Developing BP-driven web application through the use of MDE techniques

Model driven engineering (MDE) is a suitable approach for performing the construction of software systems (in particular in the Web application domain). There are different types of Web applications depending on their purpose (i.e., document-centric, interactive, transactional, workflow/business process-based, collaborative, etc). This work focusses on business process-based Web applications in order to be able to understand business processes in a broad sense, from the lightweight business processes already addressed by existing proposals to long-running asynchronous processes. This work presents a MDE method for the construction of systems of this type. The method has been designed in two steps following the MDE principles. In the first step, the system is represented by means of models in a technology-independent manner. These models capture the different aspects of Web-based systems (these aspects refer to behaviour, structure, navigation, and presentation issues). In the second step, the model transformations (both model-to- model and model-to-text) are applied in order to obtain the final system in terms of a specific technology. In addition, a set ofEclipse-based tools has been developed to provide automation in the application of the proposed method in order to validate the proposal.Torres Bosch, MV.; Giner Blasco, P.; Pelechano Ferragud, V. (2012). Developing BP-driven web application through the use of MDE techniques. Software and Systems Modeling. 11(4):609-631. doi:10.1007/s10270-010-0177-5S609631114Andrews, T., Curbera, F., Dholakia, H., Goland, Y., Klein, J., Leymann, F., Liu, K., Roller, D., Smith, D., Thatte, S., Trickovic, I., Weerawarana, S.: Business process execution language for Web services version 1.1 (May 2003)Barna, P., Frasincar, F., Houben, G.J.: A workow-driven design of Web information systems. In: Wolber, D., Calder, N., Brooks, C., Ginige, A. (eds.) 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Adaptive model for web engineering methods to develop multi web applications in agile environment

Model Driven Web Engineering (MDWE) is an application of a model driven paradigm in the domain of web software development. MDWE is helpful because technologies and platforms of web applications constantly evolve into Web Engineering Methods (WEMs). The evolution of web applications has consequently introduced new features and challenges, therefore existing WEMs need to be improved. These WEMs have failed to develop modern web applications’ features. Furthermore, no single WEM is capable of covering the whole lifecycle phases. These issues decrease the usability. In addition, the Interaction Flow Modeling Language (IFML) as a recent method has also not been able to address them. This thesis developed a new WEM, Useable Adaptive Agile IFML (UAA-IFML) to solve these issues in several steps. In this research, mixed methods used were qualitative and quantitative methodologies. In the first step, a new adaptive model was defined for supporting the features of multi-web applications. The new model was developed via an adaptive model into the IFML metamodels known as Adaptive IFML (AIFML). In the second step, IFML was enriched through MockupDD for covering lifecycle, known as Agile IFML (A-IFML). This is because MockupDD provides an agile environment, hence agile lifecycle can solve the lifecycle issue. In the third step, a new adaptive model and agile process were combined as Adaptive Agile IFML (AAIFML). This integration increased the usability of the IFML method. In presenting the usability of AA-IFML, experimentation of the framework was extended to evaluate the usability of WEMs. Besides, feedbacks on the usability of AA-IFML were obtained from developers around the world using three instruments, namely performing tasks, answering questionnaires, and interviewing experts. Analysis on the feedback indicated a 20% improvement usability of the AA-IFML compared with current IFML. The findings have shown that the UAA-IFML is beneficial for developers, as they would only need to use one method to design modern web application features in the whole lifecycle phases

