User Driven Modelling

Systems Engineering - University of the West of England - Bristol

2012-01-17T20:57:00.003Z

From booking page - http://www.incoseonline.org.uk/EventBooking/AutoBooking/MainPage.aspx?CatID=Events&EventID=206 - open to non-members.

INCOSE UK Booking System
Bristol Local Group
Event Date: 25/01/2012
Event Time: 18:30 for 19:00 to 21:00
Event Title: Understanding the Enterprise - how architectural principles help
Event Details A lot of effort has been put into developing ways and means of describing the architecture of systems, systems of systems, and enterprises, each of which has come from a different context, usually with a subtly different approach. This event will provide an overview of some of the more common approaches, and seek to understand the extent to which the various methods are interchangeable and interdependent as you move up and down from subsystems to enterprises and back again.

The Digital Researcher 2012 - Go Digital 2012! - British Library - London

2011-12-21T11:36:00.005Z

This Vitae event is for Research postgraduates and staff. Vitae are an organisation that provides support, resources and events to researchers. The website for a full description and booking is http://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/315321/Digital-Researcher.html.

"Vitae in partnership with The British Library are running Digital Researcher 2012: an innovative, thought-provoking one day event to help researchers make the most of new technologies and social media tools in their research.

Designed for both postgraduate researchers and research staff within any UK institution, this interactive event will be held at the British Library on Monday 20th February 2012, and will provide an opportunity for researchers to think about how they undertake research and to consider whether new technologies could improve their research."

Stanford University - Free courses - List - 2012

2011-12-13T20:34:00.009Z

I've finished my Stanford University - Introduction to Databases course.

There are many other courses available all free. They don't result in University Credit from Stanford, but are free and I enjoyed my course. I have a journal paper to finish and a funding bid so aren't doing any more of these courses yet, but hope to when I have time. From my experiences on the course I've finished I would certainly recommend studying these courses, you get the knowledge and a calculated overall grade.

The courses are not only computing, but others as well. The full clickable list is available from the page below, underneath the Introduction to Database Info. -

Stanford University Free courses - http://www.db-class.org/course/auth/welcome.

I've also included the list below -

Entrepreneurship
* Lean Launchpad * Technology Entrepreneurship
Medicine
* Anatomy
Civil Engineering
* Making Green Buildings
Electrical Engr.
* Information Theory
Complex Systems
* Model Thinking
Computer Science
* CS 101 * Machine Learning * Software as a Service * Human-Computer Interaction * Natural Language Processing
* Game Theory * Probabilistic Graphical Models * Cryptography * Design and Analysis of Algorithms I * Computer Security

BBC - News - Government backs call for classroom coding

2011-12-01T10:25:00.015Z

This post and list of many links highlights the debate over whether to teach more programming at school and for all other ages.

Updates - 14th Jan 2012 -

Royal Society offers ways to overhaul ICT teaching - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16515275 - 13 January 2012 -BBC -

"The Royal Society has suggested ways the government can overhaul information and communications technology (ICT) teaching in schools.

It follows promises from Education Secretary Michael Gove to scrap the way the subject is taught currently.

The body, which oversees UK sciences, recommends dividing computing into distinct subjects such as computer science and digital literacy.

It said the government must do more to recruit specialist ICT teachers."

ICT victory for the coding campaigners - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16544845 - BBC - Rory Cellan-Jones Technology correspondent - 13 January 2012 -

"for me the biggest news I've missed has been of a significant victory for the campaign to improve the teaching of computing and technology in schools. The announcement that the current ICT curriculum is to be scrapped and teachers set free to use more creative methods comes after some brilliant and imaginative lobbying by a few dedicated individuals."

School ICT to be replaced by computer science programme - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16493929 - 11 January 2012 -

"By Judith Burns Education reporter, BBC News"

- "The current programme of information and communications technology (ICT) study in England's schools will be scrapped from September, the education secretary will announce later."
"The subject will be replaced by compulsory lessons in more rigorous computer science and programming."

"Michael Gove will call the current ICT curriculum 'harmful and dull'.

ICT teachers welcome new computer programming lessons - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16509298 - BBC 11th January 2012 -

"Information and communications technology (ICT) teachers say plans to shake up the curriculum in England are "exciting" but 'challenging'.

Current ICT lessons will be scrapped from September and replaced by an "open source" curriculum in computer science and programming."

Coding for kids -

A few things as we try to get more kids interested in IT
- A group has been set up called Coding for Kids with the purpose of finding ways to support education of programming and computational thinking for the current and next generations in the UK. Whether this be through traditional education methods - or other stuff. They can be found here http://codingforkids.org/wiki/Main_Page

- There is also an e-petition to support "Teaching Our Kids to Code" here https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/15081 If it reaches 100,000 signatures, then it may be considered by parliament.

Other recent links -

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg takes coding course - 6 January 2012 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16440126 - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has resolved to take an online computer coding course.

The mayor is joining more than 180,000 people currently taking part in Code Year, a campaign to encourage more people to program.

"My New Year's resolution is to learn to code with Codecademy in 2012!" he wrote on Twitter.

Participants in the course receive an interactive lesson each week, via email.

The campaign promises that participants will be "building apps and websites before you know it".

November - December

This article examines the issue of the type of teaching of ICT. It's an interesting article that argues for more teaching of coding rather than just of the use of office software.

Government backs call for classroom coding - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15923113 - 28th November 2011.

"The teaching of computer science must become more relevant to modern needs, said the government.
The government said the current teaching of IT was 'insufficiently rigorous and in need of reform'.
The call for change came in a response to an industry report which looked at technology teaching in the UK."

The report discussed in the above article focuses on school classes and the need to teach game code - (A good mechanism for getting younger people involved in coding).

A related article - Coding - the new Latin - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15916677 - Rory Cellan-Jones - 28th November 2011 - Makes the same point about the lack of focus on coding and Computer Science at school, and that this leads to fewer University applications for Computer Science.

I believe the same issue of lack of focus on coding is an issue for adult education. The trend is for provision of free or heavily subsidised teaching of use of office software, this is good, but then students need to meet the full costs if they want to move on to programming and/or web development.

I'm one of those that began to learn to code on a BBC Micro. Because so little graphics capability and software was available in those early times there was little difference between using software, or having a go at developing something. It was easy to switch from one mode of thought of using to that of development.

This article describes those early years - The BBC Microcomputer and me, 30 years down the line - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15969065 - 1st December 2011.

An interesting thing here is the use of the term 'Computer Literacy' in the BBC project back then that included programming. The term has changed its meaning now to mean use of computers software. There are good reasons for this, as of course it is much more possible and necessary to be able to get use out of office software. However it would be god to provide a straightforward path to a kind of 'Advanced Computer Literacy' that involves an element of coding.

The video here based on a round table discussion of the British Computer Society (BCS), Chartered Institute of IT, and BCS Academy of Computing - http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/42962, and the related NESTA report http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/assets/features/next_gen cover teaching of computing and the need for this to include creating applications not just using them.

This article from BBC - 14th December 2011 - is also relevant to this issue - ICT 'poor in secondary schools', Ofsted says - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16157519.

"The teaching of information and communications technology (ICT) is inadequate in a fifth of secondary schools in England, Ofsted says.
Inspectors said teachers lacked the expertise and confidence to teach more demanding topics properly.
The report said areas such as databases and programming were poorly taught, with some pupils making more progress outside lessons than in them."

I believe this is not just an issue of teaching and learning but of a more general disconnect between the use of ICT and development, with a lack of a way to progress from tool use to development. There is no clear path within applications to be more involved in customisation and development of tools.

Bristol Systems Engineering and Computing Events

2011-11-24T17:35:00.008Z

INCOSE UK - Bristol Local Group Wed 30th Nov 18.30 for 19.00

- Organisation and Behaviours - Systems Engineering within the wider enterprise -

http://www.incoseonline.org.uk/EventBooking/AutoBooking/MainPage.aspx?CatID=Events&EventID=203.

"This event will feature Richard Beasley and will be based upon the relevant sections on SE and organisations from the public review version of the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK) which can be found at http://www.sebokwiki.org/, and has been developed as part of the BKCASE (Body of Knowledge and Curriculum to Advance Systems Engineering) project. Attendees will be invited to discuss and review the material so far, with the intention of feeding pertinent observations back into the public review process, acting as a sanity check from real-life practitioners."

From BCS Bristol Branch Members - November Newsletter

"As winter draws in we have some great talks coming up to take us through to the Spring School
First up only a few days away.- Graham Lee is speaking on "Mobile Application Security and Privacy: State of the Disunion" at the City of Bristol College on Wed 23rd Nov 2011. Find out details for Graham and tell us your coming: http://www.bristol.bcs.org.uk/?q=node/125

- On the 5th of December Paul Gerard will be giving a talk on "Using Business Stories to Test Requirements and Systems" at the City of Bristol CollegeFind out details for Paul and tell us your coming: http://www.bristol.bcs.org.uk/?q=node/130

- Our Xmas event on the 12th of December has proved very popular on "Future Technology - a younger perspective" Presented by Metaverse Evangelist Ian Hughes at @Bristol. At the time of writing there were only 3 spaces remaining. Full Details are here http://www.bristol.bcs.org.uk/?q=node/127

- We have the BCS President Professor M.J.Norton coming to the City of Bristol College on the 11th of Jan 2012 to give a talk on "Achieving successful IT enabled business change"This would be a great opportunity to Q and A with the president so lets get as many people along as possible. Full details can be found here http://www.bristol.bcs.org.uk/?q=node/121
You can see a summary of the full program on PDF by following this link (http://www.bristol.bcs.org.uk/2011/Bristol-branch-program-2011-12.pdf) or via the events page on the website (http://www.bristol.bcs.org.uk/?q=event/new)."

BBC News - European commissioner calls for 'digital champions'

2011-11-02T21:04:00.003Z

This BBC technology article - European commissioner calls for 'digital champions' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15544517 - is interesting and shows what a good example Martha Lane Fox and her role is for other countries. The article discusses the social benefits of enabling more people to be online and reducing exclusion.

"Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, has called on EU states to appoint digital champions similar to the UK's Martha Lane Fox.

Ms Kroes said the lastminute.com founder was "doing a great job" at convincing UK adults who did not use the internet to change their minds.

Talking to the BBC, Ms Kroes said it was vital to deal with the 30% of Europeans currently not online.

She said EU states needed ministers with specific digital portfolios.

Ms Kroes made the comments at the inaugural London Conference on Cyberspace.

She took the opportunity to emphasise the social benefits of being online."

BBC News - Artificial intelligence community mourns John McCarthy

2011-10-25T17:39:00.003+01:00

BBC News - Artificial intelligence community mourns John McCarthy - 25 October 2011 -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15444222

This article commemorates this important Artificial Intelligence Pioneer, and also is informative -

"Artificial intelligence researcher, John McCarthy, has died. He was 84.

The American scientist invented the computer language LISP.

It went on to become the programming language of choice for the AI community, and is still used today.

Professor McCarthy is also credited with coining the term "Artificial Intelligence" in 1955 when he detailed plans for the first Dartmouth conference. The brainstorming sessions helped focus early AI research."

Oxford University warns of losing talented students - BBC News

2011-10-16T21:07:00.004+01:00

This is an interesting article from BBC about how lack of funding for research could cause UK to lose out to other countries economcally. This is a warning from the Vice Chancellor of Oxford University.

Oxford University warns of losing talented students - By Sean Coughlan BBC News education correspondent - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-15170451 -

"Oxford University's vice-chancellor has warned that a lack of funding will make it difficult to compete with international rivals.
Professor Andrew Hamilton warned that the UK's universities would struggle to compete for the best research students in the "global market for talent".
This was not only about competing with top US universities, but also China and India, said Prof Hamilton.
The UK's higher education sector would "increasingly lose out", he said.
In his annual speech, Prof Hamilton highlighted concerns about funding for postgraduate research."

I've also posted this on the Vitae Researchers blog - What's up Doc blog - http://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/346441-464371/Oxford-University-warns-of-losing-talented-students.html.

Stanford University - Free computer science courses - Introduction to Databases

2011-10-08T14:01:00.003+01:00

I've taken my own advice that these Stanford University Courses are a great opportunity to study free courses. I've registered for the 'Introduction to Databases' course. It actually starts on Monday (October 10th). It runs until 12th December. So I'm glad I registered this morning, and happened to be in time for this course. The registration was straightforward, and immediately made available online resources to help me prepare.

These are the links to my previous blog post and to the Stanford University news article - http://userdrivenmodelling.blogspot.com/2011/09/stanford-university-free-computer.html.

The Stanford University Website I referenced, which is the place to start if considering registering for any of these 3 courses - http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/august/online-computer-science-081611.html - 'Machine Learning, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Introduction to Databases'.

BBC News - Steve Jobs Apple 'visionary' dies aged 56

2011-10-06T07:35:00.003+01:00

Sad news - 6 October 2011 - BBC - Steve Jobs Apple 'visionary' dies aged 56 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15193922.

"Steve Jobs, co-founder and former chief executive of US technology giant Apple, has died at the age of 56.

Apple said his "brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve".

Jobs announced he was suffering from pancreatic cancer in 2004.

US President Barack Obama said that with his death, the world had 'lost a visionary'. "

BBC article - Battle of the knowledge superpowers

2011-10-01T13:19:00.003+01:00

This article is a useful discussion - Battle of the knowledge superpowers - By Sean Coughlan - BBC News education correspondent - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14949538. -

"Knowledge is power - economic power - and there's a scramble for that power taking place around the globe.

In the United States, Europe and in rising powers such as China, there is a growth-hungry drive to invest in hi-tech research and innovation.

They are looking for the ingredients that, like Google, will turn a university project into a corporation. They are looking for the jobs that will replace those lost in the financial crash.

Not to invest would now be "unthinkable", says Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, the European Commissioner responsible for research, innovation and science, who is trying to spur the European Union to keep pace in turning ideas into industries."

BBC article - Google+ opens social network to everyone

2011-09-20T18:22:00.005+01:00

This is an interesting article on the BBC News Technology page about Google+ social networking.

Google+ opens social network to everyone - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14985494 - 20 September 2011

"Google+ is being opened up for anyone to join after two-and-a-half months in closed testing.

The search firm's latest foray into social networking was initially offered to journalists and people working in technology related fields.

However, members' ability to invite friends meant its user base quickly grew to tens of millions."

INCOSE UK Bristol Event 28th September

2011-09-14T18:22:00.006+01:00

An interesting event takes place on 28th September at University of the West of England. The title is 'The Rise and Fall of the Systems Engineering Lifecycle'. The event is organised by INCOSE - International Council on Systems Engineering.

Booking is online at - http://www.incoseonline.org.uk/EventBooking/AutoBooking/MainPage.aspx?CatID=Events&EventID=198

Details of the event are :-

"The Bristol Local Group Presents
'The Rise and Fall of the Systems Engineering Lifecycle'
Kicking off the new Bristol Local Group season, this event will examine how the nature of systems engineering changes across development lifecycles, how organisational roles and responsibilities adapt to suit, and what happens when there are mismatches between them. This interactive workshop will include an examination of the following questions:

•What tends to get missed in commonly used lifecycles?
•Where is the Systems Engineering focus and how does it shift?
•What information flows and networking between stakeholders and organisations is necessary and how is this encouraged?

Date: 28th September – 6.30pm for 7pm till 9pm
Location: Room 1N05, University of the West of England (UWE), Frenchay Campus, Bristol

NON-MEMBERS WELCOME."

Also an INCOSE conference takes place at Warwick in November, details are available at - http://www.incoseonline.org.uk/EventBooking/ASEC2011/General_Information.aspx?CatID=Events

"Annual Systems Engineering Conference (ASEC) 2011
9th-10th November 2011
Scarman Training and Conference Centre, University of Warwick, CV4 7AL

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'Doing Systems Engineering well'
The UK's premier Systems Engineering event will address key contemporary themes for a wide audience, and provide an excellent forum for networking, sharing experience and advancing the discipline."

Stanford University - Free computer science courses, new teaching technology reinvent online education

2011-09-07T18:04:00.005+01:00

This is a very useful educational resource provided for free by Stanford University Professors. The courses are - Machine Learning, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Introduction to Databases.

The article that explains this is at - http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/august/online-computer-science-081611.html - Free computer science courses, new teaching technology reinvent online education - Stanford Report, August 16, 2011.

Below is part of the article, and those interested can click on the link above for the whole article.

"Stanford Engineering professors are setting out to add a new level of interactivity to online education by offering three of the university's most popular computer science classes for free.

Morgan Quigley

Computer Science professor Andrew Ng uses tablet-recording technology he developed to instantly display notes for his interactive video lecture.
BY JAMIE BECKETT

Stanford Engineering professors are offering three of the school’s most popular computer science courses for free online this fall, and at the same time launching an experiment that could transform the way online education is delivered.

The professors are taking technologies designed to enhance learning for Stanford students and extending them to a broad online audience. They are delivering lectures as short, interactive video clips that allow students to progress at their own pace through course materials. They are offering live quizzes with instant feedback. And they are testing new technologies that allow students to rank questions that should be posed to the instructors.

The professors also hope to extend the benefits of Stanford-style education to those who lack access.

“Both in the United States and elsewhere, many people simply do not have access to a high-quality education. By putting out this initial set of courses, we hope to teach some of the latest computing technologies to anyone who wants to learn it – for free,” said Andrew Ng, an associate professor of computer science who is teaching a new online machine learning course.

The three courses – Machine Learning, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Introduction to Databases – cover material that forms the basis of some of the most prevalent technologies today, from online shopping to web search and robotics."

When algorithms control the world

2011-08-23T20:45:00.007+01:00

This BBC story based on a book by Eli Pariser 'The Filter Bubble', is interesting in how it explores the way algorithms affect our lives in unpredictable ways. An important example of this is the way so much financial trading is done by algorithms with no human interaction, with unpredictable consequences -

When algorithms control the world - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14306146.
23 August 2011

By Jane Wakefield

Technology reporter

"If you were expecting some kind warning when computers finally get smarter than us, then think again.

There will be no soothing HAL 9000-type voice informing us that our human services are now surplus to requirements.

In reality, our electronic overlords are already taking control, and they are doing it in a far more subtle way than science fiction would have us believe.

Their weapon of choice - the algorithm."

Careers in Academia - September - Vitae - Birmingham 13th Sep 2011

2011-08-08T18:51:00.015+01:00

This is a useful free careers event for Vitae. Vitae are a very helpful organisation for researchers. I'll copy and paste the details below, from their website. More information and the booking form are available on the website -
http://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/53174-382791/Careers-in-Academia---September-.html.

13th Sep 2011

"
This interactive one-day event is aimed at postgraduate researchers and will enable you to:

* review the current higher education environment
* meet with successful academics from a range of disciplines to hear how they advanced their academic career
*understand the balance required between skills, achievements and building your professional profile
*review where you are in your career, where you want to be and how to get there
*ask questions that you've always wanted to but weren't sure who to ask network with fellow researchers
*develop an action plan to strategically manage your career.

The research carried out by the UK's higher education sector is held in extremely high regard by the international community. In producing 8% of the world's scientific papers and 13% of the world's most highly cited works, the UK ranks second only to the USA. The UK's research staff are central to this achievement*.

Like most careers, there are many elements that are required in order to develop a successful academic career and these are not always transparent. This event addresses how to succeed in a competitive and complex research environment and will allow you to think about the pros and cons of different career options available.
"

World wide web celebrates 20th birthday - BBC News

2011-08-06T09:30:00.004+01:00

This short video from BBC goes over the invention of the world wide web -

World wide web celebrates 20th birthday - BBC News - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14430076.

6 August 2011

"Exactly 20-years-ago today a modest British scientist launched his new invention. At the time, almost no-one noticed but it has since revolutionised our lives.

Tim Berners-Lee called his new invention the "world-wide-web".

Richard Westcott has been taking a look back at the technology that went on to change the world."

BBC Computing stories - NHS, Sun, Web blocking, IE browser Spoof

2011-08-03T18:28:00.008+01:00

These are some interesting computing stories from the BBC website in the last 2 days.

3 August 2011

Pull plug on NHS e-records - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14378346
By Nick Triggle
Health correspondent, BBC News

"Ministers should consider pulling the plug on the central part of the NHS IT programme in England, MPs say.

The Public Accounts Committee said mounting problems with the electronic records system were making the £7bn project 'unworkable'."

3 August 2011

Government drops website blocking

"Plans to block websites that host copyright infringing material are to be dumped by the government.

Business secretary Vince Cable announced the change following a review of the policy by telecoms regulator Ofcom." - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14372698

2 August 2011

Data of Sun website users stolen

"Thousands of people who entered competitions on The Sun website have been warned that their personal information may have been stolen.

The paper's publisher, News Group, said the data was taken when the site was hacked on 19 July." - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14371738

3 August 2011

Internet Explorer story was bogus

"A story which suggested that users of Internet Explorer have a lower IQ than people who chose other browsers appears to have been an elaborate hoax.

A number of media organisations, including the BBC, reported on the research, put out by Canadian firm ApTiquant." - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14389430

My Publications on UWE Research Repository

2011-08-03T14:58:00.013+01:00

I've been putting all my publications on to the UWE - University of the West of England, Bristol research repository. I'll list them below in order of publication. The repository makes publications available in Word/PowerPoint and PDF formats -

Hale, P., Scanlan, J., Hill, T., Nour, M., Bru, C., Jocelyn, A., Round, M. and Dunkley, M. (2001) Provision of a web based decision support system for wing box tooling. In: ICE 2001 (International Conference on Concurrent Enterprising), 23rd - 25th June, 2001, Bremen, Germany. - https://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/15279/.

Hale, P., Scanlan, J., Bru, C. and Dunkley, M. (2002) Preliminary findings from the DECIDE project. In: 9th International Conference on Concurrent Engineering ISPE/CE2002 Concurrent Engineering Conference, 2002, Cranfield University, UK. - https://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/15523/.

Hale, P., Scanlan, J. and Bru, C. (2003) Design and prototyping of knowledge management software for aerospace manufacturing. In: 10th ISPE International Conference on Concurrent Engineering ISPE/CE2003, 26th-30th July, 2003, Madeira, Portugal. - https://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/15355/.

Hale, P., Solomonides, T. and Beeson, I. (2009) Enabling diagrammatic de-abstraction and modelling of engineering problems. In: University of the West of England, Bristol, Graduate Conference, 15th June, 2009, Bristol, UK. - https://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/15112/.

Hale, P. (2010) User driven modelling and systematic interaction for end-user programming. In: Systems Research Showcase, 24th March, 2010, Bristol, UK. - https://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/15113/.

Hale, P., Solomonides, T., Beeson, I., Willey, N., Bultitude, K. and Reynolds, D. (2010) Requirements for phylogenetic tree visualisation: A user driven approach. In: BBSRC/AHRC Workshop on "The Challenges of Visualising Biological Data", 16th-17th November, 2010, Bristol, UK. - https://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/15118/.

Hale, P., Solomonides, T. and Beeson, I. (2011) Requirements and software engineering for tree-based visualisation and modelling: A user driven approach. In: Postgraduate Conference for Computing: Applications and Theory (PCCAT 2011), 8th June, 2011, Exeter University, Exeter, UK. - https://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/15077/.

I have a Journal Publication to be accepted subject to amendments and the same for my PhD. When they're published I'll add these to the repository.

Systems Engineering Event, Bristol July 13th

2011-07-09T09:14:00.003+01:00

This is an interesting and useful event in Bristol on Wednesday -

"INCOSE UK

The Bristol Local Group Presents
The Final Step - Getting Systems Into Service

Why does the final part of getting a system into service often follow a more protracted path than expected?

This event will look at this important part of the lifecycle from both a systems and a project management perspective to examine some of the pitfalls and issues that can occur, and some of the approaches that are used to mitigate against them. This interactive workshop based event will examine the following questions:

How should systems be engineered to achieve a controlled entry into Service?
How are systems engineered for entry into Service?
What needs to be done to bridge the gap?
Date: Wednesday 13th July – 6.30pm for 7pm till 9pm

Location: Room 1N05, University of the West of England (UWE), Frenchay Campus, Bristol

NON-MEMBERS WELCOME.

This event is free, and refreshments will be provided, however to ensure appropriate catering arrangements can be made please register online at: .
http://www.incoseonline.org.uk/EventBooking/AutoBooking/MainPage.aspx?CatID=Events&EventID=165."

PCCAT Exeter University Conference Paper June 8th 2011

2011-06-23T09:47:00.008+01:00

This is the paper and presentation I gave for Postgraduate Conference for Computing: Applications and Theory (PCCAT 2011) - June 8th 2011 - http://www.pccat.ex.ac.uk/index.php?pid=1

The paper is titled - Requirements and software engineering for tree-based visualisation and modelling: A user driven approach

This is the link where I placed it in the University of the West of England Research Repository. The PowerPoint presentation I gave is also there. There are Word and PowerPoint 2007 files and also PDF versions. These are all available from this link - https://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/15077/.
This is the abstract -

Abstract

This paper is about potential to provide an interactive visual ontology/taxonomy based modelling system. The research is part of efforts to structure, manage, and enable understanding of complex engineering, business and/or scientific information to enable those involved to collaborate using a systems approach. The aim and objectives are to provide a taxonomy management system to close the link between requirements gathering and end-user modellers. The research is into modelling of product data structures. This research could be adapted to business process modelling, and biology taxonomy visualisation/representation. The modelling system was developed to assist decision support for problems such as wing and engine design. The methodology involves modelling using tree structured ontology based modelling. It is argued that visualising this structure enables improved Maintenance, Extensibility, Ease of Use, and Sharing of Information, and so enables better and more accessible modelling. This is achieved by uniting the software taxonomy structure with the structure of the domain to be modelled and visualised, and using Semantic Web technologies to link this with ontologies and to end-users for visualisation. This research assists with management of development, use, and re-use of software in order to make this an integrated process. The research brings together related fields of Semantic Web, End-User Programming, and Modelling, to assist domain expert end users.

Further information -

I've published my more general thoughts about the benefits of Postgraduate Conferences and Research Repositories to students, in the UK Vitae (organisation for research students and staff) - What's Up Doc Blog - http://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/346441/Whats-up-doc-blog-for-postgraduate-researchers.html. I publish my thoughts that are more general to all researchers rather than my specific research to there -this is my post to that blog - http://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/346441-406701/Getting-your-Research-Published---PostGraduate-Conferences.html.

Development of the Internet - Timeline

2011-06-15T13:01:00.006+01:00

Alexandra L. Hanchar-Martinez emailed me details of his Internet Timeline educational resource. This is a useful resource so I provide the links below -

History Of The Internet Timeline -
Technology Milestones In The Development Of The Internet
Updated June 13th, 2011

http://www.high-speed-internet-access-guide.com/articles/internet-timeline.html -

"As of 2011, the Internet has become an accepted part of everyday life. Despite our daily reliance upon this technological marvel, to many of us, how it came to be is still a mystery. This brief Internet timeline details how the Internet was started, which major technological milestones affected its development, how it is used for communication today, and where the Internet is headed in 2011 and beyond."

Researching this led me also to this teaching resource -

KHS Teacher Resources - http://www.khsteachers.org/.

Exeter University June 8th - PCCAT 2011 Timetable

2011-06-01T17:45:00.008+01:00

This is the timetable for the Exeter University PCCAT Conference June 8th (Postgraduate Conference for Computing: Applications and Theory) -

Timetable and travel advice -

Programme (link to PDF doc) and Map - http://www.pccat.ex.ac.uk/on-the-day.php.

Programme (PDF doc) - http://www.pccat.ex.ac.uk/files/programme.pdf.

My talk is scheduled at 2.30 pm - This is -

"Requirements and Software Engineering for Tree-based Visualisation and Modelling - a User Driven Approach
Peter Hale, Tony Solomonides and Ian Beeson
University of the West of England, UWE"

This is my Revised abstract -

Abstract
This paper is about potential to provide an interactive visual ontology/taxonomy based modelling system. The research is part of efforts to structure, manage, and enable understanding of complex engineering, business and/or scientific information to enable those involved to collaborate using a systems approach. The aim and objectives are to provide a taxonomy management system to close the link between requirements gathering and end-user modellers. The research is into modelling of product data structures. This research could be adapted to business process modelling, and biology taxonomy visualisation/representation. The modelling system was developed to assist decision support for problems such as wing and engine design. The methodology involves modelling using tree structured ontology based modelling. It is argued that visualising this structure enables improved Maintenance, Extensibility, Ease of Use, and Sharing of Information, and so enables better and more accessible modelling. This is achieved by uniting the software taxonomy structure with the structure of the domain to be modelled and visualised, and using Semantic Web technologies to link this with ontologies and to end-users for visualisation. This research assists with management of development, use, and re-use of software in order to make this an integrated process. The research brings together related fields of Semantic Web, End-User Programming, and Modelling, to assist domain expert end users.

Vitae - What makes a successful researcher? invitation to take part in a focus group June 15th London

2011-05-26T13:00:00.005+01:00

This is a forum organised by Vitae who assist research stuents and staff in their development. Vitae will refund travel expenses for this focus group.

This is the event description and contact details copied and pasted from Vitae :-

The Researcher Development Framework (RDF) is a comprehensive new approach to enhancing the careers of researchers. It was developed through interviews with successful researchers in a range of disciplines. It encourages you to identify your strengths and prioritise your professional development. Divided into four domains and 63 descriptors it covers all the skills and attributes to become a successful researcher. The RDF enables you to consider skills and experiences that will enhance your career prospects and articulate your knowledge, behaviours and attributes to employers. It is not exclusive to people hoping to pursue an academic career (there are some frequently asked questions on the RDF).

The RDF has been incorporated into a 'Professional Development Planner' to allow you to identify the areas you want to develop further, create an action plan and record evidence of your progress. You can use it to help you plan for your long term career ambitions but also to make a feasible short term plan. The planner allows you to set targeted aspirational goals. For each descriptor there are successive phases of ability. Read the phases and decide which phase best describes you currently (with as much evidence as possible). Decide where you would like to be and come up with an action plan with realistic goals and time lines to get you there (using training, experience, practice, networking etc.)

I will be starting a pilot on using the RDF planner next week, culminating in a focus group in London on 15 June. This is a great chance for you to focus on your personal development and get help drawing up your action plan. It is also an opportunity for you to inform the development of a powerful career tool for all researchers in the UK. Your input would be invaluable in ensuring the Researcher Development Framework is an effective personal, professional and career enhancing resource for postgraduate researchers and research staff.

We’ll refund travel expenses for the focus group. Please send me an email at tennie.videler@vitae.ac.uk to take part or get some more information, ideally before 1 June.

Looking forward to seeing some of you on 15 June!

The value of an EngD in Systems – what an EngD did for me

2011-05-18T11:56:00.005+01:00

This is a useful event for anyone interested in EngDs or in engineering R and D in general. The event is organised by University of Bristol, involving INCOSE Bristol Group also.

This is the description by INCOSE Bristol group of the event :-

"Want to know more about the Engineering Doctorate in Systems? In a spirit of inclusivity, this INCOSE BLG event forms part of the University of Bristol's Second Annual Research Conference for Engineering Doctorate in Systems, and will include refreshments on arrival, a poster session by 50 Research Engineers, talks from two Research Engineers who have recently completed their EngD courses, and a Q&A session with the Systems Centre staff.

Delegates wishing to attend the main University of Bristol event can find more information here: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/eng-systems-centre/events/2011/conference-engd.html. The University of Bristol has kindly reserved 20 places for delegates who usually attend INCOSE BLG meetings, but these are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Registration for the main event needs to be done directly with the University of Bristol, not INCOSE UK. "
Date: Tuesday 24th May – 5.30pm for 6pm till 8pm

Location:Room 1.01-1.01a, Merchant Venturers Building, University of Bristol, Woodlands Road, Bristol, BS8 1UB.

NON-MEMBERS WELCOME.

This event is free, and refreshments will be provided, however to ensure appropriate catering arrangements can be made please register online at: http://www.incoseonline.org.uk/EventBooking/AutoBooking/MainPage.aspx?CatID=Events&EventID=187."

Computer Software, Users and Trust

2011-05-12T12:08:00.000+01:00

I'm at the What's up Doc Research Blogging training event today and very much enjoying it - http://www1.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/346441/Whats-up-doc-blog-for-postgraduate-researchers.html.

I wrote this post on the train from Bristol to Birmingham, I've just been working on my PhD changes and on an NVQ 2 in business admin. I often undertake vocational training to keep my research focused. The combination of the PhD changes, Communications Unit I just finished, and the What's up Doc? event hashelped me generate this post.

Communication is the key to successful computing, so this involves person to person, person to computer, and computer to person communication.

For some tasks the person does not need to know how the computer is doing the tasks. Feedback is still very important. For example when applying formatting to a document a person does not need to know how the computer processes this, only how it's applied. Just like in person to person communication what is needed is trust. The software provides feedback illustrating what has been done. The person then trusts that what he or she has intended has been done. A failure of trust may occur when formatting on screen and in print preview looks a certain way and the printout looks different. That loss of trust affects the quality of user interaction for the task, the application such as the word processor, and the persons' trust in computers and computer applications.

For modelling and calculation, the user seeing the results is not enough to establish trust. When taught maths at school we were taught 'show your working'. We could get follow through marks even if our result was wrong, because exactly where the mistake happened could be seen. The same is true for computer systems, they must show the whole calculation chain. The more complex the calculation, then the more effort is needed to ensure good representation, visualisation, and interaction with the calculation including the 'workings'. This must be done in an audit trail that is developed with the users in mind. Then as users have different needs it should be possible to choose different visualisations. More advanced users may want to create and edit their own model and visualisation. This is where the end-user programming/modelling comes in.

The user needs to be able to interact with the way models/calculations are performed to create and edit them, and choose how they display. The more this can be achieved via diagrammatic programming skills such as drag and drop, then the wider the range of people that can model/program this way.

For written information also, trust is required, this is often called 'provenance' in science for example, who is the source? and can they be trusted. Wikipedia documents show an audit trail of changes. A more structured and visualised view of sources and provenance helps a user track these sources and establishes trust in the document writers (if the trust is deserved), the document, and the document management system. Semantic Web based systems based on RDF (Resource Description Framework) can track these relationships of provenance/trust. Visualising and enabling of user interaction with this would enable trust built on greater user interaction.

Users aren't stupid, so developers should always enable the maximum interaction that is necessary and useful, then trust the user to get it right, but leave them a way of backing out when they make a mistake.

What's up doc? Blog Training Day - Attending May 12th - Birmingham

2011-05-04T14:57:00.005+01:00

I'm delighted to have been accepted for this event, and looking forward to going on May 12th. It's a good opportunity for me.

I'll include the details below -

"Blog Training Day - a few places still left!

12 May 2011, Birmingham

'What's up doc?' is a new blog which provides a forum for postgraduate researchers to share experience, give information and tips on matters relevant to them in a fun, yet informed way.

As part of the launch we will run a free blog training day in Birmingham on 12 May. Apart from learning what makes a good blog post, we will also explore how to increase your online profile. To apply:

post an example of an article on the
'What's up doc?' blog
send an email outlining why you want to be involved, what discipline your research is in and what you would do to champion 'What's up doc?' to tennie.videler@vitae.ac.uk before 9 May.
We will select applicants based on this and reimburse reasonable travel expenses. Places are limited.

http://www.vitae.ac.uk/whatsupdoc"

The Human Semantic Web - Further Reflection

2011-04-29T10:47:00.010+01:00

The web is a useful environment for enabling people to add their knowledge in both a less structured Web 2.0 way (development of less structured but interactive web tools/programs), and a more structured Semantic Web way. The greater interaction in the Web 2.0 approach at least makes it more likely that Semantic disagreements will be spotted, but it takes the structuring in the Semantic Web approach to then show the meaning of terms more clearly and unambiguously so that agreement or disagreement about and mapping of terms can be reached. This then makes possible Naeve’s (2005) ‘Semantic Collaboration’ through and also defining the ‘Human Semantic Web’ that Naeve advocates. This then enables moving on from the Web being an environment only for simple tasks to one where sophisticated programs and models could be run that enable calculation and decision support.

This combination in approaches of enabling greater human interaction, and more definition of semantics can be illustrated by adapting the table displayed in my previous post.

Table - Language and Tool Mapping - Further Development

Thus Increased Semantic Structuring and Collaboration from right to left, combined with Increased Human Interaction from bottom to top makes it more possible to undertake modelling and programming because the information is then well mapped and structured, and made available for visualisation and human interaction. On reflection AJAX/Web 2.0 technology spans more than one part of this diagram depending on the emphasis of whether to structure it and/or enable greater interaction. To reach the top left of the diagram requires layered use of technology as per the diagram developed by Berners-Lee (2000) and also McGuinness (2003). This layering of technology is needed in order to translate from the computer centred representations in the bottom right to the human centred representations and modelling in the top left. Human centred representations are too abstract for computers and computer centred representations are too abstract for humans. Therefore the technologies in the top left are not superior to those below and to the right as they need to be built on those technologies. Further there is more than one way to reach the top left, e.g. along the diagonal arrow from Naeve’s (2005) Semantic Isolation through Semantic Coexistence to Semantic Collaboration, or by moving up then left, or left then up. Following the diagonal arrow based on Naeve’s analysis is best for planning and building such a project from the start, but the other forms of navigation might be the best way to build on an existing project that has already been moving in a particular direction, that is not on this diagonal arrow.

References

Berners-Lee, T., (2000) Semantic Web on XML – Slide 10 - http://www.w3.org/2000/Talks/1206-xml2k-tbl/slide10-0.html

McGuinness, D. L., 2003. Ontologies Come of Age. In: Dieter Fensel, Jim Hendler, Henry Lieberman, and Wolfgang Wahlster, ed. Spinning the Semantic Web: Bringing the World Wide Web to Its Full Potential. MIT Press, 2003.

Naeve, A., 2005, The Human Semantic Web – Shifting from Knowledge Push to Knowledge Pull. International Journal of Semantic Web and Information Systems (IJSWIS), Vol 1(3) (July-September 2005) pp 1-30.

Naeve - http://kmr.nada.kth.se/wiki/Amb/HomePage

The Human Semantic Web

2011-04-26T14:52:00.011+01:00

My thoughts on the work of Naeve http://kmr.nada.kth.se/wiki/Amb/HomePage and Enoksson on the Human Semantic Web and implementation of Concept Maps.

Enoksson (2006) explains the advantages for extensibility of an open standard language, he used RDF for Conceptual Browsing on the Semantic Web. Enoksson (2006) models things with concept maps that break an overall ontology down into concept sub-ontologies/taxonomies.

Naeve (2005) argue that “combining the human semantics of UML with the machine semantics of RDF enables more efficient and user-friendly forms of human-computer interaction.” Using UML for production of ontologies is as advocated by Baclawski et al. (2001) and Kogut et al. (2002), and Enoksson (2006). Naeve (2005) examines this strong separation between types (classes), and instances (objects) and considers this to be a weakness, which he rectifies for ULM (Unified Language Modeling) developed from UML.

Naeve (2005) gives an example of the need for “semantic mapping” between different words with the same meaning such as ‘author’ in one ontology and ‘creator’ in another ontology in order to establish interoperability and machine readability.

The Table below shows tools, technologies, and languages that can assist in this, and where they are based in a hierarchy from low level information centred interaction to high level user centred interaction (bottom to top), and computing focused to human focused representation (right to left). The Table also shows how each tool fits in with Naeve’s (2005) analysis based on “characteristics of the three different semantic stages” of “Semantic Isolation, Semantic Coexistence, and Semantic Collaboration” :-

Table - Language and Tool Mapping

Naeve (2005) describes Semantic Isolation where databases are available but hidden behind web portals, though the portals advertise their address. Semantic Coexistence is achieved by databases being structured in such a way that it is possible to search them without having to know their location. Naeve gives the example of RDF Schema - RDF(S), this standardises the structuring of the information across RDF(S) databases. RDF(S) provides standardised elements for the description of ontologies, so assisting to enable Semantic mapping. Semantic mapping enables Semantic Coexistence due to Semantic mapping enabling agreement on terms. For the table above the argument presented is that high level user centred interaction (bottom to top), and computing focused to human focused representation (right to left), enable Semantic Coexistence. The tools in the top left are built from those below and to the right of them so the Semantic Coexistence is built from Berners Lee’s (2000) Layered Architecture. Naeve (2005) argues the need for semantics that are understandable to humans as well as machines. That is an important objective of the research outlined in my thesis as without semantics that are understandable to humans, it is not possible for non programmer domain experts to undertake collaborative modelling. Naeve (2005) discusses a bottom up approach where there is a set process of deciding what can be agreed on, what cannot, and on documenting both.

Naeve (2005) argues that where knowledge is tacit it is vital to keep track of the individuals or groups who have this tacit knowledge, and that also the ‘Human Semantic Web’ can help elevate tacit knowledge to explicit.

References

Baclawski, K., Mieczyslaw, K., Kogut, P., Hart, L., Smith, J., Holmes, W., Letkowski, J., Aronson, M., 2001. Extending UML to Support Ontology Engineering for the Semantic Web. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on The Unified Modeling Language, Modeling Languages, Concepts, and Tools, pp 342-360.

Berners-Lee, T., (2000) Semantic Web on XML – Slide 10
http://www.w3.org/2000/Talks/1206-xml2k-tbl/slide1-0.html

Enoksson, N. (2006) Serverside Solution for Conceptual Browsing on the Semantic Web. MSc. Dissertation, Stockholm University.

Kogut, P., Cranefield, S., Hart, L., Dutra, M., Baclawski, K., Kokar, M., Smith, J., 2002. UML for Ontology Development. The Knowledge Engineering Review Vol 17(1) pp 61-64.

Naeve, A., 2005, The Human Semantic Web – Shifting from Knowledge Push to Knowledge Pull. International Journal of Semantic Web and Information Systems (IJSWIS), Vol 1(3) (July-September 2005) pp 1-30.

How Ontology and Modelling Tools were chosen for my PhD

2011-04-21T12:39:00.007+01:00

The modelling tool Vanguard System was chosen because it handles Units and uncertainty well something that was necessary for the DATUM project with Rolls-Royce as partners (Scanlan et. al, 2006). The same advantage was the case for the PhD because of the need for extensibility such as risk and uncertainty modelling. Other advantages of Vanguard System were ease of installation and use, ease of linking to spreadsheets and databases, facilities for web enabling of models, and the ease with which formulae can be entered and linked with a high level programming language where necessary (similar to spreadsheets but with a tree based user interface). Experimentation with Protégé showed it was possible to translate the Protégé tree into a Vanguard System tree. This fit in well with the stepped translation to be developed. The open standard nature of Protégé made it possible to use this software without being locked in to it. Tools such as TopBraid Composer can provide additional higher level functionality such as an improved user interface and more tools for user interaction and modelling by end-users so is future work.
There was a need for the DATUM project and for the PhD to minimise programming, so Jena was not used, but Leavers' (2008) MSc project used this effectively, and there was regular contact with the developers of ACUITy (Aragones et. al., 2006), to examine how that more software centred approach was used. Given more time that approach could have been used. Metatomix M3t4 was also used effectively as a high level tool to interact with Jena. So results of research with Jena and/or ACUITy and m3t4 would have shown similar results to the approach of using Protégé and Vanguard System.
These types of tools improve with research and development each year so reproducing this research is becoming easier. New ways of modelling at high level with involvement of end-users is thus practical.

References

Jena - A Semantic Web Framework for Java [online]. Available from: http://jena.sourceforge.net/ [Accessed 21 April 2011].

Leaver, N. (2008) Using RDF as an Enabling Technology. MSc. Dissertation, University of the West of England, Bristol.

Metatomix M3t4 Dashboard [online]. Available from: http://wiki.m3t4.com/homepage.action [Accessed 21 April 2011].

Protégé Welcome to Protégé [online]. Available from: http://protege.stanford.edu/
[Accessed 21 April 2011].

Scanlan, J., Rao, A., Bru, C., Hale, P., Marsh, R., 2006. DATUM Project: Cost Estimating Environment for Support of Aerospace Design Decision Making. Journal of Aircraft, 43(4).

TopBraid Composer, The Complete Semantic Modeling Toolset [online]. Available from: http://www.topquadrant.com/products/TB_Composer.html [Accessed 21 April 2011].

Vanguard System [online]. Available from: http://www.vanguardsw.com/solutions/application/modeling-and-simulation/
[Accessed 21 April 2011].

What's up doc? Join the blog for postgraduate researchers - My case for an invite

2011-04-11T17:42:00.005+01:00

This relates to my previous post of April 7th about the research blogging event in Birmingham next month. I've posted to their blog and emailed them to make my case for inclusion. This is my post to their 'What's up doc?' blog - Postgraduate Conference for Computing: Applications and Theory (PCCAT 2011). The post itself is about a different event, a computing Conference at Exeter University and the abstract of my paper for that.

What's up doc? Join the blog for postgraduate researchers

2011-04-07T20:54:00.009+01:00

Below are details of an interesting event about blogs for and by researchers :-

'What's up doc?' is a new blog which provides a forum for postgraduate researchers to share experience, give information and tips on matters relevant to them in a fun, yet informed way.

It replaces GRADBritain, which has been a popular online magazine written by and for postgraduate researchers studying in the UK.

As part of the launch we will run a free blog training day in Birmingham on 12 May. Apart from learning what makes a good blog post, we will also explore how to increase your online profile. To apply:

* post an example of an article on the 'What's up doc?' blog

* send an email outlining why you want to be involved, what discipline your research is in and what you would do to champion 'What's up doc?' to tennie.videler@vitae.ac.uk before 25 April.

We will select applicants based on this and reimburse reasonable travel expenses. Places are limited.

Systems Research Showcase - Bristol, UK, 30th March

2011-03-24T16:08:00.005Z

I presented at this event last year. This is a good event for anyone wanting to find out about the latest doctoral level research in Systems Engineering.

The details are below :-

"The Bristol Local Group Presents
Systems Research Showcase
Once again, the Industrial Doctorate Centre at the University of Bristol invites you to its Knowledge Exchange Suite in Woodlands Road to see a cross section of systems research activities being undertaken by the region's universities.

This is an opportunity for researchers to see the work of others in similar fields, and for practitioners to discuss the application of systems research with those currently immersed in its investigation and use.

Date: Wednesday 30th March – 6.30pm for 7pm till 9pm

Location: Knowledge Exchange Suite, Ground Floor, Merchant Venturers Building University of Bristol, Woodlands Road, Bristol, BS8 1UB.

NON-MEMBERS WELCOME.

This event is free, and refreshments will be provided, however to ensure appropriate catering arrangements can be made please register online at: www.incoseonline.org.uk/EventBooking/AutoBooking/MainPage.aspx?CatID=Events&EventID=163. "

Postgraduate Conference for Computing: Applications and Theory (PCCAT 2011)

2011-03-19T20:56:00.004Z

I have submitted a paper to this conference at Exeter University in June. These are the details of the conference - http://www.pccat.ex.ac.uk/ -

"Home Page
Welcome to the website of the second Postgraduate Conference for Computing: Applications and Theory (PCCAT 2011). Following the great success of PCCAT 2010, we are pleased to announce that the University of Exeter will host PCCAT on 8th June 2011.

PCCAT 2010 proved a great success, both in terms of networking and introducing the vital world of conferencing to postgraduate students.

We are inviting the submission of abstracts, which if accepted will be extended into either a short paper or a poster for presentation on the day. More details can be found on the Submissions Page

In the new year, we will be inviting interested parties to join the paper review panel, which will be responsible for reviewing and providing feedback for short papers. If this is something you feel you would be interested in, please contact us (details of how to contact the committee are here

We hope to see you at PCCAT 2011, and look forward to hearing from you.

Max Dupenois and David Walker
(PCCAT 2011 Programme Chairs)"

This is my Abstract for the paper -

"Abstract: This paper is about potential to provide an interactive visual taxonomy management system. It has been and is part of efforts to structure, manage, and enable understanding of complex engineering, business and/or scientific information to enable those involved to collaborate using a systems approach. The aim and objectives are to close the link between requirements gathering and end-user modellers. The main subject will be editing and display of product data structures (already implemented), business process modelling, and discussion of possible application to phylogenic/phylogenetic (biology taxonomy) knowledge. Modelling in all these areas could make possible new insights. This approach could also be used for public understanding work and visualisation, e-science, and information management. The aim is to apply novel end-user programming research to enable the editing, management, and representation of anything tree/taxonomy based by uniting the software taxonomy structure with the taxonomy structure of the domain to be modelled and visualised, and using Semantic Web technologies to link this with overall ontologies then to end-users for visualisation.

The purpose of this work is to ease management of development use, and re-use of software and make this a continuous integrated process.

To achieve the above aim what is necessary is to establish or link to a computing infrastructure for representation of complex, engineering, business, and scientific information. This kind of Computer Science/Software Engineering research allows for bringing together related fields of Semantic Web and ontology/taxonomy management, end-user programming, and visualisation and interaction with complex information. Then management of software development with and for such professionals can be eased and all be involved via the web.

Further, the structure and accessibility of Semantic Web technologies may also assist with broadening this approach to accessibility for people with various disabilities, and also for environmental modelling."

Government IT use must change: Institute for Government

2011-03-02T14:30:00.005Z

This BBC article summarises the important point that for IT projects it is crucial to roll them out in increments and test each with the users and for the purpose they are designed for. This is essential for IT project success in the public and private sector also.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12616777.

The article begins -

"The government's handling of IT is locked in a 'vicious circle of costs and failures' and moves at a 'glacial' pace, according to a report.

The Institute for Government recommends sweeping changes to the way ministers order new computer systems.

One recommendation is that new IT systems should be built piece by piece and tested by those who use them."

This article is based on a report by The Institute for Government - http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/23/system-error

System Error
Fixing the flaws in government IT
Author: Justine Stephen, James Page, Jerrett Myers, Adrian Brown, David Watson, Ian Magee
Date: 01 March 2011

Resources for Programming Languages

2011-02-22T14:57:00.006Z

Resources for Programming Languages -http://www.guidetocomputertraining.com/library/programming-languages-basics

This resource is very useful containing a history of programming and programming languages with appropriate links to good articles.

Then there is a section on popular programming languages of the modern day, and another section on uses of programming languages, again with useful links.

This is the description of the site :-

"Computer science is no longer a burgeoning field in education -- it is one of the more popular. With steadily growing job markets due to increased reliance on computers and the internet, learning programming languages may one day be a secondary-school requirement like taking Spanish or French.

For those interested in staying ahead of the curve or just pursuing their interests in programming, there are lots of resources out there available for students and teachers alike. Novices need not be lost, especially because the first language is always the hardest -- after that, they come much more easily. For background information on how programming languages have evolved, and how you can use them, check out the links below to some of the top sites around."

Social Media - Interesting BBC articles - Social Media, Future and Egypt Protests

2011-02-10T09:05:00.005Z

For my 200th blog post I was inspired to write by reading of 2 BBC articles. One is about the role of Social Media in the Tunisian and Egypt Protests.

Internet role in Egypt's protests - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12400319. - 9 February 2011 Last updated at 06:00 - By Anne Alexander - University of Cambridge.

This article discusses the way Social Media acted as an aid to organisation of the protests, and that this worked in conjunction with ways of spreading the word and existing organisations. The Egyptian Governments shutting down of the internet was not successful because these other ways of organising were already established through a mixture of word of mouth and Social Media

The other article is about the future of Social Media, and the other about the future of friends: Who can topple Facebook? - http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2011/02/the_future_of_friends_-_who_ca.html - Rory Cellan-Jones 08:00 UK time, Wednesday, 9 February 2011.

This article also mentions the radio 4 program on this subject, which is available at - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y8xdv, with links to the previous 2 episodes. The article argues whether Facebooks dominance is likely to continue or whether new competitors will challenge this.

INCOSE - Systems Thinking

2011-02-01T15:12:00.004Z

This event was a very useful talk and discussion (Bristol, England) about What is Systems Engineering and Systems Thinking, and examining of a booklet (Z Guide) that describes results of an attempt to write down an explanation of this.

The talk was by Patrick Godfrey of University of Bristol. The description and link are here :-

"Systems Thinking

This event features Patrick Godfrey, the author of the recent Systems Thinking Z Guide, explaining what Systems Thinking is and how it is essential to the work that we do as Systems Engineers. "

http://www.incoseonline.org.uk/Groups/Bristol/Show_Event_Details.aspx?.CatID=Groups&EventID=162

The next event is good also, I gave a talk at last years', it's a chance for PhD and EngD students to present their research.

"Bristol Local GroupEvent Title: Systems Research Showcase
Event Date: 30/03/2011
Event Time: 18:30
Event Details Once again, this event will provide a chance to see some of the latest postgraduate research in the systems arena being conducted in the south west. This event will take place at the University of Bristol. "

http://www.incoseonline.org.uk/EventBooking/AutoBooking/MainPage.aspx?CatID=Groups&EventID=163

INCOSE Stands for - International Council on Systems Engineering

First Day Back At Vassall Centre - Social Media

2011-01-17T14:12:00.004Z

I'm a volunteer at Vassall Centre and restarting for my first day of working part time whilst finishing my PhD Amendments.

This describes what Vassall Centre does, and our website is - http://www.vassallcentre.org/.

"The Vassall Centre Trust, a charity led by disabled people, is transforming a former military hospital in Bristol to make it fully accessible for people with all forms of impairment, to empower them and enable them to work on equal terms with non-disabled people. The fully accessible David Hiatt Baker Conference Centre is based within the Vassall Centre."

I'm working on web, and database. On my first day back today I'm creating a Yahoo Pipe of Vassall Centre related news. A good test for this will be that my Yahoo Pipe should bring in this Post as searched for by the tag Vassall.

Yahoo Pipes is a drag and drop way of mashing together RSS feeds, this enables searching, filtering and sorting of feeds via linked information source boxes and operators. This is interesting to me because it involved drag and drop programming without code, a key technology for my PhD.

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/.

Internet of Things Consultation Workshop, Jan 28th

2011-01-11T21:40:00.002Z

Interesting event :-

EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) consultation workshop entitled: "Kick-starting the Internet Of Things Ecosystem" on January 28th, led by three Knowledge Transfer Networks on behalf of the TSB, and with support from RCUK Digital Economy Programme and BIS. This workshop is to explore the opportunities of, and barriers to, an Internet of Things ecosystem of application and services. This professionally facilitated workshop will bring together present and potential actors of the ecosystem and will explore, debate and make recommendations on these key issues. The output of the workshop will inform potential investments and initiatives by the Technology Strategy Board in this space.

The workshop is open to all, and it will fill up quickly, so if you are interested, please register asap.

From EPSRC Information link is to :-

https://ktn.innovateuk.org/web/2206770%20alt%20=%22Funding%20Workshop%20Web%20address%22%20/%3E

PhD Viva Presentation

2011-01-04T18:07:00.003Z

I've put online the presentation I gave at my Viva recently. I'm also putting it on my blog one or 2 slides at a time with an explanation of the research in each area, so will keep doing this roughly once a week, with some posts in between about workshops and events that are happening early this year that look interesting.

This is my PhD Viva presentaion and it's a PowerPoint 2007 file - https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0Bx_KguSfl6vSYTY4NDhiN2YtNDc3Yy00MmJkLTlkOTUtNjQ0ZGI5ZGZkNDQ1&hl=en- PowerPoint 2003 version - https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0Bx_KguSfl6vSMTdiYjdiMWItMmRmNC00YTJkLThkYmYtYmIwM2VkM2IzZjRm&hl=en.

User Driven Modelling: Visualisation and Systematic Interaction for End-User Programming

Peter Hale

Director of Studies – Tony Solomonides

Supervisor – Ian Beeson

PhD Viva Result

2010-12-26T09:33:00.004Z

I have passed my PhD Viva subject to the usual obligations to make agreed amendments. These amendments are minor but extensive.

I'm relieved and delighted with this result, and these amendments will feed into my blog.

Feedback that I've got from comments and surveys on the blog and websites has been a massive help to me.

Thank you to my PhD team, Tony Solomonides and Ian Beeson, and everyone else who assisted me.

Open Standard Layered Architecture Tools

2010-12-18T13:18:00.008Z

This diagram examines my thinking for 2009-10. This reflects the need to build up from layers of simpler generic information representation and tools that are generic. For representation of information this is more high level and more customised, less generic from right to left. For modelling this is more high level and less generic from bottom to top. Greater use of computer to human translation increases the modelling capabilities. Good interoperability improves the ease of translation, and the layering of simpler information formats with more complex and less generic layers built on top.

Thus it is possible to build on layers of generic solutions from bottom right, and get as far as possible towards the top left, building re-usable solutions before at some point building a final layer of a more customised less generic solution.

This approach maximises re-use and improves maintenance.

Open Standard Layered Architecture for computer to human translation

2010-12-08T14:40:00.002Z

This diagram shows a central infrastructure of an open standards layered architecture. This enables interoperability at the Computer to computer layer. This gives advantages to developers for maintenance and re-use. This infrastructure aids translation from computer and developers upwards, to end users. Visualising the model/program structure translated upward from code to a navigable interactive visualisation enables accessibility, thus assisting with modelling and end user programming. This infrastructure that aids computer to computer interoperability thus also aids human to human collaboration. This all aids ease of use and re-use of models/programs also.

So far this translation has been enabled upwards from computer to human. Future research could involve translation from human to computer and interaction to make this an iterative, interactive life-cycle process.

Abstract and Poster - BBSRC (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council) AHRC (Arts & Humanities Research Council) Workshop

2010-11-24T15:59:00.007Z

BBSRC (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council) AHRC (Arts & Humanities Research Council) Workshop - 16th and 17th November 2010 - Abstract and Poster - Requirements for Phylogenetic Tree Visualisation - A User Driven Approach - Authors: Peter Hale, Tony Solomonides, Ian Beeson, Neil Willey, Karen Bultitude, Darren Reynolds

Abstract: This poster presentation is about potential to provide an interactive visual taxonomy management system. It will be part of our efforts to structure, manage, and enable understanding of complex scientific information to enable scientists to collaborate using a systems approach. The main subject will be editing and display of phylogenic/phylogenetic knowledge, this could make possible new insights. The project will build on the knowledge of the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences (FHLS) in this biological field, the FHLS Science Communication Unit’s excellent public understanding work and the visualisation, e-science, and information management abilities of the Centre for Complex Cooperative Systems (CCCS) The CCCS team will apply novel end-user programming research to enable the editing, management and representation of biological and environmental information including phylogenetic trees.

UWE has established a computing infrastructure for representation of complex scientific information, has in depth experience in applied scientific research, and on public understanding of science outreach. UWE Computer Science research allows for bringing together related fields of Semantic Web and ontology/taxonomy management, end-user programming, and visualisation and interaction with complex information.

Although web based taxonomies already exist, there are still opportunities to improve the visualisation and interactivity capabilities of taxonomy representation. In addition, Semantic Web techniques can enable automated structuring and management of information.

This research in management, structuring, and visualisation of information will enable visualisation of complex e-science problems to assist in enabling understanding of them, and the CCCS centre has many years of experience in gathering and enabling representations of such problems. This will enable the UWE Science Communication Unit to manage a process of making information managed in this project public. The main scientific information will be based on the work of experienced Faculty of Applied Science (FAS) researchers in Biology and Environmental Sciences. These staff have many years of research experience and much research data to make publicly available, such as phylogenetic information. The taxonomy management system will enable the use of such information and a methodology for its representation and contextualisation in varied interactive ways, according to what is most useful for particular people and types of information. This could be applied to the field of phylogenetic systematic in order to combine biological and environmental approaches and solutions.

UWE has used this technology and approach to visualise engineering product data structures and processes, but there is no reason why this strategy could not be applied to visualisation of phylogenetic taxonomy structures and to the debate on how to classify life forms which is an ontology matter. The use of visualisation via end-user HCI advances and the Semantic Web can widen this debate.

Poster - https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0Bx_KguSfl6vSZDM2ZGY3ZjMtOTNlZi00YmJjLWI2MWItODJjNWRmYmVmNzNh&hl=en.

Research intelligence - Damming the 'data deluge'

2010-11-04T12:42:00.004Z

This is an article in the Times Higher Education about an interesting workshop that I'll be attending -

Research intelligence - Damming the 'data deluge'
7 October 2010

By Neha Popat

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=413722&c=2

"A workshop aims to bring design to bear on increasingly complex scientific information. Neha Popat reports

Rapid advances in the technology and methods used in research have undoubtedly yielded great benefits for scientists and society at large.

But the new techniques have also resulted in a surge in both the volume and complexity of the information researchers are expected to analyse.

The challenges of coping with this "data deluge" have been recognised by the UK's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. They are working in tandem to address the lack of "visualisation" techniques available to present biological data in a user-friendly way.

David McAllister, the strategy and policy manager at the BBSRC, said visualisation was not just about how information is presented on web pages or other electronic media.

"Rather, it is about how researchers can handle and present their data in ways in which new and better analyses can take place. For example, spreadsheets are a good way to store large amounts of numerical data, but are less good as tools for spotting a particular pattern or trend," he said.

To examine the problem, a workshop to be held jointly by the two research councils next month, titled The Challenges of Visualising Biological Data, will bring biologists together with researchers in other disciplines to discuss the difficulties they face and provide insights into how large and complex datasets can be 'fully exploited'."

I'm looking forward to it and designing a poster for it. It's 16th and 17th November invitation only due to numbers, but I hope to link to whatever is put online.

Peter Hale

BBC News - Who'd Be a Web Scientist? - 29 September 2010

2010-10-10T13:30:00.005+01:00

This is a very an interesting BBC article about a Semantic Web conference :-

"Bill Thompson thinks you can treat the web as an object of scientific study.

I've spent two days this week at the Royal Society in London sitting in the front row of their Web Science conference as one of the nominated 'Twitter chairs'.

It may not sound much, but along with Jamillah Knowles from Radio 5 Live's Outriders and Les Carr from the University of Southampton, I had the interesting task of attempting to manage the conversation about the conference taking place on the Twitter social network.

All the while, speakers as distinguished as Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Dame Wendy Hall and professors Nigel Shadbolt, Jonathan Zittrain and Manuel Castells speak on stage."

BBC News - Who'd Be a Web Scientist? - 29 September 2010 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11425795

Ways of providing openness in a web age

2010-07-07T14:35:00.003+01:00

What interests me is the implications of this report on the need for and ways of providing research information. A change is necessary in order to find ways to involve and inform people in an age of blogs, Wikis, and Web 2.0/3.0 and Semantic Web.

Further it is important then to be able to visualise complex data and uncertainty in combination with text, so that it is understandable and conveys the true meaning. This is a problem that in itself needs research.

CRU climate scientists 'did not withold data' - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10538198.stm

By Richard Black

Environment correspondent, BBC News

Climate e-mails review condemns lack of openness - http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/2010/07/climate_emails_review_condemns.html

Martin Rosenbaum

Semantic Web Advantages

2010-06-09T20:32:00.003+01:00

I think the main advantages of the Semantic Web are structuring of information, leading to adaptability of systems to changes and flexibility for a fast paced fast changing world. This also helps with extensibility of the system and/or of its use by increased numbers and range of types of user/contributor.

User Driven Modelling/Programming - Overall Aims

2010-05-15T18:05:00.005+01:00

The aim for this research has for some time been to enable empowerment and indepedence of people creating models/programs within their team from :-

Changes in the strategy of the organisation or the environment in which it operates.
Changes in the software environment, e.g. what software the IT services will allow.
Problems in having time and skills for learning and using computer languages.
Difficulties in visualising and representing the software created.
Difficulties in enabling collaboration.
Inaccessibility of software created, caused by use of proprietary, department only, or specialist software.
Maintenance problems.
Mistakes in reuse, caused by lack of visualisation and representation of previous use.

The means for this is development of diagrammatic visualised software over the web as far as possible, where the visualisation matches the structure and therefore enables the collaborion by cutting through uneccessary barriers.

The main possible uses so far are models/problems that suit a tree/network based structure, such as process modelling, business modelling, and scientific taxonomies, and family trees.

European Healthgrids: A glimpse of the future? - Tony Solomonides

2010-04-15T07:56:00.003+01:00

Interesting and useful talk :-

European Healthgrids: A glimpse of the future?
Start: 20/04/2010 - 19:00
End: 20/04/2010 - 21:00
Speaker: Tony Solomonides
City of Bristol College, Bristol

Following a number of grid projects for health and biomedical research, Tony Solomonides led the development of the integrated road map for healthgrid research and deployment in the SHARE project. He has since focussed on two open problems in that field: live knowledge management in a healthgrid and automatic privacy and confidentiality negotiation also in a healthgrid. Having set the scene with an outline of projects and the road map, Tony will report on his and his students' work in healthgrids. - http://www.bristol.bcs.org.uk/?q=node/87.

Empowering engineers and others to create software

2010-04-10T09:07:00.006+01:00

With my PhD work, there was extensive prototyping of software solutions created and feedback from engineers. At first engineers tended to ask for software that followed the strategy of the business and met its deadlines. What emerged over time though was a desire from engineers to have more control over the software so that they could do this themselves and have input into this strategy. With a top down strategy and inflexible software and rules about what can be used and installed, missing of deadlines, and problems in meeting aims were built into the system, and engineers realised this.

So even in engineering, an industry that by its nature has to be conservative, due to safety needs, it is realised that empowerment is necessary in software development. So there was a need to empower the engineers by provision of collaborative software that could be installed and used as easily as possible and be adaptable. Empowering the engineers to be fully involved in the creation and maintenance of such software, because they're interested in the software and what it can do, was essential to make the use, re-use and maintenance of the software practical. This is necessary because it would not be possible to achieve application of useful software by any top down strategy, with limited involvement of higher managers and software suppliers. Visualisation and modelling of the software by a large range of people can be achieved by use of diagrams to show the problem and software structure, as part of the software and how it is used.

Further feedback was obtained from others via an online survey of a greater cross section of others rather than only engineers. This bore out that people want more control and involvement in software development and use, and that visual editing of the software over the web is the best way to achieve this.

Unified Computing For Engineering, Business and Science

2010-04-02T16:19:00.002+01:00

The research undertaken and described here crosses the boundary between engineering and computing. This is achieved by reusing the same approach for computer modelling and engineering modelling, thus applying computing use case and tree based node and object design. This approach is usable for any kind of tree and network based modelling e.g. engineering process modelling, workflow, business process modelling. The approach makes use of nodes linked by equations, or pure taxonomies if equations aren't required, thus making this useful for taxonomies, and useful for representing computing structures, biology, and engineering structure. When these taxonomies are linked up, they can then be used for a colour coded visualised ontology super taxonomy, of sub taxonomies e.g. processes, materials, components (engineering or computer software), resources, and cost rates.

The visualisation represents the structure of the model, and the structure of the problem, creating a unified approach for systematic program and model, computing and engineering, business, and biology structure representation. This makes structured representation much clearer than it can be in a flat structure such as a spreadsheet, and makes auditing and keeping track of changes easier.

This unified approach then enables representation of the problem at a high level of abstraction and if the optional equations are included aids process modelling and decision support. This high level of abstraction and structured representation and visualisation makes errors more obvious and findable, aiding auditing. Semantic Web and Web 2.0/3.0 technologies make this approach feasible for moving this approach from more complex to simple low end computing and networking the approach where useful or necessary.

My INCOSE/Bristol University presentation for 24th March

2010-03-09T16:35:00.005Z

Downloadable PowerPoint newest version -
http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0Bx_KguSfl6vSYTg5NTVhYTAtODFkOS00Njc0LTkzZWYtYjQ0NmE4YmRmNTI3.

Downloadable PowerPoint 1997-2003 version -
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0Bx_KguSfl6vSZjg5ZGYzOTUtZTc0Ny00OGQ5LWE4NzUtN2YwZWY3M2Q3NTg4&hl=en

Abstract

User Driven Modelling and Systematic Interaction for End-User Programming

This talk discusses PhD research (just submitted) into building a systematic infrastructure and capability, and how to solve problems which could hamper this. This approach is based on creation of systems that can be customised to produce other systems and models, and translation from abstract diagrammatic representations to computer representations. The conclusion explains how this approach to modelling and end-user programming enables interoperability, and collaboration, and that this assists with Maintenance, Extensibility, Ease of Use, and Sharing of Information.

Systems Engineering is involved in the analysis of the relating of interdisciplinary research requirements, in both engineering and computing, for this research. Systems engineering is also important in that the application area of modelling, for aerospace (Airbus and Rolls-Royce) has been one where complex engineering products are created, and a systematic approach is needed. Further to this the research has required systematic production of systems that in turn must be usable by a wide range of users to produce and share their customised engineering models.

24/03/2010 - 24/03/201018:30
Bristol Local GroupUniversity of Bristol, venue is TBA.
Systems Research Showcase Following on from last year’s popular event, this event will provide another chance to see some of the latest postgraduate research in the systems arena being conducted in the south west. This event will take place at the University of Bristol.

There is 1 Document for this event, click here to view
To book for this event, please click here.

Translation between models/programs

2010-02-15T13:38:00.003Z

As well as user to computer translation, an important area of research is similar semi-automated translation between computer programs and models. Much of the structure of programs/models is the same regardless of what particular programming language is used. Making translations of a program/model available on multiple systems by translation from one to the other eases maintenance and re-use and widens availability. Also involving users in such a process would enable sharing and understanding of models/programs, so aiding Decision Support.

A history of end user programming - SiftMedia

2010-02-08T18:32:00.001Z

SiftMedia have published online this article of mine.

03-Feb-10

A brief history of the evolution of computer programming from the 60s to the present day, by Peter Hale.

- http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/3058/23/5/3.

User Driven Modelling and Systematic Interaction for End-User Programming

2010-02-02T10:25:00.004Z

This is the abstract of a talk I'll give to - Systems Research Showcase, INCOSE UK, Bristol Local Group, Wednesday 24th March 2010 - at Bristol University -

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/engineering/systemscentre/news/2010/incoseblg.html.

This talk discusses PhD research (just submitted) into building a systematic infrastructure and capability, and how to solve problems which could hamper this. This approach is based on creation of systems that can be customised to produce other systems and models, and translation from abstract diagrammatic representations to computer representations.The conclusion explains how this approach to modelling and end-user programming enables interoperability, and collaboration, and that this assists with Maintenance, Extensibility, Ease of Use, and Sharing of Information.

Systems Engineering is involved in the analysis of the relating of interdisciplinary research requirements, in both engineering and computing, for this research. Systems engineering is also important in that the application area of modelling, for aerospace (Airbus and Rolls-Royce) has been one where complex engineering products are created, and a systematic approach is needed. Further to this the research has required systematic production of systems that in tern must be usuable by a wide range of users to produce and share their customised engineering models.

BBC article - Tim Berners-Lee unveils government data project

2010-01-21T21:56:00.005Z

This is an interesting article about use of the Semantic Web for Government data -

"Web founder Sir Tim Berners-Lee has unveiled his latest venture for the UK government, which offers the public better access to official data.

A new website, data.gov.uk, will offer reams of public sector data, ranging from traffic statistics to crime figures, for private or commercial use.

The target is to kickstart a new wave of services that find novel ways to make use of the information.

Sir Tim was hired by PM Gordon "

Tim Berners-Lee unveils government data project - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8470797.stm - 21 January 2010

British Computer Society Interview -

Sir Tim Berners-Lee talks to BCS
November 2009
In an exclusive interview with the Institute, Sir Tim Berners-Lee spoke about the latest on the semantic web, his view on the advent of artificial life forms on the internet, the biggest barriers to enabling the information society for all, where the mobile web is going and more. - http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=ConWebDoc.33535.

User driven modelling: Visualisation and systematic interaction for end user programming - SiftMedia

2010-01-08T19:53:00.001Z

SiftMedia have published online this article of mine.

Article for Knowledge Board - SiftMedia - User driven modelling: Visualisation and systematic interaction for end user programming - http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/3053/23/5/3.

04-Jan-10
Peter Hale explores to what extent it is possible to improve user-driven collaborative software development through interaction with diagrams and without requiring people to learn computer languages.

Methodology for creation of modelling systems

2009-12-31T08:59:00.005Z

This approach is based on creation of systems that can be customised to produce other systems and models, and translation from abstract diagrammatic representations to computer representations.The conclusion explains how this approach to modelling and end-user programming enables interoperability, and collaboration, and that this assists with Maintenance, Extensibility, Ease of Use, and Sharing of Information.

This methodology can be seen as an attempt to semi-automate knowledge acquisition and representation approaches such as the SEPA Funnel (Systems Engineering Process Activities) . This methodology was prototyped in the research that led to the User Driven Modelling/Programming Approach. This provides a translation process from Knowledge Acquisition to modelling (User Driven Modelling), and automated translation of model to software (User Driven Programming), and so takes this SEPA Funnel to a further stage of translation/transformation of the model/system design specification. This can be facilitated by using XML (eXtensible Markup Language) as a programming language, for the representation of data and formulae, and of the user interface e.g. XAML (eXtensible Application Markup Language).

The methodology suits top-down ontology and model creation e.g. from those responsible for the root item in a product data structure downwards, and bottom-up ontology development, e.g. alternative solutions, tagging of items to allow discussion and enable disambiguation, and agreement on terminology, and mapping of alternative names to each other. This dual approach is facilitated by the translation being provided in both directions.

This model-driven approach examines how links between engineers and modellers/modelling tools can be improved, by visualising a modelling structure that mirrors the structure of the engineering product design. This provides traceability for calculation and decision making in a more clear, structured and visualised way than the audit trail in spreadsheets. This work concentrates mainly on requirements (Airbus, Rolls-Royce), software, and HCI aspects of systems. The main method for this is diagrammatic modelling which was used in gathering requirements, and is also implemented within the modelling system developed.

Making the structure of a model be the same as the structure of the engineering component modelled, and visualising both turns two problems into one. This speeds up co-operation in prototyping of both the software model and the component. Both rapid prototyping and rapid application design/development involve iterative fast development with prototypes communicated for feedback and refinement.

Requirements emerge gradually as part of this process, so early stage design can begin, in co-operation with life-cycle management, marketing, accounts etc. To get full benefit from this all staff who are part of this design process, manufacturing, management, and life-cycle management need to be able to access the models. The longer term aim is to enable direct modelling/prototyping of this by customers of the modelling tool e.g. engineers/end-user programmers. Such a system documents itself as the structure of the engineering product and software model are displayed/visualised. This would make it possible for emergent properties of a system to become known.

Despite object-oriented programming techniques being heavily influenced by the approach used by engineers for Bill of Materials/Product Data Structure modelling this link is difficult. Much of object-oriented programming was developed before graphical user interfaces became practical and common. So objects/classes are often represented mainly by text with visualisation/representation being added as an afterthought. This is not useful for engineers who are used to objects being physical things, or at least diagrams. A further problem has been an over-emphasis on encapsulation (hiding an objects' details, while creating an interface for its use, and re-use). This can lead to errors due to re-use of objects not fully understood. So the classes/objects must be visualised, even if the user does not intend to change their contents, then the user of objects has sufficient understanding of how to use them. This would improve the link and co-operation between engineers and modellers/models. The advantage is that engineers can iterate back and forth between problem and solution, this avoids two risks - going straight to a solution too early, or the problem being so abstract that no solution is achieved. Rapid iteration that semi-automating of the system provides enables an improved chance for finding a good solution. This approach is particularly suitable to taxonomy tree structures, so is best applied for process modelling (business and engineering), product data and work breakdown structures, and scientific taxonomies/phylogenies.

A requirement for use of such a system by engineers (or business and science) is to eliminate or minimise the need for code writing. This then would enable engineers to create models by linking of formulae, as they do when using spreadsheets, but provide a more structured (tree based) representation and visualisation of model(s). To find alternative ways of representing models that do not require the user to write code it must be easier to interact with and change the models, and to share and develop information with colleagues. It would also be useful to more closely align and link UML, and code development environments. Too much need for coding leads engineers to lose influence on the system to be developed, as the model needs to be created by software experts who have less understanding of the engineering problem.

Conclusion
This work involved development of a system for creating systems. Advantages of this approach are Maintenance, Extensibility, Ease of Use, and Sharing of Information. The use of open standards and representation enables this system to interact and interoperate with other systems and enable collaboration. This makes this system a ‘white box’ which can interact with and be viewable to other systems rather than a proprietary ‘black box’. This systematic design and representation of engineering modelling systems, enables semi-automated translation. This enables rapid iteration around a cycle of knowledge acquisition, specification of the problem, prototypes, and alternate potential solutions. This assists with deciding when to adapt and re-use existing solutions and when to innovate.

Such a system could be used to rebuild the system engineering for aerospace capabilities at UWE, and is being developed further at Bath University. A further advantage of the approach outlined here is that it shows promise for use in the SALT (Sharing Approaches to Learning and Teaching) project and for the Tearfund disaster relief project, so the flexibility built into it makes the process applicable to problems for which it was not envisaged and designed. Although these tools can be regarded as software related, they are also and more importantly a way of empowering computer literate end-users (e.g. engineers) with the autonomy to collaboratively model problems more free of constraints of software development. This enables better collaboration across disciplines and more independent of management structure and hierarchy.

SEPA Funnel - http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~ftp/wisr/wisr9/final-papers/Barber.html - K. Suzanne Barber, Thomas J. Graser, and Stephen R. Jernigan.

Systems Engineering MSc Module Assignment - Main part - http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgp7zcg6_344cxn8sxhs - Appendix - http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgp7zcg6_352c8j2w5cg.

Systems Engineering MSc Assignment

2009-12-30T12:32:00.003Z

Cover Sheet
Peter Hale, University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE)
Continuing Professional Development in Aerospace - Systems Engineering
28th - 30th October & 16th - 17th November

Executive Summary

This assignment examines the systems engineering work at the University of the West of England, Bristol (my employer 2000-2008, and 2009-10). The particular focus is on application of this towards aerospace and modelling for Airbus and Rolls-Royce. It is argued in part a) that poor decision making by UWE led to this work being restricted, and that it needs rebuilding. Section 1 explains the reasons behind the problems, and ideas for recreating this system capability.

Section 2 part a) examines how change can be brought about to repair this damaged capability and a plan for rebuilding this, taking into account the problems already faced. Part b) describes the approach used to try to rebuild this capability and how to avoid problems which could hamper this. This approach is based on creation of systems that can be customised to produce other systems and models, and translation from abstract diagrammatic representations to computer representations.

The conclusion explains how this approach to modelling and end-user programming enables interoperability, and collaboration, and that this assists with Maintenance, Extensibility, Ease of Use, and Sharing of Information.

Systems Engineering MSc Module Assignment - Main part - http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgp7zcg6_344cxn8sxhs - Appendix - http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgp7zcg6_352c8j2w5cg.

Microsoft Imagine Cup

2009-12-08T22:34:00.009Z

These are ideas put together from what I've heard from others that are interested in forming a team to enter with this kind of project. I'm hopeful we'll form a team and enter.

Maybe a start of the case then is for Tearfund disaster management, creation of a form using Microsoft Infopath, for feedback and sharing of disaster management information, uploaded to Sharepoint (could be tested on the UWE Sharepoint site). This then could be linked to stylesheets e.g. CSS for presentation in different regions and to a Microsoft translation service. The XML could be searchable on the web and maybe link with and be a way of uploading information for lost and found people. The forms must be usable on mobile phones, as much of a range as possible. Results to go to a server for help with systematic co-ordination of relief efforts.

Imagine Cup - http://imaginecup.com/, http://imaginecup.co.uk/.

A relevant event which I'm going to and will give a short presentation (PhD work, and Imagine Cup ideas is - Bristol Knowledge Unconference 2009 - 12th and 13th December - http://www.craftivism.net/wiki/UnCraftivism/Bristol_Knowledge_Unconference_2009

Themes - Knowledge Management/Semantic Web - Location: Arnolfini, 16 Narrow Quay, Bristol, BS1 4QA - UnCraftivism event, in association with the Craftivism Exhibition at the Arnolfini in Bristol.

My Presentation - User Driven Modelling - PhD
Visualisation for knowledge editing and creation by users -

Social media 'could transform public services' - BBC website

2009-11-27T20:47:00.004Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8382252.stm - By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News.

This article describes the usefulness of Web 2.0 in providing user involvement in health and public services. This report is from the MyPublicServices conference. This provides a useful solution to current problems that centralised systems don't give patients and users enough involvement, but plans such as relying on Google tools for the management of systems are misguided. This conference investigated ways of involving users to a degree that is practical.

"Social media could transform the NHS and other public services in the same way that file-sharing changed the music industry, a conference has heard.

Growing use of tools, such as Facebook and Twitter, offered an opportunity to reinvent services, delegates heard.

The MyPublicServices event debated ways to harness these conversations, many of which are critical, to make services better and more inclusive.

If this was not done, many services would be undermined, speakers said.

"It's happened to the music and travel industries and it's going to happen to public services," said Dr Paul Hodgkin, founder of the Patient Opinion site that organised the MyPublicServices conference.

Said Dr Hodgkin: "The question is how do we cope with it in a useful and productive way and not spend decades beating each other up?" "

Here are more interesting articles about this debate -

Tories attack leaked five-year IT plan as 'unambitious' - BBC News Website - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8387972.stm.

The politics of crowdsourcing - BBC News Website -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/12/the_politics_of_crowdsourcing.html -

- "Politicians in opposition and in government are latching onto the idea of using the web to engage with the wider public
Rory Cellan-Jones
BBC's technology correspondent"

- "This leak isn't likely to generate lurid headlines, as the report on transforming government by using "interactive (web 2.0) tools and processes, cloud computing technology and service-oriented architecture (SOA)" isn't exactly dynamite.
Still, the Conservatives have come up with quite a clever idea - they've put the document online and are inviting the public to comment on every part of it as they frame the party's response. "

BBC News - Google previews Chrome open source operating system

2009-11-19T22:58:00.001Z

This is an interesting development in bringing Web 2.0 web browser software on a stage -

"Internet search giant Google has lifted the lid on its operating system, known as Chrome OS.

The free and open source system is initially aimed at low-cost netbooks and does away with many of the features of a traditional programme.

All programmes are designed to run in a web browser and all the user's data is stored on Google's servers.

Engineers from the firm said the first computers running the system would be available before the end of 2010."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8369611.stm.

Researcher Collaboration - Web 2.0 - Strength in science collaboration - BBC Article

2009-11-15T19:11:00.005Z

This looks like a useful Web 2.0 collaboration tool for researchers -

The BBC article is at - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8342851.stm

"Victor Henning is the co-founder of Mendeley, an online collaboration tool which was created specifically for scientists.
The free software allows scientists and researchers to upload papers which are then trawled for bibliographic data - author, title, issue and so on - and paired up with similar papers already in the database."

"Mendeley is supposed to take the work out of managing these [research] papers.," explains Mr Henning.
"You can just drag and drop your collection of PDFs into the software and it'll automatically extract all the bibliographic data - all of the stuff that you'd usually have to type in manually." - Victor Henning.

Engineering modelling an iterative approach

2009-11-01T08:47:00.007Z

This post discusses how links between engineers and modellers/modelling tools can be improved, using an approach of visualising a modelling structure that mirrors the structure of the engineering product design. The main method for this is diagrammatic modelling.

Making the structure of a model be the same as the structure of the engineering component modelled turns 2 problems into one. This speeds up co-operation in prototyping of both the software model and the component. Both rapid prototyping and rapid application design/development involve iterative fast development with prototypes communicated. Requirements emerge gradually as part of this process, so early stage design can begin, in co-operation with life-cycle management, marketing accounts etc. To get full benefit from this all staff who are part of this design process, manufacturing, management, and life-cycle management need to be able to access the models. The longer term aim is to enable direct modelling/prototyping of this by customers of the modelling tool e.g. engineers/end-user programmers. Such a system documents itself as the structure of the engineering product and software model are displayed/visualised.

Integration of information representation UML/Doors (http://www-01.ibm.com/software/awdtools/doors/productline/) is progress towards this. Also a user interface is required that makes it easier for engineers to model using such a combined UML/Doors solution

Despite object-oriented programming techniques being heavily influenced by the approach used by engineers for Bill of Materials/Product Data Structure modelling this link has become difficult. Much of object-oriented programming was developed before graphical user interfaces became practical and common. So objects/classes are often represented mainly by text with visualisation/representation being added as an afterthought. This is not useful for engineers who are used to objects being physical things, or at least diagrams. A further problem has been an over-emphasis on encapsulation (hiding an objects' details, while creating an interface for its use), and re-use. This can lead to errors due to re-use of objects that are not fully understood. So the classes/objects need to be visualised, even if the user does not intend to change their contents, so the user of objects has sufficient understanding of how to use them.

The above steps would improve the link and co-operation between engineers and modellers/models.

PhD Thesis Submitted

2009-10-07T16:25:00.000+01:00

I've submitted my PhD in User Driven Programming, and continued this while my work environment changed. Previously I retrained from clerical work to engineering and computing, and developed advanced skills and experience in this through vocational and higher education. I worked for 10 years as a researcher at University of the West of England. I researched difficult problems, and helped gain funding for such research, and have written funding proposals. I'm very thorough and consistent, resolute, determined, am diplomatic, and have relevant skills for analysing research questions, and presenting findings. My home page is http://sites.google.com/site/userdrivenmodellingprogramming/Home. I devise ways for users to create software, to achieve this I apply Semantic Web techniques. I enable non-programmers to create software from a user interface that allows them to model a particular problem or scenario. I develop ways of translating this information into program code. This is useful for employees that have insufficient time to learn programming languages. This makes it easier for software systems to manage and enable sharing of information and programs people create.

Bristol Knowledge Unconference 2009

2009-10-02T11:36:00.004+01:00

The Bristol Knowledge Unconference in 2009 - http://www.craftivism.net/wiki/UnCraftivism/Bristol_Knowledge_Unconference_2009 - will be an UnCraftivism event, in association with the Craftivism Exhibition at the Arnolfini in Bristol.

Basic Info
Date: 12th - 13th December 2009
Time: TBC
Location: Arnolfini, Bristol
Organiser: Daniel Lewis
Email: danieljohnlewis [at] gmail [dot] com
UK Tel: 07834355516
Instigator: Rui Guerra
Helpers: ...
In collaboration with:

What is Bristol Knowledge Unconference?

Bristol Knowledge Unconference is an "Unconference" specifically about Knowledge. The first Bristol Knowledge Unconference was in September 2008, and involved about 50 people who talked about Knowledge from scientific and new-media perspectives.

The knowledge unconferences are "themed" around the general subject of Knowledge, which includes:

The Semantic Web / Linked Data / Hyperdata / Data Web
Web Science
Topic Maps
Information Architecture and Design
Knowledge Acquisition and Knowledge Management
Knowledge-Based Systems, Knowledge Engineering and Rule-Based Systems (etc)
Knowledge/Information Visualisation and Graphical User Interfaces
Knowledge-orientated Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
and maybe even, Object Oriented Databases

What will Bristol Knowledge Unconference 2009 be about?

This will be our second Bristol Knowledge Unconference. Our first one was very fun, and we hope to multiply that amount of fun - particularly as we'll be running alongside other groups involved in UnCraftivism.
As we will be in the Arnolfini, it has been decided to label this years Knowledge Unconference: The Art of Knowledge
Knowledge is both art and science. Everything we do with knowledge can be both beautiful and methodical. We will discuss these things, and talks will be established in order to think about these ideas. Other more general talks/demos are very much welcomed, no matter how arty or scientific they are. The idea of an Unconference is completely free-flowing, it is developed with minimal structure/organisation and also attempts to maximise the equality of the attendees.

We will be running simultaneously with other events happening during the unCraftivism weekend, see the Main Exhibition Page - http://www.craftivism.net/wiki/Main_Page - for more details.

I am definitely coming...
Feel free to put your name here if you know you will be attending:

User Driven Modelling Explanation - Cube

2009-09-29T10:39:00.004+01:00

This example was provided to illustrate the structure and process for creating the ontology, model, and visualisation/representation used for translation process from step 1 to step 3, for the User Driven Modelling approach. This also helps to demonstrate how the research provides a solution for generic and reusable engineering modelling, by providing a real but simple demonstration of this modelling approach being used for an engineering model.

The cube model, as for all the engineering/process models is made up of the definition, in this case of the cube, and a colour coded representation of all the processes, materials, tooling, consumables, resources, and rates used for the manufacture of the cube; these are read in from the ontology in response to user choices. This makes it possible to investigate scenarios such as in this case whether to manufacture using welding, or riveting, and different options for use of tooling, consumables, resources, and rates. From investigating different options, different trees are created to represent different paths/options, and from this the production cost tree is created with results and feedback on exactly what made up the process/cost. Figure 1 illustrates how the different sub ontologies/taxonomies are colour coded in order to ensure it is easier to read the meaning of the tree and the interrelationships between the different aspects of the model.

Figure 1 Cube model example - illustrates choice of process etc.

In this example, aluminium was chosen as the material, and riveting was chosen as the process. This example also illustrates how the Vanguard System modelling tool automatically combines units appropriately.

Figure 2 shows the cube translated and visualised using SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics).

Figure 2. Translation to SVG Visualisation
This shows the interactive version of the diagram that works in Internet Explorer using the Adobe SVG viewer 3 http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/SVGCubeExample/CubePartDefinitionwithCosts.htm - SVG Viewer download - http://www.adobe.com/svg/viewer/install/.

Next the implementation of this research was illustrated with the more complex example of an aircraft wingbox, using the same approach.

Collaboration and Process Modelling in Engineering and Business using Visualisation and Semantic Web techniques - Conclusion and Further Research

2009-09-18T15:59:00.003+01:00

Conclusion

Test implementations assisted with :-

Providing clarity for process modelling and management, by creating a structured open standard visual modelling environment that is usable by non-programmers.

* Collaboration, dissemination, reuse and sharing of models using web applications and services.

* Enabling people to model at a high level of abstract conceptual modelling, thereby producing better process models using tools that model at domain level, rather than at code level.

* Development of Semantic Web based process modelling to provide the means for visualisation and calculation/sequencing, together with a decision support engine for model creation and retrieval.

* Increased user involvement for model development allows savings in cost and time taken for process modelling.

* Enhanced availability of process models and interactive visualisation of model results using web browser based software, this will also be an important teaching resource.
Identification of improvements to process efficiency and effectiveness.

* Better interoperability of models and ability to identify common problems missed during creation of standalone spreadsheets. Increased model detail and ease of upgrade with layered architecture of open standard languages to eliminate inconsistencies and allow better decision making.

* New ways of enabling end user interaction, with collaborative development of process models that will allow people more scope to solve problems.

*Enabling task based access to Semantic Web information, e.g. by employees and home users who have no knowledge or interest in the Semantic Web, but who will use tools for particular tasks.

This research tested first steps towards helping to solve problems caused by lack of collaborative modelling in process design. This could also bridge the gap between industry and those advocating the use of modelling/programming using Semantic Web techniques, to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

This research has potential benefit for any problem where end user programming using Semantic Web technology is applicable. This is a very broad range, involving most modelling. The particular areas where the research is most transferable are manufacturing and business modelling, e-learning and provision of models for public understanding of science and engineering, and health and science taxonomy/ontology management.

The research in this field has reinforced the view that Semantic Web based process modelling is an appropriate and robust means of achieving end user objectives. If domain experts are not involved in creation of the model, there is no proper way for the knowledge they are encoding to emerge, or for proper collaboration. This is necessary as each expert is best focused on encapsulating the part of the model that they are most expert in. People need to be involved in model creation if they are to understand the model, decision, and how the decision was made. So there is a need for end user modelling/programming to enable this. Full automation hinders user involvement and traceability, so semi-automated systems that interact with end users and assist with all stages of the model decision are better. If a person goes straight to the answer how can it be expected that they fully understood the question?

Breaking complex mathematics into modularised traceable steps eases management of it, and visualisation, and allows modelling of different scenarios, and these scenarios demonstrate the emergent properties of the model, enabling decision support. BiDirectional Traceability is needed, traceability between nodes/sub-models, and between models, and between suppliers and buyers.

The research made some progress towards allowing end users to concentrate on the domain to be modelled rather than on computing technologies. This research can enable collaborative modelling and interaction, via applying end user programming techniques to enable domain experts such as engineers and business people to create and interact with the knowledge representation themselves, and co-operate to ensure the representations are useful for addressing their problems, with less software creation barriers. Software developers need to enable such systems to make this all possible.

Existing ontologies can be extended for modelling of software systems and engineering systems e.g. PSL, STEPML, UML, SysML can be extended/adapted for use in particular problems.

Further Research

An editing facility to model these equations, and constraints, so that errors could be prevented, will improve the usability of visual process modelling systems. This should enable standardisation of the representation of mathematical expressions that relate nodes, and their values and expressions; this requires a user interface that enables complex mathematical structures to be conveyed by language and/or diagrammatic visualisation. The next stage in the research will be provision of constraints to prevent invalid mathematical expressions. Background research has been undertaken into this. Mathematical modelling can help deal with the complex interactions and calculations necessary for process modelling. Miller and Baramidze (2005) examine efforts to develop mathematical semantic representations above the syntactical representations of MathML, and the need for rigorous definitions of mathematical concepts. They also explain ontology languages OWL (Web Ontology Language) and SWRL (Semantic Web Rule Language), which can be used for open standard ontology based process modelling. Miller and Baramidze's DEMO system uses OWL to define a simulation and modelling class hierarchy. Elenius et al. (2005) show how an OWL-S editor can be used for creating process modelling and web service environments.

Further research is needed into modelling based on SWRL, to model conditional statements, and OWL-S Editor (Elenius et al., 2005) with UML style diagrams, together with investigation and use of online search facilities for services and process models. The reusable process architectures and process models held in an ontology, could also be translated as necessary between OWL-S and BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) representations. Also, Meta-Programming and Rule-based languages could be used to develop an interface to an end user programming environment. Models could be encoded and checked via languages such as MathLang (Kamareddine et el., 2005).

References

Elenius D, Denker G, Martin D, Gilham F, Khouri J, Sadaati S, Senanayake R, 2005. The OWL-S Editor - A Development Tool for Semantic Web Services, The Semantic Web: Research and Applications, Springer Berlin / Heidelberg.

Kamareddine F, Maarek M, Wells J B, 2005, Toward an Object-Oriented Structure for Mathematical Text, Mathematical Knowledge Management, 4th Int'l Conf., Proceedings LNCS Springer-Verlag.

Miller J A, Baramidze G, 2005, Simulation and the Semantic Web, 2005 Winter Simulation Conference.

Petition forces No 10 apology to WWII code breaker Alan Turing

2009-09-11T07:24:00.004+01:00

"PM apology after Turing petition" - BBC News update - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8249792.stm

Gordon Brown has said he was sorry for the "appalling" way World War II code breaker Alan Turing was treated for being gay.

A petition on the No 10 website had called for a posthumous government apology to the computer pioneer.

In 1952 Turing was prosecuted for gross indecency after admitting a sexual relationship with a man. Two years later he killed himself.

The campaign was the idea of computer scientist John Graham-Cumming.

He was seeking an apology for the way the mathematician was treated after his conviction. He also wrote to the Queen to ask for Turing to be awarded a posthumous knighthood.

The campaign was backed by Ian McEwan, scientist Richard Dawkins and gay-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. The petition posted on the Downing Street website attracted thousands of signatures.

Mr Brown said: "While Mr Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him."

Profile: Alan Turing - BBC - Tortured Genius - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8250592.stm.

VoCampBristol 2009 - Thursday 10th, Friday 11th September

2009-09-09T20:47:00.004+01:00

These are the details for - The 9th ever VoCamp, and the first in Bristol.

Thursday 10th and Friday 11th September 2009. Note that this date has been changed due to a conflict - http://vocamp.org/wiki/VoCampBristol2009.

WhatIsVoCamp

What's the Problem?

Continued growth of the Web of Data/Semantic Web is heavily dependent on the availability of vocabularies/ontologies that can be used to publish data. While a number of key vocabularies are in widespread use, there are also many areas with little or no vocabulary coverage, hindering the ability to publish data in these domains.

Peter Mika outlines some of the issues he sees with the current state of vocabularies on the Semantic Web in his blog post What’s wrong with vocabularies on the Semantic Web?
What is VoCamp?

VoCamp is a series of informal events where people can spend some dedicated time creating lightweight vocabularies/ontologies for the Semantic Web/Web of Data. The emphasis of the events is not on creating the perfect ontology in a particular domain, but on creating vocabs that are good enough for people to start using for publishing data on the Web. The intention is to follow a "paper first, laptops second" format, where the modelling is done initially on paper and only later committed to code. The VoCamp idea is influenced by BarCamp, although the emphasis is different. Whereas BarCamps are oriented to demos and presentations, VoCamps are oriented to hands-on technical work and practical outputs; any presentations and demos should be short, highly on-topic to the vocabulary development process, and limited in number, to leave plenty of time for hacking on new vocabularies.

What Next?
The first VoCamp event took place in Oxford, UK in September 2008 (VoCampOxford2008), the second took place in Galway, Ireland in November 2008 (VoCampGalway2008), and the third, and first ever in the US took place in Austin, Texas (VoCampAustin2009) followed immediately by another one in Ibiza, Spain in April 2009 (VoCampIbiza2009).

User Driven Modelling/Programming Definition

2009-09-03T15:08:00.002+01:00

User Driven Modelling/Programming - is a technique for combining visualised colour coded and linked equations, into a system which models a whole program, and visualises the entirety of a program that performs modelling/calculation. This system is created via a collaborative ontology/database and translated in an automated way from the information source to the result output, in order to allow computer end-users to create programs/models, and link these, and in order for programmers to create program development systems. This is a human/computer translation and system creation system.

A particular research area I want and need to research is that of developing a modelling/programming user interface further in order to simplify tasks enough that non-programmer engineers can begin to program/model.

My research is described on my Google Sites pages - http://sites.google.com/site/userdrivenmodellingprogramming/.

Thousands call for Turing apology

2009-08-31T17:37:00.003+01:00

BBC Website - Technology - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/default.stm.

"Thousands of people have signed a Downing Street petition calling for a posthumous government apology to World War II code breaker Alan Turing.
Writer Ian McEwan has just backed the campaign, which already has the support of scientist Richard Dawkins.
In 1952 Turing was prosecuted under the gross indecency act after admitting to a sexual relationship with a man. Two years later he killed himself."

I've signed this petition -

Government petition website - http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/turing/

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to apologize for the prosecution of Alan Turing that led to his untimely death.
Submitted by John Graham-Cumming – Deadline to sign up by: 20 January 2010 – Signatures: 12,041"

Collaboration and Process Modelling in Engineering and Business - Conclusions

2009-08-28T15:34:00.006+01:00

This post concludes the series that explains my research in this subject, and points towards how the research can be used in engineering and business, and how it can be furthered by others. This explains what was achieved in provision of modeling and decision support systems that could automate user-computer translation, and interact with users such as engineers to help them model problems and make appropriate decisions.

To make this research into modeling for engineering practical for a wide range of computer literate non-programmers, sustained further research is needed in the areas of visualisation, interaction, modeling, end user programming, and transformation as well as the links between these areas.

The need is for a methodology for creation of systems to enable more collaborative approaches to modeling by domain expert end users. This combined with visualisation would allow engineers to model problems accurately. This can be made possible by provision of systems that may not fulfil all of the requirements of the domain experts because this would be difficult or impossible, but instead allows the domain experts, e.g. engineers to customise this themselves and help build the system they need and that could be changed as required. Alternatives to the current approach to software development are required. Modeling languages can be used as an interface to an end user programming environment. Transformation from a model building environment to program code was investigated.

Even if programming is made easier, only a proportion of people would actually be interested or capable of doing this. But there is still an advantage to colleagues such as people in the same team or department as an end user programmer, even if they are not undertaking programming themselves. Then all in the team have much closer access to someone, the end user programmer, who understands their, and the team's tasks, requirements, and projects. This closes the gap between those producing software systems, and those who require the software. This also makes it easier to iterate through solutions and solve problems more quickly and collaboratively.

Experienced programmers can build a modeling environment that can then be used by non programmers to create models or solve other software problems. This was achieved for the DATUM (Design Analysis Tool for Unit-cost Modelling) project with Rolls-Royce, and the modelling environment created was used by their engineers. Collaboration, simulation and modeling have been investigated to determine the requirements for future research in modeling of problems.

This should allow translation from a model based representation of software to the actual software. This can involve semi automatically producing software for a Semantic website from visual representations of the problem. The core of this modeling infrastructure is automated generation of models created with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards based languages, and the visualization of information represented in such W3C standard ways.

This research investigated alternative approaches to software development, which give users greater involvement, and can actually be used in combination. This partially automates the process of software creation via a collaborative process and equation tree that maps the problem structure, and user interface creation by providing a means to manage a diagrammatic and/or tree based representation.

Collaboration and Process Modelling in Engineering and Business - Implementation

2009-08-21T13:15:00.008+01:00

New models can be produced by editing the ontology of sub-ontologies, or creating new ontologies or sub-ontologies. Ontologies are translated to systems/models and sub-ontologies are translated to sub-systems/models. So, different engineering process models could be produced by representation in different types of ontologies, and this could allow further different kinds of process models/systems, e.g. business process models.

The intention is to produce new modelling classes/items as required and domain experts would edit taxonomies/sub-ontologies and specify the relationships of classes and the equations to be used, via a visual user interface. These relationships and equations when evaluated and translated will produce computer code. The ontology centre holds definitions of nodes representing information, equations, and calculations to be performed. Equations relate the items in the taxonomies, and models can be automatically produced via a recursive translation tool to provide a template for the generation of a further model(s). The intention is to make it easier to interact with and change the models, and thus share information, an example interface, a section from a model produced automatically, is shown in figure 1. This example is based on aircraft wing manufacture. Code for this is produced from the semantic relationships, and the process model is translated/translatable to multiple representations in different languages and views. The information is saved using a generic structure that defines all relationships in a shared database. This enables structuring and automated queries of information. The decision support tool Vanguard Studio (2009) reads this information and represents it as colour-coded nodes according to which taxonomy it is from. Code automatically queries the taxonomies that make up the ontology and links the information required for the model. The code builds in all the links required for the equations, and thus links information from different taxonomies. This code can be reused for any modelling problem, it builds the equations and follows the links, thus the decision support tool can perform inferencing and so produce results.

Figure 1 shows how the process modelling tool automatically constructs and represents information, visualises an equation and calculates a result. Colour coded nodes represent processes, parts and resources, extracted, as needed, from the ontology. This illustrates how taxonomies/sub-ontologies can be automatically linked, and this can proceed with large scale process models. This example illustrates how an 'Area' is calculated, and that this forms part of the branch showing the 'Hand Lay-up Tool Cleaning Cost', which is consequently passed into other calculations. Calculations using information from all the taxonomies are linked as required in this example.

Figure 1 - Ontology to Model Conversion

The ontology(ies) and model(s) can then be searched and navigated online. The example below (figure 2) illustrates how it is possible to enable refining a search by visualising all the items present in sub-categories of the main category found in the search. This example illustrates the interface for making a search. In this example the user wants to retrieve all the information related to a spar (aircraft wing component).

Figure 2 - Semantic Search interface

The result is shown as a series of trees for each item that contains the word spar. Each keyword match is the root of a tree. Each tree shows the item found and all its children and attributes. The example below (figure 3) shows an image of the top part of the results, this is part of the branch for the first item returned.

Figure 3 - Results from semantic search

The information is held in linked and related taxonomies/sub-ontologies so it is not HTML that is being searched but the taxonomy itself. Because the information is held in a structured way, it is much more likely that searchers will find what they are looking for, because the search can follow the relationships represented in the taxonomy. One of the key objectives of Semantic Web research and Web 2.0 is to make this kind of search possible over the web as a whole. The Semantic Web is a longer-term vision for structuring and managing information over the web and Web 2.0 is the shorter-term practical implementation of techniques, which can ease current information search and management problems. A web interface has been developed for Protégé (WebProtege). An example of the use of this is figure 4 where a search is made for information on the cure cycle for composites manufacturing. This search is possible as WebProtege has succeeded in providing a web based interface for displaying and searching ontologies, so providing an additional way to enable web access to the test ontologies created for this research.

Figure 4 - Web Protégé Interface

The next stage of this problem is to enable interaction and modelling with the returned information. A project was created called Bitriple by Leaver (2008), to enable end user functionality for this kind of web-based ontology construction and search. The application provides a facility to edit an ontology/ies and instances, and provides tree-based visualisation of the ontology (as shown in the example below). This example illustrates creation of an online aircraft wing ontology. Wing component sub-ontologies created using Protégé can be translated for the Bitriple application to be represented as RDF/XML. An application could be built as an extension to Bitriple to perform calculations and modelling using the information stored. This could assist in allowing domain expert end user programmers/modellers to create models. Such web applications provide an alternative to spreadsheets, and to single computer based programs; and if installed on a network server, such applications can provide a collaborative model development environment. This would fit in well with both Semantic Web, and Web 2.0 approaches to knowledge creation, allowing structured representation and navigation of information, and end user interaction, collaboration, customisation and programming via the web. Collaboration can aid people to agree on terminology, and standardisation of calculations used such as for cost rates and currencies. RDF information can be searched with SPARQL, which is used to search the Bitriple application.

A screenshot (figure 5) from the Bitriple application, of ontology creation for an aircraft wing, is shown below :-

Figure 5 - Bitriple Ontology Creation Screenshot

References

Leaver, N. (2008) Using RDF as an Enabling Technology. MSc. Dissertation, University of the West of England, Bristol.

Vanguard Modelling Wiki [online]. Available from: http://wiki.vanguardsw.com/bin/browse.dsb?dir/Engineering/Aerospace/ [Accessed 21st August 2009].

Government to loan Airbus £340m - UWE mistakes

2009-08-14T11:22:00.007+01:00

BBC Business – “The government is to give plane manufacturer Airbus up to £340m in loans for new projects, Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has said. £60m was also loaned to GKN in 2008.”

“Business Secretary Lord Mandelson made the announcement on a visit to the Filton, Bristol, plant of Airbus UK which will be making the wings for the new plane.” Filton is in north Bristol, UK.

It's very interesting to see that a massive Government investment has just been announced into exactly the sort of research UWE used to do well, such as the A380 wing development, I was one of the UWE staff involved in this cutting edge (literally) research. UWE has recently pulled UWE out of this research. Now the A350 wing development will proceed without UWE.

BBC News -

https://owa.uwe.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8201222.stm

Yahoo News -

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090814/tuk-340m-loan-boost-for-airbus-project-6323e80.html

The people behind UWEs' decision to pull out of these kind of research were Steve West the Vice Chancellor, and Martin Boddy, the head of the Faculty.

I hope they both have the sense to realise they have made an expensive mistake.

This is like a small version of the Government decision way back to pull out of research into rockets, just before a massive market emerged for satellite launches.

A350X investment and wing manufacture research -

My article about this for Huliq news, 14th August 2009 - http://www.huliq.com/5/84957/a350x-investment-and-wing-manufacture-research.

Based on BBC and Yahoo News stories

West of England Aerospace Forum (WEAF) - http://www.weaf.co.uk/news?id=90 - Government Invests £340million in Next Generation Aircraft Design & Manufacture 18/08/09

Collaboration and Process Modelling in Engineering and Business - Methodology

2009-08-07T17:38:00.007+01:00

Methodology

Management of ontologies and related models is essential for management and understanding of complex systems. This also improves the chances of project success. Breaking a complex systems engineering problem or project into modular sub-systems ensures that if failure looks likely it is possible to go back a step, rather than restart or abandon the project. This also informs, teaches and enables systems thinking and design. This can be achieved by transforming engineering knowledge into code in collaborative computer systems, and visualising the structure of the resultant system to all domain experts. This enables translation (both in human communication and computing model and program transformation) from the business and/or engineering focus of the domain expert end users, to the software developers and help desk and vice versa.

This translation can be enabled by encouraging end user visual programming so that the expertise of domain experts in modelling problems can be applied. Semantic Web modelling tools are needed to illustrate benefits this technology can provide to industry, as outlined at the Jena User Conference (Aragones et al., 2006).

Enabling, providing and supporting staff to use Semantic Web and Web 2.0 technologies can lower costs, improve collaboration, and improve staff satisfaction and retention. This enables a much faster iterative process of model development, visualisation and rework, leading to more effective process modelling. Such techniques can be used for managing and visualising workflows, which could involve complicated scheduling, sequencing, and iteration. Anderson (2007) in a Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) report examines these advantages. Andersons’ JISC report explains how Semantic Web and Web 2.0 are related, as Berners-Lee's intention in the early development of Semantic Web technologies was for pages to be interactive. Andersons’ report talks of Web 2.0 trends towards the “End of the software release cycle, Lightweight programming models, Software above the level of a single device, and Rich user experiences.” The report explains how the technologies used are enabling user-centred web applications, and the use of the web as a development platform. Anderson advocates that "As a Web 2.0 concept, this idea of opening up goes beyond the open source software idea of opening up code to developers, to opening up content production to all users and exposing data for re-use and combination”. Anderson also establishes the need for communities to build ontologies. Software applications are needed that allow users with little software knowledge to edit and update ontologies themselves. Anderson talks of 'harnessing collective intelligence' by means of interactive collaborative software, he calls this 'distributed human intelligence'. So this kind of technology and these techniques are certainly appropriate to collaborative modelling, and sharing of knowledge amongst domain experts.

