Judith Michael

Conceptual Modeling for Ambient Assistance

This paper addresses the conceptual modeling of a persons daily activities, i.e. units of purposeful individual behavior. An integrated set of such models is intended to be used as a knowledge base for supporting that person by an intelligent system when he/she requires so. The work is part of the HBMS1 project, a research project in the field of Ambient Assisted Living: HBMS aims at supporting people with declining memory by action know-how they previously had in order to prolong their ability to live autonomously at home.

Cognitive Modeling and Support for Ambient Assistance

The aim of the Human Behavior Monitoring and Support (HBMS) project is to learn about the individual skills and behavioral knowledge of a person in order to support that person when needed. It is intended as a contribution to enable elderly people to live autonomously in their domestic environment as long as possible. The basic idea is to build a cognitive model of the behavior of a person while she/he is of sound mind and memory. In case of mental incapacitation this model will be used as a knowledge base for generating support information. The paper outlines the first results of the HBMS project with a focus on the investigative survey and the overall architecture of the chosen approach.

Behavior Modeling and Reasoning for Ambient Support: HCM-L Modeler

This paper introduces the architecture and the features of the HCM-L Modeler, a modeling tool supporting the Human Cognitive Modeling Language HCM-L and a comprehensive reasoning approach for Human Cognitive Models based on Answer Set Programming. The HCM-L tool has been developed using the ADOxx® meta modeling platform and following the principles of the Open Modeling Initiative: to provide open models that are formulated in an arbitrary, domain specific modeling language, which however is grounded in a common ontological framework, and therefore easily to translate in another language depending of the given purpose.

HCM-L: Domain Specific Modeling for Active and Assisted Living

Modeling and modeling methods are crucial for information systems engineering but are seldom seamlessly integrated into all phases of development and operation: Practitioners challenge the benefits of modeling and complain about the confusing variety of concepts with overlapping semantics, symbols and syntactic rules of today’s standardized, “universal” modeling languages. Therefore, domain-specific modeling languages (DSMLs) are gaining increasing popularity: they are lean and convenient, support the productivity of modeling, and help to increase model quality and comprehensibility. There are, however, few approaches to embedding a DSML into a domain-specific modeling method (DSMM) that provides guidelines about how to use a given DSML and to evaluate related models. This chapter aims to make a contribution towards filling that gap by discussing, as an example and proof of concept, a domain-specific modeling method for the human cognitive modeling language HCM-L, a DSML for the domain of active and assisted living. As a modeling language without tool support has no chance to be used in practice, we are conducting that discussion on the basis of HCM-L modeler, a tool that was implemented using the metamodeling platform ADOxx and can be accessed via OMiLAB, the Open Models Laboratory for modeling method engineering. HCM-L modeler is component of an ambient assistance system for supporting elder persons in mastering their daily life activities.

Creating a Domain Specific Modelling Method for Ambient Assistance

Domain specific modelling languages (DSMLs) have gained increasing popularity: they are convenient, support the productivity of modelling, and help to increase model quality and comprehensibility. Some work has been published about how to use or evaluate a DSML. In contrast to that, there is hardly any guideline for the DSML creation process and almost none for creating a Domain Specific Modelling Method (DSMM). This paper aims at contributing to fill that gap: it introduces a process for creating a DSMM. For illustration it uses a modelling language that has been created for the domain of Ambient Assistance domain.

Intuitive understanding of a modeling language

The Human Cognitive Modeling Language (HCM-L) was developed for the Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) domain with the goal, to be easily understandable by future users: doctors, caregivers and even end-users themselves, i.e. anybody who needs help for successfully performing an activity. HCM-L is a lean modeling language with only a few concepts. The graphical notation was created considering principles for designing cognitively effective visual notations. This paper presents studies which tested the intuitive understandability of models that are formulated using this language.

Model Centered Architecture

This paper advocates a rigorous model focused paradigm of information system development and use. We introduce the concept of “Model Centered Architecture” that sees an information system to be a compound of various networked models, each of which is formed with the means of a Domain Specific Modeling Language. This languages are tailored to the particular circumstances of the respective system aspect. I.e., from a MOF perspective, MCA focuses on the MOF levels M2 (definitions of the DSMLs to be used for the specification of the system and it’s contexts), M1 (Specification of all System and Data Components using the DSMLs) and M0 (the instances, i.e. models of concrete objects, functions and processes). The transformation of M0 citizens to the respective implementation concepts (Structure → Data, Function→ Program, Process→ Workflow) is delegated to mapping functions defined on M2, restricted on M1 to the particular schemata (in the sense of mappings between the respective sets of schema instances), and instantiated on M0 for the concrete instances. The paper shows how such model centered approach may be applied in practice using two real development projects as running examples.