Title: Universal Constraint Language Author: Peter Piják Department / Institute: Department of Software Engineering Supervisor of the master thesis: Mgr. Martin Nečaský, Ph.D. Abstract: Today's software applications are typically compound of system of more application components. By modeling of software, various integrity constraint languages are used for particular parts of model (e.g. OCL for UML class diagrams, Schematron for XML or SQL triggers for relational databases). Constraint expressions need to be converted to expressions over different meta-models. These tasks are non-trivial. In this thesis, a new common language Universal Constraint Language (UCL) for expressing integrity constraints over various data meta-models is introduced. It is formally defined and also its parser is implemented. We also present semi-automatic translating between constraints over various meta-models; and deriving constraints from the introduced language to constraints in specific constraint languages. Keywords: constraint language, model-driven architecture, universal formalism

Modeling software with object-oriented technique and unified modeling language have become the new paradigm of modern information systems analysis and design. In addition, many approaches and CASE tools have been introduced to facilitate the transformation from class diagram to object-relational database and application template and thereby enhance the efficiency of system development. Model-driven architecture (MDA) and Rational Rose is such an approach and CASE tool, respectively. This research presents a systematic methodology which integrated the MDA concept to transform the class diagram into object-relational database and application template during the system development process. A real-world case using the integrated techniques is presented and the Rational Rose is used to illustrate the concepts, application, and the advantages of using the proposed methodology. With this approach, the system developer can transform class diagram into object-relational database and application template automatically and thereby enhance the efficiency of system development.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

O objetivo da pesquisa apresentada neste trabalho foi investigar como simular modelos descritos em Unified Modelling Language (UML) para sistemas de software especificados em nível de negócio. Um simulador de um modelo UML em nível de negócio pode ser uma ferramenta útil para um projetista que procura por erros ou modelos incompletos. Usando abordagens de desenvolvimento tradicionais, estes tipos de erros seriam encontrados apenas em estágios posteriores do ciclo de vida de desenvolvimento do sistema. Os principais resultados deste trabalho são a especificação de uma arquitetura de uma máquina virtual capaz de executar todas as ações descritas em um modelo UML, e o protótipo chamado ModSim, o qual executa um modelo UML recebido no formato XML Metadata Interchange (XMI). / The main goal of the research presented in this Master Thesis was to investigate how to simulate UML based models for software systems specified on business level. A simulator of a UML model on business level can be a useful tool for a designer looking for errors or incomplete models. Using traditional development approaches, these kind of errors would be found only on lates stages of the system development. The main results of this work are the specification of an architecture of a virtual machine capable of executing all actions described in the UML model, and the prototype named ModSim, which executes a UML model received in XMI format.

O objetivo da pesquisa apresentada neste trabalho foi investigar como simular modelos descritos em Unified Modelling Language (UML) para sistemas de software especificados em nível de negócio. Um simulador de um modelo UML em nível de negócio pode ser uma ferramenta útil para um projetista que procura por erros ou modelos incompletos. Usando abordagens de desenvolvimento tradicionais, estes tipos de erros seriam encontrados apenas em estágios posteriores do ciclo de vida de desenvolvimento do sistema. Os principais resultados deste trabalho são a especificação de uma arquitetura de uma máquina virtual capaz de executar todas as ações descritas em um modelo UML, e o protótipo chamado ModSim, o qual executa um modelo UML recebido no formato XML Metadata Interchange (XMI). / The main goal of the research presented in this Master Thesis was to investigate how to simulate UML based models for software systems specified on business level. A simulator of a UML model on business level can be a useful tool for a designer looking for errors or incomplete models. Using traditional development approaches, these kind of errors would be found only on lates stages of the system development. The main results of this work are the specification of an architecture of a virtual machine capable of executing all actions described in the UML model, and the prototype named ModSim, which executes a UML model received in XMI format.

