Many organisations produce text based reports from their IT systems. But text based reports don't always show information well enough for good decision making. Automated conversion of these reports into Semantic Web languages could assist greatly with this. So a translation process is required and can be implemented as part of an overall User Driven Modelling/Programming Approach. Once reports are converted to a standardised representation, hierarchical information can be represented as clickable trees and numerical representation as charts.

This makes it possible to customise outputs from existing IT systems and so allows an improvement in readability of information without major changes to the way it's produced. This could provide a large gain at little cost.

Examples of Visualisations are here - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/Visualisation.htm#VisualisationExamples.

Chart/Graph type visualisations are here - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/PeterHale/Charts/charts.htm.

This project just uploaded uses RSS and design skills of University of the West of England to create a space related educational news site. The RSS news page provides an automated update of space news, and there is also an events page and picture gallery.

Space Horizons - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/JANS/spacehorizons/ - Space Horizons is a project that aims to deliver ideas on space and any other related information. Based in the South-West of England, Space Horizons also promotes the idea of space tourism which we are very much involved with. It's the place to be for any space related news, events and information in the South West of England! - Information Technology Management for Business - Year 2.

Space Horizons - UWE - JANS Student Group Project

Project Summary

For this project, we will provide a web environment to explain the business and economics of space, enable improved collaboration amongst space companies and OEMs (Original Engineering Manufacturers). This will help promote and develop the UK's space capability. There are growing opportunities for UK space industry in space tourism, moon and mars missions, satellites, and robotic missions. This project will build on the team members' extensive experience in decision support modelling and visualisation, especially within the aerospace industry. Our strategy is to make available the kind of systems we developed for aerospace companies' internal decision support systems to all industry, organisations and the public. Our partners for this are the West of England Aerospace Forum (WEAF) http://www.weaf.co.uk/ who will be allowing us to extract, visualise and extend the interactivity of their aerospace company network information. We will build an environment where individuals and companies can create their own models. The initial focus is on the space domain, though the techniques will be applicable to any domain. We will enable a wide range of people to create models as well as linking to and visualising server based models. The means to achieve this is provision of freely available, web-based, visual model creation tools that require the minimum possible code writing expertise from end-users. For the complex, interdependent space sector, simplicity of communication and access is essential.

The primary aim for this feasibility study is to establish a method to represent complex models and information in a way that is interactive, accessible and understandable by a wide range of users. This will enable space (and aerospace) industries in the SW region to access relevant information rapidly, and ensure efficient economic interactions throughout the supply chain. The focus for this system will be on using ICT to achieve a long-term aim of providing cheaper and more efficient space transport and so aid the development of this sector of the UK aerospace industry. This will be enabled by the capture and distribution of engineering knowledge for the space transport sector in a novel, and constructionist, 'e-science' environment. There are two main strands to this research:

• modelling of the economics of the space industry using web based technology


• enabling organisations and the non-specialist to model problems, by creating a system that employs end-user programming.

A further objective will be to establish a forum for involvement of aerospace companies, organisations, and the public in furthering collaborative space expertise and investment. The space industry will be used as a test vehicle, though it is clear that this approach could be employed in many areas, including industrial, educational, scientific and business sectors. This feasibility study will enable validation of our approach prior to the application of modelling techniques to these other sectors.

The digital technologies used and the subject area of the space industry are economic opposites. Web software especially is a market where comparatively little acquisition investment is required. Space at present requires massive investment so there is a tendency towards monopoly/oligopoly. Though economic theory tells us that monopoly leads to abnormal profits, this is only sometimes the case with space efforts, this depends on the engineering and scientific difficulty, production techniques and the project aims scientific/commercial. Where the aims are mainly scientific, public money is usually required, through government led agencies, though suppliers may make profits. Simpler and clearer modelling would help to reduce space investment and operational costs. User driven programming assists in increasing the value of workers in relation to ICT, an aim of the World Bank Working Paper (Zhen-Wei Qiang et al., 2004). Thus, it addresses two areas of skill shortage, which are hampering the UK economy, and slowing growth.

