Search

Background: In respect of the principle of autonomy and the right of self-determination, obtaining an informed consent of potential participants before their inclusion in a study is a fundamental ethical obligation. The variations in national laws, regulations, and cultures contribute to complex informed consent documents for patients participating in clinical trials. Currently, only few ethics committees seem willing to address the complexity and the length of these documents and to request investigators and sponsors to revise them in a way to make them understandable for potential participants. The purpose of this work is to focus on the written information in the informed consent documentation for drug development clinical trials and suggests (i) to distinguish between necessary and not essential information, (ii) to define the optimal format allowing the best legibility of those documents., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Objective Most preventable adverse drug events and medication errors occur during medication ordering. Medication order entry and clinical decision support are available on paper or as computerized systems. In this post-hoc analysis we investigated frequency and clinical impact of blood glucose (BG) documentation- and user-related calculation errors as well as workflow deviations in diabetes management. We aimed to compare a paper-based protocol to a computerized medication management system combined with clinical workflow and decision support. Methods Seventy-nine hospitalized patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus were treated with an algorithm driven basal-bolus insulin regimen. BG measurements, which were the basis for insulin dose calculations, were manually entered either into the paper-based workflow protocol (PaperG: 37 patients) or into GlucoTab ® —a mobile tablet PC based system (CompG: 42 patients). We used BG values from the laboratory information system as a reference. A workflow simulator was used to determine user calculation errors as well as workflow deviations and to estimate the effect of errors on insulin doses. The clinical impact of insulin dosing errors and workflow deviations on hypo- and hyperglycemia was investigated. Results The BG documentation error rate was similar for PaperG (4.9%) and CompG group (4.0%). In PaperG group, 11.1% of manual insulin dose calculations were erroneous and the odds ratio (OR) of a hypoglycemic event following an insulin dosing error was 3.1 (95% CI: 1.4–6.8). The number of BG values influenced by insulin dosing errors was eightfold higher than in the CompG group. In the CompG group, workflow deviations occurred in 5.0% of the tasks which led to an increased likelihood of hyperglycemia, OR 2.2 (95% CI: 1.1–4.6). Discussion Manual insulin dose calculations were the major source of error and had a particularly strong influence on hypoglycemia. By using GlucoTab ® , user calculation errors were entirely excluded. The immediate availability and automated handling of BG values from medical devices directly at the point of care has a high potential to reduce errors. Computerized systems facilitate the safe use of more complex insulin dosing algorithms without compromising usability. In CompG group, missed or delayed tasks had a significant effect on hyperglycemia, while in PaperG group insufficient precision of documentation times limited analysis. The use of old BG measurements was clinically less relevant. Conclusion Insulin dosing errors and workflow deviations led to measurable changes in clinical outcome. Diabetes management systems including decision support should address nurses as well as physicians in a computerized way. Our analysis shows that such systems reduce the frequency of errors and therefore decrease the probability of hypo- and hyperglycemia.

The nursing care plan plays an essential role in supporting care provision in Australian aged care. The implementation of electronic systems in aged care homes was anticipated to improve documentation quality. Standardized nursing terminologies, developed to improve communication and advance the nursing profession, are not required in aged care practice. The language used by nurses in the nursing care plan and the effect of the electronic system on documentation quality in residential aged care need to be investigated.To describe documentation practice for the nursing care plan in Australian residential aged care homes and to compare the quantity and quality of documentation in paper-based and electronic nursing care plans.A nursing documentation audit was conducted in seven residential aged care homes in Australia. One hundred and eleven paper-based and 194 electronic nursing care plans, conveniently selected, were reviewed. The quantity of documentation in a care plan was determined by the number of phrases describing a resident problem and the number of goals and interventions. The quality of documentation was measured using 16 relevant questions in an instrument developed for the study.There was a tendency to omit 'nursing problem' or 'nursing diagnosis' in the nursing process by changing these terms (used in the paper-based care plan) to 'observation' in the electronic version. The electronic nursing care plan documented more signs and symptoms of resident problems and evaluation of care than the paper-based format (48.30 vs. 47.34 out of 60, P0.01), but had a lower total mean quality score. The electronic care plan contained fewer problem or diagnosis statements, contributing factors and resident outcomes than the paper-based system (P0.01). Both types of nursing care plan were weak in documenting measurable and concrete resident outcomes.The overall quality of documentation content for the nursing process was no better in the electronic system than in the paper-based system. Omission of the nursing problem or diagnosis from the nursing process may reflect a range of factors behind the practice that need to be understood. Further work is also needed on qualitative aspects of the nurse care plan, nurses' attitudes towards standardized terminologies and the effect of different documentation practice on care quality and resident outcomes.

Purpose The comprehensive identification and delineation of organs at risk (OARs) are vital to the quality of radiation therapy treatment planning and the safety of treatment delivery. This guidance aims to improve the consistency of ontouring OARs in external beam radiation therapy treatment planning by providing a single standardized resource for information regarding specific OARs to be contoured for each disease site. The guidance is organized in table format as a quality assurance tool for practices and a training resource for residents and other radiation oncology students (see supplementary materials). Methods and Materials The Task Force formulated recommendations based on clinical practice and consensus. The draft manuscript was peer reviewed by 16 reviewers, the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) legal counsel, and ASTRO's Multidisciplinary Quality Assurance Subcommittee and revised accordingly. The recommendations were posted on the ASTRO website for public comment in June 2018 for a 6-week period. The final document was approved by the ASTRO Board of Directors in August 2018. Results Standardization improves patient safety, efficiency, and accuracy in radiation oncology treatment. This consensus guidance represents an ASTRO quality initiative to provide recommendations for the standardization of normal tissue contouring that is performed during external beam treatment planning for each anatomic treatment site. Table 1 defines 2 sets of structures for anatomic sites: Those that are recommended in all adult definitive cases and may assist with organ selection for palliative cases, and those that should be considered on a case-by-case basis depending on the specific clinical scenario. Table 2 outlines some of the resources available to define the parameters of general OAR tissue delineation. Conclusions Using this paper in conjunction with resources that define tissue parameters and published dose constraints will enable practices to develop a consistent approach to normal tissue evaluation and dose documentation.

Objective Healthcare organizations are increasingly implementing electronic health records (EHRs) and other related health information technology (IT). Even in institutions which have long adopted these computerized systems, employees continue to rely on paper to complete their work. The objective of this study was to explore and understand human-technology integration factors that may be causing employees to rely on paper alternatives to the EHR. Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 key-informants in a large Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC), with a fully implemented EHR, to understand the use of paper-based alternatives. Participants included clinicians, administrators, and IT specialists across several service areas in the medical center. Results We found 11 distinct categories of paper-based workarounds to the use of the EHR. Paper use related to the following: (1) efficiency; (2) knowledge/skill/ease of use; (3) memory; (4) sensorimotor preferences; (5) awareness; (6) task specificity; (7) task complexity; (8) data organization; (9) longitudinal data processes; (10) trust; and (11) security. We define each of these and provide examples that demonstrate how these categories promoted paper use in spite of a fully implemented EHR. Conclusions In several cases, paper served as an important tool and assisted healthcare employees in their work. In other cases, paper use circumvented the intended EHR design, introduced potential gaps in documentation, and generated possible paths to medical error. We discuss implications of these findings for EHR design and implementation.

Topic Significance & Study Purpose/Background/Rationale Data managers auditing infusion forms consistently found incomplete source documentation. Incomplete source documentation places the hospital at risk during audits necessary for accreditation, and is contrary to the institution's goal of submitting quality data to optimize clinical decision making for the benefit of its patients. Methods, Intervention, & Analysis For six months, data managers used paper data collection tools to document six different types of incomplete source documentation. Colorful, high-impact charts were designed to present data on the frequency of missing documentation and incomplete documentation types by hospital unit. Hospital program leadership reviewed the charts weekly. Unit nurse managers reviewed the charts after the initial three months and identified a data collection improvement. The data managers’ supervisor contacted hospital nurse educators and offered to provide an educational in-service for floor nurses to understand the types of incomplete documentation. Then, an educational in-service was provided to one of the three hospital units. Data managers continued to collect data for an additional three months. Findings & Interpretation The project was limited in duration and data managers did not collect data long enough to measure a significant change in source documentation quality after the education in-service on the nursing unit. Senior leadership did not provide direction on what steps should be taken after the project to improve source documentation quality. Data managers expressed frustration with their inability to improve the data collection process themselves and also with the difficulty of initiating change across hospital units and management levels. Discussion & Implications Data managers created custom paper data collection tools to track incomplete source documentation over a six-month period. Not enough data existed after an educational intervention to make meaningful statistical conclusions. The lack of involvement from hospital leadership stakeholders and key nurse managers was a major limitation. Because auditing source documentation for submission to the CIBMTR was already part of data managers’ workflow, the quality project required minimal time and required few materials. Paper data collection tools could be easily replicated for use at other institutions.

Objective: to evaluate the results of parallel use of both paper based and electronic patient records with respect to concordance of corresponding information in two continuously updated versions of the same records. Design: retrospective evaluation of patient records, comparing documentation in electronic and paper based patient records. Setting: Department of Neurology in a Norwegian university hospital using paper based and electronic patient records in parallel during migration towards completely electronic patient records. Material: electronic and paper based patient records of 90 randomly selected patients visiting the department between 1 November 1997 and 30 April 1999. Results: seven percent of the electronic documents were significantly different in some way from the corresponding paper documents. About 4–13% of the documents in the electronic record were missing; one percent were missing from the paper record. Conclusion: parallel use of electronic and paper based patient records has resulted in inconsistencies between the record systems in our setting. Documentation is missing in both the electronic and paperbased records. When implementing electronic record systems intended to operate in parallel with paperbased systems, focus should be on securing the validity of all versions of the record.

Prior research reports that the memories of working paper preparers may be biased toward evidence consistent with their prior decisions, but that reviewers exposed to the same set of evidence can mitigate the bias by evaluating inconsistent evidence. This study tests whether audit seniors’ decisions bias their ability to recognize evidence to document in working papers, and whether biased documentation affects the decisions of audit partners who are exposed only to the subset of evidence that seniors recognize and document. Experiment 1 confirms that audit seniors’ prior decisions bias their memories for evidence to document in working papers, and also creates materials for experiment 2. Experiment 2 offers a new insight: when exposed only to the evidence that seniors recognize and document, partners make decisions biased in the direction of the seniors’ decisions, since not all of the inconsistent evidence is documented. Experimental procedures controlled for four alternative interpretations: justification, evidence order, recency, and primacy.

Scottish mental health legislation includes a unique criterion for the use of compulsion in the delivery of mental health care and treatment. Under the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act, 2003, patients must exhibit ‘significantly impaired decision-making ability’ (SIDMA) in order to be eligible for psychiatric detention or involuntary psychiatric treatment outside the forensic context. The SIDMA requirement represents a distinctive strategy in ongoing international efforts to rethink the conditions under which psychiatric compulsion is permissible. We reconstruct the history of the Scottish SIDMA requirement, analyse its differences from so-called ‘fusion law,’ and then examine how the SIDMA standard actually functions in practice. We analyse 100 reports that accompany applications for Compulsory Treatment Orders (CTOs). Based on this analysis, we provide a profile of the patient population that is found to exhibit SIDMA, identify the grounds upon which SIDMA is attributed to individual patients, and offer an assessment of the quality of the documentation of SIDMA. We demonstrate that there are systemic areas of poor practice in the reporting of SIDMA, with only 12% of CTOs satisfying the minimum standard of formal completeness endorsed by the Mental Welfare Commission. We consider what lessons might be drawn both for the ongoing review of mental health legislation in Scotland, and for law reform initiatives in other jurisdictions.

Ethical and legal requirements for healthcare providers in the United States, stipulate that patients sign a consent form prior to undergoing medical treatment or participating in a research study. Currently, the majority of the hospitals obtain these consents using paper-based forms, which makes patient preference data cumbersome to store, search and retrieve. To address these issues, Health Sciences of South Carolina (HSSC), a collaborative of academic medical institutions and research universities in South Carolina, is developing an electronic consenting system, the Research Permissions Management System (RPMS). This article reports the findings of a study conducted to investigate the efficacy of the two proposed interfaces for this system - an iPad-based and touchscreen-based by comparing them to the paper-based and Topaz-based systems currently in use.This study involved 50 participants: 10 hospital admission staff and 40 patients. The four systems were compared with respect to the time taken to complete the consenting process, the number of errors made by the patients, the workload experienced by the hospital staff and the subjective ratings of both patients and staff on post-test questionnaires.The results from the empirical study indicated no significant differences in the time taken to complete the tasks. More importantly, the participants found the new systems more usable than the conventional methods with the registration staff experiencing the least workload in the iPad and touchscreen-based conditions and the patients experiencing more privacy and control during the consenting process with the proposed electronic systems. In addition, they indicated better comprehension and awareness of what they were signing using the new interfaces.The results indicate the two methods proposed for capturing patient consents are at least as effective as the conventional methods, and superior in several important respects. While more research is needed, these findings suggest the viability of cautious adoption of electronic consenting systems, especially because these new systems appear to address the challenge of identifying the participants required for the complex research being conducted as the result of advances in the biomedical sciences.

The final assembly of an aircraft or a spacecraft is a rigorous task that requires full traceability of the parts installed, their fabrication processes, and the assembly work. This is also the case for each of its sub-assemblies. Safety and security go hand in hand in the production of these flying machines, and even more so for satellites and space-shuttles. The many parts and sub-assemblies that compose the final spacecraft, make full traceability a challenging fit, that is almost unsurmountable. Such traceability is not existent today and must be based on documentation of most assembled parts, assembly tasks, and inspection tasks that compose the full spacecraft. In addition, security measures are needed to prevent hostile hacking and unauthorized approach to the space-craft assembly documentation. This paper describes a framework that harnesses smart-contract and blockchain technology to offer traceable and secure documentation of the assembly process. The concept of a Bill-Of-Assembly (BOA) is introduced which incorporates data from the bill of materials, the bill of operations and processes, and the bill of resources (machines and/or operators). The paper describes the use of the BOA with smart-contract and blockchain technology for getting full traceability, safety, and security for the spacecraft. Finally, we show that this BOA data structure could be the backbone of a digital twin of the spacecraft. Future research could extend the proposed approach to other assembly processes such as automotive assembly lines.

Archaeology has a long history of appropriating methods from other disciplines. Remote sensing techniques are an underexploited resource that have the potential to advance the study of rock art by improving visualization and analysis, and automating tasks such as detection and tracing. Remote sensing involves acquiring data from an object without making physical contact. Usually it describes data obtained from satellites or aircraft from a distance, but that is a limited definition. Remote sensing is not simply about the distance data is collected from, but it is the process of recording, measuring, and analyzing images and electromagnetic radiant energy (Ebert, 1984). Techniques that are used in satellite imaging can be used on a microscale to record, enhance, and analyze rock art. Documenting cultural heritage gives it meaning, develops understanding, allows it to be defined, and allows for recognition of its value (Haddad, 2011). Recently, there have been good resources for digital documentation of cultural heritage such as artifacts, architectural structures, boats, and manuscripts. (Bassier et al., 2018; Bentkowska-Kafel and MacDonald, 2018; Pavlidis et al., 2007). The aim of this paper is to explore the applications of remote sensing, particularly 3D modelling, that specifically benefit rock art research. Bassier et al. (2018) identified a gap between data gathered and useful end-products in digital cultural heritage documentation. The problem is exacerbated by the exclusivity of proprietary software and technical knowledge. A collaborative study between Intersect and the University of Sydney found that researchers need better support, training and services for the use of digital technologies for data management in research (Intersect, 2009). When the cost of producing data is being considered, the potential of data and the optimization of returns should be cogitated (Haubt and Jalandoni, 2019). Raw data should be recycled into as many useful products as possible. Therefore, this paper addresses the need for clear workflows to turn raw data in to useful products for rock art research. The emphasis is on accessible remote sensing deliverables derived from 3D models of rock art using examples from Australia, the Philippines, and Micronesia. There are undoubtedly other remote sensing techniques not mentioned here, however, the intention of this paper is not to be comprehensive but to serve as an introduction to the ways archaeologists can add value to their 3D models in rock art research.

Manufacturing evolved substantially over the years and with it the inherent complexity increased well. Currently organizations are transitioning towards smart manufacturing and implementation of industry 4.0 paradigms. Artificial intelligence and machine learning can help organizations of any size on this journey. The physics of manufacturing processes have been extensively studied and documented as relationships and equations. Machine learning algorithms rely on quality data to enable inferences and smart actions. At the intersection of these two methods lies hybrid analytics which captures the knowledge in the defined physics-based relationships and uses data-driven methods to fill the gaps that the physics-based model may have. The goal of this paper is to identify approaches and use cases of hybrid modeling wherein the term hybrid is used to indicate the combination of a physics- or first-principle-based modeling component and a data-driven modeling component. VOSViewer, Voyant Tools, and Microsoft Excel have been used to understand the relationships between various attributes associated with the articles on hybrid modeling. The papers cited the most, the organizations/regions that funded the research in this domain, the contents of recent papers, and what categories and keywords are frequently used are discussed. This work is the basis for an extended literature review to understand in detail the algorithms, use cases, and implementation issues of hybrid analytics. This bibliometric analysis uses the state of the art references and procedures mentioned in the documentation of VOSViewer and Voyant Tools.

This paper considers the visual archives of maritime scientific exploration, from coastal sketches to ethnographic observation. It focuses on seven albums of John Linton Palmer, a British naval surgeon who served in the Pacific in the 1850s and 1860s, which are today part of the collections of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers). Through their drawing, recording and collecting, naval surgeons like Linton Palmer played a significant role in the development of natural history and ethnography during the nineteenth century. The paper discusses the historical significance and potential contemporary uses of the Linton Palmer albums in the context of three forms of memory-making: firstly, the documentation of topographic, antiquarian, ethnographic, microscopic and other field observations by means of drawing; secondly, the assembling of such materials into personalised albums, part of a distinctive nineteenth-century naval tradition by which the experience of travel was re-collected (in the case of Linton Palmer within the scientific culture of late-Victorian Liverpool); and thirdly, the contemporary uses of such forms of visual heritage in a variety of contexts from family history to Indigenous land claims.

This paper discusses the first results of an ongoing two-year research activity aimed to identify the actual dynamic behavior of the Pulpit of Giovanni Pisano in Pistoia in order to design a long-term structural health monitoring system. First steps of the research have foreseen a Photogrammetric and Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) survey of the structure in order to build a refined digital three-dimensional geometric model of the Pulpit to be employed for both documentation and structural assessment. The paper reports the main outcomes of the TLS survey together with the procedure employed to obtain a reliable finite element model of the Pulpit. An original workflow for direct transfer of high accuracy TLS-based three-dimensional model to a finite element model is proposed and discussed.

Guidelines for designing, conducting, documenting, and reporting human nutrition randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have as yet to be developed and disseminated as reference for investigators, funders, regulators, institutions, assessors, trainees, and others involved in human nutrition research. Diet-related interventions can include diet and/or behavioral manipulation, provision of foods or entire meals, or delivery of dietary components in individual food items or supplements. This Perspective introduces a series of papers that outline core principles for the design and conduct of human nutrition RCTs, documentation and reporting of all aspects of clinical trial management, and data analysis and reporting of results. Human nutrition RCTs have unique considerations delineated in these papers. Conducting them with the highest scientific rigor is essential to the development of evidence-based dietary guidance for promoting optimal health and advancing health care.

The 3D digitalization and documentation of ancient Chinese architecture is challenging because of architectural complexity and structural delicacy. To generate complete and detailed models of this architecture, it is better to acquire, process, and fuse multi-source data instead of single-source data. In this paper, we describe our work on 3D digital preservation of ancient Chinese architecture based on multisource data. We first briefly introduce two surveyed ancient Chinese temples, Foguang Temple and Nanchan Temple. Then, we report the data acquisition equipment we used and the multi-source data we acquired. Finally, we provide an overview of several applications we conducted based on the acquired data, including ground and aerial image fusion, image and LiDAR (light detection and ranging) data fusion, and architectural scene surface reconstruction and semantic modeling. We believe that it is necessary to involve multi-source data for the 3D digital preservation of ancient Chinese architecture, and that the work in this paper will serve as a heuristic guideline for the related research communities. Keywords: Ancient Chinese architecture, 3D digital preservation, Multi-source data acquisition, Architectural scene modeling

Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) is a three-dimensional survey technique proven successful for in-field stratigraphic and site-wide documentation or damage assessment of archaeological heritage. This study explores the potential utility of TLS and the Multiscale Model to Model Cloud Comparison (M3C2) surface change detection method for monitoring and preserving ancient earthen architecture, and for creating comprehensive site monitoring programs in compliance with UNESCO periodic reporting guidelines. The proposed methodology was tested using 3-D TLS datasets spanning a period of six years to assess the decay of mud brick structures at Catalhoyuk, Turkey in order to understand material loss in walls and buildings, identify potential underlying causes, and create a plan for physical interventions. This paper explains how a multi-temporal laser scanning workflow using the M3C2 method can be leveraged successfully to quantify – with millimeter-level accuracy – the decay of large earthen sites and inform future conservation interventions. This approach allows for the identification of the wall features with the most immediate risk of deterioration based on the detection of patterns of change and calculation of its significance as a preventative measure. Results presented in this paper suggest that the proposed method can be used effectively to enhance site monitoring and perform preventative on-site interventions at large earthen sites earthen sites in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

This paper provides an overview of the CRAFT repository, which exposes a collaborative gateway enabling circuit designers to share methods, documentation and intellectual property. The main goal for the repository’s development is to ensure that future designs for custom integrated circuits need not be reinvented for each design and fabrication cycle. This paper presents the architecture, design, and implementation of the collaborative repository, which capitalizes on the recent advances in production quality open-source collaborative frameworks, which are interfaced using a lightweight Javascript frontend to satisfy the requirements of the DARPA’s CRAFT program. The repository has been developed as an EmberJS application (front-end), that interacts with an instance of the Open Science Framework (OSF). This paper contextualizes the framework from the viewpoint of circuit designers and outlines the advantages of the tools and visualizations offered by the repository, in terms of increasing the efficiency of designers’ tasks. To this end, we also provide a description of two specific tools that have been exposed using the repository, which build on JSON schemas and allow users to develop and visualize the circuit design flow diagrams and the intellectual property they can reuse to accelerate their design process.

In the last years the interest in developing research on integration of usability and agile software development has been increasing. The number of systematic literature reviews, systematic mapping studies and non-systematic reviews, related to this thematic has also increased. Nevertheless, there is no analysis on the quality of these published secondary studies, nor is there a consolidated research that brings the answer of how to integrate these two areas. The goal of this paper is to categorize secondary studies related to the integration of usability and agile software development and present a critical analysis on the quality of the selected studies. To accomplish this goal a tertiary study was performed to categorize the related studies selected. Initially 3,065 papers were identified and further narrowed to 14 by applying exclusion criteria and analysis. We classified the selected studies as systematic literature reviews, systematic mapping studies and non-systematic literature reviews to report the data analysis. As a result of this study different forms to integrate usability and agile software development were detected as well as the various challenges that must be overcome for the integration success. Six main categories were identified to represent ways of integrating usability into agile development: processes, techniques, practices, recommendations, principles and different approaches. Regarding to the challenges for the integration seven main categories were also identified: issues related to tests, time, work balance, modularization, feedback, prioritization, and documentation. Although the interest in researching the integration of usability and agile software development has increased in the last years, mostly of the analyzed studies neglected the quality criteria and presented difficulties to use methods to synthetize the research results. Despite this, it has been realized that the integration of usability with agile software development is possible and is strongly aligned with user-centered design. The initial studies indicated a separation of activities and roles into specific tracks with parallel work to treat usability in agile software development, but the trend is no longer to manage and control these activities in separate ways, so new challenges are becoming to appear. Although we have identified several points of tension, the integration does not become unfeasible.

Intelligent control techniques and technologies can be used to control border activities which can become chaotic when there are large movements of people. This creates a lot of delays in processing of documentation and human movement. This paper provides a preliminary survey of intelligent techniques which are good candidates for controlling this migration challenge at frontiers. The paper presents certain queueing techniques and recommending algorithms which involve a range of intelligent applications. Challenges and different point of views that take into consideration fact of implementation in mobile devices (with limited processing power and memory) and being context-aware, are presented. It prepares criteria for assessing these techniques for the particular problem context as outlined, such as location-based service capability and appropriate recommending algorithms that can affect queue management and help human movement at national borders. This paper contributes a ranked assessment of these technologies and proposes a candidate for solving this particular human movement control problem. The paper then suggests further work to build applications to help control border movements which can be later deployed. This work is currently underway.

Product variety and its induced manufacturing complexity remains to increase and therefore greatens challenges for design of joining elements. Historically, joining element design was a paper-based process with incomplete variety documentation and is digitalized only by replacing paper for 3D space. Currently, joining element design remains an ambiguous manual task with limited automation, resulting in long iterative, error prone development trajectories and costly reworks. Thus, processes in practice conflict with required capabilities. Artificial intelligence helps to solve such conflicts by taking over repetitive tasks, preventing human errors, optimizing designs and enabling designers to focus on their core competencies. This paper proposes a novel artificial intelligence method toolbox as a foundation to automate joining element design in manufacturing industries. The methodology aims to incorporate multiple lifecycle requirements including large product variety.

Reuse has been a topic of interest in software engineering since 1968. Although many academic papers have been written about adopting software reuse in companies, such a process in practice has proven difficult, long and costly to implement. At present, rigorous studies on the current practice of reuse in industry are scarce. Objective: The aim of this paper was to study the current practice of software reuse at a medium sized company, in particular, we aimed to alleviate the lack of data and identify barriers and success factors. Method: An exploratory study based upon descriptive surveys. Results: The predominant practice of reuse is ad hoc (73%) and the reusable artefacts were shared by means of a central repository (81%). Most practitioners use the Web to look for artefacts (92%), trying to understand them by studying code snippets or the artefact's documentation. The existence of a well-established reuse process (81%) and a high quality of the artefacts (70%) were the two most mentioned facilitators for reuse. Conclusions: All participants view software reuse as a beneficial process and believe that management should promote it. The results offer opportunities for further interpretation and comparison to software developers, project leaders, and researchers. However, these results cannot be generalized due to the specificity of the context we have studied. Replications of this study, in other business domains, are needed to generalize the results.

With the increased focus over the recent years on digitalizing the factory, 3D scanning has become more and more popular. Acquiring a point cloud of a given factory has shown several benefits, such as better documentation, realistic simulation models, collision detection of materials, visualization of factory development, and more. This paper investigates the testing of a developed low‐cost 3D scanner in a Smart Learning Factory based on parameters identified in literature. Furthermore, the paper compares the developed solution to a commercially available solution. This comparison indicates possible application areas for the developed low-cost solution. The 3D scanner is based on the Microsoft Kinect and a developed hardware platform combined with custom software for acquiring 360° point clouds. A discussion on the acquired results, as well as future works on the developed solution finalizes the paper.

Material efficiency in lifecycles is a challenge that affects product innovators, producers and political stakeholders. The recycling and waste management is a direct consequence of this challenge, heavily compounded by data requirements. Especially third parties such as recyclers, remanufacturers or waste treatment sites face limited documentation and data on products. In addition, those actors face additional data management challenges due to their distinct upstream supply chains of dispersed suppliers and hence due to interrupted information flows. This study investigated various software tools to critically compare the tool's potential to improve data availability and data completeness, as well as the management of the reuse or recycling business processes using Enterprise Resource Planning software evaluation metrics for each waste-related sub-domain. The main objective of this paper is thus to provide a framework for comparison through key features, measured adherence to these features and to infer how this affects the software landscape. Software packages were sampled using public software listings and keyword filters to arrive at a final subset of publically accessible software packages, which were then critically analysed and compared by feature support. The main results of the comparison of these software packages in the discussed waste-related sub-domains revealed that data compatibility between packages and reporting requirements is the largest issue on a general level. On the level of sub-domains, the results showed that software offerings lack essential domain-specific features in order to support circular lifecycles of products and materials. Secondary results revealed a lack of database interoperability and various lesser concerns, such as incorrectly reported pricing or obsolescence information. The impact of these missing features reinforces the “silo” effect of packages, reduces the adoption rate in larger companies, and compounds the problem of smaller start-ups and companies using manual paper-based solutions and lacking reporting capabilities. Publically available databases and an increased rate of sharing of information between Original Equipment Manufacturers and recyclers would improve the decision-making through software solutions in waste-related processing.

Design rules are an essential interface to facilitate the information exchange between designers and experts. Despite many innovations in Knowledge-Based Engineering and Knowledge Management, unstructured design rules documents are still widely used in the manufacturing industry. Due to the complexity of the design process, these documents often contain hundreds of design rules, applicable in varying design contexts. Searching for the right rules according to a design context is demanding in time and cognitive resources. In this paper, we propose a Context-Aware Cognitive Design Assistant (CACDA) to capture the design context and perform tasks such as the recommendation of design rules, the verification of design solutions, or the automation of design routines. Contrary to existing works in model quality testing, the CACDA uses a proactive approach of design rules application and helps designers to provide error-free designs on first attempt. In this paper, we present the design rules recommendation system of the CACDA, its capabilities and its implementation. Then, to measure the impact of design rules recommendations on the design process, we compare our approach with the use of traditional design rules documents. Results show that the use of the CACDA’s design rules recommendations lower the perceived difficulty of design rules retrieval from 75 to 43.5 on a scale of 100. On average, participants that used the demonstrator successfully applied 8.6 design rules on the 25 applicable design rules of our set. Participants that used unstructured documentation correctly applied 4.3 design rules. The global cognitive weight of the design activity as well as the design rules retrieval performances appear to be unchanged. These results demonstrate the usability of the demonstrator and show a positive impact on the design process and on the quality of CAD models. Future works will focus on the overcome of the main limitations of our current experiments, with a panel of professional designers, a lager design rules set and the implementation of several lacking features of the CACDA into the demonstrator. Capgemini DEMS

Application forms are often the compulsory interface between citizens and their social rights. Applicants for support must navigate the questions, checklists and blank spaces in often long, detailed documents to assert their social entitlements. Given their ubiquity and the central role they play in the administration of the welfare state, it is perhaps surprising that they have been neglected in favour of a focus on other documentation, principally policy and guidance. This paper argues that the non-fettering ground of review – a principle whose jurisprudence is tied to the design and use of policy – also engages application forms. Through an analysis of 271 application forms used to administer the localised Discretionary Housing Payment scheme in England, three examples of their fettering potential are provided: the imposition of exhaustive criteria; requiring the applicant to self-classify or disclose irrelevant considerations; and constraining responses through tied evidential requirements. By arguing that the non-fettering ground should not limit itself to one kind of document (policy) when administrators are so reliant on another (application forms), the paper’s broader agenda is to argue that principles of good administration should apply to all documentation used to administer social entitlement.

This paper addresses a challenging category of repetitive projects that involves scattered sites, such as rehabilitation programs for multiple bridges, multiple schools, etc. The paper proposes a schedule optimization framework with four novel components: (1) scheduling algorithm that efficiently schedules the crews among scattered sites, considering the activities independent site sequences and the time and cost of moving among sites; (2) cost optimization that considers deadlines, crew limits, and optional construction methods to determine the activities’ optimum crews, methods, and site sequences; (3) interactive documentation of all progress events to support re-scheduling during construction; and (4) legible schedule representation of scattered projects. A computer prototype was developed and validated on a real-life case study and literature examples. Activity-specific site sequences proved uniquely flexible to optimize the scheduling of scattered projects without extra cost. The proposed framework enables efficient delivery planning of large infrastructure rehabilitation program within the execution constraints.

Understanding recreational experiences is a longstanding research tradition and key to effective management. Given the complexities of human experience, many approaches have been applied to study recreational experience. Two such approaches are the experiential approach (based in a positivistic paradigm) and emergent experience (based in an interpretive paradigm). While viewed as being complementary, researchers have not offered guidance for incorporating the approaches into a common model of recreational experience. This study utilized longitudinal, qualitative data to examine aspects of recreational experience posited by these two approaches. Results provided a framework for synthesizing across the two approaches. Respondents had clear pre-activity expectations, and most respondents realized their expected outcomes. This supports the experiential approach. Of the 48 activity narratives, 27 experienced something unexpected, and 45 described process-oriented, intrinsic motivation, suggesting evidence of emergent and unique characteristics specific to an individual's realization of recreational experience. This supports the application of the emergent experience approach to understand how individuals create meaning from recreational engagements. The paper proposes a model for integrating results of the two approaches. While not advocating for any specific approach, the findings can serve as an example of building a holistic model of the outdoor recreation experience. The purpose of the model is to allow for a more complete understanding of how individuals create recreation experiences, more complete documentation of the benefits of outdoor recreation for both researchers and managers, and better synthesis across studies. Management implications Information regarding the recreational experience can assist in implementing informed management decisions. This paper presents commonly applied approaches and discusses their differences and the benefits when combining them. The paper gives insights into different approaches focusing on desired experiences, emergent experiences, satisfaction, or long-term benefits and the related management questions. These help managers to select the most suitable approach for their respective challenges.

Literature on campus sustainability transitions is mainly focused on the hardware and software approaches, with less attention on the so-called ‘heartware’ approach. Heartware refers to the internal and voluntary motivation of the campus community itself to establish long-term collaboration and collective efforts for sustainability. The paper addresses this gap through an action-oriented exploratory case study research in applying the heartware approach for a long-term water conservation initiative at the University of Malaya campus in Malaysia. The case study research employed a triangulation of five types of data sources (documentation, archival records, direct observation, physical artifacts and participant observation) and two analysis techniques (iterative explanation building and time-series analysis). The case study demonstrated that the heartware approach can be an essential driver for campus sustainability, with suggestions on three ways it can be exercised: (1) Community-shared values that can inspire collective and voluntary action on campus; (2) Role of volunteers within the campus community, at various levels of power, in galvanizing efforts; (3) Heartware driven adaptive governance - where the campus community is able to self-maneuver in mediating conflicts that can possibly block long term action. The paper concludes that there can be aspirational ways to view our campuses: as a living community with concerned citizens, rather than just a complex organization to be managed. This might open up more rooted solutions for campus sustainability than what is currently available.

Inspection is vital in industrial plant construction and management. However, traditional inspection methods that rely on human involvement and paper documentation are becoming untenable as modern industrial plants are becoming larger and more complex than legacy facilities. Hence, an efficient and robust method is required to support the inspection of modern industrial plants. In this paper, an improved technique relying on terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) for data acquisition and normal-based region growing and efficient random sample consensus (RANSAC) for point cloud data processing is proposed for the on-site dimensional inspection of the piping systems of an industrial plant. Consequently, the as-built condition of the plant is assessed via a distance-based deviation analysis and a comparison of geometric parameters between the as-designed and as-built models. The method is validated using a dataset acquired from a compartment of a ship has verified the robustness and reliability of the proposed approach.

