A complete approach for CIM modelling and model formalising

ContextComputation Independent Model (CIM) as a business model describes the requirements and environment of a business system and instructs the designing and development; it is a key to influencing software success. Although many studies currently focus on model driven development (MDD); those researches, to a large extent, study the PIM-level and PSM-level model, and few have dealt with CIM-level modelling for case in which the requirements are unclear or incomplete.ObjectiveThis paper proposes a CIM-level modelling approach, which applies a stepwise refinement approach to modelling the CIM-level model starting from a high-level goal model to a lower-level business process model. A key advantage of our approach is the combination of the requirement model with the business model, which helps software engineers to define business models exactly for cases in which the requirements are unclear or incomplete.MethodThis paper, based on the model driven approach, proposes a set of models at the CIM-level and model transformations to connect these models. Accordingly, the formalisation approach of this paper involves formalising the goal model using the category theory and the scenario model and business process model using Petri nets.ResultsWe have defined a set of metamodels and transformation rules making it possible to obtain automatically a scenario model from the goal model and a business process model from the scenario model. At the same time, we have defined a mapping rule to formalise these models. Our proposed CIM modelling approach and formalisation approach are implemented with an MDA tool, and it has been empirically validated by a travel agency case study.ConclusionThis study shows how a CIM modelling approach helps to build a complete and consistent model at the CIM level for cases in which the requirements are unclear or incomplete in advance.     

Applying CIM-to-PIM model transformations for the service-oriented development of information systems

Context

Model-driven approaches deal with the provision of models, transformations between them and code generators to address software development. This approach has the advantage of defining a conceptual structure, where the models used by business managers and analysts can be mapped into more detailed models used by software developers. This alignment between high-level business specifications and the lower-level information technologies (ITs) models is crucial to the field of service-oriented development, where meaningful business services and process specifications are those relevant to real business scenarios.

Objective

This paper presents a model-driven approach which, starting from high-level computational-independent business models (CIMs) - the business view - sets out guidelines for obtaining lower-level platform-independent behavioural models (PIMs) - the information system view. A key advantage of our approach is the use of real high-level business models, not just requirements models, which, by means of model transformations, helps software developers to make the most of the business knowledge for specifying and developing business services.

Method

This proposal is framed in a method for service-oriented development of information systems whose main characteristic is the use of services as first-class objects. The method follows an MDA-based approach, proposing a set of models at different levels of abstraction and model transformations to connect them.

Results

The paper present the complete set of CIM and PIM metamodels and the specification of the mappings between them, which clear advantage is the support for the alignment between high-level business view and ITs. The proposed model-driven process is being implemented in an MDA tool. A first prototype has been used to develop a travel agency case study that illustrates the proposal.

Conclusion

This study shows how a model-driven approach helps to solve the alignment problem between the business view and the information system view that arises when adopting service-oriented approaches for software development.     

Adaptive Agent Model: Software Adaptivity using an Agent-oriented Model-Driven Architecture

Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) promotes the development of software systems through successive building and generation of models, improving the reusability of models. Applying the same principles to the area of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) advances the ideas behind MDA even more significantly, due to the inherent adaptivity of software agents We describe an appropriate set of models originating from requirements specification and transformable to models understandable and executable by agents thus demonstrating an Agent-oriented Model-Driven Architecture (AMDA) approach. In AMDA, agents use hierarchical business knowledge models with business process rules at the top, business rules to control policy and logic in the middle and a base layer defining business concepts. Being externalised, knowledge is easily configurable by human beings and applied by software agents. A real case study is used to illustrate the process. The main advances over the object-oriented MDA are (i) the addition of component dynamics (ii) the use of agent-executable rule-based business models and (iii) a proposed higher level of abstraction with the direct representation of business requirements.     

