Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries / Department: Computer Science.

As técnicas de ressonância magnética nuclear (RM), por não serem invasivas ou destrutivas, apresentam um papel importante em diversas áreas do conhecimento como, por exemplo, medicina, química, física, setor rural, setor petrolífero, etc. Entretanto os custos de aquisição, manutenção e atualização dos equipamentos comerciais são muito altos e países em desenvolvimento, como é o caso do Brasil, sofrem com os impactos em função deste fator, principalmente nos setores ligados à pesquisa, em especial, nas áreas de concepção de novos métodos de RM. Além disso, o cenário nacional de desenvolvimento tecnológico desta área é escasso e os equipamentos comerciais fornecidos pelas empresas nem sempre oferecem a flexibilidade desejada. Baseado no uso de tecnologias inovadoras, como é o caso dos hardwares reconfiguráveis e uso de linguagem, compilador, bibliotecas e editores próprios para desenvolvimento de métodos de sequência de pulsos de RM, o Centro de Imagens e Espectroscopia in vivo por Ressonância Magnética (CIERMag) propõe uma solução alternativa através do desenvolvimento de um espectrômetro completamente digital de RM, flexível o suficiente para operar como um tomógrafo. O objetivo deste trabalho é idealizar e desenvolver a camada de software responsável pela aquisição, organização, visualização e armazenamento dos dados provenientes do espectrômetro através do subsistema ToRM Console, levando em consideração a flexibilidade proposta. Além disso, um arcabouço de ferramentas para automatização de pós-processamento, o ToRM Processing API, foi desenvolvido. Ambos os sistemas foram implementados em linguagem Python, com auxílio das principais bibliotecas de propósito científico (Numpy, Scipy, Matplotlib, etc). A realização de um experimento para estudo do comportamento do tempo de relaxação transversal de soluções de sulfato de cobre em função da variação da concentração é mostrada através do uso do método Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG). Outras aplicações do espectrômetro são mostradas através da obtenção de dados gerados por meio de sintetizadores de sinais acoplados ao espectrômetro. Os resultados mostram que o espectrômetro atualmente pode operar como um relaxômetro de RM de fácil operação. Os sistemas desenvolvidos neste trabalho mostram-se suficientemente flexíveis e preparados para operação em experimentos de Imagens e Espectroscopia de Alta Resolução, que são futuras etapas de desenvolvimento no CIERMag, tendo em vista as ferramentas desenvolvidas e testadas através do uso de dados sintetizados. / The Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) techniques, which are neither invasive nor destructive, play an important role on several areas of knowledge, such as Medicine, Chemistry, Physics, Agriculture, Oil industry, among others. However, the costs associated with acquisition, maintenance and upgrade are very high, which have impacted on developing countries, as Brazil. Furthermore, the national scenario of technological development in this area is scarce and the commercial equipment provided by the companies does not always offer the desired flexibility. Based on the use of innovative technologies, which is the case of reconfigurable hardware and the use of proprietary language, compiler, libraries and editors for the development of NMR sequence pulses methods, the Magnetic Resonance Imaging and in vivo Spectroscopy Center (CIERMag) have proposed an alternative solution through the development of a completely digital NMR spectrometer, flexible enough to operate as an MRI Scanner. This dissertation reports the design and development of a software layer responsible for the acquisition, organization, visualization and storage of the data provided by the spectrometer through the ToRM Console subsystem, taking into account the proposed flexibility. A framework for post-processing automation, the ToRM Processing API, is also described. Both systems were developed in Python programming language, with the help of the main scientific purpose libraries (Numpy, Scipy, Matplotlib, etc.). Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) method was used for the evaluation of the transverse relaxation time dependency on variable concentrations of copper sulfate solution. Other spectrometer applications are shown through the acquisition of synthesized data from simulation devices coupled to the spectrometer. The results show that the spectrometer can currently operate as an easy-to-use NMR Relaxometer. The systems described in the present work proved to be sufficiently flexible and prepared for the operation as MRI Scanners or Analytical Spectrometers, which are the future stages of development at CIERMag, considering the tools developed and tested through the use of synthesized data.

