Ontologies, Meta-models, and the Model-Driven Paradigm

Abstract

Abstract. So far, ontologies in the Semantic Web and models in model-driven engineering have been developed mainly in isolation. It seems that due to a lack of communication between communities, modelling concepts have been designed similarly in both paradigms without ensuring their orthogonality. On the long run, this will replicate efforts and cannot be afforded by either community. Hence, this chapter discusses the role of ontologies, models, and meta-models in the model-driven engineering (MDE). To show how ontologies can be employed in MDE, in particular, in its variant model-driven architecture (MDA), the chapter presents a meta-modelling hierarchy that is aware of ontologies-that is, an ontology-aware mega-model of MDE. Based on the insight of [38] that the main difference of models and ontologies lies in their descriptiveness resp. prescriptiveness, the role of ontologies in this meta-pyramid is to describe the existing world, the environment, and the domain of the system (analysis), while the role of system models is to specify and control the system under study itself on various levels of abstraction (design and implementation). Consequently, in this scheme, MDE starts from ontologies, refines, and augments them towards system models, respecting their relationships to prescriptive models on all metalevels.

Simulation of the cdmm-p paradigm-driven meta-modeling process

“…The ontology can be used for application design, like in the case of JOINT system [16]. Ontologies can be designed from MOF-based MDA-compliant meta-model [7] or vice-versa [1].…”

Formal modelling, knowledge representation and reasoning for design and development of user-centric pervasive software: a meta-review

“…The design begins with a high level model and iteratively transforms the model to more concrete models through introduction of more platform specific information at every stage (Assmann et al, 2006a). The benefits of MDD can be discussed under two main and interrelated categories: abstraction and automation.…”

“…Once the target phenomena is conceptualised and formalised in terms of an ontology, specific transformations can be used to transform parts of ontology to specific models, for instance, structure of an ontology can be transformed to a UML class diagram (which is not only different in terms of visual notation, but new constructs will also appear, e.g., use of Java interfaces for multiple inheritance, based on various patterns). Such an approach allows iterating from natural representations to specific representations of the domain (Assmann et al, 2006a;Fonseca, 2007). The overall approach is based on the understanding that ontologies are boarder than models in terms of semantics and the reality they describe (Fonseca and Martin, 2007), and ontologies are always backward looking (i.e., descriptive: describe what already exists) that in a real world is described with the concepts of the ontology, while models are mainly forward looking (i.e., prescriptive: prescribe a system that does not exist, and reality is constructed from it), that is, objects of a system's elements are instances of the model elements (Gonzalez-Perez and Sellers, 2007;Henderson-Sellers, 2011).…”

“…The overall approach is based on the understanding that ontologies are boarder than models in terms of semantics and the reality they describe (Fonseca and Martin, 2007), and ontologies are always backward looking (i.e., descriptive: describe what already exists) that in a real world is described with the concepts of the ontology, while models are mainly forward looking (i.e., prescriptive: prescribe a system that does not exist, and reality is constructed from it), that is, objects of a system's elements are instances of the model elements (Gonzalez-Perez and Sellers, 2007;Henderson-Sellers, 2011). Ontologies are primarily used to describe domains (Sicilia et al, 2009) while models are used to prescribe systems (Assmann et al, 2006a). Although there is an ongoing discussion on distinguishing between models, meta-models and ontologies (in the literature, several authors directly investigate comparisons of ontologies and meta-models as well as comparisons of ontologies and models (Henderson-Sellers, 2011)) from a philosophical perspective, since at this stage we are more interested in practical issues we refer interested readers to Assmann et al (2006a), Devedzic (2002), Gonzalez-Perez and Sellers (2007) and Henderson-Sellers (2011).…”

“…Ontologies are primarily used to describe domains (Sicilia et al, 2009) while models are used to prescribe systems (Assmann et al, 2006a). Although there is an ongoing discussion on distinguishing between models, meta-models and ontologies (in the literature, several authors directly investigate comparisons of ontologies and meta-models as well as comparisons of ontologies and models (Henderson-Sellers, 2011)) from a philosophical perspective, since at this stage we are more interested in practical issues we refer interested readers to Assmann et al (2006a), Devedzic (2002), Gonzalez-Perez and Sellers (2007) and Henderson-Sellers (2011). Regarding a possible methodology towards integrating ontologies and MDD based on the third approach, the following has been proposed in and , shown in Figure 8, for the development of adaptive and pervasive computing systems and applications (an informative methodology rather than a normative one).…”