This research sought to establish the hindrances/barriers to the effective implementation of the Adventist youth ministry curriculum in the congregations of the Trans-Orange Conference. The theological and Biblical foundations that underpin the church’s youth ministry and its curriculum ought to provide the church with a cutting edge in its youth ministry, and ought to assist tremendously in achieving the major twin goals of its youth ministry, i.e. salvation and service. Its detailed curriculum that is guided by the insights of developmental psychology is divided into four main age-specific levels: Adventurers, Pathfinder, Ambassadors and senior youth. Beyond the spiritual emphasis and soteriological intent, the participant youth should also benefit from leadership and community service development. The value of the curriculum, however, is only realised when it is implemented among the intended recipients; the youth of the church. Interviews with the youth ministry leaders from the various districts of the Trans-Orange Conference revealed a bleak picture of low levels of curriculum implementation. Expressed barriers to curriculum implementation and a low prevalence of progressive classes included: Low prevalence of qualified Master Guides and youth leaders; difficulties in accessing resources for use in curriculum implementation; unbalanced emphasis on physical activities at the expense of the rest of the curriculum content; lack of parental support; as well as priority issues emanating from church elders and leaders. It is very clear that the current praxis prevailing in the Trans-Orange Conference is not yielding the desired outcomes with regard to the delivery of the youth ministry curriculum. Given the status quo as manifested above, it becomes imperative that new ways of praxis be explored and be implemented to effect a situation turnaround. By revisiting the problem areas as expressed in the interviews, and seeking alternative approaches to youth ministry and curriculum implementation in the territory under investigation, a new model needs to be developed that must increase the prevalence of trained and qualified youth ministry personnel, that must increase the prevalence of progressive classes, and that increases levels of resource accessibility for congregational youth ministry curriculum providers and the youth in general. Furthermore, parents need to be trained and supported to enable them to be effective in assisting meeting the goals of the youth ministry as reflected in the curriculum, while all relevant leaders should also be assisted to reach a balance in the implementation of the curriculum and to assign appropriate priority to the programming and budgetary provisions for the youth ministry. / PhD (Pastoral Studies), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

This research sought to establish the hindrances/barriers to the effective implementation of the Adventist youth ministry curriculum in the congregations of the Trans-Orange Conference. The theological and Biblical foundations that underpin the church’s youth ministry and its curriculum ought to provide the church with a cutting edge in its youth ministry, and ought to assist tremendously in achieving the major twin goals of its youth ministry, i.e. salvation and service. Its detailed curriculum that is guided by the insights of developmental psychology is divided into four main age-specific levels: Adventurers, Pathfinder, Ambassadors and senior youth. Beyond the spiritual emphasis and soteriological intent, the participant youth should also benefit from leadership and community service development. The value of the curriculum, however, is only realised when it is implemented among the intended recipients; the youth of the church. Interviews with the youth ministry leaders from the various districts of the Trans-Orange Conference revealed a bleak picture of low levels of curriculum implementation. Expressed barriers to curriculum implementation and a low prevalence of progressive classes included: Low prevalence of qualified Master Guides and youth leaders; difficulties in accessing resources for use in curriculum implementation; unbalanced emphasis on physical activities at the expense of the rest of the curriculum content; lack of parental support; as well as priority issues emanating from church elders and leaders. It is very clear that the current praxis prevailing in the Trans-Orange Conference is not yielding the desired outcomes with regard to the delivery of the youth ministry curriculum. Given the status quo as manifested above, it becomes imperative that new ways of praxis be explored and be implemented to effect a situation turnaround. By revisiting the problem areas as expressed in the interviews, and seeking alternative approaches to youth ministry and curriculum implementation in the territory under investigation, a new model needs to be developed that must increase the prevalence of trained and qualified youth ministry personnel, that must increase the prevalence of progressive classes, and that increases levels of resource accessibility for congregational youth ministry curriculum providers and the youth in general. Furthermore, parents need to be trained and supported to enable them to be effective in assisting meeting the goals of the youth ministry as reflected in the curriculum, while all relevant leaders should also be assisted to reach a balance in the implementation of the curriculum and to assign appropriate priority to the programming and budgetary provisions for the youth ministry. / PhD (Pastoral Studies), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The aim of this work is to integrate Java PathFinder into Java Platform Debugger Architecture. That is, to allow using Java PathFinder instead of a common Java Virtual Machine for the purpose of debugging Java applications in any modern Java Integrated Development Environment with all its advantages such as various kinds of breakpoints, direct stepping in opened source files, and call stack and object inspection. The resulting work provides users with all the features they are used to while debugging Java applications. None of this requires any external tools, editors or a complicated setup. Therefore, users are able to view, debug and understand the program state while replaying an error trace in Java PathFinder. The key part of the study is an implementation of the Java Debug Wire Protocol Agent as an extension for Java PathFinder. That makes JPF more complete as a Virtual Machine in the eyes of the community and the Java users in general. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

