Title

An Educational Software Lifecycle Model Inspired By Human Physiology

Keywords

Artificial intelligence; Human physiology; Life sciences; Lifecycle model; Software engineering

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence methods are frequently applied to projects of developing systems endowed with the intellectual processes in humans, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize, or learn from past experiences. However, the question remains, Can a man-made design/artifact be considered conscious? This paper aims to establish a direct relationship between the human physiology and Software Engineering, for educational purposes. Teaching Software Engineering can be challenging in cases when taught to non-engineering students. The class curriculum needs to be planned and structured to match the background of the students who are taking the class. Nowadays, students from majors other than Computer Engineering and Computer Science often are required to register for software-related classes, usually the introductory ones. Additionally, new fields are emerging between life sciences and software engineering, such as bioinformatics and computational chemistry, thus, an increasing need to address such fields. The model presented in this paper is called the Human Physiology Lifecycle Model for Learning (HPML). It is targeted towards students in the fields of biological, medical and life sciences (this includes biology, chemistry, medical studies, nursing, pharmacy, bioinformatics and public health majors). Students in these fields need to acquire the basics of engineering and software, medical software tools and a general understanding of computers. Human physiology had proven itself to be a successful model to follow1, or at least an inspirational one for science4. Especially in software engineering, fields such as genetic algorithms3, computer vision4, and computer scent recognition2 are all examples on how to build software systems similar to biological systems; but could this be applied to education? To answer this question, this paper introduces a software model that follows the human physiology to structure different parts of a conventional software system; and to introduce it to students. On the other hand, lifecycle models can help in illustrating the different phases of software construction to students. HPML uses lifecycle models, for instance, HPML equates the human immune system to a safety and security software system (or module within a system); under this system students can learn about topics such as viruses, malware attacks, errors, defects and relate that to similar functions in the human body. Another example is the circulatory system; which controls the movement of blood which is pumped from the heart to all the parts of the body. Similar to that functionality is the data flow in a software system, and all its related topics (data latency, data mining, system throughput.etc). It is anticipated that this model establishes a cornerstone to a comprehensive educational lifecycle model that is fully inspired by human body systems and their parts. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2013.

Publication Date

9-24-2013

Publication Title

ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings

Number of Pages

-

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

Socpus ID

84884316501 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84884316501

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