Boomerang: Demand-Driven Flow- and Context-Sensitive Pointer Analysis for Java (Artifact)

Evaluating pointer analyses with respect to soundness and precision has been a tedious task. Within this artifact we present PointerBench, the benchmark suite used in the paper to compare the pointer analysis Boomerang with two other demand-driven pointer analyses, SB [Sridharan and Bodik, 2006] and DA [Yan et al., 2011]. We show PointerBench can be used to test different pointer analyses. In addition to that, the artifact contains usage examples for Boomerang on simple test programs. The test programs and the input on these programs to Boomerang can be changed to experiment with the algorithm and its features. Additionally, the artifact contains the integration of Boomerang, SB, and DA into FlowDroid, which can then be executed on arbitrary Android applications

Boomerang: Demand-Driven Flow- and Context-Sensitive Pointer Analysis for Java

Many current program analyses require highly precise pointer information about small, tar- geted parts of a given program. This motivates the need for demand-driven pointer analyses that compute information only where required. Pointer analyses generally compute points-to sets of program variables or answer boolean alias queries. However, many client analyses require richer pointer information. For example, taint and typestate analyses often need to know the set of all aliases of a given variable under a certain calling context. With most current pointer analyses, clients must compute such information through repeated points-to or alias queries, increasing complexity and computation time for them. This paper presents Boomerang, a demand-driven, flow-, field-, and context-sensitive pointer analysis for Java programs. Boomerang computes rich results that include both the possible allocation sites of a given pointer (points-to information) and all pointers that can point to those allocation sites (alias information). For increased precision and scalability, clients can query Boomerang with respect to particular calling contexts of interest. Our experiments show that Boomerang is more precise than existing demand-driven pointer analyses. Additionally, using Boomerang, the taint analysis FlowDroid issues up to 29.4x fewer pointer queries compared to using other pointer analyses that return simpler pointer infor- mation. Furthermore, the search space of Boomerang can be significantly reduced by requesting calling contexts from the client analysis

Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods: GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and injuries, for two sexes, and for 204 countries and territories. Input data were extracted from censuses, household surveys, civil registration and vital statistics, disease registries, health service use, air pollution monitors, satellite imaging, disease notifications, and other sources. Cause-specific death rates and cause fractions were calculated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model and spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression. Cause-specific deaths were adjusted to match the total all-cause deaths calculated as part of the GBD population, fertility, and mortality estimates. Deaths were multiplied by standard life expectancy at each age to calculate YLLs. A Bayesian meta-regression modelling tool, DisMod-MR 2.1, was used to ensure consistency between incidence, prevalence, remission, excess mortality, and cause-specific mortality for most causes. Prevalence estimates were multiplied by disability weights for mutually exclusive sequelae of diseases and injuries to calculate YLDs. We considered results in the context of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and fertility rate in females younger than 25 years. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered 1000 draw values of the posterior distribution. Findings: Global health has steadily improved over the past 30 years as measured by age-standardised DALY rates. After taking into account population growth and ageing, the absolute number of DALYs has remained stable. Since 2010, the pace of decline in global age-standardised DALY rates has accelerated in age groups younger than 50 years compared with the 1990–2010 time period, with the greatest annualised rate of decline occurring in the 0–9-year age group. Six infectious diseases were among the top ten causes of DALYs in children younger than 10 years in 2019: lower respiratory infections (ranked second), diarrhoeal diseases (third), malaria (fifth), meningitis (sixth), whooping cough (ninth), and sexually transmitted infections (which, in this age group, is fully accounted for by congenital syphilis; ranked tenth). In adolescents aged 10–24 years, three injury causes were among the top causes of DALYs: road injuries (ranked first), self-harm (third), and interpersonal violence (fifth). Five of the causes that were in the top ten for ages 10–24 years were also in the top ten in the 25–49-year age group: road injuries (ranked first), HIV/AIDS (second), low back pain (fourth), headache disorders (fifth), and depressive disorders (sixth). In 2019, ischaemic heart disease and stroke were the top-ranked causes of DALYs in both the 50–74-year and 75-years-and-older age groups. Since 1990, there has been a marked shift towards a greater proportion of burden due to YLDs from non-communicable diseases and injuries. In 2019, there were 11 countries where non-communicable disease and injury YLDs constituted more than half of all disease burden. Decreases in age-standardised DALY rates have accelerated over the past decade in countries at the lower end of the SDI range, while improvements have started to stagnate or even reverse in countries with higher SDI. Interpretation: As disability becomes an increasingly large component of disease burden and a larger component of health expenditure, greater research and developm nt investment is needed to identify new, more effective intervention strategies. With a rapidly ageing global population, the demands on health services to deal with disabling outcomes, which increase with age, will require policy makers to anticipate these changes. The mix of universal and more geographically specific influences on health reinforces the need for regular reporting on population health in detail and by underlying cause to help decision makers to identify success stories of disease control to emulate, as well as opportunities to improve. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licens

Global, regional, and national burden of disorders affecting the nervous system, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BackgroundDisorders affecting the nervous system are diverse and include neurodevelopmental disorders, late-life neurodegeneration, and newly emergent conditions, such as cognitive impairment following COVID-19. Previous publications from the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factor Study estimated the burden of 15 neurological conditions in 2015 and 2016, but these analyses did not include neurodevelopmental disorders, as defined by the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-11, or a subset of cases of congenital, neonatal, and infectious conditions that cause neurological damage. Here, we estimate nervous system health loss caused by 37 unique conditions and their associated risk factors globally, regionally, and nationally from 1990 to 2021.MethodsWe estimated mortality, prevalence, years lived with disability (YLDs), years of life lost (YLLs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), with corresponding 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs), by age and sex in 204 countries and territories, from 1990 to 2021. We included morbidity and deaths due to neurological conditions, for which health loss is directly due to damage to the CNS or peripheral nervous system. We also isolated neurological health loss from conditions for which nervous system morbidity is a consequence, but not the primary feature, including a subset of congenital conditions (ie, chromosomal anomalies and congenital birth defects), neonatal conditions (ie, jaundice, preterm birth, and sepsis), infectious diseases (ie, COVID-19, cystic echinococcosis, malaria, syphilis, and Zika virus disease), and diabetic neuropathy. By conducting a sequela-level analysis of the health outcomes for these conditions, only cases where nervous system damage occurred were included, and YLDs were recalculated to isolate the non-fatal burden directly attributable to nervous system health loss. A comorbidity correction was used to calculate total prevalence of all conditions that affect the nervous system combined.FindingsGlobally, the 37 conditions affecting the nervous system were collectively ranked as the leading group cause of DALYs in 2021 (443 million, 95% UI 378–521), affecting 3·40 billion (3·20–3·62) individuals (43·1%, 40·5–45·9 of the global population); global DALY counts attributed to these conditions increased by 18·2% (8·7–26·7) between 1990 and 2021. Age-standardised rates of deaths per 100 000 people attributed to these conditions decreased from 1990 to 2021 by 33·6% (27·6–38·8), and age-standardised rates of DALYs attributed to these conditions decreased by 27·0% (21·5–32·4). Age-standardised prevalence was almost stable, with a change of 1·5% (0·7–2·4). The ten conditions with the highest age-standardised DALYs in 2021 were stroke, neonatal encephalopathy, migraine, Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, diabetic neuropathy, meningitis, epilepsy, neurological complications due to preterm birth, autism spectrum disorder, and nervous system cancer.InterpretationAs the leading cause of overall disease burden in the world, with increasing global DALY counts, effective prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation strategies for disorders affecting the nervous system are needed

User-centered tool design for data-flow analysis

In den letzten Jahrzehnten sind zunehmend statische Programmanalyse-Tools in der Industrie zum Einsatz gekommen. Allerdings sind sie für User-Experience-Probleme bekannt, wie die hohe Anzahl von Fehlalarmen, langsames Produzieren von Ergebnissen oder für unvollständige Problembeschreibungen. In dieser Arbeit adressieren wir diese Probleme mit Hilfe benutzerzentrierten Designs. Dazu untersuchen wir die Motivation der Nutzer zur Verwendung der Tools. Mit diesem Wissen extrahieren wir Designempfehlungen für die Entwicklung statischer Analysetools. Auf Basis dieser erstellen und bewerten wir im Anschluss neue Protoypen. Zu diesem Zweck konzentrieren wir uns auf zwei Nutzergruppen: die Analysenentwickler, die den Code einer statischen Analyse schreiben, und die Softwareentwickler, die den Code schreiben, welcher von einem Analysetool analysiert wird. Für beide Nutzergruppen berichten wir durch Umfragen über Motivationen und Strategien der Entwickler und präsentieren konkrete Designempfehlungen für statische Analysetools. Nach diesen Designempfehlungen erstellen wir Programmanalyse-Tools, die sich mit den wichtigsten User-Experience-Problemen befassen, die wir in den Umfragen identifizieren: VisuFlow zur Datenvisualisierung, Cheetah für schnellere Ergebnisse und Mudarri zur verbesserten Erklärbarkeit. Durch Nutzerstudien und empirische Auswertungen bewerten wir diese Analysetools und zeigen, dass es diese Tools den Entwicklern ermöglichen, ihre Aufgaben besser zu erfüllen als mit aktuellen Analysetools. Wir argumentieren daher für die Notwnedigkiet von benutzerzentrierteren Ansätzen, um die jahrzehntealten User-Experience-Probleme der statischen Analyse zu lösen. Dabei stellen wir den Benutzer ins Zentrum der Designmethodik, um Programmanalyse-Werkzeuge zu entwickeln, die den Bedürfnissen des Benutzers entsprechen.In the past decades, static analysis tools have been increasingly used in industry. However, they are also known for user-experience issues such as a high number of false positives, a lack of responsiveness, or the poor warning descriptions that they provide. To address user-experience issues in static analysis tools, we apply the user-centered design methodology. We first aim at understanding the users' motivations for using the tools, and derive design recommendations for building static analysis tools. Finally, we prototype and evaluate tools for static analysis following the recommendations. In this thesis, we focus on two groups of users: the analysis developers-who write the code of a static analysis, and the software developers-who write the code that is analyzed by an analysis tool. For both user groups, we report on developer motivations and strategies through surveys, and present concrete design recommendations for static analysis tools. We use those recommendations to build analysis tools, addressing the main user-experience issues we identify in the surveys: VisuFlow for data visualization, Cheetah for responsiveness, and Mudarri for explainability. We evaluated those tools through empirical evaluations and user studies, and showed that they allow developers to perform their tasks better than with current tools. Through this thesis, we motivate the need for more user-centered approaches for addressing decades-old user-experience issues in static analysis, putting the user at the center of the design process in order to create tools that suit their needs.Lisa Nguyen Quang Do ; Advisors: Prof. Dr. Eric Bodden, Prof. Dr. Karim AliTag der Verteidigung: 21.10.2019Universität Paderborn, Dissertation, 201

Front Matter, Table of Contents, Preface, Conference Organization

Front Matter, Table of Contents, Preface, Conference Organizatio