Forum for Academic Software Engineering Volume 4, Number 15, Fri Aug 12 11:17:49 CDT 1994 Topics: NGITS-95 Call for Papers Knowledge and Skills for Process Improvement ** CMU Artificial Intelligence Repository ** OO Case Tool review Re: SEE'95 Call for Papers ISESS 95 Call A------------------------------------------------------- From: ami@aviv.isse.gmu.edu (Amihai Motro) Subject: NGITS-95 Call for Papers The Second International Workshop on Next Generation Information Technologies and Systems 27 - 29 June 1995 Hotel Carlton, Naharia, ISRAEL Supported by the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology and the Neaman Institute As information technology advances, requirements of and expectations from information systems change rapidly. This requires researchers and developers to continuously focus on the next generation of information systems. The NGITS Workshop provides an international forum for discussing issues and solutions related exclusively to next generation information systems and the technologies that would make them possible. These issues include, but are not limited to: o Data and knowledge base challenges: advanced models and languages, data integrity and quality, management of uncertainty and inconsistency, information security and privacy, management of spatial and temporal data o Software architectures for information systems: object-orientation, agent-orientation, extensibility, groupware, software repositories, application generators o Integration: intelligent integration and interchange of information, interoperability and cooperation among heterogeneous information systems, information mediation and brokering, standardization o AI techniques: knowledge management, knowledge representation and reasoning, knowledge discovery, information extraction and filtering, coordination technologies and agent architectures o Human-computer interaction: advanced user interfaces, human-computer cooperation o The impact of new technologies: multi-media, mobile computing, very high speed networks, etc. o Challenging applications: services and tools to support information infrastructure ("information super-highways"), digital libraries, large scientific and geographical databases, health care (medical) information systems, information systems for advanced manufacturing We solicit contributions of three kinds: * Full research papers * Short position papers * Proposals for panel discussions All contributions must emphasize their relevance to issues of next generation information technologies and systems, and must be addressed to an audience of diverse background and interests. The category of "research papers" is intended for technical papers describing research accomplishments. The category "position papers" is intended for papers that discuss new challenges and visionary solutions. Proposals for panels should include an abstract of the subject and likely participants. The workshop will feature paper sessions, panel discussions and talks by invited speakers. All accepted papers will appear in a workshop proceedings. Selected papers will be published in a special issue of the Journal of Intelligent Information Systems. Program Committee Chairs Ami Motro Moshe Tennenholtz Department of Information and Faculty of Industrial Engineering Software Systems Engineering and Management George Mason University Technion - Israel Institute of Technology Fairfax, Virginia 20030 Haifa, 32000 USA ISRAEL ngits@isse.gmu.edu ngits@ie.technion.ac.il Information For Authors For research papers authors should submit extended abstracts of 2000 words or less; the full papers that will appear in the proceedings are limited to 5000 words. Position papers are limited to 2000 words. We shall attempt to handle the submission and review processes by electronic mail and request that you submit your contributions by mailing a PostScript version of your paper to BOTH co-chairs at the above e-mail addresses. Otherwise, please send 3 copies of your paper to BOTH co-chairs at the above postal addresses. The organizers request advance notification of your intention to submit a paper: please send an e-mail message to both co-chairs giving the names of the authors and the title or subject of the submission. Important dates 31 October 1994 Intent-to-submit statements due 31 December 1994 Extended abstracts (for full papers), position papers, and panel proposals due 28 February 1995 Notification of acceptance 15 April 1995 Camera-ready manuscripts due 27-29 June 1995 The workshop Location and Travel Funds The workshop will take place in Naharia, a picturesque resort town on the Mediterranean sea, 30 kilometers north of Haifa. Limited travel funds will be available to assist some of the participants. General Chairs Opher Etzion Arie Segev Technion - Israel Institute of University of California at Berkeley Technology and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories ISRAEL USA Program Committee Serge Abiteboul, INRIA, France Ron Ashany, National Science Foundation, USA Hagit Attiya, Technion, Israel Dan Berry, Technion, Israel Elisa Bertino, U. Milano, Italy Yitzhak Birk, Technion, Israel Yuri Breitbart, U. Kentucky, USA Alex Brodsky, George Mason U., USA Peter Buneman, U. Pennsylvania, USA Wesley Chu, U. California, Los Angeles, USA Alessandro D'Atri, U. L'Aquila, Italy Ed Durfee, U. Michigan, USA Dov Dori, Technion, Israel Oren Etzioni, U. Washington, USA Christos Faloutsos, U. Maryland, USA Mark Fox, U. Toronto, Canada Ophir Frieder, George Mason U., USA Les Gasser, U. Southern California, USA Yossi Gil, Technion, Israel Tomasz Imielinski, Rutgers U., USA Alfons Kemper, U. Passau, Germany Fred Lochovsky, U. of Science and Technology, Hong Kong Dennis McLeod, U. Southern California, USA John Mylopoulos, U. Toronto, Canada Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro, GTE Laboratories, USA Jeff Rosenschein, Hebrew U., Israel Doron Rotem, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories, USA Amit Sheth, Bellcore, USA Peretz