Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design I

This paper looks at computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) from an information grid viewpoint. We illustrate two collaborative instances in information grid and point out new CSCW requirements. We discuss key pieces of two models in the VEGA-IG (VEGA information grid): model of object and that of subject, which help the achievement of collaborative work and partly solve the difficulties in collaborative work such as unknown participant, dynamic cooperation channel, multi-modal communication, dynamic participants and resources. The two models take loose coupling as their main point and shield many complicated information of the collaborative work. We also discuss two examples of collaborative work in VEGA-IG.

Pen-based User Interface (PUI) is becoming more and more popular. This paper presents (the) universal analysis and specification of characters and structure of PUI. PIBG, a new interaction paradigm, is proposed as the framework for PUI. PIBG Toolkit is also developed as a PUI Software Platform. With the goal of high usability, several applications are developed with PIBG Toolkit. PUI provides a method for natural and concordant interaction, which could facilitate the development and applications of collaborative systems.

In order to get higher efficiency of resource allocation and task scheduling algorithm in grid computing, this paper, based on the analysis of the related work on grid resource management and task scheduling, presents a QoS based structure for Grid Resource Allocation and Management System (GRAM) and a 2-Phase Trust Based Scheduling Algorithm. It is believed that the proposed algorithms can improve the efficiency and reliability of the operation of the grid system.

A key factor in team collaboration is the process followed by participants. Planning this process helps teams to accomplish their goals. In collaborative design environments, process modeling should be used to make the collaboration explicit. In Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) research, we have observed that most environments do not provide support for the definition of collaborative processes by apprentices and facilitators. This support is very important when the approach is based on project-based learning (PBL). Planning the interactions and the process of a project is a way to stimulate group participants to collaborate, thereby promoting interdependency and commitment between the work and the learning activities. We present a cooperative project-based learning environment that supports facilitators and apprentices in the task of planning their work in order to improve awareness about the “learning-how-to-learn” process.

The concept of context can be advantageously applied to the Computer-Supported Cooperative Work field. The term

awareness

has traditionally been used in this area without explicit association to context. This paper attempts to clarify the relationship between these two concepts. In particular, a framework is proposed to understand context and awareness as connected to other concepts used in group work as well. The framework is useful to consider some groupware systems from the perspective of context and to obtain some insight on possible improvements for users. Two examples illustrate the application of the framework.

In this paper, we propose Subtask-based Authorization Service (SAS) architecture to fully secure a type of application oriented to engineering and scientific computing. We minimize privileges for task by decomposing the parallel task and re-allotting the privileges required for each subtask. Community authorization module describes and applies community policies of resource permission and privilege for resource usage or task management. It separates proxy credentials from identity credentials. We adopt a relevant policy and task management delegation to describe rules for task management. The ultimate privileges are formed by the combination of relevant proxy credential, subtask-level privilege certificate and community policy for this user, as well as they conform to resource policy. To enforce the architecture, we extend the RSL specification and the proxy certificate, modify Globus’s gatekeeper, jobmanager and the GASS library to allow authorization callouts, and evaluate the user’s job management requests and job’s resource request in the context of policies.

This paper presents our recent research on network performance measurement. From various perspectives, our work focuses on how to obtain the measuring data using the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Several models are proposed to measure the network performance effectively. These models are then evaluated and validated through implementations and analysis. The results show advantages of the proposed approach for network performance measurement based on SNMP and potential applications in telecommunication domain.

Recently, the cooperation aspect of distributed teamwork in software engineering has become a hot research topic. This paper first reviews the concepts of cooperative software engineering. Then, a process model for cooperative software engineering is investigated, which forms the starting point for the analysis, structuring, management and synchronization of cooperative software development tasks. Next, universal design principles for an environment to support cooperative software development projects are obtained. The identified design principles serve as the basis for the development of the model. Finally, a typical framework for cooperative software engineering environment is proposed and its key components are described.

