Defining and validating a multimodel approach for product architecture derivation and improvement

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41533-3_24Software architectures are the key to achieving the non-functional requirements (NFRs) in any software project. In software product line (SPL) development, it is crucial to identify whether the NFRs for a specific product can be attained with the built-in architectural variation mechanisms of the product line architecture, or whether additional architectural transformations are required. This paper presents a multimodel approach for quality-driven product architecture derivation and improvement (QuaDAI). A controlled experiment is also presented with the objective of comparing the effectiveness, efficiency, perceived ease of use, intention to use and perceived usefulness with regard to participants using QuaDAI as opposed to the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM). The results show that QuaDAI is more efficient and perceived as easier to use than ATAM, from the perspective of novice software architecture evaluators. However, the other variables were not found to be statistically significant. Further replications are needed to obtain more conclusive results.This research is supported by the MULTIPLE project (MICINN TIN2009-13838) and the Vali+D fellowship program (ACIF/2011/235).González Huerta, J.; Insfrán Pelozo, CE.; Abrahao Gonzales, SM. (2013). Defining and validating a multimodel approach for product architecture derivation and improvement. En Model-Driven Engineering Languages and Systems. Springer. 388-404. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41533-3_24S388404Ali-Babar, M., Lago, P., Van Deursen, A.: Empirical research in software architecture: opportunities, challenges, and approaches. 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Conf. on Automated Software Engineering, New York, USA, pp. 469–472 (2007)Buschmann, F., Meunier, R., Rohnert, H., Sommerlad, P., Stal, M.: Pattern-Oriented software architecture, vol. 1: A System of Patterns. Wiley (1996)Cabello, M.E., Ramos, I., Gómez, A., Limón, R.: Baseline-Oriented Modeling: An MDA Approach Based on Software Product Lines for the Expert Systems Development. In: 1st Asia Conference on Intelligent Information and Database Systems, Vietnam (2009)Carifio, J., Perla, R.J.: Ten Common Misunderstandings, Misconceptions, Persistent Myths and Urban Legends about Likert Scales and Likert Response Formats and their Antidotes. Journal of Social Sciences 3(3), 106–116 (2007)Clements, P., Northrop, L.: Software Product Lines: Practices and Patterns. Addison-Wesley, Boston (2007)Czarnecki, K., Kim, C.H.: Cardinality-based feature modeling and constraints: A progress report. In: Int. Workshop on Software Factories, San Diego-CA (2005)Datorro, J.: Convex Optimization & Euclidean Distance Geometry. Meboo Publishing (2005)Davis, F.D.: Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly 13(3), 319–340 (1989)Douglass, B.P.: Real-Time Design Patterns: Robust Scalable Architecture for Real-Time Systems. Addison-Wesley, Boston (2002)Feiler, P.H., Gluch, D.P., Hudak, J.: The Architecture Analysis & Design Language (AADL): An Introduction. Tech. Report CMU/SEI-2006-TN-011. SEI, Carnegie Mellon University (2006)Gómez, A., Ramos, I.: Cardinality-based feature modeling and model-driven engineering: Fitting them together. In: 4th Int. Workshop on Variability Modeling of Software Intensive Systems, Linz, Austria (2010)Gonzalez-Huerta, J., Insfran, E., Abrahao, S.: A Multimodel for Integrating Quality Assessment in Model-Driven Engineering. In: 8th International Conference on the Quality of Information and Communications Technology (QUATIC 2012), Lisbon, Portugal, September 3-6 (2012)Gonzalez-Huerta, J., Insfran, E., Abrahao, S., McGregor, J.D.: Non-functional Requirements in Model-Driven Software Product Line Engineering. In: 4th Int. Workshop on Non-functional System Properties in Domain Specific Modeling Languages, Insbruck, Austria (2012)Guana, V., Correal, V.: Variability quality evaluation on component-based software product lines. In: 15th Int. Software Product Line Conference, Munich, Germany, vol. 2, pp. 19.1–19.8 (2011)Insfrán, E., Abrahão, S., González-Huerta, J., McGregor, J.D., Ramos, I.: A Multimodeling Approach for Quality-Driven Architecture Derivation. In: 21st Int. Conf. on Information Systems Development (ISD 2012), Prato, Italy (2012)ISO/IEC 25000:2005, Software Engineering. Software product Quality Requirements and Evaluation SQuaRE (2005)Kazman, R., Klein, M., Clements, P.: ATAM: Method for Architecture Evaluation (CMU/SEI-2000-TR-004, ADA382629). Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh (2000), http://www.sei.cmu.edu/publications/documents/00.reports/00tr004.htmlKim, T., Ko, I., Kang, S., Lee, D.: Extending ATAM to assess product line architecture. In: 8th IEEE Int. Conference on Computer and Information Technology, Sydney, Australia, pp. 790–797 (2008)Kitchenham, B.A., Pfleeger, S.L., Hoaglin, D.C., Rosenber, J.: Preliminary Guidelines for Empirical Research in Software Engineering. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 28(8) (2002)Kruchten, P.B.: The Rational Unified Process: An Introduction. Addison-Wesley (1999)Martensson, F.: Software Architecture Quality Evaluation. Approaches in an Industrial Context. Ph. D. thesis, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden (2006)Maxwell, K.: Applied Statistics for Software Managers. Software Quality Institute Series. Prentice-Hall (2002)Olumofin, F.G., Mišic, V.B.: A holistic architecture assessment method for software product lines. Information and Software Technology 49, 309–323 (2007)Perovich, D., Rossel, P.O., Bastarrica, M.C.: Feature model to product architectures: Applying MDE to Software Product Lines. In: IEEE/IFIP & European Conference on Software Architecture, Helsinki, Findland, pp. 201–210 (2009)Robertson, S., Robertson, J.: Mastering the requirements process. ACM Press, New York (1999)Roos-Frantz, F., Benavides, D., Ruiz-Cortés, A., Heuer, A., Lauenroth, K.: Quality-aware analysis in product line engineering with the orthogonal variability model. Software Quality Journal (2011), doi:10.1007/s11219-011-9156-5Saaty, T.L.: The Analytical Hierarchical Process. McGraw- Hill, New York (1990)Taher, L., Khatib, H.E., Basha, R.: A framework and QoS matchmaking algorithm for dynamic web services selection. In: 2nd Int. Conference on Innovations in Information Technology, Dubai, UAE (2005)Wohlin, C., Runeson, P., Host, M., Ohlsson, M.C., Regnell, B., Weslen, A.: Experimentation in Software Engineering - An Introduction. Kluwer (2000

