An Action Research Study Engaging in the Use of Storyboarding as Research-based Approach to Teaching to Identify Issues Faced when Working with People with Dementia from Minority Ethnic Communities

The common view that research informs teaching assumes a linear approach whereby teaching is considered an output of research. This paper reports the findings of an action research project that identified the issues and challenges faced by those working across health and social care when working with people with dementia from minority ethnic communities. It explored the research-teaching nexus by using an approach to teaching that was research-based as opposed to research-led. A storyboarding technique was used which involved identifying and dissecting real life experiences for discussion. The realisation that each story was unique to the individual demonstrated the benefits and importance of education and training for applying a person-centred approach to dementia care. This project also revealed the benefits of actively engaging course participants with research moving them from being recipients of research, to research- active. Such a process not only encouraged their intrinsic motivations but, also, critical thinking and reflective practice to support deep learning. Such findings demonstrate the benefits of linking teaching with research.

Public firm sponsorship of open source software: A knowledge-based approach to open innovation

As an emerging innovation paradigm gaining momentum in recent years, the open innovation paradigm is calling for greater theoretical depth and more empirical research. This dissertation proposes that open innovation in the context of open source software sponsorship may be viewed as knowledge strategies of the firm. Hence, this dissertation examines the performance determinants of open innovation through the lens of knowledge-based perspectives. Using event study and regression methodologies, this dissertation found that these open source software sponsorship events can indeed boost the stock market performance of US public firms. In addition, both the knowledge capabilities of the firms and the knowledge profiles of the open source projects they sponsor matter for performance. In terms of firm knowledge capabilities, internet service firms perform better than other firms owing to their advantageous complementary capabilities. Also, strong knowledge exploitation capabilities of the firm are positively associated with performance. In terms of the knowledge profile of sponsored projects, platform projects perform better than component projects. Also, community-originated projects outperform firm-originated projects. Finally, based on these findings, this dissertation discussed the important theoretical implications for the strategic tradeoff between knowledge protection and sharing.

From the human rights-based approach to an ecological approach on how to achieve successful inclusion in international disability education

The barriers that people with disabilities face around the world are not only inherent to the limitations resulting from the disability itself, but, more importantly, these barriers rest with the societal technologies of exclusion. Using a mixed methodology approach, I conduct a quest to revealing several societal factors that limit full participation of people with disabilities in their communities, which will contribute to understanding and developing a more comprehensive framework for full inclusion of people with disabilities into the society. First, I conduct a multiple regression analysis to seek whether there is a statistical relationship between the national level of development, the level of democratization, and the level of education within a country’s population on one hand, and expressed concern for and preparedness to improve the quality of life for people of disabilities on another hand. The results from the quantitative methodology reveal that people without disabilities are more prepared to take care of people with disabilities when the level of development of the country is higher, when the people have more freedom of expression and hold the government accountable for its actions, and when the level of corruption is under control. However, a greater concern for the well-being of people with disabilities is correlated with a high level of country development, a decreased value of political stability and absence of violence, a decreased level of government effectiveness, and a greater level of law enforcement. None of the dependent variables are significantly correlated with the level of education from a given country. Then, I delve into an interpretive analysis to understand multiple factors that contribute to the construction of attitudes and practices towards people with disabilities. In doing this, I build upon the four main principles outlined by the United Nations as strongly recommended to be embedded in all international programmes: (1) identification of claims of human rights and the corresponding obligations of governments, hence, I assess and analyze disability rights in education, looking at United Nation, United States, and European Union Perspectives Educational Rights Provisions for People with Disabilities (Ch. 3); (2) estimated capacity of individuals to claim their rights and of governments to fulfill their obligations, hence, I look at the people with disabilities as rights-holders and duty-bearers and discuss the importance of investing in special capital in the context of global development (Ch. 4); (3) programmes monitor and evaluate the outcomes and the processes under the auspices of human rights standards, hence, I look at the importance of evaluating the UN World Programme of Action Concerning People with Disabilities from multiple perspectives, as an example of why and how to monitor and evaluate educational human rights outcomes and processes (Ch. 5); and (4) programming should reflect the recommendations of international human rights bodies and mechanisms, hence, I focus on programming that fosters development of the capacity of people with disabilities, that is, planning for an ecology of disabilities and ecoducation for people with disabilities (Ch. 6). Results from both methodologies converge to a certain point, and they further complement each other. One common result for the two methodologies employed is that disability is an evolving concept when viewed in a broader context, which integrates the four spaces that the ecological framework incorporates. Another common result is that factors such as economic, social, legal, political, and natural resources and contexts contribute to the health, education and employment opportunities, and to the overall well-being of people with disabilities. The ecological framework sees all these factors from a meta-systemic perspective, where bi-directional interactions are expected and desired, and also from a human rights point of view, where the inherent value of people is upheld at its highest standard.

Microstructural-based approach to the interpretation of clays and transitional soils behaviour

Tese (doutorado)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Tecnologia, Departamento de Engenharia Civil e Ambiental, 2016.

A MARKET-BASED APPROACH TO 3D PRINTING FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN GHANA

The purpose of this report is to create the foundation for further study of a market-based approach to 3D printing as an instrument for economic development in Ghana. The delivery of improved products and services to the most underserved markets is needed to spur economic activity and improve standards of living. The relationship between economic development and the advancement of technology is considered within the context of Ghana. An opportunity for market entry exists within both the bottom of the economic pyramid and the mid-segment market. 3D printing (additive manufacturing) has proven to be a disruptive technology that has demonstrated an ability to expedite the speed of innovations and create products that were previously not possible. An investigation of how 3D printers can be used to create improved products for the most underserved markets within Ghana is presented. Questions are asked to elucidate how and when adoption of 3D printers and 3D printed products may occur in the future. Based upon the existing barriers to adoption, 3D printing technology must improve before widespread adoption will occur in Ghana.

A Case-Based Approach to Nosocomial Infection Detection

The nosocomial infections are a growing concern because they affect a large number of people and they increase the admission time in healthcare facilities. Additionally, its diagnosis is very tricky, requiring multiple medical exams. So, this work is focused on the development of a clinical decision support system to prevent these events from happening. The proposed solution is unique once it caters for the explicit treatment of incomplete, unknown, or even contradictory information under a logic programming basis, that to our knowledge is something that happens for the first time.

A Case Based approach to assess Waiting Time Prediction at an Intensive Care Unity

Waiting time at an intensive care unity stands for a key feature in the assessment of healthcare quality. Nevertheless, its estimation is a difficult task, not only due to the different factors with intricate relations among them, but also with respect to the available data, which may be incomplete, self-contradictory or even unknown. However, its prediction not only improves the patients’ satisfaction but also enhance the quality of the healthcare being provided. To fulfill this goal, this work aims at the development of a decision support system that allows one to predict how long a patient should remain at an emergency unit, having into consideration all the remarks that were just stated above. It is built on top of a Logic Programming approach to knowledge representation and reasoning, complemented with a Case Base approach to computing.

Age Prediction through Pelvis X-Ray Images - A Case Based approach to Problem Solving

It is well known that the dimensions of the pelvic bones depend on the gender and vary with the age of the individual. Indeed, and as a matter of fact, this work will focus on the development of an intelligent decision support system to predict individual’s age based on pelvis’ dimensions criteria. On the one hand, some basic image processing technics were applied in order to extract the relevant features from pelvic X-rays. On the other hand, the computational framework presented here was built on top of a Logic Programming approach to knowledge representation and reasoning, that caters for the handling of incomplete, unknown, or even self-contradictory information, complemented with a Case Base approach to computing.

Spatial based approach to fisheries management. An application to bottom trawling in the strait of Sicily

At the beginning of my thesis project, considering that some stocks are in overfishing status due to both high fishing effort and high level of juveniles in the catch, my main purpose was to understand how to contribute to improving the state of the fishery resources of the Mediterranean Sea. To mitigate the overfishing, the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) adopted several Fishery Restricted Areas, which are geographically defined areas where some specific fishing activities are temporarily or permanently banned or restricted in order to reduce the exploitation patterns and conservation of specific stocks as well as of habitats and deep-sea ecosystems, including the Essential Fish Habitats (EFH) and the Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VME). Considering that GFCM established 3 Fisheries Restricted Areas (FRAs) in the Strait of Sicily (SoS) in 2016 aimed at protecting the nursery areas of the deep-water rose shrimp (DPS, Parapenaeus longirostris – Lucas, 1846) and the European hake (HKE, Merluccius merluccius – Linnaeus, 1758) to reduce the exploitation pattern of undersized species, in my thesis project I devoted myself to evaluate the effect of the FRAs on the status stock and the fishery performance using a spatial bio-economic model.

Computer vision in aseptic pharmaceutical manufacturing: a deep learning-based approach to vial inspection and pack formation during a lyophilizer loading cycle

Vision systems are powerful tools playing an increasingly important role in modern industry, to detect errors and maintain product standards. With the enlarged availability of affordable industrial cameras, computer vision algorithms have been increasingly applied in industrial manufacturing processes monitoring. Until a few years ago, industrial computer vision applications relied only on ad-hoc algorithms designed for the specific object and acquisition setup being monitored, with a strong focus on co-designing the acquisition and processing pipeline. Deep learning has overcome these limits providing greater flexibility and faster re-configuration. In this work, the process to be inspected consists in vials’ pack formation entering a freeze-dryer, which is a common scenario in pharmaceutical active ingredient packaging lines. To ensure that the machine produces proper packs, a vision system is installed at the entrance of the freeze-dryer to detect eventual anomalies with execution times compatible with the production specifications. Other constraints come from sterility and safety standards required in pharmaceutical manufacturing. This work presents an overview about the production line, with particular focus on the vision system designed, and about all trials conducted to obtain the final performance. Transfer learning, alleviating the requirement for a large number of training data, combined with data augmentation methods, consisting in the generation of synthetic images, were used to effectively increase the performances while reducing the cost of data acquisition and annotation. The proposed vision algorithm is composed by two main subtasks, designed respectively to vials counting and discrepancy detection. The first one was trained on more than 23k vials (about 300 images) and tested on 5k more (about 75 images), whereas 60 training images and 52 testing images were used for the second one.

EBAO/EBO keskustelu Yhdysvaltojen asevoimissa

Effects-Based Operations (EBO) sekä siitä kehittynyt Effects-Based Approach to Operations ovat nykyajan operatiivisen sekä strategisen tason suunnittelun avainkäsitteitä Natossa ja useissa sen kumppani valtioissa. Konsepti on levinnyt maailmalle alun perin Yhdysvaltojen asevoimista, mutta viimeaikaisten kokemusten perusteella Yhdysvallat on kuitenkin luopumassa konseptista. United States Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) on antanut käskyn poistaa yhteisoperaatioiden suunnittelutason käytöstä sellaiset käsitteet, kuten EBO, System-of-Systems Analysis sekä Operational Net Assessment. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on selvittää julkisten yhdysvaltalaisten sotilaslähteiden sisältöanalyysin kautta, mitkä syyt ovat johtaneet EBO:sta luopumiseen sekä mitä sen tilalle ollaan kehittämässä. Tutkimuksen perusteella tultiin seuraaviin johtopäätöksiin: (1) Yhdysvaltojen asevoimat ovat luopumassa yhteisoperaatioiden tasolla EBO konseptista. (2) Vuodesta 2007 maavoimat eivät käytä EBO konseptia omassa suunnitteluprosessissaan. (3) EBO:sta luopumisen syyt ovat seuraavat: (a) EBO:sta on eri asiakirjoissa eri tulkintoja ja siitä käytetään eri käsitteitä, mikä aiheuttaa hämmennystä; (b) EBO:ssa käytettävä tehtävän määrittely on aiheuttanut sekaannusta; (c) EBO:n suunnitteluprosessi on liian tieteellinen ja monimutkainen. Ei ole mahdollista ennustaa tarkasti oman toiminnan mahdollisia vaikutuksia monimutkaisia avoinna olevia järjestelmiä vastaan. Tieteellisyys heikentää komentajien sotataidollista ajattelua ja ongelman määrittelyä; (d) Johtamistapa ei ole enää johtajakeskeistä, koska komentajat keskittyvät liikaa yksityiskohtiin ja oikean ongelmanratkaisuun keskittyminen häviää valtavaan informaatiovirtaan; (e) EBO pakottaa keskitettyyn johtamistapaan, mikä pienentää alaisten aloitekykyä eikä mahdollista nykyaikaisessa erittäin monimutkaisessa toimintaympäristössä nopeaa reagointia yllättäviin tilanteisiin. (4) Yhteisoperaatioiden tasolla tullaan EBO:n sijaan kehittämään Operational Design konseptia, jossa otetaan esimerkkiä maavoimilta sekä merijalkaväeltä. (5) Operational Design on filosofinen systemaattinen analyysimenetelmä, joka pyrkii koko operaation ajan tarkistamaan yhtymän keskittymistä oikeaan ongelmanratkaisuun. (6) Operational Design mahdollistaa komentajakeskeisen lähestymistavan ongelmiin ja sopii monimutkaisia avoimia järjestelmiä vastaan. Operational Design mahdollistaa sotataidollisen ajattelun ja sopii paremmin ennustamattomien ja yllättävien tilanteiden ratkaisemiseen.

Vaikutukseen perustuvat operaatiot merellisessä kriisinhallinnassa

Tutkimustyön tavoitteena on muodostaa selkeä käsitys vaikutukseen perustuvien operaatioiden teoriasta ja tutkia merellisen kriisinhallintaoperaation kehittämisperiaatteita vaikutukseen perustuvien operaatioiden kontekstissa. Kriisinhallintaoperaatioita tarkastellaan Euroopan unionin sotilaallisen kriisinhallinnan toimintaympäristössä ja merivoimakomponentin näkökulmasta. Vaikutusperusteisia operaatioita ei ole Suomessa systemaattisesti tutkittu. Euroopan turvallisuusympäristö on muuttumassa entistä haasteellisemmaksi. Uudet uhkat, joita Eurooppa kohtaa ovat entistä moninaisempia, näkymättömämpiä ja vaikeammin ennustettavissa. Merivoimilla on tulevaisuudessa keskeinen rooli ehkäistäessä levottomuuksien rantautuminen Eurooppaan. Asevoimien näkökulmasta tämän hetkinen kehitystrendi on vaikutukseen perustuvat operaatiot (Effects-Based Approach to Operations, EBAO) ja verkostokeskeinen sodankäynti (Network Centric Warfare, NCW). EBAO:n käytettävyyttä kriisinhallinnassa kehitetään voimakkaasti ja konsepti nähdään mahdollisena ratkaisuna moniin nykyaikaisen kriisinhallinnan haasteisiin ja ongelmiin. Virallisen määritelmän mukaan vaikutukseen perustuvat operaatiot ovat prosessi haluttujen strategisten vaikutusten tai lopputulosten tuottamiseksi vastustajassa. Se pitää sisällään täyden skaalan sotilaallisen voiman ja ei sotilaallisen voiman monipuolista ja kumulatiivista käyttöä taktisella, operatiivisella ja strategisella tasolla.1 Tutkimusongelmana on: Mitkä ovat vaikutusperusteisen operaatiomallin (Effects-Based Approach to Operations, EBAO) tarjoamat edut tai haitat EU:n merellisessä sotilaallisessa kriisinhallintaoperaatiossa? Tutkimusongelma ratkaistaan vastaamalla seuraaviin alaongelmiin: 1. Mikä on vaikutukseen perustuvien operaatioiden teorian sisältö sotilaallisen toiminnan näkökulmasta? 2. Mikä on vaikutukseen perustuvan operoinnin näkökulma monikansalliseen kriisinhallintaoperaatioon? 3. Mitä ovat (EU:n sotilaallisen kriisinhallinnan) mukaiset merelliset kriisinhallintaoperaatiot ja mitkä ovat Suomen intressit EU:n sotilaalliseen kriisinhallintaan? 4. Miten vaikutukseen perustuva toimintamalli ilmenee esimerkin mukaisessa merellisessä kriisinhallintaoperaatiossa? Tutkimus on luonteeltaan laadullinen tutkimus. Tutkimusmenetelmänä on käytetty sisällönanalyysia sekä käsiteanalyysia. Vaikutukseen perustuvia operaatioita käsittelevä lähdeaineisto perustuu suurelta osin 2000-luvun alussa Yhdysvalloissa aloitettuun tutkimukseen ja siitä saatuun aineistoon. Kriisinhallintaa koskeva aineisto koostuu pääosin virallisista asiakirjoista sekä aiheeseen liittyvistä uusimmista julkaisuista ja tutkimuksista. Ajankohtaisten julkaisujen ja asiakirjojen tietoa on täydennetty lehtiartikkeleiden ja internetistä saatavilla olevien tietojen avulla. Tutkimusta lähestytään taktiikan näkökulmasta. Tutkielman johtopäätöksinä ilmeni, että keskeisiä EBAO:n etuja merellisessä sotilaallisessa kriisinhallintaoperaatiossa ovat nopea reagointikyky sekä EBAO:n mukainen laajempi näkökulma, jossa huomioidaan liittolaiset, puolueettomat toimijat ja mahdolliset vastustajat entistä paremmin. EBAO on kehitysasteella oleva konsepti, jonka suurimpana potentiaalina pidetään pyrkimystä sotilaiden ja siviilien saumattomaan yhteistyöhön kriisinhallinnan moninaisessa toimintaympäristössä. Konsepti pitää kuitenkin sisällään monta epävarmuustekijää, kuten vaikutusten ja operatiivisen ympäristön ennustamisen. Nykyisellään EBAO ei välttämättä muuttaisi operaatioiden toteutusta konkreettisesti. EU on Suomen kannalta tärkeä foorumi kansainväliseen kriisinhallintaan osallistumiseksi. Kansainväliseen kriisinhallintaan osallistuminen on keskeinen osa Suomen ulko- ja turvallisuuspolitiikkaa. Kansainvälisen ulottuvuuden kehittäminen palvelee myös kansallisen puolustuksen kehittämistä. Suomen puolustusvoimien näkökulmasta on syytä muistaa, että Yhdysvaltojen kaltaisen sotilasmahdin tarpeisiin ja resursseihin suunnitellun konseptin tarkastelussa tulee olla hyvin kriittinen ja realistinen.

