A semiotic engineering approach to user interface design

Designing software involves good perception, good reasoning, and a talent to express oneself effectively through programming and interactive languages. Semiotic theories can help HCI designers increase their power to perceive, reason and communicate. By presenting some of the results we have reached with semiotic engineering over the last few years, we suggest that the main contributions of semiotic theory in supporting HCI design are: to provide designers with new perceptions on the process and product of HCI design; to bind together all the stages of software development and use, giving them a unique homogeneous treatment; and to pose innovative questions that extend the frontiers of HCI investigations.     

A Bayesian approach to object detection using probabilistic appearance-based models

In this paper, we introduce a Bayesian approach, inspired by probabilistic principal component analysis (PPCA) (Tipping and Bishop in J Royal Stat Soc Ser B 61(3):611–622, 1999), to detect objects in complex scenes using appearance-based models. The originality of the proposed framework is to explicitly take into account general forms of the underlying distributions, both for the in-eigenspace distribution and for the observation model. The approach combines linear data reduction techniques (to preserve computational efficiency), non-linear constraints on the in-eigenspace distribution (to model complex variabilities) and non-linear (robust) observation models (to cope with clutter, outliers and occlusions). The resulting statistical representation generalises most existing PCA-based models (Tipping and Bishop in J Royal Stat Soc Ser B 61(3):611–622, 1999; Black and Jepson in Int J Comput Vis 26(1):63–84, 1998; Moghaddam and Pentland in IEEE Trans Pattern Anal Machine Intell 19(7):696–710, 1997) and leads to the definition of a new family of non-linear probabilistic detectors. The performance of the approach is assessed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis on several representative databases, showing a major improvement in detection performances with respect to the standard methods that have been the references up to now.This revised version was published online in November 2004 with corrections to the section numbers.     

A structured approach to language design

This report is an attempt at systematizing a set of ground rules for high-level language design. It recommends the use of a hierarchical semantic model schema. HGL, in a step by step, top-down approach imposing more and more structure on the language components as the design becomes solidified. The approach is demonstrated by showing the stepwise design of the high-level language, GRAAL. The method recommended is divided into three major phases. The first is an informal one. The second is encoding the language components into a very high-level model. This high-level design allows a redesign of language components before they have been specified at too detailed a level. The third phase is to design the compiler in HGL using the final language design.     

The optimization paradigm in engineering design: promises and challenges

Formal design optimization involves application of mathematical optimization techniques to models derived from engineering science, often presented as computer simulations. Industry use of design optimization tools is now widespread and sophisticated. As the size and complexity of design problems addressed with these formal methods increase, so do the challenges for successful implementations. Based on the author's experiences, after briefly reviewing the mathematical challenges involved, the article describes several problem areas where optimization technology is likely to have a major impact in the development of improved artifacts in the coming years. These include conceptual and topological design, large complex systems, smart products, and enterprise-wide product design.     

Knowledge types: a practical approach to guide knowledge engineering in domains of building design

Abstract: This paper presents experiences and findings achieved through several expert system projects in domains of technical buiding design. The main focus is on knowledge acquisition and knowledge decomposition. Different approaches are presented and discussed. Four types of knowledge are presented: object knowledge, performance knowledge, event knowledge and metaknowledge, and the applicability of this classification to building design is justified. The paper includes a listing of experiences gained by real world testing of an expert system, and finally we outline guidelines to knowledge engineering in the domain of technical building     

A graph mining approach for detecting identical design structures in object-oriented design models

The object-oriented approach has been the most popular software design methodology for the past twenty-five years. Several design patterns and principles are defined to improve the design quality of object-oriented software systems. In addition, designers can use unique design motifs that are designed for the specific application domains. Another commonly used technique is cloning and modifying some parts of the software while creating new modules. Therefore, object-oriented programs can include many identical design structures. This work proposes a sub-graph mining-based approach for detecting identical design structures in object-oriented systems. By identifying and analyzing these structures, we can obtain useful information about the design, such as commonly-used design patterns, most frequent design defects, domain-specific patterns, and reused design clones, which could help developers to improve their knowledge about the software architecture. Furthermore, problematic parts of frequent identical design structures are appropriate refactoring opportunities because they affect multiple areas of the architecture. Experiments with several open-source and industrial projects show that we can successfully find many identical design structures within a project (intra-project) and between different projects (inter-project). We observe that usually most of the detected identical structures are an implementation of common design patterns; however, we also detect various anti-patterns, domain-specific patterns, reused design parts and design-level clones.     

