Software specification by scenarios has grown with the popularity of object-oriented software engineering. Scenarios such as use cases provide a bridge from the informal descriptions gathered from user interviews toward the more formal software model. Yet, practitioners still request more explicit methodological guidance and more adequate tool support for authoring quality scenarios. Researchers have been seeking a means to overcome the limitations of use cases such as partialness and incompleteness. One of such research streams is an extension of scenarios with more formal representation schemes. This approach may reduce incompleteness of scenarios; however, applicability of the approach to practice remains open to discussion, considering that the current usage of formal scenario representations is very low. This research takes software reuse approach to assist scenario-building process. In the proposed approach, a software analyst defines an initial description of a scenario. An automated tool support then presents a set of similar use cases retrieved from a database of use cases. The analyst adapts a retrieved use case to the current purpose. This dissertation research is expected to have unique contributions to research and practice. The proposed automated scenario reuse provides a viable solution to guide scenario-authoring process without imposing an additional burden of adding formal annotations to system specifications on system analysts. By adopting a machinelearning algorithm based on relational structure matching, the scenario reuse places more focus on UML semantics, relational information among UML elements rather than syntactic attributes of scenarios or natural language descriptions. In addition, the proposed scenario reuse can be augmented with other approaches and design artifacts, depending on customized needs in a given context of problem domains. In terms of research methodology, this dissertation research takes four steps. First, I develop prototype software for the automated tool support. It can be incorporated into a CASE tool as an add-in program. Second, preliminary case studies are taken to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed approach. Third, expert opinions are collected regarding the effectiveness and efficiency of the tool support. Finally, a lab experiment and a free simulation experiment are conducted for more rigorous empirical validation.

Abstract A PROCESS TO REUSE EXPERIENCES VIA NARRATIVES AMONG SOFTWARE PROJECT MANAGERS By STACIE CLARK PETTER APRIL, 2006 Committee Chair: Dr. Vijay Vaishnavi Major Department: Computer Information Systems Software project management is a complex process requiring extensive planning, effective decision-making, and proper monitoring throughout the course of a project. Unfortunately, software project managers rarely capture and reuse the knowledge gained during a project on subsequent projects. To enable the repetition of prior successes and avoidance of previous mistakes, I propose that software project managers can improve their management abilities by reusing their own and others’ past experiences with written narratives. I use multiple methodologies – including literature review, grounded theory, design science research, and experimentation – to create a process for software project managers to reuse knowledge gained through experiences on software projects. In the literature review, I examine relevant research areas to inspire ideas on how to reuse knowledge via written narratives in software project management. Interviews with software project managers, analyzed using grounded theory, provide insight into the current challenges of reusing knowledge during a project. I leverage design science research methodology to develop a process of experience reuse that incorporates narratives and wikis to enable software project managers to share their experiences using written narratives. Experimentation evaluates whether the process developed using the design science research methodology improves the current knowledge reuse practices of software project managers.

