Improving the Reuse Possibilities of the Behavioral Aspects of Object-Oriented Domain Models

Abstract

Reuse of domain models is often limited to the reuse of the structural aspects of the domain (e.g. by means of generic data models). In objectoriented models, reuse of dynamic aspects is achieved by reusing the methods of domain classes. Because in the object-oriented approach any behavior is attached to a class, it is impossible to reuse behavior without at the same time reusing the class. In addition, because of the message passing paradigm, object interaction must be specified as a method attached to one class which is invoked by another class. In this way object interaction is hidden in the behavioral aspects of classes. This makes object interaction schemas difficult to reuse and customize. The focus of this paper is on improving the reuse of object-oriented domain models. This is achieved by centering the behavioral aspects around the concept of business events.

A conceptual modeling quality framework

“…Other researchers have shown that different application domains may share common knowledge structures, and that the reuse of models (capturing domain knowledge) from one domain to another is feasible and beneficial (Maiden and Sutcliffe 1992). For instance, Snoeck and Poels (2000) demonstrate this principle of analogical reuse by presenting a conceptual model of product usage (also called object allocation (Lung and Urban 1995)) that was derived from generalizing domain-specific models for libraries and hotels, and that can be applied to domains like the car rental business or flight reservations. Through analogical reuse, modelers apply domain knowledge contributed by many domain experts that is ''stored'' in generic domain models or patterns.…”

Rewiring Strategies for Changing Environments

“…the role of a mobile phone can evolve from multimedia device to VoIP device), there is a growing need for reconfigurable software applications that can dynamically adapt to their runtime environment [1,2]. Therefore, this paper presents a combination of ontology-based environment models, which are constructed using the MERODE methodology [3][4][5][6][7][8] and ReWiRe's environment model [9], which enables software services to react to environment changes (e.g. by.…”