Information structuring for use and reuse of mechanical analysis models in engineering design

Nowadays, in an industrial context, cost and delay reduction, as well as quality improvement are of major interest in engineering design. Therefore, in order to make a decision as early as possible and according to the product specifications, mechanical analysis is used more and more, and earlier and earlier in the engineering process. Then, a multitude of mechanical models are elaborated during engineering design, and management difficulties appear with engineering changes or evolution of specifications. Moreover, when the designer is faced with design or modelling options, previous analysis could answer the choice of options for decision making. Then, the reuse of a previous analysis must be envisaged. The paper presented deals with the aim and the different use of mechanical analysis in embodiment design. Afterwards, different levels of models handled by the designer during the engineering process are proposed. A particular type of analysis, namely instructional' is identif ied in a further step and its interest in a reuse context is emphasized. Finally, information structuring is proposed in order to allow mechanical analysis reuse during engineering design.     

Shape mining: A holistic data mining approach for engineering design

Although the integration of engineering data within the framework of product data management systems has been successful in the recent years, the holistic analysis (from a systems engineering perspective) of multi-disciplinary data or data based on different representations and tools is still not realized in practice. At the same time, the application of advanced data mining techniques to complete designs is very promising and bears a high potential for synergy between different teams in the development process. In this paper, we propose shape mining as a framework to combine and analyze data from engineering design across different tools and disciplines. In the first part of the paper, we introduce unstructured surface meshes as meta-design representations that enable us to apply sensitivity analysis, design concept retrieval and learning as well as methods for interaction analysis to heterogeneous engineering design data. We propose a new measure of relevance to evaluate the utility of a design concept. In the second part of the paper, we apply the formal methods to passenger car design. We combine data from different representations, design tools and methods for a holistic analysis of the resulting shapes. We visualize sensitivities and sensitive cluster centers (after feature reduction) on the car shape. Furthermore, we are able to identify conceptual design rules using tree induction and to create interaction graphs that illustrate the interrelation between spatially decoupled surface areas. Shape data mining in this paper is studied for a multi-criteria aerodynamic problem, i.e. drag force and rear lift, however, the extension to quality criteria from different disciplines is straightforward as long as the meta-design representation is still applicable.     

A feature-based approach towards an integrated product model including conceptual design information

Due to the highly complex and informal data that has to be managed in the conceptual design this early design phase still lacks of suitable computer support. Furthermore, existing approaches towards a computer aided conceptual design are insufficiently integrated with the downstream applications of the product development process. The paper therefore introduces an approach towards a feature-based integrated product model that incorporates a feature-based representation scheme for capturing product semantics handled in the conceptual design phase and links early design with part and assembly modelling.     

An organism-oriented modeling approach to support the analysis and design of intelligent manufacturing systems

In this paper a generic macroscopic object, termed an organism, is introduced. An organism defines a high-level modeling object that has the capabilities for organizational networking, standardization or characteristics specifications, decoupling of editing and visualization as well as temporal management. Organism-oriented models inherit from their parent object-oriented and object/agent-oriented models a simplified representation of the manufacturing entities as well as a capacity for many levels of abstraction. Moreover, the organism-oriented modeling approach enriches these models by not only considering basic manufacturing objects and agents, but also the fact that each of these objects and agents may itself be an organization and also part of one or several organizations. The paper first surveys some of the current approaches used for modeling and analysing manufacturing systems: structured analysis, Petri nets, object and object/ agent models. The object model behind the organism-oriented modeling approach is then presented and its application to a manufacturing case is illustrated.     

Application of parallelized analogical planning to engineering design

Analogical planning provides a means of solving engineering problems where other machine learning methods fail. Unlike many machine learning paradigms, analogy does not require numerous previous examples or a rich domain theory. Instead, analogical planners adapt knowledge of solved problems in similar domains to the current problem. Unfortunately, the analogical planning task is an expensive one. While the process of forming correspondences between a known problem and a new problem is complex, the problem of selecting a base case for the analogy is virtually intractable.This paper addresses the issue of efficiently forming analogical plans. The Anagram planning system is described, which takes advantage of the massively parallel architecture of the Connection Machine to perform base selection and map formation. Anagram provides a tractable solution to analogical planning, with a complexity that is sublinear in the size of the plans.This paper describes the Anagram system and its parallel algorithms. The paper also presents theoretical analyses and empirical results of testing the system on a large database of plans from the domain of automatic programming.     

Automated functional design of engineering systems

This paper presents a prototype intelligent system, the knowledge-based functional design automation system (KBFDA) for automating the functional design process of engineering products/systems. An integrated knowledge representation scheme combines rule-based and object-oriented representation methods to represent functions and function related design characteristics in an intelligent design environment. A knowledge-based functional reasoning strategy uses this representation to automatically generate physical behaviors from desired functions or behaviors. The required behaviors are then combined in different configurations to develop a set of potential concept variants that meet the functional requirements and functional constraints given in a design specification. Finally, the variants are ranked according to the degree to which they meet non-functional constraints. The variant with the lowest rank (score) is selected as the best solution. A case study design of a terminal insertion unit is presented to demonstrate the practicality of the proposed approach.     

Modular design to support green life-cycle engineering

The severe competition in the market has driven enterprises to produce a wider variety of products to meet consumers’ needs. However, frequent variation of product specifications causes the assembly and disassembly of components and modules to become more and more complicated. As a result, the issue of product modular design is a problem worthy of concern. In this study, engineering attributes were added to the liaison graph model for the evaluation of part connections. The engineering attributes added, including contact type, combination type, tool type, and accessed direction, serve to offer designers criteria for evaluating the component liaison intensity during the design stage. A grouping genetic algorithm (GGA) is then employed for clustering the components and crossover mechanisms are modified according to the need of modular design. Furthermore, a reasonable green modular design evaluation is conducted using the green material cost analysis. According to the results, adjusted design proposals are suggested and materials that cause less pollution are recommended to replace the components with pollution values higher than those in the module. Finally, the authors use Borland C++ 6.0 to evaluate the system and clustering method. To illustrate the methodology proposed in this study, a table lamp is offered as an example.     

A framework to integrate design knowledge reuse and requirements management in engineering design

This paper presents a framework to integrate requirements management and design knowledge reuse. The research approach begins with a literature review in design reuse and requirements management to identify appropriate methods within each domain. A framework is proposed based on the identified requirements. The framework is then demonstrated using a case study example: vacuum pump design. Requirements are presented as a component of the integrated design knowledge framework. The proposed framework enables the application of requirements management as a dynamic process, including capture, analysis and recording of requirements. It takes account of the evolving requirements and the dynamic nature of the interaction between requirements and product structure through the various stages of product development.     

Survey on mechatronic engineering: A focus on design methods and product models

According to the principles of concurrent engineering and integrated design, engineers intend to develop a mechatronic system with a high level integration (functional and physical integrations) based on a well-organised design method. As a result, two main categories of issues have been pointed out: the process-based problems and the design data-related problems. Several approaches to overcome these issues have been put forward. To solve process-based problems, a dynamic perspective is generally used to present how collaboration can be improved during the mechatronic design. For design data-related problems, solutions generally come from product models and how to structure and store the data thanks to the functionality of data and documents management of Product Lifecycle Management systems. To be able to assess design methods and product models, some criteria are proposed in the paper and used to evaluate their added value on integrated design of mechatronic system. After this assessment, main outcomes which focus on the combination of design method and product model for improving the design of mechatronic system are finally discussed.