Special Issue: Engineering applications of representations of function, Part 1

In engineering design, the end goal is the creation of an artifact, product, system, or process that fulfills some functional requirements at some desired level of performance. As such, knowledge of functionality is essential in a wide variety of tasks in engineering activities, including modeling, generation, modification, visualization, explanation, evaluation, diagnosis, and repair of these artifacts and processes. A formal representation of functionality is essential for supporting any of these activities on computers. The goal of Parts 1 and 2 of this Special Issue is to bring together the state of knowledge of representing functionality in engineering applications from both the engineering and the artificial intelligence (AI) research communities. The idea for this Special Issue grew out of common themes that emerged from research reported at ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences, Design Society International Conference on Engineering Design, and other conferences and workshops focused on engineering design and its applications. Of particular interest, it seemed that the engineering design and AI communities were tackling similar topics and, in some instances, duplicating each other's efforts. In engineering design research, automated concept generation and embodiment problems are the impetus for engineers to delve into the AI domain. For the AI commu-