<p>Quality has many definitions, and even more models and methods for assurance and evaluation associated with it. After an overview of existing concepts, we provide a comprehensive methodology for evaluating the quality of a software product, complete with methods for model structure and parameter elicitation and a way for mapping the quantitative results obtained from the evaluation to qualitative rankings of product characteristics (e.g. Poor, Good, Excellent). This is complemented with a compendium of quality characteristics and metrics associated with them and a generic quality model combining the works of McCall and Boehm with the international standard for software product quality ISO/IEC 9126-1. A discussion of the advantages that the use of Bayesian Belief Networks (BBNs) can provide in this framework is also offered, as well as a method for transforming quality models to a form suited for BBN use. The methodology has been applied to a case study.</p> / Master of Science (MS)

<p>New Nd isotopic data is presented, with previously published Nd model ages, to create a crustal formation age map that demonstrates the extent of crustal terranes of different ages within the Grenville Province in southeastern Labrador. An unpublished Nd data set from C. Gower was used for comparison with the data from this study. The previous UPb data has provided ages that define the geological history of southeast Labrador through four major orogenic events: the Makkovik orogeny (1860-1790 Ma), the Labradorian orogeny (1710-1600 Ma), the Pinwarian (1520-1460 Ma) and the Grenville orogeny (1085-985 Ma) (Gower, 2008). However, the high-grade metamorphism as a result of the Grenville orogeny has obscured the true age of the crustal material that formed the Grenville Province. The crustal formation ages detelmined through Nd analysis can distinguish boundaries between crustal terranes, even in areas with a complex geological history. <br />Previous Nd isotopic data included both the Grenville Province to the south, and the Paleoproterozoic Makkovik Province to the north, and demonstrated that older Nd values were located farther south than previously established but were unsuccessful in determining a crustal terrane boundary. <br />The data from this study provided depleted Mantle model (T DM) age ranges that overlapped from the Hawke River, Lake Melville and Mealy Mountains terranes which suggested that they are representative of one crustal block, which was renamed the Caliwright terrane. This terrane presented an age range of 1.87-1.94 Ga, which may reflect mixing between Pre-Labradorian and Labradorian magmatism. The data from Gower which included the Groswater Bay telTane, displayed a similar age range of 1.90 to 1.97 Ga, also indicating a single crustal source. In contrast, the Pinware terrane falls into two categories in which the northerly portion has Nd signatures similar to those of the Cartwright terrane, and the southern portion has ages indicating a juvenile Labradorian source. A mean Nd model age of 1.77 Ga was recorded for this data set as well as the data from Gower. Therefore the Pinware terrane was divided into north and south domains based on a proposed suture boundary between Gilbeli River and Red Bay. The data presented suggests that the original edge of the Makkovik continental margin passed just north of Red Bay and trends westwards into the interior of southern Labrador. I expect that relatively homogeneous Nd isotope signatures are located to the south of this boundary, whereas heterogeneous signatures are expected to the north.</p> / Master of Science (MS)

<p>p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.5px Times}</p> <p>Most often the development of human-computer interfaces has been driven by the technology available at the time, and not by human factor issues. The popular 2D mouse is such a device. Through this effort we have developed an input pointing device which builds on tools and skills that humans have acquired through evolution and experience.</p> <p>Major trends of graphical input apparatus have gone from indirect computer input (mouse or trackball) to direct input (tablet and touch screen). The current and future trends are more towards 3D interaction and ubiquitous input concepts. Our current effort with the rpen falls somewhere in between. \iVhile it is desirable to take advantage of a mouse's device acquisition technique, we need the rpen to be a direct and more natural interactive input device. At the same time, the rpen is a 3D spatial input device, seeking to take advantage of the human knowledge and skills, naturally.</p> <p>The rpen is implemented on a Linux platform with the help of a kernel level p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.5px Times}</p> <p>device driver. The device uses an alternating current, electromagnetic motion</p> <p>tracker to provide six degrees-of-freedom absolute data. It also uses filtering and</p> <p>smoothing techniques to reduce the effects of electromagnetic distortions in the</p> <p>sensed data.</p> <p>With the rpen, a user can define a touch screen anywhere. The touch screen can be of any size and of any orientation, horizontal, vertical or tilted. A drafting board, drawing board or sketch board can be a touch sensitive surface. The basic concept of the rpen is implemented in software and is not dependent on the physical sensor used. So, multiple input modes can be implemented through the software interface and the rpen can switch between these modes seamlessly.</p> <p>This thesis presents a new 3D pointing device, the rpen, capable of doing both 2D and 3D interaction. As a byproduct of the current study it has beendetermined that the electromagnetic tracker is not suited to function as a motion tracker for any rpen-like generic pointing device.</p> / Master of Science (MS)

