Domain-Specific Modelling for Coordination Engineering

Multi-core processors offer increased speed and efficiency on various devices, from desktop computers to smartphones. But the challenge is not only how to gain the utmost performance, but also how to support portability, continuity with prevalent technologies, and the dissemination of existing principles of parallel software design. This thesis shows how model-driven software development can help engineering parallel systems. Rather than simply offering yet another programming approach for concurrency, it proposes using an explicit coordination model as the first development artefact. Key topics include: Basic foundations of parallel software design, coordination models and languages, and model-driven software development How Coordination Engineering eases parallel software design by separating concerns and activities across roles How the Space-Coordinated Processes (SCOPE) coordination model combines coarse-grained choreography of parallel processes with fine-grained parallelism within these processes Extensive experimental evaluation on SCOPE implementations and the application of Coordination Engineerin

Towards a Multi Metamodelling Approach for Developing Distributed Healthcare Applications

Model Driven Engineering (MDE) uses formal methods to build mathematically rigorous models of complex systems. Metamodelling plays an important role in MDE as it is used to specify domain specific modelling languages. However, the potential of metamodelling has not been fully explored. Current approaches of MDE are often at a low level of abstraction and lack domain concepts for specifying behavior. In previous work, we proposed a multi metamodelling approach that captures the complexity of systems by using a metamodelling hierarchy, built from individually defined metamodels, each capturing different aspects of a healthcare domain. In this paper, we focus on modelling distributed healthcare applications and present an example from the healthcare domain. We address certain modelling aspects related to distributed applications such as process modelling, using message passing communication, and coordination of processes and resources

Coordination approaches and systems - part I : a strategic perspective

This is the first part of a two-part paper presenting a fundamental review and summary of research of design coordination and cooperation technologies. The theme of this review is aimed at the research conducted within the decision management aspect of design coordination. The focus is therefore on the strategies involved in making decisions and how these strategies are used to satisfy design requirements. The paper reviews research within collaborative and coordinated design, project and workflow management, and, task and organization models. The research reviewed has attempted to identify fundamental coordination mechanisms from different domains, however it is concluded that domain independent mechanisms need to be augmented with domain specific mechanisms to facilitate coordination. Part II is a review of design coordination from an operational perspective

THE WEP MODEL: ADEQUATE WORKFLOW-MANAGEMENT FOR ENGINEERING PROCESSES

Reducing costs of engineering processes like the design or change 0/ components is a key issue in the automotive engineering area. Like in other domains, the use of process-oriented workflow management systems (WfMS) is a promising approach to achieve this goal. However, there are addit.ional features required which todays WfMSs do not offer. These application specific requirements are outlined in more detail. Then a new Wt1vlS, the WEP model (WorkfiowManagement for Engineering frocesses), is introduced. The WEP model offers new concepts for modelling the features req1.1ired in this application domain and provides new interact.ion forms at runtime. These are the int.egration of unstructured creative subprocesses, the release and cont.rol of preliminary data, and the support of coordination phases

Designinig Coordination among Human and Software Agents

The goal of this paper is to propose a new methodology for designing coordination between human angents and software agents and, ultimately, among software agents. The methodology is based on two key ideas. The first is that coordination should be designed in steps, according to a precise software engineering methodology, and starting from the specification of early requirements. The second is that coordination should be modeled as dependency between actors. Two actors may depend on one another because they want to achieve goals, acquire resources or execute a plan. The methodology used is based on Tropos, an agent oriented software engineering methodology presented in earlier papers. The methodology is presented with the help of a case study

Fine-grain process modelling

In this paper, we propose the use of fine-grain process modelling as an aid to software development. We suggest the use of two levels of granularity, one at the level of the individual developer and another at the level of the representation scheme used by that developer. The advantages of modelling the software development process at these two levels, we argue, include respectively: (1) the production of models that better reflect actual development processes because they are oriented towards the actors who enact them, and (2) models that are vehicles for providing guidance because they may be expressed in terms of the actual representation schemes employed by those actors. We suggest that our previously published approach of using multiple “ViewPoints” to model software development participants, the perspectives that they hold, the representation schemes that they deploy and the process models that they maintain, is one way of supporting the fine-grain modelling we advocate. We point to some simple, tool-based experiments we have performed that support our proposition

A study of BIM collaboration requirements and available features in existing model collaboration systems

Established collaboration practices in the construction industry are document centric and are challenged by the introduction of Building Information Modelling (BIM). Document management collaboration systems (e.g. Extranets) have significantly improved the document collaboration in recent years; however their capabilities for model collaboration are limited and do not support the complex requirements of BIM collaboration. The construction industry is responding to this situation by adopting emerging model collaboration systems (MCS), such as model servers, with the ability to exploit and reuse information directly from the models to extend the current intra-disciplinary collaboration towards integrated multi-disciplinary collaboration on models. The functions of existing MCSs have evolved from the manufacturing industry and there is no concrete study on how these functions correspond to the requirements of the construction industry, especially with BIM requirements. This research has conducted focus group sessions with major industry disciplines to explore the user requirements for BIM collaboration. The research results have been used to categorise and express the features of existing MCS which are then analysed in selected MCS from a user’s perspective. The potential of MCS and the match or gap in user requirements and available model collaboration features is discussed. This study concludes that model collaborative solutions for construction industry users are available in different capacities; however a comprehensive custom built solution is yet to be realized. The research results are useful for construction industry professionals, software developers and researchers involved in exploring collaborative solutions for the construction industry

Models of Interaction as a Grounding for Peer to Peer Knowledge Sharing

Most current attempts to achieve reliable knowledge sharing on a large scale have relied on pre-engineering of content and supply services. This, like traditional knowledge engineering, does not by itself scale to large, open, peer to peer systems because the cost of being precise about the absolute semantics of services and their knowledge rises rapidly as more services participate. We describe how to break out of this deadlock by focusing on semantics related to interaction and using this to avoid dependency on a priori semantic agreement; instead making semantic commitments incrementally at run time. Our method is based on interaction models that are mobile in the sense that they may be transferred to other components, this being a mechanism for service composition and for coalition formation. By shifting the emphasis to interaction (the details of which may be hidden from users) we can obtain knowledge sharing of sufficient quality for sustainable communities of practice without the barrier of complex meta-data provision prior to community formation