Domain-oriented architecture design for production control software

this paper, we present domain-oriented architectural design heuristics for production control software. Our approach is based upon the following premisses. First, software design, like all other forms of design, consists of the reduction of uncertainty about a final product by making design decisions. These decisions should as much as possible be based upon information that is certain, either because they represent laws of nature or because they represent previously made design decisions. An import class of information concerns the domain of the software. The domain of control software is the part of the world monitored and controlled by the software; it is the larger system into which the software is embedded. The software engineer should exploit system-level domain knowledge in order to make software design decisions. Second, in the case of production control software, using system-level knowledge is not only justified, it is also imposed on the software engineer by the necessity to cooperate with hardware engineers. These represent their designs by means of Process and Instrumentation Diagrams (PIDs) and Input-Output (IO) lists. They do not want to spend time, nor do they see the need, to duplicate the information represented by these diagrams by means of diagrams from software engineering methods. Such a duplication would be an occasion to introduce errors of omission (information lost during the translation process) or commission (misinterpretation, misguided but invisible design decisions made during the translation) anyway. We think it is up to the software engineer to adapt his or her notations to those of the system engineers he or she must work with. Third, work in patterns and software architectures started from the programminglanguage level and is now moving..

Using NLP tools in the specification phase

The software quality control is one of the main topics in the Software Engineering area. To put the effort in the quality control during the specification phase leads us to detect possible mistakes in an early steps and, easily, to correct them before the design and implementation steps start. In this framework the goal of SAREL system, a knowledge-based system, is twofold. On one hand, to help software engineers in the creation of quality Software Requirements Specifications. On the other hand, to analyze the correspondence between two different conceptual representations associated with two different Software Requirements Specification documents. For the first goal, a set of NLP and Knowledge management tools is applied to obtain a conceptual representation that can be validated and managed by the software engineer. For the second goal we have established some correspondence measures in order to get a comparison between two conceptual representations. This information will be useful during the interaction.Postprint (published version

Information engineering of a software engineering ontology

In this paper, we describe the preliminary result of the development and implementation of a Java-based system for information gathering, knowledge extraction and maintenance of software engineering ontology. The system is capable of manipulative ontology instances from the information repositories and information sources. Design of Software Engineering Ontology through the use of the body of software engineering knowledge together with Prof Ian Sommerville's book, as well as project management experiences, has not been a difficult task. However, the maintenance of the software development ontology and security of the Ontology are issues

Multimedia and Knowledge-based Computer-aided Architectural Design

It appears by now fairly accepted to many researchers in the field of the Computer Aided Architectural Design that the way to realize support tools for these aims is by means of the realization of Knowledge Based Assistants. This kind of computer programs, based on the knowledge engineering, finds their power and efficaciousness by their knowledge bases. Nowdays this kind of tools is leaving the research world and it appears evident that the common graphic interfaces and the modalities of dialogue between the architect and the computer, are inadequate to support the exchange of information that the use of these tools requires. The use of the knowledge bases furthermore, presupposes that the conceptual model of the building realized by others, must be made entirely understandable to the architect . The CAAD Laboratory has carried out a system software prototype based on Knowledge Engineering in the field of hospital buildings. In order to overcame the limit of software systems based on usual Knowledge Engineering, by improving architect-computer interaction, at CAAD Lab it is refining building model introducing into the knowledge base two complementary each other methodologies: the conceptual clustering and multimedia technics. This research will make it possible for architects navigate consciously through the domain of the knowledge base already implemented

The Digital Anatomist Information System and Its Use in the Generation and Delivery of Web-Based Anatomy Atlases

Advances in network and imaging technology, coupled with the availability of 3-D datasets such as the Visible Human, provide a unique opportunity for developing information systems in anatomy that can deliver relevant knowledge directly to the clinician, researcher or educator. A software framework is described for developing such a system within a distributed architecture that includes spatial and symbolic anatomy information resources, Web and custom servers, and authoring and end-user client programs. The authoring tools have been used to create 3-D atlases of the brain, knee and thorax that are used both locally and throughout the world. For the one and a half year period from June 1995–January 1997, the on-line atlases were accessed by over 33,000 sites from 94 countries, with an average of over 4000 ‘‘hits’’ per day, and 25,000 hits per day during peak exam periods. The atlases have been linked to by over 500 sites, and have received at least six unsolicited awards by outside rating institutions. The flexibility of the software framework has allowed the information system to evolve with advances in technology and representation methods. Possible new features include knowledge-based image retrieval and tutoring, dynamic generation of 3-D scenes, and eventually, real-time virtual reality navigation through the body. Such features, when coupled with other on-line biomedical information resources, should lead to interesting new ways for managing and accessing structural information in medicine

State of the art of a multi-agent based recommender system for active software engineering ontology

Software engineering ontology was first developed to provide efficient collaboration and coordination among distributed teams working on related software development projects across the sites. It helped to clarify the software engineering concepts and project information as well as enable knowledge sharing. However, a major challenge of the software engineering ontology users is that they need the competence to access and translate what they are looking for into the concepts and relations described in the ontology; otherwise, they may not be able to obtain required information. In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework of a multi-agent based recommender system to provide active support to access and utilize knowledge and project information in the software engineering ontology. Multi-agent system and semantic-based recommendation approach will be integrated to create collaborative working environment to access and manipulate data from the ontology and perform reasoning as well as generate expert recommendation facilities for dispersed software teams across the sites