Timed Automata Models for Principled Composition of Middleware

Middleware for Distributed Real-time and Embedded (DRE) systems has grown more and more complex in recent years due to the varying functional and temporal requirements of complex real-time applications. To enable DRE middleware to be configured and customized to meet the demands of different applications, a body of ongoing research has focused on applying model-driven development techniques to developing QoS-enabled middleware. While current approaches for modeling middleware focus on easing the task of as-assembling, deploying and configuring middleware and middleware-based applications, a more formal basis for correct middleware composition and configuration in the context of individual applications is needed. While the modeling community has used application-level formal models that are more abstract to uncover certain flaws in system design, a more fundamental and lower-level set of models is needed to be able to uncover more subtle safety and timing errors introduced by interference between application computations, particularly in the face of alternative concurrency strategies in the middleware layer. In this research, we have examined how detailed formal models of lower-level middle-ware building blocks provide an appropriate level of abstraction both for modeling and synthesis of a variety of kinds of middleware from these building blocks. When combined with model checking techniques, these formal models can help developers in composing correct combinations of middleware mechanisms, and configuring those mechanisms for each particular application

Perception of teachers towards total quality management (TQM) in teacher education institutions

Quality has been a central issue for researchers in the field of education for quite some years now. The shift has been observed as: from quality to quality control to quality assurance and now it is Total Quality Management (TQM). The growth of the Total Quality Management phenomenon in Teacher Education Institutions has been radical in the part of twentieth century. Still the application of Total Quality Management in Education institutions is questionable and the implementation rate is very negligible in comparison to other sectors like, industry, service sectors etc., The TQM has gained wide acceptance in the business world as an institutional transformation philosophy. The Total Quality Management is a system of management based on the principles that every member of staff must be committed to maintaining high standards of work in every aspect of a company's operations (Britannica,2001). The reforms in the teacher education are the need of the hour to achieve the national goals. This study attempts to find out the perception of teachers on selected eleven quality indicators (leadership, teacher quality, student quality, material resources -{Input indicators}, linkage and interface, teaching, co-curricular, office management, examination - {Process indicators}, relationship and job satisfaction {Product indicators}) categorized into three dimensions namely input indicators, process indicators and product indicators. The perception of teachers towards TQM was studied through data collected from teachers working in various colleges of education (government and aided) in Tamilnadu. The findings of the study revealed that, as far as input indicators of TQM are concerned, no difference of perception was identified in terms of gender, locality and experience. In case of process indicators of TQM did not vary due to their gender, locality and their teaching experience. Finally for the product indicators, the perception does not differ with the gender and their teaching experience but it differs in terms of the locality of the teachers

Analyzing Sumo-2/3 Modification In Regulation Of Breast Cancer Progression And Mitotic Chromosome Segregation

Roles of SUMOylation in cancer metastasis and mitotic progression has been elucidated in this thesis. This vital and dynamic post-translational modification has been known to be dysregulated in several kinds of cancer. Global SUMO-2/3 conjugation is upregulated in a mouse metastatic breast cancer cell line, 66cl4, compared to a non-metastatic cell line 168FARN from the same genetic background. In order to identify the SUMO-2/3 substrates, SILAC labeled lysates from the two cell lines were immunopurified using SUMO-2/3 monoclonal antibodies. By using SUMO-2/3 epitope peptide elution (SUMO-2/3-ePIPE) and quantitative mass spectrometry, 66 SUMO-2/3 targets were identified, of which 15 targets are upregulated/downregulated in 66cl4 compared to 168FARN and 45 substrates are linked to cancer. About ten of these substrates were validated using in vitro and in vivo SUMOylation assays. Further, overexpression of GFP-tagged SUMO-2/3 in 168FARN cells increased in 3D cell migration compared to control cells overexpressing GFP. These results clearly show a link between SUMO and cancer metastasis. As we know, uncontrolled cell division is a hallmark of cancer and therefore I focused on understanding the role of SUMO-2/3 modification in regulating cell cycle progression through mitosis in the second half of my thesis. Inhibition of global SUMOylation resulted in a prometaphase arrest and mislocalization of CENP-E from kinetochores. CENP-E has a SUMO interacting motif required for its kinetochore localization. We found that these mitotic defects in cells with inhibition of SUMOylation can be rescued by overexpressing Nuf2-SUMO2-SUMO2-SUMO2 fusion proteins, but not by Nuf2-SUMO2, Nuf2-SUMO2-SUMO2, and Nuf2-SUMO1-SUMO1-SUMO1 fusion proteins. Notably, we used these Nuf2 fusion proteins to mimic the various types of Nuf2 SUMOylation at kinetochores. We also demonstrated that Nuf2 is critical for CENP-E localization to kinetochores and also modified by polymeric SUMO chains both in vitro and in vivo. Importantly, we show that Nuf2-SUMO2-SUMO2-SUMO2 fusion protein has better binding affinity to CENP-E compared to Nuf2. These results suggest that trimeric SUMO-2/3 modification of Nuf2 represent the minimum and distinct signal for targeting CENP-E to kinetochores and mitotic progression in mammalian cells

Coating characterization of TiN & TiAIN on burr formation in drilling pragmatic investigation

