Identifying Thresholds for Distance Design-based Direct Class Cohesion (D3C2) Metrics

In the several phases of activity in developing a software system, there is design phase. This phase has a purpose to determine and ensure that a software requirement can be realized in accordance with customer needs. The quality of design must be a guarantee at this phase. One of an indicator of quality design is cohesion. Cohesion is the level of relatedness between elements in one component. A Higher value of cohesion can indicate that a component are more modular, has own resources, and less dependent on another component. More independent, components are easy to maintenance. There are many metrics to count how many values of cohesion in a component. One of metric is The Distance Design-Based Direct Class Cohesion (D3C2). But, many practitioners are unable to apply them. Because there is no threshold that can categories the value of cohesion. This study aims to determine the threshold of cohesion metric based on the class diagram. The result showed that the threshold of D3C2 metric is 0.41. 0.41 is the value that has the highest level of agreement with the design expert

Social Effectiveness of Tertiary Education for Adults in Mid-life

No abstract available

What is Strategic Competence and Does it Matter? Exposition of the Concept and a Research Agenda

Drawing on a range of theoretical and empirical insights from strategic management and the cognitive and organizational sciences, we argue that strategic competence constitutes the ability of organizations and the individuals who operate within them to work within their cognitive limitations in such a way that they are able to maintain an appropriate level of responsiveness to the contingencies confronting them. Using the language of the resource based view of the firm, we argue that this meta-level competence represents a confluence of individual and organizational characteristics, suitably configured to enable the detection of those weak signals indicative of the need for change and to act accordingly, thereby minimising the dangers of cognitive bias and cognitive inertia. In an era of unprecedented informational burdens and instability, we argue that this competence is central to the longer-term survival and well being of the organization. We conclude with a consideration of the major scientific challenges that lie ahead, if the ideas contained within this paper are to be validated

The Macro-Social Benefits of Education, Training and Skills in Comparative Perspective [Wider Benefits of Learning Research Report No. 9]

This report, the second from the Centre's strand of comparative research, complements an earlier WBL research report (Education, Equity and Social Cohesion: A Distributional Model) in exploring further themes of societal comparison and the distributional effects of education systems. Despite generally high levels of educational attainment there is huge diversity amongst Western Societies in terms of crime, tolerance, trust and social cohesion. In this report, we take a comparative approach to investigating relationships between education and these outcomes at a societal level. Through an interdisciplinary review of literatures from sociology, history, economics and psychology we examine the role of education systems from a number of countries in influencing trends in, and levels of, these variables. Whilst the importance of country and historical context is stressed throughout we arrive at some general conclusions concerning the role of education systems in the development of various forms of social cohesion. This report will be of interest to policy makers, researchers and practitioners who are interested in the social impact of education systems. In particular, we examine implications for current UK policy targeted at increasing national educational attainment

Explicitness and ellipsis as features of conversational style in British English and Ecuadorian Spanish

In this article I examine differences in conversational style between British English and Ecuadorian Spanish which can be the source of communication conflict among speakers of these two languages in telephone conversations, and, presumably in other types of interaction. I look at the language of mediated and non-mediated telephone conversations and examine one feature that interacts with indirectness, i.e., the degree of explicitness participants employ to realize similar acts or moves in the two languages. In non-mediated telephone interactions both British English and Ecuadorian Spanish speakers appear to display a preference for the use of explicitness in formulating various telephone management moves. On the other hand, in mediated interactions, while the British appear to favour explicitness, Ecuadorians in the present study, make use of elliptical forms. The latter, however, tend to be accompanied by deference markers. Differences in the use of explicit and elliptical utterances are interpreted as reflecting that, in certain types of interactions, Ecuadorians favour a style that can be characterized as fast and deferential, but possibly rather abrupt to the English, whereas the latter appear to favour a less hurried style which emphasizes the expression of consideration rather than deference

Modeling the relationship of metacognitive knowledge, L1 reading ability, L2 language proficiency and L2 reading

This study takes the initiative to use structural equation modeling (SEM) to explore the interrelationships among metacognitive knowledge, first language (L1) reading ability, second language (L2) proficiency and L2 reading comprehension. Data were collected using an L2 proficiency test, L1 and L2 reading tests and strategy questionnaires with 268 sophomore university students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) in China. The results showed that all three predictors had significant, direct, positive effects on L2 reading comprehension. Moreover, metacognitive knowledge exerted indirect effects on L2 reading by means of L1 reading ability and L2 language proficiency. The findings help to refine the framework of L2 reading and elaborate on the mechanism by which metacognitive knowledge facilitates L2 reading. These findings have significant classroom implications, including the integration of strategy instruction and L1 literacy resources into L2 curriculum

Analysing the Contribution of Coupling Metrics for the Development and Management of Process Architectures

Currently, the development and modeling of enterprise architectures is an intensively discussed topic in both science and practice. Process architectures represent a core element in recent enterprise architecture frameworks. With process models being a central means for communicating and documenting the process architectures, both their quality and understandability are decisive. However, the concept of process model quality is still not fully understood. The recent development has highlighted the role of coupling in models. Coupling is expected to represent an important dimension of quality for conceptual models. Still, this perspective is hardly understood and its definition vague. Therefore, this work collects diverse coupling interpretations in the field of process modelling and integrates them to a common and precise definition. Once introduced and formally specified, the metrics serve as a basis for a discussion on coupling and on how the future development in respect to coupling could look like. The main findings are that currently metrics evaluate either the documentation of the process architecture regarding its understandability or they contribute to the individual applications of process architectures. These findings support practitioners selecting metrics for a particular task and scientists to identify research gaps for further development

Climate Ready Estuaries - COAST in Action: 2012 Projects from Maine and New Hampshire

In summer 2011 the US EPA’s Climate Ready Estuaries program awarded funds to the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership (CBEP) in Portland, Maine, and the Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership (PREP) in coastal New Hampshire, to further develop and use COAST (COastal Adaptation to Sea level rise Tool) in their sea level rise adaptation planning processes. The New England Environmental Finance Center worked with municipal staff, elected officials, and other stakeholders to select specific locations, vulnerable assets, and adaptation actions to model using COAST. The EFC then collected the appropriate base data layers, ran the COAST simulations, and provided visual, numeric, and presentation-based products in support of the planning processes underway in both locations. These products helped galvanize support for the adaptation planning efforts. Through facilitated meetings they also led to stakeholders identifying specific action steps and begin to determine how to implement them

Facial behavior

: We provide an overview of the current state-of-the-art regarding research on facial behavior from what we hope is a well-balanced historical perspective. Based on a critical discussion of the main theoretical views of nonverbal facial activity (i.e., affect program theory, appraisal theory, dimensional theory, behavioral ecology), we focus on some key issues regarding the cohesion of emotion and expression, including the issue of “genuine smiles.” We argue that some of the challenges faced by the field are a consequence of these theoretical positions, their assumptions, and we discuss how they have generated and shaped research. A clear distinction of encoding and decoding processes may prove beneficial to identify specific problems – for example the use of posed expressions in facial expression research, or the impact of the psychological situation on the perceiver. We argue that knowledge of the functions of facial activity may be central to understanding what facial activity is truly about; this includes a serious consideration of social context at all stages of encoding and decoding. The chapter concludes with a brief overview of recent technical advances and challenges highlighted by the new field of “affective computing” concerned with facial activity