Search-based system architecture development using a holistic modeling approach

This dissertation presents an innovative approach to system architecting where search algorithms are used to explore design trade space for good architecture alternatives. Such an approach is achieved by integrating certain model construction, alternative generation, simulation, and assessment processes into a coherent and automated framework. This framework is facilitated by a holistic modeling approach that combines the capabilities of Object Process Methodology (OPM), Colored Petri Net (CPN), and feature model. The resultant holistic model can not only capture the structural, behavioral, and dynamic aspects of a system, allowing simulation and strong analysis methods to be applied, it can also specify the architectural design space. Both object-oriented analysis and design (OOA/D) and domain engineering were exploited to capture design variables and their domains and define architecture generation operations. A fully realized framework (with genetic algorithms as the search algorithm) was developed. Both the proposed framework and its suggested implementation, including the proposed holistic modeling approach and architecture alternative generation operations, are generic. They are targeted at systems that can be specified using object-oriented or process-oriented paradigm. The broad applicability of the proposed approach is demonstrated on two examples. One is the configuration of reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMSs) under multi-objective optimization and the other is the architecture design of a manned lunar landing system for the Apollo program. The test results show that the proposed approach can cover a huge number of architecture alternatives and support the assessment of several performance measures. A set of quality results was obtained after running the optimization algorithm following the proposed framework --Abstract, page iii

Holland City News, Volume 92, Number 9: February 28, 1963

Newspaper published in Holland, Michigan, from 1872-1977, to serve the English-speaking people in Holland, Michigan. Purchased by local Dutch language newspaper, De Grondwet, owner in 1888.https://digitalcommons.hope.edu/hcn_1963/1008/thumbnail.jp

An evaluation of the procedures used to assess and remediate the perceived writing difficulties of undergraduate students in the Faculty of Education at Edith Cowan University

The standards of written literacy of teacher-education students at Edith Cowan University are perceived by many staff to be inadequate. The Faculty of Education\u27s response to this perceived inadequacy is to carry out a mandatory skills-based remedial writing programme for students whose literacy competencies are judged to be deficient, The instrument used to assess the students\u27 literacy competencies is the English Skills Assessment test. The students\u27 performances in the various skills which the test purports to measure, also determine the area in which they are given remedial instruction if the results of the test suggest this is necessary. However, many Faculty of Education staff are concerned that there are important conceptual, structural, and organisational inadequacies in students\u27 writing which are not identified by the English Skills Assessment test and, therefore, are not attended to in remediation programmes based on the results generated by this test. This study was an evaluation of the remedial literacy programme conducted by the Faculty of Education at Edith Cowan University. The programme was evaluated from two perspectives (a) a theoretical perspective and (b) a practical perspective. Firstly, the study evaluated the procedures used by the Faculty of Education to diagnose and remediate writing difficulties among its first year student intake by comparing the assumptions underlying those procedures to the assumptions underlying a contemporary perspective of writing and the teaching of writing. This comparison revealed that not only were many of the procedures used by the Faculty ineffectual, but also some of the procedures used had the potential to inhibit the literacy development of its students. Secondly, the study investigated whether the English Skills Assessment test was able to identify (a) all the areas in which students experienced difficulties inwriting and (b) the students who were likely to experience the difficulties. The performances of 426 first year primary and secondary teacher education students attending the Mount Lawley Campus of the Edith Cowan University in the English Skills Assessment test were compared with their performances in a research-essay assignment, carried out as a normal part of their course work. The results of this aspect of the study reinforce the findings of an earlier study (Holbrook & Bourke, 1989) which reported that the English Skills Assessment test neither identified all the areas in which tertiary level students experience difficulty in their real writing nor the students likely to experience difficulties, This study shows that Holbrook and Bourke\u27s findings, which related to narrative text, also applied when students wrote expository text. These results challenge the validity of the Faculty\u27s use of the English Skills Assessment test as a means of identifying students with writing problems and show that any remedial writing programme based solely on the areas identified by the test will have a limited impact on the development of students\u27 written literacy. In addition to the data originally sought for this study, other information came to light which showed the limitations of the way in which the Faculty conceptualises students\u27 literacy needs. The emphasis of this programme is diagnosis and remediation. This conceptualisation has produced a literacy unit which is peripheral to the mainstream academic programme and which teaches the surface features of language in decontextualised, skills-based lessons. As a consequence, the unit: (a) is accorded marginal status by lecturers and students alike, ( b ) bears little relationship to what is happening in other units of the course, and (c) contributes little, if anything, to students\u27 literacy development. It is clear from the findings of this study that the Faculty of Educator\u27s remedial literacy programme contains serious flaws which cannot be rectified by attempting to modify the existing programme, The study concludes by recommending that the Faculty of Education should abandon its existing programme, along with its remedial emphasis, and institute a new programme designed to cater for the literacy needs of all its students. That is, all incoming students should be required to undertake a foundation unit which outlines the Faculty of Education\u27s requirements and expectations of students, and teaches them the structures and processes (reading, writing, and thinking) required for successful learning in Bachelor of Arts (Education) courses

