Skip to main content

Ontology-Based Natural Language Processing for Process Compliance Management

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
  • 584 Accesses

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1556))

Abstract

Process compliance with relevant regulations and de-facto standards is a mandatory requirement for certifying critical systems. However, it is often carried out manually, and therefore perceived as complex and labour-intensive. Ontology-based Natural Language Processing (NLP) provides an efficient support for compliance management with critical software system engineering standards. This, however, has not been considered in the literature. Accordingly, the approach presented in this paper focuses on ontology-based NLP for compliance management of software engineering processes with standard documents. In the developed ontology, the process concerns, such as stakeholders, tasks and work products are captured for better interpretation. The rules are created for extracting and structuring information, in which both syntactic features (captured using NLP tasks) and semantic features (captured using ontology) are encoded. During the planning phase, we supported the generation of requirements, process models and compliance mappings in Eclipse Process Framework (EPF) Composer. In the context of reverse compliance, the gaps with standard documents are detected, potential measures for their resolution are provided, and adaptions are made after the process engineer approval. The applicability of the proposed approach is demonstrated by processing ECSS-E-ST-40C, a space software engineering standard, generating models and mappings, as well as reverse compliance management of extended process model.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   89.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.eclipse.org/epf/

References

  1. Van der Aa, H., Ciccio, C.D., Leopold, H., Reijers, H.A.: Extracting declarative process models from natural language. In: 31st International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering, CAiSE 2019, pp. 365–382. Rome, Italy (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21290-2_23

  2. Anquetil, N., De Oliveira, K.M., De Sousa, K.D., Dias, M.G.B.: Software maintenance seen as a knowledge management issue. Inf. Softw. Technol. 49(5), 515–529 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2006.07.007

  3. Ardila, J.P.C., Gallina, B., Muram, F.U.: Transforming SPEM 2.0-compatible process models into models checkable for compliance. In: International Conference on Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination, SPICE 2018, Tessaloniki, Greece, pp. 233–247 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00623-5_16

  4. Delicado, L., Sànchez-Ferreres, J., Carmona, J., Padró, L.: NLP4BPM - natural language processing tools for business process management. In: 15th International Conference on Business Process Management, BPM 2017 Demo Track, Barcelona, Spain (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  5. ECSS: European Cooperation for Space Standardization, ECSS Applicability Requirement Matrix (EARM) (2019). https://ecss.nl/standards/downloads/earm/

  6. European Commitee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC): EN 50126: Railway applications - The specification and demonstration of Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety (RAMS), Part 1 Basic requirements and generic process (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  7. European Cooperation for Space Standardization (ECSS): ECSS-EST-40C, Space Engineering Software (2009). http://wwwis.win.tue.nl/2R690/doc/ECSS-E-ST-40C(6March2009).pdf

  8. Friedrich, F., Mendling, J., Puhlmann, F.: Process model generation from natural language text. In: 23rd International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering, CAiSE 2011, pp. 482–496. London, UK (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21640-4_36

  9. Gašević, D., Kaviani, N., Milanović, M.: Ontologies and Software Engineering. In: Staab, S., Studer, R. (eds.) Handbook on Ontologies. IHIS, pp. 593–615. Springer, Heidelberg (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-92673-3_27

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  10. Governatori, G.: Representing business contracts in RuleML. Int. J. Coop. Inf. Syst. 14(2–3), 181–216 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218843005001092

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Governatori, G., Hashmi, M., Lam, H., Villata, S., Palmirani, M.: Semantic business process regulatory compliance checking using legalruleml. In: Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management - 20th International Conference, EKAW 2016, vol. 10024, pp. 746–761. Bologna, Italy (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49004-5_48

  12. International Organization for Standardization (ISO): ISO 26262: 2018-Road vehicles-Functional safety. International Standard (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Javed, M.A., Gallina, B.: Safety-oriented process line engineering via seamless integration between EPF composer and BVR tool. In: 22nd International Systems and Software Product Line Conference - Volume 2, SPLC 2018, pp. 23–28. Gothenburg, Sweden (2018). https://doi.org/10.1145/3236405.3236406

  14. Javed, M.A., Gallina, B., Carlsson, A.: Towards variant management and change impact analysis in safety-oriented process-product lines. In: 34th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing, SAC 2019, pp. 2372–2375. Limassol, Cyprus (2019). https://doi.org/10.1145/3297280.3297634

  15. Javed, M.A., Muram, F.U., Fattouh, A., Punnekkat, S.: Enforcing geofences for managing automated transportation risks in production sites. In: Dependable Computing - EDCC 2020 Workshops - AI4RAILS, DREAMS, DSOGRI, SERENE 2020, Munich, Germany. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol. 1279, pp. 113–126 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58462-7_10

