Computer-aided Software Engineering Tools Research Articles

Consistent Design of Relational Databases using EERCASE

This article introduces EERCASE, a Computer Aided Software Engineering tool that is based on the best practices of the Model Driven Development paradigm to provide a consistent environment for relational database design. EERCASE follows the graphical notation of the Enhanced Entity–Relationship model according to Elmasri and Navathe, implements the EERMM metamodel to avoid syntactically invalid constructs, shows and describes static semantic errors, and generates data definition code that takes into account advanced structural validations. The theoretical and technical framework used for the implementation of EERCASE is discussed, with emphasis on the restrictive and informative validations performed by it. In addition, considering feedbacks on modeling errors and code generation, EERCASE is also presented as a computational environment that favors active learning.

Constructing a Software Tool to Optimize Performance by Coupling Detection

Coupling relations reflect the interdependencies of software modules and can be used to assess a program's quality— Lower the coupling value will be, the higher the quality of the software will be. Coupling measures are crucial for determining the quality of object-oriented software, from design up to maintenance. Inside software engineering, quality attributes are realized non-functional requirements utilized to assess whether the software is of good quality or not, One of the quality attributes is Performance, which means the system can respond to various actions in a given time or how fast does it respond or execute. To calculate the total amount of time a program will require to run until completion use Time Complexity. In this paper a Computer Aided Software Engineering Tool has been constructed which is called CDPI (Coupling Detection to Performance Improvement). It parse a software source code to extract information about its structure, components, and relationships that connect its parts. That leads to improving the software readability, understandability and for detects coupling among classes of Java software.The CDPI tool detects coupling in software source code and Show it in table to the software engineer, To start the process of decoupling by the software engineer for the candidate coupling. The CDPI tool was tested by inputting software written in OOP by Java language. The CDPI Tool were evaluated by calculating the Time Complexity before and after decoupling. Results, source code after the decoupling is executed faster than before decoupling to produce the required output, which is an indication of Optimize Runtime Performance of the program.

Developing collaboration tool for virtual team using UML models

<span>Computer aided software engineering (CASE) uses the unified modelling language UML to produce executable code to visualize software architectural blueprint systems. UML is a standard software modeling language for specifying, constructing, documenting and visualizing the artifacts of produced software-intensive systems. However, UML lacks virtual collaboration regardless of their geographical location. The present work developed a prototype of web-based CASE tool that enables UML modes to manage software projects as a virtual collaboration tool. The present methodology starts with the specification of a set of UML triplets; then, the tool generates the visual models automatically with high quality SVG graphs. The system eliminates the manual diagram requirements based on the UML possibility and supported by three diagrams that involves class and use cases. The independent scripting language was PHP7 and MYSQL 8.0 which was used to save the system data.</span>

Evaluating the benefits of a computer-aided software engineering tool to develop and document product configuration systems

Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools are popular software programs to support the members of the development team (including analysts, designers, coders, database administrators, and project managers) in building new software systems. Up-to-date and consistent knowledge representation and documentation is crucial for companies developing Product Configuration Systems (PCSs). The literature reports various challenges in PCS development, such as maintenance, documentation, knowledge management, resource and time management, system quality, and communication with domain experts as particularly problematic. A CASE tool tailored to the specific needs of PCS development can prove to be useful in tackling at least some of these challenges. Such a CASE tool has to support product models, which means it has to not only allow the representation of the product core architecture and the optional selectable features, but also ensure consistency between representations (views) and deliver forward or reverse engineering. This enables support and automates, at least partially, the development in general and the implementation stage. The focus and main contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we describe the view-based approach required to fully conceptualise the knowledge to generate PCS software from the CASE tool. To this end, the tool indeed includes four different views to build or edit all the required knowledge. Second, we validate this CASE tool within two case companies, wherein we evaluate its application on a project each time it is used. The results show that the use of the CASE tool increases the quality of PCS documentation and saves time and resources while also improving the PCS’s overall quality.

