- Stack@CS Reading Group - mailman.cs.vt.edu

[Sysreading] [Stack@CS Reading Group] Meeting This Week
by Brown, Chris 06 Nov '25

06 Nov '25

Hello, For the Stack@CS reading group this week, we will have a guest speaker---Michael Irwin, currently working on the Developer Relations Team at Docker and has been an Adjunct Instructor in the CS Department at Virginia Tech. See you tomorrow at 2pm in Gilbert 4001! Thanks, Chris

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[Sysreading] Cancelling This Week
by Brown, Chris 30 Oct '25

30 Oct '25

Hi All, We will be cancelling the Stack@CS reading group tomorrow due to a conflicting PhD preliminary exam all the organizers will be attending. Next week, we are excited to welcome a guest speaker, Michael Irwin—-a local DevOps expert and on the Developer Relations team at Docker. Please come with questions, and we are looking forward to resuming next week both in-person (Gilbert 4001) or on zoom (https://virginiatech.zoom.us/my/dcbrown). Thanks, Chris

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[Sysreading] Fall Break This Week
by Brown, Chris 16 Oct '25

16 Oct '25

Hello All, We will be cancelling the Stack@CS reading group meeting this week due to fall break this week, and will resume next week. Hope you enjoy the break [??] Thanks, Chris

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[Sysreading] Cancelling This Week
by Brown, Chris 10 Oct '25

10 Oct '25

Hi , We do not have a talk scheduled for this week, so we will cancel the Stack@CS reading group meeting today. Please find the meeting schedule here<https://sites.google.com/vt.edu/stackcs/home>. If you would like to sign up to give a talk, please complete this form<https://forms.gle/Rcu2VAVSqm554XEx6> or contact me. Hope to see you next week! Thanks, Chris

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[Sysreading] Stack@CS Reading Group Meeting This Week
by Brown, Chris 24 Sep '25

24 Sep '25

Hello, For the Stack@CS reading group meeting this week, we will have a presentation by Yuze Li on "Memory Tiering in Python Virtual Machine". The meeting will be Friday at 2pm in Gilbert 4001. Please find the schedule of meetings here<https://sites.google.com/vt.edu/stackcs-vt/home>, and if you are interested in presenting for an upcoming meeting please contact me or complete this survey<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScYhs3Jpclg9_DC7CtbTTkHaJ9K3eG_lwi…>. Thanks, Chris

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[Sysreading] Re: Fall 2025 Stack@CS Reading Group
by Brown, Chris 03 Sep '25

03 Sep '25

Hello Stack@CS, Thank you to everyone who completed the scheduling survey. The Stack@CS Reading Group meetings will be held on Fridays at 2pm in Gilbert 4001. Our first meeting will be next Friday (9/12), where we will provide an introduction to the group and discuss potential topics and events for this year. We are also inviting students and faculty to serve as presenters throughout the semester. The full schedule is available here<https://sites.google.com/vt.edu/stackcs/home>, and those interested in presenting are encouraged to sign up using this form<https://forms.gle/1mKxxFocLfet2Kb4A>. If there is no talk scheduled, then we will cancel the meeting for that week. In addition, if you are interested in joining our Microsoft Teams channel<https://teams.microsoft.com/l/team/19%3AWgHu2jMCYPdHuNRDMEVUWD8KQYUdpCd9FgL…> or email listserv<mailto:sysreading@cs.vt.edu> to receive further communications and updates, please contact the reading group organizing team. Thank you for your support, and we are looking forward to seeing you at our first meeting next week! Thanks, Chris ________________________________ From: Brown, Chris <dcbrown(a)vt.edu> Sent: Monday, August 25, 2025 3:40 PM To: stack@cs <stackcs-g(a)vt.edu>; stackcs-students-g(a)vt.edu <stackcs-students-g(a)vt.edu> Cc: Meng, Na <nm8247(a)vt.edu>; Liang, Huayu <huayu98(a)vt.edu>; Brown, Chris <dcbrown(a)vt.edu> Subject: Fall 2025 Stack@CS Reading Group Dear Stack@CS Students and Faculty, Happy first day of classes! I hope everyone had a great summer. We are in the process of scheduling the systems reading group meetings for this semester, and would like your input to determine the best time. If you are interested in attending, please complete this scheduling poll<https://www.when2meet.com/?31817168-RAYv7> to provide your availability by this Friday (8/29). We are also seeking volunteers to present during upcoming meetings. This is a great opportunity to receive feedback on your work, share insights on a paper, or lead a conversation on a topic relevant to the Stack@CS Center. Please let us know if you are interested in volunteering to lead a session. In addition, if you have suggestions for meetings to hold this semester, please contact the organizers (CC'd). Past meeting types include student and faculty presentations, discussion panels on research writing and LLMs in systems research, paper swaps, and a research showcase. We look forward to your contributions, and hope to organize an engaging and community-driven reading group this semester! Thanks, Chris

