Showing all 12 Tech Reports linked to Zdenek Zdrahal
Concept learning - investigating the possibilities for a human-machine dialogue
Everyone around us learns. As a flower needs to adapt to the light, an animal to its environment, we people need to adjust to our complex social or personal conditions of life. Because of that we definitely learn during our entirely life. So, we could say that is better to start learning anytime. We could say that learning process is one of the most important parts of our existence. For examples teenagers are more likely to be receptive to the learning environment than older people. Then, what...read more
A Generic Library of Problem Solving Methods for Scheduling Applications
In this report we propose a generic library of problem-solving methods for solving scheduling applications. Some attempts have been made in the past at developing a library scheduling problem-solvers but in some cases these earlier proposals subscribe to a specific application domain of scheduling, which restricted their reusability, while in some other cases they subscribe to the specific problem-solving technique which may be applicable only to a subset of the space of scheduling problems....read more
ID: kmi-05-11
Date: 2005
Author(s): Dnyanesh Rajpathak, Enrico Motta, Zdenek Zdrahal, and Rajkumar Roy
Resources:
Towards a Logical Framework for Sequential Design
Engineering design is usually seen as a knowledge-intensive process that driven by certain objectives eventually delivers an artefact having the desired properties or functions. Design is inherently iterative and the design goals evolve together with the solutions. Many current design theories present more or less efficient ways for finding a suitable solution to the given goals. However, they often leave open the question of the 'solution talkback'. Under 'solution talkback' we understand the...read more
Towards a Framework for Acquisition of Design Knowledge
Engineering design is a knowledge-intensive process driven by various design objectives. Design is an iterative process where the objectives evolve together with the solutions in order to deliver an artefact with the desired properties and functions. Many design theories developed so far suggest more or less efficient ways for finding a suitable solution to the given goals. However, they often leave open the issue of 'solution talk-back'. Discovery of new design objectives and amendment of the...read more
Date: 1998
Author(s): Zdenek Zdrahal and John Domingue
Resources:Enriching Representations of Work to Support Organisational Learning
The ENRICH project will develop tools and methodologies supporting organisational learning addressing three core business needs: * Supporting individuals and groups to continuously reflect on and improve work practices. * Supporting distributed groups to share 'best practices' and improve their coordination efforts. * Promoting the establishment of 'virtual centres of excellence' that serve to identify core competencies and nurture their development by bringing people together (across...read more
The World Wide Design Lab: An Environment for Distributed Collaborative Design
In ever increasing frequency, designers are required to collaborate across large geographical boundaries. This collaboration presents the participants with new challenges. In this paper we describe how we have addressed two of these challenges using Internet technology. The first challenge is "How can designers discuss complex design artifacts at a distance?". Designers' discussions have a complex structure. For example, a designer can refute, justify, or revise a design proposal. These...read more
Improving Competence by Integrating Case-Based Reasoning and Heuristic Search
We analyse the behaviour of a Propose & Revise architecture in the VT elevator design problem and we show that this problem solving method cannot solve all possible cases covered by the available domain knowledge. We investigate this problem and we show that this limitation is caused by the restricted search regime employed by the method and that the competence of the method cannot be improved by acquiring additional domain knowledge. We therefore propose an alternative design problem solver,...read more
Parametric Design Problem Solving
The aim of this paper is to understand what is involved in parametric design problem solving. In order to achieve this goal, in this paper i) we identify and detail the conceptual elements defining a parametric design task specification; ii) we illustrate how these elements are interpreted and operationalised during the design process; and iii) we formulate a generic model of parametric design problem solving. We then re-describe a number of problem solving methods in terms of the proposed...read more
Solving VT in VITAL: A Study in Model Construction and Knowledge Reuse
In this paper we discuss a solution to the Sisyphus II elevator design problem developed using the VITAL approach to structured knowledge-based system development. In particular we illustrate in detail the process by which an initial model of Propose&Revise problem solving was constructed using a generative grammar of model fragments and then refined and operationalised in the VITAL operational conceptual modelling language (OCML). In the paper we also discuss in detail the properties of a...read more
ID: kmi-95-09
Date: 1995
Author(s): Enrico Motta, *Kieron O'Hara, *Nigel Shadbolt, Arthur Stutt and Zdenek Zdrahal
Resources:Multiple Agent Systems for Configuration Design
This paper investigates how the task of configuration design can be carried out using concepts of multiple agency. Configuration design is the task of selecting components from a predefined set to complete a system which meets a given functional specification and other design constraints. It is a class of task which is conventionally solved using a single agent reflecting an arbitrary balance of the design criteria chosen by the system designer. To study the efficacy of the multiple agent...read more
The Trouble with What: Issues in method-independent task specifications
In this paper we discuss some issues concerning the organization of knowledge for reuse and we critically examine the ideas of knowledge separation and minimal ontological commitments.. Because knowledge structures can play multiple roles in a domain, it is not necessarily the case that search-control knowledge can be neatly separated from a domain ontology. This is particularly the case when only procedural descriptions of a task are available. Because expert knowledge is often `messy', clean...read more
