Traceability Links Research Articles

Determination of Trace Elements (Ag, B, Ge, Mo, Sn, W, Tl) in Reference Samples of Soils and Bottom Sediments by Atomic Emission Spectrometry: A Traceability and Fitness‐for‐Purpose Study

Reference samples of soils from the Institute of Applied Physics, Irkutsk (RIAP), the Institute of Geochemistry, Irkutsk (IGI) and the United States Geological Survey, Reston (USGS) were analysed with the aim of determining Ag, B, Ge, Mo, Sn, Tl and W abundances by an atomic emission method with air‐stabilised D.C. arc excitation. Two series of reference samples of soils and bottom sediments, GSS‐1‐8 and GSD‐1‐12 (IGGE), were used to ensure the traceability link for the analytical results. Traceability was also demonstrated through the comparison of measured results by AES and ICP‐MS methods. It is shown that the reference samples GSS‐1‐8 and GSD‐1‐12 satisfied the “fitness‐for‐purpose” criterion (uncertainty U of the certified value should be one‐third to one‐tenth the magnitude of routine laboratory data uncertainty S (S/U > 3‐10)) and can be applied for calibrating AES techniques.

Metrological concepts for enhancing the reliability of food and nutritional measurements

Metrology is a specialized discipline that deals with the science of measurements, irrespective of the field of application and regardless of the size of the measurement uncertainty. Incorporating metrological approaches into the measurement process enhances the reliability of analytical findings. These developments include: high-quality reference standards, validated methods, robust sampling practices, proven calibration approaches, natural matrix reference materials, speciation chemistry, assessment of measurement uncertainty and establishment of traceability links, certified reference materials to facilitate one aspect of traceability, and proficiency testing, among others.

Modeling Traceability of Concerns for Synchronizing Architectural Views.

Software architecture modeling includes the description of different views that represent the architectural concerns from different stakeholder perspectives. In case of evolution of the software system the related architectural views need to be adapted accordingly. To synchronize the architectural views it is necessary that the dependency links among the architectural concerns in the architectural views can be easily traced. Unfortunately, despite the ongoing efforts for modeling concerns in architectural views, the traceability of concerns remains a challenging issue in architecture design. We propose the concern traceability metamodel (CTM) that enables traceability of concerns within and across architectural views. The metamodel can be used for modeling the concerns, the architectural elements and the traceability links among the elements in architectural views. We have implemented CTM in the tool M-Trace, that uses XML-based representations of the models and XQuery queries to represent tracing information. CTM and M-Trace are illustrated for analyzing the impact of concerns of a Climate Control System case and synchronizing the architectural views

Elemental analysis of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA): A tool to determine the synthesis method and trace links

The elemental composition of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) powders and tablets was determined. The objective was the identification of the synthesis method and application of the elemental profile in comparative analysis. The developed analytical method comprised the digestion of a sample followed by quantitative analysis with inductive coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and inductive coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). The sample collection consisted of a unique set of MDMA powders (57) from illicit production sites and MDMA tablets (97) taken from large seizures (over 500 tablets) in the Netherlands. The production method of MDMA could be determined for 89 of the 97 tablets. In 84 cases reductive amination using Pt as the catalyst was used, in four cases reductive amination using NaBH 4 or a similar reducing agent was employed and one mixed sample (Pt and B) was found. None of the MDMA tablets were assigned to the aluminium amalgam method. Using the elemental profile, 13 links were identified within the 97 MDMA tablets using cluster analysis based on Pearson correlations. Of these links 10 were corroborated by additional analyses.

Odyssey-SCM: An integrated software configuration management infrastructure for UML models

Model-driven development is becoming a reality. Different CASE tool vendors support this paradigm, allowing developers to define high-level models and helping to transform them into refined models or source code. However, current software configuration management tools use a file-based data model that is barely sufficient to manipulate source code. This file-based data model is not adequate to provide versioning capabilities for software modeling environments, which are strongly focused on analysis and architectural design artifacts. The existence of a versioned repository of high-level artifacts integrated with a customized change control process could help in the development and maintenance of such model-based systems. In this work, we introduce Odyssey-SCM, an integrated software configuration management infrastructure for UML models. This infrastructure is composed of a flexible version control system for fine-grained UML model elements, named Odyssey-VCS, and two complementary components: a customizable change control system tightly integrated with the version control system, and a traceability link detection tool that uses data mining to discover change traces among versioned UML model elements and provides the rationale of change traces, automatically collected from the integrated software configuration management infrastructure.