The Real-Time Process Algebra (RTPA)

The real-time process algebra (RTPA) is a set of new mathematical notations for formally describing system architectures, and static and dynamic behaviors. It is recognized that the specification of software behaviors is a three-dimensional problem known as: (i) mathematical operations, (ii) event/process timing, and (iii) memory manipulations. Conventional formal methods in software engineering were designed to describe the 1-D (type (i)) or 2-D (types (i) and (iii)) static behaviors of software systems via logic, set and type theories. However, they are inadequate to address the 3-D problems in real-time systems. A new notation system that is capable to describe and specify the 3-D real-time behaviors, the real-time process algebra (RTPA), is developed in this paper to meet the fundamental requirements in software engineering.RTPA is designed as a coherent software engineering notation system and a formal engineering method for addressing the 3-D problems in software system specification, refinement, and implementation, particularly for real-time and embedded systems. In this paper, the RTPA meta-processes, algebraic relations, system architectural notations, and a set of fundamental primary and abstract data types are described. On the basis of the RTPA notations, a system specification method and a refinement scheme of RTPA are developed. Then, a case study on a telephone switching system is provided, which demonstrates the expressive power of RTPA on formal specification of both software system architectures and behaviors. RTPA elicits and models 32 algebraic notations, which are the common core of existing formal methods and modern programming languages. The extremely small set of formal notations has been proven sufficient for modeling and specifying real-time systems, their architecture, and static/dynamic behaviors in real-world software engineering environment.     

Computer-supported information requirement analysis tool based on novel methodology for analysing CIM information requirements

A computer-supported information requirement analysis tool (COMSIRA) has been developed for an existing novel methodology (integration-based requirement analysis methodology (IBRAM)); in order to capture and represent the approach of experienced analysts studying the enterprise-wide CIM information requirements. This paper introduces the methodology and describes the operational aspects of COMSIRA, which is a user friendly CASE tool that can be used by people with little prior computer experience for the establishment of requirements. Systems analysts can use it for analysing and modelling the CIM environment for both the static and dynamic requirements of a CIM implementation within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).     

Conceptual modeling of natural language functional requirements

Requirements analysts consider a conceptual model to be an important artifact created during the requirements analysis phase of a software development life cycle (SDLC). A conceptual, or domain model is a visual model of the requirements domain in focus. Owing to its visual nature, the model serves as a platform for the deliberation of requirements by stakeholders and enables requirements analysts to further refine the functional requirements. Conceptual models may evolve into class diagrams during the design and execution phases of the software project. Even a partially automated conceptual model can save significant time during the requirements phase, by quickening the process of graphical communication and visualization.This paper presents a system to create a conceptual model from functional specifications, written in natural language in an automated manner. Classes and relationships are automatically identified from the functional specifications. This identification is based on the analysis of the grammatical constructs of sentences, and on Object Oriented principles of design. Extended entity-relationship (EER) notations are incorporated into the class relationships. Optimizations are applied to the identified entities during a post-processing stage, and the final conceptual model is rendered.The use of typed dependencies, combined with rules to derive class relationships offers a granular approach to the extraction of the design elements in the model. The paper illustrates the model creation process using a standard case study, and concludes with an evaluation of the usefulness of this approach for the requirements analysis. The analysis is conducted against both standard published models and conceptual models created by humans, for various evaluation parameters.     

Configurable multi-perspective business process models

A configurable process model provides a consolidated view of a family of business processes. It promotes the reuse of proven practices by providing analysts with a generic modeling artifact from which to derive individual process models. Unfortunately, the scope of existing notations for configurable process modeling is restricted, thus hindering their applicability. Specifically, these notations focus on capturing tasks and control-flow dependencies, neglecting equally important ingredients of business processes such as data and resources. This research fills this gap by proposing a configurable process modeling notation incorporating features for capturing resources, data and physical objects involved in the performance of tasks. The proposal has been implemented in a toolset that assists analysts during the configuration phase and guarantees the correctness of the resulting process models. The approach has been validated by means of a case study from the film industry.     

Secure business process model specification through a UML 2.0 activity diagram profile

Business processes have become important resources, both for an enterprise's performance and to enable it to maintain its competitiveness. The languages used for business process representation have, in recent years, been improved and new notations have appeared. However, despite the wide acceptance of the importance of business process security, to date the business analyst perspective in relation to security has hardly been dealt with. Moreover, security requirements cannot be represented in modern business process modeling notations.In this paper, we present an extension of UML 2.0 activity diagrams which will allow security requirements to be specified in business processes. Our proposal, denominated as BPSec (Business Process Security), is Model Driven Architecture compliant since it is possible to obtain a set of UML artifacts (Platform Independent Model-PIM) used in software development from a Secure Business Process model specification (Computation Independent Model-CIM). We also present the application of our approach to an example based on a typical health care institution, in which our M-BPSec method is employed as a framework for the use of our UML extension.     

Semi-formal transformation of secure business processes into analysis class and use case models: An MDA approach

ContextModel-Driven Development (MDD) is an alternative approach for information systems development. The basic underlying concept of this approach is the definition of abstract models that can be transformed to obtain models near implementation. One fairly widespread proposal in this sphere is that of Model Driven Architecture (MDA). Business process models are abstract models which additionally contain key information about the tasks that are being carried out to achieve the company’s goals, and two notations currently exist for modelling business processes: the Unified Modelling Language (UML), through activity diagrams, and the Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN).ObjectiveOur research is particularly focused on security requirements, in such a way that security is modelled along with the other aspects that are included in a business process. To this end, in earlier works we have defined a metamodel called secure business process (SBP), which may assist in the process of developing software as a source of highly valuable requirements (including very abstract security requirements), which are transformed into models with a lower abstraction level, such as analysis class diagrams and use case diagrams through the approach presented in this paper.MethodWe have defined all the transformation rules necessary to obtain analysis class diagrams and use case diagrams from SBP, and refined them through the characteristic iterative process of the action-research method.ResultsWe have obtained a set of rules and a checklist that make it possible to automatically obtain a set of UML analysis classes and use cases, starting from SBP models. Our approach has additionally been applied in a real environment in the area of the payment of electrical energy consumption.ConclusionsThe application of our proposal shows that our semi-automatic process can be used to obtain a set of useful artifacts for software development processes.     

Automatic layout of statecharts

Graphical notations are widely used for system specification. The usefulness of these notations depends primarily on their readability. Hence, automatic methods are needed to obtain efficient and understandable graphical representations of requirements. In this paper, we present an algorithm that automatically generates layouts of statecharts. We assume that relevant information is stored in a structure that we call a decomposition tree, and we draw the graph that models a statechart in a hierarchical fashion. Our approach excludes diagrams with inter‐level transitions. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

rCOS: a formal model-driven engineering method for component-based software

Model-driven architecture (MDA) has become a main stream technology for software-intensive system design. The main engineering principle behind it is that the inherent complexity of software development can only be mastered by building, analyzing and manipulating system models. MDA also deals with system complexity by providing component-based design techniques, allowing independent component design, implementation and deployment, and then system integration and reconfiguration based on component interfaces. The model of a system in any stage is an integration of models of different viewpoints. Therefore, for a model-driven method to be applied effectively, it must provide a body of techniques and an integrated suite of tools for model construction, validation, and transformation. This requires a number of modeling notations for the specification of different concerns and viewpoints of the system. These notations should have formally defined syntaxes and a unified theory of semantics. The underlying theory of the method is needed to underpin the development of tools and correct use of tools in software development, as well as to formally verify and reason about properties of systems in mission-critical applications. The modeling notations, techniques, and tools must be designed so that they can be used seamlessly in supporting development activities and documentation of artifacts in software design processes. This article presents such a method, called the rCOS, focusing on the models of a system at different stages in a software development process, their semantic integration, and how they are constructed, analyzed, transformed, validated, and verified.     

An MDE-based method for bridging different design notations

Different communities have developed plenty of design notations for software engineering in support of practical (via UML) and rigorous (via formal methods) approaches. Hence the problem of bridging these notations rises. Model-driven engineering (MDE) is a new paradigm in software engineering, which treats models and model transformations as first class citizens. Furthermore, it is seen as a promising method for bridging heterogeneous platforms. In this paper, we provide an MDE-based approach to build bridges between informal, semi-formal and formal notations: Firstly, different notations are viewed as different domain specification languages (DSLs) and introduced into MDE, especially into the ATLAS Model Management Architecture (AMMA) platform, by metamodeling. Then, ATL transformation rules are built for semantics mapping. At last, TCS-based model-to-text syntax rules are developed, allowing one to map models to programs. Consequently, different design notations in both graphical style and grammatical style are bridged. A case study of bridging OMG SysML™ to LOTOS is also illustrated showing the validity and practicability of our approach.     

