DiTour

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pelaia, II, Thomas A.

2014-06-05

it is common for facilities to have a lobby with a display loop while also requiring an option for guided tours. Existing solutions have required expensive hardware and awkward software. Our solution is relative low cost as it runs on an iPad connected to an external monitor, and our software provides an intuitive touch interface. The media files are downloaded from a web server onto the device allowing a mobile option (e.g. displays at conferences). Media may include arbitrary sequences of images, movies or PDF documents. Tour guides can select different tracks of slides to display and the presentation willmore » return to the default loop after a timeout.« less

Low-noise correlation measurements based on software-defined-radio receivers and cooled microwave amplifiers.

PubMed

Nieminen, Teemu; Lähteenmäki, Pasi; Tan, Zhenbing; Cox, Daniel; Hakonen, Pertti J

2016-11-01

We present a microwave correlation measurement system based on two low-cost USB-connected software defined radio dongles modified to operate as coherent receivers by using a common local oscillator. Existing software is used to obtain I/Q samples from both dongles simultaneously at a software tunable frequency. To achieve low noise, we introduce an easy low-noise solution for cryogenic amplification at 600-900 MHz based on single discrete HEMT with 21 dB gain and 7 K noise temperature. In addition, we discuss the quantization effects in a digital correlation measurement and determination of optimal integration time by applying Allan deviation analysis.

Jane: a new tool for the cophylogeny reconstruction problem.

PubMed

Conow, Chris; Fielder, Daniel; Ovadia, Yaniv; Libeskind-Hadas, Ran

2010-02-03

This paper describes the theory and implementation of a new software tool, called Jane, for the study of historical associations. This problem arises in parasitology (associations of hosts and parasites), molecular systematics (associations of orderings and genes), and biogeography (associations of regions and orderings). The underlying problem is that of reconciling pairs of trees subject to biologically plausible events and costs associated with these events. Existing software tools for this problem have strengths and limitations, and the new Jane tool described here provides functionality that complements existing tools. The Jane software tool uses a polynomial time dynamic programming algorithm in conjunction with a genetic algorithm to find very good, and often optimal, solutions even for relatively large pairs of trees. The tool allows the user to provide rich timing information on both the host and parasite trees. In addition the user can limit host switch distance and specify multiple host switch costs by specifying regions in the host tree and costs for host switches between pairs of regions. Jane also provides a graphical user interface that allows the user to interactively experiment with modifications to the solutions found by the program. Jane is shown to be a useful tool for cophylogenetic reconstruction. Its functionality complements existing tools and it is therefore likely to be of use to researchers in the areas of parasitology, molecular systematics, and biogeography.

Impacts of software and its engineering on the carbon footprint of ICT

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kern, Eva, E-mail: e.kern@umwelt-campus.de; Dick, Markus, E-mail: sustainablesoftwareblog@gmail.com; Naumann, Stefan, E-mail: s.naumann@umwelt-campus.de

2015-04-15

The energy consumption of information and communication technology (ICT) is still increasing. Even though several solutions regarding the hardware side of Green IT exist, the software contribution to Green IT is not well investigated. The carbon footprint is one way to rate the environmental impacts of ICT. In order to get an impression of the induced CO{sub 2} emissions of software, we will present a calculation method for the carbon footprint of a software product over its life cycle. We also offer an approach on how to integrate some aspects of carbon footprint calculation into software development processes and discussmore » impacts and tools regarding this calculation method. We thus show the relevance of energy measurements and the attention to impacts on the carbon footprint by software within Green Software Engineering.« less

A New Framework for Software Visualization: A Multi-Layer Approach

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-09-01

primary target is an exploration of the current state of the area so that we can discover the challenges and propose solutions for them. The study ...Small define both areas of study to collectively be a part of Software Visualization. 22 Visual Programming as ’Visual Programming’ (VP) refers to...founded taxonomy, with the proper characteristics, can further investigation in any field of study . A common language or terminology and the existence of

Software Architecture for a Virtual Environment for Nano Scale Assembly (VENSA).

PubMed

Lee, Yong-Gu; Lyons, Kevin W; Feng, Shaw C

2004-01-01

A Virtual Environment (VE) uses multiple computer-generated media to let a user experience situations that are temporally and spatially prohibiting. The information flow between the user and the VE is bidirectional and the user can influence the environment. The software development of a VE requires orchestrating multiple peripherals and computers in a synchronized way in real time. Although a multitude of useful software components for VEs exists, many of these are packaged within a complex framework and can not be used separately. In this paper, an architecture is presented which is designed to let multiple frameworks work together while being shielded from the application program. This architecture, which is called the Virtual Environment for Nano Scale Assembly (VENSA), has been constructed for interfacing with an optical tweezers instrument for nanotechnology development. However, this approach can be generalized for most virtual environments. Through the use of VENSA, the programmer can rely on existing solutions and concentrate more on the application software design.

Software Architecture for a Virtual Environment for Nano Scale Assembly (VENSA)

PubMed Central

Lee, Yong-Gu; Lyons, Kevin W.; Feng, Shaw C.

2004-01-01

A Virtual Environment (VE) uses multiple computer-generated media to let a user experience situations that are temporally and spatially prohibiting. The information flow between the user and the VE is bidirectional and the user can influence the environment. The software development of a VE requires orchestrating multiple peripherals and computers in a synchronized way in real time. Although a multitude of useful software components for VEs exists, many of these are packaged within a complex framework and can not be used separately. In this paper, an architecture is presented which is designed to let multiple frameworks work together while being shielded from the application program. This architecture, which is called the Virtual Environment for Nano Scale Assembly (VENSA), has been constructed for interfacing with an optical tweezers instrument for nanotechnology development. However, this approach can be generalized for most virtual environments. Through the use of VENSA, the programmer can rely on existing solutions and concentrate more on the application software design. PMID:27366610

Solving the Software Legacy Problem with RISA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ibarra, A.; Gabriel, C.

2012-09-01

Nowadays hardware and system infrastructure evolve on time scales much shorter than the typical duration of space astronomy missions. Data processing software capabilities have to evolve to preserve the scientific return during the entire experiment life time. Software preservation is a key issue that has to be tackled before the end of the project to keep the data usable over many years. We present RISA (Remote Interface to Science Analysis) as a solution to decouple data processing software and infrastructure life-cycles, using JAVA applications and web-services wrappers to existing software. This architecture employs embedded SAS in virtual machines assuring a homogeneous job execution environment. We will also present the first studies to reactivate the data processing software of the EXOSAT mission, the first ESA X-ray astronomy mission launched in 1983, using the generic RISA approach.

Software feedback for monochromator tuning at UNICAT (abstract)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jemian, Pete R.

2002-03-01

Automatic tuning of double-crystal monochromators presents an interesting challenge in software. The goal is to either maximize, or hold constant, the throughput of the monochromator. An additional goal of the software feedback is to disable itself when there is no beam and then, at the user's discretion, re-enable itself when the beam returns. These and other routine goals, such as adherence to limits of travel for positioners, are maintained by software controls. Many solutions exist to lock in and maintain a fixed throughput. Among these include a hardware solution involving a wave form generator, and a lock-in amplifier to autocorrelate the movement of a piezoelectric transducer (PZT) providing fine adjustment of the second crystal Bragg angle. This solution does not work when the positioner is a slow acting device such as a stepping motor. Proportional integral differential (PID) loops have been used to provide feedback through software but additional controls must be provided to maximize the monochromator throughput. Presented here is a software variation of the PID loop which meets the above goals. By using two floating point variables as inputs, representing the intensity of x rays measured before and after the monochromator, it attempts to maximize (or hold constant) the ratio of these two inputs by adjusting an output floating point variable. These floating point variables are connected to hardware channels corresponding to detectors and positioners. When the inputs go out of range, the software will stop making adjustments to the control output. Not limited to monochromator feedback, the software could be used, with beam steering positioners, to maintain a measure of beam position. Advantages of this software feedback are the flexibility of its various components. It has been used with stepping motors and PZTs as positioners. Various devices such as ion chambers, scintillation counters, photodiodes, and photoelectron collectors have been used as detectors. The software provides significant cost savings over hardware feedback methods. Presently implemented in EPICS, the software is sufficiently general to any automated instrument control system.

Integrating existing software toolkits into VO system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cui, Chenzhou; Zhao, Yong-Heng; Wang, Xiaoqian; Sang, Jian; Luo, Ze

2004-09-01

Virtual Observatory (VO) is a collection of interoperating data archives and software tools. Taking advantages of the latest information technologies, it aims to provide a data-intensively online research environment for astronomers all around the world. A large number of high-qualified astronomical software packages and libraries are powerful and easy of use, and have been widely used by astronomers for many years. Integrating those toolkits into the VO system is a necessary and important task for the VO developers. VO architecture greatly depends on Grid and Web services, consequently the general VO integration route is "Java Ready - Grid Ready - VO Ready". In the paper, we discuss the importance of VO integration for existing toolkits and discuss the possible solutions. We introduce two efforts in the field from China-VO project, "gImageMagick" and "Galactic abundance gradients statistical research under grid environment". We also discuss what additional work should be done to convert Grid service to VO service.

Using software agents to preserve individual health data confidentiality in micro-scale geographical analyses.

PubMed

Kamel Boulos, Maged N; Cai, Qiang; Padget, Julian A; Rushton, Gerard

2006-04-01

Confidentiality constraints often preclude the release of disaggregate data about individuals, which limits the types and accuracy of the results of geographical health analyses that could be done. Access to individually geocoded (disaggregate) data often involves lengthy and cumbersome procedures through review boards and committees for approval (and sometimes is not possible). Moreover, current data confidentiality-preserving solutions compatible with fine-level spatial analyses either lack flexibility or yield less than optimal results (because of confidentiality-preserving changes they introduce to disaggregate data), or both. In this paper, we present a simulation case study to illustrate how some analyses cannot be (or will suffer if) done on aggregate data. We then quickly review some existing data confidentiality-preserving techniques, and move on to explore a solution based on software agents with the potential of providing flexible, controlled (software-only) access to unmodified confidential disaggregate data and returning only results that do not expose any person-identifiable details. The solution is thus appropriate for micro-scale geographical analyses where no person-identifiable details are required in the final results (i.e., only aggregate results are needed). Our proposed software agent technique also enables post-coordinated analyses to be designed and carried out on the confidential database(s), as needed, compared to a more conventional solution based on the Web Services model that would only support a rigid, pre-coordinated (pre-determined) and rather limited set of analyses. The paper also provides an exploratory discussion of mobility, security, and trust issues associated with software agents, as well as possible directions/solutions to address these issues, including the use of virtual organizations. Successful partnerships between stakeholder organizations, proper collaboration agreements, clear policies, and unambiguous interpretations of laws and regulations are also much needed to support and ensure the success of any technological solution.

MHD stagnation-point flow over a nonlinearly shrinking sheet with suction effect

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Awaludin, Izyan Syazana; Ahmad, Rokiah; Ishak, Anuar

2018-04-01

The stagnation point flow over a shrinking permeable sheet in the existence of magnetic field is numerically investigated in this paper. The system of partial differential equations are transformed to a nonlinear ordinary differential equation using similarity transformation and is solved numerically using the boundary value problem solver, bvp4c, in Matlab software. It is found that dual solutions exist for a certain range of the shrinking strength.

Teaching IP Networking Fundamentals in Resource Constrained Educational Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Armitage, Grenville; Harrop, Warren

2005-01-01

Many educational institutions suffer from a lack of funding to keep telecommunications laboratory classes up to date and flexible. This paper describes our Remote Unix Lab Environment (RULE), a solution for exposing students to the latest Internet based telecommunications software tools in a Unix like environment. RULE leverages existing PC…

Supporting the Virtual Soldier With a Physics-Based Software Architecture

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-06-01

simple approach taken here). Rather, this paper demonstrates how existing solution schemes can rapidly expand; it embraces all theoretical solution... bodyj . In (5) the superscript ’T’ accompanying a vector denotes the transposition of the vector. The constraint force and moment are defined as F C=Z1 a a...FE codes as there are meshes, and the requested MD code. This is described next. Exactly how the PM instantiated each physics process became an issue

The Development of a Modelling Solution to Address Manpower and Personnel Issues Using the IPME

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-11-01

training for a military system. It deals with the number of personnel spaces and available people. One of the main concerns in this domain is to...are often addressed by examining existing solutions for similar systems and/or a trial-and-error method based on human-in- the -loop tests. Such an...significant effort and resources on the development of a human performance modelling software, the Integrated Performance Modelling Environment (IPME

Analytical approaches to image orientation and stereo digitization applied in the Budnlab software. (Polish Title: Rozwiazania analityczne zwiazane z obsluga procesu orientacji zdjec oraz wykonywaniem opracowan wektorowych w programie Bundlab)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kolecki, J.

2015-12-01

The Bundlab software has been developed mainly for academic and research application. This work can be treated as a kind of a report describing the current state of the development of this computer program, focusing especially on the analytical solutions. Firstly, the overall characteristics of the software are provided. Then the description of the image orientation procedure starting from the relative orientation is addressed. The applied solution is based on the coplanarity equation parametrized with the essential matrix. The problem is reformulated in order to solve it using methods of algebraic geometry. The solution is followed by the optimization involving the least square criterion. The formation of the image block from the oriented models as well as the absolute orientation procedure were implemented using the Horn approach as a base algorithm. The second part of the paper is devoted to the tools and methods applied in the stereo digitization module. The solutions that support the user and improve the accuracy are given. Within the paper a few exemplary applications and products are mentioned. The work finishes with the concepts of development and improvements of existing functions.

Bringing the Unidata IDV to the Cloud

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fisher, W. I.; Oxelson Ganter, J.

2015-12-01

Maintaining software compatibility across new computing environments and the associated underlying hardware is a common problem for software engineers and scientific programmers. While traditional software engineering provides a suite of tools and methodologies which may mitigate this issue, they are typically ignored by developers lacking a background in software engineering. Causing further problems, these methodologies are best applied at the start of project; trying to apply them to an existing, mature project can require an immense effort. Visualization software is particularly vulnerable to this problem, given the inherent dependency on particular graphics hardware and software API's. As a result of these issues, there exists a large body of software which is simultaneously critical to the scientists who are dependent upon it, and yet increasingly difficult to maintain.The solution to this problem was partially provided with the advent of Cloud Computing; Application Streaming. This technology allows a program to run entirely on a remote virtual machine while still allowing for interactivity and dynamic visualizations, with little-to-no re-engineering required. When coupled with containerization technology such as Docker, we are able to easily bring the same visualization software to a desktop, a netbook, a smartphone, and the next generation of hardware, whatever it may be.Unidata has been able to harness Application Streaming to provide a tablet-compatible version of our visualization software, the Integrated Data Viewer (IDV). This work will examine the challenges associated with adapting the IDV to an application streaming platform, and include a brief discussion of the underlying technologies involved.

Methods for cost estimation in software project management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Briciu, C. V.; Filip, I.; Indries, I. I.

2016-02-01

The speed in which the processes used in software development field have changed makes it very difficult the task of forecasting the overall costs for a software project. By many researchers, this task has been considered unachievable, but there is a group of scientist for which this task can be solved using the already known mathematical methods (e.g. multiple linear regressions) and the new techniques as genetic programming and neural networks. The paper presents a solution for building a model for the cost estimation models in the software project management using genetic algorithms starting from the PROMISE datasets related COCOMO 81 model. In the first part of the paper, a summary of the major achievements in the research area of finding a model for estimating the overall project costs is presented together with the description of the existing software development process models. In the last part, a basic proposal of a mathematical model of a genetic programming is proposed including here the description of the chosen fitness function and chromosome representation. The perspective of model described it linked with the current reality of the software development considering as basis the software product life cycle and the current challenges and innovations in the software development area. Based on the author's experiences and the analysis of the existing models and product lifecycle it was concluded that estimation models should be adapted with the new technologies and emerging systems and they depend largely by the chosen software development method.

A software solution for recording circadian oscillator features in time-lapse live cell microscopy.

PubMed

Sage, Daniel; Unser, Michael; Salmon, Patrick; Dibner, Charna

2010-07-06

Fluorescent and bioluminescent time-lapse microscopy approaches have been successfully used to investigate molecular mechanisms underlying the mammalian circadian oscillator at the single cell level. However, most of the available software and common methods based on intensity-threshold segmentation and frame-to-frame tracking are not applicable in these experiments. This is due to cell movement and dramatic changes in the fluorescent/bioluminescent reporter protein during the circadian cycle, with the lowest expression level very close to the background intensity. At present, the standard approach to analyze data sets obtained from time lapse microscopy is either manual tracking or application of generic image-processing software/dedicated tracking software. To our knowledge, these existing software solutions for manual and automatic tracking have strong limitations in tracking individual cells if their plane shifts. In an attempt to improve existing methodology of time-lapse tracking of a large number of moving cells, we have developed a semi-automatic software package. It extracts the trajectory of the cells by tracking theirs displacements, makes the delineation of cell nucleus or whole cell, and finally yields measurements of various features, like reporter protein expression level or cell displacement. As an example, we present here single cell circadian pattern and motility analysis of NIH3T3 mouse fibroblasts expressing a fluorescent circadian reporter protein. Using Circadian Gene Express plugin, we performed fast and nonbiased analysis of large fluorescent time lapse microscopy datasets. Our software solution, Circadian Gene Express (CGE), is easy to use and allows precise and semi-automatic tracking of moving cells over longer period of time. In spite of significant circadian variations in protein expression with extremely low expression levels at the valley phase, CGE allows accurate and efficient recording of large number of cell parameters, including level of reporter protein expression, velocity, direction of movement, and others. CGE proves to be useful for the analysis of widefield fluorescent microscopy datasets, as well as for bioluminescence imaging. Moreover, it might be easily adaptable for confocal image analysis by manually choosing one of the focal planes of each z-stack of the various time points of a time series. CGE is a Java plugin for ImageJ; it is freely available at: http://bigwww.epfl.ch/sage/soft/circadian/.

Application of the AHP method in modeling the trust and reputation of software agents

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zytniewski, Mariusz; Klementa, Marek; Skorupka, Dariusz; Stanek, Stanislaw; Duchaczek, Artur

2016-06-01

Given the unique characteristics of cyberspace and, in particular, the number of inherent security threats, communication between software agents becomes a highly complex issue and a major challenge that, on the one hand, needs to be continuously monitored and, on the other, awaits new solutions addressing its vulnerabilities. An approach that has recently come into view mimics mechanisms typical of social systems and is based on trust and reputation that assist agents in deciding which other agents to interact with. The paper offers an enhancement to existing trust and reputation models, involving the application of the AHP method that is widely used for decision support in social systems, notably for risks analysis. To this end, it is proposed to expand the underlying conceptual basis by including such notions as self-trust and social trust, and to apply these to software agents. The discussion is concluded with an account of an experiment aimed at testing the effectiveness of the proposed solution.

Promising More Information

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2003-01-01

When NASA needed a real-time, online database system capable of tracking documentation changes in its propulsion test facilities, engineers at Stennis Space Center joined with ECT International, of Brookfield, Wisconsin, to create a solution. Through NASA's Dual-Use Program, ECT developed Exdata, a software program that works within the company's existing Promise software. Exdata not only satisfied NASA s requirements, but also expanded ECT s commercial product line. Promise, ECT s primary product, is an intelligent software program with specialized functions for designing and documenting electrical control systems. An addon to AutoCAD software, Promis e generates control system schematics, panel layouts, bills of material, wire lists, and terminal plans. The drawing functions include symbol libraries, macros, and automatic line breaking. Primary Promise customers include manufacturing companies, utilities, and other organizations with complex processes to control.

Towards an Early Software Effort Estimation Based on Functional and Non-Functional Requirements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kassab, Mohamed; Daneva, Maya; Ormandjieva, Olga

The increased awareness of the non-functional requirements as a key to software project and product success makes explicit the need to include them in any software project effort estimation activity. However, the existing approaches to defining size-based effort relationships still pay insufficient attention to this need. This paper presents a flexible, yet systematic approach to the early requirements-based effort estimation, based on Non-Functional Requirements ontology. It complementarily uses one standard functional size measurement model and a linear regression technique. We report on a case study which illustrates the application of our solution approach in context and also helps evaluate our experiences in using it.

Local, regional and national interoperability in hospital-level systems architecture.

PubMed

Mykkänen, J; Korpela, M; Ripatti, S; Rannanheimo, J; Sorri, J

2007-01-01

Interoperability of applications in health care is faced with various needs by patients, health professionals, organizations and policy makers. A combination of existing and new applications is a necessity. Hospitals are in a position to drive many integration solutions, but need approaches which combine local, regional and national requirements and initiatives with open standards to support flexible processes and applications on a local hospital level. We discuss systems architecture of hospitals in relation to various processes and applications, and highlight current challenges and prospects using a service-oriented architecture approach. We also illustrate these aspects with examples from Finnish hospitals. A set of main services and elements of service-oriented architectures for health care facilities are identified, with medium-term focus which acknowledges existing systems as a core part of service-oriented solutions. The services and elements are grouped according to functional and interoperability cohesion. A transition towards service-oriented architecture in health care must acknowledge existing health information systems and promote the specification of central processes and software services locally and across organizations. Software industry best practices such as SOA must be combined with health care knowledge to respond to central challenges such as continuous change in health care. A service-oriented approach cannot entirely rely on common standards and frameworks but it must be locally adapted and complemented.

S-Cube: Enabling the Next Generation of Software Services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Metzger, Andreas; Pohl, Klaus

The Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm is increasingly adopted by industry for building distributed software systems. However, when designing, developing and operating innovative software services and servicebased systems, several challenges exist. Those challenges include how to manage the complexity of those systems, how to establish, monitor and enforce Quality of Service (QoS) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs), as well as how to build those systems such that they can proactively adapt to dynamically changing requirements and context conditions. Developing foundational solutions for those challenges requires joint efforts of different research communities such as Business Process Management, Grid Computing, Service Oriented Computing and Software Engineering. This paper provides an overview of S-Cube, the European Network of Excellence on Software Services and Systems. S-Cube brings together researchers from leading research institutions across Europe, who join their competences to develop foundations, theories as well as methods and tools for future service-based systems.

SDA 7: A modular and parallel implementation of the simulation of diffusional association software

PubMed Central

Martinez, Michael; Romanowska, Julia; Kokh, Daria B.; Ozboyaci, Musa; Yu, Xiaofeng; Öztürk, Mehmet Ali; Richter, Stefan

2015-01-01

The simulation of diffusional association (SDA) Brownian dynamics software package has been widely used in the study of biomacromolecular association. Initially developed to calculate bimolecular protein–protein association rate constants, it has since been extended to study electron transfer rates, to predict the structures of biomacromolecular complexes, to investigate the adsorption of proteins to inorganic surfaces, and to simulate the dynamics of large systems containing many biomacromolecular solutes, allowing the study of concentration‐dependent effects. These extensions have led to a number of divergent versions of the software. In this article, we report the development of the latest version of the software (SDA 7). This release was developed to consolidate the existing codes into a single framework, while improving the parallelization of the code to better exploit modern multicore shared memory computer architectures. It is built using a modular object‐oriented programming scheme, to allow for easy maintenance and extension of the software, and includes new features, such as adding flexible solute representations. We discuss a number of application examples, which describe some of the methods available in the release, and provide benchmarking data to demonstrate the parallel performance. © 2015 The Authors. Journal of Computational Chemistry Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. PMID:26123630

An overview of platforms for cloud based development.

PubMed

Fylaktopoulos, G; Goumas, G; Skolarikis, M; Sotiropoulos, A; Maglogiannis, I

2016-01-01

This paper provides an overview of the state of the art technologies for software development in cloud environments. The surveyed systems cover the whole spectrum of cloud-based development including integrated programming environments, code repositories, software modeling, composition and documentation tools, and application management and orchestration. In this work we evaluate the existing cloud development ecosystem based on a wide number of characteristics like applicability (e.g. programming and database technologies supported), productivity enhancement (e.g. editor capabilities, debugging tools), support for collaboration (e.g. repository functionality, version control) and post-development application hosting and we compare the surveyed systems. The conducted survey proves that software engineering in the cloud era has made its initial steps showing potential to provide concrete implementation and execution environments for cloud-based applications. However, a number of important challenges need to be addressed for this approach to be viable. These challenges are discussed in the article, while a conclusion is drawn that although several steps have been made, a compact and reliable solution does not yet exist.

Needs challenge software

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

NONE

1997-07-01

New hardware and software tools build on existing platforms and add performance and ease-of-use benefits as the struggle to find and produce hydrocarbons at the lowest cost becomes more and more competitive. Software tools now provide geoscientists and petroleum engineers with a better understanding of reservoirs from the shape and makeup of formation to behavior projections as hydrocarbons are extracted. Petroleum software tools allow scientists to simulate oil flow, predict the life expectancy of a reservoir, and even help determine how to extend the life and economic viability of the reservoir. The requirement of the petroleum industry to find andmore » extract petroleum more efficiently drives the solutions provided by software and service companies. To one extent or another, most of the petroleum software products available today have achieved an acceptable level of competency. Innovative, high-impact products from small, focussed companies often were bought out by larger companies with deeper pockets if their developers couldn`t fund their expansion. Other products disappeared from the scene, because they were unable to evolve fast enough to compete. There are still enough small companies around producing excellent products to prevent the marketplace from feeling too narrow and lacking in choice. Oil companies requiring specific solutions to their problems have helped fund product development within the commercial sector. As the industry has matured, strategic alliances between vendors, both hardware and software, have provided market advantages, often combining strengths to enter new and undeveloped areas for technology. The pace of technological development has been fast and constant.« less

Making the PACS workstation a browser of image processing software: a feasibility study using inter-process communication techniques.

PubMed

Wang, Chunliang; Ritter, Felix; Smedby, Orjan

2010-07-01

To enhance the functional expandability of a picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) workstation and to facilitate the integration of third-part image-processing modules, we propose a browser-server style method. In the proposed solution, the PACS workstation shows the front-end user interface defined in an XML file while the image processing software is running in the background as a server. Inter-process communication (IPC) techniques allow an efficient exchange of image data, parameters, and user input between the PACS workstation and stand-alone image-processing software. Using a predefined communication protocol, the PACS workstation developer or image processing software developer does not need detailed information about the other system, but will still be able to achieve seamless integration between the two systems and the IPC procedure is totally transparent to the final user. A browser-server style solution was built between OsiriX (PACS workstation software) and MeVisLab (Image-Processing Software). Ten example image-processing modules were easily added to OsiriX by converting existing MeVisLab image processing networks. Image data transfer using shared memory added <10ms of processing time while the other IPC methods cost 1-5 s in our experiments. The browser-server style communication based on IPC techniques is an appealing method that allows PACS workstation developers and image processing software developers to cooperate while focusing on different interests.

Evolution of the Space Shuttle Primary Avionics Software and Avionics for Shuttle Derived Launch Vehicles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ferguson, Roscoe C.

2011-01-01

As a result of recommendation from the Augustine Panel, the direction for Human Space Flight has been altered from the original plan referred to as Constellation. NASA s Human Exploration Framework Team (HEFT) proposes the use of a Shuttle Derived Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (SDLV) and an Orion derived spacecraft (salvaged from Constellation) to support a new flexible direction for space exploration. The SDLV must be developed within an environment of a constrained budget and a preferred fast development schedule. Thus, it has been proposed to utilize existing assets from the Shuttle Program to speed development at a lower cost. These existing assets should not only include structures such as external tanks or solid rockets, but also the Flight Software which has traditionally been a "long pole" in new development efforts. The avionics and software for the Space Shuttle was primarily developed in the 70 s and considered state of the art for that time. As one may argue that the existing avionics and flight software may be too outdated to support the new SDLV effort, this is a fallacy if they can be evolved over time into a "modern avionics" platform. The technology may be outdated, but the avionics concepts and flight software algorithms are not. The reuse of existing avionics and software also allows for the reuse of development, verification, and operations facilities. The keyword is evolve in that these assets can support the fast development of such a vehicle, but then be gradually evolved over time towards more modern platforms as budget and schedule permits. The "gold" of the flight software is the "control loop" algorithms of the vehicle. This is the Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) software algorithms. This software is typically the most expensive to develop, test, and verify. Thus, the approach is to preserve the GNC flight software, while first evolving the supporting software (such as Command and Data Handling, Caution and Warning, Telemetry, etc.). This can be accomplished by gradually removing the "support software" from the legacy flight software leaving only the GNC algorithms. The "support software" could be re-developed for modern platforms, while leaving the GNC algorithms to execute on technology compatible with the legacy system. It is also possible to package the GNC algorithms into an emulated version of the original computer (via Field Programmable Gate Arrays or FPGAs), thus becoming a "GNC on a Chip" solution where it could live forever to be embedded in modern avionics platforms.

From Archi Torture to Architecture: Undergraduate Students Design and Implement Computers Using the Multimedia Logic Emulator

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stanley, Timothy D.; Wong, Lap Kei; Prigmore, Daniel; Benson, Justin; Fishler, Nathan; Fife, Leslie; Colton, Don

2007-01-01

Students learn better when they both hear and do. In computer architecture courses "doing" can be difficult in small schools without hardware laboratories hosted by computer engineering, electrical engineering, or similar departments. Software solutions exist. Our success with George Mills' Multimedia Logic (MML) is the focus of this paper. MML…

LLIMAS: Revolutionizing integrating modeling and analysis at MIT Lincoln Laboratory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Doyle, Keith B.; Stoeckel, Gerhard P.; Rey, Justin J.; Bury, Mark E.

2017-08-01

MIT Lincoln Laboratory's Integrated Modeling and Analysis Software (LLIMAS) enables the development of novel engineering solutions for advanced prototype systems through unique insights into engineering performance and interdisciplinary behavior to meet challenging size, weight, power, environmental, and performance requirements. LLIMAS is a multidisciplinary design optimization tool that wraps numerical optimization algorithms around an integrated framework of structural, thermal, optical, stray light, and computational fluid dynamics analysis capabilities. LLIMAS software is highly extensible and has developed organically across a variety of technologies including laser communications, directed energy, photometric detectors, chemical sensing, laser radar, and imaging systems. The custom software architecture leverages the capabilities of existing industry standard commercial software and supports the incorporation of internally developed tools. Recent advances in LLIMAS's Structural-Thermal-Optical Performance (STOP), aeromechanical, and aero-optical capabilities as applied to Lincoln prototypes are presented.

Software packager user's guide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Callahan, John R.

