scholarly journals A Formal Approach to Structural Design Automation Using Predicate Logic

1990 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sivand Lakmazaheri ◽  
William J. Rasdorf
Keyword(s):  
Predicate Logic ◽  
Formal Theory ◽  
Structural Systems ◽  
Engineering Systems ◽  
Response Member ◽  
Formal Approach ◽  
Physical Behavior ◽  
Engineering Software ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Analysis And Synthesis

Abstract The common approach to engineering software development involves the identification of relevant concepts, relations between concepts, and strategies for manipulating concepts and relations in an informal manner. We believe that although the informal approach to the identification and utilization of engineering knowledge may be sufficient for a certain class of problems, it fails to systematically support the development and study of complex automated (intelligent) engineering systems. Therefore, a formal approach is needed for such developments and studies. In this paper a formal theory that captures the knowledge associated with the physical behavior of structural systems is formulated. The physical behavior of structural systems is defined as the response (member displacements and member forces) of the structure to its environment (applied loads and boundary conditions). Predicate logic is used as the underlying formal language of the theory and the resolution theorem proving strategy is used for reasoning about the theory. The use of the formal theory for the analysis and synthesis of structural systems is illustrated and several research areas where the formal approach shows promise are discussed.

CogInfoCom Systems from an Interaction Perspective – A Pilot Application for EtoCom –

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gyorgy Persa ◽  
◽  
Adam Csapo ◽  
Péter Baranyi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Research Field ◽  
Cognitive Systems ◽  
Structural Systems ◽  
Systems Modeling ◽  
Engineering Systems ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship

Cognitive Infocommunications (CogInfoCom) is a newly emerging research field that investigates the link between infocommunications and the cognitive sciences, with the goal of creating engineering systems in which artificial and natural cognitive systems can work together more effectively. In this paper, we describe the structure of CogInfoCom systems from an interaction perspective. Through the discussions in this paper, our goal is to further clarify the relationship between CogInfoCom and the various research areas that deal with behavioral and structural systems modeling. In order to demonstrate the theoretical aspects of the subject, we describe a pilot application which was developed during the EtoCom project.

A Set-Based System for Eliminating Infeasible Designs in Engineering Problems Dominated by Uncertainty

1997 ◽  
Author(s):  
William W. Finch ◽  
Allen C. Ward
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Circuit ◽  
Predicate Logic ◽  
Software Tool ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Engineering Systems ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Design Problems ◽  
Engineering Design Problems ◽  
Engineering Problems ◽  
Prototype Software

Abstract This paper gives an overview of a system which eliminates infeasible designs from engineering design problems dominated by multiple sources of uncertainty. It outlines methods for representing constraints on sets of values for design parameters using quantified relations, a special class of predicate logic expressions which express some of the causal information inherent in engineering systems. The paper extends constraint satisfaction techniques and describes elimination algorithms that operate on quantified relations and catalogs of toleranced or adjustable parts. It demonstrates the utility of these tools on a simple electronic circuit, and describes their implementation and test in a prototype software tool.

scholarly journals On the Formal Approach to Describing Natural Language. Notes on the Margin of Leśniewski’s Ontology

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-78
Author(s):  
Halina Święczkowska
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Formal Theory ◽  
Formal Approach ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Ethnic Language ◽  
Polish Language ◽  
Theory Of Language

Abstract This article is an attempt to recreate the intuitions which accompanied Leśniewski when he was creating his calculus of names called Ontology. Although every reconstruction is to some extent an interpretation, and as such may be defective, still, there are reasons justifying such reconstruction. The most important justification is the fact that both Leśniewski and his commentators stressed that ontology originated from reflections about ordinary language, in which sentences such as A is B appear in one of the meanings associated with them in Ontology, and that the users of the Polish language use such sentences accordingly and properly identify them. Assumed it is so, let us try, based on Leśniewski’s guidelines as well as comments and elaborations on Ontology (Leśniewski 1992: 364-382, 608-609; Kotarbiński 1929: 227-229; Rickey 1977: 414-229; Simons 1992: 244; Lejewski 1960: 14-29), to evaluate the accuracy of this approach, referring also to certain knowledge of the Polish language. To make it clear, this article is not about Ontology as a formal theory of language. It is solely an attempt to assess whether some syntactical constructs of the Polish language and this language’s properties are significant conditions of a proper understanding of Ontology, and whether Ontology is, in fact, in a relationship with the ethnic language of its author.

scholarly journals Okkam - advanced morphological approach as method for computer aided innovation (CAI)

2019 ◽  
Vol 298 ◽  
pp. 00120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dmitry Rakov
Keyword(s):  
High Performance ◽  
Solution Space ◽  
Engineering Systems ◽  
Performance Potential ◽  
Computer Aided ◽  
Morphological Approach ◽  
Analysis And Synthesis ◽  
Systems Requirements ◽  
Requirement Changes ◽  
Selection Of

This paper presents the use of Advanced Morphological Approach based for analysis, generation and synthesis of new engineering solutions as part CAI (computer-aided innovation). CAI is developing as a response to the higher demands of science and industry to the innovative level of new products. The developed approach and a software Okkam is to create a sequence of operations, comparison and selection of rational variants set by means of a series of successive procedures. The specifics of structural synthesis consist of the discreteness of variables, the presence of conditionally logical limitations and the need to work with multiple conflicting criteria. Key objective is to find a solution space with the potential to fulfil the top level engineering systems requirements. Usage of cluster analysis, set theory, set of rules allows to identify the clusters of innovative systems combining high performance potential with robustness regarding requirement changes and design uncertainties. Implementation of the approach is demonstrated by the example of the analysis and synthesis of communications devices. These studies verify the weighty potential of the pro-posed approach compared to present methods.

Markets and Contractual Fairness

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-223
Author(s):  
Nathan B. Oman
Keyword(s):  
Market Price ◽  
Formal Theory ◽  
Contract Law ◽  
Formal Structure ◽  
Competitive Markets ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Formal Approach ◽  
Transactional Theory ◽  
Competitive Prices ◽  
Just Price

Abstract Contract is the quintessential legal institution of a market economy, but the contemporary philosophy of contract law is dominated by promissory and autonomy theories that tend to treat contract’s role in facilitating commerce as little more than a happy accident. It is thus striking that in his ambitious effort to generate a purely transactional theory of contract law Peter Benson places markets at that center of his account of transactional fairness. His argues that the abstract equality of contracting parties requires equality of exchange, an equality mediated by the just price. Echoing the scholastic tradition, Benson identifies the just price with the competitive market price. We thus have a fascinating example of an anti-functionalist, anti-distributive theory of contract that nevertheless incorporates the market as an important theoretical element. In this essay, I evaluate Benson’s use of markets, placing it within both the broader discussion of markets in contract law theory and in the larger argument that he is making about contract law. Ultimately, Benson justifies the appeal to markets not because of any attractive distributional features of competitive prices but because such prices have a formal structure that satisfies the demands of Benson’s formal theory. It is an ingenious and subtle argument. However, I am not ultimately persuaded. While I think that the rule for unconscionability cases that Benson extracts from his concept of equality of exchange is defensible, I am not persuaded by Benson’s formal approach to the fairness of markets. Rather, I will argue that competitive markets often do not have the formal features that Benson ascribes to them. Furthermore, a key aspect of his understanding of transactional fairness is best understood as resting on an attractive distributional feature of competitive markets rather than on their formal structure.

Quantified Relations: A Class of Predicate Logic Design Constraints Among Sets of Manufacturing, Operating, and Other Variations

1996 ◽  
Author(s):  
William W. Finch ◽  
Allen C. Ward
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Predicate Logic ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Causal Relationships ◽  
Engineering Systems ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Design Problems ◽  
Engineering Design Problems ◽  
Computing Effort ◽  
And Performance

Abstract This paper addresses a class of engineering design problems in which multiple sources of variations affect a product’s design, manufacture, and performance. Examples of these sources include uncertainty in nominal dimensions, variations in manufacture, changing environmental or operating conditions, and operator adjustments. Quantified relations (QR’s) are defined as a class of predicate logic expressions representing constraints between sets of design variations. Within QR’s, each variable’s quantifier and the order of quantification express a physical system’s causal relationships. This paper also presents an algorithm which propagates intervals through QR’s involving continuous, monotonic equations. Causal relationships between variables in engineering systems are discussed, and a tabular representation for them is presented. This work aims to broaden the application of automated constraint satisfaction algorithms, shortening design cycles for this class of problem by reducing modeling, and possibly computing effort. It seems to subsume Ward’s prior work on the Label Interval Calculus, extending the approach to a wider range of engineering design problems.

How Symbolic and Iconic Languages Bridge the Two Worlds of the Chemist: A Case Study from Contemporary Bioorganic Chemistry

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily R. Grosholz ◽  
Roald Hoffmann
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Predicate Logic ◽  
The Other ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Symbolic Language ◽  
Composition And Structure ◽  
Analysis And Synthesis ◽  
Reliable Knowledge ◽  
New Compounds

Chemists move habitually and with credible success—if sometimes unreflectively—between two worlds. One is the laboratory, with its macroscopic powders, crystals, solutions, intractable sludge, things which are smelly or odorless, toxic or beneficial, pure or impure, colored or white. The other is the invisible world of molecules, each with its characteristic composition and structure, its internal dynamics and its ways of reacting with the other molecules around it. Perhaps because they are so used to it, chemists rarely explain how they are able to hold two seemingly disparate worlds together in thought and practice. And contemporary philosophy of science has had little to say about how chemists are able to pose and solve problems, and in particular to posit and construct molecules, while simultaneously entertaining two apparently incompatible strata of reality. Yet chemistry continues to generate highly reliable knowledge, and indeed to add to the furniture of the universe, with a registry of over ten million well-characterized new compounds. The philosophy of science has long been dominated by logical positivism, and the assumptions attendant upon its use of predicate logic to examine science, as well as its choice of physics as the archetype of a science. Positivism thus tends to think of science in terms of an axiomatized theory describing an already given reality and cast in a uniform symbolic language, the language of predicate logic. (See especially the locus classicus of this position, Carnap’s book.) The authors of this paper wish to question certain positivist assumptions about scientific rationality, based on an alternative view brought into focus by the reflective examination of a case study drawn from contemporary chemistry. Our reflections owe something to Leibniz,2a Husserl,2b Kuhn,2c and Polanyi,2d and draw upon the earlier writings of both authors, Hoff mann3a and Grosholz.3b We will offer a nonreductionist account of methods of analysis and synthesis in chemistry. In our view, reality is allowed to include different kinds of things existing in different kinds of ways, levels held in intelligible relation by both theory and experiment, and couched in a multiplicity of languages, both symbolic and iconic.

A Form Tolerancing Theory Using Fractals and Wavelets

1997 ◽  
Vol 119 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. S. Srinivasan ◽  
K. L. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Design Research ◽  
Profile Analysis ◽  
Synthesis Method ◽  
Surface Profile ◽  
Synthesis Methods ◽  
Formal Approach ◽  
Physical Test ◽  
Geometric Tolerancing ◽  
Analysis And Synthesis ◽  
Profile Reconstruction

Tolerancing is a crucial problem for mechanical designers, as it has quality and cost implications on product design. Research in tolerancing has addressed specific areas of the problem, but lacks a theoretical basis. A formal approach for geometric tolerancing with fractal-based parameters has been recently developed. This paper presents an enhanced error profile analysis and synthesis method, based on wavelets, that maintains and extends the use of fractals for surface error abstraction. An overview of the theory of wavelets is provided, and the link between fractals and wavelets is established. Physical test data are used to illustrate the application of wavelet theory to surface profile reconstruction and synthesis. The synthesis methods are then implemented in the functional design of ball-bearing elements, demonstrating the utility of fractal-based tolerancing. Plans for further study and implementation conclude the paper.

scholarly journals The future of complexity engineering

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Regina Frei ◽  
Giovanna Marzo Serugendo
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Artificial Life ◽  
Complexity Science ◽  
Divide And Conquer ◽  
Self Healing ◽  
Future Trends ◽  
Engineering Systems ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Complexity Engineering

AbstractComplexity Engineering encompasses a set of approaches to engineering systems which are typically composed of various interacting entities often exhibiting self-* behaviours and emergence. The engineer or designer uses methods that benefit from the findings of complexity science and often considerably differ from the classical engineering approach of “divide and conquer”.This article provides an overview on some very interdisciplinary and innovative research areas and projects in the field of Complexity Engineering, including synthetic biology, chemistry, artificial life, self-healing materials and others. It then classifies the presented work according to five types of nature-inspired technology, namely: (1) using technology to understand nature, (2) nature-inspiration for technology, (3) using technology on natural systems, (4) using biotechnology methods in software engineering, and (5) using technology to model nature. Finally, future trends in Complexity Engineering are indicated and related risks are discussed.

On the Quantification of Robustness of Structures

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael H. Faber ◽  
Marc A. Maes ◽  
Daniel Straub ◽  
Jack Baker
Keyword(s):  
Service Life ◽  
Fatigue Damage ◽  
Steel Structure ◽  
Steel Structures ◽  
Risk Assessments ◽  
Structural Systems ◽  
Engineering Systems ◽  
Type Steel ◽  
Damage And Failure ◽  
Generic Framework

The paper first reviews different interpretations of robustness. On this basis objectives facilitating the quantification of robustness of engineering systems are formulated. Thereafter a generic framework for risk assessments of engineering systems is presented in which robustness is related to the ability of the system to sustain damages. This framework is then applied to quantify robustness of structural systems and to develop a robustness index facilitating a consistent ranking of structures according to their robustness. The proposed approach to the assessment of robustness principally takes into account the effect of redundancy, ductility, damage and failure consequences as well as strategies for condition control and intervention during the service life of structures. Finally, a simple example illustrates the use of the framework for the assessment of the robustness of a jacket steel structure subject to fatigue damage. The example shows that presently used indicators for the robustness of jacket type steel structures such as the RIF only capture part of the picture and illustrates the merits of a risk based framework for robustness assessments.

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