Here are some of my personal works and papers:
Software & Patents: "How would the implications of the EU Directive on software patenting affect innovation in the software industry?"
Extract from the introduction - Software exists in the majority of electrically engineered products, ranging from that controlling fuel into the rockets in a NASA spacecraft down to that contained in a USB pen-drive. The industry emerged in the 1970s, which was originally integrated within the hardware companies, and now the United States of America boasts alone a software market worth $50 billion. According to ETO/IDC (2005) the software segment in the Information Communications Technologies market has the highest percentage growth of 5.6% with a full market value of €620 billion in the Europe which has 32.1% of the world share.
The level of intellectual property protection in software has been a debate in and out of the European Parliament for the past five years, as to whether there is a need for changing the patent laws to incorporate this. It is in the USA that software patenting is already possible, however in Europe this is not the case and on the 17th February 2005 the bill, called the Directive on the Patentability of Computer- Implemented Inventions, which would have ‘enabled’ it failed to pass this final stage (BBC News, 17th February 2005). This bill essentially amends article 52 of the 1973 European Patent Convention (BBC News, 17th December 2004) that voids the patentability of software. There still persists the opportunity for it to become law after further revision of the bill, particularly the wording, in order to obtain approval from both the European Parliament and a “qualified majority of EU states” (BBC News, 17th February 2005).
The aim of patents are to stimulate innovation, giving the inventor monopoly over the technology for a fixed period of time, however the opposing group to this Directive have iterated that this brings Europe closer to an American-style patenting regime, and therefore insists that it would only stifle innovation and the hinder the advantages of open source software movement. In a report by the United Kingdom (UK) Patent Office (2001) in consultation, it indicates that the majority of those opposing are from small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and those backing the bill are organisations whom perform large-scale software research and development projects. Another large voice comes from those supporting the Free/ Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) movement whom prefer a greater degree of transparency in software for innovation to occur.
The research dissertation analysed the implications of software patenting on innovation in the UK, looking at the following listed themes.
Research Themes
· Current software protection practices.
· Implications towards conforming to patent laws.
· Innovation in software development.
· Competition in the software industry.
Completed in March 2006. If you wish to read the complete disseration it is available from Manchester University Library.
"Innovation in Prosthetics" - Past, present & future?
Abstract – Technological advancement is an on going process which touches upon all our lives, however there are some of which we do not notice until it comes to touch upon our own. Prosthetics are artificial replacements of human structures that have evolved through time with the technological tide and further shaped by the needs of society. This paper aims to bring to light those issues that have helped carve the subsequent generations of prosthesis; focusing on the last one hundred years, which has shown the most exciting shifts and how innovation may shape the future of prosthetics.
Completed in April 2005. If you wish to read the complete paper, please email the request to admin@angelayu.com.
Medical Virtual Reality for Chiropractic Training
Abstract- Virtual reality (VR) is gradually entering the field of medicine. The author has identified a key area in chiropractics which require the assistance of VR. This paper details the reasoning and implementation towards a VR system offering a modern and more effective way to the training for chiropractors. With the assistance of two powerful modelling packages, models of varying details have been produced for comparison of two different modelling techniques, volumetric and polygon based. The potential is immense for chiropractors to incorporate this technology; VR is a pinnacle in visualisation techniques giving way to a method of releasing the full potential of the medical data used in chiropractics.
Completed and presented for the Symposium of Cybernetics Annual Research Projects 2004 conference. If you wish to read the complete paper, please submit your request to admin@angelayu.com or from the SCARP website at Reading University.
The Collective Behaviour of Mobile Robots
Abstract- This paper describes the design and implementation of a mobile Lego robot (known as Legobot), based on LEGO® MINDSTORMS®, to interact and display collective behaviour along with my partner's robot. The medium used is the LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Robot Invention System. With the use of the programmable microchip and NQC programming language, the software is written to control the behaviour of the Legobot to do a task autonomously. The overall task was to collect and sort LEGO® bricks into different colours.
Completed and presented for the Symposium of Cybernetics Annual Research Projects 2003 conference. If you wish to read the complete paper, please submit your request to admin@angelayu.com or from the SCARP website at Reading University.