Bayesian network is an important and powerful method for representing and reasoning under conditions of uncertainty, and has been widely used in artificial intelligence and knowledge engineering. Structure learning is certainly the most difficult problem in Bayesian network research. In this paper we give an introduction to Bayesian networks, and review the related work on leaning Bayesian networks. Then we discuss the major difficulties in structure learning, and propose an efficient algorithm for cooperative learning of Bayesian network structure from database. The experimental results from a case study prove that such an approach is feasible and robust.

Web user profiles are widely applied to complete the high-quality website design and the personalized web services. One issue in this technology is the study of contradiction between the collection of personal data and the protection of user privacy. In order to alleviate the contradiction, this paper provides a new profiling approach, namely non-violative user profiling, which integrates the non-violative strategy and Markov user model ideas. It can extract more exact information automatically with the participation of web users. It has been implemented in our experimental website to identify the design defects and validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

In this paper, we present a generative design method for supporting creative conceptual design in a multi-agent system. The hierarchical multi-agent system architecture offers a promising framework and an evolutionary computational approach provides a basis for supporting generative design in distributed environments. The evolutionary approach relies upon a tree structure rather than a known binary string in general GA (Genetic Algorithm). The system can generate simple 2D sketch shapes, which are generated by using general mathematical expressions, and selected shapes are dealt with to form 3D components. These components are classified and saved in a SQL sever based database (component base). The complex design is implemented via combination of different components that come from the component base. The layout of components is generated by a genetic algorithm. The generative process is illustrated through an architectural design example.

In this paper, we start from a case study of an architecture company and move on to a framework of agents to identify and inform conceptual design. The processes and problems exhibited by the company involved are quite common and can be found in other similar companies. Our intent is to instrument the current process using agent technology, in an effort to improve global awareness during the conceptual design phase, allowing the designers to design so as to facilitate later steps and optimize the process as a whole.

New design optimization techniques and advanced computer technologies have laid the foundation for the emerging fields of distributed multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO). The challenge now faced by designers is to effectively use this vast amount of knowledge. There are many software tools available in each discipline. However, the key problem is how to integrate these tools and databases, which conform to different interfaces and requirements with little consideration to integration and reusability, in a flexible and robust way. This paper proposes a novel ontology-based semantic integration framework for cooperative distributed MDO environments. The semantic integration aspect will provide the foundation for service-oriented architecture for distributed MDO environments. The cooperation aspect will focus on seamless integration among autonomous MDO systems in dynamic open environments, using multi-agent paradigm.

This paper presents a model of formal dialogue between intelligent and autonomous agents and its application to team formation in cooperative design. Using formal dialogue, agents exchange information about their specialty domain, ability, opportunity and willingness. Agents understand each other to form a potential cooperative team, in which joint beliefs and intentions are created. The cooperative tasks can be carried out within the collaborative team, and avoid the blindness in the task decomposition and allocation as usually appeared in cooperative design systems.

Both CORBA and mobile agent technologies have caught a wide attention in research and development fields. Integrating the two technologies to make CORBA objects movable is the main idea of this paper. A CORBA based mobile agent server architecture, called MA_CORBA, is proposed and its prototype is presented.

Focusing on exceptions that occur frequently in Computer Supported Cooperative Design (CSCD), the definition and classification of the exceptions are presented. According to expected and unexpected characteristics of exceptions, three methods are proposed: (1) expected exceptions are automatically dealt with by using Agent Message Event Rule (AMER) during the execution of collaboration processes; (2) document related exceptions were dealt with by adopting Document Tracking Log; (3) the cause of unexpected collaboration exceptions (UCE) is analyzed by using the algorithm of similarity-matching based on knowledge for mining exception cases in order to get the solution of similar exceptions. A prototype system, CoopDesigner, based on the proposed methods, is presented at the end of the paper.

