Spreadsheets are difficult to use in applications, where only incomplete or inexact data (e.g., intervals) are available-a typical situation in various design and planning tasks. It can be argued that this is due to two fundamental shortcomings of the computational paradigm underlying spreadsheets. First, the distinction between input and output cells has to be fixed before computations. Second, cells may have only exact values. As a result, spread-sheets support the user only with primitive iterative problem solving schemes based on trial-and-error methods. A constraint-based computational paradigm for next generation interval spreadsheets is presented. The scheme makes it possible to exploit incomplete/inexact data (intervals), and it can support problem solving in a top-down fashion. Current spreadsheets constitute a special case of the more general interval constraint spreadsheets proposed.

Using the theory of fuzzy sets, this paper develops a fuzzy logic reasoning system as an augmentation to a rule-based expert system to deal with fuzzy information. First, fuzzy set theorems and fuzzy logic principles are briefly reviewed and organized to form a basis for the proposed fuzzy logic system. These theorems and principles are then extended for reasoning based on knowledge base with fuzzy production rules. When an expert system is augmented with the fuzzy logic system, the inference capability of the expert system is greatly expanded; and the establishment of a rule-based knowledge base becomes much easier and more economical. Interpretations of the system’s power and possible future research directions conclude the paper.

An efficient locally minimum-time trajectory planning algorithm for coordinately operating multiple robots is introduced. The task of the robots is to carry a common rigid object from an initial position to a final position along a given path in three-dimensional workspace in minimum time. The number of robots in the system is arbitrary. In the proposed algorithm, the desired motion of the common object carried by the robots is used as the key to planning of the trajectories of all the non-redundant robots involved. The search method is used in the trajectory planning. The planned robot trajectories satisfy the joint velocity, acceleration and torque constraints as well as the path constraints. The other constraints such as collision-free constraints, can be easily incorporated into the trajectory planning in future research.

The specific semantics of CAD objects are analysed concerning their nature their dynamicity and their consistency during the design process. The nature of CAD objects is concerned with their structure and relationships. The dynamicity is concerned with the evolving nature of the objects, i.e. their behavior. The consistency is concerned with their completeness and relationships with integrity constraints.

A new methodology for semantic constraints management and control is defined. It relies extensively on database and expert system technologies for the implementation of new concepts, e.g. logical prototypes of objects and object equivalence class.

It provides a sound and unified basis for modelling the dynamic nature of complex objects, concerning both the management of their structure and the certification of the update operations, i.e. the control of their correctness.

The functionalities of CADB, a prototype expert database system that supports these features, are detailed. CADB is currently implemented in Prolog on VAX™ 11/785 and APOLLO™ workstations.

Analogies provide better concept generation in engineering design. This ideation can be measured by metrics such as usefulness, novelty, variety, quality, completeness, and quantity. In bioinspired design, biological analogies are used to inspire design concepts. Biological analogies have been provided in earlier studies to measure ideation effectiveness. Tools like IDEA-INSPIRE, DANE, etc., allow designers to search analogies using functions, behaviors, and structures. However, we wanted to inquire about the effect of providing a very large number of biological analogies (26), fulfilling the same function to develop bioinspired solutions. In this paper, an empirical study has been performed to analyze the effect of biological analogies on ideation. The designers are exposed to provided multiple biological analogies and generate concepts for which four ideation metrics: novelty, variety, quality, and quantity metrics are evaluated. The results are compared to the unaided condition where other designers are given the same task. A new method to measure variety using a 2D matrix has been presented. The results suggest that designers can generate bioinspired solutions when multiple biological analogies performing similar functions are provided in a presentable format. Statistically, exposure to multiple biological analogies in idea generation can significantly increase the variety of design ideas. The novelty, quality, and quantity for the biological group and control group remain the same.

The formal approach to shapes and their algebras, as it appears in shape grammar theory, has been reviewed. It starts with geometric elements and their partial algebras, continues to shapes, their algebras, and boundaries, as well as algebras that calculate with shapes and their boundaries. There is a number of new concepts introduced along the way. These include diagonal decompositions and their algebras which simplify calculations with shapes, b-paired diagonal decompositions which extend calculations with shapes and their boundaries from diagonal shapes only to all shapes, and m-order boundaries which extend the concept of shape boundaries and allow for calculations with multiple representations of shapes. It also shows that algebras of shapes are infinite direct sums of diagonal algebras.

This study presents an application to optimize the use of an L-cut guillotine machine. The application has two distinct parts to it; first, a number of rectangular shapes are placed on as few metal sheets as possible by using genetic algorithms. Second, the sequence for cutting these pieces has to be generated. The guillotine's numeric control then uses this sequence to make the cuts.

