A concept of dependency areas can help in tracing an impact of artifacts of a project (requirements, elements of the UML design, extracts of the code) and assist in their evolution. The dependency area of an element of a UML design is a part of the design that is highly influenced by the given initial element. Dependency areas are identified using sets of propagation rules and strategies. Selection strategies control application of many, possible rules. Bounding strategies limit the number of

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... ements assigned to the areas. This paper is devoted to the specification of the rules and strategies. They are specified using an extended UML meta-model and expressions in the Object Constraint Language (OCL).