1995-01-01

Software integration is a growing area of concern for many programmers and software managers because the need to build new programs quickly from existing components is greater than ever. This includes building versions of software products for multiple hardware platforms and operating systems, building programs from components written in different languages, and building systems from components that must execute on different machines in a distributed network. The goal of software integration is to make building new programs from existing components more seamless -- programmers should pay minimal attention to the underlying configuration issues involved. Libraries of reusable components and classes are important tools but only partial solutions to software development problems. Even though software components may have compatible interfaces, there may be other reasons, such as differences between execution environments, why they cannot be integrated. Often, components must be adapted or reimplemented to fit into another application because of implementation differences -- they are implemented in different programming languages, dependent on different operating system resources, or must execute on different physical machines. The software packager is a tool that allows programmers to deal with interfaces between software components and ignore complex integration details. The packager takes modular descriptions of the structure of a software system written in the package specification language and produces an integration program in the form of a makefile. If complex integration tools are needed to integrate a set of components, such as remote procedure call stubs, their use is implied by the packager automatically and stub generation tools are invoked in the corresponding makefile. The programmer deals only with the components themselves and not the details of how to build the system on any given platform.

Scientific Software - the role of best practices and recommendations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fritzsch, Bernadette; Bernstein, Erik; Castell, Wolfgang zu; Diesmann, Markus; Haas, Holger; Hammitzsch, Martin; Konrad, Uwe; Lähnemann, David; McHardy, Alice; Pampel, Heinz; Scheliga, Kaja; Schreiber, Andreas; Steglich, Dirk

2017-04-01

In Geosciences - like in most other communities - scientific work strongly depends on software. For big data analysis, existing (closed or open source) program packages are often mixed with newly developed codes. Different versions of software components and varying configurations can influence the result of data analysis. This often makes reproducibility of results and reuse of codes very difficult. Policies for publication and documentation of used and newly developed software, along with best practices, can help tackle this problem. Within the Helmholtz Association a Task Group "Access to and Re-use of scientific software" was implemented by the Open Science Working Group in 2016. The aim of the Task Group is to foster the discussion about scientific software in the Open Science context and to formulate recommendations for the production and publication of scientific software, ensuring open access to it. As a first step, a workshop gathered interested scientists from institutions across Germany. The workshop brought together various existing initiatives from different scientific communities to analyse current problems, share established best practices and come up with possible solutions. The subjects in the working groups covered a broad range of themes, including technical infrastructures, standards and quality assurance, citation of software and reproducibility. Initial recommendations are presented and discussed in the talk. They are the foundation for further discussions in the Helmholtz Association and the Priority Initiative "Digital Information" of the Alliance of Science Organisations in Germany. The talk aims to inform about the activities and to link with other initiatives on the national or international level.

Uses of megavoltage digital tomosynthesis in radiotherapy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sarkar, Vikren

With the advent of intensity modulated radiotherapy, radiation treatment plans are becoming more conformal to the tumor with the decreasing margins. It is therefore of prime importance that the patient be positioned correctly prior to treatment. Therefore, image guided treatment is necessary for intensity modulated radiotherapy plans to be implemented successfully. Current advanced imaging devices require costly hardware and software upgrade, and radiation imaging solutions, such as cone beam computed tomography, may introduce extra radiation dose to the patient in order to acquire better quality images. Thus, there is a need to extend current existing imaging device ability and functions while reducing cost and radiation dose. Existing electronic portal imaging devices can be used to generate computed tomography-like tomograms through projection images acquired over a small angle using the technique of cone-beam digital tomosynthesis. Since it uses a fraction of the images required for computed tomography reconstruction, use of this technique correspondingly delivers only a fraction of the imaging dose to the patient. Furthermore, cone-beam digital tomosynthesis can be offered as a software-only solution as long as a portal imaging device is available. In this study, the feasibility of performing digital tomosynthesis using individually-acquired megavoltage images from a charge coupled device-based electronic portal imaging device was investigated. Three digital tomosynthesis reconstruction algorithms, the shift-and-add, filtered back-projection, and simultaneous algebraic reconstruction technique, were compared considering the final image quality and radiation dose during imaging. A software platform, DART, was created using a combination of the Matlab and C++ languages. The platform allows for the registration of a reference Cone Beam Digital Tomosynthesis (CBDT) image against a daily acquired set to determine how to shift the patient prior to treatment. Finally, the software was extended to investigate if the digital tomosynthesis dataset could be used in an adaptive radiotherapy regimen through the use of the Pinnacle treatment planning software to recalculate dose delivered. The feasibility study showed that the megavoltage CBDT visually agreed with corresponding megavoltage computed tomography images. The comparative study showed that the best compromise between imaging quality and imaging dose is obtained when 11 projection images, acquired over an imaging angle of 40°, are used with the filtered back-projection algorithm. DART was successfully used to register reference and daily image sets to within 1 mm in-plane and 2.5 mm out of plane. The DART platform was also effectively used to generate updated files that the Pinnacle treatment planning system used to calculate updated dose in a rigidly shifted patient. These doses were then used to calculate a cumulative dose distribution that could be used by a physician as reference to decide when the treatment plan should be updated. In conclusion, this study showed that a software solution is possible to extend existing electronic portal imaging devices to function as cone-beam digital tomosynthesis devices and achieve daily requirement for image guided intensity modulated radiotherapy treatments. The DART platform also has the potential to be used as a part of adaptive radiotherapy solution.

Digital echocardiography 2002: now is the time

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Thomas, James D.; Greenberg, Neil L.; Garcia, Mario J.

2002-01-01

The ability to acquire echocardiographic images digitally, store and transfer these data using the DICOM standard, and routinely analyze examinations exists today and allows the implementation of a digital echocardiography laboratory. The purpose of this review article is to outline the critical components of a digital echocardiography laboratory, discuss general strategies for implementation, and put forth some of the pitfalls that we have encountered in our own implementation. The major components of the digital laboratory include (1) digital echocardiography machines with network output, (2) a switched high-speed network, (3) a high throughput server with abundant local storage, (4) a reliable low-cost archive, (5) software to manage information, and (6) support mechanisms for software and hardware. Implementation strategies can vary from a complete vendor solution providing all components (hardware, software, support), to a strategy similar to our own where standard computer and networking hardware are used with specialized software for management of image and measurement information.

Object-Oriented Technology-Based Software Library for Operations of Water Reclamation Centers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Otani, Tetsuo; Shimada, Takehiro; Yoshida, Norio; Abe, Wataru

SCADA systems in water reclamation centers have been constructed based on hardware and software that each manufacturer produced according to their design. Even though this approach used to be effective to realize real-time and reliable execution, it is an obstacle to cost reduction about system construction and maintenance. A promising solution to address the problem is to set specifications that can be used commonly. In terms of software, information model approach has been adopted in SCADA systems in other field, such as telecommunications and power systems. An information model is a piece of software specification that describes a physical or logical object to be monitored. In this paper, we propose information models for operations of water reclamation centers, which have not ever existed. In addition, we show the feasibility of the information model in terms of common use and processing performance.

Quantifying Uncertainties in Navigation and Orbit Propagation Analyses

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Krieger, Andrew W.; Welch, Bryan W.

2017-01-01

A tool used to calculate dilution of precision (DOP) was created in order to assist the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program to analyze current and future user missions. The SCaN Center for Engineering, Networks, Integration, and Communication (SCENIC) is developing a new user interface (UI) to augment and replace the capabilities of currently used commercial software, such as Systems Tool Kit (STK). The DOP tool will be integrated in the SCENIC UI and will be used to analyze the accuracy of navigation solutions. This tool was developed using MATLAB and free and open-source tools to save cost and to use already existing orbital software libraries. GPS DOP data was collected and used for validation purposes. The similarities between the DOP tool results and GPS data show that the DOP tool is performing correctly. Additional improvements can be made in the DOP tool to improve its accuracy and performance in analyzing navigation solutions.

Protection of Mobile Agents Execution Using a Modified Self-Validating Branch-Based Software Watermarking with External Sentinel

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tomàs-Buliart, Joan; Fernández, Marcel; Soriano, Miguel

Critical infrastructures are usually controlled by software entities. To monitor the well-function of these entities, a solution based in the use of mobile agents is proposed. Some proposals to detect modifications of mobile agents, as digital signature of code, exist but they are oriented to protect software against modification or to verify that an agent have been executed correctly. The aim of our proposal is to guarantee that the software is being executed correctly by a non trusted host. The way proposed to achieve this objective is by the improvement of the Self-Validating Branch-Based Software Watermarking by Myles et al.. The proposed modification is the incorporation of an external element called sentinel which controls branch targets. This technique applied in mobile agents can guarantee the correct operation of an agent or, at least, can detect suspicious behaviours of a malicious host during the execution of the agent instead of detecting when the execution of the agent have finished.

What Not To Do: Anti-patterns for Developing Scientific Workflow Software Components

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Futrelle, J.; Maffei, A. R.; Sosik, H. M.; Gallager, S. M.; York, A.

2013-12-01

Scientific workflows promise to enable efficient scaling-up of researcher code to handle large datasets and workloads, as well as documentation of scientific processing via standardized provenance records, etc. Workflow systems and related frameworks for coordinating the execution of otherwise separate components are limited, however, in their ability to overcome software engineering design problems commonly encountered in pre-existing components, such as scripts developed externally by scientists in their laboratories. In practice, this often means that components must be rewritten or replaced in a time-consuming, expensive process. In the course of an extensive workflow development project involving large-scale oceanographic image processing, we have begun to identify and codify 'anti-patterns'--problematic design characteristics of software--that make components fit poorly into complex automated workflows. We have gone on to develop and document low-effort solutions and best practices that efficiently address the anti-patterns we have identified. The issues, solutions, and best practices can be used to evaluate and improve existing code, as well as guiding the development of new components. For example, we have identified a common anti-pattern we call 'batch-itis' in which a script fails and then cannot perform more work, even if that work is not precluded by the failure. The solution we have identified--removing unnecessary looping over independent units of work--is often easier to code than the anti-pattern, as it eliminates the need for complex control flow logic in the component. Other anti-patterns we have identified are similarly easy to identify and often easy to fix. We have drawn upon experience working with three science teams at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, each of which has designed novel imaging instruments and associated image analysis code. By developing use cases and prototypes within these teams, we have undertaken formal evaluations of software components developed by programmers with widely varying levels of expertise, and have been able to discover and characterize a number of anti-patterns. Our evaluation methodology and testbed have also enabled us to assess the efficacy of strategies to address these anti-patterns according to scientifically relevant metrics, such as ability of algorithms to perform faster than the rate of data acquisition and the accuracy of workflow component output relative to ground truth. The set of anti-patterns and solutions we have identified augments of the body of more well-known software engineering anti-patterns by addressing additional concerns that obtain when a software component has to function as part of a workflow assembled out of independently-developed codebases. Our experience shows that identifying and resolving these anti-patterns reduces development time and improves performance without reducing component reusability.

Addressing failures in exascale computing

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Snir, Marc; Wisniewski, Robert W.; Abraham, Jacob A.

2014-05-01

We present here a report produced by a workshop on “Addressing Failures in Exascale Computing” held in Park City, Utah, August 4–11, 2012. The charter of this workshop was to establish a common taxonomy about resilience across all the levels in a computing system; discuss existing knowledge on resilience across the various hardware and software layers of an exascale system; and build on those results, examining potential solutions from both a hardware and software perspective and focusing on a combined approach. The workshop brought together participants with expertise in applications, system software, and hardware; they came from industry, government, andmore » academia; and their interests ranged from theory to implementation. The combination allowed broad and comprehensive discussions and led to this document, which summarizes and builds on those discussions.« less

Addressing Failures in Exascale Computing

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Snir, Marc; Wisniewski, Robert; Abraham, Jacob

2014-01-01

We present here a report produced by a workshop on Addressing failures in exascale computing' held in Park City, Utah, 4-11 August 2012. The charter of this workshop was to establish a common taxonomy about resilience across all the levels in a computing system, discuss existing knowledge on resilience across the various hardware and software layers of an exascale system, and build on those results, examining potential solutions from both a hardware and software perspective and focusing on a combined approach. The workshop brought together participants with expertise in applications, system software, and hardware; they came from industry, government, andmore » academia, and their interests ranged from theory to implementation. The combination allowed broad and comprehensive discussions and led to this document, which summarizes and builds on those discussions.« less

Towards a Methodology for Identifying Program Constraints During Requirements Analysis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Romo, Lilly; Gates, Ann Q.; Della-Piana, Connie Kubo

1997-01-01

Requirements analysis is the activity that involves determining the needs of the customer, identifying the services that the software system should provide and understanding the constraints on the solution. The result of this activity is a natural language document, typically referred to as the requirements definition document. Some of the problems that exist in defining requirements in large scale software projects includes synthesizing knowledge from various domain experts and communicating this information across multiple levels of personnel. One approach that addresses part of this problem is called context monitoring and involves identifying the properties of and relationships between objects that the system will manipulate. This paper examines several software development methodologies, discusses the support that each provide for eliciting such information from experts and specifying the information, and suggests refinements to these methodologies.

An efficient approach to the deployment of complex open source information systems

PubMed Central

Cong, Truong Van Chi; Groeneveld, Eildert

2011-01-01

Complex open source information systems are usually implemented as component-based software to inherit the available functionality of existing software packages developed by third parties. Consequently, the deployment of these systems not only requires the installation of operating system, application framework and the configuration of services but also needs to resolve the dependencies among components. The problem becomes more challenging when the application must be installed and used on different platforms such as Linux and Windows. To address this, an efficient approach using the virtualization technology is suggested and discussed in this paper. The approach has been applied in our project to deploy a web-based integrated information system in molecular genetics labs. It is a low-cost solution to benefit both software developers and end-users. PMID:22102770

Design of a secure remote management module for a software-operated medical device.

PubMed

Burnik, Urban; Dobravec, Štefan; Meža, Marko

2017-12-09

Software-based medical devices need to be maintained throughout their entire life cycle. The efficiency of after-sales maintenance can be improved by managing medical systems remotely. This paper presents how to design the remote access function extensions in order to prevent risks imposed by uncontrolled remote access. A thorough analysis of standards and legislation requirements regarding safe operation and risk management of medical devices is presented. Based on the formal requirements, a multi-layer machine design solution is proposed that eliminates remote connectivity risks by strict separation of regular device functionalities from remote management service, deploys encrypted communication links and uses digital signatures to prevent mishandling of software images. The proposed system may also be used as an efficient version update of the existing medical device designs.

Testing Scientific Software: A Systematic Literature Review.

PubMed

Kanewala, Upulee; Bieman, James M

2014-10-01

Scientific software plays an important role in critical decision making, for example making weather predictions based on climate models, and computation of evidence for research publications. Recently, scientists have had to retract publications due to errors caused by software faults. Systematic testing can identify such faults in code. This study aims to identify specific challenges, proposed solutions, and unsolved problems faced when testing scientific software. We conducted a systematic literature survey to identify and analyze relevant literature. We identified 62 studies that provided relevant information about testing scientific software. We found that challenges faced when testing scientific software fall into two main categories: (1) testing challenges that occur due to characteristics of scientific software such as oracle problems and (2) testing challenges that occur due to cultural differences between scientists and the software engineering community such as viewing the code and the model that it implements as inseparable entities. In addition, we identified methods to potentially overcome these challenges and their limitations. Finally we describe unsolved challenges and how software engineering researchers and practitioners can help to overcome them. Scientific software presents special challenges for testing. Specifically, cultural differences between scientist developers and software engineers, along with the characteristics of the scientific software make testing more difficult. Existing techniques such as code clone detection can help to improve the testing process. Software engineers should consider special challenges posed by scientific software such as oracle problems when developing testing techniques.

Human Motion Tracking and Glove-Based User Interfaces for Virtual Environments in ANVIL

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dumas, Joseph D., II

2002-01-01

The Army/NASA Virtual Innovations Laboratory (ANVIL) at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) provides an environment where engineers and other personnel can investigate novel applications of computer simulation and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies. Among the many hardware and software resources in ANVIL are several high-performance Silicon Graphics computer systems and a number of commercial software packages, such as Division MockUp by Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) and Jack by Unigraphics Solutions, Inc. These hardware and software platforms are used in conjunction with various VR peripheral I/O (input / output) devices, CAD (computer aided design) models, etc. to support the objectives of the MSFC Engineering Systems Department/Systems Engineering Support Group (ED42) by studying engineering designs, chiefly from the standpoint of human factors and ergonomics. One of the more time-consuming tasks facing ANVIL personnel involves the testing and evaluation of peripheral I/O devices and the integration of new devices with existing hardware and software platforms. Another important challenge is the development of innovative user interfaces to allow efficient, intuitive interaction between simulation users and the virtual environments they are investigating. As part of his Summer Faculty Fellowship, the author was tasked with verifying the operation of some recently acquired peripheral interface devices and developing new, easy-to-use interfaces that could be used with existing VR hardware and software to better support ANVIL projects.

Designing an algorithm to preserve privacy for medical record linkage with error-prone data.

PubMed

Pal, Doyel; Chen, Tingting; Zhong, Sheng; Khethavath, Praveen

2014-01-20

Linking medical records across different medical service providers is important to the enhancement of health care quality and public health surveillance. In records linkage, protecting the patients' privacy is a primary requirement. In real-world health care databases, records may well contain errors due to various reasons such as typos. Linking the error-prone data and preserving data privacy at the same time are very difficult. Existing privacy preserving solutions for this problem are only restricted to textual data. To enable different medical service providers to link their error-prone data in a private way, our aim was to provide a holistic solution by designing and developing a medical record linkage system for medical service providers. To initiate a record linkage, one provider selects one of its collaborators in the Connection Management Module, chooses some attributes of the database to be matched, and establishes the connection with the collaborator after the negotiation. In the Data Matching Module, for error-free data, our solution offered two different choices for cryptographic schemes. For error-prone numerical data, we proposed a newly designed privacy preserving linking algorithm named the Error-Tolerant Linking Algorithm, that allows the error-prone data to be correctly matched if the distance between the two records is below a threshold. We designed and developed a comprehensive and user-friendly software system that provides privacy preserving record linkage functions for medical service providers, which meets the regulation of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It does not require a third party and it is secure in that neither entity can learn the records in the other's database. Moreover, our novel Error-Tolerant Linking Algorithm implemented in this software can work well with error-prone numerical data. We theoretically proved the correctness and security of our Error-Tolerant Linking Algorithm. We have also fully implemented the software. The experimental results showed that it is reliable and efficient. The design of our software is open so that the existing textual matching methods can be easily integrated into the system. Designing algorithms to enable medical records linkage for error-prone numerical data and protect data privacy at the same time is difficult. Our proposed solution does not need a trusted third party and is secure in that in the linking process, neither entity can learn the records in the other's database.

Computer Models Simulate Fine Particle Dispersion

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2010-01-01

Through a NASA Seed Fund partnership with DEM Solutions Inc., of Lebanon, New Hampshire, scientists at Kennedy Space Center refined existing software to study the electrostatic phenomena of granular and bulk materials as they apply to planetary surfaces. The software, EDEM, allows users to import particles and obtain accurate representations of their shapes for modeling purposes, such as simulating bulk solids behavior, and was enhanced to be able to more accurately model fine, abrasive, cohesive particles. These new EDEM capabilities can be applied in many industries unrelated to space exploration and have been adopted by several prominent U.S. companies, including John Deere, Pfizer, and Procter & Gamble.

Study of tethered satellite active attitude control

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Colombo, G.

1982-01-01

Existing software was adapted for the study of tethered subsatellite rotational dynamics, an analytic solution for a stable configuration of a tethered subsatellite was developed, the analytic and numerical integrator (computer) solutions for this "test case' was compared in a two mass tether model program (DUMBEL), the existing multiple mass tether model (SKYHOOK) was modified to include subsatellite rotational dynamics, the analytic "test case,' was verified, and the use of the SKYHOOK rotational dynamics capability with a computer run showing the effect of a single off axis thruster on the behavior of the subsatellite was demonstrated. Subroutines for specific attitude control systems are developed and applied to the study of the behavior of the tethered subsatellite under realistic on orbit conditions. The effect of all tether "inputs,' including pendular oscillations, air drag, and electrodynamic interactions, on the dynamic behavior of the tether are included.

Quantitative CMMI Assessment for Offshoring through the Analysis of Project Management Repositories

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sunetnanta, Thanwadee; Nobprapai, Ni-On; Gotel, Olly

The nature of distributed teams and the existence of multiple sites in offshore software development projects pose a challenging setting for software process improvement. Often, the improvement and appraisal of software processes is achieved through a turnkey solution where best practices are imposed or transferred from a company’s headquarters to its offshore units. In so doing, successful project health checks and monitoring for quality on software processes requires strong project management skills, well-built onshore-offshore coordination, and often needs regular onsite visits by software process improvement consultants from the headquarters’ team. This paper focuses on software process improvement as guided by the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) and proposes a model to evaluate the status of such improvement efforts in the context of distributed multi-site projects without some of this overhead. The paper discusses the application of quantitative CMMI assessment through the collection and analysis of project data gathered directly from project repositories to facilitate CMMI implementation and reduce the cost of such implementation for offshore-outsourced software development projects. We exemplify this approach to quantitative CMMI assessment through the analysis of project management data and discuss the future directions of this work in progress.

Operable Data Management for Ocean Observing Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chavez, F. P.; Graybeal, J. B.; Godin, M. A.

2004-12-01

As oceanographic observing systems become more numerous and complex, data management solutions must follow. Most existing oceanographic data management systems fall into one of three categories: they have been developed as dedicated solutions, with limited application to other observing systems; they expect that data will be pre-processed into well-defined formats, such as netCDF; or they are conceived as robust, generic data management solutions, with complexity (high) and maturity and adoption rates (low) to match. Each approach has strengths and weaknesses; no approach yet fully addresses, nor takes advantage of, the sophistication of ocean observing systems as they are now conceived. In this presentation we describe critical data management requirements for advanced ocean observing systems, of the type envisioned by ORION and IOOS. By defining common requirements -- functional, qualitative, and programmatic -- for all such ocean observing systems, the performance and nature of the general data management solution can be characterized. Issues such as scalability, maintaining metadata relationships, data access security, visualization, and operational flexibility suggest baseline architectural characteristics, which may in turn lead to reusable components and approaches. Interoperability with other data management systems, with standards-based solutions in metadata specification and data transport protocols, and with the data management infrastructure envisioned by IOOS and ORION, can also be used to define necessary capabilities. Finally, some requirements for the software infrastructure of ocean observing systems can be inferred. Early operational results and lessons learned, from development and operations of MBARI ocean observing systems, are used to illustrate key requirements, choices, and challenges. Reference systems include the Monterey Ocean Observing System (MOOS), its component software systems (Software Infrastructure and Applications for MOOS, and the Shore Side Data System), and the Autonomous Ocean Sampling Network (AOSN).

Software Application Profile: Opal and Mica: open-source software solutions for epidemiological data management, harmonization and dissemination

PubMed Central

Doiron, Dany; Marcon, Yannick; Fortier, Isabel; Burton, Paul; Ferretti, Vincent

2017-01-01

Abstract Motivation Improving the dissemination of information on existing epidemiological studies and facilitating the interoperability of study databases are essential to maximizing the use of resources and accelerating improvements in health. To address this, Maelstrom Research proposes Opal and Mica, two inter-operable open-source software packages providing out-of-the-box solutions for epidemiological data management, harmonization and dissemination. Implementation Opal and Mica are two standalone but inter-operable web applications written in Java, JavaScript and PHP. They provide web services and modern user interfaces to access them. General features Opal allows users to import, manage, annotate and harmonize study data. Mica is used to build searchable web portals disseminating study and variable metadata. When used conjointly, Mica users can securely query and retrieve summary statistics on geographically dispersed Opal servers in real-time. Integration with the DataSHIELD approach allows conducting more complex federated analyses involving statistical models. Availability Opal and Mica are open-source and freely available at [www.obiba.org] under a General Public License (GPL) version 3, and the metadata models and taxonomies that accompany them are available under a Creative Commons licence. PMID:29025122

Testing Scientific Software: A Systematic Literature Review

PubMed Central

Kanewala, Upulee; Bieman, James M.

2014-01-01

Context Scientific software plays an important role in critical decision making, for example making weather predictions based on climate models, and computation of evidence for research publications. Recently, scientists have had to retract publications due to errors caused by software faults. Systematic testing can identify such faults in code. Objective This study aims to identify specific challenges, proposed solutions, and unsolved problems faced when testing scientific software. Method We conducted a systematic literature survey to identify and analyze relevant literature. We identified 62 studies that provided relevant information about testing scientific software. Results We found that challenges faced when testing scientific software fall into two main categories: (1) testing challenges that occur due to characteristics of scientific software such as oracle problems and (2) testing challenges that occur due to cultural differences between scientists and the software engineering community such as viewing the code and the model that it implements as inseparable entities. In addition, we identified methods to potentially overcome these challenges and their limitations. Finally we describe unsolved challenges and how software engineering researchers and practitioners can help to overcome them. Conclusions Scientific software presents special challenges for testing. Specifically, cultural differences between scientist developers and software engineers, along with the characteristics of the scientific software make testing more difficult. Existing techniques such as code clone detection can help to improve the testing process. Software engineers should consider special challenges posed by scientific software such as oracle problems when developing testing techniques. PMID:25125798

An Object-Oriented Database Interface for Ada

DTIC Science & Technology

1993-12-01

single object model, a unique extension for each ODM system may be required. The existence of Classic Ada with persistence provides evidence that a...prototypes and also through a commercial product known as Classic Ada with persistence. Classic Ada, a product marketed by Software Productivity Solutions...legal Ada constructs. Classic Ada with persistence provides an extra keyword, persistent, so that a user-defined class can be declared persistent. The

A system for the management of requests at an image data bank. M.S. Thesis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Debarrosaguirre, J. L. (Principal Investigator)

1984-01-01

An automated system was implemented to supersede existing manual procedures in fulfilling user requests made to a remote sensing data bank, concerning specifically LANDSAT imagery. The system controls the several production steps from request entry to the shipment of each final product. Special solutions and techniques were employed due to the severe limitations, in both hardware and software of the host minicomputer system.

Machining Chatter Analysis for High Speed Milling Operations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sekar, M.; Kantharaj, I.; Amit Siddhappa, Savale

2017-10-01

Chatter in high speed milling is characterized by time delay differential equations (DDE). Since closed form solution exists only for simple cases, the governing non-linear DDEs of chatter problems are solved by various numerical methods. Custom codes to solve DDEs are tedious to build, implement and not error free and robust. On the other hand, software packages provide solution to DDEs, however they are not straight forward to implement. In this paper an easy way to solve DDE of chatter in milling is proposed and implemented with MATLAB. Time domain solution permits the study and model of non-linear effects of chatter vibration with ease. Time domain results are presented for various stable and unstable conditions of cut and compared with stability lobe diagrams.

Building a gateway with open source software for secure-DICOM communication over insecure networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Emmel, Dirk; Ricke, Jens; Stohlmann, Lutz; Haderer, Alexander; Felix, Roland

2002-05-01

For Teleradiology the exchange of DICOM-images is needed for several purposes. Existing solutions often don't consider about the needs for data security and data privacy. Communication is done without any encryption over insecure networks or with encryption using proprietary solutions, which reduces the data communication possibilities to partners with the same equipment. Our goal was to build a gateway, which offers a transparent solution for secure DICOM-communication in a heterogeneous environment We developed a PC-based gateway system with DICOM-communication to the in-house network and secure DICOM communication for the communication over the insecure network. One gateway installed at each location is responsible for encryption/decryption. The sender just transfers the image data over the DICOM protocol to the local gateway. The gateway forwards the data to the gateway on the destination site using the secure DICOM protocol, which is part of the DICOM standard. The receiving gateway forwards the image data to the final destination again using the DICOM-Protocol. The gateway is based on Open Source software and runs under several operating systems. Our experience shows a reliable solution, which solves security issues for DICOM communication of image data and integrates seamless into a heterogeneous DICOM environment.

LFQProfiler and RNP(xl): Open-Source Tools for Label-Free Quantification and Protein-RNA Cross-Linking Integrated into Proteome Discoverer.

PubMed

Veit, Johannes; Sachsenberg, Timo; Chernev, Aleksandar; Aicheler, Fabian; Urlaub, Henning; Kohlbacher, Oliver

2016-09-02

Modern mass spectrometry setups used in today's proteomics studies generate vast amounts of raw data, calling for highly efficient data processing and analysis tools. Software for analyzing these data is either monolithic (easy to use, but sometimes too rigid) or workflow-driven (easy to customize, but sometimes complex). Thermo Proteome Discoverer (PD) is a powerful software for workflow-driven data analysis in proteomics which, in our eyes, achieves a good trade-off between flexibility and usability. Here, we present two open-source plugins for PD providing additional functionality: LFQProfiler for label-free quantification of peptides and proteins, and RNP(xl) for UV-induced peptide-RNA cross-linking data analysis. LFQProfiler interacts with existing PD nodes for peptide identification and validation and takes care of the entire quantitative part of the workflow. We show that it performs at least on par with other state-of-the-art software solutions for label-free quantification in a recently published benchmark ( Ramus, C.; J. Proteomics 2016 , 132 , 51 - 62 ). The second workflow, RNP(xl), represents the first software solution to date for identification of peptide-RNA cross-links including automatic localization of the cross-links at amino acid resolution and localization scoring. It comes with a customized integrated cross-link fragment spectrum viewer for convenient manual inspection and validation of the results.

Integrating information technologies as tools for surgical research.

PubMed

Schell, Scott R

2005-10-01

Surgical research is dependent upon information technologies. Selection of the computer, operating system, and software tool that best support the surgical investigator's needs requires careful planning before research commences. This manuscript presents a brief tutorial on how surgical investigators can best select these information technologies, with comparisons and recommendations between existing systems, software, and solutions. Privacy concerns, based upon HIPAA and other regulations, now require careful proactive attention to avoid legal penalties, civil litigation, and financial loss. Security issues are included as part of the discussions related to selection and application of information technology. This material was derived from a segment of the Association for Academic Surgery's Fundamentals of Surgical Research course.

Open source software to control Bioflo bioreactors.

PubMed

Burdge, David A; Libourel, Igor G L

2014-01-01

Bioreactors are designed to support highly controlled environments for growth of tissues, cell cultures or microbial cultures. A variety of bioreactors are commercially available, often including sophisticated software to enhance the functionality of the bioreactor. However, experiments that the bioreactor hardware can support, but that were not envisioned during the software design cannot be performed without developing custom software. In addition, support for third party or custom designed auxiliary hardware is often sparse or absent. This work presents flexible open source freeware for the control of bioreactors of the Bioflo product family. The functionality of the software includes setpoint control, data logging, and protocol execution. Auxiliary hardware can be easily integrated and controlled through an integrated plugin interface without altering existing software. Simple experimental protocols can be entered as a CSV scripting file, and a Python-based protocol execution model is included for more demanding conditional experimental control. The software was designed to be a more flexible and free open source alternative to the commercially available solution. The source code and various auxiliary hardware plugins are publicly available for download from https://github.com/LibourelLab/BiofloSoftware. In addition to the source code, the software was compiled and packaged as a self-installing file for 32 and 64 bit windows operating systems. The compiled software will be able to control a Bioflo system, and will not require the installation of LabVIEW.

