A Comparative Study on Model-Driven Requirements Engineering for Software Product Lines

[EN] Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) and Software Product Lines (SPL) are two software development paradigms that emphasize reusing. The former reuse domain knowledge is represented as models and model transformations for product development, and the latter reuse domain knowledge is represented as core assets to produce a family of products in a given domain. The adequate combination of both paradigms can bring together important advantages to the software development community. However, how to manage requirements during a model-driven product line development remains an open challenge. In particular, the Requirements Engineering (RE) activity must deal with specific properties such as variability and commonality for a whole family of products. This paper presents a comparative study of eleven approaches that perform a MDE strategy in the RE activity for SPL, with the aim of identify ing current practices and research gaps. In summary, most of the approaches are focused on the Domain Engineering phase of the SPL development, giving less attention to the Application Engineering phase. Moreover there is a lack of coverage of the Scoping activity, which defines the SPL boundaries. Several approaches apply some model transformations to obtain architectural and application requirements artifacts. Regarding the tool support for requirements specification and management, we found that most of the approaches use only academic prototypes. Regarding the validation of the approaches, the use of Case Studies as a proof of concept was the most commonly used method; however, there is a lack of well-defined case studies and empirical studies to improve the proposals.This research is part of the MULTIPLE project (with ref. TIN2009-13838).Blanes Domínguez, D.; Insfrán Pelozo, CE. (2012). A Comparative Study on Model-Driven Requirements Engineering for Software Product Lines. Revista de Sistemas e Computação. 2(1):3-13. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/43841S3132

ArchiTech: tool support for NFR-guided architectural decision-making

© 2012 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Researchers from requirements engineering and software architecture had emphasized the importance of NonFunctional Requirements and their influence in the architectural design process. To improve this process we have designed a tool, ArchiTech, which aims to support architects during the design process by suggesting alternative architectural decisions that can improve some types of non-functional requirements in a particular project, and facilitate the reuse of architectural knowledge shared between projects of the same architectural domain (e.g., web-based applications).Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

Pattern-based design applied to cultural heritage knowledge graphs

Ontology Design Patterns (ODPs) have become an established and recognised practice for guaranteeing good quality ontology engineering. There are several ODP repositories where ODPs are shared as well as ontology design methodologies recommending their reuse. Performing rigorous testing is recommended as well for supporting ontology maintenance and validating the resulting resource against its motivating requirements. Nevertheless, it is less than straightforward to find guidelines on how to apply such methodologies for developing domain-specific knowledge graphs. ArCo is the knowledge graph of Italian Cultural Heritage and has been developed by using eXtreme Design (XD), an ODP- and test-driven methodology. During its development, XD has been adapted to the need of the CH domain e.g. gathering requirements from an open, diverse community of consumers, a new ODP has been defined and many have been specialised to address specific CH requirements. This paper presents ArCo and describes how to apply XD to the development and validation of a CH knowledge graph, also detailing the (intellectual) process implemented for matching the encountered modelling problems to ODPs. Relevant contributions also include a novel web tool for supporting unit-testing of knowledge graphs, a rigorous evaluation of ArCo, and a discussion of methodological lessons learned during ArCo development

Capture Knowledge with Object-Process Modeling - a systems engineering approach

To increase the efficiency of the product development process at Volvo Car Group, knowledge accumulation is central in the early strategy and concept phase. Within the department for Research and Development, the unit responsible for powertrain engineering desires a process to document system interfaces, in order to reuse what they do already know in new applications. This thesis presents a process how to capture systems knowledge; i.e. interactions within system structure, functions and behavior with the use of object-process oriented modeling. Included in the process is also ideas presented how to manage and maintain as well as interpret and reuse captured knowledge. During the first part of the project, literature of theory and previous empiric was explored, in order to understand principles of knowledge based development and systems engineering. To identify needs of the desired process, system engineers responsible for the complete powertrain were interviewed. Thereafter, the interpreted needs were translated to a functional analysis of the desired process. A case study was conducted at different developing units across Powertrain Engineering. The purpose was to map system knowledge with object-process methodology. The result was a mapped system architecture based on the vehicle response attribute, where captured system knowledge is connected to the development phases as well as the system responsible. The object-process oriented model of the system architecture included qualitative traceability between system requirements, decomposed functions, product structure with physical interface as well as resources defining who is owner of the system knowledge. To illustrate how to interpret and make the captured system knowledge reusable, structural relations within three systems was mapped in a domain mapping matrix, which is a matrix mapping the dependencies between two data types. In this case requirements and functions, as well as functions and hardware components

Domain-specific reasoning for method engineering based on Toulmin's argumentation theory

