The educational design ladder : creation of a multi-discipline design thinking program

As global industries change and technology advances, traditional education systems may no longer be able to supply companies with graduates possessing an appropriate mix of skills and experience. The recent increased interest in Design Thinking as an approach to innovation has resulted in its adoption by non-design trained professionals. This necessitates a new method of teaching Design Thinking related skills and processes. This research investigates what (content) and how (assessment and learning modes) Design Thinking is being taught from fifty-one (51) selected courses across twenty-eight (28) international universities. Their approaches differ, with some universities specifically investing in design schools and programs, while others embed Design Thinking holistically throughout the university. Business, engineering and design schools are all expanding their efforts to teach students how to innovate, often through multi-disciplinary classes. This paper presents ‘The Educational Design Ladder’ a resource model, which suggests a process for the organisation and structuring of units for a multi-disciplinary Design Thinking program. The intention is to provide 21st century graduates with the right combination of skills and experience to solve workplace design problems regardless of their core discipline.

Mission path planning of aerial survey tasks using hybrid game evolutionary algorithm

The work presented in this report is aimed to implement a cost-effective offline mission path planner for aerial inspection tasks of large linear infrastructures. Like most real-world optimisation problems, mission path planning involves a number of objectives which ideally should be minimised simultaneously. Understandably, the objectives of a practical optimisation problem are conflicting each other and the minimisation of one of them necessarily implies the impossibility to minimise the other ones. This leads to the need to find a set of optimal solutions for the problem; once such a set of available options is produced, the mission planning problem is reduced to a decision making problem for the mission specialists, who will choose the solution which best fit the requirements of the mission. The goal of this work is then to develop a Multi-Objective optimisation tool able to provide the mission specialists a set of optimal solutions for the inspection task amongst which the final trajectory will be chosen, given the environment data, the mission requirements and the definition of the objectives to minimise. All the possible optimal solutions of a Multi-Objective optimisation problem are said to form the Pareto-optimal front of the problem. For any of the Pareto-optimal solutions, it is impossible to improve one objective without worsening at least another one. Amongst a set of Pareto-optimal solutions, no solution is absolutely better than another and the final choice must be a trade-off of the objectives of the problem. Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms (MOEAs) are recognised to be a convenient method for exploring the Pareto-optimal front of Multi-Objective optimization problems. Their efficiency is due to their parallelism architecture which allows to find several optimal solutions at each time

Homing by path integration when a locomotion trajectory crosses itself

Path integration is a process with which navigators derive their current position and orientation by integrating self-motion signals along a locomotion trajectory. It has been suggested that path integration becomes disproportionately erroneous when the trajectory crosses itself. However, there is a possibility that this previous finding was confounded by effects of the length of a traveled path and the amount of turns experienced along the path, two factors that are known to affect path integration performance. The present study was designed to investigate whether the crossover of a locomotion trajectory truly increases errors of path integration. In an experiment, blindfolded human navigators were guided along four paths that varied in their lengths and turns, and attempted to walk directly back to the beginning of the paths. Only one of the four paths contained a crossover. Results showed that errors yielded from the path containing the crossover were not always larger than those observed in other paths, and the errors were attributed solely to the effects of longer path lengths or greater degrees of turns. These results demonstrated that path crossover does not always cause significant disruption in path integration processes. Implications of the present findings for models of path integration are discussed.

Contextualising co-creation of value in electronic personal health records

This conceptual paper is a preliminary part of an ongoing study into take-up of electronic personal health records (ePHRs). The purpose of this work is to contextually ‘operationalise' Grönroos’ (2012) model of value co-creation in service for ePHRs. Using findings in the extant literature we enhance theoretical and practical understanding of the potential for co-creation of value with ePHRs for relevant stakeholders. The research design focused on the selection and evaluation of relevant literature to include in the discussion. The objective was to demonstrate which articles can be used to 'contextualise' the concepts in relation to relevant healthcare providers and patient engagement in the co-creation of value from having shared ePHRs. Starting at the service concept, that is, what the service provider wants to achieve and for whom, there is little doubt that there are recognised benefits that co-create value for both healthcare providers and healthcare consumers (i.e. patients) through shared ePHRs. We further highlight both alignments and misalignments in the resources and activities concepts between stakeholder groups. Examples include the types of functionalities as well as the interactive and peer communication needs perceived as useful for healthcare providers compared to healthcare consumers. The paper has implications for theory and practice and is an original and innovative approach to studying the co-creation of value in eHealth delivery.

Content creation and curation

Platforms for content created by web users have been associated with some of the most significant economic paradigm shifts in digital media. At the same time, user created content has often been at the center of heated scholarly debates around the democratization of media production, cultural participation, and public communication. In this entry, we provide an overview of such debates within media and communication research, particularly in relation to the evolution of mainstream platforms for content creation, curation, and sharing.

Identifying weak linear features with the "coalescing shortest path image transform"

The detection of line-like features in images finds many applications in microanalysis. Actin fibers, microtubules, neurites, pilis, DNA, and other biological structures all come up as tenuous curved lines in microscopy images. A reliable tracing method that preserves the integrity and details of these structures is particularly important for quantitative analyses. We have developed a new image transform called the "Coalescing Shortest Path Image Transform" with very encouraging properties. Our scheme efficiently combines information from an extensive collection of shortest paths in the image to delineate even very weak linear features. © Copyright Microscopy Society of America 2011.

