Abstract
A core challenge in model development of complex systems is how to effectively describe the system under study, as regards the desired objectives. Therefore, modeling formalisms with the right level of expressive power are required that correspond to the targeted systems and the questions to be answered during the analysis. A recurring challenge is how to accommodate the inherent heterogeneity of complex systems with the need for homogeneous/consistent representation. Indeed, any modeling activity involves doing abstraction and making a specification to represent this abstraction, using a suitable formalism. When multiple levels of abstractions are at stake, it may lead to the use of various formalisms, each of them most suitable to a level of abstraction. Such heterogeneity raises issues related to semantics alignment of the overall model, like consistency between the different specifications, overlapping descriptions, or unifying semantics. At the other side, a single formalism, thought free from semantics alignment issue by construction, is alone rarely appropriate for all levels of abstraction. How to conciliate the semantics unity of such homogeneous situation with the expressive power of heterogeneous specification? This question lays down the key motivation for unified modeling approaches, which we address in this chapter from the perspective of major methods for system analysis and design.
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