An increasing number of sites including scientific electronic journals, digital libraries and collaboratories have been dedicated to scientific knowledge sharing and exchange in the recent years. Despite the apparent progress, in which traditional journals are migrating to Web and new forms of communication emerge, a closer look at these sites indicates that the scientific publishing model remains essentially unchanged. In this context was born the Configurable Electronic Journal (CEJ) project, a solution for generating configurable and extensible electronic journals. One of the main goals of this work is to apply open source technologies, including W3C Semantic Web technologies, in the design of an innovative environment for the definition of publication processes. CEJ environment is flexible to accommodate different styles of publications, suitable to be used in different processes and disciplines.

This paper first provides a literature review of product development and knowledge management including product development process, design history and domain knowledge. It then presents a method for knowledge-based multi-view process modeling including process implementation, process monitoring, and knowledge management. The integrated framework and hierarchical model of the design history is built. The relationship among process history, design intent and domain knowledge is analyzed, and the method for representation and acquisition of process history, design intent and domain knowledge is presented. The multi-agent based architecture of the knowledge-based product development process management (PDPM) system and its functional modules are described, and the architecture of integrated knowledge management (IKM) system based on PDPM is set up and developed with a B/C/S (Browser/Client/Server) structure. The system is used successfully during the lifecycle of a new type of railway rolling stock development.

According to the requirements of cooperative product development in networked manufacturing environments, a knowledge-based cooperative design technology is proposed. Based on the Chengdu-Deyang-Mianyang Networked Manufacturing and ASP Platform, a knowledge-based networked manufacturing cooperative design platform is developed by exploiting the product function modules, parts management, supplier management, customer management, and resources allocation optimization. In the cooperative design platform, the integration of manufacturing resources of supply chain and the method of client customization and enterprise cooperation are realized in the course of product development. The platform has been put into application in a number of enterprises in the Chengdu-Deyang-Mianyang region of China.

Online configuration for products in the distributed and dynamic computing environment motivates the demand for semantic based cooperation, which takes place in the supply chain under B2B situation. Traditional standalone knowledge model of configuration systems does not meet the new requirements. We propose a multi-ontology based solution. The core idea of this paper is to take the process knowledge of distributed systems into consideration, which supports the integration among distributed configuration systems. Furthermore, the process model provides possibility to optimize solutions for configuration problems. OWL is used as modeling language in order to utilize potential benefits of current Semantic Web technology.

A Web-enabled environment (WEE) for online collaboration has been developed which combines appropriate communications and interconnectivity tools to allow designers to interactively communicate over the Internet in real time, regardless of their IT platforms. The detailed structure of the WEE is presented, followed by description of the key techniques for online collaborative design within the WEE: remote execution of large size executable programs, data file exchange between different CAD systems, and data sharing in real time with distant users.

Distributed synchronous collaborative design and manufacturing is considered as an important aspect of collaborative design and manufacturing in network environments, and is gaining more and more attention. In this paper, C-Superman, a Web-Based synchronous collaborative system is presented. Then, system implementation mode, system architecture and function modules are described. Furthermore, some key technologies such as session communication and data transmission, concurrent control and consistency maintenance, cooperative awareness in remote environments and load balancing are addressed.

This paper presents an industrial application to implement concurrent engineering in a railway rolling stock manufacturer in China. To extend the application towards a knowledge-based distributed collaborative design system, some theoretical thoughts and conceptual considerations about a human centred approach based on knowledge interactions between stakeholders and learning are outlined. Future relevant research to develop multidisciplinary design approach is also discussed.

To facilitate the design of SoC (System-on-a-Chip), we present a hardware/software co-design environment called HSCDE. In this paper, some critical techniques related to HSCDE are revealed, including Platform-Based SoC modeling technology and ant algorithm based hardware/software partitioning technology. HSCDE environment divides SoC hardware/software co-design processes into three design levels, and it also supports the mappings among these design levels by two design mapping processes. Experimental results show that HSCDE effectively supports hierarchical Platform-Based SoC hardware/software co-design methodology, and further statistics reveal that an average of 10%~25% revisions on platform templates are required to get a new SoC design.

