Exploring the benefits of the combination of a software architecture analysis and a usability evaluation of a mobile application

Designing easy to use mobile applications is a difficult task. In order to optimize the development of a usable mobile application, it is necessary to consider the mobile usage context for the design and the evaluation of the user-system interaction of a mobile application. In our research we designed a method that aligns the inspection method “Software ArchitecTure analysis of Usability Requirements realizatioN” SATURN and a mobile usability evaluation in the form of a user test. We propose to use mobile context factors and thus requirements as a common basis for both inspection and user test. After conducting both analysis and user test, the results described as usability problems are mapped and discussed. The mobile context factors identified define and describe the usage context of a mobile application. We exemplify and apply our approach in a case study. This allows us to show how our method can be used to identify more usability problems than with each method separately. Additionally, we could confirm the validity and identified the severity of usability problems found by both methods. Our work presents how a combination of both methods allows to address usability issues in a more holistic way. We argue that the increased quantity and quality of results can lead to a reduction of the number of iterations required in early stages of an iterative software development process.     

Evaluating the reliability of the software of a switching system with a multi-variable model

In recent years reliability growth models have gained a dominant role in the evaluation of the reliability of software products. However, their application to the quality assurance process of the software of a highly complex system such as a telecommunications switching system often shows that it is then possible to get accurate results only when some months of operation have elapsed. It is then impossible to give an answer to the typical questions which arise during the quality assurance phase: ‘Is the software ready for release? How long will it take before it is ready?’. This paper describes a multi-variable (MV) model which was developed to overcome the above limitation by providing a better model of the quality assurance process. A case study is presented, and a comparison is made between the results obtained by applying existing reliability growth models and the MV-model to it. Besides attaining surprising accuracy in its predictions and in measuring the reliability of the product, the MV-model also tries to tackle a different kind of question: ‘How is it possible to improve the effectiveness of testing?’.     

某车载导弹轮胎支撑发射仿真研究

在某车载导弹发射时轮胎支撑问题的研究中,为能够提高武器系统的应急性和实用性,并验证轮胎支撑发射的可能性,利用Brushing约束解决了适配器与导弹的约束问题,利用控制程序实现导弹连发和解锁,在ADAMS软件里进行了可视化动力学仿真,建立3种轮胎支撑模型,弹簧阻尼模型、碰撞模型和UA轮胎模型,通过轮胎与地面的相互作用力的比较,论证建立模型的可信性.对比不同支撑模型下发射车质心运动参数和发射架运动参数,及导弹出筒后下沉量和俯仰方向运动参数,得到轮胎支撑发射是可行的.     

On the convective nature of the instability of a front undergoing a supercritical Turing bifurcation

Fronts are traveling waves in spatially extended systems that connect two different spatially homogeneous rest states. If the rest state behind the front undergoes a supercritical Turing instability, then the front will also destabilize. On the linear level, however, the front will be only convectively unstable since perturbations will be pushed away from the front as it propagates. In other words, perturbations may grow but they can do so only behind the front. It is of interest to show that this behavior carries over to the full nonlinear system. It has been successfully done in a case study by Ghazaryan and Sandstede [A. Ghazaryan, B. Sandstede, Nonlinear convective instability of Turing-unstable fronts near onset: a case study, SIAM J. Appl. Dyn. Syst. 6 (2007) 319–347]. In the present paper, analogous results are obtained for the same system as in Ghazaryan and Sandstede (2007), but for a different parameter regime.     

On the effect of a configuration choice on the performance of a mirrored storage system

In this paper, we study the effect of various configuration choices on the performance of a mirrored disk array. We introduce a large class of semistructured configurations which provide good seek minimization and bandwidth. We study their properties with respect to both online and offline mirroring algorithms. We also prove a theorem concerning the load balancing capabilities of random or semistructured configurations with several data copies. We show that almost the entire bandwidth of the storage system can be exploited once we increase the number of copies. In an appendix we explain a common error which appears in much of the literature concerning this subject.     

Approximating the Visible Region of a Point on a Terrain

Given a terrain and a point p on or above it, we wish to compute the region R _p that is visible from p. We present a generic radar-like algorithm for computing an approximation of R _p . The algorithm interpolates the visible region between two consecutive rays (emanating from p) whenever the rays are close enough; that is, whenever the difference between the sets of visible segments along the cross sections in the directions specified by the rays is below some threshold. Thus the density of the sampling by rays is sensitive to the shape of the visible region. We suggest a specific way to measure the resemblance (difference) and to interpolate the visible region between two consecutive rays. We also present an alternative algorithm, which uses circles of increasing radii centered at p instead of rays emanating from p. Both algorithms compute a representation of the (approximated) visible region that is especially suitable for is-visible-from-p queries, i.e., given a query point q on the terrain determine whether q is visible from p. Finally, we report on the experiments that we performed with these algorithms and with their corresponding fixed versions, using a natural error measure. Our main conclusion is that the radar-like algorithm is significantly better than the others.     

Effects of carrying a backpack in a symmetrical manner on the shape of the feet

The aim of this study was to assess changes in the shape of the feet while carrying a backpack constituting 10% of a child's weight. It was an observational, cross-sectional study involving 118 primary school children aged 11–13 years. Selected parameters of foot shape were assessed in both a normal position and with a backpack using podoscopy and a CQ-ST examination device. The study revealed significant differences in the length and width of the right and left feet between assessments. Moreover, the longitudinal arch of the foot was significantly lowered and deformity of the great toe was reported. Carrying a backpack constituting 10% of a child's weight results in lowering of the longitudinal and traverse arches of the feet and advanced toe deformities.     

On the Complexity of Searching for a Maximum of a Function on a Quantum Computer

We deal with the problem of finding a maximum of a function from the Hölder class on a quantum computer. We show matching lower and upper bounds on the complexity of this problem. We prove upper bounds by constructing an algorithm that uses a pre-existing quantum algorithm for finding maximum of a discrete sequence. To prove lower bounds we use results for finding the logical OR of sequence of bits. We show that quantum computation yields a quadratic speed-up over deterministic and randomized algorithms.     

On the stabilization of a cable with a tip mass

In this note, we consider a vertical cable which is pinched at the upper end. A mass is attached at the lower end where a control force is also applied. We show that this hybrid system is uniformly stabilized by choosing a suitable control law for the control force depending on the velocity and angular velocity at the free end. Moreover for specific values of the feedback coefficients, we obtain the rate of decay of the energy of the system     

切换系统多面体区域的生存性判别

本文研究了切换系统关于多面体区域的生存性判别问题.考虑多面体由有限点集凸包来表示,利用非光滑分析理论,得到一个切换系统生存性的充分条件.该条件只需检验在极点处是否满足特定条件,而不需要对每个边界点进行验证.其优点在于将生存性的判别转化为向量内积与切锥的计算.这种生存性判别方法简便易行.最后通过实例阐述了算法的有效性.     

Numerical Simulation of the Evolution of a Gas Bubble in a Liquid Near a Wall

A numerical technique based on the application of the boundary element method is proposed for studying the axially symmetric dynamics of a bubble in a liquid near a solid wall. It is assumed that the liquid is ideally incompressible and its flow is potential. The process of expansion and contraction of a spheroidal bubble is considered, including the toroidal phase of its movement. The velocity and pressure fields in the liquid surrounding the bubble are evaluated along with the shape of the bubble surface and the velocity of its displacement. The numerical convergence of the algorithm with an increase in the number of boundary elements and a refinement of the time step is shown, and comparison with the experimental and numerical results of other authors is performed. The capabilities of the technique are illustrated by solving a problem of collapse of a spheroidal bubble in water. The bublle is located a short distance from the wall.     

Modelling the characteristics of a photodetector in a DVD player

This paper presents a new method for modelling the non-linear characteristics of a photodetector (so-called the S-curve) in a DVD player. The photodetector is used in the DVD player to generate the focus and tracking error signals, which in turn have to be controlled at the minimum levels. For focus error signal generation, an analytical and a numerical photodetector model are developed here, based on the astigmatic method and on opto-geometrical analysis. The influence of model parameters on the focus error signal is discussed. To estimate the unknown model parameters, a curve fitting method is applied, using measured data from an industrial DVD–video player developed in STMicroelectronics laboratories. Model quality is illustrated by a comparison with the real focus error signal.     

Investigation of the parallel efficiency of a PC cluster for the simulation of a CFD problem

Previously, large-scale fluid dynamics problem required supercomputers, such as the Cray, and took a long time to obtain a solution. Clustering technology has changed the world of the supercomputer and fluid dynamics. Affordable cluster computers have replaced the huge and expansive supercomputers in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) field in recent years. Even supercomputers are designed in the form of clusters based on high-performance servers. This paper describes the configuration of the affordable PC hardware cluster as well as the parallel computing performance using commercial CFD code in the developed cluster. A multi-core cluster using the Linux operating system was developed with affordable PC hardware and low-cost high-speed gigabit network switches instead of Myrinet or Infiniband. The PC cluster consisted of 52 cores and easily expandable up to 96 cores in the current configuration. For operating software, the Rock cluster package was installed in the master node to minimize the need for maintenance. This cluster was designed to solve large fluid dynamics and heat transfer problems in parallel. Using a commercial CFD package, the performance of the cluster was evaluated by changing the number of CPU cores involved in the computation. A forced convection problem around a linear cascade was solved using the CFX program, and the heat transfer coefficient along the surface of the turbine cascade was simulated. The mesh of the model CFD problem has 1.5 million nodes, and the steady computation was performed for 2,000 time-integrations. The computation results were compared with previously published heat transfer experimental results to check the reliability of the computation. A comparison of the simulation and experimental results showed good agreement. The performance of the designed PC cluster increased with increasing number of cores up to 16 cores The computation (elapsed) 16-core was approximately three times faster than that with a 4-core.     

On the simplification of the coefficients of a parametrization

This paper deals with the problem of finding, for a given parametrization of an algebraic variety V$V$ of arbitrary dimension, another parametrization with coefficients over a smaller field. We proceed adapting, to the parametric case, a construction introduced by A. Weil for implicitly given varieties. We find that this process leads to the consideration of new varieties of a particular kind (ultraquadrics, in the terminology of this paper) in order to check, algorithmically, several interesting properties of the given variety V$V$, such as the property of being reparametrizable over the smaller field.     

Learning the insertion operation of a flexible beam into a hole with a manipulator

Flexible objects are widely used in the aerospace, automobile, electronics, and medical industries, but automated assembly of flexible objects is difficult to realize. In most cases, flexible objects are still handled and assembled by people. This article researches a typical flexible objects assembly operation, i.e., to insert a flexible beam into a hole. A learning method is proposed to learn the mapping from the sensed force to the end-effector's motion, by which the insertion operation can be achieved efficiently. The mapping is decomposed in Cartesian space. Agents based on a learning automaton are defined between the input space, formed by the sensed force, and the output space, formed by the end-effector's motion, to implement the functions of the decomposed mappings. The input space is partitioned into different contexts. Through learning, agents can learn optimal actions according to different contexts, and then fulfill the insertion task cooperatively and efficiently. Simulation results of a 2D insertion operation prove the feasibility of the proposed method.     

On the problem of a free drag of a rigid body with a tapered front in a resisting medium

The author constructs a nonlinear mathematical model of a plane-parallel impact of the medium on a rigid body with a front part of the outer surface shaped as a circular cone. Multivariable analysis of the dynamic equations of motion was performed. A new family of phase patterns on the phase cylinder of quasi-velocities has been obtained. This family consists of infinitely numerous topologically inequivalent phase patterns. The sufficient conditions for the stability of an important mode of motion, i.e., rectilinear translational drag, have been obtained, as well as conditions for the presence of the self-oscillatory modes in the system.     

Estimating the Probability of a Class at a Point by the Approximation of One Discriminant Function

We propose a method for estimating the posterior probability of a class at a given point by approximating a discriminant function that takes a zero value at this point. The approximation is based on a supervised training set. Posterior probabilities of classes allow the classification problem to be solved simultaneously for different criteria and different costs of classification errors. The method is based on choosing such a ratio of the costs of classification errors in the construction of an approximation to the discriminant function that the approximation takes the zero value at a given point. We give a model example and an example with real data from the field of medical diagnostics.