OCLuniv: Expressive UML/OCL conceptual schemas for finite reasoning

Full UML/OCL is so expressive that most reasoning tasks are known to be undecidable in schemas defined with these languages. To tackle this situation, literature has proposed mainly three decidable fragments of UML/OCL: UML with no OCL, UML with limited OCL and no maximum cardinality constraints (OCL-Lite), and UML with limited OCL with no minimum cardinality constraints (OCL UNIVUNIV ). Since most conceptual schemas make use of OCL together with min and max cardinalities, this poses a strong limitation to current proposals. In this paper, we go beyond these limits by showing that OCL UNIVUNIV with acyclic min cardinality constraints and path acyclicity constraints also preserves decidability. In this way, we establish a language that can deal with most of UML/OCL identified constraint patterns. We also empirically test the expressiveness of this language through different UML/OCL case studies.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Tailoring temporal description logics for reasoning over temporal conceptual models

Temporal data models have been used to describe how data can evolve in the context of temporal databases. Both the Extended Entity-Relationship (EER) model and the Unified Modelling Language (UML) have been temporally extended to design temporal databases. To automatically check quality properties of conceptual schemas various encoding to Description Logics (DLs) have been proposed in the literature. On the other hand, reasoning on temporally extended DLs turn out to be too complex for effective reasoning ranging from 2ExpTime up to undecidable languages. We propose here to temporalize the ‘light-weight’ DL-Lite logics obtaining nice computational results while still being able to represent various constraints of temporal conceptual models. In particular, we consider temporal extensions of DL-Lite^N_bool, which was shown to be adequate for capturing non-temporal conceptual models without relationship inclusion, and its fragment DL-Lite^N_core with most primitive concept inclusions, which are nevertheless enough to represent almost all types of atemporal constraints (apart from covering)

A Constrained Object Model for Configuration Based Workflow Composition

Automatic or assisted workflow composition is a field of intense research for applications to the world wide web or to business process modeling. Workflow composition is traditionally addressed in various ways, generally via theorem proving techniques. Recent research observed that building a composite workflow bears strong relationships with finite model search, and that some workflow languages can be defined as constrained object metamodels . This lead to consider the viability of applying configuration techniques to this problem, which was proven feasible. Constrained based configuration expects a constrained object model as input. The purpose of this document is to formally specify the constrained object model involved in ongoing experiments and research using the Z specification language.Comment: This is an extended version of the article published at BPM'05, Third International Conference on Business Process Management, Nancy Franc

OCL-Lite: a decidable (yet expressive) fragment of OCL

UML has become a de facto standard in conceptual modeling. Class diagrams in UML allow one to model the data in the domain of interest by specifying a set of graphical constraints. However, in most cases one needs to provide the class diagram with additional semantics to completely specify the domain, and this is where OCL comes into play. While reasoning over class diagrams is decidable and has been investigated intensively, it is well known that checking the correctness of OCL constraints is undecidable. Thus, we introduce OCL-Lite, a fragment of the full OCL language and prove that reasoning over UML class diagrams with OCL-Lite constraints is in ExpTime by an encoding in the description logic ALCI. As a side result, DL techniques and tools can be used to reason on UML class diagrams annotated with arbitrary OCL-Lite constraints.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Semantic model-driven development of web service architectures.

Building service-based architectures has become a major area of interest since the advent of Web services. Modelling these architectures is a central activity. Model-driven development is a recent approach to developing software systems based on the idea of making models the central artefacts for design representation, analysis, and code generation. We propose an ontology-based engineering methodology for semantic model-driven composition and transformation of Web service architectures. Ontology technology as a logic-based knowledge representation and reasoning framework can provide answers to the needs of sharable and reusable semantic models and descriptions needed for service engineering. Based on modelling, composition and code generation techniques for service architectures, our approach provides a methodological framework for ontology-based semantic service architecture

EMFtoCSP: A Tool for the Lightweight Verification of EMF Models

International audienceThe increasing popularity of MDE results in the creation of larger models and model transformations, hence converting the specification of MDE artefacts in an error-prone task. Therefore, mechanisms to ensure quality and absence of errors in models are needed to assure the reliability of the MDE-based development process. Formal methods have proven their worth in the verification of software and hardware systems. However, the adoption of formal methods as a valid alternative to ensure model correctness is compromised for the inner complexity of the problem. To circumvent this complexity, it is common to impose limitations such as reducing the type of constructs that can appear in the model, or turning the verification process from automatic into user assisted. Since we consider these limitations to be counterproductive for the adoption of formal methods, in this paper we present EMFtoCSP, a new tool for the fully automatic, decidable and expressive verification of EMF models that uses constraint logic programming as the underlying formalism

Testing Termination of Query Satisfiability Checking on Expressive Database Schemas

A query is satisfiable if there is at least one consistent instance of the database in which it has a non-empty answer. Defining queries on a database schema and checking their satisfiability can help the database designer to be sure whether the produced database schema is what was intended. The formulation of such queries may easily require the use of some arithmetic comparisons or negated expressions. Unfortunately, checking the satisfiability of this class of queries on a database schema that most likely have some integrity constraints (e.g., keys, foreign keys, Boolean checks) is, in general, undecidable. However, although the problem is undecidable for such a class of schemas and queries, it may not be so for a particular query satisfiability check. In this paper, we propose to perform a termination test as a previous step to query satisfiability checking. If positive, the termination test guarantees that the corresponding query satisfiability check will terminate. We assume the CQC method is the underlying query satisfiability checking method; to the best of our knowledge, it is the only method of this kind able to deal with schemas and queries as expressive as the ones we consider.Preprin