The future of AOSE: exploiting SME for a new conception of methodologies

In the last years, the software engineering eld has provided developers with dierent methodologies to support their work. Nevertheless, existing methodologies can hardly meet the requirements of all existing scenarios, which are more and more complex and highly dierentiated. This problem can be faced by applying the Situational Method Engineering (SME) approach, which enables to build appropriate methodologies by composing \fragments" of existing ones. We envision this approach as the future of software engineering in general, and in particular if applied in Agent Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE). This approach has also the valuable advantage of reusing models, solutions, experiences and tools of existing and tested methodologies. In this paper we report three examples of application of the Situational Method Engineering approach in AOSE. We show that this approach can be applied following dierent directions, and in particular: entity-driven, metamodel-driven, and characteristic-driven. To concretely show these directions, we present three examples of methodologies for developing agent systems (one regarding self-organising systems), all constructed composing methodology fragments to meet the scenario requirements

Using a situational method engineering approach to identify reusable method fragments from the secure TROPOS methodology

Situational method engineering (SME) has as a focus a repository of method fragments, gleaned from extant methodologies and best practice. Using one such example, the OPF (OPEN Process Framework) repository, we identify deficiencies in the current SME support for securityrelated issues in the context of agent-oriented software engineering. Specifically, theoretical proposals for the development of reusable security-related method fragments from the agent-oriented methodology Secure Tropos are discussed. Since the OPF repository has already been enhanced by fragments from Tropos and other non-security-focussed agent-oriented software development methodologies, the only method fragments from Secure Tropos not already contained in this repository are those that are specifically security-related. These are identified, clearly defined and recommended for inclusion in the current OPF repository of method fragments. ©JOT 2010

Towards a Model-Centric Software Testing Life Cycle for Early and Consistent Testing Activities

The constant improvement of the available computing power nowadays enables the accomplishment of more and more complex tasks. The resulting implicit increase in the complexity of hardware and software solutions for realizing the desired functionality requires a constant improvement of the development methods used. On the one hand over the last decades the percentage of agile development practices, as well as testdriven development increases. On the other hand, this trend results in the need to reduce the complexity with suitable methods. At this point, the concept of abstraction comes into play, which manifests itself in model-based approaches such as MDSD or MBT. The thesis is motivated by the fact that the earliest possible detection and elimination of faults has a significant influence on product costs. Therefore, a holistic approach is developed in the context of model-driven development, which allows applying testing already in early phases and especially on the model artifacts, i.e. it provides a shift left of the testing activities. To comprehensively address the complexity problem, a modelcentric software testing life cycle is developed that maps the process steps and artifacts of classical testing to the model-level. Therefore, the conceptual basis is first created by putting the available model artifacts of all domains into context. In particular, structural mappings are specified across the included domain-specific model artifacts to establish a sufficient basis for all the process steps of the life cycle. Besides, a flexible metamodel including operational semantics is developed, which enables experts to carry out an abstract test execution on the modellevel. Based on this, approaches for test case management, automated test case generation, evaluation of test cases, and quality verification of test cases are developed. In the context of test case management, a mechanism is realized that enables the selection, prioritization, and reduction of Test Model artifacts usable for test case generation. I.e. a targeted set of test cases is generated satisfying quality criteria like coverage at the model-level. These quality requirements are accomplished by using a mutation-based analysis of the identified test cases, which builds on the model basis. As the last step of the model-centered software testing life cycle two approaches are presented, allowing an abstract execution of the test cases in the model context through structural analysis and a form of model interpretation concerning data flow information. All the approaches for accomplishing the problem are placed in the context of related work, as well as examined for their feasibility by of a prototypical implementation within the Architecture And Analysis Framework. Subsequently, the described approaches and their concepts are evaluated by qualitative as well as quantitative evaluation. Moreover, case studies show the practical applicability of the approach

SCoRe: a Self-Organizing Multi-Agent System for Decision Making in Dynamic Software Developement Processes

International audienceSoftware systems are becoming more and more complex. A common dilemma faced by software engineers in building complex systems is the lack of method adaptability. However, existing agent-based methodologies and tools are developed for particular system and are not tailored for new problems. This paper proposes an architecture of a new tool based on SME for self-constructing customized method processes. Our approach is based on two pillars: the process fragment and the MAS meta-model. These two elements are both defined and considered under a specific agent-oriented perspective thus creating a peculiar approach. Our work is based on the self-organization of agents, making it especially suited to deal with highly dynamic systems such as the design of an interactive and adaptive software engineering process

Towards filling the gap between AOSE methodologies and infrastructures: requirements and meta-model

Many different methodologies have been proposed in Agent Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) literature, and the concepts they rely on are different from those adopted when implementing the system. This conceptual gap often creates inconsistencies between specifications and implementation. We propose a metamodel-based approach that aims to bridge this gap, resulting in an integrated meta-model that merges the best aspects of four relevant AOSE methodologies (GAIA, Tropos, SODA and PASSI). The meta-model assembly followed a welldefined process: for each methodology to be integrated in the meta-model, we elicited the requirements, identified a set of process fragments, thoroughly compared the concepts belonging to the various fragments, and finally composed the meta-model