Visualisation of every stage in collaborative model creation and every part of the model enables determination of whether the model and view(s) of it are useful and correct, and so aids this sharing of human knowledge to solve problems.

A problem can be represented and shared as visual diagrams, and then translated from this abstract view to models and code. Gross (2007) argues the need for end user programming by designers using diagrams and scratchpads. Tufte (1990) explains how diagrams can be more effective than words for representing geometry. This links with the theme through this research of translating from an abstract to a concrete representation; Green et al. (2007) explain this distinction between abstract and concrete models. This distinction is more gradual than the distinction between classes and objects for object oriented programming. To achieve this it is necessary to enable translation from ontologies and Semantic Web information to diagrammatic representations and vice versa.

Green et al. (2007) discuss terminology problems, and how ontologies and models and collaboration can be used to help solve this problem. For complex modelling it is necessary to provide a generic model/system creator that would have the capability of translating abstract ideas into models. This provides a translation stage that closes the gap between ideas and models. A classification scheme or ontology is necessary in order to make communication as precise as achievable. Ontology/ies can be used to define terms and higher level relationships and these extended for application to particular modes. Such ontology/ies can also be used to help non-specialists understand the terminology of a particular domain, and so ease collaboration amongst people with very different skills and backgrounds. For this project a web linked modelling environment is constructed that automatically translates an ontology representation to models, performs calculations/inferencing, and assists decision support.

Sternemann and Zelm (1999) explain that it has become necessary to research collaborative modelling and visualisation tools, because of the business trend towards global markets and decentralised organisation structures; Green et al. (2007) also explain this. This research aims to benefit two types of modeller. Firstly, it is intended to create a system for modellers to develop models from shared information (the process architecture and models repository); such 'model builders' will be able to create process models for ‘model users’ who may customise models but will not need to create them. In practice, an individual may be in either, or both, categories depending on their interests and skills. In effect this involves production of systems to create systems and/or models.

McGuinness (2003) explains how ontologies support this functionality and calls this ‘generalization/specialization’ of information. Uschold and Gruninger (2004) describe ‘ontology-based search’ as “Ontology used for concept-based structuring of information in a repository”; and describe the benefit of this as “better information access” This aids the research objectives of ease of use and sharing of information. The use of open standards for representing information makes it possible to enable searches that understand the semantics of the information and so can track all of the relationships between items. To test this methodology web based example models were created.

As a shared ontology is central to the proposed system, a translator or an 'elaborator/de-abstractor' can be developed that translates and converts, a diagrammatic representation of the problem automatically into code. Translations could be performed in any programming or meta-programming language, or open standard representation languages, the visualisation of the model created being suitable for display on the web. Interactivity is the key to human involvement in the Semantic Web, in order to construct a process modelling system for people in industry who are not professional programmers.

Figure 1 shows the theory behind Semantic Web modelling. These modules/sub-systems have been prototyped in order to verify that the methodology is feasible.

1. Connections are established between the ontology system and databases, spreadsheets, or other systems that hold relevant information for that modelling problem.
2. The ontology is created using RDF/OWL (Miller and Baramidze, 2005) and an interface built to edit it.
3. Libraries are created in a partnership between ourselves and domain experts.
4. Taxonomies/sub-ontologies are populated by model builders who use them for modelling problems. These are based on the libraries created in step 3.
5. Taxonomies are colour coded for ease of understanding. A link was created between the ontology tool and the illustrated process modelling system.
6. There are two sorts of constraints that can enable users to build and adapt models. Constraints on the way the ontology, and models are built, and user interface constraints to reduce the scope for error, (this is not yet developed).
7. Colour coding makes inferencing/sequencing clear because all taxonomies can be used in any equation, inferencing outputs of a multicoloured result tree that represents the entire sequencing system. User choices affect how items are related for the equation; choices could be made manually or via a search.
8. Each node represents uncertainty. Uncertainty depiction within inferencing results was prototyped (Bru et al., 2004), and used in the DATUM project.
9. The result tree is represented on the web and in other programs allowing further searching, processing and evaluation of results. Visualisation and use of searchable languages such as XML, and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) can assist this.
10. and 11. Modellers interact with the ontology, the model, and results. There is a two way feedback mechanism where experts can make changes in any sub-system, and this filters into changed results. This supports a cycle of results and rework.

Figure 1 - Semantic Web based Process Modelling system

If users are involved in construction and/or use of such sub-systems and collaboration is organised so knowledge is transferred between those involved, the rational for process models and decisions can then be understood.

Translation involves the elaborator that follows a structured ontology to establish how related concepts (represented visually) can be represented in equivalent code and vice versa. This elaboration process converts an abstract representation of a problem to a concrete model created with the aid of communication between user and modelling tool. The translation program calculates results, and these are translated back to users. Results are visualised using stylesheets and interactive software, and translated between different representations. Information must be visualised in the way most appropriate to particular modellers according to their situation and the problem type examined. Highly interactive Semantic Web applications that provide a user interface can enable a user centred process modelling system.
The methodology was tested by creating a practical system. Figure 2 shows the 3 step translation process from domain level visualisation to code, via the web and/or programming languages, and resultant visualisation. To allow information sharing, reuse, interoperability and collaboration, an ontology centric approach (Bloodsworth and Greenwood, 2005) is used, which acts as the infrastructure for creation of models and model templates.

Figure 2 - Translation Process Implementation

To build on this test system a visual user driven process for model development is evaluated, which merges approaches of object oriented design, the Semantic Web, relational databases, event driven programming, model driven programming, and visual programming resulting in application of 'The Model Driven Semantic Web' (Frankel et al., 2004). Further, we examine ways of structuring information and enabling processing and searching of the information to provide a modelling capability, thus providing a solution for the key issue of increasing user involvement in software. To achieve this, visual templates are constructed for the modeller to enable non-programmers to develop modelling software. Increasing user involvement in software development is recommended by Olsson (2004), the involvement being essential to avoid communication problems and misunderstandings that result from domain expert users having too little influence on tool creation.

References

Anderson, P. Technology and Standards Watch (2007). JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education [online]. Available from: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/techwatch/tsw0701b.pdf [Accessed 24th July 2009].

Aragones A, Bruno J, Crapo A, Garbiras M, 2006, An Ontology-Based Architecture for Adaptive Work-Centered User Interface Technology, Jena User Conference, Bristol, UK.

Bloodsworth P, Greenwood S, 2005, COSMOA: An Ontology-Centric Multi-Agent System For Coordinating Medical Responses To Large-Scale Disasters, AI Communications 18.

Bru, C., Scanlan, J., Hale, P., 2004. Visualization of Cost Information, International Journal of Agile Manufacturing, 7(1), pp 53-59.

Frankel D, Hayes P, Kendall E, McGuinness D, 2004, The Model Driven Semantic Web, MDSW2004.

Green, S., Beeson, I., Kamm, R., 2007. Process architectures and process models: opportunities for reuse. In: 8th Workshop on Business Process Modeling, Development, and Support BPMDS07 and CAiSE'07 11-15 June 2007, Trondheim, Norway.

Gross, M. D., 2007. Designers Need End-User Software Engineering. In: End-User Software Engineering Dagstuhl Seminar February 2007.

McGuinness, D. L., 2003. Ontologies Come of Age. In: Dieter Fensel, Jim Hendler, Henry Lieberman, and Wolfgang Wahlster, ed. Spinning the Semantic Web: Bringing the World Wide Web to Its Full Potential. MIT Press, 2003.

Miller J A, Baramidze G, 2005, Simulation and the Semantic Web, 2005 Winter Simulation Conference.

Olsson E, 2004, What active users and designers contribute in the design process, Interacting with Computers Vol 16.

Sternemann, K. H., Zelm, M., 1999. Context sensitive provision and visualisation of enterprise information with a hypermedia based system, Computers in Industry Vol 40 (2) pp 173-184.

Tufte, E., R., 1990. Envisioning Information. Graphics Press.

Uschold, M., Gruninger, M., 2004. Ontologies and Semantics for Seamless Connectivity. In: Association for Computer Machinery - Special Interest Group on Management of Data - SIGMOD Record December, 33(4).

Collaboration and Process Modelling in Engineering and Business

2009-07-31T14:19:00.007+01:00

Use of Semantic Web and Web 2.0 techniques could enable domain experts such as engineers to be involved in the modelling of a problem such as product design, and so understand, assess, and develop possible solutions. The article also examines how modelling, ontologies and Semantic Web/Web 2.0 technology can aid in collaborative management of complex systems such as those involved in process modelling and product design. Visualisation of the most useful representation of the collaborative knowledge and models, and translation between the human and computing representation of this is important for this collaborative modelling.

Visualisation is necessary to provide traceability for decision making, as an audit trail for information, to justify a decision and/or cost, or to understand a process, or a product data structure. It is necessary to navigate a database in order to validate it, the structure of the visual interface needs to show the structure of the data, and the model. The best way to do this is to relate them all so that any change to the database, changes the structure of the model and this changes the structure of the visualisation, or vice versa. Semantic search allows someone to see results or individual items but enables going straight to these items, that does not show the context and the model is still a 'black box', unless the Semantic search actually returns the relevant portion of the structure so that the context of the returned information is displayed.

For each organisation type, a process architecture(s) can be identified that offers potential for reuse by other organisations of the same type. This can enable a better connection between process designers and modelling tools and a shared understanding between domain experts and model developers. A shared understanding and reuse of process architectures can enable improved decision making and performance especially for complex systems, indeed, complexity is a core problem found in most organisational activities. Problems with incompatible software and team communication cause inability to meet delivery deadlines and to control costs, poor product/service quality, delays and cancelled orders, resulting in lack of competitiveness and, ultimately, job losses. So shared understanding of processes between all involved within organisations is essential.

A User Driven Modelling/Programming (UDM/P) collaborative approach and its application to systems/process modelling research needs to be developed. This could enable taxonomic and diagrammatic visualisation and calculation of sequences, times, and costs for complex processes. Provision of a process repository of reusable process architectures could assist industry and organisations to develop more effective service and production processes.

Examples of difficulties in modelling complex processes/projects include:-

Lack of interoperable tools that are usable by domain experts with limited programming knowledge.
Lack of tools for process modelling and web service discovery and lack of online search facilities is hindering development and reuse of process models.
Overuse of non integrated spreadsheets and poor links between these and 'high end' tools, such as specialist process modelling tools and CAD. This hampers the scope for modellers to investigate problems systematically and communicate solutions between users of the various tools.
Poor human/computer translation that fails to convey the model present in human minds to computer models. A systematic approach of layered abstraction combined with sophisticated structuring and translation is required for successful modelling.
Because of the lack of automated human computer translation, modellers currently need to request the help of professional developers such as provided by an IT department, this can slow model creation and embed misunderstandings.

Almost all organisations use spreadsheets to manage information and calculations. However, it is often difficult to follow the relationships between items of information, leading to confusion, and incorrect conclusions. Spreadsheets are often produced by individuals who have had little formal training and there may be inaccurate and undocumented models produced that lack visibility of structure and relationships (Erwig et al., 2005), (Scaffidi et al., 2005). Spreadsheets are popular because models can be created without writing code. Scanlan et al. (2006) discuss research in this problem with Rolls-Royce aerospace, ideas discussed in this paper are built partly from that project, DATUM. Thus we will develop structured visual process modelling tool(s) that can be used without code writing (though they will produce code that can be edited if required).

Collaborative modelling to determine requirements was investigated. Huhns (2001) and Paternò (2005) explain that alternatives to current software development approaches are necessary. The need is to translate from a model-based visual representation understood by users to software. Johnson (2004) explains that successful interaction requires mapping between levels of abstraction, and translation between these levels required by people and computers is difficult. He explains that this problem means systems are created that make people cope with the problems of mis-translation. Rules and information can be illustrated diagrammatically. It is possible to describe algorithms through concrete examples rather than abstractly. Models must be designed and visualised to convey to users a representation of problems that assists with their vision of them. This subject is explored by Crapo et al. (2002) and is the basis of the development and visualisation techniques evaluated in this paper. These techniques enable users to create and understand models, which are translated into software representations.
Collaborative modelling can aid supply chain management as explained by Gunasekaran and Ngai (2004). There is much evidence that collaborative modelling using web-based techniques is practical and important. An open standard web driven method of collaboration is required, in order to enable organisations and individuals to become more involved in projects with web technologies. Morris et al. (2001) examine interactivity and collaboration on the web. Aziz et al. (2005) examine how open standards can assist in an organisation's collaborative product development. The next task is to develop such research into visual end user programming to enable those with limited software expertise to make use of collaboration and process modelling tools. Miller et al. (2001) explain the technology behind web-based simulations, and argue the need for demonstrating the application of web-based simulations for major projects. Kuljis and Paul (2001) evaluate progress in the field of web simulation. They argue the need for web-based modelling to be focussed on solving real-world problems in order to be successful.

Possible solution
A solution to the above problems would be constructionist modelling/simulation of problems using accessible and easily used tools that can empower domain experts to create collaborative systems. Thus the overriding goal of this research is to provide a means whereby control over simple or complex processes/projects and modelling of them is improved. Semantic Web (Berners-Lee, 1999) software will be investigated to allow collective modelling of complex problems and workflows, using a standardised infrastructure.

Repositories of process architectures are held in an ontology, and linked via translation and visualisation in multiple process modelling tools, and web applications and web services, to maximise reuse. Ontologies are highly structured information sources, and are defined by Gruber (1993). This could enable automated web service discovery, composition, and execution, service reuse. This would be enabled by building of process models and modelling systems using Protégé (2009) and Jena (Aragones et al., 2006).

The main aim of the research is to incorporate visualisation of the problem and take a step towards enabling non programmers to add and edit process models interactively. This could assist companies/organisations to become more agile in solving problems and incorporating lessons learned. To achieve this, it is necessary to make it possible for industry to link formerly incompatible software via open standards, thereby improving team working. This could allow people to model problems at a high level of abstraction and automate translation to computer code. This approach of empowering users by enabling abstraction from software details, and concentration on business needs is recommended by Spahn et al. (2007). This can be achieved by enabling non-programmers to create models for process modelling and decision support. The mechanism for this is to supply domain experts with the tools they need to become end user programmers/modellers.

It is essential that new ways of enabling collaboration between all those involved in process modelling software creation and use are investigated. An important part of the project was to investigate the use of Semantic Web languages for programming, rather than just for representation of information, applying this technique to process model creation. Such Semantic Web programming could build on languages such as SPARQL (SPARQL Protocol And RDF Query Language), to provide automated querying and eventually model building and translation. Interoperable process modelling/planning can be assisted by Process Specification Language (PSL) for exchange of process/workflow/production planning, scheduling, and simulation information. The use of open standard languages for declarative programming can ease the translation between different representations of information, and ease interoperability between systems. This translation or 'Program Transformation' allows for writing in one representation or language, and translating to another. This is particularly useful for language independent programming, or for high level and end user translation from human representation to a language more easily interpreted by computer systems. Techniques such as Model Driven Programming (Gray et al., 2004), Generative Modelling/Programming (Scanlan et al., 2006), and Meta Programming (Mens et al., 2002) will be used to create the modelling environment for end users. Elenius et al. (2008) investigate the relationship between UML, Model Driven Architectures and PSL. Translation using the above approaches and between them can enable non programmers fo development of systems that are not a 'black box'; Begel (2007) recommends this open approach.

Jackiw and Finzer (1993) extol a view that if a problem is more visual and nearer to the persons' way of thinking', it can assist a modellers' tasks. Diagrammatic Modelling such as used in UML can assist with this, and Activity diagrams are often used for production of OWL-S process models and services. Johnson (2004) makes the point that UML (Unified Modeling Language) tools need to be extended to better enable modelling of collaborative tasks. Production of better and more adaptable and applicable models can be enabled by meeting the objectives of enabling better Maintenance, Extensibility, Ease of Use, and Sharing of Information. These objectives will be enabled by better structuring and better visualisation; this requires work on structuring using Semantic Web and Ontologies, and enabling better visualisation through and for end user programming techniques. This makes the models more accessible, and so easier to edit, reuse, adapt and maintain.

References
Aragones A, Bruno J, Crapo A, Garbiras M, 2006, An Ontology-Based Architecture for Adaptive Work-Centered User Interface Technology, Jena User Conference, Bristol, UK.

Aziz H, Gao J, Maropoulos P, Chewing W M, 2005, Open standard, open source and peer-to-peer tools and methods for collaborative product development, Computers in Industry Vol 56 pp 260-271.

Begel A, 2007, End User Programming for Scientists: Modeling Complex Systems, End-User Software Engineering Dagstuhl Seminar.

Berners-Lee, T, 1999, Weaving the Web, Harper San Francisco, ISBN 0062515861.

Crapo A W, Waisel L B, Wallace W A, Willemain T R, 2002, Visualization and Modelling for Intelligent Systems, Intelligent Systems: Technology and Applications, Vol I Implementation Techniques pp 53-85.

Elenius D, Denker G, Martin D, Gilham F, Khouri J, Sadaati S, Senanayake R, 2005. The OWL-S Editor - A Development Tool for Semantic Web Services, The Semantic Web: Research and Applications, Springer Berlin / Heidelberg.

Erwig M, Abraham R, Cooperstein I, Kollmansberger S, 2005, Automatic Generation and Maintenance of Correct Spreadsheets, ICSE 27th International Conference on Software Engineering pp 136-145.

Gruber T R, 1993. Toward Principles for the Design of Ontologies Used for Knowledge Sharing, Formal Ontology in conceptual Analysis and Knowledge Representation, Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Gunasekaran A, Ngai E W T, 2004, Information systems in supply chain integration and management, European Journal of Operational Research 159 (2004) 269-295.

Huhns M, 2001, Interaction-Oriented Software Development, Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering.

Jakiw R N, Finzer W F, 1993, The Geometer's Sketchpad:Programming by Geometry, Cypher A, ed. Watch What I Do: Programming by Demonstration MIT Press, Chapter 1.

Johnson P, 2004. Interactions, collaborations and breakdowns, ACM International Conference Proceeding Series; Proceedings of the 3rd annual conference on Task models and diagrams Vol 86.

Kuljis J, Paul R J, 2001, An appraisal of web-based simulation: whither we wander?, Simulation Practice and Theory, 9, pp 37-54.

Mens, K., Michiels, I., Wuyts, R., 2002. Supporting Software Development through Declaratively Codified Programming Patterns. Expert Systems with Applications 23, pp 405-413.

Miller J, Fishwick P A, Taylor S J E, Benjamin P, Szymanski B, 2001, Research and commercial opportunities in Web-Based Simulation, Simulation Practice and Theory, 9, pp 55-72.

Morris S, Neilson I, Charlton C, Little J, 2001, Interactivity and collaboration on the WWW - is the 'WWW shell' sufficient?, Interacting with Computers Vol 13 pp 717-730.

Paternò F, 2005, Model-based tools for pervasive usability, Interacting with Computers Vol 17(3) pp 291-315.

Protégé Community Wiki [online]. Available from: http://protege.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?UserDrivenProgramming [Accessed 24th July 2009].

Scaffidi C, Shaw M, Myers B, 2005, Estimating the Numbers of End Users and End User Programmers, IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing, Dallas.

Scanlan J, Rao A, Bru C, Hale P, Marsh R, 2006, DATUM Project: Cost Estimating Environment for Support of Aerospace Design Decision Making, Journal of Aircraft Vol 43(4).

Spahn M, Scheidl S, Stoitsev T, 2007, End-User Development Techniques for Enterprise Resource Planning Software Systems, End-User Software Engineering Dagstuhl Seminar.

Charting the Digital Revolution

2009-07-25T12:05:00.003+01:00

I've written an article for Huliq news based on this BBC news article, about a very interesting series, and interactive project the BBC are working on -

Russell Barnes Producer, Digital Revolution

"It was just 20 years ago that a young computer programmer called Tim Berners-Lee approached his supervisor at CERN with a blueprint for linking information online that we know today as the World Wide Web."

"...Digital Revolution (working title), a landmark series of programmes for BBC Two that examines precisely this question." - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8144570.stm.

My article on this topic written for Huliq News - http://www.huliq.com/1/83418/charting-digital-revolution.

User Driven Modelling Explanation - Wing Spar

2009-07-17T17:12:00.009+01:00

Figure 1 illustrates the implementation of the translation stages. Step 1 is creation of the ontology, which is then translated to the decision support and modelling tool (Vanguard System) for Step 2. Step 2 is illustrated to the right, and this shows colour coding of the taxonomies (sub ontologies) that make up the ontology e.g. parts, processes, and materials. Step 3 involves translations to visualisations for the web (using Semantic Web formats) and alternative representations. Step 3 can also produce program and/or meta-program code.

Figure 1. Stepped Translation and Visualisation

Figure 2 demonstrates the ontology translated via Step 2 into XML for Step 3 visualisation in Flash (see reference end of article). This creates a tree with a three dimensional look, colour and shading, and interactive repositioning of nodes to make it intuitive and assist in navigation. When a node is chosen, this is moved to the centre of the display and all the other nodes are moved or rotated to position themselves in relation to it.

Figure 2. Flash interface for navigating exported XML tree

Figure 3 shows the view resulting from choosing the 'SparPart Definition'. This shows the parents, children, siblings, and contents of that node. It also allows navigation to any of the related nodes.

Figure 3. Flash viewing of Spar Part Definition node

Figure 4 is produced via an automated conversion from a tree representation of the spar component. The interface demonstrates modelling of information within a browser; ‘Periphery’, ‘Area’, ‘Raw Volume’, ‘Finished Volume’, ‘Part Width’ and ‘Part Height’ are all calculated dynamically. This calculation is in response to changes the user makes to the attributes on the left; as these changes are made the diagram changes in response.

Figure 4. Interactive Spar Diagram (SVG)

Reference

Rhodes, G., Macdonald, J., Jokol, K., Prudence, P., Aylward, P., Shepherd, R., Yard, T., 2002. A Flash Family Tree, In: Flash MX Application and Interface Design Flash MX Application and Interface Design. ISBN:1590591585. [online]. Available from: http://www.friendsofed.com/book.html?isbn=1590591585.

