The Utilization of a Computer Assisted Guidance System in Academic Advising

Computer assisted guidance systems may adapt well to various models of academic advising, and they have the ability to address the challenge of meeting the diverse advising needs of community college students without sacrificing the integrity of academic advising (Fowkes & McWhirter, 2007). The purpose of this qualitative case study was to assess current advisor and student use of a specific computer assisted guidance system and to recommend strategies to effect optimum utilization of current generation software. The objective was to create a model for using the computer assisted guidance system as an academic and career planning tool for community college students. The researcher triangulated methods and sources of data collection to ensure the credibility of this study. Data were collected using three methods: interviews, focus groups, and a short survey. Interviews with six counselors who provide academic advising and six focus groups with students who had experienced the computer assisted guidance system were used to collect data. An anonymous survey was provided to the six counselor participants. Findings from this study suggest counselors utilize the computer assisted guidance system in the provision of academic advising support to students in the classroom as a component of a first-year experience course. The counselors do not regularly use the computer assisted guidance system in their private offices in the provision of academic advising support to students. Students utilize the computer assisted guidance system because it is a required course assignment. The utilization of the computer assisted guidance system could be improved with the implementation of several strategies. Counselors and advisors must receive training on computer assisted guidance system intervention strategies. Counselors and advisors recommending the computer assisted guidance system to students should employ a developmental approach to academic advising when doing so. The computer assisted guidance system should be a required course assignment in a first-year experience course. A link to the computer assisted guidance system should be placed prominently on the front page of the college Web page. The computer assisted guidance system icon seen on college Web portals should include a descriptive statement about the system. A brochure should be created to market the computer assisted guidance system. The public school system should utilize the computer assisted guidance system

Inductive knowledge acquisition experience with commercial tools for space shuttle main engine testing

Since 1984, an effort has been underway at Rocketdyne, manufacturer of the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), to automate much of the analysis procedure conducted after engine test firings. Previously published articles at national and international conferences have contained the context of and justification for this effort. Here, progress is reported in building the full system, including the extensions of integrating large databases with the system, known as Scotty. Inductive knowledge acquisition has proven itself to be a key factor in the success of Scotty. The combination of a powerful inductive expert system building tool (ExTran), a relational data base management system (Reliance), and software engineering principles and Computer-Assisted Software Engineering (CASE) tools makes for a practical, useful and state-of-the-art application of an expert system

PURRS: Towards Computer Algebra Support for Fully Automatic Worst-Case Complexity Analysis

Fully automatic worst-case complexity analysis has a number of applications in computer-assisted program manipulation. A classical and powerful approach to complexity analysis consists in formally deriving, from the program syntax, a set of constraints expressing bounds on the resources required by the program, which are then solved, possibly applying safe approximations. In several interesting cases, these constraints take the form of recurrence relations. While techniques for solving recurrences are known and implemented in several computer algebra systems, these do not completely fulfill the needs of fully automatic complexity analysis: they only deal with a somewhat restricted class of recurrence relations, or sometimes require user intervention, or they are restricted to the computation of exact solutions that are often so complex to be unmanageable, and thus useless in practice. In this paper we briefly describe PURRS, a system and software library aimed at providing all the computer algebra services needed by applications performing or exploiting the results of worst-case complexity analyses. The capabilities of the system are illustrated by means of examples derived from the analysis of programs written in a domain-specific functional programming language for real-time embedded systems.Comment: 6 page

Methodology for automating software systems. Task 1 of the foundations for automating software systems

The early stages of a research program designed to establish an experimental research platform for software engineering are described. Major emphasis is placed on Computer Assisted Software Engineering (CASE). The Poor Man's CASE Tool is based on the Apple Macintosh system, employing available software including Focal Point II, Hypercard, XRefText, and Macproject. These programs are functional in themselves, but through advanced linking are available for operation from within the tool being developed. The research platform is intended to merge software engineering technology with artificial intelligence (AI). In the first prototype of the PMCT, however, the sections of AI are not included. CASE tools assist the software engineer in planning goals, routes to those goals, and ways to measure progress. The method described allows software to be synthesized instead of being written or built

Environment Behavior Models for Scenario Generation and Testing Automation

In Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Advances in Model-Based Software Testing (A-MOST'05), the 27th International Conference on Software Engineering ICSE’05, May 15-16, 2005, St. Louis, USAThis paper suggests an approach to automatic scenario generation from environment models for testing of real-time reactive systems. The behavior of the system is defined as a set of events (event trace) with two basic relations: precedence and inclusion. The attributed event grammar (AEG) specifies possible event traces and provides a uniform approach for automatically generating, executing, and analyzing test cases. The environment model includes a description of hazardous states in which the system may arrive and makes it possible to gather statistics for system safety assessment. The approach is supported by a generator that creates test cases from the AEG models. We demonstrate the approach with case studies of prototypes for the safety-critical computer-assisted resuscitation algorithm (CARA) software for a casualty intravenous fluid infusion pump and the Paderborn Shuttle System

Special Issue on the AMCIS 2001 Workshops: Business Information Systems Modeling with Computer Assisted Systems Engineering (Case) Software

This paper describes and critiques a workshop in business information systems modeling with Computer Assisted Systems Engineering (CASE) tools held at the 2001 Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS). The workshop demonstrated the effectiveness of Visible Analyst Workbench (VAW) as a systems modeling tool that generates comprehensive Process Models with multi-level Data Flow Diagrams, Data Models with Entity Relationship Diagrams, Structure Charts for automatic code generation, and Functional Decomposition Diagrams as system planning tools. A simulated teaching case with four structured exercises integrated the conceptual foundations of the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) with the practical difficulties of building complex business information systems models. The workshop also discussed how simulated teaching cases and CASE software could be used as pedagogical tools for foundational courses in systems analysis and design

The Adaptation and Routinization Processes of A Continuous Auditing System Implementation

How to adopt computer-assisted auditing techniques (CAATTs) quickly and develop a continuous auditing system are the critical issues for the implementation of automated auditing techniques. In this research, we study the technological adaptation process of a case company, which continuously implemented four CAATTs projects in three years. We summarized and analyzed the routinization process of how the case company adapted their computer-aided audit procedures from an experimental action to daily usage. An approach based on organizational routines theories was adopted to study group learning and interactions among project members, and to understand how they integrated automated auditing techniques and mechanisms into the existing manual auditing procedures. The process also reveals the incremental progress of an emerging routine from CAATTs adoption to continuous auditing systems. The research results show that the documentation of CAATTs projects and group learning among different functions contribute to the routinization of automated auditing procedures; the continuous auditing system based on the automated auditing program also contributes to routinely audited tasks. However, the improvisational nature of auditing activities, implicit characteristics within general auditing software, and rigidity of automatic auditing programs cause the resistance of internal auditors on CAATTs use, and also impede the emergence and flexibility of computer-aided auditing procedures

UCTAS : the UCT anaesthetics simulator : simulating the uptake and distribution of halothane

An anaesthetic simulator program that runs on an IBM personal computer system has been developed. The program allows an operator to observe the uptake and distribution of the volatile anaesthetic agent halothane by a standard 75kg patient. The "patient's" breathing is assisted by a ventilator and the anaesthetic gas is supplied through a simulated circle breathing circuit. The most important component of a simulator is a mathematical model of the system being simulated. In this case a model of the uptake and distribution of the anaesthetic agent halothane by the human cardiovascular and respiratory systems was required. Such a model was developed by combining features of several existing non-linear multi-compartmental models and adapting the equations to allow them to be implemented on a digital computer. The simulator software that was developed allows an operator to adjust physical parameters such as fresh gas flow rate, halothane concentration, and breathing parameters from the keyboard of an IBM PC computer and observe the way various model parameters respond on a graphics screen. The speed of the simulation is adjustable. i.e., the state of the model can be repetitively calculated and displayed at 1, 10, or 60 second intervals. Model parameters can be displayed in bar graph or line-graph form and may also be dumped to a text file for use by other plotting programs. The software package developed should provide a useful teaching aid to understand the distribution of patient

