Software Engineering Commons^™

Enabling The Interoperability Of Large-Scale Legacy Systems, Kalyan Moy Gupta, Michael A. Zang, Adam Gray, David W. Aha, Joe Kriege, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

Legacy system data models can interoperate only if their syntactic and semantic differences are resolved. To address this problem, we have developed the Intelligent Mapping Toolkit (IMT), which enables mixed-initiative mapping of meta-data and instances between relational data models. IMT employs a distributed multi-agent architecture so that, unlike many other efforts, it can perform mapping tasks that involve thousands of schema elements. This architecture includes a novel federation of matching agents that leverage case-based reasoning methods. As part of our pre-deployment evaluation for USTRANSCOM and other DoD agencies, we evaluated IMT’s mapping performance and scalability. We show that combinations of …

Pre-Conference Proceedings Of The Focus Symposium On Representation Of Context In Software Data → Information → Knowledge, Collaborative Agent Design Research Center

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

For the past 20 years commercial corporations and government agencies have suffered under the limitations of stove-piped computer software applications that function as discrete entities within a fragmented data-processing environment. In the United States of America (US) military services, lack of interoperability has been identified by numerous think tanks, advisory boards, and studies, as the primary information systems problem (e.g., Army Science Board 2000, Air Force SAB 2000 Command and Control Study, and NSB Network-Centric Naval Forces 2000). Yet, despite this level of attention, all attempts to achieve interoperability within the current data-centric information systems environment have proven to be …

Knowledge Management Enterprise Services (Kmes): Concepts And Implementation Principles, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

The purpose of this paper is to present concepts and implementation principles related to the design and development of reusable software services that are capable of assisting users at the operational level. Knowledge Management Enterprise Services (KMES) are an implementation of the service-oriented architecture paradigm, with a focus on the exchange of data within the meaningful context of a particular application (i.e., knowledge) domain. This requires a KMES service to incorporate a high level representation of this knowledge domain in the form of an ontology that is shared among all collaborating services within the application environment and at the same …

Alternative Paths To Intelligent Systems, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

This paper examines the three prevalent approaches to Artificial Intelligence (AI), namely symbolic reasoning systems, connectionist systems, and emergent systems based on the principles of the subsumption theory. Distinguished by their top-down and bottom-up mechanisms all three approaches have strengths and weaknesses. While the logical reasoning approach is precise and well supported by mathematical theories and procedures, it is constrained by a largely predefined representational model. Connectionist systems, on the other hand, are able to recognize patterns even if these patterns are only similar and not identical to the patterns that they have been trained to recognize, but they have …

Knowledge Management Enterprise Services (Kmes): Concepts And Implementation Principles, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

The purpose of this paper is to present concepts and implementation principles related to the design and development of reusable software services that are capable of assisting users at the operational level. Knowledge Management Enterprise Services (KMES) are an implementation of the service-oriented architecture paradigm, with a focus on the exchange of data within the meaningful context of a particular application (i.e., knowledge) domain. This requires a KMES service to incorporate a high level representation of this knowledge domain in the form of an ontology that is shared among all collaborating services within the application environment and at the same …

Enhancing The Face Of Service-Oriented Capabilities, Kym J. Pohl, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

With today’s focus toward discoverable web services, Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) are becoming increasingly prevalent. To support an effective interaction between services and their clientele, the sophistication of the interface, or face, such services present is of critical importance. Without a rich, expressive nature, such services struggle to satisfy the industry promises of reuse, composability, and reduced inter-component dependencies. Especially relevant for domain-oriented applications, services must present sufficient levels of expression to allow for an effective exchange of relevant context. Further, such communication should be offered in an asynchronous manner to promote both work flow efficiency and limited coupling.

This paper …

Icodes (Integrated Computerized Deployment System) Technical And Operational Description, Cesar Diaz, Billy Waiters, Jerry Pickard, Jason Naylor, Steven Gollery, Patrick Mcgraw, Michael Huffman, John Fanshier, Matt Parrott, Steve O'Driscoll-Packer, Boone Pendergrast, Evan Sylvester, Jens Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

Over the past decade CDM Technologies, Inc. (CDM) in conjunction with the Collaborative Agent Design Research Center (CADRC) at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) in San Luis Obispo, has developed a suite of information-centric software tools in support of military deployment and distribution processes. All of these tools feature agents that are capable of reasoning about data in the context provided by an internal information model. Together they represent an evolving suite of adaptive Knowledge Management Enterprise Services (KMES) that can be readily configured into a net-centric planning and decision-support toolset for a particular application domain.

