Knowledge Cartography: Software tools and mapping techniques

Knowledge Cartography is the discipline of mapping intellectual landscapes.The focus of this book is on the process by which manually crafting interactive, hypertextual maps clarifies one’s own understanding, as well as communicating it.The authors see mapping software as a set of visual tools for reading and writing in a networked age. In an information ocean, the primary challenge is to find meaningful patterns around which we can weave plausible narratives. Maps of concepts, discussions and arguments make the connections between ideas tangible and disputable. With 17 chapters from the leading researchers and practitioners, the reader will find the current state–of-the-art in the field. Part 1 focuses on educational applications in schools and universities, before Part 2 turns to applications in professional communitie

Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Challenges in Latin America for the Next Decade

A decade after a 1999 World Bank-sponsored meeting of Latin American water and sanitation experts, there has been progress in rural sanitation in that region. Nonetheless, the Millennium Development Goals for improved sanitation services may be out of reach. Looking toward the next ten years, important challenges for rural water and sanitation will include: ensuring long-term sustainability of sanitation services and monitoring systems, improving the contribution of municipal government, and establishing appropriate legal and financial policies

Requirements engineering for computer integrated environments in construction

A Computer Integrated Environment (CIE) is the type of innovative integrated information system that helps to reduce fragmentation and enables the stakeholders to collaborate together in business. Researchers have observed that the concept of CIE has been the subject of research for many years but the uptake of this technology has been very limited because of the development of the technology and its effective implementation. Although CIE is very much valued by both industrialists and academics, the answers to the question of how to develop and how to implement it are still not clear. The industrialists and researchers conveyed that networking, collaboration, information sharing and communication will become popular and critical issues in the future, which can be managed through CIE systems. In order for successful development of the technology, successful delivery, and effective implementation of user and industry-oriented CIE systems, requirements engineering seems a key parameter. Therefore, through experiences and lessons learnt in various case studies of CIE systems developments, this book explains the development of a requirements engineering framework specific to the CIE system. The requirements engineering process that has been developed in the research is targeted at computer integrated environments with a particular interest in the construction industry as the implementation field. The key features of the requirements engineering framework are the following: (1) ready-to-use, (2) simple, (3) domain specific, (4) adaptable and (5) systematic, (6) integrated with the legacy systems. The method has three key constructs: i) techniques for requirements development, which includes the requirement elicitation, requirements analysis/modelling and requirements validation, ii) requirements documentation and iii) facilitating the requirements management. It focuses on system development methodologies for the human driven ICT solutions that provide communication, collaboration, information sharing and exchange through computer integrated environments for professionals situated in discrete locations but working in a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary environment. The overview for each chapter of the book is as follows; Chapter 1 provides an overview by setting the scene and presents the issues involved in requirements engineering and CIE (Computer Integrated Environments). Furthermore, it makes an introduction to the necessity for requirements engineering for CIE system development, experiences and lessons learnt cumulatively from CIE systems developments that the authors have been involved in, and the process of the development of an ideal requirements engineering framework for CIE systems development, based on the experiences and lessons learnt from the multi-case studies. Chapter 2 aims at building up contextual knowledge to acquire a deeper understanding of the topic area. This includes a detailed definition of the requirements engineering discipline and the importance and principles of requirements engineering and its process. In addition, state of the art techniques and approaches, including contextual design approach, the use case modelling, and the agile requirements engineering processes, are explained to provide contextual knowledge and understanding about requirements engineering to the readers. After building contextual knowledge and understanding about requirements engineering in chapter 2, chapter 3 attempts to identify a scope and contextual knowledge and understanding about computer integrated environments and Building Information Modelling (BIM). In doing so, previous experiences of the authors about systems developments for computer integrated environments are explained in detail as the CIE/BIM case studies. In the light of contextual knowledge gained about requirements engineering in chapter 2, in order to realize the critical necessity of requirements engineering to combine technology, process and people issues in the right balance, chapter 4 will critically evaluate the requirements engineering activities of CIE systems developments that are