Skip to main content

O-O Requirements Analysis: an Agent Perspective

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
ECOOP’ 93 — Object-Oriented Programming (ECOOP 1993)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 707))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 1408 Accesses

Abstract

In this paper, we present a formal object-oriented specification language designed for capturing requirements expressed on composite real-time systems. The specification describes the system as a society of ‘agents’, each of them being characterised (i) by its responsibility with respect to actions happening in the system and (ii) by its time-varying perception of the behaviour of the other agents. On top of the language, we also suggest some methodological guidance by considering a general strategy based on a progressive assignement of responsibilities to agents.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. A.J. Alencar and J.A. Goguen. Ooze: An object oriented Z environment. In P. America, editor, Proc. of the 5th european conference on object-oriented programming — ECOOP’91, pages 180–199. LNCS 512, Springer-Verlag, 1991.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  2. D. Bjørner and C.B. Jones. The Vienna Development Method. The metalanguage, volume 61 of LNCS. Springer-Verlag, 1978.

    Google Scholar 

  3. D. Bjørner. Trusted computing systems: The procos experience. In Proc. of the 14th international conference on software engineering, pages 15–34, Melbourne (Australia), May 11–15, 1992. IEEE, ACM Press.

    Google Scholar 

  4. A. Borgida, J. Mylopoulos, and R. Reiter.... and nothing else changes: The frame problem in procedure specifications. Technical Report DCSTR-281, Dept. of Computer Science, Rutgers University, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  5. F. Bodart and Y. Pigneur. Conception assistée des applications informatiques. Premiere partie: Etude d’opportunité et analyse conceptuelle. Masson, Paris, 1983.

    Google Scholar 

  6. J. Brunet. Modelling the world with semantic objects. In Proc. of the working conference on the object-oriented approach in information systems, Quebec, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  7. P. Coad and E Yourdon. Object-Oriented Design. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Eric Dubois, Philippe Du Bois, and André Rifaut. Elaborating, structuring and expressing formal requirements of composite systems. In P. Loucopoulos, editor, Proc. of the 4th conference on advanced information systems engineering — CaiSE’92, pages 327–347, Manchester (UK), May12–15, 1992. LNCS 593, Springer-Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Eric Dubois, Philippe Du Bois, André Rifaut, and Pierre Wodon. Glider user manual. Intermediate Deliverable SpecFunc-028-R, ESPRIT Project Icarus 2537, June 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  10. E. Doerry, S. Fickas, R. Helm, and M. Feather. A model for composite system design. In Proc. of the 6th international workshop on software specification and design, Milano, October 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  11. A. Dardenne, S. Fickas, and A. van Lamsweerde. Goal-directed concept acquisition in requirements elicitation. In Proc. of the 6th international workshop on software specification and design, Milano, October 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Eric Dubois, Jacques Hagelstein, and André Rifaut. A formal language for the requirements engineering of computer systems. In André Thayse, editor, From natural language processing to logic for expert systems, chapter 6. Wiley, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Roger Duke, Paul King, Gordon Rose, and Graeme Smith. The object-z specification language — version 1. Technical report 91-1, SVRC, Dept. of Computer Science, The University of Queensland, Queensland (Australia), May 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Philippe Du Bois. Using glider for the formal definition of a requirements language for specifying composite systems. Technical report, Computer Science Department, University of Namur, Namur (Belgium), May 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Eric Dubois. A logic of action for supporting goal-oriented elaborations of requirements. In Proceedings of the 5th international workshop on software specification and design, pages 160–168, Pittsburgh PA, May 19–20, 1989. IEEE, CS Press.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Eric Dubois. Use of deontic logic in the requirements engineering of composite systems. In J.J. Meyer and R.J. Wieringa, editors, Proc. of the first international workshop on deontic logic in computer science, Amsterdam (The Netherlands), December 11–13, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Eric Dubois and Axel van Lamsweerde. Making specification processes explicit. In Proceedings of the 4th international workshop on software specification and design, pages 161–168, Monterey CA, April 3–4, 1987. IEEE, CS Press.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Martin S. Feather. Language support for the specification and development of composite systems. ACM Transactions on programming languages and systems, 9(2):198–234, April 1987.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Martin S. Feather. Constructing specifications by combining parallel elaborations. IEEE Transactions on software engineering, SE-15(2), February 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Anthony Finkelstein and Hugo Fuks. Multi-party specification. In Proceedings of the 5th international workshop on software specification and design, pages 185–195, Pittsburgh PA, May 19–20, 1989. IEEE, CS Press.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Stephen Fickas and Rob Helm. Acting responsibly: Reasoning about agents in a multi-agent system. Technical Report CIS-TR-91-02, Dept. of Computer and Information Science, University of Oregon, Eugene OR, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Jose Fiadeiro and Tom Maibaum. Describing, structuring and implementing objects. In Foundations of Object-Oriented Languages-REX School/Workshop, pages 275–310, Noordwijkerhout (The Netherlands), May 28–June 1, 1990. LNCS 489, Springer-Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Anthony Finkelstein and Colin Potts. Building formal specifications using “structured common sense”. In Proceedings of the 4th international workshop on software specification and design, pages 108–113, Monterey CA, April 3–4, 1987. IEEE, CS Press.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Jose Fiadeiro and Amilcar Sernadas. Linear tense propositional logic. Information Systems, 11(1):61–85, 1986.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  25. D. Gabbay and P. McBrien. Temporal logic and historical databases. In Proc. of the 17th international conference on very large databases, Barcelona, September 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Sol J. Greenspan, Alexander Borgida, and John Mylopoulos. A requirements modeling language and its logic. In M.L. Bodie and J. Mylopoulos, editors, On knowledge base managment systems, Topics in information systems, pages 471–502. Springer-Verlag, 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  27. John V. Guttag, James J. Horning, and Jeannette M. Wing. Larch in five easy pieces. Technical Report 5, Digital systems research center, Palo Alto CA, July 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  28. G.E. Hughes and M.J. Cresswell. An introduction to modal logic. Methuen and Co., London, 1968.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  29. C. Hewitt. DAI betwist and between: open systems science and/or intelligent agents. In J. Mylopoulos and R. Balzer, editors, Proc. of the international workshop on the development of intelligent information systems, Niagara-on-the-Lake (Canada), April 21–23, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Jacques Hagelstein and Dominique Roelants. Reconciling operational and declarative specifications. In P. Loucopoulos, editor, Proc. of the 4th conference on advanced information systems engineering — CAiSE’92, pages 221–238, Manchester (UK), May12–15, 1992. LNCS 593, Springer-Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  31. W. Lewis Johnson and Martin Feather. Building an evolution transformation library. In Proceedings of the 12th international conference on software engineering, Nice (France), March 1990. IEEE.

