Title: Semi-automated integration of domain ontologies to DSL meta-models

Authors: Hele-Mai Haav; Andres Ojamaa

Addresses: Institute of Cybernetics at Tallinn University of Technology, Laboratory of Software Science, Akadeemia tee 21/1, 12618 Tallinn, Estonia ' Institute of Cybernetics at Tallinn University of Technology, Laboratory of Software Science, Akadeemia tee 21/1, 12618 Tallinn, Estonia

Abstract: This paper investigates the use of ontologies for the development of Domain-Specific Languages (DSL). In Model-based Software Development (MBSD), ontologies as formal models are mostly used in the phase of domain analysis as formal representations of domain models and requirements of a system. In this paper, we extend this view by introducing a concept of a DSL meta-model ontology that is defined as consisting of system ontology of a MSDB tool linked to one or more domain ontologies and external software artefacts. According to the solution presented in this paper, the given domain ontologies are semi-automatically integrated into a DSL meta-model using a set of transformations between constructs of ontology modelling language OWL and a modelling language used for representing DSL meta-models. This approach enables a dynamic semantic composition of a DSL meta-model and is prototypically implemented in Java as an extension to the DSL development tool CoCoViLa.

Keywords: DSL; domain specific language; meta-models; domain ontologies; semantic integration; DSL meta-models; DSL meta-model ontology; OWL; ontology web language; DSL development; ontology-based software engineering; model transformations; Java.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIIDS.2017.086198

International Journal of Intelligent Information and Database Systems, 2017 Vol.10 No.1/2, pp.94 - 116

Received: 01 Feb 2016
Accepted: 05 Dec 2016
Published online: 03 Sep 2017 *

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