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Research activity in 2000

The research activity of the Data Base and Information Systems group followed three main research directions: the analysis of methodologies and models for the design of integrated information systems - the development of multimedia data bases - methods and tools to manipulate data in Web environments.

In the first area, starting from a deep analysis of the functional organisation of the enterprise in terms of a hierarchically structured set of organisation networks which describe the flow of objects (information or materials) manipulated in the enterprise, and its functional behaviour, i.e., the flow of control), we developed new versions of the M* methodology, i.e. the M*OBJECT and the M*COMPLEX methodologies.

These methodologies (and the related models) have been applied to integrated manufacturing environments which are based on the management of concurrent business processes. These business processes must be engineered in a systematic way to guarantee compliance with business requirements and overall system consistency and efficiency. In fact, engineering is a systematic approach to the design of products and their manufacturing processes to address the QCD (Quality, Cost, Delay) challenge faced by most industrial companies and thus improve customer satisfaction.

The first result in this field was M*, an information system design methodology developed for CIM environments which covers the analysis of a manufacturing organization (Organization Analysis), the modelling of its information system (Conceptual Design), and the design of the related database environments which will support the automated operations of the organization (Implementation Design). The model used for conceptual design was based on the integration of the Entity-Relationship model with PrT nets to model static and dynamic properties.

M* has been the subject of extensive experimentations by several consulting companies, which suggested improvements of the original design. The new version of the methodology, called M*-OBJECT, incorporates the object-oriented paradigm into the analysis phase.

In 1998 and 1999, the Organization Analysis phase has been deeply restructured in order to cope with complex environments, and a tool - M*PROCESS - for modeling and analysis of business processes has been developed. It is based upon the following set of prerequisites:

1. the environment should be highly interactive, with an icon-driven graphic editor to specify both functional and process nets. Consistency rules must guarantee a coordinated development of different types of specifications.
2. process specifications should be executable by a discrete event simulation software. Simulation can be used to investigate different system functionalities in order to bring into focus areas where implicit misunderstandings exist between users and designers.

The new methodology, called M*-COMPLEX, is a structured framework which provides a step-by-step strategy ensuring consistent and correct results. It analyses functional, behavioural, information and organisation aspects of the object organization, and it strongly enforces an event-driven process-based approach at all levels (the organizational level, the conceptual level, and the implementation level are considered) as opposed to traditional function-based approaches for analysing and designing computer-supported integrated engineering environments. M*-COMPLEX adopts a new executable organization model which is supported by M*-PROCESS.

In the area of the development of multimedia data bases, a model for knowledge management and discovery for multimedia information bases has been introduced. A prototype authoring system for HTML CDROMs, loosely based on HDM and objected oriented databases has been developed. A prototype, on which work is still in progress, was successfully used for the production of three commercial titles. Moreover, a semantic data model for complex databases, the fact model, has been developed and will be used as a design tool for complex hypermedia database applications. Other research interests are directed towards data clustering strategies and buffering strategies for non uniform access distributions.

In the area of the development of methods and tools to manipulate data in Web environments, the activity concerns the analysis of distance learning systems where data we deal with are pupils tests and interactive exercises. As a first step in our work we have considered how Internet and the new communication technologies impact on the architectures of Computer Aided systems, so called Author systems.

This analysis resulted in an Author System based on a Teacher-server distributing to Pupil-clients exercises, in which installing and software upgrading problems, typical of environments with limited or null technical knowledge, are quite reduced. System upgrade to improve pedagogical methodologies and their implementation is particularly necessary in Computer Aided learning.

Research grants