Software Engineering Modeling Applied to English Verb Classification (and Poetry)

In requirements specification, software engineers create a textual description of the envisioned system as well as develop conceptual models using such tools as Universal Modeling Language (UML) and System Modeling Language (SysML). One such tool, called FM, has recently been developed as an extension of the INPUT-PROCESS-OUTPUT (IPO) model. IPO has been used extensively in many interdisciplinary applications and is described as one of the most fundamental and important of all descriptive tools. This paper is an attempt to understanding the PROCESS in IPO. The fundamental way to describe PROCESS is in verbs. This use of language has an important implication for systems modeling since verbs express the vast range of actions and movements of all things. It is clear that modeling needs to examine verbs. Accordingly, this paper involves a study of English verbs as a bridge to learn about processes, not as linguistic analysis but rather to reveal the semantics of processes, particularly the five verbs that form the basis of FM states: create, process, receive, release, and transfer. The paper focuses on verb classification, and specifically on how to model the action of verbs diagrammatically. From the linguistics point of view, according to some researchers, further exploration of the notion of verb classes is needed for real-world tasks such as machine translation, language generation, and document classification. Accordingly, this non-linguistics study may benefit linguistics.Comment: 12 page

Thinging vs Objectfying in Software Engineering

In this paper, we propose the use of a modeling methodology based on the notion of thing, with a focus on the current stage of research being on the analysis phase of software system modeling. The object-oriented approach, which takes the object as a central concept, provides the opportunity to explore applying thinging to the reconceptualization of objects. Several object-oriented examples are recast in terms of thing-oriented modeling. The results indicate a positive development that leads to several possible options: (1) supplementing the object orientation (OO) paradigm with additional notations, and (2) promoting a further understanding of some aspect of the OO paradigm. The possibility of developing a new approach in modeling based on thinging also exists.Comment: 8 pages, 18 figure

Thinging for Software Engineers

The aim of this paper is to promote the terms thing and thinging (which refers to the act of defining a boundary around some portion of reality and labeling it with a name) as valued notions that play an important role in software engineering modeling. Additionally, we attempt to furnish operational definitions for terms thing, object, process, and thinging. The substantive discussion is based on the conception of an (abstract) machine, named the Thinging Machine (TM), used in several research works. The TM creates, processes, receives, releases, and transfers things. Accordingly, a diagrammatic representation of the TM is used to model reality. In the discussion section, this paper clarifies interesting issues related to conceptual modeling in software engineering. The substance of this paper and its conclusion suggest that thinging should be more meaningfully emphasized as a valuable research and teaching topic, at least in the requirement analysis phase of the software development cycle.Comment: 9 pages, 20 Figure

Thinging as a Way of Modeling in Poiesis: Applications in Software Engineering

From a software design perspective, a clear definition of design can enhance project success and development productivity. Even though the focus is on software engineering, in this paper, we view the notion of design from the wider point of view of poiesis, the field of the study of the phenomena of creation and production of the artifacts. In poiesis, design operates through the medium of modeling. According to several sources, there is as yet no systematic consolidated body of knowledge that a practitioner can refer to when designing a computer-based modeling language. Modeling languages such as UML are practice-based and seldom underpinned with a solid theory-be it mathematical, ontological or concomitant with language use. In this paper, we propose adopting a recent addition to the diagrammatic languages, the thinging machine (abbreviated TM), as a design language in the general area of Poiesis and we exemplify TM by applying it to software engineering design. We show intermediate steps of design that led to producing a TM model for a case study. The case study is taken from a source where a full UML-based design was given. Contrasting the models produced by the two methodologies points to the viability of TM as an integrating and unifying modeling language in the design field.Comment: 12 pages, 17 figure