Lois M. L. Delcambre

Conceptual Modeling – ER 2005

Specific Approaches.- Conceptual Modeling of Structure and Behavior with UML - The Top Level Object-Oriented Framework (TLOOF) Approach.- How to Manage Uniformly Software Architecture at Different Abstraction Levels.- Schema Integration Based on Uncertain Semantic Mappings.- Process Modeling and Views.- Combining Intention-Oriented and State-Based Process Modeling.- Pattern-Based Analysis of the Control-Flow Perspective of UML Activity Diagrams.- A Three-Layered XML View Model: A Practical Approach.- Conceptual Modeling in eLearning.- Modeling Group-Based Education.- Learning Process Models as Mediators Between Didactical Practice and Web Support.- Managing Models and Modeling.- A Fundamental View on the Process of Conceptual Modeling.- How to Tame a Very Large ER Diagram (Using Link Analysis and Force-Directed Drawing Algorithms).- A Multilevel Dictionary for Model Management.- A MOF-Compliant Approach to Software Quality Modeling.- Requirements and Software Engineering.- Conceptual Modeling Based on Transformation Linguistic Patterns.- Applying Modular Method Engineering to Validate and Extend the RESCUE Requirements Process.- Security Patterns Meet Agent Oriented Software Engineering: A Complementary Solution for Developing Secure Information Systems.- Ontologies.- Kuaba Ontology: Design Rationale Representation and Reuse in Model-Based Designs.- Ontology Creation: Extraction of Domain Knowledge from Web Documents.- Choosing Appropriate Method Guidelines for Web-Ontology Building.- Web Services and Navigational Models.- Conceptual Model Based Semantic Web Services.- Automatically Grounding Semantically-Enriched Conceptual Models to Concrete Web Services.- Transforming Web Requirements into Navigational Models: AN MDA Based Approach.- Aspects of Workflow Modeling.- Accelerating Workflows with Fixed Date Constraints.- Workflow Data Patterns: Identification, Representation and Tool Support.- Actor-Oriented Design of Scientific Workflows.- Blueprints and Measures for ETL Workflows.- Queries and OLAP Summaries.- Vague Sets or Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets for Handling Vague Data: Which One Is Better?.- A Semantic Approach to Query Rewriting for Integrated XML Data.- A Taxonomy of Inaccurate Summaries and Their Management in OLAP Systems.- Temporal and Spatial Modeling.- XCM: Conceptual Modeling for Dynamic Domains.- Precise Modeling and Verification of Topological Integrity Constraints in Spatial Databases: From an Expressive Power Study to Code Generation Principles.- Topological Relationships Between Complex Lines and Complex Regions.

Discounted cumulated gain based evaluation of multiple-query IR sessions

IR research has a strong tradition of laboratory evaluation of systems. Such research is based on test collections, pre-defined test topics, and standard evaluation metrics. While recent research has emphasized the user viewpoint by proposing user-based metrics and non-binary relevance assessments, the methods are insufficient for truly user-based evaluation. The common assumption of a single query per topic and session poorly represents real life. On the other hand, one well-known metric for multiple queries per session, instance recall, does not capture early (within session) retrieval of (highly) relevant documents. We propose an extension to the Discounted Cumulated Gain (DCG) metric, the Session-based DCG (sDCG) metric for evaluation scenarios involving multiple query sessions, graded relevance assessments, and open-ended user effort including decisions to stop searching. The sDCG metric discounts relevant results from later queries within a session. We exemplify the sDCG metric with data from an interactive experiment, we discuss how the metric might be applied, and we present research questions for which the metric is helpful.

Change cases: use cases that identify future requirements

Evolution of software systems is prompted by all sorts of changes. This paper demonstrates how the use case, a well known construct in object-oriented analysis, is adapted to form the change case, to identify and articulate anticipated system changes. A change case provides the ability to identify and incorporate expected future change into a design to enhance the long-term robustness of that design. In this paper, we define change cases and demonstrate how change cases are captured by the analyst. We present examples to illustrate how change cases can influence present system design and point the way toward designs that more easily accommodate expected future changes. Change cases can be effectively employed in the context of any methodology that supports use cases and traceability links.

Conceptual Modeling – ER 2011

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling, ER 2011, held in Brussels, Belgium, in October/November 2011. The 25 revised full papers presented together with 14 short papers and three keynotes were carefully reviewed and selected from 157 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on modeling goals and compliance; human and socio-technical factors; ontologies; data model theory; model development and maintainability; user interfaces and software classification; evolution, propagation and refinement; UML and requirements modeling; views, queries and search; requirements and business intelligence; MDA and ontology-based modeling; process modeling; and panels.