As a set …

Pre-Conference Proceedings Of The Focus Symposium On Advances In Intelligent Software Systems, Collaborative Agent Design Research Center

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

A very powerful new type of information systems technology is rapidly emerging, driven by government and commercial needs for expert decision-support and knowledge management. One very apparent result of this technology is increasingly intelligent software systems. Computer programs with collaborative agents that are capable of automatically reasoning about data and the dynamic changes in data that occur in real world decision-making situations are already in use by the military and are now transitioning to the commercial world.

Tabu Search For Optimization Of Military Supply Distribution, Ben Weber, Brett Bojduj, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

The dynamic and non-hierarchical nature of the military domain presents a challenge for traditional supply chain optimization. Flow networks and simulation techniques have been applied to the military distribution problem, but are unable to provide time-definite delivery to customers. Recently, optimization approaches have been independently applied towards strategic and operational levels of planning. However, decomposing military distribution into separate problems forces optimization techniques to utilize imprecise data. The size of the military distribution problem has prevented optimization techniques from providing end-to-end planning capabilities. This paper presents a Tabu Search algorithm for simultaneously solving strategic and operational levels of planning. The …

Transway®: Planning With The Tabu Search Algorithm, Joshua Nibecker, Dennis Taylor, Robert Chambers, Harmony Larsen, Ken Cudworth, Clay Warren, Mark Porczak, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

Military deployment and distribution responsibilities call for intelligent collaborative tools in support of strategic and operational planning functions involving the sustainment and movement of military forces. The sustainment requirement is generated at the operational level and is dynamic. It is composed of shifting priorities responding to changes in commander’s intent and changes in the operational situation.

The TRANSWAY software application is designed as a set of intelligent collaborative tools supporting operators performing planning and re-planning tasks in a dynamically changing decision-making environment. TRANSWAY includes several agents with strategic and operational planning and re-planning capabilities. The principal agent is based on …

Elements Of Human Decision-Making, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

The purpose of this paper is to present some understandings of the human problem-solving activity that we have gained in the Collaborative Agent Design Research Center (CADRC) over the past two decades. Since we feel strongly that the human decision-maker should be an integral component of any computer-based decision-support system, it follows that we would have endeavored to incorporate many of the elements that appear to be important to the user in the design of these systems. The complexity of the human cognitive system is evidenced by the large body of literature that describes problem-solving behavior and the relatively fewer …

Perspective Models As A Means For Achieving True Representational Accuracy, Kym Jason Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

Accurate and expressive representation of the subject matter over which a context-oriented, decision-support system operates is fundamental to the effectiveness and longevity of the resulting solution. Often taking the form of an ontology, such extensive representational models, by their very nature, are rich in both relationships and fine-grained objects. It is, however, these two strengths that can significantly increase complexity for its users in addition to adversely affecting system performance. Further, due to the multitude of compartmentalized facets (i.e., populations of distinct, reasoning agents) inherent in such software solutions, it is important to recognize that a single-minded omniscient set of …

Goods Movement Security: An Information Technology Problem, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

This paper discusses the security problems associated with the movement of goods across international in-land borders and at ocean ports. The author proposes an information technology solution approach that is based on the profiling of international shipments. The collection of data describing the end-to-end movement of a shipment from the initial acquisition transactions, throughout the various transshipment stages, to the final delivery, allows intelligent software to assist customs and homeland security officials to determine the risks associated with the shipment long before it reaches the inspection point. The technical basis and architecture of the SecureOrigins™ software system is described. Designed …

The Tirac™ Development Toolkit: Technical Description, Russell Leighton, Lakshmi Vempati, Alan Davis, Mark Porczak, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

This report provides a technical description of the Toolkit for Information Representation and Agent Collaboration (TIRAC^™) software framework for the development of intelligent decision-support applications. An overview of the transformational forces that have precipitated the need for a development toolkit capable of supporting a distributed, information-centric software environment, and the objectives of TIRAC™ are contained in a companion CDM Technical Report (CDM-17-04) entitled: “The TIRAC^™ Development Toolkit: Purpose and Overview.”

