Software engineering has been facing a crisis for several years now - there is more demand for new software than there is ability to supply. Software reuse is a potential way to tackle the problems caused by the software crisis with its promises of increased productivity and cheaper development costs. Several software reuse successes have been reported, but these have been predominantly in large, well structured companies. However, there are numerous smaller companies that could also benefit from reuse if it were made available to them. This thesis addresses these issues by implementing a reuse programme in a small company. An incremental approach to reuse introduction is adopted, following the Seven Steps to Success, and 'lightweight' processes are recommended to support the reuse programme. A prototype tool set, ReThree- C++, was developed to automate support for the reuse programme. The results of the case study are presented. The reuse programme was successful, with benefits to the company including both increased speed of production and financial gains from selling reusable components. The challenges faced are also identified. Details of the tool set giving automated support for reuse are also presented. The tool set is an approach to reuse repository control which also integrates information abstraction from C++ source code to generate class hierarchy charts and software documentation automatically. It helps developers store, retrieve, understand and use reusable components. The usefulness of the tool set is shown with an experiment and as part of the case study. The purpose of the thesis is to show that small companies can implement reuse, and that the method presented supports the introduction of a reuse programme. It concludes that although challenges were faced, great benefits can be gained by using the method with automated support for reuse in a small company.

For several years multi-object spectroscopy systems have been available for carrying out survey work in the visible region, but until very recently there has not been a system for the near infrared region. This thesis describes the design, manufacture and commissioning of the first multi-object fibre system for near infrared spectroscopy. SMIRFS (Spectroscopic Multi-object Infrared Fibre System) is a prototype system that has been designed at the Department of Physics in Durham to couple the Cassegrain focus of the United Kingdom InfraRed Telescope (UKIRT) to a cooled long slit infrared spectrograph (CGS4). Two different fibre bundles are available, each containing 14 fibres. One bundle is made from zirconium fluoride fibres, for K band spectroscopy and the second bundle is made from silica fibres, for J and H band spectroscopy. During the design process of SMIRFS a number of issues were addressed. These included; the characteristics of infrared fibres, in particular their throughput and FRD, atmospheric features in the near infra-red and suitable sky subtraction techniques, fibre preparation and evaluation, the use of microlenses for coupling slow focal ratio beams with fibres, and the thermal emissions from the warm material of the instrument. These, along with the design, manufacture and testing of the SMIRFS are described in detail, including the fibre evaluation results and estimates for throughput, instrument thermal background derived from the commissioning run data. Finally, there is a brief discussion on the development of infrared fibre system for astronomy.

Image patches can be factorized into ‘shapelets’ that describe segmentation patterns, and palettes that describe how to paint the segments. This allows a flexible factorization of local shape (segmentation patterns) and appearance (palettes), which we argue is useful for tasks such as object and scene recognition. Here, we introduce the ‘shapelet’ model- a framework that is able to learn a library of ‘shapelet’ segmentation patterns to capture local shape, and hierarchical palettes of colors to capture appearance. Using a learned shapelet library, image patches can be analyzed using a variational technique to produce descriptors that separately describe local shape and local appearance. These descriptors can be used for high-level vision tasks, such as object and scene recognition. We show that the shapelet model is competitive with SIFT-based methods and structure element (stel) model variants on the object recognition datasets Caltech28 and Caltech101, and the scene recognition dataset All-I-Have-Seen.

Image patches can be factorized into ‘shapelets’ that describe segmentation patterns, and palettes that describe how to paint the segments. This allows a flexible factorization of local shape (segmentation patterns) and appearance (palettes), which we argue is useful for tasks such as object and scene recognition. Here, we introduce the ‘shapelet’ model- a framework that is able to learn a library of ‘shapelet’ segmentation patterns to capture local shape, and hierarchical palettes of colors to capture appearance. Using a learned shapelet library, image patches can be analyzed using a variational technique to produce descriptors that separately describe local shape and local appearance. These descriptors can be used for high-level vision tasks, such as object and scene recognition. We show that the shapelet model is competitive with SIFT-based methods and structure element (stel) model variants on the object recognition datasets Caltech28 and Caltech101, and the scene recognition dataset All-I-Have-Seen.

