Literate modelling: capturing business knowledge with the UML

At British Airways, we have found during several large OO projects documented using the UML that non-technical end-users, managers and business domain experts find it difficult to understand UML visual models. This leads to problems in requirement capture and review. To solve this problem, we have developed the technique of Literate Modelling. Literate Models are UML diagrams that are embedded in texts explaining the models. In that way end-users, managers and domain experts gain useful understanding of the models, whilst object-oriented analysts see exactly and precisely how the models define business requirements and imperatives. We discuss some early experiences with Literate Modelling at British Airways where it was used extensively in their Enterprise Object Modelling initiative.We explain why Literate Modelling is viewed as one of the critical success factors for this significant project. Finally, we propose that Literate Modelling may be a valuable extension to many other object-oriented and non object-oriented visual modelling languages

Reproducible Econometric Research. A Critical Review of the State of the Art.

Recent software developments are reviewed from the vantage point of reproducible econometric research. We argue that the emergence of new tools, particularly in the open-source community, have greatly eased the burden of documenting and archiving both empirical and simulation work in econometrics. Some of these tools are highlighted in the discussion of three small replication exercises.Series: Research Report Series / Department of Statistics and Mathematic

SASWeave: Literate Programming Using SAS

SASweave is a collection of scripts that allow one to embed SAS code into a LATEX document, and automatically incorporate the results as well. SASweave is patterned after Sweave, which does the same thing for code written in R. In fact, a document may contain both SAS and R code. Besides the convenience of being able to easily incorporate SAS examples in a document, SASweave facilitates the concept of "literate programming": having code, documentation, and results packaged together. Among other things, this helps to ensure that the SAS output in the document is in concordance with the code.

Algorithms and literate programs for weighted low-rank approximation with missing data

Linear models identification from data with missing values is posed as a weighted low-rank approximation problem with weights related to the missing values equal to zero. Alternating projections and variable projections methods for solving the resulting problem are outlined and implemented in a literate programming style, using Matlab/Octave's scripting language. The methods are evaluated on synthetic data and real data from the MovieLens data sets

Building-in quality rather than assessing quality afterwards: a technological solution to ensuring computational accuracy in learning materials

[Abstract]: Quality encompasses a very broad range of ideas in learning materials, yet the accuracy of the content is often overlooked as a measure of quality. Various aspects of accuracy are briefly considered, and the issue of computational accuracy is then considered further. When learning materials are produced containing the results of mathematical computations, accuracy is essential: but how can the results of these computations be known to be correct? A solution is to embed the instructions for performing the calculations in the materials, and let the computer calculate the result and place it in the text. In this way, quality is built into the learning materials by design, not evaluated after the event. This is all accomplished using the ideas of literate programming, applied to the learning materials context. A small example demonstrates how remarkably easy the ideas are to apply in practice using the appropriate technology. Given that the technology is available and is easy to use, it would appear imperative that the approach discussed is adopted to improve quality in learning materials containing computational results