1,720,968 research outputs found
VIBE: Looking for Variability In amBiguous rEquirements
No full textVariability is a characteristic of a software project and describes the fact that a system can be configured in different ways, obtaining different products (variants) from a common code base, accordingly to the software product line paradigm. This paradigm can be conveniently applied in all phases of the software process, starting from the definition and analysis of the requirements. We observe that often requirements contain ambiguities which can reveal an unintentional and implicit source of variability, that has to be detected.To this end we define VIBE, a tool supported process to identify variability aspects in requirements documents. VIBE is defined on the basis of a study of the different sources of ambiguity in natural language requirements documents that are useful to recognize potential variability, and is character-ized by the use of a NLP tool customized to detect variability indicators. The tool to be used in VIBE is selected from a number of ambiguity detection tools, after a comparison of their customization features. The validation of VIBE is conducted using real-world requirements documents.(c) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved
From generic requirements to variability
No full textThis paper describes a research activity aiming at extracting variability information from ambiguities and vagueness of generic requirement documents, written in Natural Language. The proposed activity continues a research stream focusing on techniques to extract variability information from requirement documents. Here, we study the introduction of a process able to distinguish structural from functional variability, both in the extracted variability model and in the derived lower-level requirements. The problem is stated with reference to an example, a solution proposal is sketched together with related research questions, and a validation path is envisaged
A comparison of NLP Tools for RE to extract Variation Points
No full textIn the requirement engineering of software product lines, several researches have focused on exploiting NLP techniques and tools to extract information related to features and variability from requirement documents. In a previous work we have proposed the use of the tool QuARS, a NLP Tool for Requirements Analysis, showing that some of the indicators used to detect NL ambiguity can also be exploited to detect variability. In this paper we discuss a comparison of the application at this regard of QuARS and other Requirements Analysis tools presented in the last edition of NLP4RE, in particular with respect to their ability to extract potential variation points, in search of better performances and of novel indicators
An experience with the application of three nlp tools for the analysis of natural language requirements
No full textWe report on the experience made with three Natural Language Processing analysis tools, aimed to compare their performance in detecting ambiguity and under-specification in requirements documents, and to compare them with respect to other qualities like learnability, usability, and efficiency. Two industrial tools, Requirements Scout and QVscribe, and an academic one, QuARS, are compared
The Legacy of Stefania Gnesi: From Software Engineering to Formal Methods and Tools, and Back
No full textStefania Gnesi was born in Livorno in 1954. She studied Computer Science at the University of Pisa, where she graduated summa cum laude in 1978. During her studies at ISI, which was the University of Pisa’s Institute for Computer Science, a young discipline at that time, Stefania became interested in the continuing challenge associated with the production of software, namely to demonstrate that the developed software is actually doing what is expected to do, a challenge made harder in many cases by the fact that the expectations themselves are not precisely expressed. This has kept her busy ever since. To face this challenge her very first steps in research, towards the end of her university studies, of purely theoretical nature, proved very valuable. In a publication in the Journal of the ACM [63] (not bad for a first journal paper!), resulting from her thesis under the supervision of Prof. Ugo Montanari, it is shown that finding the solution of a dynamic programming problem in the form of polyadic functional equations is equivalent to searching a minimal cost path in an and/or graph with monotone cost functions. An important computational application of this result is that the solution of a system of functional equations can always be reduced to the problem of searching a minimal cost solution tree in an and/or graph
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Nuts and Bolts of Extracting Variability Models from Natural Language Requirements Documents
No full textNatural language (NL) requirements documents are often ambiguous, and this is considered as a source of problems in the later interpretation of requirements. Ambiguity detection tools have been developed with the objective of improving the quality of requirement documents. However, defects as vagueness, optionality, weakness and multiplicity at requirements level can in some cases give an indication of possible variability, either in design and in implementation choices or configurability decisions. Variability information is actually the seed of the software engineering development practice aiming at building families of related systems, known as software product lines. Building on the results of previous analyses conducted on large and real word requirement documents, with QuARS NL analysis tool, we provide here a classification of the forms of ambiguity that indicate variation points, and we illustrate the practical aspects of the approach by means of a simple running example. To provide a more complete description of a line of software products, it is necessary to extrapolate, in addition to variability, also the common elements. To this end we propose here to take advantage of the capabilities of the REGICE tool to extract and cluster the glossary terms from the requirement documents. In summary, we introduce the combined application of two different NL processing tools to extract features and variability and use them to model a software product line
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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