Prioritization of software requirements is an important part of the requirements engineering process within the industry of software development. There are many different methods for achieving the most optimal order of software requirements, a list that shows in what order the requirements should be implemented. This degree project utilizes the SMT-based solver Z3 for an interactive prioritization algorithm. Previous studies have shown good results with another SMT-based solver called Yices. With the newer Z3 from Microsoft, the results have been improved further, and the tool is based on Python, and the framework for Z3 is called Z3PY. Experiments have been conducted on a set of different software requirements derived from a project in the healthcare industry and show that the Z3 solution is, in general, improving the requirements prioritization compared to other mentioned solutions in the study that has been tested on the same set of requirements. Results show that the Z3 solution outperformed the other SMT-based solution Yices by 2-4% regarding disagreement and by 3% regarding average distance. The results are significantly improved based on an ANOVA test with a p-value <= 0.05.

Research shows that students who take advanced mathematics courses perform better on measures of college readiness than students who take less rigorous courses. However, no clear effect has been shown on requiring all students to take more advanced courses. This study examined whether increases in the number and level of mathematics courses required for high school graduation have resulted in increased levels of college aspirations and preparedness. Specifically, twenty years of data from a rural school district in Texas were analyzed to determine whether the impact on college entrance exam-taking and performance differed by the mathematics requirements in effect for each class. Logistic and linear regression modeling revealed no statistically significant effect of higher requirements. And while overall results by gender and race mirrored previous research, with males tending to have higher scores than females and White students tending to score higher than African-American and Latinx students, the increased requirements were not associated with any mitigation in these inequities.

Au cours de ces dernières années, la sécurité des Systèmes d'Information (SI) est devenue une préoccupation importante, qui doit être prise en compte dans toutes les phases du développement du SI, y compris dans la phase initiale de l'ingénierie des exigences (IE). Prendre en considération la sécurité durant les premières phases du développement des SI permet aux développeurs d'envisager les menaces, leurs conséquences et les contre-mesures avant qu'un système soit mis en place. Les exigences de sécurité sont connues pour être "les plus difficiles des types d’exigences", et potentiellement celles qui causent le plus de risque si elles ne sont pas correctes. De plus, les ingénieurs en exigences ne sont pas principalement intéressés à, ou formés sur la sécurité. Leur connaissance tacite de la sécurité et leur connaissance primitive sur le domaine pour lequel ils élucident des exigences de sécurité rendent les exigences de sécurité résultantes pauvres et trop génériques. Cette thèse explore l'approche de l’élucidation des exigences fondée sur la réutilisation de connaissances explicites. Tout d'abord, la thèse propose une étude cartographique systématique et exhaustive de la littérature sur la réutilisation des connaissances dans l'ingénierie des exigences de sécurité identifiant les différentes formes de connaissances. Suivi par un examen et une classification des ontologies de sécurité comme étant la principale forme de réutilisation. Dans la deuxième partie, AMAN-DA est présentée. AMAN-DA est la méthode développée dans cette thèse. Elle permet l’élucidation des exigences de sécurité d'un système d'information spécifique à un domaine particulier en réutilisant des connaissances encapsulées dans des ontologies de domaine et de sécurité. En outre, la thèse présente les différents éléments d'AMAN-DA : (I) une ontologie de sécurité noyau, (II) une ontologie de domaine multi-niveau, (iii) des modèles syntaxique de buts et d’exigences de sécurité, (IV) un ensemble de règles et de mécanismes nécessaires d'explorer et de réutiliser la connaissance encapsulée dans les ontologies et de produire des spécifications d’exigences de sécurité. La dernière partie rapporte l'évaluation de la méthode. AMAN-DA a été implémenté dans un prototype d'outil. Sa faisabilité a été évaluée et appliquée dans les études de cas de trois domaines différents (maritimes, applications web, et de vente). La facilité d'utilisation et l’utilisabilité de la méthode et de son outil ont également été évaluées dans une expérience contrôlée. L'expérience a révélé que la méthode est bénéfique pour l’élucidation des exigences de sécurité spécifiques aux domaines, et l'outil convivial et facile à utiliser. / In recent years, security in Information Systems (IS) has become an important issue that needs to be taken into account in all stages of IS development, including the early phase of Requirement Engineering (RE). Considering security during early stages of IS development allows IS developers to envisage threats, their consequences and countermeasures before a system is in place. Security requirements are known to be “the most difficult of requirements types”, and potentially the ones causing the greatest risk if they are not correct. Moreover, requirements engineers are not primarily interested in, or knowledgeable about, security. Their tacit knowledge about security and their primitive knowledge about the domain for which they elicit security requirements make the resulting security requirements poor and too generic. This thesis explores the approach of eliciting requirements based on the reuse of explicit knowledge. First, the thesis proposes an extensive systematic mapping study of the literature on the reuse of knowledge in security requirements engineering identifying the different knowledge forms. This is followed by a review and classification of security ontologies as the main reuse form. In the second part, AMAN-DA is presented. AMAN-DA is the method developed in this thesis. It allows the elicitation of domain-specific security requirements of an information system by reusing knowledge encapsulated in domain and security ontologies. Besides that, the thesis presents the different elements of AMANDA: (I) a core security ontology, (II) a multi-level domain ontology, (III) security goals and requirements’ syntactic models, (IV) a set of rules and mechanisms necessary to explore and reuse the encapsulated knowledge of the ontologies and produce security requirements specifications. The last part reports the evaluation of the method. AMAN-DA was implemented in a prototype tool. Its feasibility was evaluated and applied in case studies of three different domains (maritime, web applications, and sales). The ease of use and the usability of the method and its tool were also evaluated in a controlled experiment. The experiment revealed that the method is beneficial for the elicitation of domain specific security requirements, and that the tool is friendly and easy to use.