Thesis (MTech (Business Administration in Project Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2018. / Though strides have been taken to ensure the availability and application of technology, there still exists some disparity between the envisaged use compared to the actual one (Ross, Romich & Pena, 2016:48). The application of technology, such as project management software (PMS), could be the answer to unlocking success in projects especially where a large scope and high degree of complexity can sometimes prove to be very challenging. The research explored how the application of PMS influences project success. A case of NPOs in the Western Cape Province, South Africa was used. The research objectives were to (1) establish if PMS is applied in the NPO’s work, (2) determine employees’ interactions with PMS relative to project success, and (3) identify the limitations of current PMS being used. A non-experimental and quantitative approach was taken to conduct the research. Out of a potential 200 units of analysis, a sample group consisting of 132 project-implementing NPOs in the Western Cape was used. Ninety-four responses were received setting the response rate at 71%. The research instruments used were questionnaires, which were administered physically and online. The data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. There is high project success rate among NPO projects in the Western Cape at 77%. The research revealed that PMS is utilised in a significant number of organisations with the most popular ones used being Microsoft Project, Project Manager and Jira. Most project offices utilise PMS on a weekly or monthly basis especially during the project planning and execution stages. The limitations of the software include that it can over-complicate issues, be time-consuming, and costly. In light of the above, respondents revealed that they believe PMS does have a positive influence on project success. Furthermore, based on the findings and conclusions derived from this study, the researcher made a few recommendations. For example, persons in academia need to widen the scope of the study to different geographical locations and use a different research approach. Another is that software engineers/developers must consider localised support for PMS as well as improve on scalability issues. To NPOs, recommendations were made on potential training sessions to capacitate the sector to be more adept to information and communication technology (ICT) and eventually make more use of PMS.

The purpose of this dissertation was to explore critical issues and challenges that might arise in agile software development processes with Scrum. It also sought to provide management guidelines to help organizations avoid and overcome barriers in adopting the Scrum method as a future software development method. A qualitative research method design was used to capture the knowledge of practitioners and scrutinize the Scrum software development process in its natural settings. An in-depth case study was conducted in two organizations where the Scrum method was fully integrated in every aspect of two organizations' software development processes. One organization provides large-scale and mission-critical applications and the other provides small- and medium-scale applications. Differences between two organizations provided useful contrasts for the data analysis. Data were collected through an email survey, observations, documents, and semi-structured face-to-face interviews. The email survey was used to refine interview questions; all of the interviews were audio-taped and transcribed, and later coded for analysis. Triangulation in the data collection process provided useful information for different perspectives on the issues, allowed for cross-checking, and yielded stronger substantiation of concepts and common categories. The research presented four common categories of issues and challenges of the Scrum method, and management guidelines to help organizations that are already using the Scrum method or planning to employ it in the future. The framework for a hybrid software development model is then proposed as a future study.

My dissertation defines how software developers have abandoned traditional documentation practices for other kinds of media that work better in their workplace practices. Ultimately, even though other media like white boards, sticky notes, and “oral communication” are vastly different than traditional, written software documentation, they match the fast paced, decision-making situations of contemporary developer communities. I focus particularly on oral communication because it is the most unacceptable means to “document,” according to traditional standards. I use North American Genre Theory to describe those decision-making situations contemporary developers and note how the theory does not account for all the documentation I expect to find. Via several projects and interviews I confirm that oral communication is a new means of “documentation” and reconciles North American Genre Theory.

Building software systems from previously existing components can save time and effort while increasing productivity. The key to a successful Component-Based Development (CBD) is to get the required components. However, components obtained from other developers often show different behaviours than what are required. Thus adapting the components into the system being developed becomes an extra development and maintenance cost. This cost often offsets the benefits of CBD. Our research goal is to maximise the possibility of finding components that have the required behaviours, so that the component adaptation cost can be minimised. Imprecise component specifications and user requirements are the main reasons that cause the difficulty of finding the required components. Furthermore, there is little support for component users and developers to collaborate and clear the misunderstanding when selecting components, as CBD has two separate development processes for them. In this thesis, we aim at building a framework in which component users and developers can collaborate to select components with tools support, by exchanging component and requirement specifications. These specifications should be precise enough so that behavioural mismatches can be detected. We have defined Simple Component Interface Language (SCIL) as the communication and specification language to capture component behaviours. A combined SCIL specification of component and requirement can be translated to various existing modelling languages. Thus various properties that are supported by those languages can be checked by the related model checking tools. If all the user-required properties are satisfied, then the component is compatible to the user requirement at the behavioural level. Thus the component can be selected. Based on SCIL, we have developed a prototype component selection system and used it in two case studies: finding a spell checker component and searching for the components for a generic e-commerce application. The results of the case studies indicate that our approach can indeed find components that have the required behaviours. Compared to the traditional way of searching by keywords, our approach is able to get more relevant results, so the cost of component adaptation can be reduced. Furthermore, with a collaborative selection process this cost can be minimised. However, our approach has not achieved complete automation due to the modelling inconsistency from different people. Some manual work to adjust user requirements is needed when using our system. The future work will focus on solving this remaining problem of inconsistent modelling, providing an automatic trigger to select proper tools, etc.

This thesis investigates project risk management issues in smaller software teams. Certain gaps in the literature are identified. There is limited literature on what risk management techniques software practitioners use. The studies that are published tend to focus on large software teams. This thesis investigates what risks these smaller teams consider to be important. It also investigates what techniques are perceived to address these risks and how effective those techniques are considered to be. One of those risks is found to be of primary importance, yet this risk is not suggested by the project management literature. This thesis goes on to conduct a more in-depth exploration of that specific risk in the context of these smaller teams Interviews were selected as the most appropriate method to achieve the objectives of the thesis. Nineteen interviews in eight software organisations are conducted to collect data for this thesis. Three different perspectives on project risk were investigated. Those were the perspectives of the; service managers, project managers and developers. Hence a large store of rich information is collated. The results are analysed and a rich set of information is presented in this thesis. As a result of this research it is suggested that smaller software teams may find it useful to consider the 16 risks discussed in this research and how applicable those risks are to their individual organisation. Service managers may need to do more to raise the awareness of the importance of risks associated with ‘customer relationship issues’ within their own organisations. Three risks stood out as areas where future research might be most fruitful. They were; customer relationship issues, introduction of new technology and unrealistic schedules and budgets. Risks related to customer relationship issues were of particular significance and have tended to be over looked in the project management literature. It is submitted that research into standard project risk management approaches may need to be combined with business risk management approaches to gain a full understanding of the risks faced and addressed by these smaller teams.

Very large graphs are difficult for a person to browse and edit on a computer screen. This thesis introduces a visual formalism, structured graphs, which supports the scalable browsing and editing of very large graphs. This approach is relevant to a given application when it incorporates a large graph which is composed of named nodes and links, and abstraction hierarchies which can be defined on these nodes and links. A typical browsing operation is the selection of an arbitrary group of nodes and the display of the network of nodes and links for these nodes. Typical editing operations is: adding a new link between two nodes, adding a new node in the hierarchy, and moving sub-graphs to a new position in the node hierarchy. These operations are scalable when the number of user steps involved remains constant regardless of how large the graph is. This thesis shows that with structured graphs, these operations typically take one user step. We demonstrate the utility of structured graph formalism in an application setting. Computer aided software engineering tools, and in particular, structured analysis tools, are the chosen application area for this thesis, as they are graph based, and existing tools, though adequate for medium sized systems, lack scalability. In this thesis examples of an improved design for a structured analysis tool, based on structured graphs, is given. These improvements include scalable browsing and editing operations to support an individual software analyst, and component composition operations to support the construction of large models by a group of software analysts. Finally, we include proofs of key properties and descriptions of two text based implementations.

