![](bgb.png)
6 CONCLUSIONS
The contributions of this work are: (1) it shows how
the base semantics can support theorem proving for
verification as well as its limitations, (2) it illustrates
similarities and differences of the base semantics and
an operational semantics, and (3) it helps in the matu-
ration process of the specification itself (OMG, 2012)
as well as in the motivation for more evaluations about
this section of specification.
Evaluations of the base semantics are a necessity,
e.g., the first syntactical defect described in the ap-
pendix was recognized in version 1.1 RTF from 2012
((OMG, 2012); pp. 383). However, the same de-
fect was detected in version FTF beta 2 from 2009
((OMG, 2009); pp. 289). Further, fUML is a basic
building block for future specifications of OMG. For
example, Request for Proposal – Precise Semantics
for Composite Structures (OMG, 2013b) states that
new axioms must have explicit relationships with the
base semantics, and must be consistent with it. Nev-
ertheless, the base semantics is not consistent (see ap-
pendix) (OMG, 2012).
Although previous work has been done on the se-
mantics of activities of UML, as discussed in Sec-
tion 2, to the best of our knowledge, we introduce
in this paper the first conceptual evaluation of the
formal semantics (base semantics) defined in fUML.
From the practical perspective, we show with a simple
example how the base semantics can support formal
verification (a requirement for safety-critical systems)
through theorem proving. The initial results show that
the base semantics, when mature, can play an impor-
tant role in the formal verification of UML models,
acting as a bridge between the modeling community
and the formal semantics community.
REFERENCES
Abdelhalim, I., Schneider, S., and Treharne, H. (2012). An
optimization approach for effective formalized fUML
model checking. In Eleftherakis, G., Hinchey, M.,
and Holcombe, M., editors, Software Engineering
and Formal Methods (SEFM), volume 7504 of LNCS,
pages 248–262, Thessaloniki, Greece. Springer.
Benyahia, A., Cuccuru, A., Taha, S., Terrier, F., Boulanger,
F., and Grard, S. (2010). Extending the standard
execution model of UML for real-time systems. In
Hinchey, M., Kleinjohann, B., Kleinjohann, L., Lind-
say, P., Rammig, F., Timmis, J., and Wolf, M., editors,
Distributed and Parallel Embedded Systems (DIPES),
volume 329 of IFIP Advances in Information and
Communication Technology, pages 43–54, Brisbane,
Australia. Springer.
Bock, C. and Gruninger, M. (2005). PSL: A semantic do-
main for flow models. Software and Systems Model-
ing, 4(2):209–231.
Combemale, B., Hardebolle, C., Jacquet, C., Boulanger,
F., and Baudry, B. (2013). Bridging the chasm be-
tween executable metamodeling and models of com-
putation. In Czarnecki, K. and Hedin, G., editors, Soft-
ware Language Engineering, volume 7745 of LNCS,
pages 184–203, Dresden, Germany. Springer.
Derler, P., Lee, E., and Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, A. (2012).
Modeling cyber-physical systems. Proceedings of the
IEEE, 100(1):13–28.
Fecher, H., Schnborn, J., Kyas, M., and de Roever, W.-P.
(2005). 29 new unclarities in the semantics of UML
2.0 state machines. In Lau, K.-K. and Banach, R., edi-
tors, International Conference on Formal Engineering
Methods (ICFEM), volume 3785 of LNCS, pages 52–
65, Manchester, England, UK. Springer.
Fikes, R., , and McGuinness, D. (2001). An axiomatic se-
mantics for RDF, RDF-S, and DAML+OIL (march
2001).
Gerlinger Romero, A. (2013a). Files submit-
ted to OMG. http://es.cs.uni-kl.de/ peo-
ple/romero/fUMLOMGIssue20130630.zip Access
date: 28.Oct.2013.
Gerlinger Romero, A. (2013b). Support files
for the modelsward2014. http://es.cs.uni-
kl.de/people/romero/modelsward2014.zip Access
date: 28.Oct.2013.
Gerlinger Romero, A., Schneider, K., and Gonc¸alves Vieira
Ferreira, M. (2013). Towards the applicability of Alf
to model cyber-physical systems. In International
Workshop on Cyber-Physical Systems (IWCPS), pages
1469–1476, Krakw, Poland. IEEE Computer Society.
Graves, H. (2012). Integrating reasoning with SysML. In
INCOSE International Symposium, Rome, Italy.
Grnniger, H., Rei, D., and Rumpe, B. (2010). Towards a se-
mantics of activity diagrams with semantic variation
points. In Petriu, D., Rouquette, N., and Haugen, O.,
editors, Model Driven Engineering Languages and
Systems (MODELS), volume 6394 of LNCS, pages
331–345, Oslo, Norway. Springer.
Hoare, C. (1969). An axiomatic basis for computer pro-
gramming. Communications of the ACM (CACM),
12(10):576–580.
ISO (2007). Information technology – Common Logic
(CL): a framework for a family of logic-based lan-
guages.
Jarraya, Y., Debbabi, M., and Bentahar, J. (2009). On the
meaning of SysML activity diagrams. In Engineering
of Computer Based Systems (ECBS), pages 95–105,
San Francisco, CA, USA. IEEE Computer Society.
Knieke, C., Schindler, B., Goltz, U., and Rausch, A. (2012).
Defining domain specific operational semantics for
activity diagrams. Technical Report IfI-12-04, TU
Clausthal, Clausthal, Germany.
Kraemer, A. and Herrmann, P. (2010). Reactive seman-
tics for distributed UML activities. In Hatcliff, J. and
Zucca, E., editors, Formal Techniques for Distributed
UsingtheBaseSemanticsgivenbyfUMLforVerification
15