An investigation into evolving support for component reuse

It is common in engineering disciplines for new product development to be based on a concept of reuse, i.e. based on a foundation of knowledge and pre-existing components familiar to the discipline's community. In Software Engineering, this concept is known as software reuse. Software reuse is considered essential if higher quality software and reduced development effort are to be achieved. A crucial part of any engineering development is access to tools that aid development. In software engineering this means having software support tools with which to construct software including tools to support effective software reuse. The evolutionary nature of software means that the foundation of knowledge and components on which new products can be developed must reflect the changes occurring in both the software engineering discipline and the domain in which the software is to function. Therefore, effective support tools, including those used in software reuse, must evolve to reflect changes in both software engineering and the varying domains that use software. This thesis contains a survey of the current understanding of software reuse. Software reuse is defined as the use of knowledge and work components of software that already exist in the development of new software. The survey reflects the belief that domain analysis and software tool support are essential in successful software reuse. The focus of the research is an investigation into the effects of a changing domain on the evolution of support for component-based reuse and domain analysis, and on the application of software reuse support methods and tools to another engineering discipline, namely roll design. To broaden understanding of a changing domain on the evolution of support for software reuse and domain analysis, a prototype for a reuse support environment has been developed for roll designers in the steel industry

Semantic Indexing via Knowledge Organization Systems: Applying the CIDOC-CRM to Archaeological Grey Literature

The volume of archaeological reports being produced since the introduction of PG161 has significantly increased, as a result of the increased volume of archaeological investigations conducted by academic and commercial archaeology. It is highly desirable to be able to search effectively within and across such reports in order to find information that promotes quality research. A potential dissemination of information via semantic technologies offers the opportunity to improve archaeological practice, not only by enabling access to information but also by changing how information is structured and the way research is conducted. This thesis presents a method for automatic semantic indexing of archaeological greyliterature reports using rule-based Information Extraction techniques in combination with domain-specific ontological and terminological resources. This semantic annotation of contextual abstractions from archaeological grey-literature is driven by Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques which are used to identify “rich” meaningful pieces of text, thus overcoming barriers in document indexing and retrieval imposed by the use of natural language. The semantic annotation system (OPTIMA) performs the NLP tasks of Named Entity Recognition, Relation Extraction, Negation Detection and Word Sense disambiguation using hand-crafted rules and terminological resources for associating contextual abstractions with classes of the ISO Standard (ISO 21127:2006) CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) for cultural heritage and its archaeological extension, CRM-EH, together with concepts from English Heritage thesauri and glossaries. The results demonstrate that the techniques can deliver semantic annotations of archaeological grey literature documents with respect to the domain conceptual models. Such semantic annotations have proven capable of supporting semantic query, document study and cross-searching via web based applications. The research outcomes have provided semantic annotations for the Semantic Technologies for Archaeological Resources (STAR) project, which explored the potential of semantic technologies in the integration of archaeological digital resources. The thesis represents the first discussion on the employment of CIDOC CRM and CRM-EH in semantic annotation of grey-literature documents using rule-based Information Extraction techniques driven by a supplementary exploitation of domain-specific ontological and terminological resources. It is anticipated that the methods can be generalised in the future to the broader field of Digital Humanities

Towards an evaluation of schema theory with reference to ESL/EFL reading comprehension.

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D93524 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Arcabouço de arquitetura da informação para ciclo de vida de projeto de vocabulário controlado : uma aplicação em Engenharia de Software

Tese (doutorado)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Ciência da Informação, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência da Informação, 2017.A pesquisa que resultou nesta tese investigou processos de desenvolvimento e de avaliação de vocabulários controlados. Esta tese inclui os seguintes elementos: resultado de pesquisa bibliográfica sobre arquitetura da informação, recuperação da informação, organização da informação e representação da informação; proposta de arcabouço para ciclo de vida de projeto de vocabulário controlado; e exemplo de uso de elementos desse arcabouço na construção de um protótipo de vocabulário controlado no domínio da Engenharia de Software. O arcabouço proposto é composto por arquitetura de referência, modelo de domínio, modelo de qualidade e lista de atividades. Entre os elementos do modelo de qualidade proposto, existe uma lista de características de qualidade de vocabulários controlados. Os modelos propostos estão parcialmente alinhados a ferramentas semânticas existentes.The research that resulted in this thesis has investigated development and evaluation processes of controlled vocabularies. This thesis includes the following elements: results of a bibliographic research on information architecture, information recovery, information organization and information representation; proposal of a framework for controlled vocabulary project life cycle; and example of use of this framework during the construction of a prototype of a controlled vocabulary on the Software Engineering domain. The proposed framework is composed of reference architecture, domain model, quality model and list of activities. Among the elements of the proposed quality model, there is a list of controlled vocabulary quality characteristics. The proposed models are partially aligned to existing semantic tools

A domain-specific language based approach to component composition, error-detection, and fault prediction

Current methods of software production are resource-intensive and often require a number of highly skilled professionals. To develop a well-designed and effectively implemented system requires a large investment of resources, often numbering into millions of pounds. The time required may also prove to be prohibitive. However, many parts of the new systems being currently developed already exist, either in the form of whole or parts of existing systems. It is therefore attractive to reuseexisting code when developing new software, in order to reduce the time andresources required. This thesis proposes the application of a domain-specific language (DSL) to automatic component composition, testing and fault-prediction. The DSL ISinherently based on a domain-model which should aid users of the system m knowing how the system is structured and what responsibilities the system fulfils. The DSL structure proposed in this thesis uses a type system and grammar hence enabling the early detection of syntactically incorrect system usage. Each DSL construct's behaviour can also be defined in a testing DSL, described here as DSL-test. This can take the form of input and output parameters, which should suffice for specifying stateless components, or may necessitate the use of a special method call, described here as a White-Box Test (WBT), which allows the external observer to view the abstract state of a component. Each DSL-construct can be mapped to its implementing components i.e. the component, or amalgamation of components, that implement(s) the behaviour as prescribed by the DSL-construct. User-requirements are described using the DS Land appropriate implementing components (if sufficient exist) are automatically located and integrated. That is to say, given a requirement described in terms of the DSL and sufficient components, the architecture (which was named Hydra) will be able to generate an executable which should behave as desired. The DSL-construct behaviour description language (DSL-test) is designed in such a way that it can be translated into a computer programming language, and so code can be inserted between the system automatically to verify that the implementing component is acting in a way consistent with the model of its expected behaviour. Upon detection of an error, the system examines available data (i.e. where the error occurred, what sort of error was it, and what was the structure of the executable), to attempt to predict the location of the fault and, where possible, make remedialaction. A number of case studies have been investigated and it was found that, if applied to the appropriate problem domain, the approach proposed in this thesis shows promise in terms of full automation and integration of black-box or grey-box software. However, further work is required before it can be claimed that this approach should be used in real scale systems

Modality and learner academic writing across genres:an analysis of discourse, socialisation and teacher cognition on a 20-week pre-sessional programme

Modality is a complex yet pervasive feature of the English language which is typically difficult for non-native speakers of English to acquire. It is even more so for learners of English who wish to undertake advanced academic study in an English-speaking context, as it requires knowledge of both discipline and genre specific norms and to be able to adapt to reader expectations. This study uses a mixed methods design to analyse the longitudinal development of modality in learner academic writing on a 20-week pre-sessional programme at a UK university. The research triangulates the findings obtained from the analysis of three distinct datasets in order to identify the factors involved in influencing amateur writer output in their assessed written texts. The main focus of the study is an in-depth discourse analysis contrasting expert (successful Masters students) and amateur (pre-sessional) writing in three genres of academic writing within the discipline of Business and Economics. A functional approach is adopted to analyse the expression of modality. This is complemented by an analysis of the teaching material used on the programme and combined with insights on teacher cognition from a series of interviews. The findings show a development in interlanguage, with movement to closer alignment in modal expressions between the types of writers as the programme progresses. However, the findings also show that modality is marginalised as a language item in the teaching materials, in the assessment task types and in the marking criteria, with preference given to rhetorical structures within texts. Tutors also report varying degrees of comfort, expertise and familiarity with regards to modality. The research concludes by making a series of pedagogical recommendations in order to re-direct some of the attention in academic writing instruction back to modality and to integrate it more explicitly and appropriately within the course design

Building web service ontologies

Harmelen, F.A.H. van [Promotor]Stuckenschmidt, H. [Copromotor

From sites and monuments records to historic environment records, from planning to research

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

St Peter's, Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire

St Peter's, Barton-upon-Humber, is a redundant medieval church in the care of English Heritage. As a result of a major program of research carried out between 1978 and 2007, it is now the most intensively studied parish church in the UK. Excavations between 1978 and 1984 investigated most of the interior of the building, as well as a swathe of churchyard around its exterior. At the same time, a stone-by-stone record and detailed archaeological study of the fabric and furnishings of the church was undertaken, continuing down to 2007. The twin aims of the project were to understand the architectural history and setting of this complex, multi-period building (Volume 1, Parts 1 and 2) and to recover a substantial sample of the population for palaeopathological study (Volume 2). An extensive program of historical and topographical research also took place in order to set the archaeological evidence firmly in context