En el 2003, nace el Servicio de Difusión de la Creación Intelectual (SEDICI) como el Repositorio Institucional (RI) de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP), soportado por un desarrollo de software propio llamado CelsiusDL. A finales del 2011 se realizó un estudio para migrar a otro software más actualizado y seleccionaron DSpace, plataforma de software de RI más usada en el mundo. El proceso de migración de CelsiusDL a DSpace finalizó en el 2012. DSpace permitió contar con nuevas funcionalidades, logró una flexibilidad en los cambios estratégicos por parte de la gerencia del repositorio, permitió modificaciones en la imagen institucional sin afectar la lógica del repositorio y amplió la gestión de las tipologías de los recursos aceptados. DSpace, al igual que otras plataformas, presenta limitaciones en relación con la representación de los recursos –que consiste en el proceso de registrar en forma persistente un conjunto de datos como síntesis y reemplazo del objeto "real" para poder identificarlo, recuperarlo y distribuirlo–, tal situación fue uno de los principales problemas presentados en la transición de CelsiusDL a DSpace. Esta investigación se centró en describir el problema de la representación de recursos dentro del repositorio institucional SEDICI y en exponer una posible solución, todo bajo el enfoque Model-Driven. El objeto de estudio –La Representación de Recursos– es un problema recurrente que ha sido estudiado por algunos autores en otros ámbitos geográficos: Malizia (2010), Paganelli (2005), Gonçalves (2004), Fox (2004), Candela (2007), entre otros. No obstante, los trabajos revisados abordan el tema en forma general, no se toma en cuenta el recurso como el eje central. Se planteó el desarrollo de un marco de referencia que permita el desarrollo de funcionalidades a partir del diseño de un modelo flexible de acuerdo con la representación de recursos, bajo el contexto de SEDICI, pero replicable a otros repositorios. Dicho planteamiento se relaciona con los elementos de un repositorio: recursos, esquemas de metadatos, almacenamiento y catalogación, y con los siguientes procesos funcionales de acuerdo con el material depositado y la norma ISO 14721: carga (ingest), almacenamiento (storage), catalogación (cataloging), indización (indexing), búsqueda (search engine) y navegación (browsing). Para lograrlo, se hizo un relevamiento bibliográfico del tema, se seleccionó el paradigma de construcción de software Model-Driven para la implementación de la solución y se analizaron diferentes modelos conceptuales y modelos de datos para construir un marco de referencia que soporte el modelo propuesto y que esté relacionada con la norma ISO 14721. El enfoque de Desarrollo de Software Dirigido por Modelos (en inglés Model-Driven Development, MDD) es un paradigma de construcción de software que asigna a los modelos un rol central con modelos que van desde los más abstractos a los más concretos. Este paradigma, además, proporciona un ambiente que permite a los interesados compartir sus puntos de vista y manipular las representaciones de las entidades del dominio. Por ello en la propuesta de esta investigación, el marco de referencia se estructuró en 5 módulos o fases a partir del enfoque Model-Driven: DSL para el desarrollo del modelo flexible, transformación del modelo a un modelo relacional, transformación del modelo relacional a un script SQL para la creación de la base de datos, mapping de los recursos de DSpace-SEDICI a la base de datos creada, y, desarrollo de una aplicación en WebRatio para la visualización y exportación de los recursos. Esta investigación dió respuesta al objetivo planteado y vinculó premisas devenidas de tres disciplinas: Ciencias de la Información, Ciencias Documentales y Ciencias de la Computación (LIS). Entretejer tales áreas en una propuesta relacionada con repositorios institucionales representó un aporte en un área de vacancia en la literatura.

