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Many vendors have acclaimed Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as a better way to design and build enterprise-wide information systems (EWIS). While these claims may be true in the private sector, there is scant evidence in the literature for the same success in the public sector. The adoption of Enterprise-wide SOA (ESOA) as the dominant development paradigm within an organization often requires significant organizational changes, which are difficult to achieve in the public sector, with its strict hierarchies and departmental independence. Although many government departments are beginning to adopt this new paradigm, the literature does not provide a suitable ESOA implementation readiness framework for use in the public sector. This research proposes a framework based on Critical Success Factors (CSFs) and a CSF scorecard to evaluate an organisation's ESOA implementation readiness. The framework and scorecard were tested in a test case in the Malaysian government, and the results validate the accuracy and usefulness of both the CSF Framework and the CSF Scorecard.

The literature shows that effective Online Patient Education (OPE) site can provide significant benefits to patients with a chronic disease. What remains unclear is which design features make OPE site effective, and which benefits can OPE actually provide. This paper addresses this by i) identifying 29 design features of effective OPE site ii) identifying 13 potential benefits and iii) statistically assessing the validity of both features and benefits using empirical data. The design features were initially classified as: patient tailored information, interactivity, user friendliness, content, and interpretability as necessary design features while the benefits were grouped as health benefits or social benefits. Following pilot testing, 141 patients and carers rated both design features and benefits. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was carried out and changes were made to both the design features and the benefits, resulting in more parsimonious and better organized sets of features and benefits.

The literature shows that effective Online Patient Education (OPE) site can provide significant benefits to patients with a chronic disease. What remains unclear is which design features make OPE site effective, and which benefits can OPE actually provide. This paper addresses this by i) identifying 29 design features of effective OPE site ii) identifying 13 potential benefits and iii) statistically assessing the validity of both features and benefits using empirical data. The design features were initially classified as: patient tailored information, interactivity, user friendliness, content, and interpretability as necessary design features while the benefits were grouped as health benefits or social benefits. Following pilot testing, 141 patients and carers rated both design features and benefits. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was carried out and changes were made to both the design features and the benefits, resulting in more parsimonious and better organized sets of features and benefits.

The literature shows that effective Online Patient Education (OPE) site can provide significant benefits to patients with a chronic disease. What remains unclear is which design features make OPE site effective, and which benefits can OPE actually provide. This paper addresses this by i) identifying 29 design features of effective OPE site ii) identifying 13 potential benefits and iii) statistically assessing the validity of both features and benefits using empirical data. The design features were initially classified as: patient tailored information, interactivity, user friendliness, content, and interpretability as necessary design features while the benefits were grouped as health benefits or social benefits. Following pilot testing, 141 patients and carers rated both design features and benefits. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was carried out and changes were made to both the design features and the benefits, resulting in more parsimonious and better organized sets of features and benefits.

Community information systems have the power to transform communities. However, without fully understanding the pre-requisite factors affecting community information system viability, and the complex relationships between these factors, communities struggle to manage such projects in a way that leads to viable systems that deliver real benefits. This paper develops and presents a Model of Community Information System Viability Pre-requisite Factors, based on both existing literature and the study of three community information system projects. This Model represents the generic factors that inform viability (i.e. leadership, active membership, funding, awareness, and system design and functionality), and also considers the impact of community context. This study argues that the viability of a Community Information System cannot be considered in isolation. All factors are directly impacted by the value of the Community Information System to the community. Management can also heavily impact on the success of a Community Information System.

The focus of healthcare has changed from healthcare provider paternalistic approach to consumer-focused approach. The aim of this study is to implement an online health information site for patient education of Diabetes. To achieve this, design criteria for effective patient education were considered and diabetes patients' information site was implemented, which includes patient information access, diabetes challenge, administrator module, and the scheduler module. Implementing patients' access for their health information with providing patients tailored health information according to their needs to enhance patient education is important. This project contributes vastly in consumer health informatics as it develops the system that will enhance consumer involvement in their own healthcare.

