analisi dei requisiti: due problemi importanti

Luisa Mich

Nadzeya Kiyavitskaya

1. Ambiguity identification in requirements specifications

2. Identification of rights and obligations for regulation complianceregulation compliance

2Interdisciplinary workshop on requirements analysis -Trento, December 15, 2008

� Natural language requirements specifications (NL RS)◦ 79% of requirements documents are couched in

unrestricted NL

◦ majority of developers (64%) think that a higher ◦ majority of developers (64%) think that a higher level of automation is needed to improve general efficiency in modeling requirements

3Interdisciplinary workshop on requirements analysis -Trento, December 15, 2008

� Ambiguity ◦ Is an intrinsic phenomenon of natural language

◦ Means the capability of being understood in two or more possible senses or ways

◦ May cause:

� Implementation of incorrect set of system requirements

� Generation of the wrong test cases for system verification

Interdisciplinary workshop on requirements analysis -Trento, December 15, 2008

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Two step approach to identify ambiguities in NL RSs:1. Tool T1T1T1T1 would apply a set of ambiguity measures

to a NL RS in order to identify potentially ambiguous sentences in the RS

2. Tool T2T2T2T2 would show what specifically is potentially ambiguous about each sentence in the RS

Final decision is made by a human that may want to rewrite the sentence


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� T1◦ The tool notifies of potentially ambiguous

sentences by varying their background color

◦ lexical ambiguity at the sentence level approximates the semantic ambiguity of a approximates the semantic ambiguity of a sentence

◦ Uses free dictionaries to identify word lexical ambiguity

Babylon, Wordnet, WordReference


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� T2◦ Not yet implemented

◦ Preliminary research studies allowed to derive a set of feasible requirements for T2

� T2’s features will include drawing user’s � T2’s features will include drawing user’s attention to:◦ Weak or vague words: similarly, clearly, appropriate

◦ Demonstrative pronouns used as a noun: This is…

◦ Undefined acronyms

◦ Verbs, subjects and verb complements joined by conjunction

Etc.


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� Problem◦ Law regulates some activities of organizations

◦ To verify if a system is compliant with a regulation, the requirements imposed by the regulatory document must be identifiedregulatory document must be identified

◦ Requirements engineers don’t have expertise in law and need tool support


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� Solution◦ Develop a systematic process for extracting

requirements from regulations

The semantic parameterization process proposed by Breaux and Antónby Breaux and Antón

◦ Develop tool support for the process

Implementation of the tool, called Gaius T., based on this process


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Analysis of regulations with Gaius T.


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Evaluation notes◦ English and Italian data sets

� the HIPAA Privacy Act of U.S.

� the Italian Accessibility Law (Stanca act)

◦ The tool was able to largely support humans in ◦ The tool was able to largely support humans in identification of relevant information

◦ Unlike manual annotations, automatic markup is more consistent


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� N. Kiyavitskaya, N. Zeni, L. Mich, D. Berry (2008). Requirements Requirements Requirements Requirements for tools ambiguity identification and for tools ambiguity identification and for tools ambiguity identification and for tools ambiguity identification and measurement in natural language requirements measurement in natural language requirements measurement in natural language requirements measurement in natural language requirements specification, specification, specification, specification, REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING, 13(3): 207-239. DOI: 10.1007/s00766-008-0063-7

N. Zeni, N. Kiyavitskaya, L. Mich, J.R. Cordy, J. � N. Zeni, N. Kiyavitskaya, L. Mich, J.R. Cordy, J. Mylopoulos (2013). GaiusTGaiusTGaiusTGaiusT: Supporting the : Supporting the : Supporting the : Supporting the Extraction of Rights and Obligations for Regulatory Extraction of Rights and Obligations for Regulatory Extraction of Rights and Obligations for Regulatory Extraction of Rights and Obligations for Regulatory Compliance, Compliance, Compliance, Compliance, REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING, online first: ttp://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00766-013-0181-8 DOI: 10.1007/s00766-013-0181-8


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analisi dei requisiti: due problemi importanti

Technology