Methods describe and embody a broad range of relevant knowledge of enterprises. Usually they have to account for requirements stated by a multitude of various stakeholders. These are typically those that are in charge of business related actions and those that are in charge to support such actions with an IT-Infrastructure. The statement of requirements as well as the validation of methods and in particular process models with respect to those requirements relies drastically on natural language. Natural language seems to be a substantial component to explain and to give an understanding about process models or certain aspects of it. This fact requires closing the gap between the natural language and the respective modelling language. This paper proposes argumentative method engineering for purposefully depicting design decisions and convictions for method engineering through arguments. The approach is derived from Toulmin’s Argumentation Model and explicates the process of negotiating with various stakeholders. So, a model, depicting a method, specified by means of argumentative method engineering, not just includes the claims about a certain domain, it further justifies these claims by referring to already established knowledge. While it can’t be ensured that certain requirements are considered in future project, if the reasons for design decisions of method engineering are transcribed in natural language text, but the semi- formalising of arguments regarding these methods allows such an assurance. So the argumentative approach enables the sophisticated management and reuse of knowledge during the development and extension of methods. The approach is evaluated using a case study, in which a software development method was outsourced to contractors

Domain-specific reasoning for method engineering based on Toulmin's argumentation theory

Methods describe and embody a broad range of relevant knowledge of enterprises. Usually they have to account for requirements stated by a multitude of various stakeholders. These are typically those that are in charge of business related actions and those that are in charge to support such actions with an IT-Infrastructure. The statement of requirements as well as the validation of methods and in particular process models with respect to those requirements relies drastically on natural language. Natural language seems to be a substantial component to explain and to give an understanding about process models or certain aspects of it. This fact requires closing the gap between the natural language and the respective modelling language. This paper proposes argumentative method engineering for purposefully depicting design decisions and convictions for method engineering through arguments. The approach is derived from Toulmin’s Argumentation Model and explicates the process of negotiating with various stakeholders. So, a model, depicting a method, specified by means of argumentative method engineering, not just includes the claims about a certain domain, it further justifies these claims by referring to already established knowledge. While it can’t be ensured that certain requirements are considered in future project, if the reasons for design decisions of method engineering are transcribed in natural language text, but the semi- formalising of arguments regarding these methods allows such an assurance. So the argumentative approach enables the sophisticated management and reuse of knowledge during the development and extension of methods. The approach is evaluated using a case study, in which a software development method was outsourced to contractors

Design reuse research : a computational perspective

This paper gives an overview of some computer based systems that focus on supporting engineering design reuse. Design reuse is considered here to reflect the utilisation of any knowledge gained from a design activity and not just past designs of artefacts. A design reuse process model, containing three main processes and six knowledge components, is used as a basis to identify the main areas of contribution from the systems. From this it can be concluded that while reuse libraries and design by reuse has received most attention, design for reuse, domain exploration and five of the other knowledge components lack research effort

A Modeling and Formal Approach for the Precise Specification of Security Patterns

International audienceNon-functional requirements such as Security and Dependability (S &D) become more important as well as more difficult to achieve. In fact, the integration of security features requires the availability of both application domain specific knowledge and security expertise at the same time. Hence, capturing and providing this expertise by the way of security patterns can support the integration of S&D features by design to foster reuse during the process of software system development.The solution envisaged here is based on combining metamodeling techniques and formal methods to represent security pattern at two levels of abstraction fostering reuse during the process of pattern development and during the process of pattern-based development. The contribution of this work is twofold: (1) An improvement of our previous pattern modeling language for representing security pattern in the form of a subsystem providing appropriate interfaces and targeting security properties, (2) Formal specification and validation of pattern properties, using the interactive Isabelle/HOL proof assistant. The resulting validation artifacts may mainly complete the definitions, and provide semantics for the interfaces and the properties in the context of S&D. As a result, validated patterns will be used as bricks to build applications through a Model-Driven engineering approach

An analysis of design reuse benefits

Although the concept of design reuse is accepted as a valid approach to design, little attempt has been made to formalise the elements that constitutes design reuse. The few approaches formalising design reuse, e.g. 'Concept Reuse Approach for Engineering Design Problem Solving', tend to be prescriptive, detailing procedures and functions that have to be carried out in order to reuse designs. Such procedural methods fail to identify the underlying processes and knowledge resources of design reuse and tend to relate to an approach or method of tackling reuse rather than reuse itself. It would seem that the only current model encompassing design reuse is 'The Design Reuse Process Model'. The elements of this reuse process model have been used as a basis upon which to identify and analyse the benefits of design reuse when considering key metrics relating to competitive product development,that is time, cost, quality and performance