Compact facility designs and retro-fitting of facilities that involve heavy lifts are often performed in congested areas. Tight schedules increase the requirement to provide detailed heavy lift analysis. The planning of every aspect of a critical lift operation is essential. Managing the behavior and trajectory of the lifted object during the lift is often left to the field crew. The rigger signalman and the crane operator communicate by radio, or by hand signals, to maneuver the lifted object between obstructions. This thesis presents advancements in the development of mathematical algorithms for the lift object trajectory path and analysis. The proposed methodology is divided into smaller manageable phases to control the process and at the same time create independent modules. Each step of the lifted object movement was algebraically-digitally tracked, starting at the lifted object pick-point through an optimum path development to the objects final position or set-point. Parameters such as the minimum distance between the lifted object and passing obstructions and the minimum clearance between the lifted object and the crane boom envelope are some of the many predefined rules that were taken into account. Each step in the developed algorithm provides a short description, partial decision flowchart, and graphical interpretation of the problem, and some sections cover mathematical calculations of a defined path. The lifted objects spatial trajectory analysis and optimization are part of the complex assignment relating to the crane selection process. The proposed methodology is tested on a case study, which is also described in this thesis in order to illustrate the essential features of the proposed methodology. / Construction Engineering and Management

Bibliography: p. 143-150. / vii, 150 p. : ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Develops a model of orthogonal persistence for object-oriented languages. A type-safe model based on the Napier88 Language Environment is proposed and as example, a possible design for a persistent version of C++ is explored. The model uses a persistent object store to support orthogonal persistence in the language. To accomodate the needs of distribution, also develops an extended model of distributed stores suitable for wide-area networks. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Computer Science, 1999

Bibliography: p. 143-150. / vii, 150 p. : ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Develops a model of orthogonal persistence for object-oriented languages. A type-safe model based on the Napier88 Language Environment is proposed and as example, a possible design for a persistent version of C++ is explored. The model uses a persistent object store to support orthogonal persistence in the language. To accomodate the needs of distribution, also develops an extended model of distributed stores suitable for wide-area networks. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Computer Science, 1999

Formal methods are increasingly accepted for developing software systems, however their application to user-interface development is less common. In this thesis, we demonstrate the utility of formal object-oriented techniques for specifying, designing and implementing user-interfaces. The specification of a user-interface describes user-perceivable operations and information structures for an interactive system in an implementation-independent way. Operations of a user-interface specification define tasks. User-interfaces can be specified by a system of communicating agents where some agents are presented to users. An agent and its presentation together define an interactor. Defining the presentation of interactors is a design concern. Widgets are common re-usable interactors for which the presentation is usually well defined. Definitions of widgets may be stored in a library. We illustrate the characteristics of notations for interactor based specification using the Object-Z language and demonstrate using interactors from a widget library. Formal methods enable a "model-based" approach to be taken to the development of user-interface designs. A specification in terms of widgets is derivable from an abstract interactor-based specification. A corresponding user-interface design is usually easily identified from a widget-based specification. Interactor-based user-interface designs can be used to define an architecture for a corresponding system implementation. Derivation of a widget-based specification from an abstract specification corresponds to a task decomposition (i.e., the abstract and widget-based specifications enable the same tasks to be performed, although the operations involved differ). Task decomposition defines a compatibility relation between user-interface specifications. We give "specification patterns" to assist incrementally transforming an abstract user-interface specification to an equivalent specification in terms of widgets.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, Dept. of Computer Science, 1999. / Bibliography: p. 143-150.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, Dept. of Computer Science, 2000. / Bibliography: leaves 265-280.