This dissertation explores a new approach to construct tools in the domain of reverse engineering. The approach uses already available software components -- such as off-the-shelf components and integrated development environments -- as building blocks, combining and customizing them programmatically to realize the desired functional and non-functional requirements. This approach can be characterized as component-based tool-building, as opposed to traditional tool-building, which typically develops most of the tool's functionalities from scratch. The dissertation focuses on research tools that are constructed in a university or research lab (and then possibly evaluated in an industrial setting). Often the motivation to build a research tool is a proof-of-concept implementation. Tool-building is a necessary part of research -- but it is a costly one. Traditional approaches to tool building have resulted in tools that have a high degree of custom code and exhibit little reuse. This approach offers the most flexibility, but can be costly and can result in highly idiosyncratic tools that are difficult to use. To compensate for the drawbacks of building tools from scratch, researchers have started to reuse existing functionality, leading towards an approach that leverages components as building blocks. However, this emerging approach is pursued in an ad hoc manner reminiscent of craftsmanship rather than professional engineering. The goal of this dissertation is to advance the current state of component-based tool-building towards a more disciplined, predictable approach. To achieve this goal, the dissertation first summarizes and evaluates relevant tool-building experiences and case studies, and then distills these into practical advice in the form of lessons learned, and a process framework for tool builders to follow. The dissertation uniquely combines two areas, reverse engineering and software components. The former addresses the constructed tool's application domain, the latter forms the foundation of the tool-building approach. Since this dissertation mostly focuses on tools for reverse engineering, a thorough understanding of this application domain is necessary to elicit its requirements. This is accomplished with an in-depth literature survey, which synthesizes five major requirements. The elicited requirements are used as a yardstick for the evaluation of component-based tools and the proposed process framework. There are diverse kinds of software components that can be leveraged for component-based tool building. However, not all of these components are suitable for the proposed tool-building approach. To characterize the kinds of applicable components, the dissertation introduces a taxonomy to classify components. The taxonomy also makes it possible to reason about characteristics of components and how these characteristics affect the construction of tools. This dissertation introduces a catalog of components that are applicable for the proposed tool-building approach in the reverse engineering domain. Furthermore, it provides a detailed account of several case studies that pursue component-based tool-building. Six of these case studies represent the author's own tool-building experiences. They have been performed over a period of five years within the Adoption-Centric Reverse Engineering project at the University of Victoria. These case studies, along with relevant experiences reported by other researchers, constitute a body of valuable tool-building knowledge. This knowledge base provides the foundation for this dissertation's two most important contributions. First, it distills the various experiences -- the author's as well as others -- into ten lessons learned. The lessons cover important requirements for tools as uncovered by the literature survey. Addressing these requirements promises to result in better tools that are more likely to meet the needs of tool users. Second, the dissertation proposes a suitable process framework for component-based tool development that can be instantiated by tool builders. The process framework encodes desirable properties of a process for tool-building, while providing the necessary flexibility to account for the variations of individual tool-building projects.

People trying to understand, develop and maintain software have faced greater challenges as the complexity of software systems has increased. These challenges include the difficulty of cleanly separating different intertwined parts of a system, or relating parts of the system spread across many modules. This makes it difficult to neatly identify an area of interest, which in turn makes it difficult to understand or edit that area. The ability to separate these areas of interest, called concerns, into their own modules has been shown to improve the situation. Several approaches have been developed to enable this separation: aspect-oriented programming allows program code to be divided into smaller modules that better match areas of interest; reverse engineering tools help programmers extract information from an existing system; requirements traceability tools track individual requirements through the development process. This thesis describes a technique that works in a wide variety of circumstances. This technique allows users to create simple diagrams that describe the concern and then annotate this diagram with query expressions which link the diagram to related development artefacts like source code or documents. This research has used the tool in a set of common scenarios and compared the results to those achieved using other approaches.

Bacillus anthracis is a Gram positive, spore forming, non-motile, rod shaped, soil bacterium, and is endemic worldwide. Currently, the biology of B. anthracis is poorly understood. B. anthracis is one of many biological weapons used today. A -/- mutant strain of B. anthracis that lacks the pathogenic plasmids was created by serial culture at 42°C. Key DNA replication genes were identified by homology as targets. The dnaB gene, essential for B. subtilis initiation of DNA replication, was my focus. A vector system was created by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with the pMUTIN4 integration vector and the promoter region of dnaB to study the genetics of B. anthracis. An electro-transformation system was formulated to knock-out the -/- B. anthracis dnaB gene. We have successfully incorporated the pMUTIN4 vector into the chromosomal DNA of B. anthracis. We also have formulated an electro-transformation system and vector system for use in B. anthracis.

This thesis presents proposals of production technologies based on the drawing of a ball nut. The content of the thesis is finding out the purpose of the part in the machine unit, analyzing similar production processes, detail drawing analysis, developing manufacturing technologies, including machine and material equipment. In this thesis all the necessary technological problems are formulated and solved, such as calculation of cutting conditions, machine time and costs. The proposed production technologies are compared and in conclusion of the thesis is a brief summary of achieved results, their evaluation and selection of the appropriate production technology and some recommendations are given.

Diversas propostas para o desenvolvimento de novos produtos vêm sendo elaboradas com o objetivo de acelerar a homologação final e permitir o lançamento com a confiabilidade necessária para minimizar danos à sociedade e à empresa. Este trabalho explora de forma objetiva o contexto de projeto para um componente estrutural de suspensão, de elevado nível de segurança, propondo uma metodologia para sistematização de planejamento enxuto das fases, considerando as atividades técnicas que geram valor ao processo, aplicando as ferramentas disponíveis de engenharia desde a definição de uma arquitetura ótima, e a partir desta, realizar o detalhamento nas fases de projeto, protótipo e testes finais. O objetivo principal foi liberar a confecção de um ferramental definitivo de forma antecipada ao desenvolvimento tradicional, e, portanto foram avaliados os resultados fundamentais que podem ser entregues, por meio de modelagem, simulação e ensaios experimentais, de cunho tecnológico, manufatura e econômico, para servirem de informações em uma tomada de decisão que envolve grande quantia monetária. Adicionalmente, uma proposta de homologação da integridade estrutural para um novo produto foi explorada por meio da seleção de materiais, influência do processo de fabricação nas propriedades mecânicas, caracterização do novo material e ensaios de fadiga em amostras do componente submetidos aos carregamentos medidos em condições de serviço. Os resultados foram validados com dados de falhas em componente similar validado, e assim, a confiabilidade para o novo produto pôde ser verificada e aprovada dispensando testes adicionais em trechos de durabilidade. / Product development proposals have been proposed aiming to accelerate the final homologations and sign off the launch with the required reliability for minimizing the risks of damages for society and industry. This work explores a project context for a suspension structural component with high safety requirements in an objective manner, proposing a systematic lean planning approach, considering the value added thecnical deliverables, using available engineering tools from best architecture definition throughout the detailing design, prototype and testing phases. With the goal for releasing the final manufacturing tool production earlier as the traditional development method, all modeling, simulation and testing results for technological, manufacturing and economics purposes were evaluated to be used as information for a decision that must consider a high amount of monetary value. Also, a homologation proposal was explored for accessing the structural integrity for a new component considering materials selection, influence of manufacturing in the mechanical properties, characterization and fatigue testing on samples subjected to measured service loads, The results were validated with data from similar component evaluation and the reliability for the new product could be accessed and approved by dismissing additional on-road durability tests.

Diversas propostas para o desenvolvimento de novos produtos vêm sendo elaboradas com o objetivo de acelerar a homologação final e permitir o lançamento com a confiabilidade necessária para minimizar danos à sociedade e à empresa. Este trabalho explora de forma objetiva o contexto de projeto para um componente estrutural de suspensão, de elevado nível de segurança, propondo uma metodologia para sistematização de planejamento enxuto das fases, considerando as atividades técnicas que geram valor ao processo, aplicando as ferramentas disponíveis de engenharia desde a definição de uma arquitetura ótima, e a partir desta, realizar o detalhamento nas fases de projeto, protótipo e testes finais. O objetivo principal foi liberar a confecção de um ferramental definitivo de forma antecipada ao desenvolvimento tradicional, e, portanto foram avaliados os resultados fundamentais que podem ser entregues, por meio de modelagem, simulação e ensaios experimentais, de cunho tecnológico, manufatura e econômico, para servirem de informações em uma tomada de decisão que envolve grande quantia monetária. Adicionalmente, uma proposta de homologação da integridade estrutural para um novo produto foi explorada por meio da seleção de materiais, influência do processo de fabricação nas propriedades mecânicas, caracterização do novo material e ensaios de fadiga em amostras do componente submetidos aos carregamentos medidos em condições de serviço. Os resultados foram validados com dados de falhas em componente similar validado, e assim, a confiabilidade para o novo produto pôde ser verificada e aprovada dispensando testes adicionais em trechos de durabilidade. / Product development proposals have been proposed aiming to accelerate the final homologations and sign off the launch with the required reliability for minimizing the risks of damages for society and industry. This work explores a project context for a suspension structural component with high safety requirements in an objective manner, proposing a systematic lean planning approach, considering the value added thecnical deliverables, using available engineering tools from best architecture definition throughout the detailing design, prototype and testing phases. With the goal for releasing the final manufacturing tool production earlier as the traditional development method, all modeling, simulation and testing results for technological, manufacturing and economics purposes were evaluated to be used as information for a decision that must consider a high amount of monetary value. Also, a homologation proposal was explored for accessing the structural integrity for a new component considering materials selection, influence of manufacturing in the mechanical properties, characterization and fatigue testing on samples subjected to measured service loads, The results were validated with data from similar component evaluation and the reliability for the new product could be accessed and approved by dismissing additional on-road durability tests.

Esta investigación se centra en la aplicación de las principales herramientas de ingeniería en el sector de fabricación de muebles de madera. El estudio utilizó como fuente de información las principales empresas productoras de muebles de madera aglomeradas en el parque industrial de Villa El Salvador, Lima , Perú. El objetivo es investigar e implementar la metodología 6TOC la cual integra la filosofía LEAN para la producción, Six Sigma para la investigación de variabilidad y teoría de restricciones para la sincronización del tiempo de actividades en base al proceso cuello de botella en los macroprocesos de habilitado y corte. Inicia con el reconocimiento de las estaciones de trabajo: funciones, maquinaria y herramientas. Se utilizan herramientas que ayudan en la planificación y el desarrollo de actividades aumentando la productividad partiendo de un nivel inicial hasta alcanzar una mejora sustancial y representativa en las empresas fabricantes. Se compara el mismo sector maderero pero en Colombia como punto de referencia para medir la productividad. / This research focuses to application of the main engineering tools in the wood furniture manufacturing sector. The study identified wood furniture producing companies located in industrial park Villa El Salvador, Lima, Peru as a source of information. The objective is investigate and implement the 6TOC methodology, how integrate the LEAN philosophy for production, Six Sigma for invest variability and the theory of restrictions to programming the activities time based on the bottleneck process in the enabled and machined macroprocesses. Start with recognition of workstations: functions, machinery and tools. Tools will be used that can help in the planning and development of activities that improve productivity starting from an initial level until reaching an improvement of the substances and representative in the manufacturing companies. The same timber sector is compared whit Colombia as benchmark to measure productivity. / Trabajo de Suficiencia Profesional