Extending Drag-and-Drop Actions-Based Model-to-Model Transformations with Natural Language Processing

Model-to-model (M2M) transformations are among the key components of model-driven development, enabling a certain level of automation in the process of developing models. The developed solution of using drag-and-drop actions-based M2M transformations contributes to this purpose by providing a flexible, reusable, customizable, and relatively easy-to-use transformation method and tool support. The solution uses model-based transformation specifications triggered by user-initiated drag-and-drop actions within the model deployed in a computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tool environment. The transformations are called partial M2M transformations, meaning that a specific user-defined fragment of the source model is being transformed into a specific fragment of the target model and not running the whole model-level transformation. In this paper, in particular, we present the main aspects of the developed extension to that M2M transformation method, delivering a set of natural language processing (NLP) techniques on both the conceptual and implementation level. The paper addresses relevant developments and topics in the field of natural language processing and presents a set of operators that can be used to satisfy the needs of advanced textual preprocessing in the scope of M2M transformations. Also in this paper, we describe the extensions to the previous M2M transformation metamodel necessary for enabling the solution’s NLP-related capabilities. The usability and actual benefits of the proposed extension are introduced by presenting a set of specific partial M2M transformation use cases where natural language processing provides actual solutions to previously unsolvable situations when using the previous M2M transformation development.

THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE AXIOMATIC SYSTEM OF MULTIVALUED DEPENDENCIES IN RELATION (TABLE) DATABASES

Context. The complexity of understanding the concept of multivalued dependencies (when setting out their theoretical foundations, an axiomatic approach is used) in relational (table) databases leads to problems of their modeling, which in turn can cause a violation of data integrity. A partial solution to these issues is facilitated by the search for equivalent axiomatic systems of multivalued dependencies that are minimal in terms of the number and power of their components. This, in turn, requires establishing the equivalence of these axiomatic systems and proving the independence of their elements. The object of the study is the axiomatisations of multivalued dependencies.The purpose of the work is to establish the equivalence of two axiomatic systems of multivalued dependencies, one of which is minimal in terms of the number and power of components, and to prove the independence of specified axiomatics. Method. Set-theoretic and logical-algebraic methods are used in the construction of proofs. The equivalence of two axiomatic systems of multivalued dependencies is established classically: the relation of syntactic inference is considered and sequences of multivalued dependencies are constructed that are proofs of the rules of each axiomatics from the components of the other. To build proof of independence of the axiomatic system, models of relational schemes are proposed, such that for an axiom or rule whose independence is being proved, it is impossible to construct proof from set of other axioms or rules.Results. Equivalence of the axiomatisation of multivalued dependencies proposed by a group of scientists Beeri, Fagin and Howard and the Biskup’s axiomatisation of multivalued dependencies has been established. The independence of the Biskup’s axiomatic system is proved in the sense that without loss of completeness it is impossible to remove neither the only axiom nor none of the inference rules.Conclusions. The independence of the Biskup’s axiomatisation of multivalued dependencies, which has no more in number and power of components than other axiomatic systems of multivalued dependencies, is proved. Using such axiomatic system has advantages in the development of CASE-tools (Computer-Aided Software Engineering Tools), which include the implementation of reducing the relational database schema to the fourth normal form, and also, when manually designing a logical model of a relational database.

Construction of specialized Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools for the development of expert systems

This report presents an approach to building specialized computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tools for the development of expert systems. These tools form an integrated development environment allowing the computer aided development of different applications in the appropriate field. The integrated environment which we consider in our report represents the combination of SWI-PROLOG and Data Base Management System (DBMS) PostgreSQL tools. SWI-PROLOG provides the most appropriate tools for the solution of logical tasks in expert systems. However, SWI-PROLOG cannot manage large amounts of data. Therefore, we need to apply an appropriate data base management system to extend the capability of the knowledge base. For this purpose we used the most advanced open source PostgreSQL tools. As a result of our research we have created tools enabling the compatibility of SWI-PROLOG and DBMS PostgreSQL within the integrated development environment.

An MDE-based approach for self-adaptive RTES model generation

Raising the design abstraction level has been, since many years, a prominent solution to decrease the complexity of self-adaptive real time embedded systems (RTES) and increase productivity. However, the manual specification and integration of the adaptive behavior into the system model is still presenting a big handicap for designers. There is a lack of Computer Aided Software Engineering tools and methodologies that permit to automate the generation of self-adaptive RTES models. Therefore, designers need an expertise in the adaptation domain as well as the modeling language and much time for manual work. At the aim of solving these problems, we propose, in this paper, a Model Driven Engineering based approach that permits to guide the automatic transformation of a classic Y-chart RTES model into a self-adaptive model based on design patterns. A model-based interactive process is developed to enable the generation of self-adaptive models for RTES based on the instantiation, integration and specialization of design patterns. The generated system model is then mapped to the input of a simulation platform in order to perform the non-functional properties verification and simulate the system reconfiguration, if needed. The proposed approach is tested and validated through a case study of an embedded video conferencing system which is CPU and network bandwidth-constrained.

