abstract: Scholars have called for better understanding of the generative process, a process underlying the creation of urban form that often has positive qualities such as coherence, human scale, flexibility, and adaptability. The generative process is incremental and continually refined, producing urban settlements that respond to feedback. Redefining the pattern language as a system of knowledge generation, and a method to acquire essential information and re-create historical contexts, this dissertation aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the generative process and the corresponding urban codes of traditional cities. The dissertation consists of three complete yet interconnecting articles. The first article examines the structural components of the generative process— place-based norms and urban codes—and their roles in generative development. Two traditions of urbanism with distinctive and coherent forms and different levels of imposed regulations were investigated: medieval European and Arabic-Islamic. The study finds that place-based norms are the core of any generative process. Whenever written codes do not control urban space, these norms emerge to operationalize the building process. The second article investigates the generative process through the operationality of patterns, properties, and a sequence in the creation of the traditional form of the town of Hoian, Vietnam. The recurrence of each property and the pattern of its repetition in urban elements are investigated to assess the impact of generative forces on the urban form of Hoian. Fifteen of Alexander’s properties and ten of Lynch’s qualities were also combined into a set of twenty properties of urban elements. Finally, the third article observes and then explores the unfolding of the generative process using the virtual online platform OpenSim, thereby verifying the operationality of the generative process revealed in the previous two articles. The paper substantiates the proposition that the generative system includes patterns and urban properties that can serve as rules for directing urban growth. These rules build diverse and unified urban settlements. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Geography 2015

The following dissertation will consider the contemporary education of natural languages and explore its influences on designed space in an urban environment. The concept of weaving cultures together by using languages will be investigated in order to produce an architectural intervention of amalgamated infill and voids. The structure of natural languages willl be used as a departure point to propose a public facility on the University of Pretoria's main campus. This facility will fit into a network of public gathering spaces proposed in the area, and will be in the form of an interactive learning and information space that will provide the users with an opportunity to engage in intercultural cross pollination in various languages. The site was selected for its ability to enable the opportunity for social interaction and design exploration, and it is significantly located at a point where two major urban grid patterns touch each other. The proposed design celebrates this concept of convergence in which voids between cultures are filled with understanding. The success of the proposed project will depend on the ability of the language learning centre to integrate with the urban fabric and most importantly, facilitate the education of language, communication and cultural interaction. / Dissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Architecture / unrestricted

Networking protocols have been developed throughout time following layered architectures such as the Open Systems Interconnection model and the Internet model. These protocols are grouped in the Internet protocol suite. Most developers do not deal with low-level protocols, instead they design application-level protocols on top of the low-level protocol. Although each application-level protocol is different, there is commonality among them and developers can apply lessons learned from one protocol to the design of new ones. Design patterns can help by gathering and sharing proven and reusable solution to common, reoccurring design problems. The Application-level Communication Protocols Design Patterns language captures this knowledge about application-level protocol design, so developers can create better, more fitting protocols base on these common and well proven solutions. Another aspect of contemporary development technics is the need of distribution of software artifacts. Most of the development companies have started using Cloud Computing services to overcome this need; either public or private clouds are widely used. Future developers need to manage this technology infrastructure, software, and platform as services. These two aspects, communication protocols design and cloud computing represent an opportunity to contribute to the software development community and to the software engineering education curriculum. The Application-level Communication Protocols Design Patterns language aims to help solve communication software design. The use of cloud computing in programming assignments targets on a positive influence on improving the Analysis to Reuse skills of students of computer science careers.

No description available.

No description available.

The thesis presents a model, suitable for the design of any type of qualification in integrative eGovernment education. The integrative approach combines education of adult learners and students and promotes international cooperation.

The thesis presents a model, suitable for the design of any type of qualification in integrative eGovernment education. The integrative approach combines education of adult learners and students and promotes international cooperation.

The development and use of computational applications to support teaching and learning, together with the evolution of mobile computing, have contributed significantly to the establishment of a new learning modality known as mobile learning. Despite the benefits and facilities offered by educational applications, some problems and issues they present must be addressed. Challenges associated with mobile learning are not limited to developmental aspects or technologies. We should also consider the pedagogical aspects of this kind of application. When dealing with domain-specific software, we must be concerned about domain requirements. Therefore, it is important to have expert knowledge in the requirements engineering team and, in the case of mobile learning applications projects, such knowledge come from educators, teachers and tutors. However, capturing and transferring tacit knowledge are not trivial tasks and a supporting mechanism that guides the requirements elicitation phase in mobile learning applications projects would be of major importance. Pattern languages as a method to describe tacit knowledge is acknowledged and could be used as a supporting mechanism. Patterns constitute a mechanism for capturing domain experience and knowledge to allow such experience and knowledge to be reapplied when a new problem is encountered. Similarly, pedagogical patterns try to capture expert knowledge of the practice of teaching and learning. Aiming to solve, or at least diminish, the problems associated with mobile learning and due the lack of pedagogical patterns for this purpose, this work aims to create a pedagogical pattern language to assist the requirements elicitation phase of mobile learning applications projects. In this context, a pedagogical pattern language, named MLearning-PL, was created. It is composed of 14 patterns and focuses on assisting in the definition of mobile applications in order to keep learners motivated and committed to using such applications, considering their different learning styles and an effective knowledge acquisition. Experimental studies comparing MLearning-PL to an ad hoc approach in a pedagogical problem resolution scenario were conducted. The results obtained provided preliminary evidences of the applicability, effectiveness and efficiency of MLearning-PL. / O desenvolvimento e a utilização de aplicações computacionais como apoio ao ensino e aprendizagem, aliados à evolução da computação móvel, tem contribuído significativamente para o estabelecimento de uma nova modalidade de ensino conhecida como aprendizagem móvel. Neste cenário, as aplicações educacionais existentes, mesmo possuindo diversos benefícios e facilidades, apresentam problemas e desafios. Os desafios associados à aprendizagem móvel não se limitam a aspectos de desenvolvimento ou tecnologias. Deve-se, também, considerar os aspectos pedagógicos deste tipo de aplicação. Ao lidar com software específico de determinado domínio, deve-se considerar os requisitos de tal domínio. Portanto, é importante ter conhecimento especializado na equipe de engenharia de requisitos e, no caso de projetos de aplicativos de aprendizagem móvel, esse conhecimento é proveniente de educadores, professores e tutores. No entanto, capturar e transferir o conhecimento tácito não é uma tarefa trivial e um mecanismo de apoio para orientar a fase de elicitação de requisitos em projetos de aplicativos de aprendizagem móvel seria de suma importância. As linguagens de padrões são reconhecidas como método para descrever o conhecimento tácito e podem ser usadas como mecanismo de apoio. Os padrões são um mecanismo para capturar a experiência e o conhecimento do domínio para permitir que ele seja reaplicado quando um novo problema for encontrado. Da mesma forma, os padrões pedagógicos tentam capturar o conhecimento especializado da prática do ensino e da aprendizagem. Com o objetivo de resolver, ou pelo menos minimizar, os problemas associados à aprendizagem móvel e devido à falta de padrões pedagógicos para este propósito, este trabalho tem como objetivo criar uma linguagem de padrões pedagógicos para auxiliar na fase de elicitação de requisitos dos projetos de aplicações de aprendizagem móvel. Neste contexto, foi criada uma linguagem de padrões pedagógicos, denominada MLearning-PL, composta por 14 padrões e cujo foco é auxiliar na definição de aplicativos móveis de maneira a manter os apredizes motivados e comprometidos ao usar tais aplicativos, considerando seus diferentes estilos de aprendizagem e uma aquisição de conhecimento efetiva. Estudos experimentais comparando a MLearning- PL a uma abordagem ad hoc em um cenário de resolução de problemas pedagógicos foram realizados. Os resultados obtidos forneceram evidências preliminares a respeito da aplicabilidade, eficácia e eficiência da MLearning-PL.