INTERFACEAMENTO GPS/CAD EM TEMPO REAL: ESTUDO DE CASO

Este trabalho foi desenvolvido para testar a possibilidade do interfaceamento entre o sistema de posicionamento GPS (Global Positioning System) e um software do tipo CAD (Computer Assisted Design), em tempo real, para o monitoramento do deslocamento de veículos ferroviários. Como teste para o interfaceamento, foi utilizado o trecho ferroviário Curitiba - Rio Branco do Sul, de propriedade da Rede Ferroviária Federal S.A. (R.F.F.S.A). No teste, empregou-se um receptor de navegação instalado em um veiculo ferroviário, que coletava informações quanto a sua posição, ou seja, latitude e longitude. Essas informações foram retransmitidas via rádio para uma base de controle. Esta base estava localizada na região central da cidade de Curitiba. As coordenadas coletadas pelo receptor, sofreram transformações geométricas para que pudessem ser interpretadas pelo software AutoCAD para posterior plotagem em monitor de vídeo, sobre uma base cartográfica do trecho ferroviário utilizado no presente trabalho. O interfaceamento foi desenvolvido, na linguagem de programação C/C++, a partir da simulação de uma mesa digitalizadora utilizada pelo software AutoCAD. No presente trabalho, a simulação da mesa digitalizadora foi direcionada para o modelo de medida Calcomp 9100. Este interfaceamento foi executado com sucesso, possibilitando assim a utilização do software AutoCAD para auxiliar o controle de trafego de veículos ferroviários, a partir de dados coletados por receptores GPS de navegação em tempo real. A Study of a GPS/CAD Case: Interfacing in Real Time Abstract The research described in this paper was developed to test the connection between the Global Positioning System (GPS) and a software of the type Computer Assisted Design (CAD), in real time in order to monitor the motion of railroad vehicles. For the purpose of their test, a survey was ccarried out in the railroad between Curitiba and Rio Branco do Sul, which belongs to the Rede Ferroviária Federal S.A. (RFFSA). A navigation GPS receiver on board the railroad vehicle collected data which was transmitted via radio link to a base located in the central region of Curitiba. The coordinates transmitted from the receiver went through geometric transformations, allowing its use by the AutoCAD software. It was plotters in a video monitor, on the cartographic base describing the railroad previously surveyed. The interfacement was developed, in the language C/C++, simulating a Calcomp 9100 digitalizer table used by the AutoCAD software. The interfacement was sucessfully accomplished, showing the suitability of the application of the AutoCAD software to assist the control of railroad traffic in real time

Computer Software Development (Galal-M-RP) for Concrete Pavement Analysis and Design

A computer expert system has been developed for structural design of rigid pavements entitled Galal-Muram Rigid Pavement (Galal-M-RP). The developed software program is a design package as well as educational and training tool. The user is assisted to select design inputs by a systematic rule-based expert. These rules are intended to determine AASHTO recommended values. These values are shown on the screen along with a brief explanation during the design process. Screens and various group boxes assist the user in selecting the design inputs. A sensitivity analysis option allows the user to confirm the required precision of the design inputs. The results obtained from this software were evaluated and compared to the manual design case study of Omdurman ring road, as well as with other design examples. They include examples by Huang; AASHO 1993 Guide and Kici, A. and Tigdemir, M. in 2017 applying user friendly software, in addition to lecture notes by Drakos in 2009 at University of Florida. Comparisons were found excellent with differences in pavement thickness ranging between 0.1 and 0.9 cm. Concrete pavement design software Galal-M-RP supersedes conventional design methods regarding errors and difficulties in addition to saving significant time. Keywords: Visua