TIRAC™ is an application development framework and toolkit for distributed decision-support systems incorporating software agents that collaborate with each other and human users to monitor changes (i.e., …

A Translational Web Services Bridge Solution For Meaningful Interoperability Between Potentially Disparate Systems, Kym J. Pohl, Lakshmi Vempati, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

An emerging issue in the world of context-centric software-based decision-support is the need for potentially disparate systems to interoperate in meaningful and useful ways. Such interoperability must go beyond the elementary communication of data and endeavor to support a more powerful context-oriented inter-system relationship. A key issue in such functionality is the support, moreover the promotion, of meaningful interoperability while still retaining individual system representations, or perspectives. In other words, the meaningful integration of potentially disparate systems in a manner that allows each collaborating system to retain its potentially unique means of representing, or perceiving, the domain over which it …

Intelligent Software Systems In Historical Context, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

The purpose of this chapter is to trace the evolution of intelligent software from data-centric applications that essentially encapsulate their data environment to ontology-based applications with automated reasoning capabilities. It is argued that a distinction may be drawn between human intelligence and component capabilities within a more general definition of intelligence, and that such component capabilities can be embedded in computer software. The primary vehicle in the quest for intelligent software has been the gradual recognition of the central role played by data and information, rather than the logic and functionality of the application. The three milestones in this evolution …

The Icdm Development Toolkit: Technical Description, Russell Leighton, Lakshmi Vempati, Alan Davis, Mark Porczak, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

This report provides a technical description of the Integrated Cooperative Decision-Making (ICDM) software toolkit for the development of intelligent decision-support applications. An overview of the transformational forces that have precipitated the need for a development toolkit capable of supporting a distributed, information-centric software environment, and the objectives of ICDM are contained in a companion CDM Technical Report (CDM-16-04) entitled: “The ICDM Development Toolkit: Purpose and Overview”.

ICDM is an application development framework and toolkit for distributed decision-support systems incorporating software agents that collaborate with each other and human users to monitor changes (i.e., events) in the state of problem situations, …

Interoperability And The Need For Intelligent Software, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

In my introduction to this year’s conference I will address six questions that I believe come to the core of our conference theme of interoperability. Do we human beings resist change? Is it in fact a human problem and not a technical problem that we are dealing with? Can non-human intelligence exist? Do we even have a need for intelligent software? How did software, particularly intelligent software (i.e., if we accept that there is such a thing) evolve over the past several decades, and what is all this talk about a Semantic Web environment? And, finally, what does the …

Interoperability And The Need For Intelligent Software: A Historical Perspective, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

With the objective of defining the interoperability theme of this year’s conference it is the purpose of this paper¹ to trace the evolution of intelligent software from data-centric applications that essentially encapsulate their data environment to ontology-based applications with automated reasoning capabilities. The author draws a distinction between human intelligence and component capabilities within a more general definition of intelligence; - a kind of intelligence that can be embedded in computer software. The primary vehicle in the quest for intelligent software has been the gradual recognition of the central role played by data and information, rather than the logic …

Proceedings Of The 2004 Onr Decision-Support Workshop Series: Interoperability, Collaborative Agent Design Research Center

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

In August of 1998 the Collaborative Agent Design Research Center (CADRC) of the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), approached Dr. Phillip Abraham of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) with the proposal for an annual workshop focusing on emerging concepts in decision-support systems for military applications. The proposal was considered timely by the ONR Logistics Program Office for at least two reasons. First, rapid advances in information systems technology over the past decade had produced distributed collaborative computer-assistance capabilities with profound potential for providing meaningful support to military decision makers. Indeed, some systems based on …

The Tirac™ Development Toolkit: Purpose And Overview, Jens G. Pohl, Kym Jason Pohl, Russell Leighton, Michael Zang, Steven Gollery, Mark Porczak

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

This report provides an overview description of the Toolkit for Information Representation and Agent Collaboration (TIRAC™) software framework for the development of intelligent decision-support applications. More technical descriptions of TIRAC™ are contained in a companion CDM Technical Report (CDM-19-03) entitled: ‘The TIRAC™ Development Toolkit: Technical Description’.

TIRAC™ is an application development framework and toolkit for decision-support systems incorporating software agents that collaborate with each other and human users to monitor changes (i.e., events) in the state of problem situations, generate and evaluate alternative plans, and alert human users to immediate and developing resource shortages, failures, threats, and similar adverse conditions. …

Pre-Conference Proceedings Of The Focus Symposium On Intelligent Software Systems For The New Infostructure: Baden-Baden, Germany, Collaborative Agent Design Research Center

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

Over the past several years the papers in this annual series of symposia have increasingly centered on the realization of a human-computer collaboration environment in which computer-based software agents with reasoning capabilities provide meaningful support to human decision makers. It is therefore quite appropriate that the first paper in the 2004 Proceedings should address the historical evolutionary path of ‘intelligent’ software leading to the goal of a semantic Web environment. The realization of this goal is now in sight, driven by public security threats that are increasingly relying on technology for effective countermeasures.

