Browsing by Subject "Computer software selection and evaluation"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6

Open Access
Architecture framework for software safety
(Springer, 2014-09) Gürbüz, Havva Gülay; Pala Er, N.; Tekinerdoğan, Bedir
Currently, an increasing number of systems are controlled by soft- ware and rely on the correct operation of software. In this context, a safety- critical system is defined as a system in which malfunctioning software could result in death, injury or damage to environment. To mitigate these serious risks, the architecture of safety-critical systems needs to be carefully designed and analyzed. A common practice for modeling software architecture is the adoption of software architecture viewpoints to model the architecture for par- ticular stakeholders and concerns. Existing architecture viewpoints tend to be general purpose and do not explicitly focus on safety concerns in particular. To provide a complementary and dedicated support for designing safety critical systems, we propose an architecture framework for software safety. The archi- tecture framework is based on a metamodel that has been developed after a tho- rough domain analysis. The framework includes three coherent viewpoints, each of which addressing an important concern. The application of the view- points is illustrated for an industrial case of safety-critical avionics control computer system. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.
Open Access
Architecture-based testing and system validation: workshop summary
(IEEE, 2011-06) Tekinerdoğan, Bedir; Clements, P.; Muccini, H.; Chaudron, M.; Polini, A.; Woods, E.
This paper summarizes the workshop on Architecture-Based Testing and System Validation which was organized in conjunction with the 9th Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture. The main goal of the workshop was to bring together researchers and practitioners both from the architecture design and software testing community to enable architecture-based software testing. © 2011 IEEE.
Open Access
Are software engineers' responses to incomplete requirements related to project characteristics?
(IEEE, 2009) Albayrak, Özlem; Albayrak, Duygu; Kiliç, T.
Software requirements quality affects software product quality. For high-quality software products, software requirements must be complete. When faced with incomplete requirements, software engineers attempt to fill the requirements' gaps differently, either by getting feedback from the user or by making assumptions. Assumptions may be explicit or implicit. Explicit assumptions are preferable to implicit assumptions as explicit assumptions can be validated. We conduct an empirical study to determine whether the number of explicit assumptions made by software engineers is related to a project's characteristics. Using data from two CMMI Level 3 companies and 16 projects, we investigated the responses of 92 software engineers to the same incomplete software requirement. Our findings show possible relationships between projects' characteristics and the number of explicit assumptions. ©2009 IEEE.
Open Access
An experiment to observe the impact of UML diagrams on the effectiveness of software requirements inspections
(IEEE, 2009) Albayrak, Özlem
Software inspections aim to find defects early in the development process and studies have found them to be effective. However, there is almost no data available regarding the impact of UML diagram utilization in software requirements specification documents on inspection effectiveness. This paper addresses this issue by investigating whether inclusion of UML diagrams impacts the effectiveness of requirements inspection. We conducted an experiment in an academic environment with 35 subjects to empirically investigate the impact of UML diagram inclusion on requirements inspections' effectiveness and the number of reported defects. The results show that including UML diagrams in requirements specification document significantly impacts the number of reported defects, and there is no significant impact on the effectiveness of individual i nspections. © 2009 IEEE.
Open Access
Flora: a framework for decomposing software architecture to introduce local recovery
(John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2009-07) Sözer, H.; Tekinerdoǧan, B.; Akşit, M.
The decomposition of software architecture into modular units is usually driven by the required quality concerns. In this paper we focus on the impact of local recovery concern on the decomposition of the software system. For achieving local recovery, the system needs to be decomposed into separate units that can be recovered in isolation. However, it appears that this required decomposition for recovery is usually not aligned with the decomposition based on functional concerns. Moreover, introducing local recovery to a software system, while preserving the existing decomposition, is not trivial and requires substantial development and maintenance effort. To reduce this effort we propose a framework that supports the decomposition and implementation of software architecture for local recovery. The framework provides reusable abstractions for defining recoverable units and the necessary coordination and communication protocols for recovery. We discuss our experiences in the application and evaluation of the framework for introducing local recovery to the open-source media player called MPlayer. Copyright 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Open Access
Impact of maintainability defects on code inspections
(ACM, 2010) Albayrak, Özlem; Davenport, David
Software inspections are effective ways to detect defects early in the development process. In this paper, we analyze the impact of certain defect types on the effectiveness of code inspection. We conducted an experiment in an academic environment with 88 subjects to empirically investigate the effect of two maintainability defects, i.e., indentation and naming conventions, on the number of functional defects found, the effectiveness of functional defect detections, and the number of false positives reported during individual code inspections. Results show that in cases where both naming conventions and indentation defects exist, the participants found minimum number of defects and reported the highest number of false positives, as compared to the cases where either indentation or naming defects exist. Among maintainability defects, indentation seems to significantly impact the number of functional defects found by the inspector, while the presence of naming conventions defects seems to have no significant impact on the number of functional defects detected. The presence of maintainability defects significantly impacts the number of false positives reported. On the effectiveness of individual code inspectors we observed no significant impact originated from the presence of indentation or naming convention defects. © 2010 ACM.