Accessibility Variability Model: The UTPL MOOC Case Study

Several approaches to define Variability Models (VM) of non-functional requirements or quality attributes have been proposed. However, these approaches have focused on specific quality attributes rather than more general non-functional aspects established by standards such as ISO/IEC 25010 for software evaluation and quality. Thus, developing specific software products by selecting features and at the same time measuring the level of compliance with a standard/ guideline is a challenge. In this work, we present the definition of an accessibility VM based on the web content accessibility guides (WCAG) 2.1 W3C recommendation, to obtain a quantitative measure to improve or construct specific SPL products that require to be accessibility-aware. This paper is specially focused on illustrating the experience of measuring the accessibility in a software product line (SPL) in order to check if it is viable measuring products and recommending improvements in terms of features before addressing the construction of accessibility-aware products. The adoption of the VM accessibility has been putted into practice through a pilot case study, the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) initiative of the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja. The conduction of this pilot case study has allowed us to illustrate how it is possible to model and measure the accessibility in SPL using accessibility VM, as well as to recommend accessibility configuration improvements for the construction of new or updated MOOC platforms.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad TIN2016- 79726-C2-1-RMinisterio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades RTI2018-101204-B-C22Agencia Estatal de Investigación TIN2017-90644-RED

Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering

computer software maintenance; computer software selection and evaluation; formal logic; formal methods; formal specification; programming languages; semantics; software engineering; specifications; verificatio

MagnetGrid : Model description and user guide

MagnetGrid is een modulair economisch landgebruiksmodel dat ruimtelijk expliciete biofysische informatie combineert met macro-economische projecties. MagnetGrid visualiseert toekomstige agrarisch landgebruikspatronen gedreven door een combinatie van klimatologische en socioeconomische ontwikkelingen. Het model kwantificeert de impact van deze trends en de mogelijke uitruil tussen verschillende doelstellingen. De ruimtelijk expliciete analyses van MagnetGrid kunnen voor een breed publiek toegankelijk gemaakt worden door kaarten die veranderingen in landgebruik laten zien op wereld-, regio-, land- en lokaal niveau

Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering, FASE 2020, which took place in Dublin, Ireland, in April 2020, and was held as Part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2020. The 23 full papers, 1 tool paper and 6 testing competition papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 81 submissions. The papers cover topics such as requirements engineering, software architectures, specification, software quality, validation, verification of functional and non-functional properties, model-driven development and model transformation, software processes, security and software evolution

Integration of Quality Attributes in Software Product Line Development

Different approaches for building modern software systems in complex and open environments have been proposed in the last few years. Some efforts try to apply Software Product Line (SPL) approach to take advantage of the massive reuse for producing software systems that share a common set of features. In general quality assurance is a crucial activity for success in software industry, but it is even more important when talking about Software Product Lines since the intensive reuse of assets makes the quality attributes (a measurable physical or abstract property of an entity) of the assets to be transmitted to the whole SPL scope. However, despite the importance that quality has in software product line development, most of the methodologies being applied in Software Product Line Development focus only on managing the commonalities and variability within the product line and not giving support to the non--¿ functional requirements that the products must fit. The main goal of this master final work is to introduce quality attributes in early stages of software product line development processes by means of the definition of a production plan that, on one hand, integrates quality as an additional view for describing the extension of the software product line and, on the other hand introduces the quality attributes as a decision factor during product configuration and when selecting among design alternatives. Our approach has been defined following the Model--¿ Driven Software Development paradigm. Therefore all the software artifacts defined had its correspondent metamodels and the processes defined rely on automated model transformations. Finally in order to illustrate the feasibility of the approach we have integrated the quality view in an SPL example in the context of safety critical embedded systems on the automotive domain.González Huerta, J. (2011). Integration of Quality Attributes in Software Product Line Development. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/15835Archivo delegad

The terrestrial biosphere model farm

Model Intercomparison Projects (MIPs) are fundamental to our understanding of how the land surface responds to changes in climate. However, MIPs are challenging to conduct, requiring the organization of multiple, decentralized modeling teams throughout the world running common protocols. We explored centralizing these models on a single supercomputing system. We ran nine offline terrestrial biosphere models through the Terrestrial Biosphere Model Farm: CABLE, CENTURY, HyLand, ISAM, JULES, LPJ-GUESS, ORCHIDEE, SiB-3, and SiB-CASA. All models were wrapped in a software framework driven with common forcing data, spin-up, and run protocols specified by the Multi-scale Synthesis and Terrestrial Model Intercomparison Project (MsTMIP) for years 1901–2100. We ran more than a dozen model experiments. We identify three major benefits and three major challenges. The benefits include: (a) processing multiple models through a MIP is relatively straightforward, (b) MIP protocols are run consistently across models, which may reduce some model output variability, and (c) unique multimodel experiments can provide novel output for analysis. The challenges are: (a) technological demand is large, particularly for data and output storage and transfer; (b) model versions lag those from the core model development teams; and (c) there is still a need for intellectual input from the core model development teams for insight into model results. A merger with the open-source, cloud-based Predictive Ecosystem Analyzer (PEcAn) ecoinformatics system may be a path forward to overcoming these challenges

Una Aproximación de Ingeniería de Requisitos para Líneas de Productos Software Basada en una Estrategia de Desarrollo Dirigido por Modelos

