US-Slovenia Workshop: Formalization of Modeling Languages

University Of Alabama At Birmingham, Birmingham AL

Investigators

Abstract

OISE 0968596 Bryant This computer science workshop will be held in Slovenia to examine formalization of modeling languages which are central to reliable software tools and based on sound, fundamental programming principles. Participating senior and junior U.S. researchers will meet counterparts from two leading Slovenian universities to discuss five major challenges associated with formalization and the construction of automated software tools from such formalizations. The goal of U.S. organizer, Barrett Bryant from the University of Alabama-Birmingham, and his counterparts, Marjan Hericko of the University of Maribor and Viljan Mahnic of the University of Ljubljana, is to foster long-term collaboration between members of the U.S. and European research communities who are identified with computing and communication foundations and information systems. The intent is to identify promising approaches to: 1) inventing more easily used behavioral semantics formalisms; 2) extending models and metamodels with semantics; 3) generating different modeling tools constructed with tool specific information and generative algorithms like debuggers or simulators; 4) mapping to formalisms in ways that are transparent to end-users of modeling language; and 5) inventing tools or model checkers that are otherwise not possible without formal semantics. Workshop results should help define an agenda for future study of fundamental concepts and techniques for more efficient automatic modeling approaches, programming language semantics, grammar-ware, and graph grammars. If successful, this could lead to wider consensus on the need for formalization in modeling language specification while strengthening cooperation between U.S. and European researchers who are language experts and software tools experts. This U.S.-Slovenian cooperative activity, organized in conjunction with the European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, fulfills the overall objective of advancing scientific knowledge by enabling experts in the United States and Europe to combine complementary talents and share research resources in areas of strong mutual interest and competence. Broader impacts include new insights arising from the timely interaction as well as the early career introduction of participating U.S. graduate students to researchers who lead current efforts to understand the relationships between models, metamodels and grammars that are considered key to increasing productivity and reliability in software engineering.