Lyrene Fernandes da Silva

An aspect-oriented approach to business process modeling

Traditional methods to business process modeling build the model in a unified way, which gives rise to complex models, where different concerns are scattered and tangled. In this paper we propose the use of an aspect-oriented approach to modularize business process modeling. We propose a meta Aspect Oriented Process Modeling Language (AOPML) that is independent of any specific business process language. In order to show the applicability of the approach we instantiate it using the Business Process Model Notation (BPMN) in a case study that takes advantage of AOPML.

Semantic vs. syntactic compositions in aspect-oriented requirements engineering: an empirical study

Most current aspect composition mechanisms rely on syntactic references to the base modules or wildcard mechanisms quantifying over such syntactic references in pointcut expressions. This leads to the well-known problem of pointcut fragility. Semantics-based composition mechanisms aim to alleviate such fragility by focusing on the meaning and intention of the composition hence avoiding strong syntactic dependencies on the base modules. However, to date, there are no empirical studies validating whether semantics based composition mechanisms are indeed more expressive and less fragile compared to their syntax-based counterparts. In this paper we present a first study comparing semantics- and syntax-based composition mechanisms in aspect-oriented requirements engineering (AORE). In our empirical study the semantics-based compositions examined were found to be indeed more expressive and less fragile. The semantics-based compositions in the study also required one to reason about composition interdependencies early on hence potentially reducing the overhead of revisions arising from later trade-off analysis and stakeholder negotiations. However, this added to the overhead of specifying the compositions themselves. Furthermore, since the semantics-based compositions considered in the study were based on natural language analysis, they required initial effort investment into lexicon building as well as strongly depended on advanced tool support to expose the natural language semantics.

On the symbiosis of aspect-oriented requirements and architectural descriptions

With iterative development increasingly becoming the de factopractice in mainstream software processes, distinct early lifecycle artifacts need to be synchronized in order to leverage their correspondences. Requirements engineering and software architecture models have been recently enriched with aspect-oriented (AO) abstractions and composition mechanisms. In this context, this paper proposes a symbiotic relation between early AO development phases by specifying mapping rules between a requirements model, AOV-graph, and an architecture description language, AspectualACME. AOV-graph and Aspectual ACME are, respectively, symmetric AO extensions to the V-graph goals model and the ACME language, with features to modularize crosscutting concerns. The meta-models of these modeling languages offer abstractions that are recurrently supported in other requirements models and architectural approaches. Hence, this paper also discusses how the proposed suite of mapping rules can be exploited in other similar approaches. The evaluation of the mappings is carried out in the context of a case study called Health Watcher.

On the integration of the feature model and PL-AOVGraph

In this paper we propose PL-AOVGraph, an extension to the aspect-oriented requirements modeling language, AOV-Graph, to support the definition of software product line requirements. With PL-AOVGraph it is possible to specify requirements and variabilities. In general SPL variabilities are represented using the Feature Model, however, this model does not represent the requirements of the system. PL-AOVGraph and the Feature Model are complementary approaches as they represent different perspectives of a system. With the goal of inserting PLAOVGraph in the SPL development process, this work proposes a bi-directional mapping between PL-AOVGraph and the Feature Model

The AOSD Research Community in Brazil and Its Crosscutting Impact

In this paper, we present the birth, growth, and maturation of Aspect-Oriented Software Development (AOSD) research over the last years, with emphasis on the Brazilian AOSD community and its research contributions. These research contributions are illustrated from different perspectives: (i) an overview of the research work developed by our community in several prominent software engineering areas; (ii) a historical chronology of the community; and (iii) the growth, impact and quality of research outcomes.

Generating Requirements Views: A Transformation-Driven Approach

This paper reports the use of transformations based on XML to generate requirements views. A strategy to generate views is defined and scenarios and class diagrams are automatically created from a goal oriented model; the V-graph.

Comparative Analysis of Architectural Views Based on UML

Abstract The need to model systems and their different aspects leads to research and development of models which support all views of a system. The growing complexity of the software imposes the use of architectures, not only because we want to build accurate systems, but also because we need to understand them. Separating aspects of different views usually helps us to manage software complexity. The current work is an analysis of two important approaches on architectural views and on the use of UML to reason about views. Our goal is to analyze the different aspects addressed by them and how UML is inserted on each of these models.

Exploring Views for Goal-Oriented Requirements Comprehension

Requirements documents and models need to be used by many stakeholders with different technological proficiency during software development. Each stakeholder may need to understand the entire (or simply part of the) requirements artifacts. To empower these stakeholders, views of the requirements should be configurable to their particular needs. This paper uses information visualization techniques to help in this process. It proposes different views aiming at highlighting information that is relevant for a particular stakeholder, helping him to query requirements artifacts. We offer three kinds of visualizations capturing language and domain elements, while providing a gradual model overview: the big picture view, the syntax-based view, and the concern-based view. We instantiate these views with i* models and introduce an implementation prototype in the iStarLab tool.

Eliciting accessibility requirements an approach based on the NFR framework

Accessibility is a particularly relevant quality attribute for web projects. Current web sites and applications do not provide satisfactory accessibility, making access difficult for users with temporary or permanent, personal or technological limitations. Accessibility is typically considered an implementation concern, thus being tackled when the application is almost fully developed, causing additional rework and an increase in costs. Our proposal is to consider this quality requirement earlier, during requirements engineering, therefore avoiding the rework caused by failures, errors and omissions in the design and programming stages. We defined a semi-automatic method to support accessibility requirements elicitation. This method is grounded on goaloriented approaches and on the WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), and is supported by our OmnesWeb tool. Both the method and the tool are evaluated with a case study comprising two different projects.

NFRfinder: a knowledge based strategy for mining non-functional requirements

A challenge in requirements elicitation is to identify quality requirements, i.e. non-functional requirements (hereafter, NFR). In general, stakeholders need NFRs, but these requirements are not always explicit, they can be part of the tacit knowledge. The usual strategy adopted by requirements engineers to elicit NFRs is to act proactively by asking stakeholders their interests in qualities based on lists or catalogs. NFRFinder is a semi-automated process strategy for mining keywords. The strategy uses the keywords to find possible NFRs in unstructured texts, e.g. the meeting minutes that occur during an elicitation task. The strategy relies on catalogs, according to the NFR Framework, as a supporting knowledge base. However, to gain more confidence on the NFRFinder, we have applied it to a set of structured texts. We report on the recall and precision of NFRFinder using a gold standard built from different actors, for requirements sentences. The results are promising, and we point out towards the evolution of NFRFinder.