[EN] The Requirements Engineering (RE) activity is crucial in software engineering. A failure when defining the requirements of a system could increase the costs of the entire product development process. This problem is even more critical in the Software Product Lines (SPL) development, since the definition and specification of requirements must deal with a new dimension: requirements variability. Requirements variability is specified during the domain engineering process, in which variability points are defined so as to distinguish which requirements will be common, and which will be variable. These variability points are resolved during an application engineering activity called requirements derivation in order to obtain the requirements for a specific product. Another paradigm that is widely applied in SPL Development is Model-Driven Software Development (MDSD). MDSD can reduce production costs by increasing software reuse. Despite this fact, the RE approaches for SPL found in literature have some weaknesses. Many of the current approaches represent the variability information in the requirements models, thus reducing the requirements' readability. Moreover, the RE approaches for SPL used during application engineering are normally limited to deriving the product requirements from the SPL requirements and do not indicate how to represent non-existent requirements in the SPL: the delta requirements. This has an undesirable effect on the flexibility of the approaches. The aim of this thesis is to define and validate an RE approach in the context of SPL that will support the definition and specification of the requirements of an SPL, allowing them to be derived from the requirements of a product using the MDSD paradigm, and also supporting the definition and specification of delta requirements. In this context, we have defined a process called FEDRE. During domain engineering, strategy definition and requirements specification obtained from model features are used. During application engineering, the derivation and validation of product requirements ensure that requirements meet customer needs. The necessary delta requirements could be specified, when they will be required, with the aim to prevent that product requirements are limited to a mere combination of LPS requirements. Moreover, a technological approach based on a MDSD strategy was defined. During domain engineering, the variability of the SPL and the requirements variability are represented as multi-model views, and traceability relationships are established among them. During application engineering, the productconfiguration is defined and the requirements of the product to be built are derived using a strategy based on model transformations. The process proposed in FEDRE has been validated using two quasi-experiments. In the first quasi-experiment, the SPL requirements were specified with the aim of validating the FEDRE domain engineering guidelines. According to the results, FeDRE was perceived as easy to use and useful as regards specifying the requirements for an SPL. In the second quasi-experiment, the requirements of a product were validated with the aim of verifying whether the customer needs where covered. In the case of their not being covered, the participants specified the delta requirements. Most of the subjects were able to correctly identify what needs were covered and which requirements had to be added as delta requirements. This dissertation contributes to the field of development of SPL by providing a process and technology, along with an automated and generic approach with which to define and specify requirements in SPL environments.[ES] La actividad de Ingeniería de Requisitos (IR) resulta crucial dentro de la ingeniería del software. Un fallo durante la definición de los requisitos de un sistema puede provocar sobrecostes durante todo el proceso de desarrollo. Este problema se acentúa aún más en el desarrollo de Líneas de Producto Software (LPS) debido a que la definición y especificación de los requisitos deben de tratar con una nueva dimensión: la variabilidad de los requisitos. Esta variabilidad de los requisitos de la LPS se específica durante el proceso de ingeniería del dominio, donde se definen los puntos de variabilidad que permiten diferenciar qué requisitos serán comunes y cuáles serán variables. Estos puntos de variabilidad se resuelven durante el proceso de ingeniería de la aplicación para obtener los requisitos de un producto específico, en la actividad llamada derivación de requisitos. Otro paradigma ampliamente aplicado en las LPS es de Desarrollo de Software Dirigido por Modelos (DSDM). El DSDM puede reducir costes de producción, gracias al aumento de la reutilización de software. Sin embargo las aproximaciones actuales representan la información de la variabilidad de los requisitos exclusivamente en el mismo modelo de requisitos, perjudicando la legibilidad de los requisitos. Por otra parte durante la ingeniería de la aplicación, las aproximaciones de IR para LPS normalmente se limitan a derivar los requisitos del producto a partir de los requisitos de la LPS, pero no explicitaban cómo representar requisitos que no existían previamente en la LPS: los requisitos delta. Este hecho incide negativamente en la flexibilidad de las aproximaciones. El objetivo de esta tesis doctoral es definir y validar una aproximación de IR en el contexto de LPS que soporte la definición y especificación de los requisitos de una LPS, permitiendo derivar a partir de ellos los requisitos de un producto haciendo uso del paradigma de DSDM, y soportando además la definición y especificación los requisitos delta. En este contexto, se ha definido un proceso llamado FeDRE. Durante la ingeniería del dominio se utiliza una estrategia de definición y especificación de los requisitos a partir del modelo de características. Durante