Measurement of Micro-bathymetry with a GOPRO Underwater Stereo Camera Pair

A GO-PRO underwater stereo camera kit has been used to measure the 3D topography (bathymetry) of a patch of seafloor producing a point cloud with a spatial data density of 15 measurements per 3 mm grid square and an standard deviation of less than 1 cm A GO-PRO camera is a fixed focus, 11 megapixel, still-frame (or 1080p high-definition video) camera, whose small form-factor and water-proof housing has made it popular with sports enthusiasts. A stereo camera kit is available providing a waterproof housing (to 61 m / 200 ft) for a pair of cameras. Measures of seafloor micro-bathymetrycapable of resolving seafloor features less than 1 cm in amplitude were possible from the stereoreconstruction. Bathymetric measurements of this scale provide important ground-truth data and boundary condition information for modeling of larger scale processes whose details depend on small-scale variations. Examples include modeling of turbulent water layers, seafloor sediment transfer and acoustic backscatter from bathymetric echo sounders

Process of designing robust, dependable, safe and secure software for medical devices: Point of care testing device as a case study

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Copyright © 2013 Sivanesan Tulasidas et al. This paper presents a holistic methodology for the design of medical device software, which encompasses of a new way of eliciting requirements, system design process, security design guideline, cloud architecture design, combinatorial testing process and agile project management. The paper uses point of care diagnostics as a case study where the software and hardware must be robust, reliable to provide accurate diagnosis of diseases. As software and software intensive systems are becoming increasingly complex, the impact of failures can lead to significant property damage, or damage to the environment. Within the medical diagnostic device software domain such failures can result in misdiagnosis leading to clinical complications and in some cases death. Software faults can arise due to the interaction among the software, the hardware, third party software and the operating environment. Unanticipated environmental changes and latent coding errors lead to operation faults despite of the fact that usually a significant effort has been expended in the design, verification and validation of the software system. It is becoming increasingly more apparent that one needs to adopt different approaches, which will guarantee that a complex software system meets all safety, security, and reliability requirements, in addition to complying with standards such as IEC 62304. There are many initiatives taken to develop safety and security critical systems, at different development phases and in different contexts, ranging from infrastructure design to device design. Different approaches are implemented to design error free software for safety critical systems. By adopting the strategies and processes presented in this paper one can overcome the challenges in developing error free software for medical devices (or safety critical systems).Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund

Nucleon and gamma N -> Delta lattice form factors in a constituent quark model

A covariant quark model, based both on the spectator formalism and on vector meson dominance, and previously calibrated by the physical data, is here extended to the unphysical region of the lattice data by means of one single extra adjustable parameter - the constituent quark mass in the chiral limit. We calculated the Nucleon (N) and the gamma N -> Delta form factors in the universe of values for that parameter described by quenched lattice QCD. A qualitative description of the Nucleon and gamma N -> Delta form factors lattice data is achieved for light pions.Comment: To appear in J.Phys.