Zhen-Wei Qiang C, Pitt A, Ayers S, 2004. Zhen-Wei Qiang C, Pitt A, Ayers S, 2004, Contribution of Information and Communication Technologies to Growth.

Findings

The thesis covered the following areas :-

• Enabling people to create software visually.
  
• Creating design abstractions familiar to domain experts e.g. diagrams for engineers.
  
• Ensuring interoperability using open standards.
  
• Automating user to computer translation process.

This post explains how the alternative approach of User Driven Modelling/Programming used for this thesis to develop models and modelling capabilities compared to that of spreadsheet development, used within other projects. The alternative approach was outlined in this thesis, of using open standards ontologies/taxonomies and a web interface for developing decision support models for design and costing. The stepped translation approach designed and implemented in this thesis enabled structured modelling, and visualisation using interactive technologies.

• Step 1 - Ontology
  
• Step 2 - Modelling Tool
  
• Step 3 - Interactive Visualisation
  

This stepped translation solved problems of the spreadsheet approach as indicated in the table below, and then in more detail in following sections -

Improvement - Achieved By
Maintenance - Structuring and Translation
Extensibility - Structuring and Visualisation
Ease of Use - Visualisation, Interaction, and Translation
Sharing of Information - Shared Ontology and Interoperability

The 3 step translation process created ensures translation of domain level modelling into open standard representation and software and vice versa.

Maintenance

Extensibility

Ease of Use

Sharing of Information

The use of open standards languages for representing information makes it much easier to represent information in a way that makes it accessible both to people and software. Ontology based modelling tools use these open standards and so ensure dependable translation, interoperability, and sharing of information. Web browsers make it possible to share information with many users at once, and so this enables collaboration. Structuring of the information using standardised languages makes it easier to search and visualise the information. This ensuring of interoperability is important for long term use of the overall modelling system.

Conclusion

Within this thesis it is argued that there is a need for software developers to create programs that enable users to solve problems themselves. In effect this involves production of a system to create systems. This approach can widen programming participation by including computer literate non-programmers. This is a reaction to the increased complexity of real world problems and software systems, which makes development of software solutions impractical without greater involvement from end-users. It is difficult for developers to foresee every need of users and use of the software produced, so it makes sense to enable more end-user customisation. It is also argued that the research for this thesis has been a step towards making end-user programming possible. The research ideas look complex at first glance but this research is all about simplifying software development.

The approach of developing decision support models for design and costing using a spreadsheet was compared to the alternative approach of using open standards taxonomies and a web interface for this purpose. The conclusion is that although use of spreadsheets allows for the creation of models relatively quickly they are beset by problems. These relate to Maintenance, Extensibility, Ease of Use, and Sharing of Information. The spreadsheet example and the explanation in the thesis represent problems currently experienced throughout software and computer use.

The alternative approach for this thesis of User Driven Modelling/Programming involves the development of a system, where a model builder, via visual editing of library taxonomies can undertake maintenance and extension of information. Dealing with this proof of concept has indicated that it is easier to maintain, search and share information using this approach than it was using spreadsheets. This also enables much more of the maintenance task to be left to users, who can also customise the system. Creating the infrastructure has taken much more time than it did for the spreadsheet system, but having done so it is much quicker and easier to create further models. This indicates that the extra research and development time taken though far exceeding what would have been required for a spreadsheet modelling project is well worth it in the long term. Also the use of a centralised information source makes these models more reliable than the standalone spreadsheet, standalone decision support models created individually may contain out of date information. In addition, since a well constructed ontology implies that a piece of information can only belong to a unique location, the problems arising from duplicate pieces of information are eliminated. It is also much easier to create models once the infrastructure is in place; this can enable users to develop models. The ability to visualise, search and share information using structured languages and web pages is a huge advantage for creation of dynamic structured views and decision support models over the web.

This research was a test case for a whole new approach that could be possible, of collaborative end-user programming by domain experts. The end-user programmers can use a visual interface where the visualisation of the software exactly matches the structure of the software itself, making translation between user and computer, and vice versa, much more practical. For this reason highly structured visualisations were preferred over web spreadsheets. Semantic Web languages are ideal for representing graphs and trees in an open standard way. The spatial, and tree/graph visualisations used both have the same underlying semantics, and therefore can both be translated to computer languages. In fact it would be much better in the long run to use the Semantic Web languages as standardised programming languages for such problems as this would avoid the need to further translate into other programming languages, and systems. The advantage to this is that of using Semantic Web languages for representation of information, meta-programming, and translation to a visual display for users. The use of Semantic Web languages as a connectivity environment for connecting information, and for connecting users to the information held in Semantic Web data sources enables an environment that could be made easier to use, install and maintain.

More generally a new approach is required to software creation. This approach should involve developers creating software systems that enable users to perform high level programming, and model the problem for which they are the experts. This is an alternative to the provision by developers of modelling solutions that try to provide an out of the box solution that just needs ’tweaking’. Such an out of the box system is not practical considering both increases in complexity of manufactured products, and of software systems themselves. Feedback from publishing the research examples behind this thesis and working with industrial partners indicates that people like to work on their own solutions, providing they are computer literate and confident they have domain knowledge that the developers do not possess. This is true for software development in general, not just in the domain of engineering. Research cited in this thesis from others involved in end-user programming confirms this.

For proving the hypothesis that it is possible to create an end-user programming environment, usable by non programmers, it has been found that structuring and relating of information is all important in this solution. To achieve this, it was only necessary to link the information visually via equations, and store these results for reuse and collaboration. If users can understand and navigate relationships, and add new relationships they can model most problems. It was important to design a visual interface that is intuitive to use, and allows for proper interpretation of the results. Feedback has indicated that users can navigate this structure and manipulate it. This is preferable to ’black box’ solutions that hide information. There are no dead ends or blocks to expanding and improving this approach. To make the system easier to use it is only necessary to trial continually better interfaces, and to assist by providing guidance to the user. There was not sufficient time and resources to expand this research much to areas outside engineering modelling, but there is scope for researchers to improve end-user programming for engineering modelling systems, and to expand the research into other areas.

The SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics Conference) is on this August.

SVG Open 2008 - http://svgopen.org/2008/index.php - 6th International Conference on Scalable Vector Graphics - 26th to 28th August - Nuremberg - Germany - The world conference on SVG will this year take place in the center of Nuremberg. Located in the south of Germany.

I have an SVG page at - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/PeterHale/SVG/SVG.htm - with more information.

There are many computer literate people who are experts in a particular domain. This research examines enabling computer literate engineers to model problems in software by minimising the code writing they need to undertake. Software development is difficult for many engineers as they often do not have the time, experience, or access to software development tools necessary to model their problems. Using a combination of modelling via use of formulae (equations) and visualisation of the way these formulae interact it is possible to construct modelling software without requiring code. Crapo et al (2002) explain 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. This technique of User Driven Modelling/Programming could be widely applicable to any problem that requires linked equations to be represented and tracked, and results from these calculated. While some argue that end-user programming is an insurmountable problem, this problem could be tackled by many researchers co-operating to create specific solutions to different kinds of end user programming problems while also sharing findings, to assist with progress towards a more generic solution.

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.

More Information is available on my Home Page at - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/.

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. So it is necessary to create collaborative tools that allow users to develop software in a way they will be familiar with from their use of spreadsheets.

