Software Traceability for Multi-Agent Systems Implemented Using BDI Architecture (vol. 2)

The development of multi-agent software systems is considered a complex task due to (a) the large number and heterogeneity of documents generated during the development of these systems, (b) the lack of support for the whole development life-cycle by existing agent-oriented methodologies requiring the use of different methodologies, and (c) the possible incompleteness of the documents and models generated during the development of the systems.
In order to alleviate the above problems, in this thesis, a traceability framework is described to support the development of multi-agent systems. The framework supports automatic generation of traceability relations and identification of missing elements (i.e., completeness checking) in the models created during the development life-cycle of multi-agent systems using the Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) architecture.
Traceability has been recognized as an important activity in the software development process. Traceability relations can guarantee and improve software quality and can help with several tasks such as the evolution of software systems, reuse of parts of the system, validation that a system meets its requirements, understanding of the rationale for certain design decisions, identification of common aspects of the system, and analysis of implications of changes in the system.
The traceability framework presented in this thesis concentrates on multi-agent software systems developed using i* framework, Prometheus methodology, and JACK language. Here, a traceability reference model is presented for software artefacts generated when using i* framework, Prometheus methodology, and JACK language. Different types of relations between the artefacts are identified. The framework is based on a rule-based approach to support automatic identification of traceability relations and missing elements between the generated artefacts. Software models represented in XML were used to support the heterogeneity of models and tools used during the software development life-cycle. In the framework, the rules are specified in an extension of XQuery to support (i) representation of the consequence part of the rules, i.e. the actions to be taken when the conditions are satisfied, and (ii) extra functions to cover some of the traceability relations being proposed and completeness checking of the models.
A prototype tool has been developed to illustrate and evaluate the work.

Inhaltsverzeichnis (Table of Contents)

:

• Chapter 1 - Introduction
• 1.2 Hypotheses
• 1.3 Objectives
• 1.4 Contributions
• 1.5 Thesis Outline
• Chapter 2 - Literature Survey on Traceability
• 2.1 Traceability Reference Models and Meta-Models
• 2.2 Traceability Approaches to Capture Trace Relations
• 2.2.1 Formal Approaches
• 2.2.2 Process Oriented Approaches
• 2.2.3 Information Retrieval Approaches
• 2.2.4 String Matching Approaches
• 2.2.5 Rule Based Approaches
• 2.2.6 Run-time approaches
• 2.2.7 Hypermedia and Information Integration approaches
• 2.3 Representation, Recording and Maintenance of Traceability Relations
• 2.4 Visualisation of Traceability Relations
• 2.5 Use of Traceability Relations
• 2.6 Traceability Approaches for Multi-Agent Systems
• 2.7 Performance Measures
• 2.8 Implication of tools that infer trace relations
• 2.9 Summary
• Chapter 3 - Traceability Reference Model
• 3.1 Overview of the Reference Model
• 3.2 Multi-agent Oriented Artefacts
• 3.2.1 i* Framework
• 3.2.2 Prometheus
• 3.2.3 JACK
• 3.3 Traceability Relations
• 3.3.1 Traceability Relations between i* and Prometheus
• 3.2.2 Traceability Relations between Prometheus and JACK
• 3.4 Summary
• Chapter 4 - Traceability Framework
• 4.1. Overview of the Framework
• 4.2 Traceability and Completeness Checking Rules
• Type 1:
• Type 2:
• Type 3:
• 4.3 Extended Functions
• 4.3.1 Completeness checking functions
• 4.3.2 XQuery functions
• 4.3.3 XQueryJACKFunctions
• 4.3.4 XQueryPDTFunctions
• 4.3.5 XQuerySimilarityFunctions
• 4.3.6 XQuerySynonymsFunctions
• 4.3.7 XQueryTAOMFunctions
• 4.4 Retratos Tool
• 4.5 Discussion
• 4.6 Summary
• Chapter 5 - Evaluation and Results
• 5.1 Criteria for Evaluation
• 5.2 Automatic Teller Machine
• 5.2.1 Overview of the Case Study
• 5.2.2 Artefacts
• 5.2.3 Evaluation
• 5.3 Air Traffic Control Environment
• 5.3.1 Overview of the Case Study
• 5.3.2 Artefacts
• 5.3.3 Evaluation
• 5.4 Electronic Bookstore
• 5.4.1 Overview of the Case Study
• 5.4.2 Artefacts
• 5.4.3 Evaluation
• 5.5 Discussion
• 5.6 Threats of Validity
• 5.7 Summary
• Chapter 6 - Conclusion and Future Works
• 6.1 Overall Conclusions
• 6.2 Hypotheses
• 6.3 Objectives
• 6.4 Contributions
• 6.5 Future Work
• 6.5 Final Remarks

Zielsetzung und Themenschwerpunkte (Objectives and Key Themes)

: This thesis aims to investigate the automatic generation of traceability relations between artefacts created during the development of multi-agent systems implemented using BDI architecture. The key themes of the thesis are: * **Traceability in Multi-Agent Systems**: The thesis examines the importance of traceability in the development and maintenance of multi-agent systems. * **BDI Architecture**: The thesis focuses on traceability within the context of BDI agent architecture, a prevalent approach for building intelligent agents. * **Reference Model for Traceability**: The thesis proposes a traceability reference model specifically designed for multi-agent systems implemented using BDI architecture. * **Traceability Framework**: The thesis develops a framework for automatically generating traceability relations between various artefacts, including goal models, agent specifications, and code. * **Evaluation of the Approach**: The thesis evaluates the effectiveness of the proposed approach through practical case studies, demonstrating its ability to recover and identify missing traceability information.

Zusammenfassung der Kapitel (Chapter Summaries)

: * **Chapter 1 - Introduction**: This chapter provides an overview of the research problem, motivations, and the thesis's overall goals and contributions. * **Chapter 2 - Literature Survey on Traceability**: This chapter presents a comprehensive review of existing literature on traceability, exploring different approaches, reference models, and techniques for capturing and maintaining trace relations. * **Chapter 3 - Traceability Reference Model**: This chapter introduces a novel traceability reference model designed specifically for multi-agent systems developed using BDI architecture. The model defines the key artefacts involved and the types of traceability relations between them. * **Chapter 4 - Traceability Framework**: This chapter details the proposed traceability framework, which leverages XQuery extensions and rule-based techniques to automatically generate and verify traceability relations. The chapter also describes the implementation of the Retratos tool. * **Chapter 5 - Evaluation and Results**: This chapter presents the evaluation of the proposed approach using case studies involving an Automated Teller Machine, an Air Traffic Control Environment, and an Electronic Bookstore. The chapter discusses the precision, recall, and overall effectiveness of the traceability recovery process. * **Chapter 6 - Conclusion and Future Works**: This chapter summarizes the overall conclusions drawn from the research, discusses the thesis's contributions, and proposes potential avenues for future work.

Schlüsselwörter (Keywords)

: The core concepts and key topics of the thesis encompass traceability, multi-agent systems, BDI architecture, i* framework, Prometheus methodology, JACK intelligent agent language, automated traceability generation, completeness checking, and evaluation.

Details

• Hochschule: City University London
• Veranstaltung: Computer Science
• Autor: Gilberto Cysneiros Filho (Autor:in)
• Erscheinungsjahr: 2011
• Seiten: 266
• Katalognummer: V278915
• ISBN (eBook): 9783656718420
• ISBN (Buch): 9783656718444
• Sprache: Englisch
• Schlagworte: software traceability multi-agent systems implemented using architecture