CSIS - Departamento de Ciência da Computação amp. Sistemas de Informação Ano Final Título: NP04 Uma base de regras para selecionar um produto de seguro de saúde Os três principais provedores de seguro de saúde têm uma vasta gama de opções disponíveis entre suas ofertas de seguros, tornando difícil para o consumidor escolher entre eles. Business Rules Engines (BREs), como JBoss Drules, usa encadeamento para a frente para tomar decisões com base em um conjunto de regras de negócios (Rulebase). O objetivo deste projeto seria criar uma Base de Regras que permita ao consumidor escolher um conjunto de opções alinhadas com suas circunstâncias, necessidades e objetivos particulares. Uma vez que as regras são facilmente mantidas, o projeto poderá posteriormente ser a base de um site útil. Título: NP05 Uma base de regras para selecionar um plano de pagamento para celular É semelhante ao NP04. Os diferentes provedores têm diferentes opções de pagamento com base no uso, o saldo de chamadas versus texto, a quantidade de download de dados, etc., por isso pode ser difícil escolher o plano mais adequado. Business Rules Engines (BREs), como JBoss Drules, usa encadeamento para a frente para tomar decisões com base em um conjunto de regras de negócios (Rulebase). O objetivo deste projeto seria criar uma base de regras para um BRE para permitir que o consumidor insira seus detalhes e preferências e receba uma recomendação sobre o plano de pagamento dos provedores que eles deveriam escolher. Uma vez que as regras são facilmente mantidas, seria possível criar um sistema que fique atualizado com novas ofertas, provedores, etc. Título: RSu04 Uma resposta direta ao sistema de resposta para documentos musicais (novo 692011) O objetivo será construir E avaliar um sistema que pode responder a perguntas simples sobre música clássica irlandesa, com base em informações contidas em uma coleção de documentos. Uma troca típica pode ser: - Q: Quem escreveu No país de montanha A: EJ Moeran Título: MC03 Um gerenciador de portfólio de ações para Android ou iPadiPhone Um aplicativo que permite ao usuário adicionar ações no portfólio de ações, incluindo o número de ações compradas, O preço de compra, as taxas pagas, o dividendo pago (se houver) O aplicativo deve ser capaz de mostrar o valor atual de sua carteira baixando os preços atuais de um site, como o Yahoo finance. Deve ser possível designar mais de uma fonte. Para cada item de estoque, o item deve mostrar o - Nome do estoque, seu ID do ticker, o preço atual, uma indicação de se o estoque subiu ou caiu. Ao clicar no estoque, deve ser possível detalhar os detalhes do estoque que Deve mostrar - Nome do estoque, seu código de ticker, o preço atual o número total detém o valor total, o custo total do preço da ação break-even exit do preço da ação de retenção (ou seja, o preço pelo qual podemos reter 50 das ações Mas ainda recuperam os custos totais.) O dividendo anual atual os gráficos de rendimento de dividendos atuais mostrando as tendências dos preços das ações Para cada parcela de ações compradas, o aplicativo deve mostrar - a quantidade de ações comprou o preço de compra o custo total para esta parcela o dividendo no tempo De comprar o rendimento de dividendos no momento da compra O gerente de portfólio deve oferecer uma série de ferramentas úteis para apoiar a seleção de ações, como uma calculadora de rendimento de dividendos e uma calculadora de Ratio de Into (ver livros e site de Motley Fool ). Projetos semelhantes já foram feitos no passado, então uma quantidade significativa de trabalho de investigação já foi realizada e está disponível lendo os relatórios do projeto. Nenhuma dessas versões foi tão abrangente quanto o proposto aqui. Título: ML01 Adoção de tecnologia no ambiente de saúde irlandês Realize um estudo de pesquisa de aplicativos de tecnologia lançados e usados em uma ou mais configurações de saúde irlandesas. Um quadro teórico deve ser construído com base na teoria da adoção da tecnologia. Este quadro será então utilizado como base para o estudo. O objetivo deste estudo é caracterizar a natureza da adoção de tecnologia em um conjunto distinto de configurações de cuidados de saúde na Irlanda. Desenvolva um aplicativo que será executado no plano de fundo do seu telefone Android e monitorará seu nível de atividade (dormir, caminhar ou correr, digamos) e exibir essas informações. Plataforma: SDK do Android Título: MEn01 Analisando a estrutura do pacote dos Sistemas de Software programados em Java A estrutura arquitetônica dos sistemas de software pode ser refletida na estrutura do pacote quando eles são implementados. No entanto, ao longo do tempo, esta estrutura pode se deteriorar e a estrutura original é perdida. Este projeto visa estudar como a estrutura do pacote dos sistemas de software Java muda durante a vida útil de um sistema de software e visa investigar se uma análise da estrutura do pacote pode informar com relação à estrutura arquitetônica de um sistema. Título: JC06 Aplicativo para Android para reconhecimento de rosto Desenvolva um aplicativo para Android para reconhecimento de rosto. Capture uma imagem frontal de um rosto, remova o plano de fundo e use Análise de componentes principais para nomear a pessoa na imagem facial capturada. O aluno deve ser alfabetizado numericamente e ser um programador Java competente. O conhecimento do desenvolvimento na plataforma Eclipse seria uma ajuda, mas não é um pré-requisito. Título: NN03 Arcade Game for the Android Platform O objetivo deste projeto é desenvolver um jogo de arcade para um tablet andor ou smartphone Android. O projeto também envolverá o desenvolvimento de um site altamente interativo que permitirá o registro do usuário e também manterá um banco de dados com resultados. A ênfase neste projeto também é sobre o design gráfico que deve ser de muito alto padrão. Este projeto envolverá não apenas o desenvolvimento do jogo, mas também o desenvolvimento de um site de apoio. Título: JB01 Autocompletar Autocompletar é uma instalação IDE que solicita aos programadores possíveis terminações para classes e métodos que eles estão digitando atualmente. Ele serve para reduzir o número de erros de digitação e lembrar ao programador do subconjunto de instalações que eles desejam reutilizar quando não tem certeza. Este projeto é um plug-in de aprimoramento para o Eclipse que melhora a facilidade de preenchimento automático codificando as opções (auto-completar) com base em informações adicionais analisadas a partir do código-fonte ou de restrições arquitetônicas baseadas em XML. Título: GT04 Automated Studio Orchestra - Composição Desenvolvimento de uma composição em tempo real, que usa todos os equipamentos e instrumentos de hardware disponíveis no UL Recording Studio corretamente conectado e controlado por um computador host. Protocolo de comunicação: MIDI e OSC. Software: MaxMsp ou Pd. Título: LMc04 Sistemas automatizados para a produção de arte digital A preparação, criação, organização, edição e pós-produção de arte digital pode ser um processo longo e laborioso. Esta é uma exploração no projeto de sistemas que automatizam alguns ou todos os processos acima, liberando o artista digital de algumas das partes de produção mais intensivas em mão-de-obra. Título: MEa05 CAL para PSO, ASO e AIS Desenvolva um pacote interativo de Aprendizagem por Computador para ilustrar e investigar o funcionamento da Otimização de enxertia de partículas (PSO), Otimização de colunas de formigas (ACO) e sistemas imunes artificiais (AIS). Título: JC08 Calendar Analyzer Um aplicativo de Business Intelligence que analisa um calendário e calcula a quantidade de tempo gasto em tarefas específicas, atendendo pessoas específicas, etc. Título: JB04 Calendar Commotement Linker Muitas vezes, reunião em uma agenda de pessoas será vinculada. Eu, por exemplo, pode conhecer meus alunos do FYP a cada 2ª semana. Dado o intervalo de 2 semanas, eu posso esquecer os detalhes da nossa última visita. Se a frequência das reuniões for consistente, isso não é uma questão, como posso reverter para a consulta anterior e lembrar-me. Quanto melhor seria se o software do calendário pudesse recuperar a rede, durante um período de tempo limitado, encontrar um compromisso altamente similar e preencher automaticamente a seção de notas desse compromisso na criação do novo. Este projeto irá estudar a criação de tal complemento Título: JG03 O site de compartilhamento de carro da UL UL está tentando encorajar o compartilhamento de carro e atribuiu alguns pontos de estacionamento para quem compartilha. Um colega de UL escreve todos os dias de semana, deixo minha casa em Bru na Gruadan entre as 8:30 e as 8:40 para estar na Universidade antes das 9:00. Eu geralmente deixo aqui entre as 5:00 e as 5:30. Para ambas as viagens, viajo sozinho com 1 assento sobressalente na minha van. O problema aqui é que eu não conheço ninguém (Pessoal ou Estudante) que se beneficiaria de um elevador que eu gostaria de oferecer com prazer. Este fyp seria um sistema onde as pessoas poderiam anunciar um (s) assento (s) em oferta ou dispor de um (s) assento (s) oferecido por outra pessoa. Eu previveria um back-end do banco de dados com um front-end do site. Sistemas já existentes já existem no domínio público, mas este seria um sistema que forneceu essa funcionalidade especificamente para a equipe da UL e talvez estudantes. Um aspecto seria que ele poderia se conectar ao Universityrsquos Active Directory para que o usuário final pudesse entrar usando sua conta existente. Isso também proporcionaria uma maior paz de espírito no sentido de que, o usuário final teria uma idéia melhor de quem eles deveriam colecionar ou viajar. Outros fatores a considerar são a proteção de dados e a segurança dos dados. Seria necessário que haja diferentes níveis de permissão do usuário. Título: MEn04 Comparação do uso de linguagens de programação Programação orientada a objetos, C, C, Java, Métricas de software, Compreensão para o CJava Descrição do projeto: Existe ampla discussão de quais linguagens de programação são consideradas como o lsquobestrsquo. O objetivo deste projeto é levar uma série de projetos desenvolvidos em C, C e Java e comparar a qualidade dos projetos. Como a qualidade dos projetos é medida, está aberta a discussão, mas provavelmente envolverá o uso de algumas métricas de software. LsquoUnderstandrsquo é uma útil ferramenta de análise de código-fonte que pode ser usada neste projeto. Título: JC05 Recuperação de Componentes usando Algoritmos Evolutivos: Recuperação de Componentes usando Algoritmos Evolutivos: com um gráfico de dependência como uma visão de baixo nível de um sistema de software, use algoritmos evolutivos para agrupar nós no gráfico em componentes e especifique suas interfaces usando o Component-Based - Abordagem de desenvolvimento defendida por Cheseman e Daniels em seu livro 2002 ldquoUML Components: um processo simples para especificar o Softwarerdquo baseado em componentes. Qual é a relevância deste projeto Um dos muitos exemplos é que a especificação de componentes é um passo vital ao mover um sistema herdado para o paradigma SOA (Architecture orientada a serviços). O Algoritmo Evolutivo será fornecido com permissão de terceiros. O aluno deve ser um programador competente em pelo menos um dos idiomas orientados a objetos. Título: KH01 Composition for Computer Plus. Com o advento da música eletroacústica no século 20, os compositores tentaram combinar recursos eletrônicos com instrumentação clássica com diferentes graus de sucesso. Idéias diferentes levaram a diferentes abordagens para reunir seres humanos e eletrônicos, desde trabalhos médios fixos até música informática em tempo real. Este projeto propõe estudar e analisar obras significativas no repertório, especificamente sobre quais aspectos de cada trabalho levaram à sua influência na história da música. Um componente significativo dessa proposta será uma composição eletroacústica original com instrumentista (s). Portanto, esta proposta destina-se apenas a estudantes com treinamento de música clássica. Título: JC04 Rascunhos de computador usando reforço Aprendizagem de rascunhos de computador usando o reforço Aprendizagem: treine uma rede neural para executar rascunhos usando a aprendizagem de diferença temporal, um tema do campo do paradigma de aprendizagem de reforço. A rede deve melhorar sua performance ao longo do tempo, jogando continuamente contra si mesmo. Este projeto irá introduzir o aluno em um dos principais paradigmas na aprendizagem automática e fornecer informações sobre os desafios em relação à busca e ao viés de representação. Título: PH06 Chegadas de ônibus Crowdsourcing Uma vez que você pisa em um ônibus, você pode ajudar os outros a rastrear o progresso do ônibus, transmitindo sua localização. Desenvolva um sistema que substituiria uma solução cara de ônibus Eacuteireann enviando sua localização de ônibus para um servidor. Os movimentos do ônibus podem então ser acessados por outros que esperam pelo ônibus. Plataforma: SDK do Android Título: CS03 Visualização de dados em Doença crônica que suporta a criação de sentido na autogestão com a literatura gráfica mostra que muitas aplicações de monitoramento de saúde continuam dependendo de um pressuposto de nave de que, uma vez que os dados são coletados e apresentados aos indivíduos, Inferências apropriadas de forma não problemática (Mamikina et al., 2008). O projeto deve ter como objetivo explorar, testar e avaliar com usuários reais uma série de formas gráficas inovadoras de visualização de dados no monitoramento da saúde. Possível ambiente: MatLab, GraphWiz, etc. Este projeto estará em conexão com um projeto maior (IDC FutureComm), visando visualizar, desenvolver e avaliar cenários futuros para inovadoras Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação no domínio da Saúde. Título: CS04 Visualização de dados em doenças crônicas que ajudam a fazer sentido e a agir em auto-monitoramento. As práticas de auto-monitoramento estão crescendo rapidamente como um efeito da explosão de doenças crônicas, bem como de práticas de prevenção. A literatura mostra que muitas aplicações de monitoramento de saúde continuam a depender de uma suposição absoluta de que, uma vez que os dados são coletados e apresentados aos indivíduos, eles elaborarão inferências apropriadas de forma não problemática (Mamikina et al., 2008). O projeto deve visar explorar, testar e avaliar uma série de formas criativas inovadoras de visualização de dados em auto-monitoramento (predominantemente, mas não só, na área de cuidados de saúde). A criatividade e as boas habilidades gráficas são desejáveis. Ambiente possível: MatLab, GraphWiz, Flash, etchellip Título: JC03 Desenvolvimento de um recurso de ensino de software Desenvolva um recurso de ensino de software que será publicado através do National Digital Learning Repository. Especificar requisitos, análise e artefatos de design para um sistema de reserva de hotel distribuído. O sistema deve ser construído e implantado em um servidor de aplicativos em conjunto com um mecanismo de fluxo de trabalho. Objetivo é desenvolver um conjunto de recursos que possam ser usados no palco para ilustrar como a teoria se traduz em prática. Título: MF07 Digital Art Platform Um esforço pioneiro para trazer Art para a era digital, criando uma plataforma para dar autonomia ao criativo. Um ambiente sem preconceito ou expectativa para o artista exibir sem agenda comercial, por sua vez, abrindo a experiência online e offline para o artista e o amante da arte, como aconteceu com a música na década de 90. Fundamentalmente - construir uma comunidade de arte que permita aos criativos exibir, conhecer, trocar, organizar e trocar, facilita o potencial ilimitado. Uma plataforma digital intuitiva com uma polinização cruzada de artistas de múltiplos antecedentes, arredores, influências e geração para colaborar, vender ou exibir Arte a uma escala internacional em terreno neutro comercialmente neutro. Projeto: para desenvolver aplicativos e CMS para os objetivos acima. Tecnologia: iOS, Android e, por exemplo, Droomla. Título: RSu01 Documentary Film: Life of a Musician (novo 692011) O objetivo será fazer um pequeno documentário sobre a vida de um músico clássico. Supõe-se que haverá uma mistura de imagens de estúdio, tiros de localização e assim por diante. Você também pode escrever música para o seu filme. Pode haver jogadores locais, e. No ICO, que estaria disposto a ser o tema do filme. Título: RSu02 Documentary Film: Life of a Artist (novo 692011) O objetivo será fazer um pequeno documentário sobre a vida de um artista (por exemplo, um pintor de retratos). Supõe-se que haverá uma mistura de imagens de estúdio, tiros de localização e assim por diante. Você também pode escrever música para o seu filme. Título: Engenharia de Requisitos