ICSE 2026
Sun 12 - Sat 18 April 2026 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

This program is tentative and subject to change.

Thu 16 Apr 2026 14:30 - 14:45 at Oceania VIII - Architecture and Design 2 Chair(s): Davide Taibi

Complex software systems consist of multiple overlapping design structures, such as abstractions, features, crosscutting concerns, or patterns. This is similar to how a human body has multiple interacting subsystems, such as respiratory, digestive, or circulatory. Unlike in the medical domain, software designers do not have an effective way to distinguish, visualize, comprehend, and analyze these interleaving design structures. As a result, developers often struggle through the maze of source code. In this paper, we present an \emph{Automated Concept Explanation} (ACE) framework that automatically extracts and categorizes major concepts from source code based on the roles that files play in design structures and their topic frequencies. Based on these categorized concepts, ACE recovers four categories of high-level design models using different algorithms and generates a natural language explanation for each. To assess if and how ACE can help developers better understand design structures, we conducted an empirical study where two groups of graduate students were assigned three design comprehension tasks: identifying feature-related files, identifying dependencies among features, and identifying design patterns used, in an open-source project. The results reveal that the students who used ACE can accomplish these tasks much faster and more accurately, and they acknowledged the usefulness of the categorized concepts and structures, multi-type high-level model visualization, and natural language explanations.

This program is tentative and subject to change.

Thu 16 Apr

Displayed time zone: Brasilia, Distrito Federal, Brazil change

14:00 - 15:30
Architecture and Design 2Research Track / Journal-first Papers / SE in Society (SEIS) at Oceania VIII
Chair(s): Davide Taibi University of Southern Denmark and University of Oulu
14:00
15m
Talk
Quantum Software Engineering: Roadmap and Challenges Ahead
Journal-first Papers
Juan Manuel Murillo University of Extremadura and COMPUTAEX Foundation, Jose García-Alonso Universidad de Extremadura, Enrique Moguel University of Extremadura, Johanna Barzen University of Stuttgart, Frank Leymann University of Stuttgart. Institute of Architecture of Application Systems, Shaukat Ali Simula Research Laboratory and Oslo Metropolitan University, Tao Yue Beihang University, Paolo Arcaini National Institute of Informatics, Ricardo Pérez-Castillo University of Castilla-La Mancha, Ignacio García University of Castilla-La Mancha, Mario Piattini University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain, Antonio Ruiz-Cortés University of Seville, Antonio Brogi Università di Pisa, Jianjun Zhao Kyushu University, Andriy Miranskyy Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University), Manuel Wimmer JKU Linz
Link to publication
14:15
15m
Talk
ArchHypo: Managing Software Architecture Uncertainty Using Hypotheses Engineering
Journal-first Papers
Kelson Silva Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE), Jorge Melegati University of Porto, Fabio Fagundes Silveira Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), Xiaofeng Wang Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Mauricio Ferreira Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE), Eduardo Guerra Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
14:30
15m
Talk
A Holistic Approach to Design Understanding Through Concept Explanation
Journal-first Papers
Hongzhou Fang Drexel University, Yuanfang Cai Drexel University, Ewan Tempero The University of Auckland, Rick Kazman University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Yu-ChengTu University of Auckland, Jason Lefever Drexel University, Ernst Pisch Drexel University
14:45
15m
Talk
SSAR: A Novel Software Architecture Recovery Approach Enhancing Accuracy and ScalabilityVirtual Attendance
Research Track
Wei Ding Central China Normal University, Ran Mo Central China Normal University, Chaochao Wu Central China Normal University, Haopeng Song Central China Normal University
15:00
15m
Talk
Semantic-Enhanced Automatic Refinement of Architecture Recovery Results Using LLMs
Research Track
Yiran Zhang , Chengwei Liu Nankai University, Yuqiang Sun Nanyang Technological University, Zhengzi Xu Imperial Global Singapore, Weisong Sun Nanyang Technological University, Wenke Li Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuxia Jin Xi'an Jiaotong University, Yang Liu Nanyang Technological University
15:15
15m
Talk
Technohealth: A Modular Framework for Reproducible Research in Precision Healthcare with Heterogeneous Wearable Data
SE in Society (SEIS)
Paula Lago Concordia University, Melika Seyedi Concordia University, Canada, Laurie Anne Laberge Concordia University, Canada, Abdelwahab Hamou-Lhadj Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
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