Open Source Software to Control Bioflo Bioreactors

PubMed Central

Burdge, David A.; Libourel, Igor G. L.

2014-01-01

Bioreactors are designed to support highly controlled environments for growth of tissues, cell cultures or microbial cultures. A variety of bioreactors are commercially available, often including sophisticated software to enhance the functionality of the bioreactor. However, experiments that the bioreactor hardware can support, but that were not envisioned during the software design cannot be performed without developing custom software. In addition, support for third party or custom designed auxiliary hardware is often sparse or absent. This work presents flexible open source freeware for the control of bioreactors of the Bioflo product family. The functionality of the software includes setpoint control, data logging, and protocol execution. Auxiliary hardware can be easily integrated and controlled through an integrated plugin interface without altering existing software. Simple experimental protocols can be entered as a CSV scripting file, and a Python-based protocol execution model is included for more demanding conditional experimental control. The software was designed to be a more flexible and free open source alternative to the commercially available solution. The source code and various auxiliary hardware plugins are publicly available for download from https://github.com/LibourelLab/BiofloSoftware. In addition to the source code, the software was compiled and packaged as a self-installing file for 32 and 64 bit windows operating systems. The compiled software will be able to control a Bioflo system, and will not require the installation of LabVIEW. PMID:24667828

76 FR 13665 - The Mega Life & Health Ins. Co., a Subsidiary of Healthmarkets, Inc., Including Workers Whose...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-03-14

... Computer Solutions and Software International, Inc., Dell Service Sales, Emdeon Business Services, KFORCE... workers from Computer Solutions and Software International, Inc., Dell Service Sales, Emdeon Business... from Computer Solutions and Software International, Inc., Dell Service Sales, Emdeon Business Services...

Testing Software Development Project Productivity Model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lipkin, Ilya

Software development is an increasingly influential factor in today's business environment, and a major issue affecting software development is how an organization estimates projects. If the organization underestimates cost, schedule, and quality requirements, the end results will not meet customer needs. On the other hand, if the organization overestimates these criteria, resources that could have been used more profitably will be wasted. There is no accurate model or measure available that can guide an organization in a quest for software development, with existing estimation models often underestimating software development efforts as much as 500 to 600 percent. To address this issue, existing models usually are calibrated using local data with a small sample size, with resulting estimates not offering improved cost analysis. This study presents a conceptual model for accurately estimating software development, based on an extensive literature review and theoretical analysis based on Sociotechnical Systems (STS) theory. The conceptual model serves as a solution to bridge organizational and technological factors and is validated using an empirical dataset provided by the DoD. Practical implications of this study allow for practitioners to concentrate on specific constructs of interest that provide the best value for the least amount of time. This study outlines key contributing constructs that are unique for Software Size E-SLOC, Man-hours Spent, and Quality of the Product, those constructs having the largest contribution to project productivity. This study discusses customer characteristics and provides a framework for a simplified project analysis for source selection evaluation and audit task reviews for the customers and suppliers. Theoretical contributions of this study provide an initial theory-based hypothesized project productivity model that can be used as a generic overall model across several application domains such as IT, Command and Control, Simulation and etc... This research validates findings from previous work concerning software project productivity and leverages said results in this study. The hypothesized project productivity model provides statistical support and validation of expert opinions used by practitioners in the field of software project estimation.

The role of CFD in the design process

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jennions, Ian K.

1994-05-01

Over the last decade the role played by CFD codes in turbomachinery design has changed remarkably. While convergence/stability or even the existence of unique solutions was discussed fervently ten years ago, CFD codes now form a valuable part of an overall integrated design system and have caused us to re-think much of what we do. The geometric and physical complexities addressed have also evolved, as have the number of software houses competing with in-house developers to provide solutions to daily design problems. This paper reviews how GE Aircraft Engines (GEAE) uses CFD in the turbomachinery design process and examines many of the issues faced in successful code implementation.

Web accessibility and open source software.

PubMed

Obrenović, Zeljko

2009-07-01

A Web browser provides a uniform user interface to different types of information. Making this interface universally accessible and more interactive is a long-term goal still far from being achieved. Universally accessible browsers require novel interaction modalities and additional functionalities, for which existing browsers tend to provide only partial solutions. Although functionality for Web accessibility can be found as open source and free software components, their reuse and integration is complex because they were developed in diverse implementation environments, following standards and conventions incompatible with the Web. To address these problems, we have started several activities that aim at exploiting the potential of open-source software for Web accessibility. The first of these activities is the development of Adaptable Multi-Interface COmmunicator (AMICO):WEB, an infrastructure that facilitates efficient reuse and integration of open source software components into the Web environment. The main contribution of AMICO:WEB is in enabling the syntactic and semantic interoperability between Web extension mechanisms and a variety of integration mechanisms used by open source and free software components. Its design is based on our experiences in solving practical problems where we have used open source components to improve accessibility of rich media Web applications. The second of our activities involves improving education, where we have used our platform to teach students how to build advanced accessibility solutions from diverse open-source software. We are also partially involved in the recently started Eclipse projects called Accessibility Tools Framework (ACTF), the aim of which is development of extensible infrastructure, upon which developers can build a variety of utilities that help to evaluate and enhance the accessibility of applications and content for people with disabilities. In this article we briefly report on these activities.

Sparse kernel methods for high-dimensional survival data.

PubMed

Evers, Ludger; Messow, Claudia-Martina

2008-07-15

Sparse kernel methods like support vector machines (SVM) have been applied with great success to classification and (standard) regression settings. Existing support vector classification and regression techniques however are not suitable for partly censored survival data, which are typically analysed using Cox's proportional hazards model. As the partial likelihood of the proportional hazards model only depends on the covariates through inner products, it can be 'kernelized'. The kernelized proportional hazards model however yields a solution that is dense, i.e. the solution depends on all observations. One of the key features of an SVM is that it yields a sparse solution, depending only on a small fraction of the training data. We propose two methods. One is based on a geometric idea, where-akin to support vector classification-the margin between the failed observation and the observations currently at risk is maximised. The other approach is based on obtaining a sparse model by adding observations one after another akin to the Import Vector Machine (IVM). Data examples studied suggest that both methods can outperform competing approaches. Software is available under the GNU Public License as an R package and can be obtained from the first author's website http://www.maths.bris.ac.uk/~maxle/software.html.

Supporting Interdisciplinary Collaboration Through Reusable Free Software. A Research Student Experience

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dimech, C.

2013-12-01

In this contribution, I present a critical evaluation of my experience as a research student conducting an interdisciplinary project that bridges the world of geoscience with that of astronomy. The major challenge consists in studying and modifying existing geophysical software to work with synthetic solar data not obtained by direct measurement but useful for testing and evaluation, and data released from the satellite HINODE and the Solar Dynamics Observatory. I have been fortunate to collaborate closely with multiple geoscientists keen to share their software codes and help me understand their implementations so I can extend the methodology to solve problems in solar physics. Moreover, two additional experiences have helped me develop my research and collaborative skills. First was an opportunity to involve an undergraduate student, and secondly, my participation at the GNU Hackers Meeting in Paris. Three aspects that need particular attention to enhance the collective productivity of any group of individuals keen to extend existing codes to achieve further interdisciplinary goals have been identified. (1) The production of easily reusable code that users can study and modify even when large sets of computations are involved. (2) The transformation of solutions into tools that are 100% free software. (3) The harmonisation of collaborative interactions that effectively tackle the two aforementioned tasks. Each one will be discussed in detail during this session based on my experience as a research student.

CosmoQuest Transient Tracker: Opensource Photometry & Astrometry software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Myers, Joseph L.; Lehan, Cory; Gay, Pamela; Richardson, Matthew; CosmoQuest Team

2018-01-01

CosmoQuest is moving from online citizen science, to observational astronomy with the creation of Transient Trackers. This open source software is designed to identify asteroids and other transient/variable objects in image sets. Transient Tracker’s features in final form will include: astrometric and photometric solutions, identification of moving/transient objects, identification of variable objects, and lightcurve analysis. In this poster we present our initial, v0.1 release and seek community input.This software builds on the existing NIH funded ImageJ libraries. Creation of this suite of opensource image manipulation routines is lead by Wayne Rasband and is released primarily under the MIT license. In this release, we are building on these libraries to add source identification for point / point-like sources, and to do astrometry. Our materials released under the Apache 2.0 license on github (http://github.com/CosmoQuestTeam) and documentation can be found at http://cosmoquest.org/TransientTracker.

Measuring health care process quality with software quality measures.

PubMed

Yildiz, Ozkan; Demirörs, Onur

2012-01-01

Existing quality models focus on some specific diseases, clinics or clinical areas. Although they contain structure, process, or output type measures, there is no model which measures quality of health care processes comprehensively. In addition, due to the not measured overall process quality, hospitals cannot compare quality of processes internally and externally. To bring a solution to above problems, a new model is developed from software quality measures. We have adopted the ISO/IEC 9126 software quality standard for health care processes. Then, JCIAS (Joint Commission International Accreditation Standards for Hospitals) measurable elements were added to model scope for unifying functional requirements. Assessment (diagnosing) process measurement results are provided in this paper. After the application, it was concluded that the model determines weak and strong aspects of the processes, gives a more detailed picture for the process quality, and provides quantifiable information to hospitals to compare their processes with multiple organizations.

Expert system development for commonality analysis in space programs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Yeager, Dorian P.

1987-01-01

This report is a combination of foundational mathematics and software design. A mathematical model of the Commonality Analysis problem was developed and some important properties discovered. The complexity of the problem is described herein and techniques, both deterministic and heuristic, for reducing that complexity are presented. Weaknesses are pointed out in the existing software (System Commonality Analysis Tool) and several improvements are recommended. It is recommended that: (1) an expert system for guiding the design of new databases be developed; (2) a distributed knowledge base be created and maintained for the purpose of encoding the commonality relationships between design items in commonality databases; (3) a software module be produced which automatically generates commonality alternative sets from commonality databases using the knowledge associated with those databases; and (4) a more complete commonality analysis module be written which is capable of generating any type of feasible solution.

Developing sustainable software solutions for bioinformatics by the “ Butterfly” paradigm

PubMed Central

Ahmed, Zeeshan; Zeeshan, Saman; Dandekar, Thomas

2014-01-01

Software design and sustainable software engineering are essential for the long-term development of bioinformatics software. Typical challenges in an academic environment are short-term contracts, island solutions, pragmatic approaches and loose documentation. Upcoming new challenges are big data, complex data sets, software compatibility and rapid changes in data representation. Our approach to cope with these challenges consists of iterative intertwined cycles of development (“ Butterfly” paradigm) for key steps in scientific software engineering. User feedback is valued as well as software planning in a sustainable and interoperable way. Tool usage should be easy and intuitive. A middleware supports a user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) as well as a database/tool development independently. We validated the approach of our own software development and compared the different design paradigms in various software solutions. PMID:25383181

Designing an Algorithm to Preserve Privacy for Medical Record Linkage With Error-Prone Data

PubMed Central

Pal, Doyel; Chen, Tingting; Khethavath, Praveen

2014-01-01

Background Linking medical records across different medical service providers is important to the enhancement of health care quality and public health surveillance. In records linkage, protecting the patients’ privacy is a primary requirement. In real-world health care databases, records may well contain errors due to various reasons such as typos. Linking the error-prone data and preserving data privacy at the same time are very difficult. Existing privacy preserving solutions for this problem are only restricted to textual data. Objective To enable different medical service providers to link their error-prone data in a private way, our aim was to provide a holistic solution by designing and developing a medical record linkage system for medical service providers. Methods To initiate a record linkage, one provider selects one of its collaborators in the Connection Management Module, chooses some attributes of the database to be matched, and establishes the connection with the collaborator after the negotiation. In the Data Matching Module, for error-free data, our solution offered two different choices for cryptographic schemes. For error-prone numerical data, we proposed a newly designed privacy preserving linking algorithm named the Error-Tolerant Linking Algorithm, that allows the error-prone data to be correctly matched if the distance between the two records is below a threshold. Results We designed and developed a comprehensive and user-friendly software system that provides privacy preserving record linkage functions for medical service providers, which meets the regulation of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It does not require a third party and it is secure in that neither entity can learn the records in the other’s database. Moreover, our novel Error-Tolerant Linking Algorithm implemented in this software can work well with error-prone numerical data. We theoretically proved the correctness and security of our Error-Tolerant Linking Algorithm. We have also fully implemented the software. The experimental results showed that it is reliable and efficient. The design of our software is open so that the existing textual matching methods can be easily integrated into the system. Conclusions Designing algorithms to enable medical records linkage for error-prone numerical data and protect data privacy at the same time is difficult. Our proposed solution does not need a trusted third party and is secure in that in the linking process, neither entity can learn the records in the other’s database. PMID:25600786

Using RDF and Git to Realize a Collaborative Metadata Repository.

PubMed

Stöhr, Mark R; Majeed, Raphael W; Günther, Andreas

2018-01-01

The German Center for Lung Research (DZL) is a research network with the aim of researching respiratory diseases. The participating study sites' register data differs in terms of software and coding system as well as data field coverage. To perform meaningful consortium-wide queries through one single interface, a uniform conceptual structure is required covering the DZL common data elements. No single existing terminology includes all our concepts. Potential candidates such as LOINC and SNOMED only cover specific subject areas or are not granular enough for our needs. To achieve a broadly accepted and complete ontology, we developed a platform for collaborative metadata management. The DZL data management group formulated detailed requirements regarding the metadata repository and the user interfaces for metadata editing. Our solution builds upon existing standard technologies allowing us to meet those requirements. Its key parts are RDF and the distributed version control system Git. We developed a software system to publish updated metadata automatically and immediately after performing validation tests for completeness and consistency.

SEQADAPT: an adaptable system for the tracking, storage and analysis of high throughput sequencing experiments.

PubMed

Burdick, David B; Cavnor, Chris C; Handcock, Jeremy; Killcoyne, Sarah; Lin, Jake; Marzolf, Bruz; Ramsey, Stephen A; Rovira, Hector; Bressler, Ryan; Shmulevich, Ilya; Boyle, John

2010-07-14

High throughput sequencing has become an increasingly important tool for biological research. However, the existing software systems for managing and processing these data have not provided the flexible infrastructure that research requires. Existing software solutions provide static and well-established algorithms in a restrictive package. However as high throughput sequencing is a rapidly evolving field, such static approaches lack the ability to readily adopt the latest advances and techniques which are often required by researchers. We have used a loosely coupled, service-oriented infrastructure to develop SeqAdapt. This system streamlines data management and allows for rapid integration of novel algorithms. Our approach also allows computational biologists to focus on developing and applying new methods instead of writing boilerplate infrastructure code. The system is based around the Addama service architecture and is available at our website as a demonstration web application, an installable single download and as a collection of individual customizable services.

SEQADAPT: an adaptable system for the tracking, storage and analysis of high throughput sequencing experiments

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background High throughput sequencing has become an increasingly important tool for biological research. However, the existing software systems for managing and processing these data have not provided the flexible infrastructure that research requires. Results Existing software solutions provide static and well-established algorithms in a restrictive package. However as high throughput sequencing is a rapidly evolving field, such static approaches lack the ability to readily adopt the latest advances and techniques which are often required by researchers. We have used a loosely coupled, service-oriented infrastructure to develop SeqAdapt. This system streamlines data management and allows for rapid integration of novel algorithms. Our approach also allows computational biologists to focus on developing and applying new methods instead of writing boilerplate infrastructure code. Conclusion The system is based around the Addama service architecture and is available at our website as a demonstration web application, an installable single download and as a collection of individual customizable services. PMID:20630057

The computation in diagnostics for tokamaks: systems, designs, approaches

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Krawczyk, Rafał; Linczuk, Paweł; Czarski, Tomasz; Wojeński, Andrzej; Chernyshova, Maryna; Poźniak, Krzysztof; Kolasiński, Piotr; Kasprowicz, Grzegorz; Zabołotny, Wojciech; Kowalska-Strzeciwilk, Ewa; Malinowski, Karol; Gaska, Michał

2017-08-01

The requirements given for GEM (Gaseous Electron Multiplier) detector based acquisition system for plasma impurities diagnostics triggered a need for the development of a specialized software and hardware architecture. The amount of computations with latency and throughput restrictions cause that an advanced solution is sought for. In order to provide a mechanism fitting the designated tokamaks, an insight into existing solutions was necessary. In the article there is discussed architecture of systems used for plasma diagnostics and in related scientific fields. The developed solution is compared and contrasted with other diagnostic and control systems. Particular attention is payed to specific requirements for plasma impurities diagnostics in tokamak thermal fusion reactor. Subsequently, the details are presented that justified the choice of the system architecture and the discussion on various approaches is given.

Lowering the Barrier for Standards-Compliant and Discoverable Hydrological Data Publication

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kadlec, J.

2013-12-01

The growing need for sharing and integration of hydrological and climate data across multiple organizations has resulted in the development of distributed, services-based, standards-compliant hydrological data management and data hosting systems. The problem with these systems is complicated set-up and deployment. Many existing systems assume that the data publisher has remote-desktop access to a locally managed server and experience with computer network setup. For corporate websites, shared web hosting services with limited root access provide an inexpensive, dynamic web presence solution using the Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (LAMP) software stack. In this paper, we hypothesize that a webhosting service provides an optimal, low-cost solution for hydrological data hosting. We propose a software architecture of a standards-compliant, lightweight and easy-to-deploy hydrological data management system that can be deployed on the majority of existing shared internet webhosting services. The architecture and design is validated by developing Hydroserver Lite: a PHP and MySQL-based hydrological data hosting package that is fully standards-compliant and compatible with the Consortium of Universities for Advancement of Hydrologic Sciences (CUAHSI) hydrologic information system. It is already being used for management of field data collection by students of the McCall Outdoor Science School in Idaho. For testing, the Hydroserver Lite software has been installed on multiple different free and low-cost webhosting sites including Godaddy, Bluehost and 000webhost. The number of steps required to set-up the server is compared with the number of steps required to set-up other standards-compliant hydrologic data hosting systems including THREDDS, IstSOS and MapServer SOS.

An NAFP Project: Use of Object Oriented Methodologies and Design Patterns to Refactor Software Design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shaykhian, Gholam Ali; Baggs, Rhoda

2007-01-01

In the early problem-solution era of software programming, functional decompositions were mainly used to design and implement software solutions. In functional decompositions, functions and data are introduced as two separate entities during the design phase, and are followed as such in the implementation phase. Functional decompositions make use of refactoring through optimizing the algorithms, grouping similar functionalities into common reusable functions, and using abstract representations of data where possible; all these are done during the implementation phase. This paper advocates the usage of object-oriented methodologies and design patterns as the centerpieces of refactoring software solutions. Refactoring software is a method of changing software design while explicitly preserving its external functionalities. The combined usage of object-oriented methodologies and design patterns to refactor should also benefit the overall software life cycle cost with improved software.

Application of desktop computers in nuclear engineering education

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Graves, H.W. Jr.

1990-01-01

Utilization of desktop computers in the academic environment is based on the same objectives as in the industrial environment - increased quality and efficiency. Desktop computers can be extremely useful teaching tools in two general areas: classroom demonstrations and homework assignments. Although differences in emphasis exist, tutorial programs share many characteristics with interactive software developed for the industrial environment. In the Reactor Design and Fuel Management course at the University of Maryland, several interactive tutorial programs provided by Energy analysis Software Service have been utilized. These programs have been designed to be sufficiently structured to permit an orderly, disciplined solutionmore » to the problem being solved, and yet be flexible enough to accommodate most problem solution options.« less

Software Application Profile: Opal and Mica: open-source software solutions for epidemiological data management, harmonization and dissemination.

PubMed

Doiron, Dany; Marcon, Yannick; Fortier, Isabel; Burton, Paul; Ferretti, Vincent

2017-10-01

Improving the dissemination of information on existing epidemiological studies and facilitating the interoperability of study databases are essential to maximizing the use of resources and accelerating improvements in health. To address this, Maelstrom Research proposes Opal and Mica, two inter-operable open-source software packages providing out-of-the-box solutions for epidemiological data management, harmonization and dissemination. Opal and Mica are two standalone but inter-operable web applications written in Java, JavaScript and PHP. They provide web services and modern user interfaces to access them. Opal allows users to import, manage, annotate and harmonize study data. Mica is used to build searchable web portals disseminating study and variable metadata. When used conjointly, Mica users can securely query and retrieve summary statistics on geographically dispersed Opal servers in real-time. Integration with the DataSHIELD approach allows conducting more complex federated analyses involving statistical models. Opal and Mica are open-source and freely available at [www.obiba.org] under a General Public License (GPL) version 3, and the metadata models and taxonomies that accompany them are available under a Creative Commons licence. © The Author 2017; all rights reserved. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association

How we developed eForms: an electronic form and data capture tool to support assessment in mobile medical education.

PubMed

Mooney, Jane S; Cappelli, Tim; Byrne-Davis, Lucie; Lumsden, Colin J

2014-12-01

Mobile learning technologies are being introduced and adopted by an increasing number of medical schools. Following the implementation of these devices, institutions are tasked with the challenge of their integration into curriculum delivery and presented with the opportunity to facilitate data collection from large student cohorts. Since 2011, Manchester Medical School (MMS) has undertaken the largest deployment of iPads within UK Higher Education. Working towards the more efficient collation of students' compulsory workplace-based assessment data led us to evaluate how existing information management software could replace previously paper-based systems. Following an evaluation of six, and a trial of one, commercially available packages, the existing software solutions were found to be inflexible and unfit for purpose. This resulted in the development of a new digital solution that addressed the limitations of the previous system. "University of Manchester (UoM) eForms" consists of an app and a web-based administration system that respectively permit high volume data collection and management. UoM eForms has now replaced the preceding paper-based and electronic systems within MMS for workplace-based assessment administration, due to the improved usability and dynamicity built into its interface and infrastructure. This new system has found many further useful applications, including research data collection, feedback, placement evaluations, quality assurance and interview marking.

Design of a terminal solution for integration of in-home health care devices and services towards the Internet-of-Things

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pang, Zhibo; Zheng, Lirong; Tian, Junzhe; Kao-Walter, Sharon; Dubrova, Elena; Chen, Qiang

2015-01-01

In-home health care services based on the Internet-of-Things are promising to resolve the challenges caused by the ageing of population. But the existing research is rather scattered and shows lack of interoperability. In this article, a business-technology co-design methodology is proposed for cross-boundary integration of in-home health care devices and services. In this framework, three key elements of a solution (business model, device and service integration architecture and information system integration architecture) are organically integrated and aligned. In particular, a cooperative Health-IoT ecosystem is formulated, and information systems of all stakeholders are integrated in a cooperative health cloud as well as extended to patients' home through the in-home health care station (IHHS). Design principles of the IHHS includes the reuse of 3C platform, certification of the Health Extension, interoperability and extendibility, convenient and trusted software distribution, standardised and secured electrical health care record handling, effective service composition and efficient data fusion. These principles are applied to the design of an IHHS solution called iMedBox. Detailed device and service integration architecture and hardware and software architecture are presented and verified by an implemented prototype. The quantitative performance analysis and field trials have confirmed the feasibility of the proposed design methodology and solution.

Smart energy management system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Desai, Aniruddha; Singh, Jugdutt

2010-04-01

Peak and average energy usage in domestic and industrial environments is growing rapidly and absence of detailed energy consumption metrics is making systematic reduction of energy usage very difficult. Smart energy management system aims at providing a cost-effective solution for managing soaring energy consumption and its impact on green house gas emissions and climate change. The solution is based on seamless integration of existing wired and wireless communication technologies combined with smart context-aware software which offers a complete solution for automation of energy measurement and device control. The persuasive software presents users with easy-to-assimilate visual cues identifying problem areas and time periods and encourages a behavioural change to conserve energy. The system allows analysis of real-time/statistical consumption data with the ability to drill down into detailed analysis of power consumption, CO2 emissions and cost. The system generates intelligent projections and suggests potential methods (e.g. reducing standby, tuning heating/cooling temperature, etc.) of reducing energy consumption. The user interface is accessible using web enabled devices such as PDAs, PCs, etc. or using SMS, email, and instant messaging. Successful real-world trial of the system has demonstrated the potential to save 20 to 30% energy consumption on an average. Low cost of deployment and the ability to easily manage consumption from various web enabled devices offers gives this system a high penetration and impact capability offering a sustainable solution to act on climate change today.

DyNAMiC Workbench: an integrated development environment for dynamic DNA nanotechnology

PubMed Central

Grun, Casey; Werfel, Justin; Zhang, David Yu; Yin, Peng

2015-01-01

Dynamic DNA nanotechnology provides a promising avenue for implementing sophisticated assembly processes, mechanical behaviours, sensing and computation at the nanoscale. However, design of these systems is complex and error-prone, because the need to control the kinetic pathway of a system greatly increases the number of design constraints and possible failure modes for the system. Previous tools have automated some parts of the design workflow, but an integrated solution is lacking. Here, we present software implementing a three ‘tier’ design process: a high-level visual programming language is used to describe systems, a molecular compiler builds a DNA implementation and nucleotide sequences are generated and optimized. Additionally, our software includes tools for analysing and ‘debugging’ the designs in silico, and for importing/exporting designs to other commonly used software systems. The software we present is built on many existing pieces of software, but is integrated into a single package—accessible using a Web-based interface at http://molecular-systems.net/workbench. We hope that the deep integration between tools and the flexibility of this design process will lead to better experimental results, fewer experimental design iterations and the development of more complex DNA nanosystems. PMID:26423437

Design Optimization Toolkit: Users' Manual

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Aguilo Valentin, Miguel Alejandro

The Design Optimization Toolkit (DOTk) is a stand-alone C++ software package intended to solve complex design optimization problems. DOTk software package provides a range of solution methods that are suited for gradient/nongradient-based optimization, large scale constrained optimization, and topology optimization. DOTk was design to have a flexible user interface to allow easy access to DOTk solution methods from external engineering software packages. This inherent flexibility makes DOTk barely intrusive to other engineering software packages. As part of this inherent flexibility, DOTk software package provides an easy-to-use MATLAB interface that enables users to call DOTk solution methods directly from the MATLABmore » command window.« less

Meeting the challenges of the digital medical enterprise of the future by reusing enterprise software components

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shani, Uri; Kol, Tomer; Shachor, Gal

2004-04-01

Managing medical digital information objects, and in particular medical images is an enterprise-grade problem. Firstly, there is the sheer amount of digital data that is generated in the proliferation of digital (and film-free) medical imaging. Secondly, the managing software ought to enjoy high availability, recoverability and manageability that are found only in the most business-critical systems. Indeed, such requirements are borrowed from the business enterprise world. Moreover, the solution for the medical information management problem should too employ the same software tools, middlewares and architectures. It is safe to say that all first-line medical PACS products strive to provide a solution for all these challenging requirements. The DICOM standard has been a prime enabler of such solutions. DICOM created the interconnectivity, which made it possible for a PACS service to manage millions of exams consisting of trillions of images. With the more comprehensive IHE architecture, the enterprise is expanded into a multi-facility regional conglomerate, which presents extreme demands from the data management system. HIPPA legislations add considerable challenges per security, privacy and other legal issues, which aggravate the situation. In this paper, we firstly present what in our view should be the general requirements for a first-line medical PACS, taken from an enterprise medical imaging storage and management solution perspective. While these requirements can be met by homegrown implementations, we suggest looking at the existing technologies, which have emerged in the recent years to meet exactly these challenges in the business world. We present an evolutionary process, which led to the design and implementation of a medical object management subsystem. This is indeed an enterprise medical imaging solution that is built upon respective technological components. The system answers all these challenges simply by not reinventing wheels, but rather reusing the best "wheels" for the job. Relying on such middleware components allowed us to concentrate on added value for this specific problem domain.

Analysis of Site Position Time Series Derived From Space Geodetic Solutions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Angermann, D.; Meisel, B.; Kruegel, M.; Tesmer, V.; Miller, R.; Drewes, H.

2003-12-01

This presentation deals with the analysis of station coordinate time series obtained from VLBI, SLR, GPS and DORIS solutions. We also present time series for the origin and scale derived from these solutions and discuss their contribution to the realization of the terrestrial reference frame. For these investigations we used SLR and VLBI solutions computed at DGFI with the software systems DOGS (SLR) and OCCAM (VLBI). The GPS and DORIS time series were obtained from weekly station coordinates solutions provided by the IGS, and from the joint DORIS analysis center (IGN-JPL). We analysed the time series with respect to various aspects, such as non-linear motions, periodic signals and systematic differences (biases). A major focus is on a comparison of the results at co-location sites in order to identify technique- and/or solution related problems. This may also help to separate and quantify possible effects, and to understand the origin of still existing discrepancies. Technique-related systematic effects (biases) should be reduced to the highest possible extent, before using the space geodetic solutions for a geophysical interpretation of seasonal signals in site position time series.

Algorithm and Architecture Independent Benchmarking with SEAK

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Tallent, Nathan R.; Manzano Franco, Joseph B.; Gawande, Nitin A.

2016-05-23

Many applications of high performance embedded computing are limited by performance or power bottlenecks. We have designed the Suite for Embedded Applications & Kernels (SEAK), a new benchmark suite, (a) to capture these bottlenecks in a way that encourages creative solutions; and (b) to facilitate rigorous, objective, end-user evaluation for their solutions. To avoid biasing solutions toward existing algorithms, SEAK benchmarks use a mission-centric (abstracted from a particular algorithm) and goal-oriented (functional) specification. To encourage solutions that are any combination of software or hardware, we use an end-user black-box evaluation that can capture tradeoffs between performance, power, accuracy, size, andmore » weight. The tradeoffs are especially informative for procurement decisions. We call our benchmarks future proof because each mission-centric interface and evaluation remains useful despite shifting algorithmic preferences. It is challenging to create both concise and precise goal-oriented specifications for mission-centric problems. This paper describes the SEAK benchmark suite and presents an evaluation of sample solutions that highlights power and performance tradeoffs.« less

The Suite for Embedded Applications and Kernels

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

2016-05-10

Many applications of high performance embedded computing are limited by performance or power bottlenecks. We havedesigned SEAK, a new benchmark suite, (a) to capture these bottlenecks in a way that encourages creative solutions to these bottlenecks? and (b) to facilitate rigorous, objective, end-user evaluation for their solutions. To avoid biasing solutions toward existing algorithms, SEAK benchmarks use a mission-centric (abstracted from a particular algorithm) andgoal-oriented (functional) specification. To encourage solutions that are any combination of software or hardware, we use an end-user blackbox evaluation that can capture tradeoffs between performance, power, accuracy, size, and weight. The tradeoffs are especially informativemore » for procurement decisions. We call our benchmarks future proof because each mission-centric interface and evaluation remains useful despite shifting algorithmic preferences. It is challenging to create both concise and precise goal-oriented specifications for mission-centric problems. This paper describes the SEAK benchmark suite and presents an evaluation of sample solutions that highlights power and performance tradeoffs.« less

MicROS-drt: supporting real-time and scalable data distribution in distributed robotic systems.

PubMed

Ding, Bo; Wang, Huaimin; Fan, Zedong; Zhang, Pengfei; Liu, Hui

A primary requirement in distributed robotic software systems is the dissemination of data to all interested collaborative entities in a timely and scalable manner. However, providing such a service in a highly dynamic and resource-limited robotic environment is a challenging task, and existing robot software infrastructure has limitations in this aspect. This paper presents a novel robot software infrastructure, micROS-drt, which supports real-time and scalable data distribution. The solution is based on a loosely coupled data publish-subscribe model with the ability to support various time-related constraints. And to realize this model, a mature data distribution standard, the data distribution service for real-time systems (DDS), is adopted as the foundation of the transport layer of this software infrastructure. By elaborately adapting and encapsulating the capability of the underlying DDS middleware, micROS-drt can meet the requirement of real-time and scalable data distribution in distributed robotic systems. Evaluation results in terms of scalability, latency jitter and transport priority as well as the experiment on real robots validate the effectiveness of this work.

76 FR 58044 - Amended Certification Regarding Eligibility To Apply for Worker Adjustment Assistance; The Mega...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-09-19

...., including on-site leased workers from Computer Solutions and Software International, Inc., Dell Service... Insphere Insurance Solutions, Inc., Including On-Site Leased Workers From Computer Solutions and Software International, Inc., Dell Service Sales, Emdeon Business Services, KFORCE, Microsoft, Pariveda Solutions, Inc...

High-throughput state-machine replication using software transactional memory.

PubMed

Zhao, Wenbing; Yang, William; Zhang, Honglei; Yang, Jack; Luo, Xiong; Zhu, Yueqin; Yang, Mary; Luo, Chaomin

2016-11-01

State-machine replication is a common way of constructing general purpose fault tolerance systems. To ensure replica consistency, requests must be executed sequentially according to some total order at all non-faulty replicas. Unfortunately, this could severely limit the system throughput. This issue has been partially addressed by identifying non-conflicting requests based on application semantics and executing these requests concurrently. However, identifying and tracking non-conflicting requests require intimate knowledge of application design and implementation, and a custom fault tolerance solution developed for one application cannot be easily adopted by other applications. Software transactional memory offers a new way of constructing concurrent programs. In this article, we present the mechanisms needed to retrofit existing concurrency control algorithms designed for software transactional memory for state-machine replication. The main benefit for using software transactional memory in state-machine replication is that general purpose concurrency control mechanisms can be designed without deep knowledge of application semantics. As such, new fault tolerance systems based on state-machine replications with excellent throughput can be easily designed and maintained. In this article, we introduce three different concurrency control mechanisms for state-machine replication using software transactional memory, namely, ordered strong strict two-phase locking, conventional timestamp-based multiversion concurrency control, and speculative timestamp-based multiversion concurrency control. Our experiments show that speculative timestamp-based multiversion concurrency control mechanism has the best performance in all types of workload, the conventional timestamp-based multiversion concurrency control offers the worst performance due to high abort rate in the presence of even moderate contention between transactions. The ordered strong strict two-phase locking mechanism offers the simplest solution with excellent performance in low contention workload, and fairly good performance in high contention workload.

First steps of processing VLBI data of space probes with VieVS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Plank, L.; Böhm, J.; Schuh, H.

2011-07-01

Since 2008 the VLBI group at the Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics (IGG) of the Vienna University of Technology has developed the Vienna VLBI Software VieVS which is capable to process geodetic VLBI data in NGS format. Constantly we are working on upgrading the new software, e.g. by developing a scheduling tool or extending the software from single session solution to a so-called global solution, allowing the joint analysis of many sessions covering several years. In this presentation we report on first steps to enable the processing of space VLBI data with the software. Driven by the recently increasing number of space VLBI applications, our goal is the geodetic usage of such data, primarily concerning frame ties between various reference frames, e. g. by connecting the dynamic reference frame of a space probe with the kinematically defined International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF). Main parts of the software extension w.r.t. the existing VieVS are the treatment of fast moving targets, the implementation of a delay model for radio emitters at finite distances, and the adequate mathematical model and adjustment of the particular unknowns. Actual work has been done for two mission scenarios so far: On the one hand differential VLBI (D-VLBI) data from the two sub-satellites of the Japanese lunar mission Selene were processed, on the other hand VLBI observations of GNSS satellites were modelled in VieVS. Besides some general aspects, we give details on the calculation of the theoretical delay (delay model for moving sources at finite distances) and its realization in VieVS. First results with real data and comparisons with best fit mission orbit data are also presented.'

High-throughput state-machine replication using software transactional memory

PubMed Central

Yang, William; Zhang, Honglei; Yang, Jack; Luo, Xiong; Zhu, Yueqin; Yang, Mary; Luo, Chaomin

2017-01-01

State-machine replication is a common way of constructing general purpose fault tolerance systems. To ensure replica consistency, requests must be executed sequentially according to some total order at all non-faulty replicas. Unfortunately, this could severely limit the system throughput. This issue has been partially addressed by identifying non-conflicting requests based on application semantics and executing these requests concurrently. However, identifying and tracking non-conflicting requests require intimate knowledge of application design and implementation, and a custom fault tolerance solution developed for one application cannot be easily adopted by other applications. Software transactional memory offers a new way of constructing concurrent programs. In this article, we present the mechanisms needed to retrofit existing concurrency control algorithms designed for software transactional memory for state-machine replication. The main benefit for using software transactional memory in state-machine replication is that general purpose concurrency control mechanisms can be designed without deep knowledge of application semantics. As such, new fault tolerance systems based on state-machine replications with excellent throughput can be easily designed and maintained. In this article, we introduce three different concurrency control mechanisms for state-machine replication using software transactional memory, namely, ordered strong strict two-phase locking, conventional timestamp-based multiversion concurrency control, and speculative timestamp-based multiversion concurrency control. Our experiments show that speculative timestamp-based multiversion concurrency control mechanism has the best performance in all types of workload, the conventional timestamp-based multiversion concurrency control offers the worst performance due to high abort rate in the presence of even moderate contention between transactions. The ordered strong strict two-phase locking mechanism offers the simplest solution with excellent performance in low contention workload, and fairly good performance in high contention workload. PMID:29075049

Scaling Retro-Commissioning to Small Commercial Buildings: A Turnkey Automated Hardware-Software Solution

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lin, Guanjing; Granderson, J.; Brambley, Michael R.

2015-07-01

In the United States, small commercial buildings represent 51% of total floor space of all commercial buildings and consume nearly 3 quadrillion Btu (3.2 quintillion joule) of site energy annually, presenting an enormous opportunity for energy savings. Retro-commissioning (RCx), the process through which professional energy service providers identify and correct operational problems, has proven to be a cost-effective means to achieve median energy savings of 16%. However, retro-commissioning is not typically conducted at scale throughout the commercial stock. Very few small commercial buildings are retro-commissioned because utility expenses are relatively modest, margins are tighter, and capital for improvements is limited.more » In addition, small buildings do not have in-house staff with the expertise to identify improvement opportunities. In response, a turnkey hardware-software solution was developed to enable cost-effective, monitoring-based RCx of small commercial buildings. This highly tailored solution enables non-commissioning providers to identify energy and comfort problems, as well as associated cost impacts and remedies. It also facilitates scale by offering energy service providers the means to streamline their existing processes and reduce costs by more than half. The turnkey RCx sensor suitcase consists of two primary components: a suitcase of sensors for short-term building data collection that guides users through the process of deploying and retrieving their data and a software application that automates analysis of sensor data, identifies problems and generates recommendations. This paper presents the design and testing of prototype models, including descriptions of the hardware design, analysis algorithms, performance testing, and plans for dissemination.« less

lumpR 2.0.0: an R package facilitating landscape discretisation for hillslope-based hydrological models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pilz, Tobias; Francke, Till; Bronstert, Axel

2017-08-01

The characteristics of a landscape pose essential factors for hydrological processes. Therefore, an adequate representation of the landscape of a catchment in hydrological models is vital. However, many of such models exist differing, amongst others, in spatial concept and discretisation. The latter constitutes an essential pre-processing step, for which many different algorithms along with numerous software implementations exist. In that context, existing solutions are often model specific, commercial, or depend on commercial back-end software, and allow only a limited or no workflow automation at all. Consequently, a new package for the scientific software and scripting environment R, called lumpR, was developed. lumpR employs an algorithm for hillslope-based landscape discretisation directed to large-scale application via a hierarchical multi-scale approach. The package addresses existing limitations as it is free and open source, easily extendible to other hydrological models, and the workflow can be fully automated. Moreover, it is user-friendly as the direct coupling to a GIS allows for immediate visual inspection and manual adjustment. Sufficient control is furthermore retained via parameter specification and the option to include expert knowledge. Conversely, completely automatic operation also allows for extensive analysis of aspects related to landscape discretisation. In a case study, the application of the package is presented. A sensitivity analysis of the most important discretisation parameters demonstrates its efficient workflow automation. Considering multiple streamflow metrics, the employed model proved reasonably robust to the discretisation parameters. However, parameters determining the sizes of subbasins and hillslopes proved to be more important than the others, including the number of representative hillslopes, the number of attributes employed for the lumping algorithm, and the number of sub-discretisations of the representative hillslopes.

A novel software architecture for the provision of context-aware semantic transport information.

PubMed

Moreno, Asier; Perallos, Asier; López-de-Ipiña, Diego; Onieva, Enrique; Salaberria, Itziar; Masegosa, Antonio D

2015-05-26

The effectiveness of Intelligent Transportation Systems depends largely on the ability to integrate information from diverse sources and the suitability of this information for the specific user. This paper describes a new approach for the management and exchange of this information, related to multimodal transportation. A novel software architecture is presented, with particular emphasis on the design of the data model and the enablement of services for information retrieval, thereby obtaining a semantic model for the representation of transport information. The publication of transport data as semantic information is established through the development of a Multimodal Transport Ontology (MTO) and the design of a distributed architecture allowing dynamic integration of transport data. The advantages afforded by the proposed system due to the use of Linked Open Data and a distributed architecture are stated, comparing it with other existing solutions. The adequacy of the information generated in regard to the specific user's context is also addressed. Finally, a working solution of a semantic trip planner using actual transport data and running on the proposed architecture is presented, as a demonstration and validation of the system.

A BPMN solution for chaining OGC services to quality assure location-based crowdsourced data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meek, Sam; Jackson, Mike; Leibovici, Didier G.

2016-02-01

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Processing Service (WPS) standard enables access to a centralized repository of processes and services from compliant clients. A crucial part of the standard includes the provision to chain disparate processes and services to form a reusable workflow. To date this has been realized by methods such as embedding XML requests, using Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) engines and other external orchestration engines. Although these allow the user to define tasks and data artifacts as web services, they are often considered inflexible and complicated, often due to vendor specific solutions and inaccessible documentation. This paper introduces a new method of flexible service chaining using the standard Business Process Markup Notation (BPMN). A prototype system has been developed upon an existing open source BPMN suite to illustrate the advantages of the approach. The motivation for the software design is qualification of crowdsourced data for use in policy-making. The software is tested as part of a project that seeks to qualify, assure, and add value to crowdsourced data in a biological monitoring use case.

THREaD Mapper Studio: a novel, visual web server for the estimation of genetic linkage maps

PubMed Central

Cheema, Jitender; Ellis, T. H. Noel; Dicks, Jo

2010-01-01

The estimation of genetic linkage maps is a key component in plant and animal research, providing both an indication of the genetic structure of an organism and a mechanism for identifying candidate genes associated with traits of interest. Because of this importance, several computational solutions to genetic map estimation exist, mostly implemented as stand-alone software packages. However, the estimation process is often largely hidden from the user. Consequently, problems such as a program crashing may occur that leave a user baffled. THREaD Mapper Studio (http://cbr.jic.ac.uk/threadmapper) is a new web site that implements a novel, visual and interactive method for the estimation of genetic linkage maps from DNA markers. The rationale behind the web site is to make the estimation process as transparent and robust as possible, while also allowing users to use their expert knowledge during analysis. Indeed, the 3D visual nature of the tool allows users to spot features in a data set, such as outlying markers and potential structural rearrangements that could cause problems with the estimation procedure and to account for them in their analysis. Furthermore, THREaD Mapper Studio facilitates the visual comparison of genetic map solutions from third party software, aiding users in developing robust solutions for their data sets. PMID:20494977

Dynamic Construction Scheme for Virtualization Security Service in Software-Defined Networks

PubMed Central

Lin, Zhaowen; Tao, Dan; Wang, Zhenji

2017-01-01

For a Software Defined Network (SDN), security is an important factor affecting its large-scale deployment. The existing security solutions for SDN mainly focus on the controller itself, which has to handle all the security protection tasks by using the programmability of the network. This will undoubtedly involve a heavy burden for the controller. More devastatingly, once the controller itself is attacked, the entire network will be paralyzed. Motivated by this, this paper proposes a novel security protection architecture for SDN. We design a security service orchestration center in the control plane of SDN, and this center physically decouples from the SDN controller and constructs SDN security services. We adopt virtualization technology to construct a security meta-function library, and propose a dynamic security service composition construction algorithm based on web service composition technology. The rule-combining method is used to combine security meta-functions to construct security services which meet the requirements of users. Moreover, the RETE algorithm is introduced to improve the efficiency of the rule-combining method. We evaluate our solutions in a realistic scenario based on OpenStack. Substantial experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our solutions that contribute to achieve the effective security protection with a small burden of the SDN controller. PMID:28430155

Dynamic Construction Scheme for Virtualization Security Service in Software-Defined Networks.

PubMed

Lin, Zhaowen; Tao, Dan; Wang, Zhenji

2017-04-21

For a Software Defined Network (SDN), security is an important factor affecting its large-scale deployment. The existing security solutions for SDN mainly focus on the controller itself, which has to handle all the security protection tasks by using the programmability of the network. This will undoubtedly involve a heavy burden for the controller. More devastatingly, once the controller itself is attacked, the entire network will be paralyzed. Motivated by this, this paper proposes a novel security protection architecture for SDN. We design a security service orchestration center in the control plane of SDN, and this center physically decouples from the SDN controller and constructs SDN security services. We adopt virtualization technology to construct a security meta-function library, and propose a dynamic security service composition construction algorithm based on web service composition technology. The rule-combining method is used to combine security meta-functions to construct security services which meet the requirements of users. Moreover, the RETE algorithm is introduced to improve the efficiency of the rule-combining method. We evaluate our solutions in a realistic scenario based on OpenStack. Substantial experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our solutions that contribute to achieve the effective security protection with a small burden of the SDN controller.

Software System Safety and the NASA Aeronautics Blueprint

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Holloway, C. Michael; Hayhurst, Kelly J.

2002-01-01

NASA's Aeronautics Blueprint lays out a research agenda for the Agency s aeronautics program. The word software appears only four times in this Blueprint, but the critical importance of safe and correct software to the fulfillment of the proposed research is evident on almost every page. Most of the technology solutions proposed to address challenges in aviation are software dependent technologies. Of the fifty-two specific technology solutions described in the Blueprint, forty-one depend, at least in part, on software for success. For thirty-five of these forty-one, software is not only critical to success, but also to human safety. That is, implementing the technology solutions will require using software in such a way that it may, if not specified, designed, and implemented properly, lead to fatal accidents. These results have at least two implications for the research based on the Blueprint: (1) knowledge about the current state-of-the-art and state-of-the-practice in software engineering and software system safety is essential, and (2) research into current unsolved problems in these software disciplines is also essential.

dCache, towards Federated Identities & Anonymized Delegation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ashish, A.; Millar, AP; Mkrtchyan, T.; Fuhrmann, P.; Behrmann, G.; Sahakyan, M.; Adeyemi, O. S.; Starek, J.; Litvintsev, D.; Rossi, A.

2017-10-01

For over a decade, dCache has relied on the authentication and authorization infrastructure (AAI) offered by VOMS, Kerberos, Xrootd etc. Although the established infrastructure has worked well and provided sufficient security, the implementation of procedures and the underlying software is often seen as a burden, especially by smaller communities trying to adopt existing HEP software stacks [1]. Moreover, scientists are increasingly dependent on service portals for data access [2]. In this paper, we describe how federated identity management systems can facilitate the transition from traditional AAI infrastructure to novel solutions like OpenID Connect. We investigate the advantages offered by OpenID Connect in regards to ‘delegation of authentication’ and ‘credential delegation for offline access’. Additionally, we demonstrate how macaroons can provide a more fine-granular authorization mechanism that supports anonymized delegation.

Scrum and Global Delivery: Pitfalls and Lessons Learned

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sadun, Cristiano

Two trends are becoming widespread in software development work—agile development processes and global delivery, both promising sizable benefits in productivity, capacity and so on. Combining the two is a highly attractive possibility, even more so in fast-paced and constrained commercial software engineering projects. However, a degree of conflict exists between the assumptions underlying the two ideas, leading to pitfalls and challenges in agile/distributed projects which are new, both with respect to traditional development and agile or distributed efforts adopted separately. Succeeding in commercial agile/distributed projects implies recognizing these new challenges, proactively planning for them, and actively put in place solutions and methods to overcome them. This chapter illustrates some of the typical challenges that were met during real-world commercial projects, and how they were solved.

DSRC 2--Industry-oriented compression of FASTQ files.

PubMed

Roguski, Lukasz; Deorowicz, Sebastian

2014-08-01

Modern sequencing platforms produce huge amounts of data. Archiving them raises major problems but is crucial for reproducibility of results, one of the most fundamental principles of science. The widely used gzip compressor, used for reduction of storage and transfer costs, is not a perfect solution, so a few specialized FASTQ compressors were proposed recently. Unfortunately, they are often impractical because of slow processing, lack of support for some variants of FASTQ files or instability. We propose DSRC 2 that offers compression ratios comparable with the best existing solutions, while being a few times faster and more flexible. DSRC 2 is freely available at http://sun.aei.polsl.pl/dsrc. The package contains command-line compressor, C and Python libraries for easy integration with existing software and technical documentation with examples of usage. sebastian.deorowicz@polsl.pl Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

pyam: Python Implementation of YaM

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Myint, Steven; Jain, Abhinandan

2012-01-01

pyam is a software development framework with tools for facilitating the rapid development of software in a concurrent software development environment. pyam provides solutions for development challenges associated with software reuse, managing multiple software configurations, developing software product lines, and multiple platform development and build management. pyam uses release-early, release-often development cycles to allow developers to integrate their changes incrementally into the system on a continual basis. It facilitates the creation and merging of branches to support the isolated development of immature software to avoid impacting the stability of the development effort. It uses modules and packages to organize and share software across multiple software products, and uses the concepts of link and work modules to reduce sandbox setup times even when the code-base is large. One sidebenefit is the enforcement of a strong module-level encapsulation of a module s functionality and interface. This increases design transparency, system stability, and software reuse. pyam is written in Python and is organized as a set of utilities on top of the open source SVN software version control package. All development software is organized into a collection of modules. pyam packages are defined as sub-collections of the available modules. Developers can set up private sandboxes for module/package development. All module/package development takes place on private SVN branches. High-level pyam commands support the setup, update, and release of modules and packages. Released and pre-built versions of modules are available to developers. Developers can tailor the source/link module mix for their sandboxes so that new sandboxes (even large ones) can be built up easily and quickly by pointing to pre-existing module releases. All inter-module interfaces are publicly exported via links. A minimal, but uniform, convention is used for building modules.

Software engineering risk factors in the implementation of a small electronic medical record system: the problem of scalability.

PubMed

Chiang, Michael F; Starren, Justin B

2002-01-01

The successful implementation of clinical information systems is difficult. In examining the reasons and potential solutions for this problem, the medical informatics community may benefit from the lessons of a rich body of software engineering and management literature about the failure of software projects. Based on previous studies, we present a conceptual framework for understanding the risk factors associated with large-scale projects. However, the vast majority of existing literature is based on large, enterprise-wide systems, and it unclear whether those results may be scaled down and applied to smaller projects such as departmental medical information systems. To examine this issue, we discuss the case study of a delayed electronic medical record implementation project in a small specialty practice at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. While the factors contributing to the delay of this small project share some attributes with those found in larger organizations, there are important differences. The significance of these differences for groups implementing small medical information systems is discussed.

Using ProHits to store, annotate and analyze affinity purification - mass spectrometry (AP-MS) data

PubMed Central

Liu, Guomin; Zhang, Jianping; Choi, Hyungwon; Lambert, Jean-Philippe; Srikumar, Tharan; Larsen, Brett; Nesvizhskii, Alexey I.; Raught, Brian; Tyers, Mike; Gingras, Anne-Claude

2012-01-01

Affinity purification coupled with mass spectrometry (AP-MS) is a robust technique used to identify protein-protein interactions. With recent improvements in sample preparation, and dramatic advances in MS instrumentation speed and sensitivity, this technique is becoming more widely used throughout the scientific community. To meet the needs of research groups both large and small, we have developed software solutions for tracking, scoring and analyzing AP-MS data. Here, we provide details for the installation and utilization of ProHits, a Laboratory Information Management System designed specifically for AP-MS interaction proteomics. This protocol explains: (i) how to install the complete ProHits system, including modules for the management of mass spectrometry files and the analysis of interaction data, and (ii) alternative options for the use of pre-existing search results in simpler versions of ProHits, including a virtual machine implementation of our ProHits Lite software. We also describe how to use the main features of the software to analyze AP-MS data. PMID:22948730

Campus-Based Practices for Promoting Student Success: Software Solutions. Research Brief

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Horn, Aaron S.; Reinert, Leah; Reis, Michael

2015-01-01

Colleges and universities are increasingly adopting various software solutions to raise degree completion rates and lower costs (Ferguson, 2012; Vendituoli, 2014; Yanosky, 2014). Student success software, also known as Integrated Planning and Advising Services (IPAS), appears to be in high demand among both students and faculty (Dahlstrom &…

Data-Proximate Analysis and Visualization in the Cloud using Cloudstream, an Open-Source Application Streaming Technology Stack

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fisher, W. I.

2017-12-01

The rise in cloud computing, coupled with the growth of "Big Data", has lead to a migration away from local scientific data storage. The increasing size of remote scientific data sets increase, however, makes it difficult for scientists to subject them to large-scale analysis and visualization. These large datasets can take an inordinate amount of time to download; subsetting is a potential solution, but subsetting services are not yet ubiquitous. Data providers may also pay steep prices, as many cloud providers meter data based on how much data leaves their cloud service. The solution to this problem is a deceptively simple one; move data analysis and visualization tools to the cloud, so that scientists may perform data-proximate analysis and visualization. This results in increased transfer speeds, while egress costs are lowered or completely eliminated. Moving standard desktop analysis and visualization tools to the cloud is enabled via a technique called "Application Streaming". This technology allows a program to run entirely on a remote virtual machine while still allowing for interactivity and dynamic visualizations. When coupled with containerization technology such as Docker, we are able to easily deploy legacy analysis and visualization software to the cloud whilst retaining access via a desktop, netbook, a smartphone, or the next generation of hardware, whatever it may be. Unidata has created a Docker-based solution for easily adapting legacy software for Application Streaming. This technology stack, dubbed Cloudstream, allows desktop software to run in the cloud with little-to-no effort. The docker container is configured by editing text files, and the legacy software does not need to be modified in any way. This work will discuss the underlying technologies used by Cloudstream, and outline how to use Cloudstream to run and access an existing desktop application to the cloud.

IMIS desktop & smartphone software solutions for monitoring spacecrafts' payload from anywhere

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baroukh, J.; Queyrut, O.; Airaud, J.

In the past years, the demand for satellite remote operations has increased guided by on one hand, the will to reduce operations cost (on-call operators out of business hours), and on the other hand, the development of cooperation space missions resulting in a world wide distribution of engineers and science team members. Only a few off-the-shelf solutions exist to fulfill the need of remote payload monitoring, and they mainly use proprietary devices. The recent advent of mobile technologies (laptops, smartphones and tablets) as well as the worldwide deployment of broadband networks (3G, Wi-Fi hotspots), has opened up a technical window that brings new options. As part of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, the Centre National D'Etudes Spatiales (CNES, the French space agency) has developed a new software solution for monitoring spacecraft payloads. The Instrument Monitoring Interactive Software (IMIS) offers state-of-the-art operational features for payload monitoring, and can be accessed remotely. It was conceived as a generic tool that can be used for heterogeneous payloads and missions. IMIS was designed as a classical client/server architecture. The server is hosted at CNES and acts as a data provider while two different kinds of clients are available depending on the level of mobility required. The first one is a rich client application, built on Eclipse framework, which can be installed on usual operating systems and communicates with the server through the Internet. The second one is a smartphone application for any Android platform, connected to the server thanks to the mobile broadband network or a Wi-Fi connection. This second client is mainly devoted to on-call operations and thus only contains a subset of the IMIS functionalities. This paper describes the operational context, including security aspects, that led IMIS development, presents the selected software architecture and details the various features of both clients: the desktop and the sm- rtphone application.

Numerical continuation and bifurcation analysis in aircraft design: an industrial perspective.

PubMed

Sharma, Sanjiv; Coetzee, Etienne B; Lowenberg, Mark H; Neild, Simon A; Krauskopf, Bernd

2015-09-28

Bifurcation analysis is a powerful method for studying the steady-state nonlinear dynamics of systems. Software tools exist for the numerical continuation of steady-state solutions as parameters of the system are varied. These tools make it possible to generate 'maps of solutions' in an efficient way that provide valuable insight into the overall dynamic behaviour of a system and potentially to influence the design process. While this approach has been employed in the military aircraft control community to understand the effectiveness of controllers, the use of bifurcation analysis in the wider aircraft industry is yet limited. This paper reports progress on how bifurcation analysis can play a role as part of the design process for passenger aircraft. © 2015 The Author(s).

Representation of thermal infrared imaging data in the DICOM using XML configuration files.

PubMed

Ruminski, Jacek

2007-01-01

The DICOM standard has become a widely accepted and implemented format for the exchange and storage of medical imaging data. Different imaging modalities are supported however there is not a dedicated solution for thermal infrared imaging in medicine. In this article we propose new ideas and improvements to final proposal of the new DICOM Thermal Infrared Imaging structures and services. Additionally, we designed, implemented and tested software packages for universal conversion of existing thermal imaging files to the DICOM format using XML configuration files. The proposed solution works fast and requires minimal number of user interactions. The XML configuration file enables to compose a set of attributes for any source file format of thermal imaging camera.

DIMP: an interoperable solution for software integration and product data exchange

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Xi Vincent; Xu, Xun William

2012-08-01

Today, globalisation has become one of the main trends of manufacturing business that has led to a world-wide decentralisation of resources amongst not only individual departments within one company but also business partners. However, despite the development and improvement in the last few decades, difficulties in information exchange and sharing still exist in heterogeneous applications environments. This article is divided into two parts. In the first part, related research work and integrating solutions are reviewed and discussed. The second part introduces a collaborative environment called distributed interoperable manufacturing platform, which is based on a module-based, service-oriented architecture (SOA). In the platform, the STEP-NC data model is used to facilitate data-exchange among heterogeneous CAD/CAM/CNC systems.

KinFin: Software for Taxon-Aware Analysis of Clustered Protein Sequences.

PubMed

Laetsch, Dominik R; Blaxter, Mark L

2017-10-05

The field of comparative genomics is concerned with the study of similarities and differences between the information encoded in the genomes of organisms. A common approach is to define gene families by clustering protein sequences based on sequence similarity, and analyze protein cluster presence and absence in different species groups as a guide to biology. Due to the high dimensionality of these data, downstream analysis of protein clusters inferred from large numbers of species, or species with many genes, is nontrivial, and few solutions exist for transparent, reproducible, and customizable analyses. We present KinFin, a streamlined software solution capable of integrating data from common file formats and delivering aggregative annotation of protein clusters. KinFin delivers analyses based on systematic taxonomy of the species analyzed, or on user-defined, groupings of taxa, for example, sets based on attributes such as life history traits, organismal phenotypes, or competing phylogenetic hypotheses. Results are reported through graphical and detailed text output files. We illustrate the utility of the KinFin pipeline by addressing questions regarding the biology of filarial nematodes, which include parasites of veterinary and medical importance. We resolve the phylogenetic relationships between the species and explore functional annotation of proteins in clusters in key lineages and between custom taxon sets, identifying gene families of interest. KinFin can easily be integrated into existing comparative genomic workflows, and promotes transparent and reproducible analysis of clustered protein data. Copyright © 2017 Laetsch and Blaxter.

Least squares collocation applied to local gravimetric solutions from satellite gravity gradiometry data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Robbins, J. W.

1985-01-01

An autonomous spaceborne gravity gradiometer mission is being considered as a post Geopotential Research Mission project. The introduction of satellite diometry data to geodesy is expected to improve solid earth gravity models. The possibility of utilizing gradiometer data for the determination of pertinent gravimetric quantities on a local basis is explored. The analytical technique of least squares collocation is investigated for its usefulness in local solutions of this type. It is assumed, in the error analysis, that the vertical gravity gradient component of the gradient tensor is used as the raw data signal from which the corresponding reference gradients are removed to create the centered observations required in the collocation solution. The reference gradients are computed from a high degree and order geopotential model. The solution can be made in terms of mean or point gravity anomalies, height anomalies, or other useful gravimetric quantities depending on the choice of covariance types. Selected for this study were 30 x 30 foot mean gravity and height anomalies. Existing software and new software are utilized to implement the collocation technique. It was determined that satellite gradiometry data at an altitude of 200 km can be used successfully for the determination of 30 x 30 foot mean gravity anomalies to an accuracy of 9.2 mgal from this algorithm. It is shown that the resulting accuracy estimates are sensitive to gravity model coefficient uncertainties, data reduction assumptions and satellite mission parameters.

Noise reduction in urban LRT networks by combining track based solutions.

PubMed

Vogiatzis, Konstantinos; Vanhonacker, Patrick

2016-10-15

The overall objective of the Quiet-Track project is to provide step-changing track based noise mitigation and maintenance schemes for railway rolling noise in LRT (Light Rail Transit) networks. WP 4 in particular focuses on the combination of existing track based solutions to yield a global performance of at least 6dB(A). The validation was carried out using a track section in the network of Athens Metro Line 1 with an existing outside concrete slab track (RHEDA track) where high airborne rolling noise was observed. The procedure for the selection of mitigation measures is based on numerical simulations, combining WRNOISE and IMMI software tools for noise prediction with experimental determination of the required track and vehicle parameters (e.g., rail and wheel roughness). The availability of a detailed rolling noise calculation procedure allows for detailed designing of measures and of ranking individual measures. It achieves this by including the modelling of the wheel/rail source intensity and of the noise propagation with the ability to evaluate the effect of modifications at source level (e.g., grinding, rail dampers, wheel dampers, change in resiliency of wheels and/or rail fixation) and of modifications in the propagation path (absorption at the track base, noise barriers, screening). A relevant combination of existing solutions was selected in the function of the simulation results. Three distinct existing solutions were designed in detail aiming at a high rolling noise attenuation and not affecting the normal operation of the metro system: Action 1: implementation of sound absorbing precast elements (panel type) on the track bed, Action 2: implementation of an absorbing noise barrier with a height of 1.10-1.20m above rail level, and Action 3: installation of rail dampers. The selected solutions were implemented on site and the global performance was measured step by step for comparison with simulations. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Brain-computer interfaces for EEG neurofeedback: peculiarities and solutions.

PubMed

Huster, René J; Mokom, Zacharais N; Enriquez-Geppert, Stefanie; Herrmann, Christoph S

2014-01-01

Neurofeedback training procedures designed to alter a person's brain activity have been in use for nearly four decades now and represent one of the earliest applications of brain-computer interfaces (BCI). The majority of studies using neurofeedback technology relies on recordings of the electroencephalogram (EEG) and applies neurofeedback in clinical contexts, exploring its potential as treatment for psychopathological syndromes. This clinical focus significantly affects the technology behind neurofeedback BCIs. For example, in contrast to other BCI applications, neurofeedback BCIs usually rely on EEG-derived features with only a minimum of additional processing steps being employed. Here, we highlight the peculiarities of EEG-based neurofeedback BCIs and consider their relevance for software implementations. Having reviewed already existing packages for the implementation of BCIs, we introduce our own solution which specifically considers the relevance of multi-subject handling for experimental and clinical trials, for example by implementing ready-to-use solutions for pseudo-/sham-neurofeedback. © 2013.

Legal Issues of Ambient Intelligence in the SERENITY Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Krausová, Alžběta; Dumortier, Jos

The successful functionality of the solutions proposed by the SERENITY project will only be achieved when they fit into the existing legal framework. Therefore, when developing software and hardware solutions, developers must respect requirements set out by law. The aim of this chapter is to define legal challenges that arise with the advent of the Ambient Intelligence, and to explain how SERENITY deals with the challenge of legal compliance. To do this, we will first describe how the legal requirements are translated into a machinereadable form in the SERENITY project, and introduce the concept of so called legal patterns. The application of relevant legal principles on data protection will be illustrated using two particular scenarios. We will then focus on practical legal problems related to daily operations of SERENITY technical solutions. Finally, we conclude with an evaluation of the SERENITY approach and its outcomes

Case Study: Converting Paper-based Case Report Forms to an Electronic Format (e-CRF) with ACASI Self-Report Integration.

PubMed

Mierzwa, Stan; Souidi, Samir; Akello, Carolyne; Etima, Juliane; Ssebagala, Richard; Nolan, Monica; Kabwigu, Samuel; Nakablito, Clemensia

2017-01-01

This paper will discuss the integration of electronic Case Report Forms (e-CRFs) into an already existing Android-based Audio Computer-Assisted Self-Interview (ACASI) software solution that was developed for a public health project in Kampala, Uganda, the technical outcome results, and lessons learned that may be useful to other projects requiring or considering such a technology solution. The developed product can function without a connection to the Internet and allows for synchronizing collected data once connectivity is possible. Previously, only paper-based CRFs were utilized at the Uganda project site. A subset or select group of CRFs were targeted for integration with ACASI in order to test feasibility and success. Survey volume, error rate, and acceptance of the system, as well as the operational and technical design of the solution, will be discussed.

AVE-SESAME program for the REEDA System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hickey, J. S.

1981-01-01

The REEDA system software was modified and improved to process the AVE-SESAME severe storm data. A random access file system for the AVE storm data was designed, tested, and implemented. The AVE/SESAME software was modified to incorporate the random access file input and to interface with new graphics hardware/software now available on the REEDA system. Software was developed to graphically display the AVE/SESAME data in the convention normally used by severe storm researchers. Software was converted to AVE/SESAME software systems and interfaced with existing graphics hardware/software available on the REEDA System. Software documentation was provided for existing AVE/SESAME programs underlining functional flow charts and interacting questions. All AVE/SESAME data sets in random access format was processed to allow developed software to access the entire AVE/SESAME data base. The existing software was modified to allow for processing of different AVE/SESAME data set types including satellite surface and radar data.

Pre-Hardware Optimization of Spacecraft Image Processing Software Algorithms and Hardware Implementation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kizhner, Semion; Flatley, Thomas P.; Hestnes, Phyllis; Jentoft-Nilsen, Marit; Petrick, David J.; Day, John H. (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

Spacecraft telemetry rates have steadily increased over the last decade presenting a problem for real-time processing by ground facilities. This paper proposes a solution to a related problem for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Spacecraft (GOES-8) image processing application. Although large super-computer facilities are the obvious heritage solution, they are very costly, making it imperative to seek a feasible alternative engineering solution at a fraction of the cost. The solution is based on a Personal Computer (PC) platform and synergy of optimized software algorithms and re-configurable computing hardware technologies, such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) and Digital Signal Processing (DSP). It has been shown in [1] and [2] that this configuration can provide superior inexpensive performance for a chosen application on the ground station or on-board a spacecraft. However, since this technology is still maturing, intensive pre-hardware steps are necessary to achieve the benefits of hardware implementation. This paper describes these steps for the GOES-8 application, a software project developed using Interactive Data Language (IDL) (Trademark of Research Systems, Inc.) on a Workstation/UNIX platform. The solution involves converting the application to a PC/Windows/RC platform, selected mainly by the availability of low cost, adaptable high-speed RC hardware. In order for the hybrid system to run, the IDL software was modified to account for platform differences. It was interesting to examine the gains and losses in performance on the new platform, as well as unexpected observations before implementing hardware. After substantial pre-hardware optimization steps, the necessity of hardware implementation for bottleneck code in the PC environment became evident and solvable beginning with the methodology described in [1], [2], and implementing a novel methodology for this specific application [6]. The PC-RC interface bandwidth problem for the class of applications with moderate input-output data rates but large intermediate multi-thread data streams has been addressed and mitigated. This opens a new class of satellite image processing applications for bottleneck problems solution using RC technologies. The issue of a science algorithm level of abstraction necessary for RC hardware implementation is also described. Selected Matlab functions already implemented in hardware were investigated for their direct applicability to the GOES-8 application with the intent to create a library of Matlab and IDL RC functions for ongoing work. A complete class of spacecraft image processing applications using embedded re-configurable computing technology to meet real-time requirements, including performance results and comparison with the existing system, is described in this paper.

Modelling and Accuracy in a Bim Environment for Planned Conservation: the Apartment of Troia of Giulio Romano

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Adami, A.; Scala, B.; Spezzoni, A.

2017-02-01

Modeling of Cultural Heritage in a BIM environment, and in general of existing buildings, requires special attention because there are two diametrically opposed possibilities. On the one hand the attempt is to realize a very complex and accurate model, in order to provide the most comprehensive representation of the architecture as possible. The opposite position leads to build a very schematic and symbolic model of as-built architecture. It is not easy to determine which is the right balance between these two attitudes because each architecture requires a personalized approach and not standards. It's, however, necessary to find rules to figure out which items are represented, what is the minimum level of detail to consider adequate and how to deal with alterations from simple and linear geometries. These two facing possibilities deal with different goals and tools. In the field of restoration or planned conservation, that is the most common approach for existing buildings, the attention focuses on the exceptions and particularities of each architecture: the important aspect is to understand and describe exactly each part as a singularity (as it is). In this context it is very difficult to find a standard or a common solution. The first possibility of modelling seems to be very close to this approach, but it clashes with two important aspects. A first problem concerns the modelling software. Usually commercial BIM modelling software doesn't allow to realize very complex and high detailed solutions. They prefer working with predefined families and try to categorize each element in standard solution. The possibility to build new families is expected, but it often requires a lot of time. The second difficulty is the real efficiency of such an accurate model. In fact, it could be very difficult to link external elements to the model or use it in many traditional BIM applications. In this paper, we suggest another possible approach that represents the first result of a research about the modelling of Cultural Heritage for BIM application. The proposed solution aims to give as much information as possible about the architecture, and, at the same time, to guarantee a higher efficiency. In this case we considered commercial BIM software like Revit or Archicad. They are the most widespread and well-known software BIM oriented and they also allow the use of their embedded database structure. The core of our solution is to describe the architecture not only by a 3D model but also by the representation of the reliability of the accuracy of the model itself. In this way we try to combine the necessity of working with commercial software, in which it is difficult to be very accurate, and the information about the real object. In historical complex architecture, for example, it is very difficult to find a straight and planar wall. It is quite difficult, or at least time consuming, to model that kind of wall with high accuracy. But it is possible to represent the real wall by a schematic wall with a false color map which describes where the 3D model is well fitting and where there are some differences. In this way we don't lose any information but, at the same time, we have a very usable BIM model.

Progress in the Development of a Prototype Reuse Enablement System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marshall, J. J.; Downs, R. R.; Gilliam, L. J.; Wolfe, R. E.

2008-12-01

An important part of promoting software reuse is to ensure that reusable software assets are readily available to the software developers who want to use them. Through dialogs with the community, the NASA Earth Science Data Systems Software Reuse Working Group has learned that the lack of a centralized, domain- specific software repository or catalog system addressing the needs of the Earth science community is a major barrier to software reuse within the community. The Working Group has proposed the creation of such a reuse enablement system, which would provide capabilities for contributing and obtaining reusable software, to remove this barrier. The Working Group has recommended the development of a Reuse Enablement System to NASA and has performed a trade study to review systems with similar capabilities and to identify potential platforms for the proposed system. This was followed by an architecture study to determine an expeditious and cost-effective solution for this system. A number of software packages and systems were examined through both creating prototypes and examining existing systems that use the same software packages and systems. Based on the results of the architecture study, the Working Group developed a prototype of the proposed system using the recommended software package, through an iterative process of identifying needed capabilities and improving the system to provide those capabilities. Policies for the operation and maintenance of the system are being established for the system, and the identification of system policies also has contributed to the development process. Additionally, a test plan is being developed for formal testing of the prototype, to ensure that it meets all of the requirements previously developed by the Working Group. This poster summarizes the results of our work to date, focusing on the most recent activities.

An adaptive cryptographic accelerator for network storage security on dynamically reconfigurable platform

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tang, Li; Liu, Jing-Ning; Feng, Dan; Tong, Wei

2008-12-01

Existing security solutions in network storage environment perform poorly because cryptographic operations (encryption and decryption) implemented in software can dramatically reduce system performance. In this paper we propose a cryptographic hardware accelerator on dynamically reconfigurable platform for the security of high performance network storage system. We employ a dynamic reconfigurable platform based on a FPGA to implement a PowerPCbased embedded system, which executes cryptographic algorithms. To reduce the reconfiguration latency, we apply prefetch scheduling. Moreover, the processing elements could be dynamically configured to support different cryptographic algorithms according to the request received by the accelerator. In the experiment, we have implemented AES (Rijndael) and 3DES cryptographic algorithms in the reconfigurable accelerator. Our proposed reconfigurable cryptographic accelerator could dramatically increase the performance comparing with the traditional software-based network storage systems.

Towards a flexible middleware for context-aware pervasive and wearable systems.

PubMed

Muro, Marco; Amoretti, Michele; Zanichelli, Francesco; Conte, Gianni

2012-11-01

Ambient intelligence and wearable computing call for innovative hardware and software technologies, including a highly capable, flexible and efficient middleware, allowing for the reuse of existing pervasive applications when developing new ones. In the considered application domain, middleware should also support self-management, interoperability among different platforms, efficient communications, and context awareness. In the on-going "everything is networked" scenario scalability appears as a very important issue, for which the peer-to-peer (P2P) paradigm emerges as an appealing solution for connecting software components in an overlay network, allowing for efficient and balanced data distribution mechanisms. In this paper, we illustrate how all these concepts can be placed into a theoretical tool, called networked autonomic machine (NAM), implemented into a NAM-based middleware, and evaluated against practical problems of pervasive computing.

Architecture-Based Unit Testing of the Flight Software Product Line

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ganesan, Dharmalingam; Lindvall, Mikael; McComas, David; Bartholomew, Maureen; Slegel, Steve; Medina, Barbara

2010-01-01

This paper presents an analysis of the unit testing approach developed and used by the Core Flight Software (CFS) product line team at the NASA GSFC. The goal of the analysis is to understand, review, and reconunend strategies for improving the existing unit testing infrastructure as well as to capture lessons learned and best practices that can be used by other product line teams for their unit testing. The CFS unit testing framework is designed and implemented as a set of variation points, and thus testing support is built into the product line architecture. The analysis found that the CFS unit testing approach has many practical and good solutions that are worth considering when deciding how to design the testing architecture for a product line, which are documented in this paper along with some suggested innprovennents.

Comparing and characterizing three-dimensional point clouds derived by structure from motion photogrammetry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schwind, Michael

Structure from Motion (SfM) is a photogrammetric technique whereby three-dimensional structures (3D) are estimated from overlapping two-dimensional (2D) image sequences. It is studied in the field of computer vision and utilized in fields such as archeology, engineering, and the geosciences. Currently, many SfM software packages exist that allow for the generation of 3D point clouds. Little work has been done to show how topographic data generated from these software differ over varying terrain types and why they might produce different results. This work aims to compare and characterize the differences between point clouds generated by three different SfM software packages: two well-known proprietary solutions (Pix4D, Agisoft PhotoScan) and one open source solution (OpenDroneMap). Five terrain types were imaged utilizing a DJI Phantom 3 Professional small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS). These terrain types include a marsh environment, a gently sloped sandy beach and jetties, a forested peninsula, a house, and a flat parking lot. Each set of imagery was processed with each software and then directly compared to each other. Before processing the sets of imagery, the software settings were analyzed and chosen in a manner that allowed for the most similar settings to be set across the three software types. This was done in an attempt to minimize point cloud differences caused by dissimilar settings. The characteristics of the resultant point clouds were then compared with each other. Furthermore, a terrestrial light detection and ranging (LiDAR) survey was conducted over the flat parking lot using a Riegl VZ- 400 scanner. This data served as ground truth in order to conduct an accuracy assessment of the sUAS-SfM point clouds. Differences were found between the different results, apparent not only in the characteristics of the clouds, but also the accuracy. This study allows for users of SfM photogrammetry to have a better understanding of how different processing software compare and the inherent sensitivity of SfM automation in 3D reconstruction. Because this study used mostly default settings within the software, it would be beneficial for further research to investigate the effects of changing parameters have on the fidelity of point cloud datasets generated from different SfM software packages.

Modernized build and test infrastructure for control software at ESO: highly flexible building, testing, and automatic quality practices for telescope control software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pellegrin, F.; Jeram, B.; Haucke, J.; Feyrin, S.

2016-07-01

The paper describes the introduction of a new automatized build and test infrastructure, based on the open-source software Jenkins1, into the ESO Very Large Telescope control software to replace the preexisting in-house solution. A brief introduction to software quality practices is given, a description of the previous solution, the limitations of it and new upcoming requirements. Modifications required to adapt the new system are described, how these were implemented to current software and the results obtained. An overview on how the new system may be used in future projects is also presented.

Software augmented buildings: Exploiting existing infrastructure to improve energy efficiency and comfort in commercial buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Balaji, Bharathan

Commercial buildings consume 19% of energy in the US as of 2010, and traditionally, their energy use has been optimized through improved equipment efficiency and retrofits. Beyond improved hardware and infrastructure, there exists a tremendous potential in reducing energy use through better monitoring and operation. We present several applications that we developed and deployed to support our thesis that building energy use can be reduced through sensing, monitoring and optimization software that modulates use of building subsystems including HVAC. We focus on HVAC systems as these constitute 48-55% of building energy use. Specifically, in case of sensing, we describe an energy apportionment system that enables us to estimate real-time zonal HVAC power consumption by analyzing existing sensor information. With this energy breakdown, we can measure effectiveness of optimization solutions and identify inefficiencies. Central to energy efficiency improvement is determination of human occupancy in buildings. But this information is often unavailable or expensive to obtain using wide scale sensor deployment. We present our system that infers room level occupancy inexpensively by leveraging existing WiFi infrastructure. Occupancy information can be used not only to directly control HVAC but also to infer state of the building for predictive control. Building energy use is strongly influenced by human behaviors, and timely feedback mechanisms can encourage energy saving behavior. Occupants interact with HVAC using thermostats which has shown to be inadequate for thermal comfort. Building managers are responsible for incorporating energy efficiency measures, but our interviews reveal that they struggle to maintain efficiency due to lack of analytical tools and contextual information. We present our software services that provide energy feedback to occupants and building managers, improves comfort with personalized control and identifies energy wasting faults. For wide scale deployment of such energy saving software, they need to be portable across multiple buildings. However, buildings consist of heterogeneous equipment and use inconsistent naming schema, and developers need extensive domain knowledge to map sensor information to a standard format. To enable portability, we present an active learning algorithm that automates mapping building sensor metadata to a standard naming schema.

TRAC, a collaborative computer tool for tracer-test interpretation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gutierrez, A.; Klinka, T.; Thiéry, D.; Buscarlet, E.; Binet, S.; Jozja, N.; Défarge, C.; Leclerc, B.; Fécamp, C.; Ahumada, Y.; Elsass, J.

2013-05-01

Artificial tracer tests are widely used by consulting engineers for demonstrating water circulation, proving the existence of leakage, or estimating groundwater velocity. However, the interpretation of such tests is often very basic, with the result that decision makers and professionals commonly face unreliable results through hasty and empirical interpretation. There is thus an increasing need for a reliable interpretation tool, compatible with the latest operating systems and available in several languages. BRGM, the French Geological Survey, has developed a project together with hydrogeologists from various other organizations to build software assembling several analytical solutions in order to comply with various field contexts. This computer program, called TRAC, is very light and simple, allowing the user to add his own analytical solution if the formula is not yet included. It aims at collaborative improvement by sharing the tool and the solutions. TRAC can be used for interpreting data recovered from a tracer test as well as for simulating the transport of a tracer in the saturated zone (for the time being). Calibration of a site operation is based on considering the hydrodynamic and hydrodispersive features of groundwater flow as well as the amount, nature and injection mode of the artificial tracer. The software is available in French, English and Spanish, and the latest version can be downloaded from the web site http://trac.brgm.fr">http://trac.brgm.fr.

Fast half-sibling population reconstruction: theory and algorithms.

PubMed

Dexter, Daniel; Brown, Daniel G

2013-07-12

Kinship inference is the task of identifying genealogically related individuals. Kinship information is important for determining mating structures, notably in endangered populations. Although many solutions exist for reconstructing full sibling relationships, few exist for half-siblings. We consider the problem of determining whether a proposed half-sibling population reconstruction is valid under Mendelian inheritance assumptions. We show that this problem is NP-complete and provide a 0/1 integer program that identifies the minimum number of individuals that must be removed from a population in order for the reconstruction to become valid. We also present SibJoin, a heuristic-based clustering approach based on Mendelian genetics, which is strikingly fast. The software is available at http://github.com/ddexter/SibJoin.git+. Our SibJoin algorithm is reasonably accurate and thousands of times faster than existing algorithms. The heuristic is used to infer a half-sibling structure for a population which was, until recently, too large to evaluate.

Software Acquisition: Evolution, Total Quality Management, and Applications to the Army Tactical Missile System

DTIC Science & Technology

1992-06-01

presents the concept of software Total Quality Management (TQM) which focuses on the entire process of software acquisition, as a partial solution to...software TQM can be applied to software acquisition. Software Development, Software Acquisition, Total Quality management (TQM), Army Tactical Missile

Reprocessing Close Range Terrestrial and Uav Photogrammetric Projects with the Dbat Toolbox for Independent Verification and Quality Control

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Murtiyoso, A.; Grussenmeyer, P.; Börlin, N.

2017-11-01

Photogrammetry has recently seen a rapid increase in many applications, thanks to developments in computing power and algorithms. Furthermore with the democratisation of UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), close range photogrammetry has seen more and more use due to the easier capability to acquire aerial close range images. In terms of photogrammetric processing, many commercial software solutions exist in the market that offer results from user-friendly environments. However, in most commercial solutions, a black-box approach to photogrammetric calculations is often used. This is understandable in light of the proprietary nature of the algorithms, but it may pose a problem if the results need to be validated in an independent manner. In this paper, the Damped Bundle Adjustment Toolbox (DBAT) developed for Matlab was used to reprocess some photogrammetric projects that were processed using the commercial software Agisoft Photoscan. Several scenarios were experimented on in order to see the performance of DBAT in reprocessing terrestrial and UAV close range photogrammetric projects in several configurations of self-calibration setting. Results show that DBAT managed to reprocess PS projects and generate metrics which can be useful for project verification.

A Novel Software Architecture for the Provision of Context-Aware Semantic Transport Information

PubMed Central

Moreno, Asier; Perallos, Asier; López-de-Ipiña, Diego; Onieva, Enrique; Salaberria, Itziar; Masegosa, Antonio D.

2015-01-01

The effectiveness of Intelligent Transportation Systems depends largely on the ability to integrate information from diverse sources and the suitability of this information for the specific user. This paper describes a new approach for the management and exchange of this information, related to multimodal transportation. A novel software architecture is presented, with particular emphasis on the design of the data model and the enablement of services for information retrieval, thereby obtaining a semantic model for the representation of transport information. The publication of transport data as semantic information is established through the development of a Multimodal Transport Ontology (MTO) and the design of a distributed architecture allowing dynamic integration of transport data. The advantages afforded by the proposed system due to the use of Linked Open Data and a distributed architecture are stated, comparing it with other existing solutions. The adequacy of the information generated in regard to the specific user’s context is also addressed. Finally, a working solution of a semantic trip planner using actual transport data and running on the proposed architecture is presented, as a demonstration and validation of the system. PMID:26016915

Using VCL as an Aspect-Oriented Approach to Requirements Modelling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Amálio, Nuno; Kelsen, Pierre; Ma, Qin; Glodt, Christian

Software systems are becoming larger and more complex. By tackling the modularisation of crosscutting concerns, aspect orientation draws attention to modularity as a means to address the problems of scalability, complexity and evolution in software systems development. Aspect-oriented modelling (AOM) applies aspect-orientation to the construction of models. Most existing AOM approaches are designed without a formal semantics, and use multi-view partial descriptions of behaviour. This paper presents an AOM approach based on the Visual Contract Language (VCL): a visual language for abstract and precise modelling, designed with a formal semantics, and comprising a novel approach to visual behavioural modelling based on design by contract where behavioural descriptions are total. By applying VCL to a large case study of a car-crash crisis management system, the paper demonstrates how modularity of VCL's constructs, at different levels of granularity, help to tackle complexity. In particular, it shows how VCL's package construct and its associated composition mechanisms are key in supporting separation of concerns, coarse-grained problem decomposition and aspect-orientation. The case study's modelling solution has a clear and well-defined modular structure; the backbone of this structure is a collection of packages encapsulating local solutions to concerns.

A Numerical Study of Coupled Non-Linear Equations of Thermo-Viscous Fluid Flow in Cylindrical Geometry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pothanna, N.; Aparna, P.; Gorla, R. S. R.

2017-12-01

In this paper we present numerical solutions to coupled non-linear governing equations of thermo-viscous fluid flow in cylindrical geometry using MATHEMATICA software solver. The numerical results are presented in terms of velocity, temperature and pressure distribution for various values of the material parameters such as the thermo-mechanical stress coefficient, thermal conductivity coefficient, Reiner Rivlin cross viscosity coefficient and the Prandtl number in the form of tables and graphs. Also, the solutions to governing equations for slow steady motion of a fluid have been obtained numerically and compared with the existing analytical results and are found to be in excellent agreement. The results of the present study will hopefully enable a better understanding applications of the flow under consideration.

{Semantic metadata application for information resources systematization in water spectroscopy} A.Fazliev (1), A.Privezentsev (1), J.Tennyson (2) (1) Institute of Atmospheric Optics SB RAS, Tomsk, Russia, (2) University College London, London, UK (faz@iao

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fazliev, A.

2009-04-01

The information and knowledge layers of information-computational system for water spectroscopy are described. Semantic metadata for all the tasks of domain information model that are the basis of the layers have been studied. The principle of semantic metadata determination and mechanisms of the usage during information systematization in molecular spectroscopy has been revealed. The software developed for the work with semantic metadata is described as well. Formation of domain model in the framework of Semantic Web is based on the use of explicit specification of its conceptualization or, in other words, its ontologies. Formation of conceptualization for molecular spectroscopy was described in Refs. 1, 2. In these works two chains of task are selected for zeroth approximation for knowledge domain description. These are direct tasks chain and inverse tasks chain. Solution schemes of these tasks defined approximation of data layer for knowledge domain conceptualization. Spectroscopy tasks solutions properties lead to a step-by-step extension of molecular spectroscopy conceptualization. Information layer of information system corresponds to this extension. An advantage of molecular spectroscopy model designed in a form of tasks chain is actualized in the fact that one can explicitly define data and metadata at each step of solution of these molecular spectroscopy chain tasks. Metadata structure (tasks solutions properties) in knowledge domain also has form of a chain in which input data and metadata of the previous task become metadata of the following tasks. The term metadata is used in its narrow sense: metadata are the properties of spectroscopy tasks solutions. Semantic metadata represented with the help of OWL 3 are formed automatically and they are individuals of classes (A-box). Unification of T-box and A-box is an ontology that can be processed with the help of inference engine. In this work we analyzed the formation of individuals of molecular spectroscopy applied ontologies as well as the software used for their creation by means of OWL DL language. The results of this work are presented in a form of an information layer and a knowledge layer in W@DIS information system 4. 1 FORMATION OF INDIVIDUALS OF WATER SPECTROSCOPY APPLIED ONTOLOGY Applied tasks ontology contains explicit description of input an output data of physical tasks solved in two chains of molecular spectroscopy tasks. Besides physical concepts, related to spectroscopy tasks solutions, an information source, which is a key concept of knowledge domain information model, is also used. Each solution of knowledge domain task is linked to the information source which contains a reference on published task solution, molecule and task solution properties. Each information source allows us to identify a certain knowledge domain task solution contained in the information system. Water spectroscopy applied ontology classes are formed on the basis of molecular spectroscopy concepts taxonomy. They are defined by constrains on properties of the selected conceptualization. Extension of applied ontology in W@DIS information system is actualized according to two scenarios. Individuals (ontology facts or axioms) formation is actualized during the task solution upload in the information system. Ontology user operation that implies molecular spectroscopy taxonomy and individuals is performed solely by the user. For this purpose Protege ontology editor was used. For the formation, processing and visualization of knowledge domain tasks individuals a software was designed and implemented. Method of individual formation determines the sequence of steps of created ontology individuals' generation. Tasks solutions properties (metadata) have qualitative and quantitative values. Qualitative metadata are regarded as metadata describing qualitative side of a task such as solution method or other information that can be explicitly specified by object properties of OWL DL language. Quantitative metadata are metadata that describe quantitative properties of task solution such as minimal and maximal data value or other information that can be explicitly obtained by programmed algorithmic operations. These metadata are related to DatatypeProperty properties of OWL specification language Quantitative metadata can be obtained automatically during data upload into information system. Since ObjectProperty values are objects, processing of qualitative metadata requires logical constraints. In case of the task solved in W@DIS ICS qualitative metadata can be formed automatically (for example in spectral functions calculation task). The used methods of translation of qualitative metadata into quantitative is characterized as roughened representation of knowledge in knowledge domain. The existence of two ways of data obtainment is a key moment in the formation of applied ontology of molecular spectroscopy task. experimental method (metadata for experimental data contain description of equipment, experiment conditions and so on) on the initial stage and inverse task solution on the following stages; calculation method (metadata for calculation data are closely related to the metadata used for the description of physical and mathematical models of molecular spectroscopy) 2 SOFTWARE FOR ONTOLOGY OPERATION Data collection in water spectroscopy information system is organized in a form of workflow that contains such operations as information source creation, entry of bibliographic data on publications, formation of uploaded data schema an so on. Metadata are generated in information source as well. Two methods are used for their formation: automatic metadata generation and manual metadata generation (performed by user). Software implementation of support of actions related to metadata formation is performed by META+ module. Functions of META+ module can be divided into two groups. The first groups contains the functions necessary to software developer while the second one the functions necessary to a user of the information system. META+ module functions necessary to the developer are: 1. creation of taxonomy (T-boxes) of applied ontology classes of knowledge domain tasks; 2. creation of instances of task classes; 3. creation of data schemes of tasks in a form of an XML-pattern and based on XML-syntax. XML-pattern is developed for instances generator and created according to certain rules imposed on software generator implementation. 4. implementation of metadata values calculation algorithms; 5. creation of a request interface and additional knowledge processing function for the solution of these task; 6. unification of the created functions and interfaces into one information system The following sequence is universal for the generation of task classes' individuals that form chains. Special interfaces for user operations management are designed for software developer in META+ module. There are means for qualitative metadata values updating during data reuploading to information source. The list of functions necessary to end user contains: - data sets visualization and editing, taking into account their metadata, e.g.: display of unique number of bands in transitions for a certain data source; - export of OWL/RDF models from information system to the environment in XML-syntax; - visualization of instances of classes of applied ontology tasks on molecular spectroscopy; - import of OWL/RDF models into the information system and their integration with domain vocabulary; - formation of additional knowledge of knowledge domain for the construction of ontological instances of task classes using GTML-formats and their processing; - formation of additional knowledge in knowledge domain for the construction of instances of task classes, using software algorithm for data sets processing; - function of semantic search implementation using an interface that formulates questions in a form of related triplets in order for getting an adequate answer. 3 STRUCTURE OF META+ MODULE META+ software module that provides the above functions contains the following components: - a knowledge base that stores semantic metadata and taxonomies of information system; - software libraries POWL and RAP 5 created by third-party developer and providing access to ontological storage; - function classes and libraries that form the core of the module and perform the tasks of formation, storage and visualization of classes instances; - configuration files and module patterns that allow one to adjust and organize operation of different functional blocks; META+ module also contains scripts and patterns implemented according to the rules of W@DIS information system development environment. - scripts for interaction with environment by means of the software core of information system. These scripts provide organizing web-oriented interactive communication; - patterns for the formation of functionality visualization realized by the scripts Software core of scientific information-computational system W@DIS is created with the help of MVC (Model - View - Controller) design pattern that allows us to separate logic of application from its representation. It realizes the interaction of three logical components, actualizing interactivity with the environment via Web and performing its preprocessing. Functions of «Controller» logical component are realized with the help of scripts designed according to the rules imposed by software core of the information system. Each script represents a definite object-oriented class with obligatory class method of script initiation called "start". Functions of actualization of domain application operation results representation (i.e. "View" component) are sets of HTML-patterns that allow one to visualize the results of domain applications operation with the help of additional constructions processed by software core of the system. Besides the interaction with the software core of the scientific information system this module also deals with configuration files of software core and its database. Such organization of work provides closer integration with software core and deeper and more adequate connection in operating system support. 4 CONCLUSION In this work the problems of semantic metadata creation in information system oriented on information representation in the area of molecular spectroscopy have been discussed. The described method of semantic metadata and functions formation as well as realization and structure of META+ module have been described. Architecture of META+ module is closely related to the existing software of "Molecular spectroscopy" scientific information system. Realization of the module is performed with the use of modern approaches to Web-oriented applications development. It uses the existing applied interfaces. The developed software allows us to: - perform automatic metadata annotation of calculated tasks solutions directly in the information system; - perform automatic annotation of metadata on the solution of tasks on task solution results uploading outside the information system forming an instance of the solved task on the basis of entry data; - use ontological instances of task solution for identification of data in information tasks of viewing, comparison and search solved by information system; - export applied tasks ontologies for the operation with them by external means; - solve the task of semantic search according to the pattern and using question-answer type interface. 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The authors are grateful to RFBR for the financial support of development of distributed information system for molecular spectroscopy. REFERENCES A.D.Bykov, A.Z. Fazliev, N.N.Filippov, A.V. Kozodoev, A.I.Privezentsev, L.N.Sinitsa, M.V.Tonkov and M.Yu.Tretyakov, Distributed information system on atmospheric spectroscopy // Geophysical Research Abstracts, SRef-ID: 1607-7962/gra/EGU2007-A-01906, 2007, v. 9, p. 01906. A.I.Prevezentsev, A.Z. Fazliev Applied task ontology for molecular spectroscopy information resources systematization. The Proceedings of 9th Russian scientific conference "Electronic libraries: advanced methods and technologies, electronic collections" - RCDL'2007, Pereslavl Zalesskii, 2007, part.1, 2007, P.201-210. OWL Web Ontology Language Semantics and Abstract Syntax, W3C Recommendation 10 February 2004, http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-owl-semantics-20040210/ W@DIS information system, http://wadis.saga.iao.ru RAP library, http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/bizer/rdfapi/.

Avoidable Software Procurements

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-09-01

software license, software usage, ELA, Software as a Service , SaaS , Software Asset...PaaS Platform as a Service SaaS Software as a Service SAM Software Asset Management SMS System Management Server SEWP Solutions for Enterprise Wide...delivery of full Cloud Services , we will see the transition of the Cloud Computing service model from Iaas to SaaS , or Software as a Service . Software

Population-based metaheuristic optimization in neutron optics and shielding design

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

DiJulio, D. D.; Björgvinsdóttir, H.; Zendler, C.; Bentley, P. M.

2016-11-01

Population-based metaheuristic algorithms are powerful tools in the design of neutron scattering instruments and the use of these types of algorithms for this purpose is becoming more and more commonplace. Today there exists a wide range of algorithms to choose from when designing an instrument and it is not always initially clear which may provide the best performance. Furthermore, due to the nature of these types of algorithms, the final solution found for a specific design scenario cannot always be guaranteed to be the global optimum. Therefore, to explore the potential benefits and differences between the varieties of these algorithms available, when applied to such design scenarios, we have carried out a detailed study of some commonly used algorithms. For this purpose, we have developed a new general optimization software package which combines a number of common metaheuristic algorithms within a single user interface and is designed specifically with neutronic calculations in mind. The algorithms included in the software are implementations of Particle-Swarm Optimization (PSO), Differential Evolution (DE), Artificial Bee Colony (ABC), and a Genetic Algorithm (GA). The software has been used to optimize the design of several problems in neutron optics and shielding, coupled with Monte-Carlo simulations, in order to evaluate the performance of the various algorithms. Generally, the performance of the algorithms depended on the specific scenarios, however it was found that DE provided the best average solutions in all scenarios investigated in this work.

RNAblueprint: flexible multiple target nucleic acid sequence design.

PubMed

Hammer, Stefan; Tschiatschek, Birgit; Flamm, Christoph; Hofacker, Ivo L; Findeiß, Sven

2017-09-15

Realizing the value of synthetic biology in biotechnology and medicine requires the design of molecules with specialized functions. Due to its close structure to function relationship, and the availability of good structure prediction methods and energy models, RNA is perfectly suited to be synthetically engineered with predefined properties. However, currently available RNA design tools cannot be easily adapted to accommodate new design specifications. Furthermore, complicated sampling and optimization methods are often developed to suit a specific RNA design goal, adding to their inflexibility. We developed a C ++  library implementing a graph coloring approach to stochastically sample sequences compatible with structural and sequence constraints from the typically very large solution space. The approach allows to specify and explore the solution space in a well defined way. Our library also guarantees uniform sampling, which makes optimization runs performant by not only avoiding re-evaluation of already found solutions, but also by raising the probability of finding better solutions for long optimization runs. We show that our software can be combined with any other software package to allow diverse RNA design applications. Scripting interfaces allow the easy adaption of existing code to accommodate new scenarios, making the whole design process very flexible. We implemented example design approaches written in Python to demonstrate these advantages. RNAblueprint , Python implementations and benchmark datasets are available at github: https://github.com/ViennaRNA . s.hammer@univie.ac.at, ivo@tbi.univie.ac.at or sven@tbi.univie.ac.at. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

Improving the Slum Planning Through Geospatial Decision Support System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shekhar, S.

2014-11-01

In India, a number of schemes and programmes have been launched from time to time in order to promote integrated city development and to enable the slum dwellers to gain access to the basic services. Despite the use of geospatial technologies in planning, the local, state and central governments have only been partially successful in dealing with these problems. The study on existing policies and programmes also proved that when the government is the sole provider or mediator, GIS can become a tool of coercion rather than participatory decision-making. It has also been observed that local level administrators who have adopted Geospatial technology for local planning continue to base decision-making on existing political processes. In this juncture, geospatial decision support system (GSDSS) can provide a framework for integrating database management systems with analytical models, graphical display, tabular reporting capabilities and the expert knowledge of decision makers. This assists decision-makers to generate and evaluate alternative solutions to spatial problems. During this process, decision-makers undertake a process of decision research - producing a large number of possible decision alternatives and provide opportunities to involve the community in decision making. The objective is to help decision makers and planners to find solutions through a quantitative spatial evaluation and verification process. The study investigates the options for slum development in a formal framework of RAY (Rajiv Awas Yojana), an ambitious program of Indian Government for slum development. The software modules for realizing the GSDSS were developed using the ArcGIS and Community -VIZ software for Gulbarga city.

Reference Network Real-Time Services Control Techniques

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nykiel, Grzegorz; Szolucha, Marcin

2013-04-01

Differential corrections and services for real-time kinematic method (RTK) in many cases are used to support survey being base for administration decision. For that reason, services which allow to perform GNSS measurements should be constantly monitored to minimize the risk of any errors or unexpected gap in observation. System providing such control is the subject of the work carried out under a grant NR09-0010-10/2010 conducted by the Military University of Technology. This study was made to develop the concept of monitoring real-time services of Polish reference network ASG-EUPOS and the implementation of software providing users information on system accuracy. The main objectives of all concepts were: maximum use of existing infrastructure while minimizing the cost of installation of new elements, providing users calculation results via the ASG-EUPOS website. In the same time concept assume openness of the module that allow the successive development of applications and integration with existing solutions. This paper present several solutions and algorithms which have been implemented and tested. It also consist some examples of data visualization methods.

Tessera: Open source software for accelerated data science

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sego, Landon H.; Hafen, Ryan P.; Director, Hannah M.

2014-06-30

Extracting useful, actionable information from data can be a formidable challenge for the safeguards, nonproliferation, and arms control verification communities. Data scientists are often on the “front-lines” of making sense of complex and large datasets. They require flexible tools that make it easy to rapidly reformat large datasets, interactively explore and visualize data, develop statistical algorithms, and validate their approaches—and they need to perform these activities with minimal lines of code. Existing commercial software solutions often lack extensibility and the flexibility required to address the nuances of the demanding and dynamic environments where data scientists work. To address this need,more » Pacific Northwest National Laboratory developed Tessera, an open source software suite designed to enable data scientists to interactively perform their craft at the terabyte scale. Tessera automatically manages the complicated tasks of distributed storage and computation, empowering data scientists to do what they do best: tackling critical research and mission objectives by deriving insight from data. We illustrate the use of Tessera with an example analysis of computer network data.« less

Blade Vibration Measurement System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Platt, Michael J.

2014-01-01

The Phase I project successfully demonstrated that an advanced noncontacting stress measurement system (NSMS) could improve classification of blade vibration response in terms of mistuning and closely spaced modes. The Phase II work confirmed the microwave sensor design process, modified the sensor so it is compatible as an upgrade to existing NSMS, and improved and finalized the NSMS software. The result will be stand-alone radar/tip timing radar signal conditioning for current conventional NSMS users (as an upgrade) and new users. The hybrid system will use frequency data and relative mode vibration levels from the radar sensor to provide substantially superior capabilities over current blade-vibration measurement technology. This frequency data, coupled with a reduced number of tip timing probes, will result in a system capable of detecting complex blade vibrations that would confound traditional NSMS systems. The hardware and software package was validated on a compressor rig at Mechanical Solutions, Inc. (MSI). Finally, the hybrid radar/tip timing NSMS software package and associated sensor hardware will be installed for use in the NASA Glenn spin pit test facility.

Advanced functionality for radio analysis in the Offline software framework of the Pierre Auger Observatory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abreu, P.; Aglietta, M.; Ahn, E. J.; Albuquerque, I. F. M.; Allard, D.; Allekotte, I.; Allen, J.; Allison, P.; Alvarez Castillo, J.; Alvarez-Muñiz, J.; Ambrosio, M.; Aminaei, A.; Anchordoqui, L.; Andringa, S.; Antičić, T.; Aramo, C.; Arganda, E.; Arqueros, F.; Asorey, H.; Assis, P.; Aublin, J.; Ave, M.; Avenier, M.; Avila, G.; Bäcker, T.; Balzer, M.; Barber, K. B.; Barbosa, A. F.; Bardenet, R.; Barroso, S. L. C.; Baughman, B.; Beatty, J. J.; Becker, B. R.; Becker, K. H.; Bellido, J. A.; Benzvi, S.; Berat, C.; Bertou, X.; Biermann, P. L.; Billoir, P.; Blanco, F.; Blanco, M.; Bleve, C.; Blümer, H.; Boháčová, M.; Boncioli, D.; Bonifazi, C.; Bonino, R.; Borodai, N.; Brack, J.; Brogueira, P.; Brown, W. C.; Bruijn, R.; Buchholz, P.; Bueno, A.; Burton, R. E.; Caballero-Mora, K. S.; Caramete, L.; Caruso, R.; Castellina, A.; Cataldi, G.; Cazon, L.; Cester, R.; Chauvin, J.; Chiavassa, A.; Chinellato, J. A.; Chou, A.; Chudoba, J.; Clay, R. W.; Coluccia, M. R.; Conceição, R.; Contreras, F.; Cook, H.; Cooper, M. J.; Coppens, J.; Cordier, A.; Cotti, U.; Coutu, S.; Covault, C. E.; Creusot, A.; Criss, A.; Cronin, J.; Curutiu, A.; Dagoret-Campagne, S.; Dallier, R.; Dasso, S.; Daumiller, K.; Dawson, B. R.; de Almeida, R. M.; de Domenico, M.; de Donato, C.; de Jong, S. J.; de La Vega, G.; de Mello Junior, W. J. M.; de Mello Neto, J. R. T.; de Mitri, I.; de Souza, V.; de Vries, K. D.; Decerprit, G.; Del Peral, L.; Deligny, O.; Dembinski, H.; Denkiewicz, A.; di Giulio, C.; Diaz, J. C.; Díaz Castro, M. L.; Diep, P. N.; Dobrigkeit, C.; D'Olivo, J. C.; Dong, P. N.; Dorofeev, A.; Dos Anjos, J. C.; Dova, M. T.; D'Urso, D.; Dutan, I.; Ebr, J.; Engel, R.; Erdmann, M.; Escobar, C. O.; Etchegoyen, A.; Facal San Luis, P.; Falcke, H.; Farrar, G.; Fauth, A. C.; Fazzini, N.; Ferguson, A. P.; Ferrero, A.; Fick, B.; Filevich, A.; Filipčič, A.; Fliescher, S.; Fracchiolla, C. E.; Fraenkel, E. D.; Fröhlich, U.; Fuchs, B.; Gamarra, R. F.; Gambetta, S.; García, B.; García Gámez, D.; Garcia-Pinto, D.; Gascon, A.; Gemmeke, H.; Gesterling, K.; Ghia, P. L.; Giaccari, U.; Giller, M.; Glass, H.; Gold, M. S.; Golup, G.; Gomez Albarracin, F.; Gómez Berisso, M.; Gonçalves, P.; Gonzalez, D.; Gonzalez, J. G.; Gookin, B.; Góra, D.; Gorgi, A.; Gouffon, P.; Gozzini, S. R.; Grashorn, E.; Grebe, S.; Griffith, N.; Grigat, M.; Grillo, A. F.; Guardincerri, Y.; Guarino, F.; Guedes, G. P.; Hague, J. D.; Hansen, P.; Harari, D.; Harmsma, S.; Harton, J. L.; Haungs, A.; Hebbeker, T.; Heck, D.; Herve, A. E.; Hojvat, C.; Holmes, V. C.; Homola, P.; Hörandel, J. R.; Horneffer, A.; Hrabovský, M.; Huege, T.; Insolia, A.; Ionita, F.; Italiano, A.; Jiraskova, S.; Kadija, K.; Kampert, K. H.; Karhan, P.; Karova, T.; Kasper, P.; Kégl, B.; Keilhauer, B.; Keivani, A.; Kelley, J. L.; Kemp, E.; Kieckhafer, R. M.; Klages, H. O.; Kleifges, M.; Kleinfeller, J.; Knapp, J.; Koang, D.-H.; Kotera, K.; Krohm, N.; Krömer, O.; Kruppke-Hansen, D.; Kuehn, F.; Kuempel, D.; Kulbartz, J. K.; Kunka, N.; La Rosa, G.; Lachaud, C.; Lautridou, P.; Leão, M. S. A. B.; Lebrun, D.; Lebrun, P.; Leigui de Oliveira, M. A.; Lemiere, A.; Letessier-Selvon, A.; Lhenry-Yvon, I.; Link, K.; López, R.; Lopez Agüera, A.; Louedec, K.; Lozano Bahilo, J.; Lucero, A.; Ludwig, M.; Lyberis, H.; Macolino, C.; Maldera, S.; Mandat, D.; Mantsch, P.; Mariazzi, A. G.; Marin, V.; Maris, I. C.; Marquez Falcon, H. R.; Marsella, G.; Martello, D.; Martin, L.; Martínez Bravo, O.; Mathes, H. J.; Matthews, J.; Matthews, J. A. J.; Matthiae, G.; Maurizio, D.; Mazur, P. O.; Medina-Tanco, G.; Melissas, M.; Melo, D.; Menichetti, E.; Menshikov, A.; Mertsch, P.; Meurer, C.; Mićanović, S.; Micheletti, M. I.; Miller, W.; Miramonti, L.; Mollerach, S.; Monasor, M.; Monnier Ragaigne, D.; Montanet, F.; Morales, B.; Morello, C.; Moreno, E.; Moreno, J. C.; Morris, C.; Mostafá, M.; Moura, C. A.; Mueller, S.; Muller, M. A.; Müller, G.; Münchmeyer, M.; Mussa, R.; Navarra, G.; Navarro, J. L.; Navas, S.; Necesal, P.; Nellen, L.; Nelles, A.; Nhung, P. T.; Nierstenhoefer, N.; Nitz, D.; Nosek, D.; Nožka, L.; Nyklicek, M.; Oehlschläger, J.; Olinto, A.; Oliva, P.; Olmos-Gilbaja, V. M.; Ortiz, M.; Pacheco, N.; Pakk Selmi-Dei, D.; Palatka, M.; Pallotta, J.; Palmieri, N.; Parente, G.; Parizot, E.; Parra, A.; Parrisius, J.; Parsons, R. D.; Pastor, S.; Paul, T.; Pech, M.; PeĶala, J.; Pelayo, R.; Pepe, I. M.; Perrone, L.; Pesce, R.; Petermann, E.; Petrera, S.; Petrinca, P.; Petrolini, A.; Petrov, Y.; Petrovic, J.; Pfendner, C.; Phan, N.; Piegaia, R.; Pierog, T.; Pieroni, P.; Pimenta, M.; Pirronello, V.; Platino, M.; Ponce, V. H.; Pontz, M.; Privitera, P.; Prouza, M.; Quel, E. J.; Rautenberg, J.; Ravel, O.; Ravignani, D.; Revenu, B.; Ridky, J.; Risse, M.; Ristori, P.; Rivera, H.; Riviére, C.; Rizi, V.; Robledo, C.; Rodrigues de Carvalho, W.; Rodriguez, G.; Rodriguez Martino, J.; Rodriguez Rojo, J.; Rodriguez-Cabo, I.; Rodríguez-Frías, M. D.; Ros, G.; Rosado, J.; Rossler, T.; Roth, M.; Rouillé-D'Orfeuil, B.; Roulet, E.; Rovero, A. C.; Rühle, C.; Salamida, F.; Salazar, H.; Salina, G.; Sánchez, F.; Santander, M.; Santo, C. E.; Santos, E.; Santos, E. M.; Sarazin, F.; Sarkar, S.; Sato, R.; Scharf, N.; Scherini, V.; Schieler, H.; Schiffer, P.; Schmidt, A.; Schmidt, F.; Schmidt, T.; Scholten, O.; Schoorlemmer, H.; Schovancova, J.; Schovánek, P.; Schroeder, F.; Schulte, S.; Schuster, D.; Sciutto, S. J.; Scuderi, M.; Segreto, A.; Semikoz, D.; Settimo, M.; Shadkam, A.; Shellard, R. C.; Sidelnik, I.; Sigl, G.; Śmiałkowski, A.; Šmída, R.; Snow, G. R.; Sommers, P.; Sorokin, J.; Spinka, H.; Squartini, R.; Stapleton, J.; Stasielak, J.; Stephan, M.; Stutz, A.; Suarez, F.; Suomijärvi, T.; Supanitsky, A. D.; Šuša, T.; Sutherland, M. S.; Swain, J.; Szadkowski, Z.; Szuba, M.; Tamashiro, A.; Tapia, A.; Taşcău, O.; Tcaciuc, R.; Tegolo, D.; Thao, N. T.; Thomas, D.; Tiffenberg, J.; Timmermans, C.; Tiwari, D. K.; Tkaczyk, W.; Todero Peixoto, C. J.; Tomé, B.; Tonachini, A.; Travnicek, P.; Tridapalli, D. B.; Tristram, G.; Trovato, E.; Tueros, M.; Ulrich, R.; Unger, M.; Urban, M.; Valdés Galicia, J. F.; Valiño, I.; Valore, L.; van den Berg, A. M.; Vargas Cárdenas, B.; Vázquez, J. R.; Vázquez, R. A.; Veberič, D.; Verzi, V.; Videla, M.; Villaseñor, L.; Wahlberg, H.; Wahrlich, P.; Wainberg, O.; Warner, D.; Watson, A. A.; Weber, M.; Weidenhaupt, K.; Weindl, A.; Westerhoff, S.; Whelan, B. J.; Wieczorek, G.; Wiencke, L.; Wilczyńska, B.; Wilczyński, H.; Will, M.; Williams, C.; Winchen, T.; Winders, L.; Winnick, M. G.; Wommer, M.; Wundheiler, B.; Yamamoto, T.; Younk, P.; Yuan, G.; Zamorano, B.; Zas, E.; Zavrtanik, D.; Zavrtanik, M.; Zaw, I.; Zepeda, A.; Ziolkowski, M.

2011-04-01

The advent of the Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) necessitates the development of a powerful framework for the analysis of radio measurements of cosmic ray air showers. As AERA performs “radio-hybrid” measurements of air shower radio emission in coincidence with the surface particle detectors and fluorescence telescopes of the Pierre Auger Observatory, the radio analysis functionality had to be incorporated in the existing hybrid analysis solutions for fluorescence and surface detector data. This goal has been achieved in a natural way by extending the existing Auger Offline software framework with radio functionality. In this article, we lay out the design, highlights and features of the radio extension implemented in the Auger Offline framework. Its functionality has achieved a high degree of sophistication and offers advanced features such as vectorial reconstruction of the electric field, advanced signal processing algorithms, a transparent and efficient handling of FFTs, a very detailed simulation of detector effects, and the read-in of multiple data formats including data from various radio simulation codes. The source code of this radio functionality can be made available to interested parties on request.

quanTLC, an online open-source solution for videodensitometric quantification.

PubMed

Fichou, Dimitri; Morlock, Gertrud E

2018-07-27

The image is the key feature of planar chromatography. Videodensitometry by digital image conversion is the fastest way of its evaluation. Instead of scanning single sample tracks one after the other, only few clicks are needed to convert all tracks at one go. A minimalistic software was newly developed, termed quanTLC, that allowed the quantitative evaluation of samples in few minutes. quanTLC includes important assets such as open-source, online, free of charge, intuitive to use and tailored to planar chromatography, as none of the nine existent software for image evaluation covered these aspects altogether. quanTLC supports common image file formats for chromatogram upload. All necessary steps were included, i.e., videodensitogram extraction, preprocessing, automatic peak integration, calibration, statistical data analysis, reporting and data export. The default options for each step are suitable for most analyses while still being tunable, if needed. A one-minute video was recorded to serve as user manual. The software capabilities are shown on the example of a lipophilic dye mixture separation. The quantitative results were verified by comparison with those obtained by commercial videodensitometry software and opto-mechanical slit-scanning densitometry. The data can be exported at each step to be processed in further software, if required. The code was released open-source to be exploited even further. The software itself is online useable without installation and directly accessible at http://shinyapps.ernaehrung.uni-giessen.de/quanTLC. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

VLT instruments: industrial solutions for non-scientific detector systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Duhoux, P.; Knudstrup, J.; Lilley, P.; Di Marcantonio, P.; Cirami, R.; Mannetta, M.

2014-07-01

Recent improvements in industrial vision technology and products together with the increasing need for high performance, cost efficient technical detectors for astronomical instrumentation have led ESO with the contribution of INAF to evaluate this trend and elaborate ad-hoc solutions which are interoperable and compatible with the evolution of VLT standards. The ESPRESSO spectrograph shall be the first instrument deploying this technology. ESO's Technical CCD (hereafter TCCD) requirements are extensive and demanding. A lightweight, low maintenance, rugged and high performance TCCD camera product or family of products is required which can operate in the extreme environmental conditions present at ESO's observatories with minimum maintenance and minimal downtime. In addition the camera solution needs to be interchangeable between different technical roles e.g. slit viewing, pupil and field stabilization, with excellent performance characteristics under a wide range of observing conditions together with ease of use for the end user. Interoperability is enhanced by conformance to recognized electrical, mechanical and software standards. Technical requirements and evaluation criteria for the TCCD solution are discussed in more detail. A software architecture has been adopted which facilitates easy integration with TCCD's from different vendors. The communication with the devices is implemented by means of dedicated adapters allowing usage of the same core framework (business logic). The preference has been given to cameras with an Ethernet interface, using standard TCP/IP based communication. While the preferred protocol is the industrial standard GigE Vision, not all vendors supply cameras with this interface, hence proprietary socket-based protocols are also acceptable with the provision of a validated Linux compliant API. A fundamental requirement of the TCCD software is that it shall allow for a seamless integration with the existing VLT software framework. ESPRESSO is a fiber-fed, cross-dispersed echelle spectrograph that will be located in the Combined-Coudé Laboratory of the VLT in the Paranal Observatory in Chile. It will be able to operate either using the light of any of the UT's or using the incoherently combined light of up to four UT's. The stabilization of the incoming beam is achieved by dedicated piezo systems controlled via active loops closed on 4 + 4 dedicated TCCD's for the stabilization of the pupil image and of the field with a frequency goal of 3 Hz on a 2nd to 3rd magnitude star. An additional 9th TCCD system shall be used as an exposure-meter. In this paper we will present the technical CCD solution for future VLT instruments.

A global organism detection and monitoring system for non-native species

USGS Publications Warehouse

Graham, J.; Newman, G.; Jarnevich, C.; Shory, R.; Stohlgren, T.J.

2007-01-01

Harmful invasive non-native species are a significant threat to native species and ecosystems, and the costs associated with non-native species in the United States is estimated at over $120 Billion/year. While some local or regional databases exist for some taxonomic groups, there are no effective geographic databases designed to detect and monitor all species of non-native plants, animals, and pathogens. We developed a web-based solution called the Global Organism Detection and Monitoring (GODM) system to provide real-time data from a broad spectrum of users on the distribution and abundance of non-native species, including attributes of their habitats for predictive spatial modeling of current and potential distributions. The four major subsystems of GODM provide dynamic links between the organism data, web pages, spatial data, and modeling capabilities. The core survey database tables for recording invasive species survey data are organized into three categories: "Where, Who & When, and What." Organisms are identified with Taxonomic Serial Numbers from the Integrated Taxonomic Information System. To allow users to immediately see a map of their data combined with other user's data, a custom geographic information system (GIS) Internet solution was required. The GIS solution provides an unprecedented level of flexibility in database access, allowing users to display maps of invasive species distributions or abundances based on various criteria including taxonomic classification (i.e., phylum or division, order, class, family, genus, species, subspecies, and variety), a specific project, a range of dates, and a range of attributes (percent cover, age, height, sex, weight). This is a significant paradigm shift from "map servers" to true Internet-based GIS solutions. The remainder of the system was created with a mix of commercial products, open source software, and custom software. Custom GIS libraries were created where required for processing large datasets, accessing the operating system, and to use existing libraries in C++, R, and other languages to develop the tools to track harmful species in space and time. The GODM database and system are crucial for early detection and rapid containment of invasive species. ?? 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ling Zou; Hongbin Zhang; Jess Gehin

A coupled TH/Neutronics/CRUD framework, which is able to simulate the CRUD deposits impact on CIPS phenomenon, was described in this paper. This framework includes the coupling among three essential physics, thermal-hydraulics, CRUD and neutronics. The overall framework was implemented by using the CFD software STAR-CCM+, developing CRUD codes, and using the neutronics code DeCART. The coupling was implemented by exchanging data between softwares using intermediate exchange files. A typical 3 by 3 PWR fuel pin problem was solved under this framework. The problem was solved in a 12 months length period of time. Time-dependent solutions were provided, including CRUD depositsmore » inventory and their distributions on fuels, boron hideout amount inside CRUD deposits, as well as power shape changing over time. The results clearly showed the power shape suppression in regions where CRUD deposits exist, which is a strong indication of CIPS phenomenon.« less

A Strategy for Autogeneration of Space Shuttle Ground Processing Simulation Models for Project Makespan Estimations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Madden, Michael G.; Wyrick, Roberta; O'Neill, Dale E.

2005-01-01

Space Shuttle Processing is a complicated and highly variable project. The planning and scheduling problem, categorized as a Resource Constrained - Stochastic Project Scheduling Problem (RC-SPSP), has a great deal of variability in the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) process flow from one flight to the next. Simulation Modeling is a useful tool in estimation of the makespan of the overall process. However, simulation requires a model to be developed, which itself is a labor and time consuming effort. With such a dynamic process, often the model would potentially be out of synchronization with the actual process, limiting the applicability of the simulation answers in solving the actual estimation problem. Integration of TEAMS model enabling software with our existing schedule program software is the basis of our solution. This paper explains the approach used to develop an auto-generated simulation model from planning and schedule efforts and available data.

Models and algorithm of optimization launch and deployment of virtual network functions in the virtual data center

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bolodurina, I. P.; Parfenov, D. I.

2017-10-01

The goal of our investigation is optimization of network work in virtual data center. The advantage of modern infrastructure virtualization lies in the possibility to use software-defined networks. However, the existing optimization of algorithmic solutions does not take into account specific features working with multiple classes of virtual network functions. The current paper describes models characterizing the basic structures of object of virtual data center. They including: a level distribution model of software-defined infrastructure virtual data center, a generalized model of a virtual network function, a neural network model of the identification of virtual network functions. We also developed an efficient algorithm for the optimization technology of containerization of virtual network functions in virtual data center. We propose an efficient algorithm for placing virtual network functions. In our investigation we also generalize the well renowned heuristic and deterministic algorithms of Karmakar-Karp.

Building Energy Management Open Source Software

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Rahman, Saifur

Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy in November 2013, a Building Energy Management Open Source Software (BEMOSS) platform was engineered to improve sensing and control of equipment in small- and medium-sized commercial buildings. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), small- (5,000 square feet or smaller) and medium-sized (between 5,001 to 50,000 square feet) commercial buildings constitute about 95% of all commercial buildings in the U.S. These buildings typically do not have Building Automation Systems (BAS) to monitor and control building operation. While commercial BAS solutions exist, including those from Siemens, Honeywell, Johnsons Controls and many more, they aremore » not cost effective in the context of small- and medium-sized commercial buildings, and typically work with specific controller products from the same company. BEMOSS targets small and medium-sized commercial buildings to address this gap.« less

GNSS CORS hardware and software enabling new science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Drummond, P.

2009-12-01

GNSS CORS networks are enabling new opportunities for science and public and private sector business. This paper will explore how the newest geodetic monitoring software and GNSS receiver hardware from Trimble Navigation Ltd are enabling new science. Technology trends and science opportunities will be explored. These trends include the installation of active GNSS control, automation of observations and processing, and the advantages of multi-observable and multi-constellation observations, all performed with the use of off the shelf products and industry standard open-source data formats. Also the possibilities with moving science from an after-the-fact postprocessed model to a real-time epoch-by-epoch solution will be explored. This presentation will also discuss the combination of existing GNSS CORS networks with project specific installations used for monitoring. Experience is showing GNSS is able to provide higher resolution data than previous methods, providing new tools for science, decision makers and financial planners.

Pressure distribution under flexible polishing tools. I - Conventional aspheric optics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mehta, Pravin K.; Hufnagel, Robert E.

1990-10-01

The paper presents a mathematical model, based on Kirchoff's thin flat plate theory, developed to determine polishing pressure distribution for a flexible polishing tool. A two-layered tool in which bending and compressive stiffnesses are equal is developed, which is formulated as a plate on a linearly elastic foundation. An equivalent eigenvalue problem and solution for a free-free plate are created from the plate formulation. For aspheric, anamorphic optical surfaces, the tool misfit is derived; it is defined as the result of movement from the initial perfect fit on the optic to any other position. The Polisher Design (POD) software for circular tools on aspheric optics is introduced. NASTRAN-based finite element analysis results are compared with the POD software, showing high correlation. By employing existing free-free eigenvalues and eigenfunctions, the work may be extended to rectangular polishing tools as well.

