Metamodels

Sometimes when modeling a set of related systems, usually belonging to a given domain, we realize that these models share many constructs. We are then able to generalize across these different models and come up with a model of what the set of related models should conform to. This is what we call a ``metamodel'', a model of models. As a a matter of fact the term metamodel is still quite controversial and a matter of discussion (see [www-Metamodel, ]). The concept has been especially used in relation to UML. The language itself is used to describe the syntactic rules that all models written in UML must adopt thus defining a metamodel: a model of models. Metamodeling and UML are very much related to another OMG standard: the Meta Object Facility or MOF

In many senses a metamodel is similar to a regular domain model. A domain model though usually has a much less ambitious scope as it models the domain of a given application but already bearing this application in mind. For this reason, important domain activities that do not directly relate to the system being modeled are left out of the domain model or just modeled at a very abstract level. On the other hand, when building a metamodel the restriction is not a particular system or application but rather a set of systems or applications that might be modeled according to this metamodel.

In the rest of this section we will reflect how metamodeling is understood and used in different communities related to software design.

In [Mili et al., 1995] they concluded that metamodeling results in ``cognitive economy'' as it replaces extensions (explicit occurrences of a given concept) by intensions (the definition of the concept itself). It is thus a mechanism very similar to regular classification: the relation between a model and its meta equivalent is that between an instance an a class. Three dimensions of metamodeling were also identified:

1. Metamodeling as the modeling of a modeling/representation language.
2. Metamodeling as the multiple instantiation levels of application knowledge.
3. Metamodeling as the modeling of information about how to use and manipulate application models.

Thus, going ``meta'' may mean developing a computational model for the family of applications at hand, developing an architecture for simulating and executing such applications, or implementing such an architecture in the form of a development platform/framework.

Going along the first of the three dimensions previously identified we conclude that a kind of metamodel is the language in which a model can be expressed. And this is precisely the interpretation that the Object Management Group (OMG) of the ACM uses when describing UML as a metamodel. Even more, the OMG has defined a Meta Modeling Facility (MMF) in order to create a precise definition of UML in its 2.0 version [Reggio, 2002,OMG, 2003]. The semantics and syntax of UML itself can be defined using a subset of the language. Furthermore, UML and MOF (see section 1.4.3) can be used to describe an object-oriented model that can then be transformed into a different domain (e.g. Petri Nets or Dataflow Networks) by applying formal transformations [Varró and Patarizca, 2002].

Metamodeling is also sometimes understood as the definition of a semantic model for a family of related domain models. In this sense, metamodeling becomes very much related to Ontological Engineering. We define an ontology as being the explicit representation of domain concepts. An ontology is thus a system of concepts that defines the vocabulary of the problem domain and restricts the way that these terms may be combined to model the domain. Under this definition, the process of building an analysis domain model in a standard object-oriented methodology can be understood as metamodeling as long as the resulting model is precise and general enough as to be used to model different systems apart from the one under study. As pointed out in [Devedzic, 2002], the properties of a well designed ontology are the same than those of any software system including classes in an object-oriented design: decomposability, understandability, extensibility, maintainability, modularity and interfaceability. An ontology is a domain metamodel that will be used by the different models related to that particular domain. It conveys to a hierarchical representation where higher layers correspond to domain-independent or core concepts and lower layers correspond to concepts only meaningful in a particular domain. The Java class library is, for instance, a good example of general usage ontology.

But in system engineering, metamodeling is understood in a quite different sense. A metamodel is here a simple approximation (usually mathematical) of a complex system model [Barton, 1994,Caughlin, 1997]. Here the model input-output behavior is seen as black-box and is approximated by a polynomial metamodel. The first thing to do in the metamodeling process is to clearly identify the purpose of the metamodel. After that, there is an iterative process consisting on [Caughlin, 1997]:

1. Select an experimental design
2. Run the simulation
3. Collect Data
4. Select a metamodel set
5. Select identification methodology
6. Generate the metamodel

The simpler form of a metamodel can reveal the behavior of a more complex model. Beside, the metamodel requires less computer resources and can be run intensively under controlled parameters to reveal what affects the system performance.

But if we accept the broader definition of Metamodel given when starting this section - a metamodel is just a model of a set of related models - we can conclude that most modeling engineering ends up related to metamodeling. When modeling a system we usually want to reuse our abstraction or modeling effort and try to come up with a model that is not only useful for the particular problem at hand but can be re-used in similar situations, that is a metamodel.

In this sense, metamodeling is very much related to the activity of classifying classes. When we identify classes from a set of existing object we are applying an abstraction process that is very similar to the one we apply once we have the classes and we try to group them together in different categories or meta-classes. This is usually accomplished by defining inheritance hierarchies.

The first levels of the inheritance hierarchy and the way these, usually abstract, classes relate define a metamodel that can be then instantiated by defining different concrete classes that give place to a new model. This is particularly so when defining a white-box framework (see section 1.3).

As a matter of fact, one of the main goals of this Thesis is to classify classes related to the digital signal processing domain. This classification will result in the metamodel that will be presented in chapter 4.