Shoval, Ben Gurion U., Israel Avi Silberschatz, U. Texas, Austin and AT&T Bell Labs, USA Ouri Wolfson, U. Illinois, Chicago, USA A------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Knowledge and Skills for Process Improvement From: Linda Ibrahim I am developing a technical report which will describe the knowledge and skills required for process improvement. This report intends to provide "the big picture" of what needs to be taught or learned; it should guide educators and trainers in setting up process improvement curricula in either an industrial or an academic context. If you are interested in this work and want to contribute your ideas, I'd appreciate your input. Just email me and let me know your thoughts along the following lines: Topic: (Briefly describe a topic area you believe is important to be knowledgeable about in order to effect process improvement. Topics may range from broad concepts to specific skill areas.) Objective: (Please indicate the reason you need knowledge of these concepts or mastery of these skills in the context of process improvement) Importance: (Please indicate whether you believe this is an "essential" topic or a "desirable" topic for process improvement education and training) I'd suggest limiting your inputs to 5-10 areas which you believe are key. Thanks in advance for your views, and I'd welcome any suggestions you might have regarding this work. Linda Ibrahim Software Engineering Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 email: rli@sei.cmu.edu telephone: (412) 268-5827 fax: (412) 268-5758 A------------------------------------------------------- From: ai+@cs.cmu.edu (AI Repository) Subject: ** CMU Artificial Intelligence Repository ** ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + CMU Artificial Intelligence Repository + + and + + Prime Time Freeware for AI + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ July 1994 The CMU Artificial Intelligence Repository was established by Carnegie Mellon University to contain public domain and freely distributable software, publications, and other materials of interest to AI researchers, educators, students, and practitioners. The AI Repository currently contains more than a gigabyte of material and is growing steadily. The AI Repository is accessible for free by anonymous FTP, AFS, and WWW. A selection of materials from the AI Repository is also being published on CD-ROM by Prime Time Freeware and should be available for purchase at AAAI-94 or direct by mail or fax from Prime Time Freeware (see below). ---------------------------- Accessing the AI Repository: ---------------------------- To access the AI Repository by anonymous FTP, ftp to: ftp.cs.cmu.edu [128.2.206.173] and cd to the directory: /user/ai/ Use username "anonymous" (without the quotes) and type your email address (in the form "user@host") as the password. To access the AI Repository by AFS (Andrew File System), use the directory: /afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/ai-repository/ai/ To access the AI Repository by WWW, use the URL: http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/Web/Groups/AI/html/repository.html Be sure to read the files 0.doc and readme.txt in this directory. ------------------------------ Contents of the AI Repository: ------------------------------ The AI Repository has the following main directories: lang/ AI Programming Languages areas/ AI Software Packages util/ Compression and Archiving Utilities events/ Calendar of Events, Conference Calls pubs/ Publications, including technical reports, books, mail/news archives The AI Programming Languages and the AI Software Packages sections of the repository are "complete". The other directories are in varying states of completion. The AI Programming Languages section contains hundreds of implementations and support routines for AI programming languages, including Common Lisp, Prolog, Scheme, and Smalltalk. It also includes a variety of useful utilities, such as graphical user interfaces (GUI), object-oriented programming extensions, and other software development tools. The AI Software Packages section includes subdirectories for: agents/ Intelligent Agent Architectures alife/ Artificial Life and Complex Adaptive Systems anneal/ Simulated Annealing blackbrd/ Blackboard Architectures bookcode/ Code From AI Textbooks ca/ Cellular Automata classics/ Classical AI Programs constrnt/ Constraint Processing dai/ Distributed AI discover/ Discovery and Data-Mining doc/ Documentation edu/ Educational Tools expert/ Expert Systems/Production Systems faq/ Frequently Asked Questions fuzzy/ Fuzzy Logic games/ Game Playing genetic/ Genetic Algorithms, Genetic Programming, Evolutionary Programming icot/ ICOT Free Software kr/ Knowledge Representation, Semantic Nets, Frames, ... learning/ Machine Learning misc/ Miscellaneous AI music/ Music neural/ Neural Networks, Connectionist Systems, Neural Systems nlp/ Natural Language Processing (Natural Language Understanding, Natural Language Generation, Parsing, Morphology, Machine Translation) planning/ Planning, Plan Recognition reasonng/ Reasoning (Analogical Reasoning, Case Based Reasoning, Defeasible Reasoning, Legal Reasoning, Medical Reasoning, Probabilistic Reasoning, Qualitative Reasoning, Temporal Reasoning, Theorem Proving/Automated Reasoning, Truth Maintenance) robotics/ Robotics search/ Search speech/ Speech Recognition and Synthesis testbeds/ Planning/Agent Testbeds vision/ Computer Vision The repository has standardized on using 'tar' for producing archives of files and 'gzip' for compression. --------------------------------------- Keyword Searching of the AI Repository: --------------------------------------- To search the keyword index by mail, send a message to: ai+query@cs.cmu.edu with one or more lines containing calls to the KEYS command, such as: keys lisp iteration in the message body. Keywords may be regular expressions and are compared with the index in a case-insensitive fashion. All of the keywords must match a package for it to be included in the response, which you'll receive by return mail. Do not include anything else in the Subject line of the message or in the message body. For help on the query mail server, include: help instead. A Mosaic interface to the keyword searching program is in the works. We also plan to make the source code (including indexes) to this program available, as soon as it is stable. -------------------------------------------- Contributing Materials to the AI Repository: -------------------------------------------- Contributions of software and other materials are always welcome, but must be accompanied by an unambiguous copyright statement that grants permission for free use, copying, and distribution, such as: - a declaration that the materials are in the public domain, or - a copyright notice that states that the materials are subject to the GNU General Public License (cite version), or - some other copyright notice (we will tell you if the copying permissions are too restrictive for us to include the materials in the repository) Inclusion of materials in the repository does not modify their copyright status in any way. As a general rule, we will only consider materials which include full source code, unless there is a very compelling reason for binary-only distribution. Materials may be placed in: ftp.cs.cmu.edu:/user/ai/new/ When you put anything in this directory, please send mail to ai+contrib@cs.cmu.edu giving us permission to distribute the files, and state whether this permission is just for the AI Repository, or also includes publication on the CD-ROM version (Prime Time Freeware for AI). We would appreciate if you would include a 0.doc file for your package; see /user/ai/new/package.doc for a template. (If you don't have the time to write your own, we can write it for you based on the information in your package.) ------------------------------------ Prime Time Freeware for AI (CD-ROM): ------------------------------------ A portion of the contents of the repository is published annually by Prime Time Freeware. The first issue consists of two ISO-9660 CD-ROMs bound into a 224-page book. Each CD-ROM contains approximately 600 megabytes of gzipped archives (more than 2 gigabytes uncompressed and unpacked). Prime Time Freeware for AI is particularly useful for folks who do not have FTP access, but may also be useful as a way of saving disk space and avoiding annoying FTP searches and retrievals. Prime Time Freeware helped establish the CMU AI Repository, and sales of Prime Time Freeware for AI will continue to help support the maintenance and expansion of the repository. It sells (list) for US$60 plus applicable sales tax and shipping and handling charges. Payable through Visa, MasterCard, postal money orders in US funds, and checks in US funds drawn on a US bank. For further information on Prime Time Freeware for AI and other Prime Time Freeware products, please contact: Prime Time Freeware 370 Altair Way, Suite 150 Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA Tel: +1 408-433-9662 Fax: +1 408-433-0727 E-mail: ptf@cfcl.com ------------------------ AI Repository Archivist: ------------------------ The AI Repository was established by Mark Kantrowitz in 1993 as an outgrowth of the Lisp Utilities Repository (established 1990) and his work on the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) postings for the AI, Lisp, Scheme, and Prolog newsgroups. The Lisp Utilities Repository has been merged into the AI Repository. Bug reports, comments, questions and suggestions concerning a particular software package should be sent to the address indicated by the author. Bug reports, comments, questions and suggestions concerning the repository should be sent to Mark Kantrowitz School of Computer Science Carnegie Mellon University 5000 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3891 Fax: +1 412-681-5739 E-mail: AI.Repository@cs.cmu.edu A------------------------------------------------------- From: craig@scot.demon.co.uk (Craig Cockburn) Subject: OO Case Tool review Evaluation of OO Analysis and Design Tools Author: Craig Cockburn 6th May 94 General comments: Most of the tools researched are in the 300 - 500 range per user. The exceptions to this are Rational Rose/C++ (about 1,300) and Paradigm Plus (3,700+), OOTher ($170) Some clarifying terms: Methodology: The study of methods (applies to more than one method). People often use "methodology" when they mean "method" (it sounds better!) Method: A way to go about doing the analysis, design and implementation. A method has two parts, the process and the notation. The notation can support the process. A good CASE tool should support analysis, design and some implementation (usually in C++). Many tools which claim to be method independent are only process independent. Only a very small number of tools are effectively notation independent by supporting a wide range of notations or allowing the user to customise their own. Here, I have categorised tools by the notation. The process can generally be left to the user. Some CASE tools support reverse engineering - this can allow a 3rd party Class Library to be easily integrated into the model to show how the User Interface relates to the system Name: ShowCASE Originating country: USA Contact: Multiquest Corporation, 1699 East Woodfield Road, Suite A-1, Schaumburg, IL 60173 USA. Tel: (708) 240-5555 Fax: (708) 240-5556 E-Mail: 72531.2510@compuserve.com Method notation supported: Booch Multi-platform? : yes Multi-user? : yes - shows who has a diagram "checked out" for changes. C++ code generation: yes Cost: $249 (node locked) $495 (floating license) User Comments: None - appears to be new product. Current version 1.04 Personal Comments: Received free evaluation copy over the Internet. Really quite good and amazing value for money. Very good usability. Poor on-line help, however the full copy apparently has a good manual with lots of illustrations. Tool seems to scale up well and is quite fast - it's obviously a copy of Rational Rose but with a lower price tag and less functionality. The code generation is primitive at the moment and would involve considerable effort to tailor. Better code generation is promised before the 4th quarter of 1994. Only supports class and object diagrams- no support for module, state or process diagrams yet. Major planned releases will support all diagrams, reverse engineering and better help. Seems to link into existing class libraries although I couldn't get this to work. This could be a really good product by the end of the year and great value for money (assuming the price stays the same!). Has good undo facility. Generated code with unrecognised "Boolean" keyword in it. Will be a serious contender for Rational Rose/C++ once the planned functionality is implemented. Name: Software Through Pictures/OMTool Originating country: US Contact: Interactive Development Environments, 1 Stirling House, The Surrey Research Park, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 5RF Tel: 0483-579000 Fax: 0483-31272 Method notation supported: Rumbaugh Multi-platform? : sort of. There is two different products from the same company - OMTool for the PC and STP/OMTool for Unix. Multi-user? : yes C++ code generation? : yes Cost: $12,000 (!!!). PC version is in the usual price range. User Comments: One user said it "met their requirements", another said it "SUCKS" and is "the most consistently horrible tool they have ever worked with" and "wouldn't buy it if it was only $12". I saw a demo of this tool over a year ago, and it looked really good in the hands of experts but haven't had a chance to try out the Unix version first hand. Personal Comments: I have used OMTool for the PC for my MSc and found it poor. There was no on-line help, no support for multiple drives, and the system was obviously a poor port from Unix. I couldn't export diagrams from the tool to other applications either. Not very user friendly either. It used a non standard font which wasn't on my system and so it chose the next one in alphabetical order on the drive, which was completely unsuitable (this is a generic windows problem) Name: Paradigm Plus Originating country: US Contact: Admiral Software, Admiral House, 193-199 London Road, Camberley, Surrey, GU15 3JT. Tel: 0276 692269, FAX: 0276 677533 Method notation supported: all popular methods Multi-platform? : yes Multi-user? : yes C++ code generation? : yes (includes reverse engineering) Cost: approx. 3,700. User Comments: recommended by Versant in Australia (but Admiral are the UK Versant distributor!). Another user said it was "OK" Personal Comments: Due to price, they have hardware protection for the product. Admiral only have a limited number of the hardware protection devices and were unable to get one back in time to send to me. Therefore, no evaluation of this product was possible. Promotional material makes the product look really good, difficult to tell what's it's like though without trying out the software. Too bad I couldn't do an evaluation, it looked really interesting. Might be difficult to justify that much on a CASE tool, even if it is great. Name: Select OMT Originating country: UK Contact: Select Software Tools Ltd, Idsall House, High Street, Prestbury, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, GL52 3AY Tel: 0242 226553 FAX: 0242 251491 Method notation supported: Rumbaugh. Full support for three diagrams. Multi-platform? : PC only Multi-user? : yes C++ code generation? : yes. Poor though - no support for separate header and .cpp files One user sent me a long list of drawbacks with a similar tool C++ designer - many of these problems seem to also apply to OMT. No support for protecting changes, and no reverse engineering. Cost: 495 per PC . free technical support and upgrades for 90 days after purchase. User Comments: One user was frustrated by the demo, although the problems they reported seem to be fixed now. The full version which I had on approval had an installation bug which was quickly fixed. Support seems to be good. Personal Comments: Font very difficult to read - looks like it's been through a fax machine! Every modification made to the diagram is saved to disk after each change. There is no undo facility! Also, it automatically saves the diagrams to disk when you exit - even if you don't want the changes saved! The continual writing to disk could slow the application for a big diagram. Good on-line help, good 200 page user manual. No facility to automatically redraw the diagram if areas get too complex. I have doubts that this tool would scale well for a big application. Contains report generation. Interface to class dialogs is intuitive and quite easy to use, however product seems limited by diagram appearance, potential slowness and poor code generation. The problems of a poor font may be alleviated by a bigger monitor, but even scaling the diagram didn't help much. Has an interface to the Visual C++ IDE to allow you to edit your code and take advantage of the colour coded Visual C++ editor. When I tried to use this, it said the copy of Visual C++ was an unauthorised copy, which it obviously isn't. Has advanced data dictionary, but much of the advantage of this is made redundant through similar facilities in Visual C++. Includes some consistency checking in diagrams. Name: OEW Originating country: Germany Contact: Silicon River, 081 317 7777 or authors Innovative Software on 100272.515@compuserve.com Method notation supported: Martin & Odell's Multi-platform? : Yes Multi-user? : Yes C++ code generation? : yes, and reverse engineering Cost: 1,000 per PC. Unlimited free support User Comments: Didn't receive any user comments Personal Comments: Got the demo version to crash Real version has 430 pages of documentation Program includes features to enhance C++ for use with various OO databases. Appears to support well integration with GUI class libraries Does look like a really good product, although it's quite different from the other products seen. It's a tool which greatly assists with C++ code design and management. It automatically places classes on the diagrams, the user has no control. The tool does not support dynamic and functional representations of a system - only the object and instance model is catered for. Couldn't get it to make the examples as it couldn't find make.pif Name: BOCS Originating country: US Contact: Berard Software Engineering, 902 Wind River Lane, Suite 203, Gaitherburg, Maryland 20878 Phone: (301) 417 9884, Fax: (301) 417 0021 Mail: info@bse.com Method notation supported: none/all (method independent) Multi-platform? : yes Multi-user? : yes C++ code generation? : yes Cost: $595 per copy User Comments: Didn't receive any Personal Comments: Slow. One of those products where you click on something, wondered what happened, click a few more times and then eventually you get three of what you wanted! Can't read some of the text generated as it's too wide for the windows its displayed in, and there's no horizontal scroll bar. Use of hourglass to indicate that the program is doing something is inadequate. The hourglass doesn't always appear when it should and so you're left wondering what's going on Redrawing of even simple diagrams was slow. No auto layout of complex diagrams. Name: OMW and Kappa Originating country: US (Intellicorp) Contact: Unit 6, Bracknell Beeches, Bracknell, Berkshire, RG12 7BW Tel: 0344 305305 Fax: 0344 305100 Method notation supported: Method independent - Martin & Odell notation Multi-platform? : No. Kappa runs on Sun or HP and OMW just runs on Sun. Plans to port to PC but not until next year. The tool generates code suitable for both PCs and Unix Multi-user? : C++ code generation? : No - generates C. Cost: Kappa: $20,000 OMW $15,000 (they claim to be flexible!) User Comments: none - has anyone been able to afford it? Personal Comments: given the above, it didn't seem reasonable to take the evaluation any further! Name: Rational Rose/C++ (compare this with ShowCASE) Originating country: US Contact: 0273 624814, E-mail: product_info@rational.com I used the support number for more info - this was the same day I called Microsoft and was waiting in a queue for 20 mins. The Rational support was a complete contrast and although the person I needed to speak to was busy, they called me back in 15 mins. Why do so many US companies give their US customers a toll-free number but not their UK customers? Method notation supported: Booch - this is from the company which Booch himself works for Multi-platform?: Sparc and PCs Multi-user? : no (enforce locking through Delta or something similar) C++ code generation? : yes Supports reverse engineering (in new version currently in field test which I'd like to get) and you can preserve your code changes so that they are not lost when code is regenerated. This is a big plus. Code preservation is done via comments which look messy but do the job. Can integrate with MFC and 3rd party apps. Got an example of this sent - pretty huge example but the product was still fairly speedy (on a 486 25SX). When the diagram compiles, it does a lot of sanity checking and lists possible problems. Cost: 1345 (for C++ generation). Includes support and upgrades for 12 months. Various methods of support, including e-mail (acknowledgement within 24 hours). User Comments: "I have not heard anything bad about the product through reviews or word of mouth" Personal Comments: The demo version comes with its own manual (30 pages), written for the demo version! Functionally this has everything you could possibly want, and an intuitive user interface. The support seems to be good and if the demo manual is anything to go by, the manual for the full version should be good as well. The only drawbacks that I can see are I didn't like the way the selection cursor reverts to the pointer after each action. If you want to add a lot of relations, then you have to reselect on the toolbar after adding each one. Resizing the text box didn't resize the text in it - you have to change the font size to change the text size. More use could have been made of colour - black and white diagrams look a bit dull. It was a bit difficult to evaluate this properly as there were no complex examples with the demo, indeed there were no examples at all. I was later sent a huge example showing the MFC classes reverse-engineered. This product is quite fast, and can redraw the diagram using automatic layout. This takes some time but is considerably faster than doing it by hand, and would be very useful for large complex diagrams. Some of the dialog boxes come up 30% bigger than the screen, this is annoying having to scroll a window to enter information. I'm fairly sure this is a problem with the VGA driver I'm using rather than the tool itself though. Extensive on-line help, but not context sensitive. Help is very good, except for the following howler (included for amusement) Whn mouse is releases, slect teh labelbox adn deslect any (When) (released) (select) (the) (and) (deselect) Supports documentation in the code - got this to work OK. Syntax checks the diagram as you go. Has undo facility (very useful). Not known whether you can incorporate the diagrams in a word processing package as the export function was disabled in the demo copy. "export as Windows metafile" doesn't seem to be available. -- a user friendly tool with some problems, but a lot of functionality and good support. The beta release out very soon has more functionality - perhaps it also addresses some of the above issues. Once the tool is completely understood, it looks as if it could be really powerful. Name: OOTher Originating country: Sweden Contact: the author, E-mail : conrozi@KK.ericsson.se Method notation supported: hybrid - Notation based on Coad & Yourdon's and also Jacobson's Multi-platform? : no Multi-user? : no C++ code generation? : header files only Cost: shareware ($170 for commercial use) User Comments: One user wrote to me and was reasonably pleased with it. Personal Comments: Got it to crash Great value for money, but you get what you pay for. Routing algorithm a bit wild - lines were going all over the place and doing long detours rather than taking the shortest route. There are bugs in the way some lines are drawn. Scaling sizes are inconvenient. You either get too much detail and can only see 4 or so classes or you zoom out and can't read the writing as it's too small. Supports 5 views of the model from different angles. Good on-line help. No undelete. UI not really very intuitive - would be nice if you could just click on an association to edit it. -- Craig Cockburn (pronounced "coburn"), Edinburgh, Scotland Sgri\obh thugam 'sa Ga\idhlig ma 'se do thoil e. A------------------------------------------------------- From: hausi@csr.uvic.ca (Hausi Muller) Subject: Re: SEE'95 Call for Papers SEE'95 7th Conference on Software Engineering Environments Noordwijkerhout, Netherlands, 5-7 April 1995 *** Call for Papers *** SEE'95 will be the 7th in a series of major conferences held on Software Engineering Environments - the premier professional meeting in a European location to review, discuss, debate and learn about the most recent practice and research results in the field, drawn from a world-wide basis. There is a sufficient number of types and instances of SEEs in use and under study to be able to reason about them in a comparative sense and measure their effectiveness; hence the first thematic topic- qualification and quantification. There is a number of active software technologies - such as multimedia, neural networks and open systems - which are attracting widespread interest; the second thematic topic - the impact of active technologies - examines what impact these may have on SEEs, either as a component of an SEE or as the software which is the target of production by an SEE. In particular, CSCW, groupware and workflow management are emphasised as contributing to the third thematic topic - process-centred SEEs. This notice is an invitation to academic and industrial researchers and practitioners to submit papers on any aspect of Software Engineering Environments, though papers which address or emphasise the thematic topics will be particularly welcome. Initially, a draft paper should be submitted for consideration by the programme committee. Instructions for Authors Submit a draft paper of 4-5,000 words to Conference Chair, marked SEE95/EA. by: *** 2 September 1994 *** acceptance notification: 7 November 1994 final paper by: 30 January 1995, for inclusion in the published proceedings Environments Fair Proposals to demonstrate environments and infrastructures which are industrial-strength products, prototypes, or research demonstrators are invited; demonstrations which accompany a paper will be particularly welcome. Submit details and platform requirements to Conference Chair, marked SEE95/EF, by 2 September 1994. Conference Chair Malcolm Verrall, Sema Group plc, Trafalgar House, Richfield Avenue, Reading, Berkshire RG1 8QA, UK tel: +44 734 575900; fax: +44 734 502590; tlx: 848913 CAPIND G; e-mail: see95@semact.co.uk All submissions should be made on paper; an e-mail copy in plain ASCII would be welcomed. ---------------------- SEE'95 is being held in collaboration with the 4th European Workshop on Software Process Technology which will take place 3-5 April 1995 at the same location. For information on EWSPT95 contact: Prof. Dr. Gregor Engels, Leiden University, Dept. of Computer Science, P.O. Box 9521, NL-2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands. tel: +31 71-277063; fax: +31 71-276985; e-mail: engels@wi.leidenuniv.nl A------------------------------------------------------- From: "V70A::DUFRESNERE" Subject: ISESS 95 Call Please let me know if you are considering attending the symposium. Thank you, Bob Dufresne email: r.dufresne@ieee.org fax: 401 841 2813 voice: 401 841 2712 x345 ---------------------------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS, TUTORIALS AND PANEL SESSION PROPOSALS SECOND INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING STANDARDS (ISSES95) Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, August 21-25, 1995 Sponsored by: IEEE Computer Society - Technical Council on Software Engineering In association with: IEEE Software Engineering Standards Committee, IEEE Canada, American Society for Quality Control (ASQC) Software Division, Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS), Applied Software Engineering Centre/Centre de Recherche informatique de Montreal (ASEC/CRIM), Interest Group on International Software Engineering Standards (GINIGL). Symposium Theme: Experience and Practise The goal of the symposium is to capture users' experience with software engineering standards (SES) in order to improve SES for the benefit of trade and industry. In the last 20 years over 250 SES have been developed by more than 50 international, national, professional and industry organizations. Applications of SES range from information processing, process control to safety critical, financial critical, security critical and mission critical. Some of the needs for future SES include: o Ability to seamlessly integrate SES into an organizational context to meet business and industrial user needs o Ability to apply SES to different levels of rigour by application type o Ability to select a minimum, effective set of SES to facilitate commerce o Ability to specify and measure product attributes of software (functionality, reliability, usability, efficiency, maintainability, portability) to satisfy user needs o Ability of SES to standardize mature technology o Ability of SES to meet and define market needs. This second in a series of International Symposia on Software Engineering Standards aims to promote active international cooperation among practitioners, educators, standards developers, regulatory organizations, industrial users and software engineering researchers. The symposium will focus on the effectiveness of software