Many vendors have acclaimed Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as a better way to design and build enterprise-wide information systems (EWIS). While these claims may be true in the private sector, there is scant evidence in the literature for the same success in the public sector. The adoption of Enterprise-wide SOA (ESOA) as the dominant development paradigm within an organization often requires significant organizational changes, which are difficult to achieve in the public sector, with its strict hierarchies and departmental independence. Although many government departments are beginning to adopt this new paradigm, the literature does not provide a suitable ESOA implementation readiness framework for use in the public sector. This research proposes a framework based on Critical Success Factors (CSFs) and a CSF scorecard to evaluate an organisation's ESOA implementation readiness. The framework and scorecard were tested in a test case in the Malaysian government, and the results validate the accuracy and usefulness of both the CSF Framework and the CSF Scorecard.

The literature shows that effective Online Patient Education (OPE) site can provide significant benefits to patients with a chronic disease. What remains unclear is which design features make OPE site effective, and which benefits can OPE actually provide. This paper addresses this by i) identifying 29 design features of effective OPE site ii) identifying 13 potential benefits and iii) statistically assessing the validity of both features and benefits using empirical data. The design features were initially classified as: patient tailored information, interactivity, user friendliness, content, and interpretability as necessary design features while the benefits were grouped as health benefits or social benefits. Following pilot testing, 141 patients and carers rated both design features and benefits. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was carried out and changes were made to both the design features and the benefits, resulting in more parsimonious and better organized sets of features and benefits.

The focus of healthcare has changed from healthcare provider paternalistic approach to consumer-focused approach. The aim of this study is to implement an online health information site for patient education of Diabetes. To achieve this, design criteria for effective patient education were considered and diabetes patients' information site was implemented, which includes patient information access, diabetes challenge, administrator module, and the scheduler module. Implementing patients' access for their health information with providing patients tailored health information according to their needs to enhance patient education is important. This project contributes vastly in consumer health informatics as it develops the system that will enhance consumer involvement in their own healthcare.

Like other Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs), medical practices can gain a great deal by adopting and using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Unlike other SMEs, little is known about General Practitioners' (GPs) perceptions of the benefits of ICT use or about the differences between these perceptions by male and female GPs. This chapter reports a survey of these perceptions of the drivers for and benefits of ICT use by male and female GPs in Australia.

This work considers maintaining materialized view in a distributed environment where the collaboration from highly autonomous operational database management systems is limited to granting read only access on a set of selected relational tables. In addition, due to possibly large volumes of remote source data involved in the view maintenance process, and consequently enormous overhead associated with data transfer, efficiency issues must been taken into the consideration. This proposal is based on the observation that usually, there is a large amount of static data in relational tables. It is proposed to use some statistical techniques at data warehouse system to helps us understand the essential characteristics of raw data at remote sites. Based on the characteristics of raw data, some optimization techniques are presented. © 2012 ICST.

This work considers maintaining materialized view in a distributed environment where the collaboration from highly autonomous operational database management systems is limited to granting read only access on a set of selected relational tables. In addition, due to possibly large volumes of remote source data involved in the view maintenance process, and consequently enormous overhead associated with data transfer, efficiency issues must been taken into the consideration. This proposal is based on the observation that usually, there is a large amount of static data in relational tables. It is proposed to use some statistical techniques at data warehouse system to helps us understand the essential characteristics of raw data at remote sites. Based on the characteristics of raw data, some optimization techniques are presented. © 2012 ICST.

Like other Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs), medical practices can gain a great deal by adopting and using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Unlike other SMEs, little is known about General Practitioners' (GPs) perceptions of the benefits of ICT use or about the differences between these perceptions by male and female GPs. This chapter reports a survey of these perceptions of the drivers for and benefits of ICT use by male and female GPs in Australia.

This work considers maintaining materialized view in a distributed environment where the collaboration from highly autonomous operational database management systems is limited to granting read only access on a set of selected relational tables. In addition, due to possibly large volumes of remote source data involved in the view maintenance process, and consequently enormous overhead associated with data transfer, efficiency issues must been taken into the consideration. This proposal is based on the observation that usually, there is a large amount of static data in relational tables. It is proposed to use some statistical techniques at data warehouse system to helps us understand the essential characteristics of raw data at remote sites. Based on the characteristics of raw data, some optimization techniques are presented. © 2012 ICST.

