CRA: Identifying Key Classes Using Markov-Chain-Based Ranking Aggregation

Researchers have proposed many approaches to identify key classes in software from the perspective of complex networks, such as CONN-TOTAL-W, <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mi>P<...

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書誌詳細
出版年:Axioms
主要な著者: Xin Du, Weifeng Pan, Bo Jiang, Luyun Ding, Yun Pan, Chengxiang Yuan, Yiming Xiang
フォーマット: 論文
言語:英語
出版事項: MDPI AG 2022-09-01
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オンライン・アクセス:https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1680/11/10/491
その他の書誌記述
要約:Researchers have proposed many approaches to identify key classes in software from the perspective of complex networks, such as CONN-TOTAL-W, <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mi>P</mi><mi>a</mi><mi>g</mi><mi>e</mi><mi>R</mi><mi>a</mi><mi>n</mi><msub><mi>k</mi><mrow><mi>B</mi><mi>R</mi></mrow></msub></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula>, and ElementRank, which can effectively help developers understand software. However, these approaches tend to rely on a single metric when measuring the importance of classes. They do not consider the aggregation of multiple metrics to select the winner classes that rank high in majority metrics. In this work, we propose a key class identification approach using Markov-Chain-based ranking aggregation, namely CRA. First, CRA constructs a weighted directed class coupling network (WDCCNet) to describe the software and further applies existing approaches on WDCCNet to calculate class importance. Second, CRA filters out some metrics according to specific rules and uses the Markov chain to aggregate the remaining metrics. When the state probability distribution reaches a fixed point and does not change anymore, the classes in the software are sorted in a descending order according to the probability distribution, and the top-15% classes are treated as key classes. To evaluate the CRA approach, we compare it with 10 baseline approaches available on 6 pieces of software. Empirical results show that our approach is superior to the baselines according to the average ranking of the Friedman Test.
ISSN:2075-1680