@article {424, title = {A Case Study on Consistency Management of Business and IT Process Models in Banking}, journal = {SoSyM - Special Issue on Enterprise Modeling}, year = {2013}, author = {Branco, Moises and Xiong, Yingfei and Krzysztof Czarnecki and K{\"u}ster, Jochen M. and V{\"o}lzer, Hagen} } @conference {523, title = {SmartFixer: Fixing Software Configurations based on Self-adaptive Priorities}, booktitle = {17th International Software Product Line Conference}, year = {2013}, publisher = {ACM}, organization = {ACM}, address = {Tokyo}, abstract = {Large modern software systems are often organized as product lines, requiring specialists to configure variability models before delivering a product. Variability models help detect configuration errors. Unfortunately, fixing configuration errors is known to be time-consuming. Although automated approaches to recommend fixes exist, they lack guidance to help users identify a desirable fix. This paper proposes an approach to provide such guidance using self-adaptive priorities. The basic idea is to first generate one fix, and then to gradually reach the desirable fix based on user feedback. To this end, our approach (1) automatically translates user feedback into a set of implicit priority levels on configuration variables, using five priority assignment and adjustment strategies and (2) efficiently generates potential desirable fixes by calculating new values for the variables with low priority. The experiments on real variability models show that we can reduce up to 89\% of the fixes, and up to 98\% of the variables shown to the user, compared to when no priorities are used.}, attachments = {http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/smartfixer.pdf}, author = {Wang, Bo and Passos, Leonardo and Xiong, Yingfei and Krzysztof Czarnecki and Zhao, Haiyan and Zhang, Wei} } @conference {436, title = {Generating Range Fixes for Software Configuration}, booktitle = {ICSE{\textquoteright}12: 34th International Conference on Software Engineering}, year = {2012}, month = {06/2012}, attachments = {http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/ICSE12 - final.pdf , http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/ICSE12-slides.pdf , http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/ICSE12-video.zip}, author = {Xiong, Yingfei and Hubaux, Arnaud and She, Steven and Krzysztof Czarnecki} } @conference {431, title = {A User Survey of Configuration Challenges in Linux and eCos}, booktitle = {Variability Modelling of Software-intensive Systems (VaMoS)}, year = {2012}, month = {01/2012}, publisher = {ACM Press}, organization = {ACM Press}, address = {Leipzig, Germany}, attachments = {http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/vamos12-survey.pdf}, author = {Hubaux, Arnaud and Xiong, Yingfei and Krzysztof Czarnecki} } @article {453, title = {An Empirical Study on Consistency Management of Business and IT Process Models}, year = {2012}, institution = {Generative Software Development Laboratory}, address = {Waterloo}, abstract = {Process models support the transition from business requirements to IT implementations. Organizations that adopt process modeling often maintain several co-existing models of the same business process. These models target different abstraction levels and stakeholder perspectives. Maintaining consistency among these models has become a major challenge for such organizations. Although several academic works have discussed this challenge, little empirical investigation exists on how people perform process model consistency management in practice. This paper aims to address this lack by presenting an in-depth empirical study of a business-driven engineering process deployed at a large company in the banking sector. We analyzed more than 70 business process models developed by the company, including their change history, with over 1000 change requests. We also interviewed 9 business and IT practitioners and surveyed 23 such practitioners to understand concrete difficulties in consistency management, the rationales for the specification-to-implementation refinements found in the models, strategies that the practitioners use to detect and fix inconsistencies, and how tools could help with these tasks. Our contributions are 1) an account of how business process models co-evolve and how their consistency is maintained in a concrete industrial setting; 2) a set of recurrent patterns used to refine business-level process specifications into IT-level models, and 3) a set of findings that confirm or contradict conventional wisdom on process model consistency management found in the literature. }, issn = {GSDLAB-TR 2012-03-22}, attachments = {http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/2011-TR-empirical_study_bpm.pdf}, author = {Branco, Moises and Xiong, Yingfei and Krzysztof Czarnecki and K{\"u}ster, Jochen M. and Voelzer, Hagen} } @proceedings {357, title = {Specifying Overlaps of Heterogeneous Models for Global Consistency Checking}, journal = {MoDELS{\textquoteright}10 Workshops: Reports and Selected Papers}, volume = {6627}, year = {2011}, month = {2011}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Oslo, Norway}, abstract = {Software development often involves a set of models defined in different metamodels, each model capturing a specific view of the system. We call this set a \emph{multimodel}, and its elements \emph{partial} or \emph{local} models. Since partial models overlap, they may be consistent or inconsistent wrt. a set of \emph{global} constraints. We present a framework for specifying overlaps between partial models and defining their global consistency. An advantage of the framework is that heterogeneous consistency checking is reduced to the homogeneous case yet merging partial metamodels into one global metamodel is not needed. We illustrate the framework with examples and sketch its formal semantics based on category theory.}, isbn = {978-3-642-21209-3}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21210-9}, attachments = {http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/zMDI-10(springer)_0.pdf}, author = {Diskin, Zinovy and Xiong, Yingfei and Krzysztof Czarnecki} } @conference {372, title = {Correctness of Model Synchronization Based on Triple Graph Grammars}, booktitle = {ACM/IEEE 14th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems}, year = {2011}, month = {10/2011}, publisher = {Springer}, organization = {Springer}, attachments = {http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/main -final.pdf}, author = {Hermann, Frank and Ehrig, Hartmut and Orejas, Fernando and Krzysztof Czarnecki and Diskin, Zinovy and Xiong, Yingfei} } @conference {370, title = {From State- to Delta-based Bidirectional Model Transformations: the Symmetric Case}, booktitle = {ACM/IEEE 14th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems}, series = {MODELS}, year = {2011}, month = {10/2011}, publisher = {Springer}, organization = {Springer}, attachments = {http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/MODELS11 - final.pdf , http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/Talks 1-2 at Wat_0.pdf}, author = {Diskin, Zinovy and Xiong, Yingfei and Krzysztof Czarnecki and Ehrig, Hartmut and Hermann, Frank and Orejas, Fernando} } @proceedings {374, title = {A Study of Non-Boolean Constraints in Variability Models of an Embedded Operating System}, journal = {3rd International Workshop on Feature Oriented Software Development}, year = {2011}, month = {08/2011}, publisher = {ACM}, address = {Munich, Germany}, abstract = {Many variability modeling tasks can be supported by automated analyses of models. Unfortunately, most analyses for Boolean variability models are NP-hard, while analyses for non-Boolean models easily become undecidable. It is thus crucial to exploit the properties of realistic models to construct viable analysis algorithms. Unfortunately, little work exists about non-Boolean models, and no benchmarks are available for such. We present the non-Boolean aspects of 116 variability models available in the codebase of eCos{\textemdash}a real time embedded operating system. We characterize the types of nonBoolean features in the models, kinds and quantities of nonBoolean constraints in use, and the impact of these characteristics on the hardness of this model from analysis perspective. This way we provide researchers and practitioners with a basis for discussion of relevance of non-Boolean models and their analyses, along with the first ever benchmark for effectiveness of such analyses.}, isbn = {978-1-4503-0789-5/11/08}, url = {http://fosd.de/2011}, attachments = {http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/FOSD11-final_1.pdf , http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/FOSD 2011.pdf}, author = {Passos, Leonardo and Novakovic, Marko and Xiong, Yingfei and Thorsten Berger and Krzysztof Czarnecki and W{\k a}sowski, Andrzej} } @article {353, title = {Friendly Change Extraction for BPMN Workflows}, journal = {IBM TechConnect}, year = {2011}, month = {05/2011}, publisher = {IBM}, address = {Markham, ON, Canada}, abstract = {Abstract: A key need in collaborative workflow modeling is the identification of changes made independently by several stakeholders on a reference model. We present a heuristic approach for change extraction on BPMN workflows, which does not rely on change history, neither on model element identifiers. Our algorithm extracts changes by finding both a match between the nodes of the compared two process structure trees and a minimum edit script that can transform one tree into the other given the computed matching. As a result, we can identify fine-grained change types between workflow versions by means of human-readable and intuitive operations, such as insert, delete, update and move. We evaluated our approach by replaying 38 real change scenarios and the algorithm produced minimum edit scripts in 72 percent of the cases. Objectives: - Find the difference between two BPMN workflow models without relying on change history or unique element identifiers. - Present individual changes by means of human-readable and intuitive operations such as insert, delete, move and update. - Optimize the number of operations for producing the minimum edit script that can be applied to one workflow to obtain the other.}, attachments = {http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/IBM TechConnect 2011 Poster.pdf}, author = {Branco, Moises and Xiong, Yingfei and Krzysztof Czarnecki and Lau, Alex and Coulthard, Phil} } @article {338, title = {From State- to Delta-based Bidirectional Model Transformations: the Symmetric Case}, year = {2011}, month = {05/2011}, institution = {Generative Software Development Laboratory, University of Waterloo}, type = {Technical Report}, address = {Waterloo}, abstract = {Algebraic frameworks are important for building semantic foundations of bidirectional model transformations (BX). Symmetric BX are those for which neither model in a pair of synchronized models fully determines the other. We build two algebraic frameworks for symmetric BXs, with one correctly implementing the other, and both being delta-based generalizations of previous state-based frameworks. We also identify two new algebraic laws---weak undoability and weak invertibility, which are important for both state- and delta-based setting.}, issn = {GSDLAB-TR 2011-05-03}, attachments = {http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/zMODELS11 - TR.pdf}, author = {Diskin, Zinovy and Xiong, Yingfei and Krzysztof Czarnecki and Ehrig, Hartmut and Hermann, Frank and Orejas, Fernando} } @article {412, title = {Configuration Challenges in Linux and eCos: A Survey}, number = {GSDLAB-TR 2011-09-29}, year = {2011}, institution = {Generative Software Development Laboratory, University of Waterloo}, address = {Waterloo}, attachments = {http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/Linux-eCos-Survey-v1.pdf , http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/eCos-Questionnaire.pdf , http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/Linux-Questionnaire.pdf}, author = {Hubaux, Arnaud and Xiong, Yingfei and Krzysztof Czarnecki} } @article {348, title = {Configurator Semantics of the CDL language}, year = {2011}, institution = {Generative Software Development Laboratory, University of Waterloo}, type = {Technical Report}, address = {Waterloo}, issn = {GSDLAB-TR 2011-06-05}, attachments = {http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/CDLSemantics.pdf}, author = {Xiong, Yingfei} } @article {354, title = {From State- to Delta-Based Bidirectional Model Transformations: the Asymmetric Case}, journal = {Journal of Object Technology}, volume = {10}, year = {2011}, abstract = {Existing bidirectional model transformation (BX) languages are mainly state-based: model alignment is hidden inside update propagating procedures, and model deltas are implicit. Weaving alignment with update propagation complicates the latter and makes it less predictable and less manageable. We propose to separate concerns and consider two distinct operations: delta discovery (alignment) and delta propagation. This architecture has several technological advantages, but requires a corresponding theoretical support. The goal of the paper is to develop a delta-based algebraic framework for the case of \emph{asymmetric} BX, where one model is a view of the other. In this framework, model spaces are categories (nodes are models and arrows are composable deltas), and delta propagation procedures are mappings between them. We call the corresponding algebras \emph{delta lenses}, prove their several basic properties, and explore their relationships with ordinary lenses --- well-known algebraic models for state-based asymmetric BX.