Quality Assurance of Software Models - A Structured Quality Assurance Process Supported by a Flexible Tool Environment in the Eclipse Modeling Project

The paradigm of model-based software development (MBSD) has become more and more popular since it promises an increase in the efficiency and quality of software development. In this paradigm, software models play an increasingly important role and software quality and quality assurance consequently leads back to the quality and quality assurance of the involved models. The fundamental aim of this thesis is the definition of a structured syntax-oriented process for quality assurance of software models that can be adapted to project-specific and domain-specific needs. It is structured into two sub-processes: a process for the specification of project-specific model quality assurance techniques, and a process for applying them on concrete software models within a MBSD project. The approach concentrates on quality aspects to be checked on the abstract model syntax and is based on quality assurance techniques model metrics, smells, and refactorings well-known from literature. So far, these techniques are mostly considered in isolation only and therefore the proposed process integrates them in order to perform model quality assurance more systematically. Three example cases performing the process serve as proof-of-concept implementations and show its applicability, its flexibility, and hence its usefulness. Related to several issues concerning model quality assurance minor contributions of this thesis are (1) the definition of a quality model for model quality that consists of high-level quality attributes and low-level characteristics, (2) overviews on metrics, smells, and refactorings for UML class models including structured descriptions of each technique, and (3) an approach for composite model refactoring that concentrates on the specification of refactoring composition. Since manually reviewing models is time consuming and error prone, several tasks of the proposed process should consequently be automated. As a further main contribution, this thesis presents a flexible tool environment for model quality assurance which is based on the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF), a common open source technology in model-based software development. The tool set is part of the Eclipse Modeling Project (EMP) and belongs to the Eclipse incubation project EMF Refactor which is available under the Eclipse public license (EPL). The EMF Refactor framework supports both the model designer and the model reviewer by obtaining metrics reports, by checking for potential model deficiencies (called model smells) and by systematically restructuring models using refactorings. The functionality of EMF Refactor is integrated into standard tree-based EMF instance editors, graphical GMF-based editors as used by Papyrus UML, and textual editors provided by Xtext. Several experiments and studies show the suitability of the tools for supporting the techniques of the structured syntax-oriented model quality assurance process

Evaluating the layout quality of UML class diagrams using machine learning

UML is the de facto standard notation for graphically representing software. UML diagrams are used in the analysis, construction, and maintenance of software systems. Mostly, UML diagrams capture an abstract view of a (piece of a) software system. A key purpose of UML diagrams is to share knowledge about the system among developers. The quality of the layout of UML diagrams plays a crucial role in their comprehension. In this paper, we present an automated method for evaluating the layout quality of UML class diagrams. We use machine learning based on features extracted from the class diagram images using image processing. Such an automated evaluator has several uses: (1) From an industrial perspective, this tool could be used for automated quality assurance for class diagrams (e.g., as part of a quality monitor integrated into a DevOps toolchain). For example, automated feedback can be generated once a UML diagram is checked in the project repository. (2) In an educational setting, the evaluator can grade the layout aspect of student assignments in courses on software modeling, analysis, and design. (3) In the field of algorithm design for graph layouts, our evaluator can assess the layouts generated by such algorithms. In this way, this evaluator opens up the road for using machine learning to learn good layouting algorithms. Approach.: We use machine learning techniques to build (linear) regression models based on features extracted from the class diagram images using image processing. As ground truth, we use a dataset of 600+ UML Class Diagrams for which experts manually label the quality of the layout. Contributions.: This paper makes the following contributions: (1) We show the feasibility of the automatic evaluation of the layout quality of UML class diagrams. (2) We analyze which features of UML class diagrams are most strongly related to the quality of their layout. (3) We evaluate the performance of our layout evaluator. (4) We offer a dataset of labeled UML class diagrams. In this dataset, we supply for every diagram the following information: (a) a manually established ground truth of the quality of the layout, (b) an automatically established value for the layout-quality of the diagram (produced by our classifier), and (c) the values of key features of the layout of the diagram (obtained by image processing). This dataset can be used for replication of our study and others to build on and improve on this work. Editor\u27s note: Open Science material was validated by the Journal of Systems and Software Open Science Board

Modeling the object-oriented software process: OPEN and the unified process

A short introduction to software process modeling is presented, particularly object-oriented modeling. Two major industrial process models are discussed: the OPEN model and the Unified Process model. In more detail, the quality assurance in the Unified Process tool (formally called Objectory) is reviewed

Proposing a secure component-based-application logic and system’s integration testing approach

Software engineering moved from traditional methods of software enterprise applications to com-ponent based development for distributed system’s applications. This new era has grown up forlast few years, with component-based methods, for design and rapid development of systems, butfact is that , deployment of all secure software features of technology into practical e-commercedistributed systems are higher rated target for intruders. Although most of research has been con-ducted on web application services that use a large share of the present software, but on the otherside Component Based Software in the middle tier ,which rapidly develops application logic, alsoopen security breaching opportunities .This research paper focus on a burning issue for researchersand scientists ,a weakest link in component based distributed system, logical attacks, that cannotbe detected with any intrusion detection system within the middle tier e-commerce distributed ap-plications. We proposed An Approach of Secure Designing application logic for distributed system,while dealing with logically vulnerability issue

A Model-Driven approach for functional test case generation

Test phase is one of the most critical phases in software engineering life cycle to assure the final system quality. In this context, functional system test cases verify that the system under test fulfills its functional specification. Thus, these test cases are frequently designed from the different scenarios and alternatives depicted in functional requirements. The objective of this paper is to introduce a systematic process based on the Model-Driven paradigm to automate the generation of functional test cases from functional requirements. For this aim, a set of metamodels and transformations and also a specific language domain to use them is presented. The paper finishes stating learned lessons from the trenches as well as relevant future work and conclusions that draw new research lines in the test cases generation context.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2013-46928-C3-3-

A model driven approach for software systems reliability

The reliability assurance of software systems from design to deployment level through transformation techniques and model driven approach, is described. Once the reliability mechanisms provided by current component-based development architectures (CBDA) are designed in a platform-independent way, platform-based design and implementation models must be extended. Current CBDAs, such as Enterprise Java Beans, address a considerable range of features to support system reliability. The evaluation aims to test maturity of the approach, its applicability, and the effectiveness of reliability models. The techniques such as process algebras are generally considered time consuming, in regard to software development

A Model-Driven Approach for Business Process Management

The Business Process Management is a common mechanism recommended by a high number of standards for the management of companies and organizations. In software companies this practice is every day more accepted and companies have to assume it, if they want to be competitive. However, the effective definition of these processes and mainly their maintenance and execution are not always easy tasks. This paper presents an approach based on the Model-Driven paradigm for Business Process Management in software companies. This solution offers a suitable mechanism that was implemented successfully in different companies with a tool case named NDTQ-Framework.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TIN2010-20057-C03-02Junta de Andalucía TIC-578