Multiple coordinated views for searching and navigating Web content repositories

The advantages and positive effects of multiple coordinated views on search performance have been documented in several studies. This paper describes the implementation of multiple coordinated views within the Media Watch on Climate Change, a domain-specific news aggregation portal available at www.ecoresearch.net/climate that combines a portfolio of semantic services with a visual information exploration and retrieval interface. The system builds contextualized information spaces by enriching the content repository with geospatial, semantic and temporal annotations, and by applying semi-automated ontology learning to create a controlled vocabulary for structuring the stored information. Portlets visualize the different dimensions of the contextualized information spaces, providing the user with multiple views on the latest news media coverage. Context information facilitates access to complex datasets and helps users navigate large repositories of Web documents. Currently, the system synchronizes information landscapes, domain ontologies, geographic maps, tag clouds and just-in-time information retrieval agents that suggest similar topics and nearby locations.     

A pilgrim's progress: From cognitive science to cooperative design

This paper provides a glimpse of some different theoretical frameworks and empirical methods in the author's search for theories and practices that might improve the utility and usability of computer artifacts. The essay touches on some problematic aspects of currently accepted theories and techniques in the cognitive sciences, especially in their application to the field of human-computer interaction, and mentions some alternative conceptions based on a cultural-historical approach. The intent is to widen the nature of the debate about appropriate frameworks for discussing human activities especially when we discuss design activities in the context of computer systems development. The paper concludes with some suggestions for more fruitful research directions that involve the active participation of those for whom the research is ostensibly being done, and a greater emphasis on understanding how artifact design and use are inextricably intertwined.This paper originated from a talk entitled From Cognitive Science to Cooperative Design that later appeared in rough paper form in Finnemann, N. O. (Ed.) Proceedings from the Symposium Theories and Technologies of the Information Society (Centre for Cultural Research, Aarhus University, Denmark, Sept. 1989). Some of the ideas and material in the present paper first appeared in Bannon & Bødker (in press) and Bannon (in press).     

Object-oriented design support system for machine tools

This paper deals with an object-oriented intelligent design support system which is intended to assist in the basic design of machine tools, in particular machining centres. The machine tools design process is analysed through interviews with experienced designers, and an object-oriented model is established to represent the design process. Software modules named design objects are proposed, which are basic components for the implementation of an intelligent design support system for machine tools. A prototype of the design support system for machining centres is developed based on the design objects, and some case studies are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the methods proposed.     

Situation awareness measurement of an ecological interface designed to operator support during alarm floods

Alarm summary interfaces are lists of chronologically sorted alarms used in oil producing supervision programs for decades. When a great number of alarms are activated in a small interval of time – that is, an alarm flood – alarm summary ceases to be as useful to understand the process situation. New alarm systems and interfaces are necessary to support operators' decision when dealing with such alarm floods. Situational awareness is an important concept for process operators when making decisions. The application of Ecological Interface Design concepts can lead to better interface designs, especially in unanticipated situations. The aim of this work is to verify the usefulness of a new ecological alarm interface, called Advanced System of Intelligent Alarms (SAAI, the Portuguese acronym). SAAI displays alarms prioritised in real-time with relevant graphical information on process conditions. Professional operators' situational awareness is measured when using either the SAAI interface, or the alarm summary interface, connected to a dynamic simulator running a model of an oil production process. Measurement techniques used include objective and subjective rating approaches, and a proposed technique. Operators' situation awareness for SAAI interface has shown greater values under all techniques used, compared to alarm summary interface. Although the new interface implied that operators would have to look also at an extra monitor, results show that their situation awareness improved on average, and that situation awareness might be less impaired under alarm floods.Relevance to industrySituation awareness plays an important role in operators' decision-making process. Alarm systems are critical in complex process operation, and alarm floods may impair operators' decisions. A new alarm ecological interface designed to maintain operators' situational awareness under alarm floods may mean an improvement in operation safety and efficiency.     

A cooperative universal data model platform for the data-centric electronic system-level design

The rapidly increasing complexity of integrated circuit design is evolving to a more data-centric design scenario that supports sharing of design information. This paper presents the universal data model platform (UDMP) which introduce the data-centric design revolution into the electronic system-level (ESL) design to support better cooperation of design individuals. UDMP provides (1) a set of universal data models to help both university researches and industry, and (2) an application programming interface (API) based mechanism for data exchanging to eliminate the inefficiency of traditional low-bandwidth formatted files. Thereby the cooperative work of ESL design and the efficiency of design iteration can be improved. As primary experiments, we apply the concepts of UDMP to two case studies. The heterogeneous graph modeling demonstrates how UDMP unifies the similar graph models in a flexible way, and the simplification of an interface synthesis flow which consists three individual algorithms obtains a running time reduction by about 10% for selected designs.     

基于普适计算的工程协同设计系统模型

论述了建筑工程协同设计系统的建模特点,在已提出并实现了基于网络的协同设计系统的工作基础上,进一步提出了物理协同的概念,对所设计的理想“协同设计院”模型做了说明,给出了信息交流和数据交流的解决方案,并论述了实现“协同设计院”的开发中应遵循的原则。最后介绍了原型系统的研制情况,实验证明了该理论模型的可行性和广阔发展前景。     

A decision support system for cooperative transportation planning: Design,implementation, and performance assessment

In this paper, we describe a decision support system for cooperative transportation planning in the German food industry where several manufacturing companies share their fleets to reduce transportation costs. Besides using vehicles of their fleets, there are different outsourcing options offered by logistics service providers, but these are much more expensive. The decision-making kernel of the decision support system is implemented as a multi-agent-system (MAS). The kernel provides a distributed hierarchical algorithm for cooperative transportation planning and an on-line data layer that contains all the information for decision making. We sketch the distributed hierarchical transportation planning algorithm and identity the required software agents. The MAS interacts via web services with a commercial tour planning system that persistently stores the resulting tour plans, orders, and customer data. Moreover, the tour planning system is used to offer graphical user interfaces to interact with the users. The data layer is updated by order and customer data from the ERP systems of the different manufacturing companies. We describe the architecture and the implementation of the MAS and the overall coupling framework. Furthermore, we discuss the simulation-based performance assessment of the resulting decision support system when the system is applied in a rolling horizon setting and present some computational results. The results demonstrate that the MAS approach is appropriate for the cooperative transportation planning domain.     

Multiple camera people detection and tracking using support integration

This paper proposes a method to locate and track people by combining evidence from multiple cameras using the homography constraint. The proposed method use foreground pixels from simple background subtraction to compute evidence of the location of people on a reference ground plane. The algorithm computes the amount of support that basically corresponds to the “foreground mass” above each pixel. Therefore, pixels that correspond to ground points have more support. The support is normalized to compensate for perspective effects and accumulated on the reference plane for all camera views. The detection of people on the reference plane becomes a search for regions of local maxima in the accumulator. Many false positives are filtered by checking the visibility consistency of the detected candidates against all camera views. The remaining candidates are tracked using Kalman filters and appearance models. Experimental results using challenging data from PETS’06 show good performance of the method in the presence of severe occlusion. Ground truth data also confirms the robustness of the method.     

基于对象的扩展Petri网协同设计过程分析

针对协同设计中任务的执行流程缺乏柔性,不利于分析实际设计过程的现状,提出一种单元调用变迁对与决策变迁相集成的基于对象的扩展Petri网,扩展了Petri网的可达图以适应分析OEPNs模型.采用OEPNs中的过程网和单元阿对协同设计过程楚模,利用模型中的单元调用变迁对和决策变迁对过程本身和可能状态进行分析.最后与相关的研究工作进行比较并给出了结论.     

Target shape design optimization by evolving B-splines with cooperative coevolution

With high reputation in handling non-linear and multi-model problems with little prior knowledge, evolutionary algorithms (EAs) have successfully been applied to design optimization problems as robust optimizers. Since real-world design optimization is often computationally expensive, target shape design optimization problems (TSDOPs) have been frequently used as efficient miniature model to check algorithmic performance for general shape design. There are at least three important issues in developing EAs for TSDOPs, i.e., design representation, fitness evaluation and evolution paradigm. Existing work has mainly focused on the first two issues, in which (1) an adaptive encoding scheme with B-spline has been proposed as a representation, and (2) a symmetric Hausdorff distance based metric has been used as a fitness function. But for the third issue, off-the-shelf EAs were used directly to evolve B-spline control points and/or knot vector. In this paper, we first demonstrate why it is unreasonable to evolve the control points and knot vector simultaneously. And then a new coevolutionary paradigm is proposed to evolve the control points and knot vector of B-spline separately in a cooperative manner. In the new paradigm, an initial population is generated for both the control points, and the knot vector. The two populations are evolved mostly separately in a round-robin fashion, with only cooperation at the fitness evaluation phase. The new paradigm has at least two significant advantages over conventional EAs. Firstly, it provides a platform to evolve both the control points and knot vector reasonably. Secondly, it reduces the difficulty of TSDOPs by decomposing the objective vector into two smaller subcomponents (i.e., control points and knot vector). To evaluate the efficacy of the proposed coevolutionary paradigm, an algorithm named CMA-ES-CC was formulated. Experimental studies were conducted based on two target shapes. The comparison with six other EAs suggests that the proposed cooperative coevolution paradigm is very effective for TSDOPs.     

A Bayesian support tool for morphological design

Dynamic computer based support tools for the conceptual design phase have provided a long-standing challenge to develop. This is largely due to the ‘fluid’ nature of the conceptual design phase. Design evaluation methods, which form the basis of most computer design support tools, provide poor support for multiple outcomes. This research proposes a stochastic-based support tool that addresses this problem. A Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) is used to represent the causal links between design variables. Included in this research is an efficient method for learning a design domain network from previous design data in the structure of a morphological design chart. This induction algorithm is based on information content. A user interface is proposed to support dynamically searching the conceptual design space, based on a partial design specification. This support tool is empirically compared against a more traditional search process. While no compelling evidence is produced to support the stochastic-based approach, an interesting broader design search behaviour emerges from observations of the use of the stochastic design support tool.     

Cooperative transaction hierarchies: Transaction support for design applications

Traditional atomic and nested transactions are not always well-suited to cooperative applications, such as design applications. Cooperative applications place requirements on the database that may conflict with the serializability requirement. They require transactions to be long, possibly nested, and able to interact with each other in a structured way. We define a transaction framework, called acooperative transaction hierarchy, that allows us to relax the requirement for atomic, serializable transactions to better support cooperative applications. In cooperative transaction hierarchies, we allow the correctness specification for groups of designers to be tailored to the needs of the application. We usepatterns andconflicts to specify the constraints imposed on a group's history for it to be correct. We also provide some primitives to smooth the operation of the members. We characterize deadlocks in a cooperative transaction hierarchy, and provide mechanisms for deadlock detection and resolution. We examine issues associated with failure and recovery.     

统一框架下协作MIMO系统预编码方案

针对在协作MIMO系统中多小区及多用户间的干扰对系统性能的影响,一般都会基于某种设计准则进行预编码处理,但是由于设计目标的单一性会导致系统性能的不均衡,为了优化系统的整体性能,均衡各种性能指标,提出了统一数学框架下的预编码方案,并基于凸优化理论借助拉格朗日方程给出了预编码矩阵的求解方法。经仿真证明,算法在目标函数的收敛速度以及系统容量方面具有一定的优势,表明了所提方案实施的可行性。     

Mutual awareness: Enhanced by interface design and improving team performance in incident diagnosis under computerized working environment

Mutual Awareness, which measures understanding of the behaviors and status of other members in a team is supposed to influence team decision-making process in safety-critical tasks/systems. This study aims to explore enhancement of mutual awareness by adding a Mutual Awareness Tool (MAT) on a user interface and examining its effects on team diagnosis performance in emergency situations of a simulated nuclear power plant system. According to the experimental results, the embedded MAT on the operation interface enhanced team mutual awareness significantly, and improved incident diagnosis performance. The results also showed that the increase in mutual awareness led to a reduction of individual situation awareness, possibly due to the limited mental resources.     

A decision support system for engineering design based on an enhanced fuzzy MCDM approach

Design concept is an important wealth-creating activity in companies and infrastructure. However, the process of designing is very complex. Besides, the information required during the conceptual stage is incomplete, imprecise, and fuzzy. Hence, fuzzy set theory should be used to handle linguistic problem at this stage. This paper presents a fuzzy integrated approach to assess the performance of design concepts. And those criteria rating, relative weights and performance levels are captured by fuzzy numbers, and the overall performance of each alternative is calculated through an enhanced fuzzy weighted average (FWA) approach. A practical numerical example is provided to demonstrate the usefulness of this study. In addition, this paper, in order to make computing and ranking results easier to increase the recruiting productivity, develops a computer-based decision support system to help make decisions more efficiently.     

