Table Of ContentUUnniivveerrssiittyy ooff KKeennttuucckkyy
UUKKnnoowwlleeddggee
University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School
2009
SSAATTIISSFFAACCTTIIOONN AASSSSEESSSSMMEENNTT OOFF TTEEXXTTUUAALL SSOOFFTTWWAARREE
EENNGGIINNEEEERRIINNGG AARRTTIIFFAACCTTSS
Elizabeth Ashlee Holbrook
University of Kentucky, [email protected]
RRiigghhtt cclliicckk ttoo ooppeenn aa ffeeeeddbbaacckk ffoorrmm iinn aa nneeww ttaabb ttoo lleett uuss kknnooww hhooww tthhiiss ddooccuummeenntt bbeenneefifittss yyoouu..
RReeccoommmmeennddeedd CCiittaattiioonn
Holbrook, Elizabeth Ashlee, "SATISFACTION ASSESSMENT OF TEXTUAL SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
ARTIFACTS" (2009). University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations. 712.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/gradschool_diss/712
This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at UKnowledge. It has been
accepted for inclusion in University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of
UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected].
ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION
Elizabeth Ashlee Holbrook
The Graduate School
University of Kentucky
2009
SATISFACTION ASSESSMENT OF
TEXTUAL SOFTWARE ENGINEERING ARTIFACTS
________________________________
ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION
________________________________
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the
College of Engineering
at the University of Kentucky
By
Elizabeth Ashlee Holbrook
Lexington, Kentucky
Director: Dr. Jane Huffman Hayes, Professor of Computer Science
Lexington, KY
2009
Copyright © Elizabeth Ashlee Holbrook 2009
ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION
SATISFACTION ASSESSMENT OF
TEXTUAL SOFTWARE ENGINEERING ARTIFACTS
A large number of software projects exist and will continue to be developed that
have textual requirements and textual design elements where the design elements should
fully satisfy the requirements. Current techniques to assess the satisfaction of
requirements by corresponding design elements are largely manual processes that lack
formal criteria and standard practices. Software projects that require satisfaction
assessment are often very large systems containing several hundred requirements and
design elements. Often these projects are within a high assurance project domain, where
human lives and millions of dollars of funding are at stake. Manual satisfaction
assessment is expensive in terms of hours of human effort and project budget.
Automated techniques are not currently applied to satisfaction assessment.
This dissertation addresses the problem of automated satisfaction assessment for
English, textual documents and the generation of candidate satisfaction assessments that
can then be verified by a human analyst with far less effort and time expenditure than is
required to produce a manual satisfaction assessment. Validation results to date show
that automated satisfaction methods produce candidate satisfaction assessments sufficient
to greatly reduce the effort required to assess the satisfaction of textual requirements by
textual design elements.
KEYWORDS: Satisfaction Assessment, Automated Requirements Analysis,
Traceability, Textual Software Artifacts
Elizabeth Ashlee Holbrook
April 6, 2009
SATISFACTION ASSESSMENT OF
TEXTUAL SOFTWARE ENGINEERING ARTIFACTS
By
Elizabeth Ashlee Holbrook
Dr. Jane Huffman Hayes
Director of Dissertation
Dr. Andrew Klapper
Director of Graduate Studies
April 2, 2009
RULES FOR THE USE OF DISSERTATIONS
Unpublished dissertations submitted for the Doctor's degree and deposited in the
University of Kentucky Library are as a rule open for inspection, but are to be
used only with due regard to the rights of the authors. Bibliographical references
may be noted, but quotations or summaries of parts may be published only with
the permission of the author, and with the usual scholarly acknowledgments.
Extensive copying or publication of the dissertation in whole or in part also
requires the consent of the Dean of the Graduate School of the University of
Kentucky.
A library that borrows this dissertation for use by its patrons is expected to secure
the signature of each user.
Name Date
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
DISSERTATION
Elizabeth Ashlee Holbrook
The Graduate School
University of Kentucky
2009
SATISFACTION ASSESSMENT OF
TEXTUAL SOFTWARE ENGINEERING ARTIFACTS
________________________________
DISSERTATION
________________________________
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the
College of Engineering
at the University of Kentucky
By
Elizabeth Ashlee Holbrook
Lexington, Kentucky
Director: Dr. Jane Huffman Hayes, Professor of Computer Science
Lexington, KY
2009
Copyright © Elizabeth Ashlee Holbrook 2009
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Dr. Jane Hayes for her guidance and inspiration and
for being an excellent advisor. I would also like to thank Dr. Alex Dekhtyar for his
valuable input and assistance throughout this project. Thanks to my committee
members Dr. Jerzy Jaromczyk, Dr. Brent Seales, and Dr. Lawrence Hassebrook
for their support. Thanks also to my outside committee member, Dr. Thomas
Goldsby. Thanks also to Drs. Wasilkowski, Finkel, and Klapper for their
assistance as Directors of Graduate Study.
Thanks to Stephanie Ferguson, Marcus Fisher, Ken McGill, Tim Menzies,
and everyone at the NASA IV&V facility.
I would like to offer thanks to fellow graduate students Senthil Sundaram,
Wenbin Li, Hakim Sultanov, Liming Zhao, Sravanthi Vadlamudi, and Jody Larsen
for their collaboration and camaraderie.
I would like to thank my parents, Derek and Bonnie Holbrook, for their love
and support throughout my life; also thanks to my extended family and friends.
- iii -
Description:English, textual documents and the generation of candidate satisfaction assessments that can then be .. Figure 4.8 Example Answer Set File… . Additionally, determining whether requirements have been satisfied plays a key .. In this case it will consist of a series of phrase pairs (prn, pdm) with
