The Fourth International Workshop on Non-functional System Properties in Domain Specific Modeling Languages (NFPinDSML2012)

General-purpose modeling languages are inadequate to model and visualize business processes precisely. An enterprise has its own vocabulary for modeling processes and its specific tasks may have attached data that define the tasks precisely. We propose using Domain Specific Modeling (DSM) languages to model business processes, such that an enterprise can define its own DSM language(s) capturing its vocabulary and data requirement. We suggest using UML profiles and UML activity diagrams as the semantic base for these DSM languages and present tools that are able to create a DSM language and tool support for a given domain. One tool, called ADSpecializer, can generate a UML profile and its tool support of a given application domain. The other tool, ADModeler, is used to create UML activity diagrams within such a domain-specific UML profile. The two tools enable an enterprise to efficiently define and utilize their own DSM language.

Compared to General Purpose Modeling Languages (GPMLs), Domain Specific Modeling Languages (DSMLs) have brought increasing expressivity and conciseness through the use of concepts and notations, which are customized by the characteristics of a specific problem domain. However, the creation of completely new languages can significantly increase software development costs. An alternative approach to creating new DSMLs refers to a customization of existing modeling languages. The DSML creation process through a customization of existing languages is a special case of Language Embedding. The embedding provides customization of an inherited infrastructure to a given domain. This paper elaborates a Domain-Specific Modeling environment for embedding an arbitrary DSML into an arbitrary GPML. The environment enables uniform development of DSMLs in the form of a lightweight extension of existing modeling languages.

The subject of the research is machine learning models and methods for generating legal contracts with limited resources and performance evaluation benchmarks. The goal of the work is to analyse approaches of domain-specific Large Language Models development and to find the optimal method of creating independent specialized systems that can generate contracts in different languages and legal systems. The article addresses the following tasks: identification of existing companies and solutions in this area, exploring approaches to create texts in natural language, analysis of evaluation and comparison methods of such systems, inspecting limitations and shortcomings of existing solutions and approaches, finding the optimal method of developing systems with limited resources. The following results were obtained: approaches of natural language generation and their features were investigated; the "Transformer" architecture was defined as a modern standard in the field of text information generation; different model types which are based on this architecture were considered; data sources for training were analysed; methods of adapting models in specialized areas were considered; model evaluating benchmarks for various tasks were reviewed; shortcomings of the existing specialized language models and the incompleteness of existing benchmarks for contract generation task evaluation were revealed. As a result of the analytical experiment, it was determined that the Retrieval-Augmented Generation method is the most optimal for solving the given task under the given conditions. The conducted experiment and its results can be used as a basis for further research of domain-specific language models development with limited resources. Conclusions: the article provides an overview of natural language generation methods using modern machine learning techniques, considers their advantages and disadvantages for small companies and scientific institutions that have limited resources. The work examinates a specialized legal domain and the problem of contract generation and determines the most optimal method to solve it.

The paper is devoted to the convergence of critical and non-critical IT in the area of Business Analysis and Requirements Engineering. We consider Domain Specific Modelling (DSM) and Domain Specific Language (DSL) as promising points to improve Requirements Engineering maturity and quality in a safety-critical and security-critical domain. The paper presents a DSM-based procedure of knowledge management that can be implemented in a software engineering company to support the reuse of domain knowledge and technical solutions. Afterward, we select Gherkin language as a sample of DSL-based requirements elicitation, analysis, documentation, and validation in a frame of Behavior Driven Development. To provide a DSM&DSL-based Requirements Engineering technique we analyzed Gherkin's applicability for different kinds and levels of critical requirements.

The development and use of Domain Specific Languages emerged as a way to cope with complex problems using concepts closer to the problem domain. By leveraging the principles proposed by Model-Driven Development (MDD), like the separation of concerns and the use of model transformations, this approach became popular and caused the emergence of a variety of languages, known as Domain Specific Modeling Languages (DSMLs). Moreover, the use of DSMLs with graphical notations abstracts even more the problem domain, either by using extensions of UML or directly using metamodeling languages. The definition and use of DSMLs is only possible through specific tools, known as languages workbenches. This paper discusses the analysis and comparison of three of these tools (namely Papyrus, Enterprise Architect and Sirius) that were used to create the XIS-Mobile language, a non-trivial DSML defined as a UML profile for modeling mobile applications in a platform-independent way. These tools were evaluated considering a set of key criteria (namely learnability, usability, graphical completeness, validation support, transformation support, evolvability and interoperability) which show their suitability to develop non-trivial languages.

