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Nowadays medical devices are a fast-growing industry. Advances in design, materials and technologies have increased the potential to find better solutions for those medical problems whose remedies were, up until now, unimaginable. A broad spectrum of new solutions is available ranging from new materials to new products, tools and procedures. Medical doctors have discovered how the latest advances in engineering support their work by making surgery or treatment processes easier than ever before. For this reason, medical devices are now a hot topic of industrial and academic interest in fields such as design, prototypes or manufacturing. This paper introduces a special issue with several medical device case studies, illustrating new developments in product design, material selection and prototype methods. In addition, the paper also reviews medical device development research and depicts some case studies to better explain the relationship between technology/engineering and medical devices. The paper contri...

Composite soil nailing technology is a new technology which developed on the basis of the soil nailing supporting technology. This new technology has a very important practical significance to the construction, for which the scale is larger and larger, the condition is more and more complex and the excavation of foundation is more and more deep. Composite soil nailing technique is mainly introduced in this paper by its main form of structure and the main principle, which draw a conclusion that different forms of the combination of support types have different effects on the stability of structure, by analyzing the support stability. This thesis shows that we should adjust measures to local conditions, choose the right organic combination. At the same time it also provides the basis for the practical application of engineering support.

Human Occupied Vehicle operations are required for deep water activities such as high resolution bathymetry, biological and geological surveys, search activities, salvage operations and engineering support for underwater operations. As this involves direct human presence, the system has to be extremely reliable. Based on applicable standards, reliability analysis is done on 5 key representative functions with the assumption that the submersible is utilized for ten deep water missions per year. Analysis is done on the results obtained to find the influence of the subsystems on the reliability of the overall submersible. Analysis include, influence of battery technologies and reliability centered battery and hydraulic system configurations. Dependence of seal sizes and seal seat surface finish on the leak tight integrity of the personnel sphere is also discussed. It is found that for submersible housing 75 kWh energy storage batteries, the probability of failure of the hard tank buoyancy ascent function with lead acid batteries configured for 300 V terminal voltages and non-redundant hydraulic configuration is 37.74%. The probability of failure can be reduced to 5.24% with lead acid batteries with terminal voltage configured to 120 V and with redundant hydraulic configuration. The results presented shall serve as a model for designers to arrive at the required trade-off between the capital expenditure and the required reliability.

When multiple workspaces for resources are allocated within a narrow work area, the constructability of work may deteriorate based on the conflicts that occur due to the mutual adjacency levels between the workspaces. In this situation, the identification of the workspace overlapping status is essential for establishing the optimized layout planning of workspaces. However, current 3D environments consider only physical collision and reaction by the cross verification of geometric properties to detect collisions between 3D objects. Thus, the configuration of methodology to visually check the overlapping level of workspaces with conflicting status is insufficient for a successful interference management. This study develops a new grid cell-based analysis algorithm and its 4D simulation system for visually verifying the workspace overlapping of dynamic resources to be allocated multiply within a confined area, such as a tunnel or underground facility. The proposed algorithm and system can assist in the intensive management of activities that have a high level of workspace overlap by visualizing their overlapping level.

This paper reviews the latest advancements in subsea technologies associated with the safety of deep-water human occupied vehicles. Human occupied submersible operations are required for deep-water activities, such as high-resolution bathymetry, biological and geological surveys, search activities, salvage operations, and engineering support for underwater operations. As this involves direct human presence, the system has to be extremely safe and reliable. Based on applicable IEC 61508 Standards for health, safety, and environment (HSE), the safety integrity level requirements for the submersible safety systems are estimated. Safety analyses are done on 10 critical submersible safety systems with the assumption that the submersible is utilized for 10 deep-water missions per year. The results of the analyses are compared with the estimated target HSE requirements, and it is found that, with the present technological maturity and safety-centered design, it is possible to meet the required safety integrity levels. By proper maintenance, it is possible to keep the mean time between failures to more than 9 years. The results presented shall serve as a model for designers to arrive at the required trade-off between the capital expenditure, operating expenditure, and required safety levels.

Schedule-workspace interference is generated when workspaces that share parallel schedules and are physically adjacent to one another exist simultaneously. When workspace interference is generated, securing work performance safety is difficult and constructability can deteriorate due to increased collision risk between resources. The objective of this study is to realize an active simulation system based on building information modeling (BIM) after constructing a genetic algorithm (GA) process for an alternative schedule that minimizes the simultaneous interference level of the schedule-workspace. To accomplish this task, the impact factor of workspace interference, which simultaneously considers schedule overlap and adjacency, was analyzed. From the impact factor, an optimized algorithm based on a location-constraint GA that can minimize workspace interference is suggested. The GA visually simulates the optimization level of the execution schedule compared to the initial plan through interlock with four-dimensional (4D) computer-aided design (CAD). A 4D CAD system that can analyze workspace interference by a GA was developed, and for the developed algorithm and system, a case verification was attempted for a railroad construction project. The results show how a simple visualization-oriented BIM system can be extended to an active schedule management system equipped with decision-making functions of workspace analysis.

QinetiQ has been the primary engineering support contractor to the RAAF airworthiness section (ASI-DGTA) since 1996. Over that 16 year time period many airworthiness investigations and assessments of structural integrity have been performed on a wide variety of RAAF aircraft types and Army rotary wing aircraft. A complete capability has been developed to manage structural fatigue in accordance with airworthiness standards, and indeed to transition the management of an aircraft from a design standard to a preferred RAAF management standard in response to capability requirements. Many important lessons have been learnt and have reinforced the capability. This paper describes some of the major programs that QinetiQ has undertaken for the RAAF, and the lessons learnt from them.

The engineering of supervisory controllers for large and complex cyber-physical systems requires dedicated engineering support. The Compositional Interchange Format language and toolset have been developed for this purpose. We highlight a model-based engineering framework for the engineering of supervisory controllers and explain how the CIF language and accompanying tools can be used for typical activities in that framework such as modeling, supervisory control synthesis, simulation-based validation, verification, and visualization, real-time testing, and code generation. We mention a number of case studies for which this approach was used in the recent past. We discuss future developments on the level of language and tools as well as research results that may be integrated in the longer term.

Generally, workspace conflict analysis between construction activities by a 3D or 4D CAD system is performed for checking the conflict between element bodies. However, in case of many projects which consist of diverse activities in limited area, the workspace conflict analysis for reducing interferences caused by labor or equipment work is also an important management factor. In particular, if some activities are constructed adjacent to the overlap period, the workspace for those activities may be conflicting. Workspace conflicts decrease work productivity, and accidents can occur. Therefore, it is desirable that the workspace conflict should be minimized in order to perform efficient work. This paper presents a methodology that generates workspaces using a bounding box model and an algorithm in order to identify schedule and workspace conflict. Additionally, a workspace conflict verification system was developed to analyze the workspace information by integrating algorithms that include the automated generation of workspace models and an automatic check of workspace conflict within a 4D simulator. If a project manager can identify the workspace conflict using the system described, the overlapped activities can be rescheduled to minimize the conflict. A case study of a bridge project has been conducted to evaluate the practical applications and feasibility of the developed system. Therefore, the safety and constructability of a project can be improved by the workspace analysis system.

Each participant in building construction project requires their own workspace to execute their activities. In this environment, inappropriate workspace planning in construction site causes workspace conflicts which result in a loss of productivity, safety hazard and poor-quality issues. Therefore, workspace should be regarded as one of the most important resources and constraints have to be managed at construction site. However, current construction planning techniques such as Gantt chart, network diagram and critical path method have proven to be insufficient to workspace planning. This paper contains formalized process for workspace planning in 4D BIM environment to prevent workspace related problems in construction project. The proposed process in this paper represents workspace occupation status for each activity and suitable solutions for identified workspace conflicts by integrating workspace attributes and activity execution plan. Based on the result of this study, project manager will be able to prevent probable workspace conflicts and negative effect on project performance by devising appropriate workspace plan during preconstruction phase.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the Western World. The inability of fully differentiated, load-bearing cardiovascular tissues to in vivo regenerate and the limitations of the current treatment therapies greatly motivate the efforts of cardiovascular tissue engineering to become an effective clinical strategy for injured heart and vessels. For the effective production of organized and functional cardiovascular engineered constructs in vitro, a suitable dynamic environment is essential, and can be achieved and maintained within bioreactors. Bioreactors are technological devices that, while monitoring and controlling the culture environment and stimulating the construct, attempt to mimic the physiological milieu. In this study, a review of the current state of the art of bioreactor solutions for cardiovascular tissue engineering is presented, with emphasis on bioreactors and biophysical stimuli adopted for investigating the mechanisms influencing cardiovascular tissue development, and for eventually generating suitable cardiovascular tissue replacements.

Although medical teleconferences on advanced academic networks have been common (Telemed J E Health 15:112–117, 1; Asian J Endosc Surg 3:185–188, 2; Surg Today 41:1579–1581, 3; Telemedicine development center of Asia. http://www.aqua.med.kyushu-u.ac.jp/eg/index.html . Accessed 6 March 2013, 4), reports regarding ‘usual’ Internet teleconferences or tele-lectures employing a telecommunication system for business use are very rare. Medical teleconferences and tele-lectures on the Internet were held three times between our institutions and other institutions, using the ‘HD Com’ made by Panasonic (HD Com. http://panasonic.biz/com/visual/ . Accessed 6 March 2013, 5), which is a high-definition telecommunication system for business tele-meeting. All of our medical telecommunications were successfully completed without any troubles. This system allows for all kinds of presentations using personal computers to be made from each station, so that discussions with high-definition surgical video presentation, which has recently been developed, could be effortlessly established despite the distance between institutions. Unlike telecommunication using advanced academic networks, this system can run without any need for specific engineering support, on the usual Internet. Medical telecommunication employing this system is likely to become common among ordinary hospitals in the near future.

For expressway slope protection more and more people advocate ecological idea presently and use plant protection mainly, but great differences between plant protection and engineering support are exist, especially protection effect is remain to be verified by time. Combined with plant protection of expressway slope in henan province, we found that great common grounds and problems and some suggestions have been proposed.

Software mashups that combine content from multiple web sites to an integrated experience are a popular trend. However, methods, tools and architectures for creating mashups are still rather undeveloped, and there is little engineering support behind them. In this paper the authors present guidelines that can serve as a helpful starting point for the design of new mashups. Guidelines focus mainly on mashup creation methods. Furthermore, they describe a reference architecture for client-side mashup development. In addition, the authors provide insight into mashup development based on their practical experiences in implementing various sample client-side mashup applications and tools for creating them. The long term goal of the authors’ work is to facilitate the development of compelling, robust and maintainable mashup applications, and more generally ease the transition towards web-based software development.

Using an audio-only diagraming tool, sixteen pairs of sighted individuals collaborated in a workspace where they used sound as the only means to communicate with each other and to access and edit shared entity-relationship diagrams. We examined the effects of the means for delivering audio to such a workspace, headphones or speakers, on pairs' workspace awareness. Results showed that patterns of workspace awareness information exchange changed when both the means for delivering audio and collaborators' choice of working style changed. The results highlighted the need to accommodate different working styles when designing awareness support in collaborative diagramming tools, and identified the types of awareness information that should be communicated to collaborators to match the dynamics of their interactions with and through diagrams.

We present an approach for determining suitable locations for human-robot interaction tasks. Therefore, we introduce the task specific Interaction Workspace as a representation of the workspace that can be accessed by both agents, i.e. the robot and the human. We show how the Interaction Workspace can be efficiently determined for a specific situation by making use of precomputed workspace representations of robot and human. By considering several quality measures related to dexterity and comfort, the Interaction Workspace provides valuable information about potential targets for human robot interaction (e.g. for object handover tasks). We evaluate the online performance of building appropriate data structures and show how the approach can be applied in a realistic hand-over use case with the humanoid robot ARMAR-III.

Engineering of supervisory controllers for cyber-physical systems is a challenging task in practice, amongst others because of the high complexity of the uncontrolled system. A supervisory controller coordinates the behaviour of a (cyber-physical) system based on discrete-event observations of its state. It uses these observations to decide which activities the uncontrolled system can safely perform or to determine activities that (are more likely to) lead to acceptable system behaviour. In model-based engineering, models are used in the design process to show the correctness of a solution before it is actually implemented. The engineering of supervisory controllers for large and complex cyber-physical systems such as cyber-physical manufacturing and production systems requires dedicated engineering support. The Compositional Interchange Format language and toolset have been developed for this purpose. We illustrate a model-based engineering framework for supervisory control on a case study involving the coordination of autonomously navigating vehicles. We discuss the engineering steps involved in this framework such as modelling, supervisory control synthesis, and validation through simulation-based visualization, verification, real-time testing, and code generation, and illustrate some of these. We explain how the CIF language and supporting tools can be used for these typical activities.

System of engineering support of upper limb diagnosis was developed and verified as a part of the research. Virtual Cave 3D, System VRTouchDevice and inertial motion analysis system MVNBiomech were used to build this system. In cooperation with the physiotherapist 2 applications were developed to motivate to do exercises during which kinematic parameters of the examined people were registered. The prepared system was positively verified by correlating waveforms angles in joints for a physiotherapist with the waveforms of people who exercise in the developed system.

Issues related to the failure of mathematics in the teaching of engineering and the negative impact that these difficulties have in various courses in engineering degrees is a problem to which we have devoted our attention and investigation. Most students when entering higher education have insufficient preparation in mathematics. It is further aggravated because of the different areas of knowledge from their background when entering degrees in Engineering. The Mathematics in Engineering Support Center (CeAMatE) is a space intended to monitor students who attend the course of “Differential and Integral Calculus”. It allows the construction of an academic course that promotes the development of students' independent study skills, with the joint responsibility of building their own educational paths. It also facilitates the construction of learning and acquisition of new knowledge through the availability of various activities and resources aimed at overcoming students' difficulties. It also incorporates an e-learning component, adapting to the learning styles and cognitive levels of students. The understanding of the educational pathways made by students who attended CeAMatE and the corresponding academic achievement in “Differential and Integral Calculus” course is a goal of this study. This analysis will permit a better development of a set of suitable mathematical strategies/activities.

Introduction Tridimensional (3D) surgical modelling is a necessary step to create 3D-printed surgical tools, and expensive professional software is generally needed. Open-source software are functional, reliable, updated, may be downloaded for free and used to produce 3D models. Few surgical teams have used free solutions for mastering 3D surgical modelling for reconstructive surgery with osseous free flaps. We described an Open-source software 3D surgical modelling protocol to perform a fast and nearly free mandibular reconstruction with microvascular fibula free flap and its surgical guides, with no need for engineering support. Procedure Four successive specialised Open-source software were used to perform our 3D modelling: OsiriX®, Meshlab®, Netfabb® and Blender®. Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) data on patient skull and fibula, obtained with a computerised tomography (CT) scan, were needed. The 3D modelling of the reconstructed mandible and its surgical guides were created. Conclusions This new strategy may improve surgical management in Oral and Craniomaxillofacial surgery. Further clinical studies are needed to demonstrate the feasibility, reproducibility, transfer of know how and benefits of this technique.

This paper presents a conceptual design of a dynamic and personalizable knowledge workspace suitable for collaboration in academic contexts. The concept of such workspace is aimed to cater the needs of students-As knowledge workers-for flexibility in various types of group and individual knowledge tasks. The research is focused on revealing challenges and obstacles faced by students who perform their daily knowledge work in current workspaces at various premises of Finnish campus. We propose solution that utilizes information technology and interior design. Based on literature on Ambient Intelligence and knowledge work, as well as our empirical user research, we designed a concept of flexible, transformable and user-friendly campus workspace with various features and functionalities. The concept is presented through visualizations and a semi-functional three-dimensional cardboard prototype. The workspace design itself is the main contribution of the current research. Dynamism, flexibility, personalization as well as features of the physical and mental engagement are principal novelties of proposed workspace for university students. acceptedVersion

The use of 4D model-based time space conflict analysis to detect potential workspace conflicts can be vital in projects with highly compacted Mechanical/Electrical/Piping (MEP) systems. However, manually modeling individual workspace requirements can be time consuming and error prone. Whereas existing research have focused on formalizing workspace types and conflict taxonomies, determining the appropriate 3D modeling approach available in commercial CAD applications have not been examined in detail. This research addresses this need by performing a case study using the International Linear Collider project, which requires installing MEP components in heavily congested areas and in limited time. Three modeling approaches — isotropic tolerance, solid and parametric modeling — are used to model workspaces and subsequently evaluated with respect to the accuracy and efficiency in generating workspaces, and also the ease in updating workspace requirements. Results indicate that parametric modeling, which enables automatic update of workspaces, provides the greatest leverage in model reuse and flexibility.

The present study investigates a standardized framework for support system of ship design engineering. The purpose of this research is to improve the efficiency of information gathering and its use in tasks of the ship design engineering support system. Due to their variety and complexity, the existing engineering methods tend to waste time in searching for the standardized method and knowledge or to cause errors on tasks. Generally, these kinds of system have serious problems. The most serious one among them is that the existing system consists of both useful and useless data. This finally leads engineers to a failure in finding out useful information from the system. We have designed a standardized framework, which enables users to properly recompose the menu form depending on the task process, simplifies the methods at several process levels, and provides a more intuitive method in user interface environment in order to resolve the existing problems, minimize the system-operating costs, and improve the efficiency of engineering tasks.

Equipping the critical care unit is a complex endeavor, and requires careful planning and continuous oversight by a multidisciplinary team. The selection, purchase, placement and installation of many components of the critical care environment must be considered in the earliest stages of the unit design process to ensure successful integration of space allocation, utility support and user interfaces. The hospital's leadership team, bedside clinicians and engineering support must work closely with architects, equipment planners, construction liaisons, interior designers and other experts throughout all phases of the project to ensure the desired outcomes.

In order to study the foundation pit supporting structure displacement of the change rule and different parameters on the transverse displacement effect of pile. My research based on supporting structure engineering of Shenyang Washington. We use the software ADINA as a research tools to establish a finite element model. We simulated and analyzed the displacement with and without anchor. Results show that adding anchor supporting played a very good supporting effect, and the simulation results and actual test results compared and analyzed proved reasonable and simulation design scheme was feasible, this excavation has some guidance for the engineering and a certain reference for similar deep foundation pit bracing. [1]

We investigated the deformation failure mechanism of surrounding rock from the aspect of engineering support for a roadway in seams with soft roofs and soft floors and observed the large displacement of the roadway in these soft seams. The result shows that the deformation area is quite large, and settlement of the roof is evident and displacement of the side walls is also obvious. We considered rock bolt-cable coupling for roadway support in seams with soft roofs and floors, in which the cable should be fixed at key positions. As well, we designed an optimal scheme to support a roadway in soft seams of the Shizuishan Second Mine in Ningxia, China. Field monitoring results show that bolt-cable coupling support has achieved the aims of roadway stability control and minimizes deformation.

PECOLE (Peer-to-Peer Collaborative Environment) is a P2P-based multimedia distributed collaborative environment supporting a collaborative workspace which is composed of a variety of collaborative applications such as multi-chat, video conferencing, screen sharing and etc. Unfortunately, due to the PECOLE`s simple group management, it is impossible to perform collaboration activities while joining multiple groups. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of PECOLE+ which is an extension of PECOLE. PECOLE+ resolves the drawback of PECOLE by providing the Group Management Service and the Workspace Management Service. The Group Management Service provides functionalities such as creating groups, joining multiple groups, and searching groups, and etc. The Workspace Management Service provides each group with an associated workspace, supporting the execution of collaborative applications over the workspace. In addition, any collaborative applications with the provided plug-in interfaces can be executed over the workspace as a PECOLE+ collaborative application.

The possibility of a significant increase in the length of cable communication channels of local area networks of automation and engineering support systems of buildings in the case of their implementation on balanced twisted pair cables is shown. Assuming a direct connection scheme and an effective speed of 100 Mbit/s, analytical relationships are obtained for the calculation of the maximum communication distance. The necessity of using in the linear part of such systems of twisted pair cables with U/UTP structure and interference parameters at the level of category 5e is grounded.

Purpose – Flexible system management has brought a concept of flexibility in all spheres including maintenance management. Considerable literature is available on various facets of flexibility management, namely, production, supply chain, day‐to‐day activities, etc.; however, not much literature on flexibility in maintenance is reported. The purpose of this paper is to bridge this gap highlighting various issues involved in flexibility on maintenance. Design/methodology/approach – A situation‐actors‐process (SAP)‐learning‐action‐performance (LAP) model has been applied to understand and analyze the concept of flexibility in maintenance. The paper analyses a case study of ABC, a Government maintenance organization for repair of automobiles in India, to discuss the various issues arising out of maintenance flexibility. Findings – Various issues concerning flexibility in maintenance are: business or corporate philosophy, systems and processes, inventory, manpower, performance measurements and information systems. Research limitations/implications – The concept of flexibility in maintenance has been demonstrated using only two facets of maintenance, i.e. manpower and the repair scope in the case study. Practical implications – The SAP‐LAP model presents the concept of flexibility in maintenance adequately. The concept can be implemented while planning the maintenance in any organization for various issues like inventory stock levels, manpower, repair scope, etc. The technicians may be trained on more than one specialty so that they can easily re‐muster into other streams in case of flexible maintenance environment. Originality/value – This is an original approach to apply the concept of flexibility in the area of maintenance management. The issues affecting maintenance flexibility are identified and future researchers may find these gaps interesting.

MDA has provided 25 years of real-time engineering support to Shuttle (Canadarm) and ISS (Canadarm2) robotic operations beginning with the second shuttle flight STS-2 in 1981. In this capacity, our engineering support teams have become familiar with the evolution of mission planning and flight support practices for robotic assembly and support operations at mission control. This paper presents observations on existing practices and ideas to achieve reduced operational overhead to present programs. It also identifies areas where robotic assembly and maintenance of future space stations and space-based facilities could be accomplished more effectively and efficiently. Specifically, our experience shows that past and current space Shuttle and ISS assembly and maintenance operations have used the approach of extensive preflight mission planning and training to prepare the flight crews for the entire mission. This has been driven by the overall communication latency between the earth and remote location of the space station/vehicle as well as the lack of consistent robotic and interface standards. While the early Shuttle and ISS architectures included robotics, their eventual benefits on the overall assembly and maintenance operations could have been greater through incorporating them as a major design driver from the beginning of the system design. Lessons learned from the ISS highlight the potential benefits of real-time health monitoring systems, consistent standards for robotic interfaces and procedures and automated script-driven ground control in future space station assembly and logistics architectures. In addition, advances in computer vision systems and remote operation, supervised autonomous command and control systems offer the potential to adjust the balance between assembly and maintenance tasks performed using extra vehicular activity (EVA), extra vehicular robotics (EVR) and EVR controlled from the ground, offloading the EVA astronaut and even the robotic operator on-orbit of some of the more routine tasks. Overall these proposed approaches when used effectively offer the potential to drive down operations overhead and allow more efficient and productive robotic operations.

This paper deals with refactoring of execution control charts of IEC 61499 basic function blocks as a means to improve the engineering support potential of the standard in development of industrial control applications. The main purpose of the refactoring is removal of arcs without event inputs. Extended refactoring, proposed in this paper, also helps to get rid of potential deadlock states. The ECC refactoring is implemented as a set of graph transformation rules. A prototype has been implemented using the AGG software tool. The refactoring can help in implementing equivalent transformation of control programs without introducing errors.

Workspace conflicts are one of the important problems that can delay construction activities, reduce productivity, or cause accidents that threaten the safety of workers. Workspace planning is particularly important in the case of large infrastructure projects, such as bridge construction, and rehabilitation projects where equipment with complex workspace requirement is required. This paper aims to extend the previous research on workspace representation and analysis in the case of large infrastructure projects focusing on the following issues: (i) specific representation of equipment workspaces using composite shapes, (ii) semiautomatic generation and analysis of workspaces, and (iii) development of a prototype system that can generate workspaces and detect spatiotemporal conflicts in a three-dimensional environment. The computational aspects of the proposed approach are discussed and demonstrated through the development of a prototype system, which has been applied in a case study of the deck replacement of Jacques Cartier Bridge in Montréal.Key words: workspace analysis, spatiotemporal conflicts, construction equipment, infrastructure projects, bridge redecking, constructive solid geometry.

Despite the technological advancements within the last few decades in computer aided design and manufacturing systems, the existing solutions are still fragmented and typically target only small fragments of the production lifecycle. The engineering support required for the design and lifecycle management of manufacturing systems is not sufficiently developed. In particular there is no established integrated approach to support the lifecycle of manufacturing automation systems. Automotive industry is one of the world's largest manufacturing sector, more effective service based approaches to lifecycle support are now needed as an integral part of manufacturing systems in order to effectively support rapid product or process change in a global business context. This research paper presents a lifecycle support framework for the development of new modular automation systems in order to bring greater agility to the manufacturing system using a collaborative work centre concept and also to investigate the new supplier relationships resulting from using a modular approach.

In this paper, we present the architecture of the IBM Tivoli® Change and Configuration Management Database. Its main features include a rich data model, automatic discovery of data for configuration items, visualization of application dependencies on configuration items, and multicustomer support. We discuss implementation topics, such as relationship management, composite configuration items, data federation, reconciliation of data from different sources, a security model for multicustomer support, and integration of change-management and configuration-management processes.

Universal Composition is a promising way to support the long tail of user needs. While most mashup platforms only support single-user scenarios, CRUISE enables the reconfiguration of multi-user mashups during runtime. A major requirement for tool-supported collaboration is the provision of workspace awareness, e. g., about all participants' current activities or rights. With respect to the synchronization of black-box components from different vendors, detecting and representing state changes is far from trivial. To provide adequate workspace awareness, we present an architecture and a widget-based presentation concept. It supports application independent detection of state changes, reusability in different application contexts and flexible reconfigurability during runtime. Thereby, semantic annotations are used to enable component state change replication in case of different underlying DOM representations and provide awareness support in form of semantic activities instead of technical descriptions. The practicability of our prototype, including six widgets, is validated by a user acceptance test.

Dependability modeling is an important issue for aerospace and space equipment designers. From system level perspective, one has to choose from multitude of possible architectures, redundancy levels, component combinations in a way to meet desired properties and dependability and finally fit within required cost and time budgets. Modeling of such systems is getting harder as its levels of complexity grow together with demand for more functional and flexible, yet more available systems that govern more and more crucial parts of our civilization's infrastructure (aerospace transport systems, telecommunications, exploration probes). In this article promising method of modeling complex systems using Petri networks is introduced in context of qualitative and quantitative dependability analysis. This method, although with some limitation and drawback offer still convenient visual formal method of describing system behavior on different levels (functional, timing, random events) and offers straight correspondence to underlying mathematical engine, perfect for simulations and engineering support.

As a natural and cultural heritage in the world, the slope of Longjing Road lies in the West Lake Scenic Area. However, this slope suffers from rain-wash, air-slake and later-on-natural movements which cause collapse, thus the slope calls for engineering support. Yet the slopes we used to build are mainly aimed to construction engineering and highways particularly, that we must take their special locations into consideration. Their particularity demand that we should choose a certainly workable engineering support and design it in a way that delights people's eye at the meantime, therefore much more difficult work is to be done to meet it. Among those engineering support we know, retaining wall or anchor-type lattice beam is helpful in large-area virescence. Through rational design and beautification, it ensures the security and stability of the engineering support and meanwhile it helps with its pleasing outlook. By means of finite element strength reduction factor method, we analyze the stability of the slope on the Longjing Road with the finite element software and the effectiveness of retaining wall and anchor-type lattice beam. Also, through safety factors, displacement and destruction process, we compare the actual effectiveness of these two cases and work out some improvement measures. These results can serve as references in choosing engineering support schemes alike.

Advances in pervasive computing, machine learning, and human activity recognition are changing preventive health care. Emerging paradigms, such as Mobile Cyber-Physical System (MCPS) and Just-in-time interventions (JITI), allow patients to take health monitoring, diagnosis, therapy and treatments beyond traditional medical settings. These paradigms empower patients by delivering health care at any place and at any time. MCPS provides the necessary engineering support to enable JITI systems to work in an autonomous way. In this work, we review the recent trends in the design of Mobile Cyber-Physical systems for Just-in-time interventions (MCP-JITI), and the different engineering concepts behind this paradigm. Finally, we discuss a set of necessary requirements or design issues to successfully deploy in real world scenarios. This discussion is driven by the description of the MCP-JITI architecture and the interconnections among its components.

This chapter describes a method of engineering support of preoperative planning of surgical procedures with the use of engineering tools, such as state-of-the-art software for medical image processing, or a finite element method. The procedure of pre-operative planning consists in matching individual cases of incision sites and directions, visualization and selection of areas for resection as well as planning the technique of implant positioning and fixation. Also, the final visualization of the result of the planned medical procedure can be performed. This paper presents procedural propositions in surgery planning in the cases of corrections of the head shape in patients with craniosynostosis, corrections of the chest deformity such as pigeon chest and stabilization of the lumbar spine. 3D models created on the basis of computer tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) enabled it to conduct a biomechanical analysis as well as an objective quantitative and qualitative virtual evaluation of the surgical procedure. Preoperative planning support gives the physician an opportunity to prepare for the operation in a better way, which results in the selection of the best possible variant of an operative technique, reduction of time of the surgical procedure and minimization of the risk of intraoperative complications.

This chapter looks at the overall range of planning and scheduling, which has five key phases: planning, estimating, scheduling, monitoring, and controlling. The maintenance function must do a better job in defining staffing needs by defining total maintenance requirements and showing maximum craft labor productivity. It also identifies areas contributing to increased maintenance costs and greater staffing needs. A key area is what ineffective planning looks like to the organization, and this can be turned into benefits of effective planning. This chapter looks at selling this best practice to maintenance and how to improve craft productivity to equal 5+ equivalent crafts positions.

Virtual integration techniques focus on building architectural models of systems that can be analyzed early in the design cycle to try to lower cost, reduce risk, and improve quality of complex embedded systems. Given appropriate architectural descriptions and compositional reasoning rules, these techniques can be used to prove important safety properties about the architecture prior to system construction. Such proofs build from “leaf-level” assume/guarantee component contracts through architectural layers towards top-level safety properties. The proofs are built upon the premise that each leaf-level component contract is realizable; i.e., it is possible to construct a component such that for any input allowed by the contract assumptions, there is some output value that the component can produce that satisfies the contract guarantees. Without engineering support it is all too easy to write leaf-level components that can’t be realized. Realizability checking for propositional contracts has been well-studied for many years, both for component synthesis and checking correctness of temporal logic requirements. However, checking realizability for contracts involving infinite theories is still an open problem. In this paper, we describe a new approach for checking realizability of contracts involving theories and demonstrate its usefulness on several examples.

To describe how asset management fits into the structure of an organization and to summarize the activities involved in asset management. Outcomes After reading this chapter you will know about: The link between asset management and business strategy, including the factors involved in business development which impact on asset strategy; The role of the Chief Asset Management Officer; How the asset management function should be structured; The role of asset management groups which have personnel working in particular technical areas; The basic knowledge required by asset managers; The main activities of asset management; Organizational activities which are not part of asset management; The need for financial, legal, and engineering support for asset management; What is meant by an asset management policy and an example related to ISO 55001; An introduction to asset management plans with reference to ISO 55001.

This article describes a construction activity execution space analysis approach and a decision sup- port tool for resolving execution space interference and conflict between work-face construction activities. Lack of execution pace planning interrupt and badly affect the progress of construction activities. Also, in real situations, spatial congestion can severely reduce the productivity of workers sharing the same workspace, and may cause health and safety hazard issues. The aim of this article is to present a critical space-time analysis (CSA) approach that was developed to model and quantify workspace conges- tion and was encapsulated in a computerized tool dubbed PECASO (patterns execution and critical analysis of site- space organization) that was developed to assist site man- agers in the assignment and identification of workspace conflicts. A new concept of "visualizing workspace com- petition" between the construction activities is presented based on a unique representation of the dynamic nature of activities within the execution workspace, in 3D space and time. PECASO embraces 4D visualization and highlights the critical space control aspect to formulate an innova- tive 4D space planning and visualization tool. The CSA methodology and PECASO were validated using a real case study and the article concludes that the PECASO system has the potential to reduce the number of compet- ing workspaces, as well as the conflicting volume/space between occupied workspaces. This in turn produces bet- ter assessment of the execution strategy for a given project schedule. Additionally, the PECASO system has intro- duced a new way of communicating the program of work in a high level of detail for space planning purposes. ∗ To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: n.n.