de Domínio NP06 para Agendamento de Recursos Há um corpo considerável de literatura sobre os tópicos de pesquisa de famílias de programas, linhas de produtos de software (SPL) e engenharia de domínio (requisitos). Técnicas como o FODA (Análise de Domínio Orientado a Recursos) estão bem estabelecidas para sistemas de modelagem em um nível alto, mas não oferecem suporte para especificar os requisitos. Um domínio de aplicação, como o agendamento, contém uma variedade de problemas de software e soluções que apresentam características comuns (também conhecidas), bem como características variáveis (também conhecidas como variabilidades). Este projeto permitiria que um bom aluno contribuísse para essa área investigando um domínio de aplicação específico e identificando os pontos comuns e as variabilidades dentro dele. O objetivo final deste projeto é desenvolver uma maneira eficaz de especificar requisitos de domínio em termos de características comuns e variáveis e, em particular, os requisitos de qualidade. Sugere-se a seguinte abordagem, com foco no domínio do agendamento (geralmente, a alocação de recursos para tarefas): Estude os recursos e os requisitos de qualidade comuns a um amplo conjunto de sistemas de agendamento. Identifique os recursos que estão sempre incluídos em tais sistemas e os recursos que são considerados desejáveis e aqueles que são opcionais nesse domínio de aplicação. Reverse-engineer os recursos em uma especificação de requisitos abrangente para uma família de sistemas de agendamento. Seu modelo de especificação será baseado em um modelo de especificação de requisitos existente, mas modificado para distinguir efetivamente os requisitos comuns dos variáveis e para mostrar as interdependências dos requisitos variáveis, com base em suas descobertas. Um projeto que deve esticar o aluno correto. Título: JG05 DVReport para Moodle 2.X DVReport é um add on para Moodle 1.9.X. Moodle é um sistema de gerenciamento de aprendizagem (moodle. org). O DVReport fornece feedback visual aos alunos sobre suas atividades e notas online no Moodle. A versão mais recente do Moodle (ver 2.X) foi totalmente re-codificada e add ons de versões anteriores não funcionam. Este projeto trata de atualizar o DVReport para que ele funcione no Moodle 2.X. (Algumas informações aqui docs. moodle. orgdevBlocks, mas você precisará se registrar no Moodle. org e começar a ler sobre isso.) O PHP é o idioma usual para blocos de programação no Moodle. DVReport foi enviado por Julie Pichon em 200607. Você deve ler alguns (todos) do fyp antes de se comprometer com a proposta atual. Para apresentações em tempo real, há uma necessidade de um dispositivo portátil genérico para controle de áudio e vídeo. A idéia para este projeto é construir sobre a plataforma Arduino e projetar, desenvolver e avaliar um pequeno dispositivo portátil que possa sentir como ele é manipulado em termos de rotação, agitação, aperto, toque, arranhão, etc. e envie os dados do sensor usando BlueTooth ou outra tecnologia sem fio para um computador com Pure Data andor MaxMSP. Título: GA03 eAccessories (novo 692011) Depois de explorar uma série de projetos existentes na área de computação wearable, o projeto irá desenvolver um artefato para ser incorporado em roupas ou acessórios (como sacos, bolsas, cintos, chapéus), usando O Arduino Lilypad ou uma tecnologia similar. O artefato será destinado a melhorar a interação social através de uma conexão com um aplicativo de mídia social. Um protótipo será desenvolvido e a avaliação do usuário será realizada. Título: MEn03 Eclipse Plug-in para métricas de software As métricas são amplamente utilizadas para avaliar a qualidade do software e para construir modelos de previsão de características de qualidade externa do software. No entanto, tais modelos tendem a ser lsquoblack boxesrsquo que não fornecem insights sobre o próprio software. Ao fornecer visualizações de métricas de software para desenvolvedores de software, os desenvolvedores podem rapidamente identificar hotspots no código e, assim, concentrar sua atenção em certas partes e ajudar a sua compreensão. O objetivo deste projeto é fornecer essa ferramenta de visualização. Título: MEn02 Eclipse Plug-in para a Visualização de Mudança de Software Muitos projetos de software bem-sucedidos aguardam mudanças contínuas à medida que se adaptam a novos requisitos ou corrigem erros no sistema. É útil para os desenvolvedores de software estar conscientes das partes do sistema que são mais propensas a mudanças. Isso pode ajudar com estimativas de custo e recursos e com refatoração de código-guia. As ferramentas existentes fornecem visualizações do número de mudanças em um determinado momento. No entanto, essas ferramentas não mostram como a localização das mudanças, flutua ao longo do tempo. O objetivo deste projeto é abordar essa lacuna na visualização de software ao longo do tempo. Título: JG04 Comitê de ética especialista em sistemas de especialistas Ao realizar pesquisa envolvendo seres humanos na aprovação da UL deve ser procurado pelo comitê de pesquisa de ética da faculdade (www2.ul. iewebWWWFacultiesScienceampEngineeringResearchResearchAdministration) No entanto, os requisitos podem ser bastante difíceis de entender para novos pesquisadores (e até para alguns Dos pesquisadores não tão novos). Os sistemas experientes (aaai. orgAITopicspmwikipmwiki. phpAITopicsExpertSystems) foram desenvolvidos para permitir que um novato receba informações de especialistas quando um especialista não estiver fisicamente disponível. Esta proposta é projetada para usar um sistema especializado para fornecer orientação e suporte para aqueles que completam os formulários de aplicação de ética. O sistema especialista apresentará ao usuário uma série de perguntas e, em seguida, avaliará as respostas e completará (ou completará parcialmente) a documentação necessária e avaliará os requisitos éticos para sua pesquisa. Título: CR04 Produção de som evolutivo Use a evolução gramatical ou algum outro método evolutivo para evoluir sons ou filtros de som. Título: MEa04 Explorações em robótica evolutiva O campo da Robótica Evolutiva trata da evolução das estratégias de controle (cérebro) e / ou morfologia (corpo) dos robôs. De interesse específico é a evolução de artefatos de inspiração biológica capazes de lidar com os desafios das tarefas e ambientes do mundo real. Recomendado para alunos com QCA de 2,8 ou superior, e um grau de B no módulo de Sistemas Inteligentes. Título: CS06 Explorando a gamificação de tarefas tediosas e repetitivas O projeto pretende explorar a tendência emergente de lsquogamificationrsquo (youtubewatchv6O1gNVeaE4g) (g4tvvideos44277DICE-2010-Design-Outside-the-Box-Presentation) em diferentes áreas que lidam com tarefas tradicionalmente tediosas e repetitivas (blog. microtask201001a - future-of-work-paid-to-play). O projeto está aberto para explorar as áreas sugeridas pelo aluno (alternativamente, será sugerida a autogestão de doenças crônicas como asma, diabetes ou doença cardíaca). Pretende conceber uma metáfora de jogo e desenvolver um jogo que se adapte ao contexto selecionado e que ofereça participação e compromisso de usuários com uma tarefa específica. As habilidades criativas e de design são essenciais. Ambiente possível: flash, android, arduino. Título: MC05 FlutterBy - um jogo para lepidopteristas Em 2008, Finlay McAree escreveu um motor de física para jogos 2D como seu projeto final. Este projeto irá construir esse mecanismo para criar um jogo de coleta de borboletas totalmente realizado. O cenário básico para o jogo é que as borboletas estão vibrando sobre o campo de jogo. Low scoring, common, butterflies são facilmente acessíveis em altura normal, enquanto as borboletas raras e de alto valor flutuam fora do alcance. Um jogador deve coletar tantas borboletas como ele pode preencher seu caderno de espécimes em um período de tempo especificado. Para alcançar espécimes de alto valor, o jogador deve correr e pular e aproveitar as muitas rampas, trampolins, plataformas e correntes de corrente a serem encontradas no campo de jogo. Pegar mais de uma borboleta de cada vez atrairá pontos de bônus. À medida que as borboletas são capturadas, o livro de espécimes se enche. À medida que cada espécime é capturado, o número capturado, a fotografia real da borboleta, bem como seus detalhes são mostrados no livro de espécimes. A plataforma de destino para o aplicativo é o iPad. Uma implementação bem-sucedida do projeto resultará na liberação do aplicativo para a App Store. Prevê-se que este projeto seja realizado por duas pessoas. Uma pessoa (de LM051 ou LM110) será responsável pela programação enquanto outra (tanto da LM113 como da LM114) será responsável pela composição de seleção de músicas, bem como pelo design de gráficos e interfaces de usuários. Este é um projeto desafiador e exigirá pessoas com habilidades avançadas de programação, música e design. Uma versão de pessoa única deste projeto foi tentada no ano passado para a plataforma Android. O relatório do projeto está disponível mediante solicitação. Título: MF02 Freesound. ie Temos um número crescente de gravações de campo (no espírito do Projeto World Soundscape) e este projeto envolve o desenvolvimento e avaliação de um novo portal baseado na web para upload, navegação e interação social. O site também deve permitir a integração com o Google Maps, Twitter, Facebook, etc. O projeto provavelmente exigirá php, html5 e um CMS, e. Drupal. Título: CR01 Gamebryo Lightspeed Project Gamebryo Lightspeed é a mais recente ferramenta de desenvolvimento de jogos da Emergent, fabricante mundial de motores de jogos líderes. O departamento do CSIS recebeu recentemente uma licença acadêmica para usar esse software. É um mecanismo de jogo totalmente funcional que pode ser usado para prototipagem rápida e produzir jogos completos em praticamente qualquer gênero. Este projeto será sobre aprender a usar a ferramenta e produzir um jogo jogável. Título: KH06 Análise genética de musicologistas de música eletroacústica que recriam trabalhos musicais por outros compositores, a fim de analisá-los, praticar análises genéticas. Neste caso, a genética é a forma adjetival da gênese da semiótica. Este projeto de final de ano propõe selecionar uma parte de uma obra, um trabalho inteiro ou várias obras (acordadas entre o aluno e o supervisor) para recriar usando métodos informáticos para chegar a conclusões estéticas significativas do (s) trabalho (s) Investigado. Este é um projeto avançado que só deve ser realizado por estudantes com programação avançada e habilidades musicais, especialmente habilidades de analista musical. Observe: a análise genética NÃO é a mesma coisa que os algoritmos genéticos ou evolutivos. Título: GT01 Gestural Interactive Query Application para Multichannel Data Sonification Desenvolvimento de um aplicativo para a recuperação dinâmica de fragmentos de dados específicos de grandes conjuntos de dados sonificados em uma configuração de áudio multicanal. O aplicativo usa um dispositivo de luva baseado em WIMU que permite aos usuários navegar e controlar o fluxo de dados de áudio usando gestos simples e intuitivos. Título: CS07 Gluco-droid: um glucosímetro de dente azul de código aberto para telefones Android Pessoas afetadas por diabetes - especialmente tipo um - têm que verificar seus níveis de glicose de 4 até dezenas de vezes por dia, a fim de monitorar seus níveis de açúcar. Diariamente, esses valores são, portanto, uma atividade muito importante para a autogestão dos diabéticos. No entanto, embora possamos encontrar muitas aplicações de registro no PC e em ambientes móveis, a transcrição de dados do medidor de glicose para a revista (real ou digital) ainda é amplamente baseada na entrada manual. Isso cria problemas à medida que a repetição das entradas manuais degrada a motivação dos pacientes. O projeto visa desenvolver um protótipo de medidor de glicose que atualiza automaticamente os resultados dos testes através de dentes azuis ou Wi-Fi em um ambiente Android. Este projeto também pode ser executado em colaboração com alunos do último ano do Departamento de Ciências Esportivas da Educação Física sob a supervisão do Dr. Amir Shafar. Ambiente: sensores selecionados da Arduino, código para Arduino e Android. Este projeto estará em conexão com um projeto maior (IDC FutureComm), com o objetivo de visualizar, desenvolver e avaliar cenários futuros para Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação inovadoras no domínio da Saúde. As interfaces de usuários tangíveis, música e multimídia tem sido um foco para muita pesquisa nos últimos anos, com, por exemplo, o ReacTable sendo o exemplo mais bem-sucedido (reagável). Com base em idéias semelhantes, a idéia para o Gooizer é usar massas de cores vivas (como Play Doh) e permitir aos usuários gravar, atribuir e processar sons com base na cor e na forma das bolhas da massa, detectada por um sistema de visão por computador . Uma plataforma proposta é usar Processamento (para visão por computador) e Pure Data (para áudio), conectado via Open Sound Control. O sistema resultante pode ser feito como uma instalação. Título: LC02 Hunt Museum Auxílio para visitantes no celular O Hunt Museum está buscando introduzir um novo suporte interativo para seus visitantes através de telefones celulares e códigos QR (resposta rápida). Este projeto incidirá no desenvolvimento de duas trilhas de piloto em estreita colaboração com a equipe do museu. O aluno reunirá requisitos da equipe e dos visitantes do museu, projete duas trilhas temáticas, implemente-as em pelo menos uma plataforma de celular e avalie-as enquanto usadas pelos visitantes do museu. O Museu da Caça fornecerá a informação e assistência necessárias para o desenvolvimento do conteúdo da aplicação. Este projeto envolverá uma estreita colaboração com o museu e permitirá ao aluno resolver um problema de design de interação do mundo real. Título: PH02 Eu deveria saber, sou um especialista em computação em nuvem, é uma técnica de computação distribuída que está crescendo em popularidade. Usando um dos frameworks para computação distribuída (provavelmente Hadoop), desenvolva um aplicativo que rastreia a web procurando currículos. Uma base de dados pode então ser constituída de quem tem experiência em quais habilidades. (Veja o PH03 também.) Plataforma: Linux Desktop Hadoop (ou Googles MapReduce) Título: JC01 Identificação de clones em imagens Identificação de clones em imagens: use uma medida de correlação simples, como distância euclidiana em espaço dimensional alto, para determinar quais chaves são clones dos quais , E implementar como um aplicativo de smartphone. Deve permitir ao usuário associar tags com imagens quando capturadas pela primeira vez no smartphone, ou seja, número de sala de escritório. Possui aplicabilidade no mundo real. Os principais proprietários que você conhece rotulam suas chaves Provavelmente não geralmente. Eles se preocupam em tentar as teclas iterativamente ao bloquear todas as portas da casa antes de ir de férias, por exemplo Provavelmente sim, se organizado. Mais consideração - deve oferecer para armazenar imagens em um servidor, mas teria que procurar mais em segurança. Título: PH03 Se Go é a resposta, qual é a questão O Google Go language (golang. org) afirma ser bem adequado para aproveitar ao máximo as máquinas multicore e em rede. Desenvolva um aplicativo distribuído (possivelmente PH02 acima) usando Go the language. Plataforma: Linux Desktop Title: NN02 Instalação de arte interativa em um mundo virtual virtual O objetivo deste projeto é a criação de uma instalação de arte em um mundo virtual online (por exemplo, Second Life ou qualquer mundo virtual baseado em OpenSim). O projeto envolverá modelagem 3D e criação de textura de alto padrão. A instalação envolve a programação para torná-la interativa. O projeto também pode envolver a criação de um site de apoio. Title: KH07 Interactive Software Tutorials in Math and Physics for Musicians In the field of music technology, musicians are often called upon to understand mathematical and physical models of acoustic vibrations, resonating bodies, and other complex mechanical systems. Many musicians do not have the mathematical background to understand these principles. This project proposes to create a series of interactive tutorialsdemonstrations of the mathematical and physical foundations of resonating systems that musicians could use to intuitively understand the math and physics in their field. Title: GT02 Interactive Window Shop Public interactive installation based on image analysis. Proficiency in object oriented programming is required Title: CS05 Internet of Things and self-care in chronic disease: Smart food scale supporting food preparation and cooking for people with diabetes. The project aims to prototype a Wi-Fi smart food scale and a smart phone application to support food preparation for people with diabetes type 1 and 2 (or anyone should follow special diets). The application should provide users with relevant information in the context of food preparation (e. g. diabetics should count carbohydrates in order to adjust their insulin intake, presence of fats or fibers have also effects). This project can be also run in collaboration with the Physical Education amp Sport Science department. Good programming and design skills are desirableessential. Environment: Android, Google APIs, Arduino or Android accessories API Title: MEa01 Kinect for Windows SDK beta based project Use the recently released Kinect for Windows beta programming toolkit for an interesting and novel gamesrobotics application. Project recommended for students with a QCA of 2.8 or higher. Title: ML05 Lean healthcare - what does this mean to healthcare IT departments Conduct a research study that studies the application of lean thinking to the healthcare industry. Your study should perform a literature review of lean thinking and how it has been applied within healthcare settings. The focus of the literature review should be on two areas: the impact of lean process changes to IT departments. the application of lean thinking within IT departments. Is there evidence of the application of lean principles to software development projects within healthcare settings. This literature review should enable you to design an approach to gather further data on the impact of lean healthcare practices to IT departments. A key aspect of the project will be insights and reflections gleaned from the research findings. Title: GA04 Limerick - today and yesterday (new 692011) This project builds on an existing augmented reality development framework (possibly Layar). Based on an initial selection of images from the archives of the Limerick City Museum available as OpenData, the project will explore the possibility of adding a virtual layer to the city of Limerick, by superimposing photos of old buildings on the current images of the actual sites, in an attempt to provide a richer visitor experience. The project will involve developing a prototype and evaluating it with users. Title: CR02 Limerick Limerick Generator Grammatical Evolution is the worlds most well used Automatic Programming system, using Grammars to guide how to produce programs. This project will involve producing grammars for Limericks (or some simple and well established form of verse) and using an existing tool to produce a system to automatically evolve poetry. Title: LC05 Location-based Student guide to UL through crowdsourcing The design, development and evaluation of a mobile student guide to the UL Campus that, based on location, allows students to add comments and information for other students to access. Current location-based social media such as Foursquare and Gowalla have shown the usefulness of crowdsourcing in collecting relevant information, hints and tips regarding a particular location that users can access, share and further contribute to. This project focuses on the design of a similar guide for the UL Campus from the perspective of students. The project will involve following the Interaction Design process to gather requirements and develop design ideas and the realisation of a working prototype to be tested on site. Create a short animated movie using Machinima techniques. machinima Title: MC07 Machinima: A music video created through the medium of Second Life The objective of this project is to create a visual interpretation of traditional as Gaeilge songs such as Taacute na Baacuteid, Taacuteimse i mchodladh and Thuacuteas ag Gort a Chaacuternaacutein, using the medium of Second Life (see MC06). For inspiration see the Anam An Amhran videos created by the Cartoon Saloon for TG4 (cartoonsaloon. ieindex. php200912tv-series-siog-na-ran) Alternatively, create a visual interpretation of such Hindi songs as - Jaane woh kaise (see youtubewatchvFRBJ71oBzqw and youtubewatchvzN33WS6S1Vw) or Dil hi to hai (see youtubewatchvlIrvq5-Cp40) or Yaad Kiya Dil Ne (see youtubewatchvpf5EFXATWm0 A very successful project of this type was done last year. The FYP Report for the project is available on request. The video may be seen at youtubewatchvjeQOaP3urMampfeaturefeedf Title: MC06 Machinima: An animated movie based on a John Wyndham short story created through the medium of Second Life. Second life is a virtual world environment. Users interact with the world by means of customizable onscreen characters called avatars. An avatar is a virtual character in the Second Life world which the user controls using the mouse and the keyboard. Avatars can communicate with one another using audible conversatio n or built-in chat and instant messaging. Second life provides a large range of exotic locations with which to interact. Users can even build their own locations. Second Life interactions can be recorded with a controllable camera. The objective of this project is to create an animated movie through the interactions of avatars in the Second Life environment. The movie will be based on one of John Wyndhams short stories A script will be required which actors will perform using their Second Life avatars. Some virtual sets may have to be built. The performance will be recorded and then edited to create an animated movie. A very successful project of this type was done last year. The FYP Report for the project is available on request. You may see the video at vimeo22229248 Title: MC08 Machinima: An instructionaldocumentary video made through the medium of Second Life. The objective of this project is to create either a documentary or an instructional video on some subject using the medium of Second Life. For inspiration see the Male Restroom Etiquette at youtubewatchvIzO1mCAVyMw Title: NN05 Massively Multiplayer Browser-Based Game The goal of this project is to develop a massively multiplayer online game that will be played in a browser. The actual topic of the game will be chosen by the student. Ideally, by the demo day the game should be online. The project involves the development of a highly-interactive website with the use of the AJAX technology as well database design. Title: MC01 Mobile Aromatherapy Advisor The advisor will allow users to browse through an oil database. It will assist users who wish to create their own oil blends by identifying compatible oils. It will assist users who wish to create their own essential oil perfumes by identifying compatible oils with the appropriate scent notes (i. e. Top, Middle, Base). For a given ailment it will suggest oil remedies. To achieve a given effect it will suggest appropriate recipes. It will warn of possible dangers when any oil is chosen for a blend. We have already created a web page version and a PC based version of this project. This project will attempt to rewrite or port the existing PC based version to create a mobile version for the iPhone or the Windows Phone 7 or Android operating systems. Title: LC03 Mobile phone colour identifier Dressing nicely involves getting colour combinations right, something that is challenging for many blind and partially sighted people. A colour identifier that works through the camera of a mobile phone would be useful. At its simplest, it could tell light from dark or the blue end of the spectrum from the red. Being able to distinguish blues and greens in different lighting would be more challenging. This project is in collaboration with the NCBI Centre for Inclusive Technology (CFIT), which would be able to assist students with requirements gathering, design, user testing and technical accessibility. Title: GT05 Modal Harmonizer Plug-in Development of a software plug-in which investigates and expand capabilities in modal scales harmonizers and their creative use for solo instrument performances. Possible development of hardware (sensor base) interface. Title: KH04 Music amp Chaos Theory A variety of non-linear chaotic systems have been applied to compositional practice, sound design, and music analysis. This proposal is open to a variety of final year projects, including but not limited to: music composition utilizing chaos theory, sound synthesis methods using chaos, software package for music generation through chaos theory for non-technical musicians, or an original suggestion by a student. Title: KH02 Music amp Evolutionary Algorithms Evolutionary algorithms, such as cellular automata or genetic algorithms, have been applied to the field of music often as a way to generate new musical material. This proposal is open to a variety of final year projects, including but not limited to: music composition utilizing evolutionary algorithms, sound synthesis methods using evolutionary algorithms, software package for non-technical musicians, or an original suggestion by a student. Title: KH03 Music amp Neural Networks Neural networks can be applied to a variety of musical tasks, from sound design to music composition to computer improvisation. This proposal is open to a variety of final year projects, including but not limited to: music composition utilizing neural networks, sound synthesis methods using neural networks, software package for musical neural networks designed for non-technical musicians, or an original suggestion by a student. Title: GA05 Need a ride (new 692011) Based on existing solutions developed elsewhere, this project will explore the design of a car pooling application for UL that would make extensive use of existing Social Media applications. It will include features like calendar, maps, reputation system, and it will be dedicated strictly to UL students and staff. A working prototype will be developed and tested with users. Title: LMc06 New systems for live audiovisual performance There are endless ways in which to interface with and control digital systems during performace. You should design a number of protoype control surfaces for interfacing with digital systems of your preference. These should be tested against their success during realtime performance. Title: MC09 Orchestral Breakout for the blind Breakout was arcade game developed by Atari, Inc and introduced on May 13, 1976. In the game, a layer of bricks lines the top third of the screen. A ball travels across the screen, bouncing off the top and side walls of the screen. When a brick is hit, the ball bounces away and the brick is destroyed. The player loses a turn when the ball touches the bottom of the screen. To prevent this from happening, the player has a movable paddle to bounce the ball upward, keeping it in play. (Wikipedia). Breakout is a simple but very visual game. The challenge for this project is to create a version of the game that is playable by partially sighted or blind players. Although the category for this project is given as Game Development this may well turn out to be a research project. How can a visual game provide sufficient clues to allow blind or partially sighted players to play it One suggestion is that aural clues be provided as to the location of the bat, the ball, and the position and number of the remaining bricks. A colleague has suggested that the bricks might be aurally represented by instruments in the orchestra (hence Orchestral Breakout). Stereo effects and knowledge of the layout of the orchestra should allow a player to discover the location and number of the remaining bricks. The location of the bat (which always moves on the same plane across the screen) could be represented as a continuous tone that rises in pitch as the bat moves right and falls as it moves left. The screen might be logically divided into a number of vertical pitch bands. Using this idea we would be able to identify the horizontal position of the ball using the pitch bands and could represent the vertical location by pinging in the appropriate pitch (slower pinging might indicate that the ball was at the top of the screen while faster pinging would occur as the ball approached the bottom of the screen). The ball and bat would be in vertical alignment when they were both playing the same tone the ball pinging and the bat continuous. The suggestions of aural clues provided here are just suggestions. You may decide that other mechanisms such as a feedback mouse, or Wii controller, or some other device might be more suitable. Examples: A number of ideas for games suitable for blind players as well as examples of existing games are to be found at - omninet. net. au Title: LC01 Perception of distance on social networking sites, design for digital closeness Social networking utilities are useful in creating links between people, and in providing users with a sense of closeness to others. But what do closeness and distance mean in the world of social networking Is closeness perceived socially, emotionally or professionally Is distance on a social network coinciding with physical distance or are the two completely separate This project investigates how users of social networking tools perceive these notions, and includes the design of an installationapp to support digital closeness based on the information collected from users. Title: PH07 Photo Mosaic Wizard Project Code: PH07 Project Title: Photo Mosaic Wizard Project Category: Software Application Development Create a collage of photos from a database so that the composite has a likeness to a chosen picture. Some examples: artensoftArtensoftPhotoMosaicWizardscreenshots. php For an illustration of how it can be done using dominos go to - 4c. ucc. ie The program could be packaged as a web service but this is of secondary importance here. Title: MEn05 Prediction Model for Software Change Prediction models are widely used for software estimation. Such models use statistical, AI and other approaches. The aim of this project is to use one of these approaches to validate a set of software metrics for software change. The metrics can be easily extracted from the code using the Understand suite of source-code analysis tools. Title: MEn06 Prediction Model for Software Faults Prediction models are widely used for software estimation. Such models use statistical, AI and other approaches. The aim of this project is to use one of these approaches to validate a set of software metrics for software faults. In other words, the metrics are examined to determine if they are useful to determine where faults occur in the system. The metrics can be easily extracted from the code using the Understand suite of source-code analysis tools. Title: MC02 Program Tutorial System The Jackson approach to program design separates the algorithm architecture from the executable program statements. This idea can be used to produce a web-based system that allows us to create useful programming tutorials. In this tutorial system the lecturer provides a working program, the program test data, the expected results, and the program specification. The student is shown the program specification and the randomized executable statements and is then tasked with reordering them so as to produce a working program that produces the correct results. The system will accept the students reordered statements, submit them to the console based COBOL (or other) compiler for compilation, linking and running and, assuming that the reordered program compiles, will then compare the actual results with the expected results. The usual administrative and user functionality that such a system might entail will also have to be provided. Title: ML04 Project management of software engineering within a healthcare environment Conduct a research study that explores the issues surrounding the management of software development projects within healthcare settings. You are expected to do a literature review of project management as it relates to IT projects within healthcare environments. This should enable you to build a research program to determine any project management issues that may be associated with healthcare settings. A key aspect of the project will be insights and reflections gleaned from the research findings. Title: PH05 Racetrack for the Android Phone Racetrack is a very enjoyable pencil-and-paper game (see wikipedias description of it for more information). Develop an application that will run on Android phones to play this game electronically. Platform: Android SDK Title: KH05 Random and Stochastic Methods in Music Since the 20th century, composers such as Iannis Xenakis have developed random and stochastic processes, their generation, and their implementation into music. This project proposes to research and analyze the history and current practices in these methods. A significant component to this proposal will be an original electroacoustic composition utilizing random or stochastic methods. This is a web-based facility similar to Doodle but which has substantial constraint-based problem solving facilities incorporated. For example, every participant might be allowed rank their possible time for the meeting and the system would report the ideal time, based on minimization of the total rank. A stretch goal would be to show how the ranking is calculated to the user, thus making the system ideal as a tutorial for Management Science students. Title: NN04 Ranking App for LinkedIn The goal of this project is to develop an app for LinkedIn that allows a user to compare themselves to other people on LinkedIn, find similar to them people in their friends network, identify organisations which employ similar to them people, etc. The project will involve learning a potentially new API as well as research in social network analysis. Title: JC07 Re-engineer a sequential Simple Genetic Algorithm (SGA) into parallel format using OpenMP for optimal deployment on a multicore platform. Reengineer a sequential Simple Genetic Algorithm (SGA) into parallel format using OpenMP for optimal deployment on a multicore platform. The availability of parallel hardware at reasonable affordable prices through multicore processor technology has given rise to the Third Software Engineering crisis ndash the reengineering of code developed using the sequential paradigm into a format that exploits the hardware resource available. This FYP will introduce the student to the OpenMP library that supports the manual parallelisation of software for shared memory deployment. The student should be familiar with CC or Fortran, and capable of self guided study on OpenMP. Title: MC04 Readability checker plugin for Microsoft Word The plugin should allow users to analyse the readability of Word documents. Users of Word can already request readability statistics but this project will offer a far more sophisticated analysis. Users of the readability plugin should be able to specify a style model suitable for their target audience. The readability program should analyse the Word document, produce a style diagram and various readability indices, and should identify sentences that dont fit the style model. The project will be based on an application produced many years ago by Scandinavian Systems. The manual for that application will form the functional specification for the project. The specification may be modified by any applicable modern research. Advanced students wishing to attract a high grade for the project should make it possible for users to define new style models. This could be achieved by feeding the program with documents written by an author upon whose style the model is to be based. The program could create the new style model by analysing the writing style used in the documents. References: Readability Program for the IBM PC, XT and AT - Scandinavian Systems PC - Manual. Title: CR03 Robotic Control by Evolution Use Grammatical Evolution to evolve control programs for simulated robots. Title: NP03 Role-playing Game for Requirements Engineering The concept of a Stakeholder is a very important one in requirements engineering: a requirement is anything that matters to a stakeholder and stakeholders are all the people who matter in a system. In playing this proposed game, the player would enter a world populated with different types of Stakeholders and would navigate through a series of encounters and meetings to elicit and discover a target set of requirements for a target system. The target system will be one invented by the game designer and involve some unpredictable but logically coherent functionality hat they cannot be guessed by the player. The idea of the game is to illustrate the relationship between the goals, requirements, constraints, business rules and other sources of requirements for a system. It could be implemented as a single-player game enhanced with some suitable multi-media aspects, or for the very ambitious student, a multiple role player game where players have to cooperate as well as compete in order to achieve the desired result. Title: NP01 Security Requirements Assistant Even in the best-run requirements engineering projects, non-functional requirements such as Security rarely receive the attention they deserve, resulting in vague, broad requirements which are not much use. Há várias razões para isso. One reason is the unavoidable confusion between the requirements and the solutions in this area another is the lack of suitable formats or templates for expressing security requirements. The student undertaking this project needs to have a very good knowledge of both security threats and solutions and a willingness to learn about requirements engineering, its significance, its strengths and its difficulty. The project itself will be a knowledge-based tool to help elicit and validate the precise security requirements appropriate for a system or product, yielding testable, well-specified specifications. Title: GA01 Social Media strategy for The Hunt Museum (new 692011) The project will start with an exploration of the various ways cultural institutions (in particular museums, art galleries and heritage sites) are using Social Media applications (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook etc) to share news, communicate with the public and attract visitors. Based on this, a Social Media strategy for the Hunt Museum in Limerick will be developed and tested, by incorporating SEO and Google Analytics for checking the impact of each initiative. Based on the findings, a recommended solution will be forwarded to the Hunt Museum curators. Title: NN01 Social Network Browser for Twitter This project aims at the development of a Twitter app that visualises a Twitter network of followers of a particular twitter account. The app should make it easy to identify the most important people in the network subject to various criteria (based on social network analysis theory). The user should be able to choose among a number of different visualisations. This project will involve Web development with the use of the Twitter API. It will also involve research in social network analysis and visualisation. Title: RSu03 Software Robotics: Conducting Machine (new 692011) The aim will be to design and build a robot that can conduct music. Given a simple input score, the robot will conduct it. This will be evaluated by getting the robot to conduct actual classical musicians. A very simple robot will be required the main part of the project will be interpreting the score and deciding how to conduct it. Title: MF04 Sonification Exploration Tool for Spreadsheets This project can be done at different levels of difficulty, depending on level of integration. Ideally, design and implement a plugin for a spreadsheet package (Excel, Numbers, OpenOffice, etc) that connects to Pure Data (PD), and design a number of PD-patches that can parametrically be controlled by data from the spreadsheet. For inspiration, think of the wizard-like feature most spreadsheet packages have for visual graphs, but in this project it is about having a number of template sonifications that the user can modify and adapt. Levels of difficulty a) Full integration. When data is selected in the spreadsheet, or when its recalculated due to change of an equation or variable, it is immediately sonified. b) Connection via. csv file. A. csv is exported, then imported and parsed by PD, then sonified. For inspiration, see for example Sonification Sandbox, sonify. psych. gatech. eduresearchsonificationsandboxsandbox. html The Sandbox only uses MIDI and traditional music instrument timbres and pitches. In this FYP, it is envisaged to go beyond this limitation and use anything from granular to formant to additive, subtractive, etc. synthesis, with flexible mapping of parameters to enable users to sonically explore the data set from different perspectives. Environment: Spreadsheet program of your choice, PD, (Xcode), Apple OS X. Title: MF05 Sound Object Models In the Sounding Object project ( soundobject. org), we investigated novel ideas about sound in ubiquitous computing. This FYP entails to design and evaluate a number of sound object models of everyday sounds, ideally chosen from the categories in our Ecological Sounds library ( idc. ul. iemikaelsoundsecosound. zip). In particular the Sound Object models should be parametrically controlled. For inspiration: soundobject. orgpaperssob. pdf soundobject. orgSObBookSObBookJUL03.pdf Title: MH01 Specifying and Validating Swarm Models with ASSL Biologically-Inspired Computing refers to the use of inspiration from nature in developing new classes of software (and hardware) systems. Inspiration is taken from swarms of bees and flocks of birds for various techniques that have solved complex problems and enabled advanced techniques in areas such as drug discovery, exploration in harsh environments, and networking. ASSL is a specification language and environment designed to support the development of such classes of applications. This project involves the use of ASSL to specify and validate various swarming models (previously identified in a technical report) with a view to determining which swarm models are useful in particular circumstances and to determine the suitability of ASSL for dealing with swarm-based applications. Title: GT03 Spherical Sonic Browser Application and Device Design and develop a music application, which enables sonic browsing (i. e. the act of browsing computer files (audio loops) by means of the auditory system) and dynamic loop layering for real-time compositions. The physical interface consists of a sensor-augmented ball, through which the retrieval of its orientation data serves as main control device. Title: MC10 Stars implementation for the iPad (new 692011) Stars is a complex turn-based computer game based around the management of planets and fleets of spaceships following the 4X game model (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit amp eXterminate). It was originally written in 1995 for Windows based PCs (Stars FAQ - starsfaqfileinfo. htm amp Wikipedia - en. wikipedia. orgwikiStars). This project will implement Stars for the iPad. The implementation of the single player (against the computer) mode will be regarded as most critical but consideration should also be given to allowing the game to participate in multi-player hosted games (starsautohost. orgstars. htm) A copy of the game, for the purposes of research, is available to anyone undertaking the project. Title: CS01 Supporting sport activities with mobile and wearable technology for people with diabetes Develop an application based on Android (or iphone) and wearable sensors (e. g. accelerometer, heart beat monitors) to support self-management of physical activities (such as running, biking, or gym) for people with diabetes (type 1 and 2). The application should aim to provide users with an estimation of burned sugar during physical activities to inform possible tuning and adjustment of insulin intake. This project can be suitable for more than one student. This project can be also run in collaboration with the Physical Education amp Sport Science department. Good technical skills (e. g. android, arduino) are essential. Environment: Android, iPhone, Arduino, wearable selected sensors. Title: JC02 Swimming pool identification from satellite images Swimming pool solar panel identification from satellite images sourced through Google maps - could use Evolutionary Computation here which has a good track record in target identification where source is fuzzy andor partly occluded. Should not be an issue for targets of interest here. This suggestion was proposed by Liam Relihan of ResourceKraft (resourcekraft), who will provide limited support where appropriate. Title: JB02 Synonym Search One of the core activities of maintenance programmers is exploratory search where they are searching for some semi-defined entity (a specific functionality in the code-base for example). In such cases the programmer will often resort to using the search facility in an IDE. However, the initial programmer may use a synonym for the word the maintenance programmer searches for, and in this instance, the search will yield no matches (the vocabulary problem). This project is an enhancement plug-in for eclipse which enhances the lexical search facility using a database of synonyms (word-net for example) to cast the search wider when no exact lexicons are identified by the search, thus increasing the likelihood that the programmer will find the desired elements of the code-base. Title: CS02 Tag it yourself for Android The project aims to translate the Tag-it-Yourself app (currently available for IPhone: itunes. appleieapptag-it-yourself-tiyid420883042mt8) into the Android system possibly extending some of its current functionalities (e. g. synchronizing with Google calendar API). Good programming skills (e. g. android, google infrastructure API) are essential. Environment: Android, googles APIs Title: LC04 Tangible Interaction and Learning in Museums Tangible interaction is increasingly finding application outlets in museums and galleries in order to facilitate formal and informal learning. This project will consist of a detailed benchmarking of existing tangible installations for learning in museums, a study of educational activities in a Irish museum chosen by the student and design of a tangible installation to support learning in that context. The student will benefit from the support of the Irish Museums Association network to identify a suitable museum. Title: LMc02 The art of combining media streams in digital art Mutli-sensory art is to be created to explore the difference between the suggestions of the individual parts and those of the whole work. Syncronisity, masking, layering, multiple structures, the macro versus the micro, motiff versus the massive. All stimuli are open to exploration, such as sound, light, touch, heat etc.. Title: LMc05 The artistic practise of social commentary through digital art Artists often use social issues as a creative device. This practise should be explored, using direct and indirect approaches in creating art that has meaning on many levels. The media of sound and vision should both be used, both seperately and in unison. Title: ML02 The challenges of developing a healthcare information system Conduct a research study that studies the challenges facing software development teams tasked with building information systems applications that support healthcare delivery. You are expected to develop a system that could be used to support some aspect of healthcare. A key aspect of the project will be insights and reflections gleaned from the research findings and how these insights influenced your approach to the application development. Title: LMc03 The design of self generating audiovisuals Algorithms should be designed to generate digital art from the input of realtime information or predetermined information. Such algorithims should be developed and judged on both a functional amp aesthetic level. This can be an exploration in the media of sound, vision or both. Title: LMc01 The practise of digital storytelling: designing non-linear narrative, user agency and resolution The design amp comparison of systems enabling the participant control the narrative of an artwork. The practise of producting art that is to be presented in a non-linear, open-ended manner. Title: ML03 The use of eXtreme Programming in distributed software development teams Conduct a research study that studies the use of eXtreme Programming (XP) in software development projects whose team members are distributed across different locations. It is expected that the student will conduct a literature review of the area under study and use this review to drive their research. A key aspect of the project will be insights and reflections gleaned from the research findings. Title: PH04 Tide Calculations for the Android Phone Develop an application that will determine high and low tides for coastal spots around Ireland that will run on Android phones. Platform: Android SDK. Title: GA02 UL Campus Conference Companion for Magic is Might 2012 (new 692011) Using an existing game engine for location based games (possibly the Tidy Cities engine developed by Fraunhofer FIT), the student will develop a Harry Potter themed application allowing participants to the above mentioned conference to explore the UL campus in a fun and playful way. A user evaluation of the prototype will be performed, followed by iterative development of a real mobile app. Content production and user evaluation will be the focus of the project. Title: MEa03 UL: the Game, Mark 3 Develop an interactive point and click third person mysteryadventure game based on the UL campus including real (and artistically modified) footage of the campus, together with cinematographic inserts. Title: CR06 Unity Game Project Unity is a platform independent game development system that can be used to produce standalone games of virtually any genre. This project will be about learning to use the tool and producing a playable game. Title: MEa02 Unreal UL III Use the Unreal World Editor to recreate (part of) the University and populate with an interacting mix of students, academics, and others. In this years project there will be an emphasis on the recreation of outdoor scenes and environments. Develop strategies for survival character development based on techniques from the computational intelligence field. Title: CS08 User-centred Evaluation of a platform supporting diabetes journaling Evaluate a platform supporting diabetes type 1 journaling based on the principles of user-centred design (e. g. ISO-13407). The platform is constituted by a mobile application (on the iPhone) and a website enabling patients to manage and share their health data. Produce design recommendations about possible re-design iterations of the evaluated platform. Use of qualitative tools (heuristic evaluations, observations, interviews, cultural and technological probes, usability testing). This project will be in connection with a larger project (IDC FutureComm) aimed to envision, develop and evaluate future scenario for innovative Information and Communication Technology in the Health Care domain. Title: JG01 Using Web 2.0 for collaborative learning in PISE PISE is concerned with the ethical, legal and social aspects of the design, implementation, management and use of computer and information systems. It is an undergraduate module in various CSIS undergraduate programmes. Over the past eight years a number of e-learning tools have been used to support collaborative learning and group-based based assessment in PISE, specifically Blackboard and Moodle. The advent of Web 2.0 technology provides a new set of ICT tools that could be used to further support this teaching methodology. This project will involve a research element that should critically analyse current tools (e. g. blogs, wikis, social networks)and how they are, or could be, used in teaching and learning in third level. The project would then design learning situations where these tools can be realistically used in PISE. Finally the project would evaluate the success or otherwise of these tools for the building and sustaining on teams in PISE. There will be strict timescales for this project due to the constraints on the evaluation period which must coincide with the delivery of PISE module in the second semester. Therefore all the fundamental research will need to be completed by the end of semester 1 and the proposed e-learning solutions designed and fully ready to be used by week 3 of semester. Title: MF06 Video annotation tool for usability analysis Video is often used in user testing in usability evaluations. The idea behind this FYP is to use Flash video (.flv) and to design a web based tool for multiple evaluators to annotate video with pointers, markers and comments, and for such evaluation data to be amalgamated and exported for further analysis. For inspiration: Try to annotate a clip (of your own) on YouTube. Consider if the annotations could be exporteddownloaded, with their hyperlink properties to the video and time-code they came from retained. Environment: Adobe Flash, Adobe Flash Media Server. Title: NP02 Visualizing Aspects of Requirements Requirements specifications are often regarded as dull, monotonous and impenetrable, especially when they are specified to an acceptable level of detail. Various interesting efforts have been made to make requirements visual, but so far requirements visualization remains a goal rather than a solution. One reason for this is that system and software requirements, far from being monotonous, are multi-facetted. For example, the Volere template lists 27 different types of things that need to be included in a requirements specification, such as stakeholders, mandated constraints and risks. The Volere list doesnt some include other important aspects such as goals and user tasks. The student undertaking this project would choose a subset of the aspects that pertain to requirements and formulate the different ways in which they relate to each other. Visualization in this context is about visualizing relationships. The project would use and extend Shu Wans 200910 FYP Postfuse. The main work of the project would be in formulating relationships (links) between and among the various requirements aspects in the underlying requirements specification, so it suits a student with a strong capacity for conceptual thinking. Title: JG02 Waterways reporting system Travelling the rivers and canals of Ireland is an activity enjoyed by many people around the country. A lot of problems can occur to these both from humans and nature, such as missing markers, blockages, damaged lock gates etc. Reporting these issues can prove problematic because people are confined to a boat and when problems are reported, informing others can be just as difficult. Boat users and waterways engineers alike could perhaps benefit from a system where they could easily record and identify the areas that are in need of attention. Present systems in Ireland inform users of proposed work and planned closers to stretches of waterways but there is no dynamic reporting system in place to deal with unexpected issues that arise. Therefore a system is required that would allow someone to be able to report a problem as soon they come across it. One way this could be achieved is by the use of mobile phones with GPS facilities. If a problem is encountered it can be recorded using the mobile device and uploaded to a website database. This website can be accessed by other mobile devices or computers. The website will have a graphical front end to display and retrieve data representing it on a colour coded map. Users of the site can then identify problem area by their colour and pop up windows which contain more precise information. The website should be designed so that it detects the accessing device (mobile phone, desktop computer etc) and adjusts the display accordingly. As problems are fixed or cleared it should be possible to update the database. There will be different levels of permission for different users, e. g. ordinary users should not be able to update the database unless their information is moderated first, as it could cause data integrity problems. For this reason an administrator account will be used giving more privileges than an ordinary user. For example, this type of access could be used by engineers so that a problem when has been fixed they can update the data store. Selecting a section from the graphical interface should allow the administrator to see any area and its corresponding problem reports. They should then be allowed the report that has been looked after and remove it. The data store will then be updated and so will the graphical map. Other levels of user may need to be identified and the relevant permissions granted. Title: ML06 What is Lean Software Development Conduct a research study that studies the application of lean thinking to software development. Your study should perform a literature review of lean thinking and how it has been applied to software development. Cypress Startups: History, Theory of Funding, Lessons The target pretax profit for our fabs was 0to sell wafers at cost. The buyout for CMI was the continuous vesting of Cypress options for CMI employees as milestones were met. Our first startup was fab 2, formally Cypress Texas Inc. or CTI . founded in 1986 in Round Rock, Texas. We decided to make our second fab an independent startup to keep the lean mentality developed in our startup fab 1 in San Jose, which was very successful as an entrepreneurial organization. Fab 1 remained viable for 22 years, from its first wafer shipments in 1984, until its sale in 2006, from which we recovered the book value of all of the equipment and were able to preserve its jobs by turning it into a new startup, the Silicon Valley Technology Corporation. SVTC was chartered to do wafer process development for outside companies, a practice Fab 1 started to tune up its PampL statement. (All Cypress organizations are run as Profit and Loss centerseven our legal department.) Fab 2 also remained viable for a long period of time, from 1986, when we bought a used magnetics building to house it, through 2008, when the fab was shut down due to obsolescence. We will recover about 20 million from Fab 2 by selling its equipment, building and land. We almost saved fab 2 as another spinout foundry, but a recession and a severe glut of wafer fab capacity hit the market at exactly the wrong time. The founding CEO of fab 2 led the organization to a successful spin-in acquisition in which Cypress purchased the employees shares in 1988. The follow-on VPs who ran fab 2 had good and bad years. One big Fab 2 problem was quality, an area where the lean startup mentality can be a problem. The second-to-last manager of fab 2, Minh Pham, brought and held the facility to a sustainable high-yield, high-quality, low-cost operating status. The lessons learned from the Fab 2 experience: 1) Internal startups work. 2) Startups always cut corners on quality. 3) Internal startupsincluding all Cypress Business Units (BUs)should stay continuously ready for life after Cypress. Aspen Semiconductor was an outside group referred to Cypress by one of our venture capitalists, John Doerr of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers. We funded Aspen to develop BiCMOS technology. The legacies of Aspen are the SM13 and B53 BiCMOS technologies that have produced some of our most profitable products, such as RoboClock and HotLink, which were designed in other BUs using Aspen technology. Aspen was successful to the point of producing 5 million per quarter in revenue (half of its target) but never broke even. We spun Aspen into Cypress for 0.20 per share (vs. the 1.00 per share target) shortly after its founding CEO was fired for violating Cypresss honesty policy and for having taken proprietary information from National Semiconductor, his prior employer, causing Cypress to be sued. The only key employee of Aspen that stayed at Cypress long term was Tony Alvarez, who later became the VP of Cypresss process RampD group and then EVP of our Memory Products Division. One big benefit of internal startups is that the economics of founders stock can be used to recruit some very good employees. Internal startups are also very useful in retaining employees being recruited by outside startups. Why go to that flaky startup, we can ask, when you can join a startup within Cypress and keep your Cypress options, too The lessons learned from Aspen: 1) Do very careful reference checks on the integrity and capabilities of the founding team. 2) Demand that the startups use your business processes unless there is a compelling reason not to do so. 3) Dont invest in niche process technologies, such as BiCMOS, that cost almost as much to develop as platform technologies, but have very limited markets. Multichip Technology Inc. was an outside group funded by Cypress in 1988 to address the Silicon Valley hot technology of the time, multichip modules. It was thought that companies that could solder together their chips into entire systems on small modules (circuit boards) would displace systems companies, which had uncompetitive manufacturing costs. We soon realized the folly inherent in the theory of trying to compete with systems companies with a few people in the startup company. That is obvious today, but it was not in 1988. Multichip was quickly degraded into becoming a memory module company. I considered that business to be a loser, calling the products memory on a stick. Nonetheless, Multichip did achieve revenue of 20 million per year with 10.9 pretax profit. We realized Multichip had created a module manufacturing capability that we wanted, but that it would never be a viable stand-alone company. We bought out the employee shareholders of Multichip for 0.60 and merged it into Cypress. Multichips founding team and I parted ways when we continued to argue about the companys charter. We founded Multichip to put Cypress chips into modules and thus sell our products at higher prices (the same premise behind Cypress Envirosystems). The president of Multichip made most decisions on a Multichip-first basis, sometimes buying memories from our arch-competitor, Samsung, including off-spec SRAMs that produced inferior-quality product. The management of Multichip misled me for several quarters into believing that it would begin to use Cypress products. I finally refused to sit on the Multichip Board any longer, leaving Cypress director Fred Bialek as the Cypress representative. Multichip disappeared during the next downturn. The lessons learned from Multichip: 1) Having separate equity incentivizes the startup management team to make decisions that make their stock more valuable, even if it hurts the Cypress patent. 2) Do a careful reference check on the integrity of the founders. 3) Fire the CEO if he even once takes an action harmful to Cypress and overlooks telling you about it in advance. 4) Do more careful market research on the business plan. Ross Technology was formed from an outside team lead by Roger Ross that I actively recruited out of Motorola to pursue the SPARC microprocessor business with our partner, Sun Microsystems. Along with MIPS, SPARC was an example of another hot technology, the Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC), that was sure to dislodge Intels older, less elegant microprocessors. Cypress and Sun produced the first integrated version of SPARC with a joint design team. I saw that our team was not capable of designing the next generation SPARC microprocessor, which featured a multi-threaded CPU and multiple cache memories. Among those I recruited to help Cypress was Roger Ross, the manager of an advanced microprocessor group at Motorola. I heard through the venture capital network that Rosss reputation at Motorola was to impress technically but to fail ultimately in delivering fully working products. I should have listened to that advice. Ross did bring a talented Austin-based team to Cypress, for which we were sued for theft of trade secrets by Motorola. That suit was dropped when I made it clear we would fight back and win. Ross won a significant fraction of the second-generation SPARC business at Sun. When Rosss revenue grew to 15 million per quarter with over 20 pretax profit, we assembled an IPO team to take Ross public in 1999. Unfortunately, Rosss culture of corporate dishonesty and poor quality did them in before the big event. Despite lecture after lecture from me on the criticality of designing and testing with full margins, Rosss designers quietly cut cornerswith the approval of the boss. I clearly remember the meeting at Sun Microsystems in which I personally carried over the latest group of impaired SPARC modules that needed engineering waivers, to ask if Sun would try them out in the system. They said, No, thanks. They werent interested in any more modules that didnt fully meet their specs. Ross degraded rapidly after losing its biggest customer. We spun them into Cypress for 0.34 per share and worked diligently to get new customers. We eventually sold Ross to Fujitsu for 27 million, recovering most of our investment. The lessons learned from Ross: 1) Do more diligent checking on the CEO and teamand then believe what you find, if it is negative. 2) Never permit the founder to name your startup after himself. 3) Immediately change out the management team if it is not completely honest (for every dishonesty you discover there are 10 you do not find out about until its too late). 4) You cant compete against Intel with a startup. 5) When your company is the fourth or fifth pursuing a new technology, its a me-too startup that will not make it. 6) Even after a disaster, work hard to increase the salvage value of a startup. Fab 4 was also launched as the startup Cypress Minnesota Inc. or CMI in 1990 with Lothar Meier, a long-time Cypress veteran, as the CEO. It was a great dealwe bought a fully functioning fab in Bloomington, Minnesota from the computer company CDC for only 17 million. Just as there was folly in Rosss competing versus Intel, so there was folly in CDCs belief they could simply jump into the brutal chip business by spending 100 million on a fab. We solved two problems after learning from our prior startups. First, Lothar Maier, a Cypress veteran, was appointed president of CMI. We knew he would not make Multichip-like them vs. us decisions. Second, we incentivized the team at CMI with Cypress options (in excess of what Cypress employees were offered) to make sure CMIs economic interests were aligned with Cypress. CMI was also run very lean, as a startup should be. It was very successful for us from its founding in 1990 until about 2005. Equipment companies considered Cypress to be the leader in fab asset management. The fab was complimented with a superb process RampD group that produced the lowest-mask count wafer processes with the lowest mask count in the industry (typically 20, versus our competitors 30). Thus from 1990-2005, we enjoyed the lowest wafer cost in the industry, although our costs were higher on a per mask basis than the best offshore foundries. CMI simply became part of Cypress gradually as the performance-based Cypress options vested. Around 2007, we began to realize that CMI, which by that time had been an internal corporate business unit for a decade, was no longer lean. It was living in the legacy of low-mask processes, while its per-mask costeven ignoring depreciationwas not competitive with other foundries from which Cypress could buy wafers. This problem has wiped out the U. S. fabs of many companies, including LSI Logic and Freescale. Today, CMI is fighting for its life in a crunch cost-reduction program. Its problems are exacerbated by the fact that there is an excess of capacity on the market driving down wafer prices and an economic recession causing underloading. Minh Pham has transferred from CTI to CMI to see if he can work the same turnaround there as he did in Fab 2. The initial finding is that the fab had gotten very fat, giving him hope that it can be made competitive again reasonably quickly. The lessons learned from fab 4: 1) Given the lack of a continuing significant financial incentive to be lean, corporate organizations always get fat. 2) From CDCs foray into semiconductorsit is very risky to stray outside your areas of core competence. Cypress MicroSystems Inc. (CMS) was founded in 1999 to diversify Cypress by entering the microcontroller business. The Seattle team that created our very successful USB business (itself a startup, formerly the ICD clock company, acquired by Cypress in 1992) brought forth the unsolicited CMS business plan. The idea was to use our microcontroller-based USB technology to enter the microcontroller marketspecifically to attack Microchip Technology, a leader in the microprocessor business that nonetheless had inferior silicon and design technology, relative to that used on our USB chips. To get many products to market quickly (our competitors had thousands of different microcontroller products), the team invented the Programmable System on Chip, or PSoC. It is now the flagship product line at Cypress. PSoC products were designed to be highly configurable for the wrong reasonto steal sockets from industry leader Microchip Technology by providing the same functionality as Microchips portfolio of 5,000 parts. The programmability of PSoC allowed us to design the equivalent of 5,000 Microchip products into only six PSoC programmable chips. The socket-stealing idea did not work out because it meant we always had to lower prices, our only weapon to steal sockets. However, the extreme flexibility built into PSoC became favored by customers with new designs who could now change their hardware at the last minute, something a typical microcontroller did not allow. In other words, PSoC beat the competition in winning new designs, not stealing old ones. The PSoC BU is currently producing about 150 million per year in revenue and growing. The CMS team in Seattle was rewarded by having their CMS shares bought out by Cypress for 15.2 million in 2003. In this case, the reward was less than the nominal share price in the business plan (0.65 per share at buyout vs. 1.00 in their plan), because of share dilutionthe startup used 54 million in cash before turning profitable, compared to the 20 million in their original business plan. CMS has obviously been a company-changing success for us. Most of the key employees of CMS are still with Cypress, pursuing their PSoC dream. The original CEO of CMS was removed, based on my learning from prior startups. George Saul took over to lead the team to victory. We suffered through a four-year battle putting CMS products into Cypress manufacturing due to its poor quality. At the peak, we suffered 50 customer returns per quarter for test holes, which caused insufficient testing of the product. A corporate task force was needed to fix the problem. The lessons learned from CMS: 1) If a startup gets stalled, change managementeven if you like the CEO. 2) Our startup methodologyin which greater than expected losses do not completely wipe out employee gainsis superior to any corporate bonus plan for motivation. 3) Startups always cut corners on quality to make their numbers. 4) Startups work harder than big companies, even hard-working ones like Cypress. Silicon Light Machines (SLM) was an external startup we acquired in September 2000 for 115 million (2 million shares of Cypress at a time when Cypresss share price was over 50). It was the one time that Cypresss Board allowed me to make a quick acquisition without doing a complete job on due diligence. I portrayed the acquisition as needing to happen quickly, based on a funding event at SLM. The fact is we could have done better due diligence and should have. SLM made optical MEMS (Microelectro-Mechanical Systems) that controlled light with electrical signals. By shining red, green and blue lasers on three SLM chips and combining images, the company created a projection television set with astonishing image qualitybetter than that of Texas Instruments, which was moving into the projection TV business at that time. We were more interested in the communications uses of SLMs chips, thus we worked with SLM before acquisition to sell their projection TV technology to Sony for 75 million, which was paid at the rate of 4 million per quarter. SLM thus became an acquisition with optical capability and 75 million in hardwired funding (making the actual acquisition cost only 40 million). SLM was supposed to add the optical capability to Cypress that would give us end-to-end data transmission capability during the dotcom boom. In retrospect, that was a very shallow rationalization that never did work out. After I got more deeply into the optics required for data communications, it became clear to me that the SLM technology did not bring any advantage to the dotcom world. We continued to sell the optical MEMS already developed by SLM, but in non-TV markets, as required by our Sony contract. That business grew to 4 million per quarter but never justified the acquisition of the company. SLMs final project did use their optical capabilities to create a product for a market in which Cypress was engaged. The optical navigation system (ONS) is a technology to make an optical mouse with extraordinary resolution and capabilities. Since Cypress has a business unit that sells USB mouse chips, the ONS mouse chip was a natural companion. We successfully completed the ONS mouse project and achieved a few hundred thousand dollars in quarterly revenue. The ONS chip is now gaining traction in the finger navigation market (turn the mouse upside-down and run your finger over the sensor to create movement)but the jury on the last SLM product is still out, nine years after acquisition. The lessons learned from SLM: 1) Never make an acquisition without having a complete business plan that demonstrates exemplary ROI. 2) Once you realize that you have made a mistake with a startup, sell it or disband it immediately. 3) Straying outside of your core competencies is very risky. SunPower Corporation was an external startup company that had stalled at 2 million per quarter in revenue. It was threatened with bankruptcy at the beginning of the dotcom crash. Cypress was one of the early adopters of solar energy in Silicon Valley. We did it in 2000, when solar cells were only 14 efficient, meaning that a roof full of them could produce only 35 of the power used by our new headquarters building. That put me on the lookout for a better solar cell. In a now-famous meeting that never happened (there was an intermediary), I became re-acquainted with my old Stanford school-mate, Dick Swanson, a genius who had dedicated his career to solar energyand had created a 21 efficient solar cell that produced 1.5 times more power per silicon wafer than the cells we had bought in 2000. Cypress acquired SunPower in three tranches. I had to fund the company personally because our board was tiring of acquisition distractions like SLM. It took me 15 months before I convinced our Board to invest in SunPower. Cypress taught SunPower how to make its world-class solar cell technology manufacturable by teaching them our professional RampD methods and how to manufacture at low cost. Key members of the SunPower manufacturing team came from Cypresss lean and successful fab 2 operation. SunPowers CEO and CFO also came from Cypress. Without putting trusted Cypress veterans in key positions, SunPower would never have achieved its phenomenal success. Cypress also transferred most of its business processes to SunPower, as well. SunPower uses our RampD process development system (NTP), new product development system (NPP), capital purchase equipment system (EPR) and PampL reporting method. Indeed, SunPower copied our business processes with such vigor that I noted they were in many cases better at following Cypresss business process than Cypress was itself. They even located their first manufacturing plant near our assembly and test facility in Manila and were allowed to hire people from our plant (we have yet to recover from that loss of talent). We took SunPower public at a valuation of 1.1 billion in Q4 2005. Although we maintained economic control with over 50 stock ownership, we also structured our shares to have seven votes each to give us over 90 of the voting power. Later, when SunPower offerings diluted our economic ownership to less than 50, we still maintained control of the company, until we spun it out to our shareholders. Overall, Cypress invested 143 million in SunPower, and later sold SunPower stock for 677 million in cash and then distributed 2.52 billion in SunPower shares to Cypress shareholders in November 2008. The gain from our SunPower success is factors larger than the losses of all of our startup failures added together. In baseball terms, SLM, Ross and Multichip were only three strikesone outwhile SunPower was a game-winning, grand-slam home run. The lessons learned from SunPower: 1) Use Cypress veterans in key positions. 2) To get star performance, put your star players on the team. 3) Transfer and demand the use of proven Cypress systems to startups. 4) Control shareholder voting with a super majority to prevent obvious decisions from being democratized and slowed down. Silicon Magnetic Systems (SMS) was founded to bring to market the Magnetic Random Access Memory or MRAM, which at one time was assumed to be the universal memory that would replace all other memoriesDRAM, SRAM and Flashyet another Silicon Valley hot technology that did not live up to the hype. The SMS team included two Cypress veterans, Jeff Kaszubinski and Sam Geha, who were chartered to build a good startup culture and create bonds to Cypress. We needed to hire the key magnetics talent from the outside. That required separate equity, or penny stock, to attract employees, hence the need for a startup. The startup team worked extraordinarily hard but could never get the MRAM technology to full production status. We eventually achieved economically viable 50 yield on a 256K MRAM but could never solve a nagging blinking bit reliability problem that was quantum mechanical in nature i. e. a matter of science, not engineering. As we worked on solving the various problems that arose during the development of the MRAM, the solutions always added to the MRAMs size and created more complexity. Eventually, the MRAM cell was twice as big as an SRAM cell (not 10x smaller, as hoped). Far from challenging SRAMs in speed, the 4ns write time of the magnetic material itself meant that we could make only medium-speed MRAMs that would never replace fast SRAMs. The final blow came when we added error correction to the MRAM to solve the blinking bit problem. That slowed down the MRAM by another factor of twoand it still wasnt reliable. That was the end of SMS. The people who ran the project did the very best they could have, as I saw it, and have moved upward in their careers at Cypress. The project cost over 50 million before it was shut down. The lessons learned from SMS: 1) Have the funeral earlier we could have pulled the plug a year earlier and saved 15 million. 2) Use high-energy, high-integrity inside people to run ventures if at all possible. 3) Keep re-evaluating your business plan, especially as some of its basic assumptions become invalidits too easy to keep running on the hamster wheel. 4) One of the strengths of Silicon Valley and Cypress is to allow managers to fail and then move on to bigger roles, as did both Kaszubinski and Geha. Cypresss latest startups are San Jose-based Cypress Envirosystems, which makes small systems to save energy, and San Diego-based AgigA Tech, which makes large non-volatile memoriesanother shot at doing what the MRAM was supposed to do. As of the writing of this memo, both companies are hopefulbut still losing money. THE CONCEPT UNDERLYING INTERNAL STARTUPS Cypress may create a startup to go into a new business, such as microcontrollers (CMS) or MRAMs (SMS), or it may be offered a technology such as BiCMOS from an external team (Aspen), or from an internal team, like PSoC (CMS), or it may want to enter into a new business for which it has no extant capability, such as microprocessors (Ross). In a typical case, the startup company is given its own separate equity, 7 to 20 of which (the common shares, also called founders stock or penny stock) is distributed among the founders and employees of the startup. Just as in the case of normal startups, Cypress invests in the new company by buying preferred stock, which has liquidation preferences, meaning that Cypress will own all of the startups assets in the case of failure. The original employees are sold common stock in their company, which is priced at a fraction, usually 10, of the preferred share priceas justified by the liquidation preferences of the preferred stock. By selling stock to employees, rather than granting options, the employees receive long-term capital gains treatment (about 20 tax), rather than the income tax treatment (35-50 tax). Lawyers and accountants are quick to recommend granting stock options to employees, rather than selling common stockbecause its easier for the lawyers and accountants. Explain to them once why you want to give out founders stock, and then, if you hear about stock options again, fire them. Founders shares are technically called restricted stock because although the employee buys the stock, the company restricts the employees ownership of the stock for retention purposes. The company retains the right to buy back an employees stock if the employee leaves the company within a typical four-year vesting period (so-called reverse vesting). For example, if an employee leaves a company after one year, he or she can keep one-fourth of the stock and the company has the right to buy back three-fourths at the low price paid by the employee. At launch, when the startups stock is priced at pennies, its no big deal for employees to write a check for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars to buy and own their own shares. Indeed, reluctance to do so on an employees part is a major warning sign. Later, as the common stock becomes more expensive, employees may not be able to afford to buy it. Only then should the company consider switching over to stock options, which require no cash outlay on the employees part but carry a heavier tax burden. Nonetheless, having options taxed at a rate of 50 is such a huge penalty that startup companies often keep their restricted share programs going by lending money to their employees to buy their restricted stock outright. We did thisgranting several million dollars in employee loansat SMS. The inherent problem is that if the company goes under, the employees still owe the money to the company. To forgive the loans, which Cypress did in the case of SMS, leads to a big (non-cash) loss, even though no such loss would have occurred if stock options rather than restricted stock had been issued. This is