Applying Formal Methods to Networking: Theory, Techniques and Applications

Despite its great importance, modern network infrastructure is remarkable for the lack of rigor in its engineering. The Internet which began as a research experiment was never designed to handle the users and applications it hosts today. The lack of formalization of the Internet architecture meant limited abstractions and modularity, especially for the control and management planes, thus requiring for every new need a new protocol built from scratch. This led to an unwieldy ossified Internet architecture resistant to any attempts at formal verification, and an Internet culture where expediency and pragmatism are favored over formal correctness. Fortunately, recent work in the space of clean slate Internet design---especially, the software defined networking (SDN) paradigm---offers the Internet community another chance to develop the right kind of architecture and abstractions. This has also led to a great resurgence in interest of applying formal methods to specification, verification, and synthesis of networking protocols and applications. In this paper, we present a self-contained tutorial of the formidable amount of work that has been done in formal methods, and present a survey of its applications to networking.Comment: 30 pages, submitted to IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorial

Creating Memories: Writing and Designing More Memorable Documents

If communication’s purpose is to enable action or belief (Johnson-Sheehan, 2012), then communication will be more effective—and thus more ethical—if the audience can easily remember it. However, the study of memory has long been neglected in English Studies. Therefore, communicators lack strategies for enhancing documents’ memorableness and an ethical framework for assessing (un)memorable documents and composing processes. To develop an “ethic of memory” and identify strategies that enhance a document’s memorableness, I asked twenty subjects—ten teachers and ten college freshman—to walk down a high school hallway in which various posters and flyers had been posted by the administration, teachers, or students. Then I interviewed the subjects about their recollections, reasons for remembering this information, and the likelihood that they might apply it. One week later, I conducted a follow-up interview to determine which information “stuck,” the subjects’ self-reported reasons why, and their likelihood of applying it. I counted the number of information units and specific details that the subjects remembered at each interview, and I also categorized the types of details they recalled. I coded the subjects’ reasons for remembering and (not) applying information according to commonly-accepted design and psychological terms drawn from Universal Principles of Design by Lidwell et al. The subjects’ memories were very consistent in both quantity and quality from the first to the second interview, indicating that documents influence long-term memory. Certain posters and flyers were remembered much more often than others, demonstrating that rhetorical and design strategies affect a documents’ memorableness. The codes “schema” and “relevance” were very consistent themes in the subjects’ interview responses; so-called “self-schema” shape judgments of relevance, which then affect efforts to encode information into memory. This study describes six strategies for engaging an audience’s collective self-schema, prompting the audience to ascribe relevance to documents and thus endeavor to encode them: convey practical value; use the familiar; use contrast, color, and imagery; use unexpected elements; arouse emotion and build social currency; and “break-and-remake” existing schema

You Belong Here: An \u27Interpellative\u27 Approach to Usability

Given the participatory, immersive Web 2.0 culture that characterizes digital experiences today, what is traditionally understood as \u27usability\u27 is insufficient to drive the engagement Web 2.0 audiences both crave and have come to expect from best-in-class interfaces. Thus, this dissertation presents a \u27constructivist\u27 vision of usability that helps designers \u27speak\u27 to audiences who demand excellence, and who will leave when confronted with mediocrity. The constructivist practice of usability occurs through what I call \u27interpellative design.\u27 Interpellative design is both a complement to, and a critique of, \u27accommodationist\u27 approaches to usability (Howard, 2010a) which tend to be associated with technical problem solving (Jordan, 2001), ease of use (Shedroff, 2001), and \u27expedient\u27 solutions (Katz, 1992) to mechanistic problems. As part of the under-theorized \u27constructivist\u27 approach to usability (Howard, 2010a), interpellative design allows usability to remain a \u27problem-solving discipline\u27 (Jordan, 2001); however, its focus on beauty, argument, and the figural dialogue between designers and users extends the purview of usability into non-algorithmic pursuits. To describe a constructivist approach to usability, I outline a theoretical taxonomy which identifies factors at play in interpellative user interfaces. An \u27interpellative interface\u27 is one which calls out or \u27hails\u27 (Althusser, 1971a) users and indicates that a given interface is a viable \u27place\u27 in which they can exert influence, accomplish tasks, or solve problems. The hail is facilitated through the construction of a habitus and use of social capital (Bourdieu, 1984). Briefly, a habitus is the space into which users are interpellated, and acts and artifacts of social capital are expressions of how they belong in that space. In examining how these factors manifest in digital interfaces, I argue that the constructivist approach to usability enacted through interpellative design enables usability engineers to identify flaws in interfaces that were not apparent before the mechanisms of habitus and social capital were explicated. The lens of interpellative design allows usability engineers to address the constructivist concerns pertaining to emotion, visual communication, and other types of \u27distinctions\u27 (Bourdieu, 1984) that could not be \u27seen\u27 before

The Shapes of Cultures: A Case Study of Social Network Sites/Services Design in the U.S. and China

With growing popularity of the use of social network sites/services (SNSs) throughout the world, the global dominance of SNSs designed in the western industrialized countries, especially in the United Sates, seems to have become an inevitable trend. As internationalization has become a common practice in designing SNSs in the United States, is localization still a viable practice? Does culture still matter in designing SNSs? This dissertation aims to answer these questions by comparing the user interface (UI) designs of a U.S.-based SNS, Twitter, and a China-based SNS, Sina Weibo, both of which have assumed an identity of a “microblogging” service, a sub category of SNSs. This study employs the theoretical lens of the theory of technical identity, user-centered website cultural usability studies, and communication and media studies. By comparing the UI designs, or the “form,” of the two microblogging sites/services, I illustrate how the social functions of a technological object as embedded and expressed in the interface designs are preserved or changed as the technological object that has developed a relatively stable identity (as a microblogging site/service) in one culture is transferred between the “home” culture and another. The analysis in this study focuses on design elements relevant to users as members of networks, members of audience, and publishers/broadcasters. The results suggest that the designs carry disparate biases towards modes of communication and social affordances, which indicate a shift of the identity of microblogging service/site across cultures

Levelling Up: Designing and Testing a Contextual, Web-based Dreamweaver 8 Tutorial for Students with Technological Aptitude Differences

This thesis examines the user-centered design methods and methodology inherent to designing and testing a web-based Dreamweaver 8 tutorial for undergraduate and graduate students who enroll in certain English rhetoric and composition courses at Georgia State University. The tutorial’s three interfaces were rhetorically designed to support three corresponding types of user—novices, intermediates, and experts— whose familiarity with Dreamweaver and student web space determined their starting point of interaction with the artifact. Three usability tests examined each interface based on four usability attributes. Findings revealed the novice and expert interfaces to be usable, while the intermediate interface was more problematic. The analysis of findings indicated the advanced documentation theory to be sound; however, the practical implementation of the theory to this artifact was comparatively ineffective. More research is suggested for determining whether a multimodal tutorial design is the most useful and usable for the target audience(s)

From the real to the imaginary. A flora and fauna database of the Iberian Iron Age.

'From the real to the imaginary,' a project developed between 2005 and 2012, studies Iberian flora and fauna in order to understand (and even approximate) the use and symbolism of plants and animals within Iberian Iron Age societies. Our methodology combines a paleobiological approach, based on palinology, anthracology, paleocarpology and paleozoology, with an iconographic approach. We record all the representations of plants and animals that appear on different Iron Age media: pottery, architectonic stone, stone sculpture, metallic objects and coins. All these data are catalogued taking into account the context and chronology of the archaeological remains for each entry. This information is now available in an open access database, which is updated regularly: http://www.florayfaunaiberica.org

The Rhetoric Of The Regional Image Interpreting The Visual Products Of Regional Plannning

The Rhetoric of the Regional Image: Interpreting the Visual Products of Regional Planning investigates the manner in which visual conventions and visual contexts of regional visioning scenarios affect their interpretation by urban and regional planners, who use visual communication to meet the technical and rhetorical demands of their professional practice. The research assesses Central Florida‘s ―How Shall We Grow?‖ regional land use scenario using focus groups and interviews with planning professionals, a corresponding survey of community values, and rhetorical analysis to explore the ―How Shall We Grow?‖ scenario as persuasive communication. The Rhetoric of the Regional Image proposes specific recommendations for technologybased visual communication and scenario development in urban and regional planning practice, while contributing to literature in technical communication and rhetoric by examining planners‘ professional communication within their discourse communit

Voice and e-quality: The state of electronic democracy in Britain.

This dissertation is broadly concerned with the issue of electronic democracy, i.e. whether, under what conditions and how does the Internet strengthen democracy in advanced industrial polities. Specifically, this work applies the theory of participation to recent British data on online political engagement in order to understand: whether and how the Internet modifies the existing structure of political inequality; whether and how the Internet alters the context of traditional political action; whether the Internet holds a democratising potential and what is its nature. Data collected and analysed include a survey of British citizens' online political behaviour, and three smaller, in-depth surveys of citizens' online political activities within limited settings: a national online consultation forum, routine politics by young party activists and charity work by an elderly activist network. More generally, the dissertation contributes towards clarifying the ongoing debate on electronic democracy, by examining the discourse surrounding the evolution of the issue. It reviews a large portion of the existing literature on online political engagement, organised in three main approaches. It presents and analyses seminal data on British online political engagement to assess the state of electronic democracy in Britain. Importantly, it advances a theoretical framework for the understanding of the 'real' digital divide, drawing on the theory of participation. The theory is an ideal explanatory base from which to depart in order to find the factors shaping the structure of online political opportunities and the way in which preferences are voiced, and heard, through the Internet. This dissertation speaks directly to the electronic democracy debate by setting the agenda on the notion of democratic equality and by focusing on the structure of voice in the information polity

Rewriting the Unwritten: Decorum as a Tool for Social Justice in Technical Communication

With the recent turn to social justice in Technical and Professional Communication (TPC), it is important to develop a variety of theories and methods that can address issues of power and oppression within TPC. Additionally, some of these theories and methods should work to engage resistant audiences and persuade them to not only be aware, but to also take meaningful action for change. Social justice efforts should also consider the intersectionality that occurs when multiple marginalizing factors intersect, compounding the experiences of oppression for those who fall into each unique category. In this dissertation, I present a theory and method of decorum that can help achieve each of these goals by shifting the lens of focus in social justice research from who to how. That is, decorum transfers the central point of concern from identity (i.e. gender, race, sexuality, etc.) to the specific ways in which marginalization actually transpires. This shift occurs through what Hariman (1992) calls “symbolic display.”Symbolic display to refer to texts, language, acts, behavior, and notions of place that are embodied in practices of communication and aesthetics. Decorum, then, encompasses the unwritten rules and expectations that govern symbolic display. By focusing on symbolic display—and thus decorum—researchers can engage resistant audiences by removing the negative connotations that are often associated with identity politics while also addressing the intersectionality of people’s lived experiences. To demonstrate how this theory and method can work, this dissertation presents a pilot study which focuses on the experiences of women working in the Utah tech sector. Placed within the larger context of the tech sector at large, this pilot study demonstrates the benefits, challenges, and implications for decorum as a theory and method of social justice research in TPC

'A Kind of Magic' - The Political Marketing of the African National Congress

This thesis examines the political marketing of the African National Congress (ANC) around seminal political events between 1955 and 2009, and the relationship between such marketing and its strategic behaviour in the political sphere. Further, the analysis examines the means by which these techniques located the ANC at the centre of liberation and post-independent political narratives and explores and posits a basis for understanding the behaviour of the ANC and leading actors in the political sphere. The thesis explicates the nature of the continuities and discontinuities in the ANC discursive forms of political exchange and interaction and problematises the theoretical underpinnings of political marketing through the case of the ANC in South Africa. The thesis employs a broad understanding of political marketing to include such activities as publicity, promotion and propaganda. It extends its theoretical and conceptual remit beyond purely scientific and positivist approaches to understanding political persuasion and endows marketing with a strongly ‘cultural’ aspect. In doing so, greater consideration is afforded to the complex of influences that over time have come to inform the discursive and representational registers of the ANC. Drawing on a range of archival sources obtained during fieldwork in South Africa, this thesis contributes to the study of South African politics by reconceptualising the politics of the ANC through the lens of political marketing. It contributes to the theory of political marketing by using the South African case to address the theoretical blind-spots and challenge its western-centric notion of the political market. Centred on the themes on of liberation, political culture and spectacle, the thesis enriches the understanding of each through the case of the ANC. As such, the thesis provides a deeper understanding of the social and cultural bases of political change in a post-colonial and post-apartheid setting