L'expérience NEIGE (NEtlander Ionosphere and Geodesy Experiment) permettra d'obtenir des informations sur la structure interne de la planète Mars ainsi que sur son atmosphère grâce à l'observation de ses paramètres de rotation (précession, nutation, longueur du jour, mouvement du pôle). Pour quantifier la précision sur ces paramètres grâce à NEIGE, une formulation analytique de l'observable Doppler entre les landers et un orbiteur a été développée, basée sur une orbite Keplerienne précessante sous l'effet de l'aplatissement de la planète et sur un développement au premier ordre en série de Taylor par rapport aux petits paramètres caractérisant les variations de l'orientation de Mars. Cette formulation permet de comprendre simplement le jeu relatif des différents paramètres et permet également de modéliser leurs corrélations. Dans les conditions nominales de l'expérience, les paramètres liés au mouvement du pôle et aux variations saisonnières de l'angle de rotation sont retrouvés avec une précision meilleure que 3 milli-secondes d'arcs. L'incertitude sur le taux de précession ainsi que sur les paramètres liés à l'exitence d'un possible noyau liquide visible dans l'observable Doppler grâce à une amplification (résonance) des nutations, a également été étudiée. Nous montrons qu'à partir des mesures NEIGE, il sera possible de déduire des informations sur la structure interne de Mars, comme l'état liquide ou solide du noyau, son moment d'inertie et son aplatissement. D'autres paramètres ont été pris en compte dans notre étude, notamment les positions des landers, les éléments orbitaux du satellite et les amplitudes des variations du terme d'aplatissement. La modélisation utilisée permet de tester différentes configurations de mission comme le changement d'orbites, de position et nombre de landers ou l'influence du bruit de mesures, afin d'identifier les conditions minimisant les incertitudes sur les paramètres de rotation. Les incertitudes obtenues grâce aux simulations numériques réalisées avec un logiciel d'orbitographie développé par le CNES et celles obtenues par la méthode analytique sont cohérentes. En comparant ces résultats avec ceux des observables Range et Doppler lander-Terre (représentant les mesures réalisées pendant les missions Viking et Pathfinder), on remarque que l'observable Dopple lander-orbiteur est plus efficace pour détecter de petits mouvements en surface grâce à l'effet amplificateur du Doppler quand la distance entre l'observateur et le lander est petite.

abstract: Using a modified news media brand personality scale developed by Kim, Baek, and Martin (2010), this study measured the personalities of eight news media outlets and combined them into the same associative network with participants’ self-image via the Pathfinder tool (Schvaneveldt, Durso, & Dearholt, 1989). Using these networks, this study was able to both explore the personality associations of participants and observe if self-congruity, measured by the distance between the self-image node and a brand, is significantly related to participant preference for a brand. Self-congruity was found to be significantly related to preference. However, this relationship was mediated by participants’ fiscal and social orientation. Overall, using Pathfinder to generate associative networks and measure self-congruity could be a useful approach for understanding how people perceive and relate to different news media outlets. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Human Systems Engineering 2018

