Keywords: Modeling and Simulation, Software, Modeling language Notation, Concrete syntax, Semantic transparency, Empirical evaluation
Astract: The notation of a modeling language is of paramount importance for its efficient use and the correct comprehension of created models. A graphical notation, especially for domain-specific modeling languages, should therefore be aligned to the knowledge, beliefs, and expectations of the targeted model users. One quality attributed to notations is their semantic transparency, indicating the extent to which a notation intuitively suggests its meaning to untrained users. Method engineers should thus aim at semantic transparency for realizing intuitively understandable notations. However, notation design is often treated poorly-if at all-in method engineering methodologies. This paper proposes a technique that, based on iterative evaluation and improvement tasks, steers the notation toward semantic transparency. The approach can be efficiently applied to arbitrary modeling languages and allows easy integration into existing modeling language engineering methodologies. We show the feasibility of the technique by reporting on two cycles of Action Design Research including the evaluation and improvement of the semantic transparency of the Process-Goal Alignment modeling language notation. An empirical evaluation comparing the new notation against the initial one shows the effectiveness of the technique.

Keywords: model-driven engineering, cyber-physical systems, MDE, SysML, domain-specific modeling
Astract: Whether in factories, autonomous vehicles or smart buildings, cyber-physical systems (CPS) are finding increasing use in society. Since CPS, unlike traditional software systems, have a direct influence on their physical environment, monitoring the execution is an essential part of such systems. Just like the actual system, the monitoring application must be designed, developed, and tested. Mobile CPSs, in contrast to stationary CPSs, bring the additional requirement that instances can dynamically join, leave, or fail during execution time. This dynamic behavior must also be considered in the monitoring application. In this thesis a pipeline is presented for the model-driven development of CPS systems with mobile components including a cockpit application for monitoring and interacting with such a system. The pipeline starts with the formulation of the system and the CPSs it contains at an abstract level by the system architect using a modeling language designed for the system architect's needs. In a next step, this model is transformed to SysML 2 to get further extended and specified by system engineers on a more technical level. In the last step of the pipeline the SysML 2 model is used to generate code for the CPS devices, a system-wide digital twin and the cockpit application mentioned above. This cockpit enables the operator to configure and apply the monitoring as well as the interaction with the system during runtime.

Keywords: model-driven engineering, metamodeling platforms, ADOxx, EMF, Interoperability
Astract: Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) has become a pivotal way to conduct software engineering,focusing on model creation and modification, introducing great flexibility indevelopment and operation. Two major metamodeling platforms used in this contextare ADOxx and the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF). Both tools offer a great setof metamodeling techniques and environments. They share a lot of similarities but also have differences in crucial aspects of their implementation and usage.As of now, both these two platforms exist in isolation. It is impossible to use the two platforms interchangeably, i.e., take a metamodel or model from one platform and use it in the other. With this feature enabled, domain experts and model engineers could work on the same (meta)model, independently of their desired choice of tool.This thesis focuses on answering whether and how a transformation procedure can enable interoperability between the two platforms. It will show that interoperability between the two is feasible for most of the given input metamodels and that the proposed solution results are syntactically and semantically valid.This is done by first analyzing the differences and similarities of the two platforms and then creating a concept for a bridge that maps metamodel files from one platform to another. Later, the implementation of the bridges for both directions is performed, and the evaluation results are analyzed in the context of syntactic and semantic equivalence based on various metamodels.

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Astract: The COVID-19 pandemic did not only dramatically impact the personal and social lives, for many academics, it also demanded immediate changes to the way their courses are taught. While a pragmatic approach is to do conventional lectures via video streaming platforms, much more may be done to educate students also in a remote setting properly. This particularly holds true for practice-oriented and technology-engaging courses. This paper describes our experience of transforming an in-person Master level class on model-driven software engineering into a distance learning one. We describe the structure, the content, the teaching and examination format, and the used platforms in detail. We critically reflect on our experiences and report the feedback gained by a post-class student evaluation. We believe this paper provides meaningful lessons learned and best practices for other educators challenged with the task of teaching similar courses in a remote setting. With this paper, we publish an openly available Github repository that features all course content including sample solutions for all practical lab assignments.

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Astract: While there are many tools that can depict a business process on any level of detail, there is lack of tools to depict and/or design process architectures - an interconnected set of business processes that exist or are to be introduced in an organization. The FEM toolkit bridges this gap by providing a tool for process architects to discover the process architecture of an organization as-is or to develop a new one. The FEM toolkit facilitates this by providing means to discover or develop a so-called Fractal Enterprise Model (FEM) for an organization. FEM depicts interconnections between the business processes in an enterprise by connecting them to the assets they use and manage. Assets considered in the model could be tangible (buildings, heavy machinery, etc.) and intangible (reputation, business process definitions, etc.). The FEM toolkit has been developed with the help of the metamodeling environment ADOxx. It was successfully used in a number of practically oriented projects and for teaching purposes.