Ontological analysis of whole–part relationships in OO-models

Opdahl, Andreas L.; Henderson‐Sellers, Brian; Barbier, Franck

doi:10.1016/s0950-5849(00)00175-0

Cited by 54 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…The BWW-model has been applied to the analysis and evaluation of IS-design methods in general [39], dataflow diagrams [36], E-R diagrams [36,42], NIAM [41], nine languages supported by the Upper CASE-toolset Excelerator [11], four languages supported the ARIS-toolset for business modelling [12], and the OPEN Modelling Language (OML) [25]. The BWW-model has also been used to analyse optional properties in conceptual modelling [1] and whole-part relationships (like UML's aggregation and composition constructs) in OO models [24]. This paper uses the BWW-model to analyse and evaluate the modelling constructs provided by another modelling language, the UML, with respect to how well they are defined and how well they fit together.…”

Section: The Bunge-wand-weber (Bww) Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hence a composite thing is not a system if it is possible to partition its component things into two sets of things with independent histories from one another. The relationship between the BWW-model and whole-part relationships in OOmodelling languages has already been discussed in detail in [24], which proposes that a UML-composite should be defined to represent a BWW-system thing and a UMLaggregate to represent a composite non-system thing.…”

Section: Composites and Systems In The Bww-modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hence a UML-aggregate obviously represents a BWW-composite thing whereas a UMLaggregate class represents a BWW-natural kind of composite things. A UML-aggregation should therefore represent a BWW-whole-part relation, although closer analysis has shown that this UML construct is heavily overloaded [15,24].…”

Section: Aggregates and Systems In The Umlmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We will not discuss these constructs in detail here, because they are already the subject of another paper [14]. Instead, we will adapt the proposal in [24], which concludes that the most fundamental partitioning of whole-part relations occur between those whose parts are somehow "configurational" and those whose parts are independent, and that this distinction corresponds to the one between BWW-system things and -nonsystem (i.e., regular) things. A UML-composite therefore represents a BWW-system thing whereas a UMLcomposite class represents a BWW-natural kind of system things.…”

Section: Aggregates and Systems In The Umlmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ontological Evaluation of the UML Using the Bunge–Wand–Weber Model

Opdahl

Henderson‐Sellers

2002

Softw Syst Model

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An ontological model of information systems, the Bunge-Wand-Weber (BWW) model, is used to analyse and evaluate the Unified Modeling Language (UML) as a language for representing concrete problem domains. As a result, each relevant and major UML construct becomes more precisely defined in terms of the phenomena in and aspects of the problem domain it represents. The analysis and evaluation shows that many of the central UML constructs are well matched with the BWW-model, but also suggests several concrete improvements to the UML-metamodel. New metaclasses are proposed to distinguish between (physically) impossible and (humanly) disallowed events, based on UML-exceptions. New abstract metaclasses are proposed for static and behavioural constraints, behaviours and static behaviours, as well as binding relationships and coupled events. New meta-subclasses of UML-objects, -classes, -types and -relationships are proposed to make the UML more orthogonal, and a new definition is proposed for UML-responsibilities. The analysis also shows that the constructs in the UML must play several roles simultaneously, supporting representation both of the problem domain, of the development artifacts and of the proposed software or information system, while fitting together as a tightly integrated, well-defined language.Keywords: Object-oriented analysis -Problem domain representation -Ontological analysis and evaluationUnified Modeling Language (UML) -The Bunge-WandWeber model (BWW) BackgroundThe Unified Modelling Language (UML) [22] has become the de facto standard for object-oriented (OO) * Corresponding author modelling during information systems (IS) development. However, the suitability of the UML for modelling concrete problem domains in the early development phases has been called into question [25]. The suitability of object-oriented modelling in general in the early development phases is also controversial [17,33]. At the same time, many authors [7, 28] have argued that the early development phases are critical for successful and cost efficient IS development. In consequence, an OO language like the UML, if not tightly integrated and well defined, might exacerbate rather than ameliorate current problems in the IS development industry.This paper analyses and evaluates the major constructs of the metamodel of the stable Version 1.3 of the UML [22] in terms of how well the modelling constructs it provides are suited for representing concrete problem domains. The analysis and evaluation is anchored in the Bunge-Wand-Weber (BWW) model of information systems. The BWW-model, e.g., [37,38,41], is an adaptation of Mario Bunge's comprehensive ontology [3,4], which is inspired by systems theory. Weber [42] points to ontology as the branch of philosophy that deals with theories about the nature of things in general as opposed to theories about particular things. Ontological theory is therefore well-suited for benchmarking the adequacy and sufficiency etc. of modelling constructs for representing concrete problem domains. This paper i...

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Section: The Bunge-wand-weber (Bww) Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Composites and Systems In The Bww-modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Aggregates and Systems In The Umlmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Aggregates and Systems In The Umlmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ontological Evaluation of the UML Using the Bunge–Wand–Weber Model

Opdahl

Henderson‐Sellers

2002

Softw Syst Model

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“…Our method also considers a more advanced characterization of associations since the characterization provided in the literature for the association concept (see [1,[32][33][34]) experiences some drawbacks that make the use and interpretation of this construct ambiguous. Several works [35][36][37][38][39][40][41] have tried to propose alternative semantics. In this method the particular interpretation of the association concept introduced in [8] is taken into account.…”

Section: Structural Viewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Generating operation specifications from UML class diagrams: A model transformation approach

Albert

Cabot

Gómez

et al. 2011

Data & Knowledge Engineering

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ElsevierAlbert Albiol, M.; Cabot Sagrera, J.; Gómez Seoane, C.; Pelechano Ferragud, V. (2011 Abstract.One of the more tedious and complex tasks during the specification of conceptual schemas (CSs) is modeling the operations that define the system behavior. This paper aims to simplify this task by providing a method that automatically generates a set of basic operations that complement the static aspects of the CS and suffice to perform all typical life-cycle create/update/delete changes on the population of the elements of the CS. Our method guarantees that the generated operations are executable, i.e. their executions produce a consistent state wrt the most typical structural constraints that can be defined in CSs (e.g. multiplicity constraints). In particular, our method takes as input a CS expressed as a Unified Modeling Language (UML) class diagram (optionally defined using a profile to enrich the specification of associations) and generates an extended version of the CS that includes all necessary operations to start operating the system. If desired, these basic operations can be later used as building blocks for creating more complex ones. We show the formalization and implementation of our method by means of model-tomodel transformations. Our approach is particularly relevant in the context of Model Driven Development approaches.

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Ontology for the Selection of e-Processes

Albertyn

2005

Web Information Systems Engineering – WISE 2005 Workshops

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Ontological analysis of whole–part relationships in OO-models

Cited by 54 publications

References 9 publications

Ontological Evaluation of the UML Using the Bunge–Wand–Weber Model

Ontological Evaluation of the UML Using the Bunge–Wand–Weber Model

Generating operation specifications from UML class diagrams: A model transformation approach

Ontology for the Selection of e-Processes

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