De nos jours, la complexité de la conception des circuits intégrés et du logiciel croit régulièrement, faisant croître le besoin de la vérification dans chaque étape du cycle de conception. Le prototypage matériel sur une plateforme multi-FPGA présente le meilleur compromis entre le temps de conception d'un circuit et le temps d'exécution d'une application par ce circuit. Pour l'implémenter sur cette plateforme, une opération de partitionnement est effectuée avant de créer des partitions capables de s'intégrer dans chaque FPGAPar conséquent, des signaux coupés à l'interface des partitions doivent passer d'un FPGA à un autre. Cependant, le nombre de traces physiques inter-FPGA est limité ce qui crée des problèmes de routabilité du circuit prototypé. Cette thèse touche surtout la partie post-partitionnement et s'intéresse au problème deroutage inter-FPGA. Ainsi, les principaux travaux de cette thèse sont les suivants :Dans un premier temps, nous nous intéressons au développement d'un générateur debenchmarks qui permet, à l'aide d'une description architecturale simple du benchmark, de générer un circuit modélisé avec le langage de description matérielle VHDL. Le générateur utilise un ensemble de composants ce qui donne aux benchmarks un aspect réel semblable à celui des circuits industriels. Ces circuits de tests nous serviront pour évalue rles performances des techniques développées dans cette thèse. Dans un deuxième temps, nous proposons de développer un outil spécifique qui intervient après le partitionnement pour prendre en compte la contrainte liée à la limitation du nombre d'interconnexion entre les FPGAs. Cet outil est basé sur une approcheitérative visant à réduire le taux de multiplexage (nombre de signaux qui partagent un seul _l physique). Le routage en lui même est assuré par l'algorithme de routage Pathfinder adapté. Cet algorithme servira comme point de départ pour les techniques de routage développées durant cette thèse. Des adaptations adéquates seront faites pour cibler un ré-seau de routage inter-FPGA. Dans une deuxième partie, nous essayons de déterminer la meilleure forme du signal à router (bi-points ou multi-points) ainsi que le graphe de routage utilisé. Pour cela, nous proposons des scénarios de test a_n de sélectionner les critères qui donnent la fréquence de fonctionnement la plus performante. Par la suite, nous présentons une description détaillée des IPs de multiplexage utilisés.Ces IPs sont insérés dans les parties émettrices et réceptrices d'un canal de communication. Ces IPs incluent des composants spécifiques appelés SERDES pour assurer la sérialisation/déserialisation des données à transmettre. L'insertion de ces composants peut créer des problèmes de routabilité intra-FPGA. Ainsi, dans une deuxième partie, nous proposons un algorithme de placement basé sur l'estimation de la congestion afin d'améliorer la routabilité du circuit. / This thesis mainly deals with the post-partitioning task and addresses the problem of inter-FPGA routing. Thus, the main contributions of this thesis are: Firstly, we focus on the development of a benchmark generator which, using a simple architectural description of the benchmark, generates a circuit modelled with the hardware description language VHDL. The generator uses a set of industrial components providing benchmarks with real behaviour similar to that of industrial circuits. These benchmarks are used to evaluate the performance of the techniques developed in this thesis. In a second step , we propose a speci_c tool which acts after the partitioning to handle the constraints related to the limited number of interconnection between FPGAs. This tool is based on an iterative approach and aims to reduce the multiplexing ratio (the number of signals that share the same physical wire). The routing task itself is operated by the Pathfinder routing algorithm which is widely used by academic and industrial researchers . This algorithm is used as a starting point for routing techniques developed in this thesis . In a second part , we try to identify the best shape of the routed signals and the appropriate routing graph. For this reason, we propose scenarios to select criteria that give the best system frequency. Finally, we present a detailed description of the architecture of the multiplexing IPs. These IPs are inserted in the transmitting and receiving FPGAs of a communication channel. These IPs include speci_c components called SERDES for serialization/deserialization of the data. The insertion of these IPs can create problems of intra-FPGA routability. Thus, in a second part, we propose a placement algorithm based on congestion estimation to improve the routability of the circuit.

Gravitational waves detection is a challenging scientific objective, faced by scientist in the last 100 years, when Einstein theorized their existence. Despite multiple attempts, it was only in 2016 that the first observation of a gravitational wave was officially announced. The observation, worth a Nobel Prize, was made possible thanks to a worldwide collaboration of three large ground-based detectors. When detecting gravitational waves from ground, the noisy environment limits the frequency bandwidth of the measurement. Thus, the type of cosmic events that are observable is also limited. For this reason, scientists are developing the first gravitational waves detector based in space, which is a much quieter environment, especially in the sub-Hertz bandwidth. The space-based detector is named laser interferometer space antenna (LISA) and its launch is planned for 2034. Due to the extreme complexity of the mission, involving several new technologies, a demonstrator of LISA was launched and operated between 2015 and 2017. The demonstrator mission, called LISA Pathfinder (LPF), had the objective to show the feasibility of the gravitational waves observation directly from space, by characterizing the noise affecting the relative acceleration of two free falling bodies in the milli-Hertz bandwidth. The mission was a success, proving the expected noise level is well below the minimum requirement. The free-falling bodies of LPF, called test masses (TMs), were hosted inside dedicated electrode housings (EH), located approximately 30 cm apart inside the spacecraft. When free falling, each TM stays approximately in the center of the EH, thus having milli-meter wide gaps within the housing walls. Due to the presence of such large gaps, the TMs were mechanically constrained by dedicated mechanisms (named CVM and GPRM) in order to avoid damaging the payload during the launch phase and were released into free fall once the spacecraft was in orbit. Prior to the start of the science phase, the injection procedure of the TMs into free-fall was started. Such a procedure brought each TM from being mechanically constrained to a state where it was electro-statically controlled in the center of the EH. Surprisingly, the mechanical separation of the release mechanism from the TM caused unexpected residual velocities, which were not controllable by the electrostatic control force responsible for capturing the TM once released. Therefore, both the TMs collided with either the surrounding housing walls or the release mechanism end effectors. It was possible to start the science phase by manually controlling the release mechanism adopting non-nominal injection strategies, which should not be applicable in LISA, due to the larger time lag. So, since any release mechanism malfunctioning may preclude the initialization of LISA science phase, the GPRM was extensively tested at the end of LPF, by means of a dedicated campaign of releases, involving several modifications to the nominal injection procedure. The data of the extended campaign are analyzed in this work and the main conclusion is that no optimal automated release strategy is found for the GPRM flight model as-built configuration that works reliably for both the TMs producing a nominal injection procedure. The analysis of the in-flight data is difficult since the gravitational referencesensor of LPF is not designed for such type of analysis. In particular, the low sampling frequency (i.e., 10 Hz) constitutes a limiting factor when detecting instantaneous events such as collisions of the TM. Despite the difficulties of extracting useful information on the TM residual velocity from the in-flight data, it is found that the main cause of the uncontrollable state of the released TM is the collision of the TM with the plunger, i.e., one of the end-effectors of the GPRM. It is shown that the impact is caused by the oscillation of the plunger or by the elastic relaxation of the initial preload force that holds the TM. At the end of the analysis, some improvements to the design of the release mechanism are brie y discussed, aimed at maximizing the probability of performing a successful injection procedure for the six TMs that will be used as sensing bodies in the LISA experiment.

