Responding to Cross Border Child Trafficking in South Asia: An Analysis of the Feasibility of a Technologically Enabled Missing Child Alert System

This report examines the feasibility of a technologically enabled system to help respond to the phenomenon of cross-border child trafficking in South Asia, and makes recommendations on how to proceed with a pilot project in the selected areas of Bangladesh, Nepal and India. The study was commissioned by the Missing Child Alert (MCA) programme which is an initiative led by Plan. MCA is an initiative to address cross-border child trafficking in South Asia, led by Plan. The aim of the programme is to link existing institutions, mechanisms and resources in order to tackle the phenomenon from a regional perspective. To achieve this, Plan propose to implement a technologically equipped, institutionalised system of alert that can assist in the rescue, rehabilitation, repatriation and reintegration of children who are at risk of, or are victims of, cross-border trafficking

Multimedia and Live Performance

The use of interactive multimedia within live performance is now well established and a significant body of exciting and sophisticated work has been produced. However, almost all work in the field seems to start by creating at least some of the software and hardware systems that will provide the infrastructure for the project, an approach which might involve significant duplication of effort. The research described in this thesis sets out to discover if there are common features in the practice of artists from a range of performance backgrounds and, if so, whether the features of a system which might support these common aspects could be established. Based on evidence from a set of interviews, it is shown that there are indeed common factors in work in this field, especially the intensive linking of elements in performances and the use of triggering or cuing. A statement of requirements for a generic system to support work in digital performance is then established based on interview analysis and personal creative work. A general model of live performance, based on set theory, is described which provides a rationale for the integration of digital technology within live performance. A computational model outlining the formal requirements of a general system for use in live performance is then presented. The thesis then describes the creation of a domain specific language specifically for controlling live performance and the development of a prototype reference implementation of a generic system, the Live Interactive Multimedia Performance Toolkit (LIMPT). The system is then evaluated from a number of standpoints including a set of criteria established earlier in the study. It is concluded that, while there are many resources currently used by artists working in digital performance (a comprehensive survey of current resources is presented), none offer the combination of functionality, usability and scalability offered by the prototype LIMPT system. The thesis concludes with a discussion of possible future work and the potential for increased creative activity in multimedia and live performance

High performance systems

This document provides a written compilation of the presentations and viewgraphs from the 1994 Conference on High Speed Computing given at the High Speed Computing Conference, {open_quotes}High Performance Systems,{close_quotes} held at Gleneden Beach, Oregon, on April 18 through 21, 1994

Additive Manufacturing as a Manufacturing Method: an Implementation Framework for Additive Manufacturing in Supply Chains

The supply chain is changing speedily and on a continuous basis to keep up with the rapid changes in the market, which are summarized as increased competition, changes in traditional customer bases, and changes in customers’ expectations. Thus, companies have to change their way of manufacturing final products in order to customize and expedite the delivery of products to customers. Additive manufacturing, the new production system, effectively and efficiently increases the capability of personalization during the manufacturing process. This consequently increases customer’s satisfaction and company’s profitability. In other words, additive manufacturing has become one of the most important technologies in the manufacturing field. Full implementation of additive manufacturing will change many well-known management practices in the production sector. Theoretical development in the field of additive manufacturing in regards to its impact on supply chain management is rare. There is no fully applied approach in the literature that is focused on managing the supply chain when additive manufacturing is applied. While additive manufacturing is believed to revolutionize and enhance traditional manufacturing, there is no comprehensive toolset developed in the manufacturing field that evaluates the impact of additive manufacturing and determines the best production method that suits the applied supply chain strategy. A significant portion of the existing supply chain methods and frameworks were adopted in this study to examine the implementation of additive manufacturing in supply chain management. The aim of this study is to develop a framework to explain when additive manufacturing “3D printing” impacts supply chain management efficiently. To build the framework, interviews with some companies that already use additive manufacturing in their production system have been carried out. Next, an online survey and two case studies evaluated the framework and validated the results of the final version of the framework. The conceptual framework shows the relationship among supply chain strategies, manufacturing strategy and manufacturing systems. The developed framework shows not only the ability of additive manufacturing to change and re-shape supply chains, but its impact as an alternative manufacturing technique on supply chain strategies. This framework helps managers select more effective production methods based on certain production variables, including product’s type, components’ value, and customization level.The supply chain is changing speedily and on a continuous basis to keep up with the rapid changes in the market, which are summarized as increased competition, changes in traditional customer bases, and changes in customers’ expectations. Thus, companies have to change their way of manufacturing final products in order to customize and expedite the delivery of products to customers. Additive manufacturing, the new production system, effectively and efficiently increases the capability of personalization during the manufacturing process. This consequently increases customer’s satisfaction and company’s profitability. In other words, additive manufacturing has become one of the most important technologies in the manufacturing field. Full implementation of additive manufacturing will change many well-known management practices in the production sector. Theoretical development in the field of additive manufacturing in regards to its impact on supply chain management is rare. There is no fully applied approach in the literature that is focused on managing the supply chain when additive manufacturing is applied. While additive manufacturing is believed to revolutionize and enhance traditional manufacturing, there is no comprehensive toolset developed in the manufacturing field that evaluates the impact of additive manufacturing and determines the best production method that suits the applied supply chain strategy. A significant portion of the existing supply chain methods and frameworks were adopted in this study to examine the implementation of additive manufacturing in supply chain management. The aim of this study is to develop a framework to explain when additive manufacturing “3D printing” impacts supply chain management efficiently. To build the framework, interviews with some companies that already use additive manufacturing in their production system have been carried out. Next, an online survey and two case studies evaluated the framework and validated the results of the final version of the framework. The conceptual framework shows the relationship among supply chain strategies, manufacturing strategy and manufacturing systems. The developed framework shows not only the ability of additive manufacturing to change and re-shape supply chains, but its impact as an alternative manufacturing technique on supply chain strategies. This framework helps managers select more effective production methods based on certain production variables, including product’s type, components’ value, and customization level

Art unlimited: an investigation into contemporary digital arts and the free software movement.

Computing technology has not only significantly shaped many of the contemporary artistic disciplines, it has also given birth to many new and exciting practices. Modest, low cost hardware enabled artists to manipulate real-time multimedia data and coordinate vast amounts of hardware devices, whilst high bandwidth Internet connections has allowed them to communicate and distribute their work rapidly. For this reason, art practices in the digital domain have become highly decentralized. It is therefore not surprising that the rise of free and open source software (FLOSS) has been warmly welcomed and adopted by an increasing number of practitioners. The technical advantages in free software allows them to create works of art with greater freedom and flexibility. Its open and collaborative ideology, on the other hand, further embraces the increasingly autonomous and distributed characteristics in the artistic community. This thesis aims to examine the impact of free and open source software in the context of contemporary digital arts. It will look at the current climate of both digital arts and the FLOSS movement, attempting to rationalize the implications of such a phenomena. It will also provide concrete examples of ongoing activities in FLOSS digital arts, as an evidence and documentation of its development to date. Lastly, the practical work in this research will offer a first hand insight into developing a FLOSS project within the given context

Program Comprehension Through Sonification

Background: Comprehension of computer programs is daunting, thanks in part to clutter in the software developer's visual environment and the need for frequent visual context changes. Non-speech sound has been shown to be useful in understanding the behavior of a program as it is running. Aims: This thesis explores whether using sound to help understand the static structure of programs is viable and advantageous. Method: A novel concept for program sonification is introduced. Non-speech sounds indicate characteristics of and relationships among a Java program's classes, interfaces, and methods. A sound mapping is incorporated into a prototype tool consisting of an extension to the Eclipse integrated development environment communicating with the sound engine Csound. Developers examining source code can aurally explore entities outside of the visual context. A rich body of sound techniques provides expanded representational possibilities. Two studies were conducted. In the first, software professionals participated in exploratory sessions to informally validate the sound mapping concept. The second study was a human-subjects experiment to discover whether using the tool and sound mapping improve performance of software comprehension tasks. Twenty-four software professionals and students performed maintenance-oriented tasks on two Java programs with and without sound. Results: Viability is strong for differentiation and characterization of software entities, less so for identification. The results show no overall advantage of using sound in terms of task duration at a 5% level of significance. The results do, however, suggest that sonification can be advantageous under certain conditions. Conclusions: The use of sound in program comprehension shows sufficient promise for continued research. Limitations of the present research include restriction to particular types of comprehension tasks, a single sound mapping, a single programming language, and limited training time. Future work includes experiments and case studies employing a wider set of comprehension tasks, sound mappings in domains other than software, and adding navigational capability for use by the visually impaired