SMILE/ MARVEL: Two Approaches to Knowledge-Based Programming Environments

This technical report consists of three related papers in the area of intelligent assistance for software development and maintenance. Intelligent Assistance without Artificial Intelligence describes SMILE, a software engineering environment that assists teams of programmers without using AI technology. An Architecture for Intelligent Assistance in Software Development presents an AI approach to generalizing the capabilities of SMILE. Granularity Issues in a Knowledge-Based Programming Environment briefly describes MARVEL, an intelligent assistant based on this AI approach, and compares it to SMILE

Utilizing the blackboard paradigm to implement a workflow engine

Workflow management has evolved into a mature field with numerous workflow management systems with scores of features. These systems are designed to automate business processes of organisations. However, many of these workflow engines struggle to support complex workflows. There has been relatively little research into building a workflow engine utilizing the blackboard paradigm. The blackboard paradigm can be characterized as specialists interacting with and updating a centralized data structure, namely the blackboard, with partial and complete solutions. The opportunistic control innate to the blackboard paradigm can be leveraged to support the execution of complex workflows. Furthermore, the blackboard architecture can be seen to accommodate comprehensive workflow functionality. This research aims to verify whether or not the blackboard paradigm can be used to build a workflow engine. To validate this research, a prototype was designed and developed following stringent guidelines in order to remain true to the blackboard paradigm. Four main perspectives of workflow management namely the functional, behavioural, informational and operational aspects with their quality indicators and requirements were used to evaluate the prototype. This evaluation approach was chosen since it is universally applicable to any workflow engine and thereby provides a common platform on which the prototype can be judged and compared against other workflow engines. The two most important quality indicators are the level of support a workflow engine can provide for 20 main workflow patterns and 40 main data patterns. Test cases based on these patterns were developed and executed within the prototype to determine the level of support. It was found that the prototype supports 85% of all the workflow patterns and 72.5% of all the data patterns. This reveals some functional limitations in the prototype and improvement suggestions are given that can boost these scores to 95% and 90% for workflow and data patterns respectively. The nature of the blackboard paradigm only prevents support of only 5% and 10% of the workflow and data patterns respectively. The prototype is shown to substantially outperform most other workflow engines in the level of patterns support. Besides support for these patterns, other less important quality indicators provided by the main aspects of workflow management are also found to be present in the prototype. Given the above evidence, it is possible to conclude that a workflow engine can be successfully built utilizing the blackboard paradigm

Technological and Organizational Designs for Realizing Economies of Substitution

Today's industrial landscape is characterized by rapid change and systemic technologies. Rapid change results in ever shorter product life cycles that demand continual innovation from firms. The systemic nature of technologies makes it difficult, if not impossible, for any one firm to manufacture all components of a technological system. We propose that these challenges be met by designing technological systems that have the potential to yield economies of substitution. Additionally, we propose that these economies be realized by adopting the network mode of governance. We examine the network mode at three levels-intrafirm, interfirm, and institutional-to illuminate the inherent tension between cooperation and competition at each level, and to explore the implications of this tension for industrial dynamics.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Contemporary developments in teaching and learning introductory programming: Towards a research proposal

The teaching and learning of introductory programming in tertiary institutions is problematic. Failure rates are high and the inability of students to complete small programming tasks at the completion of introductory units is not unusual. The literature on teaching programming contains many examples of changes in teaching strategies and curricula that have been implemented in an effort to reduce failure rates. This paper analyses contemporary research into the area, and summarises developments in the teaching of introductory programming. It also focuses on areas for future research which will potentially lead to improvements in both the teaching and learning of introductory programming. A graphical representation of the issues from the literature that are covered in the document is provided in the introduction

MusA: Using Indoor Positioning and Navigation to Enhance Cultural Experiences in a museum

In recent years there has been a growing interest into the use of multimedia mobile guides in museum environments. Mobile devices have the capabilities to detect the user context and to provide pieces of information suitable to help visitors discovering and following the logical and emotional connections that develop during the visit. In this scenario, location based services (LBS) currently represent an asset, and the choice of the technology to determine users' position, combined with the definition of methods that can effectively convey information, become key issues in the design process. In this work, we present MusA (Museum Assistant), a general framework for the development of multimedia interactive guides for mobile devices. Its main feature is a vision-based indoor positioning system that allows the provision of several LBS, from way-finding to the contextualized communication of cultural contents, aimed at providing a meaningful exploration of exhibits according to visitors' personal interest and curiosity. Starting from the thorough description of the system architecture, the article presents the implementation of two mobile guides, developed to respectively address adults and children, and discusses the evaluation of the user experience and the visitors' appreciation of these application

On the Feasibility of "Twofold Transformation". Can Institutions of Sustainability Evolve in Transition Countries?

This paper aims at explaining the role and importance of the evolution of institutions for sustainable agri-environments during the transition process by referring to agrienvironmental problems faced in Central and Eastern European countries. A central question therefore is whether the required institutional arrangements for achieving sustainability in the area of agri-environmental resource management can be built more easily in periods of transition as they fill institutional gaps, or whether processes of transition make institution building a more difficult and far more time consuming task than previously thought. Above all, we want to find out, how these two processes of institution building at different scales affect the sustainable management of resources such as water and biodiversity in agriculture. It will become clear that the agri-environmental problem areas faced during transition are complex and dynamic and require adequate institutions both by political design and from the grassroots, to be developed by the respective actors involved. Transition from centrally planned to pluralistic systems has to be considered as a particular and in some respect nontypical process of institutional change. Popular theories of institutional change do not necessarily apply. The privatisation experience from many CEE countries will serve as an example. Finally, we will emphasis the problem of missing or insufficient interaction between political actors or agencies and people in CEE countries. Substantial investments into social and human capital, particularly regarding informal institutions are needed for institutions of sustainability to evolve.Institutional and Behavioral Economics,