Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Object-Process Methodology for Structure-Behavior Co-Design

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Handbook of Conceptual Modeling

Abstract

Function, structure, and behavior are the three major facets of any system. Structure and behavior are two inseparable system aspects, as no system can be faithfully modeled without considering both in tandem. Object-Process Methodology (OPM) is a systems paradigm and language that combines structure–behavior codesign requirements with cognitive considerations. Based on the formal mathematical foundations of graph grammars and a subset of natural language, OPM caters to human intuition in a bimodal way via graphics and autogenerated natural language text. In a nutshell, OPM processes transform objects by creating them, consuming them, or changing their states. The concurrent representation of structure and behavior in the same, single diagram type is balanced, creating synergy whereby each aspect helps understand the other. This chapter defines and demonstrates the principles and elements of OPM, showing its benefits in facilitating structure–behavior codesign and achieving formal, semantically sound, and humanly accessible conceptual models of complex systems in a host of domains and at virtually any complexity level.

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

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover 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

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    An academic individual version of OPCAT for modeling small systems can be obtained from opcat.com.

  2. 2.

    As we shall see, the meanings of Value and State are very close. In this chapter, we use value and state interchangeably.

References

  1. American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1996) Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 4th edn

    Google Scholar 

  2. Baddeley A (1992) Working memory. Science 255:556–559

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Beckhoff B, KanngieĂźer B, Langhoff N, Wedell R, Wolff H (2006) Handbook of practical x-ray fluorescence analysis. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  4. Beimel D, Peleg M, Dori D, Denekamp Y (2008) Situation-based access control: privacy management via patient data disclosure modeling. J Biomed Inform 41(6):1028–1040

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Bunge MA (1977) Treatise on basic philosophy, vol 3: Ontology I: the furniture of the world. Reidel, Boston

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  6. Bunge MA (1979) Treatise on basic philosophy, vol 4. Ontology II: a world of systems, Reidel, Boston

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. Chandler P, Sweller J (1991) Cognitive load theory and the format of instruction. Cogn Instr 8:293–332

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Clark JM, Paivio A (1991) Dual coding theory and education. Educ Psychol Rev 3:149–210

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Dodaf (2007) http://cio-nii.defense.gov/docs/DoDAF_Volume_I.pdf

  10. Dori D (1995) Object-process analysis: maintaining the balance between system structure and behavior. J Log Comput 5(2):227–249

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Dori D (2002) Object-Process Methodology: a holistic systems paradigm. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York

    Google Scholar 

  12. Dori D (2008) Words from pictures for dual channel processing. Commun ACM 51(5):47–52

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Dori D, Choder M (2007) Conceptual modeling in systems biology fosters empirical findings: the mRNA lifecycle. In: Proceedings of the library of science ONE (PLoS ONE), September 2007. http://www.plosone.org/article/info

  14. Dori D, Shpitalni M (2005) Mapping knowledge about product lifecycle engineering for ontology construction via object-process methodology. CIRP Ann Manuf Technol 54(1):117–122

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Dori D, Golany B, Soffer P (2005) Aligning an ERP system with enterprise requirements: an object-process based approach. Comput Ind 56(6):639–662

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Dori D, Feldman R, Sturm A (2008) From conceptual models to schemata: an object-process based data warehouse construction method. Inf Syst 33:567–593

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Dori D, Reinhartz-Berger I, Sturm A (2003) Developing complex systems with object-process methodology using OPCAT. In: Proceedings of ER 2003. Lecture notes in computer science, vol 2813. Springer, Berlin, pp 570–572

    Google Scholar 

  18. Estefan J (2008) Survey of model-based systems engineering (MBSE) methodologies. http://www.incose.org/productspubs/pdf/techdata/MTTC/MBSE_Methodology_Survey_2008-0610_RevB-JAE2.pdf

  19. Glenberg AM, Langston WE (1992) Comprehension of illustrated text: pictures help to build mental models. J Mem Lang 31:129–151

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Howes DB, Blekhman A, Dori D (2010) Model based verification and validation of a manufacturing and control standard. In: Proceedings of Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society (MSOM) annual conference, Maalot, Israel, June 2010

    Google Scholar 

  21. Hegarty M (1992) Mental animation: inferring motion from static displays of mechanical systems. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 18:1084–1102

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Hayes P, Menzel C (2001) A semantics for the knowledge interchange format. In: IJCAI 2001 workshop on the IEEE Standard Upper Ontology

    Google Scholar 

  23. IDEF (2001) A structured approach to enterprise modeling and analysis. www.idef.com. IDEF Family of Methods

  24. ISO N1049 (2009) OPM study group, terms of reference. Plenary Meeting Resolutions 2009-04-23/24

    Google Scholar 

  25. ISO-N1078 ISO/TC 184/SC 5 (2010) Plenary Meeting Resolutions 2010-03-25/26

    Google Scholar 

  26. Mayer RE (2003) The promise of multimedia learning: Using the same instructional design methods across different media. Learn Instr 13:125–139

