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

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

Expert system verification concerns in an operations environment

The Space Shuttle community is currently developing a number of knowledge-based tools, primarily expert systems, to support Space Shuttle operations. It is proposed that anticipating and responding to the requirements of the operations environment will contribute to a rapid and smooth transition of expert systems from development to operations, and that the requirements for verification are critical to this transition. The paper identifies the requirements of expert systems to be used for flight planning and support and compares them to those of existing procedural software used for flight planning and support. It then explores software engineering concepts and methodology that can be used to satisfy these requirements, to aid the transition from development to operations and to support the operations environment during the lifetime of expert systems. Many of these are similar to those used for procedural hardware

Enriching APSI with Validation Capabilities: the KEEN environment and its use in Robotics

This paper presents the KnowledgE ENgineering (KEEN) design support system in which Validation and Verification (V&V) methods are used to strengthen onground development of software for plan-based autonomy. In particular, the paper describes a collection of verification methods, based on Timed Game Automata (TGA), deployed for the design and development of timeline-based Planning and Scheduling (P&S) applications within the APSI-TRF framework. The KEENs V&V functionalities are illustrated describing software development to synthesize plans for a planetary rover