Abstract System of Systems (SoS) results from the integration of a set of independent Constituent Systems (CS) that could be socio or technical, in order to offer unique functionalities. SoS is largely driven by stakeholders’ needs and goals taking into consideration SoS-level global goals and CS-level individual goals. It’s challenging to manage the satisfaction of these goals in such complex SoS arrangements, where links between these goals may not be clearly known or specified, and competing goals establish a complex stakeholder environment. In this research the i* goal-oriented framework has been utilised in SoS context to identify, model and manage goals of the overall SoS and its constituent systems. This paper discusses a novel Goals Referential Integrity (GRI) model that is intended to maintain the integrity and consistency of both the SoS-level and the CS- level goals, in an attempt to address the current challenges of managing goals in an SoS arrangement. Furthermore, an ontology-based model has been developed to support the GRI model and semantically annotate goals’ levels in SoS context, specify the relationships and linkages between the SoS organisation, its constituent systems, global and local goals, and strategic and policy documents. Together the GRI model and its associated ontology model form the Semantic Goals Referential Integrity (SGRI) applied in SoS context, where conflicts between goals at the SoS and the CS-levels can be discovered in an attempt to maintain the semantic integrity of the SoS and CS goals.

References

[1] AlHajHassan S., Odeh M., and Green S., “Aligning Systems of Systems Engineering with Goal-Oriented Approaches Using The i* Framework,” in Proceedings of IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering, Edinburgh, pp. 1-7, 2016.

[2] AlHajHassan S., Odeh M., Green S., and Mansour A., “Goal-Oriented Strategic Modelling for Cancer Care in Systems of Systems Context Using the i* Framework,” in Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Cancer Care Informatics, Amman, pp. 100-109, 2018.

[3] Amyot D., Ghanavati S., Horkoff J., Mussbacher G., Peyton L., and Yu E., “Evaluating Goal Models within The Goal-Oriented Requirement Language,” International Journal of Intelligent Systems, vol. 25, no. 8, pp. 841-877, 2010.

[4] Cavalcante E., Batista T., Bencomo N., and Sawyer P., “Revisiting Goal-Oriented Models for Self-Aware Systems-of-Systems,” in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Autonomic Computing, Grenoble, pp. 231- 234, 2015.

[5] Darimont R., and Van Lamsweerde A., “Formal Refinement Patterns for Goal-Driven Requirements Elaboration,” ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, vol. 21, no. 6, pp. 179-190, 1996.

[6] DeLaurentis D., “Understanding Transportation as a System-of-Systems Design Problem,” in Proceedings of 43rd AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, Reno, 2005.

[7] Elmasri R., and Navathe S., Fundamentals of database system, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 2010.

[8] Franch X., “A Method for the Definition of Metrics over I* Models,” in Proceedings of International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering, Amsterdam, pp. 201-215, 2009.

[9] Giorgini P., Mylopoulos J., and Sebastiani R., “Goal-Oriented Requirements Analysis and Reasoning in the Tropos Methodology,” Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 159-171, 2005.

[10] Grefen P. and Apers P., “Integrity Control in Relational Database Systems-An Overview,”Data and Knowledge Engineering, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 187-223, 1993.

[11] Guizzardi G. and Wagner G., “Towards Ontological Foundations for Agent Modelling Concepts using the Unified Fundational Ontology (UFO),” in Proceedings of Agent- Oriented Information Systems II, Riga, pp. 110- 124, 2004.

[12] Guizzardi R., Franch X., Guizzardi G., and Wieringa R., “Using A Foundational Ontology to Investigate the Semantics Behind the Concepts of the i* Language,” in Proceedings of the 6thInternational i* Workshop, pp. 13-18, 2013.

[13] Guizzardi R., Franch X., and Guizzardi G., “Applying A Foundational Ontology to Analyze Means-End Links in the I∗ Framework,” in Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Research Challenges in Information Science, Valencia, pp. 1-11, 2012.

[14] MacDiarmid A., and Lindsay P., “Can system of systems be given self-x requirement engineering capabilities?,” in Proceedings of Systems Engineering and Test and Evaluation Conference, Canberra, pp. 1-15, 2010.

[15] Maier M., “Architecting Principles for Systems- of-Systems,” Systems Engineering: the Journal of the International Council on Systems Engineering, vol. 1, no.4, pp. 267-284, 1998.

[16] Najera K., Martinez A., Perini A., and Estrada H., “An Ontology-Based Methodology for Integrating i* Variants,” in Proceedings of the 6th An Ontology-based i*Goal-Oriented Referential Integrity Model in Systems of Systems Context 575 International i* Workshop in iStar, Valencia, pp. 1-6, 2013.

[17] Najera K., Perini A., Martinez A., and Estrada H., “Supporting i* Model Integration through anOntology-based Approach,” in Proceedings of the 5th International i* Workshop in iStar, Trento, pp. 43-48, 2011.

[18] Ncube C., Lim S., and Dogan H., “Identifying Top Challenges for International Research on Requirements Engineering for Systems of Systems Engineering,” in Proceedings of 21stIEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, Rio de Janeiro, pp. 342- 344, 2013.

[19] Noy N. and McGuinness D., “Ontology Development 101: A Guide to Creating Your First Ontology,” Technical Report, Stanford University, Stanford, 2001.

[20] ODUSD(A&T)SSE, Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, Systems and Software Engineering, “Systems engineering guide for Systems of Systems,” Technical Report, Version 1.0. Washington, DC, 2008.

[21] Ordonez C., García-García J., and Chen Z., “Measuring Referential Integrity in Distributed Databases,” in Proceedings of the ACM 1st workshop on CyberInfrastructure: Information Management in eScience, Lisbon, pp. 61-66, 2007.

[22] Pan X., Yin B., and Hu J., “Modeling and Simulation for SoS Based on the Dodaf Framework,” in Proceedings of the 9thnternational Conference on Reliability, Maintainability and Safety, Guiyang, pp. 1283- 1287, 2011.

[23] Patel-Schneider P., Hayes P., Horrocks I., and van Harmelen F., “OWL Web Ontology Language; Semantics and Abstract Syntax,” Technical Report, W3C Candidate Recommendation, 2002.

[24] Rolland C., Enterprise Information Systems V, Springer, 2005.

[25] Van Lamsweerde A., “Goal-Oriented Requirements Engineering: A Guided Tour,” in Proceedings of the 5thIEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering,Toronto, pp. 249-262, 2001.

[26] Van Lamsweerde A., “Requirements Engineering in the Year 00: A Research Perspective,” in Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Software Engineering, New York, pp. 5-19, 2000.

[27] Vazquez B., Estrada H., Martinez A., Morandini M., and Perini A., “Extension and Integration of i* Models with Ontologies,” in Proceedings of the 6th Interantional i* Workshop in iStar, Valencia, pp. 7-12, 2013.

[28] Viana T., Zisman A., and Bandara A., “Identifying Conflicting Requirements in Systems of Systems,” in Proceedings of the 25th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, Lisbon, pp. 436-441, 2017.

[29] Yu E., Modelling Strategic Relationships for Process Reengineering, PhD Thesis, University of Toronto, 2011.

[30] Yu E., Conceptual Modeling: Foundations and Applications, Springer, 2009. 576 The International Arab Journal of Information Technology, Vol. 16, No. 3A, Special Issue 2019 Suhair AlHajHassan is an associate lecturer and a PhD researcher at the University of the West of England/ Software Engineering Research Group. Suhair worked as an oracle developer after obtaining her bachelor’s degree in Computer Information Systems from University of Jordan (2005). She has obtained an MSc with honors in Computer Information Systems (2008) from Jordan and has worked for seven years as a lecturer at different universities in Jordan, UAE, and KSA. Suhair was the coordinator of the MIS department and co-organiser of the yearly MIS Symposium while working at the University of Dammam/KSA in 2013 and 2014, and an internal assessor at Emirates College of Technology/UAE, between 2010 and 2012.She has achieved the highest score in the Middle East in California Critical Thinking Skills Test until 2011.Suhair’s research interests include requirements engineering, systems of systems, and goal-oriented modelling. Mohammed Odeh, PhD, is head of the Software Engineering Research Group in the University of the West of England, and professor of Cancer Care Informatics (first professor awarded this title) at King Hussein Cancer Center in Jordan. Mohammed has co-founded Cancer Care Informatics (CCI) as a dedicated initiative that includes the 1st International Conference on CCI, the 1st MSc in CCI research programme jointly run with KHCC and the University of Jordan, with input from the University of West of England. He is also the co-founder and co- editor of the forthcoming CCI International Journal. Mohammed has more than 33 years of research experience in software engineering with an in-depth interest in Systems of Systems software engineering, knowledge-driven requirements engineering and bridging the gap between business processes and computer-based systems. He has been supervising 20 PhD students and acting as invited PhD examiner externally and internally, referee for the promotion of academic staff to professorial posts, invited keynote speaker in international conferences, member of the steering committee of the ACIT conference, and associate editor on international journals such as IAJIT and INCOSE/Wiley Systems Engineering. Mohammed was co-organiser of the 5th IEEE CloudCom Conference in 2013 and the 2015 EICM Conference in Bristol, UK. He has been UWE principal investigator on the OntoREM project and joint inventor of OntoREM with Dr.Kossmann from Airbus, with two US patents. Among other research output include 46 refereed journal papers and books (including books and research work to appear) and 50 conference papers. He has been UWE co-investigator on EU FP5, FP6 and FP7 projects. Stewart Green, After obtaining a first degree in Psychology at the Hatfield Polytechnic, he worked for twelve years in the IT industry for ICL, British Aerospace and Prime Computers before completing an MSc in Foundations of Advanced Information Technology (1990) and a PhD in Computer Science (2004), both at Imperial College, London. Since 1992, he has been a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Creative Technologies at the University of the West of England, where he teaches requirements engineering and researches both business process architectures, as a member of the Software Engineering Research Group, and also learning analytics. From 2008 until 2017, he was the Programme Leader for both the Computer Science and the Software Engineering programmes. In 2017, he became a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Stewart is a registered accreditation assessor for the British Computer Society. Asem Mansour, MD, has served as CEO and Director General of King Hussein Cancer Center (KHCC) since April 2012. He leads more than 2,000oncologists and medical professionals in executing KHCC’s vision to provide the highest quality care to cancer patients in Jordan and across the Middle East. Under his leadership, KHCC underwent the region’s largest cancer center expansion, which is set to include a new, 13-story inpatient tower and a 10- story outpatient building. Asem’s affiliation with KHCC dates back to 1998 when he was appointed as Chairman of the department of Diagnostic Radiology. In this role, he led the department’s growth to become one of the most advanced diagnostic imaging facilities in the region, with highly qualified staff and state-of- the-art machinery. He further serves as Chairman of the Board of the Jordan Breast Cancer Program. He earned his MSc in Medical Management from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.D. from Vitebsk Medical Institute and a fellowship from The Royal College of Radiologists/London.