A software architecture for reconstructability analysis

Software packages for reconstructability analysis (RA), as well as for related log linear modeling, generally provide a fixed set of functions. Such packages are suitable for end-users applying RA in various domains, but do not provide a platform for research into the RA methods themselves. A new software system, Occam3, is being developed which is intended to address three goals which often conflict with one another to provide: a general and flexible infrastructure for experimentation with RA methods and algorithms; an easily-configured system allowing methods to be combined in novel ways, without requiring deep software expertise; and a system which can be easily utilized by domain researchers who are not computer specialists. Meeting these goals has led to an architecture which strictly separates functions into three layers: the core, which provides representation of data sets, relations, and models; the management layer, which provides extensible objects for development of new algorithms; and the script layer, which allows the other facilities to be combined in novel ways to address a particular domain analysis problem.