33993842
Using WordNet for case-based retrieval of UML models
Software complexity has increased substantially in the last decade. This has made software development teams work faster and under tight budgets. Reusing software can be a way of solving this problem. Companies should reuse previous working solutions in new projects, decreasing the development time and increasing software quality. But there are at least two requirements to implement this solution. One is that the company must have a central knowledge repository with software specifications, designs and code from previous system developments. The second one is to have at the disposal tools capable of using this repository in an intelligent way. We have developed a system capable of providing these requirements. It has a central knowledge base that can be used through Case-Based Reasoning. The knowledge base integrates a common ontology called WordNet. providing classification for software objects. This paper focuses on the retrieval of design models using the combination of WordNet and Case-Based Reasoning. We also present a retrieval example, and experimental work showing the performance of the retrieval and ranking mechanisms.
5517190
A Model for Creativity in Creature Generation
This paper brings a proposal and general specification of a new project that aims to apply Conceptual Blending (Fauconnier and Turner 1998) as a process of creature generation in games. The project we describe is based on Divago (Pereira and Cardoso, 2003 and should be able to bring novelty among creatures that populate a game. Moreover, it is expected to extend these capabilities to other objects in a game, towards a very dynamic environment. Since this is a work in progress, we provide the first preliminary results or experimental examples and try to provide the reader with a clear image of the framework to be followed.
15250271
Evaluation of Case-Based Maintenance Strategies in Software Design
CBR applications running in real domains can easily reach thousands of cases, which are stored in the case library. Retrieval times can increase greatly if the retrieval algorithm can not cope with such an amount of cases. Redundancy can also be a problem, focusing retrieval alternatives in a very restricted search space. Basically, the system's performance starts to degrade with the increase of the case-base size. Case-base maintenance allows CBR systems to deal with this problem, mainly through the use of case selection criteria. In this paper we present an experimental study about several case-base maintenance policies developed till now. We adapted and implemented these policies to a CBR system for software reuse and design, testing the applicability of these policies to cases with a complex representation (combination of tree and graph representations).
18713951
Using CBR for Semantic Analysis of Software Specifications
Helping software designers in their task implies the development of tools with intelligent capabilities. One such capability is the integration of natural language understanding in CASE tools, thus improving the designer/tool communication. In this paper, we present a CBR approach for the generation of UML class diagrams from natural language text. This approach is implemented in a CASE tool, with the goal of helping the software designer create the first system model. We describe the natural language conversion module and give an overview of the tool in which it is integrated. Experimental results for retrieval and adaptation mechanisms are also presented.
9759378
Noun Sense Disambiguation with WordNet for Software Design Retrieval
Natural language understanding can be used to improve the usability of intelligent Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools. For a software designer it can be helpful in two ways: a broad range of natural language terms in the naming of software objects, attributes and methods can be used; and the system is able to understand the meaning of these terms so that it could use them in reasoning mechanisms like information retrieval. But, the problem of word sense disambiguation is an obstacle to the development of computational systems that can fully understand natural language. In order to deal with this problem, this paper presents a word sense disambiguation method and how it is integrated with a CASE tool.
11245975
Experiments with free concept generation in Divago
This paper presents a set of experiments we carried out with, Divago, a system that is an attempt to implement our ideas towards a computational model of creativity. It is expected to be able to generate novel concepts out of previous knowledge. Here we show its behaviour with a large dataset constructed independently by other researchers consisting of over 170 nouns (for a project named C^3). Each noun is represented with a syntax that is equivalent to the one adopted for Divago. We apply a two step experimentation procedure, which starts by ''training'' the system with ''preferred outcomes'' and then allowing it to do free generation, constrained by the pragmatic goal of a given query. We evaluate the results and make a short discussion regarding well-defined criteria of novelty and usefulness. We also present a comparison with a similar experiment done with C^3.
8238424
GVR: A New Genetic Representation for the Vehicle Routing Problem
In this paper we analyse a new evolutionary approach to the vehicle routing problem. We present Genetic Vehicle Representation (GVR), a two-level representational scheme designed to deal in an effective way with all the information that candidate solutions must encode. Experimental results show that this method is both effective and robust, allowing the discovery of new best solutions for some well-known benchmarks.
35936505
Finding Manufacturing Expertise Using Ontologies and Cooperative Agents
The new product development process, in its early phases, congregates knowledge from diverse domains and sources, spread among specialists that usually are not aware of each other’s research interests. This work presents a tool designed to make the establishment of new communities or teams easier. The tool organizes their informal vocabulary into formal domain categories, in order to correlate them, and advises its users of potential networks they could belong to. An approach based on ontologies and machine learning is used to structure and make knowledge acquisition / retrieval, together with agents that cooperate and coordinate the access to the knowledge. The tool automatically updates its knowledge base relieving the user from tasks she/he is unfamiliar with. Initial experiments demonstrated the potential of this kind of tool. A test case is being developed encompassing members of a scientific network in the manufacturing area. Results will be analyzed envisaging its broader use and application to different knowledge domains.
12781827
On the influence of GVR in vehicle routing
A comparative study is made between a new evolutionary approach for the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) and a standard evolutionary model, based on Path Representation. Genetic Vehicle Representation (GVR) is the new two-level representational scheme designed to deal in an effective way with all the information needed by candidate solutions. Experimental results, obtained from a set of VRP instances, show performance improvements when GVR is used.
10585259
Three-phase immiscible displacement in heterogeneous petroleum reservoirs
We describe a fractional-step numerical procedure for the simulation of immiscible three-phase flow in heterogeneous porous media that takes into account capillary pressure and apply it to indicate the existence of a so-called "transitional" wave in at least some multi-dimensional flows, thereby extending theoretical results for one-dimensional flows. The step procedure combines a second-order, conservative central difference scheme for a pertinent system of conservation laws modeling the convective transport of the fluid phases with locally conservative mixed finite elements for the associated parabolic and elliptic problems.
43422353
Manufacturing Automation Network's Cooperative E-Space
Associating people into cooperative networks can be beneficial for both the individual and the community. It can occur by sharing expertise, vision and talent of different participants. Manufacturing Automation Network - Manet - is a Brazilian academic and research network that pools together human and material resources of academic institutions and research centers active in the fields of manufacturing and automation. Currently, a logical and computing infrastructure is being developed to make the Manet operation feasible through the Internet. A distributed infrastructure, named Cooperative e-Space - CeS, is being designed offer to people that already participate in cooperative network, a new infrastructure for sharing information, taking into consideration the special characteristics of their community, in a way that can lead to knowledge sharing.