Communications software performance prediction

Software development can be costly and it is important that confidence in a software system be established as early as possible in the design process. Where the software supports communication services, it is essential that the resultant system will operate within certain performance constraints (e.g. response time). This paper gives an overview of work in progress on a collaborative project sponsored by BT which aims to offer performance predictions at an early stage in the software design process. The Permabase architecture enables object-oriented software designs to be combined with descriptions of the network configuration and workload as a basis for the input to a simulation model which can predict aspects of the performance of the system. The prototype implementation of the architecture uses a combination of linked design and simulation tools

The apparatus of digital archaeology

Digital Archaeology is predicated upon an ever-changing set of apparatuses – technological, methodological, software, hardware, material, immaterial – which in their own ways and to varying degrees shape the nature of Digital Archaeology. Our attention, however, is perhaps inevitably more closely focussed on research questions, choice of data, and the kinds of analyses and outputs. In the process we tend to overlook the effects the tools themselves have on the archaeology we do beyond the immediate consequences of the digital. This paper introduces cognitive artefacts as a means of addressing the apparatus more directly within the context of the developing archaeological digital ecosystem. It argues that a critical appreciation of our computational cognitive artefacts is key to understanding their effects on both our own cognition and on the creation of archaeological knowledge. In the process, it defines a form of cognitive digital archaeology in terms of four distinct methods for extracting cognition from the digital apparatus layer by layer

Software Infrastructure for Natural Language Processing

We classify and review current approaches to software infrastructure for research, development and delivery of NLP systems. The task is motivated by a discussion of current trends in the field of NLP and Language Engineering. We describe a system called GATE (a General Architecture for Text Engineering) that provides a software infrastructure on top of which heterogeneous NLP processing modules may be evaluated and refined individually, or may be combined into larger application systems. GATE aims to support both researchers and developers working on component technologies (e.g. parsing, tagging, morphological analysis) and those working on developing end-user applications (e.g. information extraction, text summarisation, document generation, machine translation, and second language learning). GATE promotes reuse of component technology, permits specialisation and collaboration in large-scale projects, and allows for the comparison and evaluation of alternative technologies. The first release of GATE is now available - see http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/research/groups/nlp/gate/Comment: LaTeX, uses aclap.sty, 8 page

Designing for mod development: user creativity as product development strategy on the firm-hosted 3D software platform

The thesis is designed to improve our understanding of user participation in Web-based development practices in the commercial setting of the 3D software industry. It aims to investigate whether the creative capacities of users and their contributions to the online firm-hosted 3D platform are indicative of a novel configuration of production that influences the processes of product development across firm boundaries. The thesis mobilizes the user participation literature developing in media research as its main theoretical framework. It builds on insights derived from work on user participation in media sites as seen through a cultural lens, in particular, as developed in Henry Jenkins' notions of 'participatory' and 'convergence culture'. The user participation literature is supported by a combination of insights drawn from work on communities of practice and user-centred innovation so as to offer a more robust approach to examine and appreciate the firm-hosted 3D platform as a site of user participation. More specifically, the conceptual framework for the study provides a basis for an examination of the ways a software developer finn encourages user participation in a market and of how this enables and facilitâtes particular modes of user creativity. These are shown to shape and maintain a firm-hosted platform that aids product development efforts that are expected to benefit the developer fimi. An empirical study of the platform, Second Life, provides the basis for the analysis of finn-user interactions which are shown to underpin a distinctive finn leaming process in the context of product development that occurs across permeable fimi boundaries. The thesis yields insight into the way a developer firm invites its user base to partner with it in product development, indicating how aspects of user participation associated with non-market dynamics are embedded in commercial activity and professionalism. The pivotal role of users is revealed in the design, development and sustainability of a firm-hosted 3D product. The findings point to interesting relationships between the distinctive creative capacities of users and the range of capabilities afforded by the firm-provided design space. Variations in user participation and contributions to product development suggest that particular patterns of learning opportunities occur. The analysis yields several new concepts including a 'modification effect market' which are used to extend existing conceptualizations of user participation in digitai development practices in the commercial setting of the 3D software industry

(ONTO)2 Agent: an Ontology-based WWW broker to select ontologies

Knowledge reuse by means of ontologies now faces three important problems: (1) there are no standardized identifying features that characterize ontologies from the user point of view; (2) there are no web sites using the same logical organization, presenting relevant information about ontologies; and (3) the search for appropriate ontologies is hard, timeconsuming and usually fruitless. To solve the above problems, we present: (1) a living set of features that allow us to characterize ontologies from the user point of view and have the same logical organization; (2) a living domain ontology about ontologies (called Reference Ontology) that gathers, describes and has links to existing ontologies; and (3) (ONTO)2Agent, the ontology-based www broker about ontologies that uses the Reference Ontology as a source of its knowledge and retrieves descriptions of ontologies that satisfy a given set of constraints. (ONTO)2Agent is available at http://delicias.dia.fi.upm.es/REFERENCE_ONTOLOGY