la ingeniería de la aplicación se cubre la derivación de los requisitos y la validación para comprobar que satisfacen las necesidades del cliente. En el caso de que fuera necesario se permiten modelar los requisitos delta, evitando que los requisitos del producto estén limitados a una mera combinación de requisitos de la LPS. Por otra parte se ha definido una aproximación tecnológica basada en una estrategia de DSDM. Durante la ingeniería del dominio se representan en un multimodelo las vistas de variabilidad de la LPS y la de requisitos, estableciendo relaciones de trazabilidad entre ellas. Durante la ingeniería de la aplicación se define una configuración del producto y se derivan, mediante una estrategia basada en transformaciones de modelos, los requisitos del producto a desarrollar. El proceso propuesto en FeDRE se ha validado mediante dos cuasi-experimentos. El primer cuasi-experimento modelaba los requisitos de una LPS con el objetivo de validar las guías de la ingeniería del dominio de FeDRE. Los resultados mostraron que FeDRE fue percibido como fácil de usar y útil para especificar los requisitos de una LPS. En el segundo cuasi-experimento se validaron los requisitos de un producto con el objetivo de comprobar si cubrían las necesidades del cliente. En el caso de que no lo hicieran, los participantes especificaron los requisitos delta. La mayor parte de los sujetos fueron capaces de identificar correctamente qué necesidades estaba cubiertas y qué requisitos debían de añadirse como requisitos delta. Esta tesis doctoral contribuye al campo de desarrollo de LPS proveyendo de un proceso y una aproximación tecnológica, automatizada y genérica para la definición y especificación de re[CA] L'activitat d'Enginyeria de Requeriments (ER) és crucial dins de l'enginyeria del programari. Un error durant la definició dels requeriments d'un sistema pot provocar sobrecostos durant tot el procés de desenvolupament. Aquest problema s'accentua en el desenvolupament de Línies de Producte Software (LPS) a causa de que la definició i especificació dels requeriments han de treballar amb una nova dimensió: la variabilitat dels requeriments. Aquesta variabilitat dels requeriments de l'LPS s'especifica durant el procés d'enginyeria del domini, on es defineixen els punts de variabilitat que permeten diferenciar quins requeriments seran comuns i quins seran variables. Aquests punts de variabilitat es resolen durant el procés d'enginyeria de l'aplicació per obtenir els requeriments d'un producte específic, en l'activitat anomenada derivació de requeriments. Un altre paradigma àmpliament aplicat a les LPS és el Desenvolupament de Programari Dirigit per Models (DSDM). El DSDM pot reduir costos de producció, gràcies a l'augment de la reutilització de programari. Malgrat això les aproximacions d'ER per a LPS presenten algunes debilitats. Moltes de les aproximacions actuals representen la informació de la variabilitat dels requeriments exclusivament en el mateix model de requeriments, perjudicant la llegibilitat dels requeriments. D'altra banda, durant l'enginyeria de l'aplicació, les aproximacions d'ER per a LPS normalment es limiten a derivar els requeriments del producte a partir dels de la LPS, però no expliciten com representar requeriments que no existien prèviament a l'LPS: els requeriments delta. Aquest fet incideix negativament en la flexibilitat de les aproximacions. L'objectiu d'aquesta tesi doctoral és definir i validar una aproximació d'ER en el context de LPS que done suport a la definició i especificació dels requeriments d'una LPS, permetent derivar a partir d'ells els requeriments d'un producte fent ús del paradigma de DSDM i donant suport a més a la definició i especificació dels requeriments delta. En aquest context, s'ha definit un procés anomenat FeDRE. Durant l'enginyeria del domini s'utilitza una estratègia de definició i especificació dels requeriments a partir del model de característiques. Durant l'enginyeria de l'aplicació es cobreix la derivació dels requeriments i la validació per comprovar que satisfan les necessitats del client. En el cas que fora necessari es permetrà modelar els requeriments delta, evitant que els requeriments del producte estiguen limitats a una mera combinació de requeriments de l'LPS. D'altra banda s'ha definit una aproximació tecnològica basada en una estratègia de DSDM. Durant l'enginyeria del domini es representen en un multimodel les vistes de variabilitat de l'LPS i la de requeriments, establint relacions de traçabilitat entre elles. Durant l'enginyeria de l'aplicació es defineix una configuració del producte i es deriven, mitjançant una estratègia basada en transformacions de models, els requeriments del producte a desenvolupar. El procés proposat en FeDRE s'ha validat mitjançant dos quasi-experiments. El primer quasi-experiment modelava els requeriments d'una LPS amb l'objectiu de validar les guies de l'enginyeria del domini de FeDRE. Els resultats mostren que FeDRE va ser percebut com fàcil d'utilitzar i útil per especificar els requeriments d'una LPS. En el segon quasi-experiment es van validar els requeriments d'un producte amb l'objectiu de comprovar si cobrien les necessitats del client. En el cas que no ho feren, els participants especificaren els requeriments delta. La major part dels subjectes van ser capaços d'identificar correctament quines necessitats estaven cobertes i quins requeriments havien d'afegir com a requeriments delta. Aquesta tesi doctoral contribueix al camp del desenvolupament de LPS proveint d'un procés i d'una aproximació tecnològica, automatitzada i genèrica per a la definició i especificació dBlanes Domínguez, D. (2016). Una Aproximación de Ingeniería de Requisitos para Líneas de Productos Software Basada en una Estrategia de Desarrollo Dirigido por Modelos [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/6326