Like other Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs), medical practices can gain a great deal by adopting and using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Unlike other SMEs, little is known about General Practitioners' (GPs) perceptions of the benefits of ICT use or about the differences between these perceptions by male and female GPs. This chapter reports a survey of these perceptions of the drivers for and benefits of ICT use by male and female GPs in Australia.

This work considers maintaining materialized view in a distributed environment where the collaboration from highly autonomous operational database management systems is limited to granting read only access on a set of selected relational tables. In addition, due to possibly large volumes of remote source data involved in the view maintenance process, and consequently enormous overhead associated with data transfer, efficiency issues must been taken into the consideration. This proposal is based on the observation that usually, there is a large amount of static data in relational tables. It is proposed to use some statistical techniques at data warehouse system to helps us understand the essential characteristics of raw data at remote sites. Based on the characteristics of raw data, some optimization techniques are presented. © 2012 ICST.

Like other Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs), medical practices can gain a great deal by adopting and using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Unlike other SMEs, little is known about General Practitioners' (GPs) perceptions of the benefits of ICT use or about the differences between these perceptions by male and female GPs. This chapter reports a survey of these perceptions of the drivers for and benefits of ICT use by male and female GPs in Australia.

Student attrition is of particular concern in the field of ICT because the industry faces staffing shortfalls, generally and a noticeable lack of female employees. This paper explores the reasons students give for leaving their ICT courses and examines gender differences in them. An online survey of early leavers from four Australian universities was conducted. The results show that, for many students, a combination of issues lead to their withdrawal. Whilst the gender imbalance was certainly noted, sexist behaviour from male staff or students was not rated highly as an issue in terms of the withdrawal of female students from their course. Females ex-students were however more likely to believe that they didn't have the expected background knowledge for the course, didn't understand the concepts, or didn't understand the meaning of terms used in the course. Recommendations are made to address issues that could be mitigated by university action.

Governments worldwide have, increasingly, implemented e-government initiatives for their potential significant benefits; among which, delivering better services to citizens through increasing citizens' convenience, satisfaction, and independence; and saving their time, effort, and cost. Achieving each benefit is an objective to these governments and fulfilling each objective is considered a critical success factors. Hence, governments need to assess the extent to which they were able to obtain their preset goals. This study merely focuses on the citizens' perspective of the evaluation. However, the literature seems to lack studies that propose such a sufficient evaluation tool that has been reliably validated. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to fill this gap by proposing and validating a conceptual model and an associated evaluation tool which measures the e-government performance from citizens' perspective. The model includes factors which impact citizens' perceptions and their psychological and tangible benefits which, in turn, influence their adoption. The model was validated by a survey method and analyzed using PLS. The results support our model and shows that almost all paths in the proposed model are significant.

Governments worldwide have, increasingly, implemented e-government initiatives for their potential significant benefits; among which, delivering better services to citizens through increasing citizens' convenience, satisfaction, and independence; and saving their time, effort, and cost. Achieving each benefit is an objective to these governments and fulfilling each objective is considered a critical success factors. Hence, governments need to assess the extent to which they were able to obtain their preset goals. This study merely focuses on the citizens' perspective of the evaluation. However, the literature seems to lack studies that propose such a sufficient evaluation tool that has been reliably validated. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to fill this gap by proposing and validating a conceptual model and an associated evaluation tool which measures the e-government performance from citizens' perspective. The model includes factors which impact citizens' perceptions and their psychological and tangible benefits which, in turn, influence their adoption. The model was validated by a survey method and analyzed using PLS. The results support our model and shows that almost all paths in the proposed model are significant.

Governments worldwide have, increasingly, implemented e-government initiatives for their potential significant benefits; among which, delivering better services to citizens through increasing citizens' convenience, satisfaction, and independence; and saving their time, effort, and cost. Achieving each benefit is an objective to these governments and fulfilling each objective is considered a critical success factors. Hence, governments need to assess the extent to which they were able to obtain their preset goals. This study merely focuses on the citizens' perspective of the evaluation. However, the literature seems to lack studies that propose such a sufficient evaluation tool that has been reliably validated. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to fill this gap by proposing and validating a conceptual model and an associated evaluation tool which measures the e-government performance from citizens' perspective. The model includes factors which impact citizens' perceptions and their psychological and tangible benefits which, in turn, influence their adoption. The model was validated by a survey method and analyzed using PLS. The results support our model and shows that almost all paths in the proposed model are significant.

Governments worldwide have, increasingly, implemented e-government initiatives for their potential significant benefits; among which, delivering better services to citizens through increasing citizens' convenience, satisfaction, and independence; and saving their time, effort, and cost. Achieving each benefit is an objective to these governments and fulfilling each objective is considered a critical success factors. Hence, governments need to assess the extent to which they were able to obtain their preset goals. This study merely focuses on the citizens' perspective of the evaluation. However, the literature seems to lack studies that propose such a sufficient evaluation tool that has been reliably validated. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to fill this gap by proposing and validating a conceptual model and an associated evaluation tool which measures the e-government performance from citizens' perspective. The model includes factors which impact citizens' perceptions and their psychological and tangible benefits which, in turn, influence their adoption. The model was validated by a survey method and analyzed using PLS. The results support our model and shows that almost all paths in the proposed model are significant.

Many vendors have acclaimed Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as a better way to design and build enterprise-wide software. While these claims may be true in the private sector, there is scant evidence in the literature for the same success in the public sector. The adoption of SOA as the dominant development paradigm within an organisation often requires significant organisational changes, which are difficult to achieve in the public sector, with its strict hierarchies and departmental independence. Indeed, many government departments are not ready to adopt this new paradigm. However, the literature does not provide a suitable SOA readiness framework for use in the public sector. This research proposes such a SOA readiness framework, based on Critical Success Factors associated with the three phases of a process model. The framework was tested in two case studies in the Malaysian government, and initial results validate the usefulness of the framework. © 2011 Mahshitah Abdul Manan & Peter Hyland.

We describe the signal-processing firmware and software for a frequency-domain multiplexed (FDM) biasing and demodulation system that reads out Transition Edge Sensor (TES) bolometer arrays for mm-wavelength cosmology telescopes. This system replaces a mixed-signal readout backend with a much smaller, more power-efficient system relying on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) for control, computation and signal processing. The new system is sufficiently robust, automated, and power efficient to be flown on stratospheric balloon-borne telescopes and is being further developed for satellite applications.

We describe the signal-processing firmware and software for a frequency-domain multiplexed (FDM) biasing and demodulation system that reads out Transition Edge Sensor (TES) bolometer arrays for mm-wavelength cosmology telescopes. This system replaces a mixed-signal readout backend with a much smaller, more power-efficient system relying on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) for control, computation and signal processing. The new system is sufficiently robust, automated, and power efficient to be flown on stratospheric balloon-borne telescopes and is being further developed for satellite applications.

A number of studies both within medical practices as well as the wider small business sector suggest that gender plays a role in both decision-making and the running of the business. Yet despite these apparent differences, the role of gender in the adoption of ICT in medical practices has remained largely ignored. This paper presents a study of 196 GPs (128 males, 68 females) who have adopted ICT in their practice. The results of this study show that the perception of drivers of ICT adoption and use in medical practices appear to differ depending on the gender of the GP. Where male GPs consider that there are 3 distinct underlying reasons for ICT adoption (medical/ business efficiency, external pressure, enhanced communication), female GPs couple enhanced communication with medical/business efficiency as the single most important driver for ICT adoption.

A number of studies have compared general medical practices in rural locations with those in urban locations. Some of these studies have concentrated on the reasons why a GP might choose to work in a rural or urban setting. Others have examined the type of work required to be undertaken by medical professionals. Increasing use of information and communications technology (ICT) in medical practices has led to some studies examining their use in rural as well as urban settings. However, little if any research has examined whether ICT adoption drivers differ between rural and urban GPs based on their organisational characteristics. This paper presents a study of 198 GPs (122 rural, 76 urban) in Australia. The results show that organisational characteristics are associated with the importance of the drivers for ICT adoption and that these characteristics differ between rural and urban GPs. These findings have important practical and theoretical contributions because it shows that ICT adoption decisions must be contextualised and that it is unlikely that universal adoption drivers will apply to all general practices.

A number of studies both within medical practices as well as the wider small business sector suggest that gender plays a role in both decision-making and the running of the business. Yet despite these apparent differences, the role of gender in the adoption of ICT in medical practices has remained largely ignored. This paper presents a study of 196 GPs (128 males, 68 females) who have adopted ICT in their practice. The results of this study show that the perception of drivers of ICT adoption and use in medical practices appear to differ depending on the gender of the GP. Where male GPs consider that there are 3 distinct underlying reasons for ICT adoption (medical/ business efficiency, external pressure, enhanced communication), female GPs couple enhanced communication with medical/business efficiency as the single most important driver for ICT adoption.

A number of studies have compared general medical practices in rural locations with those in urban locations. Some of these studies have concentrated on the reasons why a GP might choose to work in a rural or urban setting. Others have examined the type of work required to be undertaken by medical professionals. Increasing use of information and communications technology (ICT) in medical practices has led to some studies examining their use in rural as well as urban settings. However, little if any research has examined whether ICT adoption drivers differ between rural and urban GPs based on their organisational characteristics. This paper presents a study of 198 GPs (122 rural, 76 urban) in Australia. The results show that organisational characteristics are associated with the importance of the drivers for ICT adoption and that these characteristics differ between rural and urban GPs. These findings have important practical and theoretical contributions because it shows that ICT adoption decisions must be contextualised and that it is unlikely that universal adoption drivers will apply to all general practices.

A number of studies have compared general medical practices in rural locations with those in urban locations. Some of these studies have concentrated on the reasons why a GP might choose to work in a rural or urban setting. Others have examined the type of work required to be undertaken by medical professionals. Increasing use of information and communications technology (ICT) in medical practices has led to some studies examining their use in rural as well as urban settings. However, little if any research has examined whether ICT adoption drivers differ between rural and urban GPs based on their organisational characteristics. This paper presents a study of 198 GPs (122 rural, 76 urban) in Australia. The results show that organisational characteristics are associated with the importance of the drivers for ICT adoption and that these characteristics differ between rural and urban GPs. These findings have important practical and theoretical contributions because it shows that ICT adoption decisions must be contextualised and that it is unlikely that universal adoption drivers will apply to all general practices.

A number of studies both within medical practices as well as the wider small business sector suggest that gender plays a role in both decision-making and the running of the business. Yet despite these apparent differences, the role of gender in the adoption of ICT in medical practices has remained largely ignored. This paper presents a study of 196 GPs (128 males, 68 females) who have adopted ICT in their practice. The results of this study show that the perception of drivers of ICT adoption and use in medical practices appear to differ depending on the gender of the GP. Where male GPs consider that there are 3 distinct underlying reasons for ICT adoption (medical/ business efficiency, external pressure, enhanced communication), female GPs couple enhanced communication with medical/business efficiency as the single most important driver for ICT adoption.

Increasing use of ICT technologies in medical practices has led to a number of studies examining their use in rural as well as urban settings. The purpose of this study is to examine how GPs in rural and urban practice group and prioritise the driving forces for ICT adoption. Correlation and factor analysis was performed on the data sets (198 GPs, 122 Rural - 76 urban) obtained by means of a survey questionnaire. Not only do the results show that the drivers can be 'simplified' from 16 to 2 or 3, but they also show that there are differences both in the grouping and priorities placed on certain drivers between rural and urban GPs. Whereas rural GPs consider that there are 3 distinct underlying reasons for ICT adoption (medical/business efficiency, external pressure, enhanced communication), urban GPs couple external pressure with enhanced communications as a single driver for ICT adoption.

Increasing use of ICT technologies in medical practices has led to a number of studies examining their use in rural as well as urban settings. The purpose of this study is to examine how GPs in rural and urban practice group and prioritise the driving forces for ICT adoption. Correlation and factor analysis was performed on the data sets (198 GPs, 122 Rural - 76 urban) obtained by means of a survey questionnaire. Not only do the results show that the drivers can be 'simplified' from 16 to 2 or 3, but they also show that there are differences both in the grouping and priorities placed on certain drivers between rural and urban GPs. Whereas rural GPs consider that there are 3 distinct underlying reasons for ICT adoption (medical/business efficiency, external pressure, enhanced communication), urban GPs couple external pressure with enhanced communications as a single driver for ICT adoption.

Cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarimetry has the potential to provide revolutionary advances in cosmology. Future experiments to detect the very weak B mode signal in CMB polarization maps will require unprecedented sensitivity and control of systematic errors. Bolometric interferometry may provide a way to achieve these goals. In a bolometric interferometer (or other adding interferometer), phase shift sequences are applied to the inputs in order to recover the visibilities. Noise is minimized when the phase shift sequences corresponding to all visibilities are orthogonal. We present a systematic method for finding sequences that produce this orthogonality, approximately minimizing both the length of the time sequence and the number of discrete phase shift values required. When some baselines are geometrically equivalent, we can choose sequences that read out those baselines simultaneously, which has been shown to improve signal to noise ratio., Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure

Cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarimetry has the potential to provide revolutionary advances in cosmology. Future experiments to detect the very weak B mode signal in CMB polarization maps will require unprecedented sensitivity and control of systematic errors. Bolometric interferometry may provide a way to achieve these goals. In a bolometric interferometer (or other adding interferometer), phase shift sequences are applied to the inputs in order to recover the visibilities. Noise is minimized when the phase shift sequences corresponding to all visibilities are orthogonal. We present a systematic method for finding sequences that produce this orthogonality, approximately minimizing both the length of the time sequence and the number of discrete phase shift values required. When some baselines are geometrically equivalent, we can choose sequences that read out those baselines simultaneously, which has been shown to improve signal to noise ratio., Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure

Increasing use of ICT technologies in medical practices has led to a number of studies examining their use in rural as well as urban settings. The purpose of this study is to examine how GPs in rural and urban practice group and prioritise the driving forces for ICT adoption. Correlation and factor analysis was performed on the data sets (198 GPs, 122 Rural - 76 urban) obtained by means of a survey questionnaire. Not only do the results show that the drivers can be 'simplified' from 16 to 2 or 3, but they also show that there are differences both in the grouping and priorities placed on certain drivers between rural and urban GPs. Whereas rural GPs consider that there are 3 distinct underlying reasons for ICT adoption (medical/business efficiency, external pressure, enhanced communication), urban GPs couple external pressure with enhanced communications as a single driver for ICT adoption.

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) are being used more and more by general practitioners (GPs) in their day-to-day activities. While a number of studies have shown that ICT adoption and use can provide real benefits to medical practices, there have been few studies to determine whether the perception of those benefits is uniform across the sector. This study examines whether differences in the perception of benefits exist between male and female GPs. The results suggest that the groupings and priorities of benefits arising from ICT use differ substantially between male and female GPs. Results also show, amongst other things, that male GPs are focussed on business efficiency, while female GPs are focussed on communication and practice expansion.

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) are being used more and more by general practitioners (GPs) in their day-to-day activities. While a number of studies have shown that ICT adoption and use can provide real benefits to medical practices, there have been few studies to determine whether the perception of those benefits is uniform across the sector. This study examines whether differences in the perception of benefits exist between male and female GPs. The results suggest that the groupings and priorities of benefits arising from ICT use differ substantially between male and female GPs. Results also show, amongst other things, that male GPs are focussed on business efficiency, while female GPs are focussed on communication and practice expansion.

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) are being used more and more by general practitioners (GPs) in their day-to-day activities. While a number of studies have shown that ICT adoption and use can provide real benefits to medical practices, there have been few studies to determine whether the perception of those benefits is uniform across the sector. This study examines whether differences in the perception of benefits exist between male and female GPs. The results suggest that the groupings and priorities of benefits arising from ICT use differ substantially between male and female GPs. Results also show, amongst other things, that male GPs are focussed on business efficiency, while female GPs are focussed on communication and practice expansion.

This paper presents work being done on the optical design and analysis of the beam combiner for the millimeter-wave bolometric interferometer (MBI), a ground based instrument designed to measure the polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background at a central frequency of 90 GHz. Interferometry has never before been used to carry out such measurements at this frequency, nor using incoherent bolometers as detectors. MBI will therefore act as a prototype for this type of system and must be modeled in detail to ensure that its operation is fully understood.

