Approximate computing has been an emerging programming and system design paradigm that has been proposed as a way to overcome the power-wall problem that hinders the scaling of the next generation of both high-end and mobile computing systems. Towards this end, a lot of researchers have been studying the effects of approximation to applications and those hardware modifications that allow increased power benefits for reduced reliability. In this work, we focus on runtime system modifications and task-based programming models that enable software-controlled, user-driven approximate computing. We employ a systematic methodology that allows us to evaluate the potential energy and performance benefits of approximate computing using as building blocks unreliable hardware components. We present a set of extensions to OpenMP 4.0 that enable the programmer to define computations suitable for approximation. We introduce task-significance, a novel concept that describes the contribution of a task to the quality of the result. We use significance as a channel of communication from domain specific knowledge about applications towards the runtime-system, where we can optimise approximate execution depending on user constraints. Finally, we show extensions to the Linux kernel that enable it to operate seamlessly on top of unreliable memory and provide a user-space interface for memory allocation from the unreliable portion of the physical memory. Having this framework in place allowed us to identify what we call the refresh-by-access property of applications that use dynamic random-access memory (DRAM). We use this property to implement techniques for task-based applications that minimise the probability of errors when using unreliable memory enabling increased quality and power efficiency when using unreliable DRAM.

Orientador: Matilde Virginia Ricardi Scaramucci / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-25T03:24:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Xavier_RoselyPerez_D.pdf: 77265118 bytes, checksum: 684b6cdb04674cb92a88839c3286e14d (MD5) Previous issue date: 1999 / Resumo: Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo implementar e avaliar um programa temático baseado em tarefas que foi elaborado para duas 5a. séries do Ensino Fundamental. O processo de aprendizagem é interpretado e avaliado com base nas mudanças pedagógicas realizadas pelas professoras no programa planejado, nas manifestações discursivas e comportamentais demonstradas pelos alunos durante as interações, aqui denominadas de sintomas positivos e negativos de aprendizagem, nas atitudes dos alunos com relação às aulas e ao material didático e no seu rendimento nas habilidades de compreensão oral, leitura e produção oral. Os dados foram coletados através de diários, gravações de aulas em áudio e vídeo, questionários e testes de rendimento em dois momentos do processo de modo que os resultados pudessem ser comparados entre si Para verificar se os ganhos de aprendizagem haviam sido significativos, duas 6a. séries realizaram os mesmos testes de compreensão oral e leitura e os seus resultados comparados com aqueles dos sujeitos desta pesquisa. Os dados mostram que o programa temático baseado em tarefas precisou de algumas mudanças ao longo do processo em decorrência das reinterpretações pedagógicas das professoras, no que se refere, por exemplo, à adição e substituição de tarefas e ao espaço da gramática. Ao longo da implementação houve mais sintomas positivos do que negativos, isso pode ser explicado pelo tipo de interação que se efetivou nas aulas, isto é, mais engajada, verossímel, significativa e colaborativa. A grande maioria dos alunos gostou das aulas e do material didático e muitos perceberam que estavam aprendendo não somente lingua estrangeira mas também conteúdo temático. Quanto ao rendimento dos sujeitos, os dados mostram que em ambos os contextos de ensino, os alunos apresentaram ganhos de aprendizagem nas habilidades de compreensão/ produção oral e compreensão em leitura. Entretanto, esses ganhos foram mais significativos na habilidade de compreensão oral, seguida da leitura e produção oral em um dos contextos. No outro, os ganhos também foram concentrados na habilidade de compreensão oral, seguida da produção oral e leitura / Abstract: The aim oft his research is to implement and evaluate a task-based thematic syllabus which was devised for two groups of Braziian secondary leamers of English as a foreign language. The process of learning is interpreted and evaluated on the basis of the teachers' pedagogical changes in the planned syllabus, the leamers' verbal and non-verbal manifestations during interaction which were classified as positive and negative symptoms of leaming, learners' motivation and their performance in listening and reJ'ldingcomprehension tasks and in oral production skills. The data were collected through diaries, questionnaires, video- and audio-taped set of lessons and progress achievement tests which were anminimered in two moments of the process 50 that the results could be compared. In order to assess gains in leaming, sophomore students were submitted to the same listening and reading comprehension tests and their results compared to those obtained by the subjects ofthis research. The data show that the task-based thematic syllabus needed some changes during the implementation phase because of the pedagogical reinterpretations of the teachers who realized the need for replacement and addition of tasks throughout the course and a new dimension for grammar teaching. The subjects had more positive than negative symptoms of leaming and this can be accounted for a committed, truly, meaningful and collaborative interaction that was built in the classroom. The majority of the subjects have stated that they enjoyed the classes and the textbook which as particularly designed for their age and interests. They realized they were learning not only the target language but also thematic contento The data also show gains in listening and reading comprehension as well as in oral production skills. In other words, the subjects of both contexts of research were able to develop listening comprehension more than the other skills. Reading comprehension was developed more tban oral production in one of the contexts while the reverse was observed in the other context / Doutorado / Ensino-Aprendizagem de Lingua Estrangeira / Doutor em Linguística Aplicada

Usability is one of the most important aspects of Information Technology. Usability plays a vital role in this industry, where organizations thrive to ensure utmost satisfaction of their end-users in regard to the experience of using their product. The systems may be a website or a software application. To measure user satisfaction, the method of usability testing can be performed. Performing usability testing gives a clear picture of difficulties that would be faced by potential target users. There are different types of usability testing such as Task-based usability testing, open ended usability testing, remote usability testing etc. The important point here is about deciding upon the most appropriate type of testing technique to get the accurate user satisfaction level. This study is mainly focused to answer the following research question: What is the relationship between the task-based and open ended usability testing, in terms of measuring satisfaction? System Usability Scale (SUS) has been used to measure the satisfaction of the users in this study. For this we used two websites performing task-based usability testing and open ended usability testing respectively. This study had involved twenty eight different participants. Participants are divided into two groups, one group to perform open ended usability testing and another for task-based usability testing for both the websites. This study has produced following results; Open-ended testing tended to produce higher SUS-ratings for the tested system. The results in this study showed that users performing open-ended usability testing gave positive responses for both the websites in terms of user satisfaction. Open-ended usability testing is an exploratory testing, where the testing is based on different aspects such as user interface of the system, design etc. Task-based usability testing is goal based where users have to complete the given task without fail. This method drew lower scores when compared to open-ended usability testing for the tested systems from the attained results. Nevertheless that task-based testing attained lower SUS scores, it is fairly straight forward than open-ended testing to measure efficiency and effectiveness. The above results have been discussed in detail. This study has finally concluded that to measure the usability of a system it is recommended to practice both the open-ended and task-based usability testing techniques.

The subject of this study is how pupils in math disabilities communicate and reason during calculations involving fractional numbers. The study comprises eight informants, two from eigth grade (a boy and a girl, 13 to 14 years old) and six from ninth grade (three girls and three boys, 14 to 15 years old) who all were considered to have math disabilities. They were all interviewed alone about their reasoning when solving ten tasks involving fractions to see what knowledge and misconceptions the pupils showed. The conclusion of the study is that the pupils posessed procedural abilities, but were weaker in their concepual abilities. Most pupils in the study were uncertain about the meaning of nominator and denominator. Several of the pupils preferred to think in percent rather than fractions but they had problems in converting from percent to fractions and vice versa.

Dans le contexte des réseaux complexes, cette thèse s’inscrit dans deux axes : (1) Méthodologiede la détection de communautés et (2) Evaluation de la qualité des algorithmes de détection de communautés. Dans le premier axe, nous nous intéressons en particulier aux approches fondées sur les Leaders (sommets autour desquels s’agrègent les communautés). Premièrement, nous proposons un enrichissement de la méthodologie LICOD qui permet d’évaluer les différentes stratégies des algorithmes fondés sur les leaders, en intégrant différentes mesures dans toutes les étapes de l’algorithme. Deuxièmement, nous proposons une extension de LICOD, appelée it-LICOD. Cette extension introduit une étape d’auto-validation de l’ensemble des leaders. Les résultats expérimentaux de it-LICOD sur les réseaux réels et artificiels sont bons par rapport à LICOD et compétitifs par rapport aux autres méthodes. Troisièmement, nous proposons une mesure de centralité semi-locale, appelée TopoCent, pour remédier au problème de la non-pertinence des mesures locales et de la complexité de calcul élevée des mesures globales. Nous montrons expérimentalement que LICOD est souvent plus performant avec TopoCent qu’avec les autres mesures de centralité. Dans le deuxième axe, nous proposons deux méthodes orientées-tâche, CLE et PLE, afin d’évaluer les algorithmes de détection de communautés. Nous supposons que la qualité de la solution des algorithmes peut être estimée en les confrontant à d’autres tâches que la détection de communautés en elle-même. Dans la méthode CLE nous utilisons comme tâche la classification non-supervisée et les algorithmes sont évalués sur des graphes générés à partir des jeux de données numériques. On bénéficie dans ce cas de la disponibilité de la vérité de terrain (les regroupements) de plusieurs jeux de données numériques. En ce qui concerne la méthode PLE, la qualité des algorithmes est mesurée par rapport à leurs contributions dans une tâche de prévision de liens. L’expérimentation des méthodes CLE et PLE donne de nouveaux éclairages sur les performances des algorithmes de détection de communautés / In this thesis we focus, on one hand, on community detection in complex networks, and on the other hand, on the evaluation of community detection algorithms. In the first axis, we are particularly interested in Leaders driven community detection algorithms. First, we propose an enrichment of LICOD : a framework for building different leaders-driven algorithms. We instantiate different implementations of the provided hotspots. Second, we propose an extension of LICOD, we call it-LICOD. This extension introduces a self-validation step of all identified leaders. Experimental results of it-LICOD on real and artificial networks show that it outperform the initial LICOD approach. Obtained results are also competitive with those of other state-of-the art methods. Thirdly, we propose a semi-local centrality measure, called TopoCent, that address the problem of the irrelevance of local measures and high computational complexity of globalmeasures. We experimentally show that LICOD is often more efficient with TopoCent than with the other classical centrality measures. In the second axis, we propose two task-based community evaluation methods : CLE and PLE. We examine he hypothesis that the quality of community detection algorithms can be estimated by comparing obtained results in the context of other relevent tasks. The CLE approach, we use a data clustering task as a reference. The PLE method apply a link prediction task. We show that the experimentation of CLE and PLE methods gives new insights into the performance of community detection algorithms.

A necessidade de jovens pesquisadores lerem correta e rapidamente uma grande quantidade de textos escritos em inglês, que é a língua franca da ciência, representa uma barreira considerável para eles. Dada essa necessidade, em 2001, o programa de mestrado em Ciências da Computação e Matemática Computacional do ICMC-USP passou a avaliar a proficiência em inglês dos alunos quanto à habilidade de reconhecerem o gênero de textos científicos em inglês, com as convenções que lhe são características. O site do Exame de Proficiência em Inglês (EPI)disponibiliza Exames Modelos com correção automatizada para os alunos saberem antecipadamente como será o exame formal, também informatizado. Porém, a prática com o Exame Modelo fornece apenas um relatório com o escore do aluno, não oferecendo meios para ele relembrar seus conhecimentos, receber instrução ou ainda rever conceitos errôneos. Uma possível solução para essa lacuna é um ambiente computacional que propicie um contexto favorável à aprendizagem do inglês instrumental. Na perspectiva de favorecer tal aprendizado e auxiliar os alunos a estudarem para o EPI é que essa pesquisa propôs um Ambiente Computacional de Aprendizagem (ACA) para o inglês instrumental. O ACA desenvolvido, denominado Computer-Aided Learning of English for Academic Purposes (CALEAP-Web), é fruto da integração de um Teste Adaptativo Informatizado (TAI), denominado de Adaptive English Proficiency Test for the Web (ADEPT), e um Ambiente Computacional de Tarefas (ACT), denominado de Computer-Aided Task Environment for Scientific English (CATESE). Um TAI consiste em itens (questões) selecionados de acordo com o nível de habilidade estimado do aluno, gerando um teste individualizado. Já o ACT fornece tarefas pré-determinadas para o aprendizado do aluno. Para o ADEPT foram realizados dois experimentos com alunos de mestrado em Ciências da Computação e Matemática Computacional do ICMC-USP e com o CALEAP-Web, como um todo, foram realizadas simulações para a verificação de sua operacionalidade. Embora o ACA tenha sido desenvolvido para apoiar os alunos do programa de mestrado do ICMC-USP, ele é suficientemente genérico para ser usado em outros programas de mestrado que avaliam o inglês instrumental e por jovens pesquisadores que desejam conhecer as convenções do gênero de textos científicos em inglês. / The need to read correctly and rapidly a huge amount of scientific papers, that is predominantly in English as the lingua franca for science, represents a considerable barrier for novice non-native English researchers. Due to this need, in 2001, the MSc. program in Computer Science and Computational Maths at ICMC-USP proposed a new type of proficiency exam to evaluate students\' competence in terms of the demands of highly standardized research articles written in English. The English proficiency exam website makes available simulated tests for the students to be aware of the contents and scoring procedure and to practice before applying for the formal exam, which is also automatically corrected. However, practice with simulated tests only provides a report with the student\'s score. There is no support to correct student\'s misconceptions, to instruct or to refresh prerequisite knowledge. A possible solution to fulfil this gap is to provide a computer-based environment designed to arouse students\' consciousness about the conventions in English usage in research papers. The purpose of this research was to propose such an environment. The computer-based environment developed, called Computer-Aided Learning of English for Academic Purposes (CALEAP-Web), is the result of the integration of an adaptive test, named Adaptive English Proficiency Test for the Web (ADEPT), and a task based environment called Computer-Aided Task Environment for Scientific English (CATESE). An adaptive test consists of items (questions) selected according to the estimated ability level of the student, providing an individualized test. A task based environment provides predefined tasks to ensure student\'s learning in a certain issue. Two evaluation experiments with students from the MSc. program in Computer Science and Computational Maths at ICMC-USP were carried out with ADEPT; with CALEAP-Web simulations were designed to verify functionality and robustness. Although CALEAP-Web was developed to support students from the MSc. program in Computer Science and Computational Maths at ICMC-USP, it is sufficiently generic to be used in other master programs which assess instrumental English and by novice researchers who need to know the demands of highly standardized research articles written in English.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(人間・環境学) / 甲第22540号 / 人博第943号 / 新制||人||224(附属図書館) / 2019||人博||943(吉田南総合図書館) / 京都大学大学院人間・環境学研究科共生人間学専攻 / (主査)准教授 高橋 幸, 教授 谷口 一美, 教授 STEWART Timothy William, 准教授 笹尾 洋介, 教授 田地野 彰 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Human and Environmental Studies / Kyoto University / DGAM

With fast developing economy today, knowledge becomes critical resource in organizations since it creates enterprises’ competitive advantages. Thus, the management of knowledge is highly valued as one of the strategic solutions to business success. In China, although the importance of knowledge management is already recognized by enterprises, its development and implementation still face constrains and obstacles. In high-tech industries, especially for IT companies, knowledge is considered as the key assets for the company to achieve higher competitiveness. Even though information technology provided good platform for knowledge management implementation in IT companies, its knowledge management influenced by various factors such as organizational culture, business process problems, interpersonal relationship and etc. As a result, knowledge management implementation ran into difficulties. The objectives of this thesis are to evaluate current knowledge management status in Chinese IT companies and then to provide possible solutions to improve the knowledge management implementation regarding the investigated results. Because of time and resource limitation, this thesis took Taobao, one of the leading IT companies in China to conduct the case study. To conduct the research, this thesis applied qualitative method. It conducted interviews of four employees in Taobao to collect data, and then use grounded theory method to analyze the results. After analysis, the thesis pointed out Taobao’s current problems of knowledge management implementation and further provided possible solutions from following aspects including understanding of knowledge management, knowledge strategy, training, top management support, knowledge management process, network of experts, knowledge sharing and trustworthy personal relationship, information technology, employee involvement and motivation, and organizational culture in order to improve knowledge management implementation in Taobao.

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This exploratory case study examined the digital practices and literacies of Generation Z language learners and explored how these practices could be better addressed in the language classroom through "Real-World" tasks. The study was conducted within the theoretical framework of the Sociocultural Approach to Language Learning and the pedagogical framework of the Real-World Task-Based Language Teaching approach, with an emphasis on the eLANG citizen project. The data was analyzed through qualitative thematic analysis of both a corpus of learner final reports and two questionnaires, resulting in a detailed portrait of the learners' digital practices. The findings indicate that implementing real-world, task-based language learning projects that utilize Generation Z's pre-existing digital competencies can lead to improved language and digital literacy skills. Students reported enhancements in their oral expression, use of slang, and interaction with native speakers, as well as improvements in their understanding of hashtags, video planning and editing, and trend tracking. The students had multiple real-world, authentic interactions through the digital citizenship project, which enabled them to become enhanced digital citizens in FLS by formulating their identities, observing established communities and language users, participating in these communities directly, and learning in informal, gameful ways. It is proposed that utilizing the digital practices of Generation Z learners for language learning not only enhances the authenticity and relevance of the activities but also helps to achieve pedagogical objectives. This prepares learners for their future in a technology-saturated world and becoming effective members of society and is the next relevant step in sociocultural language pedagogy.