Arcadia, a software development environment research project

The research objectives of the Arcadia project are two-fold: discovery and development of environment architecture principles and creation of novel software development tools, particularly powerful analysis tools, which will function within an environment built upon these architectural principles.Work in the architecture area is concerned with providing the framework to support integration while also supporting the often conflicting goal of extensibility. Thus, this area of research is directed toward achieving external integration by providing a consistent, uniform user interface, while still admitting customization and addition of new tools and interface functions. In an effort to also attain internal integration, research is aimed at developing mechanisms for structuring and managing the tools and data objects that populate a software development environment, while facilitating the insertion of new kinds of tools and new classes of objects.The unifying theme of work in the tools area is support for effective analysis at every stage of a software development project. Research is directed toward tools suitable for analyzing pre-implementation descriptions of software, software itself, and towards the production of testing and debugging tools. In many cases, these tools are specifically tailored for applicability to concurrent, distributed, or real-time software systems.The initial focus of Arcadia research is on creating a prototype environment, embodying the architectural principles, which supports Ada1 software development. This prototype environment is itself being developed in Ada.Arcadia is being developed by a consortium of researchers from the University of California at Irvine, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, TRW, Incremental Systems Corporation, and The Aerospace Corporation. This paper delineates the research objectives and describes the approaches being taken, the organization of the research endeavor, and current status of the work

Earth-Moon trajectories, 1965-70

Analytical model for generation of earth-moon trajectory analysis dat

Next generation software environments : principles, problems, and research directions

The past decade has seen a burgeoning of research and development in software environments. Conferences have been devoted to the topic of practical environments, journal papers produced, and commercial systems sold. Given all the activity, one might expect a great deal of consensus on issues, approaches, and techniques. This is not the case, however. Indeed, the term "environment" is still used in a variety of conflicting ways. Nevertheless substantial progress has been made and we are at least nearing consensus on many critical issues.The purpose of this paper is to characterize environments, describe several important principles that have emerged in the last decade or so, note current open problems, and describe some approaches to these problems, with particular emphasis on the activities of one large-scale research program, the Arcadia project. Consideration is also given to two related topics: empirical evaluation and technology transition. That is, how can environments and their constituents be evaluated, and how can new developments be moved effectively into the production sector

Clickers in the classroom: The use of student response systems in teaching psychology

Student response systems (SRSs) have been used in a number of disciplines in higher education and, generally, the literature reports this technology leading to very positive outcomes for student engagement and learning. Learning outcomes are particularly enhanced if the technology is used to promote higher order cognitive skills. Here, we discuss some benefits and identify some challenges involved, and suggest how pedagogical action research can usefully address these challenges. Pedagogical action research is concerned with reflection on current teaching practice, future objectives in terms of refining practice, and assessment of outcomes for both student and instructor. We suggest ways in which action research can provide fruitful and important data that, in turn, can lead to improved outcomes for instructors and students

Clickers in the classroom: The use of student response systems in teaching psychology

Student response systems (SRSs) have been used in a number of disciplines in higher education and, generally, the literature reports this technology leading to very positive outcomes for student engagement and learning. Learning outcomes are particularly enhanced if the technology is used to promote higher order cognitive skills. Here, we discuss some benefits and identify some challenges involved, and suggest how pedagogical action research can usefully address these challenges. Pedagogical action research is concerned with reflection on current teaching practice, future objectives in terms of refining practice, and assessment of outcomes for both student and instructor. We suggest ways in which action research can provide fruitful and important data that, in turn, can lead to improved outcomes for instructors and students

Direct measurement of quantum phase gradients in superfluid 4He flow

We report a new kind of experiment in which we generate a known superfluid velocity in a straight tube and directly determine the phase difference across the tube's ends using a superfluid matter wave interferometer. By so doing, we quantitatively verify the relation between the superfluid velocity and the phase gradient of the condensate macroscopic wave function. Within the systematic error of the measurement (~10%) we find v_s=(hbar/m_4)*(grad phi)

Train Crew Reduction for Increased Productivity of Rail Transit

With the increases in wages since the 1950s, labor costs have become the domin­ant portion of operating costs for transit agencies. Efforts to increase produc­tivity of operating labor have been particularly successful on rail transit systems. For example, development of high-capacity articulated cars, provision of separated rights-of-way and introduction of self-service fare collection have resulted in an approximately 20-fold increase in productivity of light rail transit systems. The report shows that while the modern rail transit systems (e.g. Lindenwold Line, San Francisco BART, Atlanta\u27s MARTA) have one-person train crews and thus very high productivity, most older streetcar, rapid transit and regional rail systems still have obsolete, inefficient labor practices. A systematic analysis of alternative ways of performing different duties shows that on many existing transit systems productivity of operating labor can be substantially increased through rather modest efforts. This has been illustrated in two actual cases. The greatest potential benefits from introduction of modern operating methods exist on regional rail systems. Existing rapid transit is another mode on which labor productivity can be substantially increased. Cooperation of labor unions should be obtained by retaining jobs through increased service frequency, or by passing on a portion of the savings to the operating employees in form of increased wages for increased duties