Co-design Techniques Research Articles

Tools and methods for Edge-AI-systems

Abstract The enormous potential of artificial intelligence, especially artificial neural networks, when used for edge computing applications in cars, traffic lights or smart watches, has not yet been fully exploited today. The reasons for this are the computing, energy and memory requirements of modern neural networks, which typically cannot be met by embedded devices. This article provides a detailed summary of today’s challenges and gives a deeper insight into existing solutions that enable neural network performance with modern HW/SW co-design techniques.

Using co-design to develop a tool for shared goal-setting with parents in speech and language therapy.

Despite the compelling case for engaging parents in speech and language therapy, research indicates that speech and language therapists (SLTs) currently have a leading role in the goal-setting process of therapy for children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Therefore, we set out to develop a tool that aims to support the dialogue between SLTs and parents and enhance shared decision-making about children's communicative participation goals. We used co-design techniques with SLT-practitioners to include their perspectives throughout the design process. Although co-design has been used for some years in healthcare research, it is still a relatively new research methodology in the field of speech and language therapy. To provide a detailed description of the co-design process that led to the development of a physical artefact that can support SLTs to engage parents of children with DLD in collaborative goal-setting. The Design Council's Double Diamond model was used to develop a tool in co-design, together with eight SLTs, who participated in all stages of the development process. Usability was tested in actual goal-setting conversations between four SLTs and 11 parents of a child with DLD resulting in stepwise improvements. In addition, usability of the first and final prototypes was tested with five usability criteria that were rated on a 10-point scale by 64 SLTs. The co-design process resulted in the development of a physical prototype of the tool called 'ENGAGE', consisting of a metal 'tree trunk' on which parents can stick magnetic 'leaves' containing potential participation goals for their child. The 'tree' shape represents a child's development and opportunities for growth. This first prototype received marks between 7.0 and 8.0 out of 10 on attractiveness, user-friendliness, safety, functionality and affordability. After several iterations, there were significantly higher marks for attractiveness, user-friendliness and safety in favour for the final prototype. Marks for functionality and affordability did not change significantly. As researchers we usually develop pen-and-paper tools, interview protocols, apps or questionnaires to support clinical practice. Including the SLTs' perspectives in the design process resulted in a tree-shaped physical artefact that, according to the SLTs, helps to order information and encourages and guides their dialogue with parents. We strongly advocate the inclusion of end-users in developing innovative user-centred tools for speech and language therapy and we hope that this will become widespread practice. What is already known on the subject Collaborative goal-setting is at the heart of family-centred speech and language therapy. However, research indicates that goal-setting processes for children with DLD are currently predominantly therapist-led, instead of family-centred. Reasons for the lack of parental engagement are that effective communication with parents throughout the goal-setting process appears to be complex, and parents are not always invited and supported to engage in this. We used co-design to develop a tool that aims to support SLTs in their dialogue about therapy goals with parents. What this paper adds to existing knowledge This paper provides an example of applying a co-design approach for the development of a shared goal-setting tool for SLTs and parents of young children with DLD. The co-design approach enabled us to incorporate needs, experiences and ideas of SLTs in the design process. We report the four stages in the co-design process from (1) discovering the needs, wants and desires of the people involved, (2) defining the problem that SLTs experience, (3) developing several solutions and selecting the best solution, and (4) developing and testing the prototype. The detailed description of this process can add to an understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of a design process that includes the perspective of end-users. The result is a physical artefact representing a tree, which aims to support the conversation between SLTs and parents about a child's communicative participation. Items describing facets of communicative participation are printed on 'leaves' that can be hung on a tree trunk by parents. The tree shape is a positive metaphor for the growth and development of a child. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? This study describes how SLTs can be meaningfully involved as partners in a co-design research approach. Incorporating experience from clinical practice was highly relevant since our study aimed to create a solution that would support goal-setting and service delivery by SLTs. We want to show that it is inspiring and beneficial for SLTs to partner with researchers in innovation of their own clinical practice and provide examples of co-design activities that illustrate the involvement and influence of end-users in a design process. Including the perspective of SLTs in the development of a new tool to facilitate the dialogue between SLTs and parents of children with DLD regarding therapy goal-setting is expected to add value and enhance its implementation in clinical practice.

Intersectional elaboration: Using a multiracial feminist co-design technique with Latina teens for emotional health

Underlying the growing epidemic of mental distress and suicidal ideation amongst certain marginalised groups (e.g. Latina teens) are complex intersections of ecologies and interrelated structures of inequality such as class, culture, race and gender. Through the use of a multiracial feminist framework, the proposed intersectional elaboration technique examines how technology might be designed in ways that explicitly consider intersecting structures of inequality and eco-developmental contexts. The core of this technique involves co-constructing narratives using prompts that directly address specific layers of one's ecology and the interactions across ecological layers – purposely addressing intersecting systems of inequality acting along these ecologies. This article describes the application of the intersectional elaboration technique in co-design research with adolescent Latinas, in a highly urbanised context, towards designing emotional health technology. Findings suggest that intersectional elaborations can serve as a useful generative co-design technique to inform designs that address complex arrangements of intra-ecological conflicts and cultural legitimacy.

An exploratory study of using speculative artefacts in co-design

ABSTRACT This paper presents a case study exploring the use of speculative artefacts framed within the Fictional Inquiry co-design technique. The case is derived from a project investigating current practices and potential future strategies to improve patients’ hand hygiene standards at the Department of Oncology of Aarhus University Hospital. This paper explores how five speculative artefacts were designed and used to inquire into participants’ experiences of their hand hygiene, both concerning current practice and future ideas. Our study demonstrates how the speculative artefacts used in Fictional Inquiry supported participant’s immersion and engagement in co-design sessions and how the artefacts were used to maintain momentum throughout the session.

New co-design techniques for digital game narrative design with children

This paper aims to develop new co-design techniques for narrative design from scratch in the digital game design process with children. Designing from scratch requires the plain preferences of children and creativity (creative contributions) from their intrinsic drives. Therefore, it is crucial to understand and leverage “children’s imagination”. To trigger children’s imagination, we proposed three novel approaches to develop new co-design techniques that are based on (1) game elements, (2) narrative models, and (3) Philosophy for Children (P4C). Using these approaches, narrative design processes for digital games were performed by an intergenerational design team that included eight children aged 7–11. Children played the role of design partners in the participatory design setting. Data analysis was performed using an analysis framework with two domains: co-design process (implementation, involvement of children, and involvement of adults) and game narrative design (involvement of children and product features). The first technique, Five Elements, was based on game elements and had many strengths in game narrative design and the involvement of children and adults. There are some challenges in implementation because it requires a substantial time commitment, it is not easy to allocate adult team members, and it is difficult to arrange the environment. The second technique, Game Motif, was based on narrative models and had many strengths in all of the criteria, except variety in game genres, which is related to product features. The third technique, Superhero Enquiry, was based on P4C and had limited strengths, including the involvement of children in the co-design process and game narrative design. This paper indicates the strengths and challenges of the new techniques and presents the techniques themselves. It offers some improvements to use these approaches in more effective ways. Consequently, academia and industry can benefit greatly from the contributions of children’s imagination when designing digital games for children using these new techniques appropriately in a given context.

Experiences of telehealth in general practice in Australia: research protocol for a mixed-methods study.

BackgroundOwing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of telehealth has expanded rapidly. However, little is known about the impact of delivering care through telehealth on communication between clinicians and patients. At an interactional level, the ways in which clinicians establish rapport and connection with their patients in telehealth consultations is not well understood.AimThis study will explore interactional practices of GPs and patients in telehealth consultations to develop evidence-based resources to improve communication.Design & settingThe study will be conducted within the Australian general practice setting.MethodConversation analysis and sociolinguistic discourse analysis of recorded telehealth consultations will provide direct evidence of specific elements contributing to successful and less successful instances of telehealth communication. This analysis will be complemented by co-design techniques such as qualitative and reflective interviews, and collaborative workshops with telehealth users including both GPs and patients.ConclusionEffective communication is critical for telehealth consultations and is central to achieving optimal clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction. Evidence-based guidelines encompassing effective telehealth communication strategies will be co-developed with end-users in this study.

Co-Design Practices in Diet and Nutrition Research: An Integrative Review.

