Specification Language

System testing is concerned with testing an entire system based on its specifications. In the context of object-oriented, UML development, this means that system test requirements are derived from UML analysis artifacts such as use cases, their corresponding sequence and collaboration diagrams, class diagrams, and possibly the use of the Object Constraint Language across all these artifacts. Our goal is to support the derivation of test requirements, which will be transformed into test cases, test oracles, and test drivers once we have detailed design information. Another important issue we address is the one of testability. Testability requirements (or rules) need to be imposed on UML artifacts so as to be able to support system testing efficiently. Those testability requirements result from a trade-off between analysis and design overhead and improved testability. The potential for automation is also an overriding concern all across our work as the ultimate goal is to fully support testing activities with high-capability tools.

Despite dramatically narrowing gender gaps, women remain underrepresented in mathematics and math-related fields. Parents can shape expectations and interests, which may predict later differences in achievement and occupational choices. This study examines children’s early mathematical environments by observing the amount that mothers talk to their sons and daughters (mean age 22 months) about cardinal number, a basic precursor to mathematics. In analyses of naturalistic mother–child interactions from the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) database, boys received significantly more number-specific language input than girls. Greater amounts of early number-related talk may promote familiarity and liking for mathematical concepts, which may influence later preferences and career choices. Additionally, the stereotype of male dominance in math may be so pervasive that culturally prescribed gender roles may be unintentionally reinforced to very young children.

This paper reports on the inclusion of extensive reading in three separate 12-week courses taught by different teachers on an EAP programme at a New Zealand university. The inclusion of extensive reading was experimental and sought answers to two questions: would students respond positively to the extensive reading component, and how could extensive reading be included? On each iteration of the extensive reading component a different approach was taken. On the first occasion, the reading was a stand-alone part of the teaching programme but on the second and third occasions the reading was integrated into the programme. In each of the three classes the students responded positively to the inclusion of extensive reading. The integration of the reading reflected teacher and learner differences, and supported the belief that the way in which extensive reading is included in a programme should be determined by the specific language learning environment.

This paper describes a process to reverse engineer structural and behavioural formal models of a GUI application by a dynamic technique, mixing manual with automatic exploration. The goal is to diminish the effort required to construct the model and mapping information needed in a model-based GUI testing process. A skeleton of a state machine model of the GUI, represented in a formal pre/post specification language, is generated automatically by the exploration process. Mapping information between the model and the ...

This paper proposes VHDL-AMS syntax extensions that enable descriptions of AMS systems with partial differential equations. We named the extended language VHDL-AMSP. An important specific need for such extensions arises from the well known MEMS modelling difficulties where complex digital and analogue electronics interfaces with distributed mechanical systems. The new syntax allows descriptions of new VHDL-AMS objects, such as partial quantities, spatial coordinates and boundary conditions. Pending the development of a new standard, a suitable pre-processor has been developed to convert VHDL-AMSP into the existing VHDL-AMS 1076.1 standard automatically. The pre-processor allows development of models with partial differential equations using currently available simulators. As an example, a VHDL-AMSP description for the sensing element of a MEMS accelerometer is presented, converted to VHDL-AMS 1076.1 and simulated in SystemVision.

Industrial productive systems can combine different automation characteristics processes in manufacturing cells. Machines and equipment are controlled by different info systems that allow to link up, making possible the flexibility and help to optimise manufacturing processes in factories. In the manufacturing processes, the difficulties found in conventional machining processes or even in numerical command machining when there are available machines adjusted for parts manufacture of complex geometries, can limit the creativity as well as make difficult the development of a productive process in a optimized way. The difficulties are since setting out parts, working in the necessities of special devices, restrictions in work volumes and even to generate complex paths for machines with axis limitation. This work points out an alternative methodology for machining, especially milling, through the development of a capable algorithm to translate graphical files in a programming language ...

Language impairment is a common core feature in Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) and Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Many studies have tried to define the specific language profiles of these disorders, some claiming the existence of overlaps, and others conceiving of them as separate categories. Fewer have sought to determine whether and how PDD-NOS language profile, including prosody, differs from those

Experiments in animals leave no doubt that androgens, including testosterone, produced by the testes in fetal and/or neonatal life act on the brain to induce sex differences in neural structure and function. In human beings, there is evidence supporting a female superiority in the ability to read nonverbal signals, specific language-related skills, and theory of mind. Even more striking than the sex differences seen in the typical population is the elevated occurrence of social and communicative difficulties in human males. One such condition, autism, occurs four times more frequently in boys than in girls. Recently, a novel theory known as the "extreme male brain" has been proposed. It suggests that the behaviors seen in autism are an exaggeration of typical sex differences and that exposure to high levels of prenatal testosterone might be a risk factor. In this article, we argue that prenatal and neonatal testosterone exposures are strong candidates for having a causal role in sexual dimorphism in human behavior, including social development, and as risk factors for conditions characterized by social impairments, particularly autism spectrum conditions.

ESP has become central to the teaching of English in university contexts and there can be little doubt of its success as an approach to understanding language use.  This success is largely due to ESP’s distinctive approach to language teaching based on identification of the specific language features, discourse practices and communicative skills of target groups, and on teaching practices that recognize the particular subject-matter needs and expertise of learners. Unfortunately, however, this strength is increasingly threatened by conceptions of ESP which move it towards more general views of literacy, emphasizing the idea of ‘generic’ skills and features which are transferable across different disciplines or occupations.  In this paper I argue the case for specificity: that ESP must involve teaching the literacy skills which are appropriate to the purposes and understandings of particular academic and professional communities. The paper traces the arguments for a specific view, outlines some supporting research, and advocates the need to reaffirm our commitment to research-based language education.

Gamma was originally proposed in 1986 as a formalism for the definition of programs without artificial sequentiality. The basic idea underlying the formalism is to describe computation as a form of chemical reaction on a collection of individual pieces of data. Due to the very minimal nature of the language, and its absence of sequential bias, it has been possible to exploit this initial paradigm in various directions. This paper reviews most of the work around Gamma considered as a programming or as a specification language. A special emphasis is placed on unexpected applications of the chemical reaction model, showing that this paradigm has been a source of inspiration in various research areas.

The paper presents sufficient conditions for modular (supervisory) control synthesis to equal global control synthesis. In modular control synthesis a supervisory control is synthesized for each module separately and the supervisory control consists of the parallel composition of the modular supervisory controls. The general case of the specification that is indecomposable and not necessarily contained in the plant language, which