Evaluation of an online, case-based interactive approach to teaching pathophysiology

AIM: The aim of this study was to evaluate a new pedagogical approach in teaching fluid, electrolyte and acid-base pathophysiology in undergraduate students. METHODS: This approach comprises traditional lectures, the study of clinical cases on the web and a final interactive discussion of these cases in the classroom. When on the web, the students are asked to select laboratory tests that seem most appropriate to understand the pathophysiological condition underlying the clinical case. The percentage of students having chosen a given test is made available to the teacher who uses it in an interactive session to stimulate discussion with the whole class of students. The same teacher used the same case studies during 2 consecutive years during the third year of the curriculum. RESULTS: The majority of students answered the questions on the web as requested and evaluated positively their experience with this form of teaching and learning. CONCLUSIONS: Complementing traditional lectures with online case-based studies and interactive group discussions represents, therefore, a simple means to promote the learning and the understanding of complex pathophysiological mechanisms. This simple problem-based approach to teaching and learning may be implemented to cover all fields of medicine.

A holistic approach to model-based testing of Web service compositions

The behavior of composed Web services depends on the results of the invoked services; unexpected behavior of one of the invoked services can threat the correct execution of an entire composition. This paper proposes an event-based approach to black-box testing of Web service compositions based on event sequence graphs, which are extended by facilities to deal not only with service behavior under regular circumstances (i.e., where cooperating services are working as expected) but also with their behavior in undesirable situations (i.e., where cooperating services are not working as expected). Furthermore, the approach can be used independently of artifacts (e.g., Business Process Execution Language) or type of composition (orchestration/choreography). A large case study, based on a commercial Web application, demonstrates the feasibility of the approach and analyzes its characteristics. Test generation and execution are supported by dedicated tools. Especially, the use of an enterprise service bus for test execution is noteworthy and differs from other approaches. The results of the case study encourage to suggest that the new approach has the power to detect faults systematically, performing properly even with complex and large compositions. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Efficient hybrid monocular-stereo approach to on-board, video-based traffic sign detection and tracking

In this paper we propose an innovative method for the automatic detection and tracking of road traffic signs using an onboard stereo camera. It involves a combination of monocular and stereo analysis strategies to increase the reliability of the detections such that it can boost the performance of any traffic sign recognition scheme. Firstly, an adaptive color and appearance based detection is applied at single camera level to generate a set of traffic sign hypotheses. In turn, stereo information allows for sparse 3D reconstruction of potential traffic signs through a SURF-based matching strategy. Namely, the plane that best fits the cloud of 3D points traced back from feature matches is estimated using a RANSAC based approach to improve robustness to outliers. Temporal consistency of the 3D information is ensured through a Kalman-based tracking stage. This also allows for the generation of a predicted 3D traffic sign model, which is in turn used to enhance the previously mentioned color-based detector through a feedback loop, thus improving detection accuracy. The proposed solution has been tested with real sequences under several illumination conditions and in both urban areas and highways, achieving very high detection rates in challenging environments, including rapid motion and significant perspective distortion