Set Of Design Tools Research Articles

The Etiquette Perspective for Human-Automation Relationships: Applications, Models and Results

At last year's HFES Annual Meeting, we presented a panel on the topic of The Etiquette Perspective for Human-Automation Relationships asking what etiquette might mean when applied to human-machine interactions and whether a consideration of etiquette in those settings might be a useful addition to our set of design tools. As a result of that panel, a subsequent, multi-day symposium sponsored by the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (Miller, 2002), and additional research, some answers are beginning to emerge. This year's panel will work toward refining the definition of etiquette as it applies to human-automation interaction, illustrating and justifying its utility in design and evaluation (through concrete results whenever possible), and providing suggestions for future work in this area.

Extensions of Linear Algebraic Methods to Nonlinear Systems: An Educational Perspective

Linear algebraic approach provides crucial conceptual tools and a simple theoretical framework for several, typical problems of nonlinear control systems theory which makes it useful for educational purposes. Additional assistance is provided by Mathematica functions developed by us that accommodate a set of symbolic computation tools for modelling, analysis and control system design for nonlinear systems.

Course on Dynamics of Multidisciplinary Controlled Systems in a Virtual Lab

The DynLAB project currently developed by an experienced international consortium aims at motivating young people to engineering study, and at improving engineering training using innovative didactic and technological approaches. The resulting web-based training modules are supported across the Internet by tools like a robust simulation engine DYNAST, publishing and monitoring system, and environment for virtual experiments. DYNAST can be used across the Internet as a modelling toolbox for the MATLAB control design toolset installed on client computers.

Integration and control of intelligence in distributed manufacturing

The area of intelligent systems has generated a considerable amount of interest—occasionally verging on controversy—within both the research community and the industrial sector. This paper aims to present a unified framework for integrating the methods and techniques related to intelligent systems in the context of design and control of modern manufacturing systems. Particular emphasis is placed on the methodologies relevant to distributed processing over the Internet. Following presentation of a spectrum of intelligent techniques, a framework for integrated analysis of these techniques at different levels in the context of intelligent manufacturing systems is discussed. Integration of methods of artificial intelligence is investigated primarily along two dimensions: the manufacturing product life-cycle dimension, and the organizational complexity dimension. It is shown that at different stages of the product life-cycle, different intelligent and knowledge-oriented techniques are used, mainly because of the varied levels of complexity associated with those stages. Distribution of the system architecture or system control is the most important factor in terms of demanding the use of the most up-to-date distributed intelligence technologies. A tool set for web-enabled design of distributed intelligent systems is presented. Finally, the issue of intelligence control is addressed. It is argued that the dominant criterion according to which the level of intelligence is selected in technological tasks is the required precision of the resulting operation, related to the degree of generalization required by the particular task. The control of knowledge in higher-level tasks has to be executed with a strong involvement of the human component in the feedback loop. In order to facilitate the human intervention, there is a need for readily available, user-transparent computing and telecommunications infrastructure. In its final part, the paper discusses currently emerging ubiquitous systems, which combine this type of infrastructure with new intelligent control systems based on a multi-sensory perception of the state of the controlled process and its environment to give us tools to manage information in a way that would be most natural and easy for the human operator.

Palliative care: rapid redesign to support systemwide quality improvement.

Large-scale change techniques and rapid redesign methodologies were used to improve the quality of care delivered to patients at the end of life in a large, multihospital healthcare delivery system. By bringing key stakeholders from across the system together at a symposium to formulate the vision and critical criteria for palliative care programs, as well as to develop a flexible set of design tools, each region in the system could respond to the unique needs of its own community. Hospice length of stay for the system improved by 100% in the year after the systemwide symposium.

7.1.4 Automatic Generation and Verification of Design Specifications for Railway Signalling Applications

AbstractWe describe a project to develop a set of design tools for a railway signalling application, which is safety critical and has complex functional requirements. The toolset generates design specifications from functional requirements and verifies them against safety principles. The project addresses the overall engineering design process and has applicability to other domains.

Dynamic Task Communication for Concurrent Processing in Distributed Systems

This paper presents a formal methodology and a set of design and programming tools for the development of concurrently communicating systems that execute in distributed computing environments. In order to solve the complex problems of synchronization and communication between dynamically distributed tasks, the distributed programming system uses an internal process-algebra-based mechanism, and provides an algebra term generator that allows the user to define the task architecture through a simple graphical inter face. An example of the design process of a heterogeneous distributed system illustrates the main phases of creating and executing a cbncurrent task system, as well as the architecture of the programming environment presented in the paper.

Improved methods for yield-optimization of digital logic

Yield optimization remains the primary device-level design task in digital superconductor electronics. We discuss yield-optimization in the context of our particular software implementation, Malt2, which interfaces to the circuit simulator Spice. This version contains significant improvements both to the numerical algorithms and in ease of use. Two special algorithms of yield-optimization are extant, both of which map out the multidimensional operating region of the circuit and center parameters within the operating region. We describe modifications to these methods that make them practical. The greatest improvement to usability is a new method of defining correct circuit operation; an envelope is defined around each Spice-generated waveform based on two parameters that describe acceptable time and level uncertainty. The envelope can be applied to arbitrary waveforms and can be represented graphically. The features and algorithms of Malt2 are illustrated with circuit examples. Finally, we describe the role of yield optimization within the larger context of a complete design methodology and tool set.

