Choosing Wearable Internet of Things Devices for Managing Safety in Construction Using Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process as a Decision Support System

Many safety and health risks are faced daily by workers in the field of construction. There is unpredictability and risk embedded in the job and work environment. When compared with other industries, the construction industry has one of the highest numbers of worker injuries, illnesses, fatalities, and near-misses. To eliminate these risky events and make worker performance more predictable, new safety technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Wearable Sensing Devices (WSD) have been highlighted as effective safety systems. Some of these Wearable Internet of Things (WIoT) and sensory devices are already being used in other industries to observe and collect crucial data for worker safety in the field. However, due to limited information and implementation of these devices in the construction field, Wearable Sensing Devices (WSD) and Internet of Things (IoT) are still relatively underdeveloped and lacking. The main goal of the research is to develop a conceptual decision-making framework that managers and other appropriate personnel can use to select suitable Wearable Internet of Things (WIoT) devices for proper application/ implementation in the construction industry. The research involves a literature review on the aforementioned devices and the development and demonstration of a decision-making framework using the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP)

e-Process selection using decision making methods : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Information Systems at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

The key objective of this research is to develop a selection methodology that can be used to support and aid the selection of development processes for e-Commerce Information Systems (eCIS) effectively using various decision methods. The selection methodology supports developers in their choice of an e-Commerce Information System Development Process (e-Process) by providing them with a few different decision making methods for choosing between defined e-Processes using a set of quality aspects to compare and evaluate the different options. The methodology also provides historical data of previous selections that can be used to further support their specific choice. The research was initiated by the fast growing Information Technology environment, where e-Commerce Information Systems is a relatively new development area and developers of these systems may be using new development methods and have difficulty deciding on the best suited process to use when developing new eCIS. These developers also need documentary support for their choices and this research helps them with these decision-making processes. The e-Process Selection Methodology allows for the comparison of existing development processes as well as the comparison of processes as defined by the developers. Four different decision making methods, the Value-Benefit Method (Weighted Scoring), the Analytical Hierarchy Process, Case-Based Reasoning and a Social Choice method are used to solve the problem of selecting among e-Commerce Development Methodologies. The Value-Benefit Method, when applied to the selection of an e-Process from a set of e-Processes, uses multiple quality aspects. Values are assigned to each aspect for each of the e-Processes by experts. The importance of each of the aspects, to the eCIS, is defined in terms of weights. The selected e-Process is the one with the highest score when the values and weights are multiplied and then summed. The Analytic Hierarchy Process is used to quantify a selection of quality aspects and then these are used to evaluate alternative e-Processes and thus determining the best matching solution to the problem. This process provides for the ranking and determining of the relative worth of each of the quality aspects. Case-Based Reasoning requires the capturing of the resulting knowledge of previous cases, in a knowledge base, in order to make a decision. The case database is built in such a way that the concrete factual knowledge of previous individual cases that were solved previously is stored and can be used in the decision process. Case-based reasoning is used to determine the best choices. This allows the user to either use the selection methodology or the case base database to resolve their problems or both. Social Choice Methods are based on voting processes. Individuals vote for their preferences from a set of e-Processes. The results are aggregated to obtain a final result that indicates which e-Process is the preferred one. The e-Process Selection Methodology is demonstrated and validated by the development of a prototype tool. This tool can be used to select the most suitable solution for a case at hand. The thesis includes the factors that motivated the research and the process that was followed. The e-Process Selection Methodology is summarised as well as the strengths and weaknesses discussed. The contribution to knowledge is explained and future developments are proposed. To conclude, the lessons learnt and reinforced are considered

