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The major issues in designing Distributed Information Systems (DIS) include localization of control and data, inherent concurrency, intensive interactions among computation agents, history sensitivity, dynamic configuration and continuous system change and evolution. We propose a framework, called the G-Net model, for the specification, modeling and prototyping of DIS. The G-Net model not only provides a flexible notation to represent the executable specification of DIS through G-Net instantiation, but also offers a novel style of decentralized concurrent computation, allowing flexible inter-agent communication and interaction. A prototype of the G-Net framework has been implemented on workstations connected by a local network.

Models are executable prototypes. Modeling is closely tied to simulation, which refers to the exercise of a model over a variable parametric space. Model simulations not only provide the engineer with feedback pertaining to the validity of a proposed design, but additionally allow competing designs to be compared on one or more parameters (i.e., sensitivity analysis). Models are defined from a base of several hundred primitive constructs. These constructs can define additional constructs hierarchically.

An expertⁿ–system was constructed, which retrieves software for reuse. This expert system is itself reusable and consists of many sub-systems – any one of which can invoke any other. A key feature is that any expertⁿ–system need never be modified, for purposes of reuse, once saved in a repository. Rather, it communicates all information back to the caller and lets the caller decide how and when to use it. Thus, blocks in an expertⁿ–system have very low coupling (i.e., no off-model connections). In addition, expertⁿ–systems are, as their name suggests, organized in a hierarchy. This means that very complex decision-making systems can be called into play with minimal effort. Growing the repository is equivalent to learning.

This paper addresses the issue of developing innovative software with a case study of the emerging prototyping methods used in an innovative game in the Japanese game software industry. Software has traditionally been seen as an efficiency-driven process. But in innovative software, there are other important issues, such as the need to allow for radical redesign in development cycles, and the need to resolve tensions between creative and controlling processes. The paper addresses the broader design issue by documenting the emerging prototyping practices in design-driven and originality-oriented product development. We term this an "outward spiral" software development model, in which the completion of an initial prototyping cycle may lead to significant revisions in design and code, and the possible scrapping of large chunks of code. This model is compared with the development processes used for other types of software and in creative industries like the music industry.

This paper looks at the management of service innovation. In particular, it explores the challenge of public services and argues that there is a need for new approaches to the ways which engage users as more active co-creators within the innovation process. It draws on wider research on radical innovation being carried out as part of a long-term international programme and reports on a series of case studies of experiments in the health sector in the UK using tools like ethnography and prototyping to enable innovation.

The paper argues that a potentially valuable toolkit can be found in the field of design methods. By their nature, design tools are used to help articulate needs and give them shape and form; as such they are critical to the "front end" of any innovation process. Methods like ethnography allow for deep insights into user needs, including those not clearly articulated whilst prototyping provides the possibility of creating a set of "boundary objects" around which design discussions which include users and their perspectives can be carried out.

Nowadays many software development frameworks implement Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) as a mean of automating the test of interactive systems under construction. Automated testing helps to simulate user’s actions on the User Interface and therefore check if the system behaves properly and in accordance to scenarios that describe functional requirements. However, tools supporting BDD run tests on implemented User Interfaces and are a suitable alternative for assessing functional requirements in later phases of the development process. However, even when BDD tests can be written in early phases of the development process they can hardly be used with specifications of User Interfaces such as prototypes. To address this problem, this paper proposes to raise the abstraction level of both system interactive behaviors and User Interfaces by means of a formal ontology that is aimed at supporting test automation using BDD. The paper presents an ontology and an ontology-based approach for automating the test of functional requirements of interactive systems. We demonstrate the feasibility of this ontology-based approach to assess functional requirements in prototypes and full-fledge applications through an illustrative case study of e-commerce applications for buying flight tickets.

Incomplete or misinterpreted requirements are a significant source of customer and user dissatisfaction in development of software user interfaces. In these systems, where consideration of the human factor is a vital part of the development, the undertaking of understanding the real needs of the user must not be underestimated. Unfortunately, there are often organizational boundaries which restrict or limit the developer's opportunities to communicate with the customer and stakeholders. The result is often a weak link between the stakeholder needs, system requirements and the realization of the user interface system.

