Personal Digital Assistants in medical education and practice

Abstract This paper reports on a current project, KNOWMOBILE, that explores how wireless and mobile technologies, in this case how Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) may be useful in medical education and clinical practice, particularly to access net‐based information. KNOWMOBILE is a research collaboration involving academic and industrial partners which aims to support Problem‐Based Learning (PBL) and the integration of Evidence‐Based Medicine (EBM) in medical education reform in Norway. What does ‘just‐in‐time’ access to information mean in clinical settings? How can health professionals be helped with access to the most up‐to‐date medical information? From a preliminary analysis of the problems of Personal Digital Assistants in use — and nonuse — problems regarding information and communication infrastructure discussed that require work from a social historical interpretation of ‘infrastructures’ in order to enhance design perspectives and directions for future research. It is concluded that the PDAs should not be regarded as Personal Digital Assistants, but rather as gateways in complicated webs of interdependent technical and social networks.     

Designing for Young Visitors’ Co-composition of Doubts in Cultural Historical Exhibitions

This paper reports from a design experiment that investigated how social media may introduce new types of participation in museum exhibitions. We used the perspectives of assemblage and co-composition as frameworks to rethink participation in museums. The design experiment's aim was to give visitors an experience of the uncertainties and doubts of historical knowledge creation by inviting visitors to participate in solving dilemmas and filling gaps in the reconstruction of a Viking boat. We introduced three design concepts in our lab-based exhibition experiment—collecting, reflecting and sharing—to capture the social interactions and collaborative media production that enacts the exhibition assembly. We conclude that visitors’ reflections may evolve through participatory activities of collecting and sharing, and social media may open possibilities for new types of interpretation and learning activities in museum exhibitions.     

Combined topology and fiber path design of composite layers using cellular automata

The popular Solid Isotropic Material Penalization (SIMP) technique of topology design is extended to simultaneous fiber-angle and topology design of composite laminae in a cellular automata (CA) framework. CA is a novel methodology to simulate a physical phenomenon based on iterative local updates of both field and design variables. Displacements are updated satisfying local equilibrium of CA cells. Fiber angles and density measures are updated based on the optimality criteria for the minimum compliance design. Numerical results for the design of 2D cantilever plates for single and multiple load cases are used to demonstrate the robustness of the proposed algorithm.     

Day of the week submission effect for accepted papers in Physica A,PLOS ONE,Nature and Cell

The particular day of the week when an event occurs seems to have unexpected consequences. For example, the day of the week when a paper is submitted to a peer reviewed journal correlates with whether that paper is accepted. Using an econometric analysis (a mix of log–log and semi-log based on undated and panel structured data) we find that more papers are submitted to certain peer review journals on particular weekdays than others, with fewer papers being submitted on weekends. Seasonal effects, geographical information as well as potential changes over time are examined. This finding rests on a large (178,000) and reliable sample; the journals polled are broadly recognized (Nature, Cell, PLOS ONE and Physica A). Day of the week effect in the submission of accepted papers should be of interest to many researchers, editors and publishers, and perhaps also to managers and psychologists.     

Variable-stiffness composite panels: Buckling and first-ply failure improvements over straight-fibre laminates

One of the primary advantages of using fibre-reinforced laminated composites in structural design is the ability to change the stiffness and strength properties of the laminate by designing the laminate stacking sequence in order to improve its performance. This procedure is typically referred to as laminate tailoring. Traditionally, tailoring is done by keeping the fibre orientation angle within each layer constant throughout a structural component. Allowing the fibres to follow curvilinear paths within the plane of the laminates constitutes an advanced tailoring option that can lead to modification of load paths within the laminate to result in more favourable stress distributions and improve the laminate performance.Based on numerical simulations, the present work demonstrates the advantages of variable-stiffness over straight-fibre laminates in terms of compressive buckling and first-ply failure. A physically based set of failure criteria, able to predict the various modes of failure of a composite laminated structure, is implemented in finite element models of straight and variable-stiffness panels under compression. Non-linear analyses are carried out to simulate first-ply failure in the postbuckling regime.     

Multi-step blended stacking sequence design of panel assemblies with buckling constraints

In this paper, we propose a multi-step framework for design of composite panel assemblies and subsequent blending of the designs to ensure laminate continuity across multi-panel configurations. Multilevel optimisation is frequently used for solving complex optimisation problems. In composite design this approach leads to stacking sequence mismatch among adjacent structural components which is generally referred to as blending problem. To overcome stacking sequence mismatch, a guide-based genetic algorithm (GA) is used which in essence forces the design to be completely blended at any step in the design process. A serious drawback of guide based approach is that it necessitates repeated analysis of the entire structure within the GA iterations. A multi-step framework is proposed where the structure is first optimised using panel thickness and lamination parameters as continuous design variables. The continuous optimisation is performed using a successive convex approximation scheme. In the second step, discrete blended stacking sequences are obtained using a guide-based genetic algorithm. The fitness function in the guide-based GA is evaluated using convex approximations of the response. In this fashion, the cost of evaluating structural response within the GA optimisation is eliminated. The proposed framework is demonstrated via design of an eighteen panel horseshoe configuration, where each panel is optimised individually subject to a local buckling constraint. Numerical results indicate that the present algorithm is capable of producing near-optimal fully blended designs at a small fraction of the computational cost of traditional blending algorithms.