explained in chapter 3. Furthermore, to support the necessity of requirements engineering for human centred CIE systems development, the findings from semi-structured interviews are shown in a concept map that is also explained in this chapter. In chapter 5, requirements engineering is investigated from different angles to pick up the key issues from discrete research studies and practice such as traceability through process and product modelling, goal-oriented requirements engineering, the essential and incidental complexities in requirements models, the measurability of quality requirements, the fundamentals of requirements engineering, identifying and involving the stakeholders, reconciling software requirements and system architectures and barriers to the industrial uptake of requirements engineering. In addition, a comprehensive research study measuring the success of requirements engineering processes through a set of evaluation criteria is introduced. Finally, the key issues and the criteria are comparatively analyzed and evaluated in order to match each other and confirm the validity of the criteria for the evaluation and assessment of the requirements engineering implementation in the CIE case study projects in chapter 7 and the key issues will be used in chapter 9 to support the CMM (Capability Maturity Model) for acceptance and wider implications of the requirements engineering framework to be proposed in chapter 8. Chapter 6 explains and particularly focuses on how the requirements engineering activities in the case study projects were handled by highlighting strengths and weaknesses. This will also include the experiences and lessons learnt from these system development practices. The findings from these developments will also be utilized to support the justification of the necessity of a requirements engineering framework for the CIE systems developments. In particular, the following are addressed. • common and shared understanding in requirements engineering efforts, • continuous improvement, • outputs of requirement engineering • reflections and the critical analysis of the requirements engineering approaches in these practices. The premise of chapter 7 is to evaluate and assess the requirements engineering approaches in the CIE case study developments from multiple viewpoints in order to find out the strengths and the weaknesses in these requirements engineering processes. This evaluation will be mainly based on the set of criteria developed by the researchers and developers in the requirements engineering community in order to measure the success rate of the requirements engineering techniques after their implementation in the various system development projects. This set of criteria has already been introduced in chapter 5. This critical assessment includes conducting a questionnaire based survey and descriptive statistical analysis. In chapter 8, the requirements engineering techniques tested in the CIE case study developments are composed and compiled into a requirements engineering process in the light of the strengths and the weaknesses identified in the previous chapter through benchmarking with a Capability Maturity Model (CMM) to ensure that it has the required level of maturity for implementation in the CIE systems developments. As a result of this chapter, a framework for a generic requirements engineering process for CIE systems development will be proposed. In chapter 9, the authors will discuss the acceptance and the wider implications of the proposed framework of requirements engineering process using the CMM from chapter 8 and the key issues from chapter 5. Chapter 10 is the concluding chapter and it summarizes the findings and brings the book to a close with recommendations for the implementation of the Proposed RE framework and also prescribes a guideline as a way forward for better implementation of requirements engineering for successful developments of the CIE systems in the future

Study on an integrated system of rapid prototyping and manufacturing for 3D Digitizer to CNC Mill : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Technology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

The main purpose of this project is to develop a low cost, effective, user friendly interface software for staff and students to integrate the designing and manufacturing facilities in the Institute of Technology and Engineering (ITE) at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. The project involves establishment of an integrated CAD/CAM/CAE system, the identification of software requirements, selection of software development tool kit, definition of hardware configuration, software development and final experiments and tests. ITE has a laboratory, where are equipped with one CNC milling machine, one CNC lathe, one Injection Moulding machine, one desktop 3D scanner and one 3D plotter. In addition, all the CAD/CAM/CAE software have been installed on the PCs. Based on the analysis and utilisation of these existing facilities, it is found that they are not smoothly integrated; no linkage between the CAD/CAM/CAE system and desktop Rapid Prototyping facilities; file formats used by each of the system are not compatible. Through this project, the investigation of the possibility to integrate the system and the feasibility to develop a software to bridge the 3D scanner and the CNC mill, was carried out. A first try was successfully made using Borland C++5.0 to convert the 3D scanned data into NC program. Then, using Borland C++ Builder 5.0 created a user-friendly interface for conversion of 3D Digitizer to CNC Mill. Next, the different scales of wax models were satisfactorily processed on the CNC milling machine by inputting the converted NC program

DNA sequence reading by image processing: a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in computer science at Massey University

The research described in this thesis is the development of the DNA sequence reading system. Macromolecular sequences of DNA are the encoded form of the genetic information of all living organisms. DNA sequencing has therefore played a significant role in the elucidation of biological systems. DNA sequence reading is a part of DNA sequencing. This project is for reading DNA sequences directly from DNA sequencing gel autoradiographs within a general purpose image processing system. The DNA sequence reading software is developed based on the waterfall software development approach combined with exploratory programming. Requirement analysis, software design, detailed design, implementation, system testing and maintenance are the basic development stages. The feedback from implementation and system testing to detailed design is much stronger in image processing than a lot of other software development. After an image is captured from a gel autoradiograph, the background of the image is normalised and the contrast is enhanced. The captured image consists several lane sets of bands. Each of the lane set represents one part of a DNA sequence. The lane sets are separated automatically into subimages to be read individually. The gap lines between the lane sets are detected for separation. The geometric distortions are corrected by finding the boundaries of the lane set in the subimage. The left boundary of the lane set is used to straighten lane set and the right boundary is used to warp the lane set into a standard width. If separation of the lane sets or geometry correction is unsuccessful by automatical processing, manual selection is used. After the band features are enhanced, the individual bands are extracted and the positions of the bands are determined. The band positions are then converted into the order of the DNA sequence. Different part of a sequence from subsequences are merged into a longer sequence. In most of the cases, the individual lane sets in a captured image are able to be separated automatically. Manual processing is necessary to handle the cases where the lane sets are too close. The system may reach an accuracy of 98% if the bands are clear. Manual checking and correcting the detected bands helps to obtain a reliable sequence. If a lane set on the autoradiograph is indistinct or bands are too close it may reduce the accuracy, in extreme cases to the point where it is unreadable. For a 512x512 image captured from a gel autoradiograph, preprocessing takes 90 seconds, processing each subimage takes 40 seconds on a 33Hz 486 PC. If processing a 430x350 mm autoradiograph with 16 lane sets, assuming 6 images are required, it takes about 40 minutes

The gulf between behavioural psychology and fundamental physiology: a systematic attempt to bridge the gap

Direct experimentation in much of this area is very difficult or impossible. For such circumstances, it is argued that much can be achieved by a rigorous quantitative programme of interdisciplinary theorizing based on available data. The paper then outlines progress arising from this approach from: (1) a Piagetian view of behaviour, through (2) a model for the "scheme" as a statistical population of discrete linear molecules (despite Hebb's synapse suggestions), down to (3) the physics and chemistry of signal emission, transmission and absorption. The latter analysis yields the surprising suggestion (corroborated by Cope's work) that a vital frequency-component for neural signals occurs in the infra-red range: about 10^13 cycles/second. This helps to explain several current mysteries concerning memor

Теоретичні основи електротехніки[

The Theory of Electrical Engineering is presented in three parts: the Basic Theories of Steady-State and Transients in Electrical Circuits and the Basic Theory of Electromagnetic Field. For students of electrotechnical specialties of higher educational establishments, as well as for scientific and technical specialists dealing with modern problems in the theory and practice of electric power engineering and electromechanics.Викладено теоретичні основи електротехніки в трьох частинах: теорія стаціонарних процесів в електричних колах, теорія перехідних процесів в електричних колах і теорія електромагнітного поля. Для студентів електротехнічних спеціальностей вищих навчальних закладів, а також для науково-технічних фахівців, що займаються сучасними проблемами в теорії і практиці електроенергетики та електромеханіки