HardOps: Utilising the software development toolchain for hardware design

<div>Preprint of journal article.</div><div><br></div><div><b>Abstract</b>:</div><div>Collaborative design of physical products between remote partners poses unique challenges. This is due to both the complex and interconnected data required for product design and manufacture, and to the centralised computing infrastructure traditionally used to manage product lifecycle data. While modern cloud based solutions to collaborative design are gaining popularity, they diminish the control of each design partner. In contrast, software designers readily collaborate on highly complex software, while retaining direct control of the files they are editing due to the dominance of distributed version control. This version control can be coupled with ``Developer Operations'' or DevOps tools to automate critical processes and facilitate communication. In this paper we explore how DevOps workflows can be adapted to the development of hardware. We include concrete examples of how this can be implemented in practice from a case study of the OpenFlexure Microscope project. While much ground remains to be broken in this field, we believe DevOps for hardware can support a new paradigm of distributed hardware development, with enormous benefits for both commercial and open-source hardware.<br></div>

HardOps: Utilising the software development toolchain for hardware design

<div>Preprint of journal article.</div><div><br></div><div><b>Abstract</b>:</div><div>Collaborative design of physical products between remote partners poses unique challenges. This is due to both the complex and interconnected data required for product design and manufacture, and to the centralised computing infrastructure traditionally used to manage product lifecycle data. While modern cloud based solutions to collaborative design are gaining popularity, they diminish the control of each design partner. In contrast, software designers readily collaborate on highly complex software, while retaining direct control of the files they are editing due to the dominance of distributed version control. This version control can be coupled with ``Developer Operations'' or DevOps tools to automate critical processes and facilitate communication. In this paper we explore how DevOps workflows can be adapted to the development of hardware. We include concrete examples of how this can be implemented in practice from a case study of the OpenFlexure Microscope project. While much ground remains to be broken in this field, we believe DevOps for hardware can support a new paradigm of distributed hardware development, with enormous benefits for both commercial and open-source hardware.<br></div>

The impact and resolution of the GPS week number rollover of April 2019 on autonomous geophysical instrument platforms

Instrument platforms the world over often rely on GPS or similar satellite constellations for accurate timekeeping and synchronization. This reliance can create problems when the timekeeping counter aboard a satellite overflows and begins a new epoch. Due to the rarity of these events (19.6 years for GPS), software designers may be unaware of such circumstance or may choose to ignore it for development complexity considerations. Although it is impossible to predict every fault that may occur in a complicated system, there are a few “best practices” that can allow for graceful fault recovery and restorative action. These guiding principles are especially pertinent for instrument platforms operating in space or in remote locations like Antarctica, where restorative maintenance is both difficult and expensive. In this work, we describe how these principles apply to a communications failure on autonomous adaptive low-power instrument platforms (AAL-PIP) deployed in Antarctica. In particular, we describe how code execution patterns were subtly altered after the GPS week number rollover of April 2019, how this led to Iridium satellite communications and data collection failures, and how communications and data collection were ultimately restored. Finally, we offer some core tenets of instrument platform design as guidance for future development.

Characterizing Student Proficiency in Software Modeling in Terms of Functions, Structures, and Behaviors

Software modeling is an integral practice for software engineers, especially as the complexity of software solutions increases. Unified Modeling Language (UML) is the industry standard for software modeling. however, it is often used incorrectly and misunderstood by novice software designers. This study is centered around understanding patterns of student proficiency of abstraction and systems thinking within a software modeling context. The participants of this study (n = 97) belonged to a systems analysis and design course that is primarily taken by second-year university students. The exam solutions to a case study from the course were evaluated for modeling proficiency. As evidence of proficiency in abstract thinking and systems thinking, we evaluated UML activity diagrams, class diagrams, and sequence diagrams and the alignment between these representations in terms of functions, structures, and behaviors. The results suggest students being proficient in modeling the functional aspects of an information system while facing some difficulty in capturing the structural and behavioral aspects of an information system. Clustering analysis revealed two groups within the sample, with one group displaying a significantly higher abstraction and systems thinking ability. Statistically significant correlations were also found between student proficiency of abstraction and their modeling proficiency in terms of functions, structures, and behaviors.

ALBINISM AND USABILITY OF SOFTWARE FOR COMPUTER-BASED TESTING IN KOGI STATE UNIVERSITY: IS THERE NEED FOR ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY?

This research paper is an evaluation of usability of software for computer-based testing in Kogi State University by students and candidates with albinism. A qualitative research design was employed for the study because the intent was to elicit information from the respondents. The responses show that the interaction of the user (students with albinism) with computer through specific interfaces during the course of computer-based testing was reasonably satisfactory. However, the software used does not give warning sounds (auditory displays) to indicate that something needs attention during CBT. From the response of 88.7% of the respondents, it is obvious that the software effectively monitors time during CBT examination. Disappointingly, there was no time extension placed on the software/program for student with albinism to complete the test as reported by 91.9% of respondents. All the respondents were of the opinion that assistive technologies should be adopted during CBT examination for people with low vision in KSU. Therefore, this paper recommends that the software designers for CBT in KSU should take into consideration more graphics interfaces, auditory displays, time extension for students with low vision and various assistive technologies that students might use. The University management should make effort at providing assistive technologies to compensate for low vision students. This will help advance quality and equity in education by providing fair and valid assessment for all students and candidates including those with albinism.

A Survey Describing Beyond Si Transistors and Exploring Their Implications for Future Processors

The advancement of Silicon CMOS technology has led information technology innovation for decades. However, scaling transistors down according to Moore’s law is almost reaching its limitations. To improve system performance, cost, and energy efficiency, vertical-optimization in multiple layers of the computing stack is required. Technological awareness in terms of devices and circuits could enable informed system-level decisions. For example, graphene is a promising material for extremely scaled high-speed transistors because of its remarkably high mobility, but it can not be used in integrated circuits as a result of the high leakage current from its zero bandgap. In this article, we discuss the fundamental physics of transistors and their ramifications on system design to assist device-level technology consideration during system design. Additionally, various emerging devices and their utilization on a vertically-optimized computing stack are introduced. This article serves as a survey of emerging device technologies that may be relevant in these areas, with an emphasis on making the descriptions approachable by system and software designers to understand the potential solutions. A basic vocabulary will be built to understand how to digest technical content, followed by a survey of devices, and finally a discussion of the implications for future processing systems.

Designing an App to Overcome Language Barriers in the Delivery of Emergency Medical Services: Participatory Development Process

Background In emergencies, language barriers may have dangerous consequences for the patients. There have been some technical approaches to overcome language barriers in medical care but not yet in the prehospital emergency care setting. The use of digital technologies in health care is expanding rapidly. Involving end users at all stages of the development process may help to ensure such technologies are usable and can be implemented. Objective We aimed to develop a digital communication tool that addresses paramedic needs in the specific circumstances of prehospital emergency care and helps paramedics to overcome language barriers when providing care to foreign-language patients. Methods We actively engaged paramedics and software designers in an action-oriented, participatory, iterative development process, which included field observations, workshops, background conversations, questionnaires on rescue missions, studying the literature, and preliminary testing in the field. Results With input from paramedics, we created an app with 600 fixed phrases supporting 18 languages. The app includes medical history–taking questions, phrases asking for consent, and phrases providing specific additional information. Children as patients, as well as their carers and other third parties, can be addressed with appropriate wording. All phrases can be played back audibly or displayed as text. The comprehensive content is grouped into categories and adapted to diverse scenarios, which makes the tool rapidly usable. The app includes a function to document patient responses and the conversation history. For evaluation in a clinical study, the app is run on a smartphone with extra speakers to be of use in noisy environments. The use of prototypes proved valuable to verify that the content, structure, and functions discussed in theory were of value and genuinely needed in practice and that the various device control elements were intuitive. Conclusions The nature of the paramedic work environment places specific demands on the communication options used and need for such devices. The active involvement of paramedics in the development process allowed us to understand and subsequently consider their experience-based knowledge. Software designers could understand the paramedics’ work environment and consider respective needs in the menu navigation and design principles of the app. We argue that the development of any medical software product should actively involve both end users and developers in all phases of the development process. Providing the users with the opportunity to influence technology development ensures that the result is closer to their needs, which can be seen as crucial for successful implementation and sustainable use. Trial Registration German Clinical Trials Register DRKS00016719; https://www.drks.de/drks_web/navigate.do?navigationId=trial.HTML&TRIAL_ID=DRKS00016719 International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) RR2-10.1186/s12913-020-05098-5