    Google Scholar 

  32. R. Jungclaus, G. Saake, and C. Sernadas. Formal specification of object systems. In S. Abramsky and T. Maibaum, editors, Proc. of TAPSOFT’91 Vol.2, pages 60–82, Brighton (UK), 1991. LNCS 494, Springer-Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  33. R. Koymans, J. Vytopil, and W. de Roever. Specifying message passing and time-critical systems with temporal logic. Doctoral dissertation, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven (The Netherlands), 1989.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  34. J. Mylopoulos, A. Borgida, M. Jarke, and M. Koubarakis. Telos: A language for representing knowledge about information systems. ACM Transansaction on Information Systems, 8(4):325–362, 1990.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. J. Mylopoulos, L. Chung, and B. Nixon. Representing and using nonfunctional requirements: a process-oriented approach. IEEE Transactions on software engineering, SE-18, June 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  36. F. Orejas, V. Sacristan, and S. Clerici. Development of algebraic specifications with constraints. In Proc. of the workshop in categorical methods in computer science. LNCS 393, Springer-Verlag, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Mark D. Ryan, Jose Fiadeiro, and Tom Maibaum. Sharing actions and attributes in modal action logic. In T. Ito and A. Meyer, editors, Theoretical Aspects of Computer Software. Springer-Verlag, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  38. Douglas T. Ross. Structured analysis (sa): a language for communicating ideas. IEEE Transactions on software engineering, SE-3(l):16–34, January 1977.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Amilcar Sernadas. Temporal aspects of logic procedure definition. Information Systems, 5:167–187, 1980.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  40. Y. Shoham. Agent-oriented programming. Technical report STAN-CS-90-1335, Robotics Laboratory, Computer Science Dept, Stanford University, Stanford CA, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  41. S. Shlaer and S.J. Mellor. Object-oriented systems analysis: modelling the world in data. Yourdon Press: Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  42. A. Sernadas, C. Sernadas, and H.-D. Ehrich. Abstract object types: a temporal perspective. In B. Banieqbal, H. Barringer, and A. Pnueli, editors, Proc. of the colloquium on temporal logic and specification, pages 324–350. LNCS 398, Springer-Verlag, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  43. D. Teichroew and E. Hershey. A computer-aided technique for structured documentation and analysis of information processing systems. IEEE Transactions on software engineering, SE-3:41–48, 1977.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. C. Theodoulidis, P. Loucopoulos, and B. Wangler. A conceptual modelling formalism for temporal database applications. Information Systems, 16(4):401–416, 1991.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. H. Tardieu, A. Rochfeld, and R. Colletti. La méthode MERISE: principes et outils. Les Editions d’Organisation, Paris (France), 1983.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1993 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Dubois, E., Du Bois, P., Petit, M. (1993). O-O Requirements Analysis: an Agent Perspective. In: Nierstrasz, O.M. (eds) ECOOP’ 93 — Object-Oriented Programming. ECOOP 1993. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 707. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-47910-4_23

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-47910-4_23

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-57120-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-47910-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics