Pervasive computing reference architecture from a software engineering perspective (PervCompRA-SE)

Pervasive computing (PervComp) is one of the most challenging research topics nowadays. Its complexity exceeds the outdated main frame and client-server computation models. Its systems are highly volatile, mobile, and resource-limited ones that stream a lot of data from different sensors. In spite of these challenges, it entails, by default, a lengthy list of desired quality features like context sensitivity, adaptable behavior, concurrency, service omnipresence, and invisibility. Fortunately, the device manufacturers improved the enabling technology, such as sensors, network bandwidth, and batteries to pave the road for pervasive systems with high capabilities. On the other hand, this domain area has gained an enormous amount of attention from researchers ever since it was first introduced in the early 90s of the last century. Yet, they are still classified as visionary systems that are expected to be woven into people’s daily lives. At present, PervComp systems still have no unified architecture, have limited scope of context-sensitivity and adaptability, and many essential quality features are insufficiently addressed in PervComp architectures. The reference architecture (RA) that we called (PervCompRA-SE) in this research, provides solutions for these problems by providing a comprehensive and innovative pair of business and technical architectural reference models. Both models were based on deep analytical activities and were evaluated using different qualitative and quantitative methods. In this thesis we surveyed a wide range of research projects in PervComp in various subdomain areas to specify our methodological approach and identify the quality features in the PervComp domain that are most commonly found in these areas. It presented a novice approach that utilizes theories from sociology, psychology, and process engineering. The thesis analyzed the business and architectural problems in two separate chapters covering the business reference architecture (BRA) and the technical reference architecture (TRA). The solutions for these problems were introduced also in the BRA and TRA chapters. We devised an associated comprehensive ontology with semantic meanings and measurement scales. Both the BRA and TRA were validated throughout the course of research work and evaluated as whole using traceability, benchmark, survey, and simulation methods. The thesis introduces a new reference architecture in the PervComp domain which was developed using a novel requirements engineering method. It also introduces a novel statistical method for tradeoff analysis and conflict resolution between the requirements. The adaptation of the activity theory, human perception theory and process re-engineering methods to develop the BRA and the TRA proved to be very successful. Our approach to reuse the ontological dictionary to monitor the system performance was also innovative. Finally, the thesis evaluation methods represent a role model for researchers on how to use both qualitative and quantitative methods to evaluate a reference architecture. Our results show that the requirements engineering process along with the trade-off analysis were very important to deliver the PervCompRA-SE. We discovered that the invisibility feature, which was one of the envisioned quality features for the PervComp, is demolished and that the qualitative evaluation methods were just as important as the quantitative evaluation methods in order to recognize the overall quality of the RA by machines as well as by human beings

A Program for the Conservation, Interpretation, and Reuse of Downdraft Kilns at the Western Clay Manufacturing Company of Helena, Montana

This is the second thesis generated by a collaborative effort between the Montana Preservation Alliance, the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, and the University of Pennsylvania\u27s Master\u27s Program in Historic Preservation to research, document, and conserve architectural components of the former Western Clay Manufacturing Company of Helena, Montana. This project\u27s focus is the complex of five downdraft brick kilns and sheds (built between 1905 and 1922), which drove production at Western Clay until at least 1957 and now constitutes an iconic backdrop for the Archie Bray Foundation, one of the country\u27s foremost centers for contemporary ceramic art. The goal of the project was to provide the Bray with a series of recommendations for how the kilns might be stabilized, interpreted to the public, and put to new use. Three chapters—a contextual history of brick kilns; a diagnostic, materials-based analysis of the Western Clay prototypes; and a discussion of industrial heritage conservation and relevant, clay-related case studies—culminate in the delivery of the said recommendations as a final, concluding chapter—the conservation program. Oral histories, publications in industrial archaeology, and period trade literature pertaining to brick-firing form the bulk of the thesis’ resource base. A symptomatic conditions survey of a kiln exterior and a series of laboratory tests run on kiln brick and soil samples inform the materials-based portions of the study. Ultimately, the stabilization and limited reuse of the kilns as exhibition and performance spaces are encouraged, as is the formation of partnerships with organizations striving, like the Bray, to institute craft- and art-making at sites traditionally employed in the manufacture of goods using similar media

Barriers to E-Learning Job Training: Government Employee Experiences in an Online Wilderness Management Course

Learning at work as an employee is inherently different from being a student in an academic setting and, as such, is beset with different challenges. As trends in the adoption of e-learning for the delivery of job training increase, new challenges related to distance learning with technology have also emerged. Recognition that continued learning in the workplace, now via technological methods, is required for maintaining proficiency and achieving career goals means that understanding the challenges unique to learning at work is paramount. This qualitative study explored barriers to successful online job learning. Interviews with thirty federal government employees from the Forest Service and National Park Service enrolled in an online wilderness planning course revealed that attrition frameworks typically used to describe barriers to persistence in academia and distance education only partially describe hindering factors relevant to workplace learning. Although these hindering factors can generally be categorized as workplace; personality trait, and preference; course design/structure; or technology barriers, such categorization oversimplifies the true nature of employees’ struggles to learn on the job. This study\u27s findings reveal three overarching systemic problems: 1) illusion of convenience, 2) absence of deeper learning, and 3) lack of an organizational culture of learning. These systemic problems demonstrate that complex interactions between various barriers create a cyclic system often preventing attainment of student-controlled, student-centered learning, two benefits of self-paced study. Other barrier interactions can foster employment of superficial, rather than deep, learning strategies possibly leaving employees ill-prepared to negotiate the situations for which they are supposedly being trained. Cultural elements of the structure and organization of work suggest that workplace learning is devalued, under-recognized and often unsupported, making the challenges to adaptation in an increasingly technological era even more significant

Situationist outdoor education in the country of lost children

This thesis is a study of outdoor education, in the deliberative tradition of curriculum inquiry. It examines the intentional generation and distribution of knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes through organised outdoor activities, both as a research interest, and as a critical perspective on outdoor education discourse. Eight separate but interrelated research projects, originally published in 11 refereed journal articles, develop and defend the thesis statement: The problem of determining what, if any, forms of outdoor experience should be educational priorities, and how those experiences should be distributed in communities and geographically – that is who goes where and does what – is inherently situational. The persistence of a universalist outdoor education discourse that fails to acknowledge or adequately account for social and geographic circumstances points to serious flaws in outdoor education research and theory, and impedes the development of more defensible outdoor education practices. The introduction explains how the eight projects cohere, and illustrates how they may be linked using the example of militaristic thinking in outdoor safety standards. Chapters 1 and 2 defend and elaborate a situationist approach to outdoor education, using the examples of outdoor education in Victoria (Australia), and universalist approaches to outdoor education in textbooks respectively. Chapters 3 and 4 expand on some epistemological implications of the thesis and examine, respectively, the cultural dimensions of outdoor experience, and the epistemology and ontology of local natural history. Chapters 5 and 6 apply a situationist epistemology to personal development based outdoor education. Traditions of outdoor education that draw on person-centred rather than situation-sensitive theories of behaviour are examined and critiqued. Alternatives to person-centred theories of outdoor education are discussed. Chapters 7 and 8 use situationist outdoor education to provide a critical reading of nature-based tourism. Chapters 9, 10, and 11 return to the theme of safety in the introduction and Chapter 1, and examine the safety implications of a situationist epistemology. Closing comments briefly draw together the conclusions of all of the chapters, and offer some directions for future outdoor education research