User Driven Modelling Explanation - Cube

2009-07-11T17:04:00.009+01:00

Following on from the previous simpleast example of a rectangle, this example is of a cube, and includes manufacturing process information in the model.

This example is provided to illustrate the structure and process for creating the ontology, model, and visualisation/representation used for this 3 step translation process.

The cube model, as for all the engineering/process models is made up of the definition of the cube, and a colour coded representation of all the processes, materials, tooling, consumables, resources, and rates used for the manufacture of the cube; these are read in from the ontology in response to user choices. This makes it possible to investigate scenarios such as in this case whether to manufacture using welding, or riveting, and different options for use of tooling, consumables, resources, and rates. From investigating different options, different trees are created to represent different paths/options, and from this the production cost tree is created with results and feedback on exactly what made up the process/cost. Figure 1 illustrates how the different sub ontologies/taxonomies are colour coded in order to ensure it is easier to read the meaning of the tree and the interrelationships between the different aspects of the model.

Figure 1. Cube model example - Illustrates choice of process etc.

Figure 2. Translation to SVG Visualisation

This shows the interactive version of the diagram that works in Internet Explorer using the Adobe SVG viewer 3 http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/SVGCubeExample/CubePartDefinitionwithCosts.htm - SVG Viewer download - http://www.adobe.com/svg/viewer/install/.

User Driven Modelling Explanation - Rectangle

2009-07-03T20:36:00.009+01:00

This simple model explains all the implementation of translation steps.

Step 1

A rectangle is defined with attributes for length and width, shown in the screenshot below :-

Figure 1 - Rectangle Definition in Ontology

Width is then defined as 2m.

In the next figure another class is created for calculation of area.

Figure 2 - Rectangle Area Attribute

In figure 1 'Area' was assigned a value of 'Length' * 'Width'. This is a simple equation that will be used to calculate the result. This illustrates how modelling calculations are performed. They are all defined by equations that relate attributes of the taxonomy/sub ontology. The taxonomy can be read by the decision support system in Step 2.

Step 2

For Step 2 the decision support/modelling system reads the ontology, performs the calculation and deals with units giving the result for area as 8 metres squared. This is shown in Figure 3 below :-

Figure 3 - Step 2 - Translation and Calculation

The modelling system can then output the results to web-based visualisations, or to program/meta-program code.

Step 3

As well as showing the model itself on the web it is possible to translate the model results into other representations and visualisations, so making it as widely accessible as practical. Figure 4 shows the result model translated into XML and visualised as a tree view on the web. The automated menu provides for some of McGuinness (2003) 7 uses of simple ontologies :-
2. site organization and navigation support
3. expectation setting
5. browsing support
The use and visualisation of Semantic Web languages at all stages in the translation process facilitates 6. ‘Search support’, and 7. ‘sense disambiguation support’; the structure of the ontology is visualised in order to enable users to determine the context of terms.

Figure 4 Results Output as Tree (XML based)

Figure 5 shows an output SVG rectangle diagram that includes interactivity; this has been translated from the tree/graph-based representation. The input values used for the calculation and the diagram itself can be changed via an automatically produced user interface that is related to the taxonomy structure. These changes cause the shape representation and the area to be recalculated.

Figure 5 - CAD type interface and User Interaction and Calculation

A demonstration and related pages can be accessed below -

http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/RectangleDemo/RectangleDemo.viewlet/RectangleDemo_viewlet_swf.html

Background information to justify why this approach should be researched is here - User Driven Modelling Background.
A Flash movie that presents this concept using a simple example - User Driven Modelling Demonstration.
Translation demonstration (A Flash Player is required to view this) - RectangleDemo

- Explanation - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/RectangleDemo/RectangleDemo.viewlet/RectangleDemo_launcher.html
Demonstraion of User-Driven Modelling/Programming process for translating from taxonomy based to diagram based rectangle representation

Simple SVG Example of Rectangle as demonstrated in the Flash Movie - Internet Explorer Version - Requires SVG player - SVG Rectangle Internet Explorer.
Simple SVG Example of Rectangle as demonstrated in the Flash Movie - Mozilla Firefox - SVG Rectangle Mozilla Firefox.

Reference

McGuinness, D. L., 2003. Ontologies Come of Age. In: Dieter Fensel, Jim Hendler, Henry Lieberman, and Wolfgang Wahlster, ed. Spinning the Semantic Web: Bringing the World Wide Web to Its Full Potential. MIT Press, 2003.

Collaborative Modelling and Visualisation For Complex Systems

2009-06-24T15:35:00.003+01:00

The aim of the research described in this article is to apply the research first where it can have the most use,and then encourage others to expand it for other domains and other users. This is in order to simplify modelling and computing for computer literate non programmers, this includes many engineers, and so enable users such as engineers to model the manufacturing and design.

The problem to be tested her is enabling de-abstraction of engineering problems from engineers' representation to computer models and code. This is order to find out to what extent diagrammatic representations of problems can be used in order to provide modelling solutions. So to test this a source tree is created, then translated to computer code, then represented as a result tree.

To test this problem - the research examines a part of C.S. Peirce's (1906) - 'Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism' call to action"Come on, my Reader, and let us construct a diagram to illustrate the general course of thought; I mean a system of diagrammatization by means of which any course of thought can be represented with exactitude".

It isn't possible to solve this problem and do this all at once so to limit the scope this research is restricted mainly to engineers (who often use diagrams). Engineers often model problems using computer systems, so to make this research effective these areas are prioritised -

To domain of modelling (which often requires diagrams)
Management of ontologies and related models is essential for management and understanding of complex systems.

Breaking both the research and the modelling system into testable steps improves the chances of project success. Breaking a complex systems engineering problem or project into modular steps and stages ensures that if failure looks likely it is possible to go back a step, rather than restart or abandon the project. This also informs, teaches and enables systems thinking and design. This can be achieved by transforming engineering knowledge into code in collaborative computer systems, and visualising the structure of the resultant system to all domain experts. This enables translation (both in human communication and computing model and program transformation) from the business and/or engineering focus of the domain expert end-users, to the software developers and help desk and vice versa.

Enabling, providing and supporting staff to use Semantic Web and Web 2.0 technologies can lower costs, improve collaboration, and improve staff satisfaction and retention. This is an important technology for Semantic Web collaboration. Visualisation of every stage in collaborative model creation and every part of the model enables determination of whether the model and view(s) of it are useful and correct, and so aids this sharing of human knowledge to solve problems.

A problem can be represented and shared as visual diagrams, and then translated from this abstract view to models and code. Gross (2007) argues the need for end user programming by designers using diagrams and scratchpads. Tufte (1990) explains how diagrams can be more effective than words for representing geometry. This links with the theme through our research of translating from an abstract to a concrete representation; Green et al. (2007) explain this distinction between abstract and concrete models. This distinction is more gradual than the distinction between classes and objects for object oriented programming. To achieve this it is necessary to enable translation from ontologies and Semantic Web information to diagrammatic representations and vice versa. Green et al. (2007) discuss terminology problems, and how ontologies and models and collaboration can be used to help solve this problem. A classification scheme or ontology is necessary in order to make communication precise. Ontology/ies can be used to define terms and higher level relationships and these extended for application to particular modes. Such ontology/ies can also be used to help non-specialists understand the terminology of a particular domain.

Sternemann and Zelm (1999) explain that it has become necessary to research collaborative modelling and visualisation tools, because of the business trend towards global markets and decentralised organisation structures; Green et al. (2007) also explain this.
The benefits of this research are - enabling engineers to visualise problems such as representation of a product data structure in a familiar way. This gives a visual and colour coded representation of equations. Visualisation is easier to navigate and understand than that in spreadsheets, and more maintainable. The translation, visualisation and interactions close the gap between human representations of problems, and the representations that are possible using computer languages.

The Wider Implications of this research is that this research could also be used for business modelling, process modelling, and workflow.

References

Green, S., Beeson, I., Kamm, R., 2007. Process architectures and process models: opportunities for reuse. In: 8th Workshop on Business Process Modeling, Development, and Support BPMDS07 and CAiSE'07 11-15 June 2007, Trondheim, Norway.

Gross, M. D., 2007. Designers Need End-User Software Engineering. In: End-User Software Engineering Dagstuhl Seminar February 2007.

Peirce, C.S. - 1906. Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism - http://www.existentialgraphs.com/peirceoneg/prolegomena.htm.

Sternemann, K. H., Zelm, M., 1999. Context sensitive provision and visualisation of enterprise information with a hypermedia based system, Computers in Industry Vol 40 (2) pp 173-184.

Tufte, E., R., 1990. Envisioning Information. Graphics Press.

PhD Student Conference UWE 2009

2009-06-12T21:41:00.008+01:00

Research Conference Presentation June 2009
University of the West of England, Bristol

Enabling diagrammatic de-abstraction and modelling of engineering problems

Peter Hale – PhD supervision team, Tony Solomonides and Ian Beeson

Abstract

Problem -
* Enable de-abstraction of engineering problems from engineers' representation to computer models and code
* To what extent can diagrammatic representations of problems can be used in order to provide modelling solutions

Solutions -
* A source tree is created, then translated to computer code, then represented as a result tree
Benefits -
* Enables engineers to visualise problems such as representation of a product data structure in a familiar way
* Gives a visual and colour coded representation of equations
* Visualisation is easier to navigate and understand than that in spreadsheets, and more maintainable

Wider Implications -
* This research could also be used for business modelling, process modelling, and workflow

Research Student Conference Paper UWE (University of the West of England) June 2009, Research Conference Presentation June 2009,

Decision Support Tool Representation

2009-06-03T17:12:00.002+01:00

It's important to close the gap between ontology representation and modelling and visualisation of problems. There is much more incentive to poulate an ontology or database if the information in this is automatically or semi automatically translated for use in modelling and decision support. Then those populating an ontology can see the benefits, and those creating or using models/programs based on the ontology can see where the inforamation is coming from.

Equations/formulae can be represented in the ontology, and then sent to the model which can then visualise them and calculate results. A Decision support tool called Vanguard System was used for this.

This screenshot illustrates how a decision support system tree view of the spar (wing part)branch from a wing process and cost model can be created with information translated from an ontology (in Protege) of related taxonomies (sub ontologies), and where necessary from user's selections (e.g. of materials). The tree, including all the default part definition information for the spar, is produced automatically. The buttons in the tree enable choices to be made by the user about materials, consumables, rates, and processes. Branches are created in response to these choices. The values in the branch nodes can then be changed as required.
Results can also then be output to the web for navigation and visualisation, and maybe for interactive web based modelling and visualisation.

Collaboration in Engineering using Semantic Web techniques

2009-05-30T13:23:00.002+01:00

Abstract
This article describes how software developers could enable domain experts such as engineers to collaborate on problem solving. The means for this is development using Semantic Web and Web 2.0 techniques to enable end-user programming. This could enable domain experts such as engineers to be involved in the modelling of a problem such as product design, and so understand, assess, and develop possible solutions.

Introduction
Visualisation is necessary to provide traceability for decision making, as an audit trail for information, to justify a decision and/or cost, or to understand a process, or a product data structure. It is necessary to navigate a database in order to validate it, the structure of the visual interface needs to show the structure of the data, and the model. The best way to do this is to relate them all so that any change to the database, changes the structure of the model and this changes the structure of the visualisation, or vice versa . Semantic search allows someone to see results or individual items but enables going straight to this, that doesn’t show the context and the model is still a ‘black box’, unless the Semantic search actually returns the relevant portion of the structure so that the context of the returned information is displayed.

Methodology
The example below illustrates how it is possible to enable refining a search by visualising all the items present in sub-categories of the main category found in the search. McGuinness (2003) explains how ontologies support this functionality and calls this ‘generalization/specialization’ of information. Uschold and Gruninger (2004) describe ‘ontology-based search’ as “Ontology used for concept-based structuring of information in a repository”; and describe the benefit of this as “better information access” This aids the research objectives of ease of use and sharing of information. The use of open standards for representing information makes it possible to enable searches that understand the semantics of the information and so can track all of the relationships between items. This example illustrates the interface for making a search. In this example the user wants to retrieve all the information related to a spar (aircraft wing component).

Semantic Search interface

The result is shown as a series of trees for each item that contains the word spar. Each keyword match is the root of a tree. Each tree shows the item found and all its children and attributes. The example below shows an image of the top part of the results, this is part of the branch for the first item returned.

Results from semantic search

The information is held in linked and related taxonomies/sub ontologies so it is not HTML that is being searched but the taxonomy itself. Because the information is held in a structured way, it is much more likely that searchers will find what they are looking for, because the search can follow the relationships represented in the taxonomy. One of the key objectives of Semantic Web research and Web 2.0 is to make this kind of search possible over the web as a whole. The Semantic Web is a longer-term vision for managing information over the web and Web 2.0 is the shorter-term practical implementation of techniques, which can ease current information search and management problems. A web interface has been developed for Protégé An example of the use of this is the illustration below where a search is made for information on the cure cycle for composites manufacturing. This search is possible as WebProtege[1] has succeeded in providing a web based interface for displaying and searching ontologies, so providing an additional way to enable web access to the test ontologies created for this research.

Web Protégé Interface

The next stage of this problem is to enable interaction and modelling with the returned information. A project was created called Bitriple by Leaver (2008), to enable end-user functionality for this kind of web-based ontology construction and search. The application provides a facility to edit an ontology/ies and instances, and provides tree-based visualisation of the ontology (as shown in the example below). This example illustrates creation of an online aircraft wing ontology. Wing component sub/ontologies created using Protégé can be translated for the Bitriple application to be represented as RDF/XML. An application could be built as an extension to Bitriple to perform calculations and modelling using the information stored. This could assist in allowing domain expert end-user programmers/modellers to create models. Such web applications provide an alternative to spreadsheets, and to single computer based programs; and if installed on a network server, such applications can provide a collaborative model development environment. This would fit in well with both Semantic Web, and Web 2.0 approaches to knowledge creation, allowing structured representation and navigation of information, and end-user interaction, collaboration, customisation and programming via the web. Collaboration can aid people to agree on terminology, and standardisation of calculations used such as for cost rates and currencies. RDF information can be searched with SPARQL[2] (SPARQL Protocol And RDF Query Language), which is used to search the Bitriple application.

A screenshot from the Bitriple application, of ontology creation for an aircraft wing, is shown below :-

Bitriple Ontology Creation Screenshot

Conclusion

If domain experts are not involved in creation of the model, there is no proper way for the knowledge they are encoding to emerge, or for proper collaboration so each expert is best encapsulating the part of the model that they are most expert in. People need to be involved in model creation if they are to understand the model, decision, and how the decision was made. So there is a need for end-user modelling/programming to enable this. Full automation hinders user involvement and traceability, so semi-automated systems that interact with end-users and assist with all stages of the model decision are better. If a person goes straight to the answer how can it be expected that they fully understood the question?

Breaking complex mathematics into modularised traceable steps eases management of it, and visualisation, and allows modelling of different scenarios, and these scenarios demonstrate the emergent properties of the model, enabling decision support. BiDirectional Traceability is needed, traceability between nodes/submodels, and between models, and between suppliers and buyers.

Existing ontologies can be extended for modelling of software systems and engineering systems e.g. PSL, STEPML, UML, SysML can be extended.This research can enable collaborative modelling and interaction, via applying end-user programming techniques to enable domain experts such as engineers and business people to create and interact with the knowledge representation themselves, and co-operate to ensure the representations are useful for addressing their problems, with less software creation barriers. Software developers need to enable such systems to make this all possible.

[1] SPARQL is the query language and protocol for RDF being recommended to the World Wide Web Consortium - (2008) [online]. Available from: http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-schema/ [Accessed 27 June 2008]. A tutorial has been developed by Dodds - [online]. Available from: http://www.xml.com/lpt/a/2005/11/16/introducing-sparql-querying-semantic-web-tutorial.html
[Accessed 27 June 2008].

[2] WebProtege (2008) Wiki Page [online]. Available from: http://protege.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WebProtege [Accessed 27 June 2008].

References

Leaver, N. (2008) Using RDF as an Enabling Technology. MSc. Dissertation, University of the West of England, Bristol.

McGuinness, D. L., 2003. Ontologies Come of Age. In: Dieter Fensel, Jim Hendler, Henry Lieberman, and Wolfgang Wahlster, ed. Spinning the Semantic Web: Bringing the World Wide Web to Its Full Potential. MIT Press, 2003.

Uschold, M., Gruninger, M., 2004. Ontologies and Semantics for Seamless Connectivity. In: Association for Computer Machinery - Special Interest Group on Management of Data - SIGMOD Record December, 33(4).

Enabling diagrammatic de-abstraction and modelling of engineering problems - Summary

2009-05-25T14:42:00.004+01:00

This post discusses efforts to enable de-abstraction of engineering problems from a representation suitable for engineers to that suitable for computer models and code. The key question is to what extent diagrammatic representations of problems can be used in order to provide modelling solutions. To achieve this, a source tree is created, this is translated to computer code, then represented as a result tree. This enables engineers to visualise problems such as representation of a product data structure in a way familiar to them, and this also gives a visual and colour coded representation of equations. This visualisation is easier to navigate and understand than that which can be provided by spreadsheets, and more maintainable. This research could also be used for business modelling, process modelling, and workflow.

The essence of the problem is that organisations and individuals have many limitations resulting from the lack of facilities to allow users to program. Organisations have many limitations resulting from the lack of facilities to allow users to program. For example the use of 'out of the box' modelling tools, which are hard to customise or introduce collaborative capabilities, because a project deadline is so urgent that nothing else is practical. The problem with this is that when organisations have urgent needs to produce models for a particular deadline, all their effort goes into this. Once a deadline is met or missed, there will be a new deadline for something else. So all the effort goes into meeting these deadlines, and there are little or no resources for providing a better solution that makes it easier in the long run to meet the deadlines. This causes many issues, which need to be urgently tackled by organisations in the short term. This creates an ironic dilemma, that the problems caused by lack of end user programming facilities cause there to be a need to tackle these problems via quick fixes because they are so urgent. This makes it difficult to secure funding and time for longer term end user programming research.

As an example of the problems that occur; many people use Excel for financial modelling, and engineering, business, and science models. As these models become large, the short term solution is to use Excel Visual Basic to aid navigation through the model. However, though this helps with the immediate problem, in the longer term it can be difficult to reuse the model, as the Excel spreadsheet creator has to go through his or her code and remember what they have done, this problem is worse if a different user is trying to reuse the spreadsheet. Experience of dealing with projects that create new software systems is that they are very ambitious, but not very modular or customisable. Under management pressure for meeting of timescales, they are often released too early with insufficient consultation with users. Then software developer's time is reallocated to a help desk, in order to deal with the problems caused by the release of software too early, too unchangeable and with too little user involvement.

A longer term solution would be to provide a visual programming environment where the structure of the code is visualised, to make it easier to track the formulae, and so navigation is a central part of the program design, this also minimises the need for code. A solution is to produce highly customisable software, so that the software team do not have to anticipate every problem the users will want to solve. Then many users with more advanced needs and computing abilities could customise software for their needs.

Engineering modelling can be performed using a high level diagrammatic view of the problem and conveyed to the computer via transformation. Program/model transformation allows for writing in one representation or language, and translating to another. This is particularly useful for language independent programming, or for high level and end user programming that can then be translated to a language more easily interpreted by computer systems.

Even if programming is made easier, only a proportion of people would actually be interested or capable of doing this. But there is still an advantage to colleagues such as people in the same team or department as an end user programmer, even if they are not undertaking programming themselves. Then all in the team have much closer access to someone, the end user programmer, who understands their, and the team's tasks, requirements, and projects. This closes the gap between those producing software systems, and those who require the software. This also makes it easier to iterate through solutions and solve problems more quickly and collaboratively.

Application of this kind of research at Rolls-Royce are described by Scanlan et al. (2006). Collaboration, simulation and modelling have been investigated to determine the requirements for future research in modelling of problems. This should allow translation from a model based representation of software to the actual software. This can involve semi automatically producing software for a Semantic website from visual representations of the problem. The core of this modelling infrastructure is automated generation of models created with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards based languages, and the visualisation of information represented in such W3C standard ways. This research investigated alternative approaches to software development, which give users greater involvement, and can actually be used in combination. This partially automates the process of software creation via a collaborative process and equation tree that maps the problem structure, and user interface creation by providing a means to manage a diagrammatic and/or tree based representation.

Reference

Scanlan, J., Rao, A., Bru, C., Hale, P., Marsh, R., 2006. DATUM Project: Cost Estimating Environment for Support of Aerospace Design Decision Making. Journal of Aircraft, 43(4).

Enabling diagrammatic de-abstraction and modelling of engineering problems

2009-05-20T17:45:00.004+01:00

Abstract
This paper discusses efforts to enable de-abstraction of engineering problems from a representation suitable for engineers to that suitable for computer models and code. The key question is to what extent diagrammatic representations of problems can be used in order to provide modelling solutions. To achieve this, a source tree is created, this is translated to computer code, then represented as a result tree. This enables engineers to visualise problems such as representation of a product data structure in a way familiar to them, and this also gives a visual and colour coded representation of equations. This visualisation is easier to navigate and understand than that which can be provided by spreadsheets, and more maintainable. This research could also be used for business modelling, process modelling, and workflow.

Introduction
C.S. Peirce (1906) stated in 'Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism' "Come on, my Reader, and let us construct a diagram to illustrate the general course of thought; I mean a system of diagrammatization by means of which any course of thought can be represented with exactitude". That is the purpose of this research, but to limit the scope and so make application of this theory testable the research is restricted mainly to engineers (because they often think in terms of diagrams) and to the domain of modelling (which often requires diagrams). So the aim is to apply the research first where it can have the most use and encourage others to expand it for other domains and other users. This research is intended to simplify computing for computer literate non-programmers, this includes many engineers. The main research area is enabling users such as engineers to model the problems they encounter in manufacturing and design. However, the wider aim is to prototype research for enabling a larger range of software users to model their problems. The intention is to create collaborative tools that allow users to develop software in a way they will be familiar with from their use of spreadsheets. This research brings together approaches of object orientation, the Semantic Web, relational databases, and Model-Driven and Event-Driven programming. Frankel et al. (2004) explain the opportunities for, and importance of this kind of research.