In this work, an artificial neural network model is established to understand the relationship among the tensile properties of as-printed Ti6Al4V parts, annealing parameters, and the tensile properties of annealed Ti6Al4V parts. The database was established by collecting published reports on the annealing treatment of selective laser melting (SLM) Ti6Al4V, from 2006 to 2020. Using the established model, it is possible to prescribe annealing parameters and predict properties after annealing for SLM Ti-6Al-4V parts with high confidence. The model shows high accuracy in the prediction of yield strength (YS) and ultimate tensile strength (UTS). It is found that the YS and UTS are sensitive to the annealing parameters, including temperature and holding time. The YS and UTS are also sensitive to initial YS and UTS of as-printed parts. The model suggests that an annealing process of the holding time of fewer than 4 h and the holding temperature lower than 850°C is desirable for as-printed Ti6Al4V parts to reach the YS required by the ASTM standard. By studying the collected data of microstructure and tensile properties of annealed Ti6Al4V, a new Hall-Petch relationship is proposed to correlate grain size and YS for annealed SLM Ti6Al4V parts in this work. The prediction of strain to failure shows lower accuracy compared with the predictions of YS and UTS due to the large scattering of the experimental data collected from the published reports.

This paper presents a preliminary study into the spatial features that can be used to distinguish creativity andefficiency in design layouts, and the distinct pattern of cognitive and metacognitive activity that is associated with creative design. In a design experiment, a group of 12 architects were handed a design brief. Their drawing activity was recorded and they were required to externalize their thoughts during the design process. Both design solutions and verbal comments were analysed and modelled. A separate group of experienced architects used their expert knowledge to assign creativity and efficiency scores to the 12 design solutions. The design solutions were evaluated spatially. Protocol analysis studies including linkography and macroscopic analysis were used to discern distinctive patterns in the cognitive and metacognition activity of designs marked with the highest and least creativity scores. Entropy models of the linkographs and knowledge graphs were further introduced Finally, we assessed how creativity and efficiency correlates to experiment variables, cognitive activity, metacognitive activity, spatial and functional distribution of spaces in the design solutions, and the number and type of design constraints applied through the course of design. Through this investigation, we suggest that expert knowledge can be used to assess creativity and efficiency in designs. Our findings indicate that efficient layouts have distinct spatial features, and that cognitive and metacognitive activity in design that yields a highly creative outcome corresponds to higher frequencies of design moves and higher linkages between design moves.

This study aims to develop a multidisciplinary artificial hybrid machine learning (AHML) approach to reduce the scanning time (ST) of the human wrist and improve the accuracy of 3D scanning for anthropometric data collection. A systematic AHML approach was deployed to scan the human wrist distal end optimally using a portable SENSE 2.0 3D scanner. A central composite design (CCD) matrix was developed for three input variables; light intensity (LI = 12–20 W/m2), capture angle (CA = 10°–50°), and scanning distance (SD = 10–20 inches) for executing the experimental runs. For accuracy evaluation, the wrist perimeter on the distal end was checked using CREO Parametric software for wrist perimeter error (WPE). Various AHML tools were developed using: response surface methodology (RSM), multi-objective genetic algorithm RSM, and multi-objective genetic algorithm neural networking (MOGANN). The optimal process parameters recommended by the hybrid tools were experimentally validated for their prediction accuracy. The MOGANN approach combined with the Bayesian regularization algorithm (trainabr) provided the best mutual combination of optimal ST = 20.072 sec and WPE = 0.375 cm corresponding to LI = 12.001 W/m2, CA = 29.428°, and SD = 18.214 inch, with a significant percentage reduction of 55.83% in WPE. Executing 3D scanning of the human wrist over the optimized process parameters predicted by AHML tools will ensure the availability of precise scans for the rapid prototyping of customized orthotic devices in a reliable manner.

This paper describes an application of artificial intelligence to support software reuse. We begin by discussing the characteristics of software engineering that establish dynamic reorganization as a requirement for a repository of software artifacts. We then present an experimental system that uses incremental concept formation as the basis for dynamic reorganization, and the conceptual hierarchy that was generated by the system for a set of 67 artifacts. The hierarchy is compared to a hierarchy produced manually by independent investigators, and the automatic hierarchy is evaluated in terms of retrieval efficiency and retrieval reliability. The paper ends with a discussion of three projects that share similar objectives with our work.

Having no fundamental difficulties with Woodbury and Burrow's article, I explore some implications of their work based on my experience, and that of PhD students advised by me, with developing design support systems. I suggest that such systems need a distinct task layer on top of the computational layer, where the power of a system rests. I also express unease with some details of the article under review, in the hope of contributing to a wider discussion.

Over the past 20 years I have focused on the synthesis process, the process of creation, of bringing together ideas and objects to fulfill and enable needs. Synthesis is a core engineering activity, the partner in the design and analysis cycle of engineering (and other) design. Synthesis is the basis of innovation, the enabler of creating that which is new. Over the past 20 years, research and practice in the area of synthesis and innovation has become more intricate, more complex, and more complete in its breadth of exploration and depth of understanding and delivery. Research in the area that was started over the past 10 to 20 years is now being commercialized, beginning to impact the way design is practiced. The state of the art of algorithms, theories, and processes for the computing basis of synthesis research today can be found in Formal Engineering Design Synthesis (Antonsson & Cagan, 2001). This discussion is not a review of the literature or state of the art, but rather my views of the field of innovation, its emergence into a scientific study, areas of focus for future research, and some of my experiences in each of these areas.

