This thesis was conducted to provide an automated method for characterization of printed electronics. The work was built on a multi-axis milling machine. Further, the machine was modified by replacing the milling-tool with an installment utilizing electrical probing. Different measurement techniques, machine vision applications, and software solutions were evaluated and utilized. All the revolving functionalities of this project was then merged into a complete system, controlled by a graphical user interface. The resulting system was capable of autonomously characterize a given number of components on a printed sheet. The final version of the system is capable of finding the origin of the sheet by using machine vision and fiducial markers.

3D printers are a type of digital fabrication tool being used by communities committed to shared software, hardware, and digital designs. This shared digital knowledge can be understood as an emerging common resource for the fabrication of physical goods and services. Yet the knowledge associated with physical resources used in 3D printing is less understood. This thesis explores what factors enable or prevent knowledge about physical materials entering the commons. 3D printing, with its particular configuration of digital and physical goods, offers a unique angle to advance the field of commons scholarship. This thesis elaborates the use of commons theory for traversing the boundary between knowledge associated with physical materials and digital content from the perspective of 3D printer users. Particular contributions are made to the branch of knowledge commons theory: notably, how design rules in technological systems can be used to theorise boundaries; how differentiating between the nature of underlying resources can help explain the inclusion of knowledge in the commons; and, how patterns of user engagement with types of knowledge in the commons can be studied over time. To develop these contributions I employ theory on the design rules of technological architecture, and use insights from the study of peer production in online communities. Empirical data comes from a qualitative study of users of Fab Labs, community workshops for digital fabrication, as well as from a quantitative study of the online user forum for the Ultimaker 3D printer.

Devido ao crescente incremento de complexidade do software embarcado atual, dada a abundância de recursos disponíveis de hardware, está cada vez mais difícil manter a qualidade do software embarcado desenvolvido sem incorrer em aumentos de custo que inviabilizem o projeto. Com isto, o teste de software embarcado é atualmente uma importante área de pesquisa, onde são buscadas técnicas de teste que maximizem o número de falhas encontradas ainda em tempo de projeto e a um custo satisfatório. Muitas das soluções pesquisadas envolvem aspectos não apenas relativos ao teste propriamente dito, mas ao projeto do produto desde a sua concepção, daí a necessidade de metodologias conjuntas de desenvolvimento e teste. Neste trabalho, é apresentada uma metodologia de desenvolvimento e testes de software embarcado com o objetivo de permitir que grande parte da tarefa de desenvolvimento e teste seja executada em um ambiente de desenvolvimento de software de aplicação, sem a presença do hardware. Neste ambiente, o desenvolvimento é pensado desde o início do projeto visando à qualidade do teste, assim caracterizando esta metodologia como uma técnica DFT (do inglês design for testability). Na abordagem proposta, o hardware físico é substituído por modelos funcionais, construídos na mesma linguagem de programação do software em desenvolvimento. O uso destes modelos permite ao desenvolvedor a construção e aplicação de casos de teste capazes de exercitar o software embarcado tanto no ambiente de software de aplicação, quanto na plataforma alvo, sem alterações. Esta dissertação mostra a metodologia sendo aplicada ao software embarcado de um medidor eletrônico de energia, onde cinco modelos de dispositivos de hardware foram construídos, que permitiram a execução tanto de testes de unidade, quanto de testes de integração, em um ambiente de desenvolvimento de software de aplicação. Finalmente, uma análise de cobertura, realizada com o auxílio de uma ferramenta que, de outra forma, não seria compatível com o software da plataforma alvo, mostrou que a execução conjunta do software e dos modelos permite atingir a cobertura de quase a totalidade do software embarcado desenvolvido, onde os casos de teste foram capazes de verificar desde as camadas de software de aplicação até as camadas de software dependente do hardware. / Due to the growing increment of complexity of the current embedded software, given the abundance of hardware resources, it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the software quality without requiring high development and test costs that could make the project impracticable. In this context, embedded software testing is an important research area, where test techniques that maximize the number of errors detected during design time at a satisfactory cost have been investigated. Many of the proposed solutions involve aspects not related only to the testing itself, but to the product design since its conception, hence the need of methodologies for the development and test of software. In this work, we present a methodology of development and test of embedded software that allows the execution of most of the task of development and test in an application software development environment, without the physical hardware. In the application software environment, the development is thought, since the first stages, aiming the execution of the test, hence this methodology can be seen as a DFT (design for testability) technique. In the proposed approach, the physical hardware is replaced by functional models, constructed using the same programming language of the embedded software under development. The use of such models allows the developer to construct and apply test cases capable of exercising the embedded software both in the application software environment and in the target platform environment, without any change. In this work, the presented methodology is applied to the embedded software of an electronic energy meter, where five hardware device models were constructed, which enabled the execution of both unit and integration tests in the application software environment. Finally, the coverage analysis, performed with a software tool that otherwise would not be compatible with the target platform, showed that the simultaneous execution of the software and the models make it possible to achieve an almost complete coverage of the developed embedded software, where the test cases were able to verify the software from the application layers to the hardware dependent layers.

Devido ao crescente incremento de complexidade do software embarcado atual, dada a abundância de recursos disponíveis de hardware, está cada vez mais difícil manter a qualidade do software embarcado desenvolvido sem incorrer em aumentos de custo que inviabilizem o projeto. Com isto, o teste de software embarcado é atualmente uma importante área de pesquisa, onde são buscadas técnicas de teste que maximizem o número de falhas encontradas ainda em tempo de projeto e a um custo satisfatório. Muitas das soluções pesquisadas envolvem aspectos não apenas relativos ao teste propriamente dito, mas ao projeto do produto desde a sua concepção, daí a necessidade de metodologias conjuntas de desenvolvimento e teste. Neste trabalho, é apresentada uma metodologia de desenvolvimento e testes de software embarcado com o objetivo de permitir que grande parte da tarefa de desenvolvimento e teste seja executada em um ambiente de desenvolvimento de software de aplicação, sem a presença do hardware. Neste ambiente, o desenvolvimento é pensado desde o início do projeto visando à qualidade do teste, assim caracterizando esta metodologia como uma técnica DFT (do inglês design for testability). Na abordagem proposta, o hardware físico é substituído por modelos funcionais, construídos na mesma linguagem de programação do software em desenvolvimento. O uso destes modelos permite ao desenvolvedor a construção e aplicação de casos de teste capazes de exercitar o software embarcado tanto no ambiente de software de aplicação, quanto na plataforma alvo, sem alterações. Esta dissertação mostra a metodologia sendo aplicada ao software embarcado de um medidor eletrônico de energia, onde cinco modelos de dispositivos de hardware foram construídos, que permitiram a execução tanto de testes de unidade, quanto de testes de integração, em um ambiente de desenvolvimento de software de aplicação. Finalmente, uma análise de cobertura, realizada com o auxílio de uma ferramenta que, de outra forma, não seria compatível com o software da plataforma alvo, mostrou que a execução conjunta do software e dos modelos permite atingir a cobertura de quase a totalidade do software embarcado desenvolvido, onde os casos de teste foram capazes de verificar desde as camadas de software de aplicação até as camadas de software dependente do hardware. / Due to the growing increment of complexity of the current embedded software, given the abundance of hardware resources, it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the software quality without requiring high development and test costs that could make the project impracticable. In this context, embedded software testing is an important research area, where test techniques that maximize the number of errors detected during design time at a satisfactory cost have been investigated. Many of the proposed solutions involve aspects not related only to the testing itself, but to the product design since its conception, hence the need of methodologies for the development and test of software. In this work, we present a methodology of development and test of embedded software that allows the execution of most of the task of development and test in an application software development environment, without the physical hardware. In the application software environment, the development is thought, since the first stages, aiming the execution of the test, hence this methodology can be seen as a DFT (design for testability) technique. In the proposed approach, the physical hardware is replaced by functional models, constructed using the same programming language of the embedded software under development. The use of such models allows the developer to construct and apply test cases capable of exercising the embedded software both in the application software environment and in the target platform environment, without any change. In this work, the presented methodology is applied to the embedded software of an electronic energy meter, where five hardware device models were constructed, which enabled the execution of both unit and integration tests in the application software environment. Finally, the coverage analysis, performed with a software tool that otherwise would not be compatible with the target platform, showed that the simultaneous execution of the software and the models make it possible to achieve an almost complete coverage of the developed embedded software, where the test cases were able to verify the software from the application layers to the hardware dependent layers.

In recent years, the drive for ever increasing energy efficiency has intensified. The main driving forces behind this development are the increased innovation and adoption of mobile battery powered devices, increasing energy costs, environmental concerns, and strive for denser systems. This work is meant to serve as a foundation for exploration of energy conscious software. We present an overview of previous work and a background to energy concerns from a software perspective. In addition, we describe and test a few methods for decreasing energy consumption with emphasis on using software parallelism. The experiments are conducted using both a simulation environment and real hardware. Finally, a method for measuring energy consumption on a hardware platform is described. We conclude that energy conscious software is very dependent on what hardware energy saving features, such as frequency scaling and power management, are available. If the software has a lot of unnecessary, or overcomplicated, work, the energy consumption can be lowered to some extent by optimizing the software and reducing the overhead. If the hardware provides software-controllable energy features, the energy consumption can be lowered dramatically. For suitable workloads, using parallelism and multi-core technologies seem very promising for producing low power software. Realizing this potential requires a very flexible hardware platform. Most important is to have fine grained control over power management, and voltage and frequency scaling, preferably on a per core basis.

Devido ao crescente incremento de complexidade do software embarcado atual, dada a abundância de recursos disponíveis de hardware, está cada vez mais difícil manter a qualidade do software embarcado desenvolvido sem incorrer em aumentos de custo que inviabilizem o projeto. Com isto, o teste de software embarcado é atualmente uma importante área de pesquisa, onde são buscadas técnicas de teste que maximizem o número de falhas encontradas ainda em tempo de projeto e a um custo satisfatório. Muitas das soluções pesquisadas envolvem aspectos não apenas relativos ao teste propriamente dito, mas ao projeto do produto desde a sua concepção, daí a necessidade de metodologias conjuntas de desenvolvimento e teste. Neste trabalho, é apresentada uma metodologia de desenvolvimento e testes de software embarcado com o objetivo de permitir que grande parte da tarefa de desenvolvimento e teste seja executada em um ambiente de desenvolvimento de software de aplicação, sem a presença do hardware. Neste ambiente, o desenvolvimento é pensado desde o início do projeto visando à qualidade do teste, assim caracterizando esta metodologia como uma técnica DFT (do inglês design for testability). Na abordagem proposta, o hardware físico é substituído por modelos funcionais, construídos na mesma linguagem de programação do software em desenvolvimento. O uso destes modelos permite ao desenvolvedor a construção e aplicação de casos de teste capazes de exercitar o software embarcado tanto no ambiente de software de aplicação, quanto na plataforma alvo, sem alterações. Esta dissertação mostra a metodologia sendo aplicada ao software embarcado de um medidor eletrônico de energia, onde cinco modelos de dispositivos de hardware foram construídos, que permitiram a execução tanto de testes de unidade, quanto de testes de integração, em um ambiente de desenvolvimento de software de aplicação. Finalmente, uma análise de cobertura, realizada com o auxílio de uma ferramenta que, de outra forma, não seria compatível com o software da plataforma alvo, mostrou que a execução conjunta do software e dos modelos permite atingir a cobertura de quase a totalidade do software embarcado desenvolvido, onde os casos de teste foram capazes de verificar desde as camadas de software de aplicação até as camadas de software dependente do hardware. / Due to the growing increment of complexity of the current embedded software, given the abundance of hardware resources, it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the software quality without requiring high development and test costs that could make the project impracticable. In this context, embedded software testing is an important research area, where test techniques that maximize the number of errors detected during design time at a satisfactory cost have been investigated. Many of the proposed solutions involve aspects not related only to the testing itself, but to the product design since its conception, hence the need of methodologies for the development and test of software. In this work, we present a methodology of development and test of embedded software that allows the execution of most of the task of development and test in an application software development environment, without the physical hardware. In the application software environment, the development is thought, since the first stages, aiming the execution of the test, hence this methodology can be seen as a DFT (design for testability) technique. In the proposed approach, the physical hardware is replaced by functional models, constructed using the same programming language of the embedded software under development. The use of such models allows the developer to construct and apply test cases capable of exercising the embedded software both in the application software environment and in the target platform environment, without any change. In this work, the presented methodology is applied to the embedded software of an electronic energy meter, where five hardware device models were constructed, which enabled the execution of both unit and integration tests in the application software environment. Finally, the coverage analysis, performed with a software tool that otherwise would not be compatible with the target platform, showed that the simultaneous execution of the software and the models make it possible to achieve an almost complete coverage of the developed embedded software, where the test cases were able to verify the software from the application layers to the hardware dependent layers.

Abstract This thesis contributes to the field of collaborative information systems and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). It extends the notion of technological support for design activities "in use" beyond providing the flexibility to tailor collaborative software, to provide means to support the appropriation process of these tools in their application fields. Two long-term studies on the evolution of usages of collaborative software in a German authority and in a network of freelancers in the field of consulting form the foundation of this work. Based on the experience there, it was possible to identify user activities that drive the appropriation process and to establish a perspective on the appropriation of a Groupware as a social process. Appropriation can be described as a collaborative effort of end users, who perform "appropriation activities" to make sense of the software in their work context. Besides activities to configure the software to fit into the technological, organisational and individual work context of the users ('Tailoring'), there is a larger area of technology-related communication, demonstration and negotiation activities aimed at establishing a shared understanding of how a software artefact works and what it can contribute to the shared work context. The mutual shaping of the technology and organisational contexts resemble an ongoing design process that end users perform largely without any involvement of professional developers. This perspective is the guiding line for developing means for "Appropriation Support", i.e., means to support the appropriation activities that end users perform. To inform the design of appropriation support measures and functions, current approaches that capture the collaborative dimensions of tailoring, and the necessities of 'discourse ergonomics' for technology-related online communication are explored. The trend to work with a tool 'infrastructure' instead of monolithic Groupware tools is a complicating yet important secondary consideration here, since it demonstrates the necessity to offer support 'beyond one tool' to support a use-oriented perspective on appropriation. The resulting idea of 'Use Discourse Environments' as a main concept for appropriation support which captures the activities of communication, demonstration and negotiation as well as the activity of tailoring (where possible) was implemented and evaluated in two prototypes that refer to the application fields of the initial studies. The idea of integrating online discourse, tool representations and tailoring facilities served as a guideline for the use discourse both in an event notification service as well as in the 'Online Future Workshop' that addressed a shared inter-organisational software development infrastructure. Based on the evaluations, design recommendations for appropriation support are made, and the problematic nature of appropriation activities as 'infrastructural work' versus the 'productive work' that end users consider their main area of work is addressed. The thesis concludes with a vision of collaborative software tools that do not only provide their original services, but also address end users as a 'virtual community of technology practice'.

This master thesis deals with a draft and an implementation of a software application into a company. The thesis sums up the theoretical outcomes of work and the analysis of present state including requirements for the above stated application. Analysis of internal and external environment of the company is performed with the use of Porter, SWOT, SLEPT and 7S. In addition to that, the analysis of competitive products, all included in the draft, is also peformed. The draft design of software application and the description of implementation to the company environment are created in the last part of the thesis.

The thesis deals with design of the device for monitoring four signals from the probes for scanning ECG, PPG and heart pressure. The thesis is mainly focused on hardware design of the device and the most important part is the selection of the storage media to which will be the data recorded and the selection of the microprocessor which has to be able to meet the requirements of the device. For the data recording is used SD card and the ARM based MCU was selected from the AT91SAM7S series. This thesis also deals with the software design for MCU which is needed to launch the device and with design of PC applications used for setting the device and for downloading the measured data. At the end there are presented results of the constructed device.

abstract: Component simulation models, such as agent-based models, may depend on spatial data associated with geographic locations. Composition of such models can be achieved using a Geographic Knowledge Interchange Broker (GeoKIB) enabled with spatial-temporal data transformation functions, each of which is responsible for a set of interactions between two independent models. The use of autonomous interaction models allows model composition without alteration of the composed component models. An interaction model must handle differences in the spatial resolutions between models, in addition to differences in their temporal input/output data types and resolutions. A generalized GeoKIB was designed that regulates unidirectional spatially-based interactions between composed models. Different input and output data types are used for the interaction model, depending on whether data transfer should be passive or active. Synchronization of time-tagged input/output values is made possible with the use of dependency on a discrete simulation clock. An algorithm supporting spatial conversion is developed to transform any two-dimensional geographic data map between different region specifications. Maps belonging to the composed models can have different regions, map cell sizes, or boundaries. The GeoKIB can be extended based on the model specifications to be composed and the target application domain. Two separate, simplistic models were created to demonstrate model composition via the GeoKIB. An interaction model was created for each of the two directions the composed models interact. This exemplar is developed to demonstrate composition and simulation of geographic-based component models. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Computer Science 2019