The automatic generation and execution of Lean Cuisine+ specifications : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Information Science in Computer Science at Massey University

Lean Cuisine+ (Phillips, 1995), a semi-formal graphical dialogue notation for describing the behaviour of event based direct manipulation GUIs, was developed at Massey University in the early 1990s. More recently, a software environment, SELCU (Scogings, 2003) has been built for Lean Cuisine+ which permits dialogue models to be manually constructed and edited using a drag and drop approach. The aim of the research presented in this thesis is to develop extensions to SELCU, which include the automatic generation of Lean Cuisine+ diagrams, and their execution. A shortcoming of current prototyping tools and user interface builders is that although they permit the designer to construct a mock up of the look and feel of the interface, they provide no model of the interaction. The Auto-Generation Software is a tool which can automatically generate a Lean Cuisine+ diagram for a graphical user interface developed using Delphi. The generated description is represented as a text file, and in a format compatible with the SELCU system. The Lean Cuisine+ Execution Environment is embedded in the SELCU application. It supports the execution of Lean Cuisine+ specifications, including meneme selection and task action sequence, and also takes account of triggers. The SELCU extensions successfully integrate a graphical dialogue notation (Lean Cuisine+), an object oriented development environment (Delphi), and an existing support environment (SELCU). This offers a more complete environment for the early stages of the design of graphical user interfaces

The augmented reality framework : an approach to the rapid creation of mixed reality environments and testing scenarios

Debugging errors during real-world testing of remote platforms can be time consuming and expensive when the remote environment is inaccessible and hazardous such as deep-sea. Pre-real world testing facilities, such as Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL), are often not available due to the time and expense necessary to create them. Testing facilities tend to be monolithic in structure and thus inflexible making complete redesign necessary for slightly different uses. Redesign is simpler in the short term than creating the required architecture for a generic facility. This leads to expensive facilities, due to reinvention of the wheel, or worse, no testing facilities. Without adequate pre-real world testing, integration errors can go undetected until real world testing where they are more costly to diagnose and rectify, e.g. especially when developing Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs). This thesis introduces a novel framework, the Augmented Reality Framework (ARF), for rapid construction of virtual environments for Augmented Reality tasks such as Pure Simulation, HIL, Hybrid Simulation and real world testing. ARF’s architecture is based on JavaBeans and is therefore inherently generic, flexible and extendable. The aim is to increase the performance of constructing, reconfiguring and extending virtual environments, and consequently enable more mature and stable systems to be developed in less time due to previously undetectable faults being diagnosed earlier in the pre-real-world testing phase. This is only achievable if test harnesses can be created quickly and easily, which in turn allows the developer to visualise more system feedback making faults easier to spot. Early fault detection and less wasted real world testing leads to a more mature, stable and less expensive system. ARF provides guidance on how to connect and configure user made components, allowing for rapid prototyping and complex virtual environments to be created quickly and easily. In essence, ARF tries to provide intuitive construction guidance which is similar in nature to LEGOR pieces which can be so easily connected to form useful configurations. ARF is demonstrated through case studies which show the flexibility and applicability of ARF to testing techniques such as HIL for UUVs. In addition, an informal study was carried out to asses the performance increases attributable to ARF’s core concepts. In comparison to classical programming methods ARF’s average performance increase was close to 200%. The study showed that ARF was incredibly intuitive since the test subjects were novices in ARF but experts in programming. ARF provides key contributions in the field of HIL testing of remote systems by providing more accessible facilities that allow new or modified testing scenarios to be created where it might not have been feasible to do so before. In turn this leads to early detection of faults which in some cases would not have ever been detected before

Object-oriented modelling of municipal waste management systems

The paper presents the adaptive, reactive computer assistance system design methodology, making modelling, analysis, and testing possible of the integrated waste management systems. The presented model is defined in a multilayer open architecture, i.e.-, it consists of the logical spaces of the constituent models (submodels) of the object classes and real processes of the waste management system. Topics covered by the paper include elements of a literature review on the modelling of systems and waste management processes, review of the programming environments employed, as well as a description of the object- -oriented waste management systems design methodology

A comparison of programming notations for a tertiary level introductory programming course