The research leading to these results has received supports from the following funding: National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (Ref: 41571152; 41201160), National Social Science Found of China (Ref: 13BJY067), and the China Scholarship Council (CSC). Since 1978, market transition in China has significantly influenced the roles of the state, the market and the residents in urban restructuring. Since 2008, the central government has initiated Shantytown Redevelopment Projects (SRPs) to improve the living conditions of low-income residents. Between 2008 and 2012, about 12.6 million households were involved in SRPs, and forced to move as their dwellings were demolished. This paper investigates how SRPs are implemented by revealing how different stakeholders interact in SRPs in the city of Shenyang, China. Through in-depth interviews with various stakeholders and analysis of policy documentation on SRPs, the paper reveals a complex interplay between different stakeholders, which is characterized by the centralization of the inception of SRPs, the decentralization of actual SRP implementation, changes in the role of market forces, and decreasing housing affordability and multiple deprivation of residents in SRP target areas. Various stakeholders have consensus on the need for improving the living conditions in deprived neighbourhoods and on boosting the housing market. However, conflicts arise due to frictions between the central and local governments regarding the implementation of SRPs. We also find evidence of an entrepreneurial paradox in the relationship between local governments and developers. Finally, a mismatch occurs between the scope of the SRP policy and residents' attempts to improve their socioeconomic situation. Postprint

This paper studies how energy security is conceptualized in four resource-poor, advanced island economies: Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. It is found that the energy security conceptualization of the four economies in effect returns to the very original and conventional one: stable and reliable energy supply. However, these economies are different in the level of stability and reliability demanded. Why are they similar in energy security conceptualization whereas different in the level of stability and reliability demanded? Adopting documentation analysis, comparative study, and the varieties of capitalism theory, we find that the nature of economy constitutes the decisive factor that shapes energy security conceptualization. The coordinated market economies (CMEs) are more concerned about energy supply disruption than the liberalized market economies (LMEs). The paper demonstrates that despite numerous energy security concepts in the literature, resource-poor economies still adopt the original and conventional one in practice. The findings suggest that security of supply is the top measure for resource-poor economies to improve their energy security and creating a joint petroleum and LNG market would be desirable for the four economies in this study.

This paper explores the existing social life cycle assessment (SLCA) literature (theoretical and case studies) from decision making perspective. In order to tackle this, a critical review of 90 published work, including journal papers, conference proceedings and book chapters was undertaken. The selected articles were analyzed with a focus on methodological framework, boundary scoping, data inventories and practices. The analysis highlighted the inadequacies in the existing frameworks in terms of flexibility, conflicts in choosing and defining Area of Protection (AoP). Lack of consideration of social conditions of stakeholders in no-work and no-use phase, lack of inclusion of positive impacts, less attention to suppliers and consumers and choice of subjective indicators are highlighted as some weak portions within the boundary scoping. Less coverage of contextual and indirect indicators, and absence of documentation of a link between data collected (subjective indicators) and product activities are highlighted as a limitation within inventories, and finally within practices, lack of benchmarks is highlighted. This analysis highlighted an important differentiating factor between the actual definition of sustainability (maintenance of stocks for future generation) and the most common interpretation in literature as a summation of the three (social, environmental and economic) indices.

The paper discusses experiences from a concurrent product- and automated assembly process-development in a manufacturing company from early design to design freeze. The product is a compact product consisting of a plastic casing housing electronic components which is currently entering production. The company is a high-tech manufacturer operating in a high-cost country delivering safety products in a business to business market. The case study is based on project documentation, analyses of product and assembly concept, lab tests as well as dialogue with the manufacturer and the product designer. The main author was involved in the automated assembly process development and Design for Automatic Assembly (DFAA). The product and the automated assembly line were designed in parallel, throughout the entire product development process; from idea and concept development until the pre-production stages. In the early stages of the project the product was redesigned on a frequent basis, and each new design was evaluated for its automated manufacturability. In this process several DFAA methods were applied. The product designers also produced several prototypes by a plastic additive technology (3D printers) that were assembled in a prototype automated cell to assess product design and assembly solutions, and to reveal weaknesses that were not detected in the analysis. This paper compares the different DFAA methods used such as DFA2, as well as a custom DFAA review spreadsheet. Additionally, the paper discusses the interaction between product design and production process design, and effects on the outcome. Finally, the paper suggests design process improvements and guidelines.

The UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) aims at regular and standardised stocktaking of the extent of ecosystems, their condition, and the services they provide to society. Recording the condition of ecosystems is one of the most complex pieces in this exercise and needs to be supported by consistent guidelines. SEEA EA defines the condition of an ecosystem as its overall quality, measured in terms of quantitative metrics describing its abiotic and biotic characteristics. One of the key challenges lies in identifying the most appropriate metrics for each ecosystem type that capture these essential characteristics. The objective of this paper is to create a well-defined framework for transparent and operative development of ecosystem condition indicators, which can be used in ecosystem accounting and ecosystem assessment studies. Starting from the SEEA EA documentation and a small targeted systematic review, we identified 12 key criteria, which we grouped according to their roles during the indicator development process. Five conceptual criteria (intrinsic relevance, instrumental relevance, sensitivity, directional meaning, and framework conformity) outline the priorities for identifying relevant characteristics of the ecosystems. Five practical criteria (validity, reliability, availability, simplicity, and compatibility) provide guidance on identifying concrete quantitative metrics for the selected characteristics. Finally, two ensemble criteria (comprehensiveness, and parsimony) ensure the completeness and complementarity of the final set of metrics. To tackle the climate and biodiversity crises, the condition of ecosystems needs to be better recognized in national economic planning. The proposed framework supports the selection of a concise set of salient and credible ecosystem condition indicators through a transparent, repeatable and scientific process. This can make the compilation of ecosystem condition accounts more accessible and more standardised on a global level, which is a key prerequisite for the success of SEEA EA. Additionally, the framework presented in this paper may be useful in other contexts where ecological, environmental, or sustainability indicators need to be identified.

In this paper we present the interactive Reservoir Operations Notebooks and Software (iRONS) toolbox for reservoir modelling and optimisation. The toolbox is meant to serve the research and professional community in hydrology and water resource management and contribute to bridge the gaps between them. iRONS is composed of a package of Python core functions and a set of interactive Jupyter Notebooks. Core functions implement typical reservoir modelling tasks and the interactive Jupyter Notebooks illustrate, with practical examples, the key functionalities of iRONS. We describe our development philosophy, the key features of iRONS, and report some results of evaluating the effectiveness of interactive Jupyter Notebooks for training and knowledge transfer. The paper may be of interest also beyond the water resources management field, as an example of how Jupyter Notebooks and interactive visualisation help improving the documentation and sharing of open-source code and the communication of underpinning methodologies.

Preservation usually keeps nation's history alive, and the advantages of preservation and resilience, which is an advanced procedure, are clear, as these processes have social and environmental values, so they require a synergetic framework to merge preservation, resilience, and innovative technologies to sustain efficient preservation. The aim of the paper is to develop preservation as a resilient and sustainable ongoing process, through integrating HBIM and IOT tools in the application of resilient preservation (Elabd., 2020). To achieve the aim of the paper, a number of research methods have been adopted: Firstly, literature of theoretical background, in order to identify the value and risks of heritage buildings, develop the characteristics for efficient heritage buildings and to assess different resilience frameworks for heritage buildings and communities then analyze and develop the results. Secondly, analysis of case studies in order to identify how to practically implement resilience through HBIM and IOT technologies. The result of the research process is a framework introduced at the end of this paper which considers the steps of preservation, and resilience with the people involvement in the process, it will merge resilience as a preservation approach, HBIM as a documentation tool, IOT as a smart tool and resilience goals as guiding principles.