Burnett et al (2007) state "end-users are using various languages and programming systems to create software in forms such as spreadsheets, dynamic web applications, and scientific simulations. This software needs to be sufficiently dependable, but substantial evidence suggests that it is not." Crapo et al (2002) argue that many users of spreadsheet software can model problems accurately if they are provided with visualisation capabilities to help them build, track, and understand the information relationships, and therefore the problem modelled. Crapo explains that visualisation helps users maintain a hierarchy of sub models at different stages of development and to navigate effectively between them. The way spreadsheets are defined by formulae can aid in allowing editing and tracking of information in models provided that the relationships between formulae are adequately represented. Hanna (2005) explains that a spreadsheet program is defined by formulae and has purely declarative semantics with the order of evaluation determined purely by the dependencies between cells. However, he criticises the impoverished semantics of spreadsheets that severely limit "the ability of programmers (even expert ones) to construct reliable, correct, maintainable programs with well known consequences". There is an alternative solution of research to automatically generating correct spreadsheets, and solve errors of meaning (semantic errors) (Erwig et al, 2006). This thesis concentrates on visualisation in order to make the meaning clearer to the human modellers. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the information structuring, and visualisation capabilities of spreadsheets in order to encourage more reliable modelling and collaboration.

Burnett, M. M., Engels, G, Myers, B. A., Rothermel, G., 2007. End-User Software Engineering Dagstuhl Seminar - http://www.dagstuhl.de/en/program/calendar/semhp/?semnr=2007081.

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.

Erwig, M., Abraham, R., Cooperstein, I., Kollmansberger S., 2006. Automatic Generation and Maintenance of Correct Spreadsheets?. In: Proceedings of the 27th international conference on Software engineering, St. Louis, MO, USA pp 136-145 - http://web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~erwig/papers/Gencel_ICSE05.pdf.

Hanna, K., 2005. A document-centered environment for Haskell. In: 17th International Workshop on Implementation and Application of Functional Languages IFL 2005 Dublin, Ireland - September 19-21 2005.

There are many computer literate people who are experts in a particular domain. Given the opportunity they will develop their own software (Scaffidi, 2005). There is a need in many domains for people to create software such as engineering models, scientific taxonomies, business systems, and in the arts. Examples of software systems that enable creation of models without necessitating code writing are spreadsheets, visual web development systems, and database management systems. Crapo et al (2002) explain the need for a methodology for creation of systems to enable more collaborative approaches to modelling by domain expert end-users that make use of structured and visualised information. Peirce (1904) explained that systems can be represented logically by humans, and this applies to software development and information representation on computers. Thus it could be made possible to represent systems with natural and visual languages. Though Nurminen et al (2003) argue that people prefer usability over automation, it is possible to achieve both by providing a stepped translation capability that ensures users are constantly kept informed of the steps taken. This approach is advocated by (Johnson, 2004). Automated translation from a people-centred view of information to software for computers can aid in software development by domain expert end-users and help ensure they can communicate models directly to computers. Software developers can then concentrate mainly on creating systems that enable domain experts to develop software, rather than developing individual software models on behalf of domain experts, which is difficult and prone to communication problems.

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.

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. - http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1045448&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=17319495&CFTOKEN=29205382&ret=1Fulltext [Accessed 17^th February 2008].

Nurminen, J. K., Karaonen, O., Hatonen, K., 2003. What makes expert systems survive over 10 years-empirical evaluation of several engineering applications. Expert Systems with Applications 24(2) pp 199-211. - http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/630566.html [Accessed 17^th February 2008].

Scaffidi, C., Shaw, M., Myers, B., 2005. Estimating the Numbers of End-users and End-user Programmers. In: IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing, (VL/HCC'05): 207-214 Dallas, Texas. - http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cscaffid/papers/eu_20050923_vlhcc.pdf [Accessed 17^th February 2008].

NASA has issued a request for information for an educational game to develop Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Skills for students. NASA requests a 5 page size 12 font document of ideas.

"The US space agency is exploring the possibility of developing a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game.
The virtual world would be aimed at students and would "simulate real Nasa engineering and science missions".
The agency has published a "request for information" (RFI) from organisations interested in developing the platform."

Nasa believe the game would help find the next generation of scientists and engineers needed to fulfil its "vision for space exploration".

