Change Impact Analysis based on Formalization of Trace Relations for Requirements

Evolving customer needs is one of the driving factors in software development. There is a need to analyze the impact of requirement changes in order to determine possible conflicts and design alternatives influenced by these changes. The analysis of the impact of requirement changes on related requirements can be based on requirements traceability. In this paper, we propose a requirements metamodel with well defined types of requirements relations. This metamodel represents the common concepts extracted from some prevalent requirements engineering approaches. The requirements relations in the metamodel are used to trace related requirements for change impact analysis. We formalize the relations. Based on this formalization, we define change impact rules for requirements. As a case study, we apply these rules to changes in the requirements specification for Course Management System

Merging Application Models in a MDA Based Runtime Environment for Enterprise Information Systems

The issue of merging source code based applications is very problematic, particularly when involving code from disparate sources, due to the typical unsuitability of available source code for software merging. The relatively recent field of model driven architecture is primely involved in the definition and development of the source model structures for model based applications and in developing transformations from the abstract models to various executable formats. The authors are also involved in these MDA activities in the development of their G2 prototype system targeted at the specific domain of enterprise information system style applications. They have reviewed various methods for merging application models within this domain and describe the fundamentals of three application model integration methods from their G2 system; standard element referencing, virtual data element mapping and element envelopment that can be used to provide practical and simple application model merging at both the design time and runtime of a model based production system, to produce a working integrated merged application

Applications and Meaning of Inheritance in Software Specifications

We present a novel inheritance mechanism for a specification language. This mechanism supports stepwise refinement by combining constraints that can be inherited from several sources. Inheritance in specifications differs from inheritance in programming languages. The proposed mechanism has been designed specifically to support computer-aided requirements analysis. The main design issues for the mechanism are explained, and the application of the mechanism to requirements analysis is illustrated via examples.This research was supported in part by the Army Research Office under grant number ARO-145-91. This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant number CCR-9058453

System Design Quality and Efficiency of System Analysts: An Automated CASE Tool Versus a Manual Method

The purpose of the current research study is to find out if CASE tools help to increase the software design quality and efficiency of system analysts and designers when they modify a system design document. Results of the experimental data analysis show that only the experience level of subjects had an effect on quality of their work. Results indicated that the design methods, either CASE tools or manual, do not have a significant effect on quality of the modification task nor the efficiency of system analysts and designers

Reverse Engineering Heterogeneous Applications

Nowadays a large majority of software systems are built using various technologies that in turn rely on different languages (e.g. Java, XML, SQL etc.). We call such systems heterogeneous applications (HAs). By contrast, we call software systems that are written in one language homogeneous applications. In HAs the information regarding the structure and the behaviour of the system is spread across various components and languages and the interactions between different application elements could be hidden. In this context applying existing reverse engineering and quality assurance techniques developed for homogeneous applications is not enough. These techniques have been created to measure quality or provide information about one aspect of the system and they cannot grasp the complexity of HAs. In this dissertation we present our approach to support the analysis and evolution of HAs based on: (1) a unified first-class description of HAs and, (2) a meta-model that reifies the concept of horizontal and vertical dependencies between application elements at different levels of abstraction. We implemented our approach in two tools, MooseEE and Carrack. The first is an extension of the Moose platform for software and data analysis and contains our unified meta-model for HAs. The latter is an engine to infer derived dependencies that can support the analysis of associations among the heterogeneous elements composing HA. We validate our approach and tools by case studies on industrial and open-source JEAs which demonstrate how we can handle the complexity of such applications and how we can solve problems deriving from their heterogeneous nature

Proceedings of the 1994 Monterey Workshop, Increasing the Practical Impact of Formal Methods for Computer-Aided Software Development: Evolution Control for Large Software Systems Techniques for Integrating Software Development Environments

Office of Naval Research, Advanced Research Projects Agency, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Army Research Office, Naval Postgraduate School, National Science Foundatio

