In this research, it is suggested that design in text-based virtual worlds can be identified as a series of interactions between users and the virtual environment, and that these interactions for design can be approached using a linguistic perspective. The main assumption of this research is that a parallel can be drawn between the performance of design commands, and the one of speech acts in the physical world. Design in text-based virtual environments can then be articulated using a restricted set of speech acts, as design commands. Virtual worlds, represented as spaces, can be constructed following an architectural design metaphor. This metaphor provides a framework for the organisation of virtual entity relationships, and for the choice of words used to design. A linguistic characterisation is presented, by means of design activities, prototypes and scenarios, which derive from the architectural design metaphor. The characterisation of design is then validated by the analysis of an existing text-based virtual world.

In this research, it is suggested that design in text-based virtual worlds can be identified as a series of interactions between users and the virtual environment, and that these interactions for design can be approached using a linguistic perspective. The main assumption of this research is that a parallel can be drawn between the performance of design commands, and the one of speech acts in the physical world. Design in text-based virtual environments can then be articulated using a restricted set of speech acts, as design commands. Virtual worlds, represented as spaces, can be constructed following an architectural design metaphor. This metaphor provides a framework for the organisation of virtual entity relationships, and for the choice of words used to design. A linguistic characterisation is presented, by means of design activities, prototypes and scenarios, which derive from the architectural design metaphor. The characterisation of design is then validated by the analysis of an existing text-based virtual world.

Automatic recognition and digitization of the features found in raster images of 2D topographic maps has a long research history. Very little such work has focused on creating and working with alternatives to the classic isoline-based topographic map.This thesis presents a system that generates 3D scenes from a 2D diagram format designed for user friendliness; with more geometric expressiveness and lower ink usage than classic topographic maps. This thesis explains the rationale for and the structure of the system, and the difficulties encountered in constructing it. It then describes a user study to evaluate the language and the usability of its various features, and draws future research directions from it.

Automatic recognition and digitization of the features found in raster images of 2D topographic maps has a long research history. Very little such work has focused on creating and working with alternatives to the classic isoline-based topographic map.This thesis presents a system that generates 3D scenes from a 2D diagram format designed for user friendliness; with more geometric expressiveness and lower ink usage than classic topographic maps. This thesis explains the rationale for and the structure of the system, and the difficulties encountered in constructing it. It then describes a user study to evaluate the language and the usability of its various features, and draws future research directions from it.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1970. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

The thesis asks whether the constrains imposed by complex functional programs and associated design guidance limit the ability to deploy design languages with entail their own precise compositional requirements. The Islip Federal Courthouse designed by Richard Meier under the General Services Administrations Design Excellence Program is chosen as a case study for two reasons: First, the functional constraints are explicitly documented, and their effects can be studied through a comparative analysis of recent Courthouses also built under the same GSA program; Second, Meiers language has received much scholarly attention, is well understood, and can be described with rigor. Both the functional requirements or constraints and the compositional principles associated with the design language are described as formal structures. The thesis shows that, in this instance, all functional constraints can be satisfied without compromising the elaboration of the language. Thus, the thesis contributes to our understanding of design logic and supports the idea that design intentions as well as design considerations can be reconstructed through a systematic study of the designed object