the one penalty for pursuing restricted stock too long in the life cycle of a startup. The initial valuation of the startup company (defined here as the preferred share price times the total share count of preferred plus common shares, both outstanding and ungranted in pools) is set to be a reasonable market value for the company as determined by comparables. For example, when Cypress Semiconductor consisted of nothing more than a business plan and six founders at our first round of funding, we sold 72 of the company for 7.5 million, implying a post-money valuation 10.5 million and a pre-money valuation of 3.0 million. Note that in the calculation above, the preferred and common shares are valued equally because in an IPO, the preferred shareholders exchange their preferred stock for common stock, which is a typical requirement of an IPO (new investors do not want a separate class of investors with superior rights). CASE STUDY: CYPRESS ENVIROSYSTEMS Cypress Envirosystems was founded in 2007 to design Cypress chips into small systems and sell them for a multiple of the stand-alone chip value. Cypress Envirosystems is now nine quarters old, currently three quarters behind its revenue plan, but ahead of its cash flow plan, and still on trackI hopeto make its plan and be acquired in Q3 2010. The CEO, Harry Sim, is a Honeywell veteran who is smart, has good business sense and adheres to Cypress values about honesty. We have transferred significant Cypress talent (Bien Irace, Marcus Kramer, etc.) to help Cypress Envirosystems become successful. I will use the attached Cypress Envirosystems one-page business plan as an example throughout this memo. You should detach it for reference. The initial valuation of Cypress Envirosystems, with all shares valued at the preferred share price, was 1.52 million (see the handwritten footnote 1 on the attached business plan labeled A). An alternate estimated market capitalization value for Cypress Systems in its first quarter of operation is 1.0 million, based on comparable companies in their seed funding stage (see footnote 2). The original investment of 918K to fund the company for its first quarter (3) was secured by selling 9.178 million preferred shares (4) to Cypress at 0.10 each (4). With the 6.00 million common shares (5) awarded to the founding team in Q1 2007, there were a total of 15.2 million shares of stock at that time worth 1.52 million, when valued at the preferred share price of 0.10. Thus, after the seed funding, the employees owned 39.5 of the company (6a), but that ownership was later to be diluted by plan to 14.9 (6b), as preferred shares were sold to Cypress on a quarterly basis to fund the company. If Cypress Systems employees find a way to fund their company without selling more preferred shares to Cypress, they will own 39.5 of the shares when Cypress Systems is acquired by Cypress in the future. Not to sell any more than the original 9.178 million shares would more than double the employees reward (due to reduced dilution and higher eventual share price). In a real startup, cash flow and equity dilution matterunlike in the bonus plans used by big corporations. Furthermore, the original deal struck by investors and a startup is permanent. Stock changes hands. Lawyers are involved. Boards pass resolutions. There is no going back to recalculate or reset. The initial equity picture of Cypress Systems seems reasonable: Preferred shares were sold at 0.10 to fund the company, common shares were sold to employees at 0.01, and we ended with a 60-40 Cypress-employee ownership ratio. But where did those initial numbers come from, and how do we know they will make sense in the future In order to answer those questions in a consistent way, we must first understand the PampL and cash flow of Cypress Envirosystems. INCOME (PampL) STATEMENT AND CASH FLOW The first question that must be answered: Is Cypress Envirosystems worth investing in Today, any BU that achieves 40 million in revenue with a 20 growth rate and 20 pretax profit makes a meaningful contribution to Cypresss market value. The one-page plan for Cypress Envirosystems says (7) that the company will achieve this objective in Q3 2010, making its market capitalization about 100 million (8), which adds directly to Cypress market capitalization, using Cypresss traditional 2.5x price-to-sales (PS) ratio (defined here as market capitalization divided by annual sales, calculated as fully diluted shares times share price divided by four times the prior quarters revenue). With about 165 million fully diluted shares, that means Cypress Systems will contribute 100 million or 0.61 to our share price in Q3 2010 if it achieves its plan. Thats enough to get Cypresss attention. The second big question is How much investment does it take to achieve that result This question is answered by creating a standard PampL statement (9), as well as a cash flow statement in which, the free cash flow (10) is displayed along with the PampL in the one-page plan (A). Free cash flow is the operating cash flow (cash coming from or going into operations), minus investments in capital equipment i. e. whats required to fund the company. The startups PampL and free cash flow statements should be created as philosophically faithful to the plan of a true startup as possible. For example, the startup company should pay its own employees from its own bank account, pay Cypress for rent and utilities if its on a Cypress site (11) and in general, pay for its own way from its own bank account. Letting Cypress accountants keep the books and make payroll can destroy the financial independence of a startup. When the startup keeps its own bank account and books, there is no charge for corporate SGampA (12)true startups dont have or want to have corporate overhead. Cypress Envirosystems has its own sales force. If it did not, there would be a commission for the use of the Cypress sales force (13) that would be negotiated at market rates. Note that the planned net income of Cypress Envirosystems starts out with an 875K loss per quarter and stays negative for nine quarters (14). All of those losses need to be funded. In addition, there are extra cash flow needs to buy capital equipment and to fund working capital (inventory and accounts receivable). In its first quarter, Cypress Systems losses account for almost all of its negative cash flow (15), but after that (16), cash flow is a few hundred thousand dollars per quarter worse than the PampL losses. Note that the cash flow losses continue for two full quarters after the PampL statement shows a profit in Q2 2009 (17), necessitating 2.5 million in funding after the company becomes profitable. Cypress Envirosystems does not plan to become cash flow positive (18) until its third quarter of profitability. In Cypresss startup funding system, quarterly equity funding (3) offsets the cash flow losses, dollar for dollar. This mechanism forces a company to fund itself by selling preferred stock every quarter, which, in turn, requires the company and its investors to agree upon the companys valuation (more later). The process of quarterly fundinghaving to raise money, knowing how much your company is worth, getting investors to agreeis the most important feature of the Cypress startup methodology. While we have copied the venture funding methodology as faithfully as possible in all other aspects, I believe that in this respect we have improved upon that system, at least for intrepreneurial startups. The cumulative equity funding (19) represents the total amount of money invested to feed the cash flow needs of the company over time. When the company turns cash flow positive, the cumulative funding bottoms out at the value of the nominal funding plan for the companyin this case (20), 21.931 million for Cypress Systems. With this plan, we can quantitatively ask the question if the startup business plan represents a good investment for Cypress. One way to look at the investment is the way venture capitalists do, by comparing the ratio of the market capitalization of the company created to the investment required. Depending upon the stage of the investment, venture capitalists might want a 5-to-1 to 10-to-1 return on their equity investment, as measured by the value of their stock at the time of a presumed IPO. As a company gets less risky and closer to an IPO, venture capitalists often bring in second and third round investors that view the companys valuation in terms of a discount to the value that presumably would be achieved in an IPO. For example, just months before Cypresss IPO at a price of 4.50 per share, we raised 10 million at 3.75 per share from so-called mezzanine investors who made a profit of 0.753.75 20 in months. In the case of Cypress Envirosystems, their business proposition is that if we invest 21.931 million (20), we will be delivered a company in four years that produces 9.99 million per quarter in revenue and 2.153 million per quarter in profit (7). As mentioned earlier, that would lead to an incremental 100 million valuation to Cypress (8), based on our typical PS ratio of 2.5. Thus, a 22 million investment gives a return of 100 million, a return on investment of 5-to-1, on the low end of the acceptable range. One could make a similar calculation based on a nominal PE ratio of perhaps 12, which was typical or even conservative at the time of the writing of the Cypress Systems plan. The instantaneous market capitalization of Cypress Systems based on a PE ratio in Q3 2010 would then be annualized profit times the PE ratio: 2.153 4 12 103.3 million, essentially the same result as calculated by the PS ratio. (Note that taxes have been ignored in this simplified PE calculation.) Another way to crosscheck valuation result is to do a net present value (NPV) on the cash flow of the startup from the time it turns cash flow positive to estimate the cash payback time. Obviously, this calculation is subject to large errors, since it depends upon summing a profit stream that begins years in the future. At this point, if the plan passes the simple ROI tests, its a go. If it does not, the team is either asked to go back to the drawing board to create a more aggressive plan, or the plan is rejected based on the belief that it cannot be made more profitable or less cash consumptive in a credible way. In the case of Cypress Envirosystems, we modified their first-pass plan by tuning down early revenue as being too optimistic and adding mid-term revenue from as yet unidentified products to create a viable four-year plan. Now that viable PampL, cash flow and funding plans have been created it is time to fit the employees of the new company into the picture. The approximate valuation calculations done above all use the pretax market capitalization of the whole company for making ROI calculations. However, employee equity has yet to be considered in the plan. Given the typical range of 7 to 20 employee ownership, a 5-to-1 pretax return to equity investors would thus be diluted to 4.65-to-1 to 4-to-1, respectively. If equity demands of Cypress Envirosystems employees amounted to 50 of the equity, the Cypresss ROI would be reduced from the 5-to-1 enterprise return to 2.5-to-1 on our investment. In this case, the venture would be rejected as uneconomic. This situation often occurs during good times, such as 2000, when employee expectations are unrealistic (We are the next Cisco you just dont see it yet). In the 1980s, we had a bias to launch multiple startups. After a good share of the early ones failed, as described earlier, I began to study the business processes of the venture capitalists that I deal with more carefully, both in their evaluation of startup proposals and as overseers on boards. The best venture capitalists reject 100 plans for every one they fund and do not fund companies that fail to meet venture capitalist Kevin Burns dictum that Talent is King. They know that it will be the me-too startups that fold first in every downturn. Assuming that the demands of the startup team can be met with a reasonable equity budget (more later), the common stock equity plan of the startup must have certain relationships with those of Cypress. First, the value of the startup equity packages should be better than those from Cypress, so that the startup has preferential hiring power over the established company. Preferential hiring power means that the nominal capital gain of a restricted stock sold a new employee in the startup given at acquisition is significantly higher than the nominal value of the capital gain a new-hire employee would expect from his or her initial stock option or RSU grant at Cypress, as measured over a four or five year period. (For a nominal calculation, assume that Cypress stock will appreciate 10 per year over a four-year period, or 46 total, and make sure that the new employee receives an incentive1.5 to 3 times higher than that, assuming the startup succeeds.) A better working definition for achieving preferential hiring power becomes available when the startup hires existing Cypress employees. As I outlined above, it is highly desirable for Cypress to put some star performers and key managers into each new startup. These Cypress top performers typically have many more options than other Cypress employees, requiring them to leave behind a significant amount of money to join the startup. In order to provide an economic incentive for a key employee to move from Cypress to the startup, anywhere from a 0 to 50 premium is needed. In some cases, Cypress employees are tired of their current Cypress job and will often swap an excellent equity position at Cypress for an equivalent equity position in the new company, especially if they are passionate about what the new company does. Once a few Cypress key employees are hired into the startup, future new-hire equity awards need to be based on comparables to the new mix of employees at the startup to maintain fairness among employees. This often will mean that the new venture must award more restricted stock to the best people it hired earlier from the outside (not just everybody) to bring them closer to the equity offers made later to Cypress transfers. The discussion above very briefly presents the concepts used to create the Employee Equity Table, the fundamental document in the business plan that specifies the number of founders shares to be given to employees joining the startup. The equity package for the founders (for now, lets assume they are all outsiders) are subject to negotiation in the environment of the current startup marketplace. Our startup CEOs have received equity packages that yield 1-4 million at spin-in. The VPs of our startups have received 500,000 to 2 million at spin-in, with non-technical management rookies on the low end and seasoned Cypress technical managers on the high end. The guidelines above are used to create the Employee Equity Table for the new venture, defined to be the stock value (not capital gain) that each employee in the company will have in the event that the company is spun in by Cypress. That list should have the following form: EMPLOYEE EQUITY TABLE The list has several notable attributes. First of all, most of the senior employees of the new ventures (1-8) have the word name in the employee column, meaning that the founders and key employees of the new startup have been identified and an equity reward acceptable to them has been negotiated. Deeper in the list (20), the technical ranks are filled out with TBD employees, whose reward has been predetermined in a consistent manner. Finally, the last-hired groups (30, 50), such as geographically distributed sales and manufacturing workers, are also accounted for as TBD hires. The Employee Equity Table contains the proposed org chart of the company at the time of acquisition. It also gives the sum of the equity awards is what Cypress will pay out at acquisition to employees. They will receive stock or cash for their vested shares and their unvested shares will be swapped for either Cypress options of equivalent value or for cash held in escrow until the vesting date. The early employees can consider the total share value on the chart above as the capital gain they will receive, given that the early common shares will be priced at pennies. Later employees will receive a lesser net award because their shares will be priced at a higher percentage (10-50) of the acquisition price. Thus, the new hire option plan need not offer fewer shares to employees in years two and three because a reasonable reduction of the reward for latecomers is taken care of by the common share price increase built into the plan. However, some of our startups have created plans that offer fewer new-hire shares to employees in the later years. In