<p>p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.5px Times}</p> <p>Feature models are commonly used to capture the commonalities and the variability of product families. There are several feature modelling notations that correspondingly depict the concepts of feature modelling techniques. Therefore, the tools based on them reflect this diversity in the notations used and the fuzziness of the concepts adopted.</p> <p>The thesis discusses the design and the construction of a tool that is based on Product-Families Algebra (PFA) and on Binary Decision Diagrams (BDD). The first brings the mathematical formalism to the specifications of product families and the mathematical theory that enables calculations on feature-models. The second brings efficient algorithms in time and in space. Hence, the tool allows several algebraic manipulations of feature models that are specified within the language of PFA. We coined this tool Jory.</p> <p>The main contribution of the thesis is the design of the tool, and the implementation of four layers of its architectural design. As well, the thesis gives an implementation of multi-sets and the operations on them using BDDs.</p> <p>Several case studies are presented and used in the validation of the tool. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.5px Times}</p> / Master of Science (MS)

<p>The hydraulic conductivity of a groundwater system can possess high spatial and temporal variability in the presence of an entrapped air phase (quasi -saturated soils) which is a key factor in controlling hydraulic behaviour. Previous studies have provided evidence of reduced hydraulic conductivity caused by entrapped air; however, these did not address the dynamic behaviour of the entrapped gaseous phase. In this study, the hypothesis that the decreases in hydraulic conductivity caused by entrapped air are sensitive to fluctuations in the water table was tested using laboratory experiments. The effects of applying increasing confining pressures (water table elevation) on the nature of entrapped air and its effects on quasi-saturated hydraulic conductivity was investigated for a range of sands and for air entrapment by both upward water flow and ponded infiltration (downward flow). Laboratory experiments were conducted using the constant flux method on saturated/ quasi-saturated horizontally positioned sand columns using 1% bleach as the solution. Induced pressures ranged from 0 to 250 cm with changes in hydraulic conductivity calculated using collected timed-interval outflow discharge and the pressure gradient measured by a differential pressure transducer. The sand core was also instrumented to measure volumetric moisture (or air) content with time domain reflectometry (TDR) probes. Results show that a 250-cm increase in water pressure above atmospheric pressure induced changes in the volume of entrapped gas according to the ideal gas law indicating the primary and tertiary roles played by air phase compression and capillary pressure, respectively. The reduction in air content at the 250-cm pressure increased the quasi-saturated hydraulic conductivity by a factor of 1.20 to 1.64. The results were fitted to the van Genuchten (1980) and Faybishenko (1995) functions for unsaturated and quasi-saturated hydraulic conductivity, respectively. The changes in quasi-saturated hydraulic conductivity due to changes in air content are expected to ubiquitously occur in the presence of a fluctuating water table. Thus the understanding of this fundamental mechanism and its incorporation into cunent general models of flow and transport will aid in better understanding the unique role of entrapped air in groundwater systems.</p> / Master of Science (MS)

<p>p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Times}</p> <p>Software certification is becoming a reasonable expectation from the ever growing number of software users. The process of software certification could be described as a process in which an auditing body ensures that the product conforms to certain requirements. The certification models which were analyzed included product based, component based and model based. With our results and findings we have developed a proof of concept context aware framework for product based software certification. The proposed product based software certification process is structured on component based certification principals, while the general core of the certification process is composed from known software certification models.</p> <p>The framework was developed within an OSGi (Open Service Gateway initiative) environment which is being managed by a collection of automation scripts. The certification models which we reviewed did not represent their knowledge formally and did not have any mechanisms to derive indirect knowledge. To address this issue, we have developed an upper ontology to formally model higher level concepts for the certification, and described a general metric for assigning consistent weights to ontology classes. The framework provides a dynamic environment for the certification process by integrating development and certification domains with the help of ontology. Its main objective is to allow the certification process to be able to adjust to ever changing certification demands and extend more easily into different domains.</p> <p>The developed ontology can maintain many properties and attributes, but for some of these the measuring mechanism are unknown. Therefore, we have described the process on how to derive software metrics for measurable and subjective attributes which can be used to evaluate product, processes and resources. In conclusion, we have outlined some areas for future research.</p> / Master of Science (MS)

<p>Version control systems are widely used to manage collections of files and directories, along with changes made to them over their lifetime. Any previously checked in version of a file is recoverable at any time from the repository. They allow people to work on the same files in a decentralized and concurrent way, while consistently managing and integrating changes.<br /> In this thesis we develop a subset of the SVN and CVS version control systems from specifications using Atelier B 4. Both of these systems are feature rich, widely used in cross-platform environments and representative of their class of file based extensional version control systems. Support for abstract data types like sets and refinement is well suited to the task. The most commonly used features such as Add, Check-in, Update are modeled in increasing detail in multiple refinement steps. Later refinement steps add features such as binary file support and the local cache. Having both models allows us to compare and contrast their feature sets. Documentation for SVN and CVS is extensive but informal. One feature of CVS required experimentation when the written documentation was insufficient. SVN is modelled in approximately 1400 lines in eight refinement steps with 109 proof obligations. CVS is likewise specified in roughly 1150 lines in seven steps with 29 proof obligations. With all proof obligations discharged we are confident the models represent the real systems and are a reasonable first step towards the goal of verifiable implementations of version control systems.</p> / Master of Computer Science (MCS)

<p>Domain experts, who create mathematical models and then implement scientific computing software typically focus on their models and implementation, but often pay less attention to systematic and extensive testing of their software. One reason for this situation is that domain experts usually lack software testing experience and know little about testing tools. However, it is desirable to introduce software testing techniques and tools into the development process of scientific computing software.</p> <p>This thesis originates from testing the scientific computing package DAETS, Differential-Algebraic Equations by Taylor Series. Documentation driven testing, code coverage analysis, and software testing tools are utilized to help verify and improve the quality of the software in this testing project. First, static inspection is used to check the correctness and completeness of the user guide, and verify the consistency of public interface information between the user guide and the source code. Then, black box test cases are designed based on public interface specifications in the user guide. After that, by executing code coverage analysis, test cases are added based on white box testing. Finally, the automatic testing framework tool CppUnit is used to automate the testing process, which greatly facilitates regression testing. In the DAETS testing projects, 163 test cases (more than 5000 line test code) are implemented, 27 documentation and software defects are found, and 150 lines of dead code are removed.</p> / Master in Advanced Studies (MAS)

<p>Specification of Large Scale Systems like Safety Critical Softwares is an important yet frequently tedious process. The requirement analysts often face a large number of conditions and cases during the process of requirement elicitation. One of the tools used to deal with this is employing multi-dimensional mathematical expressions, called <em>Tabular Expressions</em> by Parnas, to show and to study the specifications and to also check the properties of the system.</p> <p>The compositional syntax that was introduced by Kahl is a simple and comprehensible basis for implementation of tabular expressions. Kahl's implementation of his formalization in the functional programming language Haskell started a new approach to syntax and semantics of tabular expressions.</p> <p>In this thesis, we expand the project that Kahl initiated using his formalization to establish tool support of regular tables. A tool like this one has always been missing for people who use tabular expressions in the requirement analysis. We have designed a platform-independent, graphically interactive, and expansible tool using GTK in Haskell. In this thesis, we have also added the support of nested headers and implemented some features needed to work with nested headers for a better practical tool.</p> / Master of Science (MS)

<p>Hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HBβCD) is receiving increasing interest as an enhancing remediation agent used for soils contaminated with hydrophobic contaminants. While being used in remediation experiments, no previous study has investigated the fate of HBβCD under non-enhanced uncontrolled conditions in field soils. This study assesses the removal efficiency of DDT using 10%-HBβCD solutions within laboratory soil columns, and examines the persistence of HBβCD within uncontrolled un-enhanced field soil conditions. The bench scale soil column study was found to remove 19% and 20% of the initial DDT and DDE masses respectively after ten treatments of 10%- HBβCD solutions applied twice per day for one week. This definitively shows HBβCD does vertically mobilize DDT in the soil profile. Stable carbon isotopic measurements of technical grade HBβCD resulted in an expected 0 l3C value of -16%0. The expected stable carbon isotopic value (δl3C) of the initial untreated soils was -24.5%0. The soils treated with 10%-and 20%-HBβCD solutions both indicated an increase in carbon isotopic values during and after the experiment, indicating retention of HBβCD within the soil. Measurements of HBβCD in soils using liquid chromatograph mass spectrometry (LCMS) indicated a smaller persistence of HBβCD within the soils during and shortly after HBβCD applications. The carbon isotopic measurements and LCMS concentration of HBβCD reflected similar short and long-term trends for both increasing and decreasing concentrations. Evidence from both stable carbon isotope analysis and LCMS analysis indicated that HBβCD persisted in the soils six weeks after applications; however, there was no evidence of HBβCD in soils eleven months after the treatments ceased.</p> / Master of Science (MS)