Untersuchung minimal strikter Funktionen in funktionaler Programmierung

In a non-strict programming language like Haskell a function only evaluates the parts of an argument that are necessary to calculate the result of an application. However, it is possible to define a function that is unnecessarily strict. That is, the function evaluates some part of its argument although this part is not needed to calculate the demanded part of the result. This thesis investigates the influence of unnecessary strictness on the memory behavior of a function and presents approaches for identifying and optimizing unnecessarily strict functions

Children in conflict with the law: assessing the implementation of the Child Justice Act 75 of 2008 in the Eastern Cape province

The study explored efforts made by various stakeholders involved in the implementation of the Child Justice Act (CJA). It is essential to get insight on the roles of stakeholders in the child justice and view how their efforts could or do not warrant an effective coordination of the child justice system. This study was inductive in nature. Primary data came from in-depth interviews with individuals and government officials as well as focus groups with children in conflict with the law. Various assumptions relating to delinquent behaviour were highlighted by a description of the various factors underlying or contributing to this behaviour. The theories discussed such as social disorganization and differential association are relevant to this study and help to understand juvenile delinquency. It is essential to look at the extent and causes of juvenile delinquency as well as the history of child justice in South Africa, so that this can be used as a yardstick to measure the development of the law on child justice and see if the coming of the new CJA has made improvements to address juvenile delinquency. This study showed that the development of international and regional norms and standards on juvenile justice such as the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child, the UN Minimum Rules for Administration of Juvenile Justice, the UN Standard Minimum Rules For the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty the UN Guidelines for Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child provide a comprehensive framework at the international level within which the issue of child justice should be understood. The study also argued that although the CJA brought new innovations in the criminal justice system, challenges in various key provisions of CJA such as assessment, preliminary inquiry, diversion, sentencing, child and youth care centres are noted. Other key findings include lack of training or capacity building, unavailability of budget and public education awareness. There is a need to look at these challenges to improve the multi-sectoral implementation of the CJA.Thesis (LLM) -- Faculty of Law, 201

Children in conflict with the law: assessing the implementation of the Child Justice Act 75 of 2008 in the Eastern Cape province

The study explored efforts made by various stakeholders involved in the implementation of the Child Justice Act (CJA). It is essential to get insight on the roles of stakeholders in the child justice and view how their efforts could or do not warrant an effective coordination of the child justice system. This study was inductive in nature. Primary data came from in-depth interviews with individuals and government officials as well as focus groups with children in conflict with the law. Various assumptions relating to delinquent behaviour were highlighted by a description of the various factors underlying or contributing to this behaviour. The theories discussed such as social disorganization and differential association are relevant to this study and help to understand juvenile delinquency. It is essential to look at the extent and causes of juvenile delinquency as well as the history of child justice in South Africa, so that this can be used as a yardstick to measure the development of the law on child justice and see if the coming of the new CJA has made improvements to address juvenile delinquency. This study showed that the development of international and regional norms and standards on juvenile justice such as the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child, the UN Minimum Rules for Administration of Juvenile Justice, the UN Standard Minimum Rules For the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty the UN Guidelines for Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child provide a comprehensive framework at the international level within which the issue of child justice should be understood. The study also argued that although the CJA brought new innovations in the criminal justice system, challenges in various key provisions of CJA such as assessment, preliminary inquiry, diversion, sentencing, child and youth care centres are noted. Other key findings include lack of training or capacity building, unavailability of budget and public education awareness. There is a need to look at these challenges to improve the multi-sectoral implementation of the CJA.Thesis (LLM) -- Faculty of Law, 201

Models, Simulations, and the Reduction of Complexity

Modern science is a model-building activity. But how are models contructed? How are they related to theories and data? How do they explain complex scientific phenomena, and which role do computer simulations play? To address these questions which are highly relevant to scientists as well as to philosophers of science, 8 leading natural, engineering and social scientists reflect upon their modeling work, and 8 philosophers provide a commentary

A Case Study: How Freshman Teachers Perceive Grade Inflation at a Southeast High School

There exists a lack of communication among teachers about grade inflation. The problem is teachers do not understand the consequences of grade inflation. This instrumental case study is important because without meaningful grading, students are less prepared to function in today’s society and teachers are subject to high levels of scrutiny and criticism from all stakeholders involved. The purpose of this instrumental case study is to explore how freshmen teachers perceive grade inflation within a southeast high school. The three main research questions involve how freshmen teachers perceive grade inflation, why freshmen teachers should discuss grade inflation, and what shared experiences do freshmen teachers have about grade inflation. The data triangulation in this instrumental case study involves a qualitative Qualtrics survey administered to all 12 teacher participants, a one-on-one interview with seven out of 12 teacher participants, and a focus group session with the remaining 5 out of 12 teacher participants. Based on the Qualtrics survey, 11 out of 12 teachers in this instrumental case study inflate their grades. The majority of teachers in this instrumental case study express pressure from both administration and coaches to inflate grades when students are not meeting the requirements of passing a class on their own merits. After analyzing the Qualtrics survey data, how students perform in their classes is not an indicator of how they will perform on their state standardized exams. In an ever-changing, global community, we cannot ignore teacher perceptions of grade inflation. These teacher perceptions are critical to our system of educating students

Models, Simulations, and the Reduction of Complexity

Modern science is a model-building activity. But how are models contructed? How are they related to theories and data? How do they explain complex scientific phenomena, and which role do computer simulations play? To address these questions which are highly relevant to scientists as well as to philosophers of science, 8 leading natural, engineering and social scientists reflect upon their modeling work, and 8 philosophers provide a commentary

Interaction-aware analysis and optimization of real-time application and operating system

Mechanical and electronic automation was a key component of the technological advances in the last two hundred years. With the use of special-purpose machines, manual labor was replaced by mechanical motion, leaving workers with the operation of these machines, before also this task was conquered by embedded control systems. With the advances of general-purpose computing, the development of these control systems shifted more and more from a problem-specific one to a one-size-fits-all mentality as the trade-off between per-instance overheads and development costs was in favor of flexible and reusable implementations. However, with a scaling factor of thousands, if not millions, of deployed devices, overheads and inefficiencies accumulate; calling for a higher degree of specialization. For the area real-time operating systems (RTOSs), which form the base layer for many of these computerized control systems, we deploy way more flexibility than what is actually required for the applications that run on top of it. Since only the solution, but not the problem, became less specific to the control problem at hand, we have the chance to cut away inefficiencies, improve on system-analyses results, and optimize the resource consumption. However, such a tailoring will only be favorable if it can be performed without much developer interaction and in an automated fashion. Here, real-time systems are a good starting point, since we already have to have a large degree of static knowledge in order to guarantee their timeliness. Until now, this static nature is not exploited to its full extent and optimization potentials are left unused. The requirements of a system, with regard to the RTOS, manifest in the interactions between the application and the kernel. Threads request resources from the RTOS, which in return determines and enforces a scheduling order that will ensure the timely completion of all necessary computations. Since the RTOS runs only in the exception, its reaction to requests from the application (or from the environment) is its defining feature. In this thesis, I will grasp these interactions, and thereby the required RTOS semantic, in a control-flow-sensitive fashion. Extracted automatically, this knowledge about the reciprocal influence allows me to fit the implementation of a system closer to its actual requirements. The result is a system that is not only in its usage a special-purpose system, but also in its implementation and in its provided guarantees. In the development of my approach, it became clear that the focus on these interactions is not only highly fruitful for the optimization of a system, but also for its end-to-end analysis. Therefore, this thesis does not only provide methods to reduce the kernel-execution overhead and a system's memory consumption, but it also includes methods to calculate tighter response-time bounds and to give guarantees about the correct behavior of the kernel. All these contributions are enabled by my proposed interaction-aware methodology that takes the whole system, RTOS and application, into account. With this thesis, I show that a control-flow-sensitive whole-system view on the interactions is feasible and highly rewarding. With this approach, we can overcome many inefficiencies that arise from analyses that have an isolating focus on individual system components. Furthermore, the interaction-aware methods keep close to the actual implementation, and therefore are able to consider the behavioral patterns of the finally deployed real-time computing system

Computer Grammar Checkers and ESL Writers

The use of word processors has become common in writing instruction for students of English as a second language (ESL). Recent developments in microcomputer technology have increased the number of tools or writing aids that are incorporated into word processing programs. Among these are computer style and grammar checkers, programs that attempt to identify and diagnose stylistic, grammatical, and mechanical problems in writing. This study examines the suitability of commercial grammar checking programs for use by ESL writers through descriptive analysis of program features and evaluation of accuracy. The programs evaluated are Grammatik 5, Microsoft Word 6.0 and Correct Grammar (both using CorrecText as an underlying system), and Right Writer 6.0. The principal issues explored in the descriptive analysis are comparative ease-of-use, the nature of diagnostic advice and tutorial information, and modification capabilities of each program. The analysis shows that grammar checking programs that are part of word processing programs (e.g., Word Perfect and Microsoft Word) are easier to use, but lack key components that permit modification of advice messages and tutorial information, or addition of new error patterns. The evaluation of accuracy examines program performance in terms of error types the programs were designed to identify in relation to errors common in ESL writing. In a test of sample sentences, the overall accuracy rate for the most successful program, Grammatik 5, was only 50%. Microsoft Word and Correct Grammar were second with 42%; Right Writer 6.0 was the weakest, with a score of 25%. Program accuracy was substantially reduced in analysis of a sample student essay. Microsoft Word and Correct Grammar performed best, but with only 21% accuracy. The score of Grammatik 5 was reduced to 17%, and that of Right Writer 6.0 to 13%. This suggests that student writing contains a larger number of errors the programs cannot identify than do the test sentences. In addition, sentences in the essay contained multiple errors, while most of the test sentences contained only one error. Low accuracy rates might be improved by rule modification features of standalone versions of programs such as Grammatik 5 and Correct Grammar