This study was conducted as part of an ongoing research programme to evaluate and implement change in the School of Process and Materials Engineering (PRME) 1002 course curriculum to effect positive results in academic achievement, thus increasing throughput rates of first-year Chemical and Metallurgical engineering students. This study designed and implemented a cognitive mediated intervention programme adapted by Professor Skuy (2003) from Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment (1980) programme. The aim was to see if an extended programme period of time, 12 weeks as opposed to 5 weeks implemented in an earlier study by Viviers (2004), would significantly improve the academic performance of the sample of 20 first-year Metallurgy students as measured by the mid-year and end-of-year examination results. The study also aimed to find out if the cognitive mediation intervention programme would significantly improve the intellectual functioning of the Metallurgy students. The results show that mediating cognitive functions significantly improved the intellectual functioning of the sample of 20 students as measured by the pre- and post-test scores of the Cognitive Assessment System (Das & Naglieri, 1993). However, no significant improvement was found in the academic achievement of the students as measured by the examination results. Accordingly it was concluded that the extended period of time (12 weeks), was sufficient time to improve intellectual functioning of Metallurgy students, but insufficient time for this to transfer into academic achievement for the Metallurgy students. The study highlighted the difficulty of transfer in the engineering context, as well as the continued problem that first-year students have with the complex conceptual nature and demands of the PRME (1002) course.

The Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) has become one of the most popular approaches to building large-scale network applications. The web service technologies are de facto the default implementation for SOA. Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is the key and fundamental technology of web services. Service composition is a way to deliver complex services based on existing partner services. Service orchestration with the support of Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WSBPEL) is the dominant approach of web service composition. WSBPEL-based service orchestration inherited the issue of interoperability from SOAP, and it was furthermore challenged for performance, scalability, reliability and modifiability. I present an architectural approach for service composition in this thesis to address these challenges. An architectural solution is so generic that it can be applied to a large spectrum of problems. I name the architectural style RESTful Service Composition (RSC), because many of its elements and constraints are derived from Representational State Transfer (REST). REST is an architectural style developed to describe the architectural style of the Web. The Web has demonstrated outstanding interoperability, performance, scalability, reliability and modifiability. RSC is designed for service composition on the Internet. The RSC style is composed on specific element types, including RESTful service composition client, RESTful partner proxy, composite resource, resource client, functional computation and relaying service. A service composition is partitioned into stages; each stage is represented as a computation that has a uniform identifier and a set of uniform access methods; and the transitions between stages are driven by computational batons. RSC is supplemented by a programming model that emphasizes on-demand function, map-reduce and continuation passing. An RSC-style composition does not depend on either a central conductor service or a common choreography specification, which makes it different from service orchestration or service choreography. Four scenarios are used to evaluate the performance, scalability, reliability and modifiability improvement of the RSC approach compared to orchestration. An RSC-style solution and an orchestration solution are compared side by side in every scenario. The first scenario evaluates the performance improvement of the X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) application in ScienceStudio; the second scenario evaluates the scalability improvement of the Process Variable (PV) snapshot application; the third scenario evaluates the reliability improvement of a notification application by simulation; and the fourth scenario evaluates the modifiability improvement of the XRD application in order to fulfil emerging requirements. The results show that the RSC approach outperforms the orchestration approach in every aspect.

Business processes describe a set of tasks for accomplishing business objectives of an organization. Business applications automate business processes to improve the productivity of business users. Nowadays, the business environment changes fast due to rapid market growth and technological innovations. Business processes are continuously updated to reflect new business initiatives. Business applications are frequently evolved to add features to meet new requirements and fix defects. Quite often, business processes and business applications evolve independently without direct reference to each other. Over time, it becomes more and more challenging to maintain the consistency between a business application and the corresponding business processes. Moreover, the existing development approaches rely on software developers’ craftsmanship to design and implement business applications. Such a development paradigm is inefficient and leads to inconsistency between business processes and business applications. To facilitate the alignment between business applications and business processes, we present an approach that automatically generates software architecture and code skeletons of business applications from business processes. We identify architectural components from business processes by analyzing dependencies among tasks. To verify the achievement of quality requirements, we extend a set of existing product metrics to automatically evaluate the quality of the generated software architecture designs. Eventually, we apply refactoring strategies, such as software architectural styles or design patterns, to optimize the generated software architecture designs and resolve identified quality problems. Moreover, we also present an approach to automatically refine software architecture to design models and code skeletons of business applications. The effectiveness of our proposed approach is illustrated through case studies. / Thesis (Ph.D, Electrical & Computer Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2011-01-30 00:06:34.77

Educational environments are unable to meet the needs of each individual child. It is believed that individual characteristics of children both limit and promote their learning experiences. Those characteristics that promote learning are essential tools that aid parents and teachers in their efforts to educate children. These characteristics need to be identified and nurtured during the learning process. It has long been suggested that curiosity is one such variable. This study wishes to determine the association between curiosity and learning potential within the dynamic assessment paradigm. A small quasi-experiment was conducted on 39 seven and eight year old children with the use of two assessment measures. The Cognitive Modifiability Battery, built on dynamic assessment theory, measures learning potential. An adapted version of the Multidimensional Curiosity Inventory, still in development, measures various types of curiosity. It was hypothesized that children with high levels of curiosity would measure high in learning potential and those with low levels of curiosity would measure low in learning potential. However, after dividing participants into four groups according to level of curiosity, a quadratic relationship was found between curiosity and learning potential. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Psychology / unrestricted

"Microservices" has become a real buzz word in the software development community during the last couple of years. Most developers are familiar with the architectural concept which solves the problem of systems growing to large monoliths too complex to handle. This architecture has however mostly been used in backend development, even though many companies are struggling with large, monolithic frontend codebases. This is where micro frontends come in, an architectural as well as organisational approach to developing applications all the way from presentation to data layer. The micro frontends approach is relatively new, and even though there is some talk about it in the software community, many companies are unfamiliar with it, and there is very limited scientific work performed on the topic. The aim of this study was to investigate strengths of and challenges with micro frontends, and specifically how the modifiability of a web application is affected by developing it as a micro frontends project. The method for fulfilling the aim consisted of several parts. During one part, two frontend prototypes of a web application were implemented, one using a Single Page Application technique and one using a micro frontends technique. Another part consisted of interviewing practitioners in the software field with relevant backgrounds to gain their perspective on micro frontends. The results were also used to evaluate which prototype would be most suitable for the specific web application. During the last part of the method, measurements on the implemented prototypes were performed to be used to estimate the modifiability of the prototypes using a mathematical model of modifiability called SQMMA. Based on the results, this report provides an extensive summary of strengths of micro frontends, among other things that there are both beneficial and disadvantageous aspects of micro frontends when it comes to modifiability, risks that should be considered when adopting micro frontends, and a discussion on when to use it and not.

The instrumental enrichment is a worldwide extended method of cognitive functions development, which has been used in the Czech Republic since 2000. Its author, Reuven Feuerstein, is strongly convinced that human being is able to modify oneself and to develop one's abilities. This method is based on elaborated theoretical concepts - especially on the theory of structural cognitive modifiability and mediated learning. This Diploma Thesis brings essentials information about the concepts related to the cognitive modifiability and considers tools of its application. In the qualitative study, we focus on Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment. In the course of ten moths we observed six clients of the DYS-Centrum Praha we attempted to map changes (or their manifestations) which might have appeared during the intervention. We acquired data by the process of observation (participative observation and video-analysis) and via semistructured interviews. We were interested in changes of cognitive functions manifestations, quality of language, quality of autonomous work and ability to process with the information efficiently. We registered changes in each of these areas. Some of them, were notable only during the FIE lessons, others also displayed at home or at school environment. Key words: cognitive...

