Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / alities. The extensible Markup Language (XML) is used for data storage and message exchange, Extensible 3D (X3D) Graphics for visualization and XML Schema-based Binary Compression (XSBC) for data compression. The AUV Workbench provides an intuitive cross-platform-capable tool with extensibility to provide for future enhancements such as agent-based control, asynchronous reporting and communication, loss-free message compression and built-in support for mission data archiving. This thesis also investigates the Jabber instant messaging protocol, showing its suitability for text and file messaging in a tactical environment. Exemplars show that the XML backbone of this open-source technology can be leveraged to enable both human and agent messaging with improvements over current systems. Integrated Jabber instant messaging support makes the NPS AUV Workbench the first custom application supporting XML Tactical Chat (XTC). Results demonstrate that the AUV Workbench provides a capable testbed for diverse AUV technologies, assisting in the development of traditional single-vehicle operations and agent-based multiple-vehicle methodologies. The flexible design of the Workbench further encourages integration of new extensions to serve operational needs. Exemplars demonstrate how in-mission and post-mission event monitoring by human operators can be achieved via simple web page, standard clients or custom instant messaging client. Finally, the AUV Workbench's potential as a tool in the development of multiple-AUV tactics and doctrine is discussed. / Civilian, Singapore Defence Science and Technology Agency

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / In order to plug-in current open sourced, open standard Java programming technology into the building blocks of the US Navy's ForceNet, first, stove-piped systems need to be made extensible to other pertinent applications and then a new paradigm of adopting extensible and cross-platform open technologies will begin to bridge gaps with old and new weapons systems. The battle-space picture in real time and with as much detail, or as little detail needed is now a current vital requirement. Access to this information via wireless laptop technology is here now. Transmission of data to increase the resolution of that battle-space snapshot will invariably be through noisy links. Noisy links such as found in the shallow water littoral regions of interest will be where Autonomous Underwater and Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (AUVs/UUVs) are gathering intelligence for the sea warrior in need of that intelligence. The battle-space picture built from data transmitted within these noisy and unpredictable acoustic regions demands efficiency and reliability features abstract to the user. To realize this efficiency Extensible Markup Language (XML) Schema-based Binary Compression (XSBC), in combination with Vandermode-based Forward Error Correction (FEC) erasure codes, offer the qualities of efficient streaming of plain text XML documents in a highly compressed form, and a data self-healing capability should there be loss of data during transmission in unpredictable transmission mediums. Both the XSBC and FEC libraries detailed in this thesis are open sourced Java Application Program Interfaces (APIs) that can be readily adapted for extensible, cross-platform applications that will be enhanced by these desired features to add functional capability to ForceNet for the sea warrior to access on demand, at sea and in real-time. These features will be presented in the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Workbench (AUVW) Java-based application that will become a valuable tool for warriors involved with Undersea Warfare (UW). / Lieutenant, United States Navy

Atualmente há uma demanda crescente por aplicações hipermídia baseadas na WWW (World Wide Web), conhecidas como WIS (Web Information Systems). Esse novo tipo de aplicação apresenta requisitos adicionais aos sistemas de software clássicos, o que resulta na necessidade de investigar modelos mais adequados para apoiar o seu desenvolvimento. Em especial, os sistemas para apoio ao EaD (Ensino a Distância) baseados na Web apresentam características e requisitos ainda mais específicos. Os modelos atuais para modelagem e especificação de hiperdocumentos não são completamente adequados para representar características deste domínio, como a necessidade de acompanhamento dos aprendizes e a realização de avaliações diagnósticas e formativas. Isso motivou a proposta de um modelo para apoiar WISs voltados especificamente para EaD, denominado MDE (Modelo para Documentos Educacionais), que estende o modelo HMBS (Hyperdocument Model Based on Statecharts) para a descrição de conteúdo nesse domínio. O MDE adota como modelo formal subjacente uma variante da técnica Statecharts, cuja estrutura e semântica operacional possibilitam especificar a estrutura organizacional e a semântica navegacional de hiperdocumentos complexos. Adicionalmente, foi integrada ao MDE a técnica de mapeamento conceitual, que acrescenta um significado educacional aos grafos hierárquicos. Dessa forma, o modelo apresenta como pontos fortes a possibilidade de captar várias informações relevantes do comportamento do usuário no estudo do material disponível on-line e a disponibilização desses dados ao instrutor, como importante apoio à avaliação formativa. Como prova de conceito, foi desenvolvido o protótipo de um ambiente para autoria e oferecimento de cursos denominado ATEnA (Ambiente para Treinamento, Ensino e Aprendizagem). Esta tese apresenta também avaliações conceituais e práticas do modelo e do protótipo desenvolvidos. / There is an increasing demand for hypermedia applications based on the WWW (World Wide Web), known as Web Information Systems (WIS). These applications present specific requirements in addition to those of traditional software systems, thus fostering the need for investigating suitable models to support their development. In particular, systems for Distance Education based on the Web present very specific characteristics and requirements. Current models for hyperdocument modeling and specification are not completely suitable for representing domain specific characteristics such as the need of tracking student progress and evaluating their learning process through diagnostic and formative assessments. This scenario motivated the proposal of a model to support WISs targeted at distance education, called MDE (Model for Distance Education). MDE extends the HMBS (Hyperdocument Model Based on Statecharts) hyperdocument model to describe hypertext content in the educational domain. It adopts as its underlying model a variant of the Statecharts formal specification technique, whose organizational structure and operational semantics allows defining the organizational structure and navigational semantics of complex hyperdocuments. MDE also incorporates the technique of conceptual mapping, that adds educational meaning to hierarchical graphs. MDE’s major strengths are thus the ability to capture relevant information about user behavior when studying on-line educational material and make such information available to the teacher / instructor in order to support formative assessment of students. As a proof of concept, the prototype of an environment for authoring and offering distance courses based on MDE has been developed, called ATEnA (Adaptive Training Environment with Support for Assessment). The results of practical and conceptual evaluations of the model and system developed are also presented in this thesis.

Esta tese de doutorado apresenta um estudo e formulações teóricas sobre o conceito de espect-autoria e defende os conceitos de Poética da Autoria Aberta, Poética da Autoração e Poéticas em Coletividade como praxis artística de apropriação dos dispositivos de produção das representações sociais, no contexto da autoria dos espectadores nas artes participativas e interativas. Numa transferência interdisciplinar de conceitos a exemplo do conceito espect-autor de Gellouz (2007), o estudo propõe as noções de autorabilidade, obra autorável, agenciamento autoral do espectador e trinômio produção/recepção/produção bem como os conceitos formulados de função-espect-autor, espect-autor em coletividade, particip-autor, inter-autor e trans-autor, que privilegiam a noção de autoria em suas notações, configurando uma taxonomia mais apropriada para compor um vocabulário que permita designar e compreender a noção de espect-autoria, ou seja, a produção autoral dos espectadores, enquanto forma, repertório e significados, nas obras cuja abertura poética propõe desafios autorais aos seus espectadores. A principal referência artística e fonte desta pesquisa é a série Autorretrato Coletivo (1987-), um conjunto de obras participativas e interativas que eu proponho como repositório dialógico e polifônico da identidade coletiva, tendo como princípio a apropriação dos espectadores enquanto autores de suas identidades no corpus da obra. Em suma, a função-autor exercida pelos espectadores, mais precisamente a sua função-espect-autor, em processos de criação/co-criação ou recriação (por recombinação e/ou repertoriação) no contexto das artes participativas e interativas, tem profundas implicações para nossa compreensão da evolução da arte como um fenômeno coletivo. / This thesis presents a study and theoretical formulations about the concept of spect-authorship on participatory and interactive artworks and defends the concepts of Poetics of the Open Authorship, Authoring Poetics and Multi-Poetics in Collectivity as artistic praxis of apropriation of the production devices of the social representations in the context of the spectators authorship in the participatory and interactive arts. Through an interdisciplinary transfer of concepts as Gellouz concept of spect-author (2007) , this study proposes the notions of authorability, authoriable artwork, authorial agency of the spectator, trinomial production/reception/production as well the concepts of function-espect-author, spect-author in collectivity, particip-author, inter-author and trans-author, which privilege the notion of authorship, setting a taxonomy more appropriate to compose a vocabulary that describes and increases the understanding of the concept of spect-authorship, the authorial production of the spectators as form, repertory and meanings, in the artworks whose poetic openness proposes authorial challenges to their spectators. The main artistic reference and source of this research is the series Collective Self-Portrait (1987-), a set of participatory and interactive artworks that I propose as a dialogic and polyphonic repository of the collective identity, based on the principle of appropriation of the spectators as authors of their own identities in the corpus of the artwork. Summing up, the author-function experienced by the spectators, more precisely their spect-author-function, in creation/co-creation or recreation process in the context of participatory and interactive arts, holds profound implications for our understanding of art evolution as a collective phenomenon.

Submitted by Mariana Dornelles Vargas (marianadv) on 2015-05-25T12:29:15Z No. of bitstreams: 1 AutoEduMat.pdf: 1060362 bytes, checksum: 25b8156de4b9c2c2c5b9dc0f69aea011 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-25T12:29:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 AutoEduMat.pdf: 1060362 bytes, checksum: 25b8156de4b9c2c2c5b9dc0f69aea011 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Nenhuma / Esta dissertação apresenta uma pesquisa relacionada as ferramentas que dão suporte a utilização de objetos de aprendizagem em plataformas digitais. Mais especificamente, a pesquisa se direciona para as ferramentas de apoio a autoria destes objetos, em particular dos seus metadados. Inicialmente é apresentada a contextualização do problema de pesquisa, sua fundamentação teórica e os trabalhos relacionados ao tema. Em seguida são apresentadas as principais características do sistema proposto, o AutoEduMat - Ferramenta de Apoio a Autoria de Metadados de Objetos de Aprendizagem para o Domínio de Ensino de Matemática. A ferramenta AutoEduMat dá apoio a autoria de objetos de aprendizagem, oferecendo assistência ao projetista (designer) de objetos na criação e edição de metadados destes objetos. A principal inovação do trabalho é a combinação das tecnologias de Engenharia de Software de Agentes e de Engenharia de Ontologias para construir um sistema multiagente que oferece suporte inteligente para a geração dos metadados dos objetos de aprendizagem, sendo capaz de interagir com o usuário com termos de seu próprio contexto profissional e educacional. No trabalho é proposta a ontologia Onto-EduMat que incorpora os conhecimentos sobre o domínio de ensino de matemática, incluindo aspectos pedagógicos, necessários para o auxílio a geração dos metadados. Tanto a ferramenta quanto seu modelo ontológico são validados através de experimentos descritos no final do trabalho. / This dissertation presents a research related to the tools that support the utilization of learning objects in digital platforms. More precisely, the research is directed to the tools that support the authoring process of these objects, in particular of their metadata. Initially are presented the characterization of the problem, its theoretical foundations and related works. Then are presented the main characteristics of the proposed system, the AutoEduMat - Metadata Authoring Tool for Mathematics Learning Objects. The AutoEduMat system will provide assistance to the object designer in the metadata creation and edition of these objects. The main innovation of this work is the combination of Agent Oriented Software Engineering and Ontology Engineering technologies to built a multiagent system able to offer intelligent support for metadata creation, interacting with users using terms related to their professional and educational context. This work proposes the Onto-EduMat ontology, which incorporates the mathematical and pedagogical knowledge necessary to generate the metadata. The authoring tool and its ontological model are validated through experiments described in the end of the work.

Thesis (M.Tech.: Information Technology)-Dept. of Information Technology, Durban University of Technology, 2007 xv, 150 leaves, Annexures A-J / Over the years, computers have been introduced to many South African classrooms in an attempt to improve education, and this is true for Previously Technologically Disadvantaged (PTD) schools in Kwazulu-Natal with learners whose first language is isiZulu. However, frameworks of computer learning vary widely and there is a crucial need to understand how specific situational conditions either facilitate or constrain the implementation of computer-supported learning in these schools. This thesis discusses research undertaken to document the process of introducing localised OpenOffice.org.za software with an isiZulu interface into Information Technology education at PTD schools in the KwaZulu-Natal province. The thesis also documents the process of introducing a dual language medium in Information Technology at the Durban University of Technology. The study investigates the English language as one of the possible causes of the lack of understanding of computers by English second language learners.

University students learning object-oriented programming (OOP) encounter many complexities. This study undertook empirical research aimed at analysing learners’ interactions with the Alice visual programming environment, which seeks to engage and motivate learners to grasp concepts of OOP, whilst creating animated movies and video games. A mixed-methods approach was employed, using questionnaire surveys and interviews to investigate learners’ experiences with Alice and their understanding of OOP. Findings indicated that learners lacked problem-solving abilities; were unable to grasp programming concepts on an abstract level and spent insufficient time practicing programming exercises. Alice proved to be an effective tool in helping to address these challenges and in improving learners’ grasp of OOP. Learners found Alice to have good usability. Furthermore, test and exam results revealed a statistically significant difference between performances of learners who had been taught Alice in comparison to similar learners who were not exposed to the Alice intervention. / Computing / Information Systems / M. Sc. (Information systems)

Atualmente há uma demanda crescente por aplicações hipermídia baseadas na WWW (World Wide Web), conhecidas como WIS (Web Information Systems). Esse novo tipo de aplicação apresenta requisitos adicionais aos sistemas de software clássicos, o que resulta na necessidade de investigar modelos mais adequados para apoiar o seu desenvolvimento. Em especial, os sistemas para apoio ao EaD (Ensino a Distância) baseados na Web apresentam características e requisitos ainda mais específicos. Os modelos atuais para modelagem e especificação de hiperdocumentos não são completamente adequados para representar características deste domínio, como a necessidade de acompanhamento dos aprendizes e a realização de avaliações diagnósticas e formativas. Isso motivou a proposta de um modelo para apoiar WISs voltados especificamente para EaD, denominado MDE (Modelo para Documentos Educacionais), que estende o modelo HMBS (Hyperdocument Model Based on Statecharts) para a descrição de conteúdo nesse domínio. O MDE adota como modelo formal subjacente uma variante da técnica Statecharts, cuja estrutura e semântica operacional possibilitam especificar a estrutura organizacional e a semântica navegacional de hiperdocumentos complexos. Adicionalmente, foi integrada ao MDE a técnica de mapeamento conceitual, que acrescenta um significado educacional aos grafos hierárquicos. Dessa forma, o modelo apresenta como pontos fortes a possibilidade de captar várias informações relevantes do comportamento do usuário no estudo do material disponível on-line e a disponibilização desses dados ao instrutor, como importante apoio à avaliação formativa. Como prova de conceito, foi desenvolvido o protótipo de um ambiente para autoria e oferecimento de cursos denominado ATEnA (Ambiente para Treinamento, Ensino e Aprendizagem). Esta tese apresenta também avaliações conceituais e práticas do modelo e do protótipo desenvolvidos. / There is an increasing demand for hypermedia applications based on the WWW (World Wide Web), known as Web Information Systems (WIS). These applications present specific requirements in addition to those of traditional software systems, thus fostering the need for investigating suitable models to support their development. In particular, systems for Distance Education based on the Web present very specific characteristics and requirements. Current models for hyperdocument modeling and specification are not completely suitable for representing domain specific characteristics such as the need of tracking student progress and evaluating their learning process through diagnostic and formative assessments. This scenario motivated the proposal of a model to support WISs targeted at distance education, called MDE (Model for Distance Education). MDE extends the HMBS (Hyperdocument Model Based on Statecharts) hyperdocument model to describe hypertext content in the educational domain. It adopts as its underlying model a variant of the Statecharts formal specification technique, whose organizational structure and operational semantics allows defining the organizational structure and navigational semantics of complex hyperdocuments. MDE also incorporates the technique of conceptual mapping, that adds educational meaning to hierarchical graphs. MDE’s major strengths are thus the ability to capture relevant information about user behavior when studying on-line educational material and make such information available to the teacher / instructor in order to support formative assessment of students. As a proof of concept, the prototype of an environment for authoring and offering distance courses based on MDE has been developed, called ATEnA (Adaptive Training Environment with Support for Assessment). The results of practical and conceptual evaluations of the model and system developed are also presented in this thesis.

L’objectif de cette thèse est de fournir un modèle, une méthode et un outil d’aide à la réalisation de scénarios interactifs. Cette solution répond au problème de l’opposition entre la maîtrise du déroulement d’un jeu vidéo et son niveau d’interactivité. En d’autres termes, notre but est d’aider à réaliser des jeux vidéo dont l’évolution satisfait les intentions des auteurs tout en autorisant un déroulement influencé par les choix du joueur (exprimés aux travers de ses actions). Pour cela, notre proposition permet à l’utilisateur de produire un modèle de scénario de jeu de bonne qualité qui est : (a) riche – le scénario fournit suffisamment d’options pertinentes aux personnages joueur/non-joueur de sorte que le joueur puisse déterminer le déroulement du jeu et sente toujours que le discours créé est intéressant, (b) valide – tous les discours possibles dans le scénario sont cohérents et répondent aux effets désirés par les auteurs, (c) opérationnel – la représentation du scénario est exécutable. Ce scénario est ensuite employé comme l’entrée d’un système de pilotage de narration interactive assurant le contrôle de la gestion du déroulement du jeu. Par conséquent, l’évolution des jeux, qui sont dirigés par un tel système de pilotage, garantit que l’exécution du jeu respecte les souhaits des auteurs, et en même temps, autorise la liberté des actions du joueur. Pour répondre au problème exposé ci-dessus, nous appuyons notre solution sur un modèle mathématique calculable (la logique linéaire) qui offre des mécanismes de déductions rigoureux et automatiques.Nous avons fait un tour d'horizon des approches existantes concernant le pilotage de narration interactive et la validation de scénario. Ceci nous permet d'identifier les principes nécessaires à notre solution, tels que les éléments d'architecture d'un système de pilotage ; la construction,la représentation, l'exécution de scénarios narratifs ; les propriétés de narration importantes ; l'évolution de référence des paramètres dramatiques ; la structuration de discours ; la stratégie pour la validation d'un scénario ; les informations qualitatives et statistiques nécessaires… Nos contributions portent (1) sur la définition d'un ensemble de propriétés de narration spécifiant la qualité des scénarios de jeu ; (2) sur la proposition de modèles, algorithmes et outils pour écrire des modèles de scénario respectant ces propriétés. Nous validons nos résultats par la réalisation de deux exemples. Le premier est un extrait d'un jeu éducatif expliquant comment appliquer notre outil en vue de produire un modèle de scénario de jeu valide, qui est exprimé par un séquent de logique linéaire dont la représentation est conforme à un métamodèle du calcul des séquents. Pour le second exemple, nous décrivons le processus de production complet d'un jeu vidéo réel basé sur l'histoire « Le Petit Chaperon rouge », mettant en oeuvre un prototype de système de pilotage que nous avons proposé, ce qui permet de dérouler le jeu selon le scénario valide produit, donc son évolution satisfait les intentions des auteurs, et en même temps, dépend des actions du joueur. / The objective of this PhD thesis is to provide a model, a method and a tool for producing interactive scenarios. Our solution solves the opposition between the controlle devolution of a video game and its interactivity level. In other words, our goal is to assist (authors) in producing video games whose unfolding satisfies authors’ intentions while it is simultaneously influenced by player’s choices (expressed via her/his actions).To this purpose, our proposal is to allow users to produce a good quality game scenario model, which is: (a) rich – the scenario provides enough pertinent options for player/non-player characters so that the player can determine the evolution of the game and always feels that the created discourse is interesting, (b) valid – all the possible discourses in the scenario are consistent and meet authors required effects, (c) operational – the representation of the scenario is executable. This scenario is then used as the input of an interactive storytelling control system to assist it in managing the unfolding of the game. As a consequence, the evolution of the video games, which are directed by such a control system, guarantees authors requirements, while at the same time, it depends on player’s actions. In order to execute the foregoing proposal, we base our solution on a calculable mathematical model (linear logic) which provides rigorous and automatic deduction mechanisms. We have made an overview of existing approaches concerning interactive storytelling controland scenario validation problems. This allows us to identify necessary principles for our solution, such as: architecture elements of a control system; construction, representation, implementation of narrative scenarios; important narrative properties; reference evolution of the drama parameters; discourse structuralization; scenario validation strategy; necessary statistical and qualitative information; etc. Our contributions consist (1) in the definition of a set of narrative properties specifying the quality of game scenarios; (2) in the proposal of models, algorithms and tools in order to produce scenario models respecting these properties. We validate our results by realizing two examples. The first is an extract of an education algame explaining how to apply our tools to produce a valid game scenario model, which is expressed by a linear logic sequent whose representation conforms to a metamodel of the sequent calculus. For the second example, we describe the complete production process of areal video game based on the story "Little Red Cap", implementing a prototype of control system we have proposed, which allows unfolding the game according to the produced valid scenario, so its evolution satisfies authors intentions and simultaneously depends on player's actions.