ConfocalGN: A minimalistic confocal image generator

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dmitrieff, Serge; Nédélec, François

Validating image analysis pipelines and training machine-learning segmentation algorithms require images with known features. Synthetic images can be used for this purpose, with the advantage that large reference sets can be produced easily. It is however essential to obtain images that are as realistic as possible in terms of noise and resolution, which is challenging in the field of microscopy. We describe ConfocalGN, a user-friendly software that can generate synthetic microscopy stacks from a ground truth (i.e. the observed object) specified as a 3D bitmap or a list of fluorophore coordinates. This software can analyze a real microscope image stack to set the noise parameters and directly generate new images of the object with noise characteristics similar to that of the sample image. With a minimal input from the user and a modular architecture, ConfocalGN is easily integrated with existing image analysis solutions.

Managing Scientific Software Complexity with Bocca and CCA

DOE PAGES

Allan, Benjamin A.; Norris, Boyana; Elwasif, Wael R.; ...

2008-01-01

In high-performance scientific software development, the emphasis is often on short time to first solution. Even when the development of new components mostly reuses existing components or libraries and only small amounts of new code must be created, dealing with the component glue code and software build processes to obtain complete applications is still tedious and error-prone. Component-based software meant to reduce complexity at the application level increases complexity to the extent that the user must learn and remember the interfaces and conventions of the component model itself. To address these needs, we introduce Bocca, the first tool to enablemore » application developers to perform rapid component prototyping while maintaining robust software-engineering practices suitable to HPC environments. Bocca provides project management and a comprehensive build environment for creating and managing applications composed of Common Component Architecture components. Of critical importance for high-performance computing (HPC) applications, Bocca is designed to operate in a language-agnostic way, simultaneously handling components written in any of the languages commonly used in scientific applications: C, C++, Fortran, Python and Java. Bocca automates the tasks related to the component glue code, freeing the user to focus on the scientific aspects of the application. Bocca embraces the philosophy pioneered by Ruby on Rails for web applications: start with something that works, and evolve it to the user's purpose.« less

Hardware-assisted software clock synchronization for homogeneous distributed systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ramanathan, P.; Kandlur, Dilip D.; Shin, Kang G.

1990-01-01

A clock synchronization scheme that strikes a balance between hardware and software solutions is proposed. The proposed is a software algorithm that uses minimal additional hardware to achieve reasonably tight synchronization. Unlike other software solutions, the guaranteed worst-case skews can be made insensitive to the maximum variation of message transit delay in the system. The scheme is particularly suitable for large partially connected distributed systems with topologies that support simple point-to-point broadcast algorithms. Examples of such topologies include the hypercube and the mesh interconnection structures.

Rapid access to information resources in clinical biochemistry: medical applications of Personal Digital Assistants (PDA).

PubMed

Serdar, Muhittin A; Turan, Mustafa; Cihan, Murat

2008-06-01

Laboratory specialists currently need to access scientific-based information at anytime and anywhere. A considerable period of time and too much effort are required to access this information through existing accumulated data. Personal digital assistants (PDA) are supposed to provide an effective solution with commercial software for this problem. In this study, 11 commercial software products (UpToDate, ePocrates, Inforetrive, Pepid, eMedicine, FIRST Consult, and 5 laboratory e-books released by Skyscape and/or Isilo) were selected and the benefits of their use were evaluated by seven laboratory specialists. The assessment of the software was performed based on the number of the tests included, the software content of detailed information for each test-like process, method, interpretation of results, reference ranges, critical values, interferences, equations, pathophysiology, supplementary technical details such as sample collection principles, and additional information such as linked references, evidence-based data, test cost, etc. In terms of technique, the following items are considered: the amount of memory required to run the software, the graphical user interface, which is a user-friendly instrument, and the frequency of new and/or up-date releases. There is still no perfect program, as we have anticipated. Interpretation of laboratory results may require software with an integrated program. However, methodological data are mostly not included in the software evaluated. It seems that these shortcomings will be fixed in the near future, and PDAs and relevant medical applications will also become indispensable for all physicians including laboratory specialists in the field of training/education and in patient care.

Autonomous Performance Monitoring System: Monitoring and Self-Tuning (MAST)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Peterson, Chariya; Ziyad, Nigel A.

2000-01-01

Maintaining the long-term performance of software onboard a spacecraft can be a major factor in the cost of operations. In particular, the task of controlling and maintaining a future mission of distributed spacecraft will undoubtedly pose a great challenge, since the complexity of multiple spacecraft flying in formation grows rapidly as the number of spacecraft in the formation increases. Eventually, new approaches will be required in developing viable control systems that can handle the complexity of the data and that are flexible, reliable and efficient. In this paper we propose a methodology that aims to maintain the accuracy of flight software, while reducing the computational complexity of software tuning tasks. The proposed Monitoring and Self-Tuning (MAST) method consists of two parts: a flight software monitoring algorithm and a tuning algorithm. The dependency on the software being monitored is mostly contained in the monitoring process, while the tuning process is a generic algorithm independent of the detailed knowledge on the software. This architecture will enable MAST to be applicable to different onboard software controlling various dynamics of the spacecraft, such as attitude self-calibration, and formation control. An advantage of MAST over conventional techniques such as filter or batch least square is that the tuning algorithm uses machine learning approach to handle uncertainty in the problem domain, resulting in reducing over all computational complexity. The underlying concept of this technique is a reinforcement learning scheme based on cumulative probability generated by the historical performance of the system. The success of MAST will depend heavily on the reinforcement scheme used in the tuning algorithm, which guarantees the tuning solutions exist.

Developing a User-Centred Planning Tool for Young Adults with Development Disorders: A Research-Based Teaching Project.

PubMed

Ribu, Kirsten; Patel, Tulpesh

2016-01-01

People with development disorders, for instance autism, need structured plans to help create predictability in their daily lives. Digital plans can facilitate enhanced independency, learning, and quality of life, but existing apps are largely general purpose and lack the flexibility required by this specific but heterogeneous user group. Universal design is both a goal and a process and should be based on a holistic approach and user-centered design, interacting with the users in all stages of the development process. At Oslo and Akershus University College (HiOA) we conducted a research-based teaching project in co-operation with the Department of Neuro-habilitation at Oslo University Hospital (OUS) with two employees acting as project managers and students as developers. Three groups of Computer Science bachelor students developed digital prototypes for a planning tool for young adults with pervasive development disorders, who live either with their families or in supervised residences, and do not receive extensive public services. The students conducted the initial planning phase of the software development process, focusing on prototyping the system requirements, whilst a professional software company programmed the end solution. The goal of the project was to develop flexible and adaptive user-oriented and user-specific app solutions for tablets that can aid this diverse user group in structuring daily life, whereby, for example, photos of objects and places known to the individual user replace general pictures or drawings, and checklists can be elaborate or sparse as necessary. The three student groups worked independently of each other and created interactive working prototypes based on tests, observations and short interviews with end users (both administrators and residents) and regular user feedback from the project managers. Three very different solutions were developed that were of high enough quality that an external software company were able to continue the work and create a beta version of the app. The first phase in software development process is always challenging and time consuming. Using a research-based teaching approach allowed us to not only save time and expense in the development phase, but, importantly, allowed us to thoroughly investigate a variety of aspects of the problem to create an accessible solution, whilst leveraging our students' knowledge, competencies and creativity. The next stage will be to evaluate the beta version of the app and study its impact on the user's quality of life. Although the end solution is designed for a specific user group, the built-in flexibility of its structure and function means there is the inherent potential to open it up to all users. The universal benefit lies in the flexibility of the solution.

A comprehensive evaluation of popular proteomics software workflows for label-free proteome quantification and imputation.

PubMed

Välikangas, Tommi; Suomi, Tomi; Elo, Laura L

2017-05-31

Label-free mass spectrometry (MS) has developed into an important tool applied in various fields of biological and life sciences. Several software exist to process the raw MS data into quantified protein abundances, including open source and commercial solutions. Each software includes a set of unique algorithms for different tasks of the MS data processing workflow. While many of these algorithms have been compared separately, a thorough and systematic evaluation of their overall performance is missing. Moreover, systematic information is lacking about the amount of missing values produced by the different proteomics software and the capabilities of different data imputation methods to account for them.In this study, we evaluated the performance of five popular quantitative label-free proteomics software workflows using four different spike-in data sets. Our extensive testing included the number of proteins quantified and the number of missing values produced by each workflow, the accuracy of detecting differential expression and logarithmic fold change and the effect of different imputation and filtering methods on the differential expression results. We found that the Progenesis software performed consistently well in the differential expression analysis and produced few missing values. The missing values produced by the other software decreased their performance, but this difference could be mitigated using proper data filtering or imputation methods. Among the imputation methods, we found that the local least squares (lls) regression imputation consistently increased the performance of the software in the differential expression analysis, and a combination of both data filtering and local least squares imputation increased performance the most in the tested data sets. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

Systematic evaluation of three different commercial software solutions for automatic segmentation for adaptive therapy in head-and-neck, prostate and pleural cancer.

PubMed

La Macchia, Mariangela; Fellin, Francesco; Amichetti, Maurizio; Cianchetti, Marco; Gianolini, Stefano; Paola, Vitali; Lomax, Antony J; Widesott, Lamberto

2012-09-18

To validate, in the context of adaptive radiotherapy, three commercial software solutions for atlas-based segmentation. Fifteen patients, five for each group, with cancer of the Head&Neck, pleura, and prostate were enrolled in the study. In addition to the treatment planning CT (pCT) images, one replanning CT (rCT) image set was acquired for each patient during the RT course. Three experienced physicians outlined on the pCT and rCT all the volumes of interest (VOIs). We used three software solutions (VelocityAI 2.6.2 (V), MIM 5.1.1 (M) by MIMVista and ABAS 2.0 (A) by CMS-Elekta) to generate the automatic contouring on the repeated CT. All the VOIs obtained with automatic contouring (AC) were successively corrected manually. We recorded the time needed for: 1) ex novo ROIs definition on rCT; 2) generation of AC by the three software solutions; 3) manual correction of AC.To compare the quality of the volumes obtained automatically by the software and manually corrected with those drawn from scratch on rCT, we used the following indexes: overlap coefficient (DICE), sensitivity, inclusiveness index, difference in volume, and displacement differences on three axes (x, y, z) from the isocenter. The time saved by the three software solutions for all the sites, compared to the manual contouring from scratch, is statistically significant and similar for all the three software solutions. The time saved for each site are as follows: about an hour for Head&Neck, about 40 minutes for prostate, and about 20 minutes for mesothelioma. The best DICE similarity coefficient index was obtained with the manual correction for: A (contours for prostate), A and M (contours for H&N), and M (contours for mesothelioma). From a clinical point of view, the automated contouring workflow was shown to be significantly shorter than the manual contouring process, even though manual correction of the VOIs is always needed.

Assessment Processes to Increase the Burden of Existing Buildings Using BIM

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Szeląg, Romuald

2017-10-01

The process of implementation of the reconstruction of buildings is often associated with the need to adapt them to increased loads. In the restricted access to the archive project documentation it is necessary to use technical solutions to obtain a fairly short period of time necessary to implement the technical parameters of such processes. Dissemination of BIM in the design process can also be used effectively in the processes of identification of existing facilities for the implementation of the work of strengthening or adapting objects to the increased load requirements. Obtained in the process of research and macroscopic data is then used in the processes of numerical processing aimed at developing a numerical model reflects the actual parameters of the structure of the existing structure and, therefore, allows a better look at the object and the execution of the process to strengthen future. This article will identify possibilities for the use of BIM in processes of identification technology buildings and structures and indicated the necessary data to be obtained during the preliminary work. Introduced in model solutions enable the use of multi-criteria analysis of the choice of the most optimal solutions in terms of costs or expenditures of time during the process of construction. Taking the above work by building a numerical model of the object allows every step of verification by authorized person inventoried solutions and enables tracking and changes in the situation of those found derogations in relation to the parameters established at the primary stage. In the event of significant deviations, there is the possibility of rapid changes to the completed process of calculation and presentation of alternative solutions. Availability software using BIM technology is increasingly common here knowledge of the implementation of such solutions will become in a short time, the standard for most objects or engineering structures. The use of modern solutions using the described processes will be discussed on the example of an industrial facility where there was a need for installation of new equipment and adapt it to the technical parameters.

Software reliability models for critical applications

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pham, H.; Pham, M.

This report presents the results of the first phase of the ongoing EG G Idaho, Inc. Software Reliability Research Program. The program is studying the existing software reliability models and proposes a state-of-the-art software reliability model that is relevant to the nuclear reactor control environment. This report consists of three parts: (1) summaries of the literature review of existing software reliability and fault tolerant software reliability models and their related issues, (2) proposed technique for software reliability enhancement, and (3) general discussion and future research. The development of this proposed state-of-the-art software reliability model will be performed in the secondmore » place. 407 refs., 4 figs., 2 tabs.« less

Software reliability models for critical applications

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pham, H.; Pham, M.

This report presents the results of the first phase of the ongoing EG&G Idaho, Inc. Software Reliability Research Program. The program is studying the existing software reliability models and proposes a state-of-the-art software reliability model that is relevant to the nuclear reactor control environment. This report consists of three parts: (1) summaries of the literature review of existing software reliability and fault tolerant software reliability models and their related issues, (2) proposed technique for software reliability enhancement, and (3) general discussion and future research. The development of this proposed state-of-the-art software reliability model will be performed in the second place.more » 407 refs., 4 figs., 2 tabs.« less

Antenna pattern study, task 2

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Harper, Warren

1989-01-01

Two electromagnetic scattering codes, NEC-BSC and ESP3, were delivered and installed on a NASA VAX computer for use by Marshall Space Flight Center antenna design personnel. The existing codes and certain supplementary software were updated, the codes installed on a computer that will be delivered to the customer, to provide capability for graphic display of the data to be computed by the use of the codes and to assist the customer in the solution of specific problems that demonstrate the use of the codes. With the exception of one code revision, all of these tasks were performed.

Towards the XML schema measurement based on mapping between XML and OO domain

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rakić, Gordana; Budimac, Zoran; Heričko, Marjan; Pušnik, Maja

2017-07-01

Measuring quality of IT solutions is a priority in software engineering. Although numerous metrics for measuring object-oriented code already exist, measuring quality of UML models or XML Schemas is still developing. One of the research questions in the overall research leaded by ideas described in this paper is whether we can apply already defined object-oriented design metrics on XML schemas based on predefined mappings. In this paper, basic ideas for mentioned mapping are presented. This mapping is prerequisite for setting the future approach to XML schema quality measuring with object-oriented metrics.

Design of an AdvancedTCA board management controller (IPMC)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mendez, J.; Bobillier, V.; Haas, S.; Joos, M.; Mico, S.; Vasey, F.

2017-03-01

The AdvancedTCA (ATCA) standard has been selected as the hardware platform for the upgrade of the back-end electronics of the CMS and ATLAS experiments of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) . In this context, the electronic systems for experiments group at CERN is running a project to evaluate, specify, design and support xTCA equipment. As part of this project, an Intelligent Platform Management Controller (IPMC) for ATCA blades, based on a commercial solution, has been designed to be used on existing and future ATCA blades. This paper reports on the status of this project presenting the hardware and software developments.

A High-Sensitivity Hydraulic Load Cell for Small Kitchen Appliances

PubMed Central

Pačnik, Roman; Novak, Franc

2010-01-01

In this paper we present a hydraulic load cell made from hydroformed metallic bellows. The load cell was designed for a small kitchen appliance with the weighing function integrated into the composite control and protection of the appliance. It is a simple, low-cost solution with small dimensions and represents an alternative to the existing hydraulic load cells in industrial use. A good non-linearity and a small hysteresis were achieved. The influence of temperature leads to an error of 7.5%, which can be compensated for by software to meet the requirements of the target application. PMID:22163665

Warfarin: history, tautomerism and activity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Porter, William R.

2010-06-01

The anticoagulant drug warfarin, normally administered as the racemate, can exist in solution in potentially as many as 40 topologically distinct tautomeric forms. Only 11 of these forms for each enantiomer can be distinguished by selected computational software commonly used to estimate octanol-water partition coefficients and/or ionization constants. The history of studies on warfarin tautomerism is reviewed, along with the implications of tautomerism to its biological properties (activity, protein binding and metabolism) and chemical properties (log P, log D, p K a). Experimental approaches to assessing warfarin tautomerism and computational results for different tautomeric forms are presented.

Scala Roles: Reusable Object Collaborations in a Library

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pradel, Michael; Odersky, Martin

Purely class-based implementations of object-oriented software are often inappropriate for reuse. In contrast, the notion of objects playing roles in a collaboration has been proven to be a valuable reuse abstraction. However, existing solutions to enable role-based programming tend to require vast extensions of the underlying programming language, and thus, are difficult to use in every day work. We present a programming technique, based on dynamic proxies, that allows to augment an object’s type at runtime while preserving strong static type safety. It enables role-based implementations that lead to more reuse and better separation of concerns.

Logical optimization for database uniformization

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Grant, J.

1984-01-01

Data base uniformization refers to the building of a common user interface facility to support uniform access to any or all of a collection of distributed heterogeneous data bases. Such a system should enable a user, situated anywhere along a set of distributed data bases, to access all of the information in the data bases without having to learn the various data manipulation languages. Furthermore, such a system should leave intact the component data bases, and in particular, their already existing software. A survey of various aspects of the data bases uniformization problem and a proposed solution are presented.

A high-sensitivity hydraulic load cell for small kitchen appliances.

PubMed

Pačnik, Roman; Novak, Franc

2010-01-01

In this paper we present a hydraulic load cell made from hydroformed metallic bellows. The load cell was designed for a small kitchen appliance with the weighing function integrated into the composite control and protection of the appliance. It is a simple, low-cost solution with small dimensions and represents an alternative to the existing hydraulic load cells in industrial use. A good non-linearity and a small hysteresis were achieved. The influence of temperature leads to an error of 7.5%, which can be compensated for by software to meet the requirements of the target application.

Natural 3D content on glasses-free light-field 3D cinema

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Balogh, Tibor; Nagy, Zsolt; Kovács, Péter Tamás.; Adhikarla, Vamsi K.

2013-03-01

This paper presents a complete framework for capturing, processing and displaying the free viewpoint video on a large scale immersive light-field display. We present a combined hardware-software solution to visualize free viewpoint 3D video on a cinema-sized screen. The new glasses-free 3D projection technology can support larger audience than the existing autostereoscopic displays. We introduce and describe our new display system including optical and mechanical design considerations, the capturing system and render cluster for producing the 3D content, and the various software modules driving the system. The indigenous display is first of its kind, equipped with front-projection light-field HoloVizio technology, controlling up to 63 MP. It has all the advantages of previous light-field displays and in addition, allows a more flexible arrangement with a larger screen size, matching cinema or meeting room geometries, yet simpler to set-up. The software system makes it possible to show 3D applications in real-time, besides the natural content captured from dense camera arrangements as well as from sparse cameras covering a wider baseline. Our software system on the GPU accelerated render cluster, can also visualize pre-recorded Multi-view Video plus Depth (MVD4) videos on this light-field glasses-free cinema system, interpolating and extrapolating missing views.

Use of Dynamic Models and Operational Architecture to Solve Complex Navy Challenges

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Grande, Darby; Black, J. Todd; Freeman, Jared; Sorber, TIm; Serfaty, Daniel

2010-01-01

The United States Navy established 8 Maritime Operations Centers (MOC) to enhance the command and control of forces at the operational level of warfare. Each MOC is a headquarters manned by qualified joint operational-level staffs, and enabled by globally interoperable C41 systems. To assess and refine MOC staffing, equipment, and schedules, a dynamic software model was developed. The model leverages pre-existing operational process architecture, joint military task lists that define activities and their precedence relations, as well as Navy documents that specify manning and roles per activity. The software model serves as a "computational wind-tunnel" in which to test a MOC on a mission, and to refine its structure, staffing, processes, and schedules. More generally, the model supports resource allocation decisions concerning Doctrine, Organization, Training, Material, Leadership, Personnel and Facilities (DOTMLPF) at MOCs around the world. A rapid prototype effort efficiently produced this software in less than five months, using an integrated process team consisting of MOC military and civilian staff, modeling experts, and software developers. The work reported here was conducted for Commander, United States Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia, code N5-0LW (Operational Level of War) that facilitates the identification, consolidation, and prioritization of MOC capabilities requirements, and implementation and delivery of MOC solutions.

Automated polarization control for the precise alignment of laser-induced self-organized nanostructures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hermens, Ulrike; Pothen, Mario; Winands, Kai; Arntz, Kristian; Klocke, Fritz

2018-02-01

Laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) found in particular applications in the fields of surface functionalization have been investigated since many years. The direction of these ripple structures with a periodicity in the nanoscale can be manipulated by changing the laser polarization. For industrial use, it is useful to manipulate the direction of these structures automatically and to obtain smooth changes of their orientation without any visible inhomogeneity. However, currently no system solution exists that is able to control the polarization direction completely automated in one software solution so far. In this paper, a system solution is presented that includes a liquid crystal polarizer to control the polarization direction. It is synchronized with a scanner, a dynamic beam expander and a five axis-system. It provides fast switching times and small step sizes. First results of fabricated structures are also presented. In a systematic study, the conjunction of LIPSS with different orientation in two parallel line scans has been investigated.

Planning and Implementing Immunization Billing Programs at State and Local Health Departments: Barriers and Possible Solutions.

PubMed

Corriero, Rosemary; Redmon, Ginger

Before participating in a project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most state and local health departments (LHDs) were not seeking reimbursement or being fully reimbursed by insurance plans for the cost of immunization services (including vaccine costs and administration fees) they provided to insured patients. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Billables Project was designed to enable state and LHDs to bill public and private insurance plans for immunization services provided to insured patients. Identify and describe key barriers state and LHDs may encounter while planning and implementing a billing program, as well as possible solutions for overcoming those barriers. This study used reports from Billables Project participants to explore barriers they encountered when planning and implementing a billing program and steps taken to address those barriers. Thirty-eight state immunization programs. Based on project participants' reports, barriers were noted in 7 categories: (1) funding and costs, (2) staff, (3) health department characteristics, (4) third-party payers and insurance plans, (5) software, (6) patient insurance status, and (7) other barriers. Possible solutions for overcoming those barriers included hiring or seeking external help, creating billing guides and training modules, streamlining workflows, and modifying existing software systems. Overcoming barriers during planning and implementation of a billing program can be challenging for state and LHDs, but the experiences and suggestions of past Billables Project participants can help guide future billing program efforts.

Effective organizational solutions for implementation of DBMS software packages

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jones, D.

1984-01-01

The space telescope management information system development effort is a guideline for discussing effective organizational solutions used in implementing DBMS software. Focus is on the importance of strategic planning. The value of constructing an information system architecture to conform to the organization's managerial needs, the need for a senior decision maker, dealing with shifting user requirements, and the establishment of a reliable working relationship with the DBMS vendor are examined. Requirements for a schedule to demonstrate progress against a defined timeline and the importance of continued monitoring for production software control, production data control, and software enhancements are also discussed.

A Quantitative Study of a Software Tool that Supports a Part-Complete Solution Method on Learning Outcomes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Garner, Stuart

2009-01-01

This paper reports on the findings from a quantitative research study into the use of a software tool that was built to support a part-complete solution method (PCSM) for the learning of computer programming. The use of part-complete solutions to programming problems is one of the methods that can be used to reduce the cognitive load that students…

Modeling Physical Systems Using Vensim PLE Systems Dynamics Software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Widmark, Stephen

2012-02-01

Many physical systems are described by time-dependent differential equations or systems of such equations. This makes it difficult for students in an introductory physics class to solve many real-world problems since these students typically have little or no experience with this kind of mathematics. In my high school physics classes, I address this problem by having my students use a variety of software solutions to model physical systems described by differential equations. These include spreadsheets, applets, software my students themselves create, and systems dynamics software. For the latter, cost is often the main issue in choosing a solution for use in a public school and so I researched no-cost software. I found Sphinx SD,2OptiSim,3 Systems Dynamics,4 Simile (Trial Edition),5 and Vensim PLE.6 In evaluating each of these solutions, I looked for the fewest restrictions in the license for educational use, ease of use by students, power, and versatility. In my opinion, Vensim PLE best fulfills these criteria.7

VAVUQ, Python and Matlab freeware for Verification and Validation, Uncertainty Quantification

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Courtney, J. E.; Zamani, K.; Bombardelli, F. A.; Fleenor, W. E.

2015-12-01

A package of scripts is presented for automated Verification and Validation (V&V) and Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) for engineering codes that approximate Partial Differential Equations (PDFs). The code post-processes model results to produce V&V and UQ information. This information can be used to assess model performance. Automated information on code performance can allow for a systematic methodology to assess the quality of model approximations. The software implements common and accepted code verification schemes. The software uses the Method of Manufactured Solutions (MMS), the Method of Exact Solution (MES), Cross-Code Verification, and Richardson Extrapolation (RE) for solution (calculation) verification. It also includes common statistical measures that can be used for model skill assessment. Complete RE can be conducted for complex geometries by implementing high-order non-oscillating numerical interpolation schemes within the software. Model approximation uncertainty is quantified by calculating lower and upper bounds of numerical error from the RE results. The software is also able to calculate the Grid Convergence Index (GCI), and to handle adaptive meshes and models that implement mixed order schemes. Four examples are provided to demonstrate the use of the software for code and solution verification, model validation and uncertainty quantification. The software is used for code verification of a mixed-order compact difference heat transport solver; the solution verification of a 2D shallow-water-wave solver for tidal flow modeling in estuaries; the model validation of a two-phase flow computation in a hydraulic jump compared to experimental data; and numerical uncertainty quantification for 3D CFD modeling of the flow patterns in a Gust erosion chamber.

Effective Software Engineering Leadership for Development Programs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cagle West, Marsha

2010-01-01

Software is a critical component of systems ranging from simple consumer appliances to complex health, nuclear, and flight control systems. The development of quality, reliable, and effective software solutions requires the incorporation of effective software engineering processes and leadership. Processes, approaches, and methodologies for…

A University Dilemma: The Use of Third Party-Owned Software.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hersey, Karen

1985-01-01

Reviews specific problems associated with software protection (copyright license, trade secret license), clauses in software license agreements that most frequently cause difficulties, and solutions university administrators and software industry should consider. Topics include confidentiality, restrictive use of modifications, use on single…

TH-E-209-03: Development of An In-House CT Dose Monitoring and Management System Based On Open-Source Software Resources -- Pearls and Pitfalls

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Zhang, D.

Radiation dose monitoring solutions have opened up new opportunities for medical physicists to be more involved in modern clinical radiology practices. In particular, with the help of comprehensive radiation dose data, data-driven protocol management and informed case follow up are now feasible. Significant challenges remain however and the problems faced by medical physicists are highly heterogeneous. Imaging systems from multiple vendors and a wide range of vintages co-exist in the same department and employ data communication protocols that are not fully standardized or implemented making harmonization complex. Many different solutions for radiation dose monitoring have been implemented by imaging facilitiesmore » over the past few years. Such systems are based on commercial software, home-grown IT solutions, manual PACS data dumping, etc., and diverse pathways can be used to bring the data to impact clinical practice. The speakers will share their experiences with creating or tailoring radiation dose monitoring/management systems and procedures over the past few years, which vary significantly in design and scope. Topics to cover: (1) fluoroscopic dose monitoring and high radiation event handling from a large academic hospital; (2) dose monitoring and protocol optimization in pediatric radiology; and (3) development of a home-grown IT solution and dose data analysis framework. Learning Objectives: Describe the scope and range of radiation dose monitoring and protocol management in a modern radiology practice Review examples of data available from a variety of systems and how it managed and conveyed. Reflect on the role of the physicist in radiation dose awareness.« less

From linear to nonlinear control means: a practical progression.

PubMed

Gao, Zhiqiang

2002-04-01

With the rapid advance of digital control hardware, it is time to take the simple but effective proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control technology to the next level of performance and robustness. For this purpose, a nonlinear PID and active disturbance rejection framework are introduced in this paper. It complements the existing theory in that (1) it actively and systematically explores the use of nonlinear control mechanisms for better performance, even for linear plants; (2) it represents a control strategy that is rather independent of mathematical models of the plants, thus achieving inherent robustness and reducing design complexity. Stability analysis, as well as software/hardware test results, are presented. It is evident that the proposed framework lends itself well in seeking innovative solutions to practical problems while maintaining the simplicity and the intuitiveness of the existing technology.

Protected transitional solution to transformational satellite communications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brand, Jerry C.

2005-06-01

As the Warfighter progresses into the next generation battlefield, transformational communications become evident as an enabling technology. Satellite communications become even more vital as the battles range over greater non-contiguous spaces. While current satellite communications provide suitable beyond line-of-sight communications and the Transformational Communications Architecture (TCA) sets the stage for sound information exchange, a realizable transition must occur to ensure successful succession to this higher level. This paper addresses the need for a planned escalation to the next generation satellite communications architecture and offers near-term alternatives. Commercial satellite systems continue to enable the Warfighter to reach back to needed information resources, providing a large majority of available bandwidth. Four areas of concentration for transition include encrypted Telemetry, Tracking and Control (or Command) (TT&C), encrypted and covered data, satellite attack detection and protection, and operational mobility. Solution methodologies include directly embedding COMSEC devices in the satellites and terminals, and supplementing existing terminals with suitable equipment and software. Future satellites planned for near-term launches can be adapted to include commercial grade and higher-level secure equipment. Alternately, the expected use of programmable modems (Software Defined Radios (SDR)) enables incorporation of powerful cipher methods approaching military standards as well as waveforms suitable for on-the-move operation. Minimal equipment and software additions on the satellites can provide reasonable attack detection and protection methods in concert with the planned satellite usage. Network management suite modifications enable cohesive incorporation of these protection schemes. Such transitional ideas offer a smooth and planned transition as the TCA takes life.

Solution In-Line Alpha Counter (SILAC) Instruction Manual-Version 4.00

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Steven M. Alferink; Joel E. Farnham; Malcolm M. Fowler

2002-06-01

The Solution In-Line Alpha Counter (SILAC) provides near real-time alpha activity measurements of aqueous solutions in gloveboxes located in the Plutonium Facility (TA-55) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The SILAC detector and its interface software were first developed by Joel Farnham at LANL [1]. This instruction manual describes the features of the SILAC interface software and contains the schematic and fabrication instructions for the detector.

SDMtoolbox 2.0: the next generation Python-based GIS toolkit for landscape genetic, biogeographic and species distribution model analyses.