Jolie Microservices: An Experiment

Os microsserviços estão cada vez mais presentes no mundo das tecnologias de informação, por providenciarem uma nova forma construir sistemas mais escaláveis, ágeis e flexíveis. Apesar disto, estes trazem consigo o problema da complexidade de comunicação entre microsserviços, fazendo com que o sistema seja difícil de manter e de se perceber. Linguagens de programação específicas a microsserviços como Jolie entram em cena para tentar resolver este problema e simplificar a construção de sistemas com arquiteturas de microsserviços. Este trabalho fornece uma visão ampla do estado da arte da linguagem de programação Jolie onde é primeiramente detalhado o porquê de surgirem linguagens específicas a microsserviços e como a linguagem Jolie está construída de maneira a coincidir com as arquiteturas de microsserviços através de recursos nativos. Para demonstrar todas as vantagens de usar esta linguagem em comparação com as abordagens mais mainstream é pensado um experimento de desenvolvimento de um sistema de microsserviços no âmbito de uma aplicação de e-commerce. Este sistema é construído de forma igual usando duas bases tecnológicas – Jolie e Spring Boot. O Spring Boot é considerado a tecnologia mais usada para desenvolver sistemas de microsserviços sendo o candidato ideal para comparação. É pensada toda a análise e design deste experimento. Em seguida, a implementação da solução é detalhada a partir das configurações do sistema, escolhas arquitetónicas e como elas são implementadas. Componentes como API gateway, mediadores de mensagens, bases de dados, orquestração de microsserviços, e conteinerização para cada microsserviço e outros componentes do sistema. Pol último as soluções são comparadas e analisadas com base na abordagem Goals, Questions, Metrics (GQM). São analisadas relativamente a atributos de qualidade como manutenção, escalabilidade, desempenho e testabilidade. Após esta análise pode-se concluir que a solução construída com Jolie apresenta diferenças na manutenção sendo significativamente superior à solução baseada em Spring Boot e apresenta diferenças em termos de performance sendo ligeiramente inferior à solução construída com Spring Boot. O trabalho termina com a indicação das conquistas, dificuldades, ameaças à validade, possíveis trabalhos futuros e observações finais.Microservices are increasingly present in the world of information technologies, as they provide a new way to build more scalable, agile, and flexible systems. Despite this, they bring with them the problem of communication complexity between microservices, making the system difficult to maintain and understand. Microservices-specific programming languages like Jolie come into play to try to solve this problem and simplify the construction of systems with microservices architectures. This work provides a broad view of the State of Art of the Jolie programming language, where it is first detailed why microservices-specific languages emerge and how the Jolie language is built to match microservices architectures through native resources. To demonstrate all the advantages of using this language compared to more mainstream approaches, an experiment is designed to develop a microservices system within an e-commerce application. This system is built equally using two technological foundations – Jolie and Spring Boot. Spring Boot is considered the most used technology to develop microservices systems and is an ideal candidate for comparison. The entire analysis and design of this experiment are thought through. Then the implementation of the solution is detailed from system configurations, architectural choices, and how they are implemented. Components such as API gateway, message brokers, databases, microservices orchestration, and containerization for each microservice and other components of the system. Finally, the solutions are compared and analyzed based on the Goals, Questions, Metrics (GQM) approach. They are analyzed for quality attributes such as maintainability, scalability, performance, and testability. After this analysis, it can be concluded that the solution built with Jolie presents differences in maintenance being significant superior to the solution based on Spring Boot, and it presents differences in terms of performance being slightly inferior to the solution built with Spring Boot. The work ends with an indication of the achievements, difficulties, threats to validity, possible future work, and final observations

Exploring `Designer Context' in Engineering Design: The Relationship Between Self, Environment, and Design Methods

