This paper presents a diagnostic framework for assessing the significance of inconsistencies in design models of software systems expressed in the Unified Modelling Language (UML). This assessment is based on significance criteria which software designers have to specify and associate with specific consistency rules. These criteria are defined in terms of characteristics of the model elements involved in the breach of a consistency rule. The framework establishes belief functions which measure the extent to which it may be believed from the model that an element has a characteristic, and uses them to derive beliefs for the signifiance critiera. Results of a set of preliminary experiments conducted to evaluate the framework are also presented.
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