Software Glitch Research Articles

Exploring online teaching and learning challenges for the technical and vocational education and training lecturer

This paper explored the challenges lecturers face in teaching through online platforms. Online learning has become increasingly prevalent in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions, offering opportunities and challenges for TVET lecturers. The transition from traditional face-to-face teaching to online environments requires lecturers to adapt to the new teaching methods, design engaging content, and navigate digital platforms. The qualitative research gathered data from 35 lecturers out of 60 conveniently and purposefully selected from five engineering campuses at a South African TVET college. Participants were accessible to the researcher and possessed online teaching experiences. Participant observation was used as a data-gathering tool. The study attempts to answer the question: What challenges are lecturers facing during online teaching and learning? The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge Framework for Teacher Knowledge by Koehler and Mishra guided the study. Data were analysed thematically from the identified patterns and themes. The findings revealed technical difficulties like connectivity and software glitches, which disrupted the teaching and learning process. Lecturers grappled with receiving practical online support. The limited interaction and collaboration among students in virtual settings posed additional challenges in maintaining engagement and addressing individual learning needs. Furthermore, access and equity issues hindered students' ability to participate fully due to inadequate technology, internet access, and power outages. To overcome these challenges, the study recommended lecturers continuous professional development in online learning methods and technologies. Addressing the challenges contributes to the successful implementation of online learning in the TVET sector by ensuring quality education and enhancing students' skills and competencies.

Project Management Enhancement through Technology

Purpose: The main goal of this manuscript is to evaluate the impact of technology adoption and integration on project management practices, identify challenges and solutions, and explore the potential of emerging technologies for enhancing project management efficiency and effectiveness. Scope: The study takes a global approach to assess how technology impacts project management across various industries and organizations, mainly focusing on technology adoption trends in different sectors and advanced solutions. Conclusions: The manuscript details how automation and software improve project efficiency and predictability, discusses limitations, including software glitches and downtime necessitating backup systems, and identifies AI (Artificial Intelligence) as the most prominent emerging technology.

Effect of build interruption during laser powder bed fusion process on structural integrity of Ti-6Al-4V

The growing concern for global sustainability highlights the need to address waste generation in metal additive manufacturing (AM) processes. Even with proper planning, unexpected incidents such as software glitches and power outages may interrupt AM processes by pausing the build sequence, leading to a waste of resources (i.e. time, money, and materials). The layer-wise nature of AM processes allows for interrupted builds to be resumed from the stopping point. Nevertheless, interrupting the build process (i.e. pausing and resuming) can compromise the structural integrity of the fabricated parts, potentially leading to localized failure near the interruption location. The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of build interruption during the laser beam powder bed fusion process on the structural integrity of Ti-6Al-4V specimens. Tensile and fatigue tests were performed to assess any possible contribution of build interruption to the specimen failures under monotonic and cyclic loading, and the results were compared with their control counterparts, fabricated without interruption. Tensile and fatigue failures as well as the propagation of a secondary crack were observed at the interruption location. Our experimental observations indicate that when large process-induced defects are present, build interruption plays a peripheral role in the fatigue life and failure mechanism of specimens, with defects being the overriding factor. None of the heat-treated specimens exhibited any tensile or fatigue failures at the interruption location, suggesting that an appropriate heat treatment can be effective in reducing the risk of localized failure near the interrupted location.

Usability of Surveillance Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System for Coronavirus Disease among Epidemiology Officers in Delta State Nigeria

Abstract Introduction: Nigeria recently used electronic surveillance tools for epidemic diseases, one such tool is the Surveillance Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System (SORMAS); no readily available study has assessed the use of SORMAS in Nigeria. The title of this study is the usability of SORMAS for coronavirus disease among epidemiological officers in Delta State; it explored the ease of use, the effectiveness of SORMAS, its applicability, and the challenges with its use. Materials and Methods: This descriptive qualitative study involved disease surveillance and notification officers (DSNOs) and their assistants DSNOs in the year 2022; 25 of them were interviewed using two audio tape recorders after consent was obtained. Ethical clearance was obtained from the appropriate body. Thematic content analysis, with the help of Analysis of Qualitative Data software, was used to analyze data. Results: The findings showed that SORMAS was difficult to use for 100% of the respondents, particularly at the initial time, and subsequent use was relatively easy. About 100% of users found SORMAS to be effective for coronavirus disease 2019 surveillance and claimed it could be applied to other health diseases. About 100% of the respondents had challenges which included network problems, unavailability of adequate airtime, low technological know-how, software glitch, and hardware issues, among others. Conclusion: This study helped to outline the factors affecting SORMAS use, demonstrated that SORMAS was relatively easy to use after repeated training, was deemed effective by all respondents; applied to other health diseases, and its use was affected by several challenges.

A survey of software architectural change detection and categorization techniques

Software architecture is defined as the structural construction, design decisions implementation, evolution and knowledge sharing mechanisms of a system. Software architecture documentation help architects with decision making, guide developers during implementation, and preserve architectural decisions so that future caretakers are able to better understand an architect’s solution. Many modern-day software development teams are focusing more on architectural consistency of software design to better cope with the cost-time-efforts, continuous integration, software glitches, security backdoors, regulatory inspections, human values, and so on. Therefore, in order to better reflect the software design challenges, the development teams review the architectural design either on a regular basis or after completing certain milestones or releases. However, many studies have focused on architectural change detection and classification as the essential steps for reviewing design, discovering architectural tactics and knowledge, analyzing software stability, tracing and auditing software development history, recovering design decisions, generating design summary, and so on.In this paper, we survey state-of-the-art architectural change detection and categorization techniques and identify future research directions. To the best of our knowledge, our survey is the first comprehensive report on this area. However, in this survey, we compare available techniques using various quality attributes relevant to software architecture for different implementation levels and types. Moreover, our analysis shows that there is a lack of lightweight techniques (in terms of human intervention, algorithmic complexity, and frequency of usage) feasible to process hundreds and thousands of change revisions of a project. We also realize that rigorous focuses are required for capturing the design decision associativity of the architectural change detection techniques for practical use in the design review process. However, our survey on architectural change classification shows that existing automatic change classification techniques are not promising enough to use for real-world scenarios and reliable post analysis of causes of architectural change is not possible without manual intervention. There is also a lack of empirical data to construct an architectural change taxonomy, and further exploration in this direction would add much value to architectural change management.

Studying lithic microdebitage with a dynamic image particle analyzer

Lithic microdebitage has great archaeological potential to elucidate ancient stone tool production. So far, archaeologists have collected soil samples, separated them into size fractions, and analyzed them manually under a microscope to identify microdebitage. This time- and labor-intensive process has limited the number of samples and introduced intra- and inter-observer errors. Here, we discuss lithic microdebitage analysis with a dynamic image particle analyzer. This machine takes videos of soil particles as they fall from a chute. Software tracks them and measures their dimensions. Since sieving is no longer necessary, microdebitage analysis proceeds more quickly and processes samples within a few minutes. The standardized output allows the objective analysis of lithic microdebitage. We compare the angularity of c. 120,000 particles in an archaeological soil sample with experimental microdebitage. While the distributions show intriguing overlaps, we conclude that the most angular archaeological particles are not microdebitage but reflect a software glitch.

