Towards A Practical High-Assurance Systems Programming Language

Writing correct and performant low-level systems code is a notoriously demanding job, even for experienced developers. To make the matter worse, formally reasoning about their correctness properties introduces yet another level of complexity to the task. It requires considerable expertise in both systems programming and formal verification. The development can be extremely costly due to the sheer complexity of the systems and the nuances in them, if not assisted with appropriate tools that provide abstraction and automation. Cogent is designed to alleviate the burden on developers when writing and verifying systems code. It is a high-level functional language with a certifying compiler, which automatically proves the correctness of the compiled code and also provides a purely functional abstraction of the low-level program to the developer. Equational reasoning techniques can then be used to prove functional correctness properties of the program on top of this abstract semantics, which is notably less laborious than directly verifying the C code. To make Cogent a more approachable and effective tool for developing real-world systems, we further strengthen the framework by extending the core language and its ecosystem. Specifically, we enrich the language to allow users to control the memory representation of algebraic data types, while retaining the automatic proof with a data layout refinement calculus. We repurpose existing tools in a novel way and develop an intuitive foreign function interface, which provides users a seamless experience when using Cogent in conjunction with native C. We augment the Cogent ecosystem with a property-based testing framework, which helps developers better understand the impact formal verification has on their programs and enables a progressive approach to producing high-assurance systems. Finally we explore refinement type systems, which we plan to incorporate into Cogent for more expressiveness and better integration of systems programmers with the verification process

Urban Development of a City in Niger Delta Region of Nigeria

The issue of indiscriminate urban expansion is not uncommon in Africa. It has created haphazard, unplanned, and unapproved development that negatively affected urban planning for cities in the Niger Delta Region in Nigeria. Using Stone\u27s urban regime theory, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore from the perspective of developers, associations, and government agencies (referred to as stakeholders), the roots causes of indiscriminate urban development and their activities in the process in the Niger Delta Region. Data were collected through semi structured telephone interviews with 10 participants who had at least 5 years experience working in public and private organizations in the urban setting. Interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using Braun and Clarke\u27s procedure for thematic analysis. Findings included six themes of limited knowledge, passive role, recognition of experiencing the problem, contributing to the problem, weakness of regulatory framework, and lack of synergy in the process. The principal theme was limited knowledge of the roles and obligations of participants which impede participation in the planning process. The recommendations, if implemented, may result in positive changes and bring many benefits to city residents such as better housing and traffic systems, adequate sanitation and improved access to public services. To do so, government agencies in the urban sector should engage the stakeholders to create synergy. Following these recommendations may help resolve the issue of indiscriminate urban expansion, promote effective planning and management, and ensure good governance and sustainable development in the urban setting

DESIGN FOR LUXURY AUTOMOTIVE HMI SYSTEMS AND DRIVER EXPERIENCES

Luxury is predominantly discussed within marketing, economics and psychology literature, with little research made into the practicalities of designing for luxury products and experiences. This thesis addresses the lack of an evidence base from which to design and virtually prototype luxury automotive HMI (human-machine interaction) systems. The work involved five interconnected studies and two industrial partners: Bentley Motors – manufacturers of luxury automobiles; and the VEC (Virtual Engineering Centre) – a consultancy and R&D organization specialising in digital simulation. In Study 1, a literature review was conducted to build a foundation for the research, providing definitions of luxury and investigating attributes of luxury products, cars and experiences. Four distinct luxury values were identified: financial, symbolic, functional and experiential. Study 2 comprised a benchmarking field study using immersion methods. The HMI system for four luxury cars was analysed to reveal state-of-the-art uses of interaction technologies and control/interaction details. The study provided the researcher with luxury car orientation, whilst uncovering notable tensions in the integration of luxurious design details with advanced interaction and interface technologies. Study 3 comprised the main field research, seeking to deeply probe drivers’ understanding and expectations for HMI systems qualified as providing a luxury experience. Semi-structured in-car interviews were conducted with Bentley Motors employees (n=28). Transcript and video data were processed using grounded theory, verbatim coding and content analysis. The verbatim codes led to a quantitative hierarchy of design criteria for luxury automotive HMI systems. The content analysis provided an exhaustive collection of user constructs that were qualitatively clustered into maps of luxury automotive HMI system and experience dimensions. In combination, the hierarchical design criteria and construct maps provide a set of guidance to assist designers when conceptualizing luxury HMI system interactions and experiences. Study 4 implemented the guidance from Study 3 through a project to ideate a set of 3 luxury HMI system concepts, as inspirational materials for Bentley Motors. A review of new, emerging and unusual (NEU) interaction technologies was made to assist the generation of concepts satisfying the luxury principle of rarity. Finally, in Study 5 a workshop with VEC experts established the plausibility of virtual and augmented reality systems to digitally simulate HMI systems using NEU interactive technologies. Study 5 satisfied a need within Bentley Motors for better understanding of how HMI system design and virtual prototyping could align. The thesis concludes that: (i) user experience goals for luxury automotive HMI systems can be uncovered in a rigorous way through design research; (ii) the design of luxury automotive HMI systems benefits from a new set of a guidance developed from research data without reliance on corporate know-how; and (iii) careful selection of virtual and augmented reality technologies can provide plausible virtual prototyping routes for HMI design concepts

An Intelligent Expert System for Decision Analysis and Support in Multi-Attribute Layout Optimization

Layout Decision Analysis and Design is a ubiquitous problem in a variety of work domains that is important from both strategic and operational perspectives. It is largely a complex, vague, difficult, and ill-structured problem that requires intelligent and sophisticated decision analysis and design support. Inadequate information availability, combinatorial complexity, subjective and uncertain preferences, and cognitive biases of decision makers often hamper the procurement of a superior layout configuration. Consequently, it is desirable to develop an intelligent decision support system for layout design that could deal with such challenging issues by providing efficient and effective means of generating, analyzing, enumerating, ranking, and manipulating superior alternative layouts. We present a research framework and a functional prototype for an interactive Intelligent System for Decision Support and Expert Analysis in Multi-Attribute Layout Optimization (IDEAL) based on soft computing tools. A fundamental issue in layout design is efficient production of superior alternatives through the incorporation of subjective and uncertain design preferences. Consequently, we have developed an efficient and Intelligent Layout Design Generator (ILG) using a generic two-dimensional bin-packing formulation that utilizes multiple preference weights furnished by a fuzzy Preference Inferencing Agent (PIA). The sub-cognitive, intuitive, multi-facet, and dynamic nature of design preferences indicates that an automated Preference Discovery Agent (PDA) could be an important component of such a system. A user-friendly, interactive, and effective User Interface is deemed critical for the success of the system. The effectiveness of the proposed solution paradigm and the implemented prototype is demonstrated through examples and cases. This research framework and prototype contribute to the field of layout decision analysis and design by enabling explicit representation of experts? knowledge, formal modeling of fuzzy user preferences, and swift generation and manipulation of superior layout alternatives. Such efforts are expected to afford efficient procurement of superior outcomes and to facilitate cognitive, ergonomic, and economic efficiency of layout designers as well as future research in related areas. Applications of this research are broad ranging including facilities layout design, VLSI circuit layout design, newspaper layout design, cutting and packing, adaptive user interfaces, dynamic memory allocation, multi-processor scheduling, metacomputing, etc

Watchkeeper

The SAFE Port Act of 2006 designated the Coast Guard as the lead federal agency tasked with building Interagency Operations Centers in critical U.S. ports. A critical component of the IOC initiative is an Information Management System (IMS) to provide improved means for information sharing, and coordination among federal, state, local, and public sector stakeholders related to maritime safety and security in critical U.S. ports. The Coast Guard WatchKeeper project is a proposed IMS being designed to address the information sharing and information management challenges faced by these agencies. The WatchKeeper development program has faced challenges in delivering capability. Initial capability was to be delivered in 2009. This did not happen. Up to today, WatchKeeper has not delivered any new capabilities. Several development practices may provide advantages to the development process-ensuring value adding capabilities, minimizing project risk, and ensuring Coast Guard leadership can understand how WatchKeeper capabilities support Coast Guard core business process. This thesis describes these development practices, and proposes an architectural consideration to provide focus to future WatchKeeper products. This thesis concludes with considerations for further developing WatchKeeper, and recommendations for moving forward with development.http://archive.org/details/watchkeeper109455405US Coast Guard (USCG) authorApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

‘Archi-texts’ for contemplation in Sixth-Century Byzantium: the case of the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople

This thesis aims to contribute towards a better understanding of what the Byzantines experienced in church spaces. By thoroughly mapping users’ encounters with the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople in the sixth-century, it examines whether the experience of the architectural space during the Eucharistic ritual augmented a religious experience, which in turn, influenced the way the Byzantines talked about their spiritual experience whilst being in a church, and thought of their churches as ‘heaven on earth.’ It places textual evidence alongside architectural evidence. The basic approach of this thesis is rooted in phenomenology and multisensory perception of space. In the first chapter, I make a case for the necessity of studying the textual evidence in light of the spatial experience of the building. I suggest that the concept of ‘archi-text’ is key to answering the question of what was a church in sixth-century Byzantium. Developed in three chapters, the textual analysis focuses on sixth-century ekphraseis of Hagia Sophia written by Procopius of Caesarea and Paul the Silentiary, and the inauguration kontakion composed for the church dedication. In the first two chapters, I examine how the spatial perception of the church influenced the way Hagia Sophia was described. In the next chapter, I explore how the Byzantines thought of the church in symbolic and theological terms. The literary analysis concludes that Hagia Sophia was perceived as a centralised space and represented as a ‘heaven on earth.’ These two points are further scrutinized all through the spatial analysis of the church. The final chapter links the Byzantines’ symbolic representation of the church to the architectural physicality of Hagia Sophia

Comparison of the vocabularies of the Gregg shorthand dictionary and Horn-Peterson's basic vocabulary of business letters

This study is a comparative analysis of the vocabularies of Horn and Peterson's The Basic Vocabulary of Business Letters1 and the Gregg Shorthand Dictionary.2 Both books purport to present a list of words most frequently encountered by stenographers and students of shorthand. The, Basic Vocabulary of Business Letters, published "in answer to repeated requests for data on the words appearing most frequently in business letters,"3 is a frequency list specific to business writing. Although the book carries the copyright date of 1943, the vocabulary was compiled much earlier. The listings constitute a part of the data used in the preparation of the 10,000 words making up the ranked frequency list compiled by Ernest Horn and staff and published in 1926 under the title of A Basic Writing Vocabulary: 10,000 Words Lost Commonly Used in Writing. The introduction to that publication gives credit to Miss Cora Crowder for the contribution of her Master's study at the University of Minnesota concerning words found in business writing. With additional data from supplementary sources, the complete listing represents twenty-six classes of business, as follows 1. Miscellaneous 2. Florists 3. Automobile manufacturers and sales companie

Design Dynamics. Navigating the new Complex Landscape of Omnichannel Fashion Retail

The fashion industry is entering the dynamic global competitive market, promoting various actions prioritising design, creativity, sustainability, and technological advancement as pivotal factors. At the same time, it is reimagining its business models to adapt to the changing landscape. The rise of pervasive connectivity, intuitive interfaces and innovative interaction channels has triggered a revolution in fashion retail, reshaping customer behaviour and expectations. The traditional retail framework has evolved into a fully interconnected omnichannel system. This transformation is characterised by the proliferation of physical and virtual channels and touch points and by the adoption of a more flexible and integrated approach. In this dynamic context, design plays a central role, possessing the ability to impart meaning to the production and distribution system. Design-led innovation represents an incremental form of innovation that injects a nuanced range of meaning into the marketplace, extending beyond tangible objects, including discourses, expressions, narratives, visual images, symbols, metaphors, and spaces. The book analyses the multifaceted nature of the fashion retail experience through the lens of the design discipline, aiming to contextualise the evolution of retail within increasingly complex processes, networks and interconnections, both theoretically and practically. The focus is on retail design, delving into the new skills required and the valuable tools needed to apply them in inherently multidisciplinary contexts. Ultimately, the aim is to navigate the intricate terrain of retail evolution and shed light on the evolving role of design in this multifaceted sector

The Color Revolution: Printed Books In Eighteenth-Century Japan

Beginning in the mid-1760s, images printed in more than five colors in early modern Japan were known as nishiki-e 錦絵, or “brocade pictures,” an appellation that signaled their visual richness in distinction to prints in monochrome or limited color. Most accounts of full-color printing locate the development of this technology and its visual impact in the medium of the single-sheet print, as part of the genre of ukiyo-e 浮世絵 (the “pictures of the floating world”). This project revises that view by considering the illustrated books produced in the full-color technique, which predate or appear contemporaneously with the so-called “nishiki-e revolution.” Closely analyzing the materiality and visual programs of these books reveals how their use of printed color not only constitutes an important shift in technical practices of printing, but also signals a wider engagement with the artistic, social, and scientific discourses of mid-eighteenth century Japan. Ranging from interest in the natural world to painting, from poetry to scientific classification, from elite milieux to commercial publishers, these illustrated books demonstrate the convergence of a diverse set of concerns upon the particular medium of the color-printed, thread-bound book. The three case studies analyzed in this dissertation take up books differentiated by subject matter, style, and artistic genres. The first two chapters examine a book of fishes and its sequel, on the theme of plants and insects; both books are genre-bending works that combine concerns of poetry, natural studies, and painting. The third chapter considers two picture books of the floating world (ukiyo-ehon 浮世絵本), which feature actors and prostitutes of the pleasure quarter, respectively. Tracing the movement of printed “full color” from its emergence in the context of coterie poetry groups to its later status as a commercial imperative, this study reframes the earliest full-color illustrated books as critical artifacts of technological and epistemological change for picture-making and print in early modern Japan, centered around the materiality and conceptual power of color

Pre-implementation requirements for the design of a monitoring system for staff-student interactions at a university.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.University environments occasionally fail to provide adequate levels of security for student and staff interactions. Existing policies outlined by a university document the procedures to be followed in said interactions. However, there is a lack of enforcement of these policies and any artefact to aid this enforcement. This is apparent as incidents of misconduct are regularly published. This study aims to define the requirements for an artefact that monitors these interactions, and as a result, will provide different benefits to those involved. Subsequently, a design for the artefact will be generated based on the revealed requirements. In order to establish the major factors influencing this artefact's design, a qualitative approach with an exploratory design was chosen. The use of a modified Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology framework provided related measurables. Through a purposive sampling technique, a focus group was formed, and a discussion was held to allow for in-depth emergent and systematic analysis until saturation was reached. Results indicated that the artefact's functionality should be tailored toward providing safety during interactions through the use of accurate identification of all involved parties. The artefact should be portable, provide adequate levels of confidentiality, and be partly autonomous - to the extent that the integrity of the recording and its details cannot be disputed. Performance expectancy, identifiability and social influence were the primary constructs associated with the system's acceptance. A system designed to the uncovered requirements and activated during an interaction, will provide users with a higher level of perceived safety and usefulness, thus influencing their behavioural intentions and overall opinion of following through on engagements with other parties. Further investigation can be conducted through the expansion of the sample utilised. This expansion should account for the different socioeconomic backgrounds of the individuals enrolled at universities, as well as the impact of COVID-19 on the said individuals and their ability to resume studies in the changing environment