title: Automated capture/replay test generation for android using espresso

authors: Alblooshy, Fajer

subjects: Android testing

abstract: This thesis presents the design of a new tool for automated test generation in Android applications using the Espresso framework. The primary focus is on designing a robust and efficient tool with the use of the Presentation Model (PModels) to simplify the automation of test case design. By incorporating techniques such as interaction sequence modeling and widget-based abstraction, the tool’s design aims to address the challenges of testing interactive systems, which are often timeconsuming and complex. The research includes comprehensively analyzing existing testing methodologies, identifying their limitations, and proposing enhancements to improve test coverage and reliability. Through detailed design documentation and conceptual frameworks, the study demonstrates how the tool can generate maintainable test scripts, reducing the effect required for manual testing. The tool’s design is evaluated through theoretical case studies, including various Android applications, to illustrate its potential effectiveness in real-world scenarios. This work contributes to the field of software engineering by offering an approach to automated UI testing, emphasizing the importance of design considerations in developing tools that can meet the evolving demands of software quality assurance.

text: Automated capture/replay test generation for android using espresso This thesis presents the design of a new tool for automated test generation in Android applications using the Espresso framework. The primary focus is on designing a robust and efficient tool with the use of the Presentation Model (PModels) to simplify the automation of test case design. By incorporating techniques such as interaction sequence modeling and widget-based abstraction, the tool’s design aims to address the challenges of testing interactive systems, which are often timeconsuming and complex. The research includes comprehensively analyzing existing testing methodologies, identifying their limitations, and proposing enhancements to improve test coverage and reliability. Through detailed design documentation and conceptual frameworks, the study demonstrates how the tool can generate maintainable test scripts, reducing the effect required for manual testing. The tool’s design is evaluated through theoretical case studies, including various Android applications, to illustrate its potential effectiveness in real-world scenarios. This work contributes to the field of software engineering by offering an approach to automated UI testing, emphasizing the importance of design considerations in developing tools that can meet the evolving demands of software quality assurance.

year: 2024-11-25

title: Austerity Measures: Presenting Food in British Writing, 1939-1954

authors: Taylor, David Andrew

subjects: Evelyn Waugh

abstract: Rationing measures in force in the United Kingdom from the beginning of the Second World War in December of 1939 until July of 1954 ostensibly ensured an egalitarian access to food and resulted in a general levelling-up of standards of nutrition in the general populace. The restrictions and shortages that plagued larders and plates, however, meant that variety and stability became preoccupations for the British public on the home front. Against the backdrop of socially levelling austerity measures, popular writers used the public’s food consciousness to explore anxieties surrounding the demarcation and performance of identities challenged by the threats to Britain’s physical and ideological borders. Food is an invaluable lens through which to examine the shaping of identity during a period that challenged food and ideological security in Britain, particularly with respect to the performance of socioeconomic class differences, national identity and gender binaries. Largely structured by Pierre Bourdieu’s examination of consumption habits as an articulation of class and gender in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1979), this thesis will examine the ways in which food representation serves as a fulcrum on which social and economic class identities pivot in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1948) and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), and the acute awareness of the post-war custodianship of a damaged Britain. Secondly, it will demonstrate the ways in which austerity cookery literature not only upsets and recodifies national identity as constructed by quotidian consumption habits, but also the problematic configuration of duty to ahedonistic rationing as the housewife’s moral obligation to the nation. Expanding on this, it will consider the reconfiguration of Britain’s post-Empire relationship to the world and the enduring legacy of culinary creolisation as demonstrated in Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume’s recipe for Poulet Reign Elizabeth as served at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, and the claim to the sensual rewards of gastronomy in Elizabeth David’s A Book of Mediterranean Food (1950). Finally, it will examine the ways in which Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts (1941) and Barbara Pym’s Jane and Prudence (1953) critique and subvert ways in which a mind-body duality structures the notions of gendered appetites, and the authors’ appetites for a transcendence of the fascism of the patriarchy undergirding the twentieth century. While the austerity years are often perceived as representing a dearth of culinary culture in Britain, it is better appreciated as a period of rich innovation and adaptation, where the yearning for security and identity forged complex texts ambivalent about Britain’s past, present and future.

