Master Thesis
We offer several master thesis projects to the students following one of the master’s programs at the University of Namur. Those projects can cover one or more topics related to the research done at the SNAIL team or explore new directions. It is also possible to propose your own project related to our ongoing research. If you think you have a great idea, do not hesitate to contact us, but make sure you have clearly identified the research aspect and novelty of your proposal.
The project can be conducted at the computer science faculty, in collaboration with the members of the team, at another Belgian organization (industry, research center, university, …) with which we have an ongoing collaboration, or abroad at another university in our network.
If you study at a different university and you would like to do a research internship in the context of one of our projects, you should ask your own university supervisor to contact us. We have limited places available but are always interested in new research opportunities.
Master Thesis Projects
Current and Past Projects
Training machine learning models for vulnerability prediction and injection using datasets of vulnerability-inducing commits
Multiple techniques exist to find vulnerabilities in code, such as static analysis and machine learning. Although machine learning techniques are promising, they need to learn from a large quantity of examples.
Automatic Vulnerability Injection using Genetic Improvement and Static Code Analysers
This thesis explores the idea of applying genetic improvement in the aim of injecting vulnerabilities into programs. Generating vulnerabilities automatically in this manner would allow creating datasets of vulnerable programs. This would, in turn, help training machine-learning models to detect vulnerabilities more efficiently.
Leveraging Large Language Models to Automatically Infer RESTful API Specifications
Application Programming Interfaces, known as APIs, are increasingly popular in modern web applications. With APIs, users around the world are able to access a plethora of data contained in numerous server databases.
Study of the impacts of Code Smells on code Testability
Code Smells have been studied for more than 20 years now. They are used to describe a design aw in a program intuitively. In this study, we wish to identify the impact of some of these Code Smells.
JCrashPack2.0: Search-based crash reproduction hardness analysis
This master thesis project, revisits the links between search-based crash reproduction and software quality metrics to assess the hardness of search-based crash reproducing test case generation.
DeFlake: Exploring test flakiness debugging
Flaky tests are nondeterministic tests, they can give different results without changes to the code. This wastes time and resources. A better understanding of this field should lead to a decrease of these inconveniences. However, there is little work that makes the effort to bring this knowledge together. This is why this thesis will propose to answer these questions What are the categories of flaky tests identified? and What debugging techniques are the most appropriate for the different categories of flaky tests?
Génération de tests unitaires pour programmes Python
L’application de tests automatiques au code soumis par les étudiants sur une plateforme de correction automatique est un outil utile pour le corps enseignant. Il permet de fournir de meilleurs retours, sur plus d’exercices, créés plus rapidement.
Learning to assert in software testing using mutants
Learning software testing is a neglected subject in computer science courses. Over the years, methods and tools have appeared to provide educational support for this learning. Mutation testing is a technique used to evaluate the effectiveness of test suites.
MetaTReq: A meta-modelisation approach of test requirements
The goals of this master thesis is to define an extendable meta-model and associated DSL to describe high-level test requirements and their (optionally) associated assertions for Java programs.
MuTEd: A Comparative Study of Classic and Extreme Mutation Testing for Teaching Software Testing
Although software testing is critical in software engineering, studies have shown a significant gap between students’ knowledge of software testing and the industry’s needs, hinting at the need to explore novel approaches to teach software testing.
Reverse Engineering Variability for Configurable Systems using Formal Concept Analysis: The Odoo case study
Reverse Engineering a Feature Model (FM) of an existing system allows its migration to a software product line approach to simplify the management of this system by applying a Software Product Line Engineering methodology that focuses mainly on the FM to determine the reusable artefacts and the variation points of the system.
Towards crash reproduction benchmark augmentation using mutation testing
Many applications are developed with a lot of different purposes and can provide quality output. Nevertheless, crashes still happen. Many techniques such as unit testing, peer-reviewing, or crash reproduction are being researched to improve quality by reducing crashes.