Reasoning from a schema and from an analog in software code reuse

The activity of design involves the decomposition of problems into subproblems and the development and evaluation of solutions. In many cases, solution development is not done from scratch. Designers often evoke and adapt solutions developed in the past. These solutions may come from an internal source, i.e. the memory of the designers, and/or from an external source. The goal of this paper is to analyse the characteristics of the cognitive mechanisms, the knowledge and the representations involved in the code reuse activity performed by experienced programmers. More generally, the focus is the control structure of the reuse activity. Data collected in an experiment in which programmers had to design programs are analyzed. Two code reuse situations are distinguished depending on whether or not the processes involved in reuse start before the elaboration of what acts as a source-solution. Our analysis highlights the use of reasoning from a schema and from an analog in the code reuse activity

Behavior models for software architecture

Monterey Phoenix (MP) is an approach to formal software system architecture specification based on behavior models. Architecture modeling focuses not only on the activities and interactions within the system, but also on the interactions between the system and its environment, providing an abstraction for interaction specification. The behavior of the system is defined as a set of events (event trace) with two basic relations: precedence and inclusion. The structure of possible event traces is specified using event grammars and other constraints organized into schemas. The separation of the interaction description from the components behavior is an essential MP feature. The schema framework is amenable to stepwise architecture refinement, reuse, composition, visualization, and multiple view extraction. The approach yields a basis for executable architecture specification supporting early testing and verification, systematic use case generation, and performance estimates with automated tools.Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education and Research (CRUSER)Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education and Research (CRUSER)Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Conceptual information processing: A robust approach to KBS-DBMS integration

Integrating the respective functionality and architectural features of knowledge base and data base management systems is a topic of considerable interest. Several aspects of this topic and associated issues are addressed. The significance of integration and the problems associated with accomplishing that integration are discussed. The shortcomings of current approaches to integration and the need to fuse the capabilities of both knowledge base and data base management systems motivates the investigation of information processing paradigms. One such paradigm is concept based processing, i.e., processing based on concepts and conceptual relations. An approach to robust knowledge and data base system integration is discussed by addressing progress made in the development of an experimental model for conceptual information processing

A Little Help can Be A Bad Thing: Anchoring and Adjustment in Adaptive Query Reuse

The anchoring and adjustment heuristic has been shown to be a pervasive technique that people use in judgment, decision-making, and problem-solving tasks to reduce cognitive burden. However, reliance on the anchoring heuristic often leads to a systematic adjustment bias, in which people fail to make sufficient adjustments for a particular task. In a study involving 157 subjects from six universities, we examined the effect of this bias on SQL query formulation under varying levels of domain familiarity. Subjects were asked to formulate SQL queries to respond to six information requests in a familiar domain and six information requests in an unfamiliar domain. For some, subjects were also provided with sample queries that answered similar information requests. To adequately adjust a sample query, a subject needed to make both surface-structure modifications that required little cognitive effort and deep-structure modifications that required substantially more cognitive effort. We found that reuse can lead to poorer quality query results and greater overconfidence in the correctness of results. We also show that the strength of the adjustment bias depends on domain familiarity. This study demonstrates that anchoring and adjustment extends to an important area in information systems use that has not been previously studied. We also expand the notion of anchoring and adjustment to include the role of domain familiarity

Reusing processes and documenting processes: toward an integrated framework

This paper presents a cognitive typology of reuse processes, and a cognitive typology of documenting processes. Empirical studies on design with reuse and on software documenting provide evidence for a generalized cognitive model. First, these studies emphasize the cyclical nature of design: cycles of planning, writing and revising occur. Second, natural language documentation follows the hierarchy of cognitive entities manipulated during design. Similarly software reuse involves exploiting various types of knowledge depending on the phase of design in which reuse is involved. We suggest that these observations can be explained based on cognitive models of text processing: the van Dijk and Kintsch (1983) model of text comprehension, and the Hayes and Flower (1980) model of text production. Based on our generalized cognitive model, we suggest a framework for documenting reusable components