Increasing pressure from national government to improve throughput at South African tertiary education institutions presents challenges to educators of introductory programming courses. In response, educators must adopt effective methods and strategies that encourage novice programmers to be successful in such courses. An approach that seeks to increase and maintain satisfactory throughput is the modification of the teaching model in these courses by adjusting presentation techniques. This thesis investigates the effect of integrating an experimental iconic programming notation and associated development environment with existing conventional textual technological support in the teaching model of a tertiary level introductory programming course. The investigation compares the performance achievement of novice programmers using only conventional textual technological support with that of novice programmers using the integrated iconic and conventional textual technological support. In preparation for the investigation, interpretation of existing knowledge on the behaviour of novice programmers while learning to program results in a novel framework of eight novice programmer requirements for technological support in an introductory programming course. This framework is applied in the examination of existing categories of technological support as well as in the design of new technological support for novice programmers learning to program. It thus provides information for the selection of existing and the design of new introductory programming technological support. The findings of the investigation suggest strong evidence that performance achievement of novice programmers in a tertiary level introductory programming course improves significantly with the inclusion of iconic technological support in the teaching model. The benefits are particularly evident in the portion of the novice programmer population who have been identified as being at risk of being successful in the course. Novice programmers identified as being at risk perform substantially better when using iconic technological support concurrently with conventional textual technological support than their equals who use only the latter form. Considerably more at risk novice programmers using the integrated form of technological support are in fact successful in the introductory programming course when compared with their counterparts who use conventional textual technological support only. The contributions of this thesis address deficiencies existing in current documented research. These contributions are primarily apparent in a number of distinct areas, namely: • formalisation of a novel framework of novice programmer requirements for technological support in an introductory programming course; • application of the framework as a formal evaluation technique; • application of the framework in the design of a visual iconic programming notation and development environment; • enhancement of existing empirical evidence and experimental research methodology typically applied to studies in programming; as well as • a proposal for a modified introductory programming course teaching model. The thesis has effectively applied substantial existing research on the cognitive model of the novice programmer as well as that on experimental technological support. The increase of throughput to a recommended rate of 75 percent in the tertiary level introductory programming course at the University of Port Elizabeth is attributed solely to the incorporation of iconic technological support in the teaching model of the course

PC based storage and processing of electrocardiogram tracings recorded with a HP4745A pagewriter II cardiograph

ThesisCurrently the Department of Cardiology, Universitas Hospital, keeps paper copies of ECGs filed in large filing cabinets. Access to these files is tedious during office hours, and impossible after hours, when the filing room is locked and no filing personnel are available. Commercially available systems for computerised storage of ECG data are available from a number of vendors. Some drawbacks of these systems include: • Extremely expensive. • Only a portion of the functions offered by these systems are really needed at the Department of Cardiology, Universitas Hospital. These systems are thus not economically justifiable by the Department of Cardiology, Universitas Hospital. • Some require new/different ECG machines to be used. • Some require an expensive computer system to be installed. • Additional space is needed for additional equipment. • Staff needs to be extensively trained to use the new equipment. This dissertation describes the development of a dynamic link library (DLL) which is used to acquire and decode data from a Hewlet Packard HP4745A Cardiograph II Page Writer electrocardiograph. Furthermore, the database application using the HP4745A DLL can also be expanded to accept data from other ECG machines. The acquisition and decoding DLL must be developed to produce a decoded data file conforming to the format described in this dissertation. By storing these decoded data in a database such as Hearts 32, the data can be reprocessed (drawing of ECG traces on screen or on printer). Selected leads from different ECGs can also be plotted on the same screen. Fast access to previous ECGs will help the cardiologists at the Universitas Hospital in Bloemfontein to improve patient care. The cardiac patients of the Free State community as well as the staff at the Department of Cardiology, Universitas Hospital, Bloemfontein can benefit from the results of this research

Formal specification based prototyping

Rapid prototyping is an approach to software development which attempts to remedy some of the shortcomings of the linear life cycle model, e.g. its inability to cope with fuzzy requirements and system evolution. This thesis first presents a broad survey of rapid software prototyping. It describes the rationale behind the process, the applications of prototyping, and specific techniques which may be used to achieve them. We then describe a system, called EPROS, together with its methodology, which supports a number of prototyping techniques in a coherent framework. The system is comprehensive in its approach and covers the prototyping and development of both functional and human-computer interface aspects of software systems. The former is based on the execution of VDM-based formal specification notation META-IV; the latter is based on a textual representation of state transition diagrams. Dialogue development is further supported by a rich set of abstractions which allow interaction concepts to be specified and directly executed rather than implemented. EPROS is based on a wide spectrum language which supports the main phases of a software development process, namely specification, design, and implementation. Included in this notation is a meta abstraction facility which facilitates its extension by the programmer. The primary application of EPROS is for evolutionary prototyping, where a system is developed iteratively and gradually from the abstract to the detailed, while it undergoes use and while its capabilities evolve. EPROS copes with all the requirements of evolutionary prototyping, namely rapid development, intermediate deliveries and gradual evolution of the system towards the final product. The thesis also describes a number of case studies where the presented ideas are put in practice, and which provide data in support of the effectiveness of the described system