Image searching is a creative process. We have proposed a novel image retrieval system that supports creative search sessions by allowing the user to organise their search results on a workspace. The workspace's usefulness is evaluated in a task-oriented and user-centred comparative experiment, involving design professionals and several types of realistic search tasks. In particular, we focus on its effect on task conceptualisation and query formulation. A traditional relevance feedback system serves as a baseline. The results of this study show that the workspace is more useful in terms of both of the above aspects and that the proposed approach leads to a more effective and enjoyable search experience. This paper also highlights the influence of tasks on the users' search and organisation strategy.

This work focuses on identifying and minimising workspace congestions between construction activities' execution space. It develops a methodology and tool to assist planners with the assignment of activities' execution space, as well as identification and visualisation of workspace congestion. A literature review of workspace planning techniques revealed that traditional workspace planning techniques might not be able to detect and resolve workspace congestions. This paper establishes a new concept for ‘visualising workspace competition’ between the progressing activities through a number of objectives. A Critical Space-time Analysis (CSA) approach was developed to model and quantify workspace congestions. Subsequently a multi-criteria function embedding spatial and schedule related criteria, was designed to measure the severity of workspace congestions. A dynamic 4D simulation environment was developed by utilising three workspace planning features, these are: the twelve execution patterns, the three different work rate distributions, and a time-based simulation of the progressing quantities of work. These were encapsulated in an innovative visual 4D CAD tool dubbed PECASO ( Patterns Execution and Critical Analysis of Site-space Organisation ), which was developed and evaluated in a case study project. The paper concludes that the CSA approach reduces the number of competing workspaces and conflicting volumes between occupied workspace. The PECASO tool assists the planners' decision making to produce a better execution strategy for a given project schedule. It also contributes to future research and knowledge of 4D workspace planning.

Information overload has become a critical challenge within military operations. However, the problem is not so much one of too much information but of abundant information that is poorly organized and poorly represented. Here I report the development of a prototype functional workspace to resolve this issue. Development proceeded through a design sequence of cognitive analysis, knowledge representation and workspace design. The cognitive analysis focused on the specific information needed for analysis of insurgency operations. Abstraction–Decomposition matrices from the framework of Cognitive Work Analysis were used as design artifacts to represent knowledge acquired during the cognitive analysis. Additional design guidance related to workspace layout and format was drawn from operational and scientific literature. The workspace was structured in terms of dimensions of functional abstraction and functional decomposition; dimensions that are thought to characterize the fundamental structure of cognitive work. In this paper, I describe the analysis and how its products were integrated with insights drawn from operational and scientific literature to develop the prototype workspace. Relevance to Industry Visualization is often proposed as a solution to the challenges of cognitively intensive, information-rich work. This paper outlines principles and analytic procedures that can be used to develop a visualization for cognitive work.

Control systems rely heavily on the software that is used to implement them. However, current trends in software engineering are not fully exploited in the development process of complex control systems. In this paper, an approach for the model driven development of distributed control systems (DCSs) is presented. The proposed approach that greatly simplifies the development process adopts the function block construct introduced by the IEC 61499 standard and supports the automatic generation of implementation models for many different execution environments. It favours the deployment and re-deployment of distributed control applications and provides an infrastructure for the transparent exploitation of current software engineering practices. GME, a meta-modelling tool, was utilized to develop Archimedes, an IEC-compliant prototype engineering support system. Specific model-to-model transformers have been developed to automate the transformation of FB-based design models to CORBA-component-model based implementation models to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach.

Amplified Collaboration Environment(ACE) is a display-rich project room that enables distributed teams to intensively work together to solve a complex problem. This paper presents reviews of some most important shared workspace models in real-time collaboration systems. It then describes a set of iterative design studies of evaluation the shared workspace for ACEs. The study involved small groups of users in two ACEs performed a collaborative visualization and analysis task while varying the display technology configuration. The goal of this study was to enhance intensive collaborative work in ACEs. The results showed that the participants benefited from the ability to see others` work over the high-resolution shared workspace, which helped enhance group awareness and performance.

The space exploration vision announced by President Bush on January 14, 2004 requires a new way of thinking about human-machine systems. A progressive and sustained exploration of the Moon, Mars, and other destinations of discovery will depend on system design that supports and extends the capabilities of our astronauts through advanced automation, distributed mission support, and effective human-robot teaming. We provide an overview of the developmental program of exploration, and the critical Human-Systems Integration (HSI) challenges associated with each of seven operational domains: mission control operations; self-sufficient spacecraft operations; extra-vehicular activity / teleoperations; training and on-board decision support; launch-site operations; HSI engineering support; and behavioral health and performance.