Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Digitisers'

In radio astronomy wider observing bandwidths are constantly desired for the reasons of improved sensitivity and velocity coverage. As observing frequencies move steadily higher these needs become even more pressing. In order to process wider bandwidths, components that can perform at higher frequencies are required. The chief limiting component in the area of digital spectrometers and correlators is the digitiser. This is the component that samples and quantises the bandwidth of interest for further digital processing, and must function at a sample rate of at least twice the operating bandwidth. In this work a range of high speed digitiser integrated circuits (IC) are designed using an advanced InP HBT semiconductor process and their performance limits analysed. These digitiser ICs are shown to operate at up to 10 giga-samples/s, significantly faster than existing digitisers, and a complete digitiser system incorporating one of these is designed and tested that operates at up to 4 giga-samples/s, giving 2 GHz bandwidth coverage. The digitisers presented include a novel photonic I/O digitiser which contains an integrated photonic interface and is the first digitiser device reported with integrated photonic connectivity. In the complementary area of analogue correlators the limiting component is the device which performs the multiplication operation inherent in the correlation process. A 15 GHz analogue multiplier suitable for such systems is designed and tested and a full noise analysis of multipliers in analogue correlators presented. A further multiplier design in SiGe HBT technology is also presented which offers benefits in the area of low frequency noise. In the effort to process even wider bandwidths, applications of photonics to digitisers and multipliers are investigated. A new architecture for a wide bandwidth photonic multiplier is presented and its noise properties analysed, and the use of photonics to increase the sample rate of digitisers examined.

This study explores the use of digital pulse processing techniques for n/y pulse shape discrimination (PSD) in liquid scintillators, and the application of these techniques to a capture-gated fast neutron monitor developed using an enriched '°B-loaded liquid scintillator (BC523A). The motivation for this study has been to develop a computationally-fast digital PSD algorithm, which can be used to detect a weak neutron flux in the presence of a strong gamma ray background and to assess its suitability for use as a portable neutron monitor for fast neutron dosimetry. BC523A can operate as a full-energy neutron spectrometer when used in the 'capturegated' mode, where a characteristic capture time is observed between the proton recoil and neutron capture pulses, thus producing a very clean signature for those fast neutrons which are completely moderated within the detector volume. The use of digital waveform capture of this double-pulse sequence is a powerful technique that allows acquiring both the timestamped pulse amplitudes and the capture lifetime in a single data set. The capture-gated performance of a 105 cm' BC523A detector was investigated using fast neutrons from an Am-Be source. The measured mean neutron capture time in BC523A was 470±80 ns, which is a factor of 5 shorter than that reported for liquid scintillators loaded with natural boron. Due to its limited neutron detection efficiency, an extension of this technique to a large volume (685 cm) BC523A was developed, and provided an efficiency increase by a factor of 7. The efficiency enhancement was modelled using MCNP-4C. Good n/y separation was obtained using digital PSD applied to BC523A. The PSD figure of- merit (FOM) was investigated for various organic scintillators, and compared between digital and analogue pulse processing techniques. The application of digital PSD to the capture-gate detection mode was investigated, as an additional method for suppression of gamma sensitivity.

The purpose of the study was to map the small and medium sized industrial companies in Västernorrland and their work with digitalization. This was performed with the help of an analysis where data from the companies book keeping were retrieved from a database together with a survey that was sent to the companies. The analysis showed how the industry in Västernorrland looks like considering the development of number of companies, number of employees, revenue and more. The questions of the survey were chosen to fit with indicators from the governmental strategy for the industrial transformation. The results of the survey showed that the most of the respondents work with digitalization to some extent. Production and marketing are the main areas where the companies see the biggest possibilities with digitalization. There are very few women in the industrial companies in Västernorrland, both in general and in leading positions. This is contrary to the fact that women in general have a higher education than men, something that is becoming increasingly important with the expansion of digitalization. Support initiatives in the form of a better cooperation between schools and the industry could solve the supply of competence to the companies. The analysis shows that, except for how the industry presently looks, that it is difficult to draw any conclusions about how the companies work with digitalization. There are tendencies that high-tech companies more often themselves write about their work with digitalization on their websites which can be connected to that these companies work more actively with digitalization compared to low-tech companies.
Syftet med studien var att kartlägga små och medelstora industriföretag i Västernorrland och deras arbete med digitalisering. Detta genomfördes med hjälp av en analys där data från företagens bokföring togs fram via en databas tillsammans med en enkät som skickades ut till företagen. Analysen visade på hur industrin ser ut i Västernorrland gällande utvecklingen i antal företag, antal anställda, omsättning med mera. Frågorna i enkäten valdes ut för att passa ihop med indikatorer ur regeringens nyindustrialiseringsstrategi. Resultaten visar att de flesta svarande arbetar med digitalisering i någon omfattning. Inom produktion och marknadsföring ser företagen störst möjlighet med digitalisering. Det är mycket få kvinnor inom Västernorrlands industriföretag, både överlag i företagen men också i ledande befattningar. Detta går tvärt emot det faktum att kvinnor överlag har en högre utbildningsnivå än män, något som blir allt mer viktigt i och med digitaliseringens utbredning. Stödinsatser i form av ett bättre samarbete mellan näringsliv och skolor skulle kunna lösa företagens kompetensförsörjning. Analysen visar, förutom hur industrin ser ut i nuläget, att det är svårt att dra några slutsatser om hur företagen arbetar med digitalisering. Det finns tendenser på att högteknologiska företag själva skriver om digitalisering på deras hemsidor vilket kan kopplas samman med att dessa företag arbetar mer aktivt med digitalisering än lågteknologiska företag.

The Square Kilometre Array Project is a multi-national venture attempting to build the world's largest radio telescope. Australia and South Africa (together with other African countries), will be host to the SKA site. Both countries are building pre-cursor radio telescopes to demonstrate their ability to successfully host the project. Square Kilometre Array South Africa (SKA SA) is currently constructing the MeerKAT Radio Telescope in the Karoo Desert. Radio telescopes are conventionally designed to have the signal Digitiser located in the pedestal of the radio telescope antenna structure to shield the incoming radio signal from being contaminated by the electromagnetic interference (EMI)/radio frequency interference (RFI) noise created by the Digitiser electronics. However, if a Digitiser could be placed near the antenna feed, this would decrease the length of the signal path between the receiver and the Digitiser, which would decrease noise on the signal. The aim of this thesis is to present a viable thermal design for an externally, near-feed mounted, passively cooled Digitiser on the MeerKAT Radio Telescope. This has never been done before. Through calculation, simulation and design iteration this aim was achieved, resulting in an operational Digitiser system which is being used on the MeerKAT Radio Telescope and could potentially also be used in SKA Phase 1.

The sourcing, preservation and documentation of emigrant letter collections is now gathering pace, with the Internet providing a significant new forum for the dissemination of long-hidden archives. Most existing digital letter collections consist of unannotated versions of original manuscripts. The digitisation process has made the letters more accessible and has also increased their searchability. However, relatively few emigrant letter projects have moved beyond the digitisation stage to exploit text content and enhance usability and searchability through the use of digital technologies. This thesis explores some of the opportunities and challenges of working with digitised historical emigrant letter collections. Essentially, the thesis does two things: first, it uses digital technologies (specifically corpus and computational methods of analysis) to explore the language of emigrant letters, building on the existing body of research – primarily by historians – to offer another way into migrant correspondence; second, it proposes a system of markup for capturing metadata relating to emigrant letters – metadata which can then be used to interconnect resources enabling users to carry out more nuanced and sophisticated searchers. I argue that my proposed system could be widely applied to emigrant letter collections, facilitating much greater interdisciplinary and collaborative analysis of such material than has been undertaken hitherto.

Local Area Networks (LAN) are destined to play a rapidly increasing part in the transmission and distribution of a wide range of information, and this thesis describes the study of the problems concerning the transmission of coloured images over a particu1ar network, the Cambridge Ring. A colour image station has been developed for the use on the Cambridge Ring. It provides two main services: a high resolution freeze frame transmission and a medium resolution slow-scan image transmission.

The presence of distributed micro-calcifications can be an indicator of early breast cancer. On the mammogram, they appear as bright smooth particles superimposed on the normal breast image background. Radiologists determine the occurrence of this lesion by detecting the individual micro-calcifications and then examining their distribution within the breast tissue. Due to the visual complexity of the mammogram, the detection sensitivity is usually less than 100%. The digital environment has the potential to increase the radiologist's accuracy. We have developed a computer aided detection (CAD) scheme that can identify clinically indicative clusters of micro-calcifications. The CAD algorithm emulates some aspects of the radiologists' approach by using contrast texture energy segmentation and morphological distribution analysis. On a local database of 61 mammograms digitised at 100μm with 8 bits intensity resolution, the CAD returns: a) 85% sensitivity (91% for malignant lesions and 78% for those that are benign), b) 0.33 false positive clusters (FPC) per image and c) 92% specificity. Therefore, the output from the CAD is shown to compare favourably with the performance of an expert radiologist. It also compares favourably with other CAD techniques, exceeding many algorithms which employ a higher level of mathematical complexity. The scheme is tested on an international database provided by the Mammographic Image Analysis Society. In this case it returns a) 96.4% sensitivity (100% for malignant lesions and 92% for those that are benign) b) 2.35 FPC rate per image and c) 33% specificity. The higher FPC rate is attributed to the different acquisition and production of the digital mammograms. It is concluded that this can be reduced by employing a shape analysis procedure to the CAD's final output. It is shown that the image processing principles we have implemented are generally successful on databases which are produced at other centres under different technical conditions.

