IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine Special Issue on
"Search Based Software Engineering"

Context

Search Based Software Engineering (SBSE) has become an important application field for Computational Intelligence (CI). SBSE aims to apply CI algorithms to Software Engineering (SE) tasks. SBSE generally solves a SE task by first defining a search space, or the set of possible solutions, then transferring the SE task into an optimization problem, and after that employing a variety of search algorithms to seek solutions within its search space. In contrast to “Computational Intelligence Software”, namely software tools implemented with CI techniques, SBSE focuses on how to employ CI techniques to improve the whole lifecycle of SE.

Following the process of SBSE, CI algorithms have been used to solve SE tasks in almost all the stages of a SE lifecycle, including requirements, designing, coding, testing, maintenance, etc. Meanwhile, many typical search algorithms in CI, including Evolutionary Algorithms (EA, e.g., Genetic Algorithms, Genetic Programming, and Memetic Algorithms), Ant Colony Algorithms (ACO), Tabu Search (TS), Simulated Annealing (SA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Hill Climb (HC), etc., have been successfully applied in the field of SE.

The SBSE repository shows that SBSE has attracted an increasing amount of research interest over time. As of Feb. 5, 2015, 1389 relevant research papers have been published, involving over 1,600 authors in the UK, USA, Brazil, China, etc. Moreover, some research achievements are delivered as keynote speeches at important international conferences, including ICST 2015, GECCO 2013, ASE 2012, etc. Moreover, many companies witness the promising future of SBSE, and get involved in SBSE, including Microsoft, Ericsson, IBM, and Google.

Topics

In this special issue, we seek new strategies and solutions for SBSE. Topics include (but are not limited to):

Important dates

Submission information

We particularly encourage papers that report on CI strategies to new applications which SBSE has not been applied or fully studied before.

All manuscripts should be sent as a PDF file. Please include the following information on the first page: paper title, names and e-mail addresses of all authors, and the detailed contact information of the corresponding author. The maximum length for the manuscript is typically 20 pages in single column format with double-spacing, including figures and references.

Additional information about submission guidelines and information for authors is provided at the IEEE CIM website:cis.ieee.org/ieee-computational-intelligence-magazine.html . Submission should be made by Easychair: easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cimsbse2016 .

Decisions

Submissions will be reviewed by at least three experts in the field. The primary evaluation criteria are: high-quality of the submission, innovative aspects in the domain of search-based software engineering, practical approaches, and thorough evaluation. The final decision on each paper is made by the Editor-in-Chief.

Guest Editors

Editor-in-Chief

Hisao Ishibuchi, Osaka Prefecture University, Graduate School of Engineering, 1-1 Gakuen-cho, Nakaku, Sakai, Osaka 599-8531, Japan, hisaoi@cs.osakafu-u.ac.jp

Contact

If you have any questions concerning the topics and scope of this special issue, please do not hesitate to contact the lead guest editor at jianghe@dlut.edu.cn.