Systems that are assembled from independently developed features suffer from feature interactions, in which features affect one another's behaviour in surprising ways. To ensure that a system behaves as intended, developers need to analyze all potential interactions -- and many of the identified interactions need to be fixed and their fixes verified. The feature-interaction problem states that the number of potential interactions to be considered is exponential in the number of features in a system. Resolution strategies combat the feature-interaction problem by offering general strategies that resolve entire classes of interactions, thereby reducing the work of the developer who is charged with the task of resolving interactions. In this thesis, we focus on resolving interactions due to conflict. We present an approach, language, and implementation based on resolver modules modelled in the situation calculus in which the developer can specify an appropriate resolution for each variable under conflict. We performed a case study involving 24 automotive features, and found that the number of resolutions to be specified was much smaller than the number of possible feature interactions (6 resolutions for 24 features), that what constitutes an appropriate resolution strategy is different for different variables, and that the subset of situation calculus we used was sufficient to construct nontrivial resolution strategies for six distinct output variables.

Submitted by Pedro Henrique Rodrigues (pedro.henriquer@ufpe.br) on 2015-03-05T18:53:32Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertacao_Liliane.pdf: 2808869 bytes, checksum: 6681e2b17bafbf1b2fb94a8f0d2ad701 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-05T18:53:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertacao_Liliane.pdf: 2808869 bytes, checksum: 6681e2b17bafbf1b2fb94a8f0d2ad701 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-03-01 / CAPES, CNPQ / One recurrent issue in software development is the effective creation of testcases from requirements. Several techniques and methods are applied to minimize the risks associated with test cases building, aiming to meet the requirements specified correctly. Risks identification for requirements assessment is essential to tests cases generation. However, test engineers still face difficulties to apply it in practice due to the lack of solid knowledge about Risk Management activities and tool support for such activities. This work proposes a technique that helps test engineers in risk identification from requirements for software testing. From studies that used the similarity concept to compare software projects in order to reuse previously identified risks, the developed technique uses the same assertion applied to requirements. Within this context, this work aims to: (i) to define a technique based on analogies by categorizing requirements, thus being able to identify risks through a database of similar requirements, and (ii) to reuse risks previously identified at requirements for the evaluation of new requirements.

Engineers in diverse fields are able to model their design and experiment with that design to determine how it responds to the environment and how it satisfies the requirements. Design tools for software engineering have become standardized and matured to allow for formal definition of software design. This paper tests the current state of design documentation to determine the quality of design testing available at the early stage of software design. / text

The purpose of this thesis was to automate verification of the software requirements for an implantable cardioverter defibrillator with minimal manual rework. The requirements were written in plain English with only loose stylistic constraints. While full automation proved infeasible, many significant advances were made towards solving the problem, including a framework for storing requirements, a program which translates most of the natural language requirements into the framework, and a novel approach to parts of speech analysis.

Feature-oriented requirements decompose a system's requirements into individual bundles of functionality called features, where each feature's behaviour can be expressed as a state-machine model. However, state machines are difficult to write; determining how to decompose behaviour into states is not obvious, different stakeholders will have different opinions on how to structure the state machine, and the state machines can easily become too complex. This thesis proposes a pattern for decomposing and structuring the model of a feature's behavioural requirements, based on modes of operation (e.g., Active, Inactive, Failed) that are common to features in multiple domains. Interestingly, the highest-level modes of the pattern can serve as a generic behavioural interface for all features that adhere to the pattern. The thesis proposes also several pattern extensions that provide guidance on how to structure the Active and Inactive behaviour of the feature. The pattern was applied to model the behavioural requirements of 21 automotive features that were specified in 7 production-grade requirements documents. The pattern was applicable to all 21 features, and the proposed generic feature interface was applicable to 50 out of 58 inter-feature references. A user study with 18 participants evaluated whether use of the pattern made it easier than otherwise to write state machines for features and whether feature state machines written with the help of the pattern are more readable than those written without the help of the pattern. The results of the study indicate that use of the pattern facilitates writing of feature state machines.

Feature-oriented requirements decompose a system's requirements into individual bundles of functionality called features, where each feature's behaviour can be expressed as a state-machine model. However, state machines are difficult to write; determining how to decompose behaviour into states is not obvious, different stakeholders will have different opinions on how to structure the state machine, and the state machines can easily become too complex. This thesis proposes a pattern for decomposing and structuring the model of a feature's behavioural requirements, based on modes of operation (e.g., Active, Inactive, Failed) that are common to features in multiple domains. Interestingly, the highest-level modes of the pattern can serve as a generic behavioural interface for all features that adhere to the pattern. The thesis proposes also several pattern extensions that provide guidance on how to structure the Active and Inactive behaviour of the feature. The pattern was applied to model the behavioural requirements of 21 automotive features that were specified in 7 production-grade requirements documents. The pattern was applicable to all 21 features, and the proposed generic feature interface was applicable to 50 out of 58 inter-feature references. A user study with 18 participants evaluated whether use of the pattern made it easier than otherwise to write state machines for features and whether feature state machines written with the help of the pattern are more readable than those written without the help of the pattern. The results of the study indicate that use of the pattern facilitates writing of feature state machines.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Software requirements, for complex projects, often contain specifications of non-functional attributes (e.g., security-related features). The process of analyzing such requirements for standards compliance is laborious and error prone. Due to the inherent free-flowing nature of software requirements, it is tempting to apply Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) based techniques for analyzing these documents. In this thesis, we propose a novel semi-automatic methodology that assesses the security requirements of the software system with respect to completeness and ambiguity, creating a bridge between the requirements documents and being in compliance. Security standards, e.g., those introduced by the ISO and OWASP, are compared against annotated software project documents for textual entailment relationships (NLP), and the results are used to train a neural network model (ML) for classifying security-based requirements. Hence, this approach aims to identify the appropriate structures that underlie software requirements documents. Once such structures are formalized and empirically validated, they will provide guidelines to software organizations for generating comprehensive and unambiguous requirements specification documents as related to security-oriented features. The proposed solution will assist organizations during the early phases of developing secure software and reduce overall development effort and costs.

No description available.

This thesis considers the requirement engineering process from the small scale industries point of view. It begins with a brief introduction to software requirements and then proceeds to a detailed study of the requirement engineering process. The later part of the thesis considers Business Process Modeling and how it helps in understanding any business in a better way and how conceptual model helps in extracting business requirements from any particular business scenario. The Object Oriented Technique is used for building the conceptual model. The thesis concludes with a case study. / text

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2008. / Description based on contents viewed June 2, 2008; title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-58).