Current Issue : April - June Volume : 2012 Issue Number : 2 Articles : 4 Articles
Requirements taxonomies have been found useful in software requirements elicitation and specification, both for educational\r\npurposes and in practical usage, for instance, as checklists to ensure that important categories of requirements are not forgotten,\r\nand for guidance on how to write various types of requirements. While mobile information systems are becoming increasingly\r\nimportant, traditional requirements taxonomies do not have any category for mobility requirements. This paper reports on a\r\ncontrolled experiment where two groups of students both got the same excerpts of the well-known Volere requirements taxonomy,\r\nbut for one treatment group the tutorial material was also extended with additional material on mobility requirements as a\r\nrequirements category in its own right. Using the provided taxonomy material for guidance, the students were asked to write\r\nrequirements for a system presented in a natural language case description; afterwards their output was analyzed to score the\r\nnumber and quality of requirements found by each student. The main finding was that the students using the extended taxonomy\r\nalso found more requirements, but there was no significant difference in the quality of requirements between the two groups....
This paper presents an approach to automatically analyzing programspectra, an execution profile of programtesting results for fault\r\nlocalization. Using a mathematical theory of evidence for uncertainty reasoning, the proposed approach estimates the likelihood\r\nof faulty locations based on evidence from program spectra. Our approach is theoretically grounded and can be computed\r\nonline. Therefore, we can predict fault locations immediately after each test execution is completed. We evaluate the approach\r\nby comparing its performance with the top three performing fault localizers using a benchmark set of real-world programs. The\r\nresults show that our approach is at least as effective as others with an average effectiveness (the reduction of the amount of code\r\nexamined to locate a fault) of 85.6% over 119 versions of the programs.We also study the quantity and quality impacts of program\r\nspectra on our approach where the quality refers to the spectra support in identifying that a certain unit is faulty. The results show\r\nthat the effectiveness of our approach slightly improves with a larger number of failed runs but not with a larger number of passed\r\nruns. Program spectra with support quality increases from 1% to 100% improves the approach�s effectiveness by 3.29%....
Any organization that develops software strives to improve the quality of its products. To do this first requires an understanding\r\nof the quality of the current product version. Then, by iteratively making changes, the software can be improved with subsequent\r\nversions. But this must be done in a systematic and methodical way, and, for this purpose, we have developed a specific strategy\r\ncalled SIQinU (Strategy for understanding and Improving Quality in Use). SIQinU recognizes problems of quality in use through\r\nevaluation of a real system-in-use situation and proposes product improvements by understanding and making changes to the\r\nproduct�s attributes. Then, reevaluating quality in use of the new version, improvement gains can be gauged along with the changes\r\nthat led to those improvements. SIQinU aligns with GOCAME (Goal-Oriented Context-Aware Measurement and Evaluation), a\r\nmultipurpose generic strategy previously developed for measurement and evaluation, which utilizes a conceptual framework (with\r\nontological base), a process, and methods and tools. Since defining SIQinU relies on numerous phase and activity definitions, in\r\nthis paper, we model different process views, for example, taking into account activities, interdependencies, artifacts, and roles,\r\nwhile illustrating them with excerpts from a real-case study....
This paper presents an economics-based approach for studying the problem of resource allocation among software development\r\nphases. Our approach is structured along two parallel axes: theoretical and empirical.We developed a general economic model for\r\nanalyzing the allocation problem as a constrained profit maximization problem. The model, based on a novel concept of software\r\nproduction function, considers the effects of different allocations of development resources on output measures of the resulting\r\nsoftware product. An empirical environment for evaluating and refining the model is presented, and a first exploratory study for\r\ncharacterizing the model�s components and developers� resource allocation decisions is described. The findings illustrate how the\r\nmodel can be applied and validate its underlying assumptions and usability. Future quantitative empirical studies can refine and\r\nsubstantiate various aspects of the proposed model and ultimately improve the productivity of software development processes....
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