Abstract:
Uncertainty is characterised by incomplete understanding. It is inevitable in the early phase of requirements engineering, and can lead to unsound requirement decisions. ...Show MoreMetadata
Abstract:
Uncertainty is characterised by incomplete understanding. It is inevitable in the early phase of requirements engineering, and can lead to unsound requirement decisions. Inappropriate requirement choices may result in products that fail to satisfy stakeholders' needs, and might cause loss of revenue. To overcome uncertainty, requirements engineering decision support needs uncertainty management. In this research, we develop a decision support framework METRO for the Next Release Problem (NRP) to manage algorithmic uncertainty and requirements uncertainty. An exact NRP solver (NSGDP) lies at the heart of METRO. NSGDP's exactness eliminates interference caused by approximate existing NRP solvers. We apply NSGDP to three NRP instances, derived from a real world NRP instance, RALIC, and compare with NSGA-II, a widely-used approximate (inexact) technique. We find the randomness of NSGA-II results in decision makers missing up to 99.95 percent of the optimal solutions and obtaining up to 36.48 percent inexact requirement selection decisions. The chance of getting an inexact decision using existing approximate approaches is negatively correlated with the implementation cost of a requirement (Spearman r up to -0.72). Compared to the inexact existing approach, NSGDP saves 15.21 percent lost revenue, on average, for the RALIC dataset.
Published in: IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering ( Volume: 43, Issue: 6, 01 June 2017)
Funding Agency:
Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, London, United Kingdom
Lingbo Li received the BSc degree from Southeast University, China
and the MSc degree from University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. He is currently working toward the PhD degree in the
CREST Centre, Department of Computer Science, University College London, under the supervision of Professor Mark
Harman and Doctor Emmanuel Letier. His current research focuses on applying search-based techniques on software
requiremen...Show More
Lingbo Li received the BSc degree from Southeast University, China
and the MSc degree from University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. He is currently working toward the PhD degree in the
CREST Centre, Department of Computer Science, University College London, under the supervision of Professor Mark
Harman and Doctor Emmanuel Letier. His current research focuses on applying search-based techniques on software
requiremen...View more
Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, London, United Kingdom
Mark Harman is professor of Software Engineering in the Department of
Computer Science at University College London, where he directs the CREST centre and is Head of Software Systems
Engineering. He is known for work on source code analysis, software testing, app store analysis and Search Based
Software Engineering (SBSE), a field he co-founded and which has grown rapidly to include over 1,600 authors spread
over more...Show More
Mark Harman is professor of Software Engineering in the Department of
Computer Science at University College London, where he directs the CREST centre and is Head of Software Systems
Engineering. He is known for work on source code analysis, software testing, app store analysis and Search Based
Software Engineering (SBSE), a field he co-founded and which has grown rapidly to include over 1,600 authors spread
over more...View more
Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, London, United Kingdom
Fan Wu received the BSc degree from Tsinghua University, China. He is
currently working toward the PhD degree in CREST Centre, Department of Computer Science, University College London,
supervised by Professor Mark Harman and Doctor Jens Krinke. He is interested in automatic software improvement using
search-based approaches, automating the search for best trade-off between multiple non-functional properties, and
Muta...Show More
Fan Wu received the BSc degree from Tsinghua University, China. He is
currently working toward the PhD degree in CREST Centre, Department of Computer Science, University College London,
supervised by Professor Mark Harman and Doctor Jens Krinke. He is interested in automatic software improvement using
search-based approaches, automating the search for best trade-off between multiple non-functional properties, and
Muta...View more
Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, London, United Kingdom
Yuanyuan Zhang received the PhD in software engineering from Kings
College London, in 2010. She is currently a principal research associate in the CREST centre, University College
London. Her research interests include search-based requirements optimisation, app store mining and analysis and
evolutionary computation. She has published more than 20 papers including RE and RE journal. She is the co-author of
several inv...Show More
Yuanyuan Zhang received the PhD in software engineering from Kings
College London, in 2010. She is currently a principal research associate in the CREST centre, University College
London. Her research interests include search-based requirements optimisation, app store mining and analysis and
evolutionary computation. She has published more than 20 papers including RE and RE journal. She is the co-author of
several inv...View more
Contents Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, London, United Kingdom
Lingbo Li received the BSc degree from Southeast University, China
and the MSc degree from University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. He is currently working toward the PhD degree in the
CREST Centre, Department of Computer Science, University College London, under the supervision of Professor Mark
Harman and Doctor Emmanuel Letier. His current research focuses on applying search-based techniques on software
requirements engineering, developing decision support analysis methods to assist software project decision makers in
semi-automatically analysing, and evaluating large scale software systems.