Nasa investigates virtual space - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7195718.stm

NASA Learning Technologies Request for Information: Development of a NASA-based massively multiplayer online learning game - http://ipp.gsfc.nasa.gov/mmo/

NASA Learning Technologies Request for Information: Development of a NASA-based Massively Multiplayer Online Learning Game PDF Document - http://ipp.gsfc.nasa.gov/mmo/MMO_RFI.pdf

DEVELOPMENT OF A NASA-BASED MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE LEARNING GAME - http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/synopsis.cgi?acqid=128415

NASA's Planning its Own Version of World of Warcraft - http://www.universetoday.com/2008/01/18/nasas-planning-its-own-version-of-world-of-warcraft/

I have a space about space research at - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/aerospace.htm.

and

Public Understanding of Science - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/PublicScience.htm.

The research question to be answered in this thesis is - To what extent is it possible to improve collaborative software development through the use of diagrams without requiring people to learn computer languages?

My research involves enabling computer literate people who aren't programmers to create software. The means for this is construction of visual diagrams that represent the task, in a similar way to how family trees and taxonomies can be represented as diagrams. The visual interface is available from a website and the research involves translating this to code. The aim is to enable programming without requiring people to learn computer languages. I am particularly interested in making it possible for a wider range of people to collaborate on software development.

The methodology for this is automation by translation from a human level of abstraction to software.

The theory behind this thesis is that it is possible to create a systematic diagrammatic representation of logical thought to enable representation of user's wishes to a computer.

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.

The hypothesis is that it is possible to create an end-user programming environment, usable by non-programmers, which can have a wide variety of uses. The aim of this research is to create a modelling system that can be edited by computer literate non-programmers, and so demonstrate an application of end-user programming that could be used in a more generic way. The possibilities for a generic user-driven programming environment will be explained. It is possible to create an end-user visual programming environment using Semantic Web technologies, especially for modelling of information, where this approach is well suited. All that is necessary is to link the information visually via equations, and store these results for reuse and collaboration. This can make translation from humans to computers easier and more reliable than current software systems and languages. The use of Semantic Web languages as programming languages would assist greatly with interoperability as these languages are standardised for use in a wide range of computer systems.

The problem examined in this thesis is that of allowing domain experts to create decision support software. This is a way of testing the assumption that these domain expert's thoughts can be represented in a systematic diagrammatic way, and then translated to computer code. The main emphasis is on engineers, who experience problems in creating and sharing their software. The alternatives they have for creation of software are spreadsheets, which do not have collaboration and information modelling abilities sufficiently built in, or complex software that needs considerable expertise to use, and often still has insufficient collaboration or information modelling capabilities.

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

References

An important contribution to Public Understanding of Science and for enabling of new insights would be creation of an online systematic representation of scientific information that gives a holistic view of related knowledge. This would reuse information and ideas provided by other researchers. These systems organise and visualise information. Letondal [1] of the Pasteur Institute provides a tool to generate web interfaces for molecular biology programs using an end-user programming approach. TreeBASE [2] is a relational database of phylogenetic information hosted by the Yale Peabody museum. Hughes [3] of the Computational Biology Unit (CBU) University of Bergen has investigated visualisation of phylogenetic trees and written an application that converts the NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information) [4] taxonomic data into a format that makes it possible to visualise the whole of the NCBI tree of life. Klyne [5] of the Image Bioinformatics Research Group, Zoology Department, Oxford University makes use of Semantic Web technology to build an image publication repository. UK Moths [6] online guide to the moths of Great Britain and Ireland illustrates the role of amateurs who send in pictures to be categorised. Mammals Family tree [7] provides an innovative way of visualising complex trees as a taxonomy on a wheel, this is a technique which could be developed as an interactive visualization. Fishbase [8] is a web accessible and searchable resource for accessing fish information by various categories. IHOP (Information hyperlinked over Proteins) by Hoffman [9] provides a gene network for navigating more than ten million abstracts in PubMed [4]. By using genes and proteins as hyperlinks between sentences and abstracts, this converts the information in PubMed into one navigable resource. Proviision of 3D hyperbolic representations of trees is investigates by Hughes et al [10]. This capability could be provided on the web using Semantic Web Technologies [11] [12] and this would enable others to edit and interact with these represenatations.