This paper presents our recent research work on collaborative dynamic measurement. The main purpose of this research is to design the structure, function and working model of a collaborative dynamic measurement system. This paper first introduces the concept of Computer Supported Collaborative Dynamic Measurement System (CSCDMS) which includes the working model of collaborative measurement group, CSCWMS structure, and collaborative dynamic measurement data processing. The primary objective of CSCDMS is to share the distributed data resources, to reduce the cost and increase the measuring accuracy under the working model of dynamic measurement data processing. The systematic analysis shows that the working efficiency of Collaborative Dynamic Measurement System is much higher than that of the isolated dynamic measurement system.

In order to reduce the training cost and improve the efficiency of using the Smart Switching System (SSS) of electric power substations, this paper proposes a collaborative management and training model for Smart Switching System using the ASP (application service provider) mode. The proposed model facilitates the communication between system user companies and the system provider. It allows a user company to evaluate the Smart Switching System and train its engineers over the Internet during the process of purchasing and deployment of the system.

In view of inconsistency of the judgment matrix obtained by pairwise comparison between increasing alternatives in virtual enterprise (VE) partner selection and evaluation problem by the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a new Web-based fuzzy-AHP method is proposed, in which the priority weights of decision criteria at every hierarchy are identified by the AHP and attribute-values of every alternative are determined by the fuzzy relation matrix, then they are converged to the solution. An prototype system based on this method has been developed, and a case study is used to demonstrate its practicability and effectiveness. The results indicate that the proposed method makes it easier for decision-makers to arrive at a consensus decision, obtain fair and reasonable conclusions and examine the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives in terms of each criterion. In addition, this method is suited to eliminating the drawbacks of existing traditional partner selection approaches or other AHP-based methods.

In fourth party logistics (4PL), network optimization needs to synthesize the entire possible 3PL vendors to provide integrated logistics schemes, which can meet all the requirements of customers. Since there are knapsack constraints and un-knapsack constraints, the computational burden is considered to be a problem and a modest computation is required. In this paper, a 4PL optimization network-model is established and a two-process method is suggested for simplifying the corresponding 4PL network. An example is provided and some analysis is given after the calculation.

Today a high-quality automotive design is one essential factor for the success of a new automobile. The increasing safety, comfort and communication functionalities require coherent visibility and design and handling concepts to avoid irritations of the driver. As a consequence prototypes are used in the automobile industry within the design phases of new cars. This paper describes some examples about how the technology augmented reality can be used to support the automobile development process. In particular we use augmented reality for the completion of rudimentary prototypes. These prototypes consist of only a few real parts. Here the technology of augmented reality can be used for the completion of the prototype. The developed applications complete real automobile prototypes by virtual components to show design variants or to support design reviews. The evaluation of the applications was done at Volkswagen AG.

Applications like cooperative CAD and virtual touring on the Web need to transfer a scene consisting of models and textures from one computer to another. The scene may be very large, and the time to transfer the whole scene is significant. During transferring, the user has to wait until the whole scene is downloaded to the local machine. We propose a new approach to estimate the visual importance of each object or even of each polygon and a method that will selectively transfer the models and textures in the scene. In this way, we can reduce user-waiting time while keeping the image quality the user can see.

E-commerce has rapidly grown with the advent of information and communication technologies. It has also become a promising field for applying VR and AI techniques. However, customers are not provided with the realistic shopping experience as they will enjoy in an actual store or mall. Therefore this paper proposes a multi-agent support for collaborative shopping systems by focusing on simulation and interaction. With combination of the sociality with a virtual environment, the proposed Easy Mall system cannot only imitate real interaction among target customers who are favorable to the same products, but also support the communication between multiple avatars. The system is implemented using VRML, intelligent agents and computer network technologies.