The use of models for designing and developing Information Systems (IS) has changed in recent years. Models are no longer considered a peripheral documentation medium that is poorly maintained and often neglected. Rather, models are increasingly seen as essential parts of the final product—as central artifacts that drive and guide the development efforts. The knowledge that modelers rely on when designing models is represented as formal models and clearly defined rules for transforming the models. The flexibility, reliability, and effectiveness offered by the formal models and the transformations are making Model Driven Development (MDD) a popular choice for building IS. Models also serve in describing enterprise design, where enterprise-level models capture organizational knowledge and aid in understanding, improving, and growing the enterprise. Enterprise Modeling (EM) offers a structured and unified view of the enterprise, thereby enabling more informed and accurate decisions to be made. Many MDD approaches have been proposed to tackle a wide range of IS-related issues, but little attention is being paid to the source of the knowledge captured by the IS models. EM approaches capture organizational knowledge and provide the necessary input and underlying context for designing IS. However, the results produced by EM approaches need to be manually analyzed by modelers to create the initial MDD model. This interruption of the MDD process represents a gap between enterprise models and MDD models. Limited research has been done to connect EM to MDD in a systematic and structured manner based on the principles of model-driven development. This thesis proposes a unifying meta-model for integrating EM and MDD. The meta-model captures the inherent links that exist between organizational knowledge and IS design. This helps to improve the alignment between organizational goals and the IS that are created to support them. The research presented herein follows the guidelines of the design science research methodology. It starts with a state-of-the-art survey of the current relationship between MDD and prior stages of development. The findings of the survey are used to elicit a set of necessary properties for integrating EM and MDD. The unifying meta-model is then proposed as the basis for an integrated IS development approach that applies the principles of MDD and starts on the enterprise level by considering enterprise models in the development process. The design of the meta-model supports the elicited integration properties. The unifying meta-model is based on the Enterprise Knowledge Development (EKD) approach to EM. A prototype tool is developed to support the unifying meta-model, following a study to choose a suitable implementation environment. The use of the unifying meta-model is demonstrated through the implemented tool platform using an example case study, revealing its advantages and highlighting the potential for improvement and future development.

La tesis propone un lenguaje específico de dominio (DSL) para modelar Sistemas Colaborativos (CSSL - Collaborative Software System Language). Este lenguaje fue diseñado como una extensión de UML usando el mecanismo de metamodelado y posee una sintaxis abstracta formalizada que permitirá entre otras cosas definir más de una sintaxis concreta a partir de ella, lo cual aumenta la legibilidad y flexibilidad del lenguaje. Finalmente se presenta una guía que facilita la construcción de Sistemas Colaborativos. Dentro del paradigma MDD (Model Driven Development) y utilizando el lenguaje CSSL se describe las etapas iniciales de un método para modelar los Sistemas Colaborativos.

Today's business world is very dynamic and organizations have to quickly adjust their internal policies to follow the market changes. Such adjustments must be propagated to the business logic embedded in the organization's information systems, that are often legacy applications not designed to represent and operationalize the business logic independently from the technical aspects of the programming language employed. Consequently, the business logic buried in the system must be discovered and understood before being modified. Unfortunately, such activities slow down the modification of the system to new requirements settled in the organization policies and threaten the consistency and coherency of the organization business. In order to simplify these activities, we provide amodel-based approach to extract and represent the business logic, expressed as a set of business rules, from the behavioral and structural parts of information systems. We implement such approach for Java, COBOL and relational database management systems. The proposed approach is based on Model Driven Engineering,that provides a generic and modular solution adaptable to different languages by offering an abstract and homogeneous representation of the system.

Researchers in software engineering proposed design method for distributed applications to construct a set of communicating system components from a global behavior. The joint behaviors of these components must precisely satisfy the specified global behavior. The next concern is to transform the constructed models of these components into executable business processes by ensuring the exchange of asynchronous messages among the generated business processes. The introduction of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) has helped to achieve this goal. SOA provides high flexibility in composing loosely-integrated services that can be used among business domains to carry out business transactions; this composition is known as service orchestration. Moreover, SOA supports Model Driven Architecture (MDA) such that services modeled as UML Activity Diagrams (AD) can be transformed into a set of Business Execution Language (BPEL) processes. Many researchers discussed the transformation of UML AD and the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) into BPEL. However, they did not discuss the practical limitations that some of these transformations impose. This thesis addresses the imitations of the transformation from UML AD to BPEL processes using the IBM Rational Software Architect (RSA). We showed here that the tool is unable to create the correct BPEL artifacts from UML AD components in certain cases, for instance when the behavior includes the alternative for receiving single or concurrent messages, a weak loop, or certain choice activities. Furthermore, we provided novel solutions to the transformations in these cases in order to facilitate the transformation from UML AD to BPEL.

Model Driven Engineering (MDE) is an approach to software development by which software is specified, designed, implemented and deployed through a series of models. While the capabilities of MDE have been realized in many aspects of software development, there is no MDE supported technique for generating information visualizations. Information visualization is a technique that supports human cognition through interactive graphics by enabling users to identify data patterns more easily, summarize information or abstract concepts that are not easily comprehended from the underlying data. As more systems are designed using model driven engineering approaches there is now a need to support a model driven approach for creating such visualizations. This research explores the feasibility of a model driven approach to view creation that is compatible with the goals of MDE. We approach the problem of developing an MDE technique for view creation in two ways. First, we examine how MDE technologies are used for specifying, designing, and maintaining software systems to uncover the aspects of software customization that are supported through MDE. Second, we analyze six existing visualization tools to determine three functional requirements and six design recommendations for visualization creation and customization tools. Combining MDE principles and information visualization requirements, we propose Model Driven Visualization (MDV), a model based approach to view creation. MDV includes platform independent models for common visualizations, as well as a technique to generate platform specific instances of these models. Finally, using MDV we show that standard visualizations can be recreated in a concise syntax, that is compatible with the goals of model driven engineering. MDV contributes to the fields of model driven engineering, information visualization and software engineering. In particular, this research 1) provides a collection of formal view models for common information visualization techniques, 2) outlines a method for designing and customizing information visualizations using MDE, 3) presents a code generation technique for integrating MDE with the model-view-controller pattern, and 4) contributes an open-source visualization toolkit to the Eclipse project.

Traceability data provides the knowledge on dependencies and logical relations existing amongst artefacts that are created during software development. In reasoning over traceability data, conclusions can be drawn to increase the quality of software. The paradigm of Model-driven Software Engineering (MDSD) promotes the generation of software out of models. The latter are specified through different modelling languages. In subsequent model transformations, these models are used to generate programming code automatically. Traceability data of the involved artefacts in a MDSD process can be used to increase the software quality in providing the necessary knowledge as described above. Existing traceability solutions in MDSD are based on the integral model mapping of transformation execution to generate traceability data. Yet, these solutions still entail a wide range of open challenges. One challenge is that the collected traceability data does not adhere to a unified formal definition, which leads to poorly integrated traceability data. This aggravates the reasoning over traceability data. Furthermore, these traceability solutions all depend on the existence of a transformation engine. However, not in all cases pertaining to MDSD can a transformation engine be accessed, while taking into account proprietary transformation engines, or manually implemented transformations. In these cases it is not possible to instrument the transformation engine for the sake of generating traceability data, resulting in a lack of traceability data. In this work, we address these shortcomings. In doing so, we propose a generic traceability framework for augmenting arbitrary transformation approaches with a traceability mechanism. To integrate traceability data from different transformation approaches, our approach features a methodology for augmentation possibilities based on a design pattern. The design pattern supplies the engineer with recommendations for designing the traceability mechanism and for modelling traceability data. Additionally, to provide a traceability mechanism for inaccessible transformation engines, we leverage parallel model matching to generate traceability data for arbitrary source and target models. This approach is based on a language-agnostic concept of three similarity measures for matching. To realise the similarity measures, we exploit metamodel matching techniques for graph-based model matching. Finally, we evaluate our approach according to a set of transformations from an SAP business application and the domain of MDSD.

