ABSTRACT

Introduction .................................................................................................... 294 Background ..................................................................................................... 294

Object-process methodology ................................................................... 294 OPM things: Objects and processes ................................................... 296 Unication of function, structure, and behavior.............................. 297 Function-as-a-seed OPM principle .................................................... 297 OPM operational semantics ................................................................ 298

Unied modeling language ..................................................................... 302 Petri nets ..................................................................................................... 303 IBM Rational Rhapsody ........................................................................... 303 MagicDraw ................................................................................................. 304

Vivid OPM ...................................................................................................... 304 Motivation and benets............................................................................ 305 Architecture ................................................................................................ 306 Vivid OPM modeling workow ............................................................. 307

Evaluation of Vivid OPM .............................................................................. 307 Experiment population and background .............................................. 308 Experimental design: The Vivid OPM evaluation system .................. 309 Experiment hypothesis and method .......................................................314 Data analysis and results .......................................................................... 315 Conclusions and discussion ..................................................................... 317

Summary and future work ........................................................................... 317 References .........................................................................................................318

Introduction Conceptual modeling is increasingly recognized as a vital stage in the process of developing any complex system. It allows for expressing the meaning of terms and concepts used by domain experts to discuss the problem and to nd correct relationships between different concepts (Fowler 1997). Conceptual modeling explains not only the structure of the system under study but also, not less importantly, the dynamic aspect of the system-its behavior. Conceptual models are inherently abstract, requiring higher-order thinking capabilities to overcome the layers of abstraction represented in a conceptual model by the entities with their symbols and relations among them. Such abstract thinking is indispensable for understanding conceptual models, but it is removed from facts of the here and now and from concrete examples of the concepts being considered.