EVALUATION OF CAPTURING ARCHITECTURALLY SIGNIFICANT REQUIREMENTS METHODS

Every software development organization strives for customer satisfaction. It is universally accepted that the success of software development lies in the clear understanding of the client requirements. During requirement elicitation and analysis stage, the system analyst identifies the functional and non-functional requirements from the customer. Security, usability, reliability, performance, scalability and supportability are the significant quality attributes of a software system. These quality attributes are also referred as non-functional requirements. Only a few functional and quality attributes requirement help to identify and shape the software architecture. A software system's architecture is the set of prime design decisions made about the system. If the requirement influences the architectural design decision then, it is referred as Architecturally Significant Requirement (ASR). Identifying and specifying all the possible ASR are important tasks in the requirement elicitation and analysis stage.In this research, general problems that are faced while capturing and specifying ASR in requirement elicitation and analysis is studied. Among the different requirement elicitation techniques, use case diagram has been identified and enhanced to solve the problem of capturing and specifying ASR during the requirement elicitation and analysis phase Â&nbsp

Procedural-Reasoning Architecture for Applied Behavior Analysis-based Instructions

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex developmental disability affecting as many as 1 in every 88 children. While there is no known cure for ASD, there are known behavioral and developmental interventions, based on demonstrated efficacy, that have become the predominant treatments for improving social, adaptive, and behavioral functions in children. Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA)-based early childhood interventions are evidence based, efficacious therapies for autism that are widely recognized as effective approaches to remediation of the symptoms of ASD. They are, however, labor intensive and consequently often inaccessible at the recommended levels. Recent advancements in socially assistive robotics and applications of virtual intelligent agents have shown that children with ASD accept intelligent agents as effective and often preferred substitutes for human therapists. This research is nascent and highly experimental with no unifying, interdisciplinary, and integral approach to development of intelligent agents based therapies, especially not in the area of behavioral interventions. Motivated by the absence of the unifying framework, we developed a conceptual procedural-reasoning agent architecture (PRA-ABA) that, we propose, could serve as a foundation for ABA-based assistive technologies involving virtual, mixed or embodied agents, including robots. This architecture and related research presented in this disser- tation encompass two main areas: (a) knowledge representation and computational model of the behavioral aspects of ABA as applicable to autism intervention practices, and (b) abstract architecture for multi-modal, agent-mediated implementation of these practices

ANALISIS KETERKAITAN ANTARA VOLATILITAS KEBUTUHAN PERANGKAT LUNAK DENGAN STABILITAS RANCANGAN PERANGKAT LUNAK BERBASIS OBJEK

Arsitektur perangkat lunak adalah struktur inti dari sebuah perangkat lunak. Arsitektur perangkat lunak mencerminkan fungsi dan tujuan latar belakang dari perangkat lunak yang dibangun. Pada faktanya perangkat lunak selalu mengalami evolusi dari waktu ke waktu. Evolusi ini disebabkan berbagai hal seperti perkembangan teknologi dan perubahan kebutuhan penggunanya. Perubahan kebutuhan pengguna merupakan faktor utama terjadinya evolusi. Dalam menyikapi evolusi, beberapa peneliti mengungkapkan rancangan perangkat lunak yang baik memiliki kecenderungan stabil terhadap perubahan minor agar menghindari terjadinya erosi perangkat lunak. Erosi menyebabkan munculnya kerusakan komponen akibat salah perubahan kode sumber yang seharusnya tidak diubah, dan pelanggaran keputusan rancangan dari komponen yang telah direncanakan pada awalnya. Hal ini menyebabkan kecacatan yang akan muncul pada kemudian hari. Penelitian ini menjabarkan analisis mendalam tentang hubungan stabilitas arsitektur perangkat lunak dengan volatilitas kebutuhan perangkat lunak. Stabilitas rancangan perangkat lunak diukur berdasarkan tingkat penggunaan kembali komponen seperti Kelas Diagram, Paket Diagram dan Relasi antar kelas. Pengukuran dilakukan dengan memperhatikan perubahan jumlah kelas dalam satu paket dan jumlah relasi antar atau dalam paket. Pengukuran volatilitas kebutuhan dilakukan dengan memperhatikan perubahan fitur pada setiap versi. Dari dua pengukuran tersebut, peneliti mengamati perkembangan fenomena yang terjadi di dalamnya. Terdapat tiga kondisi yang membuat ketidakstabilan rancangan perangkat lunak. Pertama, penambahan fitur perangkat lunak yang tidak terdefinisi pada awal, sehingga pada versi sebelumnya komponen perangkat lunak tidak dapat dirancangan terlebih dahulu. Hal ini dapat melebarkan lingkup perangkat lunak itu sendiri dan memungkinkan adanya degradasi pada komponen tertentu. Hal ini terlihat pada kasus AB2-3, AB3-4, AB6-7, AB7-8, AB9-10, NS1-2, dan NS2-3. Namun apabila rancangan sudah dibentuk pola perancangan yang lebih general, maka nilai stabilitas rancangan akan lebih tinggi dibanding dengan rancangan yang tidak memiliki pola perancangan. Faktor kedua adalah pengubahan fitur yang berdampak pada pelebaran lingkup perangkat lunak. Hal ini tercermin pada kasus AB¬2-3, dan NS3-4. Faktor terakhir adalah penghapusan fitur inti yang dimiliki oleh lebih dari 50% fitur dari seluruh versi yang ada. Hal ini tercermin pada kasus AB3-4, dan NS2-3. ========================================================== Software architecture is the core structure of a software. Software architecture reflects functional background and purpose of the software is built. In fact the software is always evolving from time to time. This evolution is due to various things such as technological development and the needs for minor changes. The user need afford a change is a major factor in the evolution. In addressing the evolution, some researchers revealed that architectural and component design good software has a stable trend towards minor changes in order to avoid erosion of the software. Erosion caused the emergence of elemental damage as a result of changes to the source code that should not be changed, and violations of the architectural design decisions that had been initially planned. It causes disability that will appear at a later date. In this study, I conducted a thorough analysis on relationship between the software component stability and volatility of the software requirements. The stability of the software component is measured according to a study presented by Aversano and Constantinou. Component measurement done by considering the number of classes in one package and the number of relationships among or within the package. Volatility measurements conducted with respect to the needs of the changing needs of each version. From the two measures, the researcher observes the development of phenomena that occur in it. There are three conditions that create instability software design. First, the addition of software features that are not defined at the beginning, so that the previous version of the software component can’t be designed first. It can widen the scope of the software itself and allows the degradation of certain components. This is seen in the case of AB2-3, AB3-4, AB6-7, AB7-8, AB9-10, NS1-2, and NS2-3. However, if the software component is already established design patterns that are more general, then the value of the stability of the design will be higher than with a design that does not have a pattern design. The second factor is the conversion feature that impact on widening the scope of the software. This is reflected in the case AB2-3, and NS3-4. The last factor is the elimination of the core features that are owned by more than 50% of the features of the entire existing version. This is reflected in the case AB¬, and NS2-3

Architectural Design Decision Documentation through Reuse of Design Patterns

While design decisions on the application of architectural design patterns involve complex trade-offs between functionality and quality properties, such decisions are often spontaneous, and documentation of decisions and trace links to related artefacts is usually insufficient. The approach proposed in this thesis provides a support to overcome these problems. It combines support for evaluation of design pattern application, and semi-automated documentation of decisions and trace links

