IDEF5 Ontology Description Capture Method: Concept Paper

The results of research towards an ontology capture method referred to as IDEF5 are presented. Viewed simply as the study of what exists in a domain, ontology is an activity that can be understood to be at work across the full range of human inquiry prompted by the persistent effort to understand the world in which it has found itself - and which it has helped to shape. In the contest of information management, ontology is the task of extracting the structure of a given engineering, manufacturing, business, or logistical domain and storing it in an usable representational medium. A key to effective integration is a system ontology that can be accessed and modified across domains and which captures common features of the overall system relevant to the goals of the disparate domains. If the focus is on information integration, then the strongest motivation for ontology comes from the need to support data sharing and function interoperability. In the correct architecture, an enterprise ontology base would allow th e construction of an integrated environment in which legacy systems appear to be open architecture integrated resources. If the focus is on system/software development, then support for the rapid acquisition of reliable systems is perhaps the strongest motivation for ontology. Finally, ontological analysis was demonstrated to be an effective first step in the construction of robust knowledge based systems

Theoretical foundations for information representation and constraint specification

Research accomplished at the Knowledge Based Systems Laboratory of the Department of Industrial Engineering at Texas A&M University is described. Outlined here are the theoretical foundations necessary to construct a Neutral Information Representation Scheme (NIRS), which will allow for automated data transfer and translation between model languages, procedural programming languages, database languages, transaction and process languages, and knowledge representation and reasoning control languages for information system specification

Suggested hurricane operational scenario for GOES I-M

Improvements in tropical cyclone forecasts require optimum use of remote sensing capabilities, because conventional data sources cannot provide the necessary spatial and temporal data density over tropical and subtropical oceanic regions. In 1989, the first of a series of geostationary weather satellites, GOES 1-M, will be launched with the capability for simultaneous imaging and sounding. Careful scheduling of the GOES 1-M will enable measurements of both the wind and mass fields over the entire tropical cyclone activity area. The document briefly describes the GOES 1-M imager and sounder, surveys the data needs for hurricane forecasting, discusses how geostationary satellite observations help to meet them, and proposes a GOES 1-M schedule of observations and hurricane relevant derived products

Wissensbasierte Tragwerksplanung im Ingenieurholzbau mit ICAD

Der Entwurf einfacher Konstruktionen stellt für den Tragwerksplaner zumeist eine Routineaufgabe dar. Üblicherweise werden Statik, Zeichnungen sowie Elementelisten separat voneinander erstellt. Das Programmsystem ICAD bietet die Möglichkeit, diese Arbeiten in einer Bearbeitungsstufe durchzuführen. Die Programmierung der Bemessung, Darstellung und Auswertung von Bauteilen wird mit dem Editor Emacs vorgenommen, die grafische Umsetzung des compilierten Quelltextes erfolgt im ICAD-Browser. Innerhalb dieser Benutzeroberfläche steht eine Reihe von Werkzeugen für die Eingabe und Visualisierung von Daten zur Verfügung. Betrachtet man die zu bearbeitenden Bauteile und Anschlüsse als bekannte Konstruktionen des Ingenieurholzbaus, für die es eine festgelegte Anzahl von Abmessungen und Kennwerten gibt, so läßt sich jede dieser Konstruktionen als eigenständiger Modul programmieren. Der Tragwerksplaner ist somit in der Lage, aus einem Katalog an Bauteilen und Anschlüssen die Gesamtkonstruktion zusammenzustellen. Allgemeingültige Kennwerte, Berechnungsverfahren und häufig verwendete Unterprogramme stehen modular als Wissensbasis zur Verfügung und werden von den einzelnen Tragelementen bedarfsgerecht eingebunden. Eine weitere Möglichkeit der wissensbasierten Tragwerksplanung stellt die sogenannte Multi-Criteria-Analyse dar. Bei diesem Verfahren nimmt das Programm selbständig eine Entscheidungsfindung für eine oder mehrere günstige Konstruktionslösungen vor. Dazu sind lediglich Wichtungen verschiedener Randbedingungen durch den Anwender erforderlich

Research accomplished at the Knowledge Based Systems Lab: IDEF3, version 1.0

An overview is presented of the foundations and content of the evolving IDEF3 process flow and object state description capture method. This method is currently in beta test. Ongoing efforts in the formulation of formal semantics models for descriptions captured in the outlined form and in the actual application of this method can be expected to cause an evolution in the method language. A language is described for the representation of process and object state centered system description. IDEF3 is a scenario driven process flow modeling methodology created specifically for these types of descriptive activities