructions provided. Appropriate comparison to related work: The extent to which the submission adequately reviews the prior literature. SUBREVIEWING: You have been invited to serve on the FSE 2026 program committee because of *your* expertise in the field, and it is expected that each PC member performs and takes full responsibility for their reviews; reviews cannot be simply "outsourced". If you would like to consult with colleagues with suitable expertise, you must ask the PC chairs to check for conflicts of interest in advance and acknowledge the colleague's contribution on the review form. If you want to train your Ph.D. students in reviewing and critical thinking, you are welcome to have them write reviews that you then discuss with them, revise, and score by yourself. Nevertheless, please be aware that reviews cannot be delegated; it is still very much your review that we want for each paper. USE OF LLM: The content of reviews is expected to be produced exclusively by you and cannot be generated by LLMs. We also discourage the use of LLMs to improve the English and readability of reviews, because your queries to the LLM might be stored into the LLM server and later used to train a new version of the LLM, which may eventually leak your review if properly prompted. We greatly appreciate your efforts to write insightful and helpful reviews for all papers. Many thanks for your service on behalf of the FSE 2026 conference! Julia and Christoph FSE 2026 Program Co-chairs

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Fwd: INF Monthly Research Pizza Colloquium — Oct 28, Nov 25, Dec 16 @ 12:15 (Schmiede)
by Timo Kehrer 20 Sep '25

20 Sep '25

Dear all, This is a great opportunity to connect with colleagues from other groups. According to my experience, such initiatives are hard to sustain when everyone is lost in the daily business with many things that have higher priority. So, it's even more important that we contribute to this in the future, as we are among the biggest groups at INF. I am pretty sure that all of you can give interesting talks here, with moderate preparation effort (through recycling conference talks, etc.). Let's try to keep this running.. Have a sunny Saturday! Best, Timo -------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht -------- Betreff: INF Monthly Research Pizza Colloquium — Oct 28, Nov 25, Dec 16 @ 12:15 (Schmiede) Datum: Fri, 19 Sep 2025 11:36:21 +0200 Von: Riesen, Kaspar (INF) <kaspar.riesen(a)unibe.ch> An: mittelbau(a)list.inf.unibe.ch <mittelbau(a)list.inf.unibe.ch>, INF-DG-DOSI <dosi.inf(a)unibe.ch> Kopie (CC): Riesen, Kaspar (INF) <kaspar.riesen(a)unibe.ch> Dear INF researchers, We’re excited to announce the launch of our INF Monthly Research Pizza Colloquium! 🍕 Each month, PhD students and postdocs will have the opportunity to present their current research in short 15-minute talks (plus Q&A), in a relaxed setting with pizza provided for all attendees. *When & Where* - Dates: October 28, November 25, and December 16 (planned for the last Tuesday of each month; December session is on the 16th) - Time: 12:15 - Location: Schmiede (Schützenmattstrasse 14) *Who can present?* - PhD students and postdocs *Talk format:* - 15 minutes + 5 minutes Q&A - Informal and research-in-progress - friendly If you’re interested in presenting in the upcoming session, please submit a talk title and a short abstract (2–4 sentences) by Tuesday, October 14, 2025. Submit to: kaspar.riesen(a)unibe.ch (Questions welcome at the same address.) We’ll announce the final program after the deadline. Looking forward to your submissions! Best regards, INF Monthly Colloquium Team ------------------------------------------------------- PD Dr. Kaspar Riesen Head of the Pattern Recognition Group Institute of Computer Science Faculty of Science University of Bern, Switzerland kaspar.riesen(a)unibe.ch -------------------------------------------------------

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Requested Information for INF Annual Report
by van Dok, Yael Annika (INF) 18 Sep '25

