Supporting user-oriented analysis for multi-view domain-specific visual languages

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Information and Software Technology. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2008 Elsevier B.V.The integration of usable and flexible analysis support in modelling environments is a key success factor in Model-Driven Development. In this paradigm, models are the core asset from which code is automatically generated, and thus ensuring model correctness is a fundamental quality control activity. For this purpose, a common approach is to transform the system models into formal semantic domains for verification. However, if the analysis results are not shown in a proper way to the end-user (e.g. in terms of the original language) they may become useless. In this paper we present a novel DSVL called BaVeL that facilitates the flexible annotation of verification results obtained in semantic domains to different formats, including the context of the original language. BaVeL is used in combination with a consistency framework, providing support for all steps in a verification process: acquisition of additional input data, transformation of the system models into semantic domains, verification, and flexible annotation of analysis results. The approach has been validated analytically by the cognitive dimensions framework, and empirically by its implementation and application to several DSVLs. Here we present a case study of a notation in the area of Digital Libraries, where the analysis is performed by transformations into Petri nets and a process algebra.Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and MODUWEB

Managing Large Scale Project Analysis Teams through a Web Accessible Database

Large scale space programs analyze thousands of requirements while mitigating safety, performance, schedule, and cost risks. These efforts involve a variety of roles with interdependent use cases and goals. For example, study managers and facilitators identify ground-rules and assumptions for a collection of studies required for a program or project milestone. Task leaders derive product requirements from the ground rules and assumptions and describe activities to produce needed analytical products. Disciplined specialists produce the specified products and load results into a file management system. Organizational and project managers provide the personnel and funds to conduct the tasks. Each role has responsibilities to establish information linkages and provide status reports to management. Projects conduct design and analysis cycles to refine designs to meet the requirements and implement risk mitigation plans. At the program level, integrated design and analysis cycles studies are conducted to eliminate every 'to-be-determined' and develop plans to mitigate every risk. At the agency level, strategic studies analyze different approaches to exploration architectures and campaigns. This paper describes a web-accessible database developed by NASA to coordinate and manage tasks at three organizational levels. Other topics in this paper cover integration technologies and techniques for process modeling and enterprise architectures

A Workflow Visual Modeler and Its Interface to Existing Workflow Management Systems

The rapid growth and complexity of today\u27s businesses have created a need for business process management approaches that will promote the efficient functioning of these organizations. Users of business process management tools greatly benefit from using visual process modeling capabilities. Cross-business interaction sets forth the need for standardization of notations in designing these models. The goal of this thesis is to study state of the art business process management notations and state of the art diagramming frameworks associated with building a Visual Modeler that can be easily integrated with existing workflow management systems. This thesis presents a Visual Modeler that has been created based on the research findings. Two case studies are presented, which show how the modeler has been effectively integrated as part of two completely different workflow management systems

Integration of BPM systems

New technologies have emerged to support the global economy where for instance suppliers, manufactures and retailers are working together in order to minimise the cost and maximise efficiency. One of the technologies that has become a buzz word for many businesses is business process management or BPM. A business process comprises activities and tasks, the resources required to perform each task, and the business rules linking these activities and tasks. The tasks may be performed by human and/or machine actors. Workflow provides a way of describing the order of execution and the dependent relationships between the constituting activities of short or long running processes. Workflow allows businesses to capture not only the information but also the processes that transform the information - the process asset (Koulopoulos, T. M., 1995). Applications which involve automated, human-centric and collaborative processes across organisations are inherently different from one organisation to another. Even within the same organisation but over time, applications are adapted as ongoing change to the business processes is seen as the norm in today’s dynamic business environment. The major difference lies in the specifics of business processes which are changing rapidly in order to match the way in which businesses operate. In this chapter we introduce and discuss Business Process Management (BPM) with a focus on the integration of heterogeneous BPM systems across multiple organisations. We identify the problems and the main challenges not only with regards to technologies but also in the social and cultural context. We also discuss the issues that have arisen in our bid to find the solutions