A method for automatic detection of mammographic masses is presented. As part of this method, an enhancement algorithm is proposed that improves image contrast based on local statistical measures of the mammograms. After enhancement, regions are segmented via thresholding at multiple levels, and a set of features is computed from each of the segmented regions. A region-ranking system is also presented that identifies the regions most likely to represent abnormalities based on the features computed. The method was tested on 57 mammographic images of masses and achieved a sensitivity of 80% at 2.3 false-positives per image (average of 0.32 false-positives). Two new algorithms for segmentation of masses are presented. These are based on the Dynamic Programming-based Boundary Tracing (DPBT) algorithm proposed in: Timp and Karssemeijer, Med. Phys. 31 (5), pp. 958-971, (2004). The DPBT algorithm contains two main steps: 1) construction of a local cost function, and 2) application of dynamic programming to the selection of the optimal boundary. Modifications to the computation of the local cost function are proposed and produce the Improved-DPBT (IDPBT) algorithm. A procedure for the dynamic selection of the strength of the components of the local cost function is also presented that makes these parameters independent of the image dataset, and produces another new algorithm, ID2PBT. Both of the new algorithms outperform the original DPBT. Four new features for the analysis of breast masses are presented. These features are designed to be insensitive to the exact shape of the contour of the masses, so that an approximate contour, such as one extracted via an automated segmentation algorithm, can be employed in their computation. Two of the features, SpSI and SpGO, measure the degree of spiculation of a mass and its likelihood of being spiculated. The last two features, Fz1 and Fz2, measure the local fuzziness of the mass margins based on points defined automatically. The features were tested for characterisation and diagnosis of breast masses using a set of 319 masses and three different classifiers, and obtained approximately 90% and 76% correct classification, respectively.

This research focused upon issues associated with access to Digitised Visual Art (DVA) that is Visual Art in any form that is held and made available as a shared electronic resource; the value to the individual from the experience of such access and the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in offering a new space to visual art and the individual user. Within the overarching framework of the learning society this study was designed to gain an understanding of the way in which individuals use and value access to DVA within their everyday life. It had a particular emphasis on the individual's own construction of value and the concept of a 'new space'. This study relied on the hermeneutic perspective of a shared meaning and understanding. Hermeneutics was both the underpinning philosophy and the specific framework and method for analysis and interpretation. Design of the research was emergent employing a user centred approach; meaning was determined by the context of the study, new space. This offered the researcher the opportunity to use methods that would yield rich data including on-line and email interviews - actual tools in new space. Key to this research was the relationships between the individual, new space and visual art. Hypertext is concerned with relationships and it is for this reason that an electronic hypertext document (EHD) was created as a holistic tool to present an electronic version of the research. The development of the EHD has become the basis to begin further research in the pedagogical application of such technology as a research and teaching tool. Gateshead, Tyne and Wear in the North East of England was chosen as a case study site, in particular the Library and Arts Service. This study provides an insight into the vision and foresight that Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council has placed on learning, culture, arts and the Information Society. This research also provides a discourse and insight into the utility and importance of DVA and the benefit and opportunity afforded by access in a new space. It offers an understanding of the meaning of Culture in the context of the research and interpretation of value advocating a meaningful framework in which value can be discussed.

