Dissertation com nov 2002 (3 résultats)

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware - Innovation has a more and more important role in all industries, leading to a growing interest on the efficient management of the innovation process. For a better understanding of this process, it has been organised in 5 stages: idea generation, idea selection, idea development, idea implementation and revision. This work provides a short review for each one of these 5 stages of the innovation process, its tools, methodologies and processes. The AutoEuropa case study, described in this work, illustrates an innovation process in which a large number of tools and methodologies have been used with excellent results. In this case, a prototype idea management system has been used with a strong impact on the results, specially, at the organisation and productivity level of the idea management team. For a better understanding of the current practices of innovation management, a survey has been developed, distributed and analysed. The survey results provided information on which are the tools and methodologies more used and graded the organisations as active, watcher or passive. From the analysis of the results, it was possible to detect significant correlations between the use of the different tools and confirm that the organisation described in the case study had made a strongly innovative initiative. …

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware - We have experienced different theories of software construction paradigms in the last few decades; such as ``structured programming'' in the 1970's and 'object-oriented programming' in the 1980's. The object-oriented paradigm is considered a standard for many software development activities, from the analysis phase to various support phases. There is little quantitative research, however, regarding the question whether object-oriented programming improves productivity. Many assume that object-oriented programming is more productive than traditional structured programming. This assumption lacks concrete, empirical data that support such belief. This dissertation identifies problems in the current object-oriented programming practice, and then presents an alternative paradigm to help overcome these problems. This paradigm separates the declaration of data structures from program executable instructions. We call this paradigm {it the separation principle}. We first tried to understand what this paradigm means in practice. We developed example programs in a variety of application areas. We found that the separation principle is a viable paradigm for practical program construction. In order to demonstrate the validity of this paradigm, we have conducted both theoretical and empirical studies. The theoretical study consists of complexity measurements. The empirical study constitutes human understanding measurement; its purpose is to show statistical significance. The results give evidence of the effectiveness of the separation principle for practical software construction.…

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware - The various possibilities for the origin ('progenitors') of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) manifest in differing observable properties. Through deep spectroscopic and high-resolution imaging observations of some GRB hosts, I demonstrate that well-localized long-duration GRBs are connected with otherwise normal star-forming galaxies at moderate redshifts of order unity. Using high-mass binary stellar population synthesis models, I quantify the expected spatial extent around galaxies of coalescing neutron stars, one of the leading contenders for GRB progenitors. I then test this scenario by examining the offset distribution of GRBs about their apparent hosts making extensive use of ground-based optical data from Keck and Palomar and space-based imaging from the Hubble Space Telescope. The offset distribution appears to be inconsistent with the coalescing neutron star binary hypothesis (and, similarly, black-hole--neutron star coalescences); instead, the distribution is statistically consistent with a population of progenitors that closely traces the ultra-violet light of galaxies. This is naturally explained by bursts which originate from the collapse of massive stars ``collapsars''). This claim is further supported by the unambiguous detections of intermediate-time (approximately three weeks after the bursts) emission ``bumps'' which appear substantially more red than the afterglows themselves. I claim that these bumps could originate from supernovae that occur at approximately the same time as the associated GRB; if true, GRB 980326 and GRB 011121 provide strong observational evidence connecting cosmological GRBs to high-redshift supernovae and implicate massive stars as the progenitors of at least some long-duration GRBs.…