Towards an integrated set of design tools based on a common data format for building and services design

The emerging technology in building product design using knowledge-based engineering (KBE), is currently exciting practitioners in the building construction industry. This paper investigates the use of KBE techniques and assesses the contribution this approach can make to the traditional design process. To do this, the investigation has developed an integrated set of design tools based on a common data format, for integrating 3D electronic prototypes with building services information for use in building design. This approach has been developed on the basis of an open framework and has been applied to the design of an airport terminal building and its plant room. Within the framework, the design process and the information needed, are divided into modules and represented in the form of 3D digital mock-up models (or electronic prototypes). Within the integrated system, an interface has been developed to facilitate the sharing of information with a thermal analysis software application, which contributes to the design process. In this paper, the methodology is discussed and its working system is illustrated and evaluated.

Conceptual design and flight simulation of space stations

This paper focuses on the conceptual design and flight simulation of space stations. Its goal is to discern the factors which influence the configurational design of a space station system. This is done in order to define an adequate methodology with an adapted set of computer tools for early conceptual design of space stations. First we review the history of space station design in order to show what factors drove conceptual space station designs in the past. After that, a methodological design approach for space stations is introduced with special emphasis on design rules applicable to the development of the configuration of a space station. Finally, the design example of a minimum space station with growth potential demonstrates the way in which methods and tools established in this study can be applied to a conceptual design problem.

Introducing User Participative Design Methods to Industrial Designers

Communication between designers and human factors specialists needs to be improved. Over the past few years we have been conducting a range of studies to explore and identify how to improve this communication deficit. A participatory design tool-set was designed to encourage designers and potential end-users of future interactive products to communicate their design intentions and user needs through the use of drawing and placing cards on a table with the use of some limited role-playing. This paper reports on two case studies conducted at two organisations involved in the development of consumer products. Suggestions are provided on how these type of design tools can be improved to increase acceptance by user interface designers.

ISDL: An Instruction Set Description Language for Retargetability and Architecture Exploration

Wepresent the Instruction Set Description Language, ISDL, a machinedescription language used to describe target architectures toa set of retargetable design tools including compilers and simulators.Such tools enable the design of embedded system processors bysupporting the exploration of the architecture design space.The features and flexibility of ISDL enable the description ofa wide variety of architectures with emphasis on VLIW architectures.ISDL explicitly supports constraints that define valid operationgroupings within an instruction, thus increasing the range ofspecifiable architectures and resulting in concise and intuitivedescriptions. Furthermore, a single ISDL description supportsthe automatic generation or retargeting of all of the designevaluation tools. This paper presents the structure and featuresof ISDL and describes how the information in an ISDL descriptionmay be used to retarget or generate assemblers, disassemblers,compilers, simulators, and hardware models. In addition, it comparesISDL to various other machine description languages that arebeing used for embedded processor design. Various complicationsthat arose while describing real-world architectures (which includea powerful seven-way VLIW processor and the Motorola 56000 DSP)and the solutions to these complications are also presented.

Landscape Design: Designing for Local Action in Complex Worlds

In recent years, the management literature has increasingly emphasized the importance of self-organization and “local action” in contrast to prior traditions of engineering control and design. While processes of self-organization are quite powerful, they do not negate the possibility of design influences. They do, however, suggest that a new set of design tools or concepts may be useful. We address this issue by considering the problem of landscape design—the tuning of fitness landscapes on which actors adapt. We examine how alternative organizational designs influence actors' fitness landscapes and, in turn, the behavior that these alternative designs engender. Reducing interdependencies leads to robust designs that result in relatively stable and predictable behaviors. Designs that highlight interdependencies, such as cross-functional teams, lead to greater exploration of possible configurations of actions, though at the possible cost of coordination difficulties. Actors adapt not only on fixed landscapes, but also on surfaces that are deformed by others' actions. Such coupled landscapes have important implications for the emergence of cooperation in the face of social dilemmas. Finally, actors' perceptions of landscapes are influenced by the manner in which they are framed by devices such as strategy frameworks and managerial accounting systems.

Flux-canceling electrodynamic maglev suspension: Part I. Test fixture design and modeling

The design and analysis of a scale-model suspension test facility for magnetic levitation (maglev) is discussed. We describe techniques for the design, construction, and testing of a prototype electrodynamic suspension (EDS) levitation system. The viability of future high-temperature superconducting magnet designs for maglev has been investigated with regard to their application to active secondary suspensions. In order to test the viability of a new flux-canceling EDS suspension, a 1/5-scale suspension magnet and guideway was constructed. The suspension was tested by using a high-speed rotating test wheel facility with linear peripheral speed of up to 84 m/s (300 km/h). A set of approximate design tools and scaling laws has been developed in order to evaluate forces and critical velocities in the suspension.

