Design Quality

Prescription errors remains a significant concern for patient safety worldwide because they conttibute to ineffective treatment outcomes and higher healthcare expenditures. This systematic review and thematicc analysis examines the different categories of prescribing (e-prescribing) technologies, and explores structural challenges affeting regulatory compliance. Using strict selection criteria, five peer-reviewed studies published within the past decade were critically reviewed and synthesized. The analysis indicates that replaing handwritten prescriptions with elechtronic prescribing systems substantilly decreases problems associated with illegible handwriting and incomplete administrative dokumentation. Nevertheless, the findings also reveal the existence of a "socio-technical paradox," in which digital technologies ibtroduce new forms of risk rather than completely removing prescribing errors. These risks include incorrect selections from drop-down manus and the growig issue of alert fatigue, a cindition in which clinicians become accustomed to frequent automated warnings and may unintentionally ignore important toxicological alert. In addition, local implementation evidence demonstrates that adherence to digital healthcare policies established by the Indonesian Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) remains inconsistent. Major differences in insfrastucture between urban healthcare institutions and rural medical facilities continue to hinder equal implementation of dogotal prescribing systems. Therefore, this study recommends improving software interface design and strengthening digital pharmacy education within academic programs to support safer amd more rational prescribing practices throught all levels of healthcare services.

Background: The Social Return on Investment (SROI) framework is increasingly used to quantify social value, yet its capacity to measure intangible outcomes remains contested. Methods: This critical analysis synthesizes methodological critiques from peerreviewed literature (2016-2025) examining SROI's application to intangible outcomes including well-being, social capital, and self-esteem. Results: Four principal weaknesses emerge: (1) inherent subjectivity in stakeholder valuation introduces bias; (2) financial proxies for nonmarket goods lack validity; (3) attribution and causality determinations rely on unverifiable assumptions; (4) self-reported outcome data cannot be independently verified. Conclusion: These limitations fundamentally undermine SROI's claims to objectivity and precision for intangible value measurement, suggesting the framework functions best as a structured narrative rather than a definitive metric.

Background. The integration of generative AI tools into career guidance practice is reshaping how sessions are structured, how practitioners and clients interact, and how professional competence is demonstrated. While much research has focused on task-level AI adoption, the dynamics of AI use within the guidance session itself remain underexplored. Aim. This paper examines how Italian career guidance practitioners integrate generative AI tools directly into their guidance sessions: when and how AI is introduced, how it is presented to clients, what changes in the structure of the session, and how the practitioner's role and professional competence are reconfigured as a result. Method. The analysis draws on nine semi-structured in-depth interviews with practitioners from Northern Italy, conducted as part of a broader mixed-methods empirical study (n=81 questionnaire respondents). All interviews were fully transcribed and analysed thematically. Findings. Eight of nine practitioners use AI directly within sessions, typically in the second phase of the session dedicated to occupational matching and action planning. AI is introduced via screen sharing, with prompts written and discussed openly with the client. The comparison between conventional Google use and generative AI reveals a qualitative transformation across nine dimensions: from cognitive activity to relational configuration, from document production to ethics and responsibility. The practitioner's role shifts from direct producer of content to director and validator of AI outputs. The interviews suggest that AI use does not necessarily weaken the consultative relationship and, in some cases, may increase client engagement and perceived service quality. One increasingly important component of professional competence is the capacity to govern AI interaction and integrate it into the guidance process.

Background. The integration of generative AI tools into career guidance practice raises fundamental questions about how practitioners redistribute their cognitive labour across the core tasks of the guidance process. While survey-based research has begun to map adoption rates and perceived utility, the specific task-level practices of practitioners remain underexplored. Aim. This paper analyses how Italian career guidance practitioners use generative AI tools across the eight functional categories identified in a broader empirical study: Author/Editor, Intelligent Search Engine, Coherence Analyst, Super-Consultant, Sparring Partner, Practitioner Supervisor, Practitioner Trainer, and Intervention Designer. It aims to document the breadth, distribution, and qualitative character of AI use across these functions. Method. The analysis draws on nine semi-structured in-depth interviews with career guidance practitioners from Northern Italy, conducted as part of a mixed-methods empirical study (n=81 questionnaire respondents). All interviews were fully transcribed. Activities described by interviewees were coded and assigned to one of the eight functional categories. A total of 74 coded activities were identified across the nine transcripts. Findings. Functions 1 (Author/Editor) and 3 (Coherence Analyst) show universal adoption (9/9 practitioners) and together account for 59% of all coded activities (43/74). Function 2 (Intelligent Search Engine) is used by 5/9 practitioners. Functions 4 (Super-Consultant) and 6 (Practitioner Supervisor) show selective adoption (4/9 and 5/9 respectively) but generate qualitatively rich accounts. Functions 7 (Practitioner Trainer) and 8 (Intervention Designer) remain marginal. Two usage profiles emerge: intensive users (Op2, Op4, Op9, with 11-15 activities each) who combine textual production with genuinely consultative functions; and minimal users (Op1, Op3, Op5, Op6, with 3-6 activities each) who concentrate on Functions 1 and 3.

Data communication can start when the destination node is ready to accept data from the sender through the process of sensing or listening the medium constantly. Wake-up Receivers (WuR) is the most energy efficient scheme for the synchronization which is available in wireless sensor network (WSNs). It broadcasts the Wake-up Call (WuC) as Wake-up Signal (WuS) sensed by designated node that triggers its radio to sleep state on various topology of network. So, it has been the major challenge in managing the energy efficiency in WSN with wake-up Radio (WuR). Such wake-up operations eliminate idle listening and overhearing burden for energy consumption in duty-cycled WSNs. For Current hardware advancements, WuRs inspire us to assess them as a promising answer for (WSNs). As the wake-up receivers offer new opportunities, this paper surveys few cross-layer protocols with WuR depending on the its category

The demand for real time, long term environmental monitoring has led to the deployment of wireless sensor networks in remote aquatic settings. However, energy constraints remain a critical barrier, as conventional duty cycled protocols either waste power during idle listening or miss short lived critical events. This paper introduces AquaSave, a novel event driven wake up protocol designed for low power field sensors used in water quality monitoring applications. AquaSave integrates an ultra low power wake up receiver (WuRx) with an embedded event detection engine capable of filtering out irrelevant signals and selectively activating the sensor node only upon detecting environmentally significant anomalies, such as abrupt pH shifts or pollutant surges. Unlike traditional MAC based or externally synchronized wake up systems, AquaSave operates autonomously and continuously, relying on local analog signal features to trigger activation. Extensive simulation results using EPA water datasets show that AquaSave achieves over 67% energy savings compared to S MAC and nearly 30% over WuRx MAC, while maintaining 96.5% event detection accuracy and a median latency of just 95 milliseconds. The proposed protocol offers a scalable, context aware, and energy efficient solution for next generation aquatic sensor deployments. AquaSave is also extensible to other domains where event driven, ultra low power sensing is required, including smart agriculture and pollution monitoring.

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is now well established and provided in many European countries. However, regulations, professional standards and accreditation requirements can differ notably. Furthermore, no comprehensive independent data exist either about practice and provision in Europe or about the quality assurance practices and procedures designed to optimize the quality of the results. Consequently, a study was launched to obtain knowledge, currently lacking, of the provision and quality assurance of PGD services and cross-border activities in Europe. An online questionnaire was developed and sent to PGD providers, and expert opinions were obtained through interviews with professionals in specific countries. Information was gathered from 53 centres offering PGD in 17 European countries. There is a diverse array of tests available, with a trend for custom-made services. Although half of the centres have a designated quality manager, just 33% have achieved or are preparing for accreditation or certification. About 66% of the centres responded that they did not participate in external quality assessment, a problem exacerbated by the lack of existing PGD-specific schemes. Approximately 19% of the centres do not keep data on accuracy and 9% do not even follow up until birth. PGD is an expanding activity with an increasing international flow that accounts for approximately one-third of the activity reported. The survey highlights a significant need for improvement in quality assurance in PGD centres. On the positive side, important improvements in the quality management of these services are expected with the European Tissue Directive entering into force.

