Rafael Lotufo, B. Eng.

PhD Student

For my Ph.D thesis, I've been working on creating the next generation of bug tracking systems. My work focuses on three main pillars:

  1. using game mechanisms to create a healthy and active community to report and share information about bugs; 
  2. automatically summarizing bug report content based on an understanding of how information evolves in bug tracking systems (live summarizer at bugsumm.appspot.com);
  3. promoting information instead of conversation by eliminating comments as the main component in bug report, thereby helping users locate and understand relevant information (still in the works).

All of my work has a strong empirical emphasis, either by mining software repositories, interviews, or staged experiments. The software repositories I mine are mostly open source bug tracking systems, for which I use a much machine learning, regression, and natural language processing.

I have a strong background in software development and software project management. I've spent the 6 previous years to my PhD studies in the industry working as a software engineer and later as a project manager. For more details see my complete resume.

Publications

2010
Berger, T., S. She, R. Lotufo, K. Czarnecki, and A. Wąsowski, "Feature-to-Code Mapping in Two Large Product Lines", Software Product Lines: Going Beyond, vol. 6287: Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, pp. 498-499, 2010. [pdf]
She, S., R. Lotufo, T. Berger, A. Wąsowski, and K. Czarnecki, "Variability Model of the Linux Kernel", Fourth International Workshop on Variability Modeling of Software-intensive Systems (VaMoS 2010), Linz, Austria, 2010. [pdf]
Lotufo, R., S. She, T. Berger, A. Wąsowski, and K. Czarnecki, "Evolution of the Linux Kernel Variability Model", Software Product Line Conference, 09/2010. [pdf][pdf]
Berger, T., S. She, R. Lotufo, A. Wąsowski, and K. Czarnecki, "Variability Modeling in the Real: A Perspective from the Operating Systems Domain", 25th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, 09/2010. [pdf][pdf]
2011
She, S., R. Lotufo, T. Berger, A. Wąsowski, and K. Czarnecki, "Reverse Engineering Feature Models", ICSE 2011, 2011. [pdf][pdf]
2012
Berger, T., S. She, R. Lotufo, A. Wąsowski, and K. Czarnecki, Variability Modeling in the Systems Software Domain, : Generative Software Development Laboratory, University of Waterloo, 2012. [pdf]
Lotufo, R., L. Passos, and K. Czarnecki, "Towards Improving Bug Tracking Systems with Game Mechanisms", 9th Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR'12), Zurich, Switzerland, IEEE (also published as GSDLAB–TR 2011–09–29), 06/2012. [pdf][zip]
Lotufo, R., and K. Czarnecki, Improving Bug Report Comprehension, : University of Waterloo, 09/2012. [pdf]
Lotufo, R., Z. Malik, and K. Czarnecki, "Modelling the `Hurried' Bug Report Reading Process to Summarize Bug Reports", International Conference on Software Maintenance, Trento, Italy, IEEE, 09/2012. [pdf][pdf]
2013
Berger, T., S. She, R. Lotufo, A. Wąsowski, and K. Czarnecki, "A Study of Variability Models and Languages in the Systems Software Domain", IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, vol. 39, issue 12, no. 12, pp. 1611-1640, Dec, 2013. [pdf]

Academic Degrees

  • B. Eng. Computing Engineering, Electrical & Computing Engineering, UNICAMP

Projects

profile for rafalotufo at Stack Overflow, Q&A for professional and enthusiast programmers

Courses taken

  • Winter 2010: Persuasive Tecnologies
  • Winter 2010: Model based Software Engineering
  • Fall 2010: CS860: Advanced Topics in Algorithms and Complexity: Search Engines, from Design to Implementation
  • Spring 2009: CS689 - Machine Learning
  • Winter 2009: CS842 - Topics in Software Evolution and Design
    • Study on the evolution of complexity of the Linux kernel configuration.
    • Critique on On Finding Duplication and Near-Duplication in Large Software Systems, Brenda S. Baker, Proc. of the 1995 Working Conference on Reverse Engineering (WCRE-95), Toronto, Ontario, July 1995.
    • Critique on Software Aging, David Parnas, Proc. of 1994 Intl. Conf. on Software Engineering (ICSE-94), Sorrento, Italy, 1994.
  • Fall 2009: ECE750 T15 - Algorithm and Data Structures
  • Fall 2009: ECE750 T17 - Data and Knowledge Modeling and Analysis

Development

  • I've created a Chrome extension to quickly access publications from home, using the University of Waterloo proxy.
  • I have a personal blog on tech-related topics.

News

 

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Our regular stand-up scrum meetings are a great way to have regular interaction with other team members, as well as our supervisor.

Rafael Lotufo

People in the lab are very enthusiastic about what they do. The environment is very stimulating and soon you realize that most of the limits are those in your head.

Kacper Bąk