This paper describes the design and evaluation of a robotic TV assistant that helps users find a TV-programme that fits their interests. Questions that were addressed include: What personality do users prefer for the robotic TV-assistant? What level of control do they prefer? How do personality and the level of control relate to each other? Four prototypes were developed by combining two personalities and two levels of user control. In the high control condition, a speech-based command-and-control interaction style was used, whereas the interaction style in the low control condition consisted of speech-based system-initiative natural language dialogue. The results demonstrated an interaction between the effects of personality and level of control on user preferences. Overall, the most preferred combination was an extravert and friendly personality with low user control. Additionally, it was found that perceived level of control was influenced by the robot's personality. This suggests that the robot's personality can be used as a means to increase the amount of control that users perceive

A generic framework is described that supports the design and simulation of complex systems. The simulation framework incorporates a CAD Framework that has been extended with high-level services for visualizing and exploring system performance. The simulation framework is used in a number of industrial environments for the development and optimization of VLSI designs, electro-optical systems, Cathode Ray Tubes, and a manufacturing process.

Within Philips Research Labs, we are investigating the 64-bit VLIW core for future TriMedia processors. We have performed an extensive design space exploration (DSE) on this core using quantitative analysis, using a benchmark suite of applications which are representative for multimedia processing. We have explored, among others, the configurations of the different functional units (FUs) of the 64-bit VLIW core. We show the merit of our approach and of the environment that we have developed for design space exploration.

In this paper we present a user interface that supports design engineers in having efficient interaction with their CAD system. We adopt a flow-based paradigm for design history browsing and tool selection. Based on this paradigm the user interface shows design objects in the context of executed-, enabled- and disabled tools and related design objects. We present a flow coloring algorithm which is used by the user interface to automatically select convenient doses of information related to a user-specified design object. The user interface integrates many aspects of user interaction into a single platform that enables design engineers to efficiently execute the design cycle. This includes tool invocation facilities, an intuitive mechanism for interaction among different browsers, and a mechanism for automatic updates of the information that is being displayed as changes occur. The user interface has been implemented as a desktop facility in the Nelsis CAD Framework.

An attempt to realize an integrated design environment with a maximum of functionality and an absolute minimum impact on existing design tools is discussed. Addressed are the interface between the design tools and the framework, the architecture of the framework including the interrelations among the different components, and the internal operation of the flow management components. These issues are combined to arrive at an overall solution that yields a running design flow management system implemented in the NELSIS CAD framework. The net result is a CAD system that makes the graphical representation of the design tasks the basis for all design actions. The system provides generic mechanisms applicable to many application domains, and thus new tools can be easily incorporated.>

In this paper a new approach for design jlow management is presented.We describe how the inputlouput relations between tools can be defined in a j%nwnap.For this, several concepts are introduced, such as defiing activities for tools, run-time activity identification, hierarchical jlow graphs, modijkation versus extension, and the possibility to have loops in the j?owmap.We also address tool scheduling and the integration of design Jow management in the architecture of afiarne-bared &sign system.

A key aspect of a CAD framework is the management of meta data, i.e. high level information about the structure and status of the design.In this paper we present the architecture of a modular frame-based IC design system and elucidate the software structure adopted for the management of meta data in its CAD framework.The meta data management software module is efficient, operates in a distributed hardware environment, controls concurrent access, and offers a high level query interface for meta data browsing.