Model driven design and data integration in semantic web information systems

The Web is quickly evolving in many ways. It has evolved from a Web of documents into a Web of applications in which a growing number of designers offer new and interactive Web applications with people all over the world. However, application design and implementation remain complex, error-prone and laborious. In parallel there is also an evolution from a Web of documents into a Web of `knowledge' as a growing number of data owners are sharing their data sources with a growing audience. This brings the potential new applications for these data sources, including scenarios in which these datasets are reused and integrated with other existing and new data sources. However, the heterogeneity of these data sources in syntax, semantics and structure represents a great challenge for application designers. The Semantic Web is a collection of standards and technologies that offer solutions for at least the syntactic and some structural issues. If offers semantic freedom and flexibility, but this leaves the issue of semantic interoperability. In this thesis we present Hera-S, an evolution of the Model Driven Web Engineering (MDWE) method Hera. MDWEs allow designers to create data centric applications using models instead of programming. Hera-S especially targets Semantic Web sources and provides a flexible method for designing personalized adaptive Web applications. Hera-S defines several models that together define the target Web application. Moreover we implemented a framework called Hydragen, which is able to execute the Hera-S models to run the desired Web application. Hera-S' core is the Application Model (AM) in which the main logic of the application is defined, i.e. defining the groups of data elements that form logical units or subunits, the personalization conditions, and the relationships between the units. Hera-S also uses a so-called Domain Model (DM) that describes the content and its structure. However, this DM is not Hera-S specific, but instead allows any Semantic Web source representation as its DM, as long as its content can be queried by the standardized Semantic Web query language SPARQL. The same holds for the User Model (UM). The UM can be used for personalization conditions, but also as a source of user-related content if necessary. In fact, the difference between DM and UM is conceptual as their implementation within Hydragen is the same. Hera-S also defines a presentation model (PM) which defines presentation details of elements like order and style. In order to help designers with building their Web applications we have introduced a toolset, Hera Studio, which allows to build the different models graphically. Hera Studio also provides some additional functionality like model checking and deployment of the models in Hydragen. Both Hera-S and its implementation Hydragen are designed to be flexible regarding the user of models. In order to achieve this Hydragen is a stateless engine that queries for relevant information from the models at every page request. This allows the models and data to be changed in the datastore during runtime. We show that one way to exploit this flexibility is by applying aspect-orientation to the AM. Aspect-orientation allows us to dynamically inject functionality that pervades the entire application. Another way to exploit Hera-S' flexibility is in reusing specialized components, e.g. for presentation generation. We present a configuration of Hydragen in which we replace our native presentation generation functionality by the AMACONT engine. AMACONT provides more extensive multi-level presentation generation and adaptation capabilities as well aspect-orientation and a form of semantic based adaptation. Hera-S was designed to allow the (re-)use of any (Semantic) Web datasource. It even opens up the possibility for data integration at the back end, by using an extendible storage layer in our database of choice Sesame. However, even though theoretically possible it still leaves much of the actual data integration issue. As this is a recurring issue in many domains, a broader challenge than for Hera-S design only, we decided to look at this issue in isolation. We present a framework called Relco which provides a language to express data transformation operations as well as a collection of techniques that can be used to (semi-)automatically find relationships between concepts in different ontologies. This is done with a combination of syntactic, semantic and collaboration techniques, which together provide strong clues for which concepts are most likely related. In order to prove the applicability of Relco we explore five application scenarios in different domains for which data integration is a central aspect. This includes a cultural heritage portal, Explorer, for which data from several datasources was integrated and was made available by a mapview, a timeline and a graph view. Explorer also allows users to provide metadata for objects via a tagging mechanism. Another application is SenSee: an electronic TV-guide and recommender. TV-guide data was integrated and enriched with semantically structured data from several sources. Recommendations are computed by exploiting the underlying semantic structure. ViTa was a project in which several techniques for tagging and searching educational videos were evaluated. This includes scenarios in which user tags are related with an ontology, or other tags, using the Relco framework. The MobiLife project targeted the facilitation of a new generation of mobile applications that would use context-based personalization. This can be done using a context-based user profiling platform that can also be used for user model data exchange between mobile applications using technologies like Relco. The final application scenario that is shown is from the GRAPPLE project which targeted the integration of adaptive technology into current learning management systems. A large part of this integration is achieved by using a user modeling component framework in which any application can store user model information, but which can also be used for the exchange of user model data

Model Driven Development and Maintenance of Business Logic for Information Systems