LISA Pathfinder (LPF) has been a space mission led by ESA with NASA contributions, operating between March 2016 and July 2017. LPF demonstrated the feasibility of setting bodies in space along freely-falling geodetic trajectories, complying with the residual acceleration requirements of the future gravitational-wave observatory LISA. After operations, the LPF Collaboration pointed out that two phenomena, affecting the sub-mHz performance, were not completely understood and needed deeper analyses. This, despite performing better than requirements. Such phenomena are, namely, the low-frequency acceleration noise, and the sub-pN transient acceleration glitches. This thesis work focuses entirely on analyzing these observations, in view of the future mission LISA. Regarding the low-frequency sub-mHz noise, first, we make a preliminary analysis. We investigate its evolution in time, its properties, its stability, and its nature. We find that the low-frequency noise has had a remarkably stable behavior for nearly two years, but noise fluctuations are not compatible with an overall unique noise. We develop results on multivariate spectral estimation. Implementing results from complex-variable statistics, we show that cross-power spectral density matrices follow complex-Wishart probability distributions; we develop a Bayesian tool for the posterior inference of spectral parameters. We develop decorrelation tools to understand the measured noise's physical origin. In particular, we aim at finding, if any, correlations between the main acceleration measurement and synchronously measured time series. Then, we summarize the most recent understanding of the LPF acceleration performance. We expand previous analyses about the LPF outgassing environment, through the analysis of the white "Brownian" noise, and the long-term quasi-static acceleration drift observed on LPF, proposing a physical model. We extensively analyze the second phenomenon impacting low-frequency performances, the acceleration transient glitches. We show that LPF glitches spanned a wide range of amplitudes, transferring impulses between a few fN s, to some nN s, and showing durations ranging from a few seconds to hours. We show that LPF glitches fall into two rather distinct categories: fast transients in the interferometric motion readout and long-lasting sub-pN force transient events, acting on the test masses. We present an analysis of the physical and statistical properties of both, including a cross-investigation with other time series and other dynamical variables, and examine the possible sources of glitches, identifying the most likely ones.

In 2018, the City Architect's Office prepared an idea urban design competition that outlined the direction of the overall solution of Mendl Square. The winning proposal is based on an overall change in transport organisation. The intention was therefore to plan the revitalization at the same time as the planned repair of the steam pipe, which will take place from April to September 2021. And as if fate wanted it 2021 is the anniversary of 200 years since J. G. Mendel – the founder of genetics, after whom the square is named. The aim of revitalization is to minimize the unattractiveness and dysfunction of the space. In this way, significantly change the comfortable conditions of the transfer node. The aim of this thesis is to break down critical points from the point of view of pedestrian traffic and subsequently to establish effective steps leading to their optimisation. The thesis also deals with the new Smart City field and its use for the collection of experimental data that could be used to improve input data in the creation of numerical models of public spaces.

This thesis deals with the application of bounded model checking method for self-healing assurance of concurrency related problems. The self-healing is currently interested in the Java programming language. Therefore, it concetrate mainly on the model checker Java PathFinder which is built for handling Java programs. The verification method is implemented like the Record&Replay trace strategy for navigation through a state space and performance bounded model checking from reached state through the use of Record&Replay trace strategy. Java PathFinder was extended by new moduls and interfaces in order to perform the bounded model checking for self-healing assurance. Bounded model checking is applied at the neighbourhood of self-healing.