Association Analysis of Software Measures

Software measures (metrics) provide software engineers with an important means of quantifying essential features of software products and software processes such as software reliability, maintenance, reusability and alike. Software measures interact between themselves. Some of them may be deemed redundant. Software measures are used to construct detailed prediction models. The objective of this study is to pursue an association analysis of software measures by revealing dependencies (associations) between them. More specifically, the introduced association analysis is carried out at the local level by studying dependencies between information granules of the software measures. This approach is contrasted with a global level such as e.g., regression analysis. We discuss the role of information granules as meaningful conceptual entities that facilitate analysis and give rise to a user-friendly, highly transparent environment.