The Lure of the Unknown

Using event-related fMRI, Bunzeck and Düzel show that midbrain regions putatively housing dopamine cell bodies activate more for novel pictures than for negative pictures, pictures requiring a motor response, or repeated pictures. These findings indicate that midbrain regions preferentially respond to novelty and suggest that novelty can serve as its own reward.

MDI: A Rule-based Multi-document and Tool Integration Approach

Nowadays, typical software and system engineering projects in various industrial sectors (automotive, telecommunication, etc.) involve hundreds of developers using quite a number of different tools. Thus, the data of a project as a whole is distributed over these tools. Therefore, it is necessary to make the relationships of different tool data repositories visible and keep them consistent with each other. This still is a nightmare due to the lack of domain-specific adaptable tool and data integration solutions which support maintenance of traceability links, semi-automatic consistency checking as well as incremental update propagation. Currently used solutions are usually hand-coded one-way transformations between pairs of tools only. In this article we propose a new rule-based approach that allows for the declarative specification of data integration rules concerning multiple data repositories. Hence, we call our approach “Multi Document Integration”. It generalizes the formalism of triple graph grammars and replaces the underlying data structure of directed graphs by the more general data structure of MOF-compliant meta models. Our integration rule specifications are translated into JMI-compliant Java code which is used for various purposes by a tool integration framework. As a result we give an answer to OMG’s request for proposals for a MOF-compliant “queries, views, and transformation” approach from the “model driven application development” (MDA) field.

Tool Integration with Triple Graph Grammars - A Survey

Nowadays, typical software and system engineering projects in various industrial sectors (automotive, telecommunication, etc.) involve hundreds of developers using quite a number of different tools. Thus, the data of a project as a whole is distributed over these tools. Therefore, it is necessary to make the relationships of different tool data repositories visible and keep them consistent with each other. This still is a nightmare due to the lack of domain-specific adaptable tool and data integration solutions which support maintenance of traceability links, semi-automatic consistency checking as well as update propagation. Currently used solutions are usually hand-coded one-way transformations between pairs of tools. In this article we present a rule-based approach that allows for the declarative specification of data integration rules. It is based on the formalism of triple graph grammars and uses directed graphs to represent MOF-compliant (meta) models. As a result we give an answer to OMG's request for proposals for a MOF-compliant “queries, views, and transformation” (QVT) approach from the “model driven application development” (MDA) field.

RETRIEVAL BY CONSTRUCTION: A TRACEABILITY TECHNIQUE TO SUPPORT VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION OF UML FORMALIZATIONS

Recently, there has been growing interest in formalizing UML, thereby enabling rigorous analysis of its many graphical diagrams. Two obstacles currently limit the adoption and use of UML formalizations in practice. First is the need to verify the consistency of artifacts under formalization. Second is the need to validate formalization approaches against domain-specific requirements. Techniques from the emerging field of requirements traceability hold promise for addressing these obstacles. This paper contributes a technique called retrieval by construction (RBC), which establishes traceability links between a UML model and a target model intended to denote its semantics under formalization. RBC provides an approach for structuring and representing the complex one-to-many links that are common between UML and target models under formalization. RBC also uses the notion of value identity in a novel way that enables the specification of the link-retrieval criteria using generative procedures. These procedures are a natural means for specifying UML formalizations. We have validated the RBC technique in a tool framework called UBanyan, written in C++. We applied the tool to three case studies, one of which was obtained from the industry. We have also assessed our results using the two well-known traceability metrics: precision and recall. Preliminary investigations suggest that RBC can be a useful traceability technique for validating and verifying UML formalizations.

RECOVERY OF TRACEABILITY LINKS BETWEEN SOFTWARE DOCUMENTATION AND SOURCE CODE

An approach for the semi-automated recovery of traceability links between software documentation and source code is presented. The methodology is based on the application of information retrieval techniques to extract and analyze the semantic information from the source code and associated documentation. A semi-automatic process is defined based on the proposed methodology. The paper advocates the use of latent semantic indexing (LSI) as the supporting information retrieval technique. Two case studies using existing software are presented comparing this approach with others. The case studies show positive results for the proposed approach, especially considering the flexibility of the methods used.

