Keywords: Conceptual Modeling
Astract: Fundamental decisions are made in the early phases of software development. The typical outcomes of these phases are models of different kinds, such as architectural models, data models, and process models. Automation support is required to efficiently and effectively handle large models and conduct continuous quality improvement processes. Thus, several approaches have been proposed that integrate modeling with Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods such as Genetic Algorithms (GAs), among others. These approaches, e.g., transform models to improve their quality by searching for good solutions within the potential solution space. In this chapter, we first review existing applications of AI methods to model-based software engineering problems. Subsequently, we show a representative use case of how a model-based software analysis and design problem can be solved using GAs. In particular, we focus on the well-known and challenging modularization problem: splitting an overarching, monolithic model into smaller modules. We present two encodings, the model-based and the transformation-based encoding, which are both applied for the modularization of Entity-Relationship (ER) diagrams. We further discuss how these encodings may be adapted to other structural models and conclude with an outlook on future research lines related to software modeling intelligence.

Keywords: Conceptual Modeling

Keywords: Collaborative modeling, GLSP, UML, bigUML, Workflow tool, Web modeling, Modeling tool, Visual Studio Live Share
Astract: The PC has become an integral part of our working environment. It supports us at school and university, at work and in our free time. The coronavirus pandemic has increased this dependency enormously. Many lessons have been held remotely, friends have communicated via video calls and many of us have worked completely from home. However, working from home also brings a number of difficulties and problems with it, for example how several people can work together efficiently on the same thing. This is where collaborative working starts.In the context of IT, collaborative work means that several people are working on a document at the same time. This applies to textual documents, as well as all other kinds of documents. This diploma thesis is concentrating on diagrams, i.e. graphical documents that interact with GLSP (Graphical Language Server Platform). GLSP offers a platform, which provides a protocol, to develop modeling tools for diagrams. This work is intended to extend the GLSP protocol, so it will provide collaborative real-time modeling on diagrams.Analyzing existing collaborative editors should provide a good base upon to define clear requirements for the solution. The raised questions deal with how GLSP can be extended in order to use it for collaborative purposes. Furthermore, the investigation should lay the foundation for creating a good user experience within a collaborative session. A prototype based on the Workflow tool aims to implement the developed concept and provide a first insight into collaborative modeling with GLSP. An evaluation should also demonstrate that it is easily possible to apply the prototype to other modeling languages. Finally, a comprehensive real-time test will check the solution for performance, user-friendliness and reliability.

Keywords: model engineering, UML, sequence diagram, GLSP, web modeling, modeling tool, bigUML
Astract: The sequence diagram (SD) plays a significant role in software development and business organization. It defines processes and systems interactions with a precise temporal semantic. The temporal semantics bring about additional complexity, making SD modeling tools bothersome. Available SD modeling tools struggle to provide a functional yet user-friendly palette of interaction behaviors. This difficulty results in divergent implementations and modeling behaviors, causing widespread poor usability. The reliance of tools on long-established technologies further hinders more efficient tool functions and design. Switching to modern web technologies could unlock more advanced modeling interactions. Doing so as part of an open-source project allows the adoption of implementations in other diagrams and enables future adaptions and improvements of the tool. This thesis analyses the most noted SD modeling tools and derives a systematic overview of their functionalities and implemented behaviors. Based on this, an SD modeling tool with its respective interactions and editing behaviors is conceptualized to fulfill the semantic requirements and ensure usability. The concept is realized as an artifact developed on the Graphical Language Server Platform (GLSP), adding the support for SDs to the open-source UML modeling editor bigUML currently in development. The tool features essential SD modeling behaviors with the addition of specialized functionalities, rendering the modeling process more reactive and dynamic. It combines robust modeling functionalities and the convenience of web-based features. The implementation of the concepts is assessed against the conceptualized requirements, and the resulting artifact undergoes evaluation through a defined modeling process, enabling a comparison with existing solutions.

Keywords: Enterprise architecture, Historical analysis, Knowledge graph
Astract: Enterprise Architecture (EA) is the discipline that aims to provide a holistic view of the enterprise by explicating business and IT alignment from the perspectives of high-level corporate strategy down to daily operations and network infrastructures. EAs are consequently complex as they compose and integrate many aspects on different architecture layers. A recent proposal to cope with this complexity and to make EAs amenable to automated and intuitive visual analysis is the transformation of EA models into EA Knowledge Graphs. A remaining limitation of these approaches is that they perceive the EA to be static, i.e., they represent and analyze EAs at a single point in time. In the paper at hand, we introduce a historization concept, a prototypical implementation, and a performance analysis for how EAs can be represented and processed to enable the analysis of their evolution.