A graph-based aspect interference detection approach for UML-based aspect-oriented models

Aspect Oriented Modeling (AOM) techniques facilitate separate modeling of concerns and allow for a more flexible composition of these than traditional modeling technique. While this improves the understandability of each submodel, in order to reason about the behavior of the composed system and to detect conflicts among submodels, automated tool support is required. Current techniques for conflict detection among aspects generally have at least one of the following weaknesses. They require to manually model the abstract semantics for each system; or they derive the system semantics from code assuming one specific aspect-oriented language. Defining an extra semantics model for verification bears the risk of inconsistencies between the actual and the verified design; verifying only at implementation level hinders fixng errors in earlier phases. We propose a technique for fully automatic detection of conflicts between aspects at the model level; more specifically, our approach works on UML models with an extension for modeling pointcuts and advice. As back-end we use a graph-based model checker, for which we have defined an operational semantics of UML diagrams, pointcuts and advice. In order to simulate the system, we automatically derive a graph model from the diagrams. The result is another graph, which represents all possible program executions, and which can be verified against a declarative specification of invariants.\ud To demonstrate our approach, we discuss a UML-based AOM model of the "Crisis Management System" and a possible design and evolution scenario. The complexity of the system makes con°icts among composed aspects hard to detect: already in the case of two simulated aspects, the state space contains 623 di®erent states and 9 different execution paths. Nevertheless, in case the right pruning methods are used, the state-space only grows linearly with the number of aspects; therefore, the automatic analysis scales

DYNAMIC DETECTION OF DESIGN INCONSISTENCY DURING SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT USING DAID APPROACH

Evolution of software has lead to the fast growth of technology whose impact can be witnessed in all the domains of scientific and engineering applications. Hence engineering high quality software is one of the core challenges of all IT industries. The software models which are being used for the development of the software products may lead to inconsistencies. Nevertheless, theexistence of several methodologies during the development process in order to overcome inconsistencies operates at static mode leading towards expensive nature of rework on those inconsistencies. Therefore, this paper presents a dynamic model which resolves the aforementioned issue by capturing inconsistencies dynamically in an automated mode using Dynamic automated inconsistency detection (DAID) model. The implementation results of DAID capture the design inconsistencies dynamically at the time of their injection points in lieu of inconsistency detection during validation testing. This approach of dynamic design inconsistency detection reduces cost, time and its associated overheads. Further implementation of DAID in an automated mode increases productivity, quality and sustainability in IT industries

A Change Support Model for Distributed Collaborative Work

Distributed collaborative software development tends to make artifacts and decisions inconsistent and uncertain. We try to solve this problem by providing an information repository to reflect the state of works precisely, by managing the states of artifacts/products made through collaborative work, and the states of decisions made through communications. In this paper, we propose models and a tool to construct the artifact-related part of the information repository, and explain the way to use the repository to resolve inconsistencies caused by concurrent changes of artifacts. We first show the model and the tool to generate the dependency relationships among UML model elements as content of the information repository. Next, we present the model and the method to generate change support workflows from the information repository. These workflows give us the way to efficiently modify the change-related artifacts for each change request. Finally, we define inconsistency patterns that enable us to be aware of the possibility of inconsistency occurrences. By combining this mechanism with version control systems, we can make changes safely. Our models and tool are useful in the maintenance phase to perform changes safely and efficiently.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures, 4 table

Automated Model Synchronization: A Case Study on UML with Maude

Design specifications of software-intensive systems involve models that have been defined with different modelling languages for different purposes. Hence, a specification can be seen as the description of a system from multiple viewpoints, each providing domain-specific constructs for modelling the system in a more precise way. Such heterogeneity of models can jeopardize the consistency of the specification, because updates in one viewpoint may cause unpredictable design errors in other viewpoints, which can then be transferred to the implementation. OMG’s Meta-Object Facility enhances the automation of the model consistency management by providing a uniform format for different modelling languages. In this paper, we illustrate a technique, based on rewriting logic and on strategies for finding inconsistencies in MOF-based heterogeneous specifications and for resolving them in an automated way

Improving Consistency of UML Diagrams and Its Implementation Using Reverse Engineering Approach

Software development deals with various changes and evolution that cannot be avoided due to the development processes which are vastly incremental and iterative. In Model Driven Engineering, inconsistency between model and its implementation has huge impact on the software development process in terms of added cost, time and effort. The later the inconsistencies are found, it could add more cost to the software project. Thus, this paper aims to describe the development of a tool that could improve the consistency between Unified Modeling Language (UML) design models and its C# implementation using reverse engineering approach. A list of consistency rules is defined to check vertical and horizontal consistencies between structural (class diagram) and behavioral (use case diagram and sequence diagram) UML diagrams against the implemented C# source code. The inconsistencies found between UML diagrams and source code are presented in a textual description and visualized in a tree view structure

Model-Based Analysis of Role-Based Access Control

Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) has been extensively studied. Many directions have been explored, sometimes with the dream of providing a fully integrated approach for designers, developers and other stakeholders to create, reason about and modify models representing software systems. Most, but not all, of the research in MDE has focused on general-purpose languages and models, such as Java and UML. Domain-specific and cross-cutting concerns, such as security, are increasingly essential parts of a software system, but are only treated as second-class citizens in the most popular modelling languages. Efforts have been made to give security, and in particular access control, a more prominent place in MDE, but most of these approaches require advanced knowledge in security, programming (often declarative), or both, making them difficult to use by less technically trained stakeholders. In this thesis, we propose an approach to modelling, analysing and automatically fixing role-based access control (RBAC) that does not require users to write code or queries themselves. To this end, we use two UML profiles and associated OCL constraints that provide the modelling and analysis features. We propose a taxonomy of OCL constraints and use it to define a partial order between categories of constraints, that we use to propose strategies to speed up the models’ evaluation time. Finally, by representing OCL constraints as constraints on a graph, we propose an automated approach for generating lists of model changes that can be applied to an incorrect model in order to fix it. All these features have been fully integrated into a UML modelling IDE, IBM Rational Software Architect

Model-Based Analysis of Role-Based Access Control

Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) has been extensively studied. Many directions have been explored, sometimes with the dream of providing a fully integrated approach for designers, developers and other stakeholders to create, reason about and modify models representing software systems. Most, but not all, of the research in MDE has focused on general-purpose languages and models, such as Java and UML. Domain-specific and cross-cutting concerns, such as security, are increasingly essential parts of a software system, but are only treated as second-class citizens in the most popular modelling languages. Efforts have been made to give security, and in particular access control, a more prominent place in MDE, but most of these approaches require advanced knowledge in security, programming (often declarative), or both, making them difficult to use by less technically trained stakeholders. In this thesis, we propose an approach to modelling, analysing and automatically fixing role-based access control (RBAC) that does not require users to write code or queries themselves. To this end, we use two UML profiles and associated OCL constraints that provide the modelling and analysis features. We propose a taxonomy of OCL constraints and use it to define a partial order between categories of constraints, that we use to propose strategies to speed up the models’ evaluation time. Finally, by representing OCL constraints as constraints on a graph, we propose an automated approach for generating lists of model changes that can be applied to an incorrect model in order to fix it. All these features have been fully integrated into a UML modelling IDE, IBM Rational Software Architect