Bing Zhang

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Integrated development environment (IDE) plugins aimed at detecting web application security vulnerabilities can help developers create secure applications in the first place. Most of such IDE plugins use static source code analysis approaches. Although several empirical studies evaluated the plugins and compared their precision and recall of detecting web application security, few follow-up studies tried to understand the evaluation results. We analyzed more than 20,000 vulnerability reports based on 7,215 distinct test cases spanning 11 categories of web application vulnerabilities to understand the evaluation results of three open-source IDE plugins, namely, SpotBugs, FindSecBugs, and Early Security Vulnerability Detector (ESVD), which aimed at detecting security vulnerabilities of Java-based web applications. Our results identify many factors besides the source code analysis approach that can dramatically bias the detection performance. Based on our insights, we improved the studied plugins. In addition, our study raises the alarm that, without solid root cause analyses, the evaluation and comparisons of security vulnerability detection approaches and tools could be misleading. Thus, we proposed a guideline on reporting the evaluation results of the security vulnerability detection approaches.

In this work, Si_xCoCrNi (x = 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, molar ratio) alloys were designed by introducing elemental Si into CoCrNi, a medium-entropy alloy (MEA). The effects of Si addition on the microstructure and mechanical properties of the as-cast SiCoCrNi alloys were investigated. The results suggested that a novel Si-rich face-centred cubic (FCC) phase formed in the Si_0.3CoCrNi and Si_0.4CoCrNi alloys. The Si-rich FCC phase, which featured high hardness and was located between the dendrites of the matrix FCC phase (with higher phase fraction), significantly increased the yield strength of the Si_0.4CoCrNi alloys five times compared with the CoCrNi alloy.

A series of Ti₄₀Zr₂₅Cu₉Ni₈Be₁₈)_100-xTM_x (x = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 at.%, TM = Nb, Y) Bulk amorphous alloys were designed and prepared using the copper mold casting method. The microstructures, glass forming ability and mechanical properties of the alloys were investigated by means of X-ray diffractometry (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), differential scanning colorimetry (DSC), depth-sensitive nanoindentation and uniaxial compressive test. The Bulk amorphous alloys with different ductility were investigated by measuring their plastic deformation energy (PDE) of the first pop-in events during loading. The relationships between the PDE value, shear band formation and ductility in Bulk amorphous alloys have been investigated. The results show that the PDE value decreases by the Nb addition and promotes the generation of multiple shear bands easily, which increase the fracture strength and plasticity significantly. Substituting Nb with Y has exactly the reverse effect. A useful rule for preparing of Bulk amorphous alloys with high plasticity is herein proposed, whereby the chemical composition of the Bulk amorphous alloys can be tailored to possess a lower PDE value.

In this work, we investigate the mechanical properties of an annealed high strength Ti-20Zr-6.5Al-4V alloy in uniaxial tensile tests in different directions. The results show that the alloy exhibits obvious anisotropic ductility in different directions, while the tensile strength of the alloy remains almost unchanged. This phenomenon is closely related to α laths with similar orientations along the prior-β grain boundaries. These α laths significantly affect the initiation and propagation of cracks when the alloy reaches its yield limit, thereby affecting the ductility of the alloy, such that it exhibits anisotropic ductility.