A Systematic Literature Review on Explainability for Machine/Deep Learning-based Software Engineering Research

The remarkable achievements of Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms, particularly in Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL), have fueled their extensive deployment across multiple sectors, including Software Engineering (SE). However, due to their black-box nature, these promising AI-driven SE models are still far from being deployed in practice. This lack of explainability poses unwanted risks for their applications in critical tasks, such as vulnerability detection, where decision-making transparency is of paramount importance. This paper endeavors to elucidate this interdisciplinary domain by presenting a systematic literature review of approaches that aim to improve the explainability of AI models within the context of SE. The review canvasses work appearing in the most prominent SE & AI conferences and journals, and spans 63 papers across 21 unique SE tasks. Based on three key Research Questions (RQs), we aim to (1) summarize the SE tasks where XAI techniques have shown success to date; (2) classify and analyze different XAI techniques; and (3) investigate existing evaluation approaches. Based on our findings, we identified a set of challenges remaining to be addressed in existing studies, together with a roadmap highlighting potential opportunities we deemed appropriate and important for future work.Comment: submitted to ACM Computing Surveys. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2202.06840 by other author

History and Conservation of Rockwork in Gardens of Imperial China

From the last century, especially from the 1950s onward, many historical gardens in China have been repaired and restored. Although the aim was to preserve the cultural heritage, many of these gardens were modified during the conservation projects. This thesis focuses on one of the typical garden features, the rockwork. Like gardens, historic rockwork in China has often been transformed from a particular into a generic style. In view of this phenomenon, this thesis focuses on answering the following questions: How have the original appearance and states of rockwork been maintained in conservation projects? How can conservation practice be improved in order to accomplish more authentic restoration? Guided by these two main questions, this thesis aims to contribute to a more authentic restoration and conservation practice. At the beginning, with a critical review of the history of rockwork in China, evidence is shown that preferences in rockwork changed over time. Various trends and most common characteristics of different periods are also identified. The subsequent analysis of legislation and guidelines related to the conservation of rockwork reveal conservation principles during and since the twentieth century, which continue to develop and change up to the present day. An understanding of the various trends and conservation principles provides a solid basis for the evaluation of conservation projects. Four individual cases were then studied in depth to investigate the conservation treatments applied to historic rockwork and the influences on the retention of their original appearance and state. These case studies demonstrate that historic rockwork has been modified to various extents during the conservation process, its historic significance has been overlooked, and some have been restored based on current aesthetic standards. Even so, some of these projects are still considered as good examples to be followed. Based on the problems and good practices identified in the case studies, specific recommendations are finally provided, to prevent the repetition of past mistakes, and to guide and improve future conservation practices

Translating Visual Language: Artistic Experimentations by European-trained Chinese Artists, 1920s-1950s

This dissertation addresses the roots of fundamental changes in twentieth-century art in China by addressing how the cultural exchange between Europe and China transformed critical conceptions and artistic practices in the field of art. The translation of German aesthetic theories and the French academic training of Chinese artists engendered the conceptual and technical transformation of Chinese art in the early twentieth century. While the notions of pure nudity, artistic salvation, and archaeology of art were introduced from German philosophy into Chinese art, the traditional ideas of art versus craft and artist as moral exemplars were converted. Chinese intellectuals analogized crisis-ridden China in the early 20th century to Germany being occupied by the Napoleon army in 1806. They believed that the superior academic culture, instead of its political and military strengths, was the foundation of the unification of Germany in 1871. The doctrines of German scholars were therefore introduced to China through German-trained Chinese intellectuals, aiming at achieving the modern transition of Chinese society. The implementation of aesthetic education based on German philosophical theories endowed modern artists and their works with the social mission to shape the citizens’ personalities and improve their tastes to establish a liberal and civilized modern Chinese society. Moreover, due to the establishment of the Institut Franco-Chinois in Lyon, more Chinese art students acquired the opportunity to study in Paris, the most important center for new artistic ideas and practices during the early twentieth century. Thus, the conceptual shift in the field of aesthetics was expressed through artists with a French academic training background. This study focuses on examining how the translation of German aesthetic doctrines and the introduction of French (sometimes Italian) artistic techniques contributed to the modern transition of Chinese art. How were German aesthetics translated and disseminated to young Chinese artists in the early twentieth century? How were the German scholars’ theories appropriated to establish new standards for evaluating artists and their works? What were the mechanisms, obstacles and cultural clashes encountered by European-trained Chinese artists in their training and creation processes? How did European-trained Chinese artists respond to these new modern aesthetic doctrines? Each of the five chapters of my dissertation centers on the introduction or transformation of an artistic concept: art versus craft, pure nudity, artistic salvation, and archaeology of art, discussing how these concepts were theoretically and practically formulated in Chinese art

Connection stiffness identification of historic timber buildings using Temperature-based sensitivity analysis

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd The beam-column connection, called ‘Que Ti’, is the key component of historic Tibetan timber buildings to transfer shear, compression and bending loads from one structural element to another. This kind of connections can reduce the internal forces and improve the structure's ability to resist earthquakes. Its structure is very complicated and there is little information about the behaviour of this kind of semi-rigid connections. In this paper, a temperature-based response sensitivity method is proposed to identify the connection stiffness of the ‘Que-Ti’ in typical historical Tibetan buildings from temperature and strain response measurements. The semi-rigid connection is modeled as two rotational springs and one compressive spring. The temperature is treated as a measurable input and the thermal loading on the structure can be determined from the temperature variation. The numerical results show the method is effective and reliable to identify both unknown boundary conditions and the connection stiffness of the structure accurately even with 10% noise in measurements. A long-term monitoring system has also been installed in a typical historical Tibetan building and the monitoring data are used to further verify the proposed method. The experimental results show that the identified stiffnesses by the proposed method are consistent with that by finite element model updating from ambient vibration measurements

Master of Arts

thesisThis master's thesis examines two visions of male failure during the Qing dynasty (1644 to 1912): husband suicide and husband killing. The adjudication of these cases created a gap between narrative rhetoric and judicial logic that complicated the clear-cut ideology of the Qing Code. I examine this gap, arguing that while of little controversy in the law, husband suicide and husband killing stemmed from issues of patriarchal weakness and abuse that undermined orthodox notions of masculinity and ordinary women's expectations of marriage. Chapter 1 examines male suicide cases that presented the husband as simultaneously morally righteous and yet a disappointing example of Confucian manhood, exploring the hypothesis that judicial discourse gendered suicide as a female or yin form of agency. Chapters 2 and 3 move to a discussion of husband killing cases that complicated the Qing Code's image of a righteous husband as the victim of a villainous wife. These cases portrayed deeply flawed hus

European luxury consumption in China: government action, state capacity and consumer behavior (1680-1840)

Programa de Doctorado en Historia y Estudios Humanísticos: Europa, América, Arte y LenguasLínea de Investigación: Historia y Estudios Humanísticos: Europa, América, Arte y GeografíaClave Programa: DHHCódigo Línea: 121Commercial intercourse and cultural exchanges between China and Europe have been taking place for centuries. Without a global perspective, studies might be unilateral. The purpose of this thesis is to examine foreign trade and European import consumption in a specific period of early modern China, covering the period from the gradual opening but restricted maritime trade since the late 17th century to the outbreak of the Opium Wars in the mid-19th century. This thesis focuses on European luxury goods that entered China, especially clocks, wine and other handicrafts during this period. Being an important part of world trade, European luxury goods is closely related to the fields of global history, economic history and consumer studies. This study aims to give a detailed description and analysis of real consumption situation of that period by cross-referencing various sources - official edicts, memorials, imperial household records, local chronicles, etc. Also to have the situation of China’s foreign trade concretely and comprehensively displayed with researches on operation of China’s four major customs and the volume of import and export trade. Based on the Qing Emperors’ preference, the thesis also analyzes typical luxury consumption of the upper class in the Qing Dynasty, including the royal family, nobles, officials, merchants and intellectuals, in order to conduct comprehensive research on how these luxury consumption habits affected the formation of the imported goods market, the imitation industry and other local corresponding industries. The study of import and consumption of European luxury goods in China is not to enumerate historical statistics, but to reveal more factors and features of that time. The thesis focuses on finding more relevance in the issue of consumption, rather than production under the political situation of the time, and gives a comparative study from a global historical perspective. Supported by the existing researches in both Eurocentric and Sinocentric approaches, this study aims to reveal new perspectives on the theme of Euro-China trade in the early modern period. It is hoped that this study could serve as a complement to studies of the early modern China in a global historical context and examines the role of China as a consumer market in the global economy.China y Europa han mantenido las relaciones comerciales y los intercambios culturales durante siglos. Los estudios al respecto resultarán unilaterales si no se llevan a cabo desde una perspectiva global. Esta tesis tiene como objetivo examinar el comercio exterior y el consumo de las importaciones europeas en un periodo concreto de China en época moderna, que abarca desde la apertura gradual pero restringida del comercio marítimo desde finales del siglo XVII hasta el estallido de las Guerras del Opio a mediados del siglo XIX. Esta tesis se centra en el estudio los productos de lujo europeos que entraron en China durante este periodo, especialmente relojes, vino y otras artesanías. Como una parte importante del comercio mundial, los artículos de lujo europeos están estrechamente relacionados con la historia global, económica, así como los estudios de consumo. Este estudio pretende ofrecer una descripción y un análisis detallados de la situación real del consumo de ese periodo mediante el cruce de varias fuentes: edictos oficiales, memoriales, registros de la familia imperial, crónicas locales, etc. También se pretende mostrar de forma concreta y exhaustiva la situación del comercio exterior de China de aquel periodo con investigaciones sobre el funcionamiento de las cuatro principales aduanas de China y el volumen del comercio de importación y exportación. Basándose en las preferencias de los emperadores Qing, la tesis también analiza el consumo de lujo típico de la clase alta de la dinastía Qing. A esa clase pertenecen la familia real, los nobles, los funcionarios, los comerciantes y los intelectuales. El análisis al respecto se desarrolla con el fin de llevar a cabo una investigación exhaustiva sobre cómo estos hábitos de consumo de lujo afectaron a la formación del mercado de bienes importados, la de la industria de la imitación y la de otras industrias locales correspondientes. En el estudio de la importación y del consumo de bienes de lujo europeos en China no se va a enumerar las estadísticas históricas, sino se revelarán más factores y características de aquella época. La tesis pretende poner de manifiesto, bajo el contexto político de aquella época, la pertinencia en el tema del consumo, en lugar del de la producción, y ofrece un estudio comparativo desde una perspectiva histórica global. Apoyándose en las investigaciones en que se aplican la metodología tanto eurocéntrica o la sinocéntrica, este estudio pretende adoptar nuevas perspectivas sobre el tema del comercio euro-chino en época moderna. Se espera que este estudio pueda servir de complemento a los estudios sobre la China moderna temprana en un contexto histórico global y que examine el papel de China como mercado de consumo en la economía global.Universidad Pablo de Olavide de Sevilla. Departamento de Geografía, Historia y Filosofí