March 23, 2000

The Breeze is the student newspaper of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia

Woman's right to revelation : literary representations of spiritual sensibility in the writings of Hannah More, Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Mary Baker Eddy

[From the introduction]:This thesis will explore the philosophical writing of four female reformers, identifying how their spiritual representations of the feminine attempted to authorise and empower women. It will critically investigate how Hannah More, Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Mary Baker Eddy challenged historical identity formations, textually communicating a spiritual role for women through a language of patriotism and piety. Discourse which emphasised public virtue and domestic duty as areas of female concern highlighted the potential for female influence in the private and public sphere. It was that eighteenth-century phenomenon, the cult of sensibility, and its emphasis on benevolence, sympathy and a heightened state of consciousness, however, which significantly reinforced an appreciation of the feminine, and female reformers took advantage of the literary space this 'cult' made available to them. Championing the benefits of well educated Christian women, More, Wollstonecraft, Stanton and Eddy constructed an idiom through which to represent the spiritual equality of the male and female. An innovative critical route will reveal the means through which they promoted their plausible alternative to religious arguments for female subjection.The thesis will critically analyse their writings, identifying the religious threads, which it will suggest underpinned their arguments. In spite of the parallels in their perspectives, however, there is an exciting diversity. Four authors: two British, two American; two eighteenth-century, two nineteenth-century; and possibly even more crucial, two feminist and two anti-feminist perspectives, all indicate the inevitably challenging nature of this topic. It is important to make clear at the outset, however, that the critical interrogatory route will be focused quite specifically towards 'The Woman Question.' Because each woman made an indelible mark on the historical landscape, their ultimate achievements will be identified in the first instance

Higher Education in Iowa

A history of higher education in Iowa and descriptions of higher education institutions up to 1893, including faculty, student populations, buildings, and courses of study.https://scholarworks.uni.edu/iowabooks/1009/thumbnail.jp

Socio-Technical Aspects of Security Analysis

This thesis seeks to establish a semi-automatic methodology for security analysis when users are considered part of the system. The thesis explores this challenge, which we refer to as ‘socio-technical security analysis’. We consider that a socio-technical vulnerability is the conjunction of a human behaviour, the factors that foster the occurrence of this behaviour, and a system. Therefore, the aim of the thesis is to investigate which human-related factors should be considered in system security, and how to incorporate these identified factors into an analysis framework. Finding a way to systematically detect, in a system, the socio-technical vulnerabilities that can stem from insecure human behaviours, along with the factors that influence users into engaging in these behaviours is a long journey that we can summarise in three research questions: 1. How can we detect a socio-technical vulnerability in a system? 2. How can we identify in the interactions between a system and its users, the human behaviours that can harm this system’s security? 3. How can we identify the factors that foster human behaviours that are harmful to a system’s security? A review of works that aim at bringing social sciences findings into security analysis reveals that there is no unified way to do it. Identifying the points where users can harm a system’s security, and clarifying what factors can foster an insecure behaviour is a complex matter. Hypotheses can arise about the usability of the system, aspects pertaining to the user or the organisational context but there is no way to find and test them all. Further, there is currently no way to systematically integrate the results regarding hypotheses we tested in a security analysis. Thus, we identify two objectives related to these methodological challenges that this thesis aims at fulfilling in its contributions: 1. What form should a framework that intends to identify harmful behaviours for security, and to investigate the factors that foster their occurrence take? 2. What form should a semi-automatic, or tool-assisted methodology for the security analysis of socio-technical systems take? The thesis provides partial answers to the questions. First it defines a methodological framework called STEAL that provides a common ground for an interdisciplinary approach to security analysis. STEAL supports the interaction between computer scientists and social scientists by providing a common reference model to describe a system with its human and non-human components, potential attacks and defences, and the surrounding context. We validate STEAL in a two experimental studies, showing the role of the context and graphical cues in Wi-Fi networks’ security. Then the thesis complements STEAL with a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) methodology for security inspired from the ones used in safety. This methodology, called S·CREAM aims at being more systematic than the research methods that can be used with STEAL (surveys for instance) and at providing reusable findings for analysing security. To do so, S·CREAM provides a retrospective analysis to identify the factors that can explain the success of past attacks and a methodology to compile these factors in a form that allows for the consideration of their potential effects on a system’s security, given an attacker Threat Model. The thesis also illustrates how we developed a tool—the S·CREAM assistant— that supports the methodology with an extensible knowledge base and computer-supported reasoning