The purpose of this study was to examine what main factors are perceived as important for the talent development environment in a successful cross-country skiing association. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with eight participants with different positions within the cross-country ski association. All participants were over 18 years old. The models Athletic Talent Development Environment (ATDE) and The Environment Success Factors (ESF) were used as theoretical frameworks. Using thematic content analysis, the interview results were analyzed, and the results were later divided into the following main themes; the micro-level sports area, micro-level non-sports area, macro level, conditions, process, organizational development and culture, individual development and performance, team performance, and environmental efficiency. The three overarching factors that were perceived as important for a good talent development environment were: To conduct good youth activities with supportive relationships and competent coaches. That sports goals are supported by the environment through the association, family and sports-oriented high schools and universities. To focus on long-term development through a permissive environment and a high degree of autonomy. Future research of interest would have been to study other cross-country skiing environments as well as environments where associations' activities are not conducted in connection with upper secondary school or university / Syftet med studien var att undersöka faktorer som upplevs vara viktiga i en talangutvecklingsmiljö hos en idrottsligt framgångsrik längdskidförening.Insamlingen av data skedde genom semistrukturerade intervjuer som genomfördes med åtta deltagare med olika positioner inom längdskidföreningen. Samtliga deltagare var över 18 år. Som teoretiskt ramverk användes modellerna Athletic Talent Development Environment (ATDE) samt The Environment Success Factors (ESF). Med hjälp av tematisk innehållsanalys analyserades intervjuresultaten och resultatet delades in i följande huvudteman; det mikronivå-idrottsliga området, mikronivå-icke idrottsliga området,makronivå, förutsättningar, process, organisationsutveckling och kultur, individuell utveckling och prestationer, lagprestationer, samt miljöns effektivitet. Resultatet visade tre övergripande faktorer som upplevdes vara viktiga för en bra talangutvecklingsmiljö vilka var: Att bedriva en bra ungdomsverksamhet med stödjande relationer och kompetenta tränare. Att idrottsliga mål stöds av omgivningen genom föreningen, familj samt idrottsinriktade gymnasium och universitet. Likväl att fokus riktas på långsiktig utveckling genom en tillåtande och stöttande miljö och en hög grad av autonomi. Intressant framtida forskning hade varit att studera andra längskidåkningsmiljöer samt miljöer där föreningars aktiveter inte bedrivs i samband med gymnasium eller högskola.

DevOps is a collaborative effort based on a set of practices and cultural values developed in order to improve software quality and release cycle while operating at the lowest cost possible. To enable DevOps principles such as automation, collaboration, and knowledge sharing, Continuous Delivery and Deployment, as well as Infrastructure as Code are heavily employed throughout the whole process of software development. One of the main building blocks of this process is a development environment where the application code is being developed and tested before it is released into production. This research investigates with the help of a systematic literature review the DevOps perspective regarding provisioning and deployment of a development environment in a controlled, automated way, specifically the benefits and challenges of this process.

Syftet med studien var att få en berikad kunskap om talangutvecklingsmiljön i en framgångsrik golforganisation samt se hur organisationen arbetar för att skapa blivande seniordamspelare inom golf. Studiens frågeställningar var följande (1) vilka faktorer påverkar miljöns möjligheter för att skapa framgångsrika seniorspelare inom damgolf samt (2) hur ESF-arbetsmodellen finns representerad i miljön. Studien utgick från en kvalitativ tematisk analys. En semistrukturerad intervjuguide skapades varav den inspirerades från ESF-arbetsmodellen. Deltagarna i studien var niopersoner involverade i golforganisationen. Dessa personer ansågs ha god kännedom om talangutveckling i allmänhet samt i golforganisationen i fråga. Resultatet visade att faktorer såsom kompetenta tränare och tillräckliga träningsmöjligheter året runt var en väsentlig del i deras talangutvecklingsmiljö. Vidare identifierades det i resultatet att en organisationskultur med genomsyrad värdegrund inom alla parter var viktigt. Slutligen verkade det viktigt för att kunna skapa blivande damspelare inom golf att ha mixade träningsgrupper för tjejer och killar från tidig ålder / The purpose of the study was to increase the knowledge of the talent development environment in a successful golf organization and to see how the organization works to create future senior women players in golf. The objectives of the study were twofold; (1) to examine the factors contributing to the environment's effectiveness in developing successful senior women golf players, and (2) examine how the ESF working model is represented in the environment. The study was based on a qualitative thematic analysis. A semi-structured interview guide was created, of which it was inspired by the ESF working model. The participants in the study were nine people involved in the golf organization. These people were considered to have good knowledge of talent development in general and of the golf organization in question. The findings showed that basic prerequisites such as competent coaches and sufficient training opportunities all year around were an essential part of their talent development environment. Furthermore, findings showed that an organizational culture with permeated values within all parties was important. Finally, to create successful senior women players in golf it seems to be important with mixed training groups from an early age.

