A Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis based Approach to Remove Uncertainty in SMP Models

Advanced AI technologies are serving humankind in a number of ways, from healthcare to manufacturing. Advanced automated machines are quite expensive, but the end output is supposed to be of the highest possible quality. Depending on the agility of requirements, these automation technologies can change dramatically. The likelihood of making changes to automation software is extremely high, so it must be updated regularly. If maintainability is not taken into account, it will have an impact on the entire system and increase maintenance costs. Many companies use different programming paradigms in developing advanced automated machines based on client requirements. Therefore, it is essential to estimate the maintainability of heterogeneous software. As a result of the lack of widespread consensus on software maintainability prediction (SPM) methodologies, individuals and businesses are left perplexed when it comes to determining the appropriate model for estimating the maintainability of software, which serves as the inspiration for this research. A structured methodology was designed, and the datasets were preprocessed and maintainability index (MI) range was also found for all the datasets expect for UIMS and QUES, the metric CHANGE is used for UIMS and QUES. To remove the uncertainty among the aforementioned techniques, a popular multiple criteria decision-making model, namely the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), is used in this work. TOPSIS revealed that GARF outperforms the other considered techniques in predicting the maintainability of heterogeneous automated software.Comment: Submitted for peer revie

An Extensive Analysis of Machine Learning Based Boosting Algorithms for Software Maintainability Prediction

Software Maintainability is an indispensable factor to acclaim for the quality of particular software. It describes the ease to perform several maintenance activities to make a software adaptable to the modified environment. The availability & growing popularity of a wide range of Machine Learning (ML) algorithms for data analysis further provides the motivation for predicting this maintainability. However, an extensive analysis & comparison of various ML based Boosting Algorithms (BAs) for Software Maintainability Prediction (SMP) has not been made yet. Therefore, the current study analyzes and compares five different BAs, i.e., AdaBoost, GBM, XGB, LightGBM, and CatBoost, for SMP using open-source datasets. Performance of the propounded prediction models has been evaluated using Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Mean Magnitude of Relative Error (MMRE), Pred(0.25), Pred(0.30), & Pred(0.75) as prediction accuracy measures followed by a non-parametric statistical test and a post hoc analysis to account for the differences in the performances of various BAs. Based on the residual errors obtained, it was observed that GBM is the best performer, followed by LightGBM for RMSE, whereas, in the case of MMRE, XGB performed the best for six out of the seven datasets, i.e., for 85.71% of the total datasets by providing minimum values for MMRE, ranging from 0.90 to 3.82. Further, on applying the statistical test and on performing the post hoc analysis, it was found that significant differences exist in the performance of different BAs and, XGB and CatBoost outperformed all other BAs for MMRE. Lastly, a comparison of BAs with four other ML algorithms has also been made to bring out BAs superiority over other algorithms. This study would open new doors for the software developers for carrying out comparatively more precise predictions well in time and hence reduce the overall maintenance costs

Validation in the Software Metric Development Process

In this paper the validation of software metrics will be examined. Two approaches will be combined: representational measurement theory and a validation network scheme. The development process of a software metric will be described, together with validities for the three phases of the metric development process. Representation axioms from measurement theory are used both for the formal and empirical validation. The differentiation of validities according to these phases unifies several validation approaches found in the software metric's literature

Expert Elicitation for Reliable System Design

This paper reviews the role of expert judgement to support reliability assessments within the systems engineering design process. Generic design processes are described to give the context and a discussion is given about the nature of the reliability assessments required in the different systems engineering phases. It is argued that, as far as meeting reliability requirements is concerned, the whole design process is more akin to a statistical control process than to a straightforward statistical problem of assessing an unknown distribution. This leads to features of the expert judgement problem in the design context which are substantially different from those seen, for example, in risk assessment. In particular, the role of experts in problem structuring and in developing failure mitigation options is much more prominent, and there is a need to take into account the reliability potential for future mitigation measures downstream in the system life cycle. An overview is given of the stakeholders typically involved in large scale systems engineering design projects, and this is used to argue the need for methods that expose potential judgemental biases in order to generate analyses that can be said to provide rational consensus about uncertainties. Finally, a number of key points are developed with the aim of moving toward a framework that provides a holistic method for tracking reliability assessment through the design process.Comment: This paper commented in: [arXiv:0708.0285], [arXiv:0708.0287], [arXiv:0708.0288]. Rejoinder in [arXiv:0708.0293]. Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000510 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org