Using Fault Propagation Analyses for Early Elimination of Unreliable Design Alternatives of Complex Cyber-Physical Systems

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolaos Papakonstantinou ◽  
Seppo Sierla ◽  
Irem Y. Tumer ◽  
David C. Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Reactor ◽  
Feature Modeling ◽  
Feature Model ◽  
Component Model ◽  
Source Information ◽  
Fault Propagation ◽  
Product Lines ◽  
Design Alternatives ◽  
Software Engineers

The Functional Failure Identification and Propagation (FFIP) framework has been proposed in prior work to study the reliability of early phase designs of complex systems. For the specified functionality, a model of mechanical, electrical and software components has been defined to support simulation and discovery of fault propagation paths. The advantage of this approach has been the possibility to identify unreliable designs before high cost design commitments have been made. However, a weakness is that the results are specific to the component model that is created for the purpose of running the FFIP simulations; it is unclear how the results would change if different modeling choices would have been made. Further, the usefulness of the method in design has been limited to evaluating reliability rather than actively finding more robust design alternatives. In order to address these weaknesses, the FFIP component model needs to incorporate a capability to describe design alternatives. The feature modeling syntax and semantics, which has been successfully used by software engineers to describe customer variations in product lines, is applied here to specify alternative mechanical, electrical and software features of a cyber-physical system. In the concept phase, all plausible design alternatives are described with a feature model. FFIP analyses can be performed for each valid configuration of this model, and all alternatives that are found unreliable are removed. The result is a restricted feature model, comprising significantly fewer design alternatives, that is delivered as source information for the detailed design phase. A toolchain for performing these analyses is presented, integrating open source feature modeling and configuration tools to the FFIP environment. The methodology is illustrated with a case study from boiling water nuclear reactor design.

scholarly journals Feature Model Configuration Based on Two-Layer Modelling in Software Product Lines

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 2648
Author(s):  
Elham Darmanaki Farahani ◽  
Jafar Habibi
Keyword(s):  
Product Line ◽  
Feature Model ◽  
Functional Requirements ◽  
Product Lines ◽  
Software Products ◽  
Model Configuration ◽  
Software Product ◽  
Software And Hardware ◽  
Application Requirements

The aim of the Software Product Line (SPL) approach is to improve the software development process by producing software products that match the stakeholders’ requirements. One of the important topics in SPLs is the feature model (FM) configuration process. The purpose of configuration here is to select and remove specific features from the FM in order to produce the required software product. At the same time, detection of differences between application’s requirements and the available capabilities of the implementation platform is a major concern of application requirements engineering. It is possible that the implementation of the selected features of FM needs certain software and hardware infrastructures such as database, operating system and hardware that cannot be made available by stakeholders. We address the FM configuration problem by proposing a method, which employs a two-layer FM comprising the application and infrastructure layers. We also show this method in the context of a case study in the SPL of a sample E-Shop website. The results demonstrate that this method can support both functional and non-functional requirements and can solve the problems arising from lack of attention to implementation requirements in SPL FM selection phase.

An Industrial Case Study on Managing Variability with Traceability in Software Product Lines

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taeho Kim ◽  
Sungwon Kang
Keyword(s):  
Product Line ◽  
Washing Machine ◽  
Product Lines ◽  
Industrial Case Study ◽  
Rapid Product Development ◽  
Software Product ◽  
Software Engineers ◽  
Requirement Changes ◽  
Line Engineering

In order to successfully carry out software product line engineering, it is important to manage variability and explicit traceability management of variabilities with development artifacts. Trace links of variability with development artifacts allows software engineers to have rapid product development and reduces maintenance efforts resulting from requirement changes or defect corrections as trace links improve the understandability of their side effects. In this study, the authors present a Variability Tracing Approach (VTA), which consists of variability analysis, variability classification, and variability implementation. The proposed approach is applied to developing the development of a washing machine software platform. This paper describes the results of how a member product can be configured under the proposed VTA.

scholarly journals Object-component development of changeable software systems

2016 ◽  
pp. 003-016
Author(s):  
E.M. Lavrischeva ◽  
◽  
O.A. Slabospitskaya ◽  
A.Yu. Stenyashin ◽  
A.L. Kolesnyk ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Software Tool ◽  
Feature Model ◽  
Component Model ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
Universal Model ◽  
Data Types ◽  
Product Lines ◽  
Reusable Components ◽  
Common Information ◽  
Software Object

Complementary limitations of both Software Product Lines industrial technologies and Lavrischeva – Grishenrko object-component method concerning changeable software development are elicited such as the lack of formalisms for program assets building and ill predictability of this build features. To cope with the limitations universal Model of Software Family Variant Features is proposed expanding its tradi-tional feature model for basic development artifacts. For assets being considered as reusable Components final Changeable Software Object-Component Model is elaborated including the universal model above being adjusted as Software Variability Object-Component Model. The Algebra is depicted for the operations of both the Components configuring and data types transforming over their interaction within changeable software system. These operations are proposed to incorporate into the target process for Changeable Software Family proactive and informed Variability management being represented with its technological chart. The process proposed composes the functions for variability Planning, Implementing and Control as well as Family model/consist Evolving up to the Control results. The functions listed are performed within common information environment structured accordingly to Variant Features Model or its object-component adjustment. Trial software tool for configuring Components in the above process is probed. The usage is depicted of both the framework proposed and this tool over technological lines being implemented in Software Systems Institute of NAS of Ukraine Instrumental-technological complex for changeable software configuring from the components.