text: Austerity Measures: Presenting Food in British Writing, 1939-1954 Rationing measures in force in the United Kingdom from the beginning of the Second World War in December of 1939 until July of 1954 ostensibly ensured an egalitarian access to food and resulted in a general levelling-up of standards of nutrition in the general populace. The restrictions and shortages that plagued larders and plates, however, meant that variety and stability became preoccupations for the British public on the home front. Against the backdrop of socially levelling austerity measures, popular writers used the public’s food consciousness to explore anxieties surrounding the demarcation and performance of identities challenged by the threats to Britain’s physical and ideological borders. Food is an invaluable lens through which to examine the shaping of identity during a period that challenged food and ideological security in Britain, particularly with respect to the performance of socioeconomic class differences, national identity and gender binaries. Largely structured by Pierre Bourdieu’s examination of consumption habits as an articulation of class and gender in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1979), this thesis will examine the ways in which food representation serves as a fulcrum on which social and economic class identities pivot in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1948) and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), and the acute awareness of the post-war custodianship of a damaged Britain. Secondly, it will demonstrate the ways in which austerity cookery literature not only upsets and recodifies national identity as constructed by quotidian consumption habits, but also the problematic configuration of duty to ahedonistic rationing as the housewife’s moral obligation to the nation. Expanding on this, it will consider the reconfiguration of Britain’s post-Empire relationship to the world and the enduring legacy of culinary creolisation as demonstrated in Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume’s recipe for Poulet Reign Elizabeth as served at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, and the claim to the sensual rewards of gastronomy in Elizabeth David’s A Book of Mediterranean Food (1950). Finally, it will examine the ways in which Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts (1941) and Barbara Pym’s Jane and Prudence (1953) critique and subvert ways in which a mind-body duality structures the notions of gendered appetites, and the authors’ appetites for a transcendence of the fascism of the patriarchy undergirding the twentieth century. While the austerity years are often perceived as representing a dearth of culinary culture in Britain, it is better appreciated as a period of rich innovation and adaptation, where the yearning for security and identity forged complex texts ambivalent about Britain’s past, present and future.

year: 2016

title: Culture and climate change: A study of future-proofing Māori tourism businesses

authors: Tawhai, Crystal Candace

subjects: culture

abstract: This thesis explores how prepared Māori tourism businesses are to adapt to climate change and how Māori values may influence the business's perception of responses to climate change. As climate impacts are growing in New Zealand, as a result of increasing extreme weather events, how can Māori tourism businesses protect their taonga (resources)? Taonga in the context of this study includes Māori values, lands, seas and their businesses. Furthermore, the literature indicates that Māori tourism significantly contributes to the economic, social and cultural wellbeing for Māori and wider New Zealand (NZ Māori Tourism, 2018). 
At a specific level, the study focuses on three Māori tourism businesses. Two of the businesses are North Island-based whānau-owned enterprises, one on Kāpiti Island and the other in Napier. The third is a hapū-owned business located in Kaikoura in the South Island. Drawing on kaupapa Māori frameworks built on Māori struggles for tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake (self-determination), the study adheres to kaupapa Māori principles of carrying out research by Māori to benefit Māori. The primary data for the study was collected through semi-structured interviews with each of the businesses, taking care to ensure the cultural safety of the participants and using appropriate tikanga (protocol) in each interview. 

The findings of the study show that Māori tourism businesses are adapting to environmental changes but are unsure about the pace of climate change. The uncertainties are due to a lack of access to information and competing priorities within their businesses. The research also shows how decisions made by local government as well as business perceptions of local and central government institutions negatively impacts on the ability of businesses to adapt to climate change. While there were differences in the businesses’ treatment of science and scientific information, all of them prioritised Māori cultural values. Significantly, these values underpin all the activities of the businesses, including, environmental enhancement and protection. An emphasis on Māori values in facilitated partnerships between tourism businesses, government bodies, and other community stakeholders on co-designing climate change adaptation strategies can help the tourism sector to prepare for a changing climate.

text: Culture and climate change: A study of future-proofing Māori tourism businesses This thesis explores how prepared Māori tourism businesses are to adapt to climate change and how Māori values may influence the business's perception of responses to climate change. As climate impacts are growing in New Zealand, as a result of increasing extreme weather events, how can Māori tourism businesses protect their taonga (resources)? Taonga in the context of this study includes Māori values, lands, seas and their businesses. Furthermore, the literature indicates that Māori tourism significantly contributes to the economic, social and cultural wellbeing for Māori and wider New Zealand (NZ Māori Tourism, 2018). 
At a specific level, the study focuses on three Māori tourism businesses. Two of the businesses are North Island-based whānau-owned enterprises, one on Kāpiti Island and the other in Napier. The third is a hapū-owned business located in Kaikoura in the South Island. Drawing on kaupapa Māori frameworks built on Māori struggles for tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake (self-determination), the study adheres to kaupapa Māori principles of carrying out research by Māori to benefit Māori. The primary data for the study was collected through semi-structured interviews with each of the businesses, taking care to ensure the cultural safety of the participants and using appropriate tikanga (protocol) in each interview. 

The findings of the study show that Māori tourism businesses are adapting to environmental changes but are unsure about the pace of climate change. The uncertainties are due to a lack of access to information and competing priorities within their businesses. The research also shows how decisions made by local government as well as business perceptions of local and central government institutions negatively impacts on the ability of businesses to adapt to climate change. While there were differences in the businesses’ treatment of science and scientific information, all of them prioritised Māori cultural values. Significantly, these values underpin all the activities of the businesses, including, environmental enhancement and protection. An emphasis on Māori values in facilitated partnerships between tourism businesses, government bodies, and other community stakeholders on co-designing climate change adaptation strategies can help the tourism sector to prepare for a changing climate.

year: 2020