More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/

research-article

Variable-specific resolutions for feature interactions

Authors:

Cecylia Bocovich,

Joanne M. AtleeAuthors Info & Claims

FSE 2014: Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering

Pages 553 - 563

https://doi.org/10.1145/2635868.2635927

Published: 11 November 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Systems assembled from independently developed features suffer from feature interactions, in which features affect one another's behaviour in surprising ways. The feature-interaction problem states that the number of potential interactions is exponential in the number of features in a system. Resolution strategies offer general strategies that resolve entire classes of interactions, thereby reducing the work of the developer who is charged with the task of resolving interactions. In this paper, we focus on resolving interactions due to conflict. We present an approach, language, and implementation based on resolution modules in which the developer can specify an appropriate resolution for each variable under conflict. We performed a case study involving 24 automotive features, and found that the number of resolutions to be specified was much smaller than the number of possible feature interactions (6 resolutions for 24 features), that what constitutes an appropriate resolution strategy is different for different variables, and that the subset of situation calculus we used was sufficient to construct nontrivial resolution strategies for six distinct output variables.

References

[1]

E. Baroth and C. Hartsough. Visual object-oriented programming. chapter Visual Programming in the Real World, pages 21–42. Manning Publications Co., Greenwich, CT, USA, 1995.

Digital Library

[2]

D. Batory, J. Sarvela, and A. Rauschmayer. Scaling step-wise refinement. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 30(6):355–371, June 2004.

Digital Library

[3]

T. Bowen, C.-H. Chow, F. Dworak, N. Griffeth, and Y.-J. Lin. Views on the feature interaction problem. Technical Report Technical Memorandum TM-ARH-012849, Bellcore, Oct. 1988.

[4]

T. Bowen, F. Dworack, C. Chow, N. Griffeth, G. Herman, and Y.-J. Lin. The feature interaction problem in telecommunications systems. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Software Engineering for Telecommunication Switching Systems (SETSS), pages 59–62, 1989.

[5]

M. Calder, M. Kolberg, E. H. Magill, and S. Reiff-Marganiec. Feature interaction: a critical review and considered forecast. Comput. Netw., 41(1):115–141, Jan. 2003.

Digital Library

[6]

E. Cameron, N. Griffeth, Y. Lin, and H. Velthuijsen. “Definitions of Services, Features, and Feature Interactions”, December 1992. Bellcore Memorandum for Discussion, presented at the International Workshop on Feature Interactions in Telecommunications Software Systems.

[7]

A. Chavan, L. Yang, K. Ramachandran, and W. H. Leung. Resolving feature interaction with precedence lists in the feature language extensions. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Feature Interactions (ICFI), pages 114–128, 2007.

[8]

Y.-L. Chen and S. Lafortune. Resolving feature interactions using modular supervisory control with priorities. In Feature Interactions in Telecommunications Systems IV, pages 108–121. IOS Press, 1997.

[9]

Y.-L. Chen, S. Lafortune, and F. Lin. Priority assignment algorithms for resolving blocking in modular control of discrete event systems. In Proceedings of the 35th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, volume 3, pages 2743–2748, Dec 1996.

[10]

A. C. W. Finkelstein, D. Gabbay, A. Hunter, J. Kramer, and B. Nuseibeh. Inconsistency handling in multi-perspective specifications. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 20(8):569–578, Aug 1994.

Digital Library

[11]

N. Fritsche. Runtime resolution of feature interactions in architectures with separated call and feature control. In Feature Interactions in Telecommunications Systems III, pages 43–63. IOS Press, 1995.

[12]

N. Griffeth and H. Velthuijsen. The negotiating agents approach to runtime feature interaction resolution. In Feature Interactions in Telecommunications Systems, pages 217–235, 1994.

[13]

D. Harel. Statecharts: A visual formalism for complex systems. Science of Computer Programming, 8(3):231–274, June 1987.

Digital Library

[14]

J. Hay and J. Atlee. Composing features and resolving interactions. In ACM SIGSOFT Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE), pages 110–119, 2000.

Digital Library

[15]

C. L. Heitmeyer. Software cost reduction. Technical report, Naval Research Laboratory, 2002.

[16]

S. Homayoon and H. Singh. Methods of addressing the interactions of intelligent network services with embedded switch services. IEEE Communications Magazine, 26(12):42–46, Dec 1988.

