Universal Modeling Language

The Universal Modeling Language is used to describe a software system [4, 5], Several kinds of diagrams exist to model the diverse properties of the system. Thus a description of the system can be developed that enables the systematic and uniform documentation of the system. The class diagram, for example, represents the classes and their relationships. But also interacting diagrams exist, to describe the dynamic behavior of the system and its objects. 

ASCEND. This framework is by Westerberg and coworkers (Ref. 295) at Carnegie-Mellon University. It features an object-oriented modeling language and is well suited for constructing complex models. 

We can experience very many just noticeable differences (JND s) of color. The JND, also known as the difference threshold or discrimination threshold, is the smallest change in any physical stimulation that can be observed with the unaided senses. There are a number of models and systems to standardize or predict resultant hues from mixtures of colors. Most notable of these are the standards of Ridgeway (1912), Munsell (1929), and various modifications of the Munsell system as found in the ISCC-NBS method of designating colors (Kelly and Judd, 1955), A Universal Color Language (Kelly, 1965) and the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) special publication 440, "Color. .. Universal Language and Dictionary of Names" (Kelly and Judd, 1976). There are more than 13000 color names in the NBS Special Publication 440. 

As was said in the introduction (Section 2.1), chemical structures are the universal and the most natural language of chemists, but not for computers. Computers woi k with bits packed into words or bytes, and they perceive neither atoms noi bonds. On the other hand, human beings do not cope with bits very well. Instead of thinking in terms of 0 and 1, chemists try to build models of the world of molecules. The models ai e conceptually quite simple 2D plots of molecular sti uctures or projections of 3D structures onto a plane. The problem is how to transfer these models to computers and how to make computers understand them. This communication must somehow be handled by widely understood input and output processes. The chemists way of thinking about structures must be translated into computers internal, machine representation through one or more intermediate steps or representations (sec figure 2-23, The input/output processes defined... 

The model developed, which has been in use for many years both for the training of professionals and speciaUsts and the preliminary education of nonspeciahsts, leads toward a universal language for odor relationships, and is named the spectmm or field of odor. This spatial model has been based on 42 reference odorants, including vanillin, and is becoming the methodological reference for describing odors (see Odormodification). 

Collins, A., Gentner, D. (1987). How people construct mental models. In D. Holland N. Quinn (Eds.), Cultural models in language and thought (Vol. 1, pp. 243-265). New York University of Cambridge. 

The thicket of models is complicated, and with misunderstood notation (including homo/lumo), the careful user or reader of models has to be aware of exactly what is being done in any given analysis. While it is possible to decry the use of (in particular) the homo/lumo language, that language is universal. This can be avoided simply by thinking of them as affinity levels and detachment levels, as they really are. 

Kenneth J. Arrow, "On Mathematical Models in the Social Sciences," 1951, cited and discussed in Max Black, Models and Metaphors. Studies in Language and Philosophy (Ithaca Cornell University Press, 1962) 223225. 

Black, Max. Models and Metaphors Studies in Language and Philosophy. Ithaca Cornell University Press, 1962. 

---