A Model-Based Systems Engineering Approach for Efficient System Architecture Representation in Conceptual Design: A Case Study for Flight Control Systems

The reduction of the environmental footprint of aviation requires the development of more efficient aircraft. Emergent technologies in aircraft systems, such as more-electrical aircraft, are potential enablers for the next generation of aircraft. To support the adoption of these new technologies and to tackle the underlying integration challenges, aircraft system architectures need to be considered earlier in the aircraft design process, specifically within the conceptual design stage. To deal with the complexity and to make the system architecture development process more efficient and effective, a key enabler is to improve the representation of system architectures early in the design process. Introducing better architecture representations removes ambiguity and allows engineers to develop a shared understanding of the system. Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) has emerged as a systematic methodology to address complexity in systems design and overcome the drawbacks of the traditional paper based systems engineering approach used in aircraft development. This thesis investigates the use of the ARCADIA/Capella MBSE environment for the representation and specification of aircraft systems architecture in conceptual design. This thesis includes survey on the needs for system architecture representations in conceptual design. A methodology is developed within Capella to create architecture representations that are suitable for use in conceptual design. The primary flight control systems (PFCS), which by extension also includes the associated power systems, is selected to illustrate the proposed methodology. The proposed methodology consists of capturing architectural features such as interfaces, exchanges and variability. A catalog of modelling artifacts representing the various flight control actuation technologies at system level, logical and physical level has been developed. These elements can be combined to define any primary flight control system architecture. The model-based specification addresses the need to define rapidly many architecture variants for conventional and more-electrical technologies. The developed methodology is applicable to other aircraft systems. Overall, this work is an initial step towards introducing MBSE earlier in the aircraft development process thereby making it more efficient and responsive to the emerging needs of aircraft development

Medical devices with embedded electronics: design and development methodology for start-ups

358 p.El sector de la biotecnología demanda innovación constante para hacer frente a los retos del sector sanitario. Hechos como la reciente pandemia COVID-19, el envejecimiento de la población, el aumento de las tasas de dependencia o la necesidad de promover la asistencia sanitaria personalizada tanto en entorno hospitalario como domiciliario, ponen de manifiesto la necesidad de desarrollar dispositivos médicos de monitorización y diagnostico cada vez más sofisticados, fiables y conectados de forma rápida y eficaz. En este escenario, los sistemas embebidos se han convertido en tecnología clave para el diseño de soluciones innovadoras de bajo coste y de forma rápida. Conscientes de la oportunidad que existe en el sector, cada vez son más las denominadas "biotech start-ups" las que se embarcan en el negocio de los dispositivos médicos. Pese a tener grandes ideas y soluciones técnicas, muchas terminan fracasando por desconocimiento del sector sanitario y de los requisitos regulatorios que se deben cumplir. La gran cantidad de requisitos técnicos y regulatorios hace que sea necesario disponer de una metodología procedimental para ejecutar dichos desarrollos. Por ello, esta tesis define y valida una metodología para el diseño y desarrollo de dispositivos médicos embebidos

Securing Medical Devices and Protecting Patient Privacy in the Technological Age of Healthcare

The healthcare industry has been adopting technology at an astonishing rate. This technology has served to increase the efficiency and decrease the cost of healthcare around the country. While technological adoption has undoubtedly improved the quality of healthcare, it also has brought new security and privacy challenges to the industry that healthcare IT manufacturers are not necessarily fully prepared to address. This dissertation explores some of these challenges in detail and proposes solutions that will make medical devices more secure and medical data more private. Compared to other industries the medical space has some unique challenges that add significant constraints on possible solutions to problems. For example, medical devices must operate reliably even in the face of attack. Similarly, due to the need to access patient records in an emergency, strict enforcement of access controls cannot be used to prevent unauthorized access to patient data. Throughout this work we will explore particular problems in depth and introduce novel technologies to address them. Each chapter in this dissertation explores some aspect of security or privacy in the medical space. We present tools to automatically audit accesses in electronic medical record systems in order to proactively detect privacy violations; to automatically fingerprint network-facing protocols in order to non-invasively determine if particular devices are vulnerable to known attacks; and to authenticate healthcare providers to medical devices without a need for a password in a way that protects against all known attacks present in radio-based authentication technologies. We also present an extension to the widely-used beacon protocol in order to add security in the face of active attackers; and we demonstrate an overhead-free solution to protect embedded medical devices against previously unpreventable attacks that evade existing control- flow integrity enforcement techniques by leveraging insecure built-in features in order to maliciously exploit configuration vulnerabilities in devices

