Search results

The intelligent agent object (IAO) system is a multi‐paradigm development environment which can be used to create intelligent agent systems for manufacturing or other domains. The IAO system was developed from the rule‐based object (RBO) system which is a programming environment integrating both the rule‐based and object‐oriented paradigms. Propagation‐oriented programming, access‐oriented programming and group‐oriented programming are among the extensions included in the IAO system. Its most unusual contribution is the propagation‐oriented programming paradigm which is not found in most systems. A key application is the messenger inferencing structure which is a user‐extendable framework supporting multiple knowledge representation, meta‐inference control, and distributed inference. This allows the IAO system to go beyond predicate logic based production rule programming. New developments are also introduced for access‐oriented programming. The IAO system can be used to develop integrated manufacturing systems such as the prototype automated guided vehicle planning and control system, which is briefly described.

Summarizes the basic tenets of an object‐oriented database system, including a brief history of object‐oriented programming as well as a discussion of what the object‐oriented approach entails. Includes definitions on key concepts and terminology. Discusses the pros and cons of the object‐oriented model, along with a comparison with relational database systems. Finally, covers a development plan for implementing an object‐oriented database system, with details about what types of costs and concerns are involved.

An object oriented finite element model is presented. The main advantage of this model over conventional systems is that, the additional code required for adding elements to the finite element library is minimal. The powerful mechanisms provided by object oriented systems facilitate this. These mechanisms enable re‐use of existing code, and allow the programmer to leave certain operations to the computer, which, without object oriented techniques, would not have been possible. In the above model, the finite elements are represented in the form of a hierarchical tree by which it is possible to develop elements by programming only the differences from existing elements. Suitable object oriented designs have been developed for representing mathematical entities like differential operators and shape functions, with a view to automating the process of development of element properties, so that, the element developer needs to specify just the minimum details, leaving most of the operations to the computer. Some of the concepts in object oriented programming are explained in detail, with the examples used in the above model.

This paper presents the architecture for a new finite element program written in the C⁺⁺ programming language. A powerful command interpreter allows the user not only to introduce data, but also to define the algorithms that will treat this data to obtain the desired results. In this way, the program can be very easily configured to new computational strategies. By following an object‐oriented programming technique, we expect the program would not fall into the “stagnation” state that affects large finite element codes currently in use.

Object‐oriented programming, as an alternative to traditional, procedural programming methods for finite element analysis, is growing rapidly in importance as algorithms and programs become more complex. This paper reviews some of the literature and seeks to explain some of the concepts of object‐oriented thinking most useful to the finite element programmer, using as an example a C++ implementation of a heat transfer and solidification program.

Motif User Interface Application (MUIApp) is an object‐oriented graphical user‐interface application framework. It simplifies the task of writing, modifying, and debugging window‐based applications by application of object‐oriented programming to the construction and manipulation of graphical user interface (GUI) components using a well‐established window system. The key means adopted in the design include: encapsulation of tedious X‐window programming details, construction of high‐level GUI components using Motif and Xt widgets as the primary building blocks, and definition of collaboration mechanisms between GUI components. Reports that the abstractions and mechanisms provided by MUIApp facilitate the development of graphical user interfaces for applications. Simplicity, extensibility and reusability are the key concerns in the design. MUIApp is written in C++ and runs mainly on top of Motif.

Expert systems are being effectively applied to a variety of engineering problems. A growing number of languages and development tools are available for their building. Expert systems building tools (shells) are not so flexible as the high‐level languages, but they are easier to use. The problem is that there are too many development tools on the market today, no standards for their evaluation are available, so it is quite difficult to choose the ‘best’ tool for the developer's/user's needs. This paper is an attempt to review the situation on the confused market. Eighty‐six development tools are described in a table form for easy comparisons. Tools implemented on the AI machines only are not included in this survey.

There is a widely available object oriented (OO) programming language that is usually overlooked in the OO analysis, OO design, OO programming literature. It was designed with most of the features of languages like C++, Eiffel, and Smalltalk. It has extensive and efficient numerical abilities including concise array and matrix handling, like Matlab®. In addition, it is readily extended to massively parallel machines and is backed by an international ISO and ANSI standard. The language is Fortran 90 (and Fortran 95). When the explosion of books and articles on OOP began appearing in the early 1990s many of them correctly disparaged Fortran 77 (F77) for its lack of object oriented abilities and data structures. However, then and now many authors fail to realize that the then new Fortran 90 (F90) standard established a well‐planned object oriented programming language while maintaining a full backward compatibility with the old F77 standard. F90 offers strong typing, encapsulation, inheritance, multiple inheritance, polymorphism, and other features important to object oriented programming. This paper will illustrate several of these features that are important to engineering computation using OOP.

An application development framework for a software project based on fusion as an object‐oriented application development method is presented. An object‐oriented approach has been adopted for the design and implementation of the prototype interactive visual modelling system for building a visual presentation of a refinery process and creation of linear programming model for optimizing production decision variables. The main reason for this selection is the consideration of object‐oriented programming (OOP) as an obvious vehicle for the development of complex visual interactive modelling systems. The main dimensions of the framework are as follows: OO approach, fusion method, computer‐aided software engineering (CASE) tool, application development tool, GUI development tool, and C++ as an implementation language.

Undoubtedly, Fortran dominates the field of scientific computing from commercial packages to university programs. Although Pascal and C have managed to seduce some programmers with their newer design, the majority of users still favours Fortran into which most of those new features are eventually incorporated. The innovative programming tools offered by new languages have not been able to justify the time and cost required for the training of programmers and the porting of existent code.