Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T17:02:44.474Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

User interface for specification language for case-based mechanical design

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2009

Abhay Dandekar ,
Ibrahim Zeid  and
Theodore Bardasz
Abhay Dandekar
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
Ibrahim Zeid
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
Theodore Bardasz
Affiliation:
Computervision Corporation, 14 Crosby Drive, Bedford, Massachusetts 01730, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Case-based design (CBD) systems aim to solve a design problem by tailoring previously solved design problems to the current problem. Designers' specifications are used for indexing the knowledge base of the CBD system to retrieve an appropriate design case. Menu-based systems fail to capture designers' specifications effectively due to lack of expressiveness, while natural language systems are too immature to satisfy the goal. This paper presents the development of a graphical user interface (GUI) to implement a mechanical design specification language (MDSL) (Stelling, 1994) used to facilitate indexing in case-based mechanical design. The specification language is context-free and hence computable. It represents mechanical design knowledge in a (feature):(attribute) format suitable for indexing. An augmented transition network (ATN) parser is built using the grammar of the specification language. The parser provides syntactic as well as semantic checks. It also has capabilities to expand grammar and to adapt to a specific user domain. A graphical front end to the parser assists and guides the user through the specification language syntax in entering the design specifications. Provisions have been made to expand or edit the language grammar and vocabulary. The ATN parser was implemented in Common Lisp and the graphical user interface was written using the Gold Hill Windows Toolkit. Sample user interactions with the interface and screen dumps of the GUI are included.

Keywords

Case-based ReasoningCase-based DesignMenu-based SystemsGUIMechanical Design Specification LanguageATN ParsersLISP
Type
Articles
Information
AI EDAM , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , January 1997 , pp. 17 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bardasz, T. (1991). Mechanical design automation via case base reasoning: An incrementally intelligent approach. M.S. Thesis, Mechanical, Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA.Google Scholar
Bardasz, T., & Zeid, I. (1993). DEJAVU: Case based reasoning: An incrementally intelligent approach. AI EDAM 7(2), 111–124.Google Scholar
Burke, R. (1989). Understanding and responding in conversation: Case retrieval with natural language. In Proc. Workshop on Case Based Reasoning (DARPA), Pensacola Beach, FL. Morgan Kaufman, San Mateo, CA.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N., & Miller, G.A. (1958). Finite state languages. Journal of Information and Control, 9, 91–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fillimore, C.J. (1968). A case for case. In Universals of Linguistic Theory (Bach, E. and Harns, R., Eds.), pp. 1–80. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, New York.Google Scholar
Gazdar, G., & Mellish, C. (1989). Natural Language Processing in LISP. Addison Wesley Pub. Company, Reading, MA.Google Scholar
Gold Hill Windows Reference Manual, 1992. Gold Hill Co., Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Hendrix, G.G., Sacerdoti, E.D., Sagalowicz, D., & Stocum, J. (1978). Developing natural language interface to complex data. ACM Trans. Database Syst. 3(2), 105–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammond, K. (Ed.) (1989). Proceedings Workshop on Case Based Reasoning (DARPA), Pensacola Beach, FL. Morgan Kaufman, San Mateo, CA.Google Scholar
Joshi, A. (1991). Natural language processing. Science 253, 50–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnson, R. (1983). Parsing with transitional networks. In Parsing Natural Languages (King, M., Ed.). Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Kaplan, R.M. (1973). A general syntactic processer. In Natural Language Processing (Rustin, R., Ed.), pp. 193–241. Algorithmic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Kay, M. (1980). Algorithmic schemata and data structures in syntactic processing. Nobel Symp. Text Processing, Stockholm.Google Scholar
King, M. (Ed.) (1983). Workshop on Parsing Natural Languages. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Knuth, D.E. (1968). Semantics of context free languages. Math. Syst. Theory 2, 127–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolodner, J.L. (1989). Selecting the best case reasoning. In Proc. Eleventh Ann. Conf. of the Cognitive Science Society, Erlbaum, Northvale, NJ.Google Scholar
Krulee, G.K. (1991). Computer Processing of Natural Languages. Prentice-Hall Pub., Englewood Cliffs, NJ.Google Scholar
Lewis, P.M., Steamer, R.E. (1968). Syntax directed transduction. JACM 15, 405–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayhew, D.J. (1992). Principles and Guidelines to Software User Interface Design. Prentice-Hall Pub., Englewoods Cliffs, NJ.Google Scholar
Marcus, M.P. (1980). A Theory of Syntactic Recognition of Natural Languages. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA and London.Google Scholar
Pahl, G., & Beitz, W. (1988). Engineering Design. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.Google Scholar
Parikh, R.J. (1966). On context free languages. J. ACM 13, 570–581.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perkins, J. (1991). Representing sentence information. SPIE Conf. Application of Al. SPIE, Los Angeles, CA.Google Scholar
Pu, P. (1993). Introduction: Issues in case based design system. AI EDAM 7(2), 79–85.Google Scholar
Riesbeck, C.K. (1975). Computational understanding. In Proc. Workshop on Theoretical Issues in Natural Language Parsing (Shank, R.C. and Nash-Webber, B.L., Eds.), pp. 15–25. Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Riesbeck, C.K. (1975). In Conceptual Information Processing (Shank, R.C., Ed.), pp. 83–156. North Holland, Amsterdam.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riesbeck, C.K., & Shank, R.C. (1989). Inside Case Based Reasoning. Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc, Inc., Hillsdale, NJ.Google Scholar
Roeck, A. (1983). An underview of parsing. In Parsing Natural Languages (King, M., Ed.). Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Shank, R.C. (1972). Conceptual dependency: A theory of natural language understanding. Cog. Psych. 3(4), 552–630.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singh, G. (1990). Graphical support to programming: A survey of taxonomy. In C.G. International '90, pp. 331–359. Springer-Verlag, New York.Google Scholar
Stelling, J. (1994). A specification language to support indexing in case based mechanical design, M.S. Thesis, Mechanical, Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA.Google Scholar
Ullman, D.G., & Dietterich, T.A. (1987). Mechanical design methodology: Implications of future developments of computer aided design and knowledge based systems. Engrg. Comput. 2(1), 21–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woods, W.A. (1970). Transition network grammars for natural language analysis. Commun. ACM 13, 591–606.CrossRefGoogle Scholar