Co-design, the method of involving users, stakeholders, and practitioners in the process of design, may assist to improve the translation of health evidence into tangible and acceptable intervention prototypes. The primary objective of this review was to identify and describe co-design techniques used in nutrition research. The secondary objective was to identify associations between co-design techniques and intervention effectiveness. An integrative review was performed using the databases Emcare, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and Google Scholar. Eligible studies included those that: (1) utilised participatory research or co-design techniques, (2) described development and/or evaluation of interventions aimed at improving dietary behaviours or nutrition, and (3) targeted community-dwelling adults aged ≥18 years. We identified 2587 studies in the initial search and included 22 eligible studies. There were 15 studies that utilised co-design techniques, with a strong focus on engagement of multiple stakeholder types and use of participatory research techniques. No study implemented a complete co-design process. Most studies (14/15) reporting outcomes reported positive health (maximum p < 0.001) or health behaviour outcomes attributed to the intervention; hence, associations between co-design techniques and effectiveness could not be determined. Currently published intervention studies have used participatory research approaches rather than co-design methods. Future research is required to explore the effectiveness of co-design nutrition interventions.

Hw/Sw Co-Design technique for 2D fast fourier transform algorithm on Zynq SoC

The Two-Dimensional Fast Fourier Transform (2D-FFT) algorithm is used for the study of many modern systems applied for security and biometrics. The adoption of this algorithm, which is a compute intensive task, is limited due to its hardware design complexity. The first objective of this paper is to underline the effect of the hardware/software co-design (Hw/Sw co-design) for the reduction of the processing time and power consumption. Secondly, we propose an innovative architecture for the 2D-FFT algorithm tested on Zynq Soc, which requires less processing time and memory compared to the traditional algorithm. Three implementations (one software and two Hw/Sw co-designs) of the 2D-FFT algorithm using the Zynq SoC are presented in this paper. The first is based on ARM processor. A speedup of 29x is obtained compared to the original implementation thanks to many optimizations. The second is a Hw/Sw co-design solution of the traditional 2D-FFT algorithm introduced on a hybrid platform combining an ARM Cortex-A9 processor with an FPGA. The third is also a Hw/Sw co-design solution using our optimized 2D-FFT algorithm to reach the real-time contraints for high-resolution images (1920 × 1080). It provides a speedup of 1.13x, 3.31x and 96.21x faster than the Hw/Sw co-design implementation of the traditional RC algorithm, the pure software implementations with and without optimizations, respectively.

Co-design Techniques for and with Children based on Physical Theatre Practice to promote Embodied Awareness

Research in Full-Body Interaction suggests the benefits of activities based on using embodied resources to strengthen the sensorimotor, cognitive and socio-emotional aspects of the user experience. However, scholars in this field have been often primarily concerned with the comprehension of and design for the user's mind. Little attention has been drawn on its connection to the bodily experience. The scarcity of adequate co-design methods with and for children to raise an awareness of their body during design risks of deriving interaction design decisions only from the perspective of adult designers. In this article, we present our research on novel co-design techniques to elicit children's embodied awareness. These techniques were analysed in the context of a design workshop series with a local theatre school. For the analysis, we used the Think4EmCoDe research framework, a tool to foreground key aspects of an embodied co-design technique for children. Results indicate the benefits of techniques based on physical theatre practice that (1) help children understand their body and space as mediators of ideas and meaning making processes; (2) allow them to incorporate the specific features of Full-Body Interaction in their co-design.

Losing the Lens

Bolstered by machine learning and codesign techniques, mask-based lensless imaging offers a route to ultrathin multispectral cameras, novel microscope designs and more.

Co-Design of Quantization and Event-Driven Control for Networked Control Systems

This paper considers the co-design technique of quantization and event-driven control for reducing the negative influences of network on the system performance of networked control systems (NCSs). Event-driven strategy aims at reducing the frequency of transmission, while signal quantization reduces the amounts of data for each transmission. By combining these two techniques, this paper establishes the quantized event-driven control approaches for both the fixed and relative event threshold cases. The system stability and the existence of the minimum interevent interval (MIEI) are analyzed. Finally, the validity of the proposed approaches is illustrated by the numerical simulations.

Robust Combined Design and Control Optimization of Hybrid-Electric Vehicles Using MDSDO

Identifying a true, system-level optimal solution for hybrid-electric vehicle (HEV) powertrains requires methods such as combined design and control optimization (co-design) to account for the coupling between powertrain design and optimal energy management strategies. Despite the widespread application of co-design techniques to HEV powertrains in recent years, limited research has been done to account for the inherent uncertainties present in these systems. This is problematic as such uncertainties may not only impact HEV powertrain component sizing and control strategies, but also overall vehicle performance and cost-both of which are critically-important in the fiercely-competitive automotive industry. One way to address this issue is to apply a stochastic dynamic system optimization technique known as robust multidisciplinary dynamic system design optimization (R-MDSDO) to the HEV powertrain co-design problem. This method ensures that the HEV powertrain co-design solution, including its system performance and cost, explicitly accounts for random variations within the system and its problem formulation using concepts from robust design optimization. Therefore, in this study, we formulate and solve a robust co-design problem for a power-split HEV powertrain using R-MDSDO to identify the optimal component designs, state trajectories, and control trajectories such that the vehicle powertrain cost is minimized. The robust solution is then compared to the solution from the associated deterministic problem, with the results indicating that accounting for system uncertainty has a significant impact on HEV powertrain co-design.

Control of Discrete-Time Stochastic Systems With Packet Loss by Event-Triggered Approach

Event-triggered schemes are characterized in less communication traffic while maintaining the resulting controlled plant's desired stability and performance criteria. In the presence of packet dropouts, this paper is concerned with the modeling and control problems for a class of discrete-time stochastic systems with event-triggered schemes. Two different mathematical analysis methods are proposed to model the packet loss when an event-triggered scheme is subject to packet loss. First, a stochastic distributed sequence satisfying the Bernoulli process is utilized to model the triggered packets transmitted in the communication networks. Considering the difference between time-triggered and event-triggered schemes, an equivalent model with a random sequence not satisfying a Bernoulli distribution process is also analyzed, which is not the same as some existing results in the literature. Then, the mean-square exponential stability of resulting augmented system is guaranteed and the prescribed H <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">∞</sub> performance level is achieved by solving resulting discrete P-problem. Two examples with simulations are provided to validate the analytical results and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed co-design techniques.

A Study of ESD-mmWave-Switch Co-Design of 28GHz Distributed Travelling Wave Switch in 22nm FDSOI for 5G Systems

This paper presents the first co-design analysis of 28GHz broadband single-pole double-throw (SPDT) distributed travelling wave RF switches implemented in a foundry 22nm fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) CMOS technology, featuring 9KV full-chip human body model (HBM) electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection. This ESD-protected millimeter wave (mmWave) SPDT switch is designed for highly reliable above-6GHz 5th-generation (5G) mobile systems, covering the n257 and n258 bands. Adverse influences of the inherent ESD-induced parasitic effects are characterized, revealing that the ESD effects can severely affect RF switch performance in mmWave bands. A new ESD-mmWave-switch co-design technique was developed to address this ESD design challenge for mmWave switches, which was validated in Si measurements, e.g., improving the switch insertion loss (IL) by 4dB for the 28GHz SPDT travelling wave switches fabricated. This design also achieves the highest reported charged device model (CDM) ESD protection of 1.84A in Si testing. This study proves that ESD-mmWave-switch co-design is critical to RF front-end designs for 5G mobile systems, which typically require robust ESD protection, but are also very sensitive to the inevitable ESD-induced parasitic effects.

RISQ-V: Tightly Coupled RISC-V Accelerators for Post-Quantum Cryptography

Empowering electronic devices to support Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) is a challenging task. PQC introduces new mathematical elements and operations which are usually not easy to implement on standard processors. Especially for low cost and resource constraint devices, hardware acceleration is usually required. In addition, as the standardization process of PQC is still ongoing, a focus on maintaining flexibility is mandatory. To cope with such requirements, hardware/software co-design techniques have been recently used for developing complex and highly customized PQC solutions. However, while most of the previous works have developed loosely coupled PQC accelerators, the design of tightly coupled accelerators and Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) extensions for PQC have been barely explored. To this end, we present RISQ-V, an enhanced RISC-V architecture that integrates a set of powerful tightly coupled accelerators to speed up lattice-based PQC. RISQ-V efficiently reuses processor resources and reduces the amount of memory accesses. This significantly increases the performance while keeping the silicon area overhead low. We present three contributions. First, we propose a set of powerful hardware accelerators deeply integrated into the RISC-V pipeline. Second, we extended the RISC-V ISA with 29 new instructions to efficiently perform operations for lattice-based cryptography. Third, we implemented our RISQ-V in ASIC technology and on FPGA. We evaluated the performance of NewHope, Kyber, and Saber on RISQ-V. Compared to the pure software implementation on RISC-V, our co-design implementations show a speedup factor of up to 11.4 for NewHope, 9.6 for Kyber, and 2.7 for Saber. For the ASIC implementation, the energy consumption was reduced by factors of up to 9.5 for NewHope, 7.7 for Kyber, and 2.1 for Saber. The cell count of the CPU was increased by a factor of 1.6 compared to the original RISC-V design, which can be considered as a moderate increase for the achieved performance gain.

Low-Power Hardware Accelerator for Detrending Measured Biopotential Data

Biopotential data measurement plays an important role in monitoring the body's physiological functions. It is affected by noise from various sources for different signals adversely affecting the ability to interpret them. The traditional methods of data detrending are either computationally inefficient, power-intensive, or have high latency. The maximum-mean-minimum (MaMeMi) filter reported for electrocardiogram (ECG) denoising is a computationally efficient algorithm. The MaMeMi filter response depends on two filter coefficients. In the real time, it is difficult to gauge the characteristics of the detected signal beforehand. In this article, we propose an adaptive-MaMeMi (AMaMeMi) filter, which adaptively computes the filter coefficients according to the properties of the input. We have used hardware-software codesign techniques for the optimized implementation of the AMaMeMi filter. The proposed hardware accelerator architecture for the AMaMeMi filter can be used in both adaptive and manual modes of operation. The hardware accelerator is tested for various biopotential signal detrendings, and the single hardware is capable of eliminating baseline wander from all considered measurements with less computational costs and low latency. We implemented the AMaMeMi filter on Xilinx Zynq-7000 system-on-chip (part number XCZ7020-CLG484-1) and statistically verified the results. The hardware accelerator implementation results provide a good correlation with MATLAB simulation results. The hardware accelerator implementation provides an average correlation of 0.9999, a normalized root-mean-square error of 0.0038, and a maximum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) gain of 19 dB. The low computational complexity of the proposed architecture implies low-power consumption. It consumes 12 mW at 100-MHz clock and 0.7 mW at 500-Hz clock.

220-to-330-GHz Manifold Triplexer With Wide Stopband Utilizing Ridged Substrate Integrated Waveguides

This article reports a three-channel, noncontiguous, manifold multiplexer operating from 220 to 330 GHz, a 40% fractional operating bandwidth. The structure is designed and implemented using a set of ridged substrate integrated waveguides (SIWs). The ridged SIW improves the stopband bandwidth and reduces the overall structure size by 35% over a conventional SIW design. The triplexer utilizes an organic package substrate technology developed by Intel, featuring four thick copper metal layers and continuous trench vias in lieu of standard via fences, which significantly decrease the ohmic loss of the ridged SIW waveguides. Electromagnetic-circuit modeling and codesign techniques are adopted in the development of the triplexer structure. The fabricated triplexer is measured using banded millimeter-wave wafer probing and exhibits 3~7 dB of insertion loss in the passbands and better than 10 dB of average return loss for each of the channel filters. The measured stopband attenuation is better than 27 dB for all three channels.

Design of RLE Compression Algorithm using Custom Codesign Technique for WSN Applications

Design of RLE Compression Algorithm using Custom Codesign Technique for WSN Applications

Design of RLE Compression Algorithm using Custom Codesign Technique for WSN Applications

Design of RLE Compression Algorithm using Custom Codesign Technique for WSN Applications

Exploring social innovation through co-creation in rural India using action research

PurposeSocial innovation (SI) has been promoted by policymakers for addressing all kinds of social issues in the context of diminishing government resources. It is, however, difficult to assess the efficiency of SI-based public policies, as the process of SI itself remains largely nebulous. The purpose of this paper is to better understand this process with a focus on its early stage, until the point of identifying a socially innovative idea and in the context of disadvantaged rural communities in India.Design/methodology/approachCo-creation workshops were facilitated to generate socially innovative solutions in villages, using co-design technique. Following an action research approach, qualitative data was collected to produce case studies.FindingsThis study found that SI was appropriate for addressing development challenges in rural India. Facilitated co-creation was successful in involving all citizens and effective in generating SI. The authors developed a framework of generating SI through co-creation that gives a more precise understanding of the SI process.Practical implicationsThe authors propose a method for co-creating SI that can be of significant use for practitioners. Findings can help design better and more socially impactful public policies.Originality/valueThis paper focusses on understanding the process of generating SI, using a participatory approach. It is the first work that has been conducted of this sort in the context of Indian rural villages.