The purpose of this thesis was to utilize existing technologies to create a development environment suitable for creating context-aware applications and systems specific to home and family living conditions. After outlining the history of context-aware applications and the challenges that face family-centric systems in this field, a development environment was implemented that solves the unique challenges that face application development for family-centric, context-aware applications. In particular, research cited in this document indicates that a browser-based user interface is the most appropriate interface for a family environment. The flexibility of the interface, as well as the familiarity of the application structure allows family members of varying levels of comprehension to use a given application. The use of a browser interface for a context-aware system creates unique challenges such as the ability to integrate with external applications and external devices. In addition to overcoming the restrictions of web browsers, the development environment was designed to support the unique user environment presented by a family structure. This includes mechanisms for the long-term adaptability of the system to the changing lifestyles of the family members, as well as the infrequent, but necessary ability to adjust the structure of the family unit due to the addition or prolonged absence of family members. Another problem that the development environment was required to solve was the varying levels of computer comprehension that exist among different family members. An application that targets an entire family unit must meet the usability needs of all levels of comprehension. The development environment was created to account for this wide array of usability requirements. The resulting development environment was implemented on a Windows XP Professional environment, utilizing existing technologies and software that were mostly cross-browser compatible. Although a new technology was not designed and created, existing technologies were combined to solve the aforementioned problems that are unique to developing systems and applications for a family-centric, context-aware environment. Recommendations are made for future research and development in the area of family-assistive application development.

Programming language tools help software developers to understand a program and to recognize possible pitfalls. Used with the right knowledge, they can be instrumented to achieve better software quality. However, creating language tools that integrate well into the development environment and workflow is challenging.This thesis utilizes a user-centered design process to identify the needs of professional developers through in-depth interviews, address those needs through a concept, and finally implement and evaluate the concept. Taking 'scope' as an exemplary source of misconceptions in programming, a “Scope Inspector” plug-in for the Atom IDE—targeting experienced JavaScript developers in the open source community—is implemented.

Cloud-based Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) are highly complex systems compared to stand-alone IDEs that are installed on client devices. Today, the visual simulation environments developed as services on the cloud can offer similar features as client-based IDEs thanks to the advancements to the cloud technologies. However, most of the existing visual simulation tools are developed for client-based systems. Moving towards the cloud for visual simulation environments can provide better collaboration for simulation developers, easy access to the software, and less client hardware dependency. Proper guidance for the development of visual simulation tools can help researchers to develop their tools as a service on the cloud. This thesis presents a Cloud-based visuAl simulatioN enVironment for trAffic networkS (CANVAS), providing a framework that tackles challenges on the cloud-based visual simulation tools. CANVAS offers a set of tools for the composition and visualization of simulation models for the traffic network problem domain. CANVAS uses an asynchronous visualization protocol with efficient resource utilization on the server, enabling concurrent usage of the IDE. The simulation is executed on the server while the visualization is processed on the client-device within web browsers enabling execution-heavy simulations to thin clients. The component-based architecture of CANVAS offers a fully decoupled system that provides easier development and maintenance. The architecture can be used for the development of other cloud-based visual simulation IDEs. The CANVAS design and asynchronous visualization protocol show that advanced visualization capabilities can be provided to the client without depending on the client hardware. / Master of Science / Doing things “in the cloud” has become ubiquitous. The term “in the cloud” implies that a software application runs on a server computer somewhere in the world and a user with a web browser uses it over the Internet on a computer such as desktop or laptop. This thesis addresses the problem of how to create and execute a visual simulation of a system all “in the cloud”. We developed a system called cloud-based visual simulation environment for traffic networks (CANVAS). We selected traffic networks as an example problem domain to illustrate the capabilities of CANVAS. A person interested in creating and executing a visual simulation of a traffic network “in the cloud” can use CANVAS. Using a web browser on an Internet-connected computer, the user can develop and execute a visual simulation of a traffic network with the tools made available in CANVAS.

