Model-Driven Software Development Approach Research Articles

From enterprise models to low-code applications: mapping DEMO to Mendix; illustrated in the social housing domain

AbstractDue to hyper-competition, technological advancements, regulatory changes, etc, the conditions under which enterprises need to thrive become increasingly turbulent. Consequently, enterprise agility increasingly determines an enterprise’s chances for success. As software development often is a limiting factor in achieving enterprise agility, enterprise agility and software adaptability become increasingly intertwined. As a consequence, decisions that regard flexibility should not be left to software developers alone. By taking a Model-driven Software Development (MDSD) approach, starting from DEMO ontological enterprise models and explicit (enterprise) implementation design decisions, the aim of this research is to bridge the gap from enterprise agility to software adaptability, in such a way that software development is no longer a limiting factor in achieving enterprise agility. Low-code technology is a growing market trend that builds on MDSD concepts and claims to offer a high degree of software adaptability. Therefore, as a first step to show the potential benefits to use DEMO ontological enterprise models as a base for MDSD, this research shows the design of a mapping from DEMO models to Mendix for the (automated) creation of a low-code application that also intrinsically accommodates run-time implementation design decisions.

Some model driven software development approaches

A model is a simplification of a reality, an abstraction, which neglects all of the irrelevant aspects of a software and focuses on the ones which define the software. Through modeling, we can visualize the software in a way which is understandable from both computers and people. Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a language, which stands in a higher level of abstraction than any programming language and through it, we can build software models from the simplest to the most complicated ones. However, even though through UML we are able to design software’s and to generate a considerable amount of code, still we need to write tons of lines of code in a certain object – oriented language. In order to be totally independent from the execution environment and to focus entirely in business logic as what really defines a software we need to go further. To achieve this goal, the executable UML and state machines concept is introduced. “An executable UML model is one with a behavioral specification detailed enough that it can effectively be run as a program” (Seidewitz, 2011). Through executable model a higher programmer productivity could be achieved and the system is not affected by the year after year change in development technologies, which require that the system to be upgraded each time there are changes in run-time environments. On the other hand, through state machines we are able to simulate the execution of a program through the model. Thus we can develop information systems using techniques which stand in a higher level of abstraction and platform independence that can be translated in whichever specific platform of implementation.

Towards a Formal Specification of Production Processes Suitable for Automatic Execution

Abstract Technological advances and increasing customer need for highly customized products have triggered a fourth industrial revolution. A digital revolution in the manufacturing industry is enforced by introducing smart devices and knowledge bases to form intelligent manufacturing information systems. One of the goals of the digital revolution is to allow flexibility of smart factories by automating shop floor changes based on the changes in input production processes and ordered products. In order to make this possible, a formal language to describe production processes is needed, together with a code generator for its models and an engine to execute the code on smart devices. Existing process modeling languages are not usually tailored to model production processes, especially if models are needed for automatic code generation. In this paper we propose a research on Industry 4.0 manufacturing using a Domain-Specific Modeling Language (DSML) within a Model-Driven Software Development (MDSD) approach to model production processes. The models would be used to generate instructions to smart devices and human workers, and gather a feedback from them during the process execution. A pilot comparative analysis of three modeling languages that are commonly used for process modeling is given with the goal of identifying supported modeling concepts, good practices and usage patterns.

EARL—Embodied Agent-Based Robot Control Systems Modelling Language

The paper presents the Embodied Agent-based Robot control system modelling Language (EARL). EARL follows a Model-Driven Software Development approach (MDSD), which facilitates robot control system development. It is based on a mathematical method of robot controller specification, employing the concept of an Embodied Agent, and a graphical modelling language: System Modelling Language (SysML). It combines the ease of use of SysML with the precision of mathematical specification of certain aspects of the designed system. It makes the whole system specification effective, from the point of view of the time needed to create it, conciseness of the specification and the possibility of its analysis. By using EARL it is possible to specify systems both with fixed and variable structure. This was achieved by introducing a generalised system model and presenting particular structures of the system in terms of modelling block configurations adapted by using instances. FABRIC framework was created to support the implementation of EARL-based controllers. EARL is compatible with component based robotic middlewares (e.g., ROS and Orocos).

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.