Per al càlcul de la il·luminació global per a la síntesi d'imatges d'escenaris virtuals s'usen mètodes físicament acurats com a radiositat o el ray-tracing. Aquests mètodes són molt potents i capaços de generar imatges de gran realisme, però són molt costosos. A aquesta tesi presenta algunes tècniques per simular i/o accelerar el càlcul de la il·luminació global. La tècnica de les obscurances es basa en la suposició que com més amagat és un punt a l'escena, més fosc s'ha de veure. Es calcula analitzant l'entorn geomètric del punt i ens dóna un valor per a la seva il·luminació indirecta, que no és físicament acurat, però sí aparentment realista.Aquesta tècnica es millora per a entorns en temps real com els videojocs. S'aplica també a entorns de ray-tracing per a la generació d'imatges realistes. En aquest context, el càlcul de seqüències de frames per a l'animació de llums i càmeres s'accelera enormement reusant informació entre frames.Les obscurances serveixen per a simular la il·luminació indirecta d'una escena. La llum directa es calcula apart i de manera independent. El desacoblament de la llum directa i la indirecta és una gran avantatge, i en treurem profit. Podem afegir fàcilment l'efecte de coloració entre objectes sense afegir temps de càlcul. Una altra avantatge és que per calcular les obscurances només hem d'analitzar un entorn limitat al voltant del punt.Per escenes virtuals difuses, la radiositat es pot precalcular i l'escena es pot navegar amb apariència realista, però si un objecte de l'escena es mou en un entorn dinàmic en temps real, com un videojoc, el recàlcul de la il·luminació global de l'escena és prohibitiu. Com les obscurances es calculen en un entorn limitat, es poden recalcular en temps real per a l'entorn de l'objecte que es mou a cada frame i encara aconseguir temps real.A més, podem fer servir les obscurances per a calcular imatges de gran qualitat, o per seqüències d'imatges per una animació, com en el ray-tracing. Això ens permet tractar materials no difusos i investigar l'ús de tècniques normalment difuses com les obscurances en entorns generals. Quan la càmera està estàtica, l'ús d'animació de llum només afecta la il·luminació directa, i si usem obscurances per a la llum indirecta, gràcies al seu desacoblament, el càlcul de sèries de frames per a una animació és molt ràpid. El següent pas és afegir animació de càmera, reusant els valors de les obscurances entre frames. Aquesta última tècnica de reús d'informació de la il·luminació del punt d'impacte entre frames la podem usar per a tècniques acurades d'il·luminació global com el path-tracing, i nosaltres estudiem com reusar aquesta informació de manera no esbiaixada. A més, estudiem diferents tècniques de mostreig per a la semi-esfera, i les obscurances es calculen amb una nova tècnica, aplicant depth peeling amb GPU. / To compute global illumination solutions for rendering virtual scenes, physically accurate methods based on radiosity or ray-tracing are usually employed. These methods, though powerful and capable of generating images with high realism, are very costly. In this thesis, some techniques to simulate and/or accelerate the computation of global illumination are studied. The obscurances technique is based on the supposition that the more occluded is a point in the scene, the darker it will appear. It is computed by analyzing the geometric environment of the point and gives a value for the indirect illumination for the point that is, though not physically accurate, visually realistic. This technique is enhanced and improved in real-time environments as videogames. It is also applied to ray-tracing frameworks to generate realistic images. In this last context, sequences of frames for animation of lights and cameras are dramatically accelerated by reusing information between frames.The obscurances are computed to simulate the indirect illumination of a scene. The direct lighting is computed apart and in an independent way. The decoupling of direct and indirect lighting is a big advantage, and we will take profit from this. We can easily add color bleeding effects without adding computation time. Another advantage is that to compute the obscurances we only need to analyze a limited environment around the point. For diffuse virtual scenes, the radiosity can be precomputed and we can navigate the scene with a realistic appearance. But when a small object moves in a dynamic real-time virtual environment, as a videogame, the recomputation of the global illumination of the scene is prohibitive. Thanks to the limited reach of the obscurance computation, we can recompute the obscurances only for the limited environment of the moving object for every frame and still have real-time frame rates. Obscurances can also be used to compute high quality images, or sequences of images for an animation, in a ray-tracing-like. This allows us to deal with non-diffuse materials and to research the use of a commonly diffuse technique as obscurances in general environments. For static cameras, using light animation only affects to direct lighting, and if we use obscurances for the indirect lighting, thanks to the decoupling of direct and indirect illumination, the computation of a series of frames for the animation is very fast. The next step is to add camera animation, reusing the obscurances results between frames. Using this last technique of reusing the illumination of the hit points between frames for a true global illumination technique as path tracing, we study how we can reuse this information in an unbiased way. Besides, a study of different sampling techniques for the hemisphere is made, obscurances are computed with the depth-peeling technique and using GPU.

The debate about the financial feasibility of adaptive reuse is high among investors, planners, policy makers and heritage advocates. The old argument that it is more profitable to demolish the old brick box and replace it with a new structure have left the streets of many cities across North America and Europe with abandoned and neglected sites. Traditionally, investors and owners of such properties have shown minimal interest in investing in the rehabilitation and reuse of these buildings. Still, a growing number of successful projects featuring innovative building renovation and reuse are emerging across the province. Governments at all levels have in fact started implementing a wide range of programs and policies to stimulate private investment in old, abandoned and underutilized buildings. Such policies have led to several innovative and successful stories across the province. However, few jurisdictions have taken full advantage of the potential economic, social, and environmental opportunities that these types of investments entail. This study examines, from a private sector perspective, the economic costs and benefits of adaptive reuse in Ontario, and compares it with other types of new construction development scenarios with an aim to determine the characteristics of success. It investigates the potential effectiveness of various government policies and programs designed to stimulate investment in adaptive reuse in Ontario by conducting financial comparisons and analyses with other types of hypothetical new construction development options.

Introduction: Preventing healthcare professionals from acquiring occupational infectious diseases is very important in maintaining healthcare delivery systems. For protection in the work place, healthcare professionals use PPE which helps prevent exposure to pathogens during patient care. N95 respirators protect healthcare workers against airborne pathogens that are known to be associated with different respiratory diseases. Since previous studies have shown that viruses can survive on PPE surfaces, it is important to examine the survival of viruses on respirators to determine if reuse of the same N95 respirator is possible when PPE shortages occur. Goal: The goal of this research is to determine the inactivation of bacteriophage Φ6 on the surface of N95 respirators at ambient temperature and two different relative humidity levels, 40 and 60%. Result: The linear regression showed that rate of inactivation was much lower in 40% than 60% RH (40%: Slope= -0.046± 0.007040; 60%: Slope= -0.20± 0.006136). Over 24 hours, there was a ~1 Log10 reduction in virus at 20°C and 40% RH, while there was a ~4 Log10 reduction at 20°C and 60% RH. Within the timeframe of a single patient encounter, there was a <0.02 Log10 reduction in virus at 40% RH and a <0.1 Log10 reduction at 60% RH. Conclusion: Bacteriophage Φ6 survives on N95 respirators for up to 24 hours at ambient temperature and 40 and 60% relative humidity levels. Inactivation rate was lower in 40% than 60% RH. The results showed that enveloped viruses survive on the surface of N95 respirators for longer than a single patient encounter. Therefore, this should be taken into consideration when doing a risk assessment of reusing N95 respirators when shortages occur.

No description available.

The risk of the Iraq’s marshlands disappearing is still high unless serious measures are adopted. Sewage discharge and irrigation-water pressure, compounded by the effects of climate changes and the extent of the planned dam construction in upstream countries, make this event more likely. Most of the marshlands’ inhabitants (Marsh Arabs) are suffering from lack of access to safe, clean water and lack of sanitation and are reluctant to look for better places to live and work. Constructed wetlands are among the best alternatives to solve their problems. The application of constructed wetlands to meet more stringent standards for wastewater reuse in agriculture contributes to mitigating the wastewater impact and irrigation pressure on the marshland ecosystem. It is here proposed that a 3.6 ha free-surface flow wetland  could manage the more stringent standard for reuse (15 mg/l) for BOD5 and TSS. A monitoring programme should nevertheless be associated with this kind of project to minimize health risks that may arise as a result of implementation. Despite the absence of studies that deal with wastewater reuse in irrigation projects at the national level (in Iraq), similar studies worldwide provide evidence of reuse possibilities. Furthermore, a performance requirements framework for wastewater reuse in irrigation projects such as the one suggested by Biswas, draws an approach to meet sustainable development indicators and would likely contribute to support and encourage the Marsh Arabs to settle back in their own areas.