Figure 1 shows the way iterative development is used both in this research and in the implementation to ensure that changes can be made systematically as necessary and without disrupting the project.

Figure 1. Research Development Iterations

Software engineering and modelling has much in common with engineering modelling, also the tools used for both have much in common. Software process modelling, engineering process modelling, and business/workflow modelling share a common approach, and similar tools. Much of this commonality is in the need to transform requirements into design into code semi-automatically. To achieve this, continuous consultation between potential users e.g. engineers for engineering modelling problems and developers for software problems is required.

Methodology
A common factor in these various types of modelling is the need to transform between a high level abstraction, to a lower level such as a computer model and then code. This is illustrated by examples of semi-automatically produced programs/models (Hale, 2008). The translation process involves translating from a tree/graph representation and for each node this is translated into a code representation of the equation that relates this node to any others, and this code is then presented in the interface as a result tree/graph. This can be achieved for programs and/or web pages. Kraus et al. (2007) examine and implement this transformation problem and also produce code and/or web pages. Uschold (2003) defines the Semantic Web as being machine usable and associated with more meaning. So this is a good way to convey the abstractions represented in a source and result tree to the end user.

The intention is to demonstrate a way to construct diagrammatic representations of cost using the example of an aircraft wingbox. The wingbox is the structure or skeleton of the wing. These diagrammatic representations are achieved by visual representation of items and equations that make up wingbox cost. These items and equations can be represented in standardised categories used in engineering - ‘materials’, ‘processes’, ‘cost rates’ etc. These categories are standard for engineering and the methods for representing items and equations that relate the items can be expressed in standard mathematical form. Therefore using the same methodology and same categories it would be possible to represent other items and equations in the same way. So this methodology is reusable for costing other engineering components including those outside aerospace. The costing method is also recursive because components and sub components can be costed separately or together and top down or from bottom up. This methodology has the potential to be applied to any calculation based modelling problem.

Solutions to this transformation problem can be found by adapting current tools and techniques using a systematic approach. Such tools and techniques involve use of modelling tools, spreadsheets, ontology management tools, and Semantic Web Web 2.0 tools. These possible solutions are not mutually exclusive and their combination could be the best way of providing usable collaborative modelling tools for computer literate end users and domain experts. The link between these alternative ways of advancing current research is translation and User Driven Modelling/Programming.

The User Driven Modelling/Programming approach advocated in this thesis has the advantage that it is using a modelling approach for creating modelling solutions and involves creating systems to create systems. This makes it possible to solve the problem by breaking it down into stages and allowing software developers to concentrate on the most complex software problems and domain experts to be able to concentrate on their domain problem. The standardisation possible in this approach can allow software developers to create modelling systems for generic purposes that can be customised and developed by domain experts to model their domain. This methodology can be facilitated by :-

· Modelling Tools - Building an end-user interface and extending the translation capabilities of UML (Unified Modelling Language) and/or other modelling tools (Johnson, 2004).
· Spreadsheets - Improving the structuring and collaboration capabilities of spreadsheets, and enabling customisation of spreadsheet templates for particular domains and users.
· Ontology Tools - Extending the modelling capabilities and equation calculations in ontology tools and providing an end-user interface.
· Semantic Web/Web 2.0 - Extending the capabilities of Semantic Web and Web 2.0 style web based development tools to allow collaborative modelling.

Figure 2 shows the solutions, and how these make User Driven Modelling/Programming possible :-

Figure 2. Methodology Diagram - Enabling User Driven Modelling/Programming

It is possible to create an extra layer of visualised semantics to enable users to specify commands in structured language. This approach of adding extra layers is the way this visual programming works. Users provide the information the program needs at the visual interface layer, and program code is created automatically. The layers provide the bridge between abstract ideas and computer code. If this approach is taken to its logical conclusion, it would be possible to allow the user to specify what the computer should do. Then each layer would communicate this to the layer below until the computer performs the action required. A simple example of this approach is the use of spreadsheets. Users can specify a calculation in mathematical terms using a formula. The spreadsheet then calculates the result of the formula. Users can change the formula if it is incorrect without any need to write code or re-compile. This accounts for the popularity of spreadsheets. However, spreadsheets do not provide the centralised and structured data-store required for a distributed collaborative system. Therefore, the research concentrates on combining the wide applicability of generic spreadsheet modelling with structured and adaptable modelling and visualisation.

It is important to enable changes to the design of the information source and its structure as necessary, even when it contains information. This makes possible continuous improvement of the information and its representation together. Clear visualisation of the structure makes out of date and duplicate information obvious, so it can be changed by the end-users of the information. This provides for maintenance of information quality without necessitating end-users to understand relational database design; though relational databases can still be accessed by software specialists for more in depth and less frequent structural changes.

Program transformation allows for writing in one representation or language, and translating to another. This is particularly useful for language independent programming, or for high level and end user programming that can then be translated to a language more easily interpreted by computer systems.

A taxonomy representation is translated into a computer model. Relationships can be conveyed to a software model that evaluates them. Information is translated from the taxonomy and is visualised in tree form in a decision support tool with the example of spar manufacture information. The visualisation of the information in a tree can be further translated into visualisation as an interactive diagram. The representation can be translated into different languages, to allow for language independence.

Figure 3 explains the transformation process.

Figure 3. Translation Process

Related Research
Crapo et al. (2002) assert the need for a methodology for creation of systems to enable more collaborative approaches to modelling by domain expert end-users, and that this combined with visualisation would allow engineers to model problems accurately. Huhns (2001) and Paternò, (2005) both explain that alternatives to the current approach to software development are required. Modelling languages such as Alloy explained by Wallace (2003) can be used as an interface to an End-User Programming environment. Transformation from a model building environment to program code has been investigated by Gray et al. (2004).

Conclusion
Experienced programmers can build a modelling environment that can then be used by non programmers to create models or solve other software problems. This was achieved for the DATUM (Design Analysis Tool for Unit-cost Modelling) project with Rolls-Royce, and the modelling environment created was used by their engineers. This is described by Scanlan et al. (2006). Collaboration, simulation and modelling have been investigated to determine the requirements for future research in modelling of problems. This should allow translation from a model-based representation of software to the actual software. This can involve automatically producing software for a Semantic website from visual representations of the problem. The core of this modelling infrastructure is automated generation of models created with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards based languages, and the visualisation of information represented in such W3C standard ways. This research investigated alternative approaches to software development, which give users greater involvement. This partially automates the process of software creation via a collaborative process and equation tree that maps the problem structure, and user interface creation by providing a means to manage a hypermedia concept map.

References
Crapo, A. W., Waisel, L. B., Wallace, W. A., Willemain, T. R., 2002. Visualization and Modelling for Intelligent Systems. In: C. T. Leondes, ed. Intelligent Systems: Technology and Applications, Volume I Implementation Techniques, 2002 pp 53-85.

Frankel, D., Hayes, P., Kendall, E., McGuinness, D., 2004. The Model Driven Semantic Web. In: 1st International Workshop on the Model-Driven Semantic Web (MDSW2004) Enabling Knowledge Representation and MDA® Technologies to Work Together.

Gray, J., Zhang, J., Lin, Y., Roychoudhury, S., Wu, H., Sudarsan, R., Gokhale, A., Neema, S., Shi, F., Bapty, T., 2004. Model-Driven Program Transformation of a Large Avionics Framework. In: Third International Conference on Generative Programming and Component Engineering GPCE, pp 361-378.

Hale, P. 2008. http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/EconomicModels/ModelsVisualised.htm.

Huhns, M., 2001. Interaction-Oriented Software Development. International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, 11, pp 259-279.

Johnson, P., 2004. Interactions, collaborations and breakdowns. In: ACM International Conference Proceeding Series; Proceedings of the 3rd annual conference on Task models and diagrams Vol 86 Prague, Czech Republic.

Kraus, A., Knapp A., Koch, N., 2007. Model-Driven Generation of Web Applications in UWE. http://ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Publications/CEUR-WS/Vol-261/paper03.pdf In Proc. MDWE 2007 - 3rd International Workshop on Model-Driven Web Engineering, CEUR-WS/, Vol 261, July 2007.

Paternò, F., 2005. Model-based tools for pervasive usability. Interacting with Computers, 17(3), pp 291-315.

Peirce, C.S. - 1906. Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism - http://www.existentialgraphs.com/peirceoneg/prolegomena.htm.

Scanlan, J., Rao, A., Bru, C., Hale, P., Marsh, R., 2006. DATUM Project: Cost Estimating Environment for Support of Aerospace Design Decision Making. Journal of Aircraft, 43(4).

Uschold, M., 2003. Where are the semantics in the semantic web? AI Magazine Vol 24 (3) pp 25-36.

Wallace, C., 2003. Using Alloy in process modelling. Information and Software Technology, 45(15), pp 1031-1043.

Google unveils 'smarter search' - BBC News

2009-05-13T16:19:00.004+01:00

This is an interesting article about Google's plans, and explains that they are keen to develop search tools that make use of the Semantic Web. So I refernce and link to this article below

By Maggie Shiels Technology Reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

"Web giant Google has unveiled new products that it says will push search in a new direction.

Google is using so-called semantic web technology to leverage the underlying data on websites to enhance results."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8047076.stm.

This article is also relevant to smarter search -

Wolfram 'search engine' goes live

"A web tool hailed as a significant rival to search giant Google has gone live to the public.

Wolfram Alpha is called a computation knowledge engine rather than a search engine and wants to change the way people use online data.

It aims to give people direct answers to queries rather than send them to other sites where they may find what they are seeking.

The system is the brainchild of British-born physicist Stephen Wolfram."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8052798.stm.

End-User Programming using Modelling and Semantic Web

2009-05-04T14:24:00.005+01:00

Even if programming is made easier, only a proportion of people would actually be interested or capable of doing this. But, there's still an advantage to colleagues, people in the same team or department as an end user programmer, then all in the team have much closer access to someone who understands their, and the team's tasks, requirements, and projects. This closes the gap between those producing software systems, and those who require the software. This also makes it easier to iterate through solutions and solve problems more quickly and collaboratively.

Software tools to improve and combine UML and other modelling, spreadsheet, Web 2/Semantic Web, and software solutions are required to allow this kind of end-user participatory development and a sustained collaborative organised push towards achieving this. To achieve this, end users and teams need to be able to visualise their solutions both literally as diagrams, and metaphorically via problem solving collaboration. This would realise the intentions that were expressed decades ago in the form of PC based computing and spreadsheets, but add better information and modelling organisation, and collaboration capabilities.

To make the above practical sustained, research is needed in these areas. Such research would have many practical spin-offs.

This page of Professor Richard Vidgen - http://www.bath.ac.uk/management/faculty/richard_vidgen.html - describes research into "how technology is developed and used within organizations. I am interested in how software systems are constructed, e.g., development methods and agile approaches; I also study the interplay between people and technology using complex systems theory, particularly coevolutionary theory, and social network analysis. I have further interest in evaluating the quality of e-commerce offerings and continue to work in the area of web quality."

So this is relevant to my subject area.

My home page is - http://sites.google.com/site/userdrivenmodellingprogramming/.

British Computer Society (BCS) - Future visions blog

2009-04-29T14:10:00.003+01:00

This British Computer Society (BCS) - Future visions blog began in January 2009. The blog is at http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=ConBlog.20, and the creators welcome participation and they describe it here -

"We all have a keen interest in the future because, as the saying goes, we are going to spend the rest of our lives there.

As we well know, computers, computing and technology in general are having an ever increasing impact on our lives, the economy and society.

The BCS is delighted to have brought together four distinguished bloggers to share their thoughts and concerns on wide-ranging areas such as whether Big Brother really is watching us, is it for our own good or should we be worried, the digital divide, social networking, can we really trust our lives to the 'cloud', the impact on UK plc, and how to develop engineers to build the increasingly complex and interdependent systems of tomorrow.

We welcome your thoughts and comments on the posts in this blog."

Customer service - a defect in a technical society - Professor Roger James

2009-04-24T11:22:00.001+01:00

This summary br Professor Roger James - http://www.rogerjames.net/ - University of Westminster, for a talk given the the BCS (Bristish Computer Society) Sociotechnical group https://owa.uwe.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.9926 summarises current problems and possible solutions for IT customer service. This highlights how better concentration on end-user requirements can save resources in the use of the technology.

I've copied the talk summary below -

"The genius of Google is you get a first rate technical experience with zero support [ie no customer service department]. Their whole business model is service free - relying instead on great technology, building and maintaining user competence and an ethos of self help. As a trivial but pertinent example there are approx 3500 books on Microsoft Office and 5 on Google apps - yet google apps offers substantially the useful elements of office. Should we consider this 'inbalance' a defect in Microsoft Office and should we anticipate a campaign on service quality akin to the six sigma product quality initiative over the last 20 years. Can one argue that technology is finally becoming sufficiently mature and ubiquitous to imagine this happening?"

Benefits from Enabling End User Programming

2009-04-14T15:50:00.003+01:00

My research is to test an approach of using digital technology, to make software and modelling development easier for computer literate end users. This would then enable them to solve problems to help their, and their teams’ work to be more productive. The current problem is that the communication and translation steps required between users, and software developers, and help desk are too many, and too varied, this results in cost, uncertainty, delays, confusion, and confrontation. The solution is for software developers to develop more customisable software that can be customised by end-users.

An example is user’s development of spreadsheets, this indicates user’s willingness to use and develop software to meet their needs, but productivity in spreadsheet development can be poor, as they are difficult to track, and share. More advanced software tools are often not available to users, or take too long to learn. Semantic Web technologies can provide a solution to this by provision of free and customisable, shareable, and fully visualised applications for use in particular sectors. Development of such applications, and their use in industry would be proof of this.

More Customisable Software Systems

2009-04-01T15:49:00.005+01:00

My experience of dealing with projects that create new software systems is that they are very ambitious, but not very modular or customisable. Under management pressure for meeting of timescales, they are often released too early with insufficient consultation with users. Then software developer's time is reallocated to a help desk, in order to deal with the problems caused by the release of software too early, too unchangeable and with too little user involvement.

A solution is to produce highly customisable software, so that the software team don't have to anticipate every problem the users will want to solve. Then many users with more advanced needs and computing abilities could customise software for their needs.

Modelling Methodology - User Driven Modelling

2009-03-18T16:59:00.001Z

The User Driven Programming approach advocated in this research has the advantages that it is using a modelling approach for creating modelling solutions and involves creating systems to create systems. This makes it possible to solve the problem by breaking it down into stages and allowing software developers to concentrate on the most complex software problems and domain experts to be able to concentrate on their domain problem. The standardisation possible in this approach can allow software developers to create modelling systems for generic purposes that can be customised and developed by domain experts to model their domain. This methodology can be facilitated by :-

* Modelling Tools - Building an end-user interface and extending the translation capabilities of UML (Unified Modelling Language) and/or other modelling tools (Johnson, 2004).

* Spreadsheets - Improving the structuring and collaboration capabilities of spreadsheets, and enabling customisation of spreadsheet templates for particular domains and users.

*Ontology Tools - Extending the modelling capabilities and equation calculations in ontology tools and providing an end-user interface.
Semantic Web/Web 2.0 - Extending the capabilities of Semantic Web and Web 2.0 style web-based development tools to allow collaborative modelling.

* These possible solutions are not mutually exclusive and their combination could be the best way of providing usable collaborative modelling tools for computer literate end-users and domain experts. The link between these alternative ways of advancing current research is translation and User Driven Modelling/Programming.

This diagram shows the solutions, and how these could make User Driven Modelling/Programming possible :-

Methodology Diagram - Enabling User Driven Modelling/Programming

Johnson, P., 2004. Interactions, Collaborations and breakdowns. In: ACM International Conference Proceeding Series; Proceedings of the 3rd annual conference on Task models and diagrams Vol 86 Prague, Czech Republic.

Barriers to enabling end user programming

2009-03-02T09:15:00.005Z

Please excuse the long gap since my last post, I was injured, and in hospital.

Now I'm out, I've been thinking about what the barriers are that hinder research into end user programming.

I think the essence of the problem is that organisations and individuals have many problems resulting from the lack of facilities to allow users to program. This causes many issues, which need to be urgently tackled in the short term. This creates an ironic dilemma, that the problems caused by lack of end user programming facilities cause there to be a need to tackle these problems via quick fixes because they are so urgent. This makes it difficult to secure funding for longer term end user programming research.

As an example - many people use Excel for financial modelling, and engineering, business, and science models. As these models become large, the short term solution is to use Excel Visual Basic to aid navigation through the model. However, though this helps with the immediate problem, in the longer term it can be difficult to reuse the model, as the Excel spreadsheet creator has to go through his or her code and remember what they have done, this problem is worse if a different user is trying to reuse the spreadsheet.

A longer term solution would be to provide a visual programming environment where the structure of the code is visualised, to make it easier to track the formulae, and so navigation is a central part of the program design, this also minimises the need for code.

The problem with this is that when organisations have urgent needs to produce models for a particular deadline, all their effort goes into this. Once a deadline is met or missed, there will be a new deadline for something else. So all the effort goes into meeting these deadlines, and there are little or no resources for providing a better solution that makes it easier in the long run to meet the deadlines.

Home Page - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/
Google Home Page - http://sites.google.com/site/userdrivenmodellingprogramming/index

Automated Production of Engineering Models

2008-12-19T17:14:00.009Z

This example demonstrates the research I have undertaken into automating the model creation process for engineering process models.

This example is of manufacturing a cube, where the cost of manufacture depends mainly on the size of the cube, its wall thickness, what material is used, and what process is used. This is a simple example, a real world example involving hand layup of a spar (wing component) proved to be too complicated for ease of demonstration explanation, especially over the web.

An ontology (held in Protege http://protege.stanford.edu/) is used to represent the common information needed for all cube models, (and other models) produced. The ontology is broken down into sub ontologies for parts, materials, processes, consumables, resources, and tooling. These are colour coded in the visualisation/interactive model to ease understanding.

Code written for this research is used to recursively read the Protege tree (via nested SQL calls), and reproduce the tree in the modelling system (Vanguard System http://www.vanguardsw.com/products/vanguard-system/). The modelling system enables calculations, and extra code written for this research also allows choices to be made by the user/modeller.

This simple example enables the user/modeller to make choices of the material, process, consumables, resources, and tooling to be used, for the manufacture of this cube. In this example choices were made for material - Aluminium, and process - Rivetting.

Cube Model

This model is then output to an online representation (this works in Internet Explorer only, a version for Mozilla Firefox is also in progress). The IE version requires the Adobe SVG player, currently downloadable, and free).

The online SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) representation provides an interactive CAD type representation of the component, that can be manipulated, to change size and wall thickness. The wall thickness is indicated by the inner dotted cube. As the size or wall thickness of the cube is altered, immediate feedback is provided. Alterations can be made with the up/down buttons. Also if these values, or the Aluminium cost per metre cubed are changed, the calculated parameter and cost values change automatically, in response.

The SVG representation shown below can be found at http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/SVGCubeExample/CubePartDefinitionwithCosts.htm.

Cube Model - Translated to SVG

http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/SVGCubeExample/CubePartDefinitionwithCosts.htm.

It is also possible to zoom in and out of the diagram, and move it around the screen.

As well as engineering models, I have experimented with economics models, and with translating either type of model to Java, and Java applets. Below is a screenshot of a simple economic model translated and visualised as an interactive Java applet.

Consumption Function translation from modelling system into Java

The models created as part of this research are available at - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/EconomicModels/ModelsVisualised.htm.

Automation of knowledge representation and modelling

2008-12-13T21:52:00.000Z

Knowledge management is a combination of the domains information is applied to and the technology used to represent this knowledge. The main domains I'm involved for representing this knowledge are engineering (process and design), and economics. The Semantic Web is key to this, but the Semantic web also involves many back end computing technologies such as databases/ontologies, and software tools/translation to represent this semantics/knowledge. To test this approach an application is necessary, to show benefits of the Semantic Web/knowledge management, and a way of testing it on the above domain. For my work, this problem used for testing is modelling, but in order to enable modelling using computing technologies, it is essential to make the modelling tools available to as great a range as possible of end-users. So this brings in the need for end-user programming, as to create models, it is necessary to program.

So my research area is as in the shaded ares of the diagram below -

Knowledge management and modelling are time consuming and difficult, this is only partly because of the technologies used, but my research focusses mainly on the technologies. When there are problems in keeping up with the needs of people, such as productivity problems in manufacturing, one of the solutions has been to mechanise this. So the mechanism I'm working on applies this idea to software. I'm working on enabling modelling, and programming for modelling, and what is necessary to ease this problem is provision of a machine. This machine undertakes translation and automated production of models from information. This is similar to the ideas behind virtual machines, interpreters, compilers, and UML tools, but there is more interaction with the users in the tools created for this research. So this enables customisation, at the same time as automation.

The models created are at - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/EconomicModels/ModelsVisualised.htm.

More explanation of this research is at - http://sites.google.com/site/userdrivenmodellingprogramming/.

User Driven Modelling - Applications

2008-12-05T10:49:00.000Z

This visual modelling is similar to collaborative spreadsheet modelling, but for these research models the visualisation and the code structure are exactly the same. This means users effectively can see an audit trail at all times in the modelling, and that the gap between those that program/model, and users is reduced. This makes both computing automated translation, and human collaboration/domain translation easier. This research is mainly aimed at users whose models/programs are too complex for spreadsheets. This means that themselves and other modellers/users lose track of information. These modellers/users often do not have the time and/or facilities for the programming tasks they need.

Automated translation and visualisation of models is essential as if they are manually copied by humans, there are almost certain to be errors in the copying of any large model to a different system. For such models an error anywhere in the model makes the result wrong. Visualising over collaborative networks, and of the whole structure also allows those responsible for checking and maintenance of each individual part of it to spot any mistakes, so this again acts as an effective audit trail.

Demonstration interactive models are shown at - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/EconomicModels/ModelsVisualised.htm.