scholarly journals BRIDGING GAP OF USER GOAL REQUIREMENTS AND IMPLEMENTED APPLICATIONS BASED ON FEATURE MODEL

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 113
Author(s):  
Ahmad Nurul Fajar ◽  
Eko K. Budiardjo ◽  
Zainal A. Hasibuan
Keyword(s):  
Process Model ◽  
Model Development ◽  
Feature Modeling ◽  
Feature Model ◽  
Product Lines ◽  
User Requirement ◽  
Classification Feature ◽  
Software Product ◽  
Feature Importance ◽  
Support Software

Feature modeling is a conceptual thinking for identifying and classification feature in order for support software product lines. However, there are lack of the user goal requirements. It related with a technique for managing of features commonalities and variability. It has a hierarchy of features with variability and the purpose is to organize features. In practice of implemented applications, the feature model development lack of goal user requirement. The goal of user requirement in Indonesian government has described in document regulations. It should be a fundamental concern to develop e-government applications. However, In order to capture degree of software feature importance, some of features compared with implemented e-government applications. We have extracted some of features which can be compared with the implemented e-government applications. Our technique is extracted are derived from document regulations to business process model and feature model also. We Choose SIPKD and SIMDA applications which has implemented in Indonesian local government which has variation from one and another. We use extended AHP and S-AHP to find the prioritization of software features. The results are 80 features in SIPKD and 90 features in SIMDA. There are 65 features common and 25 variant features .This make un-optimization usage applications.

scholarly journals Features as transformations: A generative approach to software development

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 759-778
Author(s):  
Valentino Vranic ◽  
Roman Táborský
Keyword(s):  
Software Reuse ◽  
Feature Modeling ◽  
Feature Model ◽  
Product Lines ◽  
Generative Process ◽  
Model Driven ◽  
Software Artifacts ◽  
Model Configuration ◽  
Software Product ◽  
Selection Of

The objective of feature modeling is to foster software reuse by enabling to explicitly and abstractly express commonality and variability in the domain. Feature modeling is used to configure other models and, eventually, code. These software assets are being configured by the feature model based on the selection of variable features. However, selecting a feature is far from a naive component based approach where feature inclusion would simply mean including the corresponding component. More often than not, feature inclusion affects several places in models or code to be configured requiring their nontrivial adaptation. Thus, feature inclusion recalls transformation and this is at heart of the approach to feature model driven generation of software artifacts proposed in this paper. Features are viewed as transformations that may be executed during the generative process conducted by the feature model configuration. The generative process is distributed in respective transformations enabling the developers to have a better control over it. This approach can be applied to modularize changes in product customization and to establish generative software product lines by gradual refactoring of existing products.

Subjective Design Evaluation With Multiple Attributes

1990 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah L. Thurston
Keyword(s):  
Automotive Industry ◽  
The United States ◽  
Quantitative Information ◽  
Design Decision ◽  
Utility Analysis ◽  
Materials Selection ◽  
Design Alternatives ◽  
Multiattribute Utility Analysis ◽  
Alternative Designs

Abstract A formal methodology is presented which may be used to evaluate design alternatives in the iterative design/redesign process. Deterministic multiattribute utility analysis is used to compare the overall utility or value of alternative designs as a function of the levels of several performance characteristics of a manufactured system. The evaluation function reflects the designers subjective preferences. Sensitivity analysis provides quantitative information as to how a design should be modified in order to increase its utility to the design decision maker. Improvements in one or more areas or performance and tradeoffs between attributes which would increase desirability of a design most may be quantified. A case study of materials selection and design in the automotive industry is presented. The methodology was applied to 6 automotive companies in the United States and Europe, and results are used to illustrate the steps followed in application.

scholarly journals A Transportation Performance Measurement System with a Mississippi Case Study

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haiyuan Wang ◽  
Mingzhou Jin
Keyword(s):  
Performance Measures ◽  
Transportation Systems ◽  
System Level ◽  
Performance Measurement System ◽  
Intermodal Transportation ◽  
Design Alternatives ◽  
Level Performance ◽  
Existing Data ◽  
Highway System

In current literature and practices, there are no systematic and user-oriented intermodal transportation performance measures. After identifying customer needs and transportation goals, this paper proposes a set of system-level performance measures for intermodal transportation that are user-oriented, scalable, systematic, and scientific. The measures can be used to compare intermodal design alternatives or to evaluate existing transportation systems with any size and any mode. The highway system in Mississippi is analyzed as a case study. The case study demonstrates the existing data sources, the methods of calculating the measures, and the means of evaluating transportation systems with the measures.

scholarly journals A Case Study in the Specification and Analysis of Design Alternatives for a User Interface

1999 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Duke ◽  
Bob Fields ◽  
Michael D. Harrison
Keyword(s):  
User Interface ◽  
Design Alternatives
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