Thesis (M.S.)--Texas State University--San Marcos, 2009. / Vita. Appendices: leaves 49-50 . Includes bibliographical references (leaves 51-54).

Computers and the software they run are pervasive, yet released software is often unreliable, which has many consequences. Loss of time and earnings can be caused by application software (such as word processors) behaving incorrectly or crashing. Serious disruption can occur as in the l4th August 2003 blackouts in North East USA and Canadal, or serious injury or death can be caused as in the Therac-25 overdose incidents. One way to improve the quality of software is to test it thoroughly. However, software testing is time consuming, the resources, capabilities and skills needed to carry it out are often not available and the time required is often curtailed because of pressures to meet delivery deadlines3. Automation should allow more thorough testing in the time available and improve the quality of delivered software, but there are some problems with automation that this research addresses. Firstly, it is difficult to determine ifthe system under test (SUT) has passed or failed a test. This is known as the oracle problem4 and is often ignored in software testing research. Secondly, many software development organisations use an iterative and incremental process, known as evolutionary development, to write software. Following release, software continues evolving as customers demand new features and improvements to existing ones5. This evolution means that automated test suites must be maintained throughout the life ofthe software. A contribution of this research is a methodology that addresses automatic generation of the test cases, execution of the test cases and evaluation of the outcomes from running each test. "Predecessor" software is used to solve the oracle problem. This is software that already exists, such as a previous version of evolving software, or software from a different vendor that solves the same, or similar, problems. However, the resulting oracle is assumed not be perfect, so rules are defined in an interface, which are used by the evaluator in the test evaluation stage to handle the expected differences. The interface also specifies functional inputs and outputs to the SUT. An algorithm has been developed that creates a Markov Chain Transition Matrix (MCTM) model of the SUT from the interface. Tests are then generated automatically by making a random walk of the MCTM. This means that instead of maintaining a large suite of tests, or a large model of the SUT, only the interface needs to be maintained.

The goal of this thesis is to design a user interface and to implement an application that is used for test execution in test management tool TestLink. This application is designed to streamline and simplify the process of test execution in this tool. The theoretical part of the thesis describes features and the interface of TestLink and compares it with other similar tools. The practical part is focused on analysis, user interface design, and implementation of the application. The outcome of this thesis is in addition to the application itself also a library written in PHP, which is used for communication with the application programming interface of TestLink and which simplifies the creation of similar applications.

Les Technologies de l’Information en Santé (TIS) sont de plus en plus utilisées pour améliorer la qualité des soins et la sécurité du patient. Cependant, certains problèmes d’utilisabilité peuvent amenuiser leur impact et peuvent même induire de nouveaux problèmes dont la mise en danger du patient. Pour éviter ces effets négatifs, il est notamment nécessaire d’améliorer l’utilisabilité des TIS ce qui requiert l’application de connaissances d’utilisabilité éprouvées. Les connaissances en utilisabilité appliquée aux TIS sont rares, éparpillées à travers diverses supports et peu utilisables. Par ailleurs, leur couverture en termes de problèmes d’utilisabilité est peu connue. Ce travail a deux objectifs: (i) participer à l’amélioration de l’accumulation de la connaissance en utilisabilité pour les TIS, (ii) fournir une connaissance structurée sur l’utilisabilité des TIS et dont la couverture est établie. Le domaine d’application est celui des systèmes d’alerte médicamenteux.Méthode. Deux analyses indépendantes de la littérature ont été menées : d’un côté, identifier et organiser les problèmes d’utilisabilité des systèmes d’alerte médicamenteux ainsi que leurs conséquences ; de l’autre, identifier et synthétiser les principes d’utilisabilité spécifiques à ces systèmes. Les résultats de ces analyses ont été croisés afin de connaitre la couverture desdits principes en termes de problèmes d’utilisabilité.Résultats. La revue systématique a identifié 13 types de problèmes d’utilisabilité dans les systèmes d’alerte médicamenteux. Les conséquences de ces problèmes sur le clinicien et son système de travail sont variées et ont un grand pouvoir de nuisance (e.g., fatigue, erreur d’interprétation). Au total, 63 principes d’utilisabilité permettent de rendre compte de tous les problèmes d’utilisabilité identifiés. Ils sont organisés en 6 thèmes : améliorer le ratio signal-bruit, être en adéquation avec l’activité des cliniciens, supporter le travail collaboratif, afficher les informations pertinentes, rendre le système transparent et fournir des outils utiles. Le croisement des deux ensembles de données révèle une bonne correspondance entre les principes d’utilisabilité énoncés et les problèmes d’utilisabilité réellement observés.Discussion. Une liste structurée des principes d’utilisabilité illustrés par des exemples réels de leur violation a été développée à partir de ce travail. Cette liste peut aider les concepteurs et les experts en Facteurs Humains à comprendre et à appliquer les principes d’utilisabilité durant la conception et l’évaluation de systèmes d’alerte médicamenteux. L’utilisabilité appliquée aux TIS est une discipline relativement récente qui souffre d’un déficit de structuration et de capitalisation de ses connaissances. Ce travail montre qu’il est possible d’accumuler et de structurer les données d’utilisabilité des TIS. Ce travail pourrait être poursuivi en développant une base de connaissance en utilisabilité appliquée aux TIS afin de tendre vers une « utilisabilité fondée sur les preuves ». / Health Information Technology (HIT) is increasingly implemented to improve healthcare quality and patient safety. However, some usability issues may reduce their impact and even induce new problems (including patient safety issues). To avoid those negative outcomes, amongst other actions, HIT usability must be improved. This action requires applying validated usability knowledge. However, usability knowledge applied to HIT is scattered across several sources, is not structured and is hardly usable. Moreover, its coverage regarding related usability flaws is not known. This work has two aims: (i) to participate in improving the accumulation of usability knowledge for HIT and (ii) to provide synthetic structured easy-to-use HIT usability knowledge with a clear coverage. Those aims are applied to medication alerting systems.Method.Two independent analyses of the literature have been performed. On the one hand, usability flaws and their consequences for the clinicians and the work system have been searched and organized; on the other hand, existing usability design principles specific to medication alerting systems have been synthesized. Results of both analyses have been matched together. Results.A systematic review identified 13 types of usability flaws in medication alerting systems. Consequences on the clinicians and the work system are varied: they greatly impede the clinicians and negatively impact the work system (e.g., alert fatigue, alert misinterpretation). Sixty-three usability design principles dedicated to medication alerting systems are identified. They represent six themes: improve the signal-to-noise ratio, fit clinicians’ workflow, support collaborative work, display relevant information, make the system transparent and provide useful tools. The matching between usability flaws and principles is quite good.Discussion.As a result of this work, a list of usability design principles illustrated by actual instances of their violation has been developed. It may help designers and Human Factors experts understand and apply usability design principles when designing and evaluating medication alerting systems. Usability applied to HIT is a recent research field that suffers from a deficit of structured knowledge. This work shows that it is possible to accumulate and structure usability knowledge. It could be carried on by developing a usability knowledge base dedicated to HIT in order to strive towards “evidence-based usability”.

Business goals of manufacturing systems are typically in a state of constant change and greater rates of change are predicted in the future. Whereas contemporary approaches to the design and construction of these systems often results in inflexible enterprises that cannot readily be tuned to changing business goals. This study has specified and prototyped the use of a new model-driven approach to the design and (re)configuration of"change capable" manufacturing cells. Manufacturing cells represent a typical domain of manufacturing systems in which the existence of inflexible links between tasks and resources can result in sub-optimal performance and an inability to cope with change. The approach is based on a) the use of a semi-generic model of manufacturing cells, that structures and targets the use of CIMOSA modelling constructs (as implemented by the SEWOSA tool) towards producing a requirements specification and conceptual design in the form of a graphical and computer executable model of a particular manufacturing cell, and b) the complementary use of new computer executable modelling constructs and tools, that structure and support the detailed design and runtime operation of a particular cell in the form of an explicit, model-based configuration of cell resources and software components that realise the control processes required in a particular cell. Part of the semi-generic model comprises descriptions of common tasks found in a given domain of manufacturing cells. That part of the model has been captured and formalised by using CIMOSA modelling constructs. A new development of this modelling structure allows pre- modelled tasks to be selected, detailed and organised and suitable resources and reusable control system components (or building blocks) assigned to groups of tasks. Thereby this new approached to designing and building manufacturing cells can facilitate rapid and effective design and reconfiguration of manufacturing cell control systems. General information requirements found during the modelling and real world application of target cells, have also been formally defined and are met by using a suitable modelling structure and specially developed tools. Furthermore, the research has shown how modelled sets of software component building blocks can be specified and implemented as modular, reusable elements of manufacturing cell control systems. New modelling structures have been conceived and fonnalised and examples of their use evaluated under laboratory conditions. The research has also deployed and developed pre-existing enterprise modelling concepts and integration tools, including CIMOSA, STEP, EXPRESS, CIMBIOSYS infrastructure services and component-based software design concepts. This has enable the creation of a prototype tool-set that demonstrates how the concepts can be beneficially applied. The main contributions made by this research are that: a) It proposes and develops an approach to the design of manufacturing cell systems that successfully bridges a previous gap between top-down modelling concepts, methods and tools (that typically support formal modelling of system requirements, tasks and resources) and bottom-up detailed design and build techniques that lead to the operation, control and monitoring of real cells, b) It provides a modelling and implementation structure that 'integrates' the use of a classical enterprise modelling approach (namely CIMOSA), design primarily to support the designers of manufacturing systems, to the emerging component-based design and build concepts, that are becoming popular with software and system vendors.

