Jordi Cabot

Joan Giner-Miguelez, Abel Gómez, Jordi Cabot

Datasets play a central role in the training and evaluation of machine learning (ML) models. But they are also the root cause of many undesired model behaviors, such as biased predictions. To overcome this situation, the ML community is proposing a data-centric cultural shift where data issues are given the attention they deserve, and more standard practices around the gathering and processing of datasets start to be discussed and established. So far, these proposals are mostly high-level guidelines described in natural language and, as such, they are difficult to formalize and apply to particular datasets. In this sense, and inspired by these proposals, we define a new domain-specific language (DSL) to precisely describe machine learning datasets in terms of their structure, data provenance, and social concerns. We believe this DSL will facilitate any ML initiative to leverage and benefit from this data-centric shift in ML (e.g., selecting the most appropriate dataset for a new project or better replicating other ML results). The DSL is implemented as a Visual Studio Code plugin, and it has been published under an open source license.

Emad Shihab, Stefan Wagner, Marco A. Gerosa et al.

We are witnessing a massive adoption of software engineering bots, applications that react to events triggered by tools and messages posted by users and run automated tasks in response, in a variety of domains. This thematic issues describes experiences and challenges with these bots.

I. de ZarzÃ, J. de Curtò, Jordi Cabot et al.

Large Language Models (LLMs) increasingly serve as autonomous reasoning agents in decision support, scientific problem-solving, and multi-agent coordination systems. However, deploying LLM agents in consequential applications requires assurance that their reasoning remains stable under semantically equivalent input variations, a property we term semantic invariance. Standard benchmark evaluations, which assess accuracy on fixed, canonical problem formulations, fail to capture this critical reliability dimension. To address this shortcoming, in this paper we present a metamorphic testing framework for systematically assessing the robustness of LLM reasoning agents, applying eight semantic-preserving transformations (identity, paraphrase, fact reordering, expansion, contraction, academic context, business context, and contrastive formulation) across seven foundation models spanning four distinct architectural families: Hermes (70B, 405B), Qwen3 (30B-A3B, 235B-A22B), DeepSeek-R1, and gpt-oss (20B, 120B). Our evaluation encompasses 19 multi-step reasoning problems across eight scientific domains. The results reveal that model scale does not predict robustness: the smaller Qwen3-30B-A3B achieves the highest stability (79.6% invariant responses, semantic similarity 0.91), while larger models exhibit greater fragility.

Fitash Ul Haq, Jordi Cabot

Large Language Models (LLMs) play a pivotal role in both academic research and broader societal applications. LLMs are increasingly used in software testing activities such as test case generation, selection, and repair. However, several important questions remain: (1) do LLMs possess enough information about software testing principles to perform software testing tasks effectively? (2) do LLMs possess sufficient conceptual understanding of software testing to answer software testing questions under metamorphic transformations? and (3) do certain properties of software testing questions influence the performance of LLMs? To answer these questions, this study evaluates 60 multimodal language models from both commercial vendors and the open-source community. The evaluation is performed using 30 sample exams of different types (core foundation, core advanced, specialist, and expert) from the International Software Testing Qualifications Board (ISTQB), which are used to assess the competence of human testers. In total, each model is evaluated on 1,171 questions. Furthermore, to ensure sufficient conceptual understanding, the models are also tested on exam questions transformed using context-preserving metamorphic techniques. Two models passed all the certifications by scoring at least 65% in all of the 30 certification exams, with commercial models generally outperforming open-source ones. We analyze the reasons behind incorrect answers and provide recommendations for improving the design of software testing certification exams.

Iván Alfonso, Armen Sulejmani, Aaron Conrardy et al.

The increasing demand for web applications containing AI-agents, seen as smart web applications, has prompted the need for new techniques to facilitate their creation. Low-code has risen as an approach that reduces the amount of handwritten code by focusing on the abstraction of components in the form of models combined with automated generators to produce applications. Existing low-code platforms are commercial, leading to drawbacks such as the risk of vendor lock-in, limited extensibility, and more. We present the open-source BESSER low-code framework, which allows users to design, generate and deploy their application via a freely accessible web-based editor, while guaranteeing transparency and extensibility.

Francisco Eiras, Aleksandar Petrov, Bertie Vidgen et al.

Applications of Generative AI (Gen AI) are expected to revolutionize a number of different areas, ranging from science & medicine to education. The potential for these seismic changes has triggered a lively debate about the potential risks of the technology, and resulted in calls for tighter regulation, in particular from some of the major tech companies who are leading in AI development. This regulation is likely to put at risk the budding field of open-source generative AI. Using a three-stage framework for Gen AI development (near, mid and long-term), we analyze the risks and opportunities of open-source generative AI models with similar capabilities to the ones currently available (near to mid-term) and with greater capabilities (long-term). We argue that, overall, the benefits of open-source Gen AI outweigh its risks. As such, we encourage the open sourcing of models, training and evaluation data, and provide a set of recommendations and best practices for managing risks associated with open-source generative AI.

Francisco Eiras, Aleksandar Petrov, Bertie Vidgen et al.

In the next few years, applications of Generative AI are expected to revolutionize a number of different areas, ranging from science & medicine to education. The potential for these seismic changes has triggered a lively debate about potential risks and resulted in calls for tighter regulation, in particular from some of the major tech companies who are leading in AI development. This regulation is likely to put at risk the budding field of open-source Generative AI. We argue for the responsible open sourcing of generative AI models in the near and medium term. To set the stage, we first introduce an AI openness taxonomy system and apply it to 40 current large language models. We then outline differential benefits and risks of open versus closed source AI and present potential risk mitigation, ranging from best practices to calls for technical and scientific contributions. We hope that this report will add a much needed missing voice to the current public discourse on near to mid-term AI safety and other societal impact.

Joan Giner-Miguelez, Abel Gómez, Jordi Cabot

Recent regulatory initiatives like the European AI Act and relevant voices in the Machine Learning (ML) community stress the need to describe datasets along several key dimensions for trustworthy AI, such as the provenance processes and social concerns. However, this information is typically presented as unstructured text in accompanying documentation, hampering their automated analysis and processing. In this work, we explore using large language models (LLM) and a set of prompting strategies to automatically extract these dimensions from documents and enrich the dataset description with them. Our approach could aid data publishers and practitioners in creating machine-readable documentation to improve the discoverability of their datasets, assess their compliance with current AI regulations, and improve the overall quality of ML models trained on them. In this paper, we evaluate the approach on 12 scientific dataset papers published in two scientific journals (Nature's Scientific Data and Elsevier's Data in Brief) using two different LLMs (GPT3.5 and Flan-UL2). Results show good accuracy with our prompt extraction strategies. Concrete results vary depending on the dimensions, but overall, GPT3.5 shows slightly better accuracy (81,21%) than FLAN-UL2 (69,13%) although it is more prone to hallucinations. We have released an open-source tool implementing our approach and a replication package, including the experiments' code and results, in an open-source repository.

J. de Curtò, I. de Zarzà, Pablo García et al.

This paper presents a comprehensive cross-platform evaluation of reasoning capabilities in contemporary foundation models, establishing an infrastructure-agnostic benchmark across three computational paradigms: HPC supercomputing (MareNostrum 5), cloud platforms (Nebius AI Studio), and university clusters (a node with eight H200 GPUs). We evaluate 15 foundation models across 79 problems spanning eight academic domains (Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Economics, Biology, Statistics, Calculus, and Optimization) through three experimental phases: (1) Baseline establishment: Six models (Mixtral-8x7B, Phi-3, LLaMA 3.1-8B, Gemma-2-9b, Mistral-7B, OLMo-7B) evaluated on 19 problems using MareNostrum 5, establishing methodology and reference performance; (2) Infrastructure validation: The 19-problem benchmark repeated on university cluster (seven models including Falcon-Mamba state-space architecture) and Nebius AI Studio (nine state-of-the-art models: Hermes-4 70B/405B, LLaMA 3.1-405B/3.3-70B, Qwen3 30B/235B, DeepSeek-R1, GPT-OSS 20B/120B) to confirm infrastructure-agnostic reproducibility; (3) Extended evaluation: Full 79-problem assessment on both university cluster and Nebius platforms, probing generalization at scale across architectural diversity. The findings challenge conventional scaling assumptions, establish training data quality as more critical than model size, and provide actionable guidelines for model selection across educational, production, and research contexts. The tri-infrastructure methodology and 79-problem benchmark enable longitudinal tracking of reasoning capabilities as foundation models evolve.

Alessio Buscemi, Thibault Simonetto, Daniele Pagani et al.

The systematic assessment of AI systems is increasingly vital as these technologies enter high-stakes domains. To address this, the EU's Artificial Intelligence Act introduces AI Regulatory Sandboxes (AIRS): supervised environments where AI systems can be tested under the oversight of Competent Authorities (CAs), balancing innovation with compliance, particularly for startups and SMEs. Yet significant challenges remain: assessment methods are fragmented, tests lack standardisation, and feedback loops between developers and regulators are weak. To bridge these gaps, we propose the Sandbox Configurator, a modular open-source framework that enables users to select domain-relevant tests from a shared library and generate customised sandbox environments with integrated dashboards. Its plug-in architecture aims to support both open and proprietary modules, fostering a shared ecosystem of interoperable AI assessment services. The framework aims to address multiple stakeholders: CAs gain structured workflows for applying legal obligations; technical experts can integrate robust evaluation methods; and AI providers access a transparent pathway to compliance. By promoting cross-border collaboration and standardisation, the Sandbox Configurator's goal is to support a scalable and innovation-friendly European infrastructure for trustworthy AI governance.

Javier Luis Cánovas Izquierdo, Jordi Cabot

A number of software foundations have been created as legal instruments to better articulate the structure, collaboration and financial model of Open Source Software (OSS) projects. Some examples are the Apache, Linux, or Mozilla foundations. However, the mission and support provided by these foundations largely differ among them. In this paper we perform a study on the role of foundations in OSS development. We analyze the nature, activities, role and governance of 101 software foundations and then go deeper on the 27 having as concrete goal the development and evolution of specific open source projects (and not just generic actions to promote the free software movement or similar). Our results reveal the existence of a significant number of foundations with the sole purpose of promoting the free software movement and/or that limit themselves to core legal aspects but do not play any role in the day-to-day operations of the project (e.g., umbrella organizations for a large variety of projects). Therefore, while useful, foundations do not remove the need for specific projects to develop their own specific governance, contribution and development policies. A website to help projects to choose the foundation that best fits their needs is also available.

María J. Palazzi, Jordi Cabot, Javier Luis Cánovas Izquierdo et al.

The development Open Source Software fundamentally depends on the participation and commitment of volunteer developers to progress. Several works have presented strategies to increase the on-boarding and engagement of new contributors, but little is known on how these diverse groups of developers self-organise to work together. To understand this, one must consider that, on one hand, platforms like GitHub provide a virtually unlimited development framework: any number of actors can potentially join to contribute in a decentralised, distributed, remote, and asynchronous manner. On the other, however, it seems reasonable that some sort of hierarchy and division of labour must be in place to meet human biological and cognitive limits, and also to achieve some level of efficiency. These latter features (hierarchy and division of labour) should translate into recognisable structural arrangements when projects are represented as developer-file bipartite networks. In this paper we analyse a set of popular open source projects from GitHub, placing the accent on three key properties: nestedness, modularity and in-block nestedness -which typify the emergence of heterogeneities among contributors, the emergence of subgroups of developers working on specific subgroups of files, and a mixture of the two previous, respectively. These analyses show that indeed projects evolve into internally organised blocks. Furthermore, the distribution of sizes of such blocks is bounded, connecting our results to the celebrated Dunbar number both in off- and on-line environments. Our analyses create a link between bio-cognitive constraints, group formation and online working environments, opening up a rich scenario for future research on (online) work team assembly.

Valerio Cosentino, Javier Luis Canovas Izquierdo, Jordi Cabot

Open source software projects evolve thanks to a group of volunteers that help in their development. Thus, the success of these projects depends on their ability to attract (and keep) developers. We believe the openness of a project, i.e., how easy is for a new user to actively contribute to it, can help to make a project more attractive. To explore the openness of a software project, we propose three metrics focused on: (1) the distribution of the project community, (2) the rate of acceptance of external contributions and (3) the time it takes to become an official collaborator of the project. We have adapted and applied these metrics to a subset of GitHub projects, thus giving some practical findings on their openness.

Nadia Daoudi, Ivan Alfonso, Jordi Cabot

The development of smart systems (i.e., systems enhanced with AI components) has thrived thanks to the rapid advancements in neural networks (NNs). A wide range of libraries and frameworks have consequently emerged to support NN design and implementation. The choice depends on factors such as available functionalities, ease of use, documentation and community support. After adopting a given NN framework, organizations might later choose to switch to another if performance declines, requirements evolve, or new features are introduced. Unfortunately, migrating NN implementations across libraries is challenging due to the lack of migration approaches specifically tailored for NNs. This leads to increased time and effort to modernize NNs, as manual updates are necessary to avoid relying on outdated implementations and ensure compatibility with new features. In this paper, we propose an approach to automatically migrate neural network code across deep learning frameworks. Our method makes use of a pivot NN model to create an abstraction of the NN prior to migration. We validate our approach using two popular NN frameworks, namely PyTorch and TensorFlow. We also discuss the challenges of migrating code between the two frameworks and how they were approached in our method. Experimental evaluation on five NNs shows that our approach successfully migrates their code and produces NNs that are functionally equivalent to the originals. Artefacts from our work are available online.

