NETMET: A Program for Generating and Interpreting Metaphors

Metaphors have computable semantics. A program called NETMET both generates metaphors and produces partial literal interpretations of metaphors. NETMET is based on Kittay's semantic field theory of metaphor and Black's interaction theory of metaphor. Input to NETMET consists of a list of literal propositions. NETMET creates metaphors by finding topic and source semantic fields, producing an analogical map from source to topic, then generating utterances in which terms in the source are identified with or predicated of terms in the topic. Given a metaphor, NETMET utilizes if-then rules to generate the implication complex of that metaphor. The literal leaves of the implication complex comprise a partial literal interpretation

Using Event Calculus to Formalise Policy Specification and Analysis

As the interest in using policy-based approaches for systems management grows, it is becoming increasingly important to develop methods for performing analysis and refinement of policy specifications. Although this is an area that researchers have devoted some attention to, none of the proposed solutions address the issues of analysing specifications that combine authorisation and management policies; analysing policy specifications that contain constraints on the applicability of the policies; and performing a priori analysis of the specification that will both detect the presence of inconsistencies and explain the situations in which the conflict will occur. We present a method for transforming both policy and system behaviour specifications into a formal notation that is based on event calculus. Additionally it describes how this formalism can be used in conjunction with abductive reasoning techniques to perform a priori analysis of policy specifications for the various conflict types identified in the literature. Finally, it presents some initial thoughts on how this notation and analysis technique could be used to perform policy refinement

Model-based groupware solution for distributed real-time collaborative 4D planning via teamwork

Construction planning plays a fundamental role in construction project management that requires team working among planners from a diverse range of disciplines and in geographically dispersed working situations. Model-based four-dimensional (4D) computer-aided design (CAD) groupware, though considered a possible approach to supporting collaborative planning, is still short of effective collaborative mechanisms for teamwork due to methodological, technological and social challenges. Targeting this problem, this paper proposes a model-based groupware solution to enable a group of multidisciplinary planners to perform real-time collaborative 4D planning across the Internet. In the light of the interactive definition method, and its computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) design analysis, the paper discusses the realization of interactive collaborative mechanisms from software architecture, application mode, and data exchange protocol. These mechanisms have been integrated into a groupware solution, which was validated by a planning team in a truly geographically dispersed condition. Analysis of the validation results revealed that the proposed solution is feasible for real-time collaborative 4D planning to gain a robust construction plan through collaborative teamwork. The realization of this solution triggers further considerations about its enhancement for wider groupware applications

Early aspects: aspect-oriented requirements engineering and architecture design

This paper reports on the third Early Aspects: Aspect-Oriented Requirements Engineering and Architecture Design Workshop, which has been held in Lancaster, UK, on March 21, 2004. The workshop included a presentation session and working sessions in which the particular topics on early aspects were discussed. The primary goal of the workshop was to focus on challenges to defining methodical software development processes for aspects from early on in the software life cycle and explore the potential of proposed methods and techniques to scale up to industrial applications

Working Notes from the 1992 AAAI Spring Symposium on Practical Approaches to Scheduling and Planning

The symposium presented issues involved in the development of scheduling systems that can deal with resource and time limitations. To qualify, a system must be implemented and tested to some degree on non-trivial problems (ideally, on real-world problems). However, a system need not be fully deployed to qualify. Systems that schedule actions in terms of metric time constraints typically represent and reason about an external numeric clock or calendar and can be contrasted with those systems that represent time purely symbolically. The following topics are discussed: integrating planning and scheduling; integrating symbolic goals and numerical utilities; managing uncertainty; incremental rescheduling; managing limited computation time; anytime scheduling and planning algorithms, systems; dependency analysis and schedule reuse; management of schedule and plan execution; and incorporation of discrete event techniques

Requirements modelling and formal analysis using graph operations

The increasing complexity of enterprise systems requires a more advanced analysis of the representation of services expected than is currently possible. Consequently, the specification stage, which could be facilitated by formal verification, becomes very important to the system life-cycle. This paper presents a formal modelling approach, which may be used in order to better represent the reality of the system and to verify the awaited or existing system’s properties, taking into account the environmental characteristics. For that, we firstly propose a formalization process based upon properties specification, and secondly we use Conceptual Graphs operations to develop reasoning mechanisms of verifying requirements statements. The graphic visualization of these reasoning enables us to correctly capture the system specifications by making it easier to determine if desired properties hold. It is applied to the field of Enterprise modelling