Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2005. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (November 14, 2006) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

<p> Over the last 70 years, teams have become the ubiquitous unit of work in our organizations. The software industry heavily utilizes the Scrum methodology to develop software. Scrum is a team-based methodology that requires the constant formation and development of team capabilities. Researchers and practitioners dealing with work team dynamics have relied on the popular team developmental stages of forming, storming, norming, and performing, defined by Dr. Bruce Tuckman in 1965. However, this framework was conceived primarily from articles dealing with therapy groups and not modern teams. This study expands the body of research in work team stage development applied to Scrum, a methodology that itself has no social science foundation and minimal theoretical coverage. </p><p> A combined case study and grounded theory method is used to leverage the strengths of both to investigate the developmental stage of 5 Scrum teams at a high-tech company. A questionnaire along with team interviews were utilized to gather data on how teams relate to developmental factors found in the literature. Descriptive analytics were leveraged to uncover the questionnaire findings, and grounded theory analysis was applied to code interview answers into usable concepts, categories, and themes. Themes were further explored concerning their causal relationships. </p><p> The study proposed and validated 12 theoretical factors that contribute to the stage development of Scrum teams across 4 distinct stages. These factors interconnect and form 4 quadrants with unique dynamics associated with a team&rsquo;s mission, structure, execution, and teaming. Furthermore, higher stage teams proved to be self-managed and adaptable and able to handle higher task complexity. Leaders were observed shifting roles as teams evolved through stages. This latter finding is consistent with the theoretical model of Kozlowski, Watola, Jensen, Kim, and Botero. The research also identified common challenges that teams encounter in their development. </p><p> The findings from this study can help organizations who practice Scrum become more intentional about the development of their teams toward adaptability. A concerted effort by software organizations to optimize the evolution of teams across the factors found in the study could yield significant benefits, particularly for missions dealing with high complexity and innovation needs.</p><p>

<p> Researchers and practitioners continue to study the causes of high consequence failures in complex socio-technical systems. Often linear causal pathways are identified in investigations that blame individual human error, or technical malfunctions. This study represents a significant expansion in the analysis of high profile accidents, crimes, crises, and tragedies to accommodate system complexity. Presented is a model of socio-technical system wholeness that provides an integral framework with which socio-technical system deficiencies are analyzed. The research questions if lack of systemic wholeness is the cause for selected high profile events.</p><p> This case study used historical documents pertaining to 13 actual events that included espionage, high consequence accidents, mass killings, and the response to natural disasters. The documentation included government commission reports and previously recorded interviews. A hermeneutic analysis method guided the iterative development of deficiency codes. These codes were assigned to key statements in the documentation that described the varied deficiencies. The qualitative analysis software, Atlas.ti aided in the coding of approximately 5,000 of pages of documentation. Deficiency codes were then organized and the highest frequency codes are listed and are also shown graphically on the integral model, to reveal characteristic patterns.</p><p> In all of the cases, significant deficiencies are shown in all dimensions of the integral wholeness model. Deficiencies are described as systemic holes and shadow aspects. Holes and shadow aspects form patterns within and among cases, spanning the various subject areas. Systemic boundaries pertaining to each case are also described using the wholeness model. In several of the cases, multiple systems are shown with systemic links. Deficiencies in the links were also identified from the data and are presented.</p><p> The dynamic process of movement towards socio-technical systems wholeness is perpetual. It is also essential when the consequence of socio-technical systems failure threatens individuals, communities or the natural environment. The research shows the need for constant vigilance and attention to holes in protective defenses, and reconciliation with shadow aspects to avert systemic failure. This research has a broad span. Additional research opportunities include using this wholeness model for in-depth analysis of single socio-technical system prior to failure</p>

<p> This thesis is a contribution to the theory of Steiner quadruple systems. The first chapter provides a construction of resolvable Steiner quadruple systems that is different from the known constructions. In the second chapter, we construct Steiner quadruple systems with an automorphism that consists of a cycle of length 2 plus a cycle of full length minus 2, and investigate the number of pairwise distinct systems of this kind. In the third chapter, we also construct non-S-cyclic Steiner quadruple systems, one of which is an answer to a question raised in [11], and also investigate the number of pairwise distinct systems.</p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 152-166).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2003. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 24). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2003. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 24). Also available on the Internet.

A unified approach to the design and development of distributed control software is presented. This method is the result of a 'tight' integration between a formal method for concurrent systems (CSP) and a structured method for distributed control system (DARTS). The work presented in this thesis does not seek to extend the semantic model of CSP nor to design a specific control algorithm, rather, efforts are made to apply the existing specification and verification techniques to enhance the formality of the well established and case-proven structured counterparts that benefits are captured from both methods. As a methodology is the central aim, the suggested approach is a first step towards a complete unified software development environment, which engineers can follow from organising design ideas to system implementation with proven correctness. The thesis develops a set of parameterised CSP predicates for expressing concurrency and communication together with a corresponding set of generic processes to reflect these specified behaviours. These generic processes are formal building blocks for generating system implementations at different levels of abstraction. Utilisation of DARTS criteria and the parameterised CSP objects frame the refinement strategies. Also, mappings of generic processes to pictorial representations are suggested which enable easy assimilation of the evolving designs. Applicability of the approach is demonstrated through a high level software design of a highperformance robot control system where its suitability is shown via requirement specifications, properties verification and implementation of salient behaviours using generic building blocks. Although verification often means rigorous mathematical reasoning, the thesis presents a proof assistant the Causality Diagram Evaluation Tool to automate the manipulation of CSP processes according to the defined algebraic laws. It is shown to be of value in reasoning with designs and implementations of the robot system. It is found that the analysis facility and the graphical interpretation of communication provided by the tool allow effective analysis and manipulation of early designs. The results derived from specifying essential design details, from transforming highly abstracted implementation models, and from investigation of system behaviours through formal reasoning and simulation conclude that formal methods, in particular CSP, has a niche value in enhancing software reliability at the sub-system level as well as providing a better underpinning to the structured method DARTS. The end product is a method to generate a correct and unambiguous document of the system concerned that is amenable to a direct implementation.

In order to store and process natural phenomena in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) it is necessary to model the real world to form computational representation. Since classical set theory is used in conventional GIS software systems to model uncertain real world, the natural variability in the environmental phenomena can not be modeled appropriately. Because, pervasive imprecision of the real world is unavoidably reduced to artificially precise spatial entities when the conventional crisp logic is used for modeling. An alternative approach is the fuzzy set theory, which provides a formal framework to represent and reason with uncertain information. In addition, linguistic variable concept in a fuzzy logic system is useful for communicating concepts and knowledge with human beings. In this thesis, a system to enhance commercial GIS software, namely ArcGIS, with fuzzy set theory is designed and implemented. The proposed system allows users to (a) incorporate human knowledge and experience in the form of linguistically defined variables into GIS-based spatial analyses, (b) handle impreiii cision in the decision-making processes, and (c) approximate complex ill-defined problems in decision-making processes and classification. The operation of the proposed system is presented through case studies, which demonstrate its application for classification and decision-making processes. This thesis shows how fuzzy logic approach may contribute to a better representation and reasoning with imprecise concepts, which are inherent characteristics of geographic data stored and processed in GIS.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on March 4, 2008) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.