Iterchanging Discrete Event Simulationprocess Interaction Modelsusing The Web Ontology Language - Owl

Discrete event simulation development requires significant investments in time and resources. Descriptions of discrete event simulation models are associated with world views, including the process interaction orientation. Historically, these models have been encoded using high-level programming languages or special purpose, typically vendor-specific, simulation languages. These approaches complicate simulation model reuse and interchange. The current document-centric World Wide Web is evolving into a Semantic Web that communicates information using ontologies. The Web Ontology Language OWL, was used to encode a Process Interaction Modeling Ontology for Discrete Event Simulations (PIMODES). The PIMODES ontology was developed using ontology engineering processes. Software was developed to demonstrate the feasibility of interchanging models from commercial simulation packages using PIMODES as an intermediate representation. The purpose of PIMODES is to provide a vendor-neutral open representation to support model interchange. Model interchange enables reuse and provides an opportunity to improve simulation quality, reduce development costs, and reduce development times

Systems, methods and apparatus for modeling, specifying and deploying policies in autonomous and autonomic systems using agent-oriented software engineering

Systems, methods and apparatus are provided through which in some embodiments, an agent-oriented specification modeled with MaCMAS, is analyzed, flaws in the agent-oriented specification modeled with MaCMAS are corrected, and an implementation is derived from the corrected agent-oriented specification. Described herein are systems, method and apparatus that produce fully (mathematically) tractable development of agent-oriented specification(s) modeled with methodology fragment for analyzing complex multiagent systems (MaCMAS) and policies for autonomic systems from requirements through to code generation. The systems, method and apparatus described herein are illustrated through an example showing how user formulated policies can be translated into a formal mode which can then be converted to code. The requirements-based programming systems, method and apparatus described herein may provide faster, higher quality development and maintenance of autonomic systems based on user formulation of policies

Rigorous Development of Composite Grid Services

CRESS (Communication Representation Employing Systematic Specification) is introduced as notation, a methodology and a toolset for service development. The article focuses on rigorous development of composite grid services, with particular emphasis on the principles behind the methodology. A straightforward graphical notation is used to describe grid services. These are then automatically specified, analysed and implemented. Analysis includes formal verification of desirable service properties, formal validation of test scenarios, testing of implementation functionality, and evaluation of implementation performance. The case study that illustrates the approach is document content analysis to compare two pieces of text. This involves two composite services supported by two partner services. The usability of the service design notation is assessed, and a comparison is made of the approach with similar ones. These show that the CRESS approach to developing services is usable and more complete than other comparable approaches

Metamodeling or profiling: a practical case in the web engineering domain

Model Driven Development (MDD) provides several choices for the definition of modeling languages. The definition of a complete metamodel and the customization of a given metamodel using profiles are common approaches. In our opinion neither of these approaches is better than the other, and the choice should depend on the characteristics of each project. This paper describes our experiences defining a graphical notation for the characterization of web navigational maps based on a MOF metamodel and a UML profile. The advantages and drawbacks of both approaches are examined, as well as the solution selected for our project.Presentado en el VIII Workshop Ingeniería de Software (WIS)Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Bridging the gap between business process models and service-oriented architectures with reference to the grid environment

In recent years, organisations have been seeking technological solutions for enacting their business process models using ad-hoc and heuristic approaches. However, limited results have been obtained due to the expansion of business processes across geographical boundaries and the absence of structured methods, frameworks and/or Information Technology (IT) infrastructures to enact these processes. In an attempt to enact business process models using distributed technologies, we introduce a novel architectural framework to bridge the gap between business process models and Grid-aware Service-Oriented Architectures (GSOA). BPMSOA framework is aligned with the Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) approach and is instantiated for role-based business process models [in particular Role Activity Diagramming (RAD)], using mobile process languages such as pi-ADL. The evaluation of the BPMSOA framework using the Submission process from the digital libraries domain has revealed that role-based business process models can be successfully enacted in GSOA environments with certain limitations. © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd