Representation of UML Activity Models as Ontology
Ali Hanzala Khan, Abid Ali Minhas
Department of Computer & System Sciences
Royal Institute of Technology-KTH, Sweden
{hanzala, aaminhas} @kth.se
Abstract
Ontology is a conceptual model that is used to
represent the concepts in a domain and relationship
between the concepts. It can be used for sharing and
reuse of the knowledge that allows humans and
machines to exchange diverse information. A process
is a series of activities that result in an outcome.
Processes can be shared and reused by creating a
repository that keeps all the information about them.
Such a repository can serve us independent of the
domain for which a process is modeled. Process
modeling is a technique for the graphical
representation of a process. Among many process-
modeling techniques, UML Activity Model is a
commonly used process-modeling notation and is
adopted for our research. This research aims at to
provide a solution for representing UML Activity
Model as an Ontology expressed in OWL. A method is
proposed for this purpose that defines mapping rules
between a UML Activity Model and Ontology. To
evaluate the validity and usefulness of our research a
case study is conducted. Military action scenario,
modeled using UML Activity Model, is taken as input.
Consequently they are mapped into ontology, thus
expressing behavioral knowledge captured in the
process as OWL ontology.
1. Introduction
Process Modeling is the graphical representation of
processes that capture, manipulate store, and distribute
data between a system and its environment and among
components within a system [1]. Such a model
identifies constructs that are used to define and
represent a process in graphical form. Commonly used
process models are Petri Nets [2], UML Activity model
[3], UML Sequence Diagram [4] and BPMN (Business
Process Modeling Notation) [5].
Moazzam Fareed Niazi
Department of Information Technology
University of Turku, Finland
moazzam.niazi@utu.fi
Ontology is a conceptual model which is used to
represent the concepts in a domain and relationship
across them [6]. Researchers propose the use of
ontologies for sharing and reuse of the knowledge that
allows humans and machines to exchange diverse
information [7]. OWL (Web Ontology Language) [8]
is a current standard for specifying such ontologies.
The UML behavioral models are process models
that contain information, which can be stored using a
knowledge representation format like ontology. A
process, business activity or workflow can be
transformed into ontology for this purpose. Such a
format will aid the information to be shared and reused
by domain experts without understanding the concepts
and notations of ontology.
Past research regarding UML Models to Ontology
transformations was limited to mapping UML Class
diagrams to Ontology [9-11]. Efforts like [9, 12, 13,
14, 15, 16] are successful to extent of mapping Static
Structural Models into ontology. Behavior models like
Petri Nets [2], UML Activity model [3], UML Sequence
Diagram [4] and BPMN [5] that illustrates work flow
and business processes are not significantly addressed.
UML Activity model is widely used approach for
process modeling. Consequently we have chosen this
model for our desired purpose. Currently, a limited
research is available on how we should represent the
behavioral knowledge captured in an UML activity
model using the same OWL ontology language.
2. UML Behavioral model to OWL
According to our proposed method, a UML activity
diagram is modeled in a UML modeling tool, for
example, Poseidon for UML, a UML based modeling
tool. The tool exports an XMI, which is embedded
with the behavioral knowledge expressed in a
particular UML activity diagram. This XMI serves as
input to mapping application as shown in Figure 1. On
the other hand we have target process ontology
expressed in OWL. This ontology is specially modeled
to match the needs of our research.
The mapping rules are scripted in form of XML
Style sheet Language Transformation XSLT; XSLT is a
language for transforming XML documents into other
XML documents [17]. XSLT together with XMI
representation of UML activity diagram is used as
input to the mapping application. The output is OWL
ontology expressing the behavior knowledge
represented by activity diagram; Figure 1 depicts a
detailed overview of our proposed solution.
Figure 1. Proposed solution
2.1. Target Ontology
Translation of UML Activity Diagram into ontology
requires the use of predefined target ontology. Target
ontology needs to be expressive enough to capture the
information contained in a UML Activity Diagram.
There exist many process ontologies such as Open
Source Business Management Ontology [18],
Biological Process Ontology [19], Software Design
Process Ontology [20] and Gene Ontology [21]. But
they are domain specific and are not readily usable for
representing a generic process. There are some other
ontologies like A Process Ontology [22] and OWL-S
that support generic process representation. None of
these can be used as it is for our research. But a
thorough examination reveals that OWL-S is very
suitable for the cause if we modify OWL-S to build our
target ontology.
