HTW Demonstrations

The How Things Work Project of the Stanford Knowledge Systems Laboratory is developing knowledge-based technology to offer intellectual assistance in all stages of the life cycle of engineered products. One of the products of the project is the Device Modeling Environment (DME), a system that assists in model formulation, simulation, and documentation of designed artifacts.

This document is an entry point for interactive documentation on DME and other HTW products and services. Demonstrations are offered as hypermedia documents on the Web. Some are virtual documents that are generated by the software being demonstrated, as the reader browses the information.

We think these documents are good examples of what can be done with the Knowledge Medium.

Guided Tours

• Active documentation of designs using DME
  A tutorial on DME's explanation generation capabilities, showing how an active document can answer questions in natural language based on formal mathematical models. Uses examples from the Reaction Control System (RCS) domain. The examples are "live" interactions with a running DME system.
• Sharable Compositional Models
  An introduction to the thermodynamics knowledge base and an overview of the compositional modeling language (CML). CML is a modeling language in which shared model libraries can be written.
• DME Thermodynamics Analysis
  A brief demonstration of performance analysis of a thermodynamic system by DME.

Simulation Scenarios (live Q&A)

• RCS Leak Scenario: Operator response to leak
  A live DME self-explanatory simulation scenario in which the operator of the NASA Space Shuttle's Reaction Control System (RCS) must cope with a leak.
• MadeFast Seeker Scenario: Documentation of a design
  A live DME model with explanations of the behaviors of different components of the seeker system. This model is used by MadeFast contractors as documentation of the collaborative design effort.
• Rockwell Detector Scenario
  A live DME model of Rockwell's mercury telluride cadmium infrared detector. It shows how DME can be used as a front end to produce equations for Rockwell's DesignSheet system, while providing model building and explanation facilities.
• Thermal System Scenario: (Experimental)
  Another live DME simulation scenario showing steady state analysis of a power system.

Model Fragment Libraries

• Thermal Systems Model Fragment Library
  A shareable model library for power generation systems.
• RCS Model Fragment Library
  DME's model library for the Reaction Control System.

Overviews

• DME Quick Overview
  A brief summary of DME intended for all audiences.
• Explanation Generation
  An introduction to the interactive explanation facility of DME and how it works on the World Wide Web.
• Use in human communication
  Example of how explainable scenarios can be embedded in shared design notebooks based on email.
• Use of network agents
  How DME uses the services of other network-resident agents that follow the KIF/KQML protocol.