GREAT: UML transformation tool for porting middleware applications

Design and maintenance of enterprize applications is complicated due to dependencies on technical requirements of the middleware framework. Especially, porting enterprise applications to another middleware layer or even new versions thereof requires a lot of handiwork and coding, since abstraction-, transformation-, and refinement steps have to be performed. Transformations should be assisted by a tool set which facilitates the migration process from one to another middleware platform. This paper presents GREAT, a rule-based transformation framework which facilitates transformations among models on the same or different abstraction levels. The feasibility of GREAT is shown by the transformation of a real world application conforming to EJB standard 1.1 into a version which complies to EJB standard 2.0.     

An interactive software tool for system identification

The paper describes the conceptual basis, main features and functionality of an interactive software tool developed in support of system identification education and discovery. This Interactive Tool for System Identification Education (ITSIE) has been developed using Sysquake, a Matlab-like language with fast execution and excellent facilities for interactive graphics, and is deliverd as a stand-alone executable that is readily accessible to students and engineers. ITSIE provides two distinct functional modes that are very useful from an educational and industrial point of view. The simulation mode enables the user to evaluate the main stages of system identification, from input signal design through model validation, simultaneously and interactively in one screen on a user-specified dynamical system. The real data mode allows the user to load experimental data obtained externally and identify suitable models in an interactive fashion. The interactive tool enables students and engineers in industry to discover a myriad of fundamental system identification concepts with a much lower learning curve than existing methods.     

An interactive tool for knowledge base refinement

We present a tool that combines two main trends of knowledge base refinement. The first is the construction of interactive knowledge acquisition tools and the second is the development of machine learning methods that automate this procedure. The tool presented here is interactive and gives experts the ability to evaluate an expert system and provide their own diagnoses on specific problems, when the expert system behaves erroneously. We also present a database scheme that supports the collection of specific instances. The second aspect of the tool is that knowledge base refinement and machine learning methods can be applied to the database, in order to automate the procedure refining the knowledge base. In this paper we examine the application of inductive learning algorithms within the proposed framework. Our main goal is to encourage the experts to evaluate expert systems and to introduce new knowledge, based on their experience.     

Using UML to model relational database operations

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is being used as the de-facto standard in the software industry. With the adoption of UML 2.0, the new enhancements allow this version to describe many of the elements found in today's software technology as well as Model Driven Architecture and Service-Oriented Architecture. Although the Object Management Group (OMG) has released several UML Profiles to tailor the language to specific areas, relational database modeling is not fully addressed in these profiles. Many existing software applications involve complex application layer implemented in object-oriented programming languages and at the same time use relational database systems as the back-end data store. Modeling the whole system in a consistent manner will help developers and end users better understand the application. In this work we show how to model relational database operations using UML. Atomic database operations are modeled based on our framework and are used as building blocks to model more complex database operations.     

An intelligent database for engineering applications

Many engineering applications need to response to unpredictable events in a timely manner. Active database systems provide an event-driven rule processing capability to meet this requirement. In this paper, we present an intelligent database which integrates an object-oriented database (OODB) with an expert system, CLIPS. The paper describes the design and implementation of the rule manager of this intelligent database. In the rule manager, event-condition-action (ECA) rules are represented as first class objects of the OODB. A rule definition language (RDL) has been developed to manipulate ECA rules in a declarative way. A graphical user interface (GUI) also supplies a template to interactively define, delete, update and check ECA rules. Detection of time events, method events, absolute events and composite events is supported by the rule manager. The CLIPS inference engine is used to control condition evaluation and action execution after an ECA rule is triggered. Finally, a typical workflow application is used to illustrate the functionality of the system.     

An immersive multi-agent system for interactive applications

This paper presents an interactive multi-agent system based on a fully immersive virtual environment. A user can interact with the virtual characters in real time via an avatar by changing their moving behavior. Moreover, the user is allowed to select any character as the avatar to be controlled. A path planning algorithm is proposed to address the problem of dynamic navigation of individual and groups of characters in the multi-agent system. A natural interface is designed for the interaction between the user and the virtual characters, as well as the virtual environment, based on gesture recognition. To evaluate the efficiency of the dynamic navigation method, performance results are provided. The presented system has the potential to be used in the training and evaluation of emergency evacuation and other real-time applications of crowd simulation with interaction.     

数据库系统辅助测试工具

提出了一种数据库系统测试的辅助工具,用于解决规范化管理的数据库系统测试项目中测试数据构建及测试结果保留效率低下的问题.其具体做法是,采用Excel工作表规范设计输入数据和预期结果,再利用该工具完成一些简单设定,可实现构造数据库测试数据、获取测试结果及实现丸行结果与预期结果比较等功能.经多个数据库使用结果表明,该工具能生成规范的测试结果,并能减轻测试人员负担,提高了测试效率.     

An interactive tool for mobile robot motion planning

This paper presents an interactive tool aimed at facilitating the understanding of several well-known algorithms and techniques involved in solving mobile robot motion problems. These range from those modelling the mechanics of mobility to those used in navigation. The tool focuses on describing these problems in a simple manner in order to be useful for education purposes among different disciplines. By highlighting interactivity, the tool provides a novel means to study robot motion planning ideas in a manner that enhances full understanding. Furthermore, the paper discuses how the tool can be used in an introductory course of mobile robotics.     

An interactive support tool for writing multilingual manuals

Machine translation has been the dominant paradigm for automated multilingual document production. In this paradigm, a technical writer generates a source text, which is translated by the computer system into another language and then edited. One problem with machine translation, however, is that its output is typically constrained by the original text's style and language. Automatic language-generation systems, however, start with an underlying knowledge base that represents the text's content without dictating its language or style. However, most automatic systems are stand-alone tools, leaving technical writers out of the loop. The systems assume that an underlying knowledge base containing the necessary information is available or can be easily obtained. This is not necessarily the case, though, when producing instruction manuals. For example, the knowledge base required to produce instructions should contain user-oriented information. User-oriented documentation, which concerns the ways the product can help users achieve their goals, is more effective than documentation that focuses on the product. Only a technical writer can specify user-oriented information. It is thus prefer able to have a document-generation system that works with the writer. With this in mind, we developed Drafter, an interactive document drafting tool that can be integrated into the technical writers' working practices and that can automatically and simultaneously generate appropriately worded drafts in several languages. Drafter's current domain of application is software manuals     

Micro MUMPS: An interactive database language for micro-computers

A simple interactive language named Micro MUMPS has been implemented on a microcomputer system. Its powerful facilities for data base manipulation and character handling make programming easy for end users who are unfamiliar with computers. Micro MUMPS is a practical subset of the language MUMPS which has been implemented on many minicomputers, and it also has some additional capabilities indispensable to micro-computer applications. A modified prefix B-tree is used in Micro MUMPS database and its organization can be changed according to the requirements of space and time efficiency. The design criteria of Micro MUMPS and micro-computer based implementation techniques are discussed in this paper.     

Isidd: An interactive system for inductive database design

When designing a deductive database, the designer has to decide for each predicate (or relation) whether it should be defined extensionally or intensionally and what the definition should look like. An intelligent interactive system is presented to assist the designer in this task. It starts from an example state ofa database in which all predicates are defined extensionally. It can then compact the database by transforming extensionally defined predicates into intensionally defined ones. These predicates can be chosen by the user or by the system itself. Further compaction is possible by inventing new predicates; this invention is controlled by user-specified templates. The systemalso proposes semantic integrity constraints to the user. These do not lead to extra compaction but can be used to make the database more robust. The intelligent system employs techniques from the area of inductive logic programming.     

INDIANA: An interactive system for assisting database exploration

We propose INDIANA, a system conceived to support a novel paradigm of database exploration. INDIANA assists the users who are interested in gaining insights about a database though an interactive and incremental process, like a conversation that does not happen in natural language. During this process, the system iteratively provides the user with some features of the data that might be “interesting” from the statistical viewpoint, receiving some feedbacks that are later used by the system to refine the features provided to the user in the next step. A key ability of INDIANA is to assist “data enthusiastic” users (i.e., inexperienced or casual users) in the exploration of transactional databases in an interactive way. For this purpose, we develop a number of novel, statistically-grounded algorithms to support the interactive exploration of the database. We report an in-depth experimental evaluation to show that the proposed system guarantees a very good trade-off between accuracy and scalability, and a user study that supports the claim that the system is effective in real-world database-exploration tasks.     

An AGENDA for testing relational database applications

Database systems play an important role in nearly every modern organization, yet relatively little research effort has focused on how to test them. This paper discusses issues arising in testing database systems, presents an approach to testing database applications, and describes AGENDA, a set of tools to facilitate the use of this approach. In testing such applications, the state of the database before and after the user's operation plays an important role, along with the user's input and the system output. A framework for testing database applications is introduced. A complete tool set, based on this framework, has been prototyped. The components of this system are a parsing tool that gathers relevant information from the database schema and application, a tool that populates the database with meaningful data that satisfy database constraints, a tool that generates test cases for the application, a tool that checks the resulting database state after operations are performed by a database application, and a tool that assists the tester in checking the database application's output. The design and implementation of each component of the system are discussed. The prototype described here is limited to applications consisting of a single SQL query. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An educational tool for interactive parallel and distributed processing

In this article we try to describe how the modular interactive tiles system (MITS) can be a valuable tool for introducing students to interactive parallel and distributed processing programming. This is done by providing a handson educational tool that allows a change in the representation of abstract problems related to designing interactive parallel and distributed systems. Indeed, the MITS seems to bring a series of goals into education, such as parallel programming, distributedness, communication protocols, master dependency, software behavioral models, adaptive interactivity, feedback, connectivity, topology, island modeling, and user and multi-user interaction which can rarely be found in other tools. Finally, we introduce the system of modular interactive tiles as a tool for easy, fast, and flexible hands-on exploration of these issues, and through examples we show how to implement interactive parallel and distributed processing with different behavioral software models such as open loop, randomness-based, rule-based, user interaction-based, and AI- and ALife-based software.     

A hierarchical component model for large parallel interactive applications

This paper focuses on parallel interactive applications ranging from scientific visualization, to virtual reality or computational steering. Interactivity makes them particular on three main aspects: they are endlessly iterative, use advanced I/O devices, and must perform under strong performance constraints (latency, refresh rate). A data flow graph is a common approach to describe such applications. Edges represent data streams while vertices are nodes processing incoming data streams and producing new data streams. When applications become large, this approach shows its limits in terms of maintainability and portability. In this paper, we propose to use the composite design pattern to extend this model for supporting hierarchies of components. The component hierarchy is traversed to instantiate the application and extract the data flow graph required for the execution. This approach has been implemented for the FlowVR middleware. It enables to define parametric composite components, commonly called skeletons, that can be reused in various applications. This approach proved to significantly leverage application modularity as presented in different case studies.     

An interactive tool for recognizing structured figures with variable shapes

In electric power supply, railway, and other companies with many facilities, facility management is a laborious task. To realize a computerized facility management system, numerous paper-based facility maps should be stored in a database. In this paper, we present a system that constructs a facility management database by interpretation of paper-based facility maps. This system can automatically recognize structured figures with variable shapes on maps, while conventional methods cannot recognize these figures. And this system can easily generate relational data between facilities and character strings on maps. We compare our recognition method of structured figures with variable shapes with a conventional recognition method, and show the effectiveness of our system. Received: 18 November 1996 / Accepted: 16 February 1998     

An extended model for database implementation

A major problem in database design is to analyze and model the actual implementation process. The objective typically is to minimize the cost, subject to operating constraints that may be effective. One such model was developed and reported by us earlier[10]. The purpose of the present paper is to generalize that model by incorporating several practical considerations in it. Efficient solution procedures are developed for these generalizations.