OWL-S is an OWL based ontology proposed for
description of web services [23]. It enables automatic
discovery, invocation, composition and interoperation
of web services for software agents. OWL-S consists
of three parts i.e. service profile, service grounding and
service process model. Service profile tells what a
service does where as service grounding enclose
information necessary for a user to interact with the
service. Process model describes the procedure for
service execution illustrating the input, output and
activities involved in course of action. Service process
model of OWL-S is closely related to what we need as
target ontology to capture the semantics of UML
activity diagram.
OWL-S process ontology is modified to obtain a
process ontology that will serve the purpose of this
research. We are excluding UAD-OWL target ontology
figure because of the space reason but it’s accessible
on one of the author’s homepage at [24]. Following is
a summary of UAD-OWL target ontology.
• Process class represents a process.
• Control Construct is a class concept with sub class
concepts Merge, Fork, Choice, Perform, Join and
Decision. These classes represent the UML activity
diagram control constructs.
• Activity is a class concept with sub class concepts
Atomic Activity and Composite Activity. Composite
activity represents the process as whole. Atomic
activity represents the activities or tasks to complete
the process. The sub class concepts of atomic activity
capture detailed information of each activity, for
example, time limit, loop etc.
• List class concept has a sub class concept named as
Control Construct List used to maintain the
information regarding the sequence of graphical
control constructs of a UML activity diagram.
UAD-OWL ontology will serve as a repository of
processes. It is capable of expressing the behavioral
knowledge represented by processes modeled using
UML activity diagram. This repository will facilitate
sharing and reuse of different processes. UML-OWL
can be viewed in an ontology-modeling tool such as
Protégé [25].
2.2. Mapping Rules
This section describes how constructs across the two
models are related at conceptual level. This leads to
realization of correspondence between source model
and target model notations. Table 1 represents an
overview of the way control constructs of OWL
ontology map to UML Activity Diagram constructs.
A UML activity diagram can have six different
types of control constructs i.e. Fork, Join, Transition,
Decision, Merge and State. In UAD-OWL ontology
there is class concept Control Construct that can serve
this purpose. It has six sub classes named as Fork,
Choice, Perform, Join and Decision. Accordingly
Fork, Join, Transition, Decision, Merge and State from
UML activity diagram are mapped onto Fork, Join,
Transition, Decision, Merge and State class constructs
of OWL respectively.
Table 1 summarizes the correspondence between
above mentioned constructs across two models.
 Type UML 2.0 UAD-OWL
Type UML 2.0 Kim-OWL UAD-OWL
Control Construct Fork Fork
Join Join
Fork Split Fork
Transition Choice Join Join Join
Decision Decision Transition X Choice
Merge Merge Control Decision Choice Decision
State Perform Construct Merge X Merge
Activity State Action Task State X Perform
Model Composite Activity
State X Action Task
Activity Model X Composite
Table 1. Construct mapping at conceptual level. Activity
Table 3. Mapping rules’comparison at conceptual level
A UML activity diagram models activities involved
in a process. The process modeled is labeled as Model
and each activity are labeled as State. Proposed UML-XMI OWL
ontology has class concepts as Atomic Activity and
Composite Activity. State and Model constructs from Construct XML Tag Construct UAD-OWL XML Tag
UML are mapped into Atomic Activity and Composite Model <UML:Activity> Process <Process rdf:ID =
”Process Name">
Activity constructs of OWL respectively. State <UML2:CallAction> Perform <Action-Task rdf:ID =
"Task Name”>
The association between vocabularies of the two Fork <UML2:ForkNode> Fork <Forkrdf:ID = ”Fork Name">
models, as shown in Table 2, tends towards the general Join <UML2:JoinNode> Join <Joinrdf:ID = ”Join Name">
rules for transformation. These rules can be followed Transition <UML2:ActivityEdge> Choice <Choicerdf:ID =
”ChoiceName">
for translation of UML Activity to OWL ontology. Decision <UML2:DecisionNode> Decision <Decisionrdf:ID =
”Decision Name">
Thus mapping at implementation level can be Merge <UML2:MergeNode> Merge <Mergerdf:ID =
achieved. XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) is a ”Merge Name">

standard for exchanging metadata information via Table 4. Mapping rules’comparison at implementation level
XML. OWL is also a XML schema. All we need is to
transform one XML document to another XML
document. For that reason we have identified 4. Case Study
relationship between UML metadata XMI tags and
OWL tags. Summary of the relationship between
source XMI and target OWL is presented in Table 2.
4.1. Base Object Models (BOMs)

The Simulation Interoperability Standards

UML-XMI OWL
Organization (SISO) focuses on facilitating simulation
Construct XML Tag Construct Kim
XML
UAD-OWL XML
Tag
interoperability across governmental and non-
Model <UML:Activity> Process
Tag
X <Process rdf:ID =
governmental application worldwide. SISO has
State <UML2:CallAction> Perform X
”Process Name">
<Action-Task rdf:ID =
proposed Base Object Models (BOMs) [27] as a
Fork <UML2:ForkNode> Fork X
”Task Name”>
<Forkrdf:ID = ”Fork
method to support and promote reuse of simulation
Join <UML2:JoinNode> Join X
Name">
<Joinrdf:ID = ”Join
components.
Transition <UML2:ActivityEdge Choice X
Name">
<Choicerdf:ID =
Base Object Models (BOMs) provide a component
Decision
>
<UML2:DecisionNod Decision X
”Choice Name">
<Decisionrdf:ID =
framework for facilitating interoperability, reuse, and
Merge
e>
<UML2:MergeNode> Merge X
”Decision Name">
<Mergerdf:ID =
compatibility. The assumption behind BOMs is that
”Merge Name"> piece parts of models, simulations, and federations can
Table 2. Construct mapping at implementation level. be extracted and reused as modeling building or
components. The interplay between simulations can be
captured in the form of reusable patterns. The pattern
3. Related Work of interplay is sequence of events between simulation
elements. BOMs capture the representation of the
Woong Kim and Kyong-Ho Lee propose a method pattern. Simulation conceptual model found in BOMs
for “Describing semantic web services: From UML to contain information on how conceptual entities and
OWL-S” [26], they are using XSLT to transform conceptual events, representing real world entities,
activity model into ontology, Table 3 and Table 4 relate or interact with each other in real world. This
shows the comparison of Kim’s method with UAD- information is illustrated in the form of patterns of
OWL method mapping rules at conceptual and interplay and state machines.
implementation level respectively.
4.2. Test Case will be an OWL file which contains output ontology.
The output ontology can be viewed at [24] because of
This section is about the transformation of activity the space limitations.
model for the Target Entity of a Weapon Effects BOM
in to OWL. 5. Conclusion and Future work
4.2.1. State machine of the target entity In this paper, we proposed a solution to problems
of representing behavioral knowledge expressed in
In this case study, the only conceptual entity UML activity diagram as OWL ontology. According to
identified for fulfilling the state machine is the our proposed method, a UML activity diagram is
TargetEntity. The details of a conceptual entity, such modeled in a UML modeling tool. An XMI is exported
as TargetEntity, are defined separately within a BOM. from the tool, which encloses the behavioral
Each state transition is carried out by an exit action. knowledge expressed in a particular UML activity
Details of the exit actions, such as “Weapon Fire diagram. The XMI is the input to XSLT Processor. On
Action”, “Munition Detonation Action”, and “Damage the other hand we have designed target process
State Update Action”, including their dependency on ontology expressed in OWL. This ontology is specially
an event type or BOM to carry out the pattern action, modeled to match the needs of our research.
maybe provided elsewhere in the BOM using the The mapping rules are script in form of XML Style
pattern of interplay template component. sheet Language Transformation XSLT is used to script
the mapping rules in the form of XML. XSLT together
State
Machine
Conceptual
Entity
State
Note
with XMI representation of UML activity diagram is
State Name Exit Condition
Name
Exit Action Next State used as input to the XSLT Processor. The output is
Target
States
Target
Entity
Ready
Under Fire
Weapon Fire Action
Munition Detonation
Under Fire
Impact
Na
Na
OWL ontology expressing the behavior knowledge
Impact
Action
Damage State Update
Detonation
Ready Na
represented by activity diagram.
Detonation Action In future we shall work on other frequently used
Table 5. State machine for target entity. process models like Petri Nets, UML Sequence
Diagram and BPMN (Business Process Modeling
4.2.2. Activity Diagram Notation).

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