Gwendal Jouneaux, Jordi Cabot

AI components are increasingly becoming a key element of all types of software systems to enhance their functionality. These AI components are often implemented as AI Agents, offering more autonomy than a plain integration of Large Language Models (LLMs), moving from a Model-as-a-Service paradigm to an Agent-as-a-Service one, bringing new challenges to the development of smart software systems. Indeed, while support for the design, implementation, and deployment of those agents exist, the specification of Quality of Service (QoS) and definition of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) aspects for those agents, important to ensure the quality of the resulting systems, remains an open challenge. Part of this is due to the difficulty to clearly define quality in the context of AI components, resulting in a lack of consensus on how to best approach Quality Assurance (QA) for these types of systems. To address this challenge, this paper proposes both a quality model for AI agents based on the ISO/IEC 25010 standard, and a domain specific language to support the definition of SLAs for the services provided by these AI agents.

Aaron Conrardy, Alfredo Capozucca, Jordi Cabot

In this paper, we conducted an SLR on the state of user modeling in the MDE domain. Results show a diverse set of disconnected proposals, covering a partial number of dimensions with an emphasis on those characteristics that are easier to profile. Moreover, most dimensions are regarded as fixed instead of allowing their dynamic evolution during the interaction with the software application. It is also worth noting that tool support is also rather limited, mostly limited to enabling the creation of the user models itself. The roadmap we hope to see in this area stems from the discussion points seen above. For instance, we believe the community should agree on a unified and re-usable user model, covering the superset of all dimensions present in the literature. Plus additional ones we could learn from user profiling in other domains (e.g. sociology). On the technical side, we expect to see a new generation of ML-based proposals to automatically and incrementally derive a user profile from the analysis of user interactions and a number of automatic pipelines able to transform the user information in concrete application adaptations that personalize the application to cater to the user's needs and profile.

Jordi Cabot

There is a pressing need for better development methods and tools to keep up with the growing demand and increasing complexity of new software systems. New types of user interfaces, the need for intelligent components, sustainability concerns, etc. bring new challenges that we need to handle. In the last years, model-driven engineering (MDE), including its latest incarnation, i.e. low/no-code development, has been key to improving the quality and productivity of software development, but models themselves are becoming increasingly complex to specify and manage. At the same time, we are witnessing the growing popularity of vibe coding approaches that rely on Large Language Models (LLMs) to transform natural language descriptions into running code at the expense of potential code vulnerabilities, scalability issues and maintainability concerns. While many may think vibe coding will replace model-based engineering, in this paper we argue that, in fact, the two approaches can complement each other and provide altogether different development paths for different types of software systems, development scenarios, and user profiles. In this sense, we introduce the concept of \textit{vibe-driven model-based engineering} as a novel approach to integrate the best of both worlds (AI and MDE) to accelerate the development of reliable complex systems. We outline the key concepts of this new approach and highlight the opportunities and open challenges it presents for the future of software development.

Nadia Daoudi, Jordi Cabot

Neural networks are increasingly used to support decision-making. To verify their reliability and adaptability, researchers and practitioners have proposed a variety of tools and methods for tasks such as NN code verification, refactoring, and migration. These tools play a crucial role in guaranteeing both the correctness and maintainability of neural network architectures, helping to prevent implementation errors, simplify model updates, and ensure that complex networks can be reliably extended and reused. Yet, assessing their effectiveness remains challenging due to the lack of publicly diverse datasets of neural networks that would allow systematic evaluation. To address this gap, we leverage large language models (LLMs) to automatically generate a dataset of neural networks that can serve as a benchmark for validation. The dataset is designed to cover diverse architectural components and to handle multiple input data types and tasks. In total, 608 samples are generated, each conforming to a set of precise design choices. To further ensure their consistency, we validate the correctness of the generated networks using static analysis and symbolic tracing. We make the dataset publicly available to support the community in advancing research on neural network reliability and adaptability.