Since information systems become more and more important in today\''s society, business firms, organizations, and individuals rely on these systems to manage their daily business and social activities. The dependency of possibly critical business processes on complex IT systems requires a strategy that supports IT departments in reducing the time needed to implement changed or new domain requirements of functional departments. In this context, software models help to manage system\''s complexity and provide a tool for communication and documentation purposes. Moreover, software engineers tend to use automated software model processing such as code generation to improve development and maintenance processes. Particularly in the context of web-based information systems, a number of model driven approaches were developed. However, we believe that compared to the user interface layer and the persistency layer, there could be a better support of consistent approaches providing a suitable architecture for the consistent model driven development of business logic. To ameliorate this situation, we developed an architectural blueprint consisting of meta models, tools, and a method support for model driven development and maintenance of business logic from analysis until system maintenance. This blueprint, which we call Amabulo infrastructure, consists of five layers and provides concepts and tools to set up and apply concrete infrastructures for model driven development projects. Modeling languages can be applied as needed. In this thesis we focus on business logic layers of J2EE applications. However, concrete code generation rules can be adapted easily for different target platforms. After providing a high-level overview of our Amabulo infrastructure, we describe its layers in detail: The Visual Model Layer is responsible for all visual modeling tasks. For this purpose, we discuss requirements for visual software models for business logic, analyze several visual modeling languages concerning their usefulness, and provide an UML profile for business logic models. The Abstract Model Layer provides an abstract view on the business logic model in the form of a domain specific model, which we call Amabulo model. An Amabulo model is reduced to pure logical information concerning business logic aspects. It focuses on information that is relevant for the code generation. For this purpose, an Amabulo model integrates model elements for process modeling, state modeling, and structural modeling. It is used as a common interface between visual modeling languages and code generators. Visual models of the Visual Model Layer are automatically transformed into an Amabulo model. The Abstract System Layer provides a formal view onto the system in the form of a Coloured Petri Net (CPN). A Coloured Petri Net representation of the modeled business logic is a formal structure and independent of the actual business logic implementation. After an Amabulo model is automatically transformed into a CPN, it can be analyzed and simulated before any line of code is generated. The Code Generation Layer is responsible for code generation. To support the design and implementation of project-specific code generators, we discuss several aspects of code integration issues and provide object-oriented design approaches to tackle the issues. Then, we provide a conceptual mapping of Amabulo model elements into architectural elements of a J2EE infrastructure. This mapping explicitly considers robustness features, which support a later manual integration of generated critical code artifacts and external systems. The Application Layer is the target layer of an Amabulo infrastructure and comprises generated code artifacts. These artifacts are instances of a specific target platform specification, and they can be modified for integration purposes with development tools. Through the contributions in this thesis, we aim to provide an integrated set of solutions to support an efficient model driven development and maintenance process for the business logic of information systems. Therefore, we provide a consistent infrastructure blueprint that considers modeling tasks, model analysis tasks, and code generation tasks. As a result, we see potential for reducing the development and maintenance efforts for changed domain requirements and simultaneously guaranteeing robustness and maintainability even after several changes

Incorporating Agile with MDA Case Study: Online Polling System

Nowadays agile software development is used in greater extend but for small organizations only, whereas MDA is suitable for large organizations but yet not standardized. In this paper the pros and cons of Model Driven Architecture (MDA) and Extreme programming have been discussed. As both of them have some limitations and cannot be used in both large scale and small scale organizations a new architecture has been proposed. In this model it is tried to opt the advantages and important values to overcome the limitations of both the software development procedures. In support to the proposed architecture the implementation of it on Online Polling System has been discussed and all the phases of software development have been explained.Comment: 14 pages,1 Figure,1 Tabl

Forum Session at the First International Conference on Service Oriented Computing (ICSOC03)

The First International Conference on Service Oriented Computing (ICSOC) was held in Trento, December 15-18, 2003. The focus of the conference ---Service Oriented Computing (SOC)--- is the new emerging paradigm for distributed computing and e-business processing that has evolved from object-oriented and component computing to enable building agile networks of collaborating business applications distributed within and across organizational boundaries. Of the 181 papers submitted to the ICSOC conference, 10 were selected for the forum session which took place on December the 16th, 2003. The papers were chosen based on their technical quality, originality, relevance to SOC and for their nature of being best suited for a poster presentation or a demonstration. This technical report contains the 10 papers presented during the forum session at the ICSOC conference. In particular, the last two papers in the report ere submitted as industrial papers

Integrating web services into data intensive web sites

Designing web sites is a complex task. Ad-hoc rapid prototyping easily leads to unsatisfactory results, e.g. poor maintainability and extensibility. However, existing web design frameworks focus exclusively on data presentation: the development of specific functionalities is still achieved through low-level programming. In this paper we address this issue by describing our work on the integration of (semantic) web services into a web design framework, OntoWeaver. The resulting architecture, OntoWeaver-S, supports rapid prototyping of service centred data-intensive web sites, which allow access to remote web services. In particular, OntoWeaver-S is integrated with a comprehensive web service platform, IRS-II, for the specification, discovery, and execution of web services. Moreover, it employs a set of comprehensive site ontologies to model and represent all aspects of service-centred data-intensive web sites, and thus is able to offer high level support for the design and development process