Requirements Traceability Research Articles

Grid Supervision Path of Platform Food Safety Collaborative Governance Based on Big Data

Food safety is the focus of people’s attention. This year, there have a lot of bad pieces of news related to food safety, which has increased people’s attention to it. According to the requirements for traceability of platform food information attributes, the article aims to study the implementation of grids for food safety governance in the context of big data. This paper designs a nonconformity rate evaluation index to screen qualified food through the grid management of the area using big data processing under the DHRA copy management strategy to achieve the function of assisting food safety supervision. The experimental results of this paper show that grid management can effectively and quickly manage food safety problems. The method of this paper can also optimize the error of food detection, and the error can reach less than 2% in the end. It makes people’s lives safer and ensures that the food they consume is safer.

Blockchain for requirements traceability: A qualitative approach

AbstractBlockchain technology has emerged as a “disruptive innovation” that has received significant attention in academic and organizational settings. However, most of the existing research is focused on technical issues of blockchain systems, overlooking the organizational perspective. This study adopted a grounded theory to unveil the blockchain implementation process in organizations from the lens of blockchain experts. The results revealed three main categories: key activities, success factors, and challenges related to blockchain implementation in organizations, the latter being identified as the core category, along with 17 other concepts. Findings suggested that the majority of blockchain projects stop at the pilot stage and outlined organizational resistance to change as the core challenge. According to the experts, the following factors contribute to the organizational resistance to change: innovation–production gap, conservative management, and centralized mentality. The study aims to contribute to the existing blockchain literature by providing a holistic and domain‐agnostic view of the blockchain implementation process in organizational settings. This can potentially encourage the development and implementation of blockchain solutions and guide practitioners who are interested in leveraging the inherent benefits of this technology. In addition, the results are used to improve a blockchain‐enabled requirements traceability framework proposed in our previous paper.

An Efficient Data Sharing Scheme for Privacy Protection Based on Blockchain and Edge Intelligence in 6G-VANET

With the substantial increase in the number of smart cars, vehicular ad hoc network (VANET), where data can be shared between vehicles to enrich existing vehicle services and improve driving safety, is gaining more and more attention, thus creating a more efficient intelligent transportation system. Moreover, the in-depth research and development of 6G and AI technology further strengthen the interconnection of various entities in VANET and can realize edge intelligence, which fundamentally enhances the efficiency of data sharing. However, reliable transmission and secure storage of data have always been a great challenge in data sharing. Although some schemes store shared data in the blockchain, most of the consensus mechanisms they use employ full nodes to verify signature information and timestamps, which cannot effectively judge the reliability of the shared data itself. Some other schemes use scoring mechanisms to evaluate data uploaded by vehicles, but these methods can be affected by network hardware failures and cannot effectively detect duplicate data. In addition, participants’ privacy may also be disclosed in the process of data sharing, such as participants’ location and identity information. Therefore, to address the above problems, this paper proposes a data sharing scheme in 6G-VANET, which can not only ensure the reliability and security of shared data but also protect the privacy of participants. Firstly, a consortium chain is adopted to realize the secure storage of shared data in 6G-VANET, which meets the requirements of tamper-proof and traceability of data. Secondly, a voting consensus mechanism is designed in combination with smart contract to ensure the reliability of data. Thirdly, the trained word2vec natural language processing model is deployed to edge nodes to realize edge intelligence, effectively eliminate the duplicate shared data, and enhance storage efficiency. Finally, a participant privacy protection mechanism is designed using the Private Set Intersection (PSI) protocol, and a secure and efficient data sharing scheme is finally realized. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is demonstrated by security analysis and experimental evaluation. The experimental results show that the time and space overhead of blockchain can meet the practical requirements, and the proposed PSI protocol of large-scale vehicles can be completed in a short time.

Tracing security requirements in industrial control systems using graph databases

We must explicitly capture relationships and hierarchies between the multitude of system and security standards requirements. Current security requirements specification methods do not capture such structure effectively, making requirements management and traceability harder, consequently increasing costs and time to market for developing certified ICS. We propose a novel requirements repository model for ICS that uses labelled property graphs to structure and store system-specific and standards-based requirements using well-defined relationship types. Furthermore, we integrate the proposed requirements repository with design-time ICS tools to establish requirements traceability. A wind turbine case study illustrates the overall workflow in our framework. We demonstrate that a robust requirements traceability matrix is a natural consequence of using labelled property graphs. We also introduce a compatible requirements change management procedure that aids in adapting to changes in development and certification schemes.

