IJMEMES logo

International Journal of Mathematical, Engineering and Management Sciences

ISSN: 2455-7749 . Open Access


Causal-Effect Analysis using Bayesian LiNGAM Comparing with Correlation Analysis in Function Point Metrics and Effort

Causal-Effect Analysis using Bayesian LiNGAM Comparing with Correlation Analysis in Function Point Metrics and Effort

Masanari Kondo
Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto, Japan.

Osamu Mizuno
Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto, Japan.

Eun-Hye Choi
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Ikeda, Osaka, Japan.

DOI https://dx.doi.org/10.33889/IJMEMS.2018.3.2-008

Received on March 31, 2017
  ;
Accepted on September 27, 2017

Abstract

Software effort estimation is a critical task for successful software development, which is necessary for appropriately managing software task assignment and schedule and consequently producing high quality software. Function Point (FP) metrics are commonly used for software effort estimation. To build a good effort estimation model, independent explanatory variables corresponding to FP metrics are required to avoid a multicollinearity problem. For this reason, previous studies have tackled analyzing correlation relationships between FP metrics. However, previous results on the relationships have some inconsistencies. To obtain evidences for such inconsistent results and achieve more effective effort estimation, we propose a novel analysis, which investigates causal-effect relationships between FP metrics and effort. We use an advanced linear non-Gaussian acyclic model called BayesLiNGAM for our causal-effect analysis, and compare the correlation relationships with the causal-effect relationships between FP metrics. In this paper, we report several new findings including the most effective FP metric for effort estimation investigated by our analysis using two datasets.

Keywords- Software effort estimation, Function point (FP) metrics, Causal-effect analysis, Correlation analysis, Linear non-Gaussian acyclic model (LiNGAM), BayesLiNGAM.

Citation

Kondo, M., Mizuno, O., & Choi, E. (2018). Causal-Effect Analysis using Bayesian LiNGAM Comparing with Correlation Analysis in Function Point Metrics and Effort. International Journal of Mathematical, Engineering and Management Sciences, 3(2), 90-112. https://dx.doi.org/10.33889/IJMEMS.2018.3.2-008.