Context: In the requirements engineering phase, requirements elicitation is considered as the most important task as it is the initial phase in which the requirements are gathered and prioritised. Changes in requirements may lead to project failure or delay in project deliveries. So, it is essential to elicit the requirements at the early stage to avoid changes in requirements in the later stage of development. Therefore, there is a need to study the impact of volatility in elicitation techniques to gather requirements appropriately in the early stages. Objectives: In the present thesis, we focused on the analysis of the requirements volatility in the requirement elicitation phase. The main objectives we have formulated to achieve our goal are Objective 1: To identify and determine the various causes of requirement volatility. Objective 2: To examine the impact of requirement volatility in the requirement elicitation process. Objective 3: To examine whether the procedure of elicitation techniques differ if volatility occurs while eliciting the requirements. Methods: In this thesis, we have implemented a Systematic Literature Review(SLR) and Survey research methods in order to attain our aim and objectives. SLR is performed for objective 1, to receive the data about the causes of volatility in various development life cycle phases. A survey is conducted to identify the causes of volatility in all phases of development, in the elicitation phase, and check whether the process of elicitation techniques differ if volatility occurs while eliciting the requirements. Results: From the SLR and survey, numerous factors of causes of volatility on the software development lifecycle were identified. Several new factors were identified from both the research methods. The factors have its own interpretation for the cause of volatility. Moreover, from the survey results, we can determine that the volatility occurs in the elicitation phase and has a huge impact while eliciting the requirements. Most of the practitioners working with the agile development process and waterfall model have stated that the impact of volatility results in prolonging the elicitation phase, slowing down the project, etc. Conclusions: For this research, our contribution is to provide insights on the impact of volatility in the elicitation process and check whether the elicitation techniques and its process change due to volatility. Based on the results of the respondents, we can conclude that the elicitation techniques procedure change is not intentional and not only because of the volatility but also due to some external factors while eliciting the requirements.

Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control Systems (A-SMGCS) help to further improve safety and efficiency of the traffic on the aerodrome surface. The current A-SMGCS sensor technologies have certain operational and functional limitations. A new and unprecedented sensor technology is being tested as a pilot project. This unique sensors is called MagSense®. It works based on the principle of detecting the influence of ferromagnetic materials on earth’s magnetic field. For applications in the aviation environment, learning processes are necessary which are generally based on the graphical depiction of stored sensor data and features to analyze the graphs. For this purpose a visualization and analysis tool is needed. In order to create an adequate tool to allow for depicting stored sensor data and the peaks caused by ferromagnetic objects in aircraft and vehicles, a requirements engineering process will be conducted wherein the requirements of the various stakeholders will be identified and harmonized. In general, the appropriate RE approach will ensure mutual agreement among the stakeholders and a set of requirements for the first edition of the tool without contradictions. The harmonized package of requirements will then be used as the starting point for a software development process, after which the tool will be produced as specified and validated as a part of this Master’s Thesis. This Master’s Thesis puts a special focus on the choice of a suitable method in Requirements Engineering and Requirements Management, adequately adapted to the project size and its quality. The selection of appropriate elements from the methodology as well as the outcomes from applying them on a specific software production project are at the core.

