fragment repository metameth tool

Fragment RepositoryMetameth Tool

V. Seidita

Existing Fragment Repositories

M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08 - 18, Nov. 2008

Two repositories exist in literature: OPF (OPEN Process Framework)

Composed of fragments that are instances of meta-model concepts, they are derived from existing processes or created from scratch considering one concept at a time

Fragments are constructed at very low level of granularity. There is not an element of the meta-model which principally

leads to the method fragment construction A very huge repository (each fragment principally is WorkUnit

oriented, the WorkProduct is conceived to be created when a process is applied.

PRODE Constructed on the base of the work a method engineer carries

on Fragments extraction/selection

Level of granularity – each fragment is Work Product oriented.Henderson-Sellers B. (2002) Process metamodelling and process construction: Examples using the OPEN Process Framework (OPF). Annals Software Engin. 14, 341–362.

OPF Fragment Repository


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OPF Method Fragment Main elements of OPF Metamodel

WorkUnit, operations (Activities, Tasks and Techniques) performed by Producers during a development process in order to produce a specific WorkProduct; Activities and Tasks describe what is to be done whereas Techniques describe how to do a portion of work

WorkProduct, the artefact Producers, the stakeholder performing a work unit Stage, provides the organization of process in terms of

phases and lifecycles Guideline, useful to instantiate the metamodel

elements, to create method components and to create the method itself


Deontic Matrices


TasksTechnique 1 2 3 4 5 6Abstract class identification

TasksTechnique 1 2 3 4 5 6Abstract class identificationAgent internal design

Class namingControl architectureContext modellingDelegation analysisEvent modellingIntelligent agent identificationMeans-end analysisRole modellingState modellingTextual analysis3-layer BDI model

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Key:Key:1. Model dependencies for actors and goals; 2. Construct the agent model;3. Design agent internal structure; 4. Model the agent’s environment;5. Model responsibilities; 6. Model permissions

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TasksTechnique 1 2 3 4 5 6Abstract class identification

TasksTechnique 1 2 3 4 5 6Abstract class identificationAgent internal design AND/OR decompositionClass namingControl architectureContext modellingDelegation analysisEvent modellingIntelligent agent identification

Role modellingState modellingTextual analysis3-layer BDI model

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Key:Key:

1. Model dependencies for actors and goals; 2. Construct the agent model;3. Design agent internal structure; 4. Model the agent’s environment;5. Model responsibilities; 6. Model permissions; 7. Code

Tasks

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Tasks

Work Product 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Agent Class DescriptorAgent Acquaintance DiagramAgent Overview DiagramCapability DiagramRole ModelRole Schema(Tropos) Goal Diagram(Tropos) Actor Diagram UML Sequence Diagram

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PRODE Fragment Repository


The PRODE Process Representation


Applying the Proposed Method Fragment Definition A method Fragment can be explored from four points of view:

Process The process related aspect of the fragment: workflow, activity and work product

Storing It concerns with the storage of the fragment in the method base and its retrieval

Reuse It concerns with the reuse feature of the fragment and lists the elements helpful in reusing the fragment during the composition of a new design process

Implementation The implementation of the main elements of the process view.

Method fragment construction is Work Product oriented, a method fragment must deliver a product. Cossentino, M., Gaglio, S., Garro, A. and Seidita, V. (2007). Agents and Method Engineering: a Standardization Perspective’, Int. J. Agent-Oriented Software Engineering, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.91–121.


The Method Fragment – The Implementation View


The Method Fragment – The Reuse View


The Method Fragment – Storing View


Documenting the PRODE Fragment

A text document – detailing the process and the reuse view SPEM is often used to model process lifecycle aspects of the

fragment

An XPDL file – the workflow implementation of the fragment’s activity

The design rules – generating a set of composition rules for a specific work product

The application - realized in form of Activity Agents

14 M. Cossentino, V. Seidita - Tutorial WOA'08 - 18, Nov. 2008

How to represent a process for introduction in the fragment repository


Existing design processes adopt different notations and documentation styles.

The process has to be represented in an unified way before fragment extraction

The need for a formal description of a design process (and of a process fragment).

We adopted a precise template and notation that is based on a few SPEM extensions

Creation of guideline for representing design processes. A top-down approach for the description and easy retrieval of

the main elements a process is composed of.V. Seidita, M. Cossentino, S. Gaglio. Using and Extending the SPEM Specifications to Represent Agent Oriented Methodologies. Agent-Oriented Software Engineering Workshop (AOSE-2008) at AAMAS 2008.

Representing PASSI


Process Fragment extraction and Repository creation Work Product and MMMElement oriented SPEM (Software Process Engineering

Metamodel) for modelling

The repository is a data base where method fragments are stored in terms of text documents

We already introduced in our method base the following design processes: Adelfe PASSI Tropos Gaia (partially)


The PRODE Repository Creation All existing design processes deal with different design

philosophies Differences in terms and meanings of design process The need for taxonomy Interoperability among different repositories

The repository allows the classification of fragments according to a set of categories based on the most important metamodel elements Phase ProcessRole WorkProduct MMMElementSeidita, V., Cossentino, M., Gaglio, S. A repository of fragments for agent systems design. Proc. of the Workshop on Objects and Agents (WOA06). Catania, Italy. 26-27 September 2006


Repository Content


Fragments retrieval


Metameth: a tool for supporting PRODEV. Seidita


PRODE divided inthree main areas of research


MMM

3) A CAME (Computer Aided

Method Engineering) tool

What is Metameth Metameth is an (open-source) agent-oriented tool

we built to support our experiments in methodologies composition and their application in real projects.

Metameth is: a CAPE tool: since it supports the definition of the

design process life-cycle and the positioning of the different method fragments in the intended place

a CAME tool: since it allows the definition of different method fragments (work not completed in this direction)

a CASE tool: since it supports a distributed design process, it offers several (by now UML) graphical editors and an expert system for verifying the resulting system


The Metameth tool We designed Metameth starting from our previous

experience on PTk and APTk Separating the internal semantic of a methodology from the

graphic notation used to express it Metameth Tool requirements:

– Definition of the design process by reusing method fragments from a repository --> CAME/CAPE capabilities

– Instantiation of the design process (in a distributed collaborative environment)--> CASE capabilities

– Full support for UML diagrams– Syntax/semantic checks of design artefacts– (Total or partial) Automatic composition of artefacts– Production of design documentation (complex documents

composed of text, graphics, tables, …


The Metameth tool architecture


Supporting design activities The operations that can be supported by a

tool during the design process: GUI Action – the tool interacts with the user

(using a GUI) in order to support him in some operations

WP Composition - the tool creates/updates a work product on the basis of the already introduced design information

Rule Check – semantic and syntactic check of the work product (warning, alerting and suggestions)


The Expert System

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Metameth is composed of a society of agents interacting with users: A controller agent – responsible for the

execution of process A community of Activity agents – interacting

with designer A ProcessModel agent – is responsible of

managing the design information An editor agent – manages the diagram

editor


The Expert System


The rules

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The Process Model agent is responsible of the activation of Jess rules

Classification according to five categories: Validation Semantic interpretation

Auto-composition Update Import

Rule Check

WP Composition


Syntactic validation Alerts the designer if he is using an

incorrect element of the notation

if1. a notation element NE exists2. NE is a notation element of NE-T kind3. NE belongs to the Work Product WP4. WP is of WPK kind5. it does not exist a composition rule MME-NE-Link belonging to WPKthen print a syntax error

(defrule SYNTACTIC-VALIDATION::not-allowed-notation-element "Warn if in a Work Product a not allowed notation element is present"........../* it does not exist a composition rule in WPK specifing that a notation element with NE-T kind is allowed*/(not (MAIN::object(is-a MMM-ElementNotationElementLink) (NE-Type ?NE-T)(MappingRuleOf $? ?WPK $?)))=> /* print an error message standard error */(printout t "<Error>" crlf) (printout t "<![CDATA[")(printout t "Syntax error, ") (printout t "the work product " ?WP-NAME" is of kind "(slot-get (slot-get ?WPK DomainNamespace) Name):: (slot-get ?WPK Name))(printout t " so it can’t contains " ?NE-T:: (slot-get ?NE Name)"]]>" crlf)(printout t "</Error>" crlf))

/* WPK is a PASSI::DRD-Diagram kind*/(test (and(eq ?WPK-Name "DRD-Diagram")(eq ?WPK-DN-Name "PASSI")))


The Expert System• The Metameth expert system is based on JESS; rules are

expressed in first order logic • Ontology is designed using Protegè• Services offered by the expert system:

– Syntax checks: it verifies the abidance to modeling language rules– Semantic checks: it verifies the abidance to the MAS meta-model

(e.g. a role cannot aggregate another one)– Semantic understanding of diagrams: elements of notations are

mapped to their corresponding MAS meta-model element (a use-case is mapped to a requirement)

– Automatic composition of diagrams: some diagrams can be partially composed by accessing information of previous design phases


The Rules

Significant difference in he number of rules produced: Several rules for

automatic composition only in one fragment

Comparable number of rules for the others kind


Conclusions


A way to represent a design process coherently with the process definition and guidelines for fragmentation

Extension of SPEM 2.0. The creation of a fragments repository

The production of a CAPE/CAME/CASE tool: Metameth It allows an easy composition of new methodologies (CAPE

functionalities) It supports distributed design process (CASE functionalities)

The tool is able to offer cooperation to the designer through a society of agents

This system is able to perform syntactic validation, semantic validation/interpretation and auto-composition activities

The tool is general enough to be applied to every methodology: generality of the rules produced for the expert system

Future Works


Improving and completing the “process definition” part of Metameth

Creating a tool for supporting rules generation Improvement of CAPE to CASE tool instantiation Lowering the dependencies from method designer

skills Improving the CAPE tool with the intelligent part

supporting the selection and assembly phase

Start with existing repository of fragments and consolidate

Implement the new standard metamodel

Thanks for your attention,any question?


fragment repository metameth tool

Documents

model dependencies

seidita tutorial woa08

model responsibilities

model permissions key

agent model3

process metamodelling

process construction

organization of process