With Digital Virtual Human as a foundation, a distance education prototype system is presented in the paper. The implementation methods of two key technologies in the system are proposed and described. One is to manage Digital Virtual Human mass data based on data grid technology, and the other is to support group collaborations with application collaboration tools. A case study is used to show the validity and feasibility of the system.

Due to increased complexity and flexibility of processes and lack of modelling information, workflow processes are not always defined completely before their execution. Support for incompletely specified processes which require on-the-fly articulation of processes has become a desirable feature of workflow management systems. Unfortunately, this aspect is rather weak in contemporary workflow research. This paper reports innovative research on incompletely specified process support carried out in the context of SwinDeW, a peer-to-peer based decentralised workflow system. In order to extend the SwinDeW architecture and system functions seamlessly for supporting incompletely specified processes, a hierarchical process modelling and execution approach is presented in this paper. This approach supports stepwise elaboration of incompletely-specified processes on-the-fly. Further elaboration of a process is innovatively modelled as essential steps towards the process goal, thus being scheduled to execute as ordinary tasks.

To improve the flexibility of workflow systems, efforts need to be made in the process of workflow modeling and system design. One of the enhancements would be the support of dynamic selection. In this paper, a workflow model based on the extended time interval Petri net with fired mark is presented, which satisfies the requirement of the dynamic treatment of workflows at the execution phase. A three-phase strategy and special node types are used to support dynamic selection, and the discussion about how they could improve the flexibility of the workflow systems is also given. Finally, a prototype system is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed model.

This paper proposes an approach to modeling workflow services based on temporal logic. This model supports the formal specifications of various entities and workflow services for a workflow system. The model can specify the workflow process and its evolution, which are difficult to be supported by the previous models. This model is used to design a workflow specification language. Based on this language, we have developed a workflow service editing tool, which is the kernel of an interactive workflow design environment.

Existing workflow management systems assume that each task is executed by a single worker. There is usually no support for group and cooperative work concepts. This paper extends the traditional organizational model with group concept, proposes a cooperative work enabled workflow model, and discusses the implementation of this workflow system. This involves a marriage of workflow systems and some cooperative tools. The model and system are then illustrated through a case study. The results of applications show some advantages of the proposed approach for supporting cooperative work and potential applications in next generation workflow management systems.

Modern software development puts much emphasis on unified and standard software development processes, such as RUP (Rational Unified Process), TSP (Team Software Process), PSP (Personal Software Process), and XP (Extreme Programming). In order to support these standard processes, this paper proposes a software development process supported platform that takes workflow engine as its core and contains a number of effective elements such configuration management, knowledge management, and agent-assisted personal software process. Based on this integrated platform, the development process of software organizations can be fully automatically controlled with high performance.

Product development (PD) process modeling has been a critical problem in modern PD process management. First we discuss the many benefits of PD process modeling, and then we outline the characteristics of PD pattern in order to provide a full and exact description of it. A powerful modeling language is introduced which is based on the characteristics of modern PD and Hierarchical Timed Colored Petri Nets (HTCPN). A pump development process model based on HTCPN is proposed. The performance analysis of HTCPN and the HTCPN-based process model are presented. Various performance measures of PD process can be generated from the proposed model.

Petri nets are powerful and versatile tools for modeling, simulating, analyzing, designing and controlling of many complex systems. This paper addresses a hybrid approach combining competitive neural network and Petri nets in the formal model of intelligent Petri nets. The proposed model not only takes the descriptive advantages of Petri nets, but also has neuron learning and knowledge reduction ability like competitive neural network. It is suitable for dynamic process and information, e.g., the weights are adjustable. For the simulation of the model, it is applied in the conceptual modeling of supply chain for inter-organizational cooperation in manufacturing industry. The intelligent Petri nets model is an innovative method concerning intelligent transition of Petri nets. Meanwhile, the numerical example illustrates that the proposed model can be applied to the real-time supplier selection for intelligent decision-making, and a novel method is provided for modeling in supply chain concerned.

SystemC can be considered as the best possible language today for system level design and exploration of embedded systems. However, testing SystemC descriptions is still an open issue, since the language is new and researchers are looking for efficient error models and coverage metrics, which can be indifferently applied to hardware and software modules. In this paper we propose a novel approach to automate the test coverage analysis for SystemC descriptions using UML and Aspect-Oriented technology. SystemC meta-model and aspect meta-model are established to support UML customization and extension. They also provide the foundation for aspect weaver and SystemC code generator. Expected functional coverage metric could be extracted from UML timing descriptions so that it is possible to automate the whole test coverage analysis. By using the aspect-oriented technology test functionalities could be added or replaced without modifying the original design. It makes system designs more readable and easier to maintain.

In order to meet the requirements of high responsiveness and unconstrained collaboration in real-time collaborative editing systems, this paper proposes a novel multi-granularity optimistic locking scheme for concurrency control in collaborative editing systems based on relative position. In the proposed scheme, reading lock and editing lock are taken into account, and the start position of locking region and that of operation are relative, and they are not transformed into absolute positions until operations are sent to collaborative sites or locks are added into lock table. Additionally, the granularity of lock can be selected by co-editors optionally, and any co-editor can edit the locking region without being blocked before his/her requested lock is confirmed. The application case study shows that this concurrency control scheme has advantages of high responsiveness, unconstrained collaboration, and good data consistency maintenance.

Hybrid peer-to-peer architectures use special nodes to provide directory services for regions of the network (“regional directory services”). They are a potentially powerful model for developing large-scale networks of complex digital libraries. This paper presents our recent research work on the new content-based text filtering and collaborative filtering based on hybrid P2P (Peer-to-Peer) networks. From various perspectives, our work focuses on how to share the text content and recommend information based on hybrid P2P networks. Several models are proposed toimplementthe content-based text retrieval and collaborative filtering effectively. These models are then evaluated and validated through implementations and analyses. The results show some advantages of the proposed approach for the content-based filtering algorithm based on lexical chain and collaborative filtering algorithm in hybrid P2P network and potential applications in complex digital libraries and distributed information sharing.

This paper proposes a method of generating stochastic overlay simulation network with exact average degree (EAD). It discusses regional distribution of stochastic nodes, selection of core nodes and overlay functional nodes, deductions of new formula of the connectivity probability and the convergence of the connection probability, classification strategy of increasing degree, fast connection strategy of stochastic network. Further explanation of the performance of the stochastic overlay simulation network is also presented.

Semiotics is the study of signs. Application of semiotics in information systems design is based on the notion that information systems are organizations within which agents deploy signs in the form of actions according to a set of norms. An analysis of the relationships among the agents, their actions and the norms would give a better specification of the system. Distributed multimedia systems (DMMS) could be viewed as a system consisted of many dynamic, self-controlled normative agents engaging in complex interaction and processing of multimedia information. This paper reports the work of applying the semiotic approach to the design and modeling of DMMS, with emphasis on using semantic analysis under the semiotic framework. A semantic model of DMMS describing various components and their ontological dependencies is presented, which then serves as a design model and implemented in a semantic database. Benefits of using the semantic database are discussed with reference to various design scenarios.

Web-based interactive design system works ineffectively for mass of data are transferred on narrow bandwidth network. In order to decrease data transferring in CSCW process, a Rapid Inducing Solid Model (RISM) is provided. First, RISM is built to represent the geometric information and operation structure of product. Then based on RISM components which connected to corresponding surface lists, traditional CSG model is extended to construct an operation history tree. Therefore, common operations set and message mechanism could be built to make displaying model work individually to a certain degree. Based on the ACIS geometry engine, a cooperative design system has been implemented for testing. The results show that the model is effective and also provides a new framework for Web applications.