I dag pratas det mycket om hur viktigt det är med ett bra och hälsosamt inneklimat. För att människor ska trivas och arbeta effektivt behöver arbetsplatsen ha ett bra inomhusklimat. Eftersom människan spenderar största delen av sitt liv inomhus är det viktigt att inte påverkas negativt av den inre miljön. Byggnadens huvudsyften är att skydda människor men många byggnader orsakar hälsoproblem av olika slag. Det finns mycket liten vetskap om vad ett bra inneklimat verkligen innebär. Detta kan till exempel orsaka kommunikationsproblem som försvårar förhandling då kunden och företaget tolkar varandras åsikter om inneklimat olika. Syftet med examensarbetet är att underlätta förhandlingsprocessen genom att definiera innebörden av inneklimat samt beteckningar som vanligen används. Detta ska hjälpa både kunden och företaget att förstå vad kraven och riktlinjerna betyder genom att utgå från gemensamma definitioner och förutsättningar. Arbetet har utförts utifrån allmänna definitioner av inneklimatfaktorer samt beskrivningar av riktlinjer. Problematiken, som uppstår vid överenskommelse med kunder på grund av saknande av information, har identifierats i samtal med experter. Definitionerna och beskrivningar som tagits fram i rapporten kommer att användas för att hjälpa till under förhandlingar och underlätta kommunikationen mellan beställare och utförare. Arbetet har lett till några slutsatser som är värda att tänka på: Bristen på kunskap kan försvåra förhandlingar, därför är det viktigt att informationen förmedlas på ett tydligt och pedagogisk sätt. Riktlinjerna är där som stöd vid projektering eller bedömning, men de bör behandlas med viss försiktighet på grund av den begränsade uppdateringen av dessa. / An actual question is the importance of having a good and healthy indoor climate. The workplace need to have a good indoor climate, so that people can thrive and work effectively. Since people spend most of thier lives indoors, it is important to avoid being negatively affected by the internal environment. Buildings have the main purpose to protect people but many buildings cause health problems of various kinds.  There is a poor knowledge of what a good indoor climate really mean is. This can, for example, cause communication problems that complicate the negotiation where the customer and the company have different concepts of what indoor climate is. The purpose of this project is to ease the negotiation process by defining the meaning of the indoor climate and commonly used terms. This will help the customer and the company to understand the meaning of requirements and guidelines by starting from common definitions and conditions. This project has been written based on general definitions of the factors that affect the indoor climate as well as descriptions of the guidelines. The problem that emerges in agreement with the customers, because of lacking information, has been identified in discussions with experts. Definitions and descriptions contained in this essay will be used to assist during the negotiations and ease the communication between the client and contractor. The project has led to some conclusions that are worth thinking about: The lack of knowledge can aggravate negotiations; therefore it is important that the information is mediated in a clear and educational way. The guidelines are there to assist the planning or assessment, but they should be treated with caution because of the limited update of these.

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This thesis aims to study the use of Critical System Heuristic (CSH) in the requirements engineering (RE) process of a student software project. We have studied a software project within the framework of the TDDD96 course at Linköping University. The project consisted of a group of computer science students working with a representative from a company. As part of the course, the students had done the sustainability exercise SusAF, in which they evaluated their project based on multiple sustainability metrics. We have conducted one round of interviews with the RE student, the company representative, and an expert in the area. The answers were encoded and mapped to 12 CSH questions before being presented in the Ideal map table. The results produced by CSH show the many benefits of integrating CSH into the course. We have proposed different ways of integrating CSH with the SusAF exercise. From the result, we realized the importance of consulting a third party that could provide an outside perspective on different issues. However, an essential aspect of using CSH is to consult the appropriate party. To this end, we found that CSH could be used internally to point in the right direction.

Increasingly competitive software industry, where multiple systems serve the same application domain and compete for customers, favors software with creative features. To promote software creativity, research has proposed multi-day workshops with experienced facilitators, and semi-automated tools to provide a limited support for creative thinking. Such approach is either time consuming and demands substantial involvement from analysts with creative abilities, or useful only for existing large-scale software with a rich issue tracking system. In this dissertation, we present different approaches leveraging advanced natural language processing and machine learning techniques to provide automated support for generating creative software requirements with minimal human intervention. A controlled experiment is conducted to assess the effectiveness of our automated framework compared to the traditional brainstorming technique. The results demonstrate our frame-work’s ability to generate creative features for a wide range of stakeholders and provoke innovative thinking among developers with various experience levels.