Paulo Leocadio

Since the dawn of the 20th century, the field of medical science has undergone remarkable advancements, largely driven by the integration of technology. Notably, the utilization of embedded technology to restore malfunctioning organs to a state closer to their natural functionality has found its pinnacle in the realm of permanent transvenous pacemaker therapy, emerging as an indispensable therapeutic approach for patients afflicted by symptomatic bradyarrhythmia.

The business marketplace has been flooded with waves of technology trends that periodically surface and become present on every other sales pitch from technology vendors and build up as the ultimate necessity in the minds of many CIOs.
There is a variety of examples to mention: downsizing, rightsizing, outsourcing, offshoring, consumerization of IT, and the adoption of Cloud technologies, among others. And like virtual tsunamis, these trends come impacting, sometimes disrupting, and even… Show more

The business marketplace has been flooded with waves of technology trends that periodically surface and become present on every other sales pitch from technology vendors and build up as the ultimate necessity in the minds of many CIOs.
There is a variety of examples to mention: downsizing, rightsizing, outsourcing, offshoring, consumerization of IT, and the adoption of Cloud technologies, among others. And like virtual tsunamis, these trends come impacting, sometimes disrupting, and even influencing the performance or changing the perception of a corporation (or government) in the eyes of the consumer.
It is not different today: tailgating the Cloud adoption, and the spreading of a Big Data mindset to solve problems and build solutions comes Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). Vendors quickly packaged “AI” offerings, often pre-existing call-center-related scripts and chatbots, the door to the CIOs’ IT team was opened, and the offerings began to mature beyond call centers and the diverse medical and micro-biological use.
University and Academic AI-related research were reinforced by highly specialized and well-funded dedicated groups in companies like Google, Facebook, and IBM. Smaller organizations, collectives, and startups are also receiving funding and investments.
Open AI became an important presence under many aspects and circumstances. Anyone can interact online and in real-time with its chatbot, obtaining real-life value as a work tool for many areas.
When asked “please explain what Large Language Models are?”, the OpenAI chatbot responded (OpenAI, 2023): “Large Language Models (LLMs) are a type of artificial intelligence (AI) model that is designed to understand and generate human-like language. These models are trained on massive amounts of text data, such as books, articles, and web pages, and use advanced algorithms to learn the patterns and structures of language. Show less

With the continuously increasing concern with the environment, the adoption of sustainability measures by governments and corporations alike, it would not take long for the carbon footprint and energy use of blockchain technologies, with special attention to the growing number of cryptocurrencies and tokens released to marked frequently.
Tracing a parallel pathway with similar discussions when the adoption of Cloud technologies boomed after 2010 (Hari, Sai, & Venkata, 2015), the attention to… Show more

With the continuously increasing concern with the environment, the adoption of sustainability measures by governments and corporations alike, it would not take long for the carbon footprint and energy use of blockchain technologies, with special attention to the growing number of cryptocurrencies and tokens released to marked frequently.
Tracing a parallel pathway with similar discussions when the adoption of Cloud technologies boomed after 2010 (Hari, Sai, & Venkata, 2015), the attention to the enormous datacenters, their localization, and their energy consumption was a common counter argument to sales pitches to businesses and their significant savings by adopting those technologies.
A common term when talking or reading about cryptocurrencies is “decentralization”, and also distributed and open environment, free from central governments control e centralized policies. Extrapolating to our topic, do we have the answers whether these aspects are eco-friendly, sustainable, or leave low carbon footprint?
Behind the Cloud that we see, as briefly mentioned above, we have regional datacenters, fault recovery datacenters. These very large computing environments consume a considerable amount of power, but also generate, or generate power in the form of heat, certainly with potential to interfere with the environment.
Government sponsored cryptocurrency (specifically Bitcoin or BTC) we funded in China and Argentina for example, leveraging their cold regions, to offset the effects of the mining process (Houy, 2019). It is not different from private investors, with large mining operation in the cold regions of Norway. Soon enough, we might witness large mining operations built underwater like one of the top global Cloud providers did. Show less

Current state of Cloud technologies, Big Data and data sciences driven solutions, machine learning and Artificial Intelligence offerings represents a renovated set of opportunities for sellers and marketers to reach their aimed audiences and further, enabling the identification of questions about customers’ segments, demographics, geographic, among others, where opportunity to expand their reach exists.


Customer satisfaction trends and variations will provide data that can used on… Show more

Current state of Cloud technologies, Big Data and data sciences driven solutions, machine learning and Artificial Intelligence offerings represents a renovated set of opportunities for sellers and marketers to reach their aimed audiences and further, enabling the identification of questions about customers’ segments, demographics, geographic, among others, where opportunity to expand their reach exists.


Customer satisfaction trends and variations will provide data that can used on customer retention and competitive efforts. Customer insight data will help to strengthen loyalty programs on segments as diverse as banking and air travel. Data sets on demographics, behavior, competition will be key to shape products and offerings to the differences identified in the data. These applications, and others, have in common the need for data-related tools and solutions, where a business can retrieve and consume data (Big Data), can prepare the date according to the information needed to achieve a given goal (Analytics), and identify the big questions the business must ask to understand the market and successfully reach existing and new customers (Data Sciences).


This article introduces the application of modern technologies building a market-data intertwined ecosystem where machine learning and analytics raise marketing efforts to the next level of execution. Show less

Smart Cities and, broadly, digital government, e-government, together with every other denomination of public administration operated with strong application of modern technology, Big Data, Cloud Computing, and all sorts of connected devices (IoT or Internet of Things), became a theme at the top of the list of medium to large municipality governments across the world.

Beyond the adoption of existing frameworks and the commission of comprehensive projects from global investment agencies… Show more

Smart Cities and, broadly, digital government, e-government, together with every other denomination of public administration operated with strong application of modern technology, Big Data, Cloud Computing, and all sorts of connected devices (IoT or Internet of Things), became a theme at the top of the list of medium to large municipality governments across the world.

Beyond the adoption of existing frameworks and the commission of comprehensive projects from global investment agencies and global consulting companies, the transformation of a locally governed territory (cities, districts, counties, municipalities) into Smart Cities will be an adaptation (objective or otherwise) of the concepts, models, standards, and principles of smart governments, combined with the adoption of current technologies to achieve the plans of the public administration, according to laws and regulations, within a time frame fundamentally restricted by the electoral schedule (and the administration’s approved budget).


The goal of this article is to introduce sustainable smart cities, having sustainability as both a cause and a consequence of the digital transformation of the standard operations of the government.

A Smart City can have sustainability embedded in its objectives and underlying goals, as much as a consequence of its implementation, with positive or negative outcomes for the population and the geography of the municipality. Show less

The use of technology in medical sciences, specifically the use of embedded technology to correct dysfunctional organs closer to their natural state, found its place with the great cardiac surgeons from the early 1900’s like Dr. Vivien Thomas and Dr. Christiaan Barnard. The consistent leaps in the treatment of diverse, more frequent, or rare heart conditions enabled other fields of science and technology to partner and collaborate to build diverse solutions achieving long-term survival for… Show more

The use of technology in medical sciences, specifically the use of embedded technology to correct dysfunctional organs closer to their natural state, found its place with the great cardiac surgeons from the early 1900’s like Dr. Vivien Thomas and Dr. Christiaan Barnard. The consistent leaps in the treatment of diverse, more frequent, or rare heart conditions enabled other fields of science and technology to partner and collaborate to build diverse solutions achieving long-term survival for patients of all ages.

The early century pioneering of Dr. Albert S. Hyman (Harvard trained cardiologist from New York) to late century ingenuity of Dr. Jose Carlos Pachón-Mateos (University of São Paulo – USP trained cardiologist) who designed and built cardiac pacing and defibrillation devices themselves, to Biotronik SE& CO., KG and Medtronic plc, in the vanguard of researching, designing and providing state of the art pacemakers for more than fifty years, accelerating and expanding the adoption of cardiac pacemaker devices even in high-risk patients (with the incidence of various cardiovascular diseases rising across the globe.

In the todays day and age, the ubiquity of pacemakers is likely to pique the interest of many who, with a quick search on the internet, will find information on websites like the great medical school Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, popular online medical like Medicine Plus, or even Wikepedia, all of them telling us that pacemakers are devices that are surgically implanted to sustain our hearts’ electrical system.

In this article, we will briefly navigate the recent history of pacemakers and respective changes in manufacturing and materials and will illustrate the incredible significance of these devices and their makers. The goal of this text is to draw the profile of the fast-paced innovations included in this famous yet misunderstood device, as well as the changes in risk and the consequences that may be faced in the near future. Show less

“CES is the Global Stage for Innovation” (Consumer Technology Association - CTA, 2022) states the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) in their own words in the CES website introductory page.
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) started in 1967 with its first installment in New York City to allegedly become “the most influential tech event in the world” (Consumer Technology Association - CTA, 2022). Each year CES features manufacturers, vendors and suppliers of a wide variety technology… Show more

“CES is the Global Stage for Innovation” (Consumer Technology Association - CTA, 2022) states the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) in their own words in the CES website introductory page.
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) started in 1967 with its first installment in New York City to allegedly become “the most influential tech event in the world” (Consumer Technology Association - CTA, 2022). Each year CES features manufacturers, vendors and suppliers of a wide variety technology devices and content for consumers.
CES 2022 took place in Las Vegas, NV (United States of America), giving access to a global audience to start-ups and major brands, with the participation of several of the world’s most influential leaders. The event presented over 2300 companies during the exhibition (Consumer Technology Association - CTA, 2021).
Owned by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the CES proposed for this year’s event a look into the future of smart home, vehicle technologies, and start-ups, and revolved around the metaverse, sustainability and repairability, automotive, wellness and home, and NFTs. (Consumer Technology Association - CTA, 2022).
Showcasing current (or soon to be available) product releases, CES 2022 brought new technologies allowing attendees to have a glimpse of the future of technologies for the consumer. Still feeling the impacts of the global pandemic, even with late-minute cancellations from important exhibitors, press representative, and the general audience, the show was further enabled by long-distance remote communication tools, making sure the content was fully delivered as planned (Cervantes, 2022). Show less

In the Internet era, Big Data is a term applied to datasets overflowing the boundaries of traditional database technologies. It brings together the power of computers and repositories with some of the largest inventories of ultra-individualized information to provide insight into every aspect of modern life and human behavior. This is a world where an estimated 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are being produced every day; ninety percent (90%) of the world’s data has been created in the last two… Show more

In the Internet era, Big Data is a term applied to datasets overflowing the boundaries of traditional database technologies. It brings together the power of computers and repositories with some of the largest inventories of ultra-individualized information to provide insight into every aspect of modern life and human behavior. This is a world where an estimated 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are being produced every day; ninety percent (90%) of the world’s data has been created in the last two years. It is also a world where huge challenges and gigantic opportunities are created for regulators. Show less

The article aimed at exemplifying a Masters in International Business applying scholarly concepts on large international operations spanning across multiple geographies, legislations and cultures.

The MSF process model describes a high-level sequence of activities for building and
deploying IT solutions. Rather than prescribing a specific series of procedures, it is
flexible enough to accommodate a broad range of IT projects. It combines two industry
standard models: the waterfall and the spiral. An innovative aspect of this new version
of the MSF model is that it covers the life cycle of a solution from project inception to
live deployment. This helps project teams focus… Show more

The MSF process model describes a high-level sequence of activities for building and
deploying IT solutions. Rather than prescribing a specific series of procedures, it is
flexible enough to accommodate a broad range of IT projects. It combines two industry
standard models: the waterfall and the spiral. An innovative aspect of this new version
of the MSF model is that it covers the life cycle of a solution from project inception to
live deployment. This helps project teams focus on customer business value, since no
value is realized until the solution is deployed and in operation.
MSF is a milestone-driven process. Milestones are points in the project when important
deliverables have been completed and can be reviewed. Many key questions about the
project are asked and answered, such as: Does the team agree on the project scope?
Have we planned enough to proceed? Have we built what we said we would build? Is
the solution working properly for the customer?
The MSF process model is designed to accommodate changing project requirements by
moving iterations through short development cycles and incremental versions of the
solution.
A number of supporting practices are recommended that help project teams use the
process model successfully. Show less

Risk Management is a core discipline of the Microsoft Solutions Framework. MSF recognizes that change and the resulting uncertainty are inherent aspects of the IT lifecycle. The MSF Risk Management Discipline advocates a proactive approach to dealing with this uncertainty, evaluates risks continuously, and uses them to influence decision-making throughout the life cycle.

The MSF Team Model describes Microsoft’s approach to structuring people and their activities to enable project success. The model defines roles, functional areas, responsibilities, and guidance that helps team members reach their unique goals in the project lifecycle.

MOF v.3 was designed to be much more comprehensive, going into extraordinary detail about the intricacies of Security Administration, Directory Services and Administration, or Storage Management. As you can see in the table below (I've bolded the SMFs in the Operating Quadrant, which are the most interesting to me), with one exception, all of the SMFs are now part of the new Operations SMF.