Extension of object-oriented use case-driven approach software engineering.

Use case driven approach is a method of object oriented software engineering (OOSE) developed by Jacobson et al (1992). The requirement model of the use case driven approach software system is defined by a collection of use cases, problem domain descriptions and user interfaces. Extension is an important type of association between use cases. Extension means that a use case that represents the major or basic course of events can be naturally extended with one or several other use cases that represent rare or exceptional courses of events. A difficulty for OOSE to transform the use cases with extension associations into the design and implementation model of the system is that most programming Languages, such as C++, Smalltalk and Java, do not have features to support the extension association. The current implementation of an extension association still relies on the basic course use case to initiate the extension use cases. This thesis presents a programming technique to overcome the difficulty described above. It supports the integration of a major course use case and its extension use cases. Based on this technique, a mechanism extension construct invocation is proposed to directly support the extension association between use cases. The extension statement and probing clause allow an extension use case to automatically respond to any extension request from a basic course use case. This mechanism reduces the responsibility of a method that represents a basic course use case with extension statements. The probing clause added to a method that represents an extension use case can automatically respond to any extension request from a basic course use case. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1998 .A5. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 39-02, page: 0523. Adviser: Liwu Li. Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1998

An object-oriented approach to the translation between MOF Metaschemas

Since the 1960s, many formal languages have been developed in order to allow software engineers to specify conceptual models and to design software artifacts. A few of these languages, such as the Unified Modeling Language (UML), have become widely used standards. They employ notations and concepts that are not readily understood by "domain experts," who understand the actual problem domain and are responsible for finding solutions to problems.The Object Management Group (OMG) developed the Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules (SBVR) specification as a first step towards providing a language to support the specification of "business vocabularies and rules." The function of SBVR is to capture business concepts and business rules in languages that are close enough to ordinary language, so that business experts can read and write them, and formal enough to capture the intended semantics and present them in a form that is suitable for engineering the automation of the rules.The ultimate goal of business rules approaches is to build software systems directly from vocabularies and rules. One way of reaching this goal, within the context of model-driven architecture (MDA), is to transform SBVR models into UML models. OMG also notes the need for a reverse engineering transformation between UML schemas and SBVR vocabularies and rules in order to validate UML schemas. This thesis proposes an automatic approach to translation between UML schemas and SBVR vocabularies and rules, and vice versa. It consists of the application of a new generic schema translation approach to the particular case of UML and SBVR.The main contribution of the generic approach is the extensive use of object-oriented concepts in the definition of translation mappings, particularly the use of operations (and their refinements) and invariants, both formalized in the Object Constraint Language (OCL). Translation mappings can be used to check that two schemas are translations of each other, and to translate one into the other, in either direction. Translation mappings are declaratively defined by means of preconditions, postconditions and invariants, and they can be implemented in any suitable language. The approach leverages the object-oriented constructs embedded in Meta Object Facility (MOF) metaschemas to achieve the goals of object-oriented software development in the schema translation problem.The generic schema translation approach and its application to UML schemas and SBVR vocabularies and rules is fully implemented in the UML-based Specification Environment (USE) tool and validated by a case study based on the conceptual schema of the Digital Bibliography & Library Project (DBLP) system

SPECIFICATION FORMALIZATION OF STATE CHARTS FOR COMPLEX SYSTEM MANAGEMENT

This article presents a formalization approach for the requirements of object-oriented programs with state machines, using a spacecraft control system as a case study. It proposes a state pattern implementation, where each state is represented as a class with clearly defined responsibilities, and the transitions between states are controlled by the state objects themselves. Additionally, the application of model checking, theorem proving, and code generation techniques are discussed. The effectiveness of the proposed approach in ensuring compliance with the specified requirements is demonstrated, while also identifying potential drawbacks and limitations of the approach. The implementation is validated using a range of formal verification techniques, including model checking and theorem proving. The article also discusses how the approach can be extended and applied to other complex systems. Overall, the valuable insights into the formalization of requirements for object-oriented programs with state machines are provided, offering a practical and effective approach for verifying the correctness and completeness of such implementations. The results of this work have important implications for the development of safety-critical systems and can potentially improve the quality and reliability of software systems in various domains. By using mathematical models and rigorous formal methods, it is possible to detect and eliminate errors early in the development process, leading to higher confidence in the correctness of the final product. Future research in this area could explore the use of more advanced techniques, such as model-driven development and automatic code synthesis, to further streamline the software development process. Additionally, the development of more efficient and user-friendly tools could make these techniques more accessible to a wider range of developers and organizations. Altogether, the combination of formal methods and software engineering has the potential to revolutionize the way software systems are designed, developed, and verified, leading to safer and more reliable software for critical applications

Early aspects: aspect-oriented requirements engineering and architecture design

This paper reports on the third Early Aspects: Aspect-Oriented Requirements Engineering and Architecture Design Workshop, which has been held in Lancaster, UK, on March 21, 2004. The workshop included a presentation session and working sessions in which the particular topics on early aspects were discussed. The primary goal of the workshop was to focus on challenges to defining methodical software development processes for aspects from early on in the software life cycle and explore the potential of proposed methods and techniques to scale up to industrial applications

Iterative criteria-based approach to engineering the requirements of software development methodologies

Software engineering endeavours are typically based on and governed by the requirements of the target software; requirements identification is therefore an integral part of software development methodologies. Similarly, engineering a software development methodology (SDM) involves the identification of the requirements of the target methodology. Methodology engineering approaches pay special attention to this issue; however, they make little use of existing methodologies as sources of insight into methodology requirements. The authors propose an iterative method for eliciting and specifying the requirements of a SDM using existing methodologies as supplementary resources. The method is performed as the analysis phase of a methodology engineering process aimed at the ultimate design and implementation of a target methodology. An initial set of requirements is first identified through analysing the characteristics of the development situation at hand and/or via delineating the general features desirable in the target methodology. These initial requirements are used as evaluation criteria; refined through iterative application to a select set of relevant methodologies. The finalised criteria highlight the qualities that the target methodology is expected to possess, and are therefore used as a basis for de. ning the final set of requirements. In an example, the authors demonstrate how the proposed elicitation process can be used for identifying the requirements of a general object-oriented SDM. Owing to its basis in knowledge gained from existing methodologies and practices, the proposed method can help methodology engineers produce a set of requirements that is not only more complete in span, but also more concrete and rigorous

Business Domain Modelling using an Integrated Framework

This paper presents an application of a “Systematic Soft Domain Driven Design Framework” as a soft systems approach to domain-driven design of information systems development. The framework combining techniques from Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), the Unified Modelling Language (UML), and an implementation pattern known as “Naked Objects”. This framework have been used in action research projects that have involved the investigation and modelling of business processes using object-oriented domain models and the implementation of software systems based on those domain models. Within this framework, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is used as a guiding methodology to explore the problem situation and to develop the domain model using UML for the given business domain. The framework is proposed and evaluated in our previous works, and a real case study “Information Retrieval System for academic research” is used, in this paper, to show further practice and evaluation of the framework in different business domain. We argue that there are advantages from combining and using techniques from different methodologies in this way for business domain modelling. The framework is overviewed and justified as multimethodology using Mingers multimethodology ideas

Modeling the object-oriented software process: OPEN and the unified process

A short introduction to software process modeling is presented, particularly object-oriented modeling. Two major industrial process models are discussed: the OPEN model and the Unified Process model. In more detail, the quality assurance in the Unified Process tool (formally called Objectory) is reviewed