Skip to main content

Ontology-Based Inconsistency Management of Software Requirements Specifications

  • Conference paper

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 3381))

Abstract

Management of requirements inconsistency is key to the development of trustworthy software systems. But at present, although there are a lot of work on this topic, most of them are limited in treating inconsistency at the syntactic level. We still lack a systematical method for managing requirements inconsistency at the semantic level.

This paper first proposes a requirements refinement model, which suggests that interactions between software agents and their ambiences are essential to capture the semantics of requirements. We suppose that the real effect of these interactions is to make the states of entities in the ambiences changed. So, we explicitly represent requirements of a software agent as a set of state transition diagrams, each of which is for one entity in the ambiences. We argue that, based on this model, the mechanism to deal with the inconsistency at the semantic level. A domain ontology is used as an infrastructure to detect, diagnose and resolve the inconsistency.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Nuseibeh, B., Easterbrook, S., Russo, A.: Leveraging Inconsistency in Software Development. IEEE Computer 33(4), 24–29 (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Spanoudakis, G., Zisman, A.: Inconsistency Management in Software Engineering: Survey and Open Research Issues. In: Chang, S. (ed.) Handbook of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, pp. 329–380. World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  3. Nuseibeh, B.: To be and not to be: On managing inconsistency in software development. In: Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Software Specification and Design, Germany, pp. 164–169 (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Jackson, M.: The meaning of Requirements. Annuals of Software Engineering 3, 5–21 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Jin, Z., Lu, R., Bell, D.: Automatically MultiParadigm Requirements Modeling and Analyzing: An Ontology-Based Approach. Science in China (Series F) 46(4), 279–297 (2003)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  6. Lamsweerde, V., Darimont, R., Letier, E.: Managing Conflict in Goal-Driven Requirements Engineering. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 24(11), 908–926 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Spanoudakis, G., Finkelstein, A.: Reconciling Requirements: A Method for Managing Interference, Inconsistency and Conflict. Annuals of Software Engineering 3, 433–457 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Heitmeyer, C., Jeffords, R., Kiskis, D.: Automated Consistency Checking Requirements Specifications. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodlogy 5(3), 231–261 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Clarke, S., Murphy, J., Roantree, M.: Composition of UML Design Models: A Tool to Support the Resolution of Conflicts. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Object-Oriented Information Systems, pp. 464–479. Springer, Heidelberg (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Finkelstein, A., Dowell, J.: A Comedy of Errors: The London Ambulance Service Case Study. In: Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Software Specification and Design, pp. 2–4. IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos (1996)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Zhu, X., Jin, Z. (2005). Ontology-Based Inconsistency Management of Software Requirements Specifications. In: Vojtáš, P., Bieliková, M., Charron-Bost, B., Sýkora, O. (eds) SOFSEM 2005: Theory and Practice of Computer Science. SOFSEM 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3381. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30577-4_37

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30577-4_37

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-24302-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-30577-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics