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A Cynefin based approach to process model tailoring and goal alignment
No full textIn an industrial context all process models require a certain amount of tailoring to fit to the business environment of any specific organization in which the model is to be deployed. Process models should therefore be accompanied by tailoring guidelines and approaches to assist with strategic and operational goal alignment that support their use in industry. This paper explores shortcomings of process improvement and the existing process models, suggesting that a more holistic approach should be taken to process improvement in the modern organization. The paper provides an overview of systems thinking and the Cynefin framework that organizations can use to detect the characteristics of the domain in which they are operate. Knowing their domain helps the organization realize the amount of tailoring and goal alignment necessary to benefit from implementing process model guidance
Google Sheets v Microsoft Excel: A Comparison of the Behaviour and Performance of Spreadsheet Users
Get PDFSpreadsheet technology has traditionally been limited to a single user operating in a desktop environment and working in an isolated environment. With the advent of Cloud Computing, a paradigm shift has occurred in the way users utilise the collaborative sharing and communication of their work in both an educational and business environment. The opportunities for people to cooperate on multiple spreadsheets at the same time and in real time have grown significantly. However, the behaviour and performance of users working in this new paradigm has not been explored to a great extent in scientific. In comparison to desktop spreadsheet technologies such as Excel, Cloud based spreadsheet technologies have only started to be investigated in relation to user behaviour and performance.
The purpose of this paper is to examine user interaction with Cloud based spreadsheets compared to desktop based spreadsheets. Specifically, we have focused on the leading technologies in these fields, namely Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets.
This paper investigates the effectiveness and efficiency of user interaction with traditional Excel spreadsheets and Google Sheets using a group of third level business students that have been trained in both applications. The students were randomly assigned to a technology and then asked to complete a list of standard spreadsheet tasks. In both cases, user interaction with the spreadsheets was tracked and recorded on a cell by cell basis using automated technology.
The findings of this paper are that users completed a set of basic tasks assigned to them in a quicker and less error prone manner when working with Cloud based Google Sheets compared to desktop based Excel spreadsheets
A Security Argument Pattern for Medical Device Assurance Cases
No full textMedical device security is a growing concern for medical device manufacturers, healthcare delivery organisations and regulators in the industry. Increasingly, researchers are demonstrating exactly how vulnerable these devices are. In many cases, networked medical devices are regarded as a potential weak link within a healthcare IT network that could provide a means to expose the entire network to a malware attack. At present there is no formal method for implementing security risk management practices in the medical device industry. However, with new regulatory guidance being developed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), medical devices manufacturers will need to prove that their devices are secure. This paper presents a security case framework that is currently under development. The purpose of this framework is to provide medical device manufacturers and healthcare delivery organisations with a solution to assist both in establishing confidence in the security assurance of medical devices and to also maintain this confidence throughout the lifetime of the device
The requirement for documented record keeping of the inspection and maintenance to fire doors
No full textFire is recognised as the single biggest risk to life within our public buildings, but for reasons that cannot be reasonably established, successive Irish Governments have adopted a reactionary role to Fire Safety. The Fire Services Act was introduced after the single largest loss of life by fire in this country – The Stardust Disaster of 1981 - in which forty-eight young people lost their lives as the result of a sequence of errors and oversights in fire safety. England has altered how they deal with Fire Safety, taking a more proactive approach with the introduction of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. This Order assimilated their entire assorted legislation into one, while placing the onus on the building owners to assess their premises for fire safety The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the apparent disregard that businesses and the public in general have towards fire doors, their maintenance and repair. An extensive review of literature and legislation was undertaken in the preparation of this dissertation, as well as investigating England’s attitude towards fire safety for use as a measurable comparison. To help prove or disprove the hypothesis, a questionnaire survey was undertaken with different professional organisations and their experiences with fire doors. This dissertation has found that, in relation to the inspection and maintenance of fire doors, the current legislative framework is inappropriate and unenforced. The lack of knowledge generally towards the true function of fire doors is frightening and transgressions are evident everywhere. However this paper also concedes that for a more complete picture, greater in-depth analysis of actual business and organisation policies is required
A Critical Evaluation of a Methodology for the Generation of Software Process Improvement Roadmaps
Get PDFFor medical device organisations to market their devices in specific geographic regions they must adhere to the regulations of that region. These regulations often recommend that organisations adhere to specific standards and guidance documents which specify “what” must be achieved without specifying “how” this may be done. Due to changes to the medical device directive, which governs the development of medical devices within the EU, in March 2010, software can now in its own right be considered a medical device. This change has meant that a number of software organisations developing software for the medical device domain must now adhere to the same regulations as other medical device manufacturers. In this work we present a concept for a Software Process Improvement (SPI) roadmap to guide such organisations through the task of implementing medical device standards and guidance documents. In addition we present and evaluate a methodology that can be used to create a SPI roadmap from a set of requirements such as the aforementioned standards and guidance documents
Assessing a Hospital’s Medical IT Network Risk Management Practice with 80001-1