The Use of Skype Video Telecommunication (VTC) for Social Visits in a Medium Secure Hospital: A Service Evaluation

AimsThe COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented disruptions in the ways we lived and interacted with one another. Research studies done in the immediate aftermath suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdown restrictions may have increased feelings of isolation and loneliness, which together with disruptions in services may have precipitated psychological distress and mental health deterioration, particularly among persons with pre-existing mental health conditions. Following the introduction of first national lockdown in late March 2020, all visits to the hospital by family and friends were ceased. VTC became one of the rapid interventions implemented across several NHS Hospitals to promote continued patient contact with carers. In October 2021, we set out to undertake an evaluation project to determine the level of patient satisfaction with the use of Skype for social visits, to understand patient and staff perspectives on its pros and cons, and to understand patient preference post-COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsAll ward-based staff who had ever facilitated Skype social visits and all patients who had had at least one social visit facilitated by Skype were approached to participate in the project. Data were collected using anonymous questionnaires with both quantitative and qualitative items.ResultsA total of twenty-nine patients and thirty-nine nursing staff participated in the study.Sixty-two per cent of patient-participants reported being satisfied with the Skype social visits and over half (52%) rated the Skype social visits as ‘the same’ as face-to-face visits. All participants reported patient-satisfaction with the process and speed of setting up a Skype visit, the benefits of visual contact and the reduction of travel costs. A few patient-participants noted that they relished the opportunity of seeing their home environment. Issues regarding increased demands on staffing resources, privacy, IT skills, and hardware and software glitches were identified.Overall, Skype social visits have been a positive experience for the patients and have not resulted in any significant risk concerns. Most patients (90%) indicated that they would like Skype social visits to continue post-COVID-19 pandemic.ConclusionThe average length of stay (LOS) of patients is often longer in forensic compared to general adult mental health units and about 4.5 years at the study site. This evaluation found that the introduction of Skype for the purposes of social visits was considered a useful development by both patients and staff. The study findings were fed back to all stakeholders and certain changes have been implemented as a result.

Overview of e-Health initiatives in Rajasthan: An exploratory study

Background:Government of Rajasthan has undertaken a series of e-Health initiatives, especially under various programs of National Health Mission in the past few years. There is a paucity of studies which document and provide appraisal of these initiatives in Rajasthan.Aim:To document ongoing e-Health Initiatives based on technologies and approaches used, coverage by the region and population, services provided and scope.Materials and Methods:Primary data collection in form of key-informant interviews while secondary data collection in form of internet-based search of peer and non-peer reviewed literature was conducted to achieve the study objectives. Appropriate documents, records, and reports were reviewed to ensure that all necessary information was obtained.Results:A total of 13 e-Health initiatives were included in the study. The e-Health programs were classified with the use of WHO's classification of Digital Health Interventions v1.0. Most of the initiatives perceived in the study were found to be beneficial to the community, covering the entire population targeted. Supporting agencies, technologies used, and challenges faced during the implementation were identified and documented. Lack of trained manpower, technical and software glitches and deficiency of awareness activities were few obstacles that were found consistent across all user groups.Conclusions:The overview from this study augmented the knowledge about further scopes and sustainability of these initiatives. Deploying dedicated professionals may improve the functioning of these initiatives. Since e-Health interventions significantly influence healthcare systems, further scale-up of such studies with appropriate evaluation should be planned to guide policy decisions.