The complexity of modern systems is continuously growing, thus demanding novel powerful development approaches.In this direction, model-driven and component-based software engineering have reached the status of promising paradigms for the development of complex systems. Moreover, in the embedded domain, their combination is believed to be helpful in handling the ever-increasing complexity of such systems.However, in order for them and their combination to definitively break through at industrial level, code generated from models through model transformations should preserve system properties modelled at design level. This research work focuses on aiding the preservation of system properties throughout the entire development process across different abstraction levels. Towards this goal, we provide the possibility of analysing and preserving system properties through a development chain constituted of three steps: (i) generation of code from system models, (ii) execution and analysis of generated code, and (iii) back-propagation of analysis results to system models.With the introduction of steps (ii) and (iii), properties that are hard to predict at modelling level are compared with runtime values and this consequently allows the developer to work exclusively at modelling level thus focusing on optimising system models with the help of those values. / Denna doktorsavhandling presenterar nya och förbättrade tekniker för modelldriven och komponentbaserad utveckling av programvara. Syftet är att bevara systemegenskaper, som specificerats i modeller, genom de olika stadierna av utvecklingen och när modeller översätts mellan olika abstraktionsnivåer och till kod. Vi introducerar möjligheter att studera och bevara systemets egenskaper genom att skapa en kedja i tre steg som: (i) genererar kod från systemmodellen, (ii) exekverar och analyserar den genererade koden och (iii) slutligen återkopplar analysvärden till systemmodellen. Introduktionen av steg (ii) och (iii) gör det möjligt att genomföra en detaljerad analys av egenskaper som är svåra, eller till och med omöjliga, att studera med hjälp av endast systemmodeller. Fördelen med det här tillvägagångssättet är att det förenklar för utvecklaren som slipper arbeta direkt med kod för att ändra systemegenskaper. Istället kan utvecklaren arbeta helt och hållet med modeller och fokusera på optimering av systemmodeller med hjälp av analysvärden från testkörningar av systemet. Vi är övertygade om att denna typ av teknik är nödvändig att utveckla för att stödja modelldriven utveckling av programvara eftersom dagens tekniker inte möjliggör för systemutvecklare att specificera, analysera och optimera systemegenskaper på modellnivå. / La continua crescita in complessitá dei sistemi software moderni porta alla necessitá di definire nuovi e piú efficaci approcci di sviluppo. In questa direzione, metodi basati su modelli (model-driven engineering) e componenti (component-based software engineering) sono stati riconosciuti come promettenti nuove alternative per lo sviluppo di sistemi complessi. Inoltre l'interazione tra loro é ritenuta particolarmente vantaggiosa nella gestione nello sviluppo di sistemi integrati. Affinché questi approcci, cosí come la loro interazione, possano definitivamente prendere piede in campo industriale, il codice generato dai modelli tramite apposite transformazioni deve essere in grado di preservare le proprietá di sistema, sia funzionali che extra-funzionali, definite nei modelli. Il lavoro di ricerca presentato in questa tesi di dottorato si focalizza sul preservamento delle proprietá di sistema nell'intero processo di sviluppo e attraverso i diversi livelli di astrazione. Il risultato principale é rappresentato da un approccio automatico di round-trip engineering in grado di sostenere il preservamento delle proprietá di sistema attraverso: 1) generazione automatica di codice, 2) monitoraggio e analisi dell'esecuzione del codice generate su piattaforme specifiche, e 3) offrendo la possibilitá di propagare verticalmente i risultati da runtime al livello di modellazione. In questo modo, quelle proprietá che possono essere stimate staticamente solo in maniera approssimativa, vengono valutate in rapporto ai valori ottenuti a runtime. Ció permette di ottimizzare il sistema a livello di design attraverso i modelli, piuttosto che manualmente a livello di codice, per assicurare il preservamento degli proprietá di sistema d'interesse.

Software evolution refers to continuous change that a software system endures from inception to retirement. Each change must be efficiently and tractably propagated across models representing the system at different levels of abstraction. Model synchronization activities needed to support the systematic specification and analysis of evolution activities are still not adequately identified and formally defined. In our research, we first introduce a formal notation for the representation of domain models and model instances to form the theoretical basis for the proposed model synchronization framework. Besides conforming to a generic MOF metamodel, we consider that each software model also relates to an application domain context (e.g., operating systems, web services). Therefore, we are addressing the problems of model synchronization by focusing on domain-specific contexts. Secondly, we identify and formally define model dependencies that are needed to trace and propagate changes across system models at different levels of abstraction, such as from design to source code. The approach for extraction of these dependencies is based on Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) algorithms. We further model identified dependencies using Unified Modeling Language (UML) profiles and constraints, and utilize the extracted dependency relations in the context of coarse-grained model synchronization. Thirdly, we introduce modeling semantics that allow for more complex profile-based dependencies using Triple Graph Grammar (TGG) rules with corresponding Object Constraint Language (OCL) constraints. The TGG semantics provide for fine-grained model synchronization, and enable compliance with the Query/View/Transformation (QVT) standards. The introduced framework is assessed on a large, industrial case study of the IBM Commerce system. The dependency extraction framework is applied to repositories of business process models and related source code. The extracted dependencies were evaluated by IBM developers, and the corresponding precision and recall values calculated with results that match the scope and goals of the research. The grammar-based model synchronization and dependency modelling using profiles has also been applied to the IBM Commerce system, and evaluated by the developers and architects involved in development of the system. The results of this experiment have been found to be valuable by stakeholders, and a patent codifying the results has been filed by the IBM organization and has been granted. Finally, the results of this experiment have been formalized as TGG rules, and used in the context of fine-grained model synchronization.

Thesis (M. S. in Computer Science)--Vanderbilt University, May 2005. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.