Model-driven Development Approach Research Articles

MDSSED: A safety and security enhanced model-driven development approach for smart home apps

With the popularization of smart home devices, people rely more on automation functions provided by smart home apps. This increases the attack surface for safety and security threats. Many of these threats are at the interaction level, caused by unintended or malicious interactions between apps. Most of the current studies focus on identifying unsafe interactions between smart home apps by code analysis. To the best of our knowledge, none of the existing studies focuses on enhancing the safety and security of smart home apps under interaction threats in the design phase. To fill this gap, this paper presents MDSSED, a safety and security enhanced model-driven development approach for smart home apps. First, this paper identifies eleven types of interaction threats faced by smart home apps. Second, the MDSSED profile is proposed to support modeling smart home apps using UML. Third, the MDSSED prototype tool is developed to generate threat models and corresponding safety and security properties automatically. Then, the safety and security properties are automatically verified by model checking. Finally, the MDSSED tool automatically converts the UML models to the Samsung SmartThings apps. To evaluate the accuracy and effectiveness of MDSSED, this paper uses the benchmarks in existing state-of-the-art studies. The results show that MDSSED not only identified the safety and security problems in the existing benchmarks but also pointed out vulnerabilities of apps under other interaction threats identified in this paper. To the best of our knowledge, MDSSED is the first model-driven development approach that supports the automatic verification of the safety and security properties of smart home apps under interaction threats. The accuracy, practicality, and efficiency of MDSSED are corroborated by experiments. The source code of the MDSSED tool and the experimental data are available online.1

Detecting deviations in the code using architecture view-based drift analysis

ContextOne of the key requirements for the code is conformance with the architecture. Architectural drift implies the diverging of the implemented code from the architecture design of the system. Manually checking the consistency between the implemented code and architecture can be intractable and cumbersome for large-scale systems. ObjectiveThis article proposes a holistic, automated architecture drift analysis approach that explicitly focuses on the adoption of architecture views. The approach builds on, complements, and enhances existing architecture conformance analysis methods that do not adopt a holistic approach or fail to address the architecture viewpoints. MethodA model-driven development approach is adopted in which architecture views are represented as specifications of domain-specific languages. The code in its turn, is analyzed, and the architectural view specifications are reconstructed, which are then automatically checked with the corresponding architecture models. ResultsTo illustrate the approach, we have applied a systematic case study research for an architecture drift analysis of the business-to-customer (B2C) system within a large-scale software company. ConclusionThe case study research showed that divergences and absences of architectural elements could be detected in a cost-effective manner with the proposed approach.

Interactive System Modelling for the Internet of Things

The rapid growth in the number of Internet of Things (IoT) systems and their increasing use in safety-critical domains has led to the need for an evolution of development methods. Model-Driven Development (MDD) approaches have been used in software engineering to reduce development time and minimise errors in implemented systems. This paper introduces a novel Model-Driven Development (MDD) approach for Internet of Things (IoT) systems which considers interactivity from the perspective of both users and IoT components. A real-world example is presented to explain the motivation for the work and demonstrate the benefits and use of lightweight interactive system models adapted for the design and development of IoT systems.

Design, code generation and simulation of IoT environments with mobility devices by using model-driven development: SimulateIoT-Mobile

Systems based on the Internet of Things (IoT) are continuously growing in many areas such as smart cities, home environments, buildings, agriculture, industry, etc. Device mobility is one of the key aspects of these IoT systems, but managing it could be a challenge. Mobility exposes the IoT environment or Industrial IoT (IIoT) to situations such as packet loss, increased delay or jitter, dynamism in the network topology, new security threats, etc. In addition, there is no standard for mobility management for the most commonly used IoT protocols, such as MQTT or CoAP. Consequently, managing IoT mobility is a hard, error-prone and tedious task. However, increasing the abstraction level from which the IoT systems are designed helps to tackle the underlying technology complexity. In this regard, Model-driven development approaches can help to both reduce the IoT application time to market and tackle the technological complexity to develop IoT applications. In this paper, a Domain-Specific Language based on SimulateIoT is proposed for the design, code generation and simulation of IoT systems with mobility management for the MQTT protocol. The IoT systems generated integrate the sensors, actuators, fog nodes, cloud nodes and the architecture that supports mobility, which are deployed as microservices on Docker containers and composed suitability. Finally, two case studies focused on animal tracking and a Personal mobility device (PMD) based on bicycles IoT systems are presented to show the IoT solutions deployed.

A Model-Driven Approach for Software Process Line Engineering

It has become increasingly preferable to construct bespoke software development processes according to the specifications of the project at hand; however, defining a separate process for each project is time consuming and costly. One solution is to use a Software Process Line (SPrL), a specialized Software Product Line (SPL) in the context of process definition. However, instantiating an SPrL is a slow and error-prone task if performed manually; an adequate degree of automation is therefore essential, which can be achieved by using a Model-Driven Development (MDD) approach. Furthermore, we have identified specific shortcomings in existing approaches for SPrL Engineering (SPrLE). To address the identified shortcomings, we propose a novel MDD approach specifically intended for SPrLE; this approach can be used by method engineers and project managers to first define an SPrL, and then construct custom processes by instantiating it. The proposed approach uses a modeling framework for modeling an SPrL, and applies transformations to provide a high degree of automation when instantiating the SPrL. The proposed approach addresses the shortcomings by providing an adequate coverage of four activities, including Feasibility analysis, Enhancing the core process, Managing configuration complexity, and Post-derivation enhancement. The proposed approach has been validated through an industrial case study and an experiment; the results have shown that the proposed approach can improve the processes being used in organizations, and is rated highly as to usefulness and ease of use.

SimulateIoT-FIWARE: Domain Specific Language to Design, Code Generation and Execute IoT Simulation Environments on FIWARE

Systems based on the Internet of Things (IoT) are continuously growing in many areas such as smart cities, home environments, buildings, agriculture, industry, etc. This system integrates heterogeneous technologies into a complex architecture of interconnected devices capable of communicating, processing, analysing or storing data. There are several IoT platforms that offer several capabilities for the development of these systems. Some of these platforms are Google Cloud’s IoT Platform, Microsoft Azure IoT suite, ThingSpeak IoT Platform, Thingworx 8 IoT Platform or FIWARE. However, they are complex IoT platforms where each IoT solution has to be developed ad-hoc and implemented by developers by hand. Consequently, developing IoT solutions is a hard, error-prone and tedious task. Thus, increase the abstraction level from which the IoT systems are designed helps to tackle the underlying technology complexity. In this sense, model-driven development approaches can help to both reduce the IoT application time to market and tackle the technological complexity to develop IoT applications. In this paper, we propose a Domain-Specific Language based on SimulateIoT for the design, code generation and simulation of IoT systems which could be deployed on FIWARE infrastructure (an open-source IoT platform). This implies not only designing the IoT system for a high abstraction level and later on code generation, but also designing and deploying an additional simulation layer to simulate the system on the FIWARE infrastructure before final deployment. The FIWARE IoT environment generated includes the sensors, actuators, fog nodes, cloud nodes and analytical characteristics, which are deployed as microservices on Docker containers and composed suitability to obtain a service-oriented architecture. Finally, two case studies focused on a smart building and an agricultural IoT environment are presented to show the IoT solutions deployed using FIWARE.

An Advanced Search System to Manage SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Data Using a Model-Driven Development Approach

The pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 has allowed the proliferation of an unprecedented amount of data that must be organized and connected in a way that allows its efficient management. Nevertheless, the speed at which all of this knowledge is being generated has highlighted the shortcomings of the research community in creating well-organized, standardized, and structured databases. Despite the efforts of the community to develop advanced integrative platforms such as CovidGraph, we have identified some limitations when using these solutions that we think are derived from the lack of a sound ontological schema to guide the collection, standardization, and integration of data. This work explores the advantages and disadvantages for the final user of building advanced information systems using a Model Driven Development approach to integrate heterogeneous and complex data using an ontological background as a basis. As a proof of concept, we built a database (CovProt) to integrate data about different aspects of SARS-CoV-2 using this approach, we analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of using this approach compared to CovidGraph by performing a set of queries in CovProt and CovidGraph, and finally, we compared the structure and redundancy of the retrieved data.

Developing Mobile Applications Via Model Driven Development: A Systematic Literature Review

Mobile applications (known as “apps”) usage continues to rapidly increase, with many new apps being developed and deployed. However, developing a mobile app is challenging due to its dependencies on devices, technologies, platforms, and deadlines to reach the market. One potential approach is to use Model Driven Development (MDD) techniques that simplify the app development process, reduce complexity, increase abstraction level, help achieve scalable solutions and maximize cost-effectiveness and productivity. This paper systematically investigates what MDD techniques and methodologies have been used to date to support mobile app development and how these techniques have been employed, to identify key benefits, limitations, gaps and future research potential. A Systematic Literature Review approach was used for this study based on a formal protocol. The rigorous search protocol identified a total of 1,042 peer-reviewed academic research papers from four major software engineering databases. These papers were subsequently filtered, and 55 high quality relevant studies were selected for analysis, synthesis, and reporting. We identified the popularity of different applied MDD approaches, supporting tools, artifacts, and evaluation techniques. Our analysis found that architecture, domain model, and code generation are the most crucial purposes in MDD-based app development. Three qualities – productivity, scalability and reliability – can benefit from these modeling strategies. We then summarize the key collective strengths, limitations, gaps from the studies and made several future recommendations. There has been a steady interest in MDD approaches applied to mobile app development over the years. This paper guides future researchers, developers, and stakeholders to improve app development techniques, ultimately that will help end-users in having more effective apps, especially when some recommendations are addressed, e.g., taking into account more human-centric aspects in app development.

Model-Driven Open Ecological Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning

Cloud enterprise resource planning (Cloud ERP) is an internet- and cloud computing-based enterprise information system developed on the cloud platform. Cloud ERP has lower costs and shorter development time compared with traditional ERP system, but it remains in a state of information isolated island. To maximize the advantages of cloud computing and make up the deficiency of traditional ERP systems, it is necessary to break down the "wall" between enterprises, making cloud ERP enter a more open and interconnected ecological environment. The model-driven development approach contributes to a better resilient scheduling capability of ERP system, leading to faster development and deployment of it. In this article, the authors propose a “knowledge + data” model-driven open ecological cloud ERP and explain the definition and functions of each model layer. Finally, the effectiveness of model layers is demonstrated in the open ecological cloud ERP reference architecture.

SimulateIoT: Domain Specific Language to Design, Code Generation and Execute IoT Simulation Environments

Internet of Things (IoT) is being applied to areas as smart-cities, home environment, agriculture, industry, etc. Developing, deploying and testing IoT projects require high investments on devices, fog nodes, cloud nodes, analytic nodes, hardware and software. New projects require high investments on devices, fog nodes, cloud nodes, analytic nodes, hardware and software before each system can be developed. In addition, the systems should be developed to test them, which implies time, effort and development costs. However, in order to decrease the cost associated to develop and test the system the IoT system can be simulated. Thus, simulating environments help to model the system, reasoning about it, and take advantage of the knowledge obtained to optimize it. Designing IoT simulation environments has been tackled focusing on low level aspects such as networks, motes and so on more than focusing on the high level concepts related to IoT environments. Additionally, the simulation users require high IoT knowledge and usually programming capabilities in order to implement the IoT environment simulation. The concepts to manage in an IoT simulation includes the common layers of an IoT environment including Edge, Fog and Cloud computing and heterogeneous technology. Model-driven development is an emerging software engineering area which aims to develop the software systems from domain models which capture at high level the domain concepts and relationships, generating from them the software artefacts by using code-generators. In this paper, a model-driven development approach has been developed to define, generate code and deploy IoT systems simulation. This approach makes it possible to design complex IoT simulation environments and deploy them without writing code. To do this, a domain metamodel, a graphical concrete syntax and a model to text transformation have been developed. The IoT simulation environment generated from each model includes the sensors, actuators, fog nodes, cloud nodes and analytical characteristics, which are deployed as microservices and Docker containers and where elements are connected by using publish-subscribe communication protocol. Additionally, two case studies, focused on smart building and agriculture IoT environments, are presented to show the simulation expressiveness.

