School of Computing associate professor Hamid Bagheri and Ph.D. student and graduate research assistant Md Rashedul Hasan received the 2025 Distinguished Artifact Award at the 55th annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), held in Naples, Italy, June 23-26, 2025.
Their award-winning paper, “Towards More Dependable Specifications: An Empirical Study Exploring the Synergy of Traditional and LLM-Based Repair Approaches,” was also co-authored by two School of Computing Ph.D. graduates: Qatar Computing Research Institute cybersecurity scientist Mohannad Alhanahnah and Iowa State University assistant professor Clay Stevens, who was also a former School of Computing graduate research assistant.
“We are deeply honored to receive the IEEE/IFIP DSN Distinguished Artifact Award for our work on advancing the dependability of declarative formal specifications,” Bagheri said. “DSN is a premier venue for dependable computing research, and this recognition—from a conference with a highly competitive acceptance rate of around 20 percent—affirms the real-world relevance and rigor of our contributions.
The paper examines the first comprehensive empirical evaluation comparing traditional systematic repair techniques with emerging Large Language Model (LLM)-based approaches across two established benchmarks. By systematically analyzing repair success rates, ground truth similarity, and repair generation strategies, their paper reveals nuanced performance characteristics of different repair methodologies.
“Our study highlights how combining the systematic precision of traditional repair tools with the adaptive reasoning of large language models can meaningfully improve the robustness of complex software specifications,” Bagheri said. “This study is among the first to explore how emerging LLMs can be leveraged to repair formal specifications, bridging two areas of computing research that have rarely intersected—until now.”
All submitted artifacts compete for a Distinguished Artifact Award that is decided by the Artifact Evaluation Committee. The award recognizes the artifact that has the highest degree of reproducibility as well as ease of use and documentation, allows other researchers to easily build upon the artifact’s functionality for their own research, and substantially supports the claims of the paper.
“We are especially excited that our open artifacts can empower other researchers and practitioners to build on these ideas, pushing the boundaries of automated repair towards more reliable and secure systems,” Bagheri said.
About the IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks
The Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN) is devoted to the mission of ensuring that the computing systems and networks on which society relies are dependable and secure. With its roots dating back to 1970's, is the leading annual event in which academic and industry leaders exchange research ideas and tools, and discuss emerging practices. Modern societies rely upon properly performing technical systems and infrastructures. The conference is the most prestigious international forum to present advances in knowledge and practices of building and maintaining robust, resilient, safe and secure systems and networks.