<p>It is not unusual that software systems are redeveloped when the systems environment changes or new requirements to functionality are found. The reason for this is that system evolution is usually not considered during the initial development of a system.</p><p>In this report we propose a development process focusing on modifiability in security-safety critical systems. The process is based on the standard IEC 61508 Functional safety of electrical/electronic/programmable electronic safety-related systems and the CORAS framework for model-based risk assessment. We focus on integrating modifiability as a non-functionality and extend the development process with an architecture and design phase. Modifiability is addressed using Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM) and Attribute Driven Design (ADD). An evaluation of this process is given by redeveloping a prototype for an already existing security-critical system using the approaches given by the process. The main result from the evaluation showed that we where able to obtain a higher level of modifiability than the original prototype, without compromising the functionality and safety level required.</p>

It is not unusual that software systems are redeveloped when the systems environment changes or new requirements to functionality are found. The reason for this is that system evolution is usually not considered during the initial development of a system. In this report we propose a development process focusing on modifiability in security-safety critical systems. The process is based on the standard IEC 61508 Functional safety of electrical/electronic/programmable electronic safety-related systems and the CORAS framework for model-based risk assessment. We focus on integrating modifiability as a non-functionality and extend the development process with an architecture and design phase. Modifiability is addressed using Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM) and Attribute Driven Design (ADD). An evaluation of this process is given by redeveloping a prototype for an already existing security-critical system using the approaches given by the process. The main result from the evaluation showed that we where able to obtain a higher level of modifiability than the original prototype, without compromising the functionality and safety level required.

Contemporary enterprises depend to great extent on software systems. During the past decades the number of systems has been constantly increasing and these systems have become more integrated with one another. This has lead to a growing complexity in managing software systems and their environment. At the same time business environments today need to progress and change rapidly to keep up with evolving markets. As the business processes change, the systems need to be modified in order to continue supporting the processes. The complexity increase and growing demand for rapid change makes the management of enterprise systems a very important issue. In order to achieve effective and efficient management, it is essential to be able to analyze the system modifiability (i.e. estimate the future change cost). This is addressed in the thesis by employing architectural models. The contribution of this thesis is a method for software system modifiability analysis using enterprise architecture models. The contribution includes an enterprise architecture analysis formalism, a modifiability metamodel (i.e. a modeling language), and a method for creating metamodels. The proposed approach allows IT-decision makers to model and analyze change projects. By doing so, high-quality decision support regarding change project costs is received. This thesis is a composite thesis consisting of five papers and an introduction. Paper A evaluatesa number of analysis formalisms and proposes extended influence diagrams to be employed for enterprise architecture analysis. Paper B presents the first version of the modifiability metamodel. InPaper C, a method for creating enterprise architecture metamodels is proposed. This method aims to be general, i.e. can be employed for other IT-related quality analyses such as interoperability, security, and availability. The paper does however use modifiability as a running case. The second version of the modifiability metamodel for change project cost estimation is fully described in Paper D. Finally, Paper E validates the proposed method and metamodel by surveying 110 experts and studying 21 change projects at four large Nordic companies. The validation indicates that the method and metamodel are useful, contain the right set of elements and provide good estimation capabilities. / QC20100716

5 Abstract The work deals with the development of cognitive skills by the method of the Feuerstein Instrumental enrichment for seniors in a residential care. It should clarify whether the Instrumental Enrichment Program is practicable when working with seniors and how it will affect the development of cognitive abilities of these people. The theoretical part deals with the period of the old age, the cognitive specific of seniors, the contemporary views on the brain functioning, and especially with the Instrumental Enrichment Program.The practical part includes the results of the qualitative research. The main method of data collection was a " dynamic assessment " of the cognitive test and the case studies. The qualitative results evaluation of the Addenbrooke cognitive test showed the improvement in the solution methods almost in all levels ( input , elaboration and output) . The results of the study showed that the Instrumental Enrichment Program is very suitable for the seniors. Its use is meaningful not only for clients with mild cognitive insult but it is also very effective for the people with more severe degrees of dementia.