16,689 research outputs found
"Boring formal methods" or "Sherlock Holmes deduction methods"?
This paper provides an overview of common challenges in teaching of logic and
formal methods to Computer Science and IT students. We discuss our experiences
from the course IN3050: Applied Logic in Engineering, introduced as a "logic
for everybody" elective course at at TU Munich, Germany, to engage pupils
studying Computer Science, IT and engineering subjects on Bachelor and Master
levels. Our goal was to overcome the bias that logic and formal methods are not
only very complicated but also very boring to study and to apply. In this
paper, we present the core structure of the course, provide examples of
exercises and evaluate the course based on the students' surveys.Comment: Preprint. Accepted to the Software Technologies: Applications and
Foundations (STAF 2016). Final version published by Springer International
Publishing AG. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with
arXiv:1602.0517
User needs elicitation via analytic hierarchy process (AHP). A case study on a Computed Tomography (CT) scanner
Background:
The rigorous elicitation of user needs is a crucial step for both medical device design and purchasing. However, user needs elicitation is often based on qualitative methods whose findings can be difficult to integrate into medical decision-making. This paper describes the application of AHP to elicit user needs for a new CT scanner for use in a public hospital.
Methods:
AHP was used to design a hierarchy of 12 needs for a new CT scanner, grouped into 4 homogenous categories, and to prepare a paper questionnaire to investigate the relative priorities of these. The questionnaire was completed by 5 senior clinicians working in a variety of clinical specialisations and departments in the same Italian public hospital.
Results:
Although safety and performance were considered the most important issues, user needs changed according to clinical scenario. For elective surgery, the five most important needs were: spatial resolution, processing software, radiation dose, patient monitoring, and contrast medium. For emergency, the top five most important needs were: patient monitoring, radiation dose, contrast medium control, speed run, spatial resolution.
Conclusions:
AHP effectively supported user need elicitation, helping to develop an analytic and intelligible framework of decision-making. User needs varied according to working scenario (elective versus emergency medicine) more than clinical specialization. This method should be considered by practitioners involved in decisions about new medical technology, whether that be during device design or before deciding whether to allocate budgets for new medical devices according to clinical functions or according to hospital department
Incremental Predictive Process Monitoring: How to Deal with the Variability of Real Environments
A characteristic of existing predictive process monitoring techniques is to
first construct a predictive model based on past process executions, and then
use it to predict the future of new ongoing cases, without the possibility of
updating it with new cases when they complete their execution. This can make
predictive process monitoring too rigid to deal with the variability of
processes working in real environments that continuously evolve and/or exhibit
new variant behaviors over time. As a solution to this problem, we propose the
use of algorithms that allow the incremental construction of the predictive
model. These incremental learning algorithms update the model whenever new
cases become available so that the predictive model evolves over time to fit
the current circumstances. The algorithms have been implemented using different
case encoding strategies and evaluated on a number of real and synthetic
datasets. The results provide a first evidence of the potential of incremental
learning strategies for predicting process monitoring in real environments, and
of the impact of different case encoding strategies in this setting
Democratic theory and indices of democratization
About the book: The rapid worldwide phase of democratization since the 1980s has stimulated a renewed interest in how we define and measure democracy. The contributors to this volume include leading political theorists, political scientists and experts in comparative government from across Europe.
Defining and Measuring Democracy offers an integrated analysis of key debates and issues ranging from the question of how to define democracy to the issue of cultural diversity. Each chapter offers new insights and approaches placed in the context of contemporary debates
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