Telecare Call Centre Work and Ageing in Place

We report findings from a study of call centre staff working to deliver a telecare service designed to enable older people to ‘age in place’. We show the steps they routinely take to produce a care system on behalf of their clients and their families that is both workable within the constraints of available resources and fit-for-purpose. In doing so, we have seen how call centre staff share with one another their experiences and solutions to problems, carry out liaison work with networks of lay carers, and generally act as the ‘glue’ providing the all-important link between otherwise fragmented services. We conclude with some thoughts on the significant technical and organizational challenges if the ‘ageing in place’ vision is to be realized in a practical, secure, dependable and cost-effective way.     

The Dynamics and Equilibria of Day-to-Day Assignment Models

Traffic network modelling is a field that has developed over a number of decades, largely from the economics of predicting equilibria across route travel choices, in consideration of the congestion levels on those routes. More recently, there has been a growing influence from the psychological and social science fields, leading to a greater interest in understanding behavioural mechanisms that underlie such travel choice decisions. The purpose of the present paper is to describe mathematical models which aim to reflect day-to-day dynamic adjustments in route choice behaviour in response to previous travel experiences. Particularly, the aim is to set these approaches in a common framework with the conventional economic equilibrium models. Starting from the analysis of economic equilibria under perturbations, the presentation moves onto deterministic dynamical system models and stochastic processes. Simple illustrative examples are used to introduce the modelling approaches. It is argued that while such dynamical approaches have appeal, in terms of the range of adaptive behavioural processes that can be incorporated, their estimation may not be trivial. In particular, the obvious solution technique (namely, explicit simulation of the dynamics) can lead to a rather complex problem of interpretation for the model-user, and that more analytical approximation techniques may be a better way forward.     

The Place of Computers in Medicine

To the computer specialist the thoughts of applying his technology to the determination and preservation of his own and society's health by computer is very attractive. To the physician the computer appears as a complex unknown. Depending on his computer-related, experience, it may be a threat or a tool.     

The Resting Place of Innovation

Successful software-intensive systems are generally quite innovative, as evidenced by their success. Although their architectures will, over time, converge to a stable point, this does not mean that innovation stops. Rather, for any such system to remain vibrant and relevant, innovation much proceed simultaneously at many levels.     

让你担心让你忧——网上的灰色地带

让你担心让你忧——网上的灰色地带文：何海群徐勇在人们欣喜地领略着Ｉｎｔｅｒｎｅｔ的神奇魅力时，你是否想到事有两分，水可载舟，亦能覆舟。下面的文字就是试图想让兴奋无比的人们，静下心来，感受一下网络的另一面，那就是——据《新科学家》（ＮｅｗＳｃｉｅｎｔｉ...     

The Place of TRIZ in a Holistic Design Methodology

Design is key to a project’s profitability and therefore increased PROFIT by DESIGN is the goal of improvements to the design process. Business requirements can be summarised as Better, Faster, Cheaper and considerable investment has been made in technology and methods for the design process to enable this. There is evidence to suggest that these investments have resulted in products themselves getting better but not necessarily produced faster or cheaper. A model of the design process has been developed which makes explicit its key elements. The six key elements or dimensions of the design process are: Analyse; Understand; Decide; Create; Capture; and Know. Investments in design technology may not be reaching their full potential due to a mismatch between the relative importance of the attributes of a good designer and the areas where investments have been made, leading to a potential loss of balance in the design process. This is compounded by failure to take a holistic view of changes to the process including mitigation of any downside. In particular the Create dimension, which is seen as the most important attribute of a good designer, has had the least investment and also is the most vulnerable because it is optional. In recognition of this fact, Rolls‐Royce is using the TRIZ methodology to provide designers with an improved capability. However it also is recognised that providing capability alone is not enough. The right motivation and opportunity are also needed, and this requires the appropriate organisational and cultural features to be in place. What is needed is a people centred process that is business driven and product focused.     

CAS理论在中心地理论研究中的应用

利用计算机仿真方法对城市等级体系和城市职能分工的形成进行研究。引入CAS的理论和方法并结合中心地理论，构建基于需求／服务模式的城市中心地复杂适应系统模型，在一个二维均质平面上对城市等级体系、城市职能分工的形成过程进行了再现。结果表明，对城市最终功能分工与等级体系的形成，门槛值的高低是一个关键因素；而且中心城市的等级和中心职能是相互对应的。从微观层面上对中心地理论进行了仿真验证，也证实了构建的模型在研究该问题上的有效性。     

Responding to the Active Ageing Index: Innovations in Active Ageing Policies in Malta

Malta is no exception to the unprecedented demographic changes that are being experienced by industrial countries. In the first rankings emerging from the 2012 Active Ageing Index, Malta fared in the 19th place in the overall index. In reaction, in March 2013 the newly elected Government took note of the diverse issues facing the ageing of Maltese population by positioning the responsibility for ageing policy under a ‘Parliamentary Secretariat for Rights of Persons with Disability and Active Ageing’ (previously ‘Parliamentary Secretariat for Elderly and Community Care’). The fact that the Secretariat also migrated from the ‘Ministry of Health, the Elderly, and Community Care’ to the ‘Ministry for the Family and Social Solidarity’ spoke volumes about the novel direction that ageing policy is taking in Malta—namely, a shift from the long-held focus on ‘elderly care’ to ‘active citizenship’ issues. This article presents current developments in Maltese public policy related to ageing. Given the increasing numbers and relative vulnerability of this group, there is hardly any policy ‘programme’ in greater need of thorough inspection. The Maltese government has in recent months launched, and commenced the implementation process, of the National Strategic Policy for Active Ageing, National Dementia Strategy, and the Minimum Standards for Care Homes for Older Persons. Whilst the Commissioner of Older Persons Act has also been ratified by the Maltese Parliament, the Protection of Vulnerable and Older Persons Act - which will make possible a preventive, ameliorative, remedial, and punitive role for the justice system, so that the human rights of vulnerable citizens are also catered for - has also been finalised.     

The Proper Place of Men and Machines in Language Translation

The only way in which the power of computers has been brought to bear on the problem of language translation is machine translation, that is, the automation of the entire process. Machine translation is an excellent research vehicle but stands no chance of filling actual needs for translation which are growing at a great rate. In the quarter century during which work on machine translation has been going on, there has been considerable progress in relevant areas of computer science. However, advances in linguistics, important though they may have been, have not touched the core of this problem. The proper thing to do is therefore to adopt the kinds of solution that have proved successful in other domains, namely to develop cooperative man–machine systems. This paper proposes a translator's amanuensis, incorporating into a word processor some simple facilities peculiar to translation. Gradual enhancements of such a system could eventually lead to the original goal of machine translation.     

公共场所移动报警终端设计

本文以单片机AT89S52为核心,建立了一套在现有公安110配置下多渠道快速分散反应的报警模式.该报警模式的报警特征量数据采集使用红外及超声波探测,无线通讯部分使用NRF2401芯片,系统与计算机之间采用串行通信方式进行通讯.结果表明,该系统可以准确地进行报警特征量的采集,并通过串行通讯方式传递给计算机,有利于后台人员对报警状况进行及时处置,建立了一套多渠道、快速反应的报警模式.     

中国本土艺术现代化的想象

提到现代化我们不免会想到拔地而起的现代化城市建筑,繁华的都市,加速的快节奏生活,电视,网络,数码等等高新科技带来的产品等充斥着我们的传统思维观念。批评家们强调艺术当随时代,那么如果以此为准则的话,我们的艺术也必然应该走入现代化。本文以紧跟时代,以中国本土艺术转向现代化发展实验的中国当代油画艺术家为例,阐述现代化大环境下本土艺术现代化发展的必然性,同时对未来艺术的发展提出设想和质疑。     

A Pace of Its Own: The Demography of Ageing in Sri Lanka

The process of demographic ageing in Sri Lanka is striking in comparison to the experience of other countries in South Asia, and in comparison to many developing countries more generally. The proportion of the population older than 60 years in Sri Lanka was much higher—almost double—than in any other country in the region in 2000, and by 2030, it is expected that nearly one of every five Sri Lankans will be elderly. The rapid ageing of the Sri Lankan population is contributing to the emergence of several policy issues that will undoubtedly become more acute in the years to come. The primary aim of this paper is to examine the magnitude, characteristics and determinants of demographic ageing in Sri Lanka, a country whose demography has received little international attention, and discuss some of the implications of this ageing process for selected policy issues.     

Active Ageing Index as an Evidence Base for Developing a Comprehensive Active Ageing Policy in Russia

The concept of active ageing shifts the focus of the discussion of the consequences of ageing from negative expectations of a growing burden of public costs to the analysis of opportunities of using the potential of elderly people. This paper is aimed at testing the applicability of international approaches to measure active ageing to the situation in Russia. For this purpose, we use the international Active Ageing Index (AAI), developed by the experts from the European Centre Vienna. The AAI is a multidimensional composite index that consists of 22 indicators and measures the untapped potential of older people in four major areas: (1) employment, (2) participation in society, (3) independent, healthy and secure life, (4) capacity for active ageing. Our empirical estimation of the AAI is based on several Russian and international surveys, which provide relatively high comparability of the AAI results for Russia with EU countries. The results show that the AAI equals 30.9 points, which means about 69 % of unused potential for active ageing of the elderly in Russia, and corresponds to the 18th place in ranking of 29 European countries. Russia performs relatively better in the employment and capacity for active ageing domains. It is in the bottom of the ranking in the independent, healthy and secure life domain.     

Place recognition in dynamic environments

We have developed a technique for place learning and place recognition in dynamic environments. Our technique associates evidence grids with places in the world and uses hill climbing to find the best alignment between current perceptions and learned evidence grids. We present results from five experiments performed using a real mobile robot in a real-world environment. These experiments measured the effects of transient and lasting changes in the environment on the robot's ability to localize. In addition, these experiments tested the robot's ability to recognize places from different viewpoints and verified the scalability of this approach to environments containing large numbers of places. Our results demonstrate that places can be recognized successfully despite significant changes in their appearance, despite the presence of moving obstacles, and despite observing these places from different viewpoints during place learning and place recognition. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.