Navigating the Patient Room: Critical Care Nurses' Interaction with the Designed Physical Environment

abstract: The physical environment influences the physiology, psychology, and the societal interactions of those who experience it. The environment can also influence human behavior. Critical care nurses are in constant interaction with the physical environment surrounding their patients. High acuity ICU patients are vulnerable and at risk for harm, infection, and poor outcomes while the physical and cognitive workload of nurses presents a demanding and continuous challenge. The goal of this qualitative study was to explore and understand the way critical care nurses navigate within the patient room and interact with its features. The study of critical care nurses interacting with the patient room environment was conducted in five critical care units at three tertiary care institutions in the Eastern United States, along with another unit in the pilot study at a community hospital in the Southwest United States. Nurses were observed in their typical work environment as they performed normal tasks and patient care activities for entire day and night shifts. The study involved ethnographic field observations, individual semi-structured participant interviews, and examination of photographs and floor plans. The exploratory study resulted in a comprehensive model for nurse navigation that includes both cognitive and action components, along with a conceptual framework for nurse behavioral activity. Repetitive patterns of nurse movement were identified and named. The findings produced recommendations for nurses’ effective use of space and architectural design of ICU patient rooms to improve patient outcomes.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Nursing and Healthcare Innovation 201

Applying product design methods to medical device design with a case study on home care devices

Thesis (Master)--Izmir Institute of Technology, Industrial Design, Izmir, 2004Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 142)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishxii, 150 leavesMedical device design is one of the most important and most promising fields of industrial design. Medical devices, which were once designed by doctors, technicians and other people, who usually use such devices, have become insufficient in meeting the needs of today.s. In this respect, design of such devices and methods, which are used in the design process, comes away as main topics, which have to be carefully undertaken.Product design methods have the capacity of solving the problems of medical device design field, as they have in many other fields. In this study, the ways of applying these methods into the medical device design process, especially in home care medical device design, are going to be examined

Social work with airports passengers

Social work at the airport is in to offer to passengers social services. The main methodological position is that people are under stress, which characterized by a particular set of characteristics in appearance and behavior. In such circumstances passenger attracts in his actions some attention. Only person whom he trusts can help him with the documents or psychologically

2020 NASA Technology Taxonomy

This document is an update (new photos used) of the PDF version of the 2020 NASA Technology Taxonomy that will be available to download on the OCT Public Website. The updated 2020 NASA Technology Taxonomy, or "technology dictionary", uses a technology discipline based approach that realigns like-technologies independent of their application within the NASA mission portfolio. This tool is meant to serve as a common technology discipline-based communication tool across the agency and with its partners in other government agencies, academia, industry, and across the world

Expanded Guidance for NASA Systems Engineering. Volume 2: Crosscutting Topics, Special Topics, and Appendices

Historically, most successful NASA projects have depended on effectively blending project management, systems engineering, and technical expertise among NASA, contractors, and third parties. Underlying these successes are a variety of agreements (e.g., contract, memorandum of understanding, grant, cooperative agreement) between NASA organizations or between NASA and other Government agencies, Government organizations, companies, universities, research laboratories, and so on. To simplify the discussions, the term "contract" is used to encompass these agreements. This section focuses on the NASA systems engineering activities pertinent to awarding a contract, managing contract performance, and completing a contract. In particular, NASA systems engineering interfaces to the procurement process are covered, since the NASA engineering technical team plays a key role in the development and evaluation of contract documentation. Contractors and third parties perform activities that supplement (or substitute for) the NASA project technical team accomplishment of the NASA common systems engineering technical process activities and requirements outlined in this guide. Since contractors might be involved in any part of the systems engineering life cycle, the NASA project technical team needs to know how to prepare for, allocate or perform, and implement surveillance of technical activities that are allocated to contractors