Development of a web tool for action threshold evaluation in table grape pest management

Pest control is a major issue in agricultural management due to crop yield losses caused by pests. In this context, integrated pest management aims to suppress pest populations below an action threshold to minimize their impact. This paper presents the development of a web tool based on the Spanish regulations for the integrated pest management of table grapes; this provides decision support for evaluating when a particular pest action threshold has been crossed thus affecting table grape crops. The tool was built using a model-driven software development approach that enables software system generation from the problem’s knowledge model. The design of the knowledge bases which contain the system’s decision rules is also described. It is divided into knowledge bases that contain general knowledge related to the table grape crop as well as several specific knowledge bases (one per pest) containing the reasoning model that deduces the risk associated with a particular pest. The software has been designed by applying the model-driven development method thus making the system flexible, easy to evolve and adaptable whenever a new pest has to be incorporated into the software.

A Decade of Model Driven Web Services Composition Frameworks

Now a day, enterprises are implementing their Web Information Systems using Service Oriented Architecture. SOA applications are basically composition of services. To accomplish a business activity, these services are composed using services composition languages/standards, which define the execution order of services invocations and their interaction patterns. Services composition is a very complex process consist of several phases or steps and further subdivided into sub-process and sub-steps. Over the past decade, many researchers have come up with their proposed services composition frameworks consisting of different phases and steps and the whole life cycle is defined. Mostly these frameworks are using the Model Driven Software Development approach to develop Web Information Systems and UML is used as a modelling language for business process modelling. Later on system artefacts are automatically generated from these models. In this study, a survey is presented showing the progress made by these researchers in the area of service composition and discusses different services composition frameworks presented by the most prominent researchers for the development of Web Information Systems.

Model-driven software development in the institutional repositories

The Institutional Repositories (IR) have been consolidated into the academy, the proof of this is the growth in number of records in existing directories made by various means, such as self-archiving by authors and the incorporation of material by librarians. In this paper, a bibliographic survey about the use of the Model-Driven Software Development approach is done (MDD) in the IR systems in order to establish a relationship between them. The MDD is a paradigm for building software that assigns a central role to the models and originates models that range from the most abstract to the most concrete. This paradigm also provides a framework that allows the interested ones to share their points of view and directly manipulate the representations of the domain entities from IR. In conclusion, the monitoring of the various researches, and what is expressed here, allow to encourage the implementation of software for IR.

Incorporating AOSD to Enhance Model Driven Architecture

Various software development approaches in the present scenario are best suited for a specific application. The software development strategies include both merits and demerits when talked in terms of generalization. The Model Driven Architecture (MDA) describes software development based on models on various levels of abstraction. The model driven software development process consists of sequence of model transformations between various models. This paper presents incorporation of the merits of Aspect Oriented Software Development (AOSD) like modularization, reusability and reduced complexity into Model Driven Architecture (MDA) software development strategy. The proposed Model Driven Software Development approach which combines the merits of MDA and AOSD meets the ever changing and challenging demand of the enterprise software development.

Implementing Model-Based Data Structures using Transient Model Extensions

Software is often constructed using a layered approach to encapsulate various functionality in corresponding layers. Individual requirements of each layer demand layer specific data structures. These data structures typically provide redundant information with respect to the data source. Providing a Model Driven Software Development approach for creating these data structures leads to overlapping data models, each containing data structures defined by the data source. Because putting all various requirements of the software layers in a single data model can lead to difficulties, each software layer should only extend the basic data source model with its specifically needed model elements. The approach presented in this paper applies a mechanism for a dynamic extension of a data model. This extension mechanism is used in the implementational activity of a software process, and allows the changing of a model within a local scope. Using this mechanism, a basic data model can be used by every layer, being extended by additional attributes and classes for satisfying layer specific requirements.

Model-driven and pattern-based integration of process-driven SOA models

Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) are increasingly used in the context of business processes. However, the modelling approaches for process-driven SOAs do not yet sufficiently integrate the various kinds of models relevant for a process-driven SOA ? ranging from process models to software architectural models to software design models. We propose to integrate process-driven SOA models via a model-driven software development approach that is based on proven practices documented as software patterns. We introduce pattern primitives as an intermediate abstraction to precisely model the participants in the solutions that patterns convey. To enable model-driven development, we develop domain-specific modelling languages for each kind of process-driven SOA model ? based on meta-models that are extended with the pattern primitives. The various process-driven SOA models are integrated in a model-driven tool chain via the meta-models. Our tool chain validates the process-driven SOA models with regard to the constraints given by the meta-models and primitives.