Esta tese de doutorado apresenta um estudo e formulações teóricas sobre o conceito de espect-autoria e defende os conceitos de Poética da Autoria Aberta, Poética da Autoração e Poéticas em Coletividade como praxis artística de apropriação dos dispositivos de produção das representações sociais, no contexto da autoria dos espectadores nas artes participativas e interativas. Numa transferência interdisciplinar de conceitos a exemplo do conceito espect-autor de Gellouz (2007), o estudo propõe as noções de autorabilidade, obra autorável, agenciamento autoral do espectador e trinômio produção/recepção/produção bem como os conceitos formulados de função-espect-autor, espect-autor em coletividade, particip-autor, inter-autor e trans-autor, que privilegiam a noção de autoria em suas notações, configurando uma taxonomia mais apropriada para compor um vocabulário que permita designar e compreender a noção de espect-autoria, ou seja, a produção autoral dos espectadores, enquanto forma, repertório e significados, nas obras cuja abertura poética propõe desafios autorais aos seus espectadores. A principal referência artística e fonte desta pesquisa é a série Autorretrato Coletivo (1987-), um conjunto de obras participativas e interativas que eu proponho como repositório dialógico e polifônico da identidade coletiva, tendo como princípio a apropriação dos espectadores enquanto autores de suas identidades no corpus da obra. Em suma, a função-autor exercida pelos espectadores, mais precisamente a sua função-espect-autor, em processos de criação/co-criação ou recriação (por recombinação e/ou repertoriação) no contexto das artes participativas e interativas, tem profundas implicações para nossa compreensão da evolução da arte como um fenômeno coletivo. / This thesis presents a study and theoretical formulations about the concept of spect-authorship on participatory and interactive artworks and defends the concepts of Poetics of the Open Authorship, Authoring Poetics and Multi-Poetics in Collectivity as artistic praxis of apropriation of the production devices of the social representations in the context of the spectators authorship in the participatory and interactive arts. Through an interdisciplinary transfer of concepts as Gellouz concept of spect-author (2007) , this study proposes the notions of authorability, authoriable artwork, authorial agency of the spectator, trinomial production/reception/production as well the concepts of function-espect-author, spect-author in collectivity, particip-author, inter-author and trans-author, which privilege the notion of authorship, setting a taxonomy more appropriate to compose a vocabulary that describes and increases the understanding of the concept of spect-authorship, the authorial production of the spectators as form, repertory and meanings, in the artworks whose poetic openness proposes authorial challenges to their spectators. The main artistic reference and source of this research is the series Collective Self-Portrait (1987-), a set of participatory and interactive artworks that I propose as a dialogic and polyphonic repository of the collective identity, based on the principle of appropriation of the spectators as authors of their own identities in the corpus of the artwork. Summing up, the author-function experienced by the spectators, more precisely their spect-author-function, in creation/co-creation or recreation process in the context of participatory and interactive arts, holds profound implications for our understanding of art evolution as a collective phenomenon.