Engineering design methods support engineers’ decision-making throughout a design process in order to improve design outcomes. The selection and implementation of suitable design methods are therefore critical to project success. Prior engineering design research has focused on designers' professional experiences or the problem context for guiding method choices. Perhaps due to disciplinary norms of objectivity, individual characteristics outside of an engineer's professional expertise are not seen as influential on design outcomes. In contrast, theories from other design disciplines define aspects of a designer's experience outside of their professional self as central to design practice. This dissertation seeks to reconcile these two paradigms by exploring whether `designer context' factors, that are often not discussed in engineering design but are found in other design fields (i.e. - organizational culture, gender, race) can impact design outcomes via method selection and implementation. Results from practitioner interviews on designer context and prototyping methods, as well as an empirical study of a novel design method, suggest that a broad range of designer context factors can influence design method selection and implementation, ultimately impacting the efficiency and efficacy of a design process. Therefore, if engineering designers were to consider their holistic designer context and its influence on their work, as occurs in other design fields, better engineering outcomes could be achieved. An exploratory study consisting of qualitative interviews formalized designer context and illustrated how these contextual factors impacted methods used by practitioners in the medical device industry. This study provides an initial foundation of designer context factors for exploration in future research and practice. These factors were categorized into the Design Environment, or the external factors surrounding a designer when they are designing, and the Designer's Self, or the internal factors related to a designer. Interviews with design practitioners from small-to-medium sized enterprises in Rwanda and Kenya revealed specific resource constraints impacting the implementation of prototyping methods. Many of the identified constraints were related to the practitioners’ context. Limited access to quality materials or fabricators, often due to difficulties navigating a decentralized market, added time and cost to the process. Practitioners reported trying to develop simple, functional, and physical prototypes with increasing fidelity through a highly iterative process. However, these constraints negatively impacted the chosen prototyping method, suggesting that alternative methods could be beneficial. In an empirical study, our team proposed and implemented a new method for considering multiple stakeholder preferences, the Stakeholder Agreement Metric (SAM) framework, to support the design of a hand tool to reduce injuries for informal electronic-waste (e-waste) recyclers in rural Thailand. This method was compared to the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), an existing method that supports similar decisions. Results showed that the SAM framework outperformed AHP in this informal setting due to the failed completion of AHP by participants. The study highlights how designer context not only influenced the implementation of design methods but also their development. This dissertation expands the boundaries of what factors should be considered influential on design processes and their outcomes. Across all three studies, designer context was shown to influence method selection and implementation. The findings suggest that contextual factors affect design methods in practice and should be included in future research to enable the selection and implementation of more suitable and effective design methods.PHDMechanical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163100/1/suzchou_1.pd

Methodology development for measuring virtual university social responsibility (VUSR)

This thesis addresses the most challenging issues in online education and its social responsibility. A world’s first ontology on virtual university social responsibility (VUSR) along with an ontological-driven approach for measuring the corporate social responsibility (CSR) for virtual universities (VUs) in five dimensions, namely education, research, engagement, ethics and transparency is developed. The impact on social, economic and ethical standards is ascertained by rigorously defining measurement indicators and performance assessment attributes to help assess CSR

Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Systematic Innovation - ICSI 2016

It is our pleasure to welcome you at the 7th International Conference on Systematic Innovation. It is our objective to provide a forum for the discussion and dissemination of recent advances in the field of TRIZ Methodology, Knowledge-Based and Systematic Innovation. The goal is to enable practitioners, researchers and scientists to exchange ideas on the these topics and to provide an international forum for exchanging new ideas and recent achievements by the TRIZ community and enabling further advances and collaboration with the industrial community. We wish to express our sincere gratitude to the members of the organizing, scientific and technical committees. The reviewers of the papers had a very important job, contributing significantly to the success of the conference. We also wish to express our thanks to our invited speakers. Very special thanks to our students, sponsors and to all who helped us with logistics, conference website, and publications. Welcome to Portugal and Lisbon. We hope you all have a very happy and rewarding meeting.publishersversionpublishe

Deep Space Network information system architecture study

The purpose of this article is to describe an architecture for the Deep Space Network (DSN) information system in the years 2000-2010 and to provide guidelines for its evolution during the 1990s. The study scope is defined to be from the front-end areas at the antennas to the end users (spacecraft teams, principal investigators, archival storage systems, and non-NASA partners). The architectural vision provides guidance for major DSN implementation efforts during the next decade. A strong motivation for the study is an expected dramatic improvement in information-systems technologies, such as the following: computer processing, automation technology (including knowledge-based systems), networking and data transport, software and hardware engineering, and human-interface technology. The proposed Ground Information System has the following major features: unified architecture from the front-end area to the end user; open-systems standards to achieve interoperability; DSN production of level 0 data; delivery of level 0 data from the Deep Space Communications Complex, if desired; dedicated telemetry processors for each receiver; security against unauthorized access and errors; and highly automated monitor and control