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.

Business Process Management (BPM) is often adopted by organizations as a method to increase awareness and knowledge of their business processes. Business process modeling is used as a method to represent business processes in form of business process models. The number of organizations adopting BPM is quickly increasing. By this means, so is the number of business process models as result of a BPM initiative. Within a single organization the number of business process models often ranges from hundreds to even thousands. In order to handle such large amount of business process models, organizations structure them by the help of a process architecture. It includes a process map, which is considered as the top-most view of the process architecture where the organization's business processes and the relations between them are visually and abstractly depicted. The details of each business process shown on the process map are stored in the lower levels of the corresponding process architecture. The purpose of a process map is to provide an overview of how an organization operates as a whole without necessarily going into the process details. Therefore, the design of a process map is vital not only for the understanding of the company's processes, but also for the subsequent detailed process modeling. This is primarily because, a process map is often the result of the process identification phase of the BPM lifecycle, and is used as a foundation for the subsequent phases, where the detailed process modeling and process improvement takes place. Despite their importance, the design of process maps is still more art than science, essentially because there is no standardized modeling language available for process map design. As a result, we are faced with a high heterogeneity of process map designs from practice, although they all serve a similar purpose. This has accordingly been our main motivation for pursuing the research presented in this thesis. The research question for this thesis is the following: How to effectively model processes on an abstract level? In this thesis, we document the development of a language for designing process maps. In particular, we provide the following contributions. First, we present a holistic reference BPM framework. It is a consolidation of procedural frameworks introduced by prominent BPM researchers. The framework includes eleven BPM elements, each holding activities organizations need to consider when adopting BPM. Second, we provide a method for assessing cognitive effectiveness of process maps used in practice. For this, we follow the nine principles for cognitively effective visual notations introduced by Moody cite{moody2012physics}. In addition, we employ the cognitive fit theory to check whether the design of process maps has an effect on the BPM success in the respective organization. Second, we conduct a systematic literature review on the quality of modeling languages and models. We use the quality requirements we found as basis for developing the language for designing process maps. Third, we define the abstract syntax, semantics, and concrete syntax of the language for process maps. We follow an explorative method, hence we rely on empirical data for the language development. Accordingly, we reuse symbols in our language which have already been used in practice as part of process maps. We follow this approach in order to ensure the language will consist of elements already familiar to organizations. We evaluate the language by means of an experiment, in which we assess the effectiveness and efficiency of process maps designed using elements from our language against process maps that have not been designed using our language. Last, this thesis provides a method for testing the suitability of existing languages for specific purposes. (author's abstract)

ITC/USA 2005 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-First Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 24-27, 2005 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / This paper presents an approach to development of generic ground systems to be used for spacecraft testing and operations. This method makes use of a standard modeling method, which enables virtualization of spacecraft. By virtualizing spacecraft, development of generic systems that are applicable to different spacecraft becomes possible even if spacecraft themselves are not standardized. This is because systems can utilize (1) a standard database that can store information on any virtual spacecraft and (2) standard software tools that can be used for any virtual spacecraft. This paper explains the concept of virtualization of spacecraft, introduces the standard model used for virtualization of spacecraft, shows how to manipulate virtual spacecraft with software tools, and presents the core elements of generic ground systems.

Tese de Mestrado Integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2013

<p>We use a system model expressed in a subset of the Unified Modeling Language to perform fault isolation in large object oriented control systems. Due to the severity of the failures considered and the safety critical nature of the system we cannot perform fault isolation online. Thus, we perform post mortem fault isolation which has implications in terms of the information available; the temporal order in the error log can not be trusted. In our previous work we have used a structural model for fault isolation. In this thesis we provide a formal framework and a prototype implementation of an approach taking benefit of a behavioral model. This gives opportunities to perform more sophisticated reasoning at the cost of a more detailed system model. We use a model-checker to reason about causal dependencies among the events of the modeled system. The model-checker performs reasoning about temporal dependencies among the events in the system model and the scenario at hand, allowing for conclusions about the causal relation between the events of the scenario. This knowledge can then be transferred to the corresponding fault in the system, allowing us to pinpoint the cause of a system failure among a set of potential causes.</p> / Report code: LiU-Tek-Lic-2000:59.

User interface (UI) has become the key element of modern information systems (ISs) and is commonly viewed as one of the decisive factors for the success of an IS project. Many component-based development tools have been introduced by software vendors to meet the needs of designing a variety of UIs. Such modern design tools offer system developer vehicles to create sophisticated UIs with a few codes. However, the modeling methodology from the stages of user requirement modeling to UI modeling based on the modern design tools is virtually lacking. This study presents an integrated modeling methodology, which integrates the unified modeling language with interface drawing and interface glossary to provide a seamless and graphical approach and specifications for component-based UI modeling from user requirement modeling. A real-world case using the integrated approach is presented and a prototype system is developed to illustrate the concepts, application, and the advantages of using the proposed methodology.

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.

This study presents a systematic methodology which integrated the model driven architecture with object-oriented technique to transform the platform independent model (PIM) into Web-based user interface (UI) platform specific model (PSM), and then into code model. 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 PIM into Web-based UI PSM and code automatically and thereby enhance the efficiency of system development.