EInformation: A Clinical Study of Investor Discussion and Sentiment

We examine the information flow for four stocks over seven months to trace the relationship between on-line discussion, news activity, and stock price movements. On-line discussions support numerous unsubstantiated rumors, substantial on-point exchanges, and quick dissemination of imminent and recently released information. Applying language-processing routines to message board postings and news, we create sentiment and disagreement measures or eInformation. We analyze the determinants of sentiment and disagreement, and trace links between news, eInformation, and stock returns. This intensive clinical study of on-line discussions suggests mechanisms individual investors and groups can use to analyze and digest company information.

XML에 기반을 둔 C 원시 코드의 주석 관리 시스템

C 언어가 주로 사용되는 미션 크리티컬 응용 소프트웨어 영역에는 문서화, 간결성, 정확성을 갖는 원시 코드가 요구된다. 본 연구는 XML 기반의 C 원시 코드의 주석관리 체계를 제안한다. 이 주석 관리체계는 주석 사용자 모듈, 검토자 모듈, 주석 추출 모듈, 주석 추적 연계 모듈, 주석 태그 정의 모듈, 저장관리 모들을 포함하는 6개 모듈로 구성된다. 본 연구에서 정의된 XML 주석 태그는 IEEE 표준 1028과 IEEE 표준 1012를 적용하는 개발공정 활동의 범주를 포함한다. C 원시 코드에 주석을 삽입하고 추출하기 위하여 XML 스키마가 사용되며. 주석 추출 결과의 시각적 표시 처리를 위하여 XSL-FO가 사용된다. Well documented, simplified and clarified source code is required for the mission critical application software area in which C programing language is generally used. We suggest an XML_based comment management system for C source code. The comment management system is composed of 6 modules including comment user module, reviewer module, comment extraction module, comment traceability link module, comment tag definition module and storage management module. The XML comment tags defined in this paper cover categories of the development process activities applying the IEEE standard 1028 and IEEE standard 1012. The XML Schema Is used to insert comments into C source code and to extract XML tags from C source code and the XSL-FO is used fur the visual display professing o( comment extraction results.

Traceabilty of environmental soil measurements

Traceability is a key concept in environmental soil measurements, and should be linked with any soil measurement, especially long-term soil monitoring, which needs to demonstrate measurement quality. This article presents the main soil measurements of environmental concern, including traceability, uncertainties and possible errors, for each step in the process. It starts with sampling the soil in the field, treatment and conditioning in the field, transportation, storage and preservation of the sample in the laboratory, then goes on to the pre-analytical treatment and preparation for analyses, including the main extraction methods and analytical techniques and instruments employed. The article highlights the traceability links that should be considered for soil measurements to achieve data comparability.

Automating performance-related impact analysis through event based traceability

Current impact analysis techniques tend to focus on assessing the impact of change upon the system's functionality, whilst a consideration of performance related requirements is often deferred until after implementation. This tendency can lead to costly and time-consuming mistakes that frustrate customers and require frantic last-minute efforts to fix. This paper proposes a method for supporting performance-related impact analysis in a heterogeneous software engineering environment. An event-based approach is taken to establish dynamic traceability links, capable of propagating data values and commands between requirements and performance models. Quantitative values in performance related requirements are adjusted to reflect proposed changes, and impacted models are re-executed to measure the impact of the change. The resulting outputs are then automatically compared to relevant performance requirements and a system-wide report showing the impact of the proposed change upon performance is generated.

Method to determine the voltage coefficient of a dc high-voltage divider

A binary step-up method has been used to determine the voltage coefficient of a high-voltage (HV) resistive divider, namely of its HV resistor. The method supports an accurate traceability link of a DC HV standard to an established DC low voltage standard. The range of the applied voltage and the accuracy of the measurement are only limited by the stability of the HV source and of the divider under test. A preliminary demonstration of the voltage coefficient measurement for two HV dividers, each consisting of a 100-M/spl Omega/ HV resistor and 10-k/spl Omega/ output resistor, shows the possibility of obtaining the voltage coefficient with an uncertainty of approximately 1/spl times/10/sup -7/ kV/sup -1/ for voltages up to 50 kV, even if the HV source has poor stability.