Calgary’s Light Rail Transit (LRT) system is a vital component of the city’s transportation infrastructure, connecting neighborhoods and facilitating urban mobility. However, ensuring that LRT stations meet the evolving needs of the community requires continuous assessment and improvement. Given the importance of community feedback in evaluating the quality of the built environment, the primary objective of this paper is to assess and understand the lived experiences of commuters and identify areas needing greater attention. The present work is part of a comprehensive innovative 5-year pan-national project considering ‘Quality in Canada’s Built Environment’1, and consists of two distinct components. The first study examines the lived experiences and perceived quality of the LRT system through community feedback—retrieved from online platforms. This involves systematically collecting and analyzing comments shared by users regarding their experiences with LRT stations across Calgary using NVivo. The second study is an observational analysis of two key LRT stations, based on Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) principles, aimed at identifying areas that fall short of safety and design standards. Together, these studies provide a comprehensive understanding of both the commuter experience and the physical quality of the stations, aiming to pinpoint areas for improvement and enhance the quality and functionality of Calgary’s LRT system. The outcomes provide valuable insights for researchers and actionable recommendations for architects, planners, and politicians. Researchers will gain evidence-based data on public perceptions of LRT station design to guide future projects. Architects can refine station designs to ensure functionality and responsiveness to community needs. Planners and politicians can apply the findings to inform policy decisions, enhance regulatory frameworks, and prioritize improvements that elevate station quality and functionality.

The product warranty has become an indispensable facet of business operations. Burn-in is effective at eliminating infant mortality and improving operational reliability levels for consumers. This paper considers the influence of different failure states and different phases of product reliability and warranty policies on warranty costs from predelivery inspection to the end of the warranty period. We then propose a comprehensive warranty cost model that considers burn-in, free replacement warranty and pro-rata warranty as three phases for repairable products presenting two types of failure (minimal and catastrophic failure) that involve minimal repair and replacement, respectively. Warranty costs are the result of a combination of the three phases, where two types of failure occur individually or simultaneously. Moreover, we developed a framework for the modeling process of warranty costs, and the effects of various parameters, such as the burn-in time, warranty period, and distribution function on warranty costs, were analyzed. Finally, a practical case was examined by using a warranty cost model, and through an after-sales service data analysis, we obtained the failure rate distribution and optimal warranty length by minimizing the average warranty cost, which can serve as a reference for manufacturers when developing warranty policies.

Over the past decade, goal models have been used in Computer Science in order to represent software requirements, business objectives and design qualities. Such models extend traditional AI planning techniques for representing goals by allowing for partially defined and possibly inconsistent goals. This paper presents a formal framework for reasoning with such goal models. In particular, the paper proposes a qualitative and a numerical axiomatization for goal modeling primitives and introduces label propagation algorithms that are shown to be sound and complete with respect to their respective axiomatizations. In addition, the paper reports on experimental results on the propagation algorithms applied to a goal model for a US car manufacturer.

This article advocates a systematic approach to improve NoC design quality by guiding architectural choices according to the difficulty of verification and test. The authors propose early quality metrics for added test, monitoring, and debug hardware.

This article advocates a systematic approach to improve NoC design quality by guiding architectural choices according to the difficulty of verification and test. The authors propose early quality metrics for added test, monitoring, and debug hardware.

Objective. To investigate prospectively which medical, psychosocial or treatment-related factors predicted treatment satisfaction and to evaluate the adequacy of a preceding retrospective study which had examined the same factors. Furthermore, to examine the predictors and the stability of the major determinants of patient treatment satisfaction. Design. Assessments made before admission, at discharge and 2 and 4 months after discharge were used to predict both the level and the rate of change in satisfaction with different aspects of treatment. Setting. Three surgical departments at a University Hospital. Study participants. Four-hundred and eighty-two patients electively admitted for several surgical conditions. Results. The central treatment-related measures were the same in the retrospective and prospective studies: global satisfaction with treatment (GS), perceived quality of contact with the nursing (QCN) and medical staff (QCM) and provision of adequate treatment information (INF). More of the variance in GS was explained in the prospective study (48.7% versus 36.3%). GS was most influenced by treatment-related factors with QCN as the strongest predictor in both studies. Only a small portion of the variance in QCN and QCM could be accounted for by the characteristics of the patients. INF was predicted by characteristics of the patients, their illness and life situation and by treatment-related factors. QCN was the strongest predictor of INF. The relationships with the nursing and medical personnel appear to be the major determinants of both patient treatment satisfaction and patients' reception of adequate information about their condition and its treatment.

Success in infrastructure projects requires success in all phases of the project, including design, construction, and operation. One of the necessary actions for developing countries to construct their economic infrastructures, is implementing infrastructure plans. This industry should focus more on the construction process and utilizing creative tools and new concepts for construction development. The reason of it is because of delivering the project with certain quality, in time and with the given budget. Contractors should have new strategies for construction to optimize project completion, and constructability. Accordingly, constructability improvements have become the concern of construction industry practitioners. Considering constructability issues in the early stages of the project enhances identifying design limitations that prevent capabilities of contractors to take part in planning and improving project performance. The purpose of this study is identifying the prerequisites of constructability to resolve the current problems of projects, including inappropriate plans without implementability, poor decision making in design, and lack of sufficient implementation experience in the design engineering team. This study provides a list of prerequisites for constructability implementation in infrastructure projects. Accordingly, it identifies the prerequisites, using Systematic Literature Review (SLR) technique. The NVivo software is used to facilitate the qualitative analyses.

Several potato production technologies, including improved potato varieties with their associated agronomic practices, crop protection measures, and postharvest handling techniques, have been generated and promoted for beneficiaries, especially since the early 1990s. At least nine improved potato varieties, of which most originated at the International Potato Center (CIP), have been released for production since 1991 (Table 1). In addition to high-yielding and disease-resistant potato varieties, associated packages, such as recommended spacing; recommended fertilizer rate; fungicide type, rate, time of application, calibration techniques, and safe use of chemicals; and postharvest handling techniques, have been released for beneficiaries. Released improved varieties provided average yields of 218–467 q/ha under research stations and as high as 250 q/ha at farm levels. The improved varieties provided a twoto sevenfold yield advantage over the local varieties. Special emphasis was als...

This paper presents a theoretical framework that optimally solves many open problems in time budgeting. Our approach unifies a large class of existing timemanagement paradigms. Examples include time budgeting for maximizing total weighted delay relaxation, minimizing the maximum relaxation and min-skew time budget distribution. We show that many of the time management problems can be transformed into a min-cost flow instance that can be optimally and efficiently solved through well-known combinatorial techniques. Experiments include mapping of several designs, which are implemented using parameterized CoreGen IP cores, on Xilinx FPGA devices. Different time budgeting policies have been applied during the mapping stage. Our time management techniques always improved the area requirement of the implemented testbenches compared to a widely-used path-based method. We also compared the maximum budgeting and fairness in delay budget assignments. Our experimental results show that an average improvement of 19% in area can be achieved when fairness and maximum budgeting policies are combined, compared to pure maximum budgeting.

Excess delay that each component of a design can tolerate under a given timing constraint is referred to as delay budget. Delay budgeting has been widely exploited to improve the design quality in VLSI CAD flow. The objective of the delay budgeting problem investigated in this paper is to maximize the total delay budget assigned to each node in a directed acyclic graph under a given timing constraint. Due to discreteness of the timing of the components in the libraries during design optimization flow, discrete solution for delay budgeting is essential. We present an optimal integer delay budgeting algorithm. We prove that the problem can be solved optimally in polynomial time. In addition, we look at different extensions of the delay budgeting problem, such as maximization of weighted summation of delay budgets assigned to the nodes with constraints on lower bound and upper bound on the delay budget allocated to each node. We prove that for both aforementioned extensions, our algorithm can produce an optimal integer solution in polynomial time. Our algorithm is generic and can be applied in different design tasks at different levels of abstraction. We applied our proposed optimal delay budgeting algorithm in library mapping during datapath synthesis on an FPGA platform ,using pre-optimized cores of FPGA libraries. For each application, we go through synthesis and place and route stages in order to obtain accurate results. Our optimal algorithm outperforms ZSA algorithm [4] in terms of area by ½¼± on average for all applications. In some applications, optimal delay budgeting can speedup runtime of place and route up to ¾ times.

Delay budget is an excess delay each component of a design can tolerate under a given timing constraint. Delay budgeting has been widely exploited to improve the design quality. We present an optimal integer delay budgeting algorithm. Due to numerical instability and discreteness of libraries of components during library mapping in design optimization flow, integer solution for delay budgeting is essential. We prove that integer budgeting problem -a 20-year old open problem in design optimization [7]-can be solved optimally in polynomial time. We applied optimal delay budgeting in mapping applications on FPGA platform using pre-optimized cores of FPGA libraries. For each application we go through synthesis and place and route stages in order to obtain accurate results. Our optimal algorithm outperforms ZSA algorithm in terms of area by 10% on average for all applications. In some applications, optimal delay budgeting can speedup runtime of place and route up to 2 times.

Partial dynamic reconfiguration is an emerging area in FPGA designs which is used for saving device area and cost. In order to reduce the reconfiguration overhead, two consecutive similar sub-designs should be placed in the same locations to get the maximum reuse of common components. This requires that all the future designs be considered while floorplanning for any given design. In this work, we introduce a new multi-layer sequence pair representation based floorplanner that allows overlap of static and non-static components of multiple designs and guarantees a feasible overlapping floorplan with minimal area packing. The multi-layer sequence pair is an efficient representation that helps in reducing the total floorplan runtime significantly. It also improves the design quality of the whole sequence as floorplans of all the designs are simultaneously computed. In our experiments, compared to a traditional sequential floorplanner, our floorplanner removes infeasibility in many designs, achieves an improvement of clock period by 12% on average and reduces the place and route time by as much as 3 times. It also reduces the average wirelength by 50% in the designs. Our proposed floorplanner could be used for finding high quality floorplans for applications that use partial reconfiguration.

Excess delay that each component of a design can tolerate under a given timing constraint is referred to as delay budget. Delay budgeting has been widely exploited to improve the design quality in VLSI CAD flow. The objective of the delay budgeting problem investigated in this paper is to maximize the total delay budget assigned to each node in a directed acyclic graph under a given timing constraint. Due to discreteness of the timing of the components in the libraries during design optimization flow, discrete solution for delay budgeting is essential. We present an optimal integer delay budgeting algorithm. We prove that the problem can be solved optimally in polynomial time. In addition, we look at different extensions of the delay budgeting problem, such as maximization of weighted summation of delay budgets assigned to the nodes with constraints on lower bound and upper bound on the delay budget allocated to each node. We prove that for both aforementioned extensions, our algorithm can produce an optimal integer solution in polynomial time. Our algorithm is generic and can be applied in different design tasks at different levels of abstraction. We applied our proposed optimal delay budgeting algorithm in library mapping during datapath synthesis on an FPGA platform ,using pre-optimized cores of FPGA libraries. For each application, we go through synthesis and place and route stages in order to obtain accurate results. Our optimal algorithm outperforms ZSA algorithm [4] in terms of area by ½¼± on average for all applications. In some applications, optimal delay budgeting can speedup runtime of place and route up to ¾ times.

Research works and surveys focusing on e-Government Digital Services availability and usage, reveal that often services are available but ignored by citizens. In our hypothesis this situation can be justified since defined service delivery processes do not sufficiently take into account social aspects and mainly focus just on technical aspects. Domain knowledge, related to how delivering high quality e-Government Digital Services, remains in most of the case in the mind of e-government stakeholders. To address these issues we have developed a quality framework to assess delivery process strategies of services. Moreover we have introduced a user-friendly approach permitting to assess, using formal verification techniques, a delivery process with respect to the defined quality framework. The approach has been also implemented in a plug-in for the Eclipse platform and it has been applied to real case scenarios from the Public Administration domain. In this paper we report and discuss the results we obtained from the conducted experiments. First of all the experiments provided encouraging results confirming that the approach we developed is applicable to the e-government domain. Moreover we discovered that delivery processes, defined for the services under study, reach low quality marks with respect to the framework.

A gestão de riscos na engenharia de custos envolve identificar, avaliar, quantificar e gerenciar riscos que afetam os custos, com foco em flutuações de preços de insumos, quantificação de recursos e planejamento de contingências. A pesquisa sugere que os processos incluam etapas como identificação de riscos (ex.: preços de materiais), avaliação de probabilidade e impacto, e estratégias como mitigação ou transferência. As Inovações tecnológicas, como big data, blockchain e BIM, indiscutivelmente parecem oferecer soluções para melhorar a gestão de riscos, especialmente em previsões e monitoramento.

Current multimedia applications demand complex heterogeneous multiprocessor architectures with specific communication infrastructure in order to achieve the required performances. Programming these architectures usually results in writing separate low-level code for the different processors (DSP, microcontroller), implying late global validation of the overall application with the hardware platform. We propose a platform-based software design flow able to efficiently use the resources of the architecture and allowing easy experimentation of several mappings of the application onto the platform resources. We use a high-level environment to capture both application and architecture initial representations. An executable software stack is generated automatically for each processor from the initial model. The software generation and validation is performed gradually corresponding to different software abstraction levels. Specific software development platforms (abstract models of the ar...

This paper presents some advances towards the quantitative evaluation of design attributes of object-oriented software systems. We believe that these attributes can express the quality of internal structure, thus being strongly correlated with quality characteristics like analyzability, changeability, stability and testabilility, which are important to software developers and maintainers.<br> An OO design metrics set is reviewed, along with its rationale. An experiment for collection and analysis of those metrics is described and several suppositions regarding the design are evaluated. A considerable number of class taxonomies written in the C++ language were used as a sample. A tool to collect those metrics was built and used for that purpose. Statistical analysis was performed to evaluate the collected data. Results show that some design heuristics can be derived and used to help guide the design process. It was also clear that a number of follow-up topics deserve further re...

In 2009, the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Villanova University reinvented its course sequence in undergraduate mechanics. Classic courses in Statics, Mechanics of Solids, and Civil Engineering Materials were restructured into a two-course sophomore-level sequence (Mechanics I and Mechanics II), and elements of Dynamics were integrated with Fluid Mechanics and the associated laboratory to form the junior-level course Mechanics III. These courses emphasize real-world applications and are taught using an integrated approach. For example, the first course intersperses topics traditionally covered in Statics (such as truss analysis) with topics typically addressed in Mechanics of Solids (such as stress-strain relationships and factor of safety) rather than covering all of the Statics content prior to Mechanics of Solids content. Using this approach, students are able to apply concepts to solve larger, complex, and more interesting problems much earlier in the curriculum. The new courses are each worth four credit hours and are scheduled to meet four times a week, including three 50-minute sessions and one 165-minute flexible or "flex" period. The flex period is the cornerstone of the revised course structure, as it allows for several different teaching and learning strategies that would not be possible in the shorter periods. These periods are specifically designed to be active learning sessions, which allow for better integration of individual concepts to attain a higher level of application. While the 50-minute sessions involve short lectures and the solution of multiple stand-alone problems, several of the flex periods are used for combined analytical and laboratory-type experiences that extend far beyond simple single-concept problems similar to those found in most textbooks. Other uses of the flex period include computation-based overarching problems that involve a series of independent but complementary calculation steps to solve a larger problem, and comprehensive examinations. This paper discusses how the flex periods are used in the Mechanics I course, and presents details on three of the combined analytical and laboratory-type experiences used during these periods. Specific learning outcomes for each exercise are identified. Student feedback from multiple years of student surveys is presented. Administrative considerations such as faculty time requirements, course section sizes, and laboratory costs are also discussed.

A crescente demanda por rapidez na construção, menores custos e maior controle da qualidade geram uma complexidade na gestão do processo de projeto. Estudos voltados aos projetos industriais ou obras por encomenda ainda são em minoria, ou seja, há poucos trabalhos desenvolvidos e publicados sobre este tema. Além disso, especificamente no segmento escolhido, a complexidade e a diversidade dos projetos, associadas às inúmeras exigências de mercado, demandam melhorias das práticas de gestão de projetos.O trabalho tem como objetivo identificar, por meio de estudos de caso, as ações de gestão utilizadas em projetos industriais (obras por encomenda), caracterizar o processo de projeto, assim como analisar a atuação dos gestores de projeto e suas dificuldades.A pesquisa em questão compõe-se de três fases que se sobrepõem: a primeira fase contempla uma revisão bibliográfica de conceitos relevantes para o estudo; a segunda corresponde à apresentação e discussão de estudos de caso, visando ca...

A new algorithm for identification of discrete time Hybrid Systems in the Piece-Wise Affine (PWA) form is introduced. This problem involves the estimation of both the parameters of the affine submodels and the partition of the PWA map from data. At the first stage we propose a modified version of the k-plane clustering algorithm proposed in to provide initial data classification and parameter estimation. Then we apply the refinement algorithm proposed in repeatedly to the estimated clusters in order to improve both the data classification and the parameter estimation. The k-plane approach clusters the data in the data space instead of feature space and is computationally very efficient. Also the possible modifications on the algorithm which yield to a recursive version for online identification of PWA Hybrid systems are discussed.

It has become a commonplace to refer to the potential for good design to lead to schools that raise educational attainment, as well as offices which promote teamwork and productivity, and hospitals where patients recover more quickly. These claims correspond with a ...

We have built eMoto, a mobile service for sending and receiving affective messages, with the explicit aim of addressing the inner experience of emotions. eMoto is a designed artifact that carries emotional experiences only achieved through interaction. Following on the theories of embodiment, we argue emotional experiences can not be design in only design for. eMoto is the result of a user-centered design approach, realized through a set of initial brainstorming methods, a persona, a Laban-analysis of body language and a twotiered evaluation method. eMoto is not a system that could have been designed from theory only, but require an iterative engagement with end-users, however, in combination with theoretical work. More specifically, we will show how we have managed to design an ambiguous and open system that allows for users' emotional engagement.

A fine-grained co-change dependency arises when two fine-grained source-code entities, e.g., a method, change frequently together. This kind of dependency is relevant when considering remodularization efforts (e.g., to keep methods that change together in the same class). However, existing approaches for recommending refactorings that change software decomposition (such as a move method) do not explore the use of fine-grained co-change dependencies. In this paper we present a novel approach for recommending move method and move field refactorings, which removes co-change dependencies and evolutionary smells, a particular type of dependency that arise when fine-grained entities that belong to different classes frequently change together. First we evaluate our approach using 49 open-source Java projects, finding 610 evolutionary smells. Our approach automatically computes 56 refactoring recommendations that remove these evolutionary smells, without introducing new static dependencies. We also evaluate our approach by submitting pull-requests with the recommendations of our technique, in the context of one large and two medium size proprietary Java systems. Quantitative results show that our approach outperforms existing approaches for recommending refactorings when dealing with co-change dependencies. Qualitative results show that our approach is promising, not only for recommending refactorings but also to reveal opportunities of design improvements.

This study examines the criteria used by juries in architectural design competitions. A competition project was determined, and the characteristics of the award-winning projects were examined. The main subject of the study is which criteria the jury attaches more importance to in these projects. Different evaluations can be made in architectural design competitions according to the subjects and what is requested from the competitors. While there are utopias that push the boundaries of imagination in idea competitions, in some competitions, the feasibility of the project is also requested. In the competition examined; International Velux Awards, competitors are expected to carry out studies on light. Competitors participated in many different design competitions such as efficient use of light in spaces, spaces with insufficient light, and structures that work with light. When the project reports are examined with qualitative data analysis, it is emphasized that architecture has the power to create not only visual but also emotional and psychological effects. Beyond shaping spaces, light can affect people's moods and increase their quality of life. In this context, efforts to make the most efficient use of daylight not only save energy, but also improve people's physical and emotional experiences. The projects in the competition explore this deep relationship between light and space and develop innovative solutions for sustainability and human health.

The design of software systems tend to degrade throughout time. Changes in code end up introducing new and unplanned dependencies among modules, causing the elegance of the design to be slowly lost in the form of structural patches and violations of previously established architectural rules. In this study, we propose a conceptual framework for dependency management. Our aim is to conceive a framework that adequately represents and organizes the core concepts of dependency management. The framework revolves around four main concepts, namely: identification, visualization, analysis, and restructuring of dependencies. In a long-term perspective, we envision that a systematization of the field will provide a solid ground for the development of more effective dependency management methods and tools.

The study of software architectures is gaining importance due to its role in various aspects of software engineering, like product line engineering, componentbased software engineering and other emerging paradigms. With the increasing emphasis on design patterns, the traditional practice of ad-hoc software construction is slowly shifting towards pattern-oriented development. Various architectural attributes like error propagation, change propagation, requirements propagation provide a wealth of information about software architectures. In this paper, we show that change propagation probability (CP) is helpful and effective in assessing the design quality of software architectures. We study two different architectures (one that employs patterns versus one that does not) for the same application. We also analyze and compare the change propagation metric with respect to other coupling-based metrics.

In this paper different alternatives of wake-up receiver in ultra-low power wireless sensor nodes are studied. The limitations of power dissipation, area or cost require a holistic approach to the problem, taking into account every stage of design such as the architecture and the radio frequency sub-system. Reduce data communication only when necessary can be achieved using two radios, one for standard communication as transceiver and another devoted to wake-up receiver. The wake-up receiver listens the input signal to detect the addressed bit sequence. This work deals with the wake-up receiver design of different architectures. A comparison of the trade-off between them is performed. In each case characteristics such as sensitivity or distances with low power consumption are exposed. The input signal of the wireless sensor node is a 125 kHz on-off keying modulated at 868 MHz and the circuits are designed to operate in 868 MHz band. A first option is used a tuned radio frequency architecture with a discrete detector with Schottky diode to demodulates the OOK signal. The following structure is with an envelope detector where the envelope detector is designed in weak inversion to have a low consumption. Is possible improve the voltage gain including an impedance matching in the input of the detector. Other option is including an amplifier before the detector to improve detector sensitivity. The amplifier with active inductor has to be in subthreshold region to have moderate power consumption. The circuits are designed in UMC CMOS 65 nm technology with 1.2 V supply.

This paper presents a hybrid design strategy for the determination of the optimum laser drilling parameters which simultaneously meets the requirements for seven quality characteristics (responses) of the holes produced during pulsed Nd:YAG laser drilling of a thin sheet of nickel-based superalloy Nimonic 263. The process was designed using two approaches based on the experimental data. In the first approach, the quality losses of seven correlated responses were uncorrelated into a set of components using the principal component analysis; then the grey relational analysis was applied to synthesise components into a synthetic performance measure. Since this approach considered only parameter values used in the experiment, the second approach was developed to find the global optimal parameters solution using an artificial neural network to model the relation between parameters and a synthetic performance measure, and a genetic algorithm to perform a search for the global optimum in a continual multidimensional space. The analysis of the application indicated that the proposed approaches gave a better result, in terms of the optimal parameter settings that yield the maximal synthetic performance measure, than several commonly used methods for multi-response process parameters design. The results demonstrated that the robust Nd: YAG laser drilling of Ni-based superalloy sheets was designed with respect to the requirements for seven quality characteristics of the drilled holes, by using the proposed strategy.

La espirometría en atención primaria en Cataluña 299 68% de los casos no se lleva a cabo ningún tipo de control de calidad de la exploración. En dos tercios de los casos se introducen manualmente los datos en la historia clínica informatiza. Más del 50% se atribuye una prioridad alta para las estrategias de mejora de la calidad de la EF. Conclusiones: A pesar de la accesibilidad a la EF deben realizarse esfuerzos para estandarizar la formación, incrementar el número de exploraciones y promover el control de calidad sistemático.

This report describes installation and use of the XML Schema [1] Quality of Design Standalone testing system, or QOD Standalone. QOD Standalone is one of several tools produced by NIST's XML Testbed project within the Manufacturing Systems Integration Division at NIST. These tools aid in producing high quality XML schemas using a standards-based approach to manufacturing systems integration. QOD may be used by an XML schema developer to ensure compliance with a set of guidelines for XML schema development, a.k.a. Naming and Design Rules (NDR). QOD Standalone, derived from the original web-based system, may be used for off-line testing, hence the name "Standalone." While the tool is configurable to use NDR from any number of original sources, it is distributed with tests of NDR from the Open Applications Group (OAG) [2] and Department of the Navy (DON) [3]. Tests for other NDR may be loaded into the system as they are available.

This study aimed to analyze the seed potato systems in Ethiopia, identify constraints and prioritize improvement options, combining desk research, rapid appraisal and formal surveys, expert elicitation, field observations and local knowledge. In Ethiopia, informal, alternative and formal seed systems co-exist. The informal system, with low quality seed, is dominant. The formal system is too small to contribute significantly to improve that situation. The informal seed system should prioritize improving seed quality by increasing awareness and skills of farmers, improving seed tuber quality of early generations and market access. The alternative and formal seed systems should prioritize improving the production capacity of quality seed by availing new varieties, designing quality control methods and improving farmer's awareness. To improve overall seed potato supply in Ethiopia, experts postulated co-existence and linkage of the three seed systems and development of self-regulation and selfcertification in the informal, alternative and formal cooperative seed potato systems. autocertificación en los sistemas cooperativos de semilla de papa informal, alternativo y formal.