Modeling Non-functional Requirements Research Articles

An Extended Rule of the SysML Requirement Diagram Transformation into OWL Ontologies

The System Modeling Language (SysML) used the Requirement Diagram to model non-functional requirements, such as response time, size, or system functionality, which cannot be accommodated in the Unified Modeling Language (UML). SysML Requirement Diagram, in its implementation, integrates with several diagrams describing the requirements, which are referred to as additional elements. The absence of transformation rules for these additional elements to become OWL ontology causes difficulties in reading, understanding, and tracking the requirements. In this research, an extended rule of the Requirement Diagram transformation is proposed to solve the problems. First, some transformation rules are defined to make requirements easier to trace and realize the ontology generation's automatic transformation. Second, the time required during transformation processing to prepare and generate the OWL file shows the proposed model's performance. The ontology components produced from this research, such as class, subclass, object property, and data property, can be viewed in Protégé.

Transformation of SysML Requirement Diagram into OWL Ontologies

The Requirement Diagrams are used by the System Modeling Language (SysML) to depict and model non-functional requirements, such as response time, size, or system functionality, which cannot be accommodated in the Unified Modeling Language (UML). Nevertheless, SysML still lacks the capability to represent the semantic contexts within the design. Web Ontology Language (OWL) can be used to capture the semantic context of system design; hence, the transformation of SysML diagrams into OWL is needed. The current method of SysML Diagrams transformation into OWL is still done manually so that it is very vulnerable to errors, and the translation process requires more time and effort for system engineers. This research proposes a model that can automatically transform a SysML Requirement Diagram into an OWL file so that system designs can be easily understood by both humans and machines. It also allows users to extract knowledge contained in the previous diagrams. The transformation process makes use of a transformation rule and an algorithm that can be used to change a SysML Requirement Diagram into an OWL ontology file. XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) serialization is used as the bridge to perform the transformation. The produced ontology can be viewed in Protege. The class and subclass hierarchy, as well as the object properties and data properties, are clearly shown. In the experiment, it is also shown that the model can conduct the transformation correctly.

ANOVA Based Significance Testing of Non-functional Requirements in Software Engineering

Non-functional requirements (NFRs) demonstrate how the software system works, though functional requirements represent the tasks of the system (software system). It does not indicate that the latter is more significant, but a majority of requirement collecting approaches emphasis on functional requirements. Therefore, due to the subjective nature and complexity of NFRs, it is relatively impractical to focus on each NFRs. The primary objective of this article is to model NFRs in the form of a Soft Goal Interdependency Digraph (SID). The SID is based on the Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) technique which in turn employs the Matrices Impacts Cruise's Multiplication Applique a UN Casement (MICMAC) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) techniques for the identification of significant NFRs. Therefore, the proposed method allows the analysts and developers to monitor and select best possible trade off selections between NFRs. To evaluate the significance of the proposed technique over others, Analysis of variance (ANOVA) based significance testing is also implemented.

Extended Use Case for Specification of NFRs

The evolution of unified modelling language (UML) is absolutely required to make sure that UML will stay up to date with the latest developments in the software industry like modeling non-functional requirements (NFRs). In the past NFR literature many techniques have been identified that have used UML for modelling NFR. Because of great diversity in number and types of NFR it is difficult to be handled by common modelling techniques. So we think of extension of Use Case so that it can more effectively address the changing needs of many different classes of users and NFRs which further assists in specification and quantification of NFR.

Control case approach to record and model non-functional requirements

While the functional requirements of a system can be effectively modeled through the use case driven approach, there is no standard or de facto method for modeling non-functional requirements (NFR) of the system architecture. Often such requirements are dealt with in a reactive manner, rather than proactively. Yet increasingly a contributing factor in project difficulty and failure are the NFR imposed on the solution architecture. This paper outlines a control case approach to record and model NFR. This technique enables the control case to represent the NFR from different perspectives, most typically the various operating conditions. We also propose an extension to the “4 + 1” view model for depicting software architecture by adding the control case view. In addition, a detailed control case modeling example is illustrated to demonstrate how these techniques may be applied during development. Taken together, we suggest that the combination of both the use case and control case views thus reflects the complete requirements across the collective system life cycle views: design, process, implementation and deployment.