An empirical study of the validation process within requirements determination

Abstract. An empirical investigation into the validation process within requirements determination is described in which systems analysts were asked to complete a questionnaire concerning important validation issues. We describe the major validation activities, a set of major problems experienced by the respondents, factors affecting the process and hypotheses for problem explanations. The levels of experience of the respondents and the organizations for which they work appear to be significant.
Analysts employ a very traditional approach, expressing the specification mainly in English, and they experience problems in using over-formal notations in informal situations with users, as well as problems in deriving full benefit from notations when building the specification and detecting its properties. Not all of the specification is validated and tool use is not widespread and does not appear to be effective.
We define the concepts of formal and informal view, and suggest that method and tool use will not necessarily increase in organizations as it is apparent that research into the more effective application of formal notations is necessary. In addition, it is clear that the factors that affect the validation process are not only technical, but individual and organizational, necessitating the development of suitable informal activities which take these factors into account.     

一种基于对象序列图的组件交互协议设计方法

基于组件的软件开发(component-basedsoftwaredevelopment,简称CBSD)现已成为软件开发的主流范型之一,其关心的核心问题是组件标准化与组件间的互操作性.它在互操作方面被广泛采用的思想是,分离组件的功能与交互特征,使用独立部件-交互协议来协调组件之间的交互.基于这种思想,探讨运用UML(unifiedmodelinglanguage)的对象序列图(objectsequencediagram,简称OSD)方法进行组件交互协议设计的多个方面的研究,其中包括OSD规范的形式定义以及规范的静态和动态形式分析方法,并为开发组件交互协议提出了一个集成OSD可视化建模和形式分析技术的软件工具框架.     

A framework for the operationalization of monitoring in business intelligence requirements engineering

Business intelligence (BI) is perceived as a critical activity for organizations and is increasingly discussed in requirements engineering (RE). RE can contribute to the successful implementation of BI systems by assisting the identification and analysis of such systems’ requirements and the production of the specification of the system to be. Within RE for BI systems, we focus in this paper on the following questions: (i) how the expectations of a BI system’s stakeholders can be translated into accurate BI requirements, and (ii) how do we operationalize specifically these requirements in a system specification? In response, we define elicitation axes for the documentation of BI-specific requirements, give a list of six BI entities that we argue should be accounted for to operationalize business monitoring, and provide notations for the modeling of these entities. We survey important contributions of BI to define elicitation axes, adapt existing BI notations issued from RE literature, and complement them with new BI-specific notations. Using the i* framework, we illustrate the application of our proposal using a real-world case study.     

Representation and presentation of requirements knowledge

The approach to representation and presentation of knowledge used in ARIES, an environment to experiment with support for analysts in modeling target domains and in entering and formalizing system requirements, is described. To effectively do this, ARIES must manage a variety of notations so that analysts can enter information in a natural manner, and ARIES can present it back in different notations and from different viewpoints. To provide this functionality, a single, highly expressive internal representation is used for all information in the system. The system architecture separates representation and presentation, in order to localize consistency and propagation issues. The presentation architecture is tailored to be flexible enough so that new notations can be easily introduced on top of the underlying representation. Presentation knowledge is coupled to specification evolution knowledge thereby leveraging common representations for both in order to provide automated focusing support to users who need informative guidance in creating and modifying specifications     

Scenario-based requirements analysis techniques for real-time software systems: a comparative evaluation

One of the most critical phases of software engineering is requirements elicitation and analysis. Success in a software project is influenced by the quality of requirements and their associated analysis since their outputs contribute to higher level design and verification decisions. Real-time software systems are event driven and contain temporal and resource limitation constraints. Natural-language-based specification and analysis of such systems are then limited to identifying functional and non-functional elements only. In order to design an architecture, or to be able to test and verify these systems, a comprehensive understanding of dependencies, concurrency, response times, and resource usage are necessary. Scenario-based analysis techniques provide a way to decompose requirements to understand the said attributes of real-time systems. However they are in themselves inadequate for providing support for all real-time attributes. This paper discusses and evaluates the suitability of certain scenario-based models in a real-time software environment and then proposes an approach, called timed automata, that constructs a formalised view of scenarios that generate timed specifications. This approach represents the operational view of scenarios with the support of a formal representation that is needed for real-time systems. Our results indicate that models with notations and semantic support for representing temporal and resource usage of scenario provide a better analysis domain.H. Saiedian is a member of the Information & Telecommunication Technology Center at the University of Kansas. His research was partially supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).