The Generic Spacecraft Analyst Assistant (gensaa): a Tool for Developing Graphical Expert Systems

During numerous contacts with a satellite each day, spacecraft analysts must closely monitor real-time data. The analysts must watch for combinations of telemetry parameter values, trends, and other indications that may signify a problem or failure. As the satellites become more complex and the number of data items increases, this task is becoming increasingly difficult for humans to perform at acceptable performance levels. At NASA GSFC, fault-isolation expert systems are in operation supporting this data monitoring task. Based on the lessons learned during these initial efforts in expert system automation, a new domain-specific expert system development tool named the Generic Spacecraft Analyst Assistant (GenSAA) is being developed to facilitate the rapid development and reuse of real-time expert systems to serve as fault-isolation assistants for spacecraft analysts. Although initially domain-specific in nature, this powerful tool will readily support the development of highly graphical expert systems for data monitoring purposes throughout the space and commercial industry

A review of GIS-based information sharing systems

GIS-based information sharing systems have been implemented in many of England and Wales' Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs). The information sharing role of these systems is seen as being vital to help in the review of crime, disorder and misuse of drugs; to sustain strategic objectives, to monitor interventions and initiatives; and support action plans for service delivery. This evaluation into these systems aimed to identify the lessons learned from existing systems, identify how these systems can be best used to support the business functions of CDRPs, identify common weaknesses across the systems, and produce guidelines on how these systems should be further developed. At present there are in excess of 20 major systems distributed across England and Wales. This evaluation considered a representative sample of ten systems. To date, little documented evidence has been collected by the systems that demonstrate the direct impact they are having in reducing crime and disorder, and the misuse of drugs. All point to how they are contributing to more effective partnership working, but all systems must be encouraged to record how they are contributing to improving community safety. Demonstrating this impact will help them to assure their future role in their CDRPs. By reviewing the systems wholly, several key ingredients were identified that were evident in contributing to the effectiveness of these systems. These included the need for an effective partnership business model within which the system operates, and the generation of good quality multi-agency intelligence products from the system. In helping to determine the future development of GIS-based information sharing systems, four key community safety partnership business service functions have been identified that these systems can most effectively support. These functions support the performance review requirements of CDRPs, operate a problem solving scanning and analysis role, and offer an interface with the public. By following these business service functions as a template will provide for a more effective application of these systems nationally

Framework Programmable Platform for the Advanced Software Development Workstation (FPP/ASDW). Demonstration framework document. Volume 1: Concepts and activity descriptions

The Framework Programmable Software Development Platform (FPP) is a project aimed at effectively combining tool and data integration mechanisms with a model of the software development process to provide an intelligent integrated software development environment. Guided by the model, this system development framework will take advantage of an integrated operating environment to automate effectively the management of the software development process so that costly mistakes during the development phase can be eliminated. The Advanced Software Development Workstation (ASDW) program is conducting research into development of advanced technologies for Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE)

Designer: a tool to design and model workflows

This work presents the methodological and technical issues for the Designer tool in the OBJECTFLOW Workflow Management System. This tool provides to the user the possibility to model and design workflow diagrams from Business Process of a corporation. This project is the result of an industry-university cooperation.Postprint (published version

Skills development and recoding in engineering analysis and simulation : Industry needs

The EASIT2 project (Engineering Analysis and Simulation Innovation Transfer), funded under the European Union Lifelong Learning Programme, has the major goal to contribute to the competitiveness and quality of engineering, design and manufacturing in Europe through identifying the generic competencies that users of engineering analysis and simulation systems must possess. This competency framework will include a comprehensive Educational Base, a web-based interface compatible with other staff development systems, with links to associated resource material that engineers and analysts can use to develop and track their competencies. The project will also deliver an integrated Registered Analyst (RA) Scheme to provide recognition of achievement of these competencies. In order to help ensure that the deliverables of this project meet industry needs, a survey was undertaken and this paper summarises the findings of this survey. The survey comprised of an online questionnaire and was completed by 1094 respondents from 50 different countries. A large majority of respondents thought a system to define analyst skills and provide links to appropriate training resources would be useful. There was also strong support for a form of professional qualification in engineering analysis. The advantages to industry that these project deliverables would bring include incentives for staff development, marketing power and enhanced subcontractor qualification and internal resource management. The survey also provided a valuable insight into the current state of the engineering analysis and simulation industry. The most significant barriers to the effective use of engineering analysis were identified as recruitment of suitably qualified and experienced staff and a lack of analysis skills. “Pressure of work” was also identified as the most significant reason why organisations fail to get the most out of engineering analysis software. The findings of this survey are now being used in the development of the project deliverables to ensure that they meet the needs of industry as much as possible

The Future of the Internet III

Presents survey results on technology experts' predictions on the Internet's social, political, and economic impact as of 2020, including its effects on integrity and tolerance, intellectual property law, and the division between personal and work lives

EXODUS: Integrating intelligent systems for launch operations support

Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is developing knowledge-based systems to automate critical operations functions for the space shuttle fleet. Intelligent systems will monitor vehicle and ground support subsystems for anomalies, assist in isolating and managing faults, and plan and schedule shuttle operations activities. These applications are being developed independently of one another, using different representation schemes, reasoning and control models, and hardware platforms. KSC has recently initiated the EXODUS project to integrate these stand alone applications into a unified, coordinated intelligent operations support system. EXODUS will be constructed using SOCIAL, a tool for developing distributed intelligent systems. EXODUS, SOCIAL, and initial prototyping efforts using SOCIAL to integrate and coordinate selected EXODUS applications are described

Spacecraft software training needs assessment research

The problems were identified, along with their causes and potential solutions, that the management analysts were encountering in performing their jobs. It was concluded that sophisticated training applications would provide the most effective solution to a substantial portion of the analysts' problems. The remainder could be alleviated through the introduction of tools that could help make retrieval of the needed information from the vast and complex information resources feasible