Instruct: Identify the main and secondary category of Arxiv papers based on the titles and abstracts
Query: How Do Practitioners Interpret Conditionals in Requirements?   Context: Conditional statements like "If A and B then C" are core elements
for describing software requirements. However, there are many ways to express
such conditionals in natural language and also many ways how they can be
interpreted. We hypothesize that conditional statements in requirements are a
source of ambiguity, potentially affecting downstream activities such as test
case generation negatively. Objective: Our goal is to understand how specific
conditionals are interpreted by readers who work with requirements. Method: We
conduct a descriptive survey with 104 RE practitioners and ask how they
interpret 12 different conditional clauses. We map their interpretations to
logical formulas written in Propositional (Temporal) Logic and discuss the
implications. Results: The conditionals in our tested requirements were
interpreted ambiguously. We found that practitioners disagree on whether an
antecedent is only sufficient or also necessary for the consequent.
Interestingly, the disagreement persists even when the system behavior is known
to the practitioners. We also found that certain cue phrases are associated
with specific interpretations. Conclusion: Conditionals in requirements are a
source of ambiguity and there is not just one way to interpret them formally.
This affects any analysis that builds upon formalized requirements (e.g.,
inconsistency checking, test-case generation). Our results may also influence
guidelines for writing requirements.

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The categories of this paper are: chao-dyn
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The categories of this paper are: nucl-th
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The categories of this paper are: solv-int
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The categories of this paper are: q-alg
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The categories of this paper are: math-ph
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The categories of this paper are: ao-sci
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The categories of this paper are: funct-an
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The categories of this paper are: acc-phys
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The categories of this paper are: hep-th
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The categories of this paper are: cmp-lg
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The categories of this paper are: hep-ex
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The categories of this paper are: math
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The categories of this paper are: hep-ph
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The categories of this paper are: q-bio
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The categories of this paper are: quant-ph
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The categories of this paper are: alg-geom