DoMoRe – A recommender system for domain modeling

Domain modeling is an important activity in early phases of software projects to achieve a shared understanding of the problem field among project participants. Domain models describe concepts and relations of respective application fields using a modeling language and domain-specific terms. Detailed knowledge of the domain as well as expertise in model-driven development is required for software engineers to create these models. This paper describes DoMoRe, a system for automated modeling recommendations to support the domain modeling process. We describe an approach in which modeling benefits from formalized knowledge sources and information extraction from text. The system incorporates a large network of semantically related terms built from natural language data sets integrated with mediator-based knowledge base querying in a single recommender system to provide context-sensitive suggestions of model elements

Use of system dynamics and Easel for simulation of the software development process

Team software development is a complex and mostly unpredictable process and is characterized by inefficient use of staff and calendar resources. Given the magnitude of software development costs, a deeper understanding of the process may suggest ways to improve resource utilization. Simulation modeling is a useful approach to study the dynamics of complex systems. System dynamics characterizes systems as collections of interacting, non-linear feedback loops. The foundations of system dynamics were developed at MIT in the early 1950s. Since that time, system dynamics has been applied to a large number of complex system domains. In the early 1980s, the system dynamics simulation method was first used at MIT to develop a software development process model. A different approach to modeling complex systems is to use an actor, or property-based programming language. In a property-based model, the behaviors of individual entities are represented as concurrently executing threads, and discrete event clocks are used to simulate time. Easel is a new property-based programming language developed at the Software Engineering Institute housed at Carnegie Mellon University. Although determining the survivability of large-scale networks was the motivation to develop Easel, the SEI has conducted some initial work in applying Easel to the software development process domain. This thesis compared the use of system dynamics and Easel as tools to study the software development process. Both modeling approaches were used to test the validity of Brooks\u27s Law under different hiring strategies for small, medium, and large-scale projects. The models produced nearly identical results, and so provided a high level of confidence that the models were logically equivalent. The thesis concludes with a comparison of the two techniques based on background knowledge required, object representation, debugging difficulty, model maintainability, scalability, and timing control. A summary about the applicability of each technique is presented and recommendations for future work are offered

Mechatronics Design of Ball and Beam System: Education and Research

The key element in mechatronics design is the concurrent synergetic integration, modeling, simulation, analysis and optimization of multidisciplinary knowledge through the design process from the very start of the design process. Mechatronics engineer is expected to design engineering systems with synergy and integration toward constrains like higher performance, speed, precision, efficiency, lower costs and functionality. This paper proposes the conception and development of ball and beam system based on mechatronics design approach. A complete overall system and subsystems selection, modeling, simulation, analysis, and integration are presented. The proposed mechatronics design and models were created and verified using MATLAB /Simulink software and are intended for research purposes, as well as, application in educational process. Keywords- Mechatronics, Mechatronics design approach, Ball and beam, modeling/simulation

An MDE Approach for Domain based Architectural Components Modelling.

International audienceComponent Based Software Engineering (CBSE) is a popular and widely adopted software engineering paradigm that has proven his usefulness and success to increase reusability and efficiency in various application domains. In this paper, we propose a common metamodel of a component to support all the requirements of CBSE taking into account the specificities of each domain. The resulting modeling framework serves primarily to capture the basic concepts of concerns related to component systems development based on the clear separation between the development process, interactions and the domain knowledge. As a proof of concept, we are evaluating the feasibility of our approach through the CCM component model applied to an use case for building systems having real-time requirements

TARGET: Rapid Capture of Process Knowledge

TARGET (Task Analysis/Rule Generation Tool) represents a new breed of tool that blends graphical process flow modeling capabilities with the function of a top-down reporting facility. Since NASA personnel frequently perform tasks that are primarily procedural in nature, TARGET models mission or task procedures and generates hierarchical reports as part of the process capture and analysis effort. Historically, capturing knowledge has proven to be one of the greatest barriers to the development of intelligent systems. Current practice generally requires lengthy interactions between the expert whose knowledge is to be captured and the knowledge engineer whose responsibility is to acquire and represent the expert's knowledge in a useful form. Although much research has been devoted to the development of methodologies and computer software to aid in the capture and representation of some types of knowledge, procedural knowledge has received relatively little attention. In essence, TARGET is one of the first tools of its kind, commercial or institutional, that is designed to support this type of knowledge capture undertaking. This paper will describe the design and development of TARGET for the acquisition and representation of procedural knowledge. The strategies employed by TARGET to support use by knowledge engineers, subject matter experts, programmers and managers will be discussed. This discussion includes the method by which the tool employs its graphical user interface to generate a task hierarchy report. Next, the approach to generate production rules for incorporation in and development of a CLIPS based expert system will be elaborated. TARGET also permits experts to visually describe procedural tasks as a common medium for knowledge refinement by the expert community and knowledge engineer making knowledge consensus possible. The paper briefly touches on the verification and validation issues facing the CLIPS rule generation aspects of TARGET. A description of efforts to support TARGET's interoperability issues on PCs, Macintoshes and UNIX workstations concludes the paper

Utilizing Expert Knowledge in Estimating Future STS Costs

A method of estimating the costs of future space transportation systems (STSs) involves classical activity-based cost (ABC) modeling combined with systematic utilization of the knowledge and opinions of experts to extend the process-flow knowledge of existing systems to systems that involve new materials and/or new architectures. The expert knowledge is particularly helpful in filling gaps that arise in computational models of processes because of inconsistencies in historical cost data. Heretofore, the costs of planned STSs have been estimated following a "top-down" approach that tends to force the architectures of new systems to incorporate process flows like those of the space shuttles. In this ABC-based method, one makes assumptions about the processes, but otherwise follows a "bottoms up" approach that does not force the new system architecture to incorporate a space-shuttle-like process flow. Prototype software has been developed to implement this method. Through further development of software, it should be possible to extend the method beyond the space program to almost any setting in which there is a need to estimate the costs of a new system and to extend the applicable knowledge base in order to make the estimate

A knowledge-based perspective for software process modeling

As the acquisition and sharing of knowledge form the backbone of the software development process, it is important to identify knowledge discrepancies between the process elements. Explicit representation of the knowledge components within a software process model can provide a means to expose these discrepancies. This paper presents an extension of the Software and System Process Engineering Metamodel (SPEM), to be used as a new knowledge modeling layer. The approach, which is based on ontologies for knowledge representation, constitutes an explicit method for representing knowledge within process models. A concept matching indicator shows the state of the process model in terms of the concept gaps for each task within the process. This indicator could lead to more informed decision making and better management of the associated risks, in terms of team competency, documentation quality, and the training required to mitigate them