18 Sep '25

Dear all, I need to collect some information for the annual report of the institute. Please respond to me by Monday, 22nd Sept, 12:00 (hard deadline), with the following information about your Activities from 1.08.2024 - 31.07.2025: * Scientific Boards and Steering Committees * Conference Chairing and Organization * Program Committees * Reviewing Activities * Presentations * Outreach and Other Activities Also, include information about the following: * Awards Check the annual report from last year here<https://www.inf.unibe.ch/unibe/portal/fak_naturwis/a_dept_math/c_iinfamath/…>. This will give you some idea on what info is requested from you. INF Annual Report 2023/24 - inf.unibe.ch<https://www.inf.unibe.ch/unibe/portal/fak_naturwis/a_dept_math/c_iinfamath/…> Members Florence Aellen, Jesutofunmi Ajayi, Sigurd Alnes, Orestis Alpos, Dr. Jayamine Alupotha, Ignacio Amores Sesar, Mariarosaria Barbaraci, Jan-Andrea Bard, Michal ... www.inf.unibe.ch If you have very recent publications (from July 2025), please also include them in your response. The rest I (should) have. Best Yael

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Information for INF Annual Report
by van Dok, Yael Annika (INF) 18 Sep '25

18 Sep '25

Dear all, I need to collect some information for the annual report of the institute. Please respond to me by Monday, 22nd Sept, 14:00 (hard deadline), with the following information about your Activities from 1.08.2024 - 31.07.2025: * Scientific Boards and Steering Committees * Conference Chairing and Organization * Program Committees * Reviewing Activities * Presentations * Outreach and Other Activities Also, include information about the following: * Awards In the attachment, you'll find the WIP of our section in the report (which contains information from the report from last year). This will give you some idea on what info is requested from you. If you have very recent publications (from July 2025), please also include them in your response. The rest I (should) have. Best Yael

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VARIABILITY 2026
by Timo Kehrer 17 Sep '25

17 Sep '25

Dear all, research results are not always plannable, so I am usually not a big fan of too much venue-driven paper submission. But here we should submit sth ;-) https://conf.researchr.org/home/variability-2026 It's the successor of SPLC, VAMOS and ICSR which have been unified into a single conference (I have been involved a bit in the unification). Happy about suggestions (we may be creative with relations to reuse, variability, configurability, ...) Best, Timo

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Seminar Topics
by Timo Kehrer 15 Sep '25

15 Sep '25

Dear all, Thanks for updating the seminar/thesis on GitLab https://gitlab.inf.unibe.ch/SEG/team/courses/seminar-software-engineering/s… All the topics with status "open" will be offered this semester, yielding the following list: T0015 Reducing Simulation Overhead in UAV/Drone Test Generation Using Surrogate Models T0039 Animating Virtual Children: Realistic Behaviors for VR Training in Pediatric Care T0047 Automated Test Selection for Simulation-based Testing of UAVs T0048 Empirical Study on Merge Conflict Dynamics: The Role of Personas in Merge Resolutions T0050 Agent-Based Code Repair T0051 Exploration of Self Reflective LLMs for Code T0052 Persistent Risks in GitHub-Actions T0058 Matlab-Python Transpiler T0059 Architecture Design of Distributed Mobile Search Engine based on Nostr Protocol T0060 Human Tracking Integration for Adaptive Robot Behavior in VR/MR Environments T0061 User Interaction Layer for Mixed Reality Robot Programming T0064 Creating a Core Rule Set for Android Taint Analysis Tools T0065 GPU Performance and Energy Trade-offs in Simulation-based Testing of Autonomous Vehicles T0067 RL-based Training for Code in LLMs I kindly ask you to do a final check ** today, until 13:00 ** Thank you! Timo

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Supervising a grammar school pupil
by Bard, Jan-Andrea (INF) 12 Sep '25

12 Sep '25

Dear all Does anybody fancy supervising a grammar school pupil from 12th Jan to 25th Jan 2026? One could give him some easy to intermediate programming tasks in Python. Cheers, Jan-Andrea

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Master thesis defense: Judi Abdullah
by Boll, Marian Alexander (INF) 10 Sep '25