User-Adapted Web Services by Extending the eIDAS Specification with Functional Attributes

To provide web services adapted to the users’ functional capabilities, diversity must be considered from the conceptualization and design phases of the services’ development. In previous work, we proposed a model that allows the provisioning of adapted interfaces based on users’ identity and their functional attributes to facilitate this task to software designers and developers. However, being these identities and attributes self-declared by the users may impact reliability and usability. In this work, we propose an extension of our model to resolve these deficiencies by delegating the identity and attributes provision to external certified entities. The European electronic Identification, Authentication and Trust Services (eIDAS) regulation established a solution to ensure the cross-border mutual recognition of Electronic Identification (eID) mechanisms among the European Member States. This research aims to provide an extension of this regulation mentioned above (eIDAS) to support functional attributes and connect our previously proposed model to this extended eIDAS network. Thanks to this proposal, web services can guarantee adapted and personalized interfaces while improving the functionalities offered without any previous configuration by users and, in a reliable way, since the functional attributes belong to the users’ official eID. As the attributes set provided by eIDAS nodes only contains citizens’ personal and legal ones, we also propose a mechanism to connect the eIDAS network to external attribute providers that could extend the eIDAS profile of users with their functional attributes. We have deployed a pilot to validate the proposed model consisting of an identity provider, an eIDAS node supporting the extended reference code and an attribute provider supporting functional attributes. We have also designed and implemented a simple service that supports eID authentication and serves adapted interfaces based on the retrieved extended eIDAS profile. Finally, we have developed an experience for getting feedback from a set of real users with different functional capabilities. According to the results, we conclude that the generalized adoption of the proposed solution in the European digital web services will significantly improve their accessibility in terms of ease of use and adaptability to users’ capacities.

Designing business model development tools for sustainability—a design science study

The development of business models that boost fundamental changes in behavior to act more economically, ecologically, and socially is a challenging task because the consideration of sustainability is a multidimensional problem characterized by uncertainty and value conflicts. In order to deal with such complex tasks, methodological and technical tool support is required. Even though tools for business model development are well-established, they typically focus on economic obligations and pay little attention to ecological and social concerns. To bridge this gap, we shed light on the question of how functions for software can be designed to respect sustainability in business models. We present a software prototype and prescriptive design knowledge in the form of design principles and features, and thereby aim to contribute to the information systems body of knowledge by providing guidance to software designers and business model developers on how to reflect on sustainability.

Choosing Engaging Tools for the Music Classroom

Over the course of the past fifty years, countless software and hardware products have been introduced into music classrooms around the world with varying degrees of pedagogical success. The majority of these products were geared toward professional and amateur musicians and composers, only to be introduced to music teachers, either organically (teachers bringing real-world products into their classrooms) or through the efforts of manufacturers to obtain a new revenue stream for their products by selling them to schools. Knowing this, teachers often find it difficult to become aware of, identify, and choose these tools for use in their classroom instruction. The chapter presents key elements in successfully identifying and implementing creative, intuitive, and engaging tools for teaching, learning, and music making in the music classroom, as well as measuring their efficacy. Case studies focusing on the practices of several music educators are presented, including interviews with the software designers to illuminate the process behind innovative design. In addition to these case studies, a discussion of current products and their individual features and design ethos is given, with an emphasis on concepts instead of brands and devices.