Burrs are source of dimensional errors, jamming and misalignment in the assembly process. They may cause short circuits in electrical components and may reduce the fatigue life of the part. Furthermore, burrs can be a safety hazard to personnel because they are usually sharp. This scientific research investigates the characterization of 8 mm diameter, 120° point angle of coated drill tool in burr formation. The exit burrs were investigated using two different types of popular coatings, namely TiN and TiAlN. The effect of cutting speed and feed rate of the tool in burr formation onto the workpiece are discussed. In this study, the exit burr height was measured using optical microscope. Moderately harder material, 304L series stainless steel was used in the evaluation of the super coatings. The experiments were conducted using CNC HAAS Milling Machine. These experiments can be classified as hard drilling based on the experimental values and machining conditions

Comparative quality investigation of rolled and flat carbon steel plates in drilling

Comparative investigation of machining quality of rolled steel plate and flat plate are studied, where, the effects of cutting speed, feed rate and numbers of holes drilled are taken into account. For this purpose, AISI 1045 carbon steel was drilled in dry machining conditions using CNC HAAS milling machine. Drilling process was carried out with lOmm diameter twist drill tool with 118 ° point angle. Ranges of the feed rate and cutting speed recommended by the tool manufacturer were tested to investigate the surface quality drilled holes. The SurfTest SJ-301 has been used to measure the micro defects on drilled holes. In the experiments, surface roughness found to be increased in pattern with the holes drilled. The results also discusses about the influences of cutting speed and feed in determining the surface finish of holes produced

Higher Secondary Commerce Students’ Engagement and Attitude towards Blended Learning Environment

At present, classroom instruction should be a self-regulated process and the learner who is self-motivated to explore problems and situations. For learning, the students are learning through the web as a source of knowledge, the learning environment should be shifted to a learner-centered rather than teacher-centered environment. Commerce education is to be directed towards mastery in its conventions and principles, towards thinking and solving problems in scientific ways, towards developing a positive outlook to the discipline at the higher secondary level. Attitude towards learning is associated with the academic performance of commerce-related tasks and improving achievement. It should be one of the basic features in designing effective commerce classroom instruction. In the present study, students’ attitudes can be enhanced by using a blended learning instructional strategy targeting the variables of learner attitude towards learning of instructional transaction, learning task, classroom interaction, and assessment. The study employs pretest-posttest non-equivalence control group design under the quasi-experimental method. The sample consists of 80 students of standard XII, 40 students each in the experimental group and control group. Statistical techniques of descriptive statistics, t-test, and Cohen’s d were used for comparing the pretest and posttest scores of attitude towards learning and measuring the effect size between experimental and control groups. The findings of the study showed that there is a significant difference in the mean posttest scores of attitude towards learning between the experimental group and control group and the blended learning instructional strategy is more beneficial in developing the attitude of higher secondary school students when compared to constructivist teaching strategy

A Generative Programming Framework for Adaptive Middleware

Historically, many distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) systems were developed manually from scratch, leading to stove-piped solutions that while correct in both functional and QoS properties were very expensive to develop and difficult to maintain and extend. First-generation middleware technologies such as CORBA 2.x [1], XML [2], and SOAP [3], served to shield application developers from low-level platform details, thus raising the level of abstraction at which distributed systems are developed and supporting reuse of infrastructure to amortize development costs over the lifetime of a system. However, interdependencies between services and object interfaces resulting from these programming models significantly limited the degree of reuse that could be achieved in practice. Component middleware technologies such as the CORBA Component Model (CCM) [4], J2EE [5], and .NET [6], were developed to address many of these limitations. In CCM, for example, standardization of component containers, ports, and homes offered a framework within which reuse of server as well as client infrastructure was facilitated. Component-oriented middleware has addressed a wide range of application domains, but unfortunately for DRE systems, the focus of these technologies has been primarily on functional and not QoS properties. For example, although CCM supports configuration of functional component attributes like their interconnections, key QoS attributes for DRE systems, such as execution times and invocation rates are inadequately configurable through conventional CCM [7]. Research on QoS-aware component models such as the CIAO project [8, 7] is showing significant promise in making QoS configuration a first-class part of the component pro-gramming model, thus further reducing accidental complex-ities of building DRE systems. However, it is important to note a fundamental difference between configuration of functional and QoS properties even within such a unified compo-nent model: the dominant decomposition of functional properties is essentially object-oriented, while the dominant decomposition of QoS properties is essentially aspect-oriented. That is, functional properties tend to be stable with respect to component boundaries and configuration lifecycle stages, while QoS properties tend to cross-cut component boundaries, and may be revised as more information is known in later configuration stages [7]. In this paper, we describe how a focus on aspect frameworks for configuring QoS properties both com-plements and extends QoS-aware component models. This paper makes three main contributions to the state of the art in DRE systems middleware. First, it describes a simple but representative problem for configuring QoS aspects that cross-cut both architectural layers and system lifecycle boundaries, which motivates our focus on aspect frameworks. Second, it provides a formalization of that problem using first order logic, which both guides the design of aspect configuration infrastructure, and offers a way to connect these techniques with model-integrated computing [9] approaches to further reduce the programming burden on DRE system developers. Third, it describes alternative mechanisms to ensure correct configuration of the aspects involved, and notes the phases of the DRE system lifecycle at which each such configuration mechanism is most appropriate

Performance Evaluation of Reworked Weld Joints

This study presents the performance evaluation of reworked welded joint that have weld imperfections which may result the strength of the structures. Tensile, bending and shear tests have been performed to evaluate the performance and reliability of reworked joint. Their effects on the quality and performance of the reworked welded joint are depend on the requirements of the structure in use. This study is providing detailed examination of the mechanical properties of the carbon steel reworked welded joint by using shielded metal arc welding (SMAW) techniques