A model transformation framework to increase OCL usability

The usability of a modeling language has a direct relationship with several factors of models constructed with the modeling language, such as time required and accuracy. Object Constraint Language (OCL) is the most prevalent language to document system constraints that are annotated in the Unified Modeling Language (UML). OCL is reputed as a modeling language with difficult syntax, and prior knowledge of OCL is needed to use the language. These obstacles result in the low usability of OCL. Therefore, the current research proposes a model to automatically transform system constraints formed in English sentences to OCL specifications. The proposed model is based on the Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) approach. The Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) properties of the proposed model are verified by the Maude model checker. To validate the proposed model and compare it with the existing work, the En2OCL (English2OCL) application is developed. This application is tested by three evaluation metrics: precision, recall, and f-measure. The En2OCL application is further compared with the NL2OCLviaSBVR application, which is the existing work on OCL generation from English sentences. The comparison shows a considerable improvement in precision, recall, and f-measure.Web of Science281261

Automatic Transformation of Natural to Unified Modeling Language: A Systematic Review

Context: Processing Software Requirement Specifications (SRS) manually takes a much longer time for requirement analysts in software engineering. Researchers have been working on making an automatic approach to ease this task. Most of the existing approaches require some intervention from an analyst or are challenging to use. Some automatic and semi-automatic approaches were developed based on heuristic rules or machine learning algorithms. However, there are various constraints to the existing approaches of UML generation, such as restriction on ambiguity, length or structure, anaphora, incompleteness, atomicity of input text, requirements of domain ontology, etc. Objective: This study aims to better understand the effectiveness of existing systems and provide a conceptual framework with further improvement guidelines. Method: We performed a systematic literature review (SLR). We conducted our study selection into two phases and selected 70 papers. We conducted quantitative and qualitative analyses by manually extracting information, cross-checking, and validating our findings. Result: We described the existing approaches and revealed the issues observed in these works. We identified and clustered both the limitations and benefits of selected articles. Conclusion: This research upholds the necessity of a common dataset and evaluation framework to extend the research consistently. It also describes the significance of natural language processing obstacles researchers face. In addition, it creates a path forward for future research

Enhancement of natural language processing approach for automated generation of object constraint language

Object Constraint Language (OCL) is the most prevalent modeling language to document requirement constraints that are annotated in the Unified Modeling Language. Various researchers have proved that OCL syntax is complex and difficult for some reasons such as its declarative nature. As the measure of ease-of-use factor of a language has a direct relationship with the language’s usability, the difficulties in the use of OCL result in the low usability of OCL. There are few research works for OCL generation using some different techniques such as pattern-based and Model-Driven Architecture (MDA)-based. The accuracy of the existing patternbased work generating OCL specification is low. MDA focuses on software development based on generating models and transforming these models between each other. There are some researches based on MDA to increase the usability of modeling languages. However, only one of the existing works supports OCL. The existing MDA-based work generating OCL specification does not support some OCL elements, such as collect and reject, and some UML elements such as enumeration. Therefore, this research proposes an MDA-based approach to transform requirement constraints formed in English sentences into OCL specifications using transformation rules. A software tool is developed to validate the proposed approach and compare with the existing works. The comparison shows that the proposed approach solves some limitations of the existing works such as support of some OCL and UML elements, which are not supported by the existing works. The comparison also shows that some accuracy improvement is achieved by the proposed approach in comparison with the existing works

From standards and regulations to executable rules: A case study in the Building Accessibility domain

Regulatory compliance check in the building industry is a complex task that involves cross-domain national and international standards and regulations. This paper introduces a refined approach to extract SWRL rules from building accessibility regulatory texts and then to transform them into executable rules for semi-automatic compliance checking of Building Information Models. The domain ontology model is a key input to the approach and is enriched by new knowledge extracted from the regulatory text. This semantic technology enhanced rule extraction approach standardized the rule extraction process by covering the whole lifecycle from regulatory text to executable rules. It is based on the open standards and applies open source tools and thereby portable and extendable. It conforms to the open BIM principle to support knowledge sharing cross domains and disciplines. The approach is also adaptable to other types of regulatory rules in the building industry.publishedVersio

From Natural Language Requirements to Formal Specification Using an Ontology

In order to check requirement specifications written in natural language, we have chosen to model domain knowledge through an ontology and to formally represent user requirements by its population. Our approach of ontology population focuses on instance property identification from texts. We do so using extraction rules automatically acquired from a training corpus and a bootstrapping terminology. These rules aim at identifying instance property mentions represented by triples of terms, using lexical, syntactic and semantic levels of analysis. They are generated from recurrent syntactic paths between terms denoting instances of concepts and properties. We show how focusing on instance property identification allows us to precisely identify concept instances explicitly or implicitly mentioned in texts

An affinity analysis based CIM-to-PIM transformation

To tackle the problems such as the imperfection and inconsistency in software requirements in traditional Computation Independent Model (CIM) modelling, the low degree of automation as well as the imperfection in the description of Platform Independent Model (PIM) in CIM-to-PIM transforming, in this article, we propose a Business-Process-based CIM modelling method and a CIM-to-PIM transformation approach. Business Process Model is used to express CIM, and UML‘s Sequence Diagram, State Chart Diagram as well as Class Diagram are used to express PIM. Firstly, the users’ requirements are obtained through business process models. We extract use cases from business processes and create use case specifications. A verification mechanism is also added for the use case specification. Secondly, we transform CIMs into PIMs automatically with use case specifications as the inputs as well as combining with use case based thinking, responsibility based thinking and affinity analysis. Finally, by comparing with the methods in other studies, we conclude that methods proposed in this article can ensure model integrity and increase the degree of model transformation automation

A Framework for Specifying Business Rules Based on Logic with a Syntax Close to Natural Language

The systematic interaction of software developers with the business domain experts that are usually no software developers is crucial to software system maintenance and creation and has surfaced as the big challenge of modern software engineering. Existing frameworks promoting the typical programming languages with artificial syntax are suitable to be processed by computers but do not cater to domain experts, who are used to documents written in natural language as a means of interaction.Other frameworks that claim to be fully automated, such as those using natural language processing, are too imprecise to handle the typical requirements documents written in heterogeneous natural language flavours. In this thesis, a framework is proposed that can support the specification of business rules that is, on the one hand, understandable for nonprogrammers and on the other hand semantically founded, which enables computer processability. This is achieved by the novel language Adaptive Business Process and Rule Integration Language (APRIL). Specifications in APRIL can be written in a style close to natural language and are thus suitable for humans, which was empirically evaluated with a representative group of test persons. A useful and uncommon feature of APRIL is the ability to define reusable abstract mixfix operators as sentence patterns, that can mimic natural language. The semantic underpinning of the mixfix operators is achieved by customizable atomic formulas, allowing to tailor APRIL to specific domains. Atomic formulas are underpinned by a denotational semantics, which is based on Tempura (executable subset of Interval Temporal Logic (ITL)) to describe behaviour and the Object Constraint Language (OCL) to describe invariants and pre- and postconditions. APRIL statements can be used as the basis for automatically generating test code for software systems. An additional aspect of enhancing the quality of specification documents comes with a novel formal method technique (ISEPI) applicable to behavioural business rules semantically based on Propositional Interval Temporal Logic (PITL) and complying with the newly discovered 2-to-1 property. This work discovers how the ISE subset of ISEPI can be used to express complex behavioural business rules in a more concise and understandable way. The evaluation of ISE is done by an example specification taken from the car industry describing system behaviour, using the tools MONA and PITL2MONA. Finally, a methodology is presented that helps to guide a continuous transformation starting from purely natural language business rule specification to the APRIL specification which can then be transformed to test code. The methodologies, language concepts, algorithms, tools and techniques devised in this work are part of the APRIL-framework

Reglas de traducción de restricciones entre OCL y LN

El Desarrollo de Software Dirigido por Modelos es un paradigma que ayuda a las compañías de desarrollo con la gestión de los sistemas que construyen y mantienen; para adaptarse rápidamente a los cambios tecnológicos. Permite generar modelos altamente abstractos, utilizando modelos gráficos como Ecore. Si bien estos modelos son expresivos no permiten describir toda la información que debería mostrar el modelo. Para reducir este problema, los lenguajes formales permiten incrementar la expresividad, aunque resultan más complejos. El lenguaje formal OCL es difícil de entender por personas que no posean conocimientos sobre matemáticas, lógica e inclusive orientación a objetos lo que hace compleja su utilización como extensión de un modelo con un nivel de abstracción muy alto. Esta desventaja hace que se deban realizar tareas manuales extras, como traducir las restricciones OCL a lenguaje natural para poder presentar un modelo completo a alto nivel a personas sin conocimientos técnicos. El objetivo principal de la presente tesina es generar una herramienta que permite realizar la traducción de dichas restricciones a lenguaje natural de forma automática mediante el uso de transformación de modelos utilizando una gramática de lenguaje natural reducida. Lo que se intenta lograr es fomentar el uso de OCL restringiendo sus limitaciones.Facultad de Informátic