The Use of Natural Language Processing Approach for Converting Pseudo Code to C# Code

Abstract Although current computer-aided software engineering tools support developers in composing a program, there is no doubt that more flexible supportive tools are needed to address the increases in the complexity of programs. This need can be met by automating the intellectual activities that are carried out by humans when composing a program. This paper aims to automate the composition of a programming language code from pseudocode, which is viewed here as a translation process for a natural language text, as pseudocode is a formatted text in natural English language. Based on this view, a new automatic code generator is developed that can convert pseudocode to C# programming language code. This new automatic code generator (ACG), which is called CodeComposer, uses natural language processing (NLP) techniques such as verb classification, thematic roles, and semantic role labeling (SRL) to analyze the pseudocode. The resulting analysis of linguistic information from these techniques is used by a semantic rule-based mapping machine to perform the composition process. CodeComposer can be viewed as an intelligent computer-aided software engineering (I_CASE) tool. An evaluation of the accuracy of CodeComposer using a binomial technique shows that it has a precision of 88%, a recall of 91%, and an F-measure of 89%.

The Use of Natural Language Processing Approach for Converting Pseudo Code to C# Code

Although current computer-aided software engineering tools support developers in composing a program, there is no doubt that more flexible supportive tools are needed to address the increases in the complexity of programs. This need can be met by automating the intellectual activities that are carried out by humans when composing a program. This paper aims to automate the composition of a programming language code from pseudocode, which is viewed here as a translation process for a natural language text, as pseudocode is a formatted text in natural English language. Based on this view, a new automatic code generator is developed that can convert pseudocode to C# programming language code. This new automatic code generator (ACG), which is called CodeComposer, uses natural language processing (NLP) techniques such as verb classification, thematic roles, and semantic role labeling (SRL) to analyze the pseudocode. The resulting analysis of linguistic information from these techniques is used by a semantic rule-based mapping machine to perform the composition process. CodeComposer can be viewed as an intelligent computer-aided software engineering (I_CASE) tool. An evaluation of the accuracy of CodeComposer using a binomial technique shows that it has a precision of 88%, a recall of 91%, and an F-measure of 89%.

Data-Centric UML Profile for Wireless Sensors

Modelling WSN data behaviour is relevant since it would allow to evaluate the capacity of an application for supplying the user needs, moreover, it could enable a transparent integration with different data-centric information systems. Therefore, this article proposes a data-centric UML profile for the design of wireless sensor nodes from the user point-of-view capable of representing the gathered and delivered data of the node. This profile considers different characteristics and configurations of frequency, aggregation, persistence and quality at the level of the wireless sensor nodes. Furthermore, this article validates the UML profile through a computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tool implementation and one case study, centred on the data collected by a real WSN implementation for precision agriculture and smart farming.

Artificial intelligence for software development — the present and the challenges for the future

Since the time when first CASE (Computer-Aided Software Engineering) methods and tools were developed, little has been done in the area of automated creation of code. CASE tools support a software engineer in creation the system structure, in defining interfaces and relationships between software modules and, after the code has been written, in performing testing tasks on different levels of detail. Writing code is still the task of a skilled human, which makes the whole software development a costly and error-prone process. It seems that recent advances in AI area, particularly in deep learning methods, may considerably improve the matters. The paper presents an extensive survey of recent work and achievements in this area reported in the literature, both from the theoretical branch of research and from engineer-oriented approaches. Then, some challenges for the future work are proposed, classified into Full AI, Assisted AI and Supplementary AI research fields. Keywords: software development, artificial intelligence, machine learning, automated code generation

