442 research outputs found
The PSN tribe
AbstractThe paper reviews the history, premises, research results and applications of the Procedural Semantic Network (hereafter PSN) formalism and two of its descendants, Taxis and Telos. The primary goal for the PSN project was to develop a knowledge representation formalism which combined gracefully semantic networks and procedural representations. After an initial proposal which set out a framework for the integration of these two types of representations [1], a number of features were investigated, including the treatment of contexts, the declarative representation of slots and procedures and several others. In parallel, attempts were made to apply some of the representation ideas embodied in PSN to the task of developing suitable languages for the early stages of information system design. During these stages, the designer is concerned with understanding the problem at hand and then proceeding with the specification of an initial conceptual design of an information system that meets stated requirements. Taxis and Telos were the result of this effort. Their features are outlined, along with a rationale for the differences between the three formalisms
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
The Logic of Requirements
Requirements consist of (a) domain assumptions, (b) hard goals, (c) quality constraints, (d) possibly prioritized preferences. The very core of Requirements Engineering consists of the following problem: given a set of (a)-(d), generate specifications that fulfill hard goals and quality constraints, assuming that domain assumptions hold, and satisfy maximal sets of preferences. We are working towards tools that solve this problem for expressive modeling languages in terms of which one can represent domain assumptions, goals, etc. Such tools can be used as basis for exploring requirements by varying preferences and priorities, or weakening/strengthening goals
Theory of Regulatory Compliance for Requirements Engineering
Regulatory compliance is increasingly being addressed in the practice of
requirements engineering as a main stream concern. This paper points out a gap
in the theoretical foundations of regulatory compliance, and presents a theory
that states (i) what it means for requirements to be compliant, (ii) the
compliance problem, i.e., the problem that the engineer should resolve in order
to verify whether requirements are compliant, and (iii) testable hypotheses
(predictions) about how compliance of requirements is verified. The theory is
instantiated by presenting a requirements engineering framework that implements
its principles, and is exemplified on a real-world case study.Comment: 16 page
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