Constraint analysis: a design process for specifying operations on objects

A design process for an object-oriented database design environment, known as constraint analysis, is presented. Given the increased level of semantics associated with an object-oriented database schema, constraint analysis makes use of semantics expressed as database constraints to support the flexible specification of propagation actions for operations on objects. Constraints are formally represented using Horn logic. The constraint analysis process then reasons about constraints at design time to help the designer understand the effects of constraints on object manipulation, identifying possible constraint violations as well as design alternatives for handling violations. An advantage of constraint analysis is that both inherent and explicit schema constraints are included in the analysis process. A formal representation is given that supports the analysis of constraints and the automatic identification of design alternatives for responding to constraint violations. >

Mash-o-matic

Web applications called mash-ups combine information of varying granularity from different, possibly disparate, sources. We describe Mash-o-matic, a utility that can extract, clean, and combine disparate information fragments, and automatically generate data for mash-ups and the mash-ups themselves. As an illustration, we generate a mash-up that displays a map of a university campus, and outline the potential benefits of using Mash-o-matic. Mash-o-matic exploits superimposed information (SI), which is new information and structure created in reference to fragments of existing information. Mashomatic is implemented using middleware called the Superimposed Pluggable Architecture for Contexts and Excerpts (SPARCE), and a query processor for SI and referenced information, both parts of our infrastructure to support SI management. We present a high-level description of the mash-up production process and discuss in detail how Mash-o-matic accelerates that process.

Models for Superimposed Information

The ubiquitous World Wide Web presents a simple interface for a vast array of heterogeneous information. We see the Web as one enabler for what we call superimposed information. Superimposed information serves to highlight, annotate, connect and supplement information in a base information space. Superimposed information is already pervasive for the Web, with a variety of models and accompanying capabilities. In this paper, we introduce superimposed information and analyze a range of conceptual models for it using a three-part feature space consisting of information elements, links, and marks. Information elements in the superimposed layer and links among those information elements are analogous to the classical entities and relationships of database models. The novelty is in the marks that reference underlying information elements. Superimposed information can serve as proxies for underlying information elements, can provide new access paths, and can introduce new information as well as new links among existing information elements. We conclude with a discussion of open research questions regarding superimposed information.

An analysis of the structural, dynamic, and temporal aspects of semantic data models

Semantic data models have been influenced by abstraction techniques used in knowledge representation. Early semantic models concentrated on the structural aspects of an application. More recently, researchers in semantic modeling have realized the importance of capturing the dynamic and temporal aspects of an application as well. This paper presents a detailed and uniform analysis of the structural, dynamic, and temporal aspects of object-oriented semantic models that support classification, aggregation, generalization, and association abstractions.

A self-controlling interpreter for the relational production language

The Relational Production Language (RPL) solves the paradigm mismatch between expert systems and database systems by relying on the relational data model as the underlying formalism for an expert system. The result is a formally-defined production system language with immediate access to conventional databases. Working memory is modeled as a relational database and rules consist of a relational query on the left hand side (LHS) and database updates on the right hand side (RHS). This paper reports on the design of the RPL 1 0 prototype. The prototype directly executes RPL programs and capitalizes on the inherent advantages of the relational approach, particularly for intra-rule and inter-rule parallelism. By using a self-describing approach for representing the interpreter data structures, the interpreter is a self-controlling system that allows conflict resolution, error handling and a wide spectrum of software metrics to be explicitly specified using RPL meta-rules.

Simulation Of The Object Flow Model: A Conceptual Modeling Language For Object-driven Applications

The Object Flow Model (OFM) has been developed as a conceptual modeling language (CML) for object-driven (i.e. datadriven, object-oriented) applications. The model includes an object-oriented database that provides both a semantic data model to describe the stnrcture of complex objects and local methods associated with the classes appearing in the class hiermhy. The major contribution of the OFM is the dynamic modeling component called the Object Flow Diagram. Process steps are displayed in a directed graph; pmesses are trigered by the availability of the relevant objects that satisfy the guard The OFD was inspired by network-base4 process-oriented, discrete event simulation but adopts formal semantics associated with a deductive database rule language. This paper presents the OFM and discusses the suitability of the model to serve as a simulation model for an application as well as various possibilities for implementing an OFM simulator. This research clearly demonstrates that a simulation language with the power of the OFM should be implemented using both traditional event list technology (to handle the unconditional events) combined with qeert systemstyle matching technology to handle guard enforcement.