We consider current Design and Engineering Methodology for Organizations (DEMO) Action Rules Specification to be unnecessarily complex and ambiguous. Even while using a “structured English” syntax similar to the one used in SBVR, such specifications are: incomplete while not containing enough ontological information to derive a functional implementation; and complex by containing mostly unneeded specifications. We propose a new meta-model for DEMO’s Action Model in the form of an EBNF syntax which is being implemented in a prototype that directly executes DEMO models as an Information and Workflow System. This prototype includes an action engine that runs DEMO transactions and the enclosed actions specified in our approach. We are currently integrating Blockly in our solution to allow syntactically correct visual programming of our proposed new Action Rule language that includes constructs to evaluate logical conditions, update the state of internal or external information systems, obtain input and provide output (formatted with WYSIWYG template editor) to users, among others.

DEMO based Dynamic Information System Modeller and Executer.

Bridging Ontology and Implementation with a New DEMO Action Meta-model and Engine

This paper reports the findings and insights obtained from the application of a DEMO-based methodology in a collaboration project with the town council of Funchal, city of Madeira Island, on the subject of the Portuguese Building Code of law. As agreed with the council, one of the goals of this project was to model the universe of discourse of their Urban Appraisal Department. Its activity is subject to very complex legal restrictions encompassing several knowledge domains such as architecture, engineering, etc. The unique circumstances and requirements of the project motivated a novel version of DEMO’s Fact Model. Specifically, 510 surveyed facts, composed of 65 concepts and 445 composing attributes along with their rationale, were specified in two main artifacts presented in this paper: the Fact Diagram and the Fact Description Table. Moreover, 567 combinations between 119 types of application deliverables and 21 types of urban operations - all of which potentially subject to future changes - were considered as instances of concepts in type-square structures related to application deliverable management. Our main research contributions are the synthetization and expressive power of the improved Fact Model, which allowed us to overcome the complexity and intricacies of legislation and create representations that are easily understood and productively discussed by the full range of stakeholders regardless of their technical prowess, experience, or background.

Fact Model in DEMO - Urban Law Case and Proposal of Representation Improvements

Modern farming is experiencing increased adoption of mobile and cloud computing applications as efforts are being made to automate farming processes. In this context, the mobile and cloud computing applications, that we refer to as smart agriculture applications (SAAs), can be used in data collection that can be entered directly into the applications by end-users (i.e., farmers) or via sensors. Implementing SAAs is often done using text-based approaches that require advanced skills and experience in software programming. There are low-code development tools (LCDTs) that farmers with less programming experience can use to implement their own SAAs. The LCDTs offer different features and techniques for application development e.g., some employ form-based application specification while others use graphical drag-and-drop techniques. As such, the different LCDTs are best suited for different specific tasks. For instance, a farmer may need to implement an application that connects to sensors to receive data and generate timely notifications when set thresholds are exceeded. However, to the farmer, it can be difficult to know which kind of LCDTs to choose and what category of these tools are best suited for the task. In this paper, we contrast different LCDTs and show how to use DisCoPar to develop SAAs by non-expert programmers. As a contribution, this paper presents properties for LCDTs that can be beneficial to farmers and demonstrates how DisCoPar can be used in developing SAAs.

Building Smart Agriculture Applications Using Low-Code Tools: The Case for DisCoPar

We consider current Design and Engineering Methodology for Organizations (DEMO) Action Rules Specification to be unnecessarily complex and ambiguous. Even while using a “structured English” syntax similar to the one used in Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules (SBVR), such specifications are: incomplete while not containing enough ontological information to derive a functional implementation; and complex by containing mostly unneeded specifications. We propose a new meta-model for DEMO’s Action Model in the form of an Extended Backus–Naur Form (EBNF) syntax which is being implemented in a prototype that directly executes DEMO models as an Information and Workflow System. This prototype includes an action engine that runs DEMO transactions and the enclosed actions specified in our approach. We are currently integrating Blockly in our solution to allow syntactically correct visual programming of our proposed new Action Rule language that includes constructs to evaluate logical conditions, update the state of internal or external information systems, obtain input and provide output (formatted with a ‘What You See Is What You Get’ (WYSIWYG) template editor) to users, among others. 

DEMO based Dynamic Information System Modeller and Executer.

Citations

Bridging Ontology and Implementation with a New DEMO Action Meta-model and Engine

Fact Model in DEMO - Urban Law Case and Proposal of Representation Improvements

Building Smart Agriculture Applications Using Low-Code Tools: The Case for DisCoPar

A New Action Meta-model and Grammar for a DEMO Based Low-Code Platform Rules Processing Engine

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