This paper presents work being done on the optical design and analysis of the beam combiner for the millimeter-wave bolometric interferometer (MBI), a ground based instrument designed to measure the polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background at a central frequency of 90 GHz. Interferometry has never before been used to carry out such measurements at this frequency, nor using incoherent bolometers as detectors. MBI will therefore act as a prototype for this type of system and must be modeled in detail to ensure that its operation is fully understood.

This paper presents work being done on the optical design and analysis of the beam combiner for the millimeter-wave bolometric interferometer (MBI), a ground based instrument designed to measure the polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background at a central frequency of 90 GHz. Interferometry has never before been used to carry out such measurements at this frequency, nor using incoherent bolometers as detectors. MBI will therefore act as a prototype for this type of system and must be modeled in detail to ensure that its operation is fully understood.

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) are being used more and more by general practitioners (GPs) in their day-to-day activities. While a number of studies have shown that ICT adoption and use can provide real benefits to medical practices, there have been few studies to determine whether the perception of those benefits is uniform across the sector. This study examines whether differences in the perception of benefits exist between male and female GPs. The results suggest that the groupings and priorities of benefits arising from ICT use differ substantially between male and female GPs. Results also show, amongst other things, that male GPs are focussed on business efficiency, while female GPs are focussed on communication and practice expansion.

One of the most crucial aspects of highly interactive, multi-user, organisational systems is the interface. The Human Computer Interaction (HCI) community has not adopted rigorous Formal Methods with open arms (Paterno, 1996). However, the HCI community has widely adopted Usability Engineering approaches (Corporate Solutions 2006), such as Nielsen’s (1994), which offers considerable formality. There remains, however, scope for user interface (UI) design to adopt a theoretical framework to enhance consistency across the whole design and development lifecycle. A theoretically-consistent framework from initial conceptual elicitation to evaluation of the finished product may prove useful. Since the aim of UI design is to produce interfaces that assist users to carry out their day-to-day activities, particularly in an organisational setting, a psychological and sociological theory could be a serious candidate for the informing theoretical framework. We suggest that Activity Theory (AT) would be a useful framework and could serve as the basis for an endto- end system analysis and design method for highly interactive, multi-user systems. In this paper, we present an AT-based analysis and design method (called the 5-S Method) and a preliminary test example, used to test the method and explore the suitability of AT.

Unlike a traditional software module, which runs within a predictable domain, Web Services are autonomous software agents running in a heterogeneous execution environment. Because of distributed responsibilities, ownership and control, it is often not feasible to acquire all information needed for the service composition. These characteristics of autonomy and heterogeneity are fundamental to service oriented computing but make it inherently difficult to avoid service conflicts. To reason about and adapt to a changing environment, in this work, we will extend current OWL-S by introducing the concept of service assumptions which allow reasoning with incomplete information. Furthermore, together with the proposed service assumptions, a sequence of rules is proposed to describe all permitted behaviors in service composition context.

One of the most crucial aspects of highly interactive, multi-user, organisational systems is the interface. The Human Computer Interaction (HCI) community has not adopted rigorous Formal Methods with open arms (Paterno, 1996). However, the HCI community has widely adopted Usability Engineering approaches (Corporate Solutions 2006), such as Nielsen’s (1994), which offers considerable formality. There remains, however, scope for user interface (UI) design to adopt a theoretical framework to enhance consistency across the whole design and development lifecycle. A theoretically-consistent framework from initial conceptual elicitation to evaluation of the finished product may prove useful. Since the aim of UI design is to produce interfaces that assist users to carry out their day-to-day activities, particularly in an organisational setting, a psychological and sociological theory could be a serious candidate for the informing theoretical framework. We suggest that Activity Theory (AT) would be a useful framework and could serve as the basis for an endto- end system analysis and design method for highly interactive, multi-user systems. In this paper, we present an AT-based analysis and design method (called the 5-S Method) and a preliminary test example, used to test the method and explore the suitability of AT.