A methodology for the requirements analysis of critical real-time systems

PhD ThesisThis thesis describes a methodology for the requirements analysis of critical real-time systems. The methodology is based on formal methods, and provides a systematic way in which requirements can be analysed and specifications produced. The proposed methodology consists of a framework with distinct phases of analysis, a set oftechniques appropriate for the issues to be analysed at each phase of the framework, a hierarchical structure of the specifications obtained from the process of analysis, and techniques to perform quality assessment of the specifications. The phases of the framework, which are abstraction levels for the analysis of the requirements, follow directly from a general structure adopted for critical real-time systems. The intention is to define abstraction levels, or domains, in which the analysis of requirements can be performed in terms of specific properties of the system, thus reducing the inherent complexity of the analysis. Depending on the issues to be analysed in each domain, the choice of the appropriate formalism is determined by the set of features, related to that domain, that a formalism should possess. In this work, instead of proposing new formalisms we concentrate on identifying and enumerating those features that a formalism should have. The specifications produced at each phase of the framework are organised by means of a specification hierarchy, which facilitates our assessment of the quality of the requirements specifications, and their traceability. Such an assessment should be performed by qualitative and quantitative means in order to obtain high confidence (assurance) that the level of safety is acceptable. In order to exemplify the proposed methodology for the requirements analysis of critical real-time systems we discuss a case study based on a crossing of two rail tracks (in a model railway), which raises safety issues that are similar to those found at a traditional level crossing (i.e. rail-road)CAPES/Ministry of Education (Brazil

Changing Landscapes of Time and Space: the Bristol Channel Region c.1790-1914

The thesis considers how perceptions of time and space changed during this period in the Bristol Channel region as new forms of transport and communications stimulated an unprecedented movement of people, freight and messaging at speeds which appeared to compress space, bringing the outside world closer. Newspapers are used as the principal primary source, and, as expressions of locality, they provide an insight into the diverse mental landscapes concerning speed and space that were emerging across the region. The region was on the margins of Great Britain prior to these changes, but new transport and communications networks brought the region into the mainstream. New forms of transport and communications tended to favour urban areas and the experience of rapid movement was uneven across the region. The revolution in individual travel and passenger transport was populated principally by men, with the exceptions of the railway excursion and the urban tram, which expanded the horizons of leisure for working classes, but the level of railway fares excluded many potential working-class travellers. Perceptions of time and space, therefore, did not only vary between locations across the region, but also between men and women and social classes as they experienced travel differently. The railway and telegraph, Britain’s ‘nervous system’, connected the region with markets throughout the British Isles and globally. Steamships forged ‘ocean highways’ and telegraph cables bounded the planet, creating an international communications system that also standardized ‘railway’ time everywhere. As the outside world became more accessible, nearer and more connected, new forms of landscapes regarding place, identity and ‘others’ were defined as a measure of human progress. These changes helped define what is meant by ‘modern’; but they originated in industrial change from the 1790s which was made possible by new technologies in transport and communications

‘Everything's Fine' (a young-adult novel) and 'Worlds Made of Words: how Children's Literature promotes psychical growth and wellbeing'

This thesis consists of a novel, ‘Everything’s Fine’, and a critical thesis. The novel, written for a young adult readership, tells the story of three teenagers: Coco, Angus and Angus’ older brother Ian, and is about the confusion associated with navigating adolescent attraction, love and friendship, and the distress of watching someone you love in the grips of a mental health breakdown. The critical thesis explores the ways in which literature written for children can support their psychical growth and well-being. The introduction offers an overview of the pedagogical nature of children’s literature, and the overlap of interest in the growing child’s inner workings shared by psychoanalysts, teachers and writers of children’s literature. I employ psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott’s theories on early child development as a basis for exploring the conditions that enable healthy psychical development and the role of the imagination and creativity in mental well-being from early childhood and throughout life. In the first chapter I use my reading of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as a basis for examining the power of a healthy imagination in promoting psychical growth and well-being. The second chapter focuses on the novel Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr as an example of the ways in which symbolic writing for children works, at the unconscious level, to address the more challenging aspects of growing up. The third chapter investigates Joanne Greenberg’s I Never Promised You A Rose Garden and Neal Shusterman’s Challenger Deep — each a portrayal of a young person suffering severe psychical breakdown. I consider the techniques each writer employs in creating these anarchic internal worlds and their effectiveness. The conclusion considers the responsibilities and opportunities attached to writing literature for children. I reflect on how my research challenged and influenced my writing of Everything’s Fine, both technically and creatively

Finding Home for Poetry in a Nomadic World: Joseph Brodsky and \uc1gnes Leh\uf3czky

This new line of research has been suggested to me by the life and work of the Russian poet and essayist Joseph Brodsky, who, after his exile from the Soviet Union in 1972, moved to the United States, to lead a culturally \u2018nomadic\u2019 existence, which culminated, in his last years, in the abandonment of the mother tongue for the full adoption of his second language, both for prose and poetry. Departing from Brodsky\u2019s last production and following the steps that directed him to approach and then elect English as his privileged means of expression \u2013 necessary for his personal and artistic evolution \u2013 I have examined his work focused on the urban environment, namely the one located in Venice. I have then tried to see if displacement and repeated cultural travels can be considered a \u2018sought-after\u2019 status of the contemporary writer, starting from the reading of some guiding texts, as Nomadic Subjects by Rosi Braidotti (1994), Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto by Stephen Greenblatt (2010), and Culture in a Liquid Modern World (2011) by Zygmunt Bauman, drawing from the interdisciplinary and rapidly evolving field of Migration Studies. After presenting a quick but exhaustive overview of Brodsky\u2019s work located in Venice, I addressed my research to contemporary English poetry, to which Brodsky was considered to belong, to look for a correspondence with a new author, who also focuses on cultural nomadism, displacement, and the adoption of English as vehicle of artistic creation and I found a thematic resonance in the recent work of \uc1gnes Leh\uf3czky, essayist and poet, Hungarian by birth, and British by adoption, who belongs to the cultural movement of the \u2018British Poetic Revival.\u2019 The focus of my research has then been the investigation of Leh\uf3czky\u2019s \u2018post-avant-garde\u2019 poetry \u2013 still unpublished in Italian \u2013 to highlight some affinities in the works of the two authors, who, although belonging to two generations and two essentially different stylistic registers, find similar ways to explore the reality around them. Leh\uf3czky's texts offer new visions of the urban spaces in the cultural crossroads offered by today's technologized cities, where global relationships and the coexistence of multiple languages contribute to the creation of new identities, but where history must also become a fundamental element in understanding the present. Space, time and language play the main role in building her original, \u2018holistic\u2019 and at the same time \u2018palimpsestic\u2019 view of the world. It is a vision that, while recognizing in the mobility of contemporary man the traces of a nomadism which has always existed, finds in Leh\uf3czky's poems a correspondence in the perspectives of the lyrical observer, to offer the readers visions that span in horizontality and in verticality, for instance from the top of a hill in Budapest, to the catacombs of an English gothic cathedral, according to the principles of 'psychogeography.' English, far from being simply a lingua franca, absorbes the influences of the authors\u2019 mother tongues \u2013 \u2018phagocyting\u2019 in some way these latter \u2013 and is thus enriched with new features, becoming not only a new language, but a \u2018space in-between\u2019 that protects and welcomes the nomadic writers, and forges their new identities. Faced with the impossibility of defining the boundary of language and identity, because of the fluid and nomadic nature of language itself, these authors suggest if not answers, new richer languages and modalities, to extend the boundaries of contemporary literary expression

TAYLOR Magazine (Fall 1990)

The Fall 1990 edition of Taylor Magazine, published by Taylor University in Upland, Indiana.https://pillars.taylor.edu/tu_magazines/1072/thumbnail.jp

What Counselor Educators and Supervisors Need to Know about Addictions Treatment with Survivors of Childhood Trauma

This educational session addresses the connection between traumatic childhood experiences and substance-related and addictive disorders enumerated in the DSM-5 and beyond. Best practices in teaching and clinical supervision are addressed inclusive of integral attendee participation. The combination of seminar, case study, and discussion makes the training valuable for counselor educators, supervisors, and advanced graduate students. Integrative and trauma informed treatment protocols are highlighted and provide attendees increased knowledge that translates readily into myriad teaching and supervision settings

Health Privilege and the Invisible Elephants of Chronic Illness and Pain

Unlike other -isms and privileges, issues surrounding ableism and health privilege tend to draw less focus and thus are examined less in classrooms and clinical settings. Even when health privilege is the topic, less observable issues, such as chronic illness and chronic pain, tend to be omitted. This session intends to shed light on these hidden diversities, providing space for education, discussion, and reflection in an attempt to make the invisible visible

How to Gain Administrative Support for the Creation of a Counselor Education Doctoral Program

CES doctoral program creation requires navigation of complex systems of university administration, accreditation, funding, laws, facilities, infrastructure, and politics. Public and private universities have different requirements and levels of approval for new doctoral program development. Proposal of a CES doctoral program requires understanding of the university organizational chart, college and university history, the mission of the institution, the needs of the surrounding community, and the fiscal resources required for program development and implementation. This roundtable will discuss recommendations from the ACES Doctoral Programs Interest Network subcommittee Talking with Administrators’ to gain support for doctoral program creation