Various semi-formal syntax templates for natural language requirements foster to reduce ambiguity while preserving human readability. Existing studies on their effectiveness focus on individual notations only and do not allow to systematically investigate quality benefits. We strive for a comparative benchmark and evaluation of template systems to assist practitioners in selecting appropriate ones and enable researchers to work on pinpoint improvements and domain-specific adaptions. We conduct comparative experiments with five popular template systems—EARS, Adv-EARS, Boilerplates, MASTeR, and SPIDER. First, we compare a control group of free-text requirements and treatment groups of their variants following the different templates. Second, we compare MASTeR and EARS in user experiments for reading and writing. Third, we analyse all five meta-models’ formality and ontological expressiveness based on the Bunge-Wand-Weber reference ontology. The comparison of the requirement phrasings across seven relevant quality characteristics and a dataset of 1764 requirements indicates that, except SPIDER, all template systems have positive effects on all characteristics. In a user experiment with 43 participants, mostly students, we learned that templates are a method that requires substantial prior training and that profound domain knowledge and experience is necessary to understand and write requirements in general. The evaluation of templates systems’ meta-models suggests different levels of formality, modularity, and expressiveness. MASTeR and Boilerplates provide high numbers of variants to express requirements and achieve the best results with respect to completeness. Templates can generally improve various quality factors compared to free text. Although MASTeR leads the field, there is no conclusive favourite choice, as most effect sizes are relatively similar.

ILLOD is a tool for detecting abbreviation-expansion pairs (AEPs) in requirement sets. It utilizes syntactic features such as Initial Letters, term Lengths, Order, and Distribution of characters to determine if a term is a potential long form to a given abbreviation. The artifact bundles all source code and data resources to replicate evaluation results presented for ILLOD in two research papers published at the REFSQ2022 Conference and in the Information and Software Technology (IST) journal. In addition, ILLOD can be used to detect AEPs, perform abbreviation detection, and the input data-set can be used for further research in requirements engineering or other related fields. The repository is organized into different directories containing data, Python sources, and notebooks for experiments and evaluations. Detailed instructions are provided to load and use the tool on a local system, and the results generated by ILLOD are stored in output files. The tool demonstrates its effectiveness in detecting AEPs and consolidating glossary terms, and the evaluation results provide insights into the performance of different classifiers. The artifact repository is a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners in the field of requirements engineering and related areas.

Context: Multiple semi-formal syntax templates for natural language requirements foster to reduce ambiguity while preserving readability. Yet, existing studies on their effectiveness do not allow to systematically investigate quality benefits and compare different notations. Objectives: We strive for a comparative benchmark and evaluation of template systems to support practitioners in selecting template systems and enable researchers to work on pinpoint improvements and domain-specific adaptions. Methods: We conduct a comparative experiment with a control group of free-text requirements and treatment groups of their variants following different templates. We compare effects on metrics systematically derived from quality guidelines. Results: We present a benchmark consisting of a systematically derived metric suite over seven relevant quality categories and a dataset of 1764 requirements, comprising 249 free-text forms from five projects and variants in five template systems. We evaluate effects in comparison to free text. Except for one template system, all have solely positive effects in all categories. Conclusions: The proposed benchmark enables the identification of the relative strengths and weaknesses of different template systems. Results show that templates can generally improve quality compared to free text. Although MASTER leads the field, there is no conclusive favourite choice, as overall effect sizes are relatively similar.

Relations between requirements are part of nearly every requirements engineering approach. Yet, relations of views, such as requirements documents, are scarcely considered. This is remarkable as requirements documents and their structure are a key factor in requirements reuse, which is still challenging. Explicit formalized relations between documents can help to ensure consistency, improve completeness, and facilitate review activities in general. For example, this is relevant in space engineering, where many challenges related to complex document dependencies occur: 1. Several contractors contribute to a project. 2. Requirements from standards have to be applied in several projects. 3. Requirements from previous phases have to be reused. We exploit the concept of “layered traceability”, explicitly considering documents as views on sets of individual requirements and specific traceability relations on and between all of these representation layers. Different types of relations and their dependencies are investigated with a special focus on requirement reuse through standards and formalized in an Object-Role Modelling (ORM) conceptual model. Automated analyses of requirement graphs based on this model are able to reveal document inconsistencies. We show examples of such queries in Neo4J/Cypher for the EagleEye case study. This work aims to be a step toward a better support to handle highly complex requirement document dependencies in large projects with a special focus on requirements reuse and to enable automated quality checks on dependent documents to facilitate requirements reviews.

Context: Software architecture (SA) as research area experienced an increase in empirical research, as identified by Galster and Weyns in 2016 [1]. Empirical research builds a sound foundation for the validity and comparability of the research. A current overview on the evaluation and replicability of SA research objects could help to discuss our empirical standards as a community. However, no such current overview exists.Objective: We aim at assessing the current state of practice of evaluating SA research objects and replication artifact provision in full technical conference papers from 2017 to 2021.Method: We first create a categorization of papers regarding their evaluation and provision of replication artifacts. In a systematic literature review (SLR) with 153 papers we then investigate how SA research objects are evaluated and how artifacts are made available.Results: We found that technical experiments (28%) and case studies (29%) are the most frequently used evaluation methods over all research objects. Functional suitability (46% of evaluated properties) and performance (29%) are the most evaluated properties. 17 papers (11%) provide replication packages and 97 papers (63%) explicitly state threats to validity. 17% of papers reference guidelines for evaluations and 14% of papers reference guidelines for threats to validity.Conclusions: Our results indicate that the generalizability and repeatability of evaluations could be improved to enhance the maturity of the field; although, there are valid reasons for contributions to not publish their data. We derive from our findings a set of four proposals for improving the state of practice in evaluating software architecture research objects. Researchers can use our results to find recommendations on relevant properties to evaluate and evaluation methods to use and to identify reusable evaluation artifacts to compare their novel ideas with other research. Reviewers can use our results to compare the evaluation and replicability of submissions with the state of the practice.

# ContentIn this package, please find the following content: * Investigated Papers.bibA BibTeX file with all papers investigated in the paper "Evaluation Methods and Replicability of Software Architecture Research Objects"* Raw-Data-Table Content-Data.html and Raw-Data-Table Meta-Data.htmlTables with the raw data as extracted during the systematic literature review* Colection of Data Visualizations.pdfMultiple visualizations of the raw data for analysis. A copy of summary.pdf as described below.* Data and VisualizationContains:- The data as CSV files,- scripts for creating visualizations- *.awk -- Awk scripts are used to create the corresponding of the *.csv files in data- *.rb -- Ruby scripts to build the respective figures in figs as *.tex files- make-all.sh -- A script to call all other scripts for creating diagrams and the summary- make-paper-figures.sh -- A script to build "paper-figures.pdf" with all diagrams used in the accompanying paper- A documentation of the contained scripts (Data and Visualization/README.md)- summary.pdf -- A collection of diagrams (as built by make-all.sh)- paper-figures.pdf -- A collection of all diagrams as used in the accompanying paper (as built by make-paper-figures.sh and make-all.sh)* Wiki/A copy of the wiki used during data extraction.Constains:- descriptions of all data items- the process description- the taxonomy used for data extraction# ReproductionYou can reproduce the visualizations with the following commands in a UNIX command line environment. > cd "Data and Visualization"> ./make-paper-figures.sh> ./make-all.sh The requirements are:* A UNIX command line environment (e.g., bash) with awk installed* Ruby (>2.5)* latex (e.g., tex-live) The command "./make-paper-figures.sh" produces the file “paper-figures.pdf”, which contains all diagrams that are used in the paper.The command "./make-all.sh" produces the file "summary.pdf", which contains diagrams used for data analysis, and the file "paper-figures.pdf". All figures describing the results in the paper are also in "summary.pdf".These commands each take about 2 ("/make-paper-figures.sh") / 8 ("./make-all.sh") minutes to run on current standard laptop (Intel i5-8250U, 16 GB memory).Calling the commands produces many log statements (information and warnings), which show the progress and can be ignored.

Context and motivation: Providing precise definitions of all project specific terms is a crucial task in requirements engineering. In order to support the glossary building process, many previous tools rely on the assumption that the requirements set has a certain level of quality. Question/problem: Yet, the parallel detection and correction of quality weaknesses in the context of glossary terms is beneficial to requirements definition. In this paper, we focus on detection of uncontrolled usage of abbreviations by identification of abbreviation-expansion pair (AEP) candidates. Principal ideas/results: We compare our feature-based approach (ILLOD) to other similarity measures to detect AEPs. It shows that feature-based methods are more accurate than syntactic and semantic similarity measures. The goal is to extend the glossary term extraction (GTE) and synonym clustering with AEP-specific methods. First experiments with a PROMISE data-set extended with uncontrolled abbreviations show that ILLOD is able to extract abbreviations as well as match their expansions viably in a real-world setting and is well suited to augment previous term clusters with clusters that combine AEP candidates. Contribution: In this paper, we present ILLOD, a novel feature-based approach to AEP detection and propose a workflow for its integration to clustering of glossary term candidates.

In "Evaluation Methods and Replicability of Software Architecture Research" [1], we present a systematic literature review to assess the state-of-practice of evaluating software architecture research objects and providing replication artifacts in 153 full technical conference papers published at the International and European Conference on Software Architecture (ICSA respectively ECSA) from 2017 to 2021.

Replication Package SLR Evaluations at ECSA This is the replication package of the following paper, submitted to ECSA 2021. Marco Konersmann, Angelika Kaplan, Thomas Kühn, Robert Heinrich, Anne Koziolek, Ralf Reussner, Jan Jürjens, Mahmood al-Doori, Marco Ehl, Dominik Fuchß, Katharina Großer, Sebastian Hahner, Jan Keim, Matthias Lohr, Timur Sağlam, Sophie Schulz, and Jan-Philipp Töberg: A Systematic Literature Review on the Evaluation of Software Architecture Research Please find the following content: Folders data -- CSV files with the data as input to the diagrams figs -- Diagrams created by the ruby scripts (see below) tables -- contains the overview.tex file, which is used as input to the summary.tex Documents and Tables ECSA-Proceedings.bib -- Contains the BibTeX entries of ECSA papers 2007 to 2020 Data Extraction Form.docx -- The data extraction form used for extracting data during the SLR. Normalized Data.csv -- The data collected during the data extraction, normalized. summary.(tex|pdf) -- A summarizing document with all diagrams, a table of all papers with extracted reesarch objects, evaluation methods and properties, references to all papers considered in the SLR (sources, document). Scripts *.awk -- Awk scripts are used to create the corresponding of the *.csv files in data .rb -- Ruby scripts to build the respective figures in figs as .*.tex files make.sh -- A script to call all other scripts for creating diagrams and the summary. Requirements A UNIX commandline environment (e.g., bash) with awk installed Ruby (2.5 or higher) To create the diagrams, please run the script make.sh in a UNIX commandline environment

Bei der Pathogenese verschiedener Glomerulonephritiden kommt der Proliferation von Mesangiumzellen eine entscheidende Bedeutung zu. Die COX-2 wird im Rahmen einer Vielzahl inflammatorischer Prozesse wie auch bei Glomerulonephritiden fruhzeitig hochreguliert. Bei der Vermittlung proinflammatorischer COX-2 Effekte wurde NF-kappaB als zentraler Transkriptionsfaktor identifiziert. NF-kappaB transloziert nach Freisetzung von seinem Inhibitorprotein IkappaB-alpha in den Zellkern und reguliert dort die Transkription seiner Zielgene wie das proinflammatorische Chemokin CCL2. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde untersucht, ob durch den Einsatz proteasomaler Inhibitoren die Degradation von IkappaB-alpha verhindert und so auf die Aktivierung von NF-kappaB in glomerularen Mesangiumzellen eingewirkt werden kann. Um proinflammatorische Effekte in den Mesangiumzellen abzuschatzen, wurde die Expression des Chemokin CCL2 bestimmt. Es zeigte sich, dass die CCL2 Expression durch Proteasomenhemmer nur partiell und lediglich bei massiver Aktivierung des NF-kappaB Systems vermindert wurde. In Zellen, deren NF-kappaB System nicht oder nur schwach aktiviert ist, wurde die CCL2 Expression durch Behandlung mit Proteasomenhemmern nicht abgeschwacht, sondern sogar geringfugig gesteigert. Die Unfahigkeit proteasomaler Inhibitoren, proinflammatorische Effekte der COX-2 signifikant zu limitieren, konnte auf die Unspezifitat der Proteasomenhemmer und eine Gegenregulation alternativer Transkriptionsfaktoren wie AP-1 zuruckzufuhren sein. Zusatzlich gibt es Anhalt dafur, dass die Proteasomenhemmer den nuklearen Abbau der NF-kappaB Untereinheit p65 beeintrachtigen und auf diesem Wege moglicherweise die Assemblierung eines Aktivatorkomplexes fur die Transkription von Zielgenen wie CCL2 erschweren. Ferner konnte die Akkumulation ubiquitinierter Proteine uber eine Aktivierung deubiquitinierender Enzyme zu Wechselwirkungen zwischen Proteinen fuhren, die an der Vermittlung der COX-2 Effekte beteiligt sind und zur Komplexitat der Ergebnisse beitragen. Die Ergebnisse der vorliegenden Arbeit werfen die Frage auf, inwieweit Proteasomenhemmer wegen ihrer unspezifischen Effekte im Rahmen antiinflammatorischer Therapieversuche uberhaupt eingesetzt werden sollten, oder ob nicht vielmehr auf spezifischere Hemmer von NF-kappaB wie die IKK Hemmer zuruckgegriffen werden sollte, um die Pathogenese von Glomerulonephritiden experimentell zu untersuchen. In glomerulonephritis COX-2 formation is up-regulated in association with increased mesangial cell growth. It has been shown that NF-kappa B plays a pivotal role in mediation of COX-2 effects. Proteasomal degradation of the inhibitor protein IkappaB-alpha is an important mechanism in the activation of NF-kappaB. Once IkappaB-alpha is degraded by the proteasome NF-kappaB translocates into the nucleus and induces the transcription of various proinflammatory target genes such as the chemokine CCL2. In this study it was assessed if activation of NF-kappaB and subsequent proinflammatory effects of COX-2 can be limited by the use of proteasome inhibitors in mesangial cells. It was shown that there is only a partial reduction of CCL2 in COX-2-overexpressing cells upon treatment with proteasome inhibitors. In contrast there was no decrease but even a slight increase of CCL2 expression in control cells which was assigned to a low level of NF-kappaB activation. One explanation of the incapability of proteasome inhibitors to limit proinflammatory COX-2 effects to a greater extend might be the nonspecific target and a potential proinflammatory counter-regulation of the transcription factor AP-1. Moreover there is data that suggests that proteasome inhibitor treatment has effects on the nuclear degradation of NF-kappaB subunit p65 with the result of nuclear NF-kappaB p65 accumulation and increase in levels of p65 polyubiquitination. Nuclear stabilization of NF-kappaB p65 might thus compromise the assembly of an activator complex for the transcription of NF-kappaB target genes such as CCL2. In addition an activation of deubiquitinating enzymes (DUB) might change the pattern of protein-protein interaction of involved protein players leading to the complexity of results. Taking everything into consideration one might raise the question if in investigation of the pathogenesis of glomerulonephritis proteasome inhibitors should be replaced by more specific inhibitors such as IKK inhibitors.