The rise to prominence of digitised networks and platforms of wireless communication brings with it an increased focus on immaterial labour and production and the transformative effect that it has on economic, political and social relations, both within and across online and offline spheres. The creative industries of the UK are a particularly important sector in this respect, particularly the music industry, whose trajectory from pre-digital to digital modes of consumption and production has been swift and all-encompassing. This study sought to go beyond the traditional mainstream debates over the possibilities and the pitfalls of digitisation (i.e. online piracy and the vilification of those who engage in such practices), and understand both the economic and social bases of change as they were perceived by independent promoters, musicians and audiences within Cardiff’s indie music milieu. This research adopted a multi-method qualitative interpretivist approach comprising semi-structured interviews with musicians and promoters, ethnographic interviews with audiences and participant observation at live music events. It uncovered not only the evolving attitudes to ‘piracy’ within independent operations, but also the manner in which sharing of music and the associated promotion and communication which operates within the Cardiff milieu transforms not only the circulation and sharing of the music itself, but facilitates new forms of social relations across online and offline spaces. The de-commodification of music in its physical form, and its subsequent re-commodification across online and offline modes has resulted in dramatic shifts for the way music is promoted. This also raises important issues of ‘prosumption’ and the extent to which this is present, the changing economic and social value of music, authenticity and music in the digital age and the evolving position of physical forms of recorded music. Singular economic issues, such as piracy, cannot be addressed in isolation from the multitude of other implications arising from digitisation. A much wider understanding of these issues and their impact on musical enterprises, mainstream and independent, is required in order to address the full extent of changes afoot for both business and social interaction.

The increasing availability of historical sources in a digital form has led to calls for new forms of reading in history. This thesis responds to these calls by exploring the potential of approaches from the field of corpus linguistics to be useful to historical research. Specifically, two sets of methodological issues are considered that arise when corpus linguistic methods are used on digitised historical sources. The first set of issues surrounds optical character recognition (OCR), computerised text transcription based on image reproduction of the original printed source. This process is error-prone, which leads to potentially unreliable word-counts. I find that OCR errors are very varied, and more different from their corrections than natural spelling variation from a standard form. As a result of OCR errors, the test OCR corpus examined has a slightly inflated overall token count (as compared to a hand-corrected gold standard), and a vastly inflated type count. Not all spurious types are infrequent: around 7% of types occurring at least 10 times in my test OCR corpus are spurious. I also find evidence that real-word errors occur. Assessing the impact of OCR errors on two common collocation statistics, Mutual Information (MI) and Log-Likelihood (LL), I find that both are affected by OCR errors. This analysis also provides evidence that OCR errors are not homogenously distributed throughout the corpus. Nevertheless, for small collocation spans, MI rankings are broadly reliable in OCR data, especially when used in combination with an LL threshold. Large spans are best avoided, as both statistics become increasingly less reliable in OCR data, when used with larger spans. Both statistics attract non-negligible rates of false positives. Using a frequency floor will eliminate many OCR errors, but does not reduce the rates of MI and LL false positives. Assessing the potential of two post-OCR correction methods, I find that VARD, a program designed to standardise natural spelling variation, proves unpromising for dealing with OCR errors. By contrast, Overproof, a commercial system designed for OCR errors, is effective, and its application leads to substantial improvements in the reliability of MI and LL, particularly for large spans. The second set of issues relate to the effectiveness of approaches to analysing the discourses surrounding place-names in digitised nineteenth-century newspapers. I single out three approaches to identifying place-names mentioned in large amounts of text without the need for a geo-parser system. The first involves relying on USAS, a semantic tagger, which has a 'Z2' tag for geographic names. This approach cannot identify multi-word place-names, but is scalable. A difficulty is that frequency counts of place-names do not account for their possible polysemy; I suggest a procedure involving reading a random sample of concordance lines for each place-name, in order to obtain an estimate of the actual number of mentions of that place-name in reference to a specific place. This method is best used to identify the most frequent place-names. A second, related, approach is to automatically compare a list of words tagged 'Z2' with a gazetteer, a reference list of place-names. This method, however, suffers from the same difficulties as the previous one, and is best used when accurate frequency counts are not required. A third approach involves starting from a principled, text-external, list of place-names, such as a population table, then attempting to locate each place in the set of texts. The scalability of this method depends on the length of the list of place-names, but it can accommodate any quantity of text. Its advantage over the two other methods is that it helps to contextualise the findings and can help identify place-names which are not mentioned in the texts. Finally, I consider two approaches to investigating the discourses surrounding place-names in large quantities of text. Both are scalable operationalisations of proximity-based collocation. The first approach starts with the whole corpus, searching for the place-name of interest and generating a list of statistical collocates of the place-name; these collocates can then be further categorised and analysed via concordance analysis. The second approach starts with small samples of concordance lines for the place-name of interest, and involves analysing these concordance lines to develop a framework for description of the phraseologies within which place-names are mentioned. Both methods are useful and scalable; the findings they yield are, to some extent, overlapping, but also complementary. This suggests that both methods may be fruitfully used together, albeit neither is ideally-suited for comparing results across corpora. Both approaches are well-suited for exploratory research.