Early detection of ripple propagation in evolving software systems

Ripple effect analysis is the analysis of the consequential knock on effects of a change to a software system. In the first part of this study, ripple effect analysis methods are classified into several categories based on the types of information the methods analyse and produce. A comparative and analytical study of methods from these categories was performed in an attempt to assist maintainers in the selection of ripple effect analysis methods for use in different phases of the software maintenance process. It was observed that existing methods are most usable in the later stages of the software maintenance process and not at an early stage when strategic decisions concerning project scheduling are made. The second part of the work, addresses itself to the problem of tracing the ripple effect of a change, at a stage earlier in the maintenance process than existing ripple effect analysis methods allow. Particular emphasis is placed upon the development of ripple effect analysis methods for analysing system documentation. The ripple effect analysis methods described in this thesis involve manipulating a novel graph theory model called a Ripple Propagation Graph. The model is based on the thematic structure of documentation, previous release information and expert judgement concerning potential ripple effects. In the third part of the study the Ripple Propagation Graph model and the analysis methods are applied and evaluated, using examples of documentation structure and a major case study

New Software Process Model Designed from the Basics of Evolutionary Biology and Software Evolution

The process of software development is achieved by using different software life cycle models to design, code and test the software. Process models like the water fall model, spiral model and prototyping are used by companies. Most of these models were designed for a single generation of software. In this research, methods to correct the problems in existing models are proposed based on the principles of evolution in biology and biochemistry, and an abstract model has been generated. The model is called the Infinity Model. The basic principles of biological evolution have been incorporated into the varying steps in the Infinity Model to generate an evolutionary process model. It consists of a completely new design cycle which incorporates both the creation of software and the maintenance of software. In this model, methods to correct deficiencies like resource allocation, documentation and requirement updating in the existing models have been incorporated. Several case studies of large company software and the problems they faced were studied. From the case studies several methods like requirement evolution, consolidation and architectural evolution have been incorporated into the Infinity Model.Computer Science Departmen

MATrA: meta-modelling approach to traceability for avionics

PhD ThesisTraceability is the common term for mechanisms to record and navigate relationships between artifacts produced by development and assessment processes. Effective management of these relationships is critical to the success of projects involving the development of complex aerospace products. Practitioners use a range of notations to model aerospace products (often as part of a defined technique or methodology). Those appropriate to electrical and electronic systems (avionics) include Use Cases for requirements, Ada for development and Fault Trees for assessment (others such as PERT networks support product management). Most notations used within the industry have tool support, although a lack of well-defined approaches to integration leads to inconsistencies and limits traceability between their respective data sets (internal models). Conceptually, the artifacts produced using such notations populate four traceability dimensions. Of these, three record links between project artifacts (describing the same product), while the fourth relates artifacts across different projects (and hence products), and across product families within the same project. The scope of this thesis is to define a meta-framework that characterises traceability dimensions for aerospace projects, and then to propose a concrete framework capturing the syntax and semantics of notations used in developing avionics for such projects which enables traceability across the four dimensions. The concrete framework is achieved by exporting information from the internal models of tools supporting these notations to an integrated environment consisting of. i) a Workspace comprising a set of structures or meta-models (models describing models) expressed in a common modelling language representing selected notations (including appropriate extensions reflecting the application domain); ii) well-formedness constraints over these structures capturing properties of the notations (and again, reflecting the domain); and iii) associations between the structures. To maintain consistency and identify conflicts, elements of the structures are verified against a system model that defines common building blocks underlying the various notations. The approach is evaluated by (partial) tool implementation of the structures which are populated using case study material derived from actual commercial specifications and industry standards

Hypermedia analysis and navigation of domains

Hypermedia systems have been demonstrated to support authoring and reading of mostly static information. Few systems address the needs of analysts deriving information from a continuously changing base of information. Those that do, focus on the existing content and use links primarily for navigation and management. An open hypermedia architecture is proposed for a class of analysis systems where the value added by the analyst is through associating data elements. In such systems, links are the primary form of information being managed. The architecture developed provides a framework through which hypermedia analysis systems can be generated with little or no code development. Specifically, the model is shown to apply to the domain of software engineering by mapping the analysis portions of a rapid prototyping lifecycle to a schema defined using the framework. Through the addition of n-ary links and links to links, the architecture provides a closer mapping to the Dexter Hypertext Reference Model than current graph-based models such as the Multimedia Object Retrieval Environment (MORE). Improvements over MORE are also shown in the use of abstraction as a filtering mechanism and through the full involvement of links as being the primary focus of the analysis, query, and filtering functionshttp://archive.org/details/hypermedianalysi109458483Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited