Next generation software environments : principles, problems, and research directions

The past decade has seen a burgeoning of research and development in software environments. Conferences have been devoted to the topic of practical environments, journal papers produced, and commercial systems sold. Given all the activity, one might expect a great deal of consensus on issues, approaches, and techniques. This is not the case, however. Indeed, the term "environment" is still used in a variety of conflicting ways. Nevertheless substantial progress has been made and we are at least nearing consensus on many critical issues.The purpose of this paper is to characterize environments, describe several important principles that have emerged in the last decade or so, note current open problems, and describe some approaches to these problems, with particular emphasis on the activities of one large-scale research program, the Arcadia project. Consideration is also given to two related topics: empirical evaluation and technology transition. That is, how can environments and their constituents be evaluated, and how can new developments be moved effectively into the production sector

The P3 platform: an approach and software system for developing diagrammatic model-based methods in design research

Many issues in design and design management have been explored by building models which capture the relationships between different aspects of the problem at hand. These models require computer support to construct and analyse. However, appropriate modelling tools can be time-consuming to develop in a research environment. Reflecting upon five design research projects, this paper proposes that such projects can be facilitated by recognising the iterative and tightly-coupled nature of research and tool development, and by attempting to minimise the effort of solution prototyping within this process. Our approach is enabled by a software platform which can be rapidly configured to implement many conceivable modelling approaches. This configurability is complemented by an emerging library of modelling and analysis approaches tailored to explore design process systems. The platform-based approach enables any mix of modelling concepts to be easily created. We propose it could thus help researchers to explore a wide range of questions without being constrained to existing conventions for modelling – or for model integration

Ultrasound tiga - dimensi

Latarbelakang : Laporan projek ini dibuat bagi menilai kemampuan aplikasi ultrasonografi tiga dimensi (3-D) di dalam pemaparan visual fetus pada trimester ketiga di Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia Kubang Kerian. Percubaan awal telah dilakukan secara in-vitro ke atas fantom ultrasaun setaraan tisu, bagi mendapatkan imej-imej satahan yang berserenjang, imej arbitrari dan pembinaan semula imej berpeleraian tinggi serta imej render isipadu secara interaktif. Peleraian mesin-mesin ultrasaun juga dibincangkan. Kaedah : Imej-imej in-vitro dan in-vivo 3-D dijana menerusi penggunaan sistem pengimejan ultrasaun yang berlainan, dengan masingmasing berada di Jabatan Radiologi dan Jabatan Obstetrik dan Ginekologi. Sistemsistem tersebut ialah : Sistem Pengimejan Ultrasaun Sonoline Siemens Elegra yang dilengkapi dengan transduser tatasusunan linear dan sektor pada pelbagai julat frekuensi dan Sistem Pengimejan Ultrasaun ATL HDI Phillips. Pemerolehan imej dilakukan melalui kaedah pengimbasan linear dan ayunan. Keputusan : Melalui dua sistem pengimejan yang digunakan, struktur-struktur dua dimensi (2-D) dan 3-D fetus dan fantom daripada pelbagai perspektif dan orientasi dapat dilihat menerusi paparan empat sukuan secara serentak. Tentukuran ketepatan kaliper dan peleraian di antara kedua-dua sistem memberikan keputusan yang pelbagai bergantung kepada jenis transduser dan frekuensi yang digunakan. Kesimpulan : Ultra sonografi secara 3-D memberikan satu dimensi baru di dalam pemaparan visual struktur-struktur anatomi. Hasil yang diperoleh menunjukkan ultrasonografi 3-D bermaya menjadi pelengkap kepada ultrasonografi 2-D dan ianya sangat berguna di dalam menilai keadaan fetus dalam kandungan kehamilan. Penggunaan peralatan pengimbasan mekanikal bermotor dan alat pengesan kedudukan pengimbas tangan bebas juga telah dicadangkan