A Semantic Ontology-Based Approach to Support Model-Based Systems Engineering Design for an Aircraft Prognostic Health Management System

The Prognostic and Health Management (PHM) system of an aircraft has complex structures and diverse functions. It is highly coupled with other systems, such as the avionics system and flight management system. The Model-based Systems Engineering (MBSE) method is effective to support the design and verification of the aircraft PHM system. As a powerful semantic web construction method, ontology has been widely used to express design information, such as the concepts and the relationships between them. However, traditional graphical MBSE models have a natural weakness in transforming into ontology. In this paper, a semantic MBSE method is proposed to support the transform of the ontology model. Firstly, according to the design characteristics of the aircraft PHM system, a meta-model library of the aircraft PHM system is developed to support the design and evaluation. An MBSE modeling method based on requirement analysis, function analysis, logical architecture design, and physic architecture design is applied in the PHM design process. Secondly, the semantic system modeling language KARMA based on “graph, object, property, point, relationship, role, and extension” (GOPPRRE) is used to transfer the graphical MBSE model to the semantic MBSE model, which can be easily transformed to an ontology model. Finally, an ontology based on semantic modeling is developed to describe the MBSE entities and to support MBSE design. In this paper, a case study of an aircraft fuel PHM system is carried out to validate the proposed method. Based on the developed meta-model library, a complete MBSE design process for the aircraft PHM system is realized. And then an ontology model supporting PHM system design is generated from the semantic MBSE model. The MBSE ontology provides a shareable capability to help designers communicate effectively. Quantitative analysis based on ontology is also provided to verify the complexity and scale of the MBSE design process. Moreover, logical reasoning ability can also be provided to support the early requirement traceability for MBSE design. In general, the case study results show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method for the aircraft PHM system design.

Toward traceable XCT measurement of AM lattice structures: Uncertainty in calibrated reference object measurement

Lattice structures created via additive manufacturing are of interest in several demanding industries, however the qualification of these components via X-ray computed tomography (XCT) is limited due to traceability requirements. In this work, a novel measurement reference object is presented to study task specific uncertainty in the XCT measurement of a simplified lattice structure. The design of this reference object, the calibration routines, and XCT acquisition are described. The description of uncertainty calculation is presented. The methodology for data sampling, registration, and measurement is detailed. The measurement results are tested for normality and show variations in the underlying distribution for different measurands. A discussion on uncertainty variation and normality of measurements is then presented. Variations in measurement bias and uncertainty are analyzed across various features of the reference object. It is shown that the measurement uncertainty and bias are not consistent across pin diameter measurement, indicating the need for similarity between the reference object and subsequent component measurements.

Technology-Agnostic Assessment of Wave Energy System Capabilities

Developing new wave energy technologies is risky, costly and time-consuming. The large diversity of concepts, components and evaluation criteria creates a vast design space of potentially feasible solutions. This paper aims to introduce a novel methodology for the holistic assessment of wave energy capabilities in various market applications based on sound Systems Engineering methods. The methodology provides a consistent hierarchy of performance metrics relevant to the given system of reference, design activity and development stage under consideration as a means to scrutinise wave energy requirements. Full traceability of system requirements and performance metrics is then facilitated by multi-criteria decision tools and aggregation logic, respectively. The qualitative assessment in the case studies has resulted in very different rankings of System Drivers and Stakeholders for the two market applications considered. However, the Stakeholder Requirements and Functional Requirements present a small variation in the weights for the two application markets which results in a quantitative assessment with very similar Global Merit. Finally, the performance benchmark using the Commercial Attractiveness and Technical Achievability concepts enables a more objective comparison in the utility-scale and remote generation markets and a way to concentrate innovation efforts before proceeding to the next development stage.

Assessing and ranking international markets based on stringency of food safety measures: application of fuzzy AHP-TOPSIS method

PurposeImplementing food safety measures (FSMs) have become a prerequisite for food firms looking to export internationally. Many exporters find it difficult to comply with multiple regulations, and their consignments are often rejected at borders due to food safety concerns. Hence, harmonization in food safety standards is arguably the most contentious topic regarding the export market since it affects international trade. Accordingly, the paper uses the case of Indian seafood exporters to identify key FSMs, investigate stringency associated with them and rank international markets based on degree of stringency for selected FSMs.Design/methodology/approachFirst, the authors identify the key FSMs by using the Delphi method. Then, the authors apply the Fuzzy analytical hierarchical process (FAHP) method to calculate weights of the FSMs as criteria. Lastly, the authors apply the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) approach to rank markets. To compute fuzzy TOPSIS, weights are derived from fuzzy AHP.FindingsThis study’s findings suggest that product and process standards, traceability requirements and tolerance limits for residues are the most stringent FSMs, among others. Besides, the overall ranking of markets reveal that the European Union (EU), the USA and Japan ranked lowest and perceived to have the most stringent food safety requirements.Originality/valueThe paper offers guidance to firms and policymakers to manage their efforts and resources during food safety implementation by focussing on critical FSMs. Researchers will get insights about FSMs for further empirical investigation. To the authors’ knowledge, no study examined the stringency associated with various FSMs in the seafood industry.

