The paper is concerned with the use of the active object paradigm in designing active databases. The active object is an interesting means to best represent the dynamics of an information system. The authors propose a...
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The paper is concerned with the use of the active object paradigm in designing active databases. The active object is an interesting means to best represent the dynamics of an information system. The authors propose a classification of real world objects following two categories: (i) the persistent active object that describes an object offering services when requested and reacts to events produced in its environment, and (ii) the activity that represents a functionality (or a process) of the information system. The main focus is on the specification of the behavior of an active object through an 'automaton' in agreement with the event-condition-action paradigm. Interactions between objects are modeled by an interaction model inspired by the OMT approach. To illustrate their model, they show how to map the specification of the two active object categories towards a relational implementation.
The design and implementation of a hybrid modelling and simulation strategy is described. The strategy is based on the use of equations, sequential function charts (Grafcets), rules, and object-orientation. This resul...
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The design and implementation of a hybrid modelling and simulation strategy is described. The strategy is based on the use of equations, sequential function charts (Grafcets), rules, and object-orientation. This results in a hybrid model base which supports both the hierarchical representation of system structure and the description of the continuous, discrete, and heuristic components of a model. Coupled with the hybrid model base is the notion of hybrid simulation, based on the concurrent execution of a continuous simulator, a discrete simulator, and a heuristic simulator (inference engine). The three simulators exchange information through interactions which are modelled as notional objects with attributes which specify the nature of the interaction and the types of variables involved in the interaction. The strategy is implemented in, and is fully integrated with, the G2 realtime expert system. This enables the framework to serve a dual purpose as a facilitator of the integration of simulation models with large-scale hybrid systems and a design vehicle for such functions as scheduling, supervisory control, sequence control and production optimisation. The strategy is applied to the modelling and simulation of a rolling mill, to demonstrate its potential.
The virtual synchrony model for group communication has proven to be a powerful paradigm for building distributed applications. implementations of virtual synchrony usually require the use of failure detectors and fai...
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The virtual synchrony model for group communication has proven to be a powerful paradigm for building distributed applications. implementations of virtual synchrony usually require the use of failure detectors and failure recovery protocols. In applications that require the use of a large number of groups, significant performance gains can be attained if these groups share the resources required to provide virtual synchrony. A service that maps user groups onto instances of a virtually synchronous implementation is called a light-weight group service. This paper proposes a new design for the light-weight group protocols that enables the usage of this service in a transparent manner as a test case, the new design was implemented in the Horus system, although the underlying principles can be applied to other architectures as well. The paper also presents performance results from this implementation.
We describe a hybrid system for dealing with content-based retrieval from a library of images. An agent architecture is used in conjunction with a neural network to match and retrieve images. We explain how we define ...
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We describe a hybrid system for dealing with content-based retrieval from a library of images. An agent architecture is used in conjunction with a neural network to match and retrieve images. We explain how we define and use our image indices which allows us to treat the problem in a distributed fashion. We combine the indices with a multiple agent approach to help reduce our search space and to retrieve an image as a parallel action. The resulting system is one which is flexible but controlled. A neural network is used to generate a feature vector from the images which is used by the agents. The agents are based on the theories behind Lilies. Lilies (Localisation and InterLeaving strategies) was developed to deal with multiple agents for a planning environment. Lilies was used to prototype the initial representation of the agents used for searching the database. Although an implementation of the search-agents has been developed in Lilies, we also describe in this paper the design to convert the agent model to C++CL platform. C++CL is an objectoriented framework layered on top of PVM which allows planned and unplanned reconfiguration of distributed systems. We introduce two issues of distributed systems: a neural net, for image compression; and the design of an agent searching architecture using C++CL.
For an object-orienteddesign methodology to be effective, it is important to provide methods and tools for validating the design specification before going into the implementation phase. The paper proposes a design m...
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For an object-orienteddesign methodology to be effective, it is important to provide methods and tools for validating the design specification before going into the implementation phase. The paper proposes a design methodology and a related object-oriented specification language which allows the validation of specifications through simulated execution, or through automatic exhaustive simulation for a certain subset of the language. The paper also discusses the relation of this design methodology and language to other design methodologies which are in wide use, such as the entity-relationship model for databases, the ASN.1 notation used for Open systems Interconnection (OSI) communication protocols, as well as methodologies used in the standardization committees for the elaboration and description of various kinds of distributed systems standards. It is shown how these different approaches can be integrated into a single methodology and language, using the OSI Directory System as an example, which is explained in certain detail.
This paper describes practical design and implementation experiences gained when creating Group Support systems (GSS) in a networked personal computer environment. Examples of GSS based on the shared context model and...
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This paper describes practical design and implementation experiences gained when creating Group Support systems (GSS) in a networked personal computer environment. Examples of GSS based on the shared context model and implemented using C, C++, and Actor languages are presented. Graphical user interfaces and multitasking extend traditional methods for supporting group work. An object-oriented communication system is introduced comprised of objects that provide support for all inter- and intraprocessor communications between the GSS applications. Multiple levels of data service are provided to maintain shared data, coordinate user views, and transmit cursor positions in a convenient and efficient manner. The applications presented not only demonstrate the viability of implementing GSS on personal computer-based systems, but also show the ability to develop complex applications in different programming environments that make use of common routines. The unique properties of the object-oriented paradigm greatly facilitate the creation and use of Group Support systems.
Embedded computer systems, incorporated in various types of products, are common in many everyday goods, industrial equipment and machine automation systems. Because embedded systems have been developed for several ye...
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Embedded computer systems, incorporated in various types of products, are common in many everyday goods, industrial equipment and machine automation systems. Because embedded systems have been developed for several years in the context of certain product domains, but for different customers and based on different technologies, families of embedded systems have emerged in those product domains. Such families need to be constantly re-engineered for developing new systems. Yet, organised reuse of the experiences gained from the development of certain system families is not widespread. In connection with the increased use of object-oriented methodologies in the development of real-time computer systems, better means will be provided for reusable embedded software architectures and components. As a result of the developments in the 1980s, re-engineering for reusability requires in practice the redesign and generalisation of individual structured embedded system models and software implementations as object-oriented models and implementations. However, there is a gap between the results of research on pure object-oriented approaches and their implementation for production use in a re-engineering process of embedded software. A pure object-oriented approach would result in the losing of the straightforward traceability between the re-engineered analysis and design models and the original structured models. Combinative and adaptive object-oriented approaches seem to be reasonable for the re-engineering process, because they incorporate and modify traditional static, dynamic and functional modelling techniques into object-oriented modelling. The reasons for this opinion are justified in this paper using the remodelling of control software of machine automation systems as an example.
This paper presents an aided design methodology of flexible manufacturing system control with a view to industrial implementation. The approach considered through a modelling phase, the a validation phase by simulatio...
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This paper presents an aided design methodology of flexible manufacturing system control with a view to industrial implementation. The approach considered through a modelling phase, the a validation phase by simulation and finally a distributed implementation phase. In the modelling phase, based on the Petri net formalism, we demonstrate the hierarchical aspect which separates the part now control and the product resource control. Tn addition, we emphasize generic aspects which allow us to use an object-oriented approach. These aspects and the set of modelled objects are directly used in the simulation and production phases after an automatic translation in an implementation language (ADA in our case). In consequence, the distributed location for those two phases is well facilitated from the viewpoint of the approach used.
Model-based objectorientedsystems Engineering (MOOSE) is a full lifecycle computer systems engineering method intended for the development of products that make use of application specific embedded and distributed c...
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Model-based objectorientedsystems Engineering (MOOSE) is a full lifecycle computer systems engineering method intended for the development of products that make use of application specific embedded and distributed computer systems. The method is divided into a number of phases that effect a series of transformations leading to an implementation, and it is supported by a Product Engineers workbench that supports the capture, translation and execution of the model.
The volume and complexity of printed circuit boards (PCBs) that use surface mount technology has increased tremendously over the past decade. The intricacy of the design and manufacturing functions associated with thi...
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The volume and complexity of printed circuit boards (PCBs) that use surface mount technology has increased tremendously over the past decade. The intricacy of the design and manufacturing functions associated with this domain is continuously increasing. Several researchers have documented the significance of the design functions on product life cycle costs. lit the surface mount PCB assembly area, the integration of the design and manufacturing activity is hampered by the lack of sufficient, in-depth manufacturing knowledge among the PCB designers. Also, the heuristic nature of manufacturing knowledge coupled with the frequent advances in the state-of-the-art has resulted in the lack of widespread in-depth process knowledge. This research focused on the design and development of a knowledge-based methodology which can be used to assist the design engineer in the surface mount PCB assembly domain. The rules relate primarily to the solderability, cleanability and reflow aspects of the design. An objectoriented programming (OOP) methodology is used. The OOP framework allows for structured and modular development and implementation of the knowledge-based design advisor. It allows for the easy maintenance and update of the software along with the integration of knowledge bases and databases. The system has been partitioned into three major components - the user interface, the update mechanism along with the inference engine, and the database management utility. An important feature of this research has been the focus on updateability of the design advisor with respect to data and knowledge (rules). The logic or the rules within the system have been developed in an updateable format. The calculations required during the firing of the rules are performed by dynamic linked libraries (dlls). The design advisor has been developed in the Windows operating system using the C++ language. The database manipulation functions are handled by Code Base 5.0 libraries.
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