Proceedings

The workshop proceedings are available here.

About

MLE 2020 is the second edition of a brand new MODELS workshop resulting from the merger of two recurring MODELS workshops, namely GEMOC and EXE. Accordingly, it will be a full-day workshop that brings together researchers and practitioners in the modeling languages community to discuss the challenges associated with the engineering of modeling languages, with executability, and with integrating multiple, heterogeneous modeling languages. The languages of interest include both general-purpose and domain-specific languages with topics ranging from the requirements, design, and implementation of languages that may or may not be executable.

Following the previous editions of the MLE, GEMOC, and EXE workshops, the objective is to continue collaborations and to expand on the two overlapping communities that are focused on solving problems arising both from the globalization of modeling languages − i.e., the use of multiple DSLs to support coordinated development of diverse aspects of a system − and the problems related to the executability of modeling languages − i.e., defining, composing, verifying and tooling the execution semantics of DSLs. MLE 2020 will provide an open forum for sharing experiences, problems, and solutions on all these topics. This workshop will be the place where concrete artifacts, ideas, and opinions are exchanged in order to gather constructive feedback.

Keynote

Robert Karban (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology): Multi-Engine Executable Modeling at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory: System Level Execution Paradigm

Abstract

This keynote will discuss the state of practice at JPL of system level executable modeling from a practitioner perspective - where systems and software development have become a driver for executability. The speaker will share his decades of experiences with complex systems development and the application of executable models at system level, in particular with multi-engine simulation around SysML, and provide an overview of upcoming enabling technology for future directions of executable modeling.

Vita

Robert Karban is the CAE Software and Systems Environment Chief Engineer in the Systems Engineering and Formulation Division at NASA/JPL. His team provides an environment for engineering modeling, supporting systems engineering and analysis activities, leveraging and integrating with the Software Environment. Robert is internationally recognized as an industry leader in MBSE and MBE using his leadership role in the OpenMBEE community and as NASA representative at the OMG for SysML to align the different model based aspects. Prior to that, he developed control and instrumentation systems and software for large telescopes at the European Southern Observatory, pioneering MBSE for large systems applying model driven technology, and for particle accelerators at the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

Program

(all times UTC/GMT-4)

07:00 Formal and Informal Modeling
- 07:00 Alfred Åkesson, Gorel Hedin, Rene Schöne, Johannes Mey and Niklas Fors: Runtime modeling and analysis of IoT systems
- 07:15 Leander Nachreiner, Alexander Raschke, Michael Stegmaier and Matthias Tichy: CouchEdit: A Relaxed Conformance Editing Approach
- 07:30 Junaid Iqbal, Dragos Truscan and Juri Vain: Time semantics for relativized conformance testing in Executable Activity Diagrams
07:45 Informal Presentations
08:00 Discussion on Selected Focus Topics
08:30 Social Time
09:00 Composition
- 09:00 Mahdi Saeedi Nikoo, Önder Babur and Mark van den Brand: A Survey on Service Composition Languages
- 09:15 Daniel Devine, Omar Alam, Jörg Kienzle and Cheuk Siow: A Composition Algorithm for Reusable Workflow Models
09:30 Keynote and Discussion
10:30 Closing

Call for papers

Software-intensive systems are complicated, driven by the need to integrate across multiple concerns. Consequently, the development of such systems requires the integration of different concerns and skills. These concerns can be covered by different domain-specific modelling languages, with specific concepts, technologies and abstraction levels. This multiplication of languages eases the development related to each individual specific concern but raises language and technology integration problems at the different stages of the software life cycle. To reason about the global system as a whole, it is necessary to explicitly describe the different kinds of relationships that exist between the different languages used in its development. To support effective language integration, there is a pressing need to reify and classify these relationships, as well as the language interactions that the relationships enable. Equally, the proliferation of domain-specific modelling languages required increases the need for effective and efficient techniques for engineering languages and their support infrastructures (transformations, analysis tools, editors, execution infrastructure, debuggers, …).

