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International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems

MODELS 2014: Model-Driven Engineering Languages and Systems pp 99–115Cite as

Modeling Systemic Behavior by State-Based Holonic Modular Units

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 8767))

Abstract

The paper explores a vision in modeling the behavior of complex systems by modular units hosting state machines arranged in part-whole hierarchies and communicating through event flows. Each modular unit plays at the same time the double role of part and whole, i.e. it is inspired by the philosophical idea of holon, providing both an interface and an implementation by which other component state machines may be controlled in order to achieve a global behavior. It is moreover observed that it is possible to assign a formal characterization to such state modules, due to their part-whole arrangement, since higher-level behaviors can derive formally their meaning from lower-level component behaviors. Such a way of arranging behavioral modules allows to establish directly correct-by-construction safety and liveness properties of state-based systems thus challenging the current approach by which state machines interact at the same level and have to be model-checked for ensuring correctness.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Modena and Reggio Emilia,DIEF-UNIMORE, Via Vignolese 905, I-41125, Modena, Italy

    Luca Pazzi

Authors
  1. Luca Pazzi
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

    Juergen Dingel

  2. Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, USA

    Wolfram Schulte

  3. Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain

    Isidro Ramos , Silvia Abrahão  & Emilio Insfran ,  & 

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Pazzi, L. (2014). Modeling Systemic Behavior by State-Based Holonic Modular Units. In: Dingel, J., Schulte, W., Ramos, I., Abrahão, S., Insfran, E. (eds) Model-Driven Engineering Languages and Systems. MODELS 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8767. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11653-2_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11653-2_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-11652-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-11653-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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