Continuous Rationale Management

Continuous Software Engineering (CSE) is a software life cycle model open to frequent changes in requirements or technology. During CSE, software developers continuously make decisions on the requirements and design of the software or the development process. They establish essential decision knowledge, which they need to document and share so that it supports the evolution and changes of the software. The management of decision knowledge is called rationale management. Rationale management provides an opportunity to support the change process during CSE. However, rationale management is not well integrated into CSE. The overall goal of this dissertation is to provide workflows and tool support for continuous rationale management. The dissertation contributes an interview study with practitioners from the industry, which investigates rationale management problems, current practices, and features to support continuous rationale management beneficial for practitioners. Problems of rationale management in practice are threefold: First, documenting decision knowledge is intrusive in the development process and an additional effort. Second, the high amount of distributed decision knowledge documentation is difficult to access and use. Third, the documented knowledge can be of low quality, e.g., outdated, which impedes its use. The dissertation contributes a systematic mapping study on recommendation and classification approaches to treat the rationale management problems. The major contribution of this dissertation is a validated approach for continuous rationale management consisting of the ConRat life cycle model extension and the comprehensive ConDec tool support. To reduce intrusiveness and additional effort, ConRat integrates rationale management activities into existing workflows, such as requirements elicitation, development, and meetings. ConDec integrates into standard development tools instead of providing a separate tool. ConDec enables lightweight capturing and use of decision knowledge from various artifacts and reduces the developers' effort through automatic text classification, recommendation, and nudging mechanisms for rationale management. To enable access and use of distributed decision knowledge documentation, ConRat defines a knowledge model of decision knowledge and other artifacts. ConDec instantiates the model as a knowledge graph and offers interactive knowledge views with useful tailoring, e.g., transitive linking. To operationalize high quality, ConRat introduces the rationale backlog, the definition of done for knowledge documentation, and metrics for intra-rationale completeness and decision coverage of requirements and code. ConDec implements these agile concepts for rationale management and a knowledge dashboard. ConDec also supports consistent changes through change impact analysis. The dissertation shows the feasibility, effectiveness, and user acceptance of ConRat and ConDec in six case study projects in an industrial setting. Besides, it comprehensively analyses the rationale documentation created in the projects. The validation indicates that ConRat and ConDec benefit CSE projects. Based on the dissertation, continuous rationale management should become a standard part of CSE, like automated testing or continuous integration

An OMG model-based approach for aligning information systems requirements and architectures with business

