A unifying framework for the definition of syntactic measures over conceptual schema diagrams (extended version)

There are many approaches that propose the use of measures for assessing the quality of conceptual schemas. Many of these measures focus purely on the syntactic aspects of the conceptual schema diagrams, e.g. their size, their shape, etc. Similarities among different measures may be found both at the intra-model level (i.e., several measures over the same type of diagram are defined following the same layout) and at the inter-model level (i.e., measures over different types of diagrams are similar considering an appropriate metaschema correspondence). In this paper we analyse these similarities for a particular family of diagrams used in conceptual modelling, those that can be ultimately seen as a combination of nodes and edges of different types. We propose a unifying measuring framework for this family and illustrate its application on a particular type, namely business process diagrams.Preprin

Computing the Importance of Schema Elements Taking Into Account the Whole SCHEMA

Conceptual Schemas are one of the most important artifacts in the development cycle of information systems. To understand the conceptual schema is essential to get involved in the information system that is described within it. As the information system increases its size and complexity, the relative conceptual schema will grow in the same proportion making di cult to understand the main concepts of that schema/information system. The thesis comprises the investigation of the in uence of the whole schema in computing the relevance of schema elements. It will include research and implementation of algorithms for scoring elements in the literature, an study of the di erent results obtained once applied to a few example conceptual schemas, an extension of those algorithms including new components in the computation process like derivation rules, constraints and the behavioural subschema speci cation, and an in-depth comparison among the initial algorithms and the extended ones studying the results in order to choose those algorithms that give the most valuable output

Computing the Importance of Schema Elements Taking Into Account the Whole SCHEMA

Conceptual Schemas are one of the most important artifacts in the development cycle of information systems. To understand the conceptual schema is essential to get involved in the information system that is described within it. As the information system increases its size and complexity, the relative conceptual schema will grow in the same proportion making di cult to understand the main concepts of that schema/information system. The thesis comprises the investigation of the in uence of the whole schema in computing the relevance of schema elements. It will include research and implementation of algorithms for scoring elements in the literature, an study of the di erent results obtained once applied to a few example conceptual schemas, an extension of those algorithms including new components in the computation process like derivation rules, constraints and the behavioural subschema speci cation, and an in-depth comparison among the initial algorithms and the extended ones studying the results in order to choose those algorithms that give the most valuable output

A filtering engine for large conceptual schemas

Postprint (published version

Ritual Talk

The analysis of talk is important for Goffman\u27s examination of the self in face-to-face interaction. Here I suggest that his target is best described as being our ritual talk. Goffman defined ritual in two ways: as the smooth running of everyday encounters and as the honouring of the selves who people them. He suggested that ritual talk is structured by both prevailing rules of social interaction and by the sequential organization of talk. However, on occasion he hinted that this account is too simple. I agree, and suggest ways of furthering his investigations

Ontology-Based Knowledge Representation for Self-Governing Systems

Self-governing systems need a reliable set of semantics and a formal theoretic model in order to facilitate automated reasoning. We present an ontology-based knowledge representation that will use data from information models while preserving the semantics and the taxonomy of existing systems. This will facilitate the decomposition and validation of high level goals by autonomous, self-governing components. Our solution reuses principles and standards from the Semantic Web and the OMG to precisely describe the managed entities and the shared objectives that these entities are trying to achieve by autonomously correlating their behavior. We describe how we created UML2, MOF, OCL and QVT ontologies, and we give a case study using the NGOSS Shared Information and Data model. We also set the requirements for integrating existing information models and domain ontologies into a unique knowledge base

AMFIBIA: A Meta-Model for the Integration of Business Process Modelling Aspects

Today, there are many different formalisms and notations for modelling business processes. Though most of the formalisms have their justification, the plethora of notations makes it hard to compare and to exchange business process models among different tools. AMFIBIA (A Meta-model For the Integration of BusIness process modelling Aspects) sets out to capture the basic aspects of business process models and to define their concepts independently from a particular formalism and notation, and then map different formalisms to these basic concepts. This way, business process models can be compared with each other, and it will be even possible, to integrate and combine different formalisms in a single workflow engine. Currently, we implement a prototype of a workflow engine, which supports the concepts of AMFIBIA. Since the development of AMFIBIA started quite late in the history of workflow management, it might not have strong impact on existing workflow management systems. The concepts of AMFIBIA, however, should be applicable to SOA, were formalism independence is even more important. The talk presents the ideas and concepts of AMFIBIA and intends to trigger a discussion on the aspects of SOA and the aspects and concepts that need to me captured in SOA

A Generic Approach and Framework for Managing Complex Information

Several application domains, such as healthcare, incorporate domain knowledge into their day-to-day activities to standardise and enhance their performance. Such incorporation produces complex information, which contains two main clusters (active and passive) of information that have internal connections between them. The active cluster determines the recommended procedure that should be taken as a reaction to specific situations. The passive cluster determines the information that describes these situations and other descriptive information plus the execution history of the complex information. In the healthcare domain, a medical patient plan is an example for complex information produced during the disease management activity from specific clinical guidelines. This thesis investigates the complex information management at an application domain level in order to support the day-to-day organization activities. In this thesis, a unified generic approach and framework, called SIM (Specification, Instantiation and Maintenance), have been developed for computerising the complex information management. The SIM approach aims at providing a conceptual model for the complex information at different abstraction levels (generic and entity-specific). In the SIM approach, the complex information at the generic level is referred to as a skeletal plan from which several entity-specific plans are generated. The SIM framework provides comprehensive management aspects for managing the complex information. In the SIM framework, the complex information goes through three phases, specifying the skeletal plans, instantiating entity-specific plans, and then maintaining these entity-specific plans during their lifespan. In this thesis, a language, called AIM (Advanced Information Management), has been developed to support the main functionalities of the SIM approach and framework. AIM consists of three components: AIMSL, AIM ESPDoc model, and AIMQL. The AIMSL is the AIM specification component that supports the formalisation process of the complex information at a generic level (skeletal plans). The AIM ESPDoc model is a computer-interpretable model for the entity-specific plan. AIMQL is the AIM query component that provides support for manipulating and querying the complex information, and provides special manipulation operations and query capabilities, such as replay query support. The applicability of the SIM approach and framework is demonstrated through developing a proof-of-concept system, called AIMS, using the available technologies, such as XML and DBMS. The thesis evaluates the the AIMS system using a clinical case study, which has applied to a medical test request application

Testing and test-driven development of conceptual schemas

The traditional focus for Information Systems (IS) quality assurance relies on the evaluation of its implementation. However, the quality of an IS can be largely determined in the first stages of its development. Several studies reveal that more than half the errors that occur during systems development are requirements errors. A requirements error is defined as a mismatch between requirements specification and stakeholders¿ needs and expectations. Conceptual modeling is an essential activity in requirements engineering aimed at developing the conceptual schema of an IS. The conceptual schema is the general knowledge that an IS needs to know in order to perform its functions. A conceptual schema specification has semantic quality when it is valid and complete. Validity means that the schema is correct (the knowledge it defines is true for the domain) and relevant (the knowledge it defines is necessary for the system). Completeness means that the conceptual schema includes all relevant knowledge. The validation of a conceptual schema pursues the detection of requirements errors in order to improve its semantic quality. Conceptual schema validation is still a critical challenge in requirements engineering. In this work we contribute to this challenge, taking into account that, since conceptual schemas of IS can be specified in executable artifacts, they can be tested. In this context, the main contributions of this Thesis are (1) an approach to test conceptual schemas of information systems, and (2) a novel method for the incremental development of conceptual schemas supported by continuous test-driven validation. As far as we know, this is the first work that proposes and implements an environment for automated testing of UML/OCL conceptual schemas, and the first work that explores the use of test-driven approaches in conceptual modeling. The testing of conceptual schemas may be an important and practical means for their validation. It allows checking correctness and completeness according to stakeholders¿ needs and expectations. Moreover, in conjunction with the automatic check of basic test adequacy criteria, we can also analyze the relevance of the elements defined in the schema. The testing environment we propose requires a specialized language for writing tests of conceptual schemas. We defined the Conceptual Schema Testing Language (CSTL), which may be used to specify automated tests of executable schemas specified in UML/OCL. We also describe a prototype implementation of a test processor that makes feasible the approach in practice. The conceptual schema testing approach supports test-last validation of conceptual schemas, but it also makes sense to test incomplete conceptual schemas while they are developed. This fact lays the groundwork of Test-Driven Conceptual Modeling (TDCM), which is our second main contribution. TDCM is a novel conceptual modeling method based on the main principles of Test-Driven Development (TDD), an extreme programming method in which a software system is developed in short iterations driven by tests. We have applied the method in several case studies, in the context of Design Research, which is the general research framework we adopted. Finally, we also describe an integration approach of TDCM into a broad set of software development methodologies, including the Unified Process development methodology, MDD-based approaches, storytest-driven agile methods and goal and scenario-oriented requirements engineering methods.Els enfocaments per assegurar la qualitat deis sistemes d'informació s'han basal tradicional m en! en l'avaluació de la seva implementació. No obstan! aix6, la qualitat d'un sis tema d'informació pot ser ampliament determinada en les primeres fases del seu desenvolupament. Diversos estudis indiquen que més de la meitat deis errors de software són errors de requisits . Un error de requisit es defineix com una desalineació entre l'especificació deis requisits i les necessitats i expectatives de les parts im plicades (stakeholders ). La modelització conceptual és una activitat essencial en l'enginyeria de requisits , l'objectiu de la qual és desenvolupar !'esquema conceptual d'un sistema d'informació. L'esquema conceptual és el coneixement general que un sistema d'informació requereix per tal de desenvolupar les seves funcions . Un esquema conceptual té qualitat semantica quan és va lid i complet. La valides a implica que !'esquema sigui correcte (el coneixement definit és cert peral domini) i rellevant (el coneixement definit és necessari peral sistema). La completes a significa que !'esquema conceptual inclou tot el coneixement rellevant. La validació de !'esquema conceptual té coma objectiu la detecció d'errors de requisits per tal de millorar la qualitat semantica. La validació d'esquemes conceptuals és un repte crític en l'enginyeria de requisits . Aquesta te si contribueix a aquest repte i es basa en el fet que els es quemes conceptuals de sistemes d'informació poden ser especificats en artefactes executables i, per tant, poden ser provats. Les principals contribucions de la te si són (1) un enfocament pera les pro ves d'esquemes conceptuals de sistemes d'informació, i (2) una metodología innovadora pel desenvolupament incremental d'esquemes conceptuals assistit per una validació continuada basada en proves . Les pro ves d'esquemes conceptuals poden ser una im portant i practica técnica pera la se va validació, jaque permeten provar la correctesa i la completesa d'acord ambles necessitats i expectatives de les parts interessades. En conjunció amb la comprovació d'un conjunt basic de criteris d'adequació de les proves, també podem analitzar la rellevancia deis elements definits a !'esquema. L'entorn de test proposat inclou un llenguatge especialitzat per escriure proves automatitzades d'esquemes conceptuals, anomenat Conceptual Schema Testing Language (CSTL). També hem descrit i implementa! a un prototip de processador de tes tos que fa possible l'aplicació de l'enfocament proposat a la practica. D'acord amb l'estat de l'art en validació d'esquemes conceptuals , aquest és el primer treball que proposa i implementa un entorn pel testing automatitzat d'esquemes conceptuals definits en UML!OCL. L'enfocament de proves d'esquemes conceptuals permet dura terme la validació d'esquemes existents , pero també té sentit provar es quemes conceptuals incomplets m entre estant sent desenvolupats. Aquest fet és la base de la metodología Test-Driven Conceptual Modeling (TDCM), que és la segona contribució principal. El TDCM és una metodología de modelització conceptual basada en principis basics del Test-Driven Development (TDD), un métode de programació en el qual un sistema software és desenvolupat en petites iteracions guiades per proves. També hem aplicat el métode en diversos casos d'estudi en el context de la metodología de recerca Design Science Research. Finalment, hem proposat enfocaments d'integració del TDCM en diverses metodologies de desenvolupament de software

A method for the unified definition and treatment of conceptual schema quality issues

