Creative Computation in High School

In this paper we describe the success of bringing Creative Computation via Processing into two very different high schools that span the range of possibilities of grades 9-12 in American education. Creative Computation is an emerging discipline that requires a thorough grounding in both media arts and computing. We report on how contextualized computing that supports integration of media arts, design, and computer science can successfully attract and motivate students to learn foundations of programming and come back for more. The work of two high school teachers with divergent pedagogical styles is presented. They successfully adapted a college-level Creative Computation curriculum to their individual school cultures providing a catalyst for significant increases in total enrollment as well as female participation in high school computer science

Creative Computation in High School

In this paper we describe the success of bringing Creative Computation via Processing into two very different high schools that span the range of possibilities of grades 9-12 in American education. Creative Computation is an emerging discipline that requires a thorough grounding in both media arts and computing. We report on how contextualized computing that supports integration of media arts, design, and computer science can successfully attract and motivate students to learn foundations of programming and come back for more. The work of two high school teachers with divergent pedagogical styles is presented. They successfully adapted a college-level Creative Computation curriculum to their individual school cultures providing a catalyst for significant increases in total enrollment as well as female participation in high school computer science

Creative Computation in High School

In this paper we describe the success of bringing Creative Computation via Processing into two very different high schools that span the range of possibilities of grades 9-12 in American education. Creative Computation is an emerging discipline that requires a thorough grounding in both media arts and computing. We report on how contextualized computing that supports integration of media arts, design, and computer science can successfully attract and motivate students to learn foundations of programming and come back for more. The work of two high school teachers with divergent pedagogical styles is presented. They successfully adapted a college-level Creative Computation curriculum to their individual school cultures providing a catalyst for significant increases in total enrollment as well as female participation in high school computer science

A Software Framework for Storing User Workspaces of Desktop Applications

There are many design problems faced in user interface design of desktop applications. For most of the problems there is some suitable design pattern or existing software component to cope the problem, without having to spend too much design time on it. This research concentrates on one design problem repeatedly faced when designing desktop applications; storing and restoring user workspaces. The main goal of this thesis is to solve presented design problem by constructing a design model for a software component which can be used in the upcoming application projects. The aim is also to build this design as an external software framework and to test its applicability in practice. The solution developed during this research will be built and evaluated through a case study at an industrial software subcontractor company. Constructive research approach is used as the research method for this study, because the purpose of this thesis is to produce a practically relevant solution for an explicit problem, which is usually the baseline of a constructive study. At first, the theory related to the subject is presented and discussed. Existing project documentation in the case organization is studied to gather the requirements for the solution. How to create the solution as a reusable software framework is also discussed. Collected theoretical knowledge is then applied in practice by building the software framework. Practical relevance of the software framework is evaluated by deploying it to different types of application projects. The testing is performed by a group of software designers working in the case organization. A questionnaire then held for the software designers shows that the developed framework succeeds to fulfill its requirements.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Ernst Denert Award for Software Engineering 2020

This open access book provides an overview of the dissertations of the eleven nominees for the Ernst Denert Award for Software Engineering in 2020. The prize, kindly sponsored by the Gerlind & Ernst Denert Stiftung, is awarded for excellent work within the discipline of Software Engineering, which includes methods, tools and procedures for better and efficient development of high quality software. An essential requirement for the nominated work is its applicability and usability in industrial practice. The book contains eleven papers that describe the works by Jonathan Brachthäuser (EPFL Lausanne) entitled What You See Is What You Get: Practical Effect Handlers in Capability-Passing Style, Mojdeh Golagha’s (Fortiss, Munich) thesis How to Effectively Reduce Failure Analysis Time?, Nikolay Harutyunyan’s (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg) work on Open Source Software Governance, Dominic Henze’s (TU Munich) research about Dynamically Scalable Fog Architectures, Anne Hess’s (Fraunhofer IESE, Kaiserslautern) work on Crossing Disciplinary Borders to Improve Requirements Communication, Istvan Koren’s (RWTH Aachen U) thesis DevOpsUse: A Community-Oriented Methodology for Societal Software Engineering, Yannic Noller’s (NU Singapore) work on Hybrid Differential Software Testing, Dominic Steinhofel’s (TU Darmstadt) thesis entitled Ever Change a Running System: Structured Software Reengineering Using Automatically Proven-Correct Transformation Rules, Peter Wägemann’s (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg) work Static Worst-Case Analyses and Their Validation Techniques for Safety-Critical Systems, Michael von Wenckstern’s (RWTH Aachen U) research on Improving the Model-Based Systems Engineering Process, and Franz Zieris’s (FU Berlin) thesis on Understanding How Pair Programming Actually Works in Industry: Mechanisms, Patterns, and Dynamics – which actually won the award. The chapters describe key findings of the respective works, show their relevance and applicability to practice and industrial software engineering projects, and provide additional information and findings that have only been discovered afterwards, e.g. when applying the results in industry. This way, the book is not only interesting to other researchers, but also to industrial software professionals who would like to learn about the application of state-of-the-art methods in their daily work

Ernst Denert Award for Software Engineering 2020

This open access book provides an overview of the dissertations of the eleven nominees for the Ernst Denert Award for Software Engineering in 2020. The prize, kindly sponsored by the Gerlind & Ernst Denert Stiftung, is awarded for excellent work within the discipline of Software Engineering, which includes methods, tools and procedures for better and efficient development of high quality software. An essential requirement for the nominated work is its applicability and usability in industrial practice. The book contains eleven papers that describe the works by Jonathan Brachthäuser (EPFL Lausanne) entitled What You See Is What You Get: Practical Effect Handlers in Capability-Passing Style, Mojdeh Golagha’s (Fortiss, Munich) thesis How to Effectively Reduce Failure Analysis Time?, Nikolay Harutyunyan’s (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg) work on Open Source Software Governance, Dominic Henze’s (TU Munich) research about Dynamically Scalable Fog Architectures, Anne Hess’s (Fraunhofer IESE, Kaiserslautern) work on Crossing Disciplinary Borders to Improve Requirements Communication, Istvan Koren’s (RWTH Aachen U) thesis DevOpsUse: A Community-Oriented Methodology for Societal Software Engineering, Yannic Noller’s (NU Singapore) work on Hybrid Differential Software Testing, Dominic Steinhofel’s (TU Darmstadt) thesis entitled Ever Change a Running System: Structured Software Reengineering Using Automatically Proven-Correct Transformation Rules, Peter Wägemann’s (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg) work Static Worst-Case Analyses and Their Validation Techniques for Safety-Critical Systems, Michael von Wenckstern’s (RWTH Aachen U) research on Improving the Model-Based Systems Engineering Process, and Franz Zieris’s (FU Berlin) thesis on Understanding How Pair Programming Actually Works in Industry: Mechanisms, Patterns, and Dynamics – which actually won the award. The chapters describe key findings of the respective works, show their relevance and applicability to practice and industrial software engineering projects, and provide additional information and findings that have only been discovered afterwards, e.g. when applying the results in industry. This way, the book is not only interesting to other researchers, but also to industrial software professionals who would like to learn about the application of state-of-the-art methods in their daily work

Learning practices and teaching methods as factors in gender inequity in undergraduate computer science programs.

The primary purpose of this study is to detect student difficulties in adapting to the undergraduate computer science program. The research was conducted in the Department of Computer Science at a medium sized urban university in Ontario. Subjects were 16 students (ten males and six females) from the first to the third year of study and two professors. For this research mixed methods methodologies (QUAL+quan) were used. Qualitative methods were preponderant and were used in order to explore differences and difficulties both genders have in computer science program and modalities to deal with them. Quantitative methods were used to compare and analyze some of the details. Most female students had initial experience in using computers but few of them had previous experience in programming. During the program they were focused more on academic achievements but they were not oriented to developing practical projects and preparing for the realities of work in the IT industry. In relation to teaching, female students were more sensitive to teaching than male students. During the program, anxiety, lack of confidence and underachievement of female students progressed. The research revealed that the majority of males had initial experience in computer programming. During the program, they acquired more confidence and greater experience in programming and had more mature thoughts about the IT career than their female colleagues. Male students were oriented more on achieving real experience. Due to the fact that males were working in different informal settings, this helped them to extend and diversify their experience. Male students were more independent of teacher performances, being more willing to take ownership of learning process, especially in cases when teaching was not effective. Male students easily formed social networks that were able to help them. Female students had better social and communicational skills. However, because they were small in number and lacked initiative and support, they failed to coagulate social networks able to support themselves. Related feminism approaches, the author appreciate that liberal feminism is most likely to succeed in preparing women for a traditionally male dominated workplace. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2006 .S76. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-01, page: 0045. Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2006

An Interactive Community Microgrid Model to aid Design Exploration

This dissertation presents a novel approach to microgrid design and exploration through the development of an innovative software application. The primary objective of this research is to empower users to configure and simulate community microgrids, offering multiple time-frame insights into performance metrics, statistical analyses, and pertinent factors aligned with their specific configurations. In collaboration with Ahuora under their third Aim, a key focus is on optimizing factory process heat management while experimenting with renewable energy sources to effectively mitigate overall power consumption. The application developed for this thesis focuses on representing these assets accurately, facilitating the setup/internal optimization of these assets, and allowing the users to tailor the configuration to explore consequences and effects of their changes. Employing a multidisciplinary methodology, the study seeks to integrate Digital Twin technology tenets, Object-Oriented Programming, Polymorphism, Data Modelling and Visualization, and Complex Power Calculations to formulate a robust and user-friendly software interface. Furthermore, meticulous GUI design and advanced graphing techniques ensure data visualization is both informative and intuitive. This research culminates in a comprehensive demonstration of the software's capabilities, successfully showcasing its efficacy in meeting outlined objectives. By affording users the ability to dynamically shape and assess microgrid configurations, this study advances the field of sustainable energy management and underscores the potential for optimized factory operations within a renewable energy framework

Tools and Processes for enhanced Product Customization

O fornecimento de um sistema personalizável permite que clientes e parceiros expandam as funcionalidades do produto para abranger as suas necessidades e os seus objetivos específicos. Mas as alterações ou adições de funcionalidades ao sistema-base requerem um profundo conhecimento da sua estrutura e do seu funcionamento, assim como competências técnicas que garantam alterações totalmente funcionais. Com o intuito de minimizar as dificuldades inerentes ao processo de desenvolvimento e teste destas customizações, os fornecedores de software disponibilizam ferramentas e documentação de suporte.O principal foco do presente trabalho consiste na análise de projetos de customização, suas ferramentas e documentação de suporte ao desenvolvimento, para a resolução ou minimização das dificuldades e problemas do processo de customização. Através da definição de uma estratégia de suporte à customização que propõe a extracção de conhecimento como forma de documentação orientada pelos conceitos dos Collective Knowledge Systems. E uma ferramenta que aumenta a simplicidade e a fiabilidade do processo apresentando de uma forma intuitiva ao utilizador a análise do código produzida pelo compilador.O presente trabalho contempla ainda a implementação dessa estratégia de suporte ao processo de customização do Manufacturing Execution System (MES) da Critical Manufacturing (CMF), com vista a validar a sua eficácia.O Critical Manufacturing MES é um sistema de informação personalizável que realiza a gestão das operações em ambientes avançados de fabricação garantindo um elevado desempenho e competitividade. A CMF garante a personalização do sistema para corresponder aos requisitos dos clientes e parceiros, mas a complexidade inerente à oferta de um sistema completo e competitivo implica uma estratégia de apoio à customização que garanta um processo simples, rápido e fiável.Os resultados esperados para o presente trabalho, e consequentes da definição de uma estratégia de apoio à customização de software são: (1) uma ferramenta e documentação de apoio que orientem os clientes e parceiros no seu processo de customização e (2), um aumento da confiança e eficiência dos clientes e parceiros no desenvolvimento das suas personalizações através de um processo mais rápido e fiável. A estratégia de apoio à customização definida procura ser a mais abrangente e genérica possível de forma a facilitar a sua adoção por outras entidades.Providing a customizable system allows customers and partners to expand product functionality to meet their specific needs and goals. But the changes or additions of functionalities to the base system require a deep knowledge of its structure and functionality, as well as technical skills that ensure fully functional modifications. In order to minimize the inherent difficulties of the development and testing process of these customizations, software suppliers provide support tools and documentation.The main focus of the present work is the analysis of customization projects, their support tools and documentation, to solve or minimize the customization process difficulties and problems. Through the definition of a customization support strategy that proposes knowledge extraction as a kind of documentation guided by the Collective Knowledge Systems concepts. And a tool that improves the process simplicity and reliability due to displaying intuitively the compilers code analysis to the user. The present work also covers the implementation of this support strategy to the process of customization of the Manufacturing Execution System (MES) of Critical Manufacturing (CMF), in order to validate its effectiveness.Critical Manufacturing MES is a customizable information system that performs operations management in advanced manufacturing environments while ensuring high performance and competitiveness. CMF provides system customizations to meet customer and partner requirements, but the inherent complexity in offering a complete and competitive system implies a customization support strategy that ensures a simple, fast and reliable process.The expected results for the present work, and following the definition of a software customization support strategy are: (1) a tool and documentation that support and guide customers and partners in their customization process, and (2) an increase in the confidence and efficiency of customers and partners on the development of their customizations through a more rapid and efficient process. The customization support strategy seeks to be as comprehensive and generic as possible to facilitate its adoption by other entities

An Approach for Building Efficient Composable Simulation Models

Models are becoming invaluable instruments for comprehending and resolving the problems originating from the interactions between humans, mainly their social and economic systems, and the environment. These interactions between the three systems, i.e. the socio-economic-natural systems, lead to evolving systems that are infamous for being extremely complex, having potentially conflicting goals, and including a considerable amount of uncertainties over how to characterize and manage them. Because models are inextricably linked to the system they attempt to represent, models geared towards addressing complex systems not only need to be functional in terms of their use and expected result but rather, the modeling process in its entirety needs to be credible, practically feasible, and transparent. In order to realize the full potential of models, the modeling workflow needs to be seen as an integral part of the model itself. Poor modeling practices at any stage of the model-building process, from conceptualization to implementation, can lead to adverse consequences when the model is in operation. This can undermine the role of models as enablers for tackling complex problems and lead to skepticism about their effectiveness. Models need to possess a number of qualities in order to be effective enablers for dealing with complex systems and addressing the issues that are associated with them. These qualities include being constructed in a way that supports model reuse and interoperability, having the ability to integrate data, scales, and algorithms across multiple disciplines, and having the ability to handle high degrees of uncertainty. Building models that fulfill these requirements is not an easy endeavor, as it usually entails performing problem description and requirement analysis tasks, assimilating knowledge from different domains, and choosing and integrating appropriate technique(s), among other tasks that require the utilization of a significant amount of time and resources. This study aims to improve the efficiency and rigor of the model-building process by presenting an artifact that facilitates the development of probabilistic models targeting complex socioeconomic-environmental systems. This goal is accomplished in three stages. The first stage deconstructs models that attempt to address complex systems. We use the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) as a model problem that includes economic, social, and environmental systems. The SDG models are classified and mapped against the desirable characteristics that need to be present in models addressing such a complex issue. The results of stage one are utilized in the second stage to create an Object-Oriented Bayesian Networks (OOBN) model that attempts to represent the complexity of the relationships between the SDGs, long-term sustainability, and the resilience of nations. The OOBN model development process is guided by existing modeling best practices, and the model utility is demonstrated by applying it to three case studies, each relevant to a different policy analysis context. The final section of this study proposes a Pattern Language (PL) for developing OOBN models. The proposed PL consolidates cross-domain knowledge into a set of patterns with a hierarchical structure, allowing its prospective user to develop complex models. Stage three, in addition to the OOBN PL, presents a comprehensive PL validation framework that is used to validate the proposed PL. Finally, the OOBN PL is used to rebuild and address the limitations of the OOBN model presented in stage two. The proposed OOBN PL resulted in a more fit-for-purpose OOBN model, indicating the adequacy and usefulness of such an artifact for enabling modelers to build more effective models