تصميم وتحليل نظام خبير لقياس جودة البرمجيات باستخدام EAOMT

في هذا البحث ، تم تصميم أداة هندسة البرمجيات بمساعدة الكمبيوتر (أداة الحالة) والتي تسمى (التحليل الخبير لأداة المقاييس EAFMT) والتي تُستخدم في نشاط التصميم ، وتنفذ هذه الأداة إحدى تقنيات الذكاء الاصطناعي الشهيرة وهي الأنظمة الخبيرة ، تقييم وتحسين جودة النظام تلقائيًا. تقيس هذه الأداة جودة البرمجيات في نشاط التصميم ، ويعتمد عملها على تحليل الرسوم البيانية للفئة (الرسم التخطيطي للفئة هو أحد مخططات لغة النمذجة الموحدة (UML)) ، والذي يتم عن طريق إنشاء محلل يستخرج المعلومات الضرورية للعثور على مقاييس التصميم ، ثم يتم تقييم كل مقياس بمفرده داخل نظام الخبراء. تهدف هذه الأداة إلى تقليل الموارد المستخدمة والوقت الضخم الذي يقضيه في فحص البرامج المتعلقة بالتصميم ، وتضمن أيضًا جودة عالية للنظام المُنتَج كما توقع العميل والمستخدم. تم اختبار أداء هذه الأداة من خلال تطبيق الرسم التخطيطي لآلة الصراف الآلي للأجهزة المحمولة (الذي تم إنشاؤه باستخدام البرمجة الموجهة للكائنات) عليها ، ونجحت في تحليل وتقييم جودة المخطط بناءً على الأنظمة الخبيرة.

Formal Specification and Verification of Few Combined Fragments of UML Sequence Diagram

UML has become a de-facto standard for design and development of object-oriented systems. On the other hand, UML includes various diagrams and notations which are missing of formal semantics. There does not exist much work to transform completely UML models to executable codes by any of the computer-aided software engineering tools because of the hidden semantics under the UML diagrams. Moreover, UML models cannot be used for automated analysis for validation and verification of the systems. Therefore, an integration of UML and semantics-based techniques such as formal methods is required to overcome such type of issues. Further, proof of correctness of software models plays a key role to ensure the quality of the final system to be developed. This paper presents a systematic method for transformation and verification of UML sequence diagrams into Z specification. The method works by translating and analysing few important combined fragments of sequence diagrams using Z notation. At first, formal specification of primary constructs is provided by capturing the hidden semantics under the diagram. Formal analysis of interaction operators namely options, alternatives, loops and break of the fragments is provided. The combined fragments are important because it allows multiple scenarios to increase an expressive power of sequence diagram by various control flows. Finally, formal analysis is provided by Z/Eves tool to check the syntax, type and proof for consistency and correctness of the specification.

Software development methodology for computer based I&C systems of prototype fast breeder reactor

Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) is sodium cooled reactor which is in the advanced stage of construction in Kalpakkam, India. Versa Module Europa bus based Real Time Computer (RTC) systems are deployed for Instrumentation & Control of PFBR. RTC systems have to perform safety functions within the stipulated time which calls for highly dependable software. Hence, well defined software development methodology is adopted for RTC systems starting from the requirement capture phase till the final validation of the software product. V-model is used for software development. IEC 60880 standard and AERB SG D-25 guideline are followed at each phase of software development. Requirements documents and design documents are prepared as per IEEE standards. Defensive programming strategies are followed for software development using C language. Verification and validation (V&V) of documents and software are carried out at each phase by independent V&V committee. Computer aided software engineering tools are used for software modelling, checking for MISRA C compliance and to carry out static and dynamic analysis. Various software metrics such as cyclomatic complexity, nesting depth and comment to code are checked. Test cases are generated using equivalence class partitioning, boundary value analysis and cause and effect graphing techniques. System integration testing is carried out wherein functional and performance requirements of the system are monitored.

A Technique for Metamodeling Diagram Types with Tool Support

Some domain-specific modeling languages (DSMLs) use different diagram types but these are not explicitly included in metamodels. The definition of diagram types is an increasing demand for some computer-aided software engineering tools for DSMLs. The current work presents a technique that allows designers to define diagram types of DSMLs with metamodels in a straightforward and tool-supported way. This technique also facilitates the processing of models when some elements appear in several diagrams, by including a single dictionary of all the entities and their relationships. The presented technique is supported with a novel tool called diagram-type editor tool (DTET). DTET receives input from a DSML metamodel and allows designers to define a set of diagram types with a graphical user interface. Then, DTET generates a metamodel with these diagram-type definitions. For the evaluation, 39 testers from five different countries (Spain, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Ecuador and France) experienced the presented approach and other alternatives, measuring the times of definition and the numbers of mistakes. The results show that the presented technique and DTET are faster and less error-prone for the definition of diagram types than the alternatives with statistically significant differences.