ANALISIS KEMAMPUAN WEBRATIO UNTUK PENGEMBANGAN APLIKASI WEB MENGGUNAKAN INTERACTION FLOW MODELING LANGUAGE (IFML)

The model-driven development (MDD) method is a method that can accelerate the application development process. With this method, the model can be immediately transformed into an executable application. Model-driven architecture is one kind of MDD approaches. MDA has a standard modeling language that is used to facilitate the transformation process. One of the modeling languages in MDA is Interaction Flow Management Language (IFML). IFML models an application based on the interaction flow and interface of the application. This paper explains the capabilities of WebRatio in developing Web applications and their effectiveness. The effectiveness is calculated from the effort required for the development. On the other side, the effort is calculated from the line of code (LOC) generated from the model. The experiment's case study is a simple web-shop application, with some functional and non-functional requirements. The measurement results show that to develop a web-shop, the effort required is quite efficient, only 13% of the total application. However, another study still needs to be done because many variables affect the productivity of application development.

NOVA Mobility Assistive System: Developed and Remotely Controlled with IOPT-Tools

In this paper, a Mobility Assistive System (NOVA-MAS) and a model-driven development approach are proposed to support the acquisition and analysis of data, infrastructures control, and dissemination of information along public roads. A literature review showed that the work related to mobility assistance of pedestrians in wheelchairs has a gap in ensuring their safety on road. The problem is that pedestrians in wheelchairs and scooters often do not enjoy adequate and safe lanes for their circulation on public roads, having to travel sometimes side by side with vehicles and cars moving at high speed. With NOVA-MAS, city infrastructures can obtain information regarding the environment and provide it to their users/vehicles, increasing road safety in an inclusive way, contributing to the decrease of the accidents of pedestrians in wheelchairs. NOVA-MAS not only supports information dissemination, but also data acquisition from sensors and infrastructures control, such as traffic light signs. For that, it proposed a development approach that supports the acquisition of data from the environment and its control while using a tool framework, named IOPT-Tools (Input-Output Place-Transition Tools). IOPT-Tools support controllers’ specification, validation, and implementation, with remote operation capabilities. The infrastructures’ controllers are specified through IOPT Petri net models, which are then simulated using computational tools and verified using state-space-based model-checking tools. In addition, an automatic code generator tool generates the C code, which supports the controllers’ implementation, avoiding manual codification errors. A set of prototypes were developed and tested to validate and conclude on the feasibility of the proposals.

Model Driven Approach for Development of Person-Centred Care in Stroke Rehabilitation.

Person-centred care is known as a novel approach which contributes to wellbeing, prevention, care and support of patients. There is little evidence about practising PCC in stroke rehabilitation. In this paper, we develop a novel framework for creation of person-centred services for stroke rehabilitation which supports service configuration adapted to the requirements of each patient. The framework is elaborated over evidence from neurology department of Clinical Centre in Montenegro.

Quantitatively assessing the benefits of model-driven development in agent-based modeling and simulation

The agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS) paradigm has been used to analyze, reproduce, and predict phenomena related to many application areas. Although there are many agent-based platforms that support simulation development, they rely on programming languages that require extensive programming knowledge. Model-driven development (MDD) has been explored to facilitate simulation modeling, by means of high-level modeling languages that provide reusable building blocks that hide computational complexity, and code generation. However, there is still limited knowledge of how MDD approaches to ABMS contribute to increasing development productivity and quality. We thus in this paper present an empirical study that quantitatively compares the use of MDD and ABMS platforms mainly in terms of effort and developer mistakes. Our evaluation was performed using MDD4ABMS—an MDD approach with a core and extensions to two application areas, one of which developed for this study—and NetLogo, a widely used platform. The obtained results show that MDD4ABMS requires less effort to develop simulations with similar (sometimes better) design quality than NetLogo, giving evidence of the benefits that MDD can provide to ABMS.

Integrated model-driven development of self-adaptive user interfaces

Modern user interfaces (UIs) are increasingly expected to be plastic, in the sense that they retain a constant level of usability, even when subjected to context changes at runtime. Self-adaptive user interfaces (SAUIs) have been promoted as a solution for context variability due to their ability to automatically adapt to the context-of-use at runtime. The development of SAUIs is a challenging and complex task as additional aspects like context management and UI adaptation have to be covered. In classical model-driven UI development approaches, these aspects are not fully integrated and hence introduce additional complexity as they represent crosscutting concerns. In this paper, we present an integrated model-driven development approach where a classical model-driven development of UIs is coupled with a model-driven development of context-of-use and UI adaptation rules. We base our approach on the core UI modeling language IFML and introduce new modeling languages for context-of-use (ContextML) and UI adaptation rules (AdaptML). The generated UI code, based on the IFML model, is coupled with the context and adaptation services, generated from the ContextML and AdaptML model, respectively. The integration of the generated artifacts, namely UI code, context, and adaptation services in an overall rule-based execution environment, enables runtime UI adaptation. The benefit of our approach is demonstrated by two case studies, showing the development of SAUIs for different application scenarios and a usability study which has been conducted to analyze end-user satisfaction of SAUIs.

A model-driven approach for the development of native mobile applications focusing on the data layer

The data layer access design is a critical task for mobile applications which need constant access to remote data, making them available offline in case of network connectivity problems. Moreover, the variety of mobile operating systems and platforms (fragmentation phenomenon) that handles data storage differently affects the portability of mobile applications. This issue suggests the use of Model-Driven Development (MDD) approach that may ease the smartphone application development for different platforms. Therefore, we propose an extension of the Model-Oriented Web Approach (MoWebA) for the development of native mobile applications focusing on the data layer. MoWebA Mobile (as we name the proposal) covers data persistence concepts to achieve offline applications in case of network connectivity problems. It defines meta-models and the Architecture-Specific Model (ASM) for data persistence and data provider to design the data sources of mobile applications. As well, we propose transformation rules for the generation of Android and Windows Phone applications. The MoWebA Mobile process was illustrated by means of modeling, design, and development of a typical mobile application. Despite the learning curve of the approach, the first evaluation suggests that MoWebA Mobile has the potential for supporting the mobile design applications considering the persistence of data.

Model driven transformation development (MDTD): An approach for developing model to model transformation

Abstract Context In the Model Driven Development (MDD) approach, model transformations are responsible for the semi-automation of software development process converting models between different abstraction levels. The development of model transformations involves a complexity inherent to the transformation domain, in addition to the complexity of software development in general. Therefore, the construction of model transformations requires software engineering feature such as processes and languages to facilitate its development and maintenance. Objective This paper presents a framework to develop unidirectional relational model transformation using the MDD approach itself, which integrates: (i) a software development process suitable for the model transformation domain (ii) a Domain specific language for transformation modeling (iii) a transformation chain, to (semi) automate the proposed process, and (iv) a development environment to support it. Methods The proposal systematizes the development of model transformation, following the MDD principles. An iterative and incremental process guides transformation development from requirement specification to transformation codification. The proposal has been evaluated through a case study and a controlled experiment. Results The framework enables model transformation specification at a high abstraction level and (semi) automatically transforms it into models at a low abstraction level until the transformation code. The results of the case study showed that people with different levels of knowledge of MDD, or without experience in transformation languages, were able to develop transformations through the framework and generated executable code. Conclusions The framework integrates the essential elements involved in the development of model transformation and enables the abstraction of technological details. The results of the case study and controlled experiment showed the feasibility of the proposal and its use in dealing with the complexity involved in model transformation development.

Evaluation of a Model-driven Knowledge Storage and Retrieval IDE for Interactive HRI Systems

Efficient storage and querying of long-term human–robot interaction data requires application developers to have an in-depth understanding of the involved domains. Creating syntactically and semantically correct queries in the development process is an error prone task which can immensely impact the interaction experience of humans with robots and artificial agents. To address this issue, we present and evaluate a model-driven software development approach to create a long-term storage system to be used in highly interactive HRI scenarios. We created multiple domain-specific languages that allow us to model the domain and seamlessly embed its concepts into a query language. Along with corresponding model-to-model and model-to-text transformations, we generate a fully integrated workbench facilitating data storage and retrieval. It supports developers in the query design process and allows in-tool query execution without the need to have prior in-depth knowledge of the domain. We evaluated our work in an extensive user study and can show that the generated tool yields multiple advantages compared to the usual query design approach.

Dealing with Non-Functional Requirements in Model-Driven Development: A Survey

Context: Managing Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs) in software projects is challenging, and projects that adopt Model-Driven Development (MDD) are no exception. Although several methods and techniques have been proposed to face this challenge, there is still little evidence on how NFRs are handled in MDD by practitioners. Knowing more about the state of the practice may help researchers to steer their research and practitioners to improve their daily work. Objective: In this paper, we present our findings from an interview-based survey conducted with practitioners working in 18 different companies from 6 European countries. From a practitioner's point of view, the paper shows what barriers and benefits the management of NFRs as part of the MDD process can bring to companies, how NFRs are supported by MDD approaches, and which strategies are followed when (some) types of NFRs are not supported by MDD approaches. Results: Our study shows that practitioners perceive MDD adoption as a complex process with little to no tool support for NFRs, reporting productivity and maintainability as the types of NFRs expected to be supported when MDD is adopted. But in general, companies adapt MDD to deal with NFRs. When NFRs are not supported, the generated code is sometimes changed manually, thus compromising the maintainability of the software developed. However, the interviewed practitioners claim that the benefits of using MDD outweight the extra effort required by these manual adaptations. Conclusion: Overall, the results indicate that it is important for practitioners to handle `NFRs in MDD, but further research is necessary in order to lower the barrier for supporting a broad spectrum of NFRs with MDD. Still, much conceptual and tool implementation work seems to be necessary to lower the barrier of integrating the broad spectrum of NFRs in practice.

IFVM Bridge: A Model Driven IFML Execution

Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) present a powerful part of software systems that allows a simplified assimilation and manipulation by users throw visual objects such as text, image and button. however, with the increasing complexity of GUIs and the diversity of their interaction mode required by users to access information anywhere and anytime, the need for designing efficient and more adaptive user interfaces has become a necessity. Therefore, UIs researchers have attempted to address these issues by designing user interfaces at a high level of abstraction to separate GUI’s specification from its implementation. Besides, the OMG (Object Management Group) adopted the Interaction Flow Modeling Language (IFML) as a standard in March 2013 for this purpose. In this paper, we present a new model driven development approach to efficiently execute the abstract representation of software’s front-end with focus on navigation between the views. We introduce a IFML virtual machine IFVM which executes user interfaces by passing from IFML models to be translated into an intermediate bytecode representation proposed as the instruction set of IFVM virtual machine.