Future transport network architectures

The architecture of today's long distance transmission networks, which we call the baseline architecture, is a complex and multilayered hierarchy of TDM circuits. One premise of the baseline architecture is that restoration from network failures is provided mostly by SONET/SDH rings. This article presents an alternative architecture that uses ATM and optical layer cross-connect technology for TDM services. Using a sophisticated set of network design tools developed at AT&T Labs-Research, we show that the alternative architecture offers dramatic capital savings and improved network efficiency over the baseline architecture. Most of this savings can be attributed to use of OLXC mesh network restoration, which makes more efficient use of capacity than SONET/SDH rings, and use of ATM switching for transport of TDM circuits, which consolidates the numerous TDM equipment layers inherent to the baseline architecture. In addition, motivated by the rapid growth of IP services, we analyze in the alternative architecture whether to provide restoration for IP services in the IP layer itself, by rerouting packets over precalculated restoration paths with MPLS, or to alternatively provide restoration of failed IP layer links in the OLXC layer. One potential advantage of IP layer restoration is that network operators may choose to only restore a fraction of the services, in particular the priority services, affected by a network failure. This article gives some methodology of how to determine this fraction at which IP layer restoration is cost-competitive with OLXC restoration.

The design and analysis of real-time systems using the ASTRAL software development environment

ASTRAL is a formal specification language for realdtime systems. It is intended to support formal software development and, therefore, has been formally defined. The structuring mechanisms in ASTRAL allow one to build modularized specifications of complex systems with layering. A realdtime system is modeled by a collection of state machine specifications and a single global specification. This paper discusses the ASTRAL Software Development Environment (SDE), which is an integrated set of design and analysis tools based on the ASTRAL formal framework. The tools that make up the support environment are a syntaxddirected editor, a specification processor, a verification condition generator, a browser kit, a model checker, and a mechanical theorem prover.

4.3.1 The SEDRES Project (Systems Engineering Data Representation And Exchange Standardisation); Producing A Data Exchange Standard Supporting Integrated Systems Engineering

ABSTRACTIntegrated Product Development frequently involves multi‐company and multi‐national teams, using heterogeneous design tool sets. Systems Engineering (SE) must be able to operate in this environment. SEDRES is producing a neutral data exchange standard based on STEP (ISO‐10303), that will embrace product definition aspects crucial to successful SE: product requirements, systems architectures, product functionality, allocation, traceability and configuration management information. The standard will enable SE tools to exchange such information, and should be applicable to many industries.SEDRES is a three‐year European Commission‐funded ESPRIT project, running 1996–1998, which was initiated by Aerospatiale, Alenia, British Aerospace, DASA and Saab. Also contributing are the Universities of Loughborough, Linkoping, and the Australian Centre for Test & Evaluation.This paper describes the emerging standard, reports on early exchanges and on the successful vote for an ISO standardisation activity. It explains how the draft standard is being extended in the second project phase, and future intentions.

Extending User-Centered Methods beyond Interface Design to Functional Definition

The contributions of human factors or usability practitioners to application development often begin with a functional specification handed down from an external source. User-centered design methods are commonly applied to how function is delivered but not what functions will be delivered. We in the Interactive Transaction Systems (ITS) group at the T.J. Watson Research Division of IBM have succeeded, during several application development efforts, in expanding the scope of our user-centered, iterative design approaches to include functional as well as interface definition for both software and hardware (kiosk/workstation) design. By learning our customer's business and owning the entire development process, we can better design our solutions to solve their problems (and their client's problems in the case of service industry solutions). We achieve this by including the functional definition in the first of four phases we have defined for all of our development projects. A significant facilitation for this in the arena of software development has been the CADT (Customer Access Development Toolset) development platform we use to build our applications. This set of tools for iterative application design and development gives us the flexibility to quickly and effectively address emerging functional requirements.

Design planning for high-performance ASICs

Design planning is emerging as a solution to some of the most difficult challenges of the deep-submicron VLSI design era. Reducing design turnaround time for extremely large designs with ever-increasing clock speeds, while ensuring first-pass implementation success, is exhausting the capabilities of traditional design tools. To solve this problem, we have designed and implemented a hierarchical design planning system that consists of a tightly integrated set of design and analysis tools. The integrated run-time environment, with its rich set of hierarchical, timing-driven design planning and implementation functions, provides an advanced platform for realizing a variety of ASIC and custom methodologies. One of the system's particular strengths is its tight integration with an incremental, static timing engine that assists in achieving timing closure in high-performance designs. The design planner is in production use at IBM internal and at external ASIC design centers.

PERTS: A PROTOTYPING ENVIRONMENT FOR REAL-TIME SYSTEMS

This paper describes PERTS, a prototyping environment for real-time systems. PERTS provides a comprehensive set of design, validation, and simulation tools that are built on recent theoretical advances. It also provides software modules that implement wellknown and novel real-time scheduling algorithms, task and resource assignment algorithms, and resource access control protocols. Together, the tools and software modules support the systematic and rigorous evaluation of new designs, experimentation with alternative scheduling and resource management strategies, and the evaluation and validation of the resultant real-time system.