Clone Detection in Matlab Stateflow Models

Matlab Simulink is one of the leading tools for model based software development in the automotive industry. One extension to Simulink is Stateflow, which allows the user to embed Statecharts as components in a Simulink Model. These state machines contain nested states, an action language that describes events, guards, conditions and actions and complex transitions. As Stateflow has become increasingly important in Simulink models for the automotive sector, we extend previous work on clone detection of Simulink models to Stateflow components

Structured Review of the Evidence for Effects of Code Duplication on Software Quality

This report presents the detailed steps and results of a structured review of code clone literature. The aim of the review is to investigate the evidence for the claim that code duplication has a negative effect on code changeability. This report contains only the details of the review for which there is not enough place to include them in the companion paper published at a conference (Hordijk, Ponisio et al. 2009 - Harmfulness of Code Duplication - A Structured Review of the Evidence)

Handling Clone Mutations in Simulink Models with VCL

Like any other software system, real life Simulink models contain a considerable amount of cloning. These clones are not always identical copies of each other, but actually show a variety of differences from each other despite the overall similarities. Insufficient variability mechanisms provided by the platform make it difficult to create generic structures to represent these clones. Also, complete elimination of clones from the systems may not always be practical, feasible, or cost-effective. In this paper we propose a mechanism for clone management based on Variant Configuration Language (VCL) that provides a powerful variability handling mechanism. In this mechanism, the clones will be managed separate from the models in a non-intrusive way and the original models will not be polluted with extra complexity to manage clone instances. The proposed technique is validated by creating generic solutions for Simulink clones with a variety of differences present between them

The two-stage clonal expansion model in occupational cancer epidemiology: Results from three cohort studies

Copyright © 2010 by the BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. All rights reserved.Objectives: The objective of this work was to apply the two-stage clonal expansion model, with the intention to expand the literature on epidemiological applications of the model and demonstrate the feasibility of incorporating biologically based modelling methods into the widely used retrospective cohort study. Methods: The authors fitted the two-stage clonal expansion model model to three occupational cohort studies: (1) a cohort of textile workers exposed to asbestos and followed for lung cancer mortality; (2) a cohort of diatomaceous earth workers exposed to silica and also followed for lung cancer mortality; and (3) a cohort of automotive manufacturing workers exposed to straight metalworking fluid (MWF) and followed for larynx cancer incidence. The model allowed the authors to estimate exposure effects in three stages: cancer initiation (early effects), promotion or malignant transformation (late effects). Results: In the first cohort, the authors found strong evidence for an early effect of asbestos on lung cancer risk. Findings from analyses of the second cohort suggested early and less evidently late effects of silica on lung cancer risk. In the MWF (third) cohort, there was only weak evidence of straight MWF exposure effects on both early and late stages. The authors also observed a late birth cohort effect on larynx cancer risk. Conclusions: The findings for asbestos and silica were essentially confirmatory, supporting evidence for their early effects on lung cancer from a large body of literature. The effect of straight MWF on larynx cancer was less clear.This work was supported by a grant from the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,R01-OH03575, and a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/ Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine number TS 0699

Grand Challenges of Traceability: The Next Ten Years

In 2007, the software and systems traceability community met at the first Natural Bridge symposium on the Grand Challenges of Traceability to establish and address research goals for achieving effective, trustworthy, and ubiquitous traceability. Ten years later, in 2017, the community came together to evaluate a decade of progress towards achieving these goals. These proceedings document some of that progress. They include a series of short position papers, representing current work in the community organized across four process axes of traceability practice. The sessions covered topics from Trace Strategizing, Trace Link Creation and Evolution, Trace Link Usage, real-world applications of Traceability, and Traceability Datasets and benchmarks. Two breakout groups focused on the importance of creating and sharing traceability datasets within the research community, and discussed challenges related to the adoption of tracing techniques in industrial practice. Members of the research community are engaged in many active, ongoing, and impactful research projects. Our hope is that ten years from now we will be able to look back at a productive decade of research and claim that we have achieved the overarching Grand Challenge of Traceability, which seeks for traceability to be always present, built into the engineering process, and for it to have "effectively disappeared without a trace". We hope that others will see the potential that traceability has for empowering software and systems engineers to develop higher-quality products at increasing levels of complexity and scale, and that they will join the active community of Software and Systems traceability researchers as we move forward into the next decade of research

Grand Challenges of Traceability: The Next Ten Years

In 2007, the software and systems traceability community met at the first Natural Bridge symposium on the Grand Challenges of Traceability to establish and address research goals for achieving effective, trustworthy, and ubiquitous traceability. Ten years later, in 2017, the community came together to evaluate a decade of progress towards achieving these goals. These proceedings document some of that progress. They include a series of short position papers, representing current work in the community organized across four process axes of traceability practice. The sessions covered topics from Trace Strategizing, Trace Link Creation and Evolution, Trace Link Usage, real-world applications of Traceability, and Traceability Datasets and benchmarks. Two breakout groups focused on the importance of creating and sharing traceability datasets within the research community, and discussed challenges related to the adoption of tracing techniques in industrial practice. Members of the research community are engaged in many active, ongoing, and impactful research projects. Our hope is that ten years from now we will be able to look back at a productive decade of research and claim that we have achieved the overarching Grand Challenge of Traceability, which seeks for traceability to be always present, built into the engineering process, and for it to have "effectively disappeared without a trace". We hope that others will see the potential that traceability has for empowering software and systems engineers to develop higher-quality products at increasing levels of complexity and scale, and that they will join the active community of Software and Systems traceability researchers as we move forward into the next decade of research