}, doi = {10.5381/jot.2011.10.1.a6}, author = {Diskin, Zinovy and Xiong, Yingfei and Krzysztof Czarnecki} } @article {422, title = {Generating Range Fixes for Software Configuration}, year = {2011}, institution = {Generative Software Development Laboratory, University of Waterloo}, type = {Technical Report}, address = {Waterloo}, issn = {GSDLAB-TR 2011-10-27}, attachments = {http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/GSDTR-2011-10-27.pdf}, author = {Xiong, Yingfei and Hubaux, Arnaud and She, Steven and Krzysztof Czarnecki} } @article {379, title = {Quick Consistency Management in BPM}, journal = {IBM CASCON 2011}, year = {2011}, abstract = {Managing consistency of related process models that target different abstraction levels and stakeholder{\textquoteright}s perspectives is a key need for performing inter-model analysis, change propagation and validation. Effective consistency management requires dealing with tacit collaboration patterns of the stakeholders and the complex relations among the models. In this showcase we present algorithms for finding syntactic and semantic mismatches between two BPMN models. The algorithms are based on graph matching and computational tree logics. We present practical implementations of the algorithms on top of Eclipse, EMF/GMF, VIATRA2 and TAPAs.}, author = {Branco, Moises and Xiong, Yingfei and Krzysztof Czarnecki and Lau, Alex and Coulthard, Phil and Kuester, Jochen and Voelzer, Hagen} } @proceedings {305, title = {Specifying Overlaps of Heterogeneous Models for Global Consistency Checking}, journal = {1st Workshop on Model Driven Interoperability}, year = {2010}, month = {10/2010}, pages = {42-51}, publisher = {ACM Press}, address = {Co-located with MoDELS 2010, Oslo, Norway}, abstract = {Software development often involves a set of models de fined in diff erent metamodels, each model capturing a specifi c view of the system. We call this set a mutlimodel, and its elements partial or local models. Since partial models overlap, they may be consistent or inconsistent wrt. a set of global constraints. We present a framework for specifying overlaps between partial models and de fining their global consistency. An advantage of the framework is that heterogeneous consistency checking is reduced to the homogeneous case yet merging partial metamodels into one global metamodel is not needed. We illustrate the framework with examples and sketch a formal semantics for it based on category theory.}, attachments = {http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/MDI10_2.pdf , http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/MDI10-slides_0.pdf}, author = {Diskin, Zinovy and Xiong, Yingfei and Krzysztof Czarnecki} } @proceedings {262, title = {From State-Based to Delta-Based Bidirectional Model Transformation}, journal = {3rd International Conference on Model Transformation}, year = {2010}, month = {06/2010}, pages = {61-76}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Malaga, Spain}, abstract = {Existing bidirectional model transformation languages are mainly state-based: a transformation is considered composed from functions whose inputs and outputs only consist of original and updated models, but alignment relationships between the models are not specified. In the paper we identify and discuss three major problems caused by this under-specification. We then propose a novel formal framework based on a graphical language: models are nodes and updates are arrows, and show how the three problems can be fixed.}, isbn = {978-3-642-13687-0}, attachments = {http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/ICMT10_0.pdf , http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/icmt10-last_0.ppt}, author = {Diskin, Zinovy and Xiong, Yingfei and Krzysztof Czarnecki} } @conference {337, title = {Effective Collaboration and Consistency Management in Business Process Modeling}, booktitle = {The 2010 Conference of the Center for Advanced Studies on Collaborative Research - CASCON {\textquoteright}10}, year = {2010}, publisher = {ACM Press}, organization = {ACM Press}, address = {Toronto, Ontario, Canada}, abstract = {Business Process Modeling is a collaborative task of different groups of specialists, including business analysts, solution architects and system developers. They work on different levels of abstraction and collaborate to create a set of different but related artifacts, from business requirements and high-level process specifications to executable models. A critical activity in BPM is managing consistency among these artifacts. Successful consistency management requires understanding the key needs and collaboration patterns of the stakeholders and the complex relations among the artifacts. The workshop featured researchers, industry specialists and tool vendors to discuss open issues and challenges on the topic.}, doi = {10.1145/1923947.1923985}, url = {http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1923985}, attachments = {http://gsd.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/p349-branco.pdf}, author = {Branco, Moises and Xiong, Yingfei and Krzysztof Czarnecki and Wong, Janette and Lau, Alex} }