Position Papers

An Open Workshop on Decision-Based Design: Status and Promise

Tomasz Arciszewski
tarcisze@gmu.edu

Civil, Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering Program
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22-030
Phone: (703) 993-1513

1. Personal Background

  • Structural mechanics and engineering
  • Teaching and hands-on structural analysis and design experience from several countries (Poland, Switzerland, Nigeria and USA).
  • Teaching at George Mason University graduate courses in the areas of decision science, engineering design and creative problem solving.
  • Three patents in the area of structural engineering (Canada, Poland, and USA).

    • 2. Interests

    Engineering Design:

  • Creative problem solving
  • Network computing in creative problem solving
  • Design theories
  • Automated design knowledge acquisition

    • Information Technology:

  • Methodology for using learning systems for various engineering purposes
  • Network computing in teaching and design,
  • Semantic and performance-based evaluation of learning systems
  • Symbolic machine learning: hypothesis-driven constructive induction

    • 3. Vision

    Information Technology Revolution in engineering will lead to the development of enterprise-wide virtual engineering environments in which all information-related activities, including design, will be conducted. Design will become proactive and will be conducted through computer networks. All design stages, including the generation of abstract design concepts, conceptual design (visualization, development and evaluation of design concepts), and the detailed design will be integrated both in the methodological and information flow terms, and they will be supported by various tools available on numerous servers. A design theory will be developed for the distributed and proactive enterprise-wide design in which innovation will be routinely considered and its level controlled, depending on the specific needs. Creative problem solving will become an important part of the design process and various methods will be developed/adopted to build computer network-oriented tools for the use in design.

    Engineering design will become a part of both undergraduate (ABET required) and graduate engineering curricula. Also diversified teaching materials and tools will be available through Internet as the result of an NSF-coordinated and sponsored effort which will involve a network of design experts (enthusiasts?).

    As the result of a coordinated effort in the areas of engineering practice and education, American engineering companies will improve their competitive advantage and that will guarantee the survival of American industry and its further growth.

    4. Contributions

    See my research interests. I am particularly interested to provide input regarding network computing in the context of proactive design and creative problem solving. I could also contribute to building a design theory which might incorporate some assumptions and components of my Inferential Design Theory which was proposed with R.S. Michalski of George Mason University Computer Science Department several years ago.

    5. Expectations

    I would like to improve my own understanding of engineering design in the context of the ongoing Information Technology Revolution and to learn more about the work of the other design researchers. Most importantly, I would like to develop and to participate in a coordinated effort to establish a foundation for enterprise-wide virtual engineering environment, which should include an educational component.

    Appendix

    Design-Related Publications (1996-1997)
    1. Arciszewski, T., Ardayfio, D., Doulamis, J., ìAutomated Knowledge Acquisition in Proactive Design, ASME Engineering Design Conference, submitted.

    2. Arciszewski, T., ìEngineering Semantic Evaluation of Decision Rules, Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systemsî, in print.

    3. Karni, R., Arciszewski, T., ìA Design Tool for the Conceptual Design of Production and Operation Systems,î Journal of Research in Engineering Design, in print.

    4. Arciszewski, T., Kunigahalli, R., ìProactive CyberSpace Design: Creative Problem Solving, îProceedings of the ASCE International Congress on Computing in Civil Engineering, Philadelphia, 1997.

    5. Skibniewski, M., Arciszewski, T., Luprasad, K., ìConstructability Analysis: A Machine Learning Approach,î the ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering , Vol. II, No. 1, pp. 8-17, 1997.

    6. Szczepanik, W., Arciszewski, T., Wnek, J., ìEmpirical Comparison of Selective and Constructive Induction, Journal Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 9, No. 6, pp. 627-639, 1996.

    7. Arciszewski, T., ìLearning Engineering: The Key to Automatic Knowledge Acquisition,î (invited extended research abstract), Special Issue on Machine Learning in Design, Journal Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing, Cambridge University Press, Vol. 10, pp. 127-129, 1996.

    8. Szczepanik, W., Arciszewski, T., Wnek, J., ìSemantic Comparison of Selective and Constructive Induction,î Proceedings of the 3rd ASCE International Congress on Computing in Civil Engineering, Anaheim, 1996.

    9. Arciszewski, T., Doulamis, J., Michalski, R.S., Szczepanik, W., Wnek, J., ìMachine Learning in Design: A Constructive Induction Approach,î Extended Abstract, Proceedings of the NSF Grantees Conference, Albuquerque, NM, 1996.

    Design-Related Presentations (1996-1997)
    1. Arciszewski, T., poster presentation, the NSF Grantee Conference, Seattle, WA, January, 1997.

    2. Arciszewski, T., ìComputers in Civil Engineering Educationî, the ASCE National Capital Chapter, January, 1997.

    3. Arciszewski, T., Kunigahalli, R., ìCreative Problem Solving: Intelligent Objects and Network-Enabling Technologies,î NASA Langley Research Center, January, 1997.

    4. Arciszewski, T., ìInternet Revolution in Design,î Dewberry and Davis, Inc., October, 1996.

    5. Arciszewski, T., poster presentation, the NSF Grantee Conference, Albaquerke, NM, January, 1996.