Aspect-oriented Approach Research Articles

Redesign of Hot Spots using Aspect-Oriented Programming

During last decade, software developers have given much more attention to the aspects and aspect-oriented programming (AOP). It offers a unique module to encapsulate scattered and tangled code. This approach might be helpful to solve the problem of crosscutting concerns. To the best of our knowledge, there are few reports are available in open source on design and programming part of framework, especially in modularising framework hot spots. Further, these reports are limited to the systematic approach for developing flexible hot spots. In this paper, we propose an aspect-oriented approach to redesign of hot spots by explaining how framework hot spots are related to the scattering and tangling problem. Further, we also introduced a comprehensive approach for descattering and un-tangling of hot spots using template-hook model in which these methods are rehabilitated into aspect. Our approach might be beneficial in the reusability of aspectoriented implementation of a framework that is more flexible and modular. Besides that, the present study is suitable for being applied in available frameworks.

AOC: An Aspect - Oriented Approach for Comment to Reduce the Redundant Behavior between Source Code and Compilation Code

Compiler has the duty to transform the source code to machine code. After the compilation process, there are two types of file was be appear as the former source code and the byte code. The program behaviors exist in two places, source code and machine code. They make repetition of the software engineering process. It means every piece of knowledge must have a single within a system. For resolve duplication of knowledge, this paper proposes the methodology to extract and rebuilds the comments. Then, using the aspect-oriented approach to manage and advise their comments in the AOC form. The extension compiler can take all comments from the source code. At ratio 1, this methodology induces to reduce redundant knowledge between source code and byte code to 34.26 percent.

Expressing aspectual interactions in design: evaluating three AOM approaches in the slot machine domain

In the context of an industrial project, we evaluated the implementation of the software of a casino slot machine. This software has a significant amount of crosscutting concerns that depend on and interact with each other as well as with the modular concerns. We therefore wished to express our design using an appropriate aspect-oriented modeling approach. We therefore evaluated three candidate methodologies: Theme/UML, WEAVR, and RAM to establish their suitability. Remarkably, only the last of the three has shown to allow an adequate expression of the interactions, albeit not fully explicit. The first two fall short because half of the interaction types cannot be expressed at all while the other half need to be expressed using a work-around that hides the intention of the design. Neither does RAM allow a fully explicit expression of interactions, but it would be the most adequate approach for the slot machine case.

SC-WS

This paper discusses Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) as an efficient way to handle security concerns in Web services. Without AOP, the necessary security code would be mixed with the business logic that a Web service implements. This renders the maintenance of both code and business logic tedious and prone to errors. AOP allows confining codes of non-functional concerns like security and self-healing into specific modules so that they do not cross-cut with the Web service's business logic. The proposed aspect-oriented approach in this paper is built upon three levels referred to as user, component, and resource, and adopts three types of context, one context per level. The contexts contain various details on the environment of Web services, which permits activating the necessary aspects in response to these details. A set of experiments validating this approach are also reported in this paper.

Composition of Aspectual Requirements: A Multi-criteria Process for Conflict Resolution

In Aspect Oriented Software Development, aspects are not only used at the programming level but also tend to arise at the requirements analysis and software architecture design. We previously proposed an approach named AspeCiS (An aspect-oriented Approach to Develop a Cooperative Information System) to develop a Cooperative Information System from existing Information Systems by using their artifacts such as existing requirements and design elements. This approach include an important step in which the aspectual requirements composition problem is considered to be one of the remaining challenges. So, when multiple aspectual requirements share the same join point, undesired behavior may emerge and a conflict resolution process must be triggered. This study presents a conflict resolution process among aspects during the requirements engineering level: A priority value is computed for each aspect and it allows identifying a dominant aspectual requirement on the basis of stakeholder priority. This process is more formal than those currently proposed, which requires a trade-off negotiation to resolve conflicts.

Comprehensive Aspectual UML approach to support AspectJ.