engineering standards and their future, particularly with respect to critical systems and the practical use of formal methods. The symposium seeks papers that will encourage research into the utility of software engineering standards, promote harmonization of existing and in-work software engineering standards, solicit concepts for the representation and organization of the software engineering discipline, share lessons-learned on the use of software engineering standards, identify needs to improve, consolidate, and extend software engineering standards, and improve the process for developing and maintaining software engineering standards. Symposium Structure The symposium will consist of 1 day of tutorials and 1 1/2 days of parallel paper presentation and panel session tracks as follows. Monday, August 21, 1995 AM,PM Tutorials Tuesday, August 22, 1995 AM,PM Papers and panels Wednesday, August 23, 1995 AM Papers and panels The symposium will be followed by a separate FORUM consisting of parallel workshops. Suggested Topics Papers, Tutorials, Panel Session Proposals and Position Papers are invited in the following suggested areas. Sector Standards Aerospace, telecommunications, defence, transportation, medical electronics, nuclear power generation, electronic funds transfer, process control, government Software Engineering Process Configuration management, quality assurance/systems, user and software requirements, design and development, code, test, verification and validation, integration, project management, documentation, qualification and integration of procured software Special Topics Safety, reliability, security, maintainability, usability, privacy, formal methods, languages, tools, multimedia, human factors, networks, product and process metrics, conformance assessment, certification, integrity levels Scope and Intersection of SES Standards with respect to: Quality system standards, system engineering standards, hardware engineering standards, process improvement and TQM models, communication standards, regulatory bodies and law, Open Systems, Interchange standards, database and repository standards, security standards, PC standards Submission Information Papers must be in English, typed in double spaced format and less than 5000 words in length. These papers must not have been published or submitted elsewhere for publication. Each submission should provide a cover page containing title, all authors' names, affiliations and complete mailing addresses and telephone numbers, together with a maximum 200 word abstract and keyword list. The first page of the paper should have the paper title and beginning text of the document. If the paper is accepted, one of the authors will prepare the final manuscript in time for inclusion in symposium proceedings and is expected to pre-register for the symposium and present the paper. Authors of accepted papers must sign a copyright release form. The proceedings will be published by the IEEE Computer Society Press. Panel Session Proposals and Position Papers should include the title, proposed chair, tentative panellists (including a short vita), a 2 or 3 paragraph description of the subject of the panel discussion together with a rationale for the panel. Panellists must have agreed to participate prior to the submission of the panel proposal. Experience Reports are intended to provide exposure for software engineering professionals of practical experiences in the development and use of software engineering standards. The contributors should clearly identify the paper as an experience report for a 20-25 minute presentation at the symposium. The evaluation criteria for these submissions will be based on the relevance of the results to future direction of software engineering standards. Submissions of papers, experience reports, panel session proposals and position papers should include eight copies sent to one of the Program Co- Chairs, addresses below. Blind refereeing will be provided by a minimum of three experts. Tutorial Session Proposals are solicited for both full-length, all day tutorials and also mini-tutorials of four hours length. Five copies in English of the proposal should be submitted to the tutorials chair. Important Symposium Dates: Submission Deadline: January 15, 1995 Acceptance Notification: March 15, 1995 Camera-ready copy: May 15, 1995 For further Information about the Symposium, Contact: General Chair Joseph Cote Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat 300 Laurier Ave. West, 10th Floor Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0R5 Tel: 613-957-2496 Fax: 613-957-8700 Program Chairs John Harauz Ontario Hydro H12 D27 700 University Ave. Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1X6 Tel. 416-592-7235 Fax: 416-592-8802 Email: John.Harauz@hydro.on.ca Roger Fujii Logicon 222 West Sixth Street P.O. Box 471 San Pedro, California 90733-0471, USA Tel: 310-831-0611 Ext. 2420 Fax: 310-548-4870/5984 Email: rfujii@logicon.com Sharon Miller AT&T, Room 2L-507 101 Crawfords Corner Road P.O. Box 3030, Holmdel New Jersey 07733-3030, USA Tel: 908-949-2873 Fax: 908-949-7724 Email: sem@hoqst1.att.com Steering Committee Chair Leonard L. Tripp Boeing Commercial Airplane P.O. Box 3707, MS 6H-TW Seattle, Washington 98124, USA Tel: 206-237-5240 Fax: 206-237-5444 Email: lltripp@kgv1.boeing.com Steering Committee Vera Edelstein, VeraQual Associates (USA); Tom Hannan, BTG Inc. (USA); Takis Katsoulakos, Lloyd's Register (UK); Peter Voldner, Bell Sygma (Canada) Program Committee Area Chairs Australia/Pacific Rim Chair Hugo Rehesaar University of New South Wales P.O. Box 1, Kensington, New South Wales 2033 Australia Tel: +61-2-697-4450 Fax: +61-2-662-4061 Email: h.rehesaar@unsw.edu.au Canada Chair Jean-Normand Drouin Bell SYGMA Telecom Solutions 700 La Gauchetiere, (rm 13E1) Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3B 4L1 Tel: 514-870-0974 Fax: 514-393-1391 Email: jndrouin@qc.bell.ca Europe Chair Rajko Milovanovic British Telecom Laboratories B81-G61 Martlesham Heath, Ipswich Suffolk IP5 7RE, UK Tel: +44-473-649-468 Fax: +44-473-644-605 Email: rmilovanovic@axion.bt.co.uk USA Chair Peter T. Poon Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology 4800 Oak Drive Mail Stop: 171-250 Pasadena, California 91109-8099, USA Tel: 818-354-4319 Fax: 818-393-4267 Email: Peter.T.Poon@jpl.nasa.gov Program Committee Grazia Arato, Societa Italiana per l'Esercizio delle Telecomunicazione p.a. (Italy); Robin E. Bloomfield, Adelard (UK); Jorgen Boegh, Delta (Denmark); Jonathan Bowen, Oxford University Computing Laboratory (UK); Ronald L. Braun, Bellcore (USA); Francois Coallier, Bell Canada (Canada); Paul Croll, Computer Sciences Corporation (USA); Hans-Ludwig Hausen, German National Research Centre (Germany); Peter Hitchcock, Technical University of Nova Scotia (Canada); Don Kjosness, Software Technology Centre (Canada); Nazim H. Madhavji, McGill University (Canada); John Marciniak, Kaman Sciences Corporation (USA); Tomoo Matsubara, Matsubara Consulting (Japan); Philippe Robert, PSTI-Evaluation (France); Igor Ushakov, Prism Systems (Canada); Tom Vollman, St. Mary's College of Maryland (USA); Dolores Wallace, National Institute for Standards and Technology (USA) Tutorials Chair W. Morven Gentleman Institute for Information Technology National Research Council Canada Building M-50, Montreal Rd Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0R6 Tel: 613-993-3857 Fax: 613-952-7998 Email: gentleman@iit.nrc.ca Publicity Chair Robert E. Dufresne Naval Undersea Warfare Centre Division Newport, Rhode Island 02841-5047, USA Tel: 401-841-2712 ext.345 Fax: 401-841-2813 Email: r.dufresne@ieee.org Publications Chair George Jackelen C/O Cards WVU/NASA IV&V Facility 100 University Drive Fairmont, WV 26554, USA Tel: 304-367-8319 Fax: 304-367-8211 Email: jackelen@cards.com Local Arrangements Chair Jerome Pesant Applied Software Engineering Centre/CRIM Suite 800, 1801 McGill College Avenue Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 2N4 Tel: 514-398-8142 Fax: 514-398-1244 Email: Jerome.Pesant@crim.ca Location: Montreal Canada ISSES95 is being held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Besides a stimulating environment for learning and sharing ideas about software engineering standards, ISSES95 offers the excitement of one of North America's oldest and most cosmopolitan cities. Montreal is an European city in a North American setting. Accompanying guests can find ample sightseeing, entertainment, shopping and dining opportunities. CALL FOR PARTICIPATION ISSES95 FORUM ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING STANDARDS ISSUES Montreal, Quebec, Canada August 23-25, 1995 "Recommendations for Standards' Process Re-Engineering" The FORUM is a set of parallel workshops addressing key issues and presenting findings and recommendations to the leadership of ISSES95 and its sponsors. Participation is necessarily limited, and is determined on the basis of evaluated position papers. Each workshop is to have a moderator and recorder selected from its participants. Those interested in participating should prepare a one to two page statement summarizing a position on one of the following issues, or on another issue believed to be equally important: o STANDARDS' EFFECTIVENESS--What is the experience with contemporary standards? What worked? Will it continue to work? What didn't work? What should be done? o STANDARDS MAKING--Are there opportunities to streamline the process? Eliminate duplication? Increase timeliness? Reduce errors? Add more "delight" to the product? o NEEDS AND PRIORITIES--What standards are needed? What needs to be changed? What efforts would that take? What priority should each effort have? Who decides? o DETERMINING CONFORMANCE--How do you know you're conforming? How do others know you're conforming? Are there gradations of conformance? Is that acceptable? o REQUIRED RESEARCH--What research results are needed to move forward? How should they be prioritized? How is research to be allocated and managed? By whom? Send your position statement, and indicate interest in serving as workshop moderator or recorder, by November 15, 1994, to the Forum chair. Forum Agenda Wednesday, August 23,1995 PM: Charge to Workshops, Workshops Convene Thursday, August 24,1995 AM, PM: Workshop Prepare Recommendations Friday, August 25,1995 AM: Workshop Recommendations to the leadership of ISSES95 and its sponsors Important Forum Dates Deadline for position statement: November 15, 1994 Notification of acceptance: February 15, 1995 Moderator and recorder assignment: March 15, 1995 Final workshop agenda: June 15, 1995 Forum Chair Tom Hannan BTG, Inc. 1945 Old Gallows Road Vienna, VA 22182, USA Tel: +1-703-556-6518 Fax: +1-703-556-9290 Email: thannan@btg.com Forum Committee Motoei Azuma, Waseda University (Japan); John Botsford, IBM Canada (Canada); Andrew Chruscicki, Rome Laboratory (USA); Nancy George, Software Quality Total Management (USA); Stan Magee, Software Engineering Process Technology (USA); Norm Schneidewind, Naval Postgraduate School (USA); Raghu Singh, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (USA) E------------------------------------------------------------------- FASE Volume 4 Number 15 Send newsletter articles to fase-submit@d.umn.edu or fase@d.umn.edu Send requests to add, delete, or modify a subscription to fase-request@d.umn.edu Send problem reports, returned mail, or other correspondence about this newsletter to fase-owner@d.umn.edu or kpierce@d.umn.edu You can retrieve back issues by anonymous FTP from from ricis.cl.uh.edu. You can access them through WWW at URL http://ricis.cl.uh.edu/FASE/ Keith Pierce, Editor Laurie Werth, Advisory Committee Department of Computer Science Dept. of Computer Science University of Minnesota, Duluth Taylor Hall 2.124 Duluth, MN 55812-2496 University of Texas at Austin Telephone: (218) 726-7194 Austin, Texas 78712 Fax: (218) 726-6360 Telephone: (512) 471-9535 Email: kpierce@d.umn.edu Fax: (512)471-8885 Email: lwerth@cs.utexas.edu