  Behavior modeling and software architecture specification are attracting more
attention in software engineering. Describing both of them in integrated models
yields numerous advantages for coping with complexity since the models are
platform independent. They can be decomposed to be developed independently by
experts of the respective fields, and they are highly reusable and may be
subjected to formal analysis. Typically, behavior is defined as the occurrence
of an action, a pattern over time, or any change in or movement of an object.
In systems studies, there are many different approaches to modeling behavior,
such as grounding behavior simultaneously on state transitions, natural
language, and flowcharts. These different descriptions make it difficult to
compare objects with each other for consistency. This paper attempts to propose
some conceptual preliminaries to a definition of behavior in software
engineering. The main objective is to clarify the research area concerned with
system behavior aspects and to create a common platform for future research.
Five generic elementary processes (creating, processing, releasing, receiving,
and transferring) are used to form a unifying higher-order process called a
thinging machine (TM) that is utilized as a template in modeling behavior of
systems. Additionally, a TM includes memory and triggering relations among
stages of processes (machines). A TM is applied to many examples from the
literature to examine their behavioristic aspects. The results show that a TM
is a valuable tool for analyzing and modeling behavior in a system.
