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Online ISSN 1751-8814 Print ISSN 1751-8806

IET Software

Volume 5, Issue 6, December 2011

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Volume 5, Issue 6

December 2011

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    • Using soft systems methodology to improve requirements practices: an exploratory case study
      • Author(s): N. Niu ; A.Y. Lopez ; J.-R.C. Cheng
      • Source: IET Software, Volume 5, Issue 6, p. 487 –495
      • DOI:  10.1049/iet-sen.2010.0096
      • Type: Article
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      • p. 487 –495 (9)
        Soft systems methodology (SSM) should offer substantial benefits in managing expectations and requirements for a software-intensive system, but the benefits have not yet been examined empirically. This study reports an exploratory case study investigating the hypothesis that ‘soft systems approach would identify all the flaws in requirements practices and suggest improvements suited to an organisation's context’. The authors analysed problematic requirements practices in an ongoing software-intensive socio-technical project, modelled potential changes and asked the project team to assess the organisational fit of these changes. The authors further monitored the requirements engineering improvements that the project team made according to the case study. The authors conclude that SSM could indeed uncover a relatively complete set of flaws in requirements practices. Although not all suggested changes were regarded as necessary, the implemented changes had contributed positively to the organisation's requirements engineering improvements.
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      Supporting commonality-based analysis of software product lines
      • Author(s): R. Heradio-Gil ; D. Fernandez-Amoros ; J.A. Cerrada ; C. Cerrada
      • Source: IET Software, Volume 5, Issue 6, p. 496 –509
      • DOI:  10.1049/iet-sen.2010.0022
      • Type: Article
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      • p. 496 –509 (14)
        Software product line (SPL) engineering is a cost-effective approach to developing families of similar products. Key to the success of this approach is to correctly scope the domain of the SPL, identifying the common and variable features of the products and the interdependencies between features. In this study, the authors show how the commonality of a feature (i.e. the reuse ratio of the feature among the products) can be used to detect scope flaws in the early stages of development. SPL domains are usually modelled by means of feature diagrams following the feature-oriented domain analysis (FODA) notation. The authors extend classical FODA trees with unrestricted cardinalities, and present an algorithm to compute the number of products modelled by a feature diagram and the commonality of the features. Finally, the authors compare the performance of their algorithm with two other approaches built on top of boolean logic satisfiability (SAT)-solver technology such as cachet and relsat.
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      Improving artefact quality management in advanced artefact management system with distributed inspection
      • Author(s): A. De Lucia ; F. Fasano ; G. Scanniello ; G. Tortora
      • Source: IET Software, Volume 5, Issue 6, p. 510 –527
      • DOI:  10.1049/iet-sen.2010.0108
      • Type: Article
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      • p. 510 –527 (18)
        Advanced artefact management system (ADAMS) is an artefact-based process support system for the management of human resources, projects and software artefacts. This system puts great emphasis on the artefact life cycle by associating software engineers with the different operations that can be performed on a given artefact. Managing the quality of software artefacts is considered as one of the main issues. To this end, ADAMS integrates web-based artefact inspection tool (WAIT), a web-based system implementing a distributed inspection process. A case study has been accomplished to evaluate both the integration of WAIT in ADAMS and the provided quality management support. The main result of this empirical investigation is that the integrated system provides an effective support for the management of the quality of software artefacts.
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      Empirical study to assess whether the use of routes facilitates the navigability of web information systems
      • Author(s): V. de Castro ; M. Genero ; E. Marcos ; M. Piattni
      • Source: IET Software, Volume 5, Issue 6, p. 528 –542
      • DOI:  10.1049/iet-sen.2010.0062
      • Type: Article
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      • p. 528 –542 (15)
        The design of web information systems (WISs) often relies on a domain model and some informal guidelines, signifying that many design decisions which may directly affect usability are left to the designers. The study presented here has been carried out to analyse whether it is possible to limit this arbitrariness. The authors have therefore carried out a controlled experiment and its replica to test whether it is effectively possible to obtain more easily navigable WISs by using a navigation model, including certain design characteristics, as a starting point. These characteristics are: the use of a main menu which only contains the services required by the user, and the signposting of the sequence of steps necessary to carry out each service correctly, denominated as a route. The empirical study carried out has demonstrated that, given two WISs with the same functionality and identical interface styles, users prefer a WIS with routes and a main menu including the beginning of each route, and perceive it to be more easily navigable. In addition, the use of routes in the navigation model improves the navigability of the WIS built from it, particularly for subjects with less experience.
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      Exploiting Java scientific libraries with the Scala language within the ScalaLab environment
      • Author(s): S. Papadimitriou ; K. Terzidis ; S. Mavroudi ; S. Likothanassis
      • Source: IET Software, Volume 5, Issue 6, p. 543 –551
      • DOI:  10.1049/iet-sen.2010.0135
      • Type: Article
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      • p. 543 –551 (9)
        Since Java is one of the most popular languages in the academic and research community a lot of robust and effective scientific libraries have been developed. However, the utilisation of these libraries is very awkward especially for the average scientist that does not expertise in software development. The study presents the framework that has constructed for the utilisation of Java scientific libraries within the ScalaLab environment. The flexibility and extensibility of the Scala language allows the implementation of simple, coherent and efficient Matlab-like interfaces to those libraries. Moreover, other specialised Java libraries can be exploited much more easily and productively from within ScalaLab with the toolbox import mechanism that this work describes. Additionally, the system offers facilities such as on-line help, code completion, graphical control of the class-path and a specialised text editor with code colouring facilities that greatly facilitate the development of scientific software.
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      Crosscutting concern mining in business processes
      • Author(s): C. Di Francescomarino  and  P. Tonella
      • Source: IET Software, Volume 5, Issue 6, p. 552 –562
      • DOI:  10.1049/iet-sen.2010.0145
      • Type: Article
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      • p. 552 –562 (11)
        One of the most complex tasks for business analysts is the consistent management of crosscutting concerns in large business processes. By crosscutting concerns the authors mean those process features that are not assigned to a single modular unit in the process and are thus scattered and tangled with other features. For example, the adaptation of the process to the user preferences involves several scattered activities that constitute a crosscutting concern. In this study, the authors propose a semi-automatic approach, based on formal concept analysis, for the identification of crosscutting concerns in business processes at design time. A preliminary evaluation of the effectiveness of the proposed technique in detecting crosscutting concerns has been provided by applying the approach to a case study.
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      Parameterised trace selection technique for process model recovering
      • Author(s): A. Marchetto  and  C. Di Francescomarino
      • Source: IET Software, Volume 5, Issue 6, p. 563 –575
      • DOI:  10.1049/iet-sen.2011.0005
      • Type: Article
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      • p. 563 –575 (13)
        Business processes are often implemented in software applications which expose them by means of a Web interface. Several process recovery techniques apply dynamic analysis for tracing application runs and collecting information used to infer a model of the implemented application process. However, the recovered process model can be very complex, intricate and difficult to understand. Indeed, as often happens when considering dynamic analysis for model inference, recovery techniques try to describe all possible application executions. Some of the executions, however, can vary only for minor changes, thus resulting not particularly relevant for documenting the underlying application process. In this study, the authors propose the use of trace selection for improving the understandability of the recovered process model. The authors investigate the use of a trace-clustering technique to reduce the considered set of traces, selecting those traces that are representative of the whole set, while discarding those capturing minor variants of main behaviours.
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