Skip to main content

An Approach for Synchronizing UML Models and Narrative Text in Literate Modeling

  • Conference paper
Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS 2012)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 7590))

Abstract

A major challenge in adopting UML in industrial environments is the lack of accessibility and comprehensibility of some diagram types by non-technical stakeholders. Literate Modeling improves comprehension of these diagrams by adding narrative text, but lacks good tool support for synchronizing model and text. This paper presents an approach for keeping model and text synchronized by effectively combining state-of-the-art natural language processing technology with OCL model querying. Thereby, consistency of element names in the UML model with their counterparts in the text is achieved by using text annotations to provide the semantic link. At a structural level, we propose an algorithm that checks element relationships in the UML model using a set of validation constraints when particular sentence characteristics are detected. An analysis of the runtime complexity shows the feasibility of including the proposed solution in one of today’s CASE tools.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Arlow, J., Emmerich, W., Quinn, J.A.: Literate Modelling — Capturing Business Knowledge with the UML. In: Bézivin, J., Muller, P.-A. (eds.) UML 1998. LNCS, vol. 1618, pp. 189–199. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  2. Arlow, J., Neustadt, I.: Enterprise Patterns and MDA: Building Better Software with Archetype Patterns and UML. The Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series. Addison-Wesley, Boston (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Arlow, J., Neustadt, I.: Secrets of Analysis: Generative Analysis with M++, UML 2 and Literate Modelling (book, to be published)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Berardi, D., Cali, A., Calvanese, D., Di Giacomo, G.: Reasoning on UML class diagrams. Artificial Intelligence 168, 2005 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Conway, D.M.: An algorithmic approach to English pluralization. In: Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Perl Conference, San Jose, CA, USA (August 1998)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Cook, S., Nguyen, P.: Logical Foundations of Proof Complexity, 1st edn. Cambridge University Press, New York (2010)

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. de Marneffe, M.-C., Manning, C.D.: The Stanford typed dependencies representation. In: Coling 2008: Proceedings of the Workshop on Cross-Framework and Cross-Domain Parser Evaluation, CrossParser 2008, Manchester, UK, pp. 1–8 (August 2008)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Deeptimahanti, D.K., Sanyal, R.: An Innovative Approach for Generating Static UML Models from Natural Language Requirements. In: Kim, T.-h., Fang, W.-C., Lee, C., Arnett, K.P. (eds.) ASEA 2008. CCIS, vol. 30, pp. 147–163. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  9. Denti, E., Omicini, A., Ricci, A.: tuProlog: A Light-Weight Prolog for Internet Applications and Infrastructures. In: Ramakrishnan, I.V. (ed.) PADL 2001. LNCS, vol. 1990, pp. 184–198. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  10. Denti, E., Omicini, A., Ricci, A.: Multi-paradigm Java-Prolog integration in tuProlog. Science of Computer Programming 57, 217–250 (2005)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  11. Dzidek, W.J.: Empirical Evaluation of the Costs and Benefits of UML in Software Maintenance. PhD thesis, University of Oslo (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Dzidek, W.J., Arisholm, E., Briand, L.C.: A Realistic Empirical Evaluation of the Costs and Benefits of UML in Software Maintenance. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 34, 407–432 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Harmain, H.M., Gaizauskas, R.: CM-Builder: A natural language-based CASE tool for object-oriented analysis. Automated Software Engineering 10, 157–181 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Klein, D., Manning, C.D.: Accurate unlexicalized parsing. In: Proceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting on Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2003), Sapporo, Japanvol. 1, pp. 423–430 (May 2003)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Lavoie, B., Rambow, O., Reiter, E.: Customizable descriptions of object-oriented models. In: Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Applied Natural Language Processing (ANLP 1997), Washington D.C., WA, USA, pp. 253–256 (March 1997)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Meziane, F., Athanasakis, N., Ananiadou, S.: Generating Natural Language Specifications from UML Class Diagrams. Requirements Engineering 13(1), 1–18 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Object Management Group. Object Constraint Language. Version 2.2 (February 2010)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Pinggera, J., Porcham, T., Zugal, S., Weber, B.: LiProMo — Literate Process Modeling. In: Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE 2012), pp. 163–170 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Schulze, G.: Synchronization of UML models and narrative text using model constraints and natural language processing. Master’s thesis, University of Innsbruck (June 2011)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Whittle, J., et al.: Empirical Assessment of the Efficacy of MDE (2010), http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/~eamde/

  21. Wilke, C., Bartho, A., Schroeter, J., Karol, S., Aßmann, U.: Elucidative Development for Model-Based Documentation. In: Furia, C.A., Nanz, S. (eds.) TOOLS 2012. LNCS, vol. 7304, pp. 320–335. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  22. Yue, T., Briand, L., Labiche, Y.: Automatically deriving a UML analysis model from a use case model. Technical Report 2010-15, Simula Research Laboratory (2010)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Schulze, G., Chimiak-Opoka, J., Arlow, J. (2012). An Approach for Synchronizing UML Models and Narrative Text in Literate Modeling. In: France, R.B., Kazmeier, J., Breu, R., Atkinson, C. (eds) Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems. MODELS 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7590. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33666-9_38

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33666-9_38

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-33665-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-33666-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics