An information architecture for risk assessment and management

As systems become more complex, project managers need a means of accessing risk management experience gained on other projects. To address this need, the authors developed RAMP (Risk Assessment and Management Program), a risk management information system that provides interactive support for identifying, analyzing and sharing risk mitigation experience     

Information Immune Systems

The concept of an information immune system (IIS) is introduced, in which undesirable information is eliminated before it can reach the user. The IIS is inspired by the natural immune systems that protect us from pathogens. IISs from multiple individuals can be combined to form a group IIS which filters out information undesirable to any of the members. The relationship between our proposed IIS architecture and the natural immune system is outlined, and potential applications, including information filtering, interactive design, and collaborative design, are discussed.     

Analytics-Driven Dashboards Enable Leading Indicators for Requirements and Designs of Large-Scale Systems

Mining software repositories using analytics-driven dashboards provides a unifying mechanism for understanding, evaluating, and predicting the development, management, and economics of large-scale systems and processes. Dashboards enable measurement and interactive graphical displays of complex information and support flexible analytic capabilities for user customizability and extensibility. Dashboards commonly include system requirements and design metrics because they provide leading indicators for project size, growth, and volatility. This article focuses on dashboards that have been used on actual large-scale software projects as well as example empirical relationships revealed by the dashboards. The empirical results focus on leading indicators for requirements and designs of large-scale software systems based on insights from two sets of software projects containing 14 systems and 23 systems.     

An approach to developing complex database schemas using form types

In this paper we consider an approach to developing complex database schemas. Apart from the theoretical model of the approach, we also developed a CASE tool named Integrated Information Systems*Case, R.6.2 (IIS*Case) that supports the practical application of the approach. In this paper the basis of our approach to the design and integration of database schemas and ways of using IIS*Case is outlined. The main features of a new version of IIS*Case, developed in Java, are described. IIS*Case is based on the concept of ‘form type’ and supports the conceptual modelling of a database schema, generating subschemas and integrating them into a relational database schema in 3NF. IIS*Case provides an intelligent support for complex and highly formalized design and programming tasks. Having an advanced knowledge of information systems and database design is not a compulsory prerequisite for using IIS*Case. IIS*Case is based on a methodology of gradual integration of independently designed subschemas into a database schema. The process of independent subschema design may lead to collisions in expressing real‐world constraints. IIS*Case uses specialized algorithms for checking the consistency of constraints embedded in a database schema and its subschemas. This paper briefly outlines the application of the process of detecting collisions, and actions the designer may take to resolve them. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Measuring users' performance with interactive information systems

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the discrete forms of knowledge required for successful use of interactive information systems (IIS). Using an existing framework, an instrument was created to measure the achievement of three discrete forms of knowledge among novice users of an CD-ROM encyclopedia. The instrument included tasks designed to measure users' knowledge and skills in managing and controlling the system, navigating between information nodes and selecting appropriate search strategies given information related problems. The study examined hierarchical knowledge and compared the development of these forms of knowledge and skills among novices using two different IIS. The results found significant differences in the user performances between two systems in tasks that measured navigation skills and an understanding of the information organisation. It is suggested that these differences were due to differences in the interface design of the two systems and suggestions are made for selecting and implementing IIS systems in school and educational settings.     

项目交互耦合网络演化

针对现有文献中较少考虑交互依赖关系对项目组合动态选择影响的问题,借鉴复杂网络理论,提出项目交互耦合网络概念,并从项目收益、资源成本、项目风险、项目状态、交互依赖关系及战略匹配程度等6个方面描述网络演化的影响要素.在此基础上,提出网络生成及调整规则,给出网络稳定状态定义,建立项目交互耦合网络.研究结果表明,与传统模型相比,项目交互耦合网络模型能得到更优的项目组合,能更有效地利用资源,规避风险,提高收益,同时,项目交互耦合网络能更好地了解项目结构,为项目组合管理提供支持.项目组合管理者应对那些节点介数大、聚集系数高的项目即核心项目进行重点扶持与保护,以防这些项目失败后引起其邻节点失败,甚至导致整个项目网络发生级联失败.     

Optimization models of gas recovery and gas condensate processing

We present a complex of mathematical models that formalize gas recovery and processing. Optimization problems for gas recovery and gas condensate processing are stated and corresponding solution algorithms are suggested. These mathematical models provide a foundation of interactive decision support systems used in gas recovery and gas condensate processing.     

Analysing situated interaction hazards: an activity-based awareness approach

This paper presents a case for the usefulness of activity theory (AT) for the analysis of situated interaction hazards in safety-related systems. It is suggested here that situation awareness is a safety critical attribute that is acquired and maintained through situated activity or actions. We introduce an activity-based awareness model based on this fundamental premise and we show how the model is consistent with the principles of AT. We also provide an example of the usefulness of AT as a theoretical and practical foundation for the analysis of situated interaction hazards in complex, safety-related systems. Specifically, we describe how the activity-based awareness model and AT principles were applied to an investigation of situation awareness in a military air traffic control system. We show how this approach can also be used to support analyses of general interactive systems use. We suggest that this general approach can be used to support analyses of interactive system use, to inform system design, and mitigate against the situated interaction hazards inherent in safety-related systems, and that this provides evidence that AT can be a useful way of looking at situational hazards in safety-related systems use.     

Why do few assistive technology systems make it to market? The case of the HandyHelper project

Assistive technologies, such as telecare monitoring applications installed in the home, are being promoted to help reduce pressure on health care systems caused by an aging population and as such promise a large market for new products. However, despite many projects undertaken by commercial companies, and despite significant investments both by the companies and by national and international funding programs in the EU, such systems are not widespread. This paper reports on a retrospective study of the development of one early system, HandyHelper. We were interested in what challenges the development team faced and why the system is no longer on the market. Qualitative research methods were applied, including document analysis and interviews of key people involved in its development. Even though the system worked technically, the input of older users was sought, and a pilot installation was run, the development was stopped. The findings from a thematic analysis point to complex issues. Some problems were avoidable, e.g., by providing more support for new users, though other problems point to inherent tensions, such as the different needs of sensor-based security features and interactive services aimed at the older users. Yet other aspects are outside of the developer’s control, such as available public funding. We summarize these findings and suggest lessons learnt for future projects.

     

Making virtual reality more accessible

VR systems use software and hardware to create and manage a virtual, interactive 3D environment that includes visual and sometimes audio and tactile elements. They generally include various types of display, sensor, and user-tracking and -navigation technologies. The systems can either simulate a real environment, such as a building, or create an imaginary one. Newer VR systems are less expensive and complex than their predecessors and thus are accessible by more people for simpler projects.     

The Asf+Sdf Meta-Environment: A Component-Based Language Development Environment

The Asf+Sdf Meta-Environment is an interactive development environment for the automatic generation of interactive systems for constructing language definitions and generating tools for them. Over the years, this system has been used in a variety of academic and commercial projects ranging from formal program manipulation to conversion of COBOL systems. Since the existing implementation of the Meta-Environment started exhibiting more and more characteristics of a legacy system, we decided to build a completely new, component-based, version. We demonstrate this new system and stress its open architecture.     

Effective Annotations Over 3D Models

Annotation support in interactive systems is often considered a simple task by the CG community, since it entails the apparently easy selection of a region and its connection with some information. The reality appears more complex. The scope of this paper is two-fold: first, to review the status of this domain, discussing and characterizing several approaches proposed in literature to manage annotations over geometric models; second, to present in detail an innovative solution proposed and assessed in the framework of Cultural Heritage (CH) applications, called ClippingVolumes. At the annotation definition stage ClippingVolumes uses 3D data to characterize the annotation region; subsequently, annotations are visualized by adopting a two-pass rendering solution which uses stencil buffers, thus without introducing new geometric elements, changing the topology or duplicating geometry elements. It solves most of the issues that afflict the current state of the art, such as fragmentation, annotation transfer to multiple representations and multi-resolution data encoding. The latter is a mandatory requirement to produce efficient web-based systems. We implemented and we fully tested this approach in the framework of a complex system that supports the documentation of CH restoration projects.     

Integrating User-Generated Content and Pervasive Communications

This month's Works in Progress features eight projects that support the integration of user-generated content (UGC) in a world of pervasive communications. The projects range from AI-based UGC service discovery in the first essay to a semantically enriched information model that communication systems can use to deploy UGC in pervasive applications in the last essay. Other projects leverage the growing ubiquity of camera-equipped mobile phones, a global architecture that enriches hosted service-layer applications with user-generated contextual information, a mobile tourist-service application supporting tourism as a social activity, a prototype interactive digital TV application, and an access-control framework that captures information dynamically generated by customers of multiservice business areas.     

Project Development in Complex Environments: Assessing Safety in Design and Decision‐Making

How can we be sure that safety risks are adequately dealt with in the design of complex, innovative projects? In The Netherlands, a number of recent innovative project initiatives have made this a relevant question. These initiatives include projects such as the construction of tunnels using new technologies, the construction of underground facilities that combine several functions, i.e. shopping, parking and transport, and the development of a transport corridor in which rail, road and waterway have been or will be combined. These projects combine several functions and have been, or will be, realised in densely built and populated areas. Although safety regulations for products and systems have been institutionalised through legislation and professional design practices, recent project proposals link systems and their environment in new and complex ways. The risks evolving from these links are unknown and the extent to which they are covered by existing safety approaches is uncertain. In this contribution, we examine how the attention paid to safety can be increased and maintained in the design process of infrastructural projects. First, we discuss the need to reorganise the safety focus in the design process. Then we describe the role of the design process in decision‐making for major projects with regard to utility building, town planning and the construction of infrastructures. Third, we elaborate how the focus on safety can be organised within this context, given developments in the field of interactive decision‐making and the design and management of interaction processes. We then outline a safety risk management method that can be used to achieve this and, finally, address the conditions that influence the use of this method.     

Relating Requirements and Architectures: A Study of Data-Grids

The requirements and architecture of any complex software system are highly interdependent. We have studied the relationship between these two concerns in several data-Grid systems. Data-Grids are characterized by an infrastructure that focuses on the coordinated management of, and access to distributed data resources. We survey current data-Grid projects to demonstrate that a set of general requirements for data-Grid systems can be identified. Architectural styles are a way of highlighting design and engineering similarities between software systems. We consider the styles that are exhibited by current data-Grids and use a lightweight methodology to analyze how these styles support general requirements. Our conclusions provide guidelines to assist the data-Grid developer in making informed architectural choices.     

A computing framework for integrating interactive visualization in HPCC applications

Network-based concurrent computing and interactive data visualization are two important components in industry applications of high-performance computing and communication. We propose an execution framework to build interactive remote visualization systems for real-world applications on heterogeneous parallel and distributed computers. Using a dataflow model of a commercial visualization software AVS in three case studies, we demonstrate a simple, effective, and modular approach to couple parallel simulation modules into an interactive remote visualization environment. The applications described in this paper are drawn from our industrial projects in financial modeling, computational electromagnetics and computational chemistry. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mixing Multiple Criteria Decision Making with soft systems thinking techniques for decision support in complex situations

This paper shares experiences of the authors with combining Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) and techniques from soft systems approaches for decision support at particular stages of complex problem solving. These are based on their involvement in three projects within the Information and Communications Technology sector. The justification for the combined use of MCDM and separate techniques from systems thinking is discussed. The contribution of this paper is in the demonstration of how combinations of methods that are parts of soft systems methodologies and MCDM may support multiple perspective representations of complex managerial problems, and in the lessons learned from the three cases.     

How to model and prove hybrid systems with KeYmaera: a tutorial on safety

This paper is a tutorial on how to model hybrid systems as hybrid programs in differential dynamic logic and how to prove complex properties about these complex hybrid systems in KeYmaera, an automatic and interactive formal verification tool for hybrid systems. Hybrid systems can model highly nontrivial controllers of physical plants, whose behaviors are often safety critical such as trains, cars, airplanes, or medical devices. Formal methods can help design systems that work correctly. This paper illustrates how KeYmaera can be used to systematically model, validate, and verify hybrid systems. We develop tutorial examples that illustrate challenges arising in many real-world systems. In the context of this tutorial, we identify the impact that modeling decisions have on the suitability of the model for verification purposes. We show how the interactive features of KeYmaera can help users understand their system designs better and prove complex properties for which the automatic prover of KeYmaera still takes an impractical amount of time. We hope this paper is a helpful resource for designers of embedded and cyber–physical systems and that it illustrates how to master common practical challenges in hybrid systems verification.     

Interactive and diagnostic uses of management control systems in IS projects: Antecedents and their impact on performance

We attempted to determine how formal management control systems (MCS) are used by project managers in IS development (ISD) contexts. This involved investigating the antecedents of two types of project MCS use (interactive and diagnostic), and their direct and moderated impact on project performance. PLS analysis of data collected in a survey of 93 projects indicated that project managers’ level of discretion positively affected their level of interactive use of project MCS but did not influence their diagnostic use. Our findings also showed that interactive use of MCS enhanced performance when task uncertainty (task novelty and complexity) of an ISD was high, but worsened it when task uncertainty was low. Finally, diagnostic use of MCS apparently increased project performance when an ISD task uncertainty was low, but did not reduce it when task uncertainty was high. Overall, these results were stable across different size projects.     

An abstract framework for globalising interactive systems

We present an abstract framework for designing and developing globalised interactive systems from simple components viewed as games [1] (K. Stathis, M.J. Sergot, Games as a Metaphor for Interactive Systems, in: M.A. Sasse, R.J. Cunningham, R.L. Winder (Eds.), People and Computers XI (Proceedings of HCI′96), August 1996, London, UK, BCS Conference Series, Springer-Varlag, pp. 19–33). We identify a set of concepts required to specify and implement interactions, in such a way whereby instantiating the specifications and implementations of games we obtain components that correspond to localised instances of an interactive system. Localisation is also obtained by either customising the specification or the implementation of the interactive system, or both. The framework also caters for complex interactive systems which are interpreted as compound games built-up from sub-games. In this case, coordination of sub-games is the main issue that we must address at the global level. This is resolved by specifying and implementing sub-games as active components of the more complex games, and, as a result, we localise the coordination of components in the interactive system. The framework lends itself towards a methodology that is suitable for globalising the development of interactive systems.