Design for agility: a scheduling perspective

Agility is the ability of a company to produce a variety of products in a short time and at a low cost. This demands that products and manufacturing systems be simple, robust, and flexible to allow for quick response to the changing market. Scheduling of manufacturing systems in a changing environment is complex. This paper attempts to simplify scheduling of manufacturing systems through appropriate design of products and manufacturing systems. An attempt has been made to generate rules that allow to design products and systems for easy scheduling. Four design for agility rules are proposed in the paper. The first rule deals with decomposition of a manufacturing system. The rule simplifies the scheduling problem and reduces the total changeover cost. The second rule is concerned with design of products with robust scheduling characteristics. Product designs with robust scheduling characteristics can improve the response of a manufacturing system to the changes in the product demand and mix and reconfigurability of the system. The third rule results in a streamlined assembly line which has the type of product flow that simplifies scheduling. The fourth rule emphasizes the reduction of the number of stations in an assembly line. Examples are provided to demonstrate the benefits from using these rules. The implementation of the four rules is also discussed.     

Design for test and time to market: a personal perspective

This article explores design for test implementation alternatives and electronic design for test automation's effects on overall time to market     

Learning-enhanced adaptive DSS: a Design Science perspective

The process of acquiring, maintaining, updating, and using appropriate domain-specific knowledge has played an integral role in knowledge-based decision support systems. Although each of these stages is necessary and important, knowledge-based systems that operate in dynamic environments can become quickly stale when core knowledge embedded in these systems are not continually updated to reflect changes in the system over time. Clearly, stale knowledge could be faulty and cannot be relied upon for making decisions and a knowledge-based decision support system with stale knowledge may even be detrimental in the long run. We consider a generic adaptive DSS framework with learning capabilities that continually monitors itself for possible deficit in the knowledge-base, expired or stale knowledge already present in the knowledge-base, and availability of new knowledge from the environment. The knowledge-base is updated through incremental learning. We illustrate the generic knowledge-based adaptive DSS framework using examples from three different application areas. The framework is flexible in being able to be modified or extended to accommodate the idiosyncrasies of the application of interest. The framework considered is an example artifact that naturally satisfies the Design Science perspective.     

Design for the elderly: user-based evaluation studies involving elderly users with special needs

Although a considerable amount is known about the ageing process, very little is known about the consumer needs of elderly people with special needs. On the whole a large proportion make do with 'ordinary' products to the best of their ability. The Special Needs Research Unit's extensive experience of evaluating such products highlights the fact the access to domestic appliances can be enhanced if attention is paid to basic human factors issues at the drawing-board stage. For manufacturers it is potentially the most effective means of enlarging their markets. A user-based evaluation strategy is described centering on two well-known products. It is suggested that paying attention to specific features in the early stages of design would result in better products for all.     

Universal Design for Learning: meeting the challenge of individual learning differences through a neurocognitive perspective

The traditional “one-size-fits-all” approach to curriculum denies the vast individual differences in learning strengths, challenges, and interests. The focus of this article is a novel approach, called Universal Design for Learning, to addressing the challenge of individual learner differences. Cognitive science research suggests the joint action of three broad sets of neural networks in cognition and learning: one that recognizes patterns, one that plans and generates patterns, and one that determines which patterns are important. These networks, referred to in this paper as recognition, strategic, and affective networks, are subject to individual differences that impact how individual students learn. This paper describes these networks and how the Universal Design for Learning framework makes use of this networks-based perspective to structure the consideration of individual learner differences and guide the design of a flexible, technology-rich curriculum that provides rich options for meeting diverse student needs.

生物体间关系可视化系统设计与实现

在生物信息学中,生物体间的关系常常以网络的方式予以呈现。生物数据自身的复杂性使得如何迅速高效地构建生物关系网络,分析生物关系网络成为一个难题。近些年来,生物可视化技术的不断深入使得这个难题得以进一步解决。此可视化系统基于MVC软件架构思想,以JAVA语言,JSP网页和Servlet技术开发,并对开发过程中如何设置节点布局,开发数据库接口等具体功能予以设计。     

Prospects for WSI: a manufacturing perspective

A manufacturing cost model that describes the relationships among characteristics of modern manufacturing processes, investment costs to achieve these characteristics, and basic IC parameters, including both die size and minimum feature size, is used to explain major trends in the past 20 yr of microelectronics. Results from this model indicate that it is not possible to continue progress in microelectronics through minimizing feature size, that the drive toward larger dies will gain momentum and lead gradually toward wafer-scale integration (WSI), and that manufacturing costs will keep WSI from becoming practical in the immediate future. Active-substrate flip-chip multichip modules (MCMs) are presented as an alternative that may provide both the performance gain and cost efficiency required     

Design and evaluation of a smart home voice interface for the elderly: acceptability and objection aspects

Smart homes equipped with ambient intelligence technology constitute a promising direction to enable the growing number of elderly to continue to live in their own home as long as possible. However, this calls for technological solutions that suit their specific needs and capabilities. The Sweet-Home project aims at developing a new user friendly technology for home automation based on voice command. This paper reports a user evaluation assessing the acceptance and fear of this new technology. Eight healthy persons between 71 and 88 years old, 7 relatives (child, grandchild or friend) and 3 professional carers participated in a user evaluation. During about 45 min, the persons were questioned in co-discovery in the Domus smart home alternating between interview and wizard of Oz periods followed by a debriefing. The experience aimed at testing four important aspects of the project: voice command, communication with the outside world, domotics system interrupting a person’s activity, and electronic agenda. Voice interface appeared to have a great potential to ease daily living for elderly and frail persons and would be better accepted than more intrusive solutions. By considering still healthy and independent elderly people in the user evaluation, an interesting finding that came up is their overall acceptance provided the system does not drive them to a lazy lifestyle by taking control of everything. This particular fear must be addressed for the development of smart homes that support daily living by giving them more ability to control rather than putting them away from the daily routine.     

DRI生物免疫视角扩展:机理、方法与仿真研究

生物免疫系统是复杂自适应系统,能够快速识别和抵抗外来危险,为企业有效识别动态风险提供了新的思路与方法。梳理相关文献发现,当前有关生物免疫视角下企业动态风险识别研究取得了一定的进展,但尚不存在一套相对成熟的方法体系。借鉴生物免疫的思想,构建了包含动态记忆自动识别和可变模糊自动识别的DRI生物免疫扩展方法体系,并在Netlogo仿真平台进行了多Agent的仿真实验,验证了该方法的动态有效性。该研究延伸和拓展了企业动态风险识别理论,丰富了企业动态风险识别生物免疫机理扩展的相关文献,为其他领域的动态风险识别问题提供了应用指引。     

Encoding of primary structures of biological macromolecules within a data mining perspective

An encoding method has a direct effect on the quality and the representation of the discovered knowledge in data mining systems. Biological macromolecules are encoded by strings of characters, called primary structures. Knowing that data mining systems usually use relational tables to encode data, we have then to reencode these strings and transform them into relational tables. In this paper, we do a comparative study of the existing static encoding methods, that are based on the Biologist know-how, and our new dynamic encoding one, that is based on the construction of Discriminant and Minimal Substrings (DMS). Different classification methods are used to do this study. The experimental results show that our dynamic encoding method is more efficient than the static ones, to encode biological macromolecules within a data mining perspective.     

The challenge to manage the biological integrity of nature reserves: A landscape ecology perspective

The New Jersey Pinelands Biosphere Reserve serves as an international model for regional land use planning within the framework of the Man and the Biosphere (MAB-UNESCO) Programme. To provide baseline information for future planning and management this study investigated the changes in landscape patterns in the Pinelands Reserve and its causes from 1972 to 1991. The general approach focuses on the role of land use as a factor causing change in the Pinelands landscape. The Pinelands has experienced a change in land cover and its structure due in part to fire suppression and anthropogenic disturbances. The methodology developed in this research can be applied to other regions of the world where it is necessary to evaluate the impact of human activities on natural resources.     

A controller perspective on biological gait control: Reflexes and central pattern generators

Biological motion control paradigms can be analyzed from a control theory point of view and translated to control applications. This paper revises and updates important aspects about the neural control of biped gait based on the Central Pattern Generator (CPG) and provides a controller view, including possible artificial implementations of these controllers. A first aspect to consider is the biological sensor-actuation system because the particularities of this system: the mammalian muscle. Many current biped robots are based on symmetrical CPG. However, new evidence suggests that biological CPG is asymmetrical with rhythm generator controlling the flexor half in a kind of feedforward control and the extensor behaving in a feedback fashion controlled by external inputs such as ground contact. A theoretical model of the CPG connections with flexors and extensors is presented.     

Assertions: a personal perspective

Assertions are Boolean formulas placed in program text at places where their evaluation will always be true. If the assertions are strong enough, they express everything that the programmers on either side of an interface need to know about the program on the other side, even before the code is written. Indeed, assertions can serve as the basis of a formal proof of the correctness of a complete program.     

D-Checklist:一种老年人手机设计方法

老年人的数量和比例不断增加,设计适合老年人使用的手机以提高老年人的生活质量、改善老年人的生活状态具有重要的社会意义和经济意义。通过对使用上下文,即老年人用户的特点、老年人使用手机的特点及现有手机制造和软件设计技术的分析,找出影响老年人手机可用性的六个核心要素,针对每个要素提出相对应的设计要点,并以此为基础提出一种新的老年人手机设计方法:D-Checklist法。通过评估说明此方法可以有效提高所开发的老年人手机的可用性。     

Information: a perceiver-concerns perspective

The transmission perspective on information which has dominated information systems (IS) development is only one way of perceiving information. Many of the issues of information systems development of recent years may be better understood if other, alternative, perspectives are encouraged. This paper attempts to synthesise the arguments for an alternative perspective which may be particularly useful for setting information system design attitudes. The paper concludes that a perceiver-concerns perspective can be beneficial in defining information since a concerned perceiver has to be present for information to exist, and the paper considers the implications of this for IS.     

Nutrition for Elder Care: a nutritional semantic recommender system for the elderly

The awareness and familiarity of elderly people with the use of new technologies have increased considerably in the last few years, which consequently cause a higher willingness to the use of these technologies in their daily lives. This allows the elderly to benefit from technology through active and conscious participation in activities related to health, leisure and promotion of social relationships, fostering active ageing. Three large dimensions cover almost a major part of health care within the framework of early and intermediate stages of active ageing: physical exercise, healthy nutrition and cognitive stimulation. In this paper, we present a nutritional recommender system, Nutrition for Elder Care, intended to help elderly users to draw up their own healthy diet plans following the nutritional experts guidelines. The system has been developed with the intensive use of Semantic Web technologies pursuing knowledge sharing and reuse between different applications and agents and the discovering of implicit new knowledge.     

MEMS_DSC: a new device for microcalorimetric analysis in the biological field

The metabolism of cells is studied by scientists using a number of cells high enough to have a signal in the regular differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Currently the number of cells necessary for thermal analysis is on the order of hundreds of thousands. The cell metabolism researchers have been trying to reduce this number with an eye on the final prize of sample size of one. In this paper, we report a novel MEMS_DSC (Micro Electro Mechanical System-Differential Scanning Calorimetry), which reduces the number of cells needed for analysis by about two orders of magnitude. It uses the Seebeck effect generated by a polysilicon n-gold junction to convert the temperature measured from cells directly into a voltage signal. To characterize the device a laser was used to heat the sensor; a lock-in amplifier, coupled with an optical chopper, allowed us to measure a very low heat power (25.5 nW).