Software systems will eventually contribute to their own maintenance using implementations of self-awareness. Understanding how to specify, model, and implement software with a sense of self is a daunting problem. This research draws inspiration from the automatic functioning of a gimbal---a self-righting mechanical device that supports an object and maintains the orientation of this object with respect to gravity independently of its immediate operating environment. A software gimbal exhibits a self-righting feature that provisions software with two auxiliary mechanisms: a historical mechanism and a reflective mechanism. The historical mechanism consists of behavior classifiers trained on statistical models of data that are collected from executions of the program that exhibit known behaviors of the program. The reflective mechanism uses the historical mechanism to assess an ongoing or selected execution. This dissertation presents techniques for the identification and modeling of program execution features as statistical models. It further demonstrates how statistical machine-learning techniques can be used to manipulate these models and to construct behavior classifiers that can automatically detect and label known program behaviors and detect new unknown behaviors. The thesis is that statistical summaries of data collected from a software program's executions can model and predict external behaviors of the program. This dissertation presents three control-flow features and one value-flow feature of program executions that can be modeled as stochastic processes exhibiting the Markov property. A technique for building automated behavior classifiers from these models is detailed. Empirical studies demonstrating the efficacy of this approach are presented. The use of these techniques in example software engineering applications in the categories of software testing and failure detection are described.

Graphic user interface has become the mainstream of today¡¦s web-based systems. The object oriented technique and the diagrams from the Unified Modeling Language (UML) are becoming the major tools for modeling the platform independent model (PIM) of a web-based system. Once the PIM is constructed, the results can then be transformed into its platform specific model and template code based on the model driven architecture (MDA) approach. However, the detailed guideline for the transformation from PIM to the Microsoft .Net platform is lacking. Therefore, this study presents a methodology which provides guidelines for the transformation from PIM to Microsoft .Net platform for a web-based system. The research methodology is articulated using the design science research methodology. A usability evaluation with a real-world web-based system case is performed to demonstrate its applicability. The results indicated that with this proposed method, the system developer can effectively transform the PIM of a web-based system into its Microsoft .Net platform and template code.

Modeling software with unified modeling language (UML) and model driven architechutre (MDA) concept have become the new paradigm of modern systems analysis and design. Several CASE tools have been introduced to facilitate the transformation from platform independent model (i.e., class diagram) to platform specific model, and thereby enhance the efficiency of system development. This research presents a systematic methodology which integrated the UML and MDA concept with CASE tool to transform the class diagram into web-based user interface during the system development process. A real-world case using the integrated techniques is presented and the Rational Rose is used to illustrate the concepts, application, and the advantages of using the proposed methodology. With this approach, the system developer can transform class diagram into web-based user interface automatically and thereby enhance the efficiency of system development.

Modeling software with the model driven architecture (MDA) concept and unified modeling language (UML) has become a new trend for the objected-oriented systems analysis and design. Several CASE tools which embed MDA concept and UML have been introduced to facilitate the transformation from platform independent model (PIM, i.e., class diagram) to platform specific model (PSM) in order to enhance the efficiency of software development. In this work, we present a systematic methodology which integrates the concept of MDA and UML with CASE tool to refine the process of UML transformation. A personnel leave prototype system is implemented to illustrate the concepts, application, and advantages of the proposed methodology. With this approach, software developers can construct the PIM efficiently and thereby enhance the efficiency of system development.

Traditionally software testing is performed at the coding stage and is costly. Prior research indicated that if the errors can be found prior to the coding stage, the cost for fixing the errors can be reduced. Today, Unified Modeling Language (UML) has become a standard modeling language in object-oriented systems analysis and design. Over the past few years a considerable effort has been made in synthesizing UML, MDA (Model-Driven Architecture), and CASE tool to increase the productivity of the system development. Specifying the business logic constraints with Object Constraint Language (OCL) has become a main trend in this area. This study presents a methodology to specify the business logic constraint with OCL on the platform independent model during the systems analysis and design stage, then transform the OCL expressions into the code model and do the model testing simultaneously with a CASE tool. Three real-world cases and a CASE tool are used to test the usability (including the concepts, application, and advantages) of the proposed methodology. With this approach, software bugs related to business logic constraints can be found at the systems analysis and design stage and thereby reduce the cost of software testing and enhance the efficiency of system development.