Unifying program slicing and concept assignment for higher-level executable source code extraction

Both program slicing and concept assignment have been proposed as source code extraction techniques. Unfortunately, each has a weakness which prevents wider application. For slicing, the extraction criterion is expressed at a very low level; constructing a slicing criterion requires detailed code knowledge which is often unavailable. The concept assignment extraction criterion is expressed at the domain level. Howeverm, unlike a slice, the extracted code is not executable as a separate subprogram in its own right.