Verification of Consistency Between Process Models, Object Life Cycles, and Context-Dependent Semantic Specifications

Abstract

Process models in general, and those specifying process-oriented software in particular, should be formally verified. While activity-oriented process models have been verified against object life cycles, formally specified semantic specifications of actions were not involved. Hence, previous approaches for the verification of process models did not make use of <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">declaratively</i> represented knowledge of actions. This paper presents a new approach for verification of consistency between process models, object life cycles, and context-dependent semantic action specifications. This approach involves declarative specifications of all the actions of a process, which also depend on the context of use of the actions. These context-dependent specifications define the ‘logic’ of the process flow, which is grounded in (extended) object life cycles. Since a <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">subtyping</i> relation is enforced, reuse is facilitated through substitutability. Our extension of object life cycles makes them applicable to processes including non-monotonicity, and even to model communication based on physical interaction in cyber-physical systems. As a consequence, this formal consistency verification ensures that all the involved specifications ‘fit together’, both procedurally and logically.