In order to assist domain experts, several tools exist for the definition of graphical or textual domain specific modeling languages (DSMLs). The resulting models are useful, but not sufficient, for an overall understanding of the system, especially when formal methods are being applied. Indeed, formal methods failures often result from misunderstandings of the requirements, even if the system is entirely proved. This is confirmed by several industrial experiments which showed that the poor readability of the formal notations is not convenient for communication with domain experts and hence the validation activity is often tedious, time consuming and complex. In order to circumvent this shortcoming, we propose to make domain specific models provable and also executable thanks to the animation of their expected behaviour directly in a dedicated DSML tool. Our approach starts from an intuitive description of the system’s operational semantics thanks to high-level Petri-nets which abstract away structural constraints and focus on safety-critical behaviours. Then we take benefit of the B method in order to refine and prove these operational semantics on the one hand, and to merge them with the static semantics of a given DSML, on the other hand. This work is applied to the design of ERTMS/ETCS 3 which is an emergent solution for railway system management.

The Sixth International Conference on Web Engineering (ICWE 2006) held in Palo Alto, California, at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, hosted the workshops MDWE, AEWSE and SMIWEP-MATeS. This volume of the ACM Digital Library contains a selection of papers presented at the three workshops which took place on July, 10th and July, 11th.ICWE 2006 and the associated workshops aim to promote research and scientific exchange related to Web Engineering and to bring together practitioners, scientists and researchers, as well as those interested in learning more about Web Engineering. The Web Engineering discipline comprises the development and use of models, methodologies, technologies, tools and techniques that are used to develop and maintain Web applications within economic constraints. In the era of Web-based information and services we are living in, the development of such Web systems is demanding our attention in order to provide sound and engineered solutions to specific problems in the Web Engineering field. The articles presented at the ICWE 2006 workshops have proposed novel results in this area focusing each on a specific domain:The Second International Workshop on Model-Driven Web Engineering (MDWE'06) focused on model-based and model-driven development of Web applications. The main goal of this workshop series is to promote the use of models and model transformations as well as the definition of domain specific modeling languages (DSML) and construction of CASE tools supporting model-driven processes. Strengths and weaknesses of model-driven approaches in the Web domain were lively discussed during the workshop.The First International Workshop on Adaptation and Evolution in Web Systems Engineering (AEWSE'06) aimed at bringing together researchers and practitioners with different research interests, belonging to communities like Web Engineering, Adaptive Hypermedia, User Modeling, Active Databases, Semantic Web, Ontology Evolution, Database Evolution, Temporal Data, Software Engineering and Mobile Computing. The goal of the workshop was to address adaptation and evolution of Web applications both during design, implementation and deployment.The Joint Workshop on Web Services Modeling and Implementation using Sound Web Engineering Practices and Methods, Architectures & Technologies for e-Service Engineering (SMIWEP-MATeS'06) covered current state-of-the-art and best practices in e-Service engineering, focusing on aspects such as development of semantic Web applications, integration of technologies, requirements engineering, patterns and reference architectures, design methodologies and processes and quality models.

Domain-specific modelling langugages, which are tailored to the requirements of their users, can significantly increase the acceptance of formal (or at least semi-formal) modelling in scenarios where informal diagrams and natural language descriptions are predominant today. We show in this article how the Resource Description Framework (RDF), which is a standard for the fundamental data structures of the Semantic Web, and algebraic graph transformations on these data structures can be used to realise and modify the abstract syntax of models in such domain-specific languages. We examine a small domain-specific modelling language for IT infrastructures--inspired by real-world requirements from a banking environment--as an application scenario. From this scenario, we derive four key requirements for a domain-specific modelling framework: (1) distributed modelling, (2) evolution of language definitions, (3) migration of legacy models and (4) integration of modelling languages. RDF and transformation rules are then used to provide a solution which meets these requirements simultaneously, where all kinds of modifications--from simple editing steps via model migration to language integration--are realised in an integrated manner by the single, declarative formalism of algebraic graph transformation.

Modeling and modeling methods are crucial for information systems engineering but are seldom seamlessly integrated into all phases of development and operation: Practitioners challenge the benefits of modeling and complain about the confusing variety of concepts with overlapping semantics, symbols and syntactic rules of today’s standardized, “universal” modeling languages. Therefore, domain-specific modeling languages (DSMLs) are gaining increasing popularity: they are lean and convenient, support the productivity of modeling, and help to increase model quality and comprehensibility. There are, however, few approaches to embedding a DSML into a domain-specific modeling method (DSMM) that provides guidelines about how to use a given DSML and to evaluate related models. This chapter aims to make a contribution towards filling that gap by discussing, as an example and proof of concept, a domain-specific modeling method for the human cognitive modeling language HCM-L, a DSML for the domain of active and assisted living. As a modeling language without tool support has no chance to be used in practice, we are conducting that discussion on the basis of HCM-L modeler, a tool that was implemented using the metamodeling platform ADOxx and can be accessed via OMiLAB, the Open Models Laboratory for modeling method engineering. HCM-L modeler is component of an ambient assistance system for supporting elder persons in mastering their daily life activities.

