Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references.

Bringing airline pilots to remote locations for evaluation of new software/hardware tools and procedures is an expensive process in terms of both money and time. Estimating the design and outcome of a study to evaluate these new tools can be tricky as there are many new variables for which there is little to no data. However, sometimes even after careful vetting of scenarios in the simulator prior to bringing subject-matter experts into the simulation facility, few to no metrics of statistical significance can be found. While it may be valid that there are no metrics of statistical significance, it is perhaps a missed opportunity to take advantage of the precious time and resources of having a subject-matter expert at the research facility. The research presented in this paper has developed a software tool for simulating a pilot’s visual perception of working in various configurations of cockpits. This may provide researchers insight into what types of scenarios and tactics would be of interest to use with real subject-matter experts. In other words, this should help identify the best use of resources to take advantage of having pilots at the facility and avoid scenarios/procedures that don’t generate data of interest. Another useful possibility with this tool is identifying cockpits that may be inefficiently designed. Instruments that should be grouped together can be easily identified by analyzing the eye-scan pattern of the model with different cockpit-configuration files. The results that this new software-evaluation tool provides have implications for several different evaluations beyond estimating pilot reactions.

The goal of this thesis work is to analyze how design elements and wireless attributes affect opportunistic routing, and in this context develop a new protocol. The algorithm developed aims to improve opportunistic elements in comparison to a well-known opportunistic protocol Simple Opportunistic Adaptive Routing (SOAR).

Systèmes-de-systèmes (Systems-of-Systems, SoS) sont des systèmes à logiciel prépondérant de grande échelle, complexes et souvent critiques dont l’importance n’a cessé de croître dans cette décennie. C’est le cas, par exemple, des SoS pour les réseaux intelligents d’énergie, les transports multimodaux et les villes intelligentes. On retrouve les SoS dans des domaines d’application très variés tels que l’environnement, le transport, l’énergie, la santé, l’aérospatiale, l’aéronautique et l’automobile. Pour maîtriser la complexité de tels systèmes évolutionnaires à logiciel prépondérant, il est fondamental de pouvoir concevoir leurs architectures logicielles afin de satisfaire leurs exigences fonctionnelles et non-fonctionnelles. En particulier, il est nécessaire de modéliser et exécuter des processus systématiques pour concevoir les architectures logicielles de SoS. Malgré ce besoin croissant, la plupart de leurs architectures logicielles sont encore développées de manière ad hoc. En général, il y a un manque de processus structurés pour concevoir les architectures des SoS. Cet état de l’art entrave leur développement, notamment pour les applications critiques. Cette thèse présente SOAR (General Process for Acknowledged SoS Software Architectures) qui rend possible la mise en place de processus de conception architecturale pour SoS reconnus. Ce framework de processus a été conçu pour fournir différents niveaux de support en fonction des différents contextes de développement de SoS. Il comprend un noyau de haut niveau qui décrit ce qu’il faut faire pour la conception des architectures de SoS et ainsi que trois pratiques avec des activités spécifiques et des produits de travail pour guider l’analyse, la synthèse et l’évaluation architecturale. SOAR a été implémenté à l’aide d’Essence (Kernel and Language for Software Engineering Methods), un Standard OMG/SEMAT. Afin de valider SOAR, trois enquêtes, une étude de viabilité et une expérimentation ont été menées. Les résultats obtenus dans ces trois études montrent que SOAR répond positivement au besoin exprimée. / System-of-Systems (SoS) refer to complex, large-scale, and often critical software-intensive systems whose importance has rapidly grown over this decade. This is the case, for instance, of SoS for energy grids, multimodal traffic control, and smart cities. We find SoS in different application areas as diverse as environment, transportation, energy, healthcare, aerospace, aeronautics, and automotive. For mastering the complexity of such evolutionary software-intensive systems, it is fundamental to be able to design their software architectures for satisfying both functional and non-functional requirements. In particular, there is the need to model and enact systematic processes to design SoS software architectures. Despite this increasing necessity, most of the SoS software architectures have been still developed in an ad hoc manner. In general, there is a lack of structured processes for architecting SoS. This state-of-art hinders SoS development, in particular for critical applications. This thesis presents SOAR (General Process for Acknowledged SoS Software Architectures) that supports the modeling and enactment of architectural design processes for acknowledged SoS. Conceived to provide different levels of support according to different SoS development contexts, it comprises a high-level kernel that describes what must be done when architecting SoS and also three practices with specific activities and work products to guide how to perform architectural analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. SOAR was implemented using Essence (Kernel and Language for Software Engineering Methods), an OMG/SEMAT Standard. To validate SOAR, three surveys, a viability study, and an experiment were conducted. Results achieved in these studies indicate that SOAR positively meets the expressed need.

After years of education, many people enter the workforce without the team-working skills fundamental in today's innovation economy. As one of the primary goals of education is to prepare students for the workforce, a shift from individual learning to collaborative learning is recommended. One way to incorporate collaborative learning in formal education is through students' engagement in the collaborative development of plays. When understanding of collaboration is achieved, according the theories of Teaching for Understanding, the learner can apply knowledge outside of the domain in which it was learned. Team-based management in business and collaborative playbuilding in theatre share congruent structural principles, therefore, the application of knowledge from one domain to the other is natural. This study investigated how university students came to understand collaboration through involvement in a Collaborative Play Development course. Findings support the recognition of collaborative theatre as an opportunity to develop marketable skills for the learners.

XNL-Soar is a specialized implementation of the Soar cognitive architecture. The version of XNL-Soar described in this thesis builds upon and extends prior research (Lewis, 1993; Rytting,2000) using Soar for natural language processing. This thesis describes the updates made to operators creating syntactic structure and the improved coverage of syntactic phenomena. It describes the addition of semantic structure building capability. This thesis also details the implementation of semantic memory and describes two experiments utilizing semantic memory in structural disambiguation. This thesis shows that XNL-Soar, as currently instantiated, resolves ambiguities common in language using strategies and resources including: reanalysis via snip operators, use of data-driven techniques with annotated corpora, and complex part-of-speech and word sense processing based on WordNet.

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Radioisotope / Master / Master of Philosophy

This study analyses the methodology of computational cognitive modeling as one of the ways of conducting research in cognitive science. The aim of the study is to provide an understanding of the place of computational cognitive models in understanding human cognition. Considering the vast number of computational cognitive models which have been just given to account for some cognitive phenomenon by solely simulating some experimental study and fitting to empirical data, a practice-oriented approach is adopted in this study to understand the work of the modeler, and accordingly to discover the potential of computational cognitive models, apart from their being simulation tools. In pursuit of this aim, a framework with a practice-oriented approach from the philosophy of science literature, which is Morgan &amp / Morrison (1999)&rsquo / s account, is employed on a case study. The framework emphasizes four key elements to understand the place of models in science, which are the construction of models, the function of models, the representation they provide, and the ways we learn from models. The case study Q-Soar (Simon, Newell &amp / Klahr, 1991), is a model built with Soar cognitive architecture (Laird, Newell &amp / Rosenbloom, 1987) which is representative of a class of computational cognitive models. Discussions are included for how to make generalizations for computational cognitive models out of this class, i.e. for models that are built with other modeling paradigms.

The aim of the study is to capture and understand the perceptions of SMEs with regard to the resources that they feel are missing as they engage in the process of internationalisation. The methodology of this study follows a qualitative method wherein four SMEs were interviewed along with an industry expert using semi-structured interviews. The collated data was processed according to academic procedure outlined by Creswell & Creswell (2018). Thereafter, the categorised data was analysed using an adapted situational analysis inspired by the SOAR Framework to identify missing resources. Findings and Conclusion: SMEs from Gävleborg, Sweden wish to internationalise but face extensive barriers caused by the lack of necessary resources. The empirical findings align with existing literature in identifying a lack of financial, human, and intellectual resources among the SMEs. However, the findings reject theories which cited a lack of financial skills and physical resources as causal factors. The framework presented (Figure 3) was found to be useful for academics, in reality the SMEs in the Gävleborg region follow a different approach. Contribution of the Study: This study adds specific insights and knowledge about the resource gaps experienced by Swedish SMEs to the literature. The outcomes indicate significant obstacles facing SMEs in the early or pre-internationalisation stage. Practical recommendations from this study suggest regional development of mentoring, accessible funding, and networking support. Reflections on the Study and Suggestions for Future Research: The Covid-19 pandemic forced all interviews online but zoom recordings facilitated clear and accurate collection of empirical evidence. For the future, a longitudinal study of SMEs in Sweden comparing resource availability by region and/or by firm size merits investigation. Similarly, research into why the resource gaps among SMEs remain an issue would be a welcome addition to resource-based literature.