Mathematics for the exploration of requirements

The exploration of requirements is as complex as it is important in ensuring a successful software production and software life cycle. Increasingly, tool-support is available for aiding such explorations. We use a toy example and a case study of modelling and analysing some requirements of the global assembly cache of .NET to illustrate the opportunities and challenges that mathematically founded exploration of requirements brings to the computer science and software engineering curricula

A comparative study of software design methodologies

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1982.MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERINGBibliography: leaves 158-162.by Michael Tzu-cheng Yeh.M.S

Program development by inductive step wise refinement

A constructive method of program development is presented. It seeks to unify two important ideas about program development. Namely that programming is a goal-oriented activity and that there should be a correspondence between data and program structures. The latter concept is seen to be extensible beyond the data processing context in which it was originally proposed. Induction provides the vehicle for program development by stepwise refinement, with the final program being constructed by application of a sequence of progressively more powerful generalizations. The design process employed guarantees the correctness of the final program provided each of the refinement steps have been correctly taken. The method is illustrated by a number of examples

Strategic cultural interventions in systems science - Examining the prospects for the further development of methodological complementarism

This paper contemplates the prospect of the complementary use of hard, soft, and critical systems methodologies, becoming a more established practice among the diverse company of operational researchers and management scientists in academe, commerce and Government, who have been trained in systems thinking and apply its language and concepts in dealing with organisational problems. The paper takes the line that any individual's orientation towards methodology is predicated upon distinctive meanings, many of which are constructed socially in particular cultural settings. Because of this, any attempt to alter the predominant methodological bearing of a complete discipline or field of enquiry has to grapple with the problems involved in both imparting to members new technical knowledge and competences, and creating new sets of meanings. Thus I argue here that attempts to inculcate a complementarist approach in systems science amounts to a form of cultural visioning. Creating a vision of complementarism as integral to the development of the discipline of systems is seen here as a strategic intervention in the culture of systems science. In the paper, cultural transitioning from the existing specialisations of systems science towards methodological complementarism is conceptualised as requiring members to undergo a form of organisational learning. This is contingent upon the existence of a broad set of propitious circumstances; the existence of which is questionable in this particular case. Although the idea of complementarism is the principal focus of the paper, much of the argument applies equally to other attempts to deliberately intervene in the culture of systems scienc

A thermodynamic model for hydrous silicate melts in the system NaAlSi3O8–KAlSi3O8–Si4O8–H2O

Computation of crystal–liquid equilibria in hydrous silicate systems requires a model of the free energy of the hydrous liquid that defines the activity of the melt components at given temperature, pressure and composition. We present in this study a parametrization of the free energy of the liquid in the haplogranite system NaAlSi3O8–KAlSi3O8–Si4O8–H2O based on the Margules approach. The excess free energy of the multicomponent melt is approximated from the binaries with the Kohler extrapolation method. Model parameters have been fitted to phase equilibrium data by mathematical programming techniques. A small but complex excess function of the anhydrous melt composition is necessary to reproduce reported liquidus phase relations. Using partial molar Cp data from the literature for the H2O melt component and a simple polynomial approximation for the molar volume, standard state enthalpy and entropy were refined close to −287 kJ/mol and 67.2 J/K mol, respectively. Calculated crystal–liquid phase relations are in good agreement with measurements to 5 kbar, and the modelled melt–fluid coexistence surface yields a valuable first order approximation of the H2O solubility at near liquidus temperatures. Thermodynamic assessment of solubility and liquidus data suggests that H2O mixing differs considerably in feldspar melts and in silica melts. Si4O8–H2O mixing contributes to a very minor degree to the haplogranite system

Pilot interaction with automated airborne decision making systems

An investigation was made of interaction between a human pilot and automated on-board decision making systems. Research was initiated on the topic of pilot problem solving in automated and semi-automated flight management systems and attempts were made to develop a model of human decision making in a multi-task situation. A study was made of allocation of responsibility between human and computer, and discussed were various pilot performance parameters with varying degrees of automation. Optimal allocation of responsibility between human and computer was considered and some theoretical results found in the literature were presented. The pilot as a problem solver was discussed. Finally the design of displays, controls, procedures, and computer aids for problem solving tasks in automated and semi-automated systems was considered

Mesmerized by MTV: Youth\u27s Contemporary Yin Yang

This thesis project endeavors to define the predominant rhetorical messages of MTV. MTV has made a drastic impact upon the media field, the youth culture, and the world. By use of a cluster analysis, I have suggested some of the overriding themes propagated. I have approached this by dividing the thesis into three sections. Section I provides an overview by looking at some of the research previously conducted on MTV. It examines the history, a brief look at the content, and the responses to MTV. Section II is the substantive portion of the project sharing the results and findings from the cluster analysis. Each of the five most frequent and intense images and clusters are fleshed out in a chapter respectively. Finally, Section III serves to draw some conclusions from the cluster analysis presented in Section II. Based upon the information revealed through the clusters, and with the help of some further research of others\u27 findings in relation to youth and MTV, the final chapter comments on the role of MTV in the value formation of contemporary youth. MTV\u27s celebration of its tenth anniversary brought many decade specials as well as numerous articles and documentaries analyzing the decade. In seeking to be as objective messages teenagers. as possible, I have set forth to critique the being communicated to MTV\u27s primary audience

A computer memory for current events

Issued as Progress reports [1-2], and Final report, Project no. G-36-66

Faculty Senate Chronicle March 18, 1984

Minutes for the regular meeting of The University of Akron Faculty Senate on March 18, 1984