Design and implementation of spatial database and geo-processing models for a road geo-hazard information management and risk assessment system

This paper presents a development process of a web-based road geo-hazard information management and risk assessment system which is named RGHIMS. Two technological fields, the design and implementation of an object-oriented spatial database of geo-hazard and the model building for automatic geo-hazard analysis, were discussed, respectively. In the beginning, this paper presented a detailed description of the architecture of RGHIMS where the presentation model pattern was applied in. Taking account of the attributes and behaviors of road geo-hazard data, an object-oriented geodatabase was created using unified modeling language and computer-aided software engineering tools which were provided by ArcSDE (ESRI). Furthermore, this paper discussed the steps needed for developing python-based geo-processing tools in ArcGIS, and introduced the realization of a landslide susceptibility mapping model based on the spatial database. The system has been applied in Guizhou province (a mountainous area located in the southwest of China) to assist road construction and management units in making decision to control geologic hazards and to reduce human vulnerability.

Incremental semantic analysis for OCL compilers

In software engineering, modeling with unified modeling language and object constraint language became industry standards and are supported by many computer-aided software engineering tools. The increasing number of the modeled functionalities results in complex models that need more and more textual constraints to express the hidden restrictions applied to the systems. During the metamodel development, rebuilding all the constraints is unnecessary when only a few changes have been applied due to the iterative, incremental manner of modifications. In this paper, we present a family of algorithms that handles the changes in constraints incrementally on the expression level; thus, the required rebuilds are kept to a minimum. Incremental variable reference resolving and type checking are performed as a part of the incremental semantic analysis. Balancing between the incremental and standard compilation is also considered, heuristics are given to select the faster method of compilation at each iteration. With the achieved results the duration of metamodel development can be decreased; thus, the efficiency of the environment is improved.

Implementing Business Processes

Database triggers are database procedures that are executed automatically when certain events occur and conditions are met. This paper presents a design methodology that helps users implement business processes using database triggers. The contributions of this paper are as follows. First, the proposed methodology uses the Unified Modeling Language (UML). UML is a standard modeling language for the software industry and many commercial CASE (Computer-Aided Software Engineering) tools support UML. Second, many expensive ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software systems are employed to implement business processes. The methodology proposed by this paper produces triggers that can be executed on MySQL, an open-source database system that is free for download. Third, as an example of the usefulness of the proposed methodology, the authors present a case study making use of database triggers in a tax audit process. This process involves many steps that require human intervention, and thus is typical of business processes.

Suggest a Reverse Engineering Tool to Analyze the Software Source Code Written in Java

Reverse engineering has presented solution to a major problem in the development and maintenance of the legacy software which is the process of understanding these software types, It is a difficult task because most of legacy software lacked a proper documentation or a correct design model. Unified Modeling Language has an important and great role in determine (extract) the specifications of the software in accordance with the principles of the reverse engineering and modeling it using one of its types which is a Class Diagram. Reverse Engineering Class Diagram is an abstract representation gives an overview of the software structure and it does not give full information about the internal details and the relationships of software components. In this research a computer aided software engineering tool has been constructed which is called RMDT (Relational Meta Data Table). It bases on constructing an interpreter of an entered software source code analyzing to extract an information that assist in understanding the structure of the software and to clarify its components and the relationships that bind its parts (internal structural of the entered software). The RMDT tool represents the information in tables which have been designed in a highly flexible manner and be suitable for use in the future when applying software re-engineering on the entered software. Furthermore ,the research has studied and tested several of most common software engineering tools which used to implement reverse engineering like (Reverse, ArgoUML, Rational rose, Enterprise Architecture (EA), class2uml, Together). The analysis focused on these tools to produce class diagram of the software source code written in Java. The produced class diagram includes the number of classes, relationship types among classes and the common classes. However, the obtained results from the RMDT tool has been compared with those obtained from others. The produced tables from RMDT tool includes all the information required to recover the design, as they used to produce a class diagram, due to the availability of class, method, variables names, method parameter names, interface, relationships (association, dependency and Generalization) and identify visibility while no such details found in a class diagram that produced by other tools.