The quantitative research detailed in this document studied the impact of dramatic social change [DSC] on the relationship between digitised dynamic capabilities [DDC] and successful digital transformation [SDT] within a South African context. While there has been ample academic theory examining dynamic capabilities [DC] as a strategic response to rapid technological change, the 2020 COVID-19 epidemiological crisis introduced a new context worthy of study. In examining DSC's moderating effect on the various aspects of DDC, the study hoped to make a small contribution towards understanding the specific organisational competencies that support SDT in times of dramatic, external, change. In addition to the above, the research sought to operationalise those processes and routines that were hypothesised to measure distinct sub-capabilities within the multi-dimensional construct of DDC.
Mini Dissertation (MPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2020.
Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)
MPhil
Unrestricted

Thesis (MComm)--University of Stellenbosch, 2002.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Defence forces around the world are experiencing a period of dynamic change with new force structures being combined with new technologies in an effort to enhance effectiveness. Present day resources and technology available to the modern society, have facilitated the evolution of warfare as a technologically advanced enterprise, with the decided emphasis on the digitisation of the battlefield. With rapid development in the field of battlefield digitisation there is an increasing need to address the important issues and challenges facing the military. In order to meet strategic defence guidelines, it is necessary to integrate the capabilities of defence forces with modern technology. In this regard the South African Defence Force is striving towards the digitisation of the battlefield. This digitisation can potentially satisfy the many requirements set for the Defence Force, in a more timely and cost-effective manner than traditional methods of functioning and training would be able to achieve. Effective situational awareness and command and control structures are essential for any military operation, especially with increasingly complex military demands. Key areas of importance are the collection, dissemination and management of information, which if executed skilfully, will result in forces capable of operating more effectively and with greater flexibility. Decision makers on the battlefield continually suffer from information overload due to the extremely rapid inflow of information. This is likely to worsen with the continued introduction of new information technologies. The technology level of any defence force should therefore be appropriate, driven by usefulness and cost-effectiveness. The digitised battlefield allows for the execution of near realistic military exercises, while conserving material and reducing the detrimental impact on environment and personnel, as is the case with traditional exercises. A key issue of focus is the usability and integration of related technologies within the digital battlefield. Promoting optimal usability through continuous and comprehensive user-based evaluation is crucial and will result in increased human performance through interaction with technology. Optimal usability must be engineered into any product (defined as something produced by means of either human or mechanical work) from the inception of the product's life cycle. Within today's technology orientated society, the digitisation of the battlefield and the usability thereof have become increasingly important issues. Most research has investigated the concepts of battlefield digitisation and usability in isolation, and little co-ordinated effort has been made to integrate digitisation and usability, even though the relation is important and necessary. A study of this nature has not hitherto been conducted within the South African military context. The purpose of this study is to provide a theoretical background of the issues of military digitisation and usability, in order to determine the significance of this relation. This research aims specifically to promote the viewpoint that usability is central to military digitisation, as well as to emphasise the importance of user-centred approaches to system development and utilization. The result will be enhanced human performance and satisfaction when interacting with digital battlefield applications. The theoretical perspective is provided by way of a literature review of the relevant military and usability concepts. Military functioning is discussed, highlighting the importance of situational awareness and effective command and control capabilities. The digitisation in the military is examined with specific reference to Virtual Reality and simulation. An overview of usability (within a human-computer interaction and user-centred design context) and usability evaluation methods are provided. This research was conducted during a military exercise conducted by the South African National Defence Force. A usability inquiry approach was followed with questionnaires distributed to participants involved with the Command and Control Digital Battlefield System. Information was obtained concerning participants' characteristics, likes, dislikes, needs, and understanding of the digital battlefield system. The analyses of the information consisted of descriptive statistics as the research aimed to illustrate the attitudes concerning usability and the digital battlefield. The results provide an understanding of the perceptions of the users regarding the digital battlefield system and its usability. Conclusions are drawn from results obtained and recommendations are made for future research.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Moderne weermagte deur die wereld ervaar tans 'n peri ode van dinamiese verandering met nuwe magstrukture wat met nuwe tegnologiee gekombineer word ter bevordering van doeltreffendheid. Die hedendaagse hulpbronne en tegnologie tot die moderne samelewing se beskikking, het meegebring dat oorlogvoering ontwikkel het in 'n tegnologies gevorderde aksie met die klem op gevegsterrein-digitalisering. Die betreding van 'n era van tegnologies gevorderde oorlogvoering met die gepaardgaande snelle ontwikkelings in die veld van gevegsterrein digitalisering, het 'n toenemend groeiende behoefte laat ontstaan vir die indringende aanspreking van belangrike strydvrae en uitdagings wat 'n moderne weermag in die gesig staar.Tiit is noodsaaklik dat die vermoens van weermagte geintegreer word met moderne tegnologie ten einde aan strategiese verdedigingsvereistes te kan voldoen. Die Suid-Afrikaanse Nasionale Weermag het digitalisering van die gevegsterrein ten doel. Sodanige digitalisering kan potensieel die talle vereistes gestel aan 'n weermag op 'n meer tydige en koste-effektiewe wyse bevredig as wat met tradisionele metodes van funksionering en opleiding gedoen kan word. Effektiewe situasionele bewustheid en bevel en beheer strukture, is onontbeerlik in enige militere operasie, veral in die lig van toenemende komplekse eise gestel aan die moderne weermag. Sleutelareas van belang is die insameling, disseminasie en bestuur van inligting, wat as dit met die nodige insig en kundigheid uitgevoer word, aanleiding sal gee tot die verhoogde doeltreffendheid en buigsaamheid van 'n weermag. Die tegnologiese vlak van enige weermag behoort dus toepaslik en bruikbaar te wees, sowel as koste-effektief gedrewe. Die gedigitaliseerde gevegsterrein maak vcorsiening vir die uitvoering van bykans-realistiese militere oefeninge met behoud van material en grootskaalse uitskakeling van die negatiewe invloede op die omgewing en personeel, meer so as wat andersins die geval sou wees met tradisionele oefeninge. 'n Sleutel-aspek is die bruikbaarheid en integrasie van verwante tegnologiee in 'n gedigitaliseerde gevegsterrein. Die bevordering van optimale bruikbaarheid deur aaneenlopende en omvattende gebruikersbaseerde evaluasies, is deurslaggewend en sal lei tot verhoogde gebruiker prestasie betreffende interaksie met tegnologie. Optimale bruikbaarheid moet reeds vanaf die aanvang van 'n produk se lewenssiklus, bewerkstellig word. In die hedendaagse tegnologie-gebaseerde moderne same lewing, het digitalisering van die gevegsterrein en die bruikbaarheid daarvan, toenemend belangrik geword. In die meeste navorsmg word gevegsterrein digitalisering, asook bruikbaarheid, afsonderlik ondersoek, onafgesien van die belangrike verwantskap daartussen, en slegs geringe gekoordineerde pogings is van stapel gestuur om digitalisering en bruikbaarheid te integreer. In die Suid-Afrikaanse rnilitere konteks is so 'n studie nog nie uitgevoer nie en derhalwe het hierdie studie ten doel om 'n teoretiese agtergrond te voorsien van militere digitalisering- en bruikbaarheidskwessies, asook die vasstelling van die verwantskap daartussen. Hierdie navorsing het spesifiek ten doel om die standpunt te bevorder dat bruikbaarheid sentraal staan tot militere digitalisering sowel as om die gebruiker-gebaseerde benadering tot sisteem ontwikkeling en benutbaarheid, te bevorder. Die resultaat sal verhoogde gebruikerprestasie en tevredenheid wees wanneer interaksie met gedigitaliseerde gevegsterrein toepassings plaasvind. Die teoretiese perspektief word voorsien deur 'n literatuur-oorsig van die relevante rnilitere- en bruikbaarheidskonsepte. Militere funksionering word bespreek met beklemtoning van die belang van situasionele bewustheid en doeltreffende bevel en beheer vermoens, Militere digitalisering word ondersoek met spesifieke verwysing na virtuele realiteit en simulasie. 'n Oorsig van bruikbaarheid (binne die konteks van mens-rekenaar interaksie en gebruikersgeorienteerde ontwerp) sowel as bruikbaarheidsevaluasie-metodes word voorsien. Hierdie navorsing is uitgevoer tydens 'n militere oefening van die Suid-Afrikaanse Nasionale Weermag. 'n Bruikbaarheidsondersoek-benadering is gevolg deur vraelyste uit te deel aan die deelnemers wat betrokke was by die gedigitaliseerde bevel en beheer stelsel. Informasie is ingewin betreffende die deelnemers se kenmerke, persepsies, voorkeure, afkeure, behoeftes en begrip van die gedigitaliseerde gevegsterrein-stelsel. Die analise van die informasie het beskrywende statistieke behels omdat die navorsing ten doe I gehad het om ingesteldhede betreffende bruikbaarheid en die gedigitaliseerde gevegsterrein, uit te lig. Die resultate voorsien 'n begrip van die persepsies van die gebruikers rakende die gedigitaliseerde gevegsterrein, en die bruikbaarheid daarvan. Gevolgtrekkings word gemaak vanuit die resultate verkry en aanbevelings word voorsien vir verdere toekomstige navorsing.

