Taking a Look at the Utilisation of Function Models in Interdisciplinary Design: Insights From Ten Engineering Companies

in Research in Engineering Design (2016)

Interdisciplinary system development requires the integration of diverse expertise to combine different engineering technologies and – increasingly often – services, in order to provide users with ... [more ▼]

Interdisciplinary system development requires the integration of diverse expertise to combine different engineering technologies and – increasingly often – services, in order to provide users with expected value and desired functionality in newly developed products. Failure to achieve integration of disciplines can result in design errors posing a direct threat to the users and to the company. Function modelling is expected to provide suitable means for the integration of disciplines early in the development process. However, a plethora of function models can be found within different disciplines or even across and their divergence has proven to hamper shared, cross-disciplinary function modelling in design teams. This article presents research on function modelling in different disciplines in practice. Conducted research comprises empirical studies in ten companies developing mechatronic systems and/or Product-Service Systems in diverse market areas. The studies provide insights into the utilisation of different function models in different disciplines and across, as well as the specific needs and preferences of practicing designers regarding interdisciplinary function modelling. Finally, the obtained insights and their implications for supporting interdisciplinary function modelling are being discussed. Indications are derived which may guide future research endeavours pertaining to the development of support for collaborative, (cross-)disciplinary function modelling. [less ▲]

Taking Language Out Of The Equation: The Assessment Of Basic Math Competence Without Language

Doctoral thesis (2020)

Although numeracy, next to literacy, is an essential skill in many knowledge based societies of the 21st century, between 5 and 10 % of the population suffer from more or less severe mathematics learning ... [more ▼]

Although numeracy, next to literacy, is an essential skill in many knowledge based societies of the 21st century, between 5 and 10 % of the population suffer from more or less severe mathematics learning disorders or dyscalculia. However, mathematical ability is not a pure construct. Instead, mathematical ability maintains a complex relationship with linguistic abilities. This relationship has significant implications for the assessment of a person’s mathematical ability in multilingual contexts. The hereby presented research project addresses the consequences of that relationship in the context of Luxembourg, a highly multilingual country at the center of Europe. The aim of the project was to tackle psychometric issues that arise when the test taker does not master the language of the test sufficiently and to offer an alternative solution to available assessment batteries based on verbal instructions and tasks. In the first study, we demonstrate the role of reading comprehension in the language of instruction on third grader’s performance in mathematics in Luxembourg and show that non-native speaker’s underachievement in mathematics can be largely or entirely explained by their lacking reading comprehension in the language of assessment. In the next study we report on the two first pilot studies with NUMTEST, an assessment battery that aims to measure children’s basic mathematical competence by replacing verbal instructions and task content with video instructions and animated tasks. The findings of these studies show that children’s basic mathematical competence can indeed be reliably assessed using this new paradigm. Opportunities and limitations of the paradigm are discussed. The third and final study of this project addresses the psychometric characteristics of this newly developed assessment battery. Its findings show that the NUMTEST battery provides for good reliability and concurrent validity all while being language neutral. In summary, the presented project provides for an encouraging proof of concept for the video instruction method while offering preliminary evidence for its validity as an early screener for math learning difficulties. [less ▲]

taking notes about ringing doorbells and barking dogs; the value of context for the re-use of oral history data

in Apostolopoulos, Nicolas; Baricelli, Michelle; Koch, Gertrud (Eds.) preserving survivors memoires; Digital Testimony collections about nazi persecution; history, education and media (2016)

This article is about the value of collecting contextual information for the reuse of interview data, It describes 3 case studies in which the curator of the archive has tried to anticipate the needs of ... [more ▼]

This article is about the value of collecting contextual information for the reuse of interview data, It describes 3 case studies in which the curator of the archive has tried to anticipate the needs of various research disciplines, [less ▲]

Taking Stock of the Bologna Process at 20: The Possibilities and Limits of Soft Law Governance

in Curaj, Adrian; Deca, Ligia; Pricopie, Remus (Eds.) European Higher Education Area: Challenges for a New Decade (2020)

Taking stock of the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC): from policy formulation to policy implementation

in Medeiros, Eduardo (Ed.) European Territorial Cooperation : Theoretical and Empirical Approaches to the Process and Impacts of Cross-Border and Transnational Cooperation in Europe (2018)

The European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) has become a central tool for (sub-) state authorities to organise territorial cooperation in the EU. To take stock of this rapid change, the ... [more ▼]

The European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) has become a central tool for (sub-) state authorities to organise territorial cooperation in the EU. To take stock of this rapid change, the present chapter suggests an analytical framework in two steps. Firstly, the EGTC instrument is symptomatic of a turn in how the European territorial cohesion policy relates to (sub-) state territorial cooperation (policy formulation). Before the publication of the EGTC regulation in 2006, the EU support for territorial cooperation was mainly financial (e.g. INTERREG) and regulatory (e.g. consolidation of the single market). No specific legal framework was provided. The contribution investigates this progressive turn in the cohesion policy. Secondly, the EGTC represents a tool for implementing territorial cooperation (policy implementation). The number of EGTCs created over about a decade demonstrates that this instrument fills a gap in the legislative framework of territorial cooperation. Our comparative assessment of the use of the tool reveals a dominant implementation pattern. Most of the existing EGTCs are territorially bound organisations, set-up on adjacent borders by local and regional authorities, a minority being interregional or transregional. Although they mostly have collective action resources and instruments and have identifiable objectives shared by their respective members, they follow a rather traditional pattern of cooperation where each individual member’s core activities primarily relate to a (sub-) state authority and where the EGTC acts primarily as an agent relying on its members. [less ▲]

A Tale of Location-Based User Authentication

in IEEE BigComp2019 - The 6th IEEE International Conference on Big Data and Smart Computing (2019)

The attitude towards passwords has drastically changed over the past years. Although they protected workstations from illicit access for decades, with today’s increased computational power, simple ... [more ▼]

The attitude towards passwords has drastically changed over the past years. Although they protected workstations from illicit access for decades, with today’s increased computational power, simple passwords became easy targets for attacks, whereas complex passwords are difficult to remember for the users. It appears as if the classical password protection has become obsolete and has to give way to similarly secured schemes, which are seamless for users. Novel methodologies may be sound and secure from a technical point of view, their success will be challenged by the simple question whether a user feels secure or not. In this work, we propose a proximity based login and session locking scheme, based on bluetooth beacons. We describe the big data architecture required to implement secured location-based services in smart buildings. To round our contribution out, we describe a medium scale user study with 40 participants, conducted to answer the question: Do users feel secure? [less ▲]

The tale of SOLOIST: a specification language for service compositions interactions

in Păsăreanu, Corina; Salaün, Gwen (Eds.) Formal Aspects of Component Software (2012, September)

Service-based applications are a new class of software systems that provide the basis for enterprises to build their information systems by following the principles of service-oriented architectures ... [more ▼]

Service-based applications are a new class of software systems that provide the basis for enterprises to build their information systems by following the principles of service-oriented architectures. These software systems are often realized by orchestrating remote, third-party services, to provide added-values applications that are called service compositions. The distributed ownership and the evolving nature of the services involved in a service composition make verification activities crucial. On a par with verification is also the problem of formally specifying the interactions—with third-party services—of service compositions, with the related issue of balancing expressiveness and support for automated verification. This paper showcases SOLOIST, a specification language for formalizing the interactions of service compositions. SOLOIST has been designed with the primary objective of expressing the most significant specification patterns found in the specifications of service-based applications. The language is based on a many-sorted first-order metric temporal logic, extended with new temporal modalities that support aggregate operators for events occurring in a certain time window. We also show how, under certain assumptions, the language can be reduced to linear temporal logic, paving the way for using SOLOIST with established verification techniques, both at design time and at run time. [less ▲]

A Tale of Three Homotopies

in Applied Categorical Structures (2016)

A Tale of Two Theories: Government by Judiciary Theory Versus Guardianship of the Jurist Theory

in Emory International Law Review (2019), 33

This research argues that Muslim scholars developed two theories of government over time. Even tough Islamic scholars—Shia and Sunni—agree on mandating the highest level of legal knowledge in any member ... [more ▼]

This research argues that Muslim scholars developed two theories of government over time. Even tough Islamic scholars—Shia and Sunni—agree on mandating the highest level of legal knowledge in any member of the Islamic government, they disagree on the legal nature of these members, whether they are judges, or jurists. Shia Islamic scholars adopted the theory of the guardianship of the jurist (Wilayat al-Faqih in Arabic, or Vilayat e-Faqih in Farsi). Unlike Sunni scholars, the Shia has developed a practical approach to apply their theory of government in practice. A prominent example of this theory is the Iranian practice of the Guardianship of the Jurist Theory. Sunni Islamic scholars adopt the theory of government by judiciary (Wilayat Al-Qadi). The assumption of this theory is that member of the government are judges. This is based on the assumption that Prophet Mohamed was a judge with enumerated executive authorities, namely the collection of Sadaqat (state financial revenue), military power, and foreign affairs’ representation. This theory has never been in practice since the assassination of the first four successors of the Prophet. This research is divided into three major sections. The first deals with the theory of Sunni-Muslim scholars, which is government by judiciary. The second section presents the theory of Shia-Muslim scholars, which is guardianship of the jurist. The last section deals with the major five distinctions between the two theories. [less ▲]

Talent mangement flexibility in a cyclical industry

Presentation (2019, July 02)