● ● Describe the healthcare environment as it has evolved since the middle to late 1960s with attention to the dynamic interplay of key factors. ● ● Examine megatrends in the healthcare environment with attention to: ● ❍ Client characteristics ● ❍ Professional practitioners and caregivers ● ❍ Healthcare marketplace and settings ● ❍ Applicable laws, regulations, and standards ● ❍ Impact of techn...

We analyze an environment in which bidders’ private values change over time due to both private investments and exogenous shocks. We demonstrate that a highlydecentralized mechanism achieves efficiency. The mechanism requires a stage of costly public announcements (i.e., signaling) to induce efficient investment. For this reason, an equilibrium selection issue arises, but can be handled by a mi...

ASTRAL is a high-level formal speciication language for real-time systems. It includes structuring mechanisms that allow one to build modularized speciications of complex real-time systems with layering. Based upon the ASTRAL symbolic model checker reported in DK99b], an approximation technique to speed-up the ASTRAL symbolic model checker for debugging a speciication is presented. The techniqu...

Finding a path efficiently is a challenging task in a commercial game environment. A typical game world will include numerous mobile entities navigating within the game world. A recently computed path for one mobile agent may need to be recomputed if the world changes or if another mobile obstacle has moved and obstructed the computed path. An obvious solution is to re-compute the path, based o...

The implementation of Annex E (Distributed Systems) of the Ada95 Language Reference Manual is discussed with a mechanism suggested for the control of distribution in order to achieve optimal use of available resources. This approach uses compile-time complexity analysis of the source to permit the dynamic allocation of tasks to processing nodes based on the assumed computational intensity. The ...

This article reports results from a study where ten severely visually impaired users have used a virtual haptic-audio traffic environment for exploring and learning a route. The virtual environment was a model of a real traffic environment in Lund, Sweden, and included 484 static objects and 35 dynamic objects (cars and bicycles). Eight of the ten users were able to handle this large and comple...

Two robust nonlinear controllers along with a nonlinear observer have been developed in this study to control a 1D nonlinear flexible spacecraft. The first controller is based on dynamic inversion, while the second one is composed of dynamic inversion and µ-synthesis controllers. The extension of dynamic inversion approach to flexible spacecraft is impeded by the non-minimum phase characteristi...

Nowadays, atomic-force microscopy plays a significant role in nanoscience and nanotechnology, and is widely used for direct measurement at atomic scale and scanning the sample surfaces. In tapping mode, the microcantilever of atomic-force microscope is excited at resonance frequency. Therefore, it is important to study its resonance. Moreover, atomic-force microscopes can be operated in fluid e...

Modern high-performance embedded systems face many challenges. Systems must function in rapidly changing environments. Power/size constraints limit hardware size, while extreme performance requirements demand algorithmspecific architectures. Hardware architectures must structurally adapt to achieve high performance with changing algorithms. Reconfigurable computing devices offer the promise of ...

A product warranty is an agreement offered by a producer to a consumer to replace or repair a faulty item, or to partially or fully reimburse the consumer in the event of a failure. Warranties are very widespread and serve many purposes, including protection for producer, seller, and consumer. They are used as signals of quality and as elements of marketing strategies. In this study we review t...