Unified Modeling Language is the most popular and widely used Object-Oriented modelling language in the IT industry. This study focuses on investigating the ability to expand UML to some extent to model crosscutting concerns (Aspects) to support AspectJ. Through a comprehensive literature review, we identify and extensively examine all the available Aspect-Oriented UML modelling approaches and find that the existing Aspect-Oriented Design Modelling approaches using UML cannot be considered to provide a framework for a comprehensive Aspectual UML modelling approach and also that there is a lack of adequate Aspect-Oriented tool support. This study also proposes a set of Aspectual UML semantic rules and attempts to generate AspectJ pseudocode from UML diagrams. The proposed Aspectual UML modelling approach is formally evaluated using a focus group to test six hypotheses regarding performance; a “good design” criteria-based evaluation to assess the quality of the design; and an AspectJ-based evaluation as a reference measurement-based evaluation. The results of the focus group evaluation confirm all the hypotheses put forward regarding the proposed approach. The proposed approach provides a comprehensive set of Aspectual UML structural and behavioral diagrams, which are designed and implemented based on a comprehensive and detailed set of AspectJ programming constructs.

Reusable Aspect Models versus Theme/UML: the Aspect-Oriented Code Generation Perspective

The integration of aspect oriented modeling approaches with model-driven engineering process achieved through their direct transformation to aspect-oriented code is expected to enhance the software development from many perspectives. This study aims to assess the existing UML-based aspect-oriented modeling techniques from the perspective of their suitability with regards to integration into model-driven engineering process through aspect-oriented code generation. For this purpose, we selected two mature aspectoriented modeling approaches, Reusable Aspect Models and Theme/UML, and proceeded to evaluate them in a detailed way from the specific perspectives of design and its mapping to the implementation code. The in-depth comparison reveals some points equally shared by both approaches, and identifies some areas where one has advantage over the other. The study concludes that the Reusable Aspect Models approach may be seen as a preferred approach to handling the task of integration using aspect-oriented code generation.

A MODEL-DRIVEN ENGINEERING APPROACH TO DEVELOP A COOPERATIVE INFORMATION SYSTEM

To reuse one or several existing systems in order to develop a complex system is a common practice in software engineering. This approach can be justified by the fact that it is often difficult for a single Information System (IS) to accomplish all the requested tasks. So, one solution is to combine many different ISs and make them collaborate in order to realize these tasks. We proposed an approach named AspeCiS (An Aspect-oriented Approach to Develop a Cooperative Information System) to develop a Cooperative Information System from existing ISs by using their artifacts such as existing requirements, and design. AspeCiS covers the three following phases: (i) discovery and analysis of Cooperative Requirements, (ii) design of Cooperative Requirements models, and (iii) preparation of the implementation phase. The main issue of AspeCiS is the definition of Cooperative Requirements using the Existing Requirements and Additional Requirements, which should be composed with Aspectual Requirements. We earlier studied how to elicit the Cooperative Requirements in AspeCiS (phase of discovery and analysis of Cooperative Requirements in AspeCiS) . We study here the second phase of AspeCiS (design of Cooperative Requirements models), by the way of a model weaving process. This process uses so-called AspeCiS Weaving Metamodel, and it weaves Existing and Additional Requirements models to realize Cooperative Requirements models.

Common weaving approach in mainstream languages for software security hardening

In this paper, we propose a novel aspect-oriented approach based on GIMPLE, a language-independent and a tree-based representation generated by the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), for the systemization of application security hardening. The security solutions are woven into GIMPLE representations in a systematic way, eliminating the need for manual hardening that might generate a considerable number of errors. To achieve this goal, we present a formal specification for GIMPLE weaving and the implementation strategies of the proposed weaving semantics. Syntax for a common aspect-oriented language that is abstract and multi-language support together with syntax for a core set for GIMPLE constructs are presented to express the weaving semantics. GIMPLE weaving accompanied by a common aspect-oriented language (1) allows security experts providing security solutions using this common language, (2) lets developers focus on the main functionality of programs by relieving them from the burden of security issues, (3) unifies the matching and the weaving processes for mainstream languages, and (4) facilitates introducing new security features in AOP languages. We handle the correctness and the completeness of GIMPLE weaving in two different ways. In the first approach, we prove them according to the rules and algorithms provided in this paper. In the second approach, we accommodate Kniesel's discipline that ensures that security solutions specified by our approach are applied at all and only the required points in source code, taking into consideration weaving interactions and interferences. Finally, we explore the viability and the relevance of our propositions by applying the defined approach for systematic security hardening to develop case studies.

