Model-driven engineering promotes the migration from code-centric to model-based software development. Systems consist of model collections integrating different concerns and perspectives, while semi-automated model transformations generate executable code combining the information from these. Increasing the abstraction level to models required appropriate management technologies supporting the various software development activities. Among these, model comparison represents one of the most challenging tasks and plays an essential role in various modelling activities. Its hardness led researchers to propose a multitude of approaches adopting different approximation strategies and exploiting specific knowledge of the involved models. However, almost no support is provided for their evaluation against specific scenarios and modelling practices. This thesis presents Benji, a framework for the automated generation of model comparison benchmarks. Given a set of differences and an initial model, users generate models resulting from the application of the first on the latter. Differences consist of preconditions, actions and postconditions expressed using a dedicated specification language. The generator converts benchmark specifications to design-space exploration problems and produces the final solutions along with a model-based description of their differences with respect to the initial model. A set of representative use cases is used to evaluate the framework against its design principles, which resemble the essential properties expected from model comparison benchmark generators.

<p>U sklopu doktorske disertacije izvršeno je istraživanje vezano za automatsko<br />raspoređivanje elemenata dijagrama. Kroz analizu postojećih rešenja uočen je<br />prostor za poboljšanja, posebno po pitanju raznovrsnosti dostupnih algoritama<br />i pomoći korisniku pri izboru najpogodnijeg od njih. U okviru istraživanja<br />proučavan, implementiran i u pojedinim slučajevima unapređen je širok<br />spektar algoritama za crtanje i analizu grafova. Definisan je postupak<br />automatskog izbora odgovarajućeg algoritma za raspoređivanje elemenata<br />grafova na osnovu njihovih osobina. Dodatno, osmišljen je jezik specifičan za<br />domen koji korisnicima grafičkih editora pruža pomoć u izboru algoritma za<br />raspoređivanje, a programerima brže pisanje koda za poziv željenog algoritma.</p> / <p>This thesis presents a research aimed towards the problem of automatically<br />laying out elements of a diagram. The analysis of existing solutions showed that there<br />is some room for improvement, especially regarding variety of available algorithms.<br />Also, none of the solutions offer possibility of automatically choosing an appropriate<br />graph layout algorithm. Within the research, a large number of different algorithms for<br />graph drawing and analysis were studied, implemented, and, in some cases,<br />enhanced. A method for automatically choosing the best available layout algorithm<br />based on properties of a graph was defined. Additionally, a domain-specific language<br />for specifying a graph&rsquo;s layout was designed.</p>

<p>Software verification is an important part of software development and themost practical way to do this today is through dynamic testing. This reportexplains concepts connected to verification and testing and also presents thetesting-framework Trassel developed during the writing of this report.Constructing domain specific languages and tools by using an existinglanguage as a starting ground can be a good strategy for solving certainproblems, this was tried with Trassel where the description-language forwriting test-cases was written as a DSL using Python as the host-language.</p>

College students rarely engage model-based epistemological reasoning about scientific data and evidence. The purpose of this study was to (1) investigate how scaffolding treatments influenced college students' epistemological reasoning about how data are used as evidence, (2) describe students' epistemological reasoning practice over the course of the study, (3) learn more about relationships among students' domain knowledge, epistemological beliefs about scientific knowledge, and epistemological reasoning, and (4) investigate how scaffolding for epistemological reasoning influences knowledge gain. Participants in this study consisted of three-hundred fifteen undergraduate students; all were juniors and seniors and all students were enrolled in one of two introductory genetics laboratory courses. Study participants included non-majors (Experiment 1, N =143) and majors (Experiment 2, N = 172). A partially mixed-methods sequential research design was used in this study; qualitative and quantitative phases were mixed during data analysis. A distributed scaffolding system was used in this study. All participants from each laboratory section were randomly assigned to one of three treatments; no scaffolds, domain-general scaffolds, or domain specific scaffolds. Study variables included domain knowledge, epistemological beliefs about the nature of scientific knowledge, and epistemological reasoning, scaffolding treatment was the manipulated variable. Findings were: (1) Chi square analysis indicated no statistically significant differences in epistemological reasoning by scaffolding treatment; model-based reasoning was not observed in students' explanations; (2) Spearman rho indicated no change in epistemological reasoning over the course of the study, however, statistical significance was not reached, however, a repeated measures ANOVA with Greenhouse-Geisser correction indicated a statistically significant within subjects change in epistemological reasoning, implications are discussed; (3) statistically significant bivariate correlations were found and (4) ANCOVA indicated pretest domain knowledge was a statistically significant covariate for posttest domain knowledge and a statistically significant main effect for scaffolding treatment was reached by Experiment 1 participants but not by Experiment 2 participants. Implications for instructional design and future research are discussed.

AbstractThe development of embedded computer control systems(ECS) requires a synergetic integration of heterogeneoustechnologies and multiple engineering disciplines. Withincreasing amount of functionalities and expectations for highproduct qualities, short time-to-market, and low cost, thesuccess of complexity control and built-in flexibility turn outto be one of the major competitive edges for many ECS products.For this reason, modeling and modularity assessment constitutetwo critical subjects of ECS engineering.In the development ofECS, model-based design is currently being exploited in most ofthe sub-systems engineering activities. However, the lack ofsupport for formalization and systematization associated withthe overall systems modeling leads to problems incomprehension, cross-domain communication, and integration oftechnologies and engineering activities. In particular, designchanges and exploitation of "components" are often risky due tothe inability to characterize components' properties and theirsystem-wide contexts. Furthermore, the lack of engineeringtheories for modularity assessment in the context of ECS makesit difficult to identify parameters of concern and to performearly system optimization. This thesis aims to provide a more complete basis for theengineering of ECS in the areas of systems modeling andmodularization. It provides solution domain models for embeddedcomputer control systems and the software subsystems. Thesemeta-models describe the key system aspects, design levels,components, component properties and relationships with ECSspecific semantics. By constituting the common basis forabstracting and relating different concerns, these models willalso help to provide better support for obtaining holisticsystem views and for incorporating useful technologies fromother engineering and research communities such as to improvethe process and to perform system optimization. Further, amodeling framework is derived, aiming to provide a perspectiveon the modeling aspect of ECS development and to codifyimportant modeling concepts and patterns. In order to extendthe scope of engineering analysis to cover flexibility relatedattributes and multi-attribute tradeoffs, this thesis alsoprovides a metrics system for quantifying componentdependencies that are inherent in the functional solutions.Such dependencies are considered as the key factors affectingcomplexity control, concurrent engineering, and flexibility.The metrics system targets early system-level design and takesinto account several domain specific features such asreplication and timing accuracy. Keywords:Domain-Specific Architectures, Model-basedSystem Design, Software Modularization and Components, QualityMetrics. / QC 20100524

The simulation world defines conceptual modeling as a tool that provides a clear understanding of the target domain or problem. Although there are some approaches offering useful insights on conceptual modeling in the simulation development lifecycle, they do not provide adequate guidance on how to develop a conceptual model. This thesis study presents a framework for developing conceptual models for simulation systems that is based on the idea that the modelers will develop conceptual models more effectively by following a defined conceptual modeling method, using a domain specific notation and a tool. The conceptual model development method is defined in a step-by-step manner and explanations about the notation and tool are provided when required. A multiple-case study involving two cases is conducted in order to evaluate the applicability of the method for conceptual modeling and validate the expected benefits.

There has been a recent interest in the model-based development approach in the modeling and simulation community. The Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) of OMG envisions a fully model-based development process where models are created for capturing not only requirements, but also designs and implementations. Domain-specific metamodels and model transformations constitute the cornerstones of this approach. We have developed transformations from the data part of Field Artillery (FA) domain models to High Level Architecture (HLA) Object Model Template (OMT) models, honoring the MDA philosophy. In the MDA terminology, the former corresponds to the CIM (Computation-Independent Model) or, arguably, PIM (Platform-Independent Model), and the latter corresponds to the PSM (Platform-Specific Model), where the platform is HLA. As a case study for the source metamodel, we have developed a metamodel for the data model part of the (observed) fire techniques of the FA domain. All of the entities in the metamodel are derived from the NATO&rsquo / s Command and Control Information Exchange Data Model (C2IEDM) elements.

Interference makes reasoning about imperative programs difficult but it can be controlled syntactically by a language's type system, such as Syntactic Control of Interference (SCI). Haskell is a purely-functional, statically-typed language with a rich type system including algebraic datatypes and type classes. It is popular as a defining language for definitional interpreters of domain-specific languages, making it an ideal candidate for implementation of definitional interpreters for SCI and Syntactic Control of Interference Revisited (SCIR), a variant that improves on SCI. Inference rules and denotational semantics functions are presented for PCF, IA, SCI, and SCIR. An extension to Haskell98 is used to define Haskell functions for those languages' semantics and to define type constructions to statically check their syntax. The results in applied programming language theory demonstrate the suitability and techniques of Haskell for definitional interpretation of languages with rich type systems. / Thesis (Master, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2008-06-10 21:23:33.291

Domain Specific Modeling (DSM) aims to increase productivity of software development by raising the level of abstraction beyond code concepts and using domain concepts. By providing a generative model-driven tooling component and runtime support, the Eclipse Graphical Modeling Framework (GMF) aims to simplify the creation of diagram editors for specific domains based on a series of model creation and transformation steps. GMF leverages the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) and the Eclipse Graphical Editing Framework (GEF) to allow the graphical modeling of Domain Specific Languages (DSL). A Domain Specific Language (DSL) is developed specifically for a specific task and specific domain. In this research, the State Machine Compiler (SMC) represents the specific domain for which a DSL in a form of a diagram editor is developed using GMF. SMC is an open source Java tool allowing generation of state pattern classes from textual descriptions of state machines. The main objective of this research is to describe the use of GMF, highlight potential pitfalls and identify strengths and weaknesses of GMF based on certain criteria. To be able to feed the SMC diagrams created with the editor into SMC, a Java Emitter Templates (JET) transformation is used to transform SMC model instances into textual format expected by SMC. / Thesis (Master, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2011-04-14 18:58:08.797

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