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[Sysreading] First Stack@CS Meeting of Spring 25
by Kabir, Md Mahir Asef 19 Jan '25

19 Jan '25

Hi all, The first Stack@CS meeting of Spring 2025 will take place this Wednesday (1/22) at 220 Gilbert Street (4211). The speaker of this meeting is Trey Woodlief, who is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Virginia. Details about the talk and bio of the speaker are given below - Title: A Differential Testing Framework to Identify Critical AV Failures Leveraging Arbitrary Inputs Abstract: The proliferation of autonomous vehicles (AVs) has made their failures increasingly evident. Testing efforts aimed at identifying the inputs leading to those failures are challenged by the input’s long-tail distribution, whose area under the curve is dominated by rare scenarios. Leveraging emerging open-access datasets can accelerate the exploration of long-tail inputs. However, having access to diverse inputs is not sufficient to expose failures; an effective test also requires an oracle to distinguish between correct and incorrect behaviors. Current datasets lack such oracles and developing them is notoriously difficult. This talk introduces DIFFTEST4AV, a differential testing framework designed to address the unique challenges of testing AV systems: 1) for any given input, many outputs may be considered acceptable, 2) the long tail contains an insurmountable number of inputs to explore, and 3) the AV’s continuous execution loop requires failures to persist in order to affect the system. DIFFTEST4AV integrates statistical analysis to identify meaningful behavioral variations, judges their importance in terms of the severity of these differences, and incorporates sequential analysis to detect persistent errors indicative of potential system-level failures. Our study on 5 versions of the commercially-available, road-deployed comma.ai OpenPilot system, using 3 available image datasets, demonstrates the capabilities of the framework to detect high-severity, high-confidence, long-running test failures. Bio: Trey Woodlief is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Virginia advised by Sebastian Elbaum and Kevin Sullivan. His research interests lie at the intersection of software engineering and robotics focusing on autonomous system safety by developing novel verification and validation techniques tailored to the unique constraints of the robotics domain. Results of his work have appeared in top venues in software engineering and robotics including ICSE, ICRA, and IROS. Location: Gilbert Street (4211) Date: 1/22/2025 Time: 10am-11am Zoom: https://virginiatech.zoom.us/my/mahir.kabir The meeting schedule of this semester can be found here<https://sites.google.com/vt.edu/stackcs-spring25/home>. If you want to present your work, please contact me or Dr. Na Meng (nm8247(a)vt.edu<mailto:nm8247@vt.edu>). Looking forward to seeing you this Wednesday. Sincerely, Mahir Md Mahir Asef Kabir PhD Candidate Department of Computer Science Virginia Tech

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[Sysreading] Research Showcase and Last Stack@CS meeting of this semester
by Kabir, Md Mahir Asef 16 Dec '24

16 Dec '24

Hi all, We will have our last Stack@CS meeting of this semester on 12/18 (Wednesday) at Gilbert Place 4001. In this meeting, we will have a retrospective session and a research showcase. Stack@CS Research Showcase The Stack@CS Center for Systems Research is hosting a Fall 2024 research showcase to highlight all of the research and accomplishments from students this year. The showcase will be Wednesday, 12/18, at 10am in Gilbert 4001. Students are invited to present their work as a lightning talk (5 min presentation) or poster, and contributions should describe innovative and relevant research. Please complete the form<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSetIvTuyFQ4gYn5BcPTlwXEcqmRNMk1OS8…> if you are interested in presenting for this event and contact Dr. @Brown, Chris (dcbrown(a)vt.edu<mailto:dcbrown@vt.edu>) if you have additional questions. Best, Mahir Md Mahir Asef Kabir PhD Candidate Department of Computer Science Virginia Tech Get Outlook for Android<https://aka.ms/AAb9ysg>

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[Sysreading] Stack@CS Group Meeting this Week & Announcement about Stack@CS Research Showcase
by Kabir, Md Mahir Asef 09 Dec '24

09 Dec '24

Hi all, We will have our next Stack@CS<https://sites.google.com/vt.edu/stackcs-fall24/home> reading group meeting this Wednesday (12/11). In this meeting, Wenxin Jiang (Ph.D. Candidate, Purdue University) will be presenting his work titled "Trustworthy Reuse in Open-Source AI Model Ecosystems: How Far are We?". Location: 220 Gilbert Street (4001) Zoom: https://virginiatech.zoom.us/my/dcbrown Time: 10 am - 11 am Details of the talk and a short bio of our guest speaker are given below - Title: Trustworthy Reuse in Open-Source AI Model Ecosystems: How Far are We? Bio: Wenxin Jiang is a Ph.D. candidate in the Elmore Family School of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Purdue University, under the supervision of Dr. James C. Davis. His research primarily focuses on Software Engineering for AI, with an emphasis on open-source pre-trained AI models. His work adapts methods from studies on traditional software package registries (e.g., NPM, PyPI) to open-source pre-trained AI model (PTM) supply chain. He is also interested in machine learning systems, software supply chain security, and trustworthy/responsible AI. His work has been published at ICSE, FSE, ASE, ISSTA, EMSE, ESEM, MSR, and SCORED. Abstract: Deep neural networks are increasingly integrated into software systems, yet developing these networks from scratch has become challenging as state-of-the-art architectures grow in complexity. Like traditional software engineers, deep learning practitioners are now reusing pre-trained models (PTMs) for downstream tasks and environments. However, unlike traditional software, where reuse practices and challenges have been well-studied, the knowledge foundation for PTM ecosystems remains underdeveloped. My findings indicate that reusing pre-trained models is often complex and carries potential risks, as issues within open-source AI models can propagate downstream, potentially impacting dependent applications. I will conclude by discussing ongoing work aimed at strengthening various aspects of the PTM supply chain, with a focus on enhancing trustworthiness, reusability, and security. Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow. Hopefully it will be an interesting and interactive session. Please fill out this form<https://forms.office.com/r/FUZsCXvLyK> if you want to be added to the Microsoft Teams team. Stack@CS Research Showcase The Stack@CS Center for Systems Research is hosting a Fall 2024 research showcase to highlight all of the research and accomplishments from students this year. The showcase will be Wednesday, 12/18, at 10am in Gilbert 4001. Students are invited to present their work as a lightning talk (5 min presentation) or poster, and contributions should describe innovative and relevant research. Please complete the form<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSetIvTuyFQ4gYn5BcPTlwXEcqmRNMk1OS8…> if you are interested in presenting for this event and contact Dr. @Brown, Chris<mailto:dcbrown@vt.edu> (dcbrown(a)vt.edu) if you have additional questions. Best, Mahir Md Mahir Asef Kabir PhD Candidate Department of Computer Science Virginia Tech

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[Sysreading] Stack@CS Reading Group Meeting this Week - Guest Speaker from Microsoft Research
by Kabir, Md Mahir Asef 04 Dec '24

04 Dec '24

Hi all, We will have our next Stack@CS<https://sites.google.com/vt.edu/stackcs-fall24/home> reading group meeting tomorrow, Wednesday (12/04). In this meeting, Dr. Saikat Chakraborty, who is a Senior Researcher at the Research in Software Engineering (RiSE) group at Microsoft Research, will be presenting his work titled "Towards Trusted Automated Programming by Intent Formalization and Proof-Oriented Programming". Location: 220 Gilbert Street (4001) Zoom: https://virginiatech.zoom.us/my/dcbrown Time: 10 am - 11 am Details of the talk and a short bio of our guest speaker are given below - Title: Towards Trusted Automated Programming by Intent Formalization and Proof-Oriented Programming. Abstract: The recent excitement around AI-assisted programming has been tempered by concerns around the trustworthiness of AI-generated code. Languages that offer static guarantees can help reduce some of these concerns, e.g., having AI generate safe Rust code rather than C eliminates the risk of AI-introduced memory safety issues. Taking this line of thinking to its limit, using AI to generate code in proof-oriented languages which allow programs to be augmented with specification and proofs of correctness could eliminate trust in AI-generated code. There are two associated problems in this formulation – (a) formalizing and specifying the intent, and (b) programming in safe proof-oriented language that ensures correctness w.r.t. the intent. In this talk, I will touch bases on how AI can help supercharge in both of these domains, and our vision on proceeding towards Trusted AI programming. Bio: Dr. Saikat Chakraborty is a Senior Researcher at the Research in Software Engineering (RiSE) group at Microsoft Research. His expertise in Programming Language Processing (PLP) -- a coalescence between Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence. His research is centered around two orthogonal directions -- Reliability in AI-generated program - where AI is the main driver, their research set check and bounds, so that AI does not go astray, and (ii)AI for Reliable Programming - where AI is the assistant helping programmers to write code with associated formal guarantees. His research has been published in different Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence conferences and journals, including, ICSE, FSE, ASE, ACL, NAACL, EMNLP, TSE, ISSTA, etc. His work received best paper awards from ISSTA’23, SCAM’24. Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow. Hopefully it will be an interesting and interactive session. Please fill out this form<https://forms.office.com/r/FUZsCXvLyK> if you want to be added to the Microsoft Teams team. Best, Mahir Md Mahir Asef Kabir PhD Candidate Department of Computer Science Virginia Tech

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