Web Taxonomy Creation - http://userdrivenmodelling.blogspot.com/2008/01/web-taxonomy-creation.html

References

[1] Letondal C. - http://www.pasteur.fr/~letondal/ - Pasteur Institute, Computing Center.
[2] TreeBASE - http://www.treebase.org/treebase/index.html - a Database of Phylogenetic Knowledge.
[3] Hughes T. Phylogenetic tree visualisation - Tim's Home Page - http://www.ii.uib.no/~tim/frontPages/treesPage.shtml.
[4] Wheeler DL, Chappey C, Lash AE, Leipe DD, Madden TL, Schuler GD, Tatusova TA, Rapp BA (2000). Database resources of the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Nucleic Acids Res 2000 Jan 1;28(1):10-4
[5] Klyne G, 2007, Building a Semantic Web accessible image publication repository - http://imageweb.zoo.ox.ac.uk/drupal/files/20071002-SWeb-applications.pdf - Image Bioinformatics Research Group - Zoology Department - Oxford University.
[6] UKMoths - http://www.ukmoths.org.uk/ - Welcome to UKMoths, your online guide to the moths of Great Britain and Ireland.
[7] Mammals family tree - Use zoom tool to see mammal details on the circle's edge - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6503045.stm - BBC News Science - Mammal rise 'not linked' to dinos - PDF Family tree visualisation.
[8] Fishbase - http://www.fishbase.org/search.php.
[9] Hoffman R, Information hyperlinked over Proteins - http://www.ihop-net.org/UniPub/iHOP/ - A gene network for navigating the literature.
[10] Hughes T, Hyun Y and Liberles, 2004. Visualising very large phylogenetic trees in three dimensional hyperbolic space. DA. BMC Bioinformatics. BMC Bioinformatics Apr 29;5:48.
[11] Eklund P, Roberts N, Green S, 2002. OntoRama: Browsing RDF Ontologies using a Hyperbolic-style Browser, The First International Symposium on Cyber Worlds, CW02, Theory and Practices, IEEE Press. (2002) pp 405-411.
[12] Talis Engage - http://www.talis.com/engage/ - Community information at your fingertips - an online community information solution that allows citizens to organise, create and publish details of their events, organisations and groups.

Code Generation 2008 - http://www.codegeneration.net/conference/index.php - 25th-28th June 2008 - Cambridge, UK - A growing number of developers are using or planning to use model-based code generation - are you ready for the next evolutionary step in software? - WHO'S CG2008 FOR? - CG2008 is for software practitioners and those with a stake in the future of their development organisation.

Final Call for Speakers:
Submission Deadline: Friday January 18th 2008

We are seeking high-quality session proposals covering topics on
model-driven software development (including Software Factories,
Model-Driven Architecture (MDA), Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs),
Generative Programming, Software Product Lines and related areas).

Sessions could cover topics such as:
- Code Generation and Model Transformation tools and approaches
- Defining and implementing modelling languages
- Domain Analysis and Domain Engineering
- Language evolution and modularization
- Meta Modelling
- Runtime virtual machines versus direct code generation
- Tool and technology adoption

Real-world case studies based on any aspect of these and related
approaches are particularly encouraged although more theoretical
sessions are also welcome.

Accepted speakers have their conference fees waived. We will also be
offering a discount on conference fees to non-speaking academic
participants. More information will be available when the programme goes
online on 25th February.

Visit http://www.codegeneration.net/conference/index.php for more
details on the event or contact me for more information.

What people said about our previous conference - Code Generation 2007:

"I've been working in domain-specific modelling for a dozen years ...
and in this time this has been the highest-quality conference on this
topic that I've been to - and I've been to a few."

"The combined-for that matter, individual-expertise present was
remarkable, and presented a tremendous opportunity for knowledge exchange."

"The presentations were all top quality, making it often difficult to
decide between the concurrently running sessions. The wealth of MDD
knowledge present and the event was impressive, not only from the
presenters, but from the other delegates as well."

Best wishes for a happy and successful 2008.

I have an Events page at which has mainly computing and aerospace events listed and linked to - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/Events.htm.

