A Domain Specific Graphical User Interface Framework

Since the early days of software development, there has been an ongoing trend towards higher-order or higher level abstractions in programming languages, software libraries and application frameworks. Some of the arguments for software development tools with higher levels of abstraction include simpler software development, improved portability and better maintainability. Higher level abstractions can however lead to reduced performance. This thesis presents an innovative graphical user interface software solution that mixes high-level and low-level approaches to achieve acceptable performance while retaining good maintainability. The solution is an extension to a graphical application framework called JavaFX. The scope of this thesis is defined by a software development project which goal is to create a graphical user interface framework. The framework is used in the creation of customer specific user interfaces for an accompanying intralogistics system. The resulting user interfaces must be able to visualize possibly thousands of objects moving on a factory floor. The views must simultaneously support user-initiated zooming, panning, and tilting of the two-dimensional view. Meeting these requirements while maintaining acceptable performance, requires an unconventional solution and a deviation from idiomatic JavaFX. The user interface framework in question is developed using a high-level graphical user interface application framework called JavaFX. JavaFX is the most recent graphical user interface toolkit included in the official Java Development Kit. It has many reactive traits and other modern high-level properties. Overcoming performance challenges with JavaFX when producing views with thousands of animated items was the key research challenge in this research. Some attention is also given to replacing JavaFX built-in dependency injection system with Spring framework to improve JavaFX suitability to the task at hand. This thesis presents a hybrid solution that overcomes JavaFX’s performance challenges in the problem domain, while retaining as much as possible of the usefulness of the high-level features present in the JavaFX framework. The key innovation is a mechanism that enables automated rendering of sprite-bitmaps from JavaFX scene-graph nodes. The solution includes a system that draws the automatically generated bitmaps to a lower-level JavaFX component called Canvas. The solution enables layered mixing of regular JavaFX views with the custom high-performance views, including seamless resizing and event handling between the two types of views. The solution enables the developers of customer specific user interfaces to choose an appropriate graphics rendering type, such that only objects that cause performance issues, typically items which number exceeds dozens, need to use the more complex high-performance system

Finnish neuroscience from past to present

Non peer reviewe

Advances in non-invasive blood pressure measurement techniques

Hypertension, or elevated blood pressure (BP), is a marker for many cardiovascular diseases and can lead to life threatening conditions such as heart failure, coronary artery disease and stroke. Several techniques have recently been proposed and investigated for non-invasive BP monitoring. The increasing desire for telemonitoring solutions that allow patients to manage their own conditions from home has accelerated the development of new BP monitoring techniques. In this review, we present the recent progress in non-invasive blood pressure monitoring solutions emphasizing clinical validation and trade-offs between available techniques. We introduce the current BP measurement techniques with their underlying operating principles. New promising proof-of-concept studies are presented and recent modeling and machine learning approaches for improved BP estimation are summarized. This aids discussions on how new BP monitors should evaluated in order to bring forth new home monitoring solutions in wearable form factor. Finally, we discuss on unresolved challenges in making convenient, reliable and validated BP monitoring solutions.</p

Argumentation within Upper Secondary School Student Groups during Virtual Science Learning: Quality and Quantity of Spoken Argumentation

In many studies, the focus has been on students’ written scientific argumentation rather than on their spoken argumentation. The main aim of this study was to relate the quality of spoken argumentation to groups’ learning achievement during a collaborative inquiry task. The data included video recordings of six groups of three upper secondary students performing a collaborative inquiry task in a virtual learning environment. The target groups were selected from a larger sample of 39 groups based on their group outcome: two low, two average and two high-outcome groups. The analysis focused on argumentation chains during the students’ discussions in the planning, experimentation, and conclusion phases of the inquiry task. The core of the coding scheme was based on Toulmin’s levels of argumentation. The results revealed differences between the different groups of students, with the high-performing groups having more argumentation than the average and low-performing groups. In high-performing groups, the students asked topic-related questions more frequently, which started the argumentative discussion. Meanwhile, there were few questions in the low-performing groups, and most did not lead to discussion. An evaluation scheme for the quality of the arguments was created and the spoken argumentation was analyzed using a computer-based program. The results may be used to benefit subject teacher education and to raise teachers’ awareness of their students’ scientific, topic-related discussions.</p