The way that historians do research has changed as more and more digitised primary sources have become available online. Whilst desktop access to historical resources is becoming the norm in the digital age, many historians prefer working with original sources. This observation triggered an investigation into the information needs and behaviour of historians with a view to identifying ways in which information retrieval system (IRS) might be enhanced to meet their specific needs. During the investigation it became apparent that the information-seeking behaviour (ISB) of historians involves a great deal of creative thinking and that IRS aimed at historians would benefit from features specifically designed to stimulate their creativity. The research described here follows a “mixed methods” approach in which quantitative and qualitative research techniques have been applied sequentially. The first, quantitative, phase of the study concerned the question of which format of primary sources (original or digitised) historians prefer to work with and why. Results from an online questionnaire, distributed to historians in the UK, revealed the historians’ preference for originals but with a very positive attitude towards digitised sources, which were considered to be more “useful”. This led the study to explore ways in which the “usefulness” of IRS could be further improved to support historical research. The exploration of these issues involved a qualitative analysis based on “grounded theory” techniques and led to certain specific recommendations to the designers of future IRS intended to support historical research.

Situation Awareness (SA) is critical commodity for teams working in complex sociotechnical systems and is thus a fundamental consideration in collaborative system design and evaluation. Despite this, SA remains predominantly an individual construct, with the majority of models and measures focused on SA from an individual perspective. In comparison, team SA has received much less attention and this thesis argues that further work is required in the area both in relation to the development of theoretical perspectives and of valid measures, and to the development of guidelines for system, training and procedure design. This thesis advances team SA theory and measurement by further investigating a recently proposed model of SA in complex collaborative environments, the Distributed Situation Awareness (DSA) approach, and by testing a new methodology for representing and analysing DSA during real world collaborative activities. A review of SA theory and SA measurement approaches is presented. Following this, the DSA theory and propositional network assessment methodology are outlined and a series of case studies on DSA during real world collaborative activities in the military and civil domains are presented. The findings are subsequently used to explore the concept of DSA and the sub-concepts of compatible and transactive SA. In conclusion, a model of DSA in complex collaborative systems is presented, and a series of system design guidelines for supporting DSA are outlined.

No
Digitised Diseases is a new web resource which contains photo-realistic 3D models of bones, together with detailed descriptions, clinical synopses, radiographs and CT data. The images give broad coverage of disease conditions affecting the human skeleton. The project – a collaboration between the University of Bradford, Museum of London Archaeology and the Royal College of Surgeons of England – came about following recognition of conflict between the requirements of researchers and students and the need to preserve collections of material; repeated handling of the bones can cause appreciable damage. This article explains the importance of archaeological and historical specimens for modern medical research and training, and thus the usefulness of the project, which makes a huge amount of data freely available; it also describes some of the collections that have been digitised.

In this investigation ^number of image texture analysis techniques for the classification of microcalcifications in digitised mammograms are presented. Microcalcifications are often an early indication of breast cancer, and computer-aided diagnostic techniques are capable of improving diagnostic accuracy. Three categories of image texture features are extracted from regions of interest surrounding clusters of microcalcifications. These comprise a set of statistical texture features based on the co-occurrence matrix, a set of wavelet-based texture signatures and a propose^ third set of texture features. This set, referred to as multiscale statistical texture features, is based on a combination of the other two approaches to texture analysis. The multiscale statistical texture features outperform the other types of texture features in tests using two separate datasets and a k-nn classifier for classification. Improved classification accuracy is also achieved using an artificial neural network for classification.

This study proposes a generic model for optical character recognition (OCR) on remote objects, using digitised video and digital camera input. Currently, most applications using this technique are ad hoc. Lack of formalism creates the risk of fragmented adhocracy. The purpose of this model is to introduce some degree of formalism based on classical character recognition, thereby providing a theoretical basis, and to explore the potential of character recognition on digital images for automated reading. The model also propogates the use of off the shelf commercial software and hardware currently available. The model “CRODI” which is an abbreviation for Character Recognition On Digital Images, consists of several objects or building blocks necessary for any remote character recognition application. In order to provide an optimal solution for any application it is necessary to select the most appropriate and effective building blocks. The combination and sequence in which these building blocks are selected is called a visual routine. This study does not only focus on choosing the correct building blocks for an application but also describes how certain visual routines and methodologies can be used to cater for applications with a certain profile. Furthermore, a formal notation in the form of an Expert Support System is introduced to describe optimised visual routines and the selection of building blocks in an efficient way. An example is given in chapter six of the efficiency and effectiveness of the model on a classical but dynamic application, where character recognition is performed on stationary and fast moving vehicles’ number plates. The biggest advantage of CRODI is to propose a generic framework or model from which an intuitive selection of objects, visual routines or methodologies can occur to expedite and optimise remote character recognition on almost any stationary or moving object.
Ehlers, E.M., Prof.