Digital Library

[17]

M. Jackson and P. Zave. Distributed feature composition: A virtual architecture for telecommunications services. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 24(10):831–847, October 1998.

Digital Library

[18]

Y. Jia and J. Atlee. Run-time management of feature interactions. In ICSE Workshop on Component-Based Software Engineering (CBSE), 2003.

[19]

W. M. Johnston, J. R. P. Hanna, and R. J. Millar. Advances in dataflow programming languages. ACM Comput. Surv., 36(1):1–34, Mar. 2004.

Digital Library

[20]

A. L. Juarez-Dominguez, N. A. Day, and J. J. Joyce. Modelling feature interactions in the automotive domain. In Proceedings of the 2008 International Workshop on Models in Software Engineering, MiSE ’08, pages 45–50, New York, NY, USA, 2008. ACM.

Digital Library

[21]

R. Laney, L. Barroca, M. Jackson, and B. Nuseibeh. Composing requirements using problem frames. In 12th IEEE International Proceedings of the Requirements Engineering Conference, pages 122–131, Sept 2004.

Digital Library

[22]

R. Laney, T. Tun, M. Jackson, and B. Nuseibeh. Composing features by managing inconsistent requirements. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Feature Interactions (ICFI), pages 129–144, 2007.

[23]

H. J. Levesque, R. Reiter, Y. Lespérance, F. Lin, and R. B. Scherl. GOLOG: A logic programming language for dynamic domains. Journal of Logic Programming, 31(1-3):59–84, 1997.

[24]

D. Marples and E. Magill. The use of rollback to prevent incorrect operation of features in intelligent network based systems. In Feature Interactions in Telecommunications Systems V, pages 115–134, 1998.

[25]

J. McCarthy and P. J. Hayes. Some philosophical problems from the standpoint of artificial intelligence. In Machine Intelligence, pages 463–502. Edinburgh University Press, 1969.

[26]

P. Shaker, J. Atlee, and S. Wang. A feature-oriented requirements modelling language. In Requirements Engineering Conference (RE), 2012 20th IEEE International, pages 151–160, Sept 2012.

Digital Library

[27]

S. Shapiro and Y. Lespérance. Modeling Multiagent Systems with CASL - A Feature Interaction Resolution Application. In C. Castelfranchi and Y. Lespérance, editors, Intelligent Agents VII Agent Theories Architectures and Languages, volume 1986 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 244–259. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2001.

Digital Library

[28]

SWI-Prolog. Swi-prolog {online}.

[29]

U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Safercar.gov {online}.

[30]

D. Weiss and R. Lai. Software Product Line Engineering, A Family Based Development Process. Addison Wesley, 1999.

Digital Library

[31]

P. Zave. Requirements for evolving systems: A telecommunications perspective. In Proceedings of the 5th IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering (RE), pages 2–9, 2001.

Digital Library

[32]

P. A. Zimmer and J. M. Atlee. Ordering features by category. Journal of Systems and Software, 85(8):1782–1800, Aug. 2012.

Digital Library

Cited By

Chu SShedden EZhang CMeira-Góes RMoreno GGarlan DKang E(2023)Runtime Resolution of Feature Interactions through Adaptive Requirement Weakening2023 IEEE/ACM 18th Symposium on Software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-Managing Systems (SEAMS)10.1109/SEAMS59076.2023.00025(115-125)Online publication date: May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/SEAMS59076.2023.00025
Apel SKastner CKang EMenzies T(2022)Feature Interactions on Steroids: On the Composition of ML ModelsIEEE Software10.1109/MS.2021.313438639:3(120-124)Online publication date: May-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2021.3134386
Gafford BDürschmid TMoreno GKang EGrundy JLe Goues CLo D(2020)Synthesis-based resolution of feature interactions in cyber-physical systemsProceedings of the 35th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering10.1145/3324884.3416630(1090-1102)Online publication date: 21-Dec-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3324884.3416630
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Variable-specific resolutions for feature interactions
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Designing software
      1. Requirements analysis
  2. Software organization and properties
    1. Extra-functional properties
      1. Interoperability

Recommendations

Continuous variable-specific resolutions of feature interactions
ESEC/FSE 2017: Proceedings of the 2017 11th Joint Meeting on Foundations of Software Engineering

Systems that are assembled from independently developed features suffer from feature interactions, in which features affect one another's behaviour in surprising ways. The Feature Interaction Problem results from trying to implement an appropriate ...
Composing features and resolving interactions

One of the accepted techniques for developing and maintaining feature-rich applications is to treat each feature as a separate concern. However, most features are not separate concerns because they override and extend the same basic service. That is, “...
Composing features and resolving interactions
SIGSOFT '00/FSE-8: Proceedings of the 8th ACM SIGSOFT international symposium on Foundations of software engineering: twenty-first century applications

One of the accepted techniques for developing and maintaining feature-rich applications is to treat each feature as a separate concern. However, most features are not separate concerns because they override and extend the same basic service. That is, “...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

FSE 2014: Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering

November 2014

856 pages

ISBN:9781450330565

DOI:10.1145/2635868

General Chair:
Shing-Chi Cheung
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China
,
Program Chairs:
Alessandro Orso
Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
,
Margaret-Anne Storey
University of Victoria, Canada

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

SIGSOFT: ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 11 November 2014

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

SIGSOFT/FSE'14

Sponsor:

SIGSOFT

SIGSOFT/FSE'14: 22nd ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering

November 16 - 21, 2014

Hong Kong, China

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 17 of 128 submissions, 13%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

15
Total Citations
View Citations
213
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)10
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)4

Reflects downloads up to 19 Dec 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Chu SShedden EZhang CMeira-Góes RMoreno GGarlan DKang E(2023)Runtime Resolution of Feature Interactions through Adaptive Requirement Weakening2023 IEEE/ACM 18th Symposium on Software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-Managing Systems (SEAMS)10.1109/SEAMS59076.2023.00025(115-125)Online publication date: May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/SEAMS59076.2023.00025
Apel SKastner CKang EMenzies T(2022)Feature Interactions on Steroids: On the Composition of ML ModelsIEEE Software10.1109/MS.2021.313438639:3(120-124)Online publication date: May-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2021.3134386
Gafford BDürschmid TMoreno GKang EGrundy JLe Goues CLo D(2020)Synthesis-based resolution of feature interactions in cyber-physical systemsProceedings of the 35th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering10.1145/3324884.3416630(1090-1102)Online publication date: 21-Dec-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3324884.3416630
Kaindl HHoch RRathmair MLuckeneder C(2019)Formal Verification of Cyber-physical Feature Coordination with Minimalist Qualitative ModelsEvaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering10.1007/978-3-030-22559-9_12(261-287)Online publication date: 29-Jun-2019
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22559-9_12
Abdessalem RPanichella ANejati SBriand LStifter THuchard MKästner CFraser G(2018)Testing autonomous cars for feature interaction failures using many-objective searchProceedings of the 33rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Automated Software Engineering10.1145/3238147.3238192(143-154)Online publication date: 3-Sep-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3238147.3238192
Watanabe KKang ELin CShiraishi S(2018)Runtime monitoring for safety of intelligent vehiclesProceedings of the 55th Annual Design Automation Conference10.1145/3195970.3199856(1-6)Online publication date: 24-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3195970.3199856
DeVries BCheng BAndersson JWeyns D(2018)Run-time monitoring of self-adaptive systems to detect N-way feature interactions and their causesProceedings of the 13th International Conference on Software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-Managing Systems10.1145/3194133.3194141(94-100)Online publication date: 28-May-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3194133.3194141
Millet LDay NJoyce J(2018)Morse: Reducing the Feature Interaction Explosion Problem using Subject Matter Knowledge as Abstract Requirements2018 IEEE 26th International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE)10.1109/RE.2018.00033(251-261)Online publication date: Aug-2018
https://doi.org/10.1109/RE.2018.00033
DeVries BCheng B(2018)Automatic Detection of Feature Interactions Using Symbolic Analysis and Evolutionary Computation2018 IEEE International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability and Security (QRS)10.1109/QRS.2018.00039(257-268)Online publication date: Jul-2018
https://doi.org/10.1109/QRS.2018.00039
Watanabe KKang ELin CShiraishi S(2018)INVITED: Runtime Monitoring for Safety of Intelligent Vehicles2018 55th ACM/ESDA/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC)10.1109/DAC.2018.8465912(1-6)Online publication date: 24-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/DAC.2018.8465912
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents