Evaluating the Use of Daily Care Notes Software for Older People with Dementia

There has been little research to investigate the impact of software to support the care for older people with dementia care. This article reports the evaluation of software adapted to support one key person-centered task for the care of older residents with dementia – recording and sharing daily care notes. The evaluation on the dementia wing of 1 residential home for over 6 months revealed that use of the software on mobile devices carried by the carers increased the number and volume of daily care notes recorded, but only for the types of content that were already being recorded by carers. Carers reported more advantages that resulted from daily care notes once in digital form than from the documenting task, as well as barriers to the use of mobile digital software to record daily care notes.     

Using artificial neural networks or Lagrange interpolation tocharacterize the faults in an analog circuit: an experimental study

A technique for diagnosing multiple faults in analog circuits from their impulse response function using a fault dictionary was developed. Dirac impulse input to the circuit was simulated and time domain features of the output response were used to build the dictionary. The test of a real circuit by means of a fault dictionary gives realistic results provided the simulated and measured values are similar. Consequently, the choice of the model used in the simulation is important. The precautions to realize the measurement are described     

Theater Improvisers Know the Requirements Game

This article introduces improvisational theater, or improv, to support team-based innovation in requirements processes. It proposes improv to help workshop participants develop requirements soft skills through practice and play. The authors describe and demonstrate different improv techniques with simple examples, then advise readers on how to introduce them into requirements projects.     

Requirements 25 Years On

This column reviews progress in research and practice in requirements engineering over the past 25 years, looking back at early specification practices, structured analysis, and CASE tools.     

Some aspects of twist drill design

A mathematical approach to the flute disposal capacity based on the diameter of the circle which could be inscribed in the flute space is presented. It is important to know what order of drill rigidity is required for good performance when drilling various work materials. The main features of the cross-section profile which could affect the stiffness of a twist drill are the cross-sectional area and the second moment of area. The relationship between the various drill parameters and these features is one aspect to be investigated in this paper. Empirical equations based on the results obtained from this investigation are presented.     

An improved ptychographical phase retrieval algorithm for diffractive imaging

The ptychographical iterative engine (or PIE) is a recently developed phase retrieval algorithm that employs a series of diffraction patterns recorded as a known illumination function is translated to a set of overlapping positions relative to a target sample. The technique has been demonstrated successfully at optical and X-ray wavelengths and has been shown to be robust to detector noise and to converge considerably faster than support-based phase retrieval methods. In this paper, the PIE is extended so that the requirement for an accurate model of the illumination function is removed.