Launch Control Systems: Moving Towards a Scalable, Universal Platform for Future Space Endeavors

The redirection of NASA away from the Constellation program calls for heavy reliance on commercial launch vehicles for the near future in order to reduce costs and shift focus to research and long term space exploration. To support them, NASA will renovate Kennedy Space Center's launch facilities and make them available for commercial use. However, NASA's current launch software is deeply connected with the now-retired Space Shuttle and is otherwise not massively compatible. Therefore, a new Launch Control System must be designed that is adaptable to a variety of different launch protocols and vehicles. This paper exposits some of the features and advantages of the new system both from the perspective of the software developers and the launch engineers

Embedded Smart Car Security System on Face Detection

In this proposed embedded car security system, FDS(Face Detection System) is used to detect the face of the driver and compare it with the predefined face. For example, in the night when the car’s owner is sleeping and someone theft the car then FDS obtains images by one tiny web camera which can be hidden easily in somewhere in the car. FDS compares the obtained image with the predefined images if the image doesn’t match, then the information is sent to the owner through MMS. So now owner can obtain the image of the thief in his mobile as well as he can trace the location through GPS. The location of the car as well as its speed can be displayed to the owner through SMS. So by using this system, owner can identify the thief image as well as the location of the car This system prototype is built on the base of one embedded platform in which one SoC named “SEP4020”(works at 100MHz) controls all the processes .Experimental results illuminate the validity of this car security system

Signing and security of Hue software

Developing software for the Hue devices poses plenty of challenges among the engineers at Philips Lighting. These challenges arise at each stage of the Software Development Life-Cycle (SDLC). Improvement of it is of immense importance to the Philips Lighting. This report describes a project which focus was to automate the SDLC, as well as to improve the security in it. The end result solves many challenges. It delivers a complete release management tool dedicated to the engineers at the Home Systems department. First, it visualizes release workflows in a simple user interface. Second, the core activities of the SDLC, such as the software signing, are fully automated. What is more important is that the signing is executed in a highly secure environment. This is very important for Philips Lighting not only because this automation saves a lot of time, but also because it reduces the risk of a human error. The same benefits are gained through an automation of other activities, such as approvals, distribution of the software to the factories, and deploying the software to the device cloud. Third, the system provides a traceability about each step executed in the process. Finally, the system is highly configurable, which makes it easy to be extended and adjusted to support different device types with different release workflows

Generic Concept for Integrating Voice Assistance Into Smart Therapeutic Interventions

Therapeutic Interventions (TIs) play an important role in modern medical and psychological treatments, but their integration into the digital world still shows deficits, e.g., in the integration of the auditory interface. Initiatives to integrate this interface into existing Internet- and Mobile-Based Inter- ventions (IMIs) are largely focused on a small group of Voice Assistants (VAs) and their specific capabilities. To mitigate these drawbacks, the presented concept seamlessly integrates arbitrary VAs into the treatment process of TIs. To this end, an architecture - including a discussion of relevant requirements - is presented that, on the one hand, uses VAs as the only point of contact with patients and, on the other hand, provides a comprehensive web- based backend for Healthcare Providers (HCPs). Based on the architecture, a proof-of-concept implementation using Amazon Alexa is presented. Finally, it is discussed that the scenario addressed and the solution presented have great potential, but still need a lot of work and technical consideration

Software service adaptation based on interface localisation

The aim of Web services is the provision of software services to a range of different users in different locations. Service localisation in this context can facilitate the internationalisation and localisation of services by allowing their adaption to different locales. The authors investigate three dimensions: (i) lingual localisation by providing service-level language translation techniques to adopt services to different languages, (ii) regulatory localisation by providing standards-based mappings to achieve regulatory compliance with regionally varying laws, standards and regulations, and (iii) social localisation by taking into account preferences and customs for individuals and the groups or communities in which they participate. The objective is to support and implement an explicit modelling of aspects that are relevant to localisation and runtime support consisting of tools and middleware services to automating the deployment based on models of locales, driven by the two localisation dimensions. The authors focus here on an ontology-based conceptual information model that integrates locale specification into service architectures in a coherent way

OWidgets: A toolkit to enable smell-based experience design

Interactive technologies are transforming the ways in which people experience, interact and share information. Advances in technology have made it possible to generate real and virtual environments with breath-taking graphics and high-fidelity audio. However, without stimulating the other senses such as touch and smell, and even taste in some cases, such experiences feel hollow and fictitious; they lack realism. One of the main stumbling blocks for progress towards creating truly compelling multisensory experiences is the lack of appropriate tools and guidance for designing beyond audio-visual applications. Here we focus particularly on the sense of smell and how smell-based design can be enabled to create novel user experiences. We present a design toolkit for smell (i.e., OWidgets). The toolkit consists of a graphical user interface and the underlying software framework. The framework uses two main components: a Mapper and Scheduler facilitating the device-independent replication of olfactory experiences. We discuss how our toolkit reduces the complexity of designing with smell and enables a creative exploration based on specific design features. We conclude by reflecting on future directions to extend the toolkit and integrate it into the wider audio-visual ecosystem

Knowledge Management as a Strategy & Competitive Advantage: A Strong Influence to Success (A Survey of Knowledge Management Case Studies of Different Organizations)

There has been a great deal of recognition in the business world that information and knowledge management can be vital tools in organizations. Knowledge management can be proven a competitive advantage of any organization. The rationale of this exploratory study is to investigate the link among knowledge management system & techniques and organizational success by using knowledge as completive advantage. It is a qualitative research study of different case studies of the use of knowledge management as competitive advantage in different organization that leads to success. A total of 8 different organizations are studied and results propose that by using knowledge management as strategy and competitive advantage, these organizations earn high profit. And it has a great influence to success. Implication and Directions are also discussed together with limitation and suggestions for future research. Keywords: Knowledge Management, Organization, Tacit Knowledge, Explicit Knowledge, KMS, KM Strategies, KM Technologies, Productivity, Competitive Advantage

Developing an online database of experts for the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce

The Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce as part of their mission to attract business to the Worcester area, want to create an online searchable database of industry experts made up of faculty members of the Colleges and Universities in the Worcester area. This online database will be placed on the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce Higher Education – Business Partnership page on their website. The limitations placed on this request are that the Regional Chamber as of this moment have no monetary or Information Technologies resources to provide for the realization of this request. The proliferation of as A Service Information technology offerings provide a number of options for satisfying the request for an online searchable database of individuals, and some services are geared more specifically for this type of need and are intended for the nonprofit sector as well. The recommendation of this report is for the Worcester regional Chamber of Commerce to consider these options even if it requires a small investment of funds on their part