ARPA Software is a research and software development team,
working together since the beginning of 90's.
Our business fields are:
- Design and development of “turn-key” application software, as well as
- Design and simulation of engineering and business cost estimation models, including
- Solving optimization problems (portfolio and scientific optimization, linear, non-linear models) and
- Structural mechanics problems (physical and geometrical non-linearity, crack propagation, fatigue failure).
We have developed and launched more than a dozen large projects (see our portfolio)
in the following areas:
- Cost modelling to perform cost trade-off studies,
solve estimation and optimization problems,
- Business applications (accounting, supply and inventory management, sales record,
production planning, document flow control, payroll accounting),
- Software for strength analysis and engineering design in aerospace and automotive industry;
- Development of material properties databases, material trade-off studies & engineering
design, specialized information storage and retrieval systems,
- Geographic and pictorial information processing, including geostatistics and
aerophotography interpretation.
ExcelExt! — Excel Execution Extender
ExcelExt! is a freeware Windows application developed as a part of
Cost Modelling Studio. It can process the simulation models based
on Microsoft Excel workbooks. The program extends the field of
application of Microsoft Excel. You may download ExcelExt! and use it
freely on conditions of
MIT-license.
The principle of operation is easy. First, the user builds an arbitrary model
by means of Microsoft Excel — i.e. put formulae into spreadsheet
cells that show the dependencies between parameters and resulting values,
writes data into certain “input” cells and reads results from
certain “output” cells.
It is a sealed calculation model. With this approach it is necessary to
reenter parameter values every time a different model should be simulated.
But how to force Microsoft Excel to calculate the model iteratively for
different sets of input parameters without boring manual data input?
It is quite easy!...
Cost Modelling Studio
The goal of the project is the creation of an effective tool for solving
business trade-off problems. This software allows designing cost estimation
models and using them to make business decisions (models simulation).
COSTMOS implements an object-oriented approach to the cost model, using the
same advantages that ensure the success in software designing and development.
Cost Modelling Studio is a desktop application meant for Microsoft Windows
environment. It includes Model Designer tools and wizards, Object CML (Cost
Modelling Language) compiler, and two modelling instruments: Case Study and
Analysis Browser. The first is intended for calculation and comparison of
several cases with fixed parameter values (usually ten to hundred cases). The
second tool — Analysis Browser — is used for
profound analyses which involves calculating thousands of cases (solution space hypercube).
Access to models can be granted to a wide circle of users (without revealing
model dependencies and algorithms!). This can be done via uploading the
models onto special web-server that includes models and users databases,
solver for models simulation and administrative tools. To access and evaluate
the models slightly truncated version of Analysis Browser is available. It
runs directly in Internet Explorer and allows studying models over the Internet.
International Trucking Control System
There is a large project developed for Ukrainian National Agency of
International Trucking Service. The problem to be solved lays in accounting
of a huge number of documents attendant each truck in each international
haulage across Europe. There are many different kinds of documents:
expendable and permanent, seasonal, depending on the type of the truck or
nature of the cargo. Every country issues its own permissions and exchanges
those with the others. Certificates are emitted as securities (every
document has unique series and number). When one crosses the border the
certificate is stamped, and should be further returned to the agency at the
end of the trip (or season). Those are exchanged with the country-issuer at
the end of the year.
The described system features the intensive information flows. Tens of
thousands accompanying documents are registered every month at the border
crosses, collected and processed in the central database. However, small
budget precluded the use of powerful servers and DBMS, such as Oracle.
Instead the royalty-free Visual FoxPro database was used. Shared access to
the data and fairly high reactivity of the system was achieved by using
efficient data separation into relatively small OLTP-database and huge, but
unalterable during the day, OLAP-database.
The system has a powerful information retrieval tools with elements of data
mining facilities.
Cables & Wires Sale System
This large project was developed and implemented for the commercial holding
company, selling cables, wires, illuminating equipment, home electrical
appliances, industrial electrical equipment, etc. The company has central HQ
and warehouse, about 30 stores in all major cities of Ukraine, dozen regional
offices and warehouses, its own transportation network. The developed
solution covers the computerization of all business activities: supply and
inventory management, shipping operations control, store accounting, sales
recording, business accounting, financial analysis and planning.
