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Formal Requirements Specification: Z Notation Meta Model Facilitating Model to Model Transformation

Published: 05 January 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Model Driven Software Engineering (MDSE) has become a widely adopted approach in software development industry. Besides other software development phases, specifying requirements formally, is a crucial activity for developing model based software systems. There exist a number of formal languages that can be used for formal requirements specification. However, these formal languages are hard to comprehend and difficult to use for formal specification. Nonetheless, in many researches, abstraction of these formal languages is required and their benefits are tremendous. Z Notation is a formal language which guarantees that the software system must meet regulations and standards by specifying clear and unambiguous requirements. This leads to a high quality software and greater user satisfaction. However, formal languages are not welcomed with UML models because of rigorous use of mathematics. A bridge is required to minimize the gap between UML and Formal Requirements Specification languages. Therefore, we have presented a meta-model of a relatively mature and widely used Z Notation so that it may facilitate the future researchers by providing a reasonable level of abstraction. This paper aims to reduce the overhead of comprehension of formal language i.e. Z notation and to facilitate model-to-model transformations (source model: UML model, target model: Z Notation model). Further, we have validated the proposed meta-model via case study using UML Use Case. It has been demonstrated through case study that the Meta model facilitates shared understanding among stakeholders and facilitates model to model transformation leading to unambiguous requirements specification but can also be automated for the model based development of such a system which transforms informal requirements into formal Z-Notation specifications.

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  • (2024)Coupled Requirements-Driven Testing of CPS: From Simulation to Reality2024 IEEE 32nd International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE)10.1109/RE59067.2024.00040(337-344)Online publication date: 24-Jun-2024
  • (2023)Structured SRS for e-Government Services With Boilerplate Design and InterfaceIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2023.328788211(62906-62917)Online publication date: 2023

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    ICSIE '20: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Software and Information Engineering
    November 2020
    251 pages
    ISBN:9781450377218
    DOI:10.1145/3436829
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    Published: 05 January 2021

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    Author Tags

    1. Z-Notation meta-model
    2. class diagram
    3. formal specifications
    4. model driven software engineering
    5. use-case diagram

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    • (2024)Coupled Requirements-Driven Testing of CPS: From Simulation to Reality2024 IEEE 32nd International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE)10.1109/RE59067.2024.00040(337-344)Online publication date: 24-Jun-2024
    • (2023)Structured SRS for e-Government Services With Boilerplate Design and InterfaceIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2023.328788211(62906-62917)Online publication date: 2023

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