Journal's Facebook pageGuest Editorial: Special Section: Model Driven Approaches in System Development
The Special Section on Model Driven Approaches in System Development was inspired by the event with the same title and acronym MDASD 2016, organized during 2016 in the scope of the Federated Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems (FedCSIS) in Gdansk, Poland. After a call to the prospective authors to submit their papers, and a rigorous reviewing procedure, the same as for regularly submitted papers, we finally accepted 3 papers presenting both theoretical and practical contributions in the field of Model Driven Software Engineering.
The conventional approach currently followed in the development of domain-specific modeling languages (DSMLs) for multi-agent systems (MASs) requires the definition and implementation of new model-to-model and model-to-text transformations from scratch in order to make the DSMLs functional for each different agent execution platforms. In their paper Supporting the Platform Extensibility for the Model-Driven Development of Agent Systems by the Interoperability Between Domain-Specific Modeling Languages of Multi-Agent Systems, Geylani Kardas, Emine Bircan, and Moharram Challenger present an alternative approach which considers the construction of the interoperability between MAS DSMLs for a more efficient way of platform support extension. The feasibility of using this new interoperability approach instead of the conventional approach is exhibited by discussing and evaluating the model-driven engineering required for the application of both approaches. Use of the approaches is also exemplified with a case study which covers the model-driven development of an agent-based stock exchange system. In comparison to the conventional approach, evaluation results show that the interoperability approach requires both less development time and effort considering design and implementation of all required transformations.
OntoUML is an ontologically well-founded conceptual modelling language that distinguishes various types of classifiers and relations providing precise meaning to the modelled entities. The authors of the paper Towards OntoUML for Software Engineering: Transformation of Kinds and Subkinds into Relational Databases, Zdenìk Rybola and Robert Pergl, advocate that OntoUML has been overlooked so far as a conceptual modelling language for the platform independent model of application data. They outline the transformation of Rigid Sortal Types – Kinds and Subkinds and discuss the details of various variants of the transformation of these types and the rigid generalization sets. The result is a complete method for preserving high-level ontological constraints during the transformations, specifically special multiplicities and generalization set meta-properties in a relational database using views, CHECK constraints and triggers.
Sergej Chodarev and Jaroslav Porubän in their paper Development of Custom Notation for XML-based Language: a Model-Driven Approach present an approach for design and development of the custom notation for existing XML-based language together with a translator between the new notation and XML. The approach supports iterative design of the language concrete syntax, allowing its modification based on users feedback. The translator is developed using a model-driven approach. It is based on explicit representation of language abstract syntax as a metamodel, that can be augmented with mappings to both XML and the custom notation. The authors give recommendations for application of the approach and demonstrate them on a case study of a language for definition of graphs.
Guest Editor
Ivan Luković
University of Novi Sad, Serbia