Lingbo Li received the BSc degree from Southeast University, China
and the MSc degree from University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. He is currently working toward the PhD degree in the
CREST Centre, Department of Computer Science, University College London, under the supervision of Professor Mark
Harman and Doctor Emmanuel Letier. His current research focuses on applying search-based techniques on software
requirements engineering, developing decision support analysis methods to assist software project decision makers in
semi-automatically analysing, and evaluating large scale software systems.View more
Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, London, United Kingdom
Mark Harman is professor of Software Engineering in the Department of
Computer Science at University College London, where he directs the CREST centre and is Head of Software Systems
Engineering. He is known for work on source code analysis, software testing, app store analysis and Search Based
Software Engineering (SBSE), a field he co-founded and which has grown rapidly to include over 1,600 authors spread
over more than 40 countries. His work has been used by many organisations including Daimler, Ericsson, Google, Huawei,
Microsoft and Visa. Prof. Harman is co-director of Appredict, an app store analytics company, spun out from UCL's
UCLappA group, and chief scientific advisor to MaJiCKe, and automated test data generation start up.
Mark Harman is professor of Software Engineering in the Department of
Computer Science at University College London, where he directs the CREST centre and is Head of Software Systems
Engineering. He is known for work on source code analysis, software testing, app store analysis and Search Based
Software Engineering (SBSE), a field he co-founded and which has grown rapidly to include over 1,600 authors spread
over more than 40 countries. His work has been used by many organisations including Daimler, Ericsson, Google, Huawei,
Microsoft and Visa. Prof. Harman is co-director of Appredict, an app store analytics company, spun out from UCL's
UCLappA group, and chief scientific advisor to MaJiCKe, and automated test data generation start up.View more
Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, London, United Kingdom
Fan Wu received the BSc degree from Tsinghua University, China. He is
currently working toward the PhD degree in CREST Centre, Department of Computer Science, University College London,
supervised by Professor Mark Harman and Doctor Jens Krinke. He is interested in automatic software improvement using
search-based approaches, automating the search for best trade-off between multiple non-functional properties, and
Mutation Testing for memory vulnerabilities.
Fan Wu received the BSc degree from Tsinghua University, China. He is
currently working toward the PhD degree in CREST Centre, Department of Computer Science, University College London,
supervised by Professor Mark Harman and Doctor Jens Krinke. He is interested in automatic software improvement using
search-based approaches, automating the search for best trade-off between multiple non-functional properties, and
Mutation Testing for memory vulnerabilities.View more
Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, London, United Kingdom
Yuanyuan Zhang received the PhD in software engineering from Kings
College London, in 2010. She is currently a principal research associate in the CREST centre, University College
London. Her research interests include search-based requirements optimisation, app store mining and analysis and
evolutionary computation. She has published more than 20 papers including RE and RE journal. She is the co-author of
several invited keynote papers at leading international conferences, including SPLC 2014 and ICST 2015. She has served
on program committees including GECCO, SSBSE, AIRE, MOBS, RELENG, RET and as the program co-chair for SSBSE 2013 and
been elected onto the steering committee for SSBSE.
Yuanyuan Zhang received the PhD in software engineering from Kings
College London, in 2010. She is currently a principal research associate in the CREST centre, University College
London. Her research interests include search-based requirements optimisation, app store mining and analysis and
evolutionary computation. She has published more than 20 papers including RE and RE journal. She is the co-author of
several invited keynote papers at leading international conferences, including SPLC 2014 and ICST 2015. She has served
on program committees including GECCO, SSBSE, AIRE, MOBS, RELENG, RET and as the program co-chair for SSBSE 2013 and
been elected onto the steering committee for SSBSE.View more