Safety of sanitation workers remains an often-ignored aspect in Fecal Sludge Management. While shifting workers from manual to mechanical means of de-sludging remains a priority, this paper highlights that there are a number of safety issues, including exposure to sludge, faced by sanitation workers, even in a mechanised context, where de-sludging trucks are utilised to provide de-sludging services. Based on a detailed analysis of observation of stakeholders and extensive process documentation (of de-sludging process), and expert interviews, the study identified three key safety concerns: inhalation of harmful gases, contact with sludge, and physical injury, and determined the underlying cause for the same, using a systems thinking approach. These causes are varied including behaviours and practices by households such as non-compliance of septic tank construction to design standards, irregular cleaning, improper disposal of inappropriate items in toilets; inappropriate or inadequate design of decanting stations, tools and equipment, and inadequate awareness and knowledge among all stakeholders. Using the hierarchy of controls framework, a set of measures are described to increase the safety of workers. These proposed interventions go beyond the provision of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), and range from behaviour change campaigns, improvements in decanting stations, better access to appropriately designed tools. The study highlights the need to place emphasis on eliminating, substituting and controlling the hazards as necessary steps for PPE to be relevant. Finally, the paper places the issue of occupational safety within the larger context of the informal nature of de-sludging occupation and the overall vulnerability of workers. It posits that this makes safety more complicated to address as several factors need to be taken into account, and actions are required by multiple sets of actors., Highlights • Safety concerns are prevalent even with mechanical desludging. • Key concerns are exposure to harmful gases, skin infections and physical injury. • hierarchy of control pyramid need to be addressed in totality. • Measures to improve worker safety must address existing processes and practices. • All stakeholders – households, workers, government are responsible to ensure safety.

The frequent maintenance required on asphalt concrete (AC) pavement sections has made reconstruction with portland cement concrete pavement (PCCP) a feasible alternative. However, many constructability issues need to be addressed in order to realize the full potential of this alternative. Accelerated paving encompasses three classes of activities: methods to accelerate the rate of strength gain, methods to minimize the construction time, and traffic control strategies to minimize user delay. In this paper a case study will be presented in which an AC intersection was reconstructed with portland cement concrete pavement. The entire reconstruction of the intersection, including demolition of the AC pavement and its replacement with PCCP, took place over a period of three days, starting on Thursday evening and opening the intersection to the traffic on Sunday afternoon. This paper documents this effort in order to provide practitioners additional options for rapid reconstruction of urban intersections and includes documentation of the construction process, traffic management strategies, and an analysis of the costs. The results of this investigation can be used to educate pavement construction professionals and the academic community on the use of PCCP for accelerated reconstruction of major urban intersections with minimal user and traffic disruption, using innovative construction techniques and traffic management optimization principles. This investigation produced valuable information to demonstrate that concrete pavements can be constructed efficiently and quickly.

Context Enterprise architecture (EA) is a collection of artifacts describing various aspects of an organization from an integrated business and IT perspective. EA practice is an organizational activity that implies using EA artifacts for facilitating decision-making and improving business and IT alignment. EA practice involves numerous participants ranging from C-level executives to project teams and effective engagement between these stakeholders and architects is critically important for success. Moreover, many practical problems with EA practice can be also attributed to insufficient engagement between architects and other EA stakeholders. However, the notion of engagement received only limited attention in the EA literature and the problem of establishing engagement has not been intentionally studied. Objective This paper intends to explore in detail the problem of achieving effective engagement between architects and other EA stakeholders in an organization, identify the main inhibitors of engagement and present a theoretical model explaining the problem of establishing engagement in practice. Method This paper is based on a single in-depth revelatory case study including nine interviews with different participants of EA practice (e.g. architects and other EA stakeholders) and documentation analysis. It leverages the grounded theory method to construct a conceptual model explaining the problem of engagement in the studied organization. Results This paper identifies 28 direct and indirect inhibitors of engagement and unifies them into a holistic conceptual model addressing the problem of achieving engagement that covers the factors undermining both strategic and initiative-based engagement between architects and other EA stakeholders. Conclusions This paper focuses on the notion of engagement and offers arguably the first available theoretical model that explains how typical engagement problems between architects and other stakeholders inhibit the realization of value from EA practice. However, the developed model has a number of limitations and we call for further empirical research on engagement problems in EA practice and coping strategies for addressing these problems.

Background At present there is no established national minimum data set (MDS) for generic wound assessment in England, which has led to a lack of standardisation and variable assessment criteria being used across the country. This hampers the quality and monitoring of wound healing progress and treatment. Aim To establish a generic wound assessment MDS to underpin clinical practice. Method The project comprised 1) a literature review to provide an overview of wound assessment best practice and identify potential assessment criteria for inclusion in the MDS and 2) a structured consensus study using an adapted Research and Development/University of California at Los Angeles Appropriateness method. This incorporated experts in the wound care field considering the evidence of a literature review and their experience to agree the assessment criteria to be included in the MDS. Results The literature review identified 24 papers that contained criteria which might be considered as part of generic wound assessment. From these papers 68 potential assessment items were identified and the expert group agreed that 37 (relating to general health information, baseline wound information, wound assessment parameters, wound symptoms and specialists) should be included in the MDS. Discussion Using a structured approach we have developed a generic wound assessment MDS to underpin wound assessment documentation and practice. It is anticipated that the MDS will facilitate a more consistent approach to generic wound assessment practice and support providers and commissioners of care to develop and re-focus services that promote improvements in wound care.

Within the UK offshore oil and gas industry all installations require to be under the charge of a ‘competent’ installation manager in accordance with the Offshore Installations and Pipeline Works (Management and Administration) Regulations (MAR), 1995. The Offshore Installation Manager (OIM), is responsible for the safety of all persons onboard and within 500 m of an installation, and prevention of pollution to the environment from it. Should an incident arise, the OIM performs one of the most critical roles within the Industry – management of the response to the emergency to mitigate and make safe the installation, including limiting the loss of hydrocarbons to the environment, or organise the safe evacuation of all persons onboard. Research at the University of Aberdeen has identified potential barriers to the effective competence assessment of OIMs in controlling emergencies (Jennings, 2016). These barriers are a consequence of current UK legislation and industry practices in the assessment of OIM competence. The research involved the qualitative analysis of key documentation, including legislation, using a critical hermeneutic approach to identify the potential barriers. Hermeneutics has historically been used to analyse texts within the domains of theology, business and law. The approach, however, also represents a powerful approach to the study of documents within the engineering domain and the offshore oil and gas industry. This paper addresses the specific question – who is accountable for OIM competence? It discusses two of the identified potential barriers which weaken ownership of both the appointment and competence assessment of OIMs. One, resulting from the Duty Holder (OSD Installation) regime that has evolved within the UK; and one resulting from the ever changing and overly complicated distribution of responsibilities across UK Government departments associated with health, safety and the environment. The paper consequently addresses those barriers associated with lack of ownership of duties both within the offshore oil and gas industry and UK Government. The research is important to Duty Holders within the offshore oil and gas industry, safety engineers and UK Government departments with respect to the effectiveness of competence assessment of appointed OIMs. It is also significant to risk engineers when considering the probable competence of an OIM in a given environment at a given point in time.

When modelling outdoor microclimates, researchers and designers need to be aware of the modelling capabilities and limitations of tools. This comparative study attempts to understand how tools such as CitySim Pro, ENVI-met, RayMan, Grasshopper plug-ins Honeybee / Ladybug and Autodesk CFD, evaluate the Mean Radiant Temperature (MRT), one of the main parameters governing human energy balance. To this purpose, the space underneath and surrounding the Rolex Learning Center, located on the EPFL campus in Lausanne, were modelled. Significant variations of MRT predictions were recorded. This led to the review of the physical modelling assumptions that each of the calculation engines operates. Based on the tools’ available documentation, answers to forums, interviews with the developers, and tool codes, the paper lists how all the variables that affect MRT are considered. Although not exhaustively, the paper lists the main differences among tools, leading to the understanding of the types of physical context that they could simulate.

This paper evaluates the present evidence of smoke spread due to problems in compartmentation and also reviews different test methods which can be employed to identify these problems during construction stages. Since 2010, evidence has emerged that the rapid spread of smoke occurs in and between UK buildings, including where accredited construction details and/or robust details are specified [1,2]. It is considered that this rapid smoke spread could be due to incorrect installation, missing, inappropriate or defective components, that make up compartmentation and fire stopping within concealed spaces [1–3]. These defects can compromise the ability of compartmentation to resist fire and smoke spread between dwellings and also into any means of escape. The impact of the defects could ultimately be detrimental to occupant safety, care staff with the occupants and also fire fighters, in the event of a real fire. In 2016, fire risk assessments undertaken in buildings before occupancy (that ascertain the performance of the building with respect to fire and smoke spread in accordance with Approved Document B) of the UK Building Regulations are based upon a visual review of building design details and documentation, and also visual inspection of as-built details. However, this approach is inadequate to identify defects in the components that make up compartmentation and fire stopping details in concealed spaces [3] since, it is impossible to determine with the naked eye whether these details have been installed as designed. Littlewood and Smallwood [1,2] have identified an urgent need to investigate the extent of these smoke spread problems within new dwellings being constructed in the UK and also the development for an appropriate compliance test which can identify issues in fire compartmentation and fire stopping and used before buildings are occupied - such as the in-construction testing (iCT) process. The paper also reviews different tests that can be employed as part of iCT methodology to identify the potential defects in fire compartmentation, and fire stops such as cavity barriers in buildings.

Context Almost twenty years after the first release of TopLink for Java, Object-Relational Mapping Solutions (ORMSs) are available at every popular development platform, providing useful tools for developers to deal with the impedance mismatch problem. However, no matter how ubiquitous these solutions are, this essential problem remains as challenging as ever. Different solutions, each with a particular vocabulary, are difficult to learn, and make the impedance problem looks deceptively simpler than it really is. Objective The objective of this paper is to identify, discuss, and organize the knowledge concerning ORMSs, helping designers towards making better informed decisions about designing and implementing their models, focusing at the static view of persistence mapping. Method This paper presents a survey with nine ORMSs, selected from the top ten development platforms in popularity. Each ORMS was assessed, by documentation review and experience, in relation to architectural and structural patterns, selected from literature, and its characteristics and implementation options, including platform specific particularities. Results We found out that all studied ORMSs followed architectural and structural patterns in the literature, but often with distinct nomenclature, and some singularities. Many decisions, depending on how patterns are implemented and configured, affect how class models should be adapted, in order to create practical mappings to the database. Conclusion This survey identified what structural patterns each ORMS followed, highlighting major structural decisions a designer must take, and its consequences, in order to turn analysis models into object oriented systems. It also offers a pattern based set of characteristics that developers can use as a baseline to make their own assessments of ORMSs.

The philosophy of the continuous improvement (CI) process aims at improving process stability and performance whilst increasing employees’ competencies at the same time. The difference to single improvement projects lies in the way the workforce is included in kaizen activities on an everyday basis. In a target-oriented CI approach the employees are also actively coached and guided by a leader (e.g. group or team leader) to act as a basis of the learning organization. The success and documentation of the improvement steps are therefore highly dependent on the skills of executives. Because of that, CI is currently being carried out in many companies either in a completely unstructured or in a traditional way with paper-based documentation. At that point digitalization concepts can support the effectiveness and efficiency of a CI system. The target of this paper lies in defining the core elements of a successful CI system and rating them against digitalization approaches which have been used in other parts of manufacturing. The compatibility of CI elements and digitalization approaches are rated with the help of the Delphi method. Following that, the concept of a digital CI is presented, which facilitates communication between managers and actual process improvers, documentation and employee learning during the improvement process. It is then compared to a traditional target-oriented CI process to show the major advantages and next steps in the introduction of such a system.

Purpose To explore the impacts that structuring of electronic health records (EHRs) has had from the perspective of secondary use of patient data as reflected in currently published literature. This paper presents the results of a systematic literature review aimed at answering the following questions; (1) what are the common methods of structuring patient data to serve secondary use purposes; (2) what are the common methods of evaluating patient data structuring in the secondary use context, and (3) what impacts or outcomes of EHR structuring have been reported from the secondary use perspective. Methods The reported study forms part of a wider systematic literature review on the impacts of EHR structuring methods and evaluations of their impact. The review was based on a 12-step systematic review protocol adapted from the Cochrane methodology. Original articles included in the study were divided into three groups for analysis and reporting based on their use focus: nursing documentation, medical use and secondary use (presented in this paper). The analysis from the perspective of secondary use of data includes 85 original articles from 1975 to 2010 retrieved from 15 bibliographic databases. Results The implementation of structured EHRs can be roughly divided into applications for documenting patient data at the point of care and application for retrieval of patient data (post hoc structuring). Two thirds of the secondary use articles concern EHR structuring methods which were still under development or in the testing phase. Methods of structuring patient data such as codes, terminologies, reference information models, forms or templates and documentation standards were usually applied in combination. Most of the identified benefits of utilizing structured EHR data for secondary use purposes concentrated on information content and quality or on technical quality and reliability, particularly in the case of Natural Language Processing (NLP) studies. A few individual articles evaluated impacts on care processes, productivity and costs, patient safety, care quality or other health impacts. In most articles these endpoints were usually discussed as goals of secondary use and less as evidence-supported impacts, resulting from the use of structured EHR data for secondary purposes. Conclusions Further studies and more sound evaluation methods are needed for evidence on how EHRs are utilized for secondary purposes, and how structured documentation methods can serve different users’ needs, e.g. administration, statistics and research and development, in parallel to medical use purposes.

This paper describes the energy transition in Indonesia and examines the determinants of energy demand, by fuel. The key innovation of this paper is the documentation of how these relationships have evolved over time. We present a new method to combine econometric analysis and index decomposition analysis to examine household energy transition. This approach also allows us to consider a broad range of demographic and structural factors, while providing a clear and concise representation of our findings. We find that the composite indices mask important underlying patterns. In particular, our results indicate that energy transition in Indonesia cannot be confidently attributed to any one index. Rather, it has been driven predominantly by the triple interaction of demographics, income growth, and change in demand/supply parameters. Our findings point to the importance of utilizing time-series data in studying both the characteristics and determinants of energy transition in developing countries.