On the use of a formal requirements engineering language: The Generalized Railroad Crossing Problem

In this paper, we report on the use of theAlbert II requirements specification language through the handling of the Generalized Railroad Crossing case study. This formal language is based on an ontology of concepts used for capturing requirements inherent in real-time, distributed systems. Because of itsnaturalness, the language supports a direct mapping of customers’ informal needs onto formal statements, without having to introduce artificial elements. The language is founded on a formal framework (real-time temporal logic) which supports the reasoning process of the analyst during the elaboration of the specification. Such support for the reasoning is illustrated in the context of a goal-oriented approach adopted for the elaboration of the case study.     

Model-driven engineering of process control software – beyond device-centric abstractions

This paper presents a new, two-level, model-driven engineering approach to industrial process control software. The first level (infrastructure engineering) is concerned with the following: the definition of the development process and guidelines, the definition of a domain-specific modeling language, the specification of the model transformations, and the development of a tool suite. This tool suite enables modeling of the process control software and the automatic code generation for programmable logic controllers. In the second level (application engineering), the process control software is engineered using the results of the infrastructure level. The approach is demonstrated on excerpts from an industrial project.     

一种软件需求描述语言的设计与实现

提出了一种面向软件行为的需求建模方法和需求描述语言BDL,介绍了需求描述语言的设计和实现方法。利用此需求建模可以根据用户的需求信息寻找出目标系统的有效行为,建立目标系统的行为模型。该行为模型可以帮助用户和开发人员正确认识和理解目标系统的行为,而且能为以后自动检测系统的各种特性提供良好的基础。     

PREVISE: A knowledge-based system to support the preparation and verification of space operations procedures

This paper presents the Previse system for preparing and verifying operations procedures, developed in the frame of a project conducted by Matra Marconi Space for the European Space Agency ESA/ESTEC. This knowledge-based system supports an evolutive procedures language (syntax and vocabulary). It improves the efficiency of procedures preparation by providing powerful editing facilities, by checking the validity of the syntax used by procedures writers, and by automating the formatting task. It also provides a set of verification mechanisms allowing to detect different types of semantic errors in procedures.     

GSL: a requirements specification language for end-user intelligibility

Software Requirements Specifications (SRS) have been used to fill the communication gap between systems analysts and the end-users. SRSs should satisfy the needs of both systems analysts and end-users. Non-technical end-users require intelligible SRSs while systems analysts need more precise, clear and concise SRSs. Object-oriented methods cannot represent temporal relations between events precisely. However, object-oriented principles are widely used in systems analysis and designing. Hence, there is a need for a software requirements specification language which supports object-oriented analysis methods, represents temporal knowledge precisely and whose representation scheme resembles natural languages. The specification language presented in this paper, GSL, is designed to meet the above requirements. The language is based on First-order Temporal Logic (FTL), which has temporal operators in addition to classical logical connectives and quantifiers. Since FTL cannot represent relative temporal knowledge and it inherits problems with point-based time models, a new logical connective TAND and redefined AND connective are used to represent relative temporal knowledge and to solve the problems with FTL. The language employs object-oriented principles: events, conditions, rules and activities can be represented as objects as well as attributes of an object. However, systems analysts can decide whether to use object-oriented conceptual modeling or not. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A unified formal basis for the CASE tools system

XYZ system is a CASE tools system based on a temporal logic language XYZ/E which can represent every essential feature of conventional HLL's (sequential or concurrent), specifications of different levels, production rules, operational semantics of graphic languages in a uniform framework. With this formal language as the common basis, all the CASE tools including various kinds of graphic tools for distributed process, concurrent programs with phased memory and sequential programs, tools for verification, rapid-prototyping, language transformation, and module management can be connected freely to form more sophisticated and integrated systems.     

Process fusion: An industrial case study on agile software product line engineering

This paper presents a case study of a software product company that has successfully integrated practices from software product line engineering and agile software development. We show how practices from the two fields support the company’s strategic and tactical ambitions, respectively. We also discuss how the company integrates strategic, tactical and operational processes to optimize collaboration and consequently improve its ability to meet market needs, opportunities and challenges. The findings from this study are relevant to software product companies seeking ways to balance agility and product management. The findings also contribute to research on industrializing software engineering.     

Forty years of research on personality in software engineering: A mapping study

In this article, we present a systematic mapping study of research on personality in software engineering. The goal is to plot the landscape of current published empirical and theoretical studies that deal with the role of personality in software engineering. We applied the systematic review method to search and select published articles, and to extract and synthesize data from the selected articles that reported studies about personality. Our search retrieved more than 19,000 articles, from which we selected 90 articles published between 1970 and 2010. Nearly 72% of the studies were published after 2002 and 83% of the studies reported empirical research findings. Data extracted from the 90 studies showed that education and pair programming were the most recurring research topics, and that MBTI was the most used test. Research related to pair programming, education, team effectiveness, software process allocation, software engineer personality characteristics, and individual performance concentrated over 88% of the studies, while team process, behavior and preferences, and leadership performance were the topics with the smallest number of studies. We conclude that the number of articles has grown in the last few years, but contradictory evidence was found that might have been caused by differences in context, research method, and versions of the tests used in the studies. While this raises a warning for practitioners that wish to use personality tests in practice, it shows several opportunities for the research community to improve and extend findings in this field.     

A survey on software defined networking and its applications

Software defined networking (SDN) achieves network routing management with logically centralized control software that decouples the network data plane from the control plane. This new design paradigm greatly emancipates network innovation. This paper introduces the background of SDN technology with its design principles, explains its differentiation, and summarizes the research efforts on SDN network architecture, components and applications. Based on the observation of current SDN development, this paper analyzes the potential driving forces of SDN deployment and its future trend.     

Experience report: evolution of a web‐integrated software development and verification environment

This paper summarizes our experiences over the last 4 years in creating a web‐integrated software development and verification environment. The environment has been used for both research experimentation and education. It has been used in undergraduate computer science courses to teach modular software development and analytical reasoning principles at multiple institutions. In the process, the environment has undergone many refinements to meet demands for improved functionality and to leverage rapidly changing underlying technology for the improvements. The environment is tailored to present formal specifications and alternative implementations of components, and enable correctness checking through a server‐side verifying compiler. This paper presents a detailed account of the development and evolution of the environment—its functionality, user interface, and underlying technology—that we hope will serve as a model for others, especially as the benefits of online learning systems are becoming increasingly obvious. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.