A Case Study in the Use of Theory Revision in Requirements Validation

Abstract

Research emanating from Artificial Intelligence has throughout its history contributed to techniques and ideas in Software Engineering. We describe in this paper a case study showing the use of theory revision to the refinement of a formally specified requirements model. In a previous project we were contracted to create a precise model of the complex criteria governing the separation of aircraft profiles in Atlantic Airspace. During that work it became clear that the (automated) validation of the model was of the utmost importance, and in our current project we have used machine learning tools to provide extra support in bug identification, bug removal and maintenance of such a requirements model. In this paper we give an overview of the domain, identify a relevant learning bias which makes search for revisions tractable, and describe a systematic approach for the application of theory revision to such a model. We illustrate the approach with results of experiments where theory revisi...