CS2125 Paper Review Form - Winter 2018

Reviewer: Azadeh Assadi

Paper Title: A Relationship-Based Approach to Model Integration

Author(s): Marsha Chechik, Shiva Nejati, Mehrdad Sabetzadeh

1) Is the paper technically correct?
 [X] Yes
 [ ] Mostly (minor flaws, but mostly solid)
 [ ] No

2) Originality
 [ ] Very good (very novel, trailblazing work)
 [X] Good 
 [ ] Marginal (very incremental)
 [ ] Poor (little or nothing that is new)

3) Technical Depth
 [ ] Very good (comparable to best conference papers)
 [X] Good (comparable to typical conference papers)
 [ ] Marginal depth
 [ ] Little or no depth

4) Impact/Significance
 [ ] Very significant
 [X] Significant
 [ ] Marginal significance.
 [ ] Little or no significance.

5) Presentation
 [X] Very well written
 [ ] Generally well written
 [ ] Readable
 [ ] Needs considerable work
 [ ] Unacceptably bad

6) Overall Rating
 [X] Strong accept (award quality)
 [ ] Accept (high quality - would argue for acceptance)
 [ ] Weak Accept (borderline, but lean towards acceptance)
 [ ] Weak Reject (not sure why this paper was published)


7) Summary of the paper's main contribution and rationale
   for your recommendation. (1-2 paragraphs)
The authors provide an excellent overview of the various integration operations (namely, merge, composition and weaving) using examples. They then proceed to explain how their tool TReMer+, uses Algebraic Merge in the first step to merge models using a connector. This connector is a subgraph that captures the relationships between two models and merges them where equivalence is established. In this phase colimits is used to ensure syntactic structure of the source models are maintained in their merge. In the second step, TReMer+ performs state machine merging with respect to binary relations between the input state machines. In this merging process, the merging is complete, and soundness is achieved for linear time temporal logic properties (i.e. if it wasn’t in the original state machines, it will not be added or removed to the merged mapping).

Given the quality of the writing as well as the detailed explanation of some of the important concepts in the field of modeling, this paper is an excellent tool to reach these concepts to those new to the field.

8) List 1-3 strengths of the paper.  (1-2 sentences each,
identified as S1, S2, S3.)
S1- thorough explanation of the concepts – Merging, composition, weaving, overlap relations
S2- thorough explanation of the criteria for merge and consistent referencing to these elements throughout the paper as the algebraic and state machine merging process is explained
S3- Great use of graphics to better illustrate and describe the principle described in the paper
S4- well written overall with good structure that allows easy flow and reading of the paper.

9) List 1-3 weaknesses of the paper (1-2 sentences each,
identified as W1, W2, W3.)
W1- As alluded to in the paper, the application of this TreMer+ system is best suited for small and simple models. This limits the generalizability of the application to other more complex systems where such merging tools are most needed
W2- The example used to explain the concept of composing can also be used as an example for weaving given that the described action could occur in the database level like the logging activity. An alternative example could be actions that require verification or completion by another user before they are formalized in the system