10 Sep '25

Dear group, I would like to invite you to the Master thesis defense of Judi Abdullah. Judi works on a merging topic, that is currently flying under the radar of research, and explores whether we should change this. The meeting will be completely remote. I am sorry for the short notice and hope you can still attend. Cheers Alex Title: An Empirical Study of Context Modifications in Git Merge Conflict Resolutions Abstract: Merge conflicts are a common challenge in collaborative software development. Resolving them often requires edits that go beyond the conflicting lines, affecting surrounding code and even non-conflicting files. While previous work has studied conflict resolution, the role of context modifications remains less explored. To better understand the impact of these changes in this, so called context, we empirically examine the nature, frequency, and distribution of context changes during Git merge conflict resolution. We focus on changes within conflicting files as well as modifications made to non-conflicting files. We first classify the types of changes developers perform—such as substantive additions, deletions, and modifications, as well as comment edits, whitespace adjustments, and con- tent movements—and measure their frequency in Python and Java projects. We find that substantive changes dominate, but comment edits and structural changes are also common, particularly in Java. Next, we analyze how changes are distributed across merge commits, conflict files, and context chunks. Most context changes are small and local, but some involve extensive edits and restructuring, showing a long-tail distribution. We also study modifications in non-conflicting files, where developers add or remove substantive content. A partial correla- tion exists between the stability of conflict and non-conflict files, suggesting that while many conflict resolutions are local, some require broader adjustments across the codebase. Finally, we examine the impact of resolution strategies (e.g., “ours,” “theirs,” “manual”). Manual strategies are linked to more extensive modifications, while canonical strategies tend to yield more stable results. These findings show that conflict context and non-conflicting file changes occur frequently and are important for understanding merge conflict resolution. The results highlight patterns that can inform the design of better automated merge tools, especially those that account for unstable regions and broader edits beyond conflicts. This work contributes both practical guidelines and a dataset for future research. Our study provides a labeled dataset of merge conflicts with detailed information on context stability and resolution strategies. Overall, it includes more than 28,000 conflicting files containing over 37,000 conflict chunks and 72,000 context chunks, as well as more than 13,000 non-conflicting files. ________________________________________________________________________________ Microsoft Teams Need help?<https://aka.ms/JoinTeamsMeeting?omkt=en-US> Join the meeting now<https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_OGQzNDU3M2UtZjNhZS00…> Meeting ID: 337 079 862 127 9 Passcode: 68E3LM79 ________________________________ For organizers: Meeting options<https://teams.microsoft.com/meetingOptions/?organizerId=05aca28f-23b8-4ea6-…> [https://unibeidbistoragedeskmgmt.blob.core.windows.net/intune-blob-storage/…] https://serviceportal.unibe.ch/sp ________________________________________________________________________________

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Fwd: Any interested students in volunteering for ICT4S'26?
by Timo Kehrer 28 Aug '25

28 Aug '25

Dear all, If you're interested (s. below), please let me know. Best, Timo -------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht -------- Betreff: Any interested students in volunteering for ICT4S'26? Datum: Wed, 27 Aug 2025 13:36:39 +0000 Von: Nitish Patkar <nitish.patkar(a)fhnw.ch> An: Kehrer, Timo Benjamin (INF) <timo.kehrer(a)unibe.ch> Dear Timo We are checking around to see if there are any students who are interested in volunteering for the ICT4S’26 to be held at BFH in Bern. Attached is preliminary description of tasks and responsibilities for the reference. Could you ask in your group? Best Nitish ------------------------------------------------------------ FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland School of Computer Science Institute for Interactive Technologies IIT Research associate Bahnhofstrasse 6 CH-5210 Windisch, Switzerland ------------------------------------------------------------ Email : _nitish.patkar(a)fhnw.ch_ Web [1]:_https://nitishpatkar.com/ <https://nitishpatkar.com/>_ Web [2]: _https://www.fhnw.ch/en/iit <https://www.fhnw.ch/en/about-fhnw/schools/school-of-engineering/institutes/…>_ Web [3]: _http://scg.unibe.ch/staff/NitishPatkar_ ------------------------------------------------------------

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