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Use Case Analysis Based on Formal Methods: An Empirical Study

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Recent Trends in Algebraic Development Techniques (WADT 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 9463))

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Abstract

Use Cases (UC) are a popular way of describing system behavior and represent important artifacts for system design, analysis, and evolution. Hence, UC quality impacts the overall system quality and defect rates. However, they are presented in natural language, which is usually the cause of issues related to imprecision, ambiguity, and incompleteness. We present the results of an empirical study on the formalization of UCs as Graph Transformation models (GTs) with the goal of running tool-supported analyses on them and revealing possible errors (treated as open issues). We describe initial steps for a translation from a UC to a GT, how to use an existing tool to analyze the produced GT, and present some diagnostic feedback based on the results of these analyses and the possible level of severity of the detected problems. To evaluate the effectiveness of the translation and of the analyses in identifying problems in UCs, we applied our approach on a set of real UC descriptions obtained from a software developer company and measured the results using a well-known metric. The final results demonstrate that this approach can reveal real problems that could otherwise go undetected and, thus, help improve the quality of the UCs.

This work is partially supported by the VeriTeS project (FAPERGS and CNPq).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. PPGC – Institute of Informatics, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), PO Box 15.064, Porto Alegre, RS, 91.501-970, Brazil

    Marcos Oliveira Jr., Leila Ribeiro, Érika Cota, Lucio Mauro Duarte, Ingrid Nunes & Filipe Reis

Authors
  1. Marcos Oliveira Jr.
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  2. Leila Ribeiro
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  3. Érika Cota
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  4. Lucio Mauro Duarte
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  5. Ingrid Nunes
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  6. Filipe Reis
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marcos Oliveira Jr. .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magedeburg , Magdeburg, Germany

    Mihai Codescu

  2. Simion Stoilow Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania

    Răzvan Diaconescu

  3. Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, UK

    Ionuț Țuțu

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Oliveira, M., Ribeiro, L., Cota, É., Duarte, L.M., Nunes, I., Reis, F. (2015). Use Case Analysis Based on Formal Methods: An Empirical Study. In: Codescu, M., Diaconescu, R., Țuțu, I. (eds) Recent Trends in Algebraic Development Techniques. WADT 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9463. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28114-8_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28114-8_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28113-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28114-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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