Autonomous vehicles, such as drones, are gaining great popularity due to their usability and versatility. Nowadays, a significant number of them operate using open source software, such as Robot Operating System (ROS) and the de facto standard MAVLink communication protocol, as they are free and many of them are reusable enough that they can be deployed in various different vehicles. Although these technologies offer a wide variety of resources, using them requires a reasonable background of programming and system engineering. Often, this is not achievable by common drone end-users in the short-term, as they would need to acquire a considerably large amount of know-how before working on specific domains. However, a graphical Domain Specific Modelling Language (DSML) might provide a shortcut to design drone missions using already known concepts to the end-users (or, at least, ones easier to learn). Pursuing this shortcut, RoBMEX is presented as a top-down methodology based on a set of domain specific languages able to enhance the autonomy of ROS-based systems, by allowing the creation of missions graphically, and then generating automatically executable source codes conforming to the designed missions.

Enterprises are inherently complex systems, which involve a multitude of components working dynamically and in coordination to obtain a desired end goal. The intricacy of an enterprise and how the different components can be modeled is the area of research of Enterprise Modeling (EM). When holistically modeling an enterprise, it is required to use more than one modeling language, including general and domain specific modeling languages (DSML), to boost the comprehension of different enterprise areas. However, the use of multiple languages can lead to a lack of detail and understanding of the relationships between enterprise components that are modeled in different domains. Analyzing the relationships between various enterprise domains can generate valuable insight into understanding the uncertainty, complexity, and operations of an enterprise. In this paper, we present an approach to enable EM from multiple perspectives allowing enterprises to use different languages to describe various domains. This approach supports the creation of relationships and dependencies between domains, to analyze from different depths and viewpoints desired enterprise perspectives. Considering the needed requirements for multi-perspective modeling, we developed a workbench that allows the composition and merger of different EM languages and creates ad-hoc EM tools based on the necessities of the enterprise.KeywordsEnterprise ModelingLanguage workbenchDomain specific modeling languages

Domain specific modeling languages are of increasing importance for the development of software and other systems. Meta tools are needed to support rapid development of domain-specific solutions. Using the Eclipse Graphical Modeling Framework (GMF), modeling languages are defined by providing a meta model using the MOF/EMF approach. Up to now, GMF provides basic editing commands only. It does not support the definition of complex editing commands which would allow e.g. to insert a complex structure into a diagram in one step. As practical tool support for the design and generation of visual editors with complex editing operations based on graph transformation, an extended version of GMF has been developed and is presented in this paper.

Succinct, declarative, and domain-specific modeling languages have many advantages when creating simulation models. However, it is often challenging to efficiently execute models defined in such languages. We use code generation for model-specific simulators. Code generation has been successfully applied for high-performance algorithms in many application domains. By generating tailored simulators for specific simulation models defined in a domain specific language, we get the best of both worlds: a succinct, declarative and formal presentation of the model and an efficient execution. We illustrate this based on a simple domain-specific language for biochemical reaction networks as well as on the network representation of the established BioNetGen language. We implement two approaches adopting the same simulation algorithms: one generic simulator that parses models at runtime and one generator that produces a simulator specialized to a given model based on partial evaluation and code generation. Akin to profile-guided optimization we also use dynamic execution of the model to further optimize the simulators. The performance of the approaches is carefully benchmarked using representative models of small to mid-sized biochemical reaction networks. The generic simulator achieves a performance similar to state of the art simulators in the domain, whereas the specialized simulator outperforms established simulation algorithms with a speedup of more than an order of magnitude. This repository contains the code generation software as described in the 2020 PADS paper Partial evaluation via code generation for static stochastic reaction network models.

MiW: A domain specific modeling environment for complex molecular systems

ADELFE is a French acronym that means “Toolkit for Designing Software with Emergent Functionalities” (“Atelier de DEveloppement de Logiciels à Fonctionnalité Emergente” in French). ADELFE methodology is dedicated to applications characterized by openness and the need of the system adaptation to an environment. Its main goal is to help and guide any designer during the development of an Adaptive Multi-agent System (AMAS). An AMAS is characterized by the following points: it is plunged into an environment and composed of interdependent agents, each agent carries out a partial function and the agents, organization during runtime makes the system realize an emergent function. Actually, an agent is locally cooperative, i.e. it is able to recognize cooperation failures called Non-cooperative Situations (NCS, which could be related to exceptions in classical programs) and treat them.ADELFE includes five Work Definitions that were initially inspired from the Rational Unified Process (RUP) and gathers 21 activities, producing or refining 12 work products. These products are aggregating modelling diagrams or structured or free text. ADELFE, which is a Model-Driven (model-centred) development method, is not hardly dependent on Domain Specific Modelling Languages (DSML) but currently the recommendation is to use UML2 for general activities and to use AMASML (AMAS Modelling Language) and SpeADL (Species-based Modelling Language) for specific activities appearing in Analysis, Design or Implementation phases.KeywordsAdaptive Multi-agent Systems (AMAS)Domain-specific Modeling Languages (DSML)AMAS ApproachAMAS TheoryManagement Studies ConferenceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.