1,526 research outputs found

    Ten Commandments Revisited: A Ten-Year Perspective on the Industrial Application of Formal Methods

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    Ten years ago, our 1995 paper Ten Commandments of Formal Methods suggested some guidelines to help ensure the success of a formal methods project. It proposed ten important requirements (or "commandments") for formal developers to consider and follow, based on our knowledge of several industrial application success stories, most of which have been reported in more detail in two books. The paper was surprisingly popular, is still widely referenced, and used as required reading in a number of formal methods courses. However, not all have agreed with some of our commandments, feeling that they may not be valid in the long-term. We re-examine the original commandments ten years on, and consider their validity in the light of a further decade of industrial best practice and experiences

    Description and pilot evaluation of the Metabolic Irregularities Narrowing down Device software: a case analysis of physician programming

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    Background: There is a gap between the abilities and the everyday applications of Computerized Decision Support Systems (CDSSs). This gap is further exacerbated by the different ‘worlds’ between the software designers and the clinician end-users. Software programmers often lack clinical experience whereas practicing physicians lack skills in design and engineering. Objective: Our primary objective was to evaluate the performance of Metabolic Irregularities Narrowing down Device (MIND) intelligent medical calculator and differential diagnosis software through end-user surveys and discuss the roles of CDSS in the inpatient setting. Setting: A tertiary care, teaching community hospital. Study participants: Thirty-one responders answered the survey. Responders consisted of medical students, 24%; attending physicians, 16%, and residents, 60%. Results: About 62.5% of the responders reported that MIND has the ability to potentially improve the quality of care, 20.8% were sure that MIND improves the quality of care, and only 4.2% of the responders felt that it does not improve the quality of care. Ninety-six percent of the responders felt that MIND definitely serves or has the potential to serve as a useful tool for medical students, and only 4% of the responders felt otherwise. Thirty-five percent of the responders rated the differential diagnosis list as excellent, 56% as good, 4% as fair, and 4% as poor. Discussion: MIND is a suggesting, interpreting, alerting, and diagnosing CDSS with good performance and end-user satisfaction. In the era of the electronic medical record, the ongoing development of efficient CDSS platforms should be carefully considered by practicing physicians and institutions

    Improving pupil motivation for second language acquisition at Key Stage 4 via teacher response to the pupil voice

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    This study aims to investigate teacher strategies for improving pupil motivation, and the strategies which pupils themselves employ to self-motivate, in particular investigating the motivation of two year 11 classes at a high-achieving, selective, rural full-boarding school. A thorough review of the literature was carried out and used as the basis for the investigative measures of the project. Namely, Dörnyei and CsizĂ©r’s 1998 research on the ‘Ten commandments for motivating language learners,’ Gardner’s 1985 Attitude/Motivational Test Battery, and Pintrich’s 1991 Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire. These instruments were adapted for use on a much smaller scale and combined to give a detailed understanding of the strategies which teachers value for motivating pupils, pupils’ views on these same strategies, and pupil motivational levels and learning strategy use. A new ‘Ten commandments’ was compiled then tailored to the motivational needs of my school and pupils based on teacher responses and pupil ratings. Due to the global pandemic, investigations on the impact of implementing these strategies on pupil motivation was not possible, but the pupil ratings were supported by the findings in the AMTB/MSLQ part of the pupil questionnaire which found that pupils are largely instrumentally oriented, extrinsically motivated, and demonstrate low levels of trait anxiety. Pupils also self-rate effort as high, demonstrate high levels of self-efficacy beliefs, and largely display growth mindset traits. However, there is scope to improve their use of learning strategies, particularly their use of peer learning strategies and metacognitive self-regulation, suggesting that an explicit teaching intervention of these strategies would be beneficial

    Towards developing a collaborative video platform for learning

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    The work presented in this paper outlines issues relating to the development of a collaborative video platform for learning. Student adoption of collaborative and video technology is increasing dramatically, becoming part of their everyday lives. The aim of this paper is to propose a system and framework for the successful integration of these technologies into teaching and learning. At the outset we assess current trends and previous research, using these findings to inform the development of a new platform. System specifications are then presented with specific needs identified for students and educators. Finally our tentative framework for a integrating a collaborative video platform for learning is presented

    06191 Abstracts Collection -- Rigorous Methods for Software Construction and Analysis

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    From 07.05.06 to 12.05.06, the Dagstuhl Seminar 06191 ``Rigorous Methods for Software Construction and Analysis\u27\u27 was held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available

    A Conversation With Harry Martz

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    Harry F. Martz was born June 16, 1942 and grew up in Cumberland, Maryland. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics (with a minor in physics) from Frostburg State University in 1964, and earned a Ph.D. in statistics at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1968. He started his statistics career at Texas Tech University's Department of Industrial Engineering and Statistics right after graduation. In 1978, he joined the technical staff at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in Los Alamos, New Mexico after first working as Full Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Utah State University in the fall of 1977. He has had a prolific 23-year career with the statistics group at LANL; over the course of his career, Martz has published over 80 research papers in books and refereed journals, one book (with co-author Ray Waller), and has four patents associated with his work at LANL. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and has received numerous awards, including the Technometrics Frank Wilcoxon Prize for Best Applications Paper (1996), Los Alamos National Laboratory Achievement Award (1998), R&D 100 Award by R&D Magazine (2003), Council for Chemical Research Collaboration Success Award (2004), and Los Alamos National Laboratory's Distinguished Licensing Award (2004). Since retiring as a Technical Staff member at LANL in 2001, he has worked as a LANL Laboratory Associate.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000646 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

    Research and Publishing: Relevance and Irreverence

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    The value, relevance, and efficacy of conducting and publishing research has been widely debated throughout the agricultural economics profession. On the one hand, some argue that the research process creates little value and directly competes with teaching/outreach output. On the other hand, others argue that research provides answers to important questions, improves human capital, and complements teaching/outreach activities. I argue that the research and publishing process develops human capital, improves the quality of teaching/outreach, reduces bias, generates new ideas, improves societal welfare, creates innovation, and is essential for public policy debate.publishing, research, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

    An exploration of the sub-register of chemical engineering research papers published in English

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    The increased pressures for high-volume, high-impact publications in English language and the high rejection rates of submitted manuscripts for publications present an often unsurpassable obstacle for (early career) researchers. At the same time, register variation of peer-reviewed journals—that can contribute to whether a paper is accepted for publication—has received little attention. This paper redresses this gap, by investigating the register (especially discourse moves and lexical choices) in 60 published, original-research articles on wastewater treatment published in four Chemical Engineering journals, with impact factor (IF) above 2. Our survey shows that chemical engineering research publications tend to comply with a set of requirements: multidisciplinarity, brevity, co-authorship, focus on the description of practical results (rather than methods), and awareness of non-specialised audiences. Lexical choices were analysed through frequency tables, phrase nets and word trees produced by data visualisation software (ManyEyes). It was found that less discipline-specific vocabulary is used in higher IF journals and this is interpreted within the current context of manuscript publication and consumption. This study concludes that data visualisation can provide an efficient and effective tool for prospective authors that wish to gauge telling details of the sub-register of a specific journal

    Strategies for teaching engineering mathematics

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    This thesis is an account of experiments into the teaching of mathematics to engineering undergraduates which have been conducted over twenty years against a background of changing intake ability, varying output requirements and increasing restrictions on the formal contact time available. The aim has been to improve the efficiency of the teaching-learning process. The main areas of experimentation have been the integration in the syllabus of numerical and analytical methods, the incorporation of case studies into the curriculum and the use of micro-based software to enhance the teaching process. Special attention is paid to courses in Mathematical Engineering and their position in the spectrum of engineering disciplines. A core curriculum in mathematics for undergraduate engineers is proposed and details are provided of its implementation. The roles of case studies and micro-based software are highlighted. The provision of a mathematics learning resource centre is considered a necessary feature of the implementation of the proposed course. Finally, suggestions for further research are made
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