Clinical assessment of a non-invasive wearable MEMS pressure sensor array for monitoring of arterial pulse waveform, heart rate and detection of atrial fibrillation

There is an unmet clinical need for a low cost and easy to use wearable devices for continuous cardiovascular health monitoring. A flexible and wearable wristband, based on microelectromechanical sensor (MEMS) elements array was developed to support this need. The performance of the device in cardiovascular monitoring was investigated by (i) comparing the arterial pressure waveform recordings to the gold standard, invasive catheter recording (n = 18), (ii) analyzing the ability to detect irregularities of the rhythm (n = 7), and (iii) measuring the heartrate monitoring accuracy (n = 31). Arterial waveforms carry important physiological information and the comparison study revealed that the recordings made with the wearable device and with the gold standard device resulted in almost identical (r = 0.9-0.99) pulse waveforms. The device can measure the heart rhythm and possible irregularities in it. A clustering analysis demonstrates a perfect classification accuracy between atrial fibrillation (AF) and sinus rhythm. The heartrate monitoring study showed near perfect beat-to-beat accuracy (sensitivity = 99.1%, precision = 100%) on healthy subjects. In contrast, beat-to-beat detection from coronary artery disease patients was challenging, but the averaged heartrate was extracted successfully (95% CI: -1.2 to 1.1 bpm). In conclusion, the results indicate that the device could be useful in remote monitoring of cardiovascular diseases and personalized medicine

Cross-impact analysis of Finnish electricity system with increased renewables: Long-run energy policy challenges in balancing supply and consumption

AbstractClimate change and global economic pressures are strong drivers for energy economies to transition towards climate-neutrality, low-carbon economy and better energy and resource efficiencies. The response to these pressures, namely the increased use of renewable energy, creates a set of new challenges related to supply-demand balance for energy policy and electricity system planning. This study analyses the emergent problems resulting from the renewable energy response. These complex aspects of change in the electricity system are analysed with a cross-impact model based on an expert-driven modeling process, consisting of workshops, panel evaluations and individual expert work. The model is then analysed using a novel computational cross-impact technique, EXIT. The objective of the study is to map the important direct drivers of change in the period 2017–2030 in electricity consumption and production in Finland, construct a cross-impact model from this basis, and discover the emergent and systemic dynamics of the modeled system by analysis of this model.</div

A Domain Specific Graphical User Interface Framework

Since the early days of software development, there has been an ongoing trend towards higher-order or higher level abstractions in programming languages, software libraries and application frameworks. Some of the arguments for software development tools with higher levels of abstraction include simpler software development, improved portability and better maintainability. Higher level abstractions can however lead to reduced performance. This thesis presents an innovative graphical user interface software solution that mixes high-level and low-level approaches to achieve acceptable performance while retaining good maintainability. The solution is an extension to a graphical application framework called JavaFX. The scope of this thesis is defined by a software development project which goal is to create a graphical user interface framework. The framework is used in the creation of customer specific user interfaces for an accompanying intralogistics system. The resulting user interfaces must be able to visualize possibly thousands of objects moving on a factory floor. The views must simultaneously support user-initiated zooming, panning, and tilting of the two-dimensional view. Meeting these requirements while maintaining acceptable performance, requires an unconventional solution and a deviation from idiomatic JavaFX. The user interface framework in question is developed using a high-level graphical user interface application framework called JavaFX. JavaFX is the most recent graphical user interface toolkit included in the official Java Development Kit. It has many reactive traits and other modern high-level properties. Overcoming performance challenges with JavaFX when producing views with thousands of animated items was the key research challenge in this research. Some attention is also given to replacing JavaFX built-in dependency injection system with Spring framework to improve JavaFX suitability to the task at hand. This thesis presents a hybrid solution that overcomes JavaFX’s performance challenges in the problem domain, while retaining as much as possible of the usefulness of the high-level features present in the JavaFX framework. The key innovation is a mechanism that enables automated rendering of sprite-bitmaps from JavaFX scene-graph nodes. The solution includes a system that draws the automatically generated bitmaps to a lower-level JavaFX component called Canvas. The solution enables layered mixing of regular JavaFX views with the custom high-performance views, including seamless resizing and event handling between the two types of views. The solution enables the developers of customer specific user interfaces to choose an appropriate graphics rendering type, such that only objects that cause performance issues, typically items which number exceeds dozens, need to use the more complex high-performance system