Handling effective communication to support awareness in rescue operations

Efficient rescue operations require a high level of situation awareness amongst decision‐makers and first responders for the purpose of achieving operations successfully and reducing losses. Moreover, a common operational picture between involved actors is required in order to support decision‐making. Therefore, different organisations and agencies have to collaborate, cooperate, and coordinate their actions with each other. Hence, effective interactions and communications between participants are vital to fulfil these essential needs. However, emergency actors still lack backing to exchange information effectively and ensure a common operational picture in order to reach shared situational awareness. For this reason, we aim to develop and implement Rescue MODES, a communication system oriented to support situation awareness amongst French emergency actors in rescue operations. In this paper, we examine and analyse actors’ activities and interactions, so that the system will be based on the real needs of actors. We start by studying and modelling the communications, interactions, and information flow. This modelling is based on an application ontology. Then, we define requirements for good communication in these operations and present some existing systems in France and how each system responds to these requirements.     

协作多输入多输出环境反向散射通信系统遍历速率分析

针对传统物联网（IoT）能耗大、频谱资源稀缺的问题,提出了由环境反向散射、协作接收机（CRx）和环境射频（RF）源共同构建的协作多输入多输出环境反向散射通信（MIMO-AmBC）系统模型。首先,通过使用PSR方案对该系统模型进行分析,推导出信噪比（SNR）;其次,推导出主链路和反向散射链路的遍历速率近似表达式,并得到反向散射链路遍历速率最大值表达式;最后,将其与传统蜂窝网络、CSR方案作对比。实验结果验证了理论推导的正确性并给出有意义结论：1）反向散射链路速率随接收天线数对数增长,与发射天线数无关。2）在SNR为10 dB时,PSR方案的和速率比传统方案、CSR方案分别提升36.8%和29.9%,虽然PSR方案的主链路速率比CSR方案降低5.5%,但反向散射链路的遍历速率比CSR方案提升7.7倍。为实际应用选取AmBC共生方案提供了理论参考。     

Research on group awareness of networked collaboration within the design team and between teams

Group awareness is the critical content of collaboration in a networked collaborative design team, and it is a meaningful way to study teamwork efficiency. However, existing methods that describe awareness information are not comprehensive. They all set an ideal collaborative environment of the single role and single activity, ignoring the bidirectional and overlapping of the collaboration process. To meet this gap, a novel group awareness method for the networked collaboration design team is proposed in this paper from the actual collaborative process. Firstly, the awareness information granularity in the joint work of the networked collaborative design team is described in detail, and the group awareness model is established. Then, the intra- and inter-team collaboration of networked collaborative design team is quantified, and correspondingly, combined with the degree of cooperation between members, a method for solving the group awareness ability of intra- and inter-team association by adopting awareness calculation is presented. Last, to illustrate the feasibility of the suggested approach, a vehicle interior collaborative design task is taken as an example. This study can provide practical guidance for a related design service platform to optimize team collaboration efficiency and select team members objectively and fairly.     

A heuristic approach to selecting views for materialization

XML data warehouses are becoming more popular as data is harvested from the web or as output from web services. As these warehouses tend to grow significantly over time, various techniques for expediting queries have been developed. One such technique is to materialize some or all of the queries in advance of query processing. These views are then subject to change either when underlying data changes or view definitions themselves are modified by users. The work in this paper focuses on changes to view definitions or view adaptation as it is known. Our approach is to segment the materialized view into fragments to minimize the effect of view changes. One crucial aspect to this approach is how to select the best fragments for materialization. In this paper, we introduce a new approach to selecting fragments based on heuristics derived from costs associated with the view graph. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A comprehensive framework of information system design to provide organizational creativity support

This research is motivated by two considerations: (1) organizational creativity is a component that enhances the ability of organizations to retain their competitive advantage and (2) too little research has been conducted worldwide that focuses on the design of information systems to provide organizational creativity support. This research proposes a comprehensive and conceptual framework for the design of organizational creativity support systems. To address the objective of this study, two theories, the resource-based view and a multiagent approach, are used to build the model proposed. The customer opinions from websites concerning a consumer electronics product are used to validate such a system. The theoretical contributions, practical implications, and future directions of the study are presented and discussed.