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Mayer RE, Moreno R (2003) Nine ways to reduce cognitive load in multimedia learning. Educ Psychol 38(1):43–52

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Manola F, Miller E (2004) RDF primer. http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-primer

  29. Miller GA (1956) The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychol Rev 63:81–97

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. OMG: Object Management Group (2010) http://www.omg.org

  31. Ontology Markup Language Version 0.3. http://www.ontologos.org/OML/OML

  32. Peleg M, Dori D (2000) The model multiplicity problem: Experimenting with real-time specification methods. IEEE Trans Softw Eng 26(8):742–759

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Peleg M, Somekh J, Dori D (2009) A methodology for eliciting and modeling exceptions. J Biomed Inform 42(4):736–747

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Reinhartz-Berger I, Dori D (2005) A reflective metamodel of object-process methodology: the system modeling building blocks. Idea Group, Hershey, PA, pp 130–173

    Google Scholar 

  35. Reinhartz-Berger I, Dori D, Katz S (2002) OPM/Web – object-process methodology for developing web applications. Ann Softw Eng 13:141–161

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  36. Reinhartz-Berger I, Dori D, Katz S (2009) Reusing semi-specified behavior models in systems analysis and design. J Softw Syst Model 8:221–234

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Shlezinger G, Reinhartz-Berger I, Dori D (2010) Modeling design patterns for semi-automatic reuse in system design. J Database Manag 21(1):29–57

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Soderborg N, Crawley E, Dori D (2003) OPM-based system function and architecture: definitions and operational templates. Commun ACM 46(10):67–72

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Soffer P, Golany B, Dori D (2003) ERP modeling: a comprehensive approach. Inf Syst 28(6):673–690

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  40. Sowa JF (2000) Knowledge representation: logical, philosophical, and computational foundations. Brooks Cole, Pacific Grove, CA

    Google Scholar 

  41. Sturm A, Dori D, Shehory O (2009) Application-based domain analysis approach and its object-process methodology implementation. Int J Softw Eng Knowl Eng 19(1)

    Google Scholar 

  42. Sturm A, Dori D, Shehory O (2010) An object-process-based modeling language for multi-agent systems. IEEE Trans Syst Man Cybern C Appl Rev 40(2):227–241

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Toch E, Gal A, Reinhartz-Berger I, Dori D (2007) A semantic approach to approximate service retrieval. ACM Trans Internet Technol 8(1):2:1–2:30

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. University of Arizona (2001) NATS-online. http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~nats101/n1.html

  45. Von Glaserfeld E (1987) The construction of knowledge: contributions to conceptual semantics. Intersystems, Seaside, CA

    Google Scholar 

  46. Wand Y, Weber R (1989) An ontological evaluation of systems analysis and design methods. Elsevier, North Holland, pp 145–172

    Google Scholar 

  47. Wand Y, Weber R (1993) On the ontological expressiveness of information systems analysis and design grammars. J Inf Syst 3:217–237

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Wand Y, Storey VC, Weber R (1999) An ontological analysis of the relationship construct in conceptual modeling. ACM Trans Database Syst 24(4):494–528

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (1984) Portland House, New York

    Google Scholar 

  50. Webster’s New Dictionary (1997) Promotional Sales Books

    Google Scholar 

  51. Yin L, Wenyin L, Changjun J (2004) Object-process diagrams as explicit graphic tool for web service composition. J Integr Des Process Sci Trans SDPS 8(1):113–127

    Google Scholar 

  52. Zoref L, Bregman D, Dori D (2009) Networking mobile devices and computers in an intelligent home. Int J Smart Home 3(4):15–22

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Author notes

  1. Dov Dori

    Present address: Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, 32000, Haifa, Israel

Authors and Affiliations

    Authors
    1. Dov Dori
      View author publications

      You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

    Corresponding author

    Correspondence to Dov Dori .

    Editor information

    Editors and Affiliations

    1. , Department of Computer Science, Brigham Young University, Provo, 84602, USA

      David W. Embley

    2. Institut für Informatik, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Olshausenstr. 40, Kiel, 24098, Germany

      Bernhard Thalheim

    Rights and permissions

    Reprints and permissions

    Copyright information

    © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

    About this chapter

    Cite this chapter

    Dori, D. (2011). Object-Process Methodology for Structure-Behavior Co-Design. In: Embley, D., Thalheim, B. (eds) Handbook of Conceptual Modeling. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15865-0_7

    Download citation

    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15865-0_7

    • Published:

    • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

    • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-15864-3

    • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-15865-0

    • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

    Publish with us

    Policies and ethics

    Search

    Navigation