Tese de Doutoramento (Programa Doutoral em Tecnologias e Sistemas de Informação)The challenges involved in developing information systems (which are able to adapt to rapidly changing business and technological conditions) are directly related to the importance of their alignment with the business counterpart. These challenges comprise issues that cross management and information systems domains, relating and aligning them in order to attain superior performance for the organization, while identifying its strategy and tailoring its business processes. As this relation is increasingly intertwined its concepts are conducted to pragmatic methods, incorporating both management and information systems components, for how, when and where this alignment really matters. The related topics of the alignment between business and information systems comprise diverse paths of research, though with little common ground established inside the community, where problems arouse due to the fast moving business and technological environments. According to these circumstances, the process of developing information systems to support the alignment benefits from incorporating the use of structured and model-based approaches. So, as the development of evermore complex information systems presents a challenge for the currently available methods, the use of models to support the alignment with business stands as an increasingly important issue. Following those challenges, we set out to question how to develop solutions aligning information systems with business in a model-based approach. Accordingly, we support our research on the need to understand what are the perspectives involved in aligning information systems with business, and, moreover, to comprehend in what sense model adoption drives information systems development. So, the proposed goals for this thesis are: (1) set the basis for the elicitation of business requirements in order to support a well-grounded development of information systems; (2) provide for the generation of business models based on the business requirements, while assuring their alignment and traceability; and (3) arrange for the derivation of information system architectures from the business requirements, while attaining alignment and traceability for their mutual transformation and adaptation. Several issues surrounding these goals have already been described and approached in diverse ways by other researchers, where existing approaches and associated methods achieved good results. Nevertheless, these approaches are not without their shortfalls, sometimes failing to present a complete solution, others being unable to adapt to new challenges, or even incapable of reacting to recent trends. In order to tackle these issues we propose to build upon those approaches by adapting, evolving and innovating on solutions in each of the three proposed goals, respectively intertwining with perspectives from related standards and reference models. Answering the first goal, in what regards the main contributions of this thesis, we propose to broaden the elicitation of requirements by relating functional and nonfunctional requirements from business processes. So, we present a unified metamodel representation for those requirements, accompanied by a customizable method for their joint elicitation, based-on business-driven use-cases, goals and rules. This approach adopts the Rational Unified Process (RUP) development methodology and the Business Motivation Model (BMM) standard model language representation for business requirements. Moreover, the metamodel representation and method operationalization are accompanied by a prototype support tool that completes this first contribution. For the second goal, a more business-oriented one correlated to the higher-level requirements, we propose to generate business models directly from the inferred functional and nonfunctional requirements. So, we present a three-dimensional approach built on the relation of the referred requirements with the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) reference model, where an additional mapping to the Business Model Canvas (BMC) is also made available. This proposal provides an associated metamodel representation for the relation between the elements involved and a customizable method for their operationalization, all accompanied by a prototype support tool. On the third goal, focused on system architectures and connected to the lower-level requirements, we propose to derive service-oriented participants from the functional requirements, while aligning the nonfunctional requirements with the quality characteristics of the solution to-be. First, we present an evolution of an existing method for the derivation of a logical architecture, in order to adapt it to a service-oriented approach (SOA). Then, following on the existing relation between the nonfunctional and functional side of the low-level requirements, our approach is able to associate these last with its related services on the derived architecture, in another three-dimensional approach. Additionally, a mapping of the nonfunctional requirements with the system quality characteristics (CISQ) is made available. Once more, an associated metamodel, a customizable method and a prototype support tool are also provided. The development of these three approaches is supported through the execution of tasks which originate artifacts and lead to publications associated to their respective research and development efforts, all according to the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology. These are applied in ongoing projects involving experimental scenarios in industrial settings and associated to established research reference patterns, balancing the interests of both researchers and practitioners while focused both on technology and management audiences. The results obtained from their evaluation reflect the quality and depth of our findings, helping to validate the scientific contribution of this work.Os desafios implicados no desenvolvimento de sistemas de informação (que sejam capazes de se adaptar a condições tecnológicas e de negócios em rápida mutação) estão diretamente relacionados à importância do seu alinhamento com a contraparte do negócio. Esses desafios envolvem questões que cruzam os domínios da gestão e dos sistemas de informação, relacionando-os e alinhando-os com o intuito de alcançar um desempenho superior para a organização, ao mesmo tempo que identificam a sua estratégia e adequam os seus processos de negócio. Como esta relação está cada vez mais interligada, os seus conceitos são canalizados para métodos pragmáticos, incorporando ambos os componentes de sistemas de informação e de gestão, para saber como, quando e onde este alinhamento realmente interessa. Os tópicos relacionados com o alinhamento entre negócio e sistemas de informação abrangem diversos caminhos de pesquisa, embora com poucos alicerces em comum estabelecidos dentro da comunidade, onde os problemas surgem devido às rápidas mudanças nos negócios e nos ambientes tecnológicos. De acordo com estas circunstâncias, o processo de desenvolvimento de sistemas de informação para apoiar o alinhamento beneficia de incorporar o uso de abordagens estruturadas e baseadas em modelos. Assim, dado que o desenvolvimento de sistemas de informação cada vez mais complexos apresenta um desafio para os métodos atualmente disponíveis, o uso de modelos para apoiar o alinhamento com o negócio destaca-se como uma questão cada vez mais importante. Em linha com esses desafios, estabelecemos a questão de como desenvolver soluções para alinhar sistemas de informações com o negócio numa abordagem baseada em modelos. Neste sentido, apoiamos a nossa pesquisa na necessidade de compreender quais são as perspetivas envolvidas no alinhamento dos sistemas de informação com o negócio, e, além disso, de compreender em que sentido a adoção de modelos capacita o desenvolvimento desses sistemas. Assim, os objetivos propostos para esta tese são: (1) definir as bases para o levantamento de requisitos de negócio a fim de suportar um desenvolvimento bem fundamentado de sistemas de informação; (2) disponibilizar a geração de modelos de negócio baseados nos requisitos de negócio, garantindo o alinhamento e a rastreabilidade entre ambos; e (3) estruturar a derivação de arquiteturas de sistema de informação a partir dos requisitos de negócio, preservando o alinhamento e rastreabilidade para a sua mútua transformação e adaptação. Várias questões envolvendo estes objetivos foram já descritas e tratadas de diversas maneiras por outros investigadores, tendo as abordagens existentes e os métodos associados alcançado bons resultados. No entanto, essas abordagens têm as suas lacunas, umas vezes falham em apresentar uma solução completa, noutras são ineficientes ao se adaptarem a novos desafios, ou mesmo incapazes de reagir às novas tendências. Para lidar com estas questões, propomo-nos apoiar nessas abordagens, adaptando, evoluindo e inovando em soluções para cada um dos três objetivos propostos, intersetando-as, respetivamente, com perspetivas de modelos de referência e padrões relacionados. Relativamente ao primeiro objetivo, no que concerne aos principais contributos desta tese, propomos alargar o levantamento de requisitos, relacionando os requisitos funcionais e nãofuncionais dos processos de negócios. Assim, apresentamos um meta-modelo para a representação unificada desses requisitos, acompanhado por um método personalizável para o seu levantamento conjunto, baseada em casos-de-uso, metas e regras orientadas a negócio. Esta abordagem adota a metodologia de desenvolvimento do Rational Unified Process (RUP) e a representação padrão do modelo de linguagem do Business Motivation Model (BMM), para os requisitos de negócio. Além disso, a representação meta-modelo e a operacionalização do método são acompanhados por um protótipo de uma ferramenta de suporte que completa esta primeira contribuição. Quanto ao segundo objetivo, mais orientado ao negócio e correlacionado com os requisitos de nível superior, propomos gerar modelos de negócio a partir dos requisitos funcionais e não-funcionais inferidos. Assim, apresentamos uma abordagem tridimensional, construída sobre a relação dos referidos requisitos com o modelo de referência do Balanced Scorecard (BSC), em que um mapeamento adicional para o Business Model Canvas (BMC) é também disponibilizado. Esta proposta inclui um meta-modelo para representação da relação entre os elementos envolvidos e um método personalizável para a sua operacionalização, tudo acompanhado por um protótipo de uma ferramenta de suporte. No terceiro objetivo, focado em arquiteturas de sistema e ligado aos requisitos de nível inferior, propomos derivar participantes orientados-a-serviços desde os requisitos funcionais, alinhando os requisitos não-funcionais com as características de qualidade da solução a obter. Primeiro, apresentamos uma evolução de um método existente para a derivação de uma arquitetura lógica, adaptando-o a uma abordagem-orientada-a-serviços (SOA). Assim, prosseguindo a relação existente entre o lado não-funcional e funcional dos requisitos de baixo nível, a nossa abordagem associa estes últimos com os serviços relacionados na arquitetura derivada, numa outra abordagem tridimensional. Além disso, um mapeamento dos requisitos não-funcionais com as características de qualidade do sistema (CISQ) é disponibilizado. Mais uma vez, um meta-modelo associado, um método personalizável e um protótipo da ferramenta de suporte são disponibilizados. O desenvolvimento destas três abordagens é suportado pela execução de tarefas, as quais dão origem a artefatos e levam a publicações associadas aos seus esforços de pesquisa e desenvolvimento respetivamente, tudo de acordo com a metodologia DSR. Estas são aplicadas a projetos em andamento, os quais envolvem cenários experimentais em ambientes industriais e associados a padrões de investigação de referência, equilibrando os interesses de investigadores e profissionais assim como dos diferentes públicos de tecnologia e gestão. Os resultados obtidos na sua avaliação refletem a qualidade e a profundidade dos nossos resultados, ajudando a validar a contribuição científica deste trabalho

On the Similarity between Requirements and Architecture

Many would agree that there is a relationship between requirements engineering and software architecture. However, there have always been different opinions about the exact nature of this relationship. Nevertheless, all arguments have been based on one overarching notion: that of requirements as problem description and software architecture as the structure of a software system that solves that problem, with components and connectors as the main elements. Recent developments in the software architecture field show a change in how software architecture is perceived. There is a shift from viewing architecture as only structure to a broader view of 'architectural knowledge' that emphasizes the treatment of architectural design decisions as first-class entities. From this emerging perspective we argue that there is no fundamental distinction between architectural decisions and architecturally significant requirements. This new view on the intrinsic relation between architecture and requirements allows us to identify areas in which closer cooperation between the architecture and requirements engineering communities would bring advantages for both. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved