A research roadmap towards achieving scalability in model driven engineering

International audienceAs Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) is increasingly applied to larger and more complex systems, the current generation of modelling and model management technologies are being pushed to their limits in terms of capacity and eciency. Additional research and development is imperative in order to enable MDE to remain relevant with industrial practice and to continue delivering its widely recognised productivity , quality, and maintainability benefits. Achieving scalabil-ity in modelling and MDE involves being able to construct large models and domain-specific languages in a systematic manner, enabling teams of modellers to construct and refine large models in a collaborative manner, advancing the state of the art in model querying and transformations tools so that they can cope with large models (of the scale of millions of model elements), and providing an infrastructure for ecient storage, indexing and retrieval of large models. This paper attempts to provide a research roadmap for these aspects of scalability in MDE and outline directions for work in this emerging research area

The design and analysis of boundary data structures

The thesis is concerned with the efficient interrogation of CAD data. CAD data finds use in diverse range of applications which necessitates extension and integration of the CAD data base. By an exhaustive categorization of such application requirements and analysis of various CAD techniques, it is shown that boundary data structures are the most suitable in CAD, CAM and advanced robotic applications. Several boundary data structures have been proposed since the classic Winged edge data structure, these aimed at reducing the storage requirement and increasing information retrieval speeds. In this thesis methodologies are developed which enable us to discover compact and fast access time schemes and analyze and fine tune for individual applications. We demonstrate how the application of the optimality concepts can lead us to the discovery of more efficient data structures than popular data structures. All the boundary data structures proposed to date have been based on the underlying assumption that all the data resides in main memory. We show that in an integrated CAD environment (characterized by virtual a memory environment or a data base environment), these data structures are inefficient in both storage and time. We propose a new data structure shaped like A which is the most compact as well as more efficient in access time, under certain conditions of real memory and virtual memory. Experiments reveal a paradoxical phenomenon: access time increases with storage, violating the classic law of storage vs. time. Recently non-manifold boundary geometric modeling has become popular to meet the growing needs such as uniform treatment of wire frame, surface and solid modeling and design by features. We introduce a uniform terminology and notation to distinguish and critically analyze several non-manifold boundary data structures. It is hoped to fulfill the need for a ready reference for the design of efficient boundary data structures. The other aspects dealt with are the validity and conversion of Boundary data structures. To verify the concepts developed, in practice, a whole suite of fast algorithms have been implemented for model manipulation, visualization and data conversion

Education Language Policy Process in Multilingual Societies: Global Visions and Local Agendas in India, Nigeria and Unesco

In linguistically heterogeneous societies, language planning constitutes core institutional practice for maintaining social cohesion as well as unique cultural identities. This critical sociolinguistic and comparative analysis examines education language policy process in India, Nigeria and UNESCO to understand the entrenchment of marginalizational language policies in spite of recent paradigm shifts in relevant scholarship. These include the shift from monolingualism to multilingualism as ideal for individuals and societies, perception of multilingualism no longer as a problem but a resource, heightened interrogation of ideological and political dimensionalities of language decisions in society, and an intensification of commitment to language policy and planning through international consensuses and programmatic initiatives often associated with UNESCO. While previous studies emphasize official state action and view language policy as finishable text, this dissertation research uses multi-site, cross-national ethnographic data from government and non-government entities to demonstrate that education language policy is fundamentally an ongoing dynamic process that draws various players with unequal bargaining power into constant negotiations of social identity and reconfigurations of the politics of social control. It illustrates the often muted historical provenience of current language policy issues in multilingual societies. In addition, by noting that language policies in India and Nigeria are simultaneously stymied and constantly changing, this research shows that education language policy in multilingual societies defies any unitary theoretical categorization, partly due to the complexities, dilemmas and paradoxes associates with the various issues it entails. Further, it argues that understanding education language policy in multilingual societies requires multiple shifting theoretical lenses that map onto the actual policy processes. Two broad theories - hegemony and mutual interactionism - used here as heuristics for explicating education language policy processes highlight this need for an integrative and flexible conceptual mapping of language policymaking in multilingual societies. Underlying this simultaneous stagnation and change are strong networks of various policy agents with a corresponding tendency toward disjuncture and decoupling. The same (national and international) institutional structures that propel policy consensuses through networks also provide mechanisms for disjuncture and decoupling. To make sense of this structural paradox, I propose a recalibration of major concepts, and an expansion of the conceptual boundaries, of education language policy studies beyond the current state-centered approach. Doing this helps dispel several popular misconceptions about language policy in multilingual societies, especially those pertaining to political sensitivity, resource limitation, and power constraints, and also paves way for re-imagining formal education for the future

Proceedings of Task Force Meeting "Human Factors in Innovation Management". Helsinki, 9-14 October, 1983

These proceedings from the IIASA Task Force Meeting held in Helsinki from 9-14 October, 1983 reflect the wide spectrum of interests and experiences of the participants. The main topic -- Human Factors in Innovation Management -- was singled out as a potential focus early in the life of the Innovation Management Project. Preliminary meetings had already indicated how internally structured this topic could be. Intentionally, no attempts were made to limit the scope of the meeting, as the objective was to realistically reflect the interests, experiences and research results of our collaborators and constituency in this field. The papers and studies generated for the meeting have to serve as a basis for further work in this activity. There are few, if any publications in the field which, on a working level, reflect the results of East and West research and industrial organizations. This also brings the necessity for certain caution when reading the proceedings because in spite of certain editing, we did not want to produce a "monolithic" publication eliminating some interesting particularities. This may be valid for vocabulary and semantics of a few terms. Participants from socialist countries guided by translation from Slavic languages are inclined to describe engineering and technology by "technics" and understand under "technology" the production process. Several authors treating the subject have hinted at the vagueness of related terms such as strategic planning (Wolf, Patz), innovation and its ingredients (Benjamin, Langrish, Prakke, Riegel) , or creativity (Kivikko, Langrish, Patz). In the paper by Bachvarov et al., examples are given how incentive and participative behavior are enhanced. The human factor is related to the wider problem of social impacts of new technologies, as pointed out by Langrish and Patz and hinted at by several other authors. The interesting ideas, experiences and research results on the problems of team building and work are reported by several authors (Andersin, Bachvarov et al., Hanes, Moss, Rysina et al., Wolf). One tends to express the impression that in many companies in different countries the problems seem to be structured following similar patterns. At the first IIASA meeting on the problems of innovation the following question was posed: "To what extent is management of innovation the innovation of management?" Several authors stressed the need to educate managers to think and act creatively and in an innovative way and reported on the programs their own companies have instituted (Cervenka, Hempel, Smrcka, Virkkala) . This only proves the relevance of the question posed above. From several papers one can also feel the "in-house" practices that companies use when contemplating innovations (for example, Karttunen and Wolf). These proceedings with selected papers, present examples of the most important problems managers face when managing innovation in the contemporary world