Towards a component-based system model to improve the quality of highly configurable systems.

Due to ever-evolving software developments processes, companies are motivated to develop desired quality products quickly and effectively. Industries are now focusing on the delivery of configurable systems to provide several services to a wide range of customers by making different configurations in a single largest system. Nowadays, component-based systems are highly demanded due to their capability of reusability and restructuring of existing components to develop new systems. Moreover, product line engineering is the major branch of the component-based system for developing a series of systems. Software product line engineering (SPLE) provides the ability to design several software modifications according to customer needs in a cost-effective manner. Researchers are trying to tailor the software product line (SPL) process that integrates agile development technologies to overcome the issues faced during the execution of the SPL process such as delay in product delivery, restriction to requirements change, and exhaustive initial planning. The selection of suitable components, the need for documentation, and tracing back the user requirements in the agile-integrated product line (APL) models still need to improve. Furthermore, configurable systems demand the selected features to be the least dependent. In this paper, a hybrid APL model, quality enhanced application product line engineering (QeAPLE) is proposed that provides support for highly configurable systems (HCS) by evaluating the dependency of features before making the final selection. It also has a documentation and requirement traceability function to ensure that the product meets the desired quality. Two-fold assessments are undertaken to validate the suggested model, with the proposed model being deployed on an active project. After that, we evaluated the proposed model performance and effectiveness using after implementing it in a real-world environment and compared the results with an existing method using statistical analysis. The results of the experimental study proofs that the proposed model is practically and statistically significant as compared to the existing method in terms of effectiveness and participants’ performance. Hence, the statistical results of the comparative analysis show that the proposed model improved ease of understanding and adaptability, required effort, high-quality achievement, and version management are significant i.e., more the 50% as compared to the exiting method i.e., less than 50%. The proposed model offers to assist in the development of a highly configurable system that achieves the needed quality. Therefore, the proposed model manages the variation identification, versions control, components dependency for correct selection of components, and validation activities from domain engineering to application engineering.

Information Sharing Management System Based on Blockchain Using Deep Reinforcement Learning

In recent years, the food supply system has become increasingly globalized. Traditional traceability systems have issues with centralized administration, opaque information, untrustworthy data, and the ease with which information islands can be created. To address the aforementioned issues, this study proposes a blockchain-based traceability system for storing and querying product information throughout the agricultural supply chain. Most existing systems, on the other hand, are unable to meet the traceability and management requirements of ASCs. To address these concerns, we first develop a blockchain-based ASC architecture for product traceability, which provides decentralised security for agri-food tracing data stored in ASCs. A Deep Reinforcement Learning based Supply Chain Management (DR-SCM) system is then offered to make effective judgments on the production and storage of agri-food commodities for profit optimization. In a variety of ASC scenarios, extensive simulation experiments are conducted out to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed blockchain-based infrastructure and the DR-SCM strategy.

Non Functional Requirements Assessment and Traceability in Multimedia Educational Software

One of the challenges faced by the developers of current Multimedia Educational Software (MES) is the assessment of MES to meet users’ requirements. Non Functional Requirements (NFR) are key users’ requirements, because unlike functional requirements, which set out services expected by system, NFRs set out the constraints of the system and the process standards to be followed. Therefore, they play a key role in assessing the quality of MES. Quality Engineering is a new paradigm playing a crucial role in the European market of Services and Applications. In this field the assessment of Non Functional Requirements (NFRs) is underlined as an important step to have time-to-market products satisfying the quality and user needs. We aim to define a methodology and a representation of NFRs for assessment and traceability management. We have developed a scheme for representing critical NFRs, and applied it to the domains of MES for validation. Our approach extends the model for the representation of design rationale by making the evaluation goals explicit and providing the means to improve the quality of MES. Further research is how to relate NFRs to architectures.