L’augmentation de la complexité des systèmes temps-réel répartis embarqués (TR2E) et leur implication dans de nombreux domaines de notre quotidien imposent de nouvelles mé thodes de réalisation. Dans les domaines dits critiques (transport, médecine...) ces systèmes doivent satisfaire des contraintes dures pour garantir leur bon fonctionnement et éviter toutes défaillances qui engendreraient des conséquences financières ou humaines dramatiques. L’Ingénierie Dirigée par les Modèles (IDM) introduit le “modèle” - i.e. une description abstraite du système - et un ensemble d’outils (édition, transformation...) permettant la simplification et l’automatisation des étapes de conception, de validation et de génération du système. Ainsi, différentes abstractions du système sont élaborées dans des formalismes spécifiques de manière à couvrir un aspect du système et à permettre la réutilisation des outils d’analyse et de génération existants. Cependant, ces multiples représentations évoluent à des niveaux d’abstractions différents et il n’est pas toujours évident de mettre en corrélation système analysé et système généré. Ce travail de thèse exploite les concepts et les mécanismes offerts par l’IDM pour améliorer la fiabilité du processus de réalisation des systèmes critiques basé sur les modèles. L’approche que nous avons définie repose sur la définition du langage de modélisation architecturale et comportementale AADL-HI Ravenscar - un sous-ensemble du langage AADL (Architecture Analysis & Design Language) et de son annexe comportementale - contraint pour permettre conjointement l’analyse et la génération de l’ensemble des composants de l’application y compris de son exécutif, avec une sémantique proche d’un langage de programmation impératif... / The increasing complexity of distributed realtime and embedded (DRE) systems and their implication in various domains imply new design and development methods. In safety- criticial domains such as space, aeronautical, transport or medicine, their failure could result in the failure of the mission, or in dramatic damages such as human losses. This particular class of systems comes with strong requirements to satisfy safety, reliability and security properties. The Model-driven Engineering (MDE) introduces the concept of «model» - an abstract description of the system and a set of tools (editor, transformation engine, code generator) to simplify and automatize the design, the validation and the implementation of the system. Thus, various abstractions are realized using different domain-specific modeling languages in order to assess one particular aspect of the system and to re-use model-based analysis tools and generative technologies. These various representations may share some commonalities but the consistency between them is hard to validate (for example : Is the analyzed system the same as the generated one ?).This PhD thesis leverages MDE concepts and mechanisms, to enhance the reliability of the model-based development process of DRE systems. Our approach is based on the definition of the architectural and behavioral modeling language AADLHI Ravenscar, a restriction of AADL (Architecture Analysis & Design Language) and its behavioral annex. This subset of AADL constructs, comes up with a semantic close to the one of an imperative programming language, to drive both the analysis and the code generation of the application components and its relying execution platform (middleware) components...

Dans de nombreux domaines tels que l’avionique, la médecine ou la domotique, les applications logicielles jouent un rôle de plus en plus important, allant jusqu’à être critique pour leur environnement. Afin de pouvoir faire confiance à ces applications, leur développement est contraint par des exigences de sûreté de fonctionnement. En effet il est nécessaire de démontrer que ces exigences de haut-niveau sont prises en compte tout au long du cycle de développement et que des solutions concrètessont mises en œuvre pour parvenir à les respecter. De telles contraintes rendent le développement d’applications sûres de fonctionnement particulièrement complexe et difficile. Faciliter ce processus appelle à la recherche de nouvelles approches dedéveloppement qui intègrent des concepts de sûreté de fonctionnement et guident les développeurs lors de chacune des étapesnécessaires à la production d’une nouvelle application digne de confiance.Cette thèse propose ainsi de s’appuyer sur une approche dirigée par la conception pour guider le développement des applications sûres de fonctionnement. Cette approche est concrétisée à travers une suite d’outils nommée DiaSuite et offre du support dédié à chaque étape du développement. En particulier, un langage de conception permet de décrire à la fois les aspects fonctionnels et non-fonctionnels des applications en se basant sur un paradigme dédié et en intégrant des concepts de sûreté de fonctionnement tels que le traitement des erreurs. A partir de la description d’une application, du support est généré pour guider les phases d’implémentation et de vérification. En effet, la génération d’un framework de programmation dédié permet de guider l’implémentation tandis que la génération d’un modèle formel permet de guider la vérification statique de l’application et qu’un support de simulation permet de faciliter les tests. Cette approche est évaluée grâce à des cas d’études réalisés dans les domaines de l’avionique et de l’informatique ubiquitaire. / In many domains such as avionics, medecine or home automation, software applications play an increasingly important rolethat can even be critical for their environment. In order to trust these applications, their development is contrained by dependability requirements. Indeed, it is necessary to demonstrate that these high-level requirements are taken into account throughout the development cycle and concrete solutions are implemented to achieve compliance. Such constraints make the development of dependable applications particularly complex and difficult. Easing this process calls for the research of new development approaches that integrate dependability concepts and guide the developers during each step of the development of trustworthy applications.This thesis proposes to leverage a design-driven approach to guide the development of dependable applications. This approachis materialized through a tool-suite called DiaSuite and offers dedicated support for each stage of the development. Inparticular, a design language is used to describe both functional and non-functional applications. This language is based on adedicated paradigm and integrates dependability concepts such as error handling. From the description of an application, development support is generated to guide the implementation and verification stages. Indeed, the generation of a dedicated programming framework allows to guide the implementation while the generation of a formal model allows to guide the static verification and simulation support eases the testing. This approach is evaluated through case studies conducted in the domains of avionics and pervasive computing.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / John M. Hatcliff / Medical devices have traditionally been designed, built, and certified for use as monolithic units. A new vision of "Medical Application Platforms" (MAPs) is emerging that would enable compositional medical systems to be instantiated at the point of care from a collection of trusted components. This work details efforts to create a development environment for applications that run on these MAPs. The first contribution of this effort is a language and code generator that can be used to model and implement MAP applications. The language is a subset of the Architecture, Analysis and Design Language (AADL) that has been tailored to the platform-based environment of MAPs. Accompanying the language is software tooling that provides automated code generation targeting an existing MAP implementation. The second contribution is a new hazard analysis process called the Systematic Analysis of Faults and Errors (SAFE). SAFE is a modified version of the previously-existing System Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA), that has been made more rigorous, partially compositional, and easier. SAFE is not a replacement for STPA, however, rather it more effectively analyzes the hardware- and software-based elements of a full safety-critical system. SAFE has both manual and tool-assisted formats; the latter consists of AADL annotations that are designed to be used with the language subset from the first contribution. An automated report generator has also been implemented to accelerate the hazard analysis process. Third, this work examines how, independent of its place in the system hierarchy or the precise configuration of its environment, a component may contribute to the safety (or lack thereof) of an entire system. Based on this, we propose a reference model which generalizes notions of harm and the role of components in their environment so that they can be applied to components either in isolation or as part of a complete system. Connections between these formalisms and existing approaches for system composition and fault propagation are also established. This dissertation presents these contributions along with a review of relevant literature, evaluation of the SAFE process, and concludes with discussion of potential future work.

Emotions can be defined as a natural, instinctive state of mind arising from one’s circumstances, mood, and relationships with others. It has long been a question to be answered by psychology that how and what is it that humans feel. Enabling computers to recognize human emotions has been an of interest to researchers since 1990s (Picard et al., 1995). Ever since, this area of research has grown significantly and emotion detection is becoming an important component in many natural language processing tasks. Several theories exist for defining emotions and are chosen by researchers according to their needs. For instance, according to appraisal theory, a psychology theory, emotions are produced by our evaluations (appraisals or estimates) of events that cause a specific reaction in different people. Some emotions are easy and universal, while others are complex and nuanced. Emotion classification is generally the process of labeling a piece of text with one or more corresponding emotion labels. Psychologists have developed numerous models and taxonomies of emotions. The model or taxonomy depends on the problem, and thorough study is often required to select the best model. Early studies of emotion classification focused on building computational models to classify basic emotion categories. In recent years, increasing volumes of social media and the digitization of data have opened a new horizon in this area of study, where emotion classification is a key component of applications, including mood and behavioral studies, as well as disaster relief, amongst many other applications. Sophisticated models have been built to detect and classify emotion in text, but few analyze how well a model is able to learn emotion cues. The ability to learn emotion cues properly and be able to generalize this learning is very important. This work investigates the robustness of emotion classification approaches across genres and languages, with a focus on quantifying how well state-of-the-art models are able to learn emotion cues. First, we use multi-task learning and hierarchical models to build emotion models that were trained on data combined from multiple genres. Our hypothesis is that a multi-genre, noisy training environment will help the classifier learn emotion cues that are prevalent across genres. Second, we explore splitting text (i.e. sentence) into its clauses and testing whether the model’s performance improves. Emotion analysis needs fine-grained annotation and clause-level annotation can be beneficial to design features to improve emotion detection performance. Intuitively, clause-level annotations may help the model focus on emotion cues, while ignoring irrelevant portions of the text. Third, we adopted a transfer learning approach for cross-lingual/genre emotion classification to focus the classifier’s attention on emotion cues which are consistent across languages. Fourth, we empirically show how to combine different genres to be able to build robust models that can be used as source models for emotion transfer to low-resource target languages. Finally, this study involved curating and re-annotating popular emotional data sets in different genres, and annotating a multi-genre corpus of Persian tweets and news, and generating a collection of emotional sentences for a low-resource language, Azerbaijani, a language spoken in the north west of Iran.