Searching for information is an ubiquitous need in today's data-oriented environments. However, a request for search often entails the service and cooperation of tools managing a diversified set of tasks. In this article, we explore how tools in the form of cooperating agents can be deployed for information management. We describe an agent framework called GAME (goal-oriented, agent-managed environment), and focus on how GAME agents search cooperatively for information requested by a user. Cooperative search entails several issues such as coordinating agent activities, maintaining transparency to agent heterogeneity, and designing information formats to be shared among the agents that require examination. This article analyzes these issues and describes how they are handled in the GAME framework. Cooperative search effectively supports collaboration and information sharing not only among agents in a domain, but also among GAME agents developed across domains. We illustrate the application of cooperative search in task-oriented domains such as Manufacturing and Front Office showing how GAME promotes intradomain and interdomain collaboration in a Factory environment.

One of the principal advantages of affordance-based design is that Gibson's theory of affordances is a relational theory, akin to other relational approaches such as relational biology and relational computer science. The relationships between artifacts and their designers and users are of such primary importance that only a theory that is able to deal with those relationships directly appears to be sufficient for describing the wide breadth of problems in engineering design. However, there is no precise definition for what qualifies as a relational theory. In mathematics, we do find something approaching a theory of relations, dating back at least to Charles Peirce's Logic of Relatives around 1870. While rather general, Peirce's ideas on the subject laid the foundation for advances in the 20th century, including the relational model of databases. This paper is a first attempt at applying the mathematics of relations to affordances, with the aim of more precisely characterizing affordances, which heretofore have been difficult to define and, lacking appropriate mathematics, nearly impossible to subject to computation. Meanwhile, the implicit computability of affordances as relations is demonstrated by examples drawn from engineering, physics, computer science, biology, and architecture.

Assembly optimization of printed circuit boards (PCBs) has received considerable research attention because of efforts to improve productivity. Researchers have simplified complexities associated with PCB assembly; however, they have overlooked hardware constraints, such as pick-and-place restrictions and simultaneous pickup restrictions. In this study, a hybrid group search optimizer (HGSO) was proposed. Assembly optimization of PCBs for a multihead placement machine is segmented into three problems: the (1) auto nozzle changer (ANC) assembly problem, (2) nozzle setup problem, and (3) component pick-and-place sequence problem. The proposed HGSO proportionally applies a modified group search optimizer (MGSO), random-key integer programming, and assigned number of nozzles to an ANC to solve the component picking problem and minimize the number of nozzle changes, and the place order is treated as a traveling salesman problem. Nearest neighbor search is used to generate an initial place order, which is then improved using a 2-opt method, where chaos local search and a population manager improve efficiency and population diversity to minimize total assembly time. To evaluate the performance of the proposed HGSO, real-time PCB data from a plant were examined and compared with data obtained by an onsite engineer and from other related studies. The results revealed that the proposed HGSO has the lowest total assembly time, and it can be widely employed in general multihead placement machines.

Cyber–physical–social systems (CPSS) are physical devices that are embedded in human society and possess highly integrated functionalities of sensing, computing, communication, and control. CPSS rely on their intense collaboration and information sharing through networks to be functioning. In this paper, topology-informed network information dynamics models are proposed to characterize the evolution of information processing capabilities of CPSS nodes in networks. The models are based on a mesoscale probabilistic graph model, where the sensing and computing capabilities of the nodes are captured as the probabilities of correct predictions. A topology-informed vector autoregression model and a latent variable vector autoregression model are proposed to model the correlations between prediction capabilities of nodes as linear functional relationships. A hybrid Gaussian process regression model is also developed to capture both the nonlinear spatial and temporal correlations between nodes. The new information dynamics models are demonstrated and tested with a simulator of CPSS networks. The results show that the topological information of networks can improve the efficiency in constructing the time series models. The network topology also has influences on the prediction capabilities of CPSS.

Documents are a useful source of expert knowledge in organizations and can be used to foresee, in an earlier stage of a product's life cycle, potential issues and solutions that might occur in later stages of its life cycle. In this research, these stages are, respectively, design and assembly. Even if these documents are available online, it is rather difficult for users to access the knowledge contained in these documents. It is therefore desirable to automatically extract the knowledge contained in these documents and store them in a computer accessible or manipulable form. This paper describes an approach for the first step in this acquisition process: automatically identifying segments of documents that are relevant to aircraft assembly, so that they can be further processed for acquiring expert knowledge. Such identification of relevant segments is necessary for avoiding processing of unrelated information that is costly and possibly distracting for domain relevance. The approach to extracting relevant segments has two steps. The first step is the identification of sentences that form a coherent segment of text, within which the topic does not shift. The second step is to classify segments that are within the topics of interest for knowledge acquisition, that is, aircraft assembly in this instance. These steps filter out segments that are unrelated, and therefore need not be processed for subsequent knowledge acquisition. The steps are implemented by understanding the contents of documents. Using methods of discourse analysis, in particular, discourse representation theory, a list of discourse entities is obtained. The difference in discourse entities between sentences is used to distinguish between segments. The list of discourse entities in a segment is compared against a domain ontology for classification. The implementation and results of validation on sample texts for these steps are described.