Get PDFMedical device interoperability has been identified as a key way of decreasing healthcare costs while improving patient care.1 This has lead to a shift toward placing more medical devices onto information technology (IT) networks. However, placing medical devices onto an IT network may lead to additional risks to safety, effectiveness and security of the devices, the network, and the data. ANSI/AAMI/IEC 80001-1 addresses the roles, responsibilities, and activities that need to be carried out when managing these risks. In this article, we describe an exercise undertaken to assess the medical IT network risk management practice implemented
within a hospital to control risk associated with a clinical information system (CIS). The level of compliance with the 80001-1 standard was determined using an assessment framework developed by the Regulated Software Research Centre (RSRC). The purpose of this exercise was to test and inform the development of an assessment method that is part of the assessment framework for this standard. The exercise also sought to identify how the management of such an existing CIS project meets the requirements of 80001-1
Lessons Learned in Deploying Independent Living Technologies to Older Adults’ Homes
Get PDFIndependent living technologies are fast gaining interest within both academia and industry, amid the realisation that the world’s population is ageing. Technology can increase the quality of life of older people, allowing them to age in-place and helping them to remain physically, cognitively and socially engaged with their environment. However, little research in this area is applied. We argue the necessity of moving such technology out of the research lab and into the home, where its real impact on the lives of older adults can be assessed. This paper outlines a series of recommendations encompassing the life cycle of independent living technologies, from ethnographic assessment, through to design, deployment and evaluation. This work is based on lessons we have learned deploying such technologies to older people in over 200 homes. We believe this paper can act as a guide for other researchers interested in developing technologies with older people
Ultra-High Throughput Low-Power Packet Classification
No full textPacket classification is used by networking equipment to sort packets into flows by comparing their headers to a list of rules, with packets placed in the flow determined by the matched rule. A flow is used to decide a packet's priority and the manner in which it is processed. Packet classification is a difficult task due to the fact that all packets must be processed at wire speed and rulesets can contain tens of thousands of rules. The contribution of this paper is a hardware accelerator that can classify up to 433 million packets per second when using rulesets containing tens of thousands of rules with a peak power consumption of only 9.03 W when using a Stratix III field-programmable gate array (FPGA). The hardware accelerator uses a modified version of the HyperCuts packet classification algorithm, with a new pre-cutting process used to reduce the amount of memory needed to save the search structure for large rulesets so that it is small enough to fit in the on-chip memory of an FPGA. The modified algorithm also removes the need for floating point division to be performed when classifying a packet, allowing higher clock speeds and thus obtaining higher throughputs
A Traceability Process Assessment Model for the Medical Device Domain
Get PDFTraceability of requirements through the software development lifecycle (including supporting processes such as risk management and change management) is a difficult and expensive task. The implementation of effective traceability allows organizations to leverage its many advantages, such as impact analysis, product verification and validation, and facilitation of code maintenance. Traceability is conducive to producing quality software.
Within the medical device domain, as in other safety critical domains, software must provide reliability, safety and security because failure to do so can lead to injury or death. However, despite its criticality most software systems don’t employ explicit traceability between artefacts. Numerous barriers hamper the effective implementation of traceability such as cost, complexity of relationship between artefacts, calculating a return on investment, different stakeholder viewpoints, lack of awareness of traceability and a lack of guidance as to how to implement traceability.
To assist medical device organisations in addressing the lack of guidance on how to implement effective traceability, this paper aims to present the devel-opment of a traceability process assessment model and how traceability process assessment and maintenance could be fully automated using the Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) initiative. The process assessment model will allow organisations to identify strengths and weaknesses in their existing traceability process and pinpoint areas for improvement
A comparison of the theoretical and experimental behaviour of a model earth dam in terms of slope stability
No full textSlope failure is one of the most prominent difficulties experienced in geotechnical engineering where catastrophes lead to the destruction of property and ultimately significant loss of life. One such salient example of this was the Oso slope failure which occurred 6.4km east of Oso, Washington, USA on the 22 nd of March 2014. This disaster, deemed to be the single deadliest landslide event in United States history claimed the lives of 26 people whilst 7 people remain unaccounted for. The purpose of this dissertation is to accurately construct a model earth dam and design an experimental methodology that produces consistent and comparable results in terms of its slope stability. The experimental results are critically compared with the theoretical results produced by the SLIDE slope stability software, with the overall objective of determining if computer analysis can accurately predict the behaviour of a model earth dam. This dissertation was compiled by completing an extensive review of 4 salient method of slices available that can be applied to determine the stability or instability of the slope. A similar amount of experimental data collection was also completed to enable a comparable dataset of results to be compiled. This report determines that the SLIDE program does accurately predict the behaviour of a model earth dam with downstream slopes of 1:1, 1:1.5, 1:1.75 and 1:2 respectively. However, during the experimental testing of the 1:2.5 and 1:3 downstream slopes it was observed that only initial erosion at the toe takes place. The SLIDE program applies its design principles and determines that the slope should fail. The experimental results contradict this as the slopes remained stable after the initial erosion subsided. An investigation was conducted to determine if the addition of a drainage blanket would negate the effect of erosion by altering the water flow path exit location. The result of this was conclusive and the dam was deemed to be stable at a downstream slope of 1:2.5