Adoption of Blockchain Technology for Privacy and Security in the Context of Industry 4.0

Compared to centralized and decentralized models, distributed models have the potential to dramatically expand the scalability of existing IoT and Industry 4.0 solutions while maintaining participant organizations’ security and privacy. This is partly because participating firms are not required to rely on or trust other services or third parties to manage the data they gather and transfer, out of concern that these parties could misuse the data or, in the worst-case scenario, share it with mass surveillance programs. However, until blockchain technology (BCT) demonstrates its viability as a means of developing security solutions in decentralized, collaborative, and trustless environments, the vast majority of these use cases will struggle to meet the requirements for integrity, immutability, traceability, and notarization. By utilizing BCT, it is possible to eliminate intermediaries, enabling individuals and devices to manage their data independently of third parties and most significantly to achieve a high level of traceability with information flow harmony. This technology enables transaction, transparency, and traceability by enabling for the interchange of historical data. The fundamentals of blockchain are examined in this research paper, along with an investigation of its operation and a discussion of some of its most fundamental aspects and concepts. A concise overview of smart contracts enables us to completely reimagine how network members create and automate transactions. Finally, several IoT and Industry 4.0 application possibilities that leverage blockchain are investigated, as is the blockchain’s future trajectory.

A visual framework for software requirements traceability

Requirement traceability supports several activities of software development processes such as impact analysis, requirement changes, maintenance, verification, and validation of a software system. For its effective use in those activities, the graphical representation of traceability data plays an important role. However, several traceability tools lack an excellent visual representation to present these type of data. Therefore, this paper presents a visual framework which has been designed and proposed as a prototype tool that can visualize traceability data. The framework applies data visualization techniques to represent requirements and its artefacts relationships as colour-coded symbols on a node-link diagram; users can traverse the graph with an impact analysis method to understand data and make decisions. The evaluation result shows that the proposed tool is useful and easy enough in terms of improving user interaction and to better understand requirement traceability data.

Requirement analysis for human factor engineering on SMR-NuScale design

Human Factors Engineering (HFE) is an important element of control room facility design and Man Machine Interface (MMI) design whose principles must be applied systematically to ensure the safe operation of power reactors. In the design of the NuScale Small Modular Reactor (SMR), the United States-Nuclear Regulatory Commission (US-NRC) as an international regulatory body has published Design-Specific Review Standards (DSRS) for Nuclear SMR design which are specific for NuScale. There is no specific discussion related to HFE in the document. However, in order to develop the NuScale design in In Indonesia, we can learn from Oregon State University, the first Nuscale developer, regarding the requirements when those are compared to the large nuclear reactors. Therefore, reviewing the NuScale SMR design needs to be carried out starting with the conducting a requirement traceability analysis by tracing the guidelines from the regulatory body and knowing the recommended guideline in developing the HFE design, especially for the specific SMR/NuScale. It is hoped that by understanding the process of verifying these requirements documents, Indonesia will be able to apply the HFE for the NuScale reactor by meeting the criteria required by BAPETEN and be able to prepare the validation method so that the design can obtain a license.

Evaluation on Surgical Robotic Pose Repeatability Based on Laser Tracking Measurement

To provide accurate information for registration and safety evaluation of surgical robot, the pose repeatability measurement method was proposed. According to the terminal instrument of the master-slave surgical robot (such as high-frequency electric knife, ultrasonic knife), a suitable target ball fixture was designed. The node data at 10%, 50% and 100% rated speed were measured respectively. Through data analysis, the pose repeatability property of the tested samples at different speeds was obtained. It has high applicability and repeatability, and can meet the requirements of data traceability and registration testing.

Lean requirements traceability automation enabled by model-driven engineering.

BackgroundThe benefits of requirements traceability, such as improvements in software product and process quality, early testing, and software maintenance, are widely described in the literature. Requirements traceability is a critical, widely accepted practice. However, very often it is not applied for fear of the additional costs associated with manual efforts or the use of additional tools.MethodsThis article presents a “low-cost” mechanism for automating requirements traceability based on the model-driven paradigm and formalized by a metamodel for the creation and monitoring of traces and an integration process for traceability management. This approach can also be useful for information fusion in industry insofar that it facilitates data traceability.ResultsThis article extends an existing model-driven development methodology to incorporate traceability as part of its development tool. The tool has been used successfully by several companies in real software development projects, helping developers to manage ongoing changes in functional requirements. One of those projects is cited as an example in the paper. The authors’ current work leads them to conclude that a model-driven engineering approach, traditionally used only for the automatic generation of code in a software development process, can also be used to successfully automate and integrate traceability management without additional costs. The systematic evaluation of traceability management in industrial projects constitutes a promising area for future work.

