Study of Tools Interoperability

Interoperability of tools usually refers to a combination of methods and techniques that address the problem of making a collection of tools to work together. In this study we survey different notions that are used in this context: interoperability, interaction and integration. We point out relation between these notions, and how it maps to the interoperability problem. We narrow the problem area to the tools development in academia. Tools developed in such environment have a small basis for development, documentation and maintenance. We scrutinise some of the problems and potential solutions related with tools interoperability in such environment. Moreover, we look at two tools developed in the Formal Methods and Tools group1, and analyse the use of different integration techniques

Ground Systems Development Environment (GSDE) interface requirements and prototyping plan

This report describes the data collection and requirements analysis effort of the Ground System Development Environment (GSDE) Interface Requirements study. It identifies potential problems in the interfaces among applications and processors in the heterogeneous systems that comprises the GSDE. It describes possible strategies for addressing those problems. It also identifies areas for further research and prototyping to demonstrate the capabilities and feasibility of those strategies and defines a plan for building the necessary software prototypes

Model Driven Tool Interoperability in Practice

International audienceModel Driven Engineering (MDE) advocates the use of models, metamodels and model transformations to revisit some of the classical operations in software engineering. MDE has been mostly used with success in forward and reverse engineering (for software development and better maintenance, respectively). Supporting system interoperability is a third important area of applicability for MDE. The particular case of tool interoperability is currently receiving a lot of interest. In this paper, we describe some experiments in this area that have been performed in the context of open source modeling efforts. Taking stock of these achievements, we propose a general framework where various tools are associated to implicit or explicit metamodels. One of the interesting properties of such an organization is that it allows designers starting some software engineering activity with an informal light-weight tool and carrying it out later on in a more complete or formal context. We analyze such situations and discuss the advantages of using MDE to build a general tool interoperability framework

Systematic design of cell membrane coating to improve tumor targeting of nanoparticles

Cell membrane (CM) coating technology is increasingly being applied in nanomedicine, but the entire coating procedure including adsorption, rupture, and fusion is not completely understood. Previously, we showed that the majority of biomimetic nanoparticles (NPs) were only partially coated, but the mechanism underlying this partial coating remains unclear, which hinders the further improvement of the coating technique. Here, we show that partial coating is an intermediate state due to the adsorption of CM fragments or CM vesicles, the latter of which could eventually be ruptured under external force. Such partial coating is difficult to self-repair to achieve full coating due to the limited membrane fluidity. Building on our understanding of the detailed coating process, we develop a general approach for fixing the partial CM coating: external phospholipid is introduced as a helper to increase CM fluidity, promoting the final fusion of lipid patches. The NPs coated with this approach have a high ratio of full coating (similar to 23%) and exhibit enhanced tumor targeting ability in comparison to the NPs coated traditionally (full coating ratio of similar to 6%). Our results provide a mechanistic basis for fixing partial CM coating towards enhancing tumor accumulation.Peer reviewe

RICIS 1987 Symposium. Executive summary

Papers presented at the RICIS (Research Institute for Computing and Information Systems) of the University of Houston - Clear Lake are compiled. The following subject areas are covered: NASA JSC/UH - Clear Lake cooperative research program; the RICIS concept; RICIS research; and RICIS research areas

Requirements for a software maintenance support environment

This thesis surveys the field of software maintenance, and addresses the maintenance requirements of the Aerospace Industry, which is developing inige projects, running over many years, and sometimes safety critical in nature (e.g. ARIANE 5, HERMES, COLUMBUS). Some projects are collaborative between distributed European partners. The industry will have to cope in the near and far future with the maintenance of these products and it will be essential to improve the software maintenance process and the environments for maintenance. Cost effective software maintenance needs an efficient, high quality and homogeneous environment or Integrated Project Support Environment (IPSE). Most IPSE work has addressed software development, and lias not fully considered the requirements of software maintenance. The aim of this project is to draw up a set of priorities and requirements for a Maintenance IPSE. An IPSE, however can only support a software maintenance method. The first stage of this project is to deline 'software maintenance best practice' addressing the organisational, managerial and technical aspects, along with an evaluation of software maintenance tools for Aerospace systems. From this and an evaluation of current IPSEs, the requirements for a Software Maintenance Support Environment are presented for maintenance of Aerospace software

The relationship between the flipped classroom and critical thinking, academic performance, student perceptions, and student evaluations in an introductory psychology course

For more than two centuries, traditional college instruction in America has relied upon the use of the lecture as the model for the college classroom learning environment (Christensen & Eyring, 2011; Costin, 1972; Woodard, 2011). However, criticism of the lecture has led to the development of alternative instruction models (Dillenbourg, 1999a; Prince, 2004). The flipped classroom is one of these models. The flipped classroom flips the traditional model by moving content typically delivered through a lecture to an online environment and using class time for learning activities that are active and collaborative (Abeysekera & Dawson, 2015b). Despite many advocates for using the flipped classroom model, there has been little research on how effective the model is at generating desired student outcomes. Understanding the viability of the flipped classroom for promoting learning is necessary if college educators are going to utilize the model. This study considers the flipped classroom’s effectiveness in three areas: academic performance, critical thinking, and evaluation and perception of the learning environment. Additional consideration was given to the relationship between student perception and academic performance. This mixed methods study used a quasi-experimental, within subjects design. The population was comprised of students from two sections of a General Psychology course at a private, liberal arts university during one full fall semester. Treatments were counterbalanced so that each group of participants experienced the models in a different order. Individual qualitative interviews were conducted with 11 students who were recruited from the original sample