Sergio Morales, Robert Clarisó, Jordi Cabot

The development of Machine Learning (ML) based systems is complex and requires multidisciplinary teams with diverse skill sets. This may lead to communication issues or misapplication of best practices. Process models can alleviate these challenges by standardizing task orchestration, providing a common language to facilitate communication, and nurturing a collaborative environment. Unfortunately, current process modeling languages are not suitable for describing the development of such systems. In this paper, we introduce a framework for modeling ML-based software development processes, built around a domain-specific language and derived from an analysis of scientific and gray literature. A supporting toolkit is also available.

Alessio Buscemi, Cédric Lothritz, Sergio Morales et al.

Large Language Models (LLMs) have exhibited impressive natural language processing capabilities but often perpetuate social biases inherent in their training data. To address this, we introduce MultiLingual Augmented Bias Testing (MLA-BiTe), a framework that improves prior bias evaluation methods by enabling systematic multilingual bias testing. MLA-BiTe leverages automated translation and paraphrasing techniques to support comprehensive assessments across diverse linguistic settings. In this study, we evaluate the effectiveness of MLA-BiTe by testing four state-of-the-art LLMs in six languages -- including two low-resource languages -- focusing on seven sensitive categories of discrimination.

Sergio Morales, Robert Clarisó, Jordi Cabot

The integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) into various software applications raises concerns about their potential biases. Typically, those models are trained on a vast amount of data scrapped from forums, websites, social media and other internet sources, which may instill harmful and discriminating behavior into the model. To address this issue, we present LangBiTe, a testing platform to systematically assess the presence of biases within an LLM. LangBiTe enables development teams to tailor their test scenarios, and automatically generate and execute the test cases according to a set of user-defined ethical requirements. Each test consists of a prompt fed into the LLM and a corresponding test oracle that scrutinizes the LLM's response for the identification of biases. LangBite provides users with the bias evaluation of LLMs, and end-to-end traceability between the initial ethical requirements and the insights obtained.

Cedric Lothritz, Jordi Cabot, Laura Bernardy

Large Language Models (LLMs) have become an increasingly important tool in research and society at large. While LLMs are regularly used all over the world by experts and lay-people alike, they are predominantly developed with English-speaking users in mind, performing well in English and other wide-spread languages while less-resourced languages such as Luxembourgish are seen as a lower priority. This lack of attention is also reflected in the sparsity of available evaluation tools and datasets. In this study, we investigate the viability of language proficiency exams as such evaluation tools for the Luxembourgish language. We find that large models such as Claude and DeepSeek-R1 typically achieve high scores, while smaller models show weak performances. We also find that the performances in such language exams can be used to predict performances in other NLP tasks in Luxembourgish.

Gwendal Jouneaux, Jordi Cabot

The growth of machine learning (ML) models and associated datasets triggers a consequent dramatic increase in energy costs for the use and training of these models. In the current context of environmental awareness and global sustainability concerns involving ICT, Green AI is becoming an important research topic. Initiatives like the AI Energy Score Ratings are a good example. Nevertheless, these benchmarking attempts are still to be integrated with existing work on Quality Models and Service-Level Agreements common in other, more mature, ICT subfields. This limits the (automatic) analysis of this model energy descriptions and their use in (semi)automatic model comparison, selection, and certification processes. We aim to leverage the concept of quality models and merge it with existing ML model reporting initiatives and Green/Frugal AI proposals to formalize a Sustainable Quality Model for AI/ML models. As a first step, we propose a new Domain-Specific Language to precisely define the sustainability aspects of an ML model (including the energy costs for its different tasks). This information can then be exported as an extended version of the well-known Model Cards initiative while, at the same time, being formal enough to be input of any other model description automatic process.

Julian Valline, Cedric Lothritz, Jordi Cabot

The effectiveness of instruction-tuned Large Language Models (LLMs) is often limited in low-resource linguistic settings due to a lack of high-quality training data. We introduce LuxIT, a novel, monolingual instruction tuning dataset for Luxembourgish developed to mitigate this challenge. We synthesize the dataset from a corpus of native Luxembourgish texts, utilizing DeepSeek-R1-0528, chosen for its shown proficiency in Luxembourgish. Following generation, we apply a quality assurance process, employing an LLM-as-a-judge approach. To investigate the practical utility of the dataset, we fine-tune several smaller-scale LLMs on LuxIT. Subsequent benchmarking against their base models on Luxembourgish language proficiency examinations, however, yields mixed results, with performance varying significantly across different models. LuxIT represents a critical contribution to Luxembourgish natural language processing and offers a replicable monolingual methodology, though our findings highlight the need for further research to optimize its application.

Aaron Conrardy, Armen Sulejmani, Cindy Guerlain et al.

The EU-funded Climaborough project supports European cities to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030. Eleven cities in nine countries will deploy in real conditions products and services fostering climate transition in their local environment. The Climaborough City Platform is being developed to monitor the cities' overall progress towards their climate goals by aggregating historic and real-time data and displaying the results in user-friendly dashboards that will be used by non-technical experts to evaluate the effectiveness of local experimental initiatives, identify those that yield significant impact, and assess the potential consequences of scaling them up to a broader level. In this paper, we explain how we have put in place a low-code/no-code strategy in Climaborough in response to the project's aim to quickly deploy climate dashboards. A low-code strategy is used to accelerate the development of the dashboards. The dashboards embed a no-code philosophy that enables all types of citizen profiles to configure and adapt the dashboard to their specific needs.

Joan Giner-Miguelez, Abel Gómez, Jordi Cabot

To ensure the fairness and trustworthiness of machine learning (ML) systems, recent legislative initiatives and relevant research in the ML community have pointed out the need to document the data used to train ML models. Besides, data-sharing practices in many scientific domains have evolved in recent years for reproducibility purposes. In this sense, academic institutions' adoption of these practices has encouraged researchers to publish their data and technical documentation in peer-reviewed publications such as data papers. In this study, we analyze how this broader scientific data documentation meets the needs of the ML community and regulatory bodies for its use in ML technologies. We examine a sample of 4041 data papers of different domains, assessing their completeness, coverage of the requested dimensions, and trends in recent years. We focus on the most and least documented dimensions and compare the results with those of an ML-focused venue (NeurIPS D&B track) publishing papers describing datasets. As a result, we propose a set of recommendation guidelines for data creators and scientific data publishers to increase their data's preparedness for its transparent and fairer use in ML technologies.

Marcos Gomez-Vazquez, Jordi Cabot, Robert Clarisó

Tabular data is the most common format to publish and exchange structured data online. A clear example is the growing number of open data portals published by public administrations. However, exploitation of these data sources is currently limited to technical people able to programmatically manipulate and digest such data. As an alternative, we propose the use of chatbots to offer a conversational interface to facilitate the exploration of tabular data sources, including support for data analytics questions that are responded via charts rendered by the chatbot. Moreover, our chatbots are automatically generated from the data source itself thanks to the instantiation of a configurable collection of conversation patterns matched to the chatbot intents and entities.

Hamza Ed-douibi, Javier Luis Cánovas Izquierdo, Gwendal Daniel et al.

The Open Data movement promotes the free distribution of data. More and more companies and governmental organizations are making their data available online following the Open Data philosophy, resulting in a growing market of technologies and services to help publish and consume data. One of the emergent ways to publish such data is via Web APIs, which offer a powerful means to reuse this data and integrate it with other services. Socrata, CKAN or OData are examples of popular specifications for publishing data via Web APIs. Nevertheless, querying and integrating these Web APIs is time-consuming and requires technical skills that limit the benefits of Open Data movement for the regular citizen. In other contexts, chatbot applications are being increasingly adopted as a direct communication channel between companies and end-users. We believe the same could be true for Open Data as a way to bridge the gap between citizens and Open Data sources. This paper describes an approach to automatically derive full-fledged chatbots from API-based Open Data sources. Our process relies on a model-based intermediate representation (via UML class diagrams and profiles) to facilitate the customization of the chatbot to be generated.

Hamza Ed-Douibi, Javier Luis Cánovas Izquierdo, Abel Gómez et al.

In the last years, RESTful Web services have become more and more popular as a lightweight solution to connect remote systems in distributed and Cloud-based architectures. However, being an architectural style rather than a specification or standard, the proper design of RESTful Web services is not trivial since developers have to deal with a plethora of recommendations and best practices. Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) emphasizes the use of models and model transformations to raise the level of abstraction and semi-automate the development of software. In this paper we present an approach that leverages on MDE techniques to generate RESTful services. The approach, called EMF-REST, takes EMF data models as input and generates Web APIs following the REST principles and relying on well-known libraries and standards, thus facilitating its comprehension and maintainability. Additionally, EMF-REST integrates model and Web-specific features to provide model validation and security capabilities, respectively, to the generated API. For Web developers, our approach brings more agility to the Web development process by providing ready-to-run-and-test Web APIs out of data models. Also, our approach provides MDE practitioners the basis to develop Cloud-based modeling solutions as well as enhanced collaborative support.