A Model-Driven Engineering Approach to Develop a Cooperative Information System

To reuse one or several existing systems in order to develop a complex system is a common practice in software engineering. This approach can be justified by the fact that it is often difficult for a single Information System (IS) to accomplish all the requested tasks. So, one solution is to combine many different ISs and make them collaborate in order to realize these tasks. We proposed an approach named AspeCiS (An Aspect-oriented Approach to Develop a Cooperative Information System) to develop a Cooperative Information System from existing ISs by using their artifacts such as existing requirements, and design. AspeCiS covers the three following phases: (i) discovery and analysis of Cooperative Requirements, (ii) design of Cooperative Requirements models, and (iii) preparation of the implementation phase. The main issue of AspeCiS is the definition of Cooperative Requirements using the Existing Requirements and Additional Requirements, which should be composed with Aspectual Requirements. We earlier studied how to elicit the Cooperative Requirements in AspeCiS (phase of discovery and analysis of Cooperative Requirements in AspeCiS) . We study here the second phase of AspeCiS (design of Cooperative Requirements models), by the way of a model weaving process. This process uses so-called AspeCiS Weaving Metamodel, and it weaves Existing and Additional Requirements models to realize Cooperative Requirements models.

Web-GIS models: accomplishing modularity with aspects

Spatial concerns of Web geographical information systems (Web-GIS) are inherently crosscutting and volatile: crosscutting because they affect multiple functionalities of Web-GIS systems, and volatile because their status may change often. If these concerns are not modularized properly, the quality of Web-GIS services, particularly with regard to adaptation and evolution, can be severely compromised. This paper uses aspect-orientation to model crosscutting and volatile spatial concerns. By modeling both types of concerns, crosscutting and volatile, as candidate aspects, one can use dynamic weaving to add or remove them from a system at runtime. The aspect-oriented approach proposed starts with the identification and specification of crosscutting concerns and follows by composing these using modeling aspects using a transformation approach, an aspect-oriented modeling technique. The conflicts that can emerge due to the composition order are also taken into consideration. Finally, this paper proposes a set of reusable GIS crosscutting concerns, documenting them in a concern catalogue.

Aspect-Oriented Modeling Approaches and Aspect Code Generation

The integration of aspect oriented modeling approaches with model-driven engineering process achieved through their direct transformation into aspect-oriented code can enhance the software development from many perspectives. However, since no aspect modeling technique has been adopted as the standard so far, it becomes imperative to compare all existing techniques on the basis of some appropriate criteria. This study aims to assess existing UML-based aspect-oriented modeling techniques from the perspective of their suitability with regards to integration into model-driven engineering process through aspect-oriented code generation. For this purpose, an evaluation framework has been defined and employed to evaluate 14 well-published, UML-based aspect-oriented modeling approaches. Results of this comparison show that a majority of these approaches works well to handle the basic modeling tasks. However, in the context of their integration into model-driven engineering process, these approaches need to be improved from various perspectives.

Measuring the performance of aspect oriented software: A case study of Leader/Followers and Half-Sync/Half-Async architectures

The aim of this work is to measure the impact of aspect-oriented programming on software performance. Thus, we hypothesized as follow: adding aspects to a base program will affect its performance because of the overhead caused by the control flow switching, and that incremental effect on performance is more obvious as the number of join points increases. To test our hypotheses we carried out a case study of two concurrent architectures: Half-Sync/Half-Async and Leader/Followers. Aspects are extracted and encapsulated and the base program performance was compared to the aspect program. Our results show that the aspect-oriented approach does not have significant effect on the performance and that in some cases an aspect-oriented program even outperforms the non-aspect program. We also investigated the effect of cache fault rate on performance for both aspect and non-aspect programs. Based on our experiments, the results demonstrate that there is a close correlation between the cache fault rate and performance, which may be in favor of aspect code if some aspects are frequently accessed. Additionally, the introduction of a large number of join points does not have significant effect on performance.

Role of aspect-oriented approach in dynamic adaptability

Adaptability of dynamic changes in the user's needs is considered as one of the important qualities to be possessed by a software system in pervasive environment. The work described in this paper proposed the solution for creating dynamic adaptable system through encapsulating dynamic changes using aspect-oriented approach. In the proposed solution, an 'aspect' is defined as the unit of representing dynamic changes in the user's requirements. The system can adapt to the changes by weaving redefined aspects with the components associated with the changes without affecting the existing structure of a system. Also, a new adaptability metric has been proposed using the principles of coupling. Using this adaptability metric, the adaptability efficiency of a system that uses the proposed approach is measured and its adaptability value is shown to be higher, if the number of components associated with the change is more than a system that uses the conventional approach for representing and implementing dynamic changes.

Sm@rtConfig: A context-aware runtime and tuning system using an aspect-oriented approach for data intensive engineering applications

Distributing the workload upon all available Processing Units (PUs) of a high-performance heterogeneous platform (e.g., PCs composed by CPU–GPUs) is a challenging task, since the execution cost of a task on distinct PUs is non-deterministic and affected by parameters not known a priori. This paper presents Sm@rtConfig, a context-aware runtime and tuning system based on a compromise between reducing the execution time of engineering applications and the cost of tasks' scheduling on CPU–GPUs' platforms. Using Model-Driven Engineering and Aspect Oriented Software Development, a high-level specification and implementation for Sm@rtConfig has been created, aiming at improving modularization and reuse in different applications. As case study, the simulation subsystem of a CFD application has been developed using the proposed approach. These system's tasks were designed considering only their functional concerns, whereas scheduling and other non-functional concerns are handled by Sm@rtConfig aspects, improving tasks modularity. Although Sm@rtConfig supports multiple PUs, in this case study, these tasks have been scheduled to execute on an platform composed by one CPU and one GPU. Experimental results show an overall performance gain of 21.77% in comparison to the static assignment of all tasks only to the GPU.

Verification and analysis of domain-specific models of physical characteristics in embedded control software

ContextA considerable portion of the software systems today are adopted in the embedded control domain. Embedded control software deals with controlling a physical system, and as such models of physical characteristics become part of the embedded control software. ObjectiveDue to the evolution of system properties and increasing complexity, faults can be left undetected in these models of physical characteristics. Therefore, their accuracy must be verified at runtime. Traditional runtime verification techniques that are based on states/events in software execution are inadequate in this case. The behavior suggested by models of physical characteristics cannot be mapped to behavioral properties of software. Moreover, implementation in a general-purpose programming language makes these models hard to locate and verify. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel approach to perform runtime verification of models of physical characteristics in embedded control software. MethodThe development of an approach for runtime verification of models of physical characteristics and the application of the approach to two industrial case studies from the printing systems domain. ResultsThis paper presents a novel approach to specify models of physical characteristics using a domain-specific language, to define monitors that detect inconsistencies by exploiting redundancy in these models, and to realize these monitors using an aspect-oriented approach. We complement runtime verification with static analysis to verify the composition of domain-specific models with the control software written in a general-purpose language. ConclusionsThe presented approach enables runtime verification of implemented models of physical characteristics to detect inconsistencies in these models, as well as broken hardware components and wear and tear of hardware in the physical system. The application of declarative aspect-oriented techniques to realize runtime verification monitors increases modularity and provides the ability to statically verify this realization. The complementary static and runtime verification techniques increase the reliability of embedded control software.

