General Requirements of FRAMES

The FRAMEwork Systems (FRAMES) includes a suite of editors designed to manage, view, and set up the underlying infrastructure as well as run a simulation. The five editors, each with its own documentation, include the following:

  • Conversion Editor, which manages measures and units used by dictionaries and datasets to automatically convert between different mediums 
  • Dictionary Editor, which creates and edits dictionaries used by FRAMES to categorize data 
  • Module Editor, which creates and manages the modules that manipulate data by specifying dictionaries 
  • Domain Editor, which organizes a palette of modules from which to select for a particular simulation 
  • Simulation Editor, which sets up and runs a particular simulation.

In addition, FRAMES includes a Linkage Server, which allows the user to connect to a web page to receive recent updates to the system and its components.

This section summarizes general requirements for FRAMES 2.0. Those interested in setting up a risk scenario and analyzing data should refer to the start up documentation for additional information. Those interested in importing a module into FRAMES should refer to the importation documentation for additional information.

FRAMES has the following overall requirements:

  • G1 - operate using the 2.0 Application Programming Interface (API) under Windows 2000 or higher 
  • G2 - provide a security protocol to allow the user to publish updated system files to the Linkage Server 
  • G3 - provide access to the Linkage Server to retrieve and/or post the most current conversion, dictionary, and module files 
  • G4 - provide access via the Linkage Server to the status of the conversion, dictionary, and module files available. 

The following sections describe the input and output requirements for FRAMES.

Input Requirements of FRAMES

FRAMES has the following general input requirements:

  • I1 - generate module and dictionary files maintained within the Startup.INI file, which must be stored in the same directory as FRAMES. Note that the Startup.INI file cannot be copied from one system to another without using the installation program. 
  • I2 - register the SystemIO.dll. Note that while this must be registered with the operating system, it does not have to be in a local directory. [NOT IN TEST PLAN] 
  • I3 - include in the same directory the files Module.Dic, Startup.Dic, and Simulation.Dic. [NOT IN TEST PLAN]

Output Requirements of FRAMES

FRAMES has the following general output requirements:

  • O1 - update a Startup.INI file that keeps track of all required files and domain property information 
  • O2 - store all information about a dictionary in an ASCII file with a .DIC file extension [NOT IN TEST PLAN] 
  • O3 - store all information about a module in an ASCII file with a .mod file extension [NOT IN TEST PLAN] 
  • O4 - provide a default Linkage Server for connection through a web page while allowing for the possibility of connecting to a user-defined Linkage Server [NOT IN TEST PLAN] 
  • 05 - allow the user to publish a conversion file to the Linkage Server 
  • O6 - allow the user to publish a dictionary file to the Linkage Server 
  • O7 - allow the user to publish a module to the Linkage Server.