% $Id: abstract.tex,v 1.19 2005/11/28 22:24:02 kitty Exp $
\begin{abstract}
  Domain-specific models increase the level of abstraction used to develop
  large-scale component-based systems.  Model-driven development (MDD)
  approaches (e.g., Model-Integrated Computing and Model-Driven
  Architecture) emphasize the use of models at all stages of system
  development.  Decomposing problems using MDD approaches may result in a
  separation of the
% Kitty, I am a bit nervous of using the word ``sometimes'' in the
% above case. Isn't it the case that the crosscutting concerns will
% always show up in the D&C issues of large systems - andy?
% Andy, I have fixed this. - kitty
  artifacts in a way that impedes comprehension.  For example, a single
  concern (such as deployment of a distributed system) may crosscut
  different orthogonal activities (such as component specification,
  interaction, packaging and planning).  To keep track of all entities
  associated with a component, and to ensure that the constraints for the
  system as a whole are not violated, a purely model-driven approach
  imposes extra effort, thereby negating some of the benefits of MDD.

  This paper provides three contributions to the study of applying
  aspect-oriented techniques to address the crosscutting challenges of
  model-driven component-based distributed systems development.
% Kitty, please see the following in which I tried to put it in a
% better way to make it look more widely applicable. One concern of a
% reviewer was that what we show is too tied to PICML so I wanted to
% show more generality - Andy
% Andy, I have reworded the sentence to replace the usage of ``it'' to
% ``we'' - kitty.
  First, we identify the sources of crosscutting concerns that typically
  arise in model-driven development of component-based systems.  Second, we
  describe how aspect-oriented model weaving helps modularize these
  crosscutting concerns using model transformations.  Third, we describe
  how we have applied model weaving using a tool called the
  Constraint-Specification Aspect Weaver (C-SAW) in the context of the
  Platform-Independent Component Modeling Language (PICML), which is a
  domain-specific modeling language for developing component-based systems.
  A case study of a joint-emergency response system is presented to express
  the challenges in modeling a typical distributed system.  Our experience
  shows that model weaving is an effective and scalable technique for
  dealing with crosscutting aspects of component-based systems development.
\end{abstract}

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