A Systematic Review and Assessment of Aspect-oriented Methods Applied to Business Process Adaptation

Today's ever-changing business environments, comprised among other things of customer expectations, market demands, and legal obligations, require dynamic and adaptive business processes. Hence, enterprises need to monitor and improve their business processes against their business goals and constraints. Aspect-oriented development is known to have helped designers cope with changing con- cerns in software, even dynamically. In this paper, we per- form a systematic literature review of aspect-oriented approaches for business process adaptation. We observe that current methods focus on i) composing and swapping services based on Quality of Service (QoS), cost, rules, poli- cies, and constraints, as well as in the event of failure, ii) extracting roles and crosscutting concerns from composite services, iii) customizing process instances based on user profiles or Service Level Agreements, iv) adapting service composition and collaboration policies, and v) using moni- toring aspects to detect undesired situations. This review also suggests that our own aspect-oriented process modeling and adaptation framework is novel because none of the other approaches considers organization goals, performance and constraints as a whole when improving business proc- esses. In addition, given much prior research on aspect- oriented service composition is available, we are confident that our modeling framework is realizable.

Aspect-Oriented Development Method for Non-Functional Characteristics of Cyber Physical Systems Based on MDA Approach

Cyber physical systems have many non-functional requirements, which always crosscut the whole system modules. That may cause the code tangle and scatter, make the systems hard to design, reuse and maintain, and affect performance of systems badly. AOP is a new software development paradigm, which could attain a higher level of separation of concerns in both functional and non-functional matters by introducing aspect, for the implementation of crosscutting concerns. Different aspects can be designed separately, and woven into systems. In this paper, we propose an aspect-oriented MDA approach for non-functional properties to develop cyber physical systems. An aspect-oriented UML profile is built to develop cyber physical systems. Aspect-oriented UML models are designed as Platform Independent Models (PIM) for target-platform implementation, which deal with non-functional properties. OCL formal language is used to restrict the model in every stages of MDA, and the real-time extension of OCL formal language is made to describe the timing constraints of cyber physical systems. Finally, the model- based development and aspect-oriented approach, the formal methods and the cyber physical system are integrated effectively. A case study illustrates the aspect oriented MDA development of cyber physical systems.

An Aspect-Oriented Language for Product Family Specification

Aspect-orientation is a paradigm for managing the separation of crosscutting concerns and decomposing a system using more than one criterion. This paper proposes an aspect-oriented approach at the feature-modeling level to better handle crosscutting concerns in the modeling of product families of ambient systems.Based on the specification language of PFA (Product Family Algebra), we present a language AO-PFA (Aspect-Oriented Product Family Algebra) that extends the aspect-oriented paradigm to feature modeling. The language provides full facilities for articulating aspects, advice, and pointcuts in feature modeling. We illustrate the scope and flexibility of the proposed language through the discussion of several feature-modeling situations.

Semantics-Based Aspect-Oriented Management of Exceptional Flows in Business Processes

Enriching business process models with semantic annotations that are taken from an ontology has become a crucial need in service provisioning, integration and composition, and business processes management. We represent semantically annotated business processes as part of an Web ontology lanuage knowledge base that formalizes the business process structure, the business domain, a set of criteria that describe correct semantic annotations, and a set of constraints that describe requirements on the business process itself. In this paper, we show how the Semantic Web representation and reasoning techniques can be 1) exploited by our aspect-oriented approach to modularize exception-handling (as well as other crosscutting) mechanisms and 2) effectively applied to formalize and automatically verify constraints on the management of exceptional flows (as well as other relevant flows) in business processes. The benefits of the Semantic Web and the aspect-oriented technologies are illustrated in a case study, where exceptional flows are modularized separately and managed at the semantic level due to the proposed approach.