  16. Javed, M.A., Muram, F.U., Hansson, H., Punnekkat, S., Thane, H.: Towards dynamic safety assurance for industry 4.0. J. Syst. Archit. 114, 101914 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sysarc.2020.101914

  17. Javed, M.A., Muram, F.U., Zdun, U.: On-demand automated traceability maintenance and evolution. In: 17th International Conference on New Opportunities for Software Reuse, ICSR 2018, vol. 10826, pp. 111–120. Madrid, Spain (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90421-4_7

  18. Javed, M.A., Zdun, U.: The supportive effect of traceability links in change impact analysis for evolving architectures – two controlled experiments. In: Schaefer, I., Stamelos, I. (eds.) ICSR 2015. LNCS, vol. 8919, pp. 139–155. Springer, Cham (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14130-5_10

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  19. Jiang, J., Aldewereld, H., Dignum, V., Wang, S., Baida, Z.: Regulatory compliance of business processes. AI Soc. 30(3), 393–402 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-014-0536-9

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Leopold, H., Mendling, J., Polyvyanyy, A.: Supporting process model validation through natural language generation. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 40(8), 818–840 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Muram, F.U., Gallina, B., Kanwal, S.: A tool-supported model-based method for facilitating the EN50129-compliant safety approval process. In: Reliability, Safety, and Security of Railway Systems. Modelling, Analysis, Verification, and Certification (RSSRail) - Third International Conference, pp. 125–141. Lille, France (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18744-6_8

  22. Muram, F.U., Gallina, B., Rodriguez, L.G.: Preventing omission of key evidence fallacy in process-based argumentations. In: 11th International Conference on the Quality of Information and Communications Technology (QUATIC), Coimbra, Portugal, pp. 65–73 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1109/QUATIC.2018.00019

  23. Muram, F.U., Javed, M.A.: Drone-based risk management of autonomous systems using contracts and blockchain. In: 28th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering, SANER 2021, Honolulu, HI, USA, pp. 679–688. IEEE (2021). https://doi.org/10.1109/SANER50967.2021.00086

  24. Muram, F.U., Javed, M.A., Hansson, H., Punnekkat, S.: Dynamic reconfiguration of safety-critical production systems. In: 25th IEEE Pacific Rim International Symposium on Dependable Computing, PRDC 2020, pp. 120–129. Perth, Australia (2020). https://doi.org/10.1109/PRDC50213.2020.00023

  25. Muram, F.U., Javed, M.A., Kanwal, S.: Facilitating the compliance of process models with critical system engineering standards using natural language processing. In: 16th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering, ENASE 2021, Online Streaming, pp. 306–313 (2021). https://doi.org/10.5220/0010455903060313

  26. Object Management Group (OMG): Software & Systems Process Engineering Metamodel Specification (SPEM), Version 2.0 (2008). http://www.omg.org/spec/SPEM/2.0/

  27. Qian, C., et al.: An approach for process model extraction by multi-grained text classification. In: 32nd International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering, CAiSE 2020, pp. 268–282. Grenoble, France (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49435-3_17

  28. Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA): DO-178C: Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification, RTCA (European Organisation for Civil Aviation Equipment (EUROCAE) ED-12C) (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Sànchez-Ferreres, J., Carmona, J., Padró, L.: Aligning textual and graphical descriptions of processes through ILP techniques. In: 29th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering, CAiSE 2017, pp. 413–427. Essen, Germany (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59536-8_26

  30. Winter, K., van der Aa, H., Rinderle-Ma, S., Weidlich, M.: Assessing the compliance of business process models with regulatory documents. In: 39th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling, ER 2020, vol. 12400, pp. 189–203. Vienna, Austria (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62522-1_14

  31. Xu, X., Cai, H.: Ontology and rule-based natural language processing approach for interpreting textual regulations on underground utility infrastructure. Adv. Eng. Inform. 48, 101288 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aei.2021.101288

  32. Yanuarifiani, A.P., Chua, F., Chan, G.: Automating business process model generation from ontology-based requirements. In: 8th International Conference on Software and Computer Applications, ICSCA 2019, pp. 205–209. Penang, Malaysia (2019). https://doi.org/10.1145/3316615.3316683

  33. Zhou, P., El-Gohary, N.: Ontology-based automated information extraction from building energy conservation codes. Autom. Constr. 74, 103–117 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2016.09.004

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgment

This work is partially supported by FiC project funded by SSF (Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research). The first author has also participated during the tenure of an ERCIM “Alain Bensoussan” Fellowship Programme.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Muhammad Atif Javed .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Javed, M.A., Muram, F.U., Kanwal, S. (2022). Ontology-Based Natural Language Processing for Process Compliance Management. In: Ali, R., Kaindl, H., Maciaszek, L.A. (eds) Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering. ENASE 2021. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1556. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96648-5_14

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96648-5_14

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-96647-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-96648-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics