Mining Frequent Structures in Conceptual Models
This provides a support tool for language engineers to identify modeling practices and refine conceptual modeling languages, facilitating expertise reuse and higher-quality models, but it is incremental as it builds on existing frequent subgraph mining techniques.
The authors tackled the problem of discovering frequent structures in conceptual modeling languages, which is complex and lacks systematic solutions, by proposing a general approach and implementing an exploratory tool that identifies recurrent structures in models, validated on OntoUML and ArchiMate datasets.
The problem of using structured methods to represent knowledge is well-known in conceptual modeling and has been studied for many years. It has been proven that adopting modeling patterns represents an effective structural method. Patterns are, indeed, generalizable recurrent structures that can be exploited as solutions to design problems. They aid in understanding and improving the process of creating models. The undeniable value of using patterns in conceptual modeling was demonstrated in several experimental studies. However, discovering patterns in conceptual models is widely recognized as a highly complex task and a systematic solution to pattern identification is currently lacking. In this paper, we propose a general approach to the problem of discovering frequent structures, as they occur in conceptual modeling languages. As proof of concept, we implement our approach by focusing on two widely-used conceptual modeling languages. This implementation includes an exploratory tool that integrates a frequent subgraph mining algorithm with graph manipulation techniques. The tool processes multiple conceptual models and identifies recurrent structures based on various criteria. We validate the tool using two state-of-the-art curated datasets: one consisting of models encoded in OntoUML and the other in ArchiMate. The primary objective of our approach is to provide a support tool for language engineers. This tool can be used to identify both effective and ineffective modeling practices, enabling the refinement and evolution of conceptual modeling languages. Furthermore, it facilitates the reuse of accumulated expertise, ultimately supporting the creation of higher-quality models in a given language.