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This paper presents a computational method that employs Natural Language Processing (NLP) and text mining techniques to support requirements engineers in extracting and modeling goals from textual documents. We developed a NLP-based goal elicitation approach within the context of KAOS goal-oriented requirements engineering method. The hierarchical relationships among goals are inferred by automatically building taxonomies from extracted goals. We use smart metering system as a case study to investigate the proposed approach. Smart metering system is an important subsystem of the next generation of power systems (smart grids). Goals are extracted by semantically parsing the grammar of goal-related phrases in abstracts of research publications. The results of this case study show that the developed approach is an effective way to model goals for complex systems, and in particular, for the research-intensive complex systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we develop a general framework to reason about testing. The difficulty of testing is assessed in terms of the amount of tests that must be applied to determine whether the system is correct or not. Based on this criterion, five testability classes are presented and related. We also explore conditions that enable and disable finite testability, and their relation to testing hypotheses is studied. We measure how far incomplete test suites are from being complete, which allows us to compare and select better incomplete test suites. The complexity of finding that measure, as well as the complexity of finding minimum complete test suites, is identified. Furthermore, we address the reduction of testing problems to each other, that is, we study how the problem of finding test suites to test systems of some kind can be reduced to the problem of finding test suites for another kind of systems. This enables to export testing methods. In order to illustrate how general notions are applied to specific cases, many typical examples from the formal testing techniques domain are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a list of summaries of papers published in other parts of Institution of Civil Engineers Proceedings during 2003. Some of the papers included in the list are: "The use of managed retreat in coastal engineering," by N.J. Cooper; "The effects of pumping on the energy potential of a tidal power barrage," by T.L. Shaw and M.J. Watson etc.

The article discusses the guidelines for the preparation of proposals for the theme-based special issue of "IETE Technical Review" which focuses on emerging research topics of general interest and coverage of important international conferences. The topic to be included in this issue should be justified. A list of invited authors, titles and abstracts of the papers should be provided. Researchers should provide more papers in the proposal than can be included in the final issue.