Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

The problem of effective and efficient use of engineering software can be thought of as a Pareto optimal problem. However, the complexity of modern engineering software precludes the possibility of acquiring complete knowledge of the software's Pareto optimal set. Instead, heuristic knowledge must be acquired. The thesis proposes that heuristic knowledge be acquired via a knowledge acquisition procedure. The use of a knowledge acquisition system, which may be computerised, forms an integral part of this procedure. Two examples of knowledge acquisition illustrate the use of the knowledge acquisition procedure.

Software design within the engineering community has generally been relegated to encoding algorithms for the purpose of executing them very rapidly. This is a very important purpose, however substantially more is required to build an entire CAD application. Structure must be provided to the data maintained in the application. Various analyses must be integrated and coordinated in an orderly fashion. Interaction with the user must be managed. These topics have traditionally received secondary attention. The result has been engineering applications that are difficult to use, costly to create, and expensive to maintain or modify. The system created in this dissertation, the Dynamic Integration System, addresses these issues with respect to engineering-related software. Code constructed with Dynamic Integration System techniques anticipate future needs, such as integration, before those needs explicitly arise. This greatly reduces downstream costs and facilitates the development of engineering-related software. The Dynamic Integration System consists of two primary constructs: Dynamic Variables and dependency hierarchies. Dynamic Variables are used to model the key parameters in an application while a dependency hierarchy is built from the relationships between Dynamic Variables. Using these constructs, issues such as integration and analysis coordination are automated by the underlying Dynamic Integration System facilities. / Ph. D.

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Call number: LD2668 .T4 1986 V475 / Master of Science / Electrical and Computer Engineering

The need to achieve dependability in critical infrastructures has become indispensable for government and commercial enterprises. This need has become more necessary with the proliferation of malicious attacks on critical systems, such as healthcare, aerospace and airline applications. Additionally, due to the widespread use of web services in critical systems, the need to ensure their reliability is paramount. We believe that patterns can be used to achieve dependability. We conducted a survey of fault tolerance, reliability and web service products and patterns to better understand them. One objective of our survey is to evaluate the state of these patterns, and to investigate which standards are being used in products and their tool support. Our survey found that these patterns are insufficient, and many web services products do not use them. In light of this, we wrote some fault tolerance and web services reliability patterns and present an analysis of them. / by Ingrid A. Buckley. / Thesis (M.S.C.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2008. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Reliability is a key system characteristic that is an increasing concern for current systems. Greater reliability is necessary due to the new ways in which services are delivered to the public. Services are used by many industries, including health care, government, telecommunications, tools, and products. We have defined an approach to incorporate reliability along the stages of system development. We first did a survey of existing dependability patterns to evaluate their possible use in this methodology. We have defined a systematic methodology that helps the designer apply reliability in all steps of the development life cycle in the form of patterns. A systematic failure enumeration process to define corresponding countermeasures was proposed as a guideline to define where reliability is needed. We introduced the idea of failure patterns which show how failures manifest and propagate in a system. We also looked at how to combine reliability and security. Finally, we defined an approach to certify the level of reliability of an implemented web service. All these steps lead towards a complete methodology. / by Ingrid A. Buckley. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2012. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Tolerance analysis is a major link between design and manufacturing. An assembly or a part should be designed based on its functions, manufacturing processes, desired product quality, and manufacturing cost. Assembly tolerance analysis performed at the design stage can reduce potential manufacturing and assembly problems. Several commonly used assembly tolerance analysis models and their limitations are reviewed in this research. Also, a new assembly tolerance analysis model is developed to improve the limitations of the existing assembly tolerance analysis models. The new model elucidates the impact of the flatness symbol (one of the Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) specification symbols) and reduces design variables into simple mathematical equations. The new model is based on beta distribution of part dimensions. In addition, a group of manufacturing variables, including quality factor, process tolerance, and mean shift, is integrated in the new assembly tolerance analysis model. A computer integrated system has been developed to handle four support systems for the performance of tolerance analysis in a single computer application. These support systems are: 1) the CAD drawing system, 2) the Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) specification system, 3) the assembly tolerance analysis model, and 4) the tolerance database operating under the Windows environment. Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) is applied to exchange the data between two different window applications, resulting in improvement of information transfer between the support systems. In this way, the user is able to use this integrated system to select a GD&T specification, determine a critical assembly dimension and tolerance, and access the tolerance database during the design stage simultaneously. Examples are presented to illustrate the application of the integrated tolerance analysis system. / Graduation date: 1995