The Evolution Of Intelligent Computer Software And The Semantic Web, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

The purpose of this paper is to trace the evolution of intelligent software from data-centric applications that essentially encapsulate their data environment to ontology-based applications with automated reasoning capabilities. The author draws a distinction between human intelligence and component capabilities within a more general definition of intelligence, which may be embedded in computer software. The primary vehicle in the quest for intelligent software has been the gradual recognition of the central role played by data and information, rather than the logic and functionality of the application. The three milestones in this evolution have been: the separation of data management from …

Knowledge Management Using Semantic Web Languages And Technologies, Steven J. Gollery, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

Each organization of more than a few persons generates a number of documents containing information about the activities of the organization. The sum of these documents provides a kind of organizational memory that can be used both in evaluations of past performance and as the basis of future planning based on previous experience.

Unfortunately, the nature of these documents mitigates against the reuse of information for purposes other than those for which each document was originally intended. To locate all the information about some aspect of the organization, it frequently becomes necessary for human beings to search a mass of …

The Icdm Development Toolkit: Purpose And Overview, Jens G. Pohl, Kym Jason Pohl, Russell Leighton, Michael Zang, Steven Gollery, Mark Porczak

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

This report provides an overview description of the Integrated Cooperative Decision-Making (ICDM) software toolkit for the development of intelligent decision-support applications. More technical descriptions of ICDM are contained in a companion CDM Technical Report (CDM-18-04) entitled: ‘The ICDM Development Toolkit: Technical Description’.

ICDM is an application development framework and toolkit for decision-support systems incorporating software agents that collaborate with each other and human users to monitor changes (i.e., events) in the state of problem situations, generate and evaluate alternative plans, and alert human users to immediate and developing resource shortages, failures, threats, and similar adverse conditions. A core component of …

Sils Mrat: A Multi-Agent Decision-Support System For Shipboard Integration Of Logistics Systems, Michael Zang, Jonathan Lee, Joyce Gaoiran, Adam Gray, Jered Gray, Charles Hayek, David Nau, Chad Pond, Michael Rutter, Zachary Speck, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

This report describes work performed by CDM Technologies Inc. on subcontract to ManTech Advanced Systems International, Inc. (Fairmont, West Virginia), and under sponsorship of the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The principal aim of the SILS (Shipboard Integration of Logistics Systems) project is to provide a decision-support capability for Navy ships that integrates shipboard logistical and tactical systems within a near real-time, automated, computer-based shipboard readiness and situation awareness facility. Specifically, SILS is intended to provide the captain of a ship and his staff with an accurate evaluation of the current condition of the ship, based on the ability of …

Ustranscom: Corporate Information-Centric Environment, Collaborative Agent Design Research Center

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

As a result of foresight and planning that has established a logical data model (i.e., the Master Model), a set of standard reference tables and 17 migration software systems as the foundation of a disciplined Corporate Data Environment (CDE), USTRANSCOM now finds itself in the enviable position of being able to implement DoD’s vision of a Global Information Grid (GIG) with speed and confidence. The urgency with which DoD views the need to shift the burden of tedious data filtering and interpretation tasks from human operators to automated machine-based processes, is reflected in the CDE and provides the opportunity for …

Split Knowledge Level Modeling, Michael A. Zang, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

Traditional approaches to building intelligent information systems employ an object model to define a representational structure for the information of interest within the target domain of the system. At runtime, the model provides a constrained template for the creation of the individual object instances and relationships that together define the state of the system at a given point in time. The ontology also provides a vocabulary for expressing domain knowledge typically in the form of rules (declarative knowledge) or methods (procedural knowledge). Agents operating within the system utilize the encoded knowledge to progress the state of the system towards the …

Demonstration Of A Typical Ontology-Based Collaborative Agents System: Seaway, Anthony Wood, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

In San Luis Obispo we have seventy-seven SEAWAY systems which are being prepared for fielding, and we are deep into the design of the follow on version. So, we are discussing a decision support system which is operational. Before we explore SEAWAY, we probably ought to talk about defining decision making problems and applying decision support.

In the case where the senior decision maker has poor decision skills, even the best decision support will make only the most marginal of difference. However, good decision support can make a huge difference if you have just an adequate decision process and adequate …

Ontological Approaches For Semantic Interoperability, Michael A. Zang, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

This paper provides a basic description of the concept of an ontology. It then describes how ontologies are structured and employed in the context of interfaces between software based information systems. This usage is discussed in the context of three successive levels of semantic interoperability between two example systems. The paper goes on to suggest that the interfaces between information systems should perhaps be viewed and implemented as systems themselves. The paper concludes by providing a brief summary of what was discussed.