The goal of this Creative Project was to write a model text on the principles and practices of specifications writing for landscape architecture students.The goals of the text were to provide: 1) an overview of the principles and practices of specifications writing as advocated by the Construction Specifications Institute; 2) examples of contract documents used by the landscape architect; and 3) a source of reference information specifically for landscape architects.The text consists of nine chapters. Each chapter begins with a set of goals, followed by the text content, and ends with a set of review questions. The text contains figures and appendices which provide examples and sources of information useful to specifications writers. / Department of Landscape Architecture

The reach control problem (RCP) characterizes a control design approach, based on computer science notions of object triangulation, that has been extensively developed as a means of guiding the complete transient response of a system, entirely within a desired polytopic region of state-space operation characterized by linear constraints on its states. This thesis expands upon results achieved in the area of RCP problem solvability under continuous feedback, identifying new necessary conditions. It accomplishes this using algebraic topology constructs, mapping the reach control problem to an equivalent topological one to successfully demonstrate conditions under which topological obstructions are generated. These obstructions, which render the RCP unsolvable by continuous feedback are then used to characterize equivalent conditions necessary for solvability of the problem. This thesis also serves to formally demonstrate the substantial advantages of the RCP design approach over more conventional industry techniques, by solving real-world problems with complex specifications.

The reach control problem (RCP) characterizes a control design approach, based on computer science notions of object triangulation, that has been extensively developed as a means of guiding the complete transient response of a system, entirely within a desired polytopic region of state-space operation characterized by linear constraints on its states. This thesis expands upon results achieved in the area of RCP problem solvability under continuous feedback, identifying new necessary conditions. It accomplishes this using algebraic topology constructs, mapping the reach control problem to an equivalent topological one to successfully demonstrate conditions under which topological obstructions are generated. These obstructions, which render the RCP unsolvable by continuous feedback are then used to characterize equivalent conditions necessary for solvability of the problem. This thesis also serves to formally demonstrate the substantial advantages of the RCP design approach over more conventional industry techniques, by solving real-world problems with complex specifications.

Thesis (M.S. in Computer Science)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 1990. / Thesis Advisor: Berzins, Valdis. Second Reader: Bradbury, Leigh W. "December 1990." Description based on title screen as viewed on April 1, 2010. DTIC Identifier(s): Computer programs, software engineering, theses, ADA programming language, grammars, specifications, interfaces, installation. Author(s) subject terms: Automatic code generation, formal specifications, attribute grammars. Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-80). Also available in print.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Civil Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The replacement of copperlbrass radiators in the automotive industry with radiators made from aluminium components provided the basis of this research. Since aluminium is more susceptible to corrosion than either copper or brass, factors that contribute to its corrosion are of major interest and importance, and have been investigated. Three different aluminium alloys were selected for study because of a special interest in their corrosive behaviour by the automotive industry. These are the aluminium alloy AA 3003 (samples A and B) and two supplier specific alloys (sample D containing Zn and sample E containing Cu and Mg). The various joining operations used in the automotive manufacturing process dictated the preparation of the aluminium alloys used for corrosion studies. Mechanically Assembled (MA) aluminium radiators use alloy samples as supplied by the aluminium industry and hence suitable experiments were carried out on the 'as-supplied' (AS) samples used for both finstock and tubestock material. The development of Composite Deposition (CD) Technology to braze together finstock and tubestock material introduced new challenges to corrosion research. To gain an insight into the corrosion of a Brazed aluminium radiator, all samples were subjected to a thermal profile identical to that experienced industrially under a Controlled Atmosphere Brazing (CAB) furnace. Two cases of interest emerged. Firstly the 'heat-treated' (HT) samples were used to evaluate the effect ofheat treatment on the alloy's resistance to corrosion. Secondly, alloy samples treated with a Composite Powder Coating (CPC) and then subjected to the thermal profile provided a surface of an AI-Si melt which represented the brazed joint. Experiments on these samples yielded information on the AI-Si melt and the likely corrosion in a brazed joint. The resulting corrosion of the AS, HT and CPC samples immersed in various corrosive electrolyte solutions for 60 minutes was examined using two microscopic techniques. Firstly, the actual surface pitting was examined using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and secondly, cross-sections of the samples mounted in a resin, then suitably polished and etched were examined using an optical microscope to further reveal the nature of corrosion of the samples. The nature of corrosion was best revealed in an acidified chloride solution. The AS samples showed delocalised crystallographic pitting consisting of coalesced pits at localised regions of the surface. The HT samples showed IV localised crystallographic pIttIng consIstIng of many individual pits and intergranular corrosion both at and below the surface. Intergranular corrosion was most severe for HT sample E containing Cu and Mg. The CPC samples showed total corrosion of the surface layer and eutectic AI-Si melt, some crystallographic pitting of the a-AI filler metal, and crystallographic pitting including intergranular corrosion of the base alloy. The extent of corrosion was found to depend on the chemical composition of the aluminium alloys, the presence of Zn, Cu and Mg causing more severe corrosion of the aluminium alloys, with the effect ofZn being most severe. The electrochemical investigation involved the measurement of two fundamentally important parameters. Firstly, the open circuit potentials (OCP) of the alloy samples immersed in the various corrosive electrolyte solutions were measured as a function of time. Secondly, the pitting potentials (Bp) of the alloy samples were measured using anodic polarisation techniques by extrapolation of the resulting log i vs E plots. The OCP and Bp of the AS samples were found to be influenced by the chemical composition of the aluminium alloys. Heat treatment of the AS samples was found to change their microstructure and solid solution composition which in turn affected the electrochemical results. The effect of the Composite melt layer on the electrochemistry of the CPC samples is discussed. Micrographic and electrochemical results were used to assess the best combination of finstock and tubestock material that would yield an aluminium radiator most resistant to corrosion. The likely corrosion of the components in these combinations was assessed and these results were compared with the actual results obtained industrially using the SWAAT exposure test. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1999.

We compare two methods for software specification: <em>algebraic specifications</em> and automata. While algebraic specifications have been around since the 1970s and have been studied extensively, specification by automata is relatively new. Its origins are in another veteran method called <em>trace assertions</em>, which considers a software module as a set of traces, that is, a sequences of function executions. A module is specified by a set of canonical traces and an equivalence relation matching one of the canonical traces to each non-canonical trace. It has been recently shown that trace assertions is an equivalent method to specification by automata. In continuation of this work on trace assertions and automata, we study how automata compare with algebraic specifications. We prove that every specification using an automaton can be converted into an algebraic specification describing the same abstract data type. This conversion utilises a set of canonical words, representing states in the automaton. We next consider varieties of monoids as a heuristic for obtaining more concise algebraic specifications from automata. Finally, we discuss the opposite conversion of algebraic specifications into automata. We show that, while an automaton always exists for every abstract data type described by an algebraic specification, this automaton may not be finitely describable and therefore may not be considered as a viable method for software specification.

Motion-planning is an essential component of autonomous aerial and terrestrial vehicles. The canonical Motion-planning problem, which is widely studied in the literature, is of planning point-to-point motion while avoiding obstacles. However, the desired degree of vehicular autonomy has steadily risen, and has consequently led to motion-planning problems where a vehicle is required to accomplish a high-level intelligent task, rather than simply move between two points. One way of specifying such intelligent tasks is via linear temporal logic (LTL) formulae. LTL is a formal logic system that includes temporal operators such as always, eventually, and until besides the usual logical operators. For autonomous vehicles, LTL formulae can concisely express tasks such as persistent surveillance, safety requirements, and temporal orders of visits to multiple locations. Recent control theoretic literature has discussed the generation of reference trajectories and/or the synthesis of feedback control laws to enable a vehicle to move in manners that satisfy LTL specifications. A crucial step in such synthesis is the generation of a so-called discrete abstraction of a vehicle kinematic/dynamic model. Typical techniques of generating a discrete abstraction require strong assumptions on controllability and/or linearity. This dissertation discusses fast motion-planning and control techniques to satisfy LTL specifications for vehicle models with nonholonomic kinematic constraints, which do not satisfy the aforesaid assumptions. The main contributions of this dissertation are as follows. First, we present a new technique for constructing discrete abstractions of a Dubins vehicle model (namely, a vehicle that moves forward at a constant speed with a minimum turning radius). This technique relies on the so-called method of lifted graphs and precomputed reachable set calculations. Using this technique, we provide an algorithm to generate vehicle reference trajectories satisfying LTL specifications without requiring complete controllability in the presence of workspace constraints, and without requiring linearity or linearization of the vehicle model. Second, we present a technique for centralized motion-planning for a team of vehicles to collaboratively satisfy a common LTL specification. This technique is also based on the method of lifted graphs. Third, we present an incremental version of the proposed motion-planning techniques, which has an “anytime" property. This property means that a feasible solution is computed quickly, and the iterative updates are made to this solution with a guarantee of convergence to an optimal solution. This version is suited for real-time implementation, where a hard bound on the computation time is imposed. Finally, we present a randomized sampling-based technique for generating reference trajectories that satisfy given LTL specifications. This technique is an alternative to the aforesaid technique based on lifted graphs. We illustrate the proposed techniques using numerical simulation examples. We demonstrate the superiority of the proposed techniques in comparison to the existing literature in terms of computational time and memory requirements.

We compare two methods for software specification: <em>algebraic specifications</em> and automata. While algebraic specifications have been around since the 1970s and have been studied extensively, specification by automata is relatively new. Its origins are in another veteran method called <em>trace assertions</em>, which considers a software module as a set of traces, that is, a sequences of function executions. A module is specified by a set of canonical traces and an equivalence relation matching one of the canonical traces to each non-canonical trace. It has been recently shown that trace assertions is an equivalent method to specification by automata. In continuation of this work on trace assertions and automata, we study how automata compare with algebraic specifications. We prove that every specification using an automaton can be converted into an algebraic specification describing the same abstract data type. This conversion utilises a set of canonical words, representing states in the automaton. We next consider varieties of monoids as a heuristic for obtaining more concise algebraic specifications from automata. Finally, we discuss the opposite conversion of algebraic specifications into automata. We show that, while an automaton always exists for every abstract data type described by an algebraic specification, this automaton may not be finitely describable and therefore may not be considered as a viable method for software specification.

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