A Survey on Group Signatures and Ring Signatures: Traceability vs. Anonymity

This survey reviews the two most prominent group-oriented anonymous signature schemes and analyzes the existing approaches for their problem: balancing anonymity against traceability. Group signatures and ring signatures are the two leading competitive signature schemes with a rich body of research. Both group and ring signatures enable user anonymity with group settings. Any group user can produce a signature while hiding his identity in a group. Although group signatures have predefined group settings, ring signatures allow users to form ad-hoc groups. Preserving user identities provided an advantage for group and ring signatures. Thus, presently many applications utilize them. However, standard group signatures enable an authority to freely revoke signers’ anonymity. Thus, the authority might weaken the anonymity of innocent users. On the other hand, traditional ring signatures maintain permanent user anonymity, allowing space for malicious user activities; thus achieving the requirements of privacy-preserved traceability in group signatures and controlled anonymity in ring signatures has become desirable. This paper reviews group and ring signatures and explores the existing approaches that address the identification of malicious user activities. We selected many papers that discuss balancing user tracing and anonymity in group and ring signatures. Since this paper scrutinizes both signatures from their basic idea to obstacles including tracing users, it provides readers a broad synthesis of information about two signature schemes with the knowledge of current approaches to balance excessive traceability in group signatures and extreme anonymity in ring signatures. This paper will also shape the future research directions of two critical signature schemes that require more awareness.

Requirements traceability as the basis for designing a functional and logical architecture of a software system

The paper deals with the formation and transformation of stakeholder requirements for the information system throughout the entire life cycle. It is shown how the seamless architecture provides traceability of requirements from the level of the business process, to the functional and logical architectures of systems, to the selection of criteria and identification of microservices. It is shown how maintaining the traceability of requirements in the presence of business, functional and logical architecture models can reduce the cost of planning complex functional and load testing of systems, as well as ensure the interaction of operation, maintenance services and contractors that form the entire system, maintain its integrity during the life cycle.

MBSE for Civil Aircraft Scaled Demonstrator Requirement Analysis and Architecting

A civil aircraft scaled demonstrator is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) obtained by reducing the geometry of a civil aircraft by an equal scale and simplifying the airframe and airborne subsystems. Due to the low development cost and flight risk of scaled demonstrators, flight tests with demonstrators are an attractive way to assess the reliability and effectiveness of new configurations and/or technologies available for civil aircraft. Nevertheless, engineers still hope to reduce the development cycles and costs of demonstrators to evaluate their multiple civil aircraft design solutions through flight tests in a short period of time. Model-based systems engineering (MBSE) is a formalized requirement and architecture modeling method which is a useful tool in aircraft design. However, no existing MBSE framework has been found suitable for the development of demonstrators due to their unique features. In this paper, an MBSE approach for civil aircraft scaled demonstrator is proposed based on the MagicGrid methodology and the existing technical process for the demonstrator. This approach formalizes the requirement analysis and architecting for demonstrators via system modeling language (SysML). Meanwhile, the stakeholders of civil aircraft scaled demonstrators are identified, and a requirement ontology and modeling standard are established according to existing demonstrator development practice. Then, a case study is performed through a hybrid power demonstrator which carries a hydrogen fuel cell as the main power supply, a set of solar cells, and two lithium cells. The requirement traceability and verifiability are examined, and a logic simulation is executed for architecture, which shows the feasibility of applying the MBSE approach for the development of civil aircraft scaled demonstrators.

A Survey on Blockchain Acquainted Software Requirements Engineering: Model, Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Directions

Requirements are the basis of software development practices. Ambiguities in requirements lead a project to a point of failure or penalize it with a high budget and time for defect traceability. The ever-growing demand for advanced computing systems has increased the complexity of Software Requirements Engineering (SRE) practices. Blockchain systems require specialized SRE practices as the issues of Requirement Traceability (RT), developer/client confidentiality, and Requirement Negotiation (RN) typically exist in conventional approaches, which require more improvement. Moreover, blockchain technology incorporates the capacity to function as an infrastructure for the SRE framework providing transparency, security, and reliability. Even though the significance of studying blockchain in the context of SRE is evident, it is still in its infancy. None of the previous studies surveyed this domain to the best of our knowledge. We aim to summarize the scholarly contributions of blockchain acquainted SRE from 2015 to 2021 and to provide academia and practitioners with in-depth knowledge about this domain. In this article, we have provided a novel comprehensive review of the aspects of blockchain-acquainted SRE practices. We have presented SRE-based quality improvement factors and outlined the need for blockchain technology in this domain. Furthermore, we have classified SRE practices based on blockchain engineering. In addition, we have proposed a generic SRE model built on blockchain infrastructure along with its workflows. Similarly, we have provided implementation guidelines for the future development guidance of SRE applications built on blockchain technology. Finally, we have presented the current research challenges and provided future directions based on blockchain acquainted SRE.