A necessidade de evolução de sistemas legados tem aumentado significativamente com o surgimento de novas tecnologias. Para apoiar essa tendência, diversos métodos de reengenharia têm sido propostos. No entanto, poucos possuem apoio computacional efetivo, alguns utilizam padrões de projeto ou padrões específicos de reengenharia, e nenhum utiliza framework baseado em linguagem de padrões. Este trabalho está inserido no domínio de Sistemas de Informação. Propõe a elaboração de um arcabouço de reengenharia ágil baseado em framework, que realiza a engenharia reversa do sistema legado com o apoio de linguagem de padrões de análise, fornecendo entendimento e documentação necessários para instanciar o framework. O entendimento do sistema legado também é apoiado pela sua execução, por meio de casos de teste. Esses casos de teste são utilizados posteriormente para validar o sistema alvo. O framework, cuja construção é baseada em linguagem de padrões, é utilizado para obter o projeto e a implementação do sistema alvo. Para permitir a reengenharia com o apoio do arcabouço definido, um processo ágil de reengenharia foi criado. Como no desenvolvimento de software, grande parte do tempo da reengenharia é despendido com atividades de VV&T. Para minimizar esse problema, uma abordagem de reúso de teste é proposta. Essa abordagem agrega recursos de teste aos padrões da linguagem de padrões de análise, permitindo o reúso, não somente das soluções de análise, como também dos recursos de testes associados. O uso de framework na reengenharia de software colabora para a sua evolução, pois o domínio ao qual pertence pode evoluir, já que nem todos os requisitos do domínio do framework podem ter sido elicitados durante o seu desenvolvimento. Assim, nesta tese é proposto também um processo de evolução de frameworks de aplicação. Os processos e a abordagem propostos são associados ao arcabouço definido para apoiar sua efetividade. Além disso, para avaliar o processo ágil de reengenharia, que fornece reúso em diversos níveis de abstração, um pacote de experimentação também é parcialmente definido. Estudos de caso e exemplos de uso foram conduzidos com os produtos definidos. Ressalta-se que outros estudos devem ser conduzidos para permitir a determinação de resultados com significância estatística. / The need to evolve legacy systems has increased significantly with the advent of new technologies. To support this tendency, several reengineering methods have been proposed. However, few have effective computing support, some use design patterns or reengineering specific patterns and none use pattern language-based frameworks. This thesis's theme belongs to the Information Systems domain. An agile framework based reengineering infrastructure is proposed for the legacy system reverse engineering with the support of an analysis pattern language; also provided the understanding and documentation necessary for framework instantiation. The legacy system understanding is also supported by its execution with test cases. These are also subsequently used to validate the target system. The framework, whose construction is based on the analysis pattern language, is used to obtain the target system design and implementation. To allow the reengineering with the infrastructure support, an agile reengineering process has been created. As in software development, a large portion of the reengineering time is spent with VV&T activities. To minimize this problem, a testing reuse approach is proposed in this thesis. This approach aggregates test resources to the patterns of the analysis pattern language allowing reuse, not only of the analysis solutions, but also of the associated test resources. The framework used in software reengineering contributes to its evolution, as the domain to which they belong may evolve, and some of the framework domain requirements might not have been elicited during its development. Thus, in this thesis, a process for application framework evolution is also proposed. The processes and the approach are associated to the infrastructure defined to support its effectiveness. Furthermore, to evaluate the agile reengineering process that provides reuse at several abstraction levels, an experimentation package is also partially defined. Case studies and examples of use have been conducted with the products defined. We stress that other studies have to be done to enable the determination of results with statistical significance.

This thesis describes a methodology presented in a pattern language for design of questionnaire / survey information systems. It is intended to be used by professional programmers with negligible experience in the domain of questionnaire / survey software. A system of individual and discrete design patterns of various types is interconnected by varying relations enabling the user to navigate effortlessly and to implement a customizable level of expertise contained within the language. The design patterns contain expert knowledge about construction and contents of a universal high-end questionnaire / survey information system. Data structures, graphical user interface and psychological ramifications of questions’ formulations are discussed in detail. The descriptions of two different prototypes of information systems are supplied. They were created using the expertise of the pattern language and serve as a proof of eligibility for it. The innovation in the thesis is driven by the absence of pattern language for questionnaire design, usage of various types of design patterns / relations in the created language and the very design of universal metadata-based questionnaire information system described in the created language.