Revisiting the Core Ontology and Problem in Requirements Engineering

In their seminal paper in the ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, Zave and Jackson established a core ontology for Requirements Engineering (RE) and used it to formulate the "requirements problem", thereby defining what it means to successfully complete RE. Given that stakeholders of the system-to-be communicate the information needed to perform RE, we show that Zave and Jackson's ontology is incomplete. It does not cover all types of basic concerns that the stakeholders communicate. These include beliefs, desires, intentions, and attitudes. In response, we propose a core ontology that covers these concerns and is grounded in sound conceptual foundations resting on a foundational ontology. The new core ontology for RE leads to a new formulation of the requirements problem that extends Zave and Jackson's formulation. We thereby establish new standards for what minimum information should be represented in RE languages and new criteria for determining whether RE has been successfully completed.Comment: Appears in the proceedings of the 16th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, 2008 (RE'08). Best paper awar

Revisiting the Core Ontology and Problem in Requirements Engineering

In their seminal paper in the ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, Zave and Jackson established a core ontology for Requirements Engineering (RE) and used it to formulate the "requirements problem", thereby defining what it means to successfully complete RE. Given that stakeholders of the system-to-be communicate the information needed to perform RE, we show that Zave and Jackson's ontology is incomplete. It does not cover all types of basic concerns that the stakeholders communicate. These include beliefs, desires, intentions, and attitudes. In response, we propose a core ontology that covers these concerns and is grounded in sound conceptual foundations resting on a foundational ontology. The new core ontology for RE leads to a new formulation of the requirements problem that extends Zave and Jackson's formulation. We thereby establish new standards for what minimum information should be represented in RE languages and new criteria for determining whether RE has been successfully completed.Comment: Appears in the proceedings of the 16th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, 2008 (RE'08). Best paper awar

Modeling a User-Oriented Ontology on Accessible Homes for Supporting Activities of Daily Living (ADL) in Healthy Aging

Inaccessibility of the buildings is the most common obstacle which presents barriers for older adults with different motor abilities. An inclusive design process, where elderly and designers work together, is required to overcome this obstacle. To do so, this study proposes a user-oriented model (i) to define a knowledge presentation for designers; (ii) to assist them during the development of accessible homes and (iii) to accommodate exemplary home attributes for activities of daily living (ADL). The ontology for this model was first constructed by collecting user information through LEGO® Serious Play® on the four subdomains of motor abilities: (1) strength; (2) balance; (3) locomotion; and (4) endurance. The findings of this study are significant for future aging studies and mobile computing researches in terms of indicating that diverse motor ability difficulties are associated with different requirements of accessibility attributes, and structured knowledge is required to diagrammatize their association with ADL

Conceptual graph-based knowledge representation for supporting reasoning in African traditional medicine

Although African patients use both conventional or modern and traditional healthcare simultaneously, it has been proven that 80% of people rely on African traditional medicine (ATM). ATM includes medical activities stemming from practices, customs and traditions which were integral to the distinctive African cultures. It is based mainly on the oral transfer of knowledge, with the risk of losing critical knowledge. Moreover, practices differ according to the regions and the availability of medicinal plants. Therefore, it is necessary to compile tacit, disseminated and complex knowledge from various Tradi-Practitioners (TP) in order to determine interesting patterns for treating a given disease. Knowledge engineering methods for traditional medicine are useful to model suitably complex information needs, formalize knowledge of domain experts and highlight the effective practices for their integration to conventional medicine. The work described in this paper presents an approach which addresses two issues. First it aims at proposing a formal representation model of ATM knowledge and practices to facilitate their sharing and reusing. Then, it aims at providing a visual reasoning mechanism for selecting best available procedures and medicinal plants to treat diseases. The approach is based on the use of the Delphi method for capturing knowledge from various experts which necessitate reaching a consensus. Conceptual graph formalism is used to model ATM knowledge with visual reasoning capabilities and processes. The nested conceptual graphs are used to visually express the semantic meaning of Computational Tree Logic (CTL) constructs that are useful for formal specification of temporal properties of ATM domain knowledge. Our approach presents the advantage of mitigating knowledge loss with conceptual development assistance to improve the quality of ATM care (medical diagnosis and therapeutics), but also patient safety (drug monitoring)

An evidence based approach to technology roadmapping

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of technology roadmapping within commercial and industrial domains at a sector or industry wide level, and to develop an information model that could be used to enhance the generic technology roadmapping process. The study focused on the development of version three of the Foresight Vehicle technology roadmap to support the development of low carbon vehicles in a global marketplace. The development of a ‘real’ sector level technology roadmap enabled ideas in relation to data collection elements to be tested, especially in terms of personnel, participants and publication channels. The various tools currently used to develop technology roadmaps were identified and assessed for their suitability for use in this study. A mixture of data collection techniques were used to generate data and investigate the process of developing a core data set, associated data, as well as the identification of the relationship between potentially disparate items of information. FV Thematic Group members took part in workshops to elicit data, inform the evolution of the data collection process and inform the development of the information protocol. Results from the data collection exercise indicated that not all technology issues were technology focused, non technology issues presented a challenge not only in terms of representation but of ownership as well. Tools such as Technology Readiness Levels were adapted and utilised to create a ‘rich picture’ of multi-dimensional and customised roadmap views. The study presents an information protocol to support the development of technology roadmaps primarily in a digital format and considers elements such as data collection, information management, preservation, representation, scope and validation,. The findings of this study suggest that the development of a generic information model to support the technology roadmapping process is timely and that inclusion of all elements of the protocol lead to the development of a technology roadmap that is fit for purpose