Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explain current processes which are part of the eGovernment agenda in Dutch governmental organizations: these processes are part of a transformation of government organizations and municipalities towards networked organizations (“infocracies”). The paper also aims to show which difficulties municipalities are faced with, and how an instrument for measuring information quality and management can help municipalities cope with these developments that come with the transformation.

The paper analyses current developments and the challenges that government organizations are confronted with, and shows how a measurement instrument can contribute in helping government organizations cope with these developments.

The findings show that IT is an enabler for government organizations to transform towards networked organizations. In a municipal setting, this has led to the creation of authentic registrations as a crucial element of the networked organization. The main challenges for municipalities with regard to the implementation of authentic registrations are not technical but organizational of nature: there is a need for information sharing and cooperation, process and chain orientation and an awareness of the interdependencies which are inherent to authentic registrations. The EGEM Thermometer makes the challenges and obstacles, which obstruct the successful implementation of authentic registrations visible, and provides municipalities with a base to start the implementation thereof.

The Thermometer is currently based on a pilot project and a project that was the start of the Thermometer, which is made up of six municipalities.

The use of the EGEM Thermometer helps municipalities by creating insight, awareness, sense‐of‐urgency and a basis for organizational development.

The paper illustrates how measurement and feedback sessions can help organizations cope with IT challenges in relation to cooperation, service delivery, enforcement and information management.

This paper aims to examine the goal, which is to construct a user interface for CERIF‐compatible research management systems in an automated way. The system has to support all data items defined by the CERIF data model. The result of the automated construction is a functioning software system that can be customised according to the specific needs by manual changes in the program code.

The Model‐Driven Architecture (MDA) approach to software engineering is based on the idea of automated construction of software applications based on the model of a system. System modelling usually utilises the Unified Modelling Language (UML). A specific UML profile (extension) used for describing user interface‐related aspects of the system model is defined. It is used to define the behaviour of the user interface in the model itself. By relying on the concept of a standard generic screen form implementing common data management operations and tools for automatic code generation it is possible to obtain a fully functional software application that is completely defined by the system model.

A proposal of an automated user interface construction method for CERIF‐compatible research management systems is defined. The proposed application enables the management of all CERIF‐specified data items and facilitates the customisation of the model according to the specific needs. The customisation process is automated by using the tools for user interface code generation based on human‐computer interaction (HCI) standard defining the layout and behaviour of generic screen forms. The amount of automatically generated application functionality justifies the use of the model‐driven approach to software development.

Using the model of a system it is possible to efficiently produce a functional software application that can further be customised according to the needs of specific institutions and users. The customisation process itself is made efficient since it is iteratively performed using the same cycles of modelling and software generation. The proposed method for automated user interface construction is used for implementing the web application for research management at the University of Novi Sad.

A proposal for efficient software system development and its customisation is given. This way a software application is obtained that can be quickly adapted to new requirements and used in different research management systems based on a CERIF‐compatible data model.

Robotic systems for laparoscopic minimally invasive surgery (MIS) always end up with highly sophisticated mechanisms and control schemes – making it a long and hard development process with a steep price. This paper aims to propose and realize a new, efficient and convenient strategy for building effective control systems for surgical and even other complex robotic systems.

A novel method that takes advantage of the modularization concept by integrating two middleware technologies (robot operating system and robotic technology middleware) into a common architecture based on the strengths of both was designed and developed.

Tests of the developed control system showed very low time-delay between the master and slave sides; good movement representation on the slave manipulator; and high positional and operational accuracy. Moreover, the new development strategy trial came with much higher efficiency and lower costs.

This method results in a modularized and distributed control system that is amenable to collaboratively develop; convenient to modify and update; componentized and easy to extend; mutually independent among subsystems; and practicable to be running and communicating across multiple operating systems. However, experiments show that surgical training and updates of the robotic system are still required to achieve better proficiency for completing complex minimally invasive surgical operations with the proposed and developed system.

This research proposed and developed a novel modularization design method and a novel architecture for building a distributed teleoperation control system for laparoscopic MIS.