The debate about the financial feasibility of adaptive reuse is high among investors, planners, policy makers and heritage advocates. The old argument that it is more profitable to demolish the old brick box and replace it with a new structure have left the streets of many cities across North America and Europe with abandoned and neglected sites. Traditionally, investors and owners of such properties have shown minimal interest in investing in the rehabilitation and reuse of these buildings. Still, a growing number of successful projects featuring innovative building renovation and reuse are emerging across the province. Governments at all levels have in fact started implementing a wide range of programs and policies to stimulate private investment in old, abandoned and underutilized buildings. Such policies have led to several innovative and successful stories across the province. However, few jurisdictions have taken full advantage of the potential economic, social, and environmental opportunities that these types of investments entail. This study examines, from a private sector perspective, the economic costs and benefits of adaptive reuse in Ontario, and compares it with other types of new construction development scenarios with an aim to determine the characteristics of success. It investigates the potential effectiveness of various government policies and programs designed to stimulate investment in adaptive reuse in Ontario by conducting financial comparisons and analyses with other types of hypothetical new construction development options.

Recycle/reuse networks are commonly used in industrial facilities to conserve natural resources, reduce environmental impact, and improve process economics. The design of these networks is a challenging task because of the numerous possibilities of assigning stream (process sources) to units that may potentially employ them (process sinks). Additionally, several fresh streams with different qualities and costs may be used to supplement the recycle of process streams. The selection of the type and flow of these fresh resources is an important step in the design of the recycle/reuse networks. This work introduces systematic approaches to address two new categories in the design of recycle/reuse networks: (a) The incorporation of thermal effects in the network. Two new aspects are introduced: heat of mixing of process sources and temperature constraints imposed on the feed to the process sinks iv (b) Dealing with variation in process sources. Two types of source variability are addressed: flowrate and composition For networks with thermal effects, an assignment optimization formulation is developed. Depending on the functional form of the heat of mixing, the formulation may be a linear or a nonlinear program. The solution of this program provides optimum flowrates of the fresh streams as well as the segregation, mixing, and allocation of the process sources to sinks. For networks with variable sources, a computer code is developed to solve the problem. It is based on discretizing the search space and using the concept of "floating pinch" to insure solution feasibility and optimal targets. Case studies are solved to illustrate the applicability of the new approaches.

Web-based user interfaces are used widely. They are replacing conventional desktop-based user interfaces in many domains and are emerging as front-ends for online businesses. The technologies for web user interfaces have advanced considerably to support high-quality user interfaces. However, the usability of web interfaces continues to be an issue. We still encounter web forms where basic interactive features are missing or work unexpectedly. User interface is a costly and error-prone area of software construction. This is particularly true for web user interfaces. They are typically implemented with fewer reusable components on programmers' toolboxes than conventional user interfaces built using user interface frameworks such as Windows Forms, Cocoa, and Qt. Consequently, web interface programmers tend to struggle with low productivity, or low quality and high defect rates. This thesis focuses on property models, a declarative approach to programming user interfaces. In this approach, common user interface behaviors are automatically derived from the specifications of the data manipulated by user interfaces. The approach aims to reuse user interface algorithms that are common across interfaces and allow the programmers to focus on application-specific concerns. This thesis work is a part of project "hotdrink," a JavaScript implementation of the property model system, which has the goal of providing the benefits of property models for web interfaces. This thesis builds on previous work on property models, and adds to it three reusable help and convenience features, which can be especially useful for web forms. In particular, this thesis describes the generic mechanisms of the following user interface features: (1) validating data coming from a user and presenting useful messages that help the user to fix errors, (2) controlling the flow of data through "pinning," and (3) canceling the user's previous actions through undoing. The main contributions of the thesis are the mechanisms and the software architecture that enable implementing these behaviors in a reusable manner. This thesis also presents several examples to illustrate the benefits of the proposed mechanisms.