Call for Papers: Special Issue of Transactions on Aspect-Oriented Software Development A Common Case Study for Aspect-Oriented Modeling Approaches

The idea behind Aspect-oriented Modeling (AOM) is to apply aspect-oriented techniques to (software) models with the aim of modularizing crosscutting concerns. This can be done within different modeling notations, at different levels of abstraction, and at different moments during the software development process. To date, there exist many AOM techniques for different modeling notations (e.g., for class diagrams, sequence diagrams, state diagrams, protocol machines, component diagrams, live sequence charts, use cases, etc..) and many AOM approaches that can be applied at different phases of software development (requirements, analysis, architecture, design, implementation) or to different domains (e.g., to software product lines, modeling security, modeling fault tolerance, etc...). Despite the many sources of information on AOM, it is not easy for people who want to use AOM to chose an appropriate AOM technique. Comparing different AOM approaches with each other to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of each one is not trivial, because each research team applies their AOM approach within a different context. Finally, it is not clear nowadays how several AOM approaches that apply to different phases of software development could be combined to produce a coherent aspect-oriented software development process. This special issue solicits papers that demonstrate the power of (existing) AOM techniques and approaches by applying them to the same case study. Each paper should critically analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the described approach. The resulting collection of papers will provide a valuable resource for many researchers: