The use of mediation and ontology technologies for software component information retrieval

ABSTRACT

Component Based Developed aims at constructing software through the inter-relationship between pre-existing components. However, these components should be bound to a specific application domain in order to be effectively reused. Reusable domain components and Their related documentation are usually stored in a great variety of data sources. Thus, a possible solution for accessing this information is to use a software layer that integrates different component information sources. We present a component information integration data layer, based on mediators. Through mediators, domain ontology acts as a technique/formalism for specifying ontological commitments or agreements between component users and providers, enabling more accurate software component information search.

REFERENCES

• 1: Ivar Jacobson , Martin Griss , Patrik Jonsson, Software reuse: architecture, process and organization for business success, ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., New York, NY, 1997
• 2: Wiederhold, Gio; Jannink, Jan: "Composing Diverse Ontologies;" 8th Working Conference on Database Semantics (DS-8), Rotorua, New Zealand (DS-8) January 1999 (Final version to be published by IFIP/Kluwer/Chapman&Hall).
• 3: Yigal Arens , Craig A. Knoblock , Wei-Min Shen, Query reformulation for dynamic information integration, Journal of Intelligent Information Systems, v.6 n.2-3, p.99-130, June 1996 [doi>10.1007/BF00122124]
• 4: Hector Garcia-Molina , Yannis Papakonstantinou , Dallan Quass , Anand Rajaraman , Yehoshua Sagiv , Jeffrey Ullman , Vasilis Vassalos , Jennifer Widom, The TSIMMIS Approach to Mediation: Data Models and Languages, Journal of Intelligent Information Systems, v.8 n.2, p.117-132, March/April 1997 [doi>10.1023/A:1008683107812]
• 5: Braga, R.; Mattoso, M.; Werner, C.: "The Use of Mediators for Component Retrieval in a Reuse Environment," In: Proc. Technology of Object-Oriented Languages and Systems Conference (TOOLS-30 USA'99), IEEE CS Press, Santa Barbara, pp.542-546, August 1999.
• 6: Seacord, R.; Hissan, S.; Wallnau, K,: "Agora: A Search Engine for Software Components," Technical Report CMU/SEI-98-TR-011, August 1998.
• 7: Michael R. Genesereth , Arthur M. Keller , Oliver M. Duschka, Infomaster: an information integration system, Proceedings of the 1997 ACM SIGMOD international conference on Management of data, p.539-542, May 11-15, 1997, Tucson, Arizona, United States
• 8: Alon Y. Levy , Anand Rajaraman , Joann J. Ordille, Querying Heterogeneous Information Sources Using Source Descriptions, Proceedings of the 22th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases, p.251-262, September 03-06, 1996
• 9: Jerry Fowler , Brad Perry , Marian Nodine , Bruce Bargmeyer, Agent-based semantic interoperability in infosleuth, ACM SIGMOD Record, v.28 n.1, p.60-67, March 1999 [doi>10.1145/309844.310060]
• 10: RIG; "Reusable Library Interoperability Group" at http://www.asset.com/rig/, 1996.
• 11: Paulo de Figueiredo Pires , Marta L. Queirós Mattoso, A CORBA Based Architecture for Heterogeneous Information Source Interoperability, Proceedings of the Technology of Object-Oriented Languages and Systems - Tools-25, p.33, November 24-28, 1997
• 12: Clemens Szyperski, Component software: beyond object-oriented programming, ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., New York, NY, 1998
• 13: Sudha Ram, Guest Editor's Introduction: Heterogeneous Distributed Database Systems, Computer, v.24 n.12, p.7-10, December 1991 [doi>10.1109/2.116891]
• 14: Nieto, E. M.: OBSERVER: An Aproach for Query Processing in Global Information Systems based on Interoperation across Pre-existing Ontologies, Doctoral Thesis, Universidade de Zaragoza, November 1998.
• 15: Weinstein, P. C.: Ontology-based Metadata: Transforming the MARC Legacy, Proceedings of the 1998 ACM 7 th Internacional Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, pp. 52-59, 1998.
• 16: R. M. M. Braga , C. M. L. Werner , M. Mattoso, Using Ontologies for Domain Information Retrieval, Proceedings of the 11th International Workshop on Database and Expert Systems Applications, p.836, September 06-08, 2000
• 17: Regina M. M. Braga , Cláudia M. L. Werner , Marta Mattoso, Odyssey: A Reuse Environment based on Domain Models, Proceedings of the 1999 IEEE Symposium on Application - Specific Systems and Software Engineering and Technology, p.50, March 24-27, 1999
• 18: Yunwen Ye , Gerhard Fischer, Promoting Reuse with Active Reuse Repository Systems, Proceedings of the 6th International Conerence on Software Reuse: Advances in Software Reusability, p.302-317, June 27-29, 2000
• 19: Pinheiro, R.; Costa, M.; Braga, R.; Mattoso, M; Werner, C.; "Software Components Reuse Through Web Search and Retrieval", Proceedings of the International Workshop on Information Integration on the Web - Technologies and Applications, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2001 (to appear).

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
        D.2.11 Software Architectures
            Subjects: Domain-specific architectures

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL

General Terms:
Design, Management, Performance, Theory

Keywords:
component based engineering, component repositories, domain engineering, software classification and identification