I gave a SWIG-UK Powerpoint Presentation - at Hewlett-Packard Bristol UK - semantic web interest group - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/InteractiveModellingandVisualisationofInformation.ppt or http://cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/InteractiveModellingandVisualisationofInformation.ppt - November 23rd 2007.

This was on Interactive Modelling of Information, Visualisation and Translation Between different software and ontology representations.

There were many interesting presentations and links to all the talks are at - http://swig.networkedplanet.com/special.html.

More information about my research can be found at http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/ or http://cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/.

I had a comment saying Links don't work unless I remove www from the url. I'm not sure why the link seems OK as it is from my computer but not others so have put both options.

A comment from Tonya on my previous post requesting advice for my creation of a Usability Survey pointed me to this very useful resource -

http://cii.wikispaces.com - The Cii Wiki was created to provide a resource for those considering computer interactive interviewing (Cii), that is, using computers for conducting online surveys and polls.

I would recommend people who are creating online surveys to look at this site, and would welcome any other ideas for sites that can help me, or any general advice.

My survey is available at the top of my home page - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/. I would welcome any participation.

Thank You

I'm developing a survey on usability, I don't think it's quite right yet, but I would still welcome anyone using it to leave feedback on my research topic (or about the survey) - Click Here to take part in a usability survey, and support my PhD research, for anyone who does not want to remain anonymous, I would be pleased to take an interest in their research.

The survey compares these interfaces -

Taxonomy - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/ELearning/ELearningDemonstration1.htm.

Diagrammatic - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/ELearning/ELearningDemonstration2.htm.

And asks for further advice on end-user programming.

I'm interested in feedback from anyone, whatever their level of IT skills.

I'm developing a survey on usability, I don't think it's quite right yet, but I would still welcome anyone using it to leave feedback on my research topic (or about the survey) - Click Here to take part in a usability survey, and support my PhD research, for anyone who does not want to remain anonymous, I would be pleased to take an interest in their research.

The necessary efforts of organisations dealing with cimate and space to reach out to the public can be assisted by interactive online visualisation that encourages public involvement, and this can be further linked to events where the public is involved. An example of such events is the Hewlett-Packard Science Lectures.

Online media can assist in this role and the new Semantic Web and Web 2.0 technologies enable production of software for explanation, visualisation and modelling of scientific and engineering problems. Also this enables development of online software which can be used by non-programmers to developer further software, so generating a cycle of development that could generate a large community of users and new programmers. This encourages communication and collaboration amongst the public as well as scientist and engineers. This involves creation of Semantic Wikis, modelling and visualisation tools that could be linked to scientific models such as climate models, and interactive forums.

An example application could be a link from climate models that allow members of the public to adjust parameters and see the results of such changes (even though the results are generated on high powered computers at the Met Office). This could be made to work in a similar way to the link between personal PCs and servers, where the client does not have to be aware of which servers are performing background tasks. This is similar to other projects such as the BBC Climate experiment, SETI@home and Stardust@home, but would involve the users active involvement in its development.

As an example - Astronomy, has harnessed skills of this very diverse range of people to make new discoveries (Mutchler and Schenk). The SETI@home project encouraged computer owners to use spare capacity for analyzing radio telescope data. The Open University Climate Modelling experiment used a similar approach. Stardust@home asks for volunteers to search for intersteller dust particles and tracks through photos on their computer. The GalaxyZoo project combines the computer and internet technology and human skills, and asks people to identify galaxy types.

NASA and public understanding

This extract from the article - NASA's new outreach plan explains NASA's plans to promote public undersanding of their organisation.

NASA's new outreach plan - The Space Review - by Jeff Foust - Monday, July 2, 2007 - It has long been a central tenet of the space advocacy community that the public would be more willing to support NASA—and, in turn, press the White House and Congress to give NASA more money—if the general public simply knew more about what NASA did and how it was relevant to them.

Web 2.0 and NASA's big five-oh

The document NASA's new outreach plan describes how NASA plans to implement the plan and communicate those messages to the public. That effort will be linked with NASA’s year-long celebration, starting this October, of its 50th anniversary (the agency was officially created on October 1, 1958.) The core message and related themes will be used in a variety of 50th anniversary events, including a series of "NASA Future Forums" around the country: one-day conferences about the role of innovation in economic development, in particular the role NASA plays. Also in the works are a lecture series, new public service announcements, and targeted outreach to state and local leaders linked to upcoming shuttle missions.

Online media will also play a role in this outreach effort. According to the document, NASA is in the process of redesigning its web site to leverage a suite of technologies and techniques collectively known as "Web 2.0" that emphasize communication and collaboration among users. The new web site will include dynamic, customizable content; "social bookmarks" akin to web sites like Digg and del.icio.us; and the ability for the public to comment on NASA content. The document also mentions the creation of a "NASATube" and "NASApedia", presumably similar to the video-sharing site YouTube and editable encyclopedia Wikipedia, respectively.

References
BBC Climate change - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/portal/climate_change/default.stm - news, opinion & explanation from around the BBC.

GalaxyZoo - http://galaxyzoo.org/ - Welcome to GalaxyZoo , the project which harnesses the power of the internet - and your brain - to classify a million galaxies. By taking part, you'll not only be contributing to scientific research, but you'll view parts of the Universe that literally no-one has ever seen before and get a sense of the glorious diversity of galaxies that pepper the sky.

HP Science Lectures - Bristol, UK - http://www.hpl.hp.com/news/lectures/ - The Hewlett-Packard Science Lectures were established in 1996 as a forum for improving the public understanding of science. Held at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, they provide an opportunity for the public to hear distinguished lecturers discuss a broad range of scientific topics, from current research to the interaction between science, technology, art and society.

Mutchler M, Schenk H, Amateur Astronomers and the Hubble Space Telescope - http://www-int.stsci.edu/~mutchler/amateur.html.

Open University Climate Modelling - http://www.open2.net/sciencetechnologynature/worldaroundus/grassroots.html - The development of the climateprediction.net climate model was almost as involved and intricate as the climate it sought to map - here, Bob Spicer recalls the inspirations and frustrations of getting the model created; on the next page, he reveals exactly what the number crunching is for.

SETI@home - http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/ - SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data.

Stardust@home - http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ - August 10, 2007 - Stardust Phase 2 Begins - Today marks the beginning of a new and exciting chapter in the story of Stardust@home. With the launch of the new and improved Stardust@home Phase 2 volunteers ("dusters") will be able to search for interstellar dust particles at an unprecedented level of sensitivity. Even the subtlest tracks and particles, which may have eluded detection in the first phase of the project, now stand an excellent chance of being found by ever-vigilant dusters.

More Information is available at - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/PublicScience.htm.

A future task to be undertaken would be the inclusion of uncertainty in automatically produced models, for situations where accurate information cannot be provided for the model. This would require provision of a way of handling uncertainty for parameters within the ontology, e.g. as 3 values describing a triangular distribution rather than a unique absolute value. The decision support meta-program could be expanded to write out the code to run Monte-Carlo sampling, hence making use of the statistical uncertainty capability. Miller and Baramidze (2005) examine efforts to develop mathematical semantic representations above the syntactical representations of MathML. this effort should make it possible for standardisation of the representation of mathematical expressions that relate nodes, and their values and expressions, to each other. The next stage in the research surrounding this thesis will be provision of constraints to prevent invalid mathematical expressions. Miller and Baramidze also explain their research in Discrete-Event Modelling Ontology (DeMO) for simulation and modelling. This uses OWL to define a simulation and modelling class hierarchy. It would be very useful to create an example to demonstrate this with a practical model to test the use of this ontology.

References

MathML - http://www.w3.org/Math/.

Miller, J. A., Baramidze, G., 2005. Simulation and the Semantic Web. In. Proceedings of the 2005 Winter Simulation Conference. - http://www.informs-cs.org/wsc05papers/297.pdf.

More Information is available at -

Modelling - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/Modelling.htm.

Semantic Web Modelling - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/ModellingSemanticWeb.htm.