Jack Ring

MBSE and SysML Models

jack.ring@cyonreseach.com — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:00:00 GMT

A look at MBSE and SysML in the context of COFES

Riding the S curve

jack.ring@cyonreseach.com — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:00:00 GMT

Most of us live in an environment of multiple, interacting factors, each exhibiting an S curve behavior. First phase exhibiting accelerating growth, curling upward. Second phase of approximately constant growth. Third phase of decelerating growth. During the third phase a Phoenix often arises to start a new, upward, S curve. Prof. Adizes, UCLA, provides an S-curve based model in "Corporate Life-cycles" Prof. Leontief adn others have modeled economic life cycles. Sometimes the new S curve gets started early. Sometimes the new curve doesn't kick in until the ramifications of the older S curve have been manifest in various negative or "things aren't what they used to be, who's fault is it?" ways. Many people do not realize that the U.S. has been on a 25 year economic boom, the longest in history. They have simply become accustomed to the constant growth. Too many, not understanding systems, plan ahead as if there is some guarantee of growth. When the S curve starts to bend over (negative acceleration)the first reaction is naievty, then denial, then outrage, then fault finding, etc. We are seeing that in an economy that has been fueled by "irrational exuberence" for a decade. Too many of us are obsessed with assigning blame (shall we blame President Clinton Mount St. Helens erupting)? This obsession results in one new growth --- the volume of NY Times opinions and of consequent postings by the HCS (Henke Clipping Service) but these are not likely to reenergize the economy. Where is the next S curve when we need it? Is there a way to overconsume without becoming obese then having to diet? Can a new U.S. President "make it all better?" We elect candidates to represent our interests. Most simply do not understand systems, thus cannot foster beneficial S curves. Instead, most feed the Law of Unintended Consequences. Perhaps the next S curve will be the expansion of the CAD industry to offer intellectual prosthetics that enable the design and viability assessment of systems as well as machines and structures.

Computer-aided design tradeoffs

jack.ring@cyonreseach.com — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:00:00 GMT

One viewpoint quantifies the worth of a system by actual or expected Quality, Parsimony and Beauty. Quality in the Phil Crosby sense as "conformance to requirements." Parsimony meaning no sufficient alternative requires less goods in the economic and ecologic sense. Beauty, in the sense of Gelertner's Machine Beauty, Basic Books, 1998.

Now comes news in the August proceedings of ACM's SIGGRAPH, The Sum of Your Facial Parts,
that a focus group of men and women selected the most attractive faces from a sample set then researchers at Tel Aviv University distilled 234 significant measurements between facial features, including the distances between lips and chin, the forehead and the eyes, and between the eyes. They devised an algorithm that altered an image according to agreed-upon standards of attractiveness while producing a result that left the face completely recognizable.

Can we similarly devise a list of significant measurements for improving system architectures, functional designs, or object classes? If so, we could engage software agents to adjust, adapt and co-align our designs.

Conference on research and innovation in building and construction, Arizona State U., February 2009

jack.ring@cyonreseach.com — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:00:00 GMT

http://www.pbsrg.com/overview/cib-task-group-61/annual-meeting/

The Performance Based Studies Research Group at Arizona State University is hosting Task Group 61 of the "International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction." The CIB provides a global network for international exchange and cooperation in research and innovation in building and construction, in support of an improved building process and of improved performance of the built environment.

System Viability Assessment

jack.ring@cyonreseach.com — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:00:00 GMT

As societies' problems increase in extent, variety and ambiguity, popularly (mis)labeled "complexity," the design profession is not keeping pace. Failed projects abound and leaders in both sponsor and responder communities seek to ignore the really "wicked" problems. The recent emphasis on System of Systems highlights the intellectual shortfall in dealing with complexity. This presents an emerging, billion dollar opportunity for new methods, techniques and tools for whole system design. Two facets are important. One concerns original and revision design. The other concerns assessment of the viability of the design, i.e., check your work. The latter is prudent at each stage of a whole system design, e.g., conceptual model, chronological model, architecture model, buildable model, as built, as deployed, and as (about to be) applied.

It is hard to assess the viability of a simple system, e.g., a computer program intended to run on a specified piece of hardware, because of the proliferation of cross connections in their descriptive model, the well known "combinatorial explosion" problem. Assessment of complex systems is economically infeasible if attempted with stored program computers. Fortunately, new kinds of hardware architectures are appearing that enable recognition, classification and mesh-ability of patterns. This kind of hardware will open new paths for alert CAD vendors.

CAD, next.

jack.ring@cyonreseach.com — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 07:00:00 GMT

CAD helps us express our ideas. Next, CAD will help us have ideas. CAD will proactively prompt inventing and innovating.

Inventing means designing (described by regular COFES participant, David Ullman, P.E., Ph.D., and CEO as "the elaboration of information punctuated by decision).

Innovating means helping others appreciate and leverage your design.

As a VP at 3M noted, Invention turns money into ideas. Innovation turns ideas into money.

Our understanding of the fundamentals of both has increased considerably in this decade through research on how we think, c.f., "The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind's Hidden Complexities" by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner.

Now we can harness the advances in digital electronics, software and social dynamics to take design to the next level. Challenges of extent, variety and ambiguity needn't bother us any more.

Green Computer Centers

jack.ring@cyonreseach.com — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 08:00:00 GMT

At http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/07-08GreenLightProj.asp you are forewarned that the information technology industry consumes as much energy and has roughly the same carbon “footprint” as the airline industry. Then you can read what UC San Diego is doing.

Which sustainability?

jack.ring@cyonreseach.com — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 07:00:00 GMT

Too many special interest groups have camped-on to this bandwagon. For COFES purposes, which sustainability are we addressing (or should we be addressing)?

Ashby on Variety

jack.ring@cyonreseach.com — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:00:00 GMT

Variety clarified.

As we discern system behaviors that are dubbed 'complexity' by those less able to navigate the three facets of Extent, Variety and Ambiguity, a clear understanding of what at least Ashby meant by 'variety' may be useful. The seminal article, Ashby W.R. (1958) "Requisite variety and its implications for the control of complex systems," Cybernetica 1:2, p. 83-99, It is now available for download from the Principia Cybernetica site:
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Books/AshbyReqVar.pdf

cheers,

Jack Ring

Model-driven Engineering?

jack.ring@cyonreseach.com — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:00:00 GMT

Now that specification-based engineering is being supeseded by modeling how shall we avoid confusion about modeling?

A recent CfP stated "Model-Driven Engineering is about creating, transforming, generating, interpreting, weaving models using modelling languages, tools, etc."

Made me wonder where the problem statement came from that triggers such engineering.

Does the author mean Model-Building Engineering (as in We Are Driven) instead of Model-driven?

If the author described MDE properly, then in what ways is model-based systems engineering, MBSE, distinct from this MDE?

And should we first model the problematic siituation in order to make sure that the engineering effort addresses the right problem?