the case of Cypress Envirosystems (see the All-on-one-page plan marked B), the total number of common share options offered to employees is 15.7 million (1). That equates to a Cypress payment to Cypress Envirosystems employees of 15.7 million at acquisition, which values the company at 1.00 per share for both preferred and common stock (2). The funds received from Cypress Envirosystems employees to by founders stock will have already been used by the startup to build the company and will therefore not offset Cypresss purchase price as in the case of stock options. In effect, Cypress Semiconductor and Cypress Systems struck a deal that Cypress would pay 15.7 million to the employees of the new company to acquire their shares, given that the company achieved 10 million per quarter in revenue and 22 pre-tax profit (3). The legal deal is different in several aspects from the business deal stated the last sentence. In reality, Cypress agreed to fund a company at the valuation levels outlined in plan B, which, at the time of the plan, represented the typical market valuations for a startup company of the type being funded. If the market changes, so will the valuationsthey are not a promise they represent a proforma plan. Cypress may also choose to discontinue funding the company at any time. We may do this because of a lack of performance or because we no longer want to be in the business we have funded. Cypress may also choose not to buy the company, even if it has achieved the revenue and profitability targets planned for the nominal acquisition quarter. Nonetheless, as rational investors, the construction of this plan will cause both Cypress and the company to proceed along the path of plan B (or mutually modified version of it). Cypresss best interests will be served by acquiring an attractive new company in the case of success or recovering as much of its investment as it can in the case of failure. (More about the dynamics of acquisition later.) For the rest of this discussion, I will assume that Cypress and the company proceed along the nominal plan. THE EQUITY PLAN NEAR SPIN-IN The equity plan for the startup can now be calculated in the nominal quarter of acquisition. For a company with 9.990 million in sales (3), a nominal PS ratio of 2.5 (4) and both common and preferred share prices of 1.00 per share (2), the market capitalization of the company is 100 million (5). Consequently, we now know that there must be 100 million shares (common plus preferred) outstanding in the acquisition quarter, when the preferred stock is converted to common and the company is acquired. If the employees hold 15.7 million shares (1), then there must be 84.3 million shares of preferred stock outstanding (6). The 15.7 million common shares come from the employee equity table. The preferred shares come from quarterly investments. The question is whether we can create an equity plan with at-market funding for the startup that produces the desired end result. If so, the four-year plan can be constructed by connecting the initial plan (employee equity table, initial startup valuation, etc.) to the plan for the spin-in. The 15.7 million common shares are well determined by the employee equity table described earlier. In the first quarter of the plan, 6 million shares have been earmarked for the early employees (6), the CEO and a few key engineers from inside Cypress. Given the uncertainty in the business plan and lack of a complete team, we agreed upon an initial valuation for the startup plan of 1.0 million (7), consistent with market values. This number could be much higher for a more established startup with existing products, such as SunPower, which was valued at about 20 million when Cypress first invested in it. In the case of Cypress Systems, the company needed 918,000 (8), which translated into selling Cypress 9.178 million shares (9) at an assumed price of 0.10 (10). This created an equity value of 978,000 (11) in the case that each class of equity was valued at its own price. From my perspective, the value of Cypress Systems at that time was 0.10 (the preferred share price) per share times 9.178 6.000 million total shares, or 1.52 million, as discussed earlier. Although the initial market cap estimation for the company of 1.00 million (7) is somewhat arbitrary, it must stand a market test in that a similar startup company funded at arms-length by venture capitalists or angel investors could be funded at an identical valuation without standing out as an anomalous investment. The Cypress Systems investment met this criterion. My guess (which can be confirmed by hiring outside valuation firms) is that any preferred share price between 0.05 and 0.20 would have been a reasonable at-market price to launch this company. Since the employees, nominal reward is determined by the employee equity table and not the initial valuation of the company, agreement on valuation is easily achieved. When the company has little or no revenue, its market capitalization (7) is estimated on a quarterly basis by comparison to comparable external companies and to a venture investment database that Cypress keeps internally. Once the venture has achieved revenue, numerical market capitalization estimations such as the PS Ratio (ranging from PS0.5 to PS10, depending on the type of company) can be used to give more accurate at-market valuations. Once the company is profitable, both the PS and PE ratios can be used. The idea is to maintain the valuation of the company in the middle of the market at all times to allow us to keep on the proforma plan, assuming market fluctuations are not too disruptive. While Cypress invests at a preferred share price of 0.10, the employees are allowed to invest at the lower common share price (11) of 0.01. This is the penny stock that allows the founding employees to buy their shares outright at a time when the valuation of the company is very low, so that they can realize capital gains tax treatment at the time they sell their shares to Cypress or to the market if the startup is taken public, as in the case of SunPower. When Cypress was founded, a typical ratio of preferred share price to common share price was 20-to-1. Today, a more conservative 10-to-1 preferred-common ratio is commonplace. The discount of the common stock relative to the preferred stock is justified by Cypresss preferencethe company has the right to keep all of the assets of the startup, leaving the common shareholders nothing, in the case that the company is liquidated. As the startup company successfully designs its first product, makes its first revenue, achieves breakeven profitability, etc. the risk that the common shareholders will be wiped out by the preferred shareholders goes down. Hence, the preferred-common share price ratio must begin to move from 10-to-1 toward 1-to-1 at acquisition (2). The creator of the plan now goes into a trial-and-error process to create an equity plan that is consistent with typical startup parameters at the beginning of the plan and with typical IPO or acquisition parameters at the end of the plan. The easiest first approximation is to insert straight-line preferred share price from the founding quarter (10) with a trial 0.10 share price, to the acquisition quarter (2), with a 1.00 share price. Likewise, a straight line can be used to connect the founding common share price of 0.10 (11) to the acquisition common share price of 1.00 (2). Since these two straight lines have different slopes, the preferred-common share price ratio will consequently be reduced on a quarterly basis. For example, in the first quarter of profitability, Q2 2009, when Cypress Envirosystems cash flow is still negative, but the company is hopefully on its way to success, the preferred-common share price ratio (12) is 0.5330.155 3.4-to-1. In the quarter before the proforma spin-in, the preferred-common ratio is only 0.8870.710 1.25-to-1. In actual practice, the straight line approximation works for the preferred share price and curved line which keeps the common share price lower for a longer time works better for common share price, as can be seen by graphing the preferred and common share prices in the Cypress Envirosystems plan. The preferred and common share prices are evaluated by the management team and the board on a quarterly basis. The purpose is to strike a business deal that both sides will accept, to make sure that the value of the company implied by the investment is at-market, and to reflect any significant changes in the market itself. In the early stages, this can be done by the company and its board, using information from other venture capital investments. In the last two years prior to the potential acquisition, the valuations should also be reviewed by an outside firm to certify that they are indeed at-market. There are horrible tax consequences (Reg. 409) for undervaluing the startup and giving its employees cheap stock. The number of preferred shares sold each quarter is calculated by dividing the funding needed by the company by the agreed-upon share price. In actual practice, the preferred share price will deviate from that in the plan if the company is leading or lagging its plan. The amount of cash raised will also differ from plan. The common stock is issued to employees according to the employee equity table and may be given out faster or slower than plan, based on the rate of hiring. In the case of Cypress Envirosystems, all of the funding is assumed to come from preferred stock (a reasonable approximation) for two reasons: 1) the early common shares sell for pennies and therefore do not raise much money (14) and 2) when the common share pricing rises to a significant level (15), it is best to assume that stock options will be given out (no cash into the company) in the later rounds. Thus, there is now enough information to fill out the preferred and common shares issued in every quarter to simultaneously satisfy funding and employee needs, respectively. The only plan variable not yet determined in the first approximation is the total number of preferred shares outstanding in the acquisition quarter (6). Of course, that number has to be empirically determined to make the Cypress Envirosystems plan self-consistent. In a typical case, the first straight-line preferred stock pricing effort will create too many or too few shares. This problem is addressed by adjusting the preferred share price curve in the first quarter. Note, for example, that if the initial preferred share price of 0.10 (10) had been increased to 0.12, it would have resulted in selling 7.650 million preferred shares in Q1 2007, rather than the 9.178 million shares in the plan. Thus, by adjusting the first-round pricingminimally and within the at-market valuation limitsyou can create more or less preferred stockin this case, 1.528 million fewer shares in the very first quarter (with more savings thereafter, given the straight-line method used to calculate preferred share price). This first-quarter adjustment is usually enough to create a straight-line preferred share-funding plan that is self-consistent with the rest of the plan, including the common share plan. Note that if the initial preferred share price must be made too high to achieve a self-consistency, the venture probably does not provide an at-market return to Cypress and the investment should probably be rejected. I am sure the case of an above-market return exists, but I have never seen oneGoogle never walked into Cypress to ask to be funded. The final check is to make sure that each of the common and preferred share price numbers make senseto the investor, to the employee, to the IRS, to the SECin every quarter. (Here is where you will need legal advice.) If I were to critique the Cypress Envirosystems plan today, I would still find it very solid, two years later, but I would probably tweak the common share price of 0.71 in Q2 2010. It represents a discount of 20 relative to the 0.887 preferred share price, perhaps slightly aggressive for a company one quarter away from acquisition. Thus, the straight-line original preferred share price estimate should be considered as an approximation to be tailoredin the beginning quarters when valuation is highly subjective and in the later quarters when the company must worry about the tax laws surrounding cheap stock. If the quarter-by-quarter tuning of the preferred share price plan makes the plan inconsistent again, prorate the non-linear preferred share price curve up or down a few percent to re-balance the plan. After combining employee common share ownership, preferred share funding, product milestones, the profit and loss statement, cash flow and enterprise market capitalization over a four-year period in a mathematically consistent waywhile maintaining common business sense and meeting all legal requirementsthe plan is now ready for approval. There is only one plan. É isso. It gets signed, board-approved and never changes. Once that first 918,000 check moved across to Cypress Envirosystems 9.178 million shares of preferred stock were issued to Cypress and the 6.00 million common shares were sold to Cypress Envirosystems employees, the deal was launched. There was no going back. In practice, stock pricing tends to drift from plan. For example, Cypress MicroSystems succeeded in creating the market capitalization we planned on but the company was years late and spent 34 million more than the original plan to get the job done. That meant it had to sell extra preferred shares to Cypress, diluting the share count well above the nominal plan value. Similarly, if Cypress Envirosystems has to sell 104.3 million preferred shares total in the future, rather than the planed 84.3 million (6), it will end up with about 120 million total outstanding shares, rather than the planned 100 million shares. That would mean its planned market cap of 100 million (5) would be divided by 120 million shares to yield an acquisition price of 0.833 per share, rather than 1.00. Conversely, if the company can scrimp on cash or get customers to pay in advance or take any other measure to reduce the funding required by Cypress, the spin-in acquisition price of their shares will be higher than 1.00 per share. The internal startups that were bought out by Cypress, achieved acquisition prices ranging from 0.20 to 1.10 per share. Once a startup has revenue, an at-market PS ratio can be used to help ensure proper valuation. Before that, in the venture stage, milestones (16) are explicitly added to the one-page plan to allow for objective valuation checks during the first year . Typically, milestones to hire top-quality key people are listed, along with creating the specification (NPP) to launch the first product. After that, we can track further hiring progress and follow-on design milestones, such as sampling new products and first revenue. The milestone section in the Cypress Envirosystems plan (16) includes milestones for two business units and placeholder milestones for Concepts 45 to show when the second tranche of projects must be launched to fill in revenue in the middle part of the business plan. The one-page plan is now complete. It gives revenue, gross margin, allowable RampD and SGampA spending, profit, free cash flow, required funding, cumulative funding, preferred share count and price, common share count and price, and proforma at-market corporate valuation, headcount, and major early development and hiring milestonesall in a self-consistent one-page format. If a new product does not sample on time, more RampD money is spent than planned to produce it, revenue and profit are delayed, causing larger than anticipated losses, increased funding requirements, and higher dilution due to above-plan preferred share sales. The final result is a lower share price at acquisition, which nevertheless only occurs when the revenue and profitability goals are finally achieved. In the column describing the Cypress Envirosystems plan for Q3 2007, there are 36 numbers. They can be thought of as a vector that describes the company at a given stage of development. There are 16 quarterly vectors in the one-page plan that allows the board to accurately and quantitatively evaluate Cypress Envirosystems progress. In the early stages, cost control and corporate milestones dominate the plan and therefore corporate valuation and share prices. Later, the achievement of first revenue and control of expenses are most important. A year prior to acquisition, breaking evenin both profitability and cash floware key milestones. Finally, truly achieving 20 profit at a 40-million annualized revenue rate is the most important milestone of all in that it triggers the acquisition process (more later).
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