Ismênia Galvão

Knowledge-Based graph exploration analysis

In a context where graph transformation is used to explore a space of possible solutions to a given problem, it is almost always necessary to inspect candidate solutions for relevant properties. This means that there is a need for a flexible mechanism to query not only graphs but also their evolution. In this paper we show how to use Prolog queries to analyse graph exploration. Queries can operate both on the level of individual graphs and on the level of the transformation steps, enabling a very powerful and flexible analysis method. This has been implemented in the graph-based verification tool groove. As an application of this approach, we show how it gives rise to a competitive analysis technique in the domain of feature modelling.

Concern-Based Assessment of Architectural Stability: A Comparative Study

A concern is any consideration that can impact the software architecture and other artefacts. Sustaining stability of concerns realised in architectural designs is essential to obtain long-lasting software products. It is often assumed that concern assessment mechanisms are effective to predict architecture stability. They ought to exert a positive or detrimental effect on software stability. In fact, there is a growing variety of concern assessment mechanisms to support the quantification of concern properties in software artefacts. They range from metrics that compute basic concern characteristics – such as concern tangling and scattering – to patterns that represent recurring concern structures. However, the vast majority of concern assessment mechanisms has not been empirically validated yet. This paper presents a comparative study on the efficacy of a family of concern metrics and patterns to support architectural stability analysis. The correlation of concern properties and architecture instabilities is determined by quantifying the Spearman Correlation indicator. This study relies on several releases of two evolving software systems, where the architectural instabilities have been previously and independently documented.

Using design rationale to improve SPL traceability

In order to improve SPL traceability by using design rationale, this chapter introduces the traceability analysis framework (TAF), which, when combined with the AMPLE Traceability Framework, provides extra traceability capabilities for variability management. The TAF is a programmable and extensible framework that aims to support the product line developers to understand the context, evolution and shortcomings in the design by means of the simulation of the design and the explanation of design rationale. Good expressiveness of the design rationale and the design issues is obtained by making the distinction between model-level semantics and method-level semantics clear and sepatately verifiable. Traceability is based on verifying both semantics, querying the design rationale and querying the model dependencies.

La traçabilité dans les lignes de produits logiciels

Traceability is defined as the possibility to correlate the various artefacts (from requirement to source code) generated when developing software. In the context of software product line development, the problem is made even harder due to some characteristics specific to this software development approach. In this paper we discuss these problems specific to traceability for software product line development. We propose a taxonomy of traceability links. We also present a model to manage traceability of design decisions in the presence of uncertainty.