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In the field of instructional technology critical thinking is valued both as a practice for those in the field and as a skill or habit to teach and measure. However, traditional conceptions of critical thinking are limited in their usefulness and restricted to particular kinds of thinking and reasoning. Conceptions of critical thinking in instructional technology are dominated by these traditional perspectives. Missing is a substantive dialogue on the nature of critical thinking. despite the fact that such dialogue is a part of critical thinking scholarship outside of instructional technology. One of the primary limitations of traditional critical thinking is the failure to emphasize the recognition and analysis of underlying assumptions. Assumptions underlie every theory and practice in any field of discipline. Critical thinking itself cannot be practiced without the influence of assumptions, both acknowledged and implicit. In order for a critical thinking approach to facilitate analysis of assumptions it must be sensitive to the characteristics of assumptions and the roles assumptions play in everyday life. For this thesis, I propose a model of critical thinking that involves principles and practices that aid the professional in recognizing and evaluating assumptions, revising assumptions when needed, and adapting practices to align with assumptions. Such critical thinking in instructional technology has the potential to improve the practice of current theories, advance theories in the future, and guide practitioners in decision-making.

The recent developments in negotiations to reduce nuclear weapons in Europe mark a watershed in attitudes towards nuclear deterrence and security. On the one side lie all the old beliefs and assumptions about nuclear defence and security that have been common parlance for the last forty years and more. On the other side lies a unique opportunity to develop a new relationship of increased mutual trust between East and West that could ultimately lead to substantial reductions in the world's nuclear arsenal. The object of this thesis is to establish how much information already exists about attitudes towards nuclear deterrence and the processes of attitude change. From there, to extend these boundaries of knowledge in the belief that if we are able to understand more exactly what people think about nuclear deterrence, why they hold these attitudes and how attitudes change then we will be in a better position to ease the transitional stage between one set of attitudes and another. / Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust

The k-sample data setting is one of the most common data settings used today. The null hypothesis that is most generally of interest for these methods is that the k-samples have the same location. Currently there are several procedures available for the individual who has data of this type. The most often used method is commonly called the ANOVA F-test. This test assumes that all of the underlying distributions are normal, with equal variances. Thus the only allowable difference in the distributions is a possible shift, under the alternative hypothesis. Under the null hypothesis, it is assumed that all k distributions are identical, not just equally located. Current nonparametric methods for the k-sample setting require a variety of restrictions on the distribution of the data. The most commonly used method is that due to Kruskal and Wallis (1952). The method, commonly called the Kruskal-Wallis test, does not assume that the data come from normal populations, though they must still be continuous, but maintains the requirement that the populations must be identical under the null, and may differ only by a possible shift under the alternative. In this work a new procedure is developed which is exactly distribution free when the distributions are equivalent and continuous under the null hypothesis, and simulations are used to study the properties of the test when the distributions are continuous and have the same medians under the null. The power of the statistic under alternatives is also studied. The test bears a resemblance to the two sample sign type tests, which will be pointed out as the development is shown. / Ph. D.

Software vulnerabilities and their associated exploits have been increasing over the last several years - this research attempts to reverse that trend. Currently, security experts recommend that concerns for security start at the earliest stage possible, generally during the requirements engineering phase. Having a set of security requirements enables the production of a secure design, and product implementation. Approaches for creating security requirements exist, but all have a similar limitation - a security expert is required. This research provides a set of software security requirements that mitigate the introduction of software vulnerabilities, and reduces the need for security expertise. The security requirements can be implemented by software engineers with limited security experience, and be used with any computer language or operating system. Additionally, a tree structure, called the software security requirements tree (SSRT), is provided to support security requirement selection, based on project characteristics. A graphical interface for the SSRT is provided through a prototype Java tool, to support the identification and selection of appropriate software security requirements. This research also provides a set of security artifacts to support a comprehensive verification, validation, and testing (VV&T) strategy. Those artifacts are generic, and represent design and implementation elements reflecting software security requirements. The security artifacts are used in verification strategies to confirm their necessity and existence in the actual design and implementation products. / Master of Science

Modern software applications are becoming increasingly complex, prompting a need for expandable software security assessment tools. Violable constraints/assumptions presented by Bazaz [1] are expandable and can be modified to fit the changing landscape of software systems. Partial and End-Game Verification, Validation, and Testing (VV&T) strategies utilize the violable constraints/assumptions and are established by this research as viable software security assessment tools. The application of Partial VV&T to the Horticulture Club Sales Assistant is documented in this work. Development artifacts relevant to Partial VV&T review are identified. Each artifact is reviewed for the presence of constraints/assumptions by translating the constraints/assumptions to target the specific artifact and software system. A constraint/assumption review table and accompanying status nomenclature are presented that support the application of Partial VV&T. Both the constraint/assumption review table and status nomenclature are generic, allowing them to be used in applying Partial VV&T to any software system. Partial VV&T, using the constraint/assumption review table and associated status nomenclature, is able to effectively identify software vulnerabilities. End-Game VV&T is also applied to the Horticulture Club Sales Assistant. Base test strategies presented by Bazaz [1] are refined to target system specific resources such as user input, database interaction, and network connections. Refined test strategies are used to detect violations of the constraints/assumptions within the Horticulture Club Sales Assistant. End-Game VV&T is able to identify violation of constraints/assumptions, indicating vulnerabilities within the Horticulture Club Sales Assistant. Addressing vulnerabilities identified by Partial and End-Game VV&T will enhance the overall security of a software system. / Master of Science

The objective of this thesis was to evaluate the attractiveness of Jindřichův Hradec. The theoretical part is a description of the basic assumptions, which are used as standard assessments of potential for tourism. Other, more complex methods are spatial analysis and overlay analysis. The practical part is the description field under review. Detailed analysis of the primary components of the assumptions offer and secondary offer. For further evaluation method is developed based on defining the conditions for tourism, which are then scored and ranked and the obtained information are summarized. The same data are used to create maps in the GIS program. All results are evaluated for overall impression of intensity and attractiveness of tourism. Conclusion is a recommendation for the development of sustainable tourism in the area Jindřichův Hradec.

This research explored the systems psycho-dynamics or group dynamics manifesting in meetings of a self-managed group within a bank. It also investigated the influence of these dynamics on the group's intra- and intergroup relationships.. The literature review explored the dynamics manifesting in groups in general, and reviewed relevant research that has been conducted. A qualitative study explored how these dynamics are manifesting in this group and how they are influencing the intra- and intergroup relationships. The results indicate that there are complex system psycho-dynamics manifesting in this self-managed group. They are influencing its intra- and intergroup relationships and rendering the group less effective in terms of its achieving its primary task. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / MA (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

Title: Influence of errors to regression model Author: Bc. Vlasta Poliačková Department: Department of Probability and Mathematical Statistics Supervisor: doc. RNDr. Petr Lachout, CSc. Supervisor's e-mail address: Petr.Lachout@mff.cuni.cz Abstract: The submitted work deals with the regression model, and the influence of errors to regression. Thesis describes different types of violations of assumptions re- quired to the error term and their impact to the properties of the regression model. In the next part, there are discussed various statistical approaches applicable in the case of violation assumptions of regression model such as heteroscedasticity or autocor- relation of the residuals. In the application part, there is used mainly knowledge of Box - Jenkins methodology. In this section it is described in detail how to build a Box - Jenkins models and forecasts of future values for various real financial time series. In processing of the data are used models of ARMA, ARIMA and SARIMA. In an example, forecasts of the models are compared to real future values of the time series. Keywords: regression, violation of assumptions, error term, Box-Jenkins methodo- logy, time series