Trade sales, orders and reservations were conducted from the various working
places in the different geographical locations, hence the main problem of
the project was to provide a high reactivity in condition of multiple access
to the shared information resources. This was provided by means of
client/server architecture, designing of a relatively small and fast central
OLTP-database, careful programming of critical in time-response applications.
HR Agency Management System
The project was developed for a human resources agency. It represents a
combination of a desktop application and web-server architecture. Microsoft
Visual FoxPro application is used to facilitate the office workgroup, and
periodic administrative scripts perform synchronization with the remote
web-server database. End-users can access the system via the Internet Explorer,
visiting the website where they can review job propositions, place information
about themselves or available positions, etc.
Office-based software is equipped with powerful analytical and search
mechanisms giving access to different statistics and reports. This allows
creating special reports for selected customers, providing them with
more detailed statistics and information.
One distinctive feature is three language localization, every piece of textual
data can be stored in russian, ukrainian and/or english language. Thus
allowing seamless use for both eastern and central european markets.
Aerospace Stiffened Panel Analysis
There are several related projects realizing numerical strength analysis of
wing structures based on finite-element method. The main goal of the projects
is porting large strength analysis programs (solvers), originally developed
for mainframes back in 70-80s, to Windows NT/2000/XP platform and equipping
them with modern graphical user interface. The solvers, written in eternal
Fortran and working in batch mode, were accompanied by user-friendly
facilities for entering/editing input data, visualization the results and
providing extra features such as design history database, etc.
The projects are typical solutions intended for revival of ancient software.
One of the projects is used for research of crack propagation processes in
aircraft constructions, which requires huge processing power. For this
particular package a distributed computational technique was implemented to
enable parallel computation using several computers connected via LAN and
further merging the results into a single design history database.
Wing Panel Design (Web Serivce)
There is the project realizing analytical strength analysis of wing
structures used for rapid design estimations. The project includes written in
Fortran solver program and user-friendly desktop application. The former
provides facilities for convenient entering/editing of input data,
visualization the results, use of design history database, etc.
The distinctive feature of the project is that the solver implements
unique algorithm of Fatigue Life research being a know-how of its authors.
While the GUI application is meant for a wide spectrum of users, the solver
program by itself should not be installed at their computers (even as a binary
file). This requirement defines client/server architecture for the system:
client — desktop application (developed in Java), and solver package
sited at the server and accessible by means of Web Services (SOAP protocol).
This small project is a successful attempt of Web-based number crunching
implementation.
Wing Panel Design (Optimization)
This project is similar to the Wing Panel Design (Web Service):
a strength analysis program (solver), written in Fortran and the
corresponding user-friendly front-end program, written in Visual FoxPro.
User interface includes facilities for convenient entering/editing of input
data, visualization the results, use of design history database, etc.
The distinctive feature of the project is that the problem-oriented results
player, written in C#, is developed to allow a researcher (engineer) visually
investigate the process of optimal cross-section calculation, this process is
depicted as an animated cartoon. This advanced facility approved itself as
convenient supplement to traditional reports and diagrams.
Material Properties Databases
There are several related projects realizing material property databases and
software tools primarily for use in preliminary engineering design and for
material trade-off studies.
In addition to the many advanced features for storage, retrieval, editing of
scalar property information such as Military Handbook (MIL-HDBK-5) Material
Property data, a diversity of features were incorporated to facilitate the
retrieval, manipulation and comparison of information represented in
pictorial form. This information is essential in design trade studies where
new materials are compared with the existing baseline material.
Also, a “point and click” advanced search feature was developed
to browse or locate materials. Finally, a material comparison module was
developed to compare properties between materials.
IS for State Offices/Agencies
There are several projects of workflow automation developed for Ukrainian
state offices/agencies.
At the beginning of 90-th, when state institutions of Ukraine started
to emerge, there occured a unique opportunity — the possibility to
develope computerized systems “from scratch”. The first project was
designed in 1992-1993 for State Patent Office of Ukraine. Our team
designed the database structure, software specification and business
case, then developed programs of the first stage.
Larger part of the prototype systems of that time were presented as
an expensive solutions based on the mainframes. Using that experience
we had developed client/server architecture based on the distributed
network computing and on use of relatively inexpensive servers and
workstations.
Another project has been developed in 1998 for Shipping Register of Ukraine.
We designed the integrated database structure and software specification.
This work was interesting because of particular complexity of its
infological data. The proposed solution was to supply ship surveyors with
notebooks equipped with specialized software. The surveyor was able to
download the ship's information before inspection and upload completed
check list after inspection.
Medical Patient Registration
This project was aimed to help in indexing and processing of medical
data that is accumulated while treating the patient. The developed
lightweight system provides standalone software which is able to
keep track of thousands of patients, their case history, etc.
The system is built upon royalty-free database — Visual FoxPro,
thus giving relatively inexpensive solution for the medical
personal. It can be installed in either completely standalone
mode, where both database and the client reside on the same
workstation, or, alternatively, several clients can share access
to the same database via LAN.
Geoinformation Processing Tool
The project is a set of a dozen utilities and Excel add-ins meant for
geographic information processing. The programs implement algorithms of
computational geometry, geostatistics and aerophotography processing. It
supports most of the GIS data representation standards.
All utilities exist in two forms: as the dynamic loadable libraries (DLL)
driven from the user-friendly front-end, and as the standalone console
applications, which can be run from the command prompt.
MultiType/NLS Multilingual Tool
This project — National Languages Support Tool for MS DOS and
early versions of MS Windows — is probably of only an archeological
interest now. But by the end of 80-th and in the beginning of 90-th it was
an actual one. Creating special drivers to support national languages was
a task not only difficult but affordable only for professionals. And it
was very time consuming as well, as it included low-level programming on
assembler language and designing lots of fonts for various types of devices.
The system developed by us enabled one to perform such a task without any
programming involved. An accurate user, say school teacher, might easily
accomplish it. This is especially important for national minorities.
The system consisted of more than 100 driver programs for different types
of printers and videoadapters. These programs did not depend on the
language being supported. The language related stuff was reflected in fonts,
keyboard layouts and regional settings. Special interactive utilities were
included to allow creating layouts and settings from standard prototypes.
The project counted more than 400 extended raster fonts of different sizes
and typefaces for various types of devices. Each extended font concluded more
than 600 symbols including about 250 Roman letters and 200 Cyrillic letters.
It was possible to arrange a font for practically any language which is based
on the Roman or Cyrillic script.
Plots Digitizing Utilities
Scientists and engineers often work a lot with pictorial
data — plots, nomogramms. They are friendly and
presentable but for calculations one need to extract numerical values
from the plots. Naturally, in the most cases these pictures are
plotted based on numerical source data, but they might be inaccessible
to user. There are special devices — digitizer pads,
which are used for paper-printed plots digitizing. But if the image
is loaded into the computer and is visualized on the screen, it is
more convinient to use special tool — Digitizer.
The program is easy to use: one mouse click to fix the origin of the
coordinates grid, two more clicks, entering two numbers and scale is
specified. Now, user can click on the plot and the program will mark
the points recalculating the coordinates. Once it is enough points
marked it is possible to display a curve using linear or spline
interpolation. And then check whether it fits the original plot well.
The program allows moving, inserting, deleting and editing points while
plot is digitized to the required precision. It supports many curves
at a time, saving unfinished work to the session file allowing to
continue at a later time. Finally, the digitized data can be exported
into other applications.
Useful Resources
Here we introduce some useful (in our opinion) Internet resources.
Visual FoxPro:
Visual C# .NET:
C/C++:
Site Latest news
Measurement Units Converter — free Visual FoxPro Solution is available.
Business Calendar — free Visual FoxPro Solution is available.
Site has been launched.
Site follows
World Wide Web Consortium
standards and can be viewed with any standard-compatible browser.