Research on talent development has developed to highlight the central role of the environment and have found that good and supportive environments can ease prospective elite athletes’ transition from junior to senior elite level in sport. The aim of this study was to examine a successful athletic talent development environment in female football through a holistic ecological approach, in order to provide a holistic description of the environment. Furthermore, the aim was to explain how factors are influencing the environmental success in developing prospective elite athletes into senior elite athletes. The study was designed as a case-study and data collection included a total of eight interviews from multiple perspectives (prospective elite athletes, head coach, elite athletes and sport manager) and analysis of documents. The environment was characterized by good communication and cooperation, centered around the relationships between prospects, coaches and school. Moreover, the environment included a strong organizational culture characterized by good attitude and motivation, a whole person approach and coordinated and integrated efforts. The results showed many similarities with research conducted in other successful athletic talent development environments.

Recentes avanços proporcionaram às grades computacionais um bom nível de maturidade. Esses sistemas têm sido implantados em ambientes de produção de qualidade na comunidade de pesquisa acadêmica e vêm despertando um grande interesse da indústria. Entretanto, desenvolver aplicações para essas infra-estruturas heterogêneas e distribuídas ainda é uma tarefa complexa e propensa a erros. As iniciativas de facilitar essa tarefa resultaram, na maioria dos casos, em ferramentas não integradas e baseadas em características específicas de cada grade computacional. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo minimizar a dificuldade de desenvolvimento de aplicações para a grade através da construção de um ambiente integrado e extensível de desenvolvimento (IDE) para computação em grade chamado InGriDE. O InGriDE fornece um conjunto único de ferramentas compatíveis com diferentes sistemas de middleware, desenvolvidas baseadas na interface de programação Grid Application Toolkit (GAT). O conjunto de funcionalidades do InGriDE foi desenvolvido com base na plataforma Eclipse que, além de fornecer um arcabouço para construção de IDEs, facilita a extensão do conjunto inicial de funcionalidades. Para validar a nossa solução, utilizamos em nosso estudo de caso o middleware InteGrade, desenvolvido no nosso grupo de pesquisa. Os resultados obtidos nesse trabalho mostraram a viabilidade de fornecer independência de middleware para IDEs através do uso de uma interface genérica de programação como o GAT. Além disso, os benefícios obtidos com o uso do Eclipse como arcabouço para construção de IDEs indicam que os recursos fornecidos por esse tipo de arcabouço atendem de forma eficiente as necessidades inerentes ao processo de desenvolvimento de aplicações para a grade. / Computational grids have evolved considerably over the past few years. These systems have been deployed in production environments in the academic research community and have increased the interest by the industrial community. However, developing applications over heterogeneous and distributed infrastructure is still a complex and error prone process. The initiatives to facilitate this task, in the majority of the cases, resulted in isolated, middleware-specific tools. This work has the objective of minimizing the difficulty of developing grid applications through the construction of an integrated and extensible development environment for grid computing, called InGriDE. InGriDE provides a unique set of tools, compliant with different middleware systems, based on the Grid Application Toolkit (GAT). We developed the InGriDE set of features, based on the Eclipse platform, which provides both a framework for building IDEs and the possibility to extend the initial set of features. To validate our solution we used the InteGrade middleware, developed in our research group, as our case study. The results obtained from our work showed the viability of providing middleware independence to IDEs through the use of a generic application programming interface like GAT. Moreover, the benefits obtained through the use of Eclipse as our framework for building IDEs indicates that this kind of framework satisfies the requirements inherent to the grid application development process in a efficient way.