Software systems are getting larger and more complex, while the requirements are becoming vaguer and more rapidly changing. These trends make current software development more and more likely a team work. To integrate multiple developers into a coherent structured management process and make team software development a positive-sum game for both higher productivity and better quality, many team soft ware development methodologies have been proposed and practised. An emerging methodology is collaborative programming, which allows a group of programmers to work together on the same source code for design, implementation of individual components, and integration of individual components. Compared with other team software methodologies that only address needs in some phases or situations, collaborative programming is more adaptive to the variety of different phases or situations in a team software development process. A core technical component in collaborative programming is collaborative editing, which allows a group of programmers to view and edit the same source code. To support different phases or situations in an Internet-based collaborative programming process, collaborative editing must meet the requirements of supporting unconstrained, responsive, real-time collaborative editing; unconstrained, syncretic, non-real-time collaborative editing; and smooth, flexible switching between real-time and non-real-time collaborative editing. This thesis research contributes several novel techniques to address these requirements, and an Internet-based collaborative programming environment to integrate those techniques. These research contributions have advanced state-of-the-art technologies on col laborative editing for supporting Internet-based collaborative programming. First, we contribute a collaborative highlighting gestural communication technique for unconstrained, responsive, real-time collaborative editing. This technique is particularly effective in improving the quality of real-time interaction on text-based source code documents. The contribution to the operational transformation technology is the extension of the technology to support group awareness. It includes a package of operational transformation functions and transformation control algorithms for consistency maintenance in collaborative highlighting, and a flexible undo solution that has the capability of undoing any highlighting operation at any time. Second, we contribute a flexible operation-based merging technique for unconstrained, syncretic, non-real-time collaborative editing, which is efficient and has the capability of textually integrating all changes, and automatically detecting and resolving syntactic conflicts according to application-dependent user-specified policies. The contribution to the operational transformation technology is the extension of the technology to support unconstrained, syncretic, non-real-time collaborative editing. Its includes a log compression algorithm, a textual merging algorithm, and a syntactic merging algorithm. Moreover, we contribute a flexible notification technique to support flexible collaborative editing: unconstrained, responsive, real-time collaborative editing; uncon strained, syncretic, non-real-time collaborative editing; and smooth, flexible switching between them. The contribution to the operational transformation technology is the extension of the technology to support flexible collaborative editing. It includes a new transformation control algorithm that has a linear time complexity, two notification algorithms that support propagation and acceptance of any notifications at any time, and a notification propagation protocol that is efficient for both real-time and non-real-time collaborative editing.

Random testing is a standard software testing method. It is a popular method for reli-ability assessment, but its use for debug testing has been opposed by some authorities. Random testing does not use any information to guide test case selection, and so, it is argued, testing is less likely to be effective than other methods. Based on the observation that failures often cluster in contiguous regions, Adaptive Random Testing (ART) is a more effective random testing method. While retaining random selection of test cases, selection is guided by the idea that tests should be widely spread throughout the input domain. A simple way to implement this concept, FSCS-ART, involves randomly generating a number of candidates, and choosing the candidate most widely spread from any already-executed test. This method has already shown to be up to 50% more effective than random testing. This thesis examines a number of theoretical and practical issues related to ART. Firstly, an theoretical examination of the scope of adaptive methods to improve testing effectiveness is conducted. Our results show that the maximum improvement in failure detection effectiveness possible is only 50% - so ART performs close to this limit on many occasions. Secondly, the statistical validity of the previous empirical results is examined. A mathematical analysis of the sampling distribution of the various failure-detection effectiveness methods shows that the measure preferred in previous studies has a slightly unusual distribution known as the geometric distribution, and that that it and other measures are likely to show high variance, requiring very large sample sizes for accurate comparisons. A potential limitation of current ART methods is the relatively high selection overhead. A number of methods to obtain lower overheads are proposed and evaluated, involving a less-strict randomness or wide-spreading criterion. Two methods use dynamic, as-needed partitioning to divide the input domain, spreading test cases throughout the partitions as required. Another involves using a class of numeric sequences called quasi-random sequences. Finally, a more efficient implementation of the existing FSCS-ART method is proposed using the mathematical structure known as the Voronoi diagram. Finally, the use of ART on programs whose input is non-numeric is examined. While existing techniques can be used to generate random non-numeric candidates, a criterion for 'wide spread' is required to perform ART effectively. It is proposed to use the notion of category-partition as such a criterion.