Material selection is one of the major points that should be taken into account seriously in the engineering design stage. Each material has various properties such as mechanical, thermal, electrical, physical, environmental, optical and biological properties. However, it is a well known fact that only a limited number of design engineers have a thorough knowledge on all these properties of a specific material, which is planned to be used in the manufacturing of the product. Therefore, the design engineer should be guided in selecting the most suitable material. In the scope of this thesis, the aim was to develop an algorithm and a software package for material selection to help the design engineer in his decision making process. In the program, since steel is a widely used material in industry, it was selected as a material class among whole engineering materials, and a database covering all the necessary properties of various steels was constructed. These properties include chemical, mechanical, thermal, electrical and physical properties for steels. The database developed by using Microsoft Access also contains steels of 29 different steel standards and can be updated if the user wants. The software package was developed for Windows environment by using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0. In the program, steels can be searched for the list of suitable steels by entering application areas and properties such as chemical component, yield strength, heat capacity and electrical resistance. In addition to this, lists of steels can be created by selecting the appropriate name of the steel standards. Force and load calculations for various deformation processes such as forging, rolling, extrusion and drawing can also be carried out in the relevant modules within the program.

Die hier gezeigte Skulptur als Minimodel aus dem 3D-Drucker (aus Polyamid, im Maßstab 1 : 20) ist eine freie Fantasie innerhalb einer Werkserie über mögliche Objekte, die ich NOBJECTS nenne. Diese wechseln zwischen geo-, bio- und technomorpher Gestaltung. In diesem konkreten Beispiel habe ich unter Nutzung der 3D-Gestaltungssoftware “Zbrush“ das skulpturale Objekt aus einem schlichten Quadrat abgeleitet, aus dem ein Obelisk als tragende Säule hervorwächst, die in die vier Himmelrichtungen weist.

Subject of this work is a development of an integrated software environment for mechanical design and check of shell and tube heat exchangers. Processes of mechanical design and checks well as software which perform these processes are broken down to basic methods and parts. Mechanical design is usually performed according to some standards. In this work, ČSN EN 13445 is used. This standard describes mostly design check calculations which can be easily algorithmized. On the contrary, design calculations are described to some extent in few simple cases and mechanical design of shell and tube heat exchanger has not been fully algorithmized yet. Subject of this work is design of software, which will be capable of automatically performing mechanical design from datasheet as an input. Based on breakdown of design and check processes, requirements for key software features are derived. Important part of presented work is design and implementation of key modules – data model of shell and tube heat exchanger, module for mechanical design check according to ČSN EN 13445. These modules form basis of the software which will be developed further in future work.

In modern IT landscapes, databases are subject to a major role change. Especially in Service-Oriented Architectures, databases are more and more frequently dedicated to a single application. Therefore, it is even more important to reflect the application requirements in their design. Software developers and application experts formulate application requirements in software models. Hence, we obviously need to bridge the gap to the software world and directly derive a database design from the software models used in application development and maintenance. We introduce this concept as model-driven database design. In this paper, we present the architecture principles of a model-driven database design tool and details on the enumeration and evaluation of logical database designs.

Ce travail a pour objectif de développer un outil analytique multi-physiques de dimensionnement d’une gamme de moteurs « hybrides » à démarrage direct, intégrant les avantages des deux technologies : l’auto-démarrage de la technologie asynchrone et les bonnes performances énergétique en régime permanent de la technologie synchrone à aimants permanents en répondant aux nouveaux enjeux d’efficacité énergétique et en ajoutant à cela les aspects économiques.La validation de cet outil est effectuée par des modèles éléments finis créés avec un logiciel commercial ANSYS/Maxwell et par des essais expérimentaux réalisés à l’aide de deux prototypes LSPMSM 7.5kW. / This work aims to develop a multi-physical generic model (and a pre-design software) for a range of LSPMSMs which would integrate the advantages of both technologies: self-start asynchronous technology and good energy performance of synchronous permanent magnet technology. The validation of this model is carried out by finite element commercial software ANSYS / Maxwell and by experimental tests using two 7.5kW.LSPMSM prototypes.