Development of a Software Engineering Ontology for Multisite Software Development

This paper aims to present an ontology model of software engineering to represent its knowledge. The fundamental knowledge relating to software engineering is well described in the textbook entitled Software Engineering by Sommerville that is now in its eighth edition [1] and the white paper, Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK), by the IEEE [2] upon which software engineering ontology is based. This paper gives an analysis of what software engineering ontology is, what it consists of, and what it is used for in the form of usage example scenarios. The usage scenarios presented in this paper highlight the characteristics of the software engineering ontology. The software engineering ontology assists in defining information for the exchange of semantic project information and is used as a communication framework. Its users are software engineers sharing domain knowledge as well as instance knowledge of software engineering.     

面向并行工程的产品特征模型多视域转换平台

并行工程是产品传统开发方式的一种变革,核心就是实现产品信息在产品生命周期各个阶段的集成和共享。文章在分析特征转换技术的基础上,应用组件化程序设计技术,建立一个适合并行工程工作模式的产品多视域特征模型转换平台系统,通过建立的中间基本特征模型库可以实现产品信息在多视域间的共享和转换。对由设计域到加工域的转换知识的表示和建立进行研究,实现设计特征模型到加工特征模型的转换。建立的系统具有良好的编程语言无关性和可扩充性。     

Structured implementation of information systems for concurrent engineering

This article presents a collaboration approach to assimilate the best practice of concurrent engineering (CE) in a small manufacturing enterprise for gaining sustainable improvements. The major challenge in CE is sharing a mental model of parallel working across departments in a company to shorten the cycle time, and across organizations to form a supply chain for global competition. Action learning is found useful to develop self‐discipline in individuals to initiate changes and align the views with others both inside and outside the company for a vested interest to use information systems to make innovations for gaining competitive advantage. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Supplier selection paradigm: An integrated hierarchical QFD methodology under multiple-criteria environment

A concurrent engineering approach integrating analytic hierarchy process (AHP) with quality function deployment (QFD) in combination with cost factor measure (CFM) has been delineated to rank and subsequently select candidate-suppliers under multiple, conflicting-in-nature criteria environment within a value-chain framework. Engineering requirements and customer requirements governing the selection decision have been identified. The hierarchical QFD methodology allows the decision maker (DM) to rank the candidate-suppliers considering both CFM and the subjective factors. The sensitivity of the proposed methodology is elucidated considering a parameter called objective factor decision weight. The devised methodology has been tested with the dataset adopted from Yahya and Kingsman [89]. Liu and Hai [51] tested their model with the same dataset. A comparative analysis using design of experiment has been elucidated so as to demonstrate the efficacy of the devised hierarchical concurrent engineering approach.     

Public opinion channel for communities in the information age

In this paper, we propose as a new challenge a public opinion channel which can provide a novel communication medium for sharing and exchanging opinions in a community. Rather than simply developing a means of investigating public opinion, we aim at an active medium that can facilitate mutual understanding, discussion, and public opinion formation. First, we elaborate the idea of public opinion channels and identify key issues. Second, we describe our first step towards the goal using the talking virtualized egos metaphor. Finally, we discuss a research agenda towards the goal. Toyoaki Nishida, Dr.Eng.: He is a professor of Department of Information and Communication Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo. He received the B.E., the M.E., and the Doctor of Engineering degrees from Kyoto University in 1977, 1979, and 1984 respectively. His research centers on artificial intelligence in general. His current research focuses on community computing and support systems, including knowledge sharing, knowledge media, and agent technology. He has been leading the Breakthrough 21 Nishida Project, sponsored by Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, Japan, aiming at understanding and assisting networked communities. Since 1997, he is a trustee for JSAI (Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence), and serves as the program chair of 1999 JSAI Annual Convention. He is an area editor (intelligent systems) of New Generation Computing and an editor of Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems. Nobuhiko Fujihara, Ph.D.: He is a fellow of Breakthrough 21 Nishida project, Communications Research Laboratory sponsored by Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, Japan. He received the B.E., the M.E., and the Ph.D. in Human Sciences degrees from Osaka University in 1992, 1994, and 1998 respectively. He has a cognitive psychological background. His current research focuses on: (1) cognitive psychological analysis of human behavior in a networked community, (2) investigation of information comprehension process, (3) assessment and proposition of communication tools in networking society. Shintaro Azechi: He is a fellow of Breakthrough 21 Nishida project, Communications Research Laboratory sponsored by Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, Japan. He received the B.E. and the M.E. of Human Sciences degrees from Osaka University in 1994 and 1996 respectively. He is a Doctoral Candidate of Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University. His current researches focus on (1) human behavior in networking community (2) social infomation process in human mind (3) development of acessment technique for communication tools in networkingsociety. His approach is from social psychological view. Kaoru Sumi, Dr.Eng.: She is a Researcher of Breakthrough 21 Nishida Project. She received her Bachelor of Science at School of Physics, Science University of Tokyo. She received her Master of Systems Management at Graduate School of Systems Management, The university of Tsukuba. She received her Doctor of engineering at Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo. Her research interests include knowledge-based systems, creativity supporting systems, and their applications for facilitating human collaboration. She is a member of the Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ), the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI). Hiroyuki Yano, Dr.Eng.: He is a senior research official of Kansai Advanced Research Center, Communications Research Laboratory, Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. He received the B.E., the M.E., and the Doctor of Engineering degrees from Tohoku University in 1986, 1988, and 1993 respectively. His interests of research include cognitive mechanism of human communications. His current research focuses on discourse structure, human interface, and dialogue systems for human natural dialogues. He is a member of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, the Association for Natural Language Processing, and the Japanese Cognitive Science Society. Takashi Hirata: He is a doctor course student in Graduate School of Information Scienc at Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST). He received a master of engineering from NAIST in 1998. His research interest is knowledge media and knowledge sharing. He is a member of Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ), Japan Association for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI) and The Institute of Systems, Control and Information Engineers (ISCIE).     

Paradigm shift: unified and associative feature-based concurrent and collaborative engineering

With widely used concurrent and collaborative engineering technologies, the validity and consistency of product information become important. In order to establish the state of the art, this paper reviews emerging concurrent and collaborative engineering approaches and emphasizes on the integration of different application systems across product life cycle management (PLM) stages. It is revealed that checking product information validity is difficult for the current computer-aided systems because engineering intent is at best partially represented in product models. It is also not easy to maintain the consistency among related product models because information associations are not established. The purpose of this review is to identify and analyze research issues with respect to information integration and sharing for future concurrent and collaborative engineering. A new paradigm of research from the angle of feature unification and association for product modeling and manufacturing is subsequently proposed.     

机械设计并行式多专家系统的研制

提出了一种用于机械产品设计的并行式多专家系统（MES）理论模型，并以液压缸智能CAD系统为例给出了并行式MES面向对象框架知识表示、编译和推理的原理和方法。     

并行工程中的活动规划

针对并行工程设计活动的新特征和并行工程顺利进行的关键因素，提出一套地工程的活动规划方法。算例结果表明了该算法的可行性。