This paper covers the transformation project of Veolia Portugal’s Finance Function. Interviews and research of solutions to digitise the department resulted in the identification of lean opportunities and processes to automate. All hoping to increase efficiency in a department challenged by the move to the Cloud and the acquisition of another company. There were several processes to be optimised, some having been prioritised to digitise by year-end based on this project. With results still to be quantified and assessed, initial findings provide evidence of the positive impact of digitalisation in efficiency, in particular on the Finance Function, and how current gains would be enhanced by training collaborators and through the digitisation of other functions.

No
Digitised Diseases is a major web-based 3D resource of chronic disease conditions that manifest change to the human skeleton. The resource was established through funds from Jisc, the University of Bradford and Bradford Visualisation. The multidisciplinary team involving project partners Museum of London Archaeology and the Royal College of Surgeons of England undertook a program of mass digitization of pathological type specimens from world-renowned archaeological, historic and medical collections at the University of Bradford, in London and York. We continue to augment this resource through ingestion of new content. The resource was always envisaged as needing to appeal to a diverse user community, having impact not just among academic and clinical beneficiaries, but also enriching the wider understanding of public health in the past. From the outset, our focus was on making sure that the digitized paleopathological exemplars were represented and understood within a broader clinical context. In essence we wanted to emphasize the impact of living with disease and disability in an era before modern therapies were available and the significance of care provision that would have been required at a societal level, given the longevity of many of these conditions.

Thesis (M.Tech.: Radiography)-Dept. of Radiography, Durban University of Technology, 2007 xxiv, 142 leaves, Annexures A-L
The aim of the study was to evaluate CT-based treatment planning versus digitised image planning (standard planning technique) for carcinoma of the breast, using the four-field breast technique, in terms of the depth of supraclavicular and axillary nodes, the variability of the breast tissue and the dose inhomogeneity at the matchline.

Thesis (M. Comm,)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, 2001.
Electronic commerce is a new technology, which is growing rapidly and has the ability to create a truly global digital economy. The extraordinary growth of the internet in the last few years has led to the birth of a world without borders, a place where free communication, a competitive market and extensive comparison shopping are a matter of course. This apparent lack of geography in cyberspace has raised complex problems regarding government tax policy. The rapid rise in sales over the internet and the fact that most internet buyers pay no income tax on transactions has ignited a considerable debate over taxes and the internet. The nature of the internet and the globalisation of the world economy mean that developments in e-commerce create legal problems concerning security of transactions and legal jurisdiction of transactions. There is a general concern that e-commerce provides taxpayers with the ability to move transactions outside a country's jurisdiction and thus avoid paying tax in that taxing jurisdiction. The advent of ecommerce has also given dishonest taxpayers the ability to structure their affairs to reduce or avoid paying tax in their jurisdictions. Rules written specifically to address the unique characteristics of electronic commerce are few and must be creatively adapted to the unique needs of e-commerce. As the volume of e-commerce increases, however, so will the number of rules. Many government committees and commissions devoted wholly or partly to make proposals and write the rules for e-commerce, exist throughout the world. In the United States the highest profile commission is the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce. This commission has a mandate to recommend far-reaching changes to the taxation of electronic commerce, especially in the areas of sales and value-added tax ('Vat') and cross-border taxation. Research conducted by Austan Goolsbee has shown that applying the conventional tax policy to the internet commerce will reduce the number of buyers on the internet by up to 24 percent. Various countries are currently formulating their respective regulatory policies in an attempt to find solutions to problems posed by e-commerce.

Yes
Underpinned by a contemporary view of automotive systems as cyber-physical systems, characterised by progressively open architectures increasingly defined by their interaction with the users and the smart environment, this paper provides a critical and up-to-date review of automotive Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) systems. The paper discusses the challenges with prognostics and intelligent health management of automotive systems, and proposes a high-level framework, referred to as the Automotive Healthcare Analytic Factory, to systematically collect and process heterogeneous data from across the product lifecycle, towards actionable insight for personalised healthcare of systems.
Jaguar Land Rover funded research “Intelligent Personalised Powertrain Healthcare” 2016-2019