WebIDE is a new web-based development environment for entry-level programmers with two primary goals: minimize tool barriers to writing computer programs and introduce software engineering best practices early in a student's educational career. Currently, WebIDE focuses on Test-Driven Learning (TDL) by using small iterative examples and introducing lock-step labs, which prevent the student from moving forward until they finish the current step. An initial set of labs and evaluators were created as examples of how to use WebIDE and were used in a pilot study in a CS0 course where students were split into two groups, one that used WebIDE and one that didn't. The WebIDE group showed a significant improvement in performance when writing a simple Android application. Additionally, among students with some programming experience, the WebIDE group was more proficient in writing unit tests.

Concrete is by far the most widely used construction material worldwide in terms of volume, and so has a huge impact on the environment, with consequences for sustainable development. Portland cement is one of the most energy-intensive materials of construction, and is responsible for some emissions of carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas causing global warming. Efforts are being made in the construction industry to address these by utilising supplementary materials and developing alternative binders in concrete; the application of geopolymer technology is one such alternative. Indeed, geopolymers have emerged as novel engineering materials with considerable promise as binders in the manufacture of concrete. Apart from their known technical attributes, such as superior chemical and mechanical properties, geopolymers also have a smaller greenhouse footprint than Portland cement binders. / Research on the development, manufacture, behaviour and applications of low calcium fly ash-based geopolymer concrete has been carried out at Curtin University of Technology since 2001. Past studies of the structural behaviour of reinforced fly ash-based geopolymer concrete members have covered the flexural behaviour of members. Further studies are needed to investigate other aspects of the structural behaviour of geopolymer concrete. Design for both shear and bond are important in reinforced concrete structures. Adequate shear resistance in reinforced concrete members is essential to prevent shear failures which are brittle in nature. The performance of reinforced concrete structures depends on sufficient bond between concrete and reinforcing steel. The present research therefore focuses on the shear and bond behaviour of reinforced low calcium fly ash-based geopolymer concrete beams. / For the study of shear behaviour of geopolymer concrete beams, a total of nine beam specimens were cast. The beams were 200 mm x 300 mm in cross section with an effective length of 1680 mm. The longitudinal tensile reinforcement ratios were 1.74%, 2.32% and 3.14%. The behaviour of reinforced geopolymer concrete beams failing in shear, including the failure modes and crack patterns, were found to be similar to those observed in reinforced Portland cement concrete beams. Good correlation of test-to-prediction value was obtained using VecTor2 Program incorporating the Disturbed Stress Field Model proposed by Vecchio (2000). An average test-to-prediction ratio of 1.08 and a coefficient of variation of 8.3% were obtained using this model. It was also found that the methods of calculations, including code provisions, used in the case of reinforced Portland cement concrete beams are applicable for predicting the shear strength of reinforced geopolymer concrete beams. / For the study of bond behaviour of geopolymer concrete beams, the experimental program included manufacturing and testing twelve tensile lap-spliced beam specimens. No transverse reinforcement was provided in the splice region. The beams were 200 mm wide, 300 mm deep and 2500 mm long. The effect of concrete cover, bar diameter, splice length and concrete compressive strength on bond strength were studied. The failure mode and crack patterns observed for reinforced geopolymer concrete beams were similar to those reported in the literature for reinforced Portland cement beams. The bond strength of geopolymer concrete was observed to be closely related to the tensile strength of geopolymer concrete. Good correlation of test bond strength with predictions from the analytical model proposed by Canbay and Frosch (2005) were obtained when using the actual tensile strength of geopolymer concrete. The average ratio of test bond strength to predicted bond strength was 1.0 with a coefficient of variation of 15.21%. It was found that the design provision and analytical models used for predicting bond strength of lapsplices in reinforced Portland cement concrete are applicable to reinforced geopolymer concrete beams.