Automatic Difficulty Detection

Previous work has suggested that the productivity of developers increases when they help each other and as distance increases, help is offered less. One way to make the amount of help independent of distance is to develop a system that automatically determines and communicates developers' difficulty. It is our thesis that automatic difficulty detection is possible and useful. To provide evidence to support this thesis, we developed six novel components: * programming-activity difficulty-detection * multimodal difficulty-detection * integrated workspace-difficulty awareness * difficulty-level detection * barrier detection * reusable difficulty-detection framework Programming-activity difficulty-detection mines developers' interactions. It is based on the insight that when developers are having difficulty their edit ratio decreases while other ratios such as the debug and navigation ratios increase. This component has a low false positive rate but a high false negative rate. The high false negative rate limitation is addressed by multimodal difficulty-detection. This component mines both programmers' interactions and Kinect camera data. It is based on the insight that when developers are having difficulty, both edit ratios and postures often change. Integrated workspace-difficulty awareness combines continuous knowledge of remote users' workspace with continuous knowledge of when developers are having difficulty. Two variations of this component are possible based on whether potential helpers can replay developers' screen recordings. One limitation of this component is that sometimes, potential helpers spend a large amount of time trying to determine if they can offer help. Difficulty-level and barrier detection address this limitation. The former is based on the insight that when developers are having surmountable difficulties they tend to perform a cycle of editing and debugging their code; and when they are having insurmountable difficulties they tend to spend a large amount of time a) between actions and b) outside of the programming environment. Barrier detection infers two kinds of difficulties: incorrect output and design. This component is based the insight that when developers have incorrect output, their debug ratios increase; and when they have difficulty designing algorithms, they spend a large amount of time outside of the programming environment. The reusable difficulty-detection framework uses standard design patterns to enable programming-activity difficulty-detection to be used in two programming environments, Eclipse and Visual Studio. These components have been validated using lab and/or field studies.Doctor of Philosoph

A Domain Specific Language for Digital Forensics and Incident Response Analysis

One of the longstanding conceptual problems in digital forensics is the dichotomy between the need for verifiable and reproducible forensic investigations, and the lack of practical mechanisms to accomplish them. With nearly four decades of professional digital forensic practice, investigator notes are still the primary source of reproducibility information, and much of it is tied to the functions of specific, often proprietary, tools. The lack of a formal means of specification for digital forensic operations results in three major problems. Specifically, there is a critical lack of: a) standardized and automated means to scientifically verify accuracy of digital forensic tools; b) methods to reliably reproduce forensic computations (their results); and c) framework for inter-operability among forensic tools. Additionally, there is no standardized means for communicating software requirements between users, researchers and developers, resulting in a mismatch in expectations. Combined with the exponential growth in data volume and complexity of applications and systems to be investigated, all of these concerns result in major case backlogs and inherently reduce the reliability of the digital forensic analyses. This work proposes a new approach to the specification of forensic computations, such that the above concerns can be addressed on a scientific basis with a new domain specific language (DSL) called nugget. DSLs are specialized languages that aim to address the concerns of particular domains by providing practical abstractions. Successful DSLs, such as SQL, can transform an application domain by providing a standardized way for users to communicate what they need without specifying how the computation should be performed. This is the first effort to build a DSL for (digital) forensic computations with the following research goals: 1) provide an intuitive formal specification language that covers core types of forensic computations and common data types; 2) provide a mechanism to extend the language that can incorporate arbitrary computations; 3) provide a prototype execution environment that allows the fully automatic execution of the computation; 4) provide a complete, formal, and auditable log of computations that can be used to reproduce an investigation; 5) demonstrate cloud-ready processing that can match the growth in data volumes and complexity

Sissejuhatava programmeerimise MOOCi õppijad: taustamuutujad, kaasatuse mustrid ja õpisooritus

Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsiooneÜks võimalus personaalseks ja professionaalseks arenguks on osalemine vaba juurdepääsuga e-kursustel (ingl massive open online courses, MOOCs). MOOCide osalejatel on suurem autonoomia võrreldes traditsiooniliste klassiruumides toimuvate tundidega. Samuti arvestades suurt osalejate hulka ja nende erinevat tausta, on kõikide õppijate kaasatus (ingl engagement) õppeprotsessis MOOCide korraldajatele väljakutseks. Osalejate taustamuutujate (ingl background variables) mõju kaasatusele, mis omakorda võib mõjutada õpisooritust (ingl performance), on jätkuvalt alauuritud valdkond. Doktoritöö eesmärk oli uurida MOOCide osalejate taustamuutujaid ja nende mõju kursusele registreerumisele ning lõpetamise tõenäosusele, tuvastada lõpetajate seas käitumuslikke (ingl behavioural engagement) ja kognitiivseid (ingl cognitive engagement) kaasatuse rühmasid ning uurida neid taustamuutujate ja õpisoorituse osas. Uurimuse fookuses oli MOOC “Programmeerimisest maalähedaselt”. Selle MOOCi osalejate ja lõpetajate taustamuutujad võrreldi MOOCidega „Programmeerimise alused I“ ja „Programmeerimise alused II“. MOOCil “Programmeerimisest maalähedaselt” oli rohkem naisi ja neid, kelle haridustase oli madalam. Lõpetajate osas selgus, et põhifookuses olnud MOOCil, ei olnud statistiliselt olulist erinevust nais- ja meeslõpetajate osakaalu ning erinevate tööhõive staatuste vahel. Suurem lõpetajate osakaal oli magistrikraadiga lõpetajate hulgas. Väiksem lõpetajate osakaal oli nende õppijate puhul, kes ei ole varem programmeerimist õppinud. Samad tulemused lõpetajate kohta olid ka MOOCil “Programmeerimise alused I“. Uurides MOOCi “Programmeerimisest maalähedaselt” lõpetajate ja mittelõpetajate õpisooritust, selgus, et nad vajasid testi sooritamiseks keskmiselt sama palju katseid. Mittelõpetajatel oli programmeerimisülesannete lahenduste esitamiskordade arv suurem ja neil oli testipunktid madalamad. Lõpetajate käitumusliku ja kognitiivse kaasatuse analüüs näitas, et lõpetajad ei ole homogeenne rühm. Käitumusliku kaasatuse puhul eristati lähtudes tegevuste hulgast 4 rühma. Uurimuse tulemused näitasid, et MOOCil võivad olla lõpetajad, kes teevad kõiki tegevusi, aga ka need, kes teevad vaid mõnda tegevust. Kognitiivse kaasatuse korral eristus 5 rühma, mille puhul kasutati abiallikaid erineva sagedusega. Tulemused näitasid, et lõpetajate erinevat sagedust erinevate abiallikate kasutamisel võib pidada märgiks püsivast soovist MOOC edukalt läbida. Samuti selgus, et abiallikate kasutamise võib võtta aluseks kognitiivse kaasatuse tuvastamiseks ja mõõtmiseks MOOCidel. Lõpetajate taustamuutujad ja õpisooritused varieerusid eristatud rühmade vahel. Doktoritöös esitatud tulemused aitavad uurijatel paremini aru saada MOOCi fenomenist ja kursuste korraldajatel pakkuda tulevikus kulutõhusamaid MOOCe. Uurimistulemustest võib järeldada, et MOOCide korraldajad peavad pakkuma erinevaid tegevusi ja abiallikaid, mis oleksid suunatud konkreetsetele sihtrühmadele. See võib hõlbustada personaliseeritud õppimist ja õppijate tõhusat kaasatust õppeprotsessis.One opportunity to facilitate personal and professional development is to participate in massive open online courses (MOOCs). MOOCs participants have greater autonomy compared to traditional physical classes. In addition, considering the huge number of participants and diversity of their backgrounds, it is a challenge for MOOCs instructors to engage them all in learning. The impact of background variables on engagement, which in turn may influence performance, remains understudied. The doctoral thesis aimed to study MOOCs participants’ background variables and their impact on course enrolment and completion probability, and explore different behavioural and cognitive engagement clusters among completers in terms of background variables and performance. The thesis focused on a MOOC “About Programming”. The MOOC participants’ and completers’ background variables were examined in comparison to MOOCs “Introduction to Programming I” and “Introduction to Programming II”. Females and those with a lower education level dominated in the MOOC “About Programming”. In this course, among completers there was no difference by gender and employment statuses. Master’s degree holders were more likely to complete the MOOC, while inexperienced in programming were less likely to complete it. The same results about completers were found in the MOOC “Introduction to Programming I”. With regard to performance, no difference between the MOOC “About programming” completers and non-completers in the average number of attempts per quiz was found. But non-completers made on average more attempts per programming task and received lower scores per quiz. The analysis of behavioural and cognitive engagement solely among completers indicated that they cannot be considered a homogeneous group. In terms of behavioural engagement, there were identified 4 groups based on the amount of activities a completer engaged with during the MOOC. The study results indicated that in a MOOC there can be completers who engage with all activities, as well as those who engage with only a few activities. In terms of cognitive engagement, there were identified 5 groups that were engaged with help sources at different frequency. The results indicated that the different frequency, with which completers use different help sources, can be considered as a sign of persistent desire to successfully complete the MOOC. In addition, it was revealed that the use of help sources can be applied as a basis for identifying and measuring cognitive engagement in the MOOC context. The background variables and performance of completers from different identified groups varied. The results of the thesis can prove quite beneficial to the scientific literature to understand the phenomenon of MOOC. This comprehension in terms of a variety of background variables, engagement patterns and performance can be helpful for course instructors to develop cost-effective MOOCs and provide personalised learning where different course activities and help sources can be targeted at specific groups.  https://www.ester.ee/record=b552843

Expanding the social-cognitive framework: understanding the role of implicit person theories in a complex task feedback environment

Department Head: Ernest L. Chavez.2010 Spring.Includes bibliographical references (pages 139-155).The current study employed a longitudinal design to examine the effects of implicit person theories (IPTs; Dweck & Leggett, 1988) on task performance over two measurement occasions and a week of temporal separation. This design allowed for a direct inquiry into the pivotal role that one's lay beliefs about the malleability of attributes play in a simulated task feedback environment. In addition to examining the direct effects of IPT on task performance, the study investigated the role of the mediated mechanisms of appraisal effectiveness (i.e., feedback reactions), goal setting, effort, and attributions in the IPT-task performance relationship. Further, the study investigated the conditional indirect effect of feedback sign (i.e., positive vs. negative) on the meditational mechanisms, otherwise known as moderated mediation. 242 psychology students participated in the study for course credit. Limited evidence for the proposed meditational models was provided. Overall, IPTs significantly positively predicted task performance following the receipt of feedback after a one-week lag in measurement. Furthermore, the sign of the feedback was a significant, positive predictor of the full class of feedback reactions. Notably, the full class of reactions to feedback were all positively related to task 2 performance, providing empirical evidence of the predictive validity of appraisal feedback reactions for subsequent performance. Implications of the results, future research directions, and limitations are discussed

Multidimensional Pathways to Adolescent Resilience: The Case for Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EI) has been reliably associated with better mental health (Martins, Ramalho, & Morin, 2010) however the nature of this relationship in adolescence remains largely unexplored. The small body of existing adolescent research is disproportionately focussed upon the ‘trait’ versus ‘ability’ EI perspective and the association with mood (versus behavioural) disorders in the form of simple, descriptive relationships that reveal little about the processes underpinning such adaptive outcomes. This research redresses this imbalance and advances the field by examining how (whether directly or indirectly linked to known stress-illness processes) and when (under which stress conditions) EI (in both ‘forms’) might be associated with better adolescent mental health, whilst simultaneously exploring the conceptualisation of EI within this developmental period. Adult literature is equivocal on both fronts. Firstly, evidence points to differential incremental contributions from ability and trait EI in the prediction of internalising versus externalising symptomatology beyond known correlates of performance, i.e., personality and cognitive ability (e.g., Gardner & Qualter, 2010; Peters, Kranzler, & Rossen, 2009). Secondly, whilst there is some evidence to suggest that trait EI may directly attenuate the effects of chronic and acute stressors to promote adaptation (e.g., Mikolajczak, Roy, Luminet, Fillée, & de Timary, 2007), the role of ability EI in this regard appears unclear (e.g., Matthews et al., 2006). Indirect links to adjustment are also hinted at; coping mediates trait EI-health outcomes in youth though not all EI-influenced ‘adaptive’ coping styles (e.g., problem-focussed) appear to contribute to this effect (e.g., Downey, Johnston, Hansen, Birney, & Stough, 2010). Using cross-sectional, self-reported data from 1,170 adolescents (mean age = 13.03 years; SD = 1.26) the present research aimed to address this lack of clarity. Preliminary regression analyses found that collectively, EI made a significant, incremental contribution to the prediction of depression and disruptive behaviour in youth beyond the influence of higher-order personality dimensions and general cognitive ability. However, of the two, trait EI appeared the stronger predictor. Structural equation modelling of conditional indirect effects found that whilst both forms of EI can buffer the effects of stressors (family dysfunction, negative life events, socio-economic adversity) on disorder, the mechanisms by which this beneficial effect operates differs substantially according to context - effects appear contingent on stressor, health outcome and level of EI. For depression, ability EI influences the selection of avoidant coping when facing family dysfunction and negative life events, whilst trait EI modifies the effectiveness of active coping under family dysfunction only. In contrast, EI directly attenuates the effects of stressors on disruptive behaviour. Nevertheless, the results of supplementary path analyses augur for the importance of both forms of EI in adaptational processes; actual emotional skill (as ability EI) appears dependent on perceived competency (trait EI) to realise advantageous outcomes. Implications for the EI construct and related intervention programmes are discussed together with recommendations for progression of the field

Climbing and Walking Robots

With the advancement of technology, new exciting approaches enable us to render mobile robotic systems more versatile, robust and cost-efficient. Some researchers combine climbing and walking techniques with a modular approach, a reconfigurable approach, or a swarm approach to realize novel prototypes as flexible mobile robotic platforms featuring all necessary locomotion capabilities. The purpose of this book is to provide an overview of the latest wide-range achievements in climbing and walking robotic technology to researchers, scientists, and engineers throughout the world. Different aspects including control simulation, locomotion realization, methodology, and system integration are presented from the scientific and from the technical point of view. This book consists of two main parts, one dealing with walking robots, the second with climbing robots. The content is also grouped by theoretical research and applicative realization. Every chapter offers a considerable amount of interesting and useful information