E-Health business models prototyping by incremental design

User-Driven Healthcare: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications provides a global discussion on the practice of user-driven learning in healthcare and connected disciplines and its influence on learning through clinical problem solving. This book brings together different perspectives for researchers and practitioners to develop a comprehensive framework of user-driven healthcare.Postprint (published version

Band-Pass and OH-Suppression Filters for the E-ELT - Design and Prototyping

Optical filters are used for a variety of purposes at astronomical telescopes. In the near infrared region, from 0.8 to 2.5 um, bandpass and edge filters are used to separate the different astronomical channels, such as the J, H, and K bands. However, in the same wavelength range light emission generated in the earth's atmosphere is superimposed on the stellar radiation. Therefore, ground based astronomical instruments measure, in addition to the stellar light, also unwanted contributions from the earth's atmosphere. The characteristic lines of this OH emission are extremely narrow and distributed over the complete NIR spectral range. The sensitivity of future telescopes, like the European Extreme Large Telescope (E-ELT) which is currently being designed by ESO, can be dramatically improved if the atmospheric emission lines are effectively suppressed while the stellar radiation is efficiently transferred to the detector systems. For this task, new types of optical filters have to be developed. In this framework new design concepts and algorithms must be used, combining the measurement needs with practical restrictions. Certainly, the selected deposition process plays the key role in the manufacturing process. Precise and highly stable deposition systems are necessary to realise such filter systems with an appropriate homogeneity. Moreover, the production control techniques must be adapted to match the high level of precision required in the NIR range. Finally, the characterisation set-ups for such filters systems have to be provided. The manufacturing of such a filter system for a feasibility study of an E-ELT instrument is presented. The design development, the deposition with adapted Ion Beam Sputtering deposition plants, and the characterisation of such filters in the J-Band is described.Comment: contribution to SPIE 8168 on 'Advances in Optical Thin Films IV', Marseille 201

FPGA-based conformance testing and system prototyping of an MPEG-4 SA-DCT hardware accelerator

Two FPGA implementations of a shape adaptive discrete cosine transform (SA-DCT) accelerator are presented in this paper: one PCI-based and the other AMBA-based. The former is used for conformance testing with the MPEG-4 standard requirements. The latter is an alternative platform for system prototyping and has an architecture more representative of a mobile device. The proposed accelerator meets real time constraints on both platforms with a gate count of approximately 40k, and outperforms the optimised reference software implementation by 20/spl times/. It is estimated that the accelerator consumes 250mW on a Virtex-E FPGA and 79mW on a Virtex-II FPGA in the worst case scenario

What influences the speed of prototyping? An empirical investigation of twenty software startups

It is essential for startups to quickly experiment business ideas by building tangible prototypes and collecting user feedback on them. As prototyping is an inevitable part of learning for early stage software startups, how fast startups can learn depends on how fast they can prototype. Despite of the importance, there is a lack of research about prototyping in software startups. In this study, we aimed at understanding what are factors influencing different types of prototyping activities. We conducted a multiple case study on twenty European software startups. The results are two folds, firstly we propose a prototype-centric learning model in early stage software startups. Secondly, we identify factors occur as barriers but also facilitators for prototyping in early stage software startups. The factors are grouped into (1) artifacts, (2) team competence, (3) collaboration, (4) customer and (5) process dimensions. To speed up a startups progress at the early stage, it is important to incorporate the learning objective into a well-defined collaborative approach of prototypingComment: This is the author's version of the work. Copyright owner's version can be accessed at doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57633-6_2, XP2017, Cologne, German

Real time integration of user preferences into virtual prototypes

Within new product development (NPD), both virtual prototypes and physical prototypes play important roles in creating, testing and modifying designs. However, in the current design process, these two forms of prototyping methods are normally used independently and converted from one to the other during different design phases. This conversion process is time consuming and expensive and also introduces potential information loss/corruption problems. If the design process requires many iterations, it may simply be impractical to generate all the conversions that are theoretically required. Therefore, the integration of virtual and physical prototyping may offer a possible solution where the design definition is maintained simultaneously in both the virtual and physical environment. The overall aim of this research was to develop an interface or a tool that achieves real time integration of physical and virtual prototyping. “Real time integration” here means changes to the virtual prototypes will reflect any changes that have been made contemporaneously to the physical prototypes, and vice versa. Thus, conversion of the prototype from physical to virtual (or vice versa) will be achieved immediately, hence saving time and cost. A review of the literature was undertaken to determine what previous research has been conducted in this area. The result of the review shows the research in this area is still in its infancy. The research hypothesis was developed through the use of a questionnaire survey. Totally 102 questionnaires were sent to designers, design directors or design managers to address the issue: will industrial designers want to make use of real time integration and if so, how? The outcome from the literature review drove further development of the research hypothesis and an initial pilot experiment to test this. The pilot trial was designed to address the research questions: • Can real time physical and virtual prototyping integration be conveniently demonstrated? • Will designers and users be comfortable using the integration method? • Will users recognise the benefits of the integration? The results showed that real time integration between physical and virtual prototyping is necessary in helping designers develop new products and for getting users more closely involved. The future research suggested is that more investigations and experiments are needed to explore a proper method that simultaneously employing these two types of prototyping in product development process. Keywords: Physical Prototyping; Virtual Prototyping; Integration; Real Time.</p

Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 3D printing Special Interest Group (SIG): Guidelines for medical 3D printing and appropriateness for clinical scenarios

Este número da revista Cadernos de Estudos Sociais estava em organização quando fomos colhidos pela morte do sociólogo Ernesto Laclau. Seu falecimento em 13 de abril de 2014 surpreendeu a todos, e particularmente ao editor Joanildo Burity, que foi seu orientando de doutorado na University of Essex, Inglaterra, e que recentemente o trouxe à Fundação Joaquim Nabuco para uma palestra, permitindo que muitos pudessem dialogar com um dos grandes intelectuais latinoamericanos contemporâneos. Assim, buscamos fazer uma homenagem ao sociólogo argentino publicando uma entrevista inédita concedida durante a sua passagem pelo Recife, em 2013, encerrando essa revista com uma sessão especial sobre a sua trajetória

Initial thoughts on rapid prototyping techniques

This paper sets some context, raises issues, and provides our initial thinking on the characteristics of effective rapid prototyping techniques.After discussing the role rapid prototyping techniques can play in the software lifecycle, the paper looks at possible technical approaches including: heavily parameterized models, reusable software, rapid prototyping languages, prefabrication techniques for system generation, and reconfigurable test harnesses.The paper concludes that a multi-faceted approach to rapid prototyping techniques is needed if we are to address a broad range of applications successfully -- no single technical approach suffices for all potentially desirable applications