Representing knowledge patterns in a conceptual database design aid : a dual-base knowledge model

The current status of the Knowledge-Based Database Design Systems (KBDDSs) is reviewed. It is shown that they do not resolve the problems of the identification of the relevant objects (relations) and the interpretation of the identified objects from the semantic-rich reality. Consequently, a theoretical architecture is developed to alleviate these problems by reusing the finished conceptual data schemata. By taking account of the essence of the reality and the problem-solving behaviour of experts, a new knowledge model called the Dual-Base Knowledge Model (DBKM), which involves two syngeristic knowledge structures, the concept and case bases, is constructed by the theories of conceptual knowledge in the psychological realm and the notions of relation and function from set theory. The aim is to provide rational and valid grounds for the support and interplay of these two bases in order to reuse the relevant old cases and facilitate the acquisition of new cases. Thus, the process model, which involves two process mechanisms, the case retrieval and knowledge accumulation mechanisms, is analysed according to the theory of the proposed DBKM. In this way, the feasibility of reusing the relevant schemata or part of them can be established in the DBKM architecture. The functionality of the DBKM architecture is tested by a simulated example to show how the relevant cases are recalled in the knowledge pool and the new knowledge is stored in the knowledge repository. The distinctions between the DBKM architecture and the frameworks of current KBDDSs and Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) systems (from the knowledge-based system view), and between the DBKM and those knowledge models in current KBDDSs and rule-based data modelling approaches (from the knowledge-modelling view) are investigated to contrast the current levels of progress of the conceptual data modelling. This research establishes the feasibility of the DBKM architecture, although it demonstrates the need to accommodate the dynamic and functional aspects of the Universe of Discourse (UoD). The main contributions of the DBKM are (1) to provide a valid basis for complementing the environments supported by the current KBDDSs and a rational basis for creating the symbiosis of humans and computer; and (2) to moderate the beliefs underlying the fact-based school and provide a hermeneutic environment, so that the confusion of the current conceptualising work can be alleviated and the difficulty of the conceptualising task can be eased to some degree

Semi-automatic assessment of students' graph-based diagrams

Diagrams are increasingly used in many design methods, and are being taught in a variety of contexts in higher education such as database conceptual design or software design in computer science. They are an important part of many assessments. Currently computer aided assessments are widely used for multiple choice questions. They lack the ability to assess a student’s knowledge in a more comprehensive way, which is required for diagram-type student work. The aim of this research is to develop a semi-automatic assessment framework, which enables the use of computer to support the assessment process of diagrammatic solutions, with the focus of ensuring the consistency of grades and feedback on solutions. A novel trace model, that captures design traces of student solutions, was developed as a part of the framework and was used to provide the matching criteria for grouping the solutions. A new marking style, partial marking, was developed to mark these solution groups manually. The Case-Based Reasoning method is utilised in the framework to mark some of the groups automatically. A guideline for scenario writing was proposed to increase the efficiency of automatic marking. A prototype diagram editor, a marking tool and scenario writing environment were implemented for the proposed framework in order to demonstrate proof of concept. The results of experiments show that the framework is feasible to use in the formative assessment and it provides consistent marking and personalised feedback to the students. The framework also has the potential to significantly reduce the time and effort required by the examiner to mark student diagrams. Although the constructed framework was specifically used for the assessment of database diagrams, the framework is generic enough to be used for other types of graph-based diagram

Learning from AI : new trends in database technology

Recently some researchers in the areas of database data modelling and knowledge representations in artificial intelligence have recognized that they share many common goals. In this survey paper we show the relationship between database and artificial intelligence research. We show that there has been a tendency for data models to incorporate more modelling techniques developed for knowledge representations in artificial intelligence as the desire to incorporate more application oriented semantics, user friendliness, and flexibility has increased. Increasing the semantics of the representation is the key to capturing the "reality" of the database environment, increasing user friendliness, and facilitating the support of multiple, possibly conflicting, user views of the information contained in a database

Developing domain ontologies for course content

Ontologies have the potential to play an important role in instructional design and the development of course content. They can be used to represent knowledge about content, supporting instructors in creating content or learners in accessing content in a knowledge-guided way. While ontologies exist for many subject domains, their quality and suitability for the educational context might be unclear. For numerous subjects, ontologies do not exist. We present a method for domain experts rather than ontology engineers to develop ontologies for use in the delivery of courseware content. We will focus in particular on relationship types that allow us to model rich domains adequately

Conceptual Modelling and The Quality of Ontologies: Endurantism Vs. Perdurantism

Ontologies are key enablers for sharing precise and machine-understandable semantics among different applications and parties. Yet, for ontologies to meet these expectations, their quality must be of a good standard. The quality of an ontology is strongly based on the design method employed. This paper addresses the design problems related to the modelling of ontologies, with specific concentration on the issues related to the quality of the conceptualisations produced. The paper aims to demonstrate the impact of the modelling paradigm adopted on the quality of ontological models and, consequently, the potential impact that such a decision can have in relation to the development of software applications. To this aim, an ontology that is conceptualised based on the Object-Role Modelling (ORM) approach (a representative of endurantism) is re-engineered into a one modelled on the basis of the Object Paradigm (OP) (a representative of perdurantism). Next, the two ontologies are analytically compared using the specified criteria. The conducted comparison highlights that using the OP for ontology conceptualisation can provide more expressive, reusable, objective and temporal ontologies than those conceptualised on the basis of the ORM approach

Proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET 2013)

"This book contains the proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET) 2013 which was held on 16.-17.September 2013 in Paphos (Cyprus) in conjunction with the EC-TEL conference. The workshop and hence the proceedings are divided in two parts: on Day 1 the EuroPLOT project and its results are introduced, with papers about the specific case studies and their evaluation. On Day 2, peer-reviewed papers are presented which address specific topics and issues going beyond the EuroPLOT scope. This workshop is one of the deliverables (D 2.6) of the EuroPLOT project, which has been funded from November 2010 – October 2013 by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of the European Commission through the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLL) by grant #511633. The purpose of this project was to develop and evaluate Persuasive Learning Objects and Technologies (PLOTS), based on ideas of BJ Fogg. The purpose of this workshop is to summarize the findings obtained during this project and disseminate them to an interested audience. Furthermore, it shall foster discussions about the future of persuasive technology and design in the context of learning, education and teaching. The international community working in this area of research is relatively small. Nevertheless, we have received a number of high-quality submissions which went through a peer-review process before being selected for presentation and publication. We hope that the information found in this book is useful to the reader and that more interest in this novel approach of persuasive design for teaching/education/learning is stimulated. We are very grateful to the organisers of EC-TEL 2013 for allowing to host IWEPLET 2013 within their organisational facilities which helped us a lot in preparing this event. I am also very grateful to everyone in the EuroPLOT team for collaborating so effectively in these three years towards creating excellent outputs, and for being such a nice group with a very positive spirit also beyond work. And finally I would like to thank the EACEA for providing the financial resources for the EuroPLOT project and for being very helpful when needed. This funding made it possible to organise the IWEPLET workshop without charging a fee from the participants.

Development of an automated aircraft subsystem architecture generation and analysis tool

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a new computational framework to address future preliminary design needs for aircraft subsystems. The ability to investigate multiple candidate technologies forming subsystem architectures is enabled with the provision of automated architecture generation, analysis and optimization. Main focus lies with a demonstration of the frameworks workings, as well as the optimizers performance with a typical form of application problem. Design/methodology/approach – The core aspects involve a functional decomposition, coupled with a synergistic mission performance analysis on the aircraft, architecture and component levels. This may be followed by a complete enumeration of architectures, combined with a user defined technology filtering and concept ranking procedure. In addition, a hybrid heuristic optimizer, based on ant systems optimization and a genetic algorithm, is employed to produce optimal architectures in both component composition and design parameters. The optimizer is tested on a generic architecture design problem combined with modified Griewank and parabolic functions for the continuous space. Findings – Insights from the generalized application problem show consistent rediscovery of the optimal architectures with the optimizer, as compared to a full problem enumeration. In addition multi-objective optimization reveals a Pareto front with differences in component composition as well as continuous parameters. Research limitations/implications – This paper demonstrates the frameworks application on a generalized test problem only. Further publication will consider real engineering design problems. Originality/value – The paper addresses the need for future conceptual design methods of complex systems to consider a mixed concept space of both discrete and continuous nature via automated methods

Machine learning stochastic design models.

Due to the fluid nature of the early stages of the design process, it is difficult to obtain deterministic product design evaluations. This is primarily due to the flexibility of the design at this stage, namely that there can be multiple interpretations of a single design concept. However, it is important for designers to understand how these design concepts are likely to fulfil the original specification, thus enabling the designer to select or bias towards solutions with favourable outcomes. One approach is to create a stochastic model of the design domain. This paper tackles the issues of using a product database to induce a Bayesian model that represents the relationships between the design parameters and characteristics. A greedy learning algorithm is presented and illustrated using a simple case study

Modeling views in the layered view model for XML using UML

In data engineering, view formalisms are used to provide flexibility to users and user applications by allowing them to extract and elaborate data from the stored data sources. Conversely, since the introduction of Extensible Markup Language (XML), it is fast emerging as the dominant standard for storing, describing, and interchanging data among various web and heterogeneous data sources. In combination with XML Schema, XML provides rich facilities for defining and constraining user-defined data semantics and properties, a feature that is unique to XML. In this context, it is interesting to investigate traditional database features, such as view models and view design techniques for XML. However, traditional view formalisms are strongly coupled to the data language and its syntax, thus it proves to be a difficult task to support views in the case of semi-structured data models. Therefore, in this paper we propose a Layered View Model (LVM) for XML with conceptual and schemata extensions. Here our work is three-fold; first we propose an approach to separate the implementation and conceptual aspects of the views that provides a clear separation of concerns, thus, allowing analysis and design of views to be separated from their implementation. Secondly, we define representations to express and construct these views at the conceptual level. Thirdly, we define a view transformation methodology for XML views in the LVM, which carries out automated transformation to a view schema and a view query expression in an appropriate query language. Also, to validate and apply the LVM concepts, methods and transformations developed, we propose a view-driven application development framework with the flexibility to develop web and database applications for XML, at varying levels of abstraction