Since information systems become more and more important in today\'s society, business firms, organizations, and individuals rely on these systems to manage their daily business and social activities. The dependency of possibly critical business processes on complex IT systems requires a strategy that supports IT departments in reducing the time needed to implement changed or new domain requirements of functional departments. In this context, software models help to manage system\'s complexity and provide a tool for communication and documentation purposes. Moreover, software engineers tend to use automated software model processing such as code generation to improve development and maintenance processes. Particularly in the context of web-based information systems, a number of model driven approaches were developed. However, we believe that compared to the user interface layer and the persistency layer, there could be a better support of consistent approaches providing a suitable architecture for the consistent model driven development of business logic. To ameliorate this situation, we developed an architectural blueprint consisting of meta models, tools, and a method support for model driven development and maintenance of business logic from analysis until system maintenance. This blueprint, which we call Amabulo infrastructure, consists of five layers and provides concepts and tools to set up and apply concrete infrastructures for model driven development projects. Modeling languages can be applied as needed. In this thesis we focus on business logic layers of J2EE applications. However, concrete code generation rules can be adapted easily for different target platforms. After providing a high-level overview of our Amabulo infrastructure, we describe its layers in detail: The Visual Model Layer is responsible for all visual modeling tasks. For this purpose, we discuss requirements for visual software models for business logic, analyze several visual modeling languages concerning their usefulness, and provide an UML profile for business logic models. The Abstract Model Layer provides an abstract view on the business logic model in the form of a domain specific model, which we call Amabulo model. An Amabulo model is reduced to pure logical information concerning business logic aspects. It focuses on information that is relevant for the code generation. For this purpose, an Amabulo model integrates model elements for process modeling, state modeling, and structural modeling. It is used as a common interface between visual modeling languages and code generators. Visual models of the Visual Model Layer are automatically transformed into an Amabulo model. The Abstract System Layer provides a formal view onto the system in the form of a Coloured Petri Net (CPN). A Coloured Petri Net representation of the modeled business logic is a formal structure and independent of the actual business logic implementation. After an Amabulo model is automatically transformed into a CPN, it can be analyzed and simulated before any line of code is generated. The Code Generation Layer is responsible for code generation. To support the design and implementation of project-specific code generators, we discuss several aspects of code integration issues and provide object-oriented design approaches to tackle the issues. Then, we provide a conceptual mapping of Amabulo model elements into architectural elements of a J2EE infrastructure. This mapping explicitly considers robustness features, which support a later manual integration of generated critical code artifacts and external systems. The Application Layer is the target layer of an Amabulo infrastructure and comprises generated code artifacts. These artifacts are instances of a specific target platform specification, and they can be modified for integration purposes with development tools. Through the contributions in this thesis, we aim to provide an integrated set of solutions to support an efficient model driven development and maintenance process for the business logic of information systems. Therefore, we provide a consistent infrastructure blueprint that considers modeling tasks, model analysis tasks, and code generation tasks. As a result, we see potential for reducing the development and maintenance efforts for changed domain requirements and simultaneously guaranteeing robustness and maintainability even after several changes.

Graphical modeling is becoming an increasingly important part of software engineering as it provides means of increasing productivity by raising the level of abstraction in software devel-opment. One of the most widely adopted modeling notations is the Unified Modeling Language (UML) which has gained popularity due to its generality and broad applicability. Despite its advantages, this general purpose notation is burdened with the lack of purpose specific model-ing abstractions. The modeling abstractions in the language lack specialized properties and thus models might not precisely express the intentions of the modeler. In consequence, this leads to ineffectiveness of using models in UML. This thesis presents research aimed at improving modeling with UML. By exploiting the language customization mechanisms inherent in UML – stereotypes and profiles – the research presented in the thesis explores such aspects of improving modeling as creating language cus-tomizations or using a customized modeling language. The context, in which the modeling is considered, is delineated by the principles of model driven software development (MDD). The principles recognize the usage of models as the primary artefacts in software development thus providing a solid foundation for considering the use of models in software development. One of the contributions in the thesis is the identification and definition of factors determin-ing the successful realization of MDD in industry. These factors provide means of positioning language customization in the forefront of MDD. Another contribution in the thesis is eliciting and prioritizing a set of criteria for choosing between language customization mechanisms, which is a result of another industrial case study. A series of experiments in academic and industrial environments showed the magnitude of improvements to be expected after replacing a standard modeling language with a customized modeling notation. This series of experiments provided a basis for experimenting with stereo-types and software inspections which indicated a considerable increase in effectiveness of the reading techniques used in software inspections after replacing a standard notation with a cus-tomized one. The results from all empirical studies affected the development of quality assessment crite-ria for stereotypes. The criteria and the exploration of several existing profiles led to the devel-opment of guidelines for creating “good” stereotypes by analyzing existing UML profiles. An additional contribution in the thesis is exploring the usage of an alternative mechanism to stereo-types – model libraries – for adaptation of a modeling language. The way in which model librar-ies can be created in an efficient way is studied by creating a method for extracting knowledge from ontologies into UML domain models. The results of the research presented in the thesis show how to improve modeling with UML by customizing the language with stereotypes. The main contribution is the exploration and evaluation of issues related to creating language customizations and using the customized language.

A real-time system is one in which the correctness of the computations not only depends upon the logical correctness of the computation but also upon the time at which the result is produced. If the timing constraints of the system are not met, system failure is said to have occurred. Real-time system consist specialized hardware an software components. Nowadays, systems are so big and complex that teams of architects, analysts, programmers, testers and users must work together to create reliable real-time system. To manage this, a number of system development life cycle models have been created. System development life cycle refers to a methodology for developing systems. It provides a consistent framework of tasks and deliverables needed to develop systems. System development consist stages, that are common for all models: project planning, requirements definition, system design, implementation, testing, deployment and maintenance. However, there still are problems, that lead project to the failure. Problems appear while iterating from design stage to the implementation or prototype creation. Thesis describes methodology, that provide a way to overcome these problems. The main idea is to transform functional structure of the real-time system, that is designed using easy to understand graphical environment, to the executable code that will be able to run on target hardware components. Thesis describe the methods of doing such transformation. Methodology allows to create... [to full text]

En este trabajo de tesis se describirá una técnica de modelado centrado en mockups, introduciéndola primero con MockupDD Web. Luego de haber ejemplificado el desarrollo centrado en mockups para metodologías MDWE, se describirá un marco general para el modelado sobre mockups (lo que se referenciará como metodología MockupDD general) y una instanciación particular de esta metodología además de la ya presentada para la Web. Las principales contribuciones de la metodología MockupDD y sus especializaciones son: (1) Mejorar el workflow en cascada de las metodologías MDD tradicionales (en especial, aquellas MDWE) para permitir acortar las iteraciones y permitir a usuarios finales y clientes involucrados interactuar más rápidamente son el software generado, agilizando el proceso. (2) Mejorar la productividad en el modelado de aplicaciones a través de la técnica de modelado de aplicaciones sobre mockups reduciendo sus errores y tiempo requerido, como se mostrará luego en las secciones de validación (3) Introducir a clientes y usuarios finales en el proceso de desarrollo, utilizando artefactos de especificación de requerimientos de fácil comprensión para los mismos en lugar de conceptos de modelado comprensibles sólo para desarrolladores. En este contexto se utilizarán mockups y diferentes técnicas de anotación y especificación de requerimientos formales sobre los mismos. (4) La implementación de un lenguaje de modelado sobre mockups con diferentes vistas, satisfaciendo al mismo tiempo la necesidad de comprensión de requerimientos por parte de los usuarios finales y las capacidades técnicas requeridas por los desarrolladores. (5) Con ayuda de esta versatilidad del lenguaje y del uso de mockups (los cuales son comprensibles en su totalidad por usuarios finales), proveer un método de modelado más trazable desde el punto de vista de los requerimientos.

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.

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.

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2017-02-13T15:18:50Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) [dsc] Edson Alves v.1.5.6.pdf: 4201919 bytes, checksum: c682b493376c27a9896e5215c62283a1 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-13T15:18:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) [dsc] Edson Alves v.1.5.6.pdf: 4201919 bytes, checksum: c682b493376c27a9896e5215c62283a1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-02 / CNPq / Model Driven Development (MDD) é um paradigma para geração automática de código executável que utiliza modelos como o seu artefato primário. No escopo de Banco de Dados, apesar das regras para transformação de esquemas Enhanced Entity Relationship (EER) em código da Structured Query Language (SQL)-Relacional já terem sido amplamente exploradas na literatura, não se encontrou um trabalho que ao mesmo tempo especifique tradutores MDD capazes de transformar, automaticamente, esquemas EER em códigos SQL-Relacional e aborde restrições como: Participação em Relacionamento, Disjunção e Completude em Herança ou Categoria são transformadas em estruturas SQL-Relacional. Neste contexto, visando dar uma contribuição às limitações mencionadas, esta dissertação apresenta duas macros contribuições: 1) um Catálogo de regras para transformar um esquema EER em um esquema Relacional e este em código SQL; e 2) um algoritmo que especifica uma ordem correta para a execução automática destas regras. De modo a mostrar a viabilidade e aplicação prática deste trabalho, o Catálogo de regras de transformação e o algoritmo para automatização do Catálogo são codificados na linguagem Query/View/Transformation-Relations (QVT-R) e implementados na ferramenta EERCASE. A avaliação do trabalho foi feita a partir da transformação de esquemas EER (não triviais) em códigos SQLRelacional, os quais são conferidos por especialistas de Banco de Dados. Por fim, comparando o trabalho proposto com os trabalhos relacionados investigados, constatou-se que o trabalho desta dissertação avança o estado da arte, pois é o único que é baseado em MDD e garante que as restrições de Participação em Relacionamento, Disjunção e Completude em Herança ou Categoria sejam automaticamente geradas para serem garantidas diretamente pelo Sistema de Gerenciamento de Banco de Dados. / Model Driven Development (MDD) is a paradigm for automatic generation of executable code that uses models as its primary artifact. In the database scope, despite the rules for transformation of Enhanced Entity Relationship (EER) schemas in code of Structured Query Language (SQL)-Relational have already been widely explored in the literature, we did not find a work that, at the same time, specifies MDD translators capable of transforming, automatically, EER schemas in SQL-Relational codes and addresses restrictions such as: Participation in Relationship, Disjunction and Completeness in Inheritance or Category are transformed into SQL-relational structures. In this context, in order to contribute for the mentioned limitations, this dissertation presents two macro contributions: 1) a rule Catalog to transform an EER schema into a Relational schema and this SQL code; and 2) an algorithm that specifies a correct order for the automatic enforcement of these rules. In order to show the feasibility and practical application of this work, the Catalog of transformation rules and the algorithm for Catalog automation are encoded in Query/View/TransformationRelations (QVT-R) language and implemented in EERCASE tool. The evaluation of the work was made from the processing of EER schemas (nontrivial) in SQL-Relational codes, which are conferred by database experts. Finally, comparing the proposed work with the related work investigated, it was found that the proposed work advances the state of the art, as it is the only one that is based on MDD and ensures that the restrictions on Participation in Relationship, Disjunction in Inheritance and Completeness in Inheritance or Category are guaranteed by the Database Management System.

Today it is realized by industry that automation of software development leads to increased productivity, maintainability and higher quality. Model-Driven Development (MDD) aims to replace manual software development methods by automated methods using Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) to express domain concepts effectively. Main actors in software industry, Microsoft and IBM have recognized the need to provide technologies and tools to allow building DSLs to support MDD. On the one hand, Microsoft is building DSL Tools integrated in Visual Studio 2005; on the other hand IBM is contributing to the development of Eclipse Modeling Frameworks (EMF/GEF/GMF), both tools aim to make development and deployment of DSLs easier. Software practitioners seek for guidelines regarding how to adopt these tools. In this thesis, the author presents the current state-of-the-art in MDD standards and Domain-Specific Modeling (DSM). Furthermore, the author presents current state-of-the-tools for DSM and performs a comparison of Microsoft DSL Tools and Eclipse EMF/GEF/GMF Frameworks based on a set of evaluation criteria. For the purpose of comparison the author developed two DSL designers (one by using each DSM tool). Based on the experiences gained in development of these DSL designers, the author prepared guidelines regarding how to adopt these tools to existing development environments as well as their advantages and drawbacks.

Model Driven Development (MDD) is considered as a powerful emerging paradigm for developing system software and services. MDD relies heavily on the models to generate part of the code for implementation. It is virtually inevitable that changes at the model level result in breaking the compatibility with the existing code base. The study presented in this thesis is performed in an industrial setting. Our industrial partner is involved in MDD and has experienced compatibility problems described above. The aim of this thesis is to identify the changes that can be made to UML class diagram and investigate what kind of negative impact they pose on the compatibility with already existing Java implementations. Apart from identifying possible model changes and assessing their negative impact the thesis provides suggestions and guidelines of how to perform such modifications so that their negative impact will be minimized. / +46 455-395070