Swindon College: report from the Inspectorate (FEFC inspection report; 52/95 and 54/98)

The Further Education Funding Council has a legal duty to make sure further education in England is properly assessed. The FEFC’s inspectorate inspects and reports on each college of further education according to a four-year cycle. This record comprises the reports for periods 1994-95 and 1997-98

A timeband framework for modelling real-time systems

Complex real-time systems must integrate physical processes with digital control, human operation and organisational structures. New scientific foundations are required for specifying, designing and implementing these systems. One key challenge is to cope with the wide range of time scales and dynamics inherent in such systems. To exploit the unique properties of time, with the aim of producing more dependable computer-based systems, it is desirable to explicitly identify distinct time bands in which the system is situated. Such a framework enables the temporal properties and associated dynamic behaviour of existing systems to be described and the requirements for new or modified systems to be specified. A system model based on a finite set of distinct time bands is motivated and developed in this paper

10421 Abstracts Collection -- Model-Based Testing in Practice

From 17.10. to 22.10.2010, the Dagstuhl Seminar 10421 ``Model-Based Testing in Practice \u27\u27 was held in Schloss Dagstuhl~--~Leibniz Center for Informatics. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available

Evaluation of formal IDEs for human-machine interface design and analysis: the case of CIRCUS and PVSio-web

Critical human-machine interfaces are present in many systems including avionics systems and medical devices. Use error is a concern in these systems both in terms of hardware panels and input devices, and the software that drives the interfaces. Guaranteeing safe usability, in terms of buttons, knobs and displays is now a key element in the overall safety of the system. New integrated development environments (IDEs) based on formal methods technologies have been developed by the research community to support the design and analysis of high-confidence human-machine interfaces. To date, little work has focused on the comparison of these particular types of formal IDEs. This paper compares and evaluates two state-of-the-art toolkits: CIRCUS, a model-based development and analysis tool based on Petri net extensions, and PVSio-web, a prototyping toolkit based on the PVS theorem proving system.This work is partially supported by: Project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000016, financed by the North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, and through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF); Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPq) PhD scholarship

Architecture for Community and Spectacle: The Roofed Arena in North America, 1853-1968

This dissertation provides the first treatment of the origins and development of the roofed arena in the United States and Canada. Supported by archival resources of graphics and text, and informed by direct contact with arena architects, design and operations staff, this study examines the arena as a place for spectacle within the larger environments of city and campus. The arena\u27s site, massing, and design revealed the expectations of its sponsorship. The arena\u27s internal configuration of roofed seating bowl, floor, portals, and passages was a purposeful arrangement intended to accommodate attendees and manage their movement through architectural space. The first chapter focuses on the transmission to the nineteenth century, via the architecture of theater, circus, and other spaces of public assembly, of the Greek and Roman hippodrome oval for accommodation of multiple kinds of revenue-generating activities situated within a circular, elliptical, or rectilinear seating bowl. The significance of the Royal Albert Hall, London, as the conceptual model for the presentation of modern indoor spectacle is recognized. But within the context of the growth or urban centers and the expansion of commercial leisure, Stanford White\u27s Madison Square Garden, New York, is documented as the principal formal model. White\u27s facility, a hippodrome within a rectangular industrial shed, whose impact was amplified by the communications media that disseminated its image and the reports of its spectacle, generated successors on a continental scale. The research method identified buildings, sought to find relevant information, and fixed the buildings along a time line. Populated with enough examples, the time sequence yields affinities and clarifies differences, making possible useful generalizations about site and design in context. Across the time period considered, enclosure evolved from arched and pitched forms, and thin-shell experiments, toward the anti-industrial dome and drum. The emergence of tensile solutions allowed roof support to act as a design element as well as engineering. But by the end of the 1960s, circular and ovoid buildings receded in favor of the operationally more efficient rectilinear footprint covered by a flat truss or space frame. Exteriors of brick and stone became complex fields of concrete, glass, and multiple forms of metal. Over the long term, internal treatment of attendee space emphasized presentation of finished surface. This dissertation identifies those formal architectural attributes that carried the arena\u27s programmatic objectives. It examines the emergence of the commercial, mercantile arena; higher education\u27s recognition of the capacity of the architectural fabric of arenas to support institutional growth; and municipalities\u27 use of the form to project government-defined civic values. The chronological narrative recognizes the intensity of concurrent strands of development between the World Wars and concludes by noting arena managements\u27 increasing interest in building commercial destinations for attendees outside the seating bowl. Finally, the work establishes the role of the arena in large-scale repurposing of urban land in the 1960s. The Appendix is an extensive census of the large roofed arenas built in North America between 1853 and 1968. It provides the name of the facility, dates of design and opening, architect, type of siting, and configuration of building envelope. The Appendix introduces distinctions useful for analysis. Component siting, in contrast to independent siting, indicates placement of the arena within a system of buildings of associated purpose. Centroidal positioning indicates a building\u27s occupation at the functional center of mass. Building envelope--with pitched or arched roof or other kind of enclosure--operates with siting as another indicator of sponsors\u27 Intent. By assembling and reading the evidence of site, design, and operation, this paper ventures an approach to understanding the place of the roofed arena in the North American urban landscape. It is hoped that this work will invite and assist investigation into related issues, e.g., the architectural profession\u27s approach to arena projects and, particularly, the commercial archaeology and human geography of the arena\u27s interior zones

Sensitivity analysis in a scoping review on police accountability : assessing the feasibility of reporting criteria in mixed studies reviews

In this paper, we report on the findings of a sensitivity analysis that was carried out within a previously conducted scoping review, hoping to contribute to the ongoing debate about how to assess the quality of research in mixed methods reviews. Previous sensitivity analyses mainly concluded that the exclusion of inadequately reported or lower quality studies did not have a significant effect on the results of the synthesis. In this study, we conducted a sensitivity analysis on the basis of reporting criteria with the aims of analysing its impact on the synthesis results and assessing its feasibility. Contrary to some previous studies, our analysis showed that the exclusion of inadequately reported studies had an impact on the results of the thematic synthesis. Initially, we also sought to propose a refinement of reporting criteria based on the literature and our own experiences. In this way, we aimed to facilitate the assessment of reporting criteria and enhance its consistency. However, based on the results of our sensitivity analysis, we opted not to make such a refinement since many publications included in this analysis did not sufficiently report on the methodology. As such, a refinement would not be useful considering that researchers would be unable to assess these (sub-)criteria

Spartan Daily, September 11, 1975

Volume 65, Issue 3https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/5991/thumbnail.jp

The world-wide spread of journalism convergence

Convergence is a likely destination for news media in many parts of the world, though the duration of the journey will vary from country to country. This paper defines convergence as well as it is possible to do so, traces its spread around the world, and describes some of the most common business models. It looks at the forces driving convergence, and factors common to the most successful converged operations. The paper also describes the uncertain scenario in Australia now the Howard government has announced plans to change media ownership laws. It ends with discussion about changes in curricula at journalism programs in the United States in the light of the spread of convergence.<br /