Tubule detection in testis images using boundary weighting and circular shortest path

In studies of germ cell transplantation, measureing tubule diameters and counting cells from different populations using antibodies as markers are very important. Manual measurement of tubule sizes and cell counts is a tedious and sanity grinding work. In this paper, we propose a new boundary weighting based tubule detection method. We first enhance the linear features of the input image and detect the approximate centers of tubules. Next, a boundary weighting transform is applied to the polar transformed image of each tubule region and a circular shortest path is used for the boundary detection. Then, ellipse fitting is carried out for tubule selection and measurement. The algorithm has been tested on a dataset consisting of 20 images, each having about 20 tubules. Experiments show that the detection results of our algorithm are very close to the results obtained manually. © 2013 IEEE.

Creation of protein loaded biodegradable microparticles via ultrasonic atomization suitable for nasal delivery

Improved biopharmaceutical delivery may be achieved via the use of biodegradable microspheres as delivery vehicles. Biodegradable microspheres offer the advantages of maintaining sustained protein release over time whilst simultaneously protecting the biopharmaceutical from degradation. Particle samples produced by ultrasonic atomization were studied in order to determine a feed stock capable of producing protein loaded poly-ε-caprolactone (PCL) particles suitable for nasal delivery (i.e., less than 20 μm). A 40 kHz atomization system was used with a 6 mm full wave atomization probe. The effect of solids percent, feed flow rate, volumetric ratio of the polymer stock to the protein stock, and protein concentration in the protein stock on particle size characteristics were determined. It was shown that feed stocks containing 100 parts of 0.5 or 1.0% w/v PCL in acetone with one part 100 mg ml -1 BSA and 15 mg ml -1 PVA produced particles with a mass moment diameter (D[4,3]) of 13.17 μm and 9.10 μm, respectively in addition to displaying high protein encapsulation efficiencies of 93 and 95%, respectively. The biodegradable PCL particles were shown to be able to deliver encapsulated protein in vitro under physiological conditions.

Convergence-guaranteed time-varying RRT path planning for profiling floats in 4-Dimensional flow

This paper presents an extension to the Rapidly-exploring Random Tree (RRT) algorithm applied to autonomous, drifting underwater vehicles. The proposed algorithm is able to plan paths that guarantee convergence in the presence of time-varying ocean dynamics. The method utilizes 4-Dimensional, ocean model prediction data as an evolving basis for expanding the tree from the start location to the goal. The performance of the proposed method is validated through Monte-Carlo simulations. Results illustrate the importance of the temporal variance in path execution, and demonstrate the convergence guarantee of the proposed methods.

Practical path planning and obstacle avoidance for autonomous mowing

There is a need for systems which can autonomously perform coverage tasks on large outdoor areas. Unfortunately, the state-of-the-art is to use GPS based localization, which is not suitable for precise operations near trees and other obstructions. In this paper we present a robotic platform for autonomous coverage tasks. The system architecture integrates laser based localization and mapping using the Atlas Framework with Rapidly-Exploring Random Trees path planning and Virtual Force Field obstacle avoidance. We demonstrate the performance of the system in simulation as well as with real world experiments.

Autonomous vehicle path planning for persistence monitoring under uncertainty using Gaussian based Markov decision process

One of the main challenges facing online and offline path planners is the uncertainty in the magnitude and direction of the environmental energy because it is dynamic, changeable with time, and hard to forecast. This thesis develops an artificial intelligence for a mobile robot to learn from historical or forecasted data of environmental energy available in the area of interest which will help for a persistence monitoring under uncertainty using the developed algorithm.

Automotive modal lock-in: The role of path dependence and large socio-economic regimes in market failure

This paper addresses less recognised factors which influence the diffusion of a particular technology. While an innovation’s attributes and performance are paramount, many fail because of external factors which favour an alternative. This paper, with theoretic input from diffusion, lock-in and path-dependency, presents a qualitative study of external factors that influenced the evolution of transportation in USA. This historical account reveals how one technology and its emergent systems become dominant while other choices are overridden by socio-political, economic and technological interests which include not just the manufacturing and service industries associated with the automobile but also government and market stakeholders. Termed here as a large socio-economic regime (LSER),its power in ensuring lock-in and continued path-dependency is shown to pass through three stages, weakening eventually as awareness improves. The study extends to transport trends in China, Korea, Indonesia and Malaysia and they all show the dominant role of an LSER. As transportation policy is increasingly accountable to address both demand and environmental concerns and innovators search for solutions, this paper presents important knowledge for innovators, marketers and policy makers for commercial and societal reasons, especially when negative externalities associated with an incumbent transportation technology may lead to market failure.

Take me seriously. Now laugh at me! How gender influences the creation of contemporary physical comedy

This paper unpacks some of the complexities of the female comic project, focussing on the creation of physical comedy, via multiple readings of the term “serious”. Does female desire to be taken seriously in the public realm compromise female-driven comedy? Historically, female seriousness has been a weapon in the hands of such female-funniness sceptics as the late Christopher Hitchens (2007), who (in)famously declared that women are too concerned with the grave importance of their reproductive responsibility to make good comedy. The dilemma is clear: for the woman attempting to elicit laughs, she’s not serious enough outside the home, and far too serious inside it.