Modeling languages domain-specific

We have seen that templates can be used to define domain-specific patterns, providing a higher-level notation for describing problems. The same templates can be used to define the modeling language itself, down to its formal basics. 

The methodology employs domain-specific modeling languages (see first chapter in this volume) to describe... 

A modeling language should be rich with domain-specific knowledge and thus allow the user to think about the task at hand in terms that are familiar (Stephanopoulos et al., 1990a, b Kritikos, 1991). 

VeDa is intended as a modeling language for the domain of process engineering, which can be used for the representation of specific mathematical models of chemical process systems in a model library as well as for the representation of knowledge about models and the modeling process in a knowledge-based modeling environment. 

A modeling language (i.e. metamodel) that combines the above four aspects, as well as their domain specific interdependencies and constraints, is able to consistently describe the design process. Our existing NATURE based environment metamodel captures the ways of working that support the enactment of developers while cooperating. In order to touch cooperative work, it will have to be extended with further elements of a cooperation metamodel that describes the above aspects. The cooperation metamodel is compatible with the basic elements of the C3 formalism for the description of cooperative work that has been developed in the IMPROVE project (see Subsect. 2.4.4). The extended environment metamodel in shown in Fig. 3.11. 

Domain-specific knowledge is formalized by a process model definition (cf. Sect. 2.4) which constrains the process model instances to be maintained at project runtime. As a consequence, the manager may compose task nets from predefined types and relationships. The process model definition is represented in the Unified Modeling Language UML [560]), a wide-spread standard notation for object-oriented modeling. A process model is defined on the type level by a class diagram which has been adapted to the underlying process meta model for dynamic task nets [388, 389]. 

By creating domain specific languages that model the problem domain, rules can look very close to natural language. They lend themselves to logic that is understandable to domain experts who may be nontechnical, like auditors. 

In the above representation, the starting point for high-level synthesis is a behavioral domain specification at levels above the logic level. We will assume that the behavior is specified in a sequential (procedural, imperative) Hardware Description Language (HDL) such as sequential VHDL. Synchronous systems can be described in terms of a simple model of time using basic time units called control steps (cycles, or states of a finite automaton). The initial design... 

The initial diffusion of MDA was focused on its relation with UML as modeling language. However, there are UML users who do not use MDA, and MDA users who use other modeling languages such as some DSL (Domain Specific Language). The essence of MDA is the meta-metamodel MOF (Meta Object Facility) that allows different kinds of artifacts from multiple vendors to be used together in a same project (MOF, 2006). The MOF 2.0 Query, View, Transformation (QVT) metamodel is the standard for expressing transformations (QVT, 2008). 

Keywords Domain-specific language, Eclipse, EMF, GMF, Event-B, ProB, SMT solvers, model transformation, capacity-improving patterns. 

The SafeCap platform uses the Eclipse Modelling Eramework (EMF) - a versatile tool for the implementation of a custom domain-specific language. We have found it sufficient to capture the static part of SafeCap DSL. 

Introduction of XML formats was a very important step toward better intercomputer communication, but it is not a miraculous solution to all problems. Not every possible relation is easily expressed in XML (Wang et al. 2005), so specifications usually contain many implicit assumptions that are not properly formalized. The Resource Description Framework (RDF) provides a very powerful yet simple model for this formalization (Manola and Miller 2004). In this framework, any information is transformed to basic units called triplets that are combined to map the available information. This unifying mechanism can be used to express hierarchical vocabularies for domain knowledge description, as in RDF Schema (Brickley and Guha 2004) or its extension, Web Ontology Language (OWL) (Smith et al. 2004), both standardized by the W3C. 

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