The modern world is software-intensive. National infrastructures, smartphones and computers, health-care systems, e-commerce... everything is run by software. Therefore, developing high-quality software solutions is essential for our society. Conceptual modeling is an early activity of the software development process whose aim is to define the conceptual schema of a domain. As the role played by conceptual schemas in software development becomes more relevant---because of, for example, the emergence of model-driven approaches---, their quality becomes crucial too. The quality of a conceptual schema can be analyzed in terms of ``quality properties''. All conceptual schemas should have the fundamental properties of syntactic and semantic correctness, relevance and completeness, as well as any other quality property that has been proposed in the literature and that may be required or recommended in particular projects. It is a fact that only a few quality properties have been integrated into the development environments used by professionals and students, and thus enforced in the conceptual schemas developed by them. A possible explanation of this unfortunate fact may be that the proposals have been defined in the literature in disparate ways, which makes it difficult to integrate them into those environments. The goal of this thesis is to ease the integration of those quality properties that can be evaluated using the conceptual schema itself. We propose a method that permits the unified definition and treatment of conceptual schema quality issues, which we understand as ``important quality topics or problems for debate or discussion''. Our work includes, on the one hand, a characterization and formalization of conceptual schema quality issues, and, on the other hand, the creation of a catalog of quality issues obtained from the literature and defined using the aforementioned formalization. We also provide a prototype implementation of our method, which integrates the catalog of quality issues on top of a real modeling tool. This implementation provides assistance to conceptual modelers during the development of a conceptual schema in a non-disruptive manner. Moreover, our thesis discusses incremental methods for the efficient evaluation of OCL expressions in the context of quality issues and integrates one of them into our prototype tool.El món actual funciona a través del programari. Les infraestructures nacionals, els ordinador i telèfons inte¿ligents, els sistemes de salut, de comerç electrònic... tot depèn del programari. És, doncs, per aquest motiu que cal dissenyar solucions de programari d'alta qualitat. La modelització conceptual és una de les etapes inicials en el procés de desenvolupament de programari. El seu objectiu és definir l'esquema conceptual d'un domini. A mesura que el rol que juguen els esquemes conceptuals esdevé més i més rellevants dins d'aquest context (degut a, per exemple, l'aparició de metodologies de disseny de programari dirigides per models), la seva qualitat també esdevé un requisit elemental. La qualitat d'un esquema conceptual es pot analitzar a través de diferents "propietats de qualitat". Així, tenim que tots els esquemes conceptuals haurien de satisfer les propietats fonamentals de correctesa sintàctica i semàntica, rellevància i completesa, així com altres propietats que s'han proposat a la literatura i que el projecte on s'estigui desenvolupant l'esquema requereixi o recomani. Malauradament, ens trobem que només algunes propietats de qualitat s'han integrat als entorns de desenvolupament que utilitzen els professionals i els estudiants i, per tant, les propietats que podem assegurar se satisfaran són poques. Una possible explicació d'aquest fet és que les propostes existents es defineixen de maneres força diferents, cosa que en dificulta la integració a aquests entorns. L'objectiu de la tesi és pa¿liar aquesta situació i simplificar la integració d'aquelles propietats de qualitat que avaluen un esquema conceptual utilitzant la informació disponible al propi esquema. El mètode que proposem permet la definició i el tractament unificat de "quality issues" per a la modelització conceptual, els quals entenem com "tot allò que pot ser rellevant considerar per assegurar la qualitat d'un esquema". La feina inclou, per una banda, la caraterització i formalizació dels "quality issues" i, per l'altra, la creació d'un catàleg d'issues disponibles a la literatura i expressats mitjançant la nostra formalizació. A més a més, la tesi també inclou la implementació d'un prototipus que demostra com funciona el mètode. El prototipus integra el catàleg de "quality issues" dins una eina de modelització conceptual real i permet assistir als modeladors durant el desenvolupament d'esquemes. Finalment, la nostra feina també ofereix una breu discussió sobre la importància que tenen els mètodes incrementals d'avaluació d'expressions OCL, com es poden adaptar a la nostra definició de "quality issues" i descriu la seva integració a l'eina prototipus que hem desenvolupa