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Research on complexity in healthcare is often focus on clinical in patient settings, and lacks an Allied Health perspective. The objective of this scoping review is to understand how Allied Health clinicians engage with patient complexity in a home-based setting. The information generated from this review will be used to inform a future qualitative study on a specific team of home based allied health clinicians (social workers, occupational therapists, dieticians, and physiotherapists) in the Perth Metropolitan area,

Research on complexity in healthcare is often focus on clinical in patient settings, and lacks an Allied Health perspective. The objective of this scoping review is to understand how Allied Health clinicians engage with patient complexity in a home-based setting. The information generated from this review will be used to inform a future qualitative study on a specific team of home based allied health clinicians (social workers, occupational therapists, dieticians, and physiotherapists) in the Perth Metropolitan area,

Research on complexity in healthcare is often focus on clinical in patient settings, and lacks an Allied Health perspective. The objective of this scoping review is to understand how Allied Health clinicians engage with patient complexity in a home-based setting. The information generated from this review will be used to inform a future qualitative study on a specific team of home based allied health clinicians (social workers, occupational therapists, dieticians, and physiotherapists) in the Perth Metropolitan area,

Research on complexity in healthcare is often focus on clinical in patient settings, and lacks an Allied Health perspective. The objective of this scoping review is to understand how Allied Health clinicians engage with patient complexity in a home-based setting. The information generated from this review will be used to inform a future qualitative study on a specific team of home based allied health clinicians (social workers, occupational therapists, dieticians, and physiotherapists) in the Perth Metropolitan area,

Research on complexity in healthcare is often focus on clinical in patient settings, and lacks an Allied Health perspective. The objective of this scoping review is to understand how Allied Health clinicians engage with patient complexity in a home-based setting. The information generated from this review will be used to inform a future qualitative study on a specific team of home based allied health clinicians (social workers, occupational therapists, dieticians, and physiotherapists) in the Perth Metropolitan area,

Research on complexity in healthcare is often focus on clinical in patient settings, and lacks an Allied Health perspective. The objective of this scoping review is to understand how Allied Health clinicians engage with patient complexity in a home-based setting. The information generated from this review will be used to inform a future qualitative study on a specific team of home based allied health clinicians (social workers, occupational therapists, dieticians, and physiotherapists) in the Perth Metropolitan area,

Research on complexity in healthcare is often focus on clinical in patient settings, and lacks an Allied Health perspective. The objective of this scoping review is to understand how Allied Health clinicians engage with patient complexity in a home-based setting. The information generated from this review will be used to inform a future qualitative study on a specific team of home based allied health clinicians (social workers, occupational therapists, dieticians, and physiotherapists) in the Perth Metropolitan area,

This case study analyzes how the Stryker Mobile Gun System (MGS) program managed complexity. The MGS is one of the ten variants of the Stryker series of vehicles that equip the Army's Stryker Brigade Combat Teams. These brigades were created by the Army Chief of Staff from 1999-2003, General Eric Shinseki, to provide the Army with a highly deployable medium-force capability. Initially intended as a variant that required limited development, the MGS experienced a number of significant challenges during systems development. This case study uses one of the program's primary issues, reliability shortfalls with the ammunition handling system, to describe how the program self-organized to manage complexity. The case study identifies the elements of complexity that existed in the Defense Acquisition System (DAS), and how they interacted to create a challenging situation for the MGS program. After a crisis period from 2004-2005, the MGS program changed its acquisition approach through the revitalization of systems engineering and risk management. This case study examines the selforganizing methods that the MGS program used to improve system performance, and it concludes with a description of how acquisition programs can better align their acquisition strategy to achieve programmatic resilience.

This article is from Scientific Reports , volume 2 . Abstract The complexity of biomolecular interactions and influences is a major obstacle to their comprehension and elucidation. Visualizing knowledge of biomolecular interactions increases comprehension and facilitates the development of new hypotheses. The rapidly changing landscape of high-content experimental results also presents a challenge for the maintenance of comprehensive knowledgebases. Distributing the responsibility for maintenance of a knowledgebase to a community of subject matter experts is an effective strategy for large, complex and rapidly changing knowledgebases. Cognoscente serves these needs by building visualizations for queries of biomolecular interactions on demand, by managing the complexity of those visualizations, and by crowdsourcing to promote the incorporation of current knowledge from the literature.

Perma.cc archive of https://voxeu.org/article/managing-risk-and-complexity-legal-entity-identifier created on 2021-12-21 22:20:19+00:00.

The Army operates in an environment of ever increasing complexity. Traditional management models that have governed the actions of agencies and bureaucracies are becoming increasingly inadequate for dealing with the details and emergent realities of complex systems. The Army, like any other large government bureaucracy, must learn to adapt to the unfamiliar patterns of actions and products in a complex operating environment. How the Army responds to a complex environment is evident in its planning process. This paper seeks to illuminate what the Army intends when it plans and what it means to plan in a complex environment. The Army's effort to remediate the Year 2000 computer problem (Y2K) is an example of both. The Army's Action Plan for dealing with Y2K is the case study that this paper examines. It is a significant example of how the Army plans and provides insight into how the Army and the government understand planning in a complex environment. Through a series of performance controls, namely the Year 2000 database, the plan's timeline, and the Compliance Certification Checklist, the Action Plan is a method for controlling the process of Army Y2K remediation. While the Action Plan itself follows a traditional organizational model that places emphasis on monitoring outcomes and adherence to a schedule of action, subordinate agencies governed by the plan follow a different organizational model; one that reflects the experience of complex systems management. The difference between the two approaches provides an insight into what is necessary to adequately manage complex actions in complex systems: a type of control that allows an organization time to learn while it accomplishes its mission.

The Army operates in an environment of ever increasing complexity. Traditional management models that have governed the actions of agencies and bureaucracies are becoming increasingly inadequate for dealing with the details and emergent realities of complex systems. The Army, like any other large government bureaucracy, must learn to adapt to the unfamiliar patterns of actions and products in a complex operating environment. How the Army responds to a complex environment is evident in its planning process. This paper seeks to illuminate what the Army intends when it plans and what it means to plan in a complex environment. The Army's effort to remediate the Year 2000 computer problem (Y2K) is an example of both. The Army's Action Plan for dealing with Y2K is the case study that this paper examines. It is a significant example of how the Army plans and provides insight into how the Army and the government understand planning in a complex environment. Through a series of performance controls, namely the Year 2000 database, the plan's timeline, and the Compliance Certification Checklist, the Action Plan is a method for controlling the process of Army Y2K remediation. While the Action Plan itself follows a traditional organizational model that places emphasis on monitoring outcomes and adherence to a schedule of action, subordinate agencies governed by the plan follow a different organizational model; one that reflects the experience of complex systems management. The difference between the two approaches provides an insight into what is necessary to adequately manage complex actions in complex systems: a type of control that allows an organization time to learn while it accomplishes its mission.

In Chapter 18 of 19 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami answers "How Are Your Responsibilities Changing as Your Career Evolves?" As Goswami develops a greater mastery of his stewardship skills, work opportunities expand from individual-level into organizational- and community-level. By striking a balance embracing simplicity and managing complexity Goswami shares how he makes the transition. Goswami is able to perform at higher levels. Bijoy Goswami is a writer, teacher, and community leader based in Austin, Texas. He develops learning models to help individuals, organizations and communities live more meaningfully. Previously, he co-founded Aviri Software after working at Trilogy Software. Goswami graduated from Stanford University.

Educational Service Agencies (ESA's) are public education agencies that provide specialized programs and services to a group of school districts in a specified geographical region and to the state department of education. Most states have encouraged the development of ESA's that have either evolved out of county districts or have been created to provide technical assistance, innovation, economies of scale, or more professional service delivery to local school districts. This research examined nine ESA's in five states to explore the dynamics of successful intergovernmental collaboration. At the sites, 300 intensive, semistructured interviews were conducted with state education officials, state legislators, ESA staff, ESA board members, local superintendents, other local district staff, and local school board members knowledgeable about the creation, growth, and performance of the ESA. Data from observation and organizational records were also collected. Results show how the external political and legal context influences ESA performance and how ESA managers respond to constraints in their environment. Findings will be of interest to scholars in the fields of educational policymaking, implementation, and organizational theory; to practitioners in state and local education agencies that have contact with ESA's; and to ESA administrators. (Author/TE)

Today's interconnected and complex security environment requires individuals and organizations that can think through and adapt to unforeseen and rapidly evolving situations. Senior military leaders, foremost General Martin Dempsey former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have repeatedly emphasized the need for greater innovation and adaptation across the US Defense Department. Paradox theory and polarity management are respectively an intellectual and an organizational change management framework. These frameworks offer better conceptual understanding of issues and organizational adaptations than current creative thinking and Leading Change-type models.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references (p. 287-291) and index

Event-driven replanning is a dynamic process that adjusts plans in progress in response to unanticipated events. When an unanticipated event occurs, it disrupts the plan in progress by creating new demands with accompanying constraints that must be satisfied. The task becomes a constraint satisfaction problem that sometimes requires planners to negotiate to manage or relax constraints while they shuffle and reallocate resources that are already committed as part of the plan in progress. Revising the allocation and distribution of these resources changes the plan in progress and causes secondary disruptions with accompanying constraints. The types of secondary disruptions that occur are dependent on the resources that are revised. Each resource that is altered will create different side effects that can ripple throughout the plan in progress and jeopardize future activities. The purpose of this research was to understand the strategies that people use in the event-driven replanning process. The crux of the study centered around three directly observed cases of practitioners actually engaged in the event-driven replanning process in aeromedical evacuation. An in depth protocol analysis was performed on each of the three cases.

Today's interconnected and complex security environment requires individuals and organizations that can think through and adapt to unforeseen and rapidly evolving situations. Senior military leaders, foremost General Martin Dempsey former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have repeatedly emphasized the need for greater innovation and adaptation across the US Defense Department. Paradox theory and polarity management are respectively an intellectual and an organizational change management framework. These frameworks offer better conceptual understanding of issues and organizational adaptations than current creative thinking and Leading Change-type models.

Today's interconnected and complex security environment requires individuals and organizations that can think through and adapt to unforeseen and rapidly evolving situations. Senior military leaders, foremost General Martin Dempsey former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have repeatedly emphasized the need for greater innovation and adaptation across the US Defense Department. Paradox theory and polarity management are respectively an intellectual and an organizational change management framework. These frameworks offer better conceptual understanding of issues and organizational adaptations than current creative thinking and Leading Change-type models.

Today's interconnected and complex security environment requires individuals and organizations that can think through and adapt to unforeseen and rapidly evolving situations. Senior military leaders, foremost General Martin Dempsey former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have repeatedly emphasized the need for greater innovation and adaptation across the US Defense Department. Paradox theory and polarity management are respectively an intellectual and an organizational change management framework. These frameworks offer better conceptual understanding of issues and organizational adaptations than current creative thinking and Leading Change-type models.

In this episode, Adam talks to Jonathan Snook, author of SMACSS, about finding the balance between utility and component driven CSS approaches, design systems engineering, and using container queries to build better responsive web experiences.

In this episode, Adam talks to Jonathan Snook, author of SMACSS, about finding the balance between utility and component driven CSS approaches, design systems engineering, and using container queries to build better responsive web experiences.

Stateless and asynchronous software designs are extremely scalable and efficient, and this efficiency can be crucial in controlling server costs with online free-to-play titles. Unfortunately, asynchronous software also introduces significant complexities, which decreases developer productivity, and significantly increases the risk of bugs slipping into live production environments. This talk describes some of the major challenges associated with these architectures, as well as specific techniques used in MechWarrior Online to compensate for these challenges. Descriptions, examples and consequences will be provided for each of the discussed techniques, as well as critical safety features required to put these techniques into production use. Topics will include automatic programming, state management, timeout handling and co-routines.

Stateless and asynchronous software designs are extremely scalable and efficient, and this efficiency can be crucial in controlling server costs with online free-to-play titles. Unfortunately, asynchronous software also introduces significant complexities, which decreases developer productivity, and significantly increases the risk of bugs slipping into live production environments. This talk describes some of the major challenges associated with these architectures, as well as specific techniques used in MechWarrior Online to compensate for these challenges. Descriptions, examples and consequences will be provided for each of the discussed techniques, as well as critical safety features required to put these techniques into production use. Topics will include automatic programming, state management, timeout handling and co-routines.

The complexity that characterizes modern urban operation combines wit ha perceived intolerance of military casualties to make actions in cities among the most difficult missions that U.S. armed forces will undertake. This study proposes a new planning approach that employs identification of critical points--the essential elements of the urban area's physical and demographic terrain--along with the notion of density --the quantity of elements and activities within the urban space--to aid military personnel in their efforts to overcome the complexity. Integrating this approach with the traditional command estimate process should assist the planner in determining how best to allocate a command's ever-scarce resources.

This report examines the methodologies and tools available to the manager and programmer for assisting in the development of large software projects.

Information complexity of automation displays has become a bottleneck that limits the usefulness of new technologies in air traffic control (ATC). Previously, we developed a set of metrics to measure information complexity in ATC displays. While these metrics provide measures of display complexity, their use is somewhat limited due to required human factors expertise and understanding of the display design. Technology developers and human factors practitioners often desire quick, easy-to-use tools to assess the display during design and acquisition evaluation. Questionnaires provide a quick and inexpensive means to gather data from a potentially large number of respondents. We developed two questionnaires to evaluate ATC display complexity, based on the metric indices. The first questionnaire employs a multiple-choice format and allows quantitative evaluation of complexity. The second questionnaire uses a Likert rating format and is intended for qualitative assessment of complexity. We conducted an initial assessment of the questionnaires with seven subject matter experts on a radar display (STARS). The results indicate that both questionnaires produced consistent complexity evaluations among the subjects. Thus, we recommend that the multiple-choice questionnaire is more suitable for assessing quantitative complexity control during acquisition evaluations, and the Likert rating questionnaire is more suitable for complexity management during design of new ATC technologies.

An approach for incorporating embedded simulation and analysis capabilities in complex simulation codes through template-based generic programming is presented. This approach relies on templating and operator overloading within the C++ language to transform a given calculation into one that can compute a variety of additional quantities that are necessary for many state-of-the-art simulation and analysis algorithms. An approach for incorporating these ideas into complex simulation codes through general graph-based assembly is also presented. These ideas have been implemented within a set of packages in the Trilinos framework and are demonstrated on a simple problem from chemical engineering.

An approach for incorporating embedded simulation and analysis capabilities in complex simulation codes through template-based generic programming is presented. This approach relies on templating and operator overloading within the C++ language to transform a given calculation into one that can compute a variety of additional quantities that are necessary for many state-of-the-art simulation and analysis algorithms. An approach for incorporating these ideas into complex simulation codes through general graph-based assembly is also presented. These ideas have been implemented within a set of packages in the Trilinos framework and are demonstrated on a simple problem from chemical engineering.

Complexity; Simulation and Modeling; Quality Control, Reliability, Safety and Risk; Communications Engineering, Networks

powerpoint of family resources and distribution of wealth

powerpoint of family resources and distribution of wealth

powerpoint of family resources and distribution of wealth

This document describes preliminary research on a distributed, trajectory-oriented approach for traffic complexity management. The approach is to manage traffic complexity in a distributed control environment, based on preserving trajectory flexibility and minimizing constraints. In particular, the document presents an analytical framework to study trajectory flexibility and the impact of trajectory constraints on it. The document proposes preliminary flexibility metrics that can be interpreted and measured within the framework.

This document describes exploratory research on a distributed, trajectory oriented approach for traffic complexity management. The approach is to manage traffic complexity based on preserving trajectory flexibility and minimizing constraints. In particular, the document presents metrics for trajectory flexibility; a method for estimating these metrics based on discrete time and degree of freedom assumptions; a planning algorithm using these metrics to preserve flexibility; and preliminary experiments testing the impact of preserving trajectory flexibility on traffic complexity. The document also describes an early demonstration capability of the trajectory flexibility preservation function in the NASA Autonomous Operations Planner (AOP) platform.

Seattle University recently decided to replace three separate, computerized student-information systems with a single, integrated system. The complexity of this decision was managed with a multicriteria method that was used to evaluate alternative systems. The method took into account the many and sometimes conflicting concerns of the people who would use whatever system was finally selected. Multicriteria analysis not only provided a way of managing a large amount of information, but apparently reduced people's resistance to change. The method and its application to this particular computer system selection decision is described, and a chart of criteria and ratings is provided. The method, which is simple in structure, is seen as adaptable to different kinds of decisions and decision-making processes encountered by institutional researchers. Contains 5 references. (Author/KM)

Seattle University recently decided to replace three separate, computerized student-information systems with a single, integrated system. The complexity of this decision was managed with a multicriteria method that was used to evaluate alternative systems. The method took into account the many and sometimes conflicting concerns of the people who would use whatever system was finally selected. Multicriteria analysis not only provided a way of managing a large amount of information, but apparently reduced people's resistance to change. The method and its application to this particular computer system selection decision is described, and a chart of criteria and ratings is provided. The method, which is simple in structure, is seen as adaptable to different kinds of decisions and decision-making processes encountered by institutional researchers. Contains 5 references. (Author/KM)

Seattle University recently decided to replace three separate, computerized student-information systems with a single, integrated system. The complexity of this decision was managed with a multicriteria method that was used to evaluate alternative systems. The method took into account the many and sometimes conflicting concerns of the people who would use whatever system was finally selected. Multicriteria analysis not only provided a way of managing a large amount of information, but apparently reduced people's resistance to change. The method and its application to this particular computer system selection decision is described, and a chart of criteria and ratings is provided. The method, which is simple in structure, is seen as adaptable to different kinds of decisions and decision-making processes encountered by institutional researchers. Contains 5 references. (Author/KM)

This article is from Frontiers in Neuroinformatics , volume 6 . Abstract High quality neuroscience research requires accurate, reliable and well maintained neuroinformatics applications. As software projects become larger, offering more functionality and developing a denser web of interdependence between their component parts, we need more sophisticated methods to manage their complexity. If complexity is allowed to get out of hand, either the quality of the software or the speed of development suffer, and in many cases both. To address this issue, here we develop a scalable, low-cost and open source solution for continuous integration (CI), a technique which ensures the quality of changes to the code base during the development procedure, rather than relying on a pre-release integration phase. We demonstrate that a CI-based workflow, due to rapid feedback about code integration problems and tracking of code health measures, enabled substantial increases in productivity for a major neuroinformatics project and additional benefits for three further projects. Beyond the scope of the current study, we identify multiple areas in which CI can be employed to further increase the quality of neuroinformatics projects by improving development practices and incorporating appropriate development tools. Finally, we discuss what measures can be taken to lower the barrier for developers of neuroinformatics applications to adopt this useful technique.

This article is from Frontiers in Neuroinformatics , volume 6 . Abstract High quality neuroscience research requires accurate, reliable and well maintained neuroinformatics applications. As software projects become larger, offering more functionality and developing a denser web of interdependence between their component parts, we need more sophisticated methods to manage their complexity. If complexity is allowed to get out of hand, either the quality of the software or the speed of development suffer, and in many cases both. To address this issue, here we develop a scalable, low-cost and open source solution for continuous integration (CI), a technique which ensures the quality of changes to the code base during the development procedure, rather than relying on a pre-release integration phase. We demonstrate that a CI-based workflow, due to rapid feedback about code integration problems and tracking of code health measures, enabled substantial increases in productivity for a major neuroinformatics project and additional benefits for three further projects. Beyond the scope of the current study, we identify multiple areas in which CI can be employed to further increase the quality of neuroinformatics projects by improving development practices and incorporating appropriate development tools. Finally, we discuss what measures can be taken to lower the barrier for developers of neuroinformatics applications to adopt this useful technique.

In order to handle the expected increase in air traffic volume, the next generation air transportation system is moving towards a distributed control architecture, in which ground-based service providers such as controllers and traffic managers and air-based users such as pilots share responsibility for aircraft trajectory generation and management. While its architecture becomes more distributed, the goal of the Air Traffic Management (ATM) system remains to achieve objectives such as maintaining safety and efficiency. It is, therefore, critical to design appropriate control elements to ensure that aircraft and groundbased actions result in achieving these objectives without unduly restricting user-preferred trajectories. This paper presents a trajectory-oriented approach containing two such elements. One is a trajectory flexibility preservation function, by which aircraft plan their trajectories to preserve flexibility to accommodate unforeseen events. And the other is a trajectory constraint minimization function by which ground-based agents, in collaboration with air-based agents, impose just-enough restrictions on trajectories to achieve ATM objectives, such as separation assurance and flow management. The underlying hypothesis is that preserving trajectory flexibility of each individual aircraft naturally achieves the aggregate objective of avoiding excessive traffic complexity, and that trajectory flexibility is increased by minimizing constraints without jeopardizing the intended ATM objectives. The paper presents conceptually how the two functions operate in a distributed control architecture that includes self separation. The paper illustrates the concept through hypothetical scenarios involving conflict resolution and flow management. It presents a functional analysis of the interaction and information flow between the functions. It also presents an analytical framework for defining metrics and developing methods to preserve trajectory flexibility and minimize its constraints. In this framework flexibility is defined in terms of robustness and adaptability to disturbances and the impact of constraints is illustrated through analysis of a trajectory solution space with limited degrees of freedom and in simple constraint situations involving meeting multiple times of arrival and resolving a conflict.

In order to handle the expected increase in air traffic volume, the next generation air transportation system is moving towards a distributed control architecture, in which ground-based service providers such as controllers and traffic managers and air-based users such as pilots share responsibility for aircraft trajectory generation and management. While its architecture becomes more distributed, the goal of the Air Traffic Management (ATM) system remains to achieve objectives such as maintaining safety and efficiency. It is, therefore, critical to design appropriate control elements to ensure that aircraft and groundbased actions result in achieving these objectives without unduly restricting user-preferred trajectories. This paper presents a trajectory-oriented approach containing two such elements. One is a trajectory flexibility preservation function, by which aircraft plan their trajectories to preserve flexibility to accommodate unforeseen events. And the other is a trajectory constraint minimization function by which ground-based agents, in collaboration with air-based agents, impose just-enough restrictions on trajectories to achieve ATM objectives, such as separation assurance and flow management. The underlying hypothesis is that preserving trajectory flexibility of each individual aircraft naturally achieves the aggregate objective of avoiding excessive traffic complexity, and that trajectory flexibility is increased by minimizing constraints without jeopardizing the intended ATM objectives. The paper presents conceptually how the two functions operate in a distributed control architecture that includes self separation. The paper illustrates the concept through hypothetical scenarios involving conflict resolution and flow management. It presents a functional analysis of the interaction and information flow between the functions. It also presents an analytical framework for defining metrics and developing methods to preserve trajectory flexibility and minimize its constraints. In this framework flexibility is defined in terms of robustness and adaptability to disturbances and the impact of constraints is illustrated through analysis of a trajectory solution space with limited degrees of freedom and in simple constraint situations involving meeting multiple times of arrival and resolving a conflict.

Complexity in modern product design is manifest through the interactions of large numbers of diverse parts and functions, and multiple design disciplines. The intricate web of synergistic relationships necessary to link components together makes it difficult for designers to assimilate or represent such complex designs in their totality. Since existing CAD software tools provide only limited support for managing complex designs, it is necessary to document and track complexity relationships independent of the actual CAD models. This reduces the level of detail that can be managed, while requiring more work from the design team and increasing the risk of inconsistencies and errors in the design. To better support management of complex designs, this research integrates multiple design representations and the relationships among them into a single organizational framework. Its goal is to provide flexibility for designers to manage and evolve design representations for a variety of design processes and applications. This research uses design data objects to represent the aggregation hierarchy and relationships between design representations. Aggregation objects are introduced to organize the design into a multileveled hierarchy by encapsulating multiple design components or representations into single objects. This organization serves to abstract design information and facilitate understanding. The design effects that result from the synergistic interaction between components are captured in relationship objects. Relationship objects eliminate duplicate specification and ensure compatibility between components. Together, aggregation and relationship objects form well defined boundaries between design entities to facilitate simultaneous design and reuse. Changes to aggregation and relationship objects are captured in version objects that record the history of a design as it evolves.

Complexity in modern product design is manifest through the interactions of large numbers of diverse parts and functions, and multiple design disciplines. The intricate web of synergistic relationships necessary to link components together makes it difficult for designers to assimilate or represent such complex designs in their totality. Since existing CAD software tools provide only limited support for managing complex designs, it is necessary to document and track complexity relationships independent of the actual CAD models. This reduces the level of detail that can be managed, while requiring more work from the design team and increasing the risk of inconsistencies and errors in the design. To better support management of complex designs, this research integrates multiple design representations and the relationships among them into a single organizational framework. Its goal is to provide flexibility for designers to manage and evolve design representations for a variety of design processes and applications. This research uses design data objects to represent the aggregation hierarchy and relationships between design representations. Aggregation objects are introduced to organize the design into a multileveled hierarchy by encapsulating multiple design components or representations into single objects. This organization serves to abstract design information and facilitate understanding. The design effects that result from the synergistic interaction between components are captured in relationship objects. Relationship objects eliminate duplicate specification and ensure compatibility between components. Together, aggregation and relationship objects form well defined boundaries between design entities to facilitate simultaneous design and reuse. Changes to aggregation and relationship objects are captured in version objects that record the history of a design as it evolves.

Increasing complexity is one of the most pertinent issues when discussing the role and future of design, designers and their education. The evolving nature of digital media technology has resulted in a profession in a state of flux with increasingly complex communication and design problems. The ability to collaborate and interact with other disciplines has recently been strongly articulated as an imperative skill for the future designer. How the education of such a designer is facilitated in practice is less well defined. The implementation of authentic problem-solving processes that introduce design students to workplace realities is often missing in design education. In order to manage the increasing complexities of design problems and technology a learning and teaching approach that facilitates the interaction of multiple disciplines was implemented and trialed over a period of two years in an undergraduate digital media design programme. This approach, known as the POOL model framework, is based on a "pool" of resources and people to be applied as needed when responding to complex design problems. This paper focuses on the extent to which complex interactive design projects can be managed through multidisciplinary collaboration. Feedback from students and educators is presented and which reveals that the framework does provide an opportunity for students to resolve complex design and technological problems and contribute to project outcomes that could not be achieved when working individually.

Increasing complexity is one of the most pertinent issues when discussing the role and future of design, designers and their education. The evolving nature of digital media technology has resulted in a profession in a state of flux with increasingly complex communication and design problems. The ability to collaborate and interact with other disciplines has recently been strongly articulated as an imperative skill for the future designer. How the education of such a designer is facilitated in practice is less well defined. The implementation of authentic problem-solving processes that introduce design students to workplace realities is often missing in design education. In order to manage the increasing complexities of design problems and technology a learning and teaching approach that facilitates the interaction of multiple disciplines was implemented and trialed over a period of two years in an undergraduate digital media design programme. This approach, known as the POOL model framework, is based on a "pool" of resources and people to be applied as needed when responding to complex design problems. This paper focuses on the extent to which complex interactive design projects can be managed through multidisciplinary collaboration. Feedback from students and educators is presented and which reveals that the framework does provide an opportunity for students to resolve complex design and technological problems and contribute to project outcomes that could not be achieved when working individually.

This article is from Database: The Journal of Biological Databases and Curation , volume 2013 . Abstract The available curated data lag behind current biological knowledge contained in the literature. Text mining can assist biologists and curators to locate and access this knowledge, for instance by characterizing the functional profile of publications. Gene Ontology (GO) category assignment in free text already supports various applications, such as powering ontology-based search engines, finding curation-relevant articles (triage) or helping the curator to identify and encode functions. Popular text mining tools for GO classification are based on so called thesaurus-based—or dictionary-based—approaches, which exploit similarities between the input text and GO terms themselves. But their effectiveness remains limited owing to the complex nature of GO terms, which rarely occur in text. In contrast, machine learning approaches exploit similarities between the input text and already curated instances contained in a knowledge base to infer a functional profile. GO Annotations (GOA) and MEDLINE make possible to exploit a growing amount of curated abstracts (97 000 in November 2012) for populating this knowledge base. Our study compares a state-of-the-art thesaurus-based system with a machine learning system (based on a k-Nearest Neighbours algorithm) for the task of proposing a functional profile for unseen MEDLINE abstracts, and shows how resources and performances have evolved. Systems are evaluated on their ability to propose for a given abstract the GO terms (2.8 on average) used for curation in GOA. We show that since 2006, although a massive effort was put into adding synonyms in GO (+300%), our thesaurus-based system effectiveness is rather constant, reaching from 0.28 to 0.31 for Recall at 20 (R20). In contrast, thanks to its knowledge base growth, our machine learning system has steadily improved, reaching from 0.38 in 2006 to 0.56 for R20 in 2012. Integrated in semi-automatic workflows or in fully automatic pipelines, such systems are more and more efficient to provide assistance to biologists.Database URL:http://eagl.unige.ch/GOCat/

On December 4th, 1998 at 3:36 AM STS-88 (the space shuttle Endeavor) was launched with the "Node 1 Unity Module" in its payload bay. After working on the Space Station program for a very long time, that launch was one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen! As the Shuttle proceeded to rendezvous with the Russian American module know as Zarya, I returned to Houston quickly to start monitoring the activation of the software I had spent the last 3 years working on. The FGB module (also known as "Zarya"), was grappled by the shuttle robotic arm, and connected to the Unity module. Crewmembers then hooked up the power and data connections between Zarya and Unity. On December 7th, 1998 at 9:49 PM CST the Node Control Software was activated. On December 15th, 1998, the Node-l/Zarya "cornerstone" of the International Space Station was left on-orbit. The Node Control Software (NCS) is the first software flown by NASA for the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS Program is considered the most complex international engineering effort ever undertaken. At last count some 18 countries are active partners in this global venture. NCS has performed all of its intended functions on orbit, over 200 miles above us. I'll be describing how we built the NCS software.