“Languages and metamodels” session at MODSIM05

I guess I should have mentioned this here a long time ago; my eye wandered from a lot of balls over the last few months. Things can only get better …

I am organising a special session at MODSIM05 entitled, "Languages and metamodels for model composition." The abstract (find it under "Special Sessions" in the menu at the left of the page; the fixed masked URI stops easy linking grumble grumble) reads,

A lot is being invested at present in the production of facilities to support the composition of model components into integrated models. Any such framework embeds an ontology of models, or metamodel; this is a fundamental prerequisite of interoperability. This metamodel finds expression in the form of a composition language, be it as an API in a general purpose programming language, an application of XML, or language built on a logic-based formalism such as RDF. This combination of language and metamodel acts as a "strong pair of glasses", bringing certain things into sharp focus and obfuscating others, making some constructs easy to express, others intractably difficult. Papers are invited discussing composition languages and the metamodels they embed and express. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: description of the metamodel embedded, by design or otherwise, in a particular composition language; the power of particular metamodel in terms of the range of model types and model structures which can be described and the parsimony of description; analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the chosen foundation layers (programming language, XML, RDF, etc) and the influence of these; comparisons of two or more languages or metamodels; the relationship between the metamodel and the modelling domain ontology; reports on difficulties encountered in model linking resulting from metamodel or ontology mismatch and possible approaches to resolving these.

Getting any fish to bite with this bait is a long shot, perhaps, and getting longer if I don't get more specific invitations out. If anyone has any ideas about people who might have something to contribute, even if they don't know it, please let them, or me, know. The abstract should be interpreted broadly; if in doubt, err on the side of submitting an abstract (deadline March 18) or drop me an email.