This paper addresses how an approach to requirements engineering based on a combination of rapid prototyping and demonstrator sessions can be used to elicit requirements and obtain early feedback and acceptance from system stakeholders. The method was conducted on a user interface development project for gas turbine driven generator and compressor packages in operation at offshore oil-rigs. Stakeholders were presented with module prototypes with a varying degree of dynamics, simulation and interaction based on the stage of the development. Together with rationale-based questioning, the demonstrator sessions provided a context for constructive discussions and feedback. The developers returned with a better understanding of the rationale for stakeholder need and clarification of misinterpreted or poorly defined requirements. This enabled us to create an application better aligned with customer and user needs and a minimal amount of rework and updates after system deployment.

In the race to downsize the features of components in integrated electronics, nanostructure fabrication is a primary challenge. Semiconductor technology has always relied on the top-down approach such as conventional CMOS technology for surface structuring and patterning. The most remarkable example is the amazing miniaturization of transistors and data storage components by ever more sophisticated lithographic techniques. Nevertheless, the so far unbeaten nanofabrication techniques such as deep-UV (DUV), extreme-UV (EUV) or electron-beam lithography (EBL) are particularly dedicated for patterning motifs in photo or electron-beam resists, spin-coated on planar, ultra-flat semiconductor surfaces. Alternative fabrication processes for growth of integrated novel nanostructured functional materials are already foreseen in related areas such as micro/nano-electro mechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS), sensors and actuators, optoelectronics, bio-chips, plastic or molecular electronics, etc. In other words, appropriate patterning methods are explored for creating and positioning structures with nanometer dimensions (<100 nm) on non-planar (e.g. curved or rough) surfaces or other functionalized and often fragile surfaces (membranes, cantilevers, organic layers). In this context, a variety of other forms of parallel lithography such as molding, stamping, imprinting or stenciling are revisited for their potential as nanofabrication alternatives that alleviate conventional lithography limitations. Thus, fabrication of functional structures with controlled size and shape, precisely positioned on a substrate of choice, using a minimal number of processing steps, becomes a central issue in nanotechnology. Furthermore, growth of novel nanostructured complex materials with functionality represents a big challenge for materials development. Probing new routes to prepare these materials and understand the relationship between their size/structure and their properties is also essential to the development of related technologies.

Significant advances in defining nano-patterns have been made by nanoimprint lithography (NIL). NIL is able to deliver features well below 100 nm, rapidly and with high accuracy, at least compared to advanced optical lithography methods. Either by hot embossing technique (HET) or its related variant, step and flash imprint lithography (S-FIL) nanoimprint shows great potential for the semiconductor industry and has been already placed on the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) for the next years. Another promising approach, although less investigated to date, is nanostenciling, known also as controlled growth of nanostructures through a shadow-mask. This process has been proposed both in static or dynamic mode and projected as a suitable method to locally grow patterned nanoscale structures, in a single, resist-less, deposition step. While offering a high degree of freedom in choosing the physical vapor deposition method, nanostenciling is in principle applicable to the deposition of arbitrary materials on almost any substrate. It drastically reduces the number of processing operations with respect to resist–based lithography and therefore represents a promising "universal tool" for local deposition of high-resolution and high-purity 3D nanostructures under high or ultra high vacuum (UHV) conditions.

We provide fundamental and extensive descriptions of stenciling and imprint processes and outline the main concepts used for the fabrication of both stencilmasks and molds. Then, through a couple of detailed examples we will emphasize the importance of several particular parameters involved in these processes (e.g. geometry and methods of deposition for stenciling, molds, resists, tools in the case of imprinting). Finally we will present a couple of examples where either nanostenciling or nanoimprint have been successfully used for device applications and in conclusion offer our perspective on future potential applications (prototyping) in areas where other forms of lithography are much less suitable.

This paper describes the development of SMORA (Servo Motor Optimised for Robotic Applications), which consists of custom hardware and firmware that includes a microcontroller and a series of sensors, allowing for the motor current, temperature and voltage to be measured in real-time as well as precise position feedback thanks to the integrated hall-effect magnetic position encoder. It also incorporates an accelerometer and a gyroscope to measure the servo body relative position and rotation.

In this paper we present the results of two focus groups that were realised within the E-lib.ch initiative, a project to establish a Swiss digital library.

The Swissbib project will provide the future Swiss meta-catalogue which integrates most of the regional or other local catalogues in one application whereas the project ACCEPT provides user-friendliness and assures that the important aspects of usability are implemented. Both focus groups lead to very interesting results that did not only influence the design of Swissbib, but are worth to be considered in the general context of digital libraries.