Catherine Baudin

Recovering rationale for design changes: a knowledge-based approach

As a compromise between the text-string solution and the automated design solution for capturing rationale for design decisions, it is assumed that the goal of the designer is to satisfy a set of requirements and that the rationale for design decisions can be inferred by comparing how different design alternatives meet these requirements. Accordingly, the rationale for a design change is either to satisfy constraints that were previously violated, or to create a design version that better satisfies the constraints. To implement this approach, mechanisms to evaluate how the device being designed satisfies the requirements at different stages of the design process are proposed. Alternative design solutions are organized into design records, indexed by the design requirements, that can be compared. To organize these design records, a hypertext system is integrated with a knowledge-based framework capable of supporting structural and behavioral models of an engineered device as well as formal requirement representations. The expected benefits of the method and the difficulties associated with it are discussed.<<ETX>>

No multimedia without representation

Without represen(a[icsn multimedia will not happen. Computers tire basically deaf, blind, and ignorant, and will remain so for quite some time. Only by creating representations for media con[ent will we be able to construct large, robust multimedia sys[ems that support content-based manipulation of video, audio, and images. Yet the research community that deals with representation (A1 researchers) and the community that deals with media manipulation (multimedia researchers) have, for the most part. not come inro contact. The purpose of this panel is to incite debate about the role of representation of multimedia contenl by bringing these two communities together. Our intention IS to confront rese~rchers at ACM Multimedia’94 with a variety of positions al-rout the need for content representation in largescalc multimedia systems We argue that work in knowledge reprcscn[ation IS essential to the construction of robust multimedia systcrns t{>manage media content.

Ask how it works: an intelligent interactive manual for devices

We describe Ask How It Works, a prototype interactive intelligent manual for devices, based on novel intelligent training systems called ASK Systems.