The Modeling Language Engineering and Execution (MLE) workshop aims at bringing together researchers and practitioners working on modelling-language and software-language engineering. It is a meeting opportunity for Software Language Engineering (SLE) enthusiasts within the software-modelling community. The topics of interest for MLE 2020 include:

Methodologies, languages, techniques, and methods for designing and implementing (executable) modeling languages
Composition, extension, and reuse of (executable) modeling languages and model execution tools
Heterogeneous modeling, simulation, and execution
Customization of (executable) modeling languages
Integration of (executable) modeling and programming languages
Semantics-aware model transformations and code generation
Scalability of model execution and execution-based model analysis
Execution of partial and underspecified models
Model execution with non-determinism and concurrency
Tracing model executions and analyzing model execution traces
Model execution tools for the (dynamic) validation, verification, and testing of systems (e.g., model animation, debugging, simulation, trace exploration, model checking, symbolic execution)
Automating the development of modeling and model execution tools
Evolution in the context of executable modeling (e.g., evolution of executable modeling languages, execution semantics, executable models, model execution tools)
Verification of semantic conformance (e.g., among executable modeling languages, executable models, model execution tools)
Integration challenges for (executable) languages, from requirements to design, for analysis and simulation, during runtime, etc.
Case studies and experience reports on the successful or failed adoption of (executable) modeling in different domains
Surveys and benchmarks on the development of (executable) modeling languages, model execution, and model analyses

Submissions describing practical and industrial experience related to the use of executable and/or heterogeneous modeling languages are also encouraged, particularly regarding Cyber-Physical Systems, Industry 4.0, Internet of Things, Complex Adaptive Systems, Smart Cities and Buildings.

Workshop Format

The format of the workshop reflects the goals of the workshop: constructive feedback on submitted papers and other artifacts on the engineering or use of modeling languages, collaborations, and community building. Hence, there is less focus on presentations and more focus on producing and documenting a research content that identifies challenges, different forms of language engineering and integration, and relates existing solutions.

The workshop consists of a morning session in which a keynote and short presentations of the accepted papers will be given. A significant amount of time will be reserved for discussing each paper and their relations to each other. The afternoon is for working sessions dedicated to open discussions of the presented contributions and topics suggested by the participants.

Submission

We expect early research results about the aforementioned topics, descriptions of problems, case studies, experience reports or solutions related to the topics of interest. Each contribution must be described in a paper of 5 pages in the ACM format. Papers that describe use cases or novel approaches can be accompanied by concrete artifacts, such as models (requirements, design, analysis, transformation, composition, etc.), stored in a public repository. Artifacts should illustrate any experience on the conjoint use of different modeling languages.

All submissions have to follow the the ACM format and must be submitted electronically in PDF format via Easychair. They will be evaluated by at least three members of the program committee regarding novelty, correctness, significance, readability, and alignment with the workshop call. Furthermore, all submissions must be original work and must not have been previously published or being under review elsewhere.

Dates

Paper submission deadline: July 26, 2020
Notification of acceptance: August 21, 2020
Camera-ready deadline: August 28, 2020

Committees

Organization Committee

Taylor Riche (National Instruments, Austin, USA)
Andreas Wortmann (RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany)
Steffen Zschaler (King’s College London, London, UK)

Program Committee

Erwan Bousse (Université de Nantes)
Marsha Chechik (University of Toronto)
Federico Ciccozzi (Mälardalen University)
Tony Clark (Sheffield Hallam University)
Benoit Combemale (University of Toulouse)
Jonathan Corley (University of West Georgia)
Julien Deantoni (UNS- I3S- INRIA Sophia Antipolis Mediterranee)
Marjan Mernik (University of Maribor)
Gunter Mussbacher (McGill University)
Florian Noyrit (CEA LIST)
Richard Paige (University of York)
Bernhard Rumpe (RWTH Aachen University)
Matthias Schöttle (McGill University)
Safouan Taha (CentraleSupélec, LRI)
Federico Tomassetti (Strumenta)
Mark van den Brand (Eindhoven University of Technology)