Software glitch leads to unfounded lawsuit

Software glitch leads to unfounded lawsuit

P064Evaluation of MIA FORA NGS FLEX HLA typing kit

Aim As the HLA database expanding, traditional SBT method results in more and more ambiguities and requires increasing additional testing. We evaluated Mia Fora FLEX11 NGS typing kit with automation intending to replace SBT with NGS. Methods 108 DNA samples were selected. 92 and 16 samples were previously typed by SBT and rSSO/SSP, respectively. All DNA were prepared from blood except 4 from buccal swab and 3 from B cell line. DNA were extracted 2009-2017 with OD260/2801.51–2.05. NGS typing was performed following manufacturers automated protocol using Mia Fora FLEX11 kit. Results 313 unique alleles were tested in our validation cohort including 269 CWD alleles, 38 rare alleles, 3 null alleles and 7 new alleles. All DNA samples were successfully typed with typing results accurate to the resolution of third field according to WHO nomenclature. 11 ambiguities were identified which were all with DPB1. 7 potential new alleles were identified: 2 HLA-B, 1 DRB5, 1 DQA1 and 3 DPA1. NGS typing was 99.5% (1499/1506) concordant with previous typing at allele level. Discordance was observed with DQB1, DRB3/4/5 and DPA1 (Table 1). Allele dropout was observed in 1 out of 23 DQB1*06:02 and 2 out of 11 DRB4*01:01 in the validation cohort. Both dropouts can be predicted by allele association with DQA1 or DRB1. Sample repeat rate was 11% (18/161). Four samples failed due to software glitch with the Window 10 version but corrected when switched to the Linux Version. Most other failure was due to insufficient data which can be resolved by repeating test. The only failure that could not be resolved by repeat was DRB4*01:01 dropout. Download : Download high-res image (262KB) Download : Download full-size image Conclusions Comparing to SBT method, Mia Fora typing produced high resolution results with ambiguities only presented with DPB1 locus. Little or no additional testing was required. Mia Fora typing had a high concordance rate with previous typing results. A reasonable failure rate was observed where most could be resolved by repeating test except for some DRB4*01:01 dropout.

When Finance Meets Physics: The Impact of the Speed of Light on Financial Markets and Their Regulation

AbstractModern physics has demonstrated that matter behaves very differently as it approaches the speed of light. This paper explores the implications of modern physics to the operation and regulation of financial markets. Information cannot move faster than the speed of light. The geographic separation of market centers means that relativistic considerations need to be taken into account in the regulation of markets. Observers in different locations may simultaneously observe different “best” prices. Regulators may not be able to determine which transactions occurred first, leading to problems with best execution and trade‐through rules. Catastrophic software glitches can tunnel through seemingly impregnable quality control procedures.

When Finance Meets Physics: The Impact of the Speed of Light on Financial Markets and their Regulation

Modern physics has demonstrated that matter behaves very differently as it approaches the speed of light. This paper explores the implications of modern physics to the operation and regulation of financial markets. Information cannot move faster than the speed of light. The geographic separation of market centers means that relativistic considerations need to be taken into account in the regulation of markets. Observers in different locations may simultaneously observe different “best” prices. Regulators may not be able to determine which transactions occurred first, leading to problems with best execution and trade-through rules. Catastrophic software glitches can quantum tunnel through seemingly impregnable quality control procedures.

Fault Tolerant, Energy Saving Method for Reliable Information Propagation in Sensor Network

The reliability of wireless sensor networks (WSN) is affected by faults that may occur due to various reasons such as malfunctioning hardware, software glitches, dislocation, or environmental hazards, e.g. fire or flood. Due to inherent nature of these networks a sensor node may fail and hence the route may also fail. A WSN that is not prepared to deal with such situations may suffer a reduction in overall lifetime, or lead to hazardous consequences in critical application contexts. One of the major fault recovery techniques is the exploitation of redundancy, which is often a default condition in WSNs. Another major approach is the involvement of base stations or other resourceful nodes to maintain operations after failures. In this paper we proposed a fault tolerant method for fast, robust and guaranteed prorogation in sensor networks. The proposed multi path routing approach offer better bandwidth utilization, energy saving and guaranteed delivery of information. This approach also includes error reporting features. Before sending an event source node check the remaining Energy level and highest Data rate among all its gradients and select the path on the basis of route score which consider above factors.

Safe and Secure? Healthcare in The Cyberworld

Safe and Secure? Healthcare in The Cyberworld

A cloud you can trust

This past April, Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud service crashed during a system upgrade, knocking customers' websites off-line for anywhere from several hours to several days. That same month, hackers broke into the Sony PlayStation Network, exposing the personal information of 77 million people around the world. And in June a software glitch at cloud-storage provider Dropbox temporarily allowed visitors to log in to any of its 25 million customers' accounts using any password-or none at all. As a company blogger drily noted: "This should never have happened." And yet it did, and it does, with astonishing regularity. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has logged 175 data breaches this year in the United States alone, involving more than 13 million records.

Editorial

About the time that I became Editor for JMD, I also chose to become more involved in project-based engineering education, and found myself humbled both by the effort involved and the dedication and commitment of the organizations that support these activities. As you may know, Spring is student engineering competition season. While the engineering societies that sponsor these events give them official sounding titles, to students they are the Cargo plane, DBF, Mini-Baja, HPV and Formula car competitions, and there are others as well.My decision to become involved came after two industry-based projects where I saw the thrill of having a product that includes your engineering effort find success in the marketplace. I believe the response was something like “I can't believe someone actually paid money for that thing.” This external validation of engineering performance erases all memory of the disappointment of failed tests, software glitches and seemingly endless after-hours and weekend effort. They say it is fun, but I find it amazing.Engineering students come in the door of the university among the most accomplished high school students. They did not get there by allowing their group projects to fail; if work needed to be done they did it. So, I reasoned, a team of such individuals should be able to do great things. After several years, I am much more aware of the distinction between a collection of individuals and a team. I am beginning to believe that it is more difficult to get engineering students to work as a team, than it is to actually engineer the project.Dedicated volunteers from ASME, AIAA and SAE and other organizations seem bemused by this insight, as they say again and again it is the experience of this engineering competition, not the success or failure of the design, that is important. I agree, it is fun, and effective teams are amazing.

Perfusion System Recalled Due to Software Glitch

Perfusion System Recalled Due to Software Glitch

Effects of a tailored interactive multimedia computer program on determinants of colorectal cancer screening: A randomized controlled pilot study in physician offices

Objective Screening reduces colorectal cancer (CRC) mortality and is cost-effective, yet uptake is suboptimal. We developed and evaluated a personally tailored interactive multimedia computer program (IMCP) to encourage CRC screening. Methods Randomized controlled pilot trial evaluating the effects of the personally tailored CRC screening IMCP as compared with a non-tailored IMCP (“electronic leaflet”) control. The IMCP was tailored to patient preference, self-efficacy, barriers, and readiness and deployed in busy primary care offices before scheduled doctor visits. Main outcomes were: CRC screening knowledge, self-efficacy, benefits and barriers, and stage of readiness. Results We enrolled 54 subjects; software glitches occurred in 5, leaving 49 subjects for analysis. In adjusted analyses, compared with control, the experimental group had a significant increase in CRC screening self-efficacy ( p = 0.049), a significantly greater likelihood of moving to a more advanced stage of readiness for screening ( p = 0.034), a trend toward fewer perceived barriers to screening ( p = 0.149), and no difference in perceived benefits or knowledge of screening. Conclusion Our personally tailored IMCP was significantly more effective than control in bolstering CRC screening readiness and self-efficacy. Practice implications If further streamlined, personally tailored IMCPs might be usefully deployed in busy primary care offices to improve uptake of CRC screening.

Continuous Ventilator Has Software Glitch

Continuous Ventilator Has Software Glitch

Soyuz mishap sounds alarms

An unsettling event during a Soyuz spacecraft's descent from the International Space Station (ISS) on 3 May was an unwelcome reminder of the outpost's complete dependence on the Russian vehicle for trips back and forth to Earth-until the US shuttle fleet is back in action. It also was a reminder that reliable software can be almost as critical as reliable hardware in space, especially when working with unfamiliar equipment. So when contact with the capsule was lost about 15 minutes before landing. For two hours there was no word on the fate of the crew. The problem was a software glitch in the new control computer that had apparently confused the spacecraft's navigation system. Instead of enduring a maximum G-force of 4 to 5 for about a minute as the vehicle decelerated during the planned shallow glide approach to the landing point, the crew suddenly faced twice that amount as the capsule plunged steeply into the atmosphere before reaching the ground 450 km short of where rescue teams were waiting.