Recovering traceability links between code and documentation

Software system documentation is almost always expressed informally in natural language and free text. Examples include requirement specifications, design documents, manual pages, system development journals, error logs, and related maintenance reports. We propose a method based on information retrieval to recover traceability links between source code and free text documents. A premise of our work is that programmers use meaningful names for program items, such as functions, variables, types, classes, and methods. We believe that the application-domain knowledge that programmers process when writing the code is often captured by the mnemonics for identifiers; therefore, the analysis of these mnemonics can help to associate high-level concepts with program concepts and vice-versa. We apply both a probabilistic and a vector space information retrieval model in two case studies to trace C++ source code onto manual pages and Java code to functional requirements. We compare the results of applying the two models, discuss the benefits and limitations, and describe directions for improvements.

An alternative method for the certification of the sulfur mass fraction in coal Standard Reference Materials.

The S mass fractions of coal SRMs 2682b, 2684b, and 2685b are certified by direct comparison with coal SRMs 2682a, 2684a, and 2685a, respectively, using high-temperature combustion analysis with infrared (IR) absorption detection. The S mass fractions of the "a" materials used for calibration were previously determined by means of isotope-dilution thermal-ionization mass spectrometry (ID-TIMS). Therefore, the comparisons performed with the combustion-IR absorption method establish direct traceability links to accurate and precise ID-TIMS measurements. The expanded uncertainties associated with the certified S mass fractions are of approximately the same magnitude as would be expected for the ID-TIMS methodology. An important aspect of these certifications is that each "b" material is essentially identical with the corresponding "a" material, because both were produced from the same bulk, homogenized coal. As a test of the efficacy of the new certification approach when calibrant and unknown are not identical, the S mass fraction of coal SRM 2683b has been determined by direct comparison to coal SRM 2683a. These two coals, which have both previously been analyzed with ID-TIMS, are different in terms of S content and other properties. Whereas the S mass fraction for SRM 2683b determined with the new methodology agrees statistically with the ID-TIMS value, there is reason for caution in such cases. In addition to the usefulness of the alternative approach for certification activities within NIST, this approach might also be an excellent way of establishing NIST traceability during the value assignment process for reference materials not issued by NIST. Further research is needed, however, to understand better the scope of applicability.

Design-code traceability recovery: selecting the basic linkage properties

Traceability ensures that software artifacts of subsequent phases of the development cycle are consistent. Few works have so far addressed the problem of automatically recovering traceability links between object-oriented (OO) design and code entities. Such a recovery process is required whenever there is no explicit support of traceability from the development process. The recovered information can drive the evolution of the available design so that it corresponds to the code, thus providing a still useful and updated high-level view of the system. Automatic recovery of traceability links can be achieved by determining the similarity of paired elements from design and code. The choice of the properties involved in the similarity computation is crucial for the success of the recovery process. In fact, design and code objects are complex artifacts with several properties attached. The basic anchors of the recovered traceability links should be chosen as those properties (or property combinations) which are expected to be maintained during the transformation of design into code. This may depend on specific practices and /or the development environment, which should therefore be properly accounted for. In this paper different categories of basic properties of design and code entities will be analyzed with respect to the contribution they give to traceability recovery. Several industrial software components will be employed as a benchmark on which the performances of the alternatives are measured.

Proficiency evaluation as a traceability link in chemical metrology

Proficiency evaluation as a traceability link in chemical metrology

Maintaining traceability links during object‐oriented software evolution

AbstractThis paper presents a method to build and maintain traceability links and properties of a set of object‐oriented software releases. The method recovers an ‘as is’ design from C++ software releases, compares recovered designs at the class interface level, and helps the user to deal with inconsistencies by pointing out regions of code where differences are concentrated. The comparison step exploits edit distance and a maximum match algorithm. The method has been experimented with on two freely available C++ systems. Results as well as examples of applications to the visualization of the traceability information and to the estimation of the size of changes during maintenance are reported in the paper. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.