Papers by Kęstutis Normantas
Augmenting UML with decision table technique
Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies and Workshop for PhD Students in Computing, Jun 18, 2009
The Unified Modelling Language (UML) has become the leading OO analysis and design methodology. H... more The Unified Modelling Language (UML) has become the leading OO analysis and design methodology. However, UML is less suitable for developing and validating business rules with domain experts. This paper presents an approach for definition of business rules in form of decision tables in consistency with UML model. Supporting tools are under the development on top of a commercial CASE
Deriving business rules from the models of existing information systems
Business rules tend to change in the course of time influencing modifications in business support... more Business rules tend to change in the course of time influencing modifications in business supporting information systems. Unfortunately, business rules most often are embedded in the source code of software systems, poorly or even not documented, and implementation details are known only for the developers. The paper addresses these issues and considers a model-driven process for derivation of business rules from the models of existing information systems, providing supporting tools, and supplementing the overall modernization process.
Decision table based approach for business rules modelling in UML/OCL
The Unified Modelling Language (UML) is widely used language for the specification of object-orie... more The Unified Modelling Language (UML) is widely used language for the specification of object-oriented designs. The Object Constraint Language (OCL) supplements this language by providing possibility to specify models in precise and unambiguous manner. However, the OCL is less suited for business rules (BR) modelling and validating with business people because it requires appropriate technical knowledge. This paper presents a decision table (DT) based approach for definition of business rules within UML/OCL models. The relevance between DT and different kinds of OCL expressions has been determined and approach to construct OCL expressions with DT has been considered.
An overview of the knowledge discovery meta-model
Modernization of existing software systems is expensive and not always successive process that in... more Modernization of existing software systems is expensive and not always successive process that involves many challenging activities. In order to support these activities, the Object Management Group within the Architecture-Driven Modernization initiative proposes a number of standard representations of views on existing software systems. The Knowledge Discovery Meta-model plays the fundamental role in this set of representations as it defines common concepts of software assets and their operational environments. This paper addresses issues related to the extraction of knowledge from the software assets and the representation according to the Knowledge Discovery Meta-model in order to abstract the business logic implemented in the system. It observes that although this meta-model minimizes the effort required to obtain representation, it has several drawbacks that limits its capability to express domain specific knowledge. It is believed that this paper will enable researchers and practitioners to get a better understanding of this kind of representation, prepare for the modernization activities, and provide a basis for the further research.
Extracting Business Rules from Existing Enterprise Software System
Communications in computer and information science, 2012
As software systems evolve, it becomes increasingly complex for maintainers to keep them aligned ... more As software systems evolve, it becomes increasingly complex for maintainers to keep them aligned with rapidly changing business requirements. Therefore the cost of software maintenance often exceeds the cost of its initial development or adaptation. As a result, automated approaches for software comprehension emerge providing valuable improvements and cost-savings for the software maintenance. This paper presents an approach that facilitates software comprehension by enabling traceability of implementation of business rules and business scenarios in the software system. It also describes a case study on application of this approach for comprehension of business logic implemented in the enterprise content management system and reports obtained results.
Software maintenance and evolutions often result in large cost overruns and delayed delivery of r... more Software maintenance and evolutions often result in large cost overruns and delayed delivery of required changes or improvements. As numerous studies have shown, adopting software to meet ever-changing business needs constitutes a major part of the software maintenance cost. The demand to facilitate software maintenance has led to the emergence of different methods for automated knowledge extraction from source code and other artefacts of existing software systems. This paper presents a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed conference and journal articles on this topic. The review has been undertaken to summarise the state-of-the-art in the research field, identify any gaps and explore possible directions for the further research. In this review, 7 digital libraries were searched and 24 papers dealing with the topic were identified and classified according to the four dimensions: extracted business knowledge kind, extraction techniques, kinds of software artefacts used as input sources, and extracted knowledge representation forms. The results of this study indicate that the research field is still immature and requires more comprehensive research. The results also show that there is a minority of methods that rely on widely adopted business knowledge classification schemes and only very few of methods employ standards for knowledge representation. It is believed that this review and classification scheme proposed in the paper would serve as a guide for both researches and practitioners in the further studies.
An approach for allocation of shared resources in the rule-based business process simulation
Simulation is an important business process (BP) analysis technique that allows modelling various... more Simulation is an important business process (BP) analysis technique that allows modelling various process execution scenarios under different circumstances. One of the key factors that influence process execution is the availability of resources required to accomplish process activities. Without realistic simulation of resources usage by diverse activities, it is difficult or even impossible to obtain proper simulated BP performance measures. In this paper, we tackle the problem of simulating resources allocation and usage among simultaneous BP activities. We present an approach to model shareable resources and a set of constraints to handle resources allocation and control their usage in the rule-based BP simulation. This approach has been implemented in a prototype of BP simulation tool, and we provide an example showing benefits of applying this approach in a BP simulation.
Shared Resource Model for Allocating Resources to Activities in BP Simulation
Communications in computer and information science, 2016
Resources shareability amongst simultaneous business process (BP) activities is one of the main i... more Resources shareability amongst simultaneous business process (BP) activities is one of the main issues in the BP simulation. Without realistic simulation of shared resources usage, it is difficult to obtain accurate BP performance measures. This paper presents an approach to model shareable resources and a set of rules to handle resources allocation and control their usage in the rule-based BP simulation. The presented model and set of constraints are formalized using the UML/OCL allowing validation of the proof of concept. The approach has been implemented in a prototype of BP simulation tool, and an example highlighting benefits of applying the approach in the BP simulation is presented.
A Goal-Oriented Approach to Dynamic Business Process Simulation
Extracting term units and fact units from existing databases using the Knowledge Discovery Metamodel
Journal of Information Science, Mar 10, 2014
The extraction of business vocabulary is one of the main tasks in discovering business knowledge ... more The extraction of business vocabulary is one of the main tasks in discovering business knowledge implemented in a software system. In this paper we present a model-driven approach to the extraction of business vocabularies from databases of existing software systems. We describe a transformation framework for obtaining the Knowledge Discovery Metamodel based representation of data structure and define an algorithm for the extraction of candidates for business vocabulary entries (i.e. Term and Fact Units) from the representation. The extracted candidates may be further refined by business analysts and used for the identification of business scenarios and rules in software systems.
Decision table based approach for business rules modelling in UML/OCL
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies and Workshop for PhD Students in Computing on International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies, 2010
The Unified Modelling Language (UML) is widely used language for the specification of object-orie... more The Unified Modelling Language (UML) is widely used language for the specification of object-oriented designs. The Object Constraint Language (OCL) supplements this language by providing possibility to specify models in precise and unambiguous manner. However, the OCL is less suited for business rules (BR) modelling and validating with business people because it requires appropriate technical knowledge. This paper presents a decision table (DT) based approach for definition of business rules within UML/OCL models. The relevance between DT and different kinds of OCL expressions has been determined and approach to construct OCL expressions with DT has been considered.
Extracting Business Rules from Existing Enterprise Software System
Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2012
As software systems evolve, it becomes increasingly complex for maintainers to keep them aligned ... more As software systems evolve, it becomes increasingly complex for maintainers to keep them aligned with rapidly changing business requirements. Therefore the cost of software maintenance often exceeds the cost of its initial development or adaptation. As a result, automated approaches for software comprehension emerge providing valuable improvements and cost-savings for the software maintenance. This paper presents an approach that facilitates software comprehension by enabling traceability of implementation of business rules and business scenarios in the software system. It also describes a case study on application of this approach for comprehension of business logic implemented in the enterprise content management system and reports obtained results.
An overview of the knowledge discovery meta-model
Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies, 2012
Modernization of existing software systems is expensive and not always successive process that in... more Modernization of existing software systems is expensive and not always successive process that involves many challenging activities. In order to support these activities, the Object Management Group within the Architecture-Driven Modernization initiative proposes a number of standard representations of views on existing software systems. The Knowledge Discovery Meta-model plays the fundamental role in this set of representations as it defines common concepts of software assets and their operational environments. This paper addresses issues related to the extraction of knowledge from the software assets and the representation according to the Knowledge Discovery Meta-model in order to abstract the business logic implemented in the system. It observes that although this meta-model minimizes the effort required to obtain representation, it has several drawbacks that limits its capability to express domain specific knowledge. It is believed that this paper will enable researchers and practitioners to get a better understanding of this kind of representation, prepare for the modernization activities, and provide a basis for the further research.
Deriving business rules from the models of existing information systems
Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies - CompSysTech '11, 2011
Business rules tend to change in the course of time influencing modifications in business support... more Business rules tend to change in the course of time influencing modifications in business supporting information systems. Unfortunately, business rules most often are embedded in the source code of software systems, poorly or even not documented, and implementation details are known only for the developers. The paper addresses these issues and considers a model-driven process for derivation of business rules from the models of existing information systems, providing supporting tools, and supplementing the overall modernization process.
Modelling of the Business Rules Using Uml/Ocl
Business rules are a crucial business category because they describe how enterprises are conducti... more Business rules are a crucial business category because they describe how enterprises are conducting business. Their value in developing software systems, which must be susceptible to fit rapidly changing business requirements, has made them attractive also within information system domain. As the formalization of business rules becomes a part of the commonly practiced systems analysis process, it is desirable for there to be a single, coherent representation for all kinds of business rules. The Object Constraint Language (OCL) as a part of the Unified Modelling Language (UML) provides the possibility to express business rules in formal and unambiguous manner. In this paper we investigate possibilities how to express different kinds of business rules with the UML/OCL, and discuss their advantages and disadvantages.
Software maintenance and evolutions often result in large cost overruns and delayed delivery of r... more Software maintenance and evolutions often result in large cost overruns and delayed delivery of required changes or improvements. As numerous studies have shown, adopting software to meet ever-changing business needs constitutes a major part of the software maintenance cost. The demand to facilitate software maintenance has led to the emergence of different methods for automated knowledge extraction from source code and other artefacts of existing software systems. This paper presents a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed conference and journal articles on this topic. The review has been undertaken to summarise the state-of-the-art in the research field, identify any gaps and explore possible directions for the further research. In this review, 7 digital libraries were searched and 24 papers dealing with the topic were identified and classified according to the four dimensions: extracted business knowledge kind, extraction techniques, kinds of software artefacts used as input sources, and extracted knowledge representation forms. The results of this study indicate that the research field is still immature and requires more comprehensive research. The results also show that there is a minority of methods that rely on widely adopted business knowledge classification schemes and only very few of methods employ standards for knowledge representation. It is believed that this review and classification scheme proposed in the paper would serve as a guide for both researches and practitioners in the further studies.
Verslo žinių išgavimo iš egzistuojančių programų sistemų tyrimas
The dissertation addresses the problem of software maintenance and evolution. It identifies that ... more The dissertation addresses the problem of software maintenance and evolution. It identifies that spending within these software lifecycle phases may account for up to 80% of software’s total lifecycle cost, whereas the inability to adopt software quickly and reliably to meet ever-changing business requirements may lead to business opportunities being lost. The main reason of this phenomenon is the fact that the most of maintenance effort is devoted to understanding the software to be modified. On the other hand, related studies show that less than one-third of software source code contains business logic implemented within it, while the remaining part is intended for platform or infrastructure relevant activities. It follows that if the most of changes in software are made due to the need to adopt its functionality to changed business requirements, then facilitating software comprehension with automated business knowledge extraction methods may significantly reduce the cost of software maintenance and evolution. Therefore the main goal of this thesis is to improve business knowledge extraction process by proposing a method and supporting tool framework that would facilitate comprehension of existing software systems. The dissertation consists of the following parts: Introduction, 4 chapters, General Conclusions, References, and 6 Annexes. Chapter 1 presents a systematic literature review of related studies in order to summarize the state-of-the art in this research field, identify any gaps in the current research and explore possible directions for the further research. Chapter 2 formulates theoretical background for the business knowledge extraction method by introducing selected standard for the intermediate knowledge representation, defining well-formedness rules for this representation, and by revising and applying static program analysis techniques to this representation. Chapter 3 describes the proposed method for automated business knowledge extraction from existing software systems and introduces the supporting tools framework. Chapter 4 presents the case study on applying the method for knowledge extraction from the existing enterprise content management system, and evaluates study results in respect with the precision, recall, and accuracy measures. The evaluation shows that the proposed method is feasible and efficient enough to be further improved and applied in practice. The main observations are summarised and concluded within the General Conclusions chapter
Extracting term units and fact units from existing databases using the Knowledge Discovery Metamodel
Journal of Information Science, 2014
The extraction of business vocabulary is one of the main tasks in discovering business knowledge ... more The extraction of business vocabulary is one of the main tasks in discovering business knowledge implemented in a software system. In this paper we present a model-driven approach to the extraction of business vocabularies from databases of existing software systems. We describe a transformation framework for obtaining the Knowledge Discovery Metamodel based representation of data structure and define an algorithm for the extraction of candidates for business vocabulary entries (i.e. Term and Fact Units) from the representation. The extracted candidates may be further refined by business analysts and used for the identification of business scenarios and rules in software systems.
Augmenting UML with decision table technique
Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies and Workshop for PhD Students in Computing, 2009
The Unified Modelling Language (UML) has become the leading OO analysis and design methodology. H... more The Unified Modelling Language (UML) has become the leading OO analysis and design methodology. However, UML is less suitable for developing and validating business rules with domain experts. This paper presents an approach for definition of business rules in form of decision tables in consistency with UML model. Supporting tools are under the development on top of a commercial CASE
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Papers by Kęstutis Normantas