PubMed

Brown, Jason L; Bennett, Joseph R; French, Connor M

2017-01-01

SDMtoolbox 2.0 is a software package for spatial studies of ecology, evolution, and genetics. The release of SDMtoolbox 2.0 allows researchers to use the most current ArcGIS software and MaxEnt software, and reduces the amount of time that would be spent developing common solutions. The central aim of this software is to automate complicated and repetitive spatial analyses in an intuitive graphical user interface. One core tenant facilitates careful parameterization of species distribution models (SDMs) to maximize each model's discriminatory ability and minimize overfitting. This includes carefully processing of occurrence data, environmental data, and model parameterization. This program directly interfaces with MaxEnt, one of the most powerful and widely used species distribution modeling software programs, although SDMtoolbox 2.0 is not limited to species distribution modeling or restricted to modeling in MaxEnt. Many of the SDM pre- and post-processing tools have 'universal' analogs for use with any modeling software. The current version contains a total of 79 scripts that harness the power of ArcGIS for macroecology, landscape genetics, and evolutionary studies. For example, these tools allow for biodiversity quantification (such as species richness or corrected weighted endemism), generation of least-cost paths and corridors among shared haplotypes, assessment of the significance of spatial randomizations, and enforcement of dispersal limitations of SDMs projected into future climates-to only name a few functions contained in SDMtoolbox 2.0. Lastly, dozens of generalized tools exists for batch processing and conversion of GIS data types or formats, which are broadly useful to any ArcMap user.

Software defined radio (SDR) architecture for concurrent multi-satellite communications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maheshwarappa, Mamatha R.

SDRs have emerged as a viable approach for space communications over the last decade by delivering low-cost hardware and flexible software solutions. The flexibility introduced by the SDR concept not only allows the realisation of concurrent multiple standards on one platform, but also promises to ease the implementation of one communication standard on differing SDR platforms by signal porting. This technology would facilitate implementing reconfigurable nodes for parallel satellite reception in Mobile/Deployable Ground Segments and Distributed Satellite Systems (DSS) for amateur radio/university satellite operations. This work outlines the recent advances in embedded technologies that can enable new communication architectures for concurrent multi-satellite or satellite-to-ground missions where multi-link challenges are associated. This research proposes a novel concept to run advanced parallelised SDR back-end technologies in a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) embedded system that can support multi-signal processing for multi-satellite scenarios simultaneously. The initial SDR implementation could support only one receiver chain due to system saturation. However, the design was optimised to facilitate multiple signals within the limited resources available on an embedded system at any given time. This was achieved by providing a VHDL solution to the existing Python and C/C++ programming languages along with parallelisation so as to accelerate performance whilst maintaining the flexibility. The improvement in the performance was validated at every stage through profiling. Various cases of concurrent multiple signals with different standards such as frequency (with Doppler effect) and symbol rates were simulated in order to validate the novel architecture proposed in this research. Also, the architecture allows the system to be reconfigurable by providing the opportunity to change the communication standards in soft real-time. The chosen COTS solution provides a generic software methodology for both ground and space applications that will remain unaltered despite new evolutions in hardware, and supports concurrent multi-standard, multi-channel and multi-rate telemetry signals.

Experience, use, and performance measurement of the Hadoop File System in a typical nuclear physics analysis workflow

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sangaline, E.; Lauret, J.

2014-06-01

The quantity of information produced in Nuclear and Particle Physics (NPP) experiments necessitates the transmission and storage of data across diverse collections of computing resources. Robust solutions such as XRootD have been used in NPP, but as the usage of cloud resources grows, the difficulties in the dynamic configuration of these systems become a concern. Hadoop File System (HDFS) exists as a possible cloud storage solution with a proven track record in dynamic environments. Though currently not extensively used in NPP, HDFS is an attractive solution offering both elastic storage and rapid deployment. We will present the performance of HDFS in both canonical I/O tests and for a typical data analysis pattern within the RHIC/STAR experimental framework. These tests explore the scaling with different levels of redundancy and numbers of clients. Additionally, the performance of FUSE and NFS interfaces to HDFS were evaluated as a way to allow existing software to function without modification. Unfortunately, the complicated data structures in NPP are non-trivial to integrate with Hadoop and so many of the benefits of the MapReduce paradigm could not be directly realized. Despite this, our results indicate that using HDFS as a distributed filesystem offers reasonable performance and scalability and that it excels in its ease of configuration and deployment in a cloud environment.

DbMap: improving database interoperability issues in medical software using a simple, Java-Xml based solution.

PubMed Central

Karadimas, H.; Hemery, F.; Roland, P.; Lepage, E.

2000-01-01

In medical software development, the use of databases plays a central role. However, most of the databases have heterogeneous encoding and data models. To deal with these variations in the application code directly is error-prone and reduces the potential reuse of the produced software. Several approaches to overcome these limitations have been proposed in the medical database literature, which will be presented. We present a simple solution, based on a Java library, and a central Metadata description file in XML. This development approach presents several benefits in software design and development cycles, the main one being the simplicity in maintenance. PMID:11079915

Avoiding Obstructions in Aiming a High-Gain Antenna

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Edmonds, Karina

2006-01-01

The High Gain Antenna Pointing and Obstruction Avoidance software performs computations for pointing a Mars Rover high-gain antenna for communication with Earth while (1) avoiding line-of-sight obstructions (the Martian terrain and other parts of the Rover) that would block communication and (2) taking account of limits in ranges of motion of antenna gimbals and of kinematic singularities in gimbal mechanisms. The software uses simplified geometric models of obstructions and of the trajectory of the Earth in the Martian sky(see figure). It treats all obstructions according to a generalized approach, computing and continually updating the time remaining before interception of each obstruction. In cases in which the gimbal-mechanism design allows two aiming solutions, the algorithm chooses the solution that provides the longest obstruction-free Earth-tracking time. If the communication session continues until an obstruction is encountered in the current pointing solution and the other solution is now unobstructed, then the algorithm automatically switches to the other position. This software also notifies communication- managing software to cease transmission during the switch to the unobstructed position, resuming it when the switch is complete.

Sustainable Software Decisions for Long-term Projects (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shepherd, A.; Groman, R. C.; Chandler, C. L.; Gaylord, D.; Sun, M.

2013-12-01

Adopting new, emerging technologies can be difficult for established projects that are positioned to exist for years to come. In some cases the challenge lies in the pre-existing software architecture. In others, the challenge lies in the fluctuation of resources like people, time and funding. The Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO) was created in late 2006 by combining the data management offices for the U.S. GLOBEC and U.S. JGOFS programs to publish data for researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Since its inception, BCO-DMO has been supporting access and discovery of these data through web-accessible software systems, and the office has worked through many of the challenges of incorporating new technologies into its software systems. From migrating human readable, flat file metadata storage into a relational database, and now, into a content management system (Drupal) to incorporating controlled vocabularies, new technologies can radically affect the existing software architecture. However, through the use of science-driven use cases, effective resource management, and loosely coupled software components, BCO-DMO has been able to adapt its existing software architecture to adopt new technologies. One of the latest efforts at BCO-DMO revolves around applying metadata semantics for publishing linked data in support of data discovery. This effort primarily affects the metadata web interface software at http://bco-dmo.org and the geospatial interface software at http://mapservice.bco-dmo.org/. With guidance from science-driven use cases and consideration of our resources, implementation decisions are made using a strategy to loosely couple the existing software systems to the new technologies. The results of this process led to the use of REST web services and a combination of contributed and custom Drupal modules for publishing BCO-DMO's content using the Resource Description Framework (RDF) via an instance of the Virtuoso Open-Source triplestore.

VennDIS: a JavaFX-based Venn and Euler diagram software to generate publication quality figures.

PubMed

Ignatchenko, Vladimir; Ignatchenko, Alexandr; Sinha, Ankit; Boutros, Paul C; Kislinger, Thomas

2015-04-01

Venn diagrams are graphical representations of the relationships among multiple sets of objects and are often used to illustrate similarities and differences among genomic and proteomic datasets. All currently existing tools for producing Venn diagrams evince one of two traits; they require expertise in specific statistical software packages (such as R), or lack the flexibility required to produce publication-quality figures. We describe a simple tool that addresses both shortcomings, Venn Diagram Interactive Software (VennDIS), a JavaFX-based solution for producing highly customizable, publication-quality Venn, and Euler diagrams of up to five sets. The strengths of VennDIS are its simple graphical user interface and its large array of customization options, including the ability to modify attributes such as font, style and position of the labels, background color, size of the circle/ellipse, and outline color. It is platform independent and provides real-time visualization of figure modifications. The created figures can be saved as XML files for future modification or exported as high-resolution images for direct use in publications. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Process Approach for Modeling of Machine and Tractor Fleet Structure

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dokin, B. D.; Aletdinova, A. A.; Kravchenko, M. S.; Tsybina, Y. S.

2018-05-01

The existing software complexes on modelling of the machine and tractor fleet structure are mostly aimed at solving the task of optimization. However, the creators, choosing only one optimization criterion and incorporating it in their software, provide grounds on why it is the best without giving a decision maker the opportunity to choose it for their enterprise. To analyze “bottlenecks” of machine and tractor fleet modelling, the authors of this article created a process model, in which they included adjustment to the plan of using machinery based on searching through alternative technologies. As a result, the following recommendations for software complex development have been worked out: the introduction of a database of alternative technologies; the possibility for a user to change the timing of the operations even beyond the allowable limits and in that case the calculation of the incurred loss; the possibility to rule out the solution of an optimization task, and if there is a necessity in it - the possibility to choose an optimization criterion; introducing graphical display of an annual complex of works, which could be enough for the development and adjustment of a business strategy.

Mass spectrometer output file format mzML.

PubMed

Deutsch, Eric W

2010-01-01

Mass spectrometry is an important technique for analyzing proteins and other biomolecular compounds in biological samples. Each of the vendors of these mass spectrometers uses a different proprietary binary output file format, which has hindered data sharing and the development of open source software for downstream analysis. The solution has been to develop, with the full participation of academic researchers as well as software and hardware vendors, an open XML-based format for encoding mass spectrometer output files, and then to write software to use this format for archiving, sharing, and processing. This chapter presents the various components and information available for this format, mzML. In addition to the XML schema that defines the file structure, a controlled vocabulary provides clear terms and definitions for the spectral metadata, and a semantic validation rules mapping file allows the mzML semantic validator to insure that an mzML document complies with one of several levels of requirements. Complete documentation and example files insure that the format may be uniformly implemented. At the time of release, there already existed several implementations of the format and vendors have committed to supporting the format in their products.

Analyst-centered models for systems design, analysis, and development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bukley, A. P.; Pritchard, Richard H.; Burke, Steven M.; Kiss, P. A.

1988-01-01

Much has been written about the possible use of Expert Systems (ES) technology for strategic defense system applications, particularly for battle management algorithms and mission planning. It is proposed that ES (or more accurately, Knowledge Based System (KBS)) technology can be used in situations for which no human expert exists, namely to create design and analysis environments that allow an analyst to rapidly pose many different possible problem resolutions in game like fashion and to then work through the solution space in search of the optimal solution. Portions of such an environment exist for expensive AI hardware/software combinations such as the Xerox LOOPS and Intellicorp KEE systems. Efforts are discussed to build an analyst centered model (ACM) using an ES programming environment, ExperOPS5 for a simple missile system tradeoff study. By analyst centered, it is meant that the focus of learning is for the benefit of the analyst, not the model. The model's environment allows the analyst to pose a variety of what if questions without resorting to programming changes. Although not an ES per se, the ACM would allow for a design and analysis environment that is much superior to that of current technologies.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hussain, Hameed; Malik, Saif Ur Rehman; Hameed, Abdul

An efficient resource allocation is a fundamental requirement in high performance computing (HPC) systems. Many projects are dedicated to large-scale distributed computing systems that have designed and developed resource allocation mechanisms with a variety of architectures and services. In our study, through analysis, a comprehensive survey for describing resource allocation in various HPCs is reported. The aim of the work is to aggregate under a joint framework, the existing solutions for HPC to provide a thorough analysis and characteristics of the resource management and allocation strategies. Resource allocation mechanisms and strategies play a vital role towards the performance improvement ofmore » all the HPCs classifications. Therefore, a comprehensive discussion of widely used resource allocation strategies deployed in HPC environment is required, which is one of the motivations of this survey. Moreover, we have classified the HPC systems into three broad categories, namely: (a) cluster, (b) grid, and (c) cloud systems and define the characteristics of each class by extracting sets of common attributes. All of the aforementioned systems are cataloged into pure software and hybrid/hardware solutions. The system classification is used to identify approaches followed by the implementation of existing resource allocation strategies that are widely presented in the literature.« less

LAMOST CCD camera-control system based on RTS2

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tian, Yuan; Wang, Zheng; Li, Jian; Cao, Zi-Huang; Dai, Wei; Wei, Shou-Lin; Zhao, Yong-Heng

2018-05-01

The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) is the largest existing spectroscopic survey telescope, having 32 scientific charge-coupled-device (CCD) cameras for acquiring spectra. Stability and automation of the camera-control software are essential, but cannot be provided by the existing system. The Remote Telescope System 2nd Version (RTS2) is an open-source and automatic observatory-control system. However, all previous RTS2 applications were developed for small telescopes. This paper focuses on implementation of an RTS2-based camera-control system for the 32 CCDs of LAMOST. A virtual camera module inherited from the RTS2 camera module is built as a device component working on the RTS2 framework. To improve the controllability and robustness, a virtualized layer is designed using the master-slave software paradigm, and the virtual camera module is mapped to the 32 real cameras of LAMOST. The new system is deployed in the actual environment and experimentally tested. Finally, multiple observations are conducted using this new RTS2-framework-based control system. The new camera-control system is found to satisfy the requirements for automatic camera control in LAMOST. This is the first time that RTS2 has been applied to a large telescope, and provides a referential solution for full RTS2 introduction to the LAMOST observatory control system.

An ontology-based semantic configuration approach to constructing Data as a Service for enterprises

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cai, Hongming; Xie, Cheng; Jiang, Lihong; Fang, Lu; Huang, Chenxi

2016-03-01

To align business strategies with IT systems, enterprises should rapidly implement new applications based on existing information with complex associations to adapt to the continually changing external business environment. Thus, Data as a Service (DaaS) has become an enabling technology for enterprise through information integration and the configuration of existing distributed enterprise systems and heterogonous data sources. However, business modelling, system configuration and model alignment face challenges at the design and execution stages. To provide a comprehensive solution to facilitate data-centric application design in a highly complex and large-scale situation, a configurable ontology-based service integrated platform (COSIP) is proposed to support business modelling, system configuration and execution management. First, a meta-resource model is constructed and used to describe and encapsulate information resources by way of multi-view business modelling. Then, based on ontologies, three semantic configuration patterns, namely composite resource configuration, business scene configuration and runtime environment configuration, are designed to systematically connect business goals with executable applications. Finally, a software architecture based on model-view-controller (MVC) is provided and used to assemble components for software implementation. The result of the case study demonstrates that the proposed approach provides a flexible method of implementing data-centric applications.

3D Reconfigurable MPSoC for Unmanned Spacecraft Navigation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dekoulis, George

2016-07-01

This paper describes the design of a new lightweight spacecraft navigation system for unmanned space missions. The system addresses the demands for more efficient autonomous navigation in the near-Earth environment or deep space. The proposed instrumentation is directly suitable for unmanned systems operation and testing of new airborne prototypes for remote sensing applications. The system features a new sensor technology and significant improvements over existing solutions. Fluxgate type sensors have been traditionally used in unmanned defense systems such as target drones, guided missiles, rockets and satellites, however, the guidance sensors' configurations exhibit lower specifications than the presented solution. The current implementation is based on a recently developed material in a reengineered optimum sensor configuration for unprecedented low-power consumption. The new sensor's performance characteristics qualify it for spacecraft navigation applications. A major advantage of the system is the efficiency in redundancy reduction achieved in terms of both hardware and software requirements.

Auto-rickshaw: an automated crystal structure determination platform as an efficient tool for the validation of an X-ray diffraction experiment.

PubMed

Panjikar, Santosh; Parthasarathy, Venkataraman; Lamzin, Victor S; Weiss, Manfred S; Tucker, Paul A

2005-04-01

The EMBL-Hamburg Automated Crystal Structure Determination Platform is a system that combines a number of existing macromolecular crystallographic computer programs and several decision-makers into a software pipeline for automated and efficient crystal structure determination. The pipeline can be invoked as soon as X-ray data from derivatized protein crystals have been collected and processed. It is controlled by a web-based graphical user interface for data and parameter input, and for monitoring the progress of structure determination. A large number of possible structure-solution paths are encoded in the system and the optimal path is selected by the decision-makers as the structure solution evolves. The processes have been optimized for speed so that the pipeline can be used effectively for validating the X-ray experiment at a synchrotron beamline.

The design and implementation of postprocessing for depth map on real-time extraction system.

PubMed

Tang, Zhiwei; Li, Bin; Li, Huosheng; Xu, Zheng

2014-01-01

Depth estimation becomes the key technology to resolve the communications of the stereo vision. We can get the real-time depth map based on hardware, which cannot implement complicated algorithm as software, because there are some restrictions in the hardware structure. Eventually, some wrong stereo matching will inevitably exist in the process of depth estimation by hardware, such as FPGA. In order to solve the problem a postprocessing function is designed in this paper. After matching cost unique test, the both left-right and right-left consistency check solutions are implemented, respectively; then, the cavities in depth maps can be filled by right depth values on the basis of right-left consistency check solution. The results in the experiments have shown that the depth map extraction and postprocessing function can be implemented in real time in the same system; what is more, the quality of the depth maps is satisfactory.

The choice of primary energy source including PV installation for providing electric energy to a public utility building - a case study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Radomski, Bartosz; Ćwiek, Barbara; Mróz, Tomasz M.

2017-11-01

The paper presents multicriteria decision aid analysis of the choice of PV installation providing electric energy to a public utility building. From the energy management point of view electricity obtained by solar radiation has become crucial renewable energy source. Application of PV installations may occur a profitable solution from energy, economic and ecologic point of view for both existing and newly erected buildings. Featured variants of PV installations have been assessed by multicriteria analysis based on ANP (Analytic Network Process) method. Technical, economical, energy and environmental criteria have been identified as main decision criteria. Defined set of decision criteria has an open character and can be modified in the dialog process between the decision-maker and the expert - in the present case, an expert in planning of development of energy supply systems. The proposed approach has been used to evaluate three variants of PV installation acceptable for existing educational building located in Poznań, Poland - the building of Faculty of Chemical Technology, Poznań University of Technology. Multi-criteria analysis based on ANP method and the calculation software Super Decisions has proven to be an effective tool for energy planning, leading to the indication of the recommended variant of PV installation in existing and newly erected public buildings. Achieved results show prospects and possibilities of rational renewable energy usage as complex solution to public utility buildings.

An Analytical Solution for Yaw Maneuver Optimization on the International Space Station and Other Orbiting Space Vehicles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dobrinskaya, Tatiana

2015-01-01

This paper suggests a new method for optimizing yaw maneuvers on the International Space Station (ISS). Yaw rotations are the most common large maneuvers on the ISS often used for docking and undocking operations, as well as for other activities. When maneuver optimization is used, large maneuvers, which were performed on thrusters, could be performed either using control moment gyroscopes (CMG), or with significantly reduced thruster firings. Maneuver optimization helps to save expensive propellant and reduce structural loads - an important factor for the ISS service life. In addition, optimized maneuvers reduce contamination of the critical elements of the vehicle structure, such as solar arrays. This paper presents an analytical solution for optimizing yaw attitude maneuvers. Equations describing pitch and roll motion needed to counteract the major torques during a yaw maneuver are obtained. A yaw rate profile is proposed. Also the paper describes the physical basis of the suggested optimization approach. In the obtained optimized case, the torques are significantly reduced. This torque reduction was compared to the existing optimization method which utilizes the computational solution. It was shown that the attitude profiles and the torque reduction have a good match for these two methods of optimization. The simulations using the ISS flight software showed similar propellant consumption for both methods. The analytical solution proposed in this paper has major benefits with respect to computational approach. In contrast to the current computational solution, which only can be calculated on the ground, the analytical solution does not require extensive computational resources, and can be implemented in the onboard software, thus, making the maneuver execution automatic. The automatic maneuver significantly simplifies the operations and, if necessary, allows to perform a maneuver without communication with the ground. It also reduces the probability of command errors. The suggested analytical solution provides a new method of maneuver optimization which is less complicated, automatic and more universal. A maneuver optimization approach, presented in this paper, can be used not only for the ISS, but for other orbiting space vehicles.

Expansion of flight simulator capability for study and solution of aircraft directional control problems on runways

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kibbee, G. W.

1978-01-01

The development, evaluation, and evaluation results of a DC-9-10 runway directional control simulator are described. An existing wide bodied flight simulator was modified to this aircraft configuration. The simulator was structured to use either two of antiskid simulations; (1) an analog mechanization that used aircraft hardware; or (2) a digital software simulation. After the simulation was developed it was evaluated by 14 pilots who made 818 simulated flights. These evaluations involved landings, rejected takeoffs, and various ground maneuvers. Qualitatively most pilots evaluated the simulator as realistic with good potential especially for pilot training for adverse runway conditions.

Modelling and simulation of a pervaporation process using tubular module for production of anhydrous ethanol

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hieu, Nguyen Huu

2017-09-01

Pervaporation is a potential process for the final step of ethanol biofuel production. In this study, a mathematical model was developed based on the resistance-in-series model and a simulation was carried out using the specialized simulation software COMSOL Multiphysics to describe a tubular type pervaporation module with membranes for the dehydration of ethanol solution. The permeance of membranes, operating conditions, and feed conditions in the simulation were referred from experimental data reported previously in literature. Accordingly, the simulated temperature and density profiles of pure water and ethanol-water mixture were validated based on existing published data.

Method for simulating paint mixing on computer monitors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carabott, Ferdinand; Lewis, Garth; Piehl, Simon

2002-06-01

Computer programs like Adobe Photoshop can generate a mixture of two 'computer' colors by using the Gradient control. However, the resulting colors diverge from the equivalent paint mixtures in both hue and value. This study examines why programs like Photoshop are unable to simulate paint or pigment mixtures, and offers a solution using Photoshops existing tools. The article discusses how a library of colors, simulating paint mixtures, is created from 13 artists' colors. The mixtures can be imported into Photoshop as a color swatch palette of 1248 colors and as 78 continuous or stepped gradient files, all accessed in a new software package, Chromafile.

Unsteady boundary layer rotating flow and heat transfer in a copper-water nanofluid over a shrinking sheet

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dzulkifli, Nor Fadhilah; Bachok, Norfifah; Yacob, Nor Azizah; Arifin, Norihan Md; Rosali, Haliza

2017-04-01

The study of unsteady three-dimensional boundary layer rotating flow with heat transfer in Copper-water nanofluid over a shrinking sheet is discussed. The governing equations in terms of partial differential equations are transformed to ordinary differential equations by introducing the appropriate similarity variables which are then solved numerically by a shooting method with Maple software. The numerical results of velocity gradient in x and y directions, skin friction coefficient and local Nusselt number as well as dual velocity and temperature profiles are shown graphically. The study revealed that dual solutions exist in certain range of s > 0.

Development of a change management system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Parks, Cathy Bonifas

1993-01-01

The complexity and interdependence of software on a computer system can create a situation where a solution to one problem causes failures in dependent software. In the computer industry, software problems arise and are often solved with 'quick and dirty' solutions. But in implementing these solutions, documentation about the solution or user notification of changes is often overlooked, and new problems are frequently introduced because of insufficient review or testing. These problems increase when numerous heterogeneous systems are involved. Because of this situation, a change management system plays an integral part in the maintenance of any multisystem computing environment. At the NASA Ames Advanced Computational Facility (ACF), the Online Change Management System (OCMS) was designed and developed to manage the changes being applied to its multivendor computing environment. This paper documents the research, design, and modifications that went into the development of this change management system (CMS).

Software Analysis of New Space Gravity Data for Geophysics and Climate Research

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Deese, Rupert; Ivins, Erik R.; Fielding, Eric J.

2012-01-01

Both the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellites are returning rich data for the study of the solid earth, the oceans, and the climate. Current software analysis tools do not provide researchers with the ease and flexibility required to make full use of this data. We evaluate the capabilities and shortcomings of existing software tools including Mathematica, the GOCE User Toolbox, the ICGEM's (International Center for Global Earth Models) web server, and Tesseroids. Using existing tools as necessary, we design and implement software with the capability to produce gridded data and publication quality renderings from raw gravity data. The straight forward software interface marks an improvement over previously existing tools and makes new space gravity data more useful to researchers. Using the software we calculate Bouguer anomalies of the gravity tensor's vertical component in the Gulf of Mexico, Antarctica, and the 2010 Maule earthquake region. These maps identify promising areas of future research.

Evaluating Open Source Software for Use in Library Initiatives: A Case Study Involving Electronic Publishing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Samuels, Ruth Gallegos; Griffy, Henry

2012-01-01

This article discusses best practices for evaluating open source software for use in library projects, based on the authors' experience evaluating electronic publishing solutions. First, it presents a brief review of the literature, emphasizing the need to evaluate open source solutions carefully in order to minimize Total Cost of Ownership. Next,…

Genome re-annotation: a wiki solution?

PubMed Central

Salzberg, Steven L

2007-01-01

The annotation of most genomes becomes outdated over time, owing in part to our ever-improving knowledge of genomes and in part to improvements in bioinformatics software. Unfortunately, annotation is rarely if ever updated and resources to support routine reannotation are scarce. Wiki software, which would allow many scientists to edit each genome's annotation, offers one possible solution. PMID:17274839

Field Guide for Designing Human Interaction with Intelligent Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Malin, Jane T.; Thronesbery, Carroll G.

1998-01-01

The characteristics of this Field Guide approach address the problems of designing innovative software to support user tasks. The requirements for novel software are difficult to specify a priori, because there is not sufficient understanding of how the users' tasks should be supported, and there are not obvious pre-existing design solutions. When the design team is in unfamiliar territory, care must be taken to avoid rushing into detailed design, requirements specification, or implementation of the wrong product. The challenge is to get the right design and requirements in an efficient, cost-effective manner. This document's purpose is to describe the methods we are using to design human interactions with intelligent systems which support Space Shuttle flight controllers in the Mission Control Center at NASA/Johnson Space Center. Although these software systems usually have some intelligent features, the design challenges arise primarily from the innovation needed in the software design. While these methods are tailored to our specific context, they should be extensible, and helpful to designers of human interaction with other types of automated systems. We review the unique features of this context so that you can determine how to apply these methods to your project Throughout this Field Guide, goals of the design methods are discussed. This should help designers understand how a specific method might need to be adapted to the project at hand.

TaxI: a software tool for DNA barcoding using distance methods

PubMed Central

Steinke, Dirk; Vences, Miguel; Salzburger, Walter; Meyer, Axel

2005-01-01

DNA barcoding is a promising approach to the diagnosis of biological diversity in which DNA sequences serve as the primary key for information retrieval. Most existing software for evolutionary analysis of DNA sequences was designed for phylogenetic analyses and, hence, those algorithms do not offer appropriate solutions for the rapid, but precise analyses needed for DNA barcoding, and are also unable to process the often large comparative datasets. We developed a flexible software tool for DNA taxonomy, named TaxI. This program calculates sequence divergences between a query sequence (taxon to be barcoded) and each sequence of a dataset of reference sequences defined by the user. Because the analysis is based on separate pairwise alignments this software is also able to work with sequences characterized by multiple insertions and deletions that are difficult to align in large sequence sets (i.e. thousands of sequences) by multiple alignment algorithms because of computational restrictions. Here, we demonstrate the utility of this approach with two datasets of fish larvae and juveniles from Lake Constance and juvenile land snails under different models of sequence evolution. Sets of ribosomal 16S rRNA sequences, characterized by multiple indels, performed as good as or better than cox1 sequence sets in assigning sequences to species, demonstrating the suitability of rRNA genes for DNA barcoding. PMID:16214755

ALMA software architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schwarz, Joseph; Raffi, Gianni

2002-12-01

The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is a joint project involving astronomical organizations in Europe and North America. ALMA will consist of at least 64 12-meter antennas operating in the millimeter and sub-millimeter range. It will be located at an altitude of about 5000m in the Chilean Atacama desert. The primary challenge to the development of the software architecture is the fact that both its development and runtime environments will be distributed. Groups at different institutes will develop the key elements such as Proposal Preparation tools, Instrument operation, On-line calibration and reduction, and Archiving. The Proposal Preparation software will be used primarily at scientists' home institutions (or on their laptops), while Instrument Operations will execute on a set of networked computers at the ALMA Operations Support Facility. The ALMA Science Archive, itself to be replicated at several sites, will serve astronomers worldwide. Building upon the existing ALMA Common Software (ACS), the system architects will prepare a robust framework that will use XML-encoded entity objects to provide an effective solution to the persistence needs of this system, while remaining largely independent of any underlying DBMS technology. Independence of distributed subsystems will be facilitated by an XML- and CORBA-based pass-by-value mechanism for exchange of objects. Proof of concept (as well as a guide to subsystem developers) will come from a prototype whose details will be presented.

An open-source model and solution method to predict co-contraction in the finger.

PubMed

MacIntosh, Alexander R; Keir, Peter J

2017-10-01

A novel open-source biomechanical model of the index finger with an electromyography (EMG)-constrained static optimization solution method are developed with the goal of improving co-contraction estimates and providing means to assess tendon tension distribution through the finger. The Intrinsic model has four degrees of freedom and seven muscles (with a 14 component extensor mechanism). A novel plugin developed for the OpenSim modelling software applied the EMG-constrained static optimization solution method. Ten participants performed static pressing in three finger postures and five dynamic free motion tasks. Index finger 3D kinematics, force (5, 15, 30 N), and EMG (4 extrinsic muscles and first dorsal interosseous) were used in the analysis. The Intrinsic model predicted co-contraction increased by 29% during static pressing over the existing model. Further, tendon tension distribution patterns and forces, known to be essential to produce finger action, were determined by the model across all postures. The Intrinsic model and custom solution method improved co-contraction estimates to facilitate force propagation through the finger. These tools improve our interpretation of loads in the finger to develop better rehabilitation and workplace injury risk reduction strategies.

Review of Thawing Time Prediction Models Depending
on Process Conditions and Product Characteristics

PubMed Central

Kluza, Franciszek; Spiess, Walter E. L.; Kozłowicz, Katarzyna

2016-01-01

Summary Determining thawing times of frozen foods is a challenging problem as the thermophysical properties of the product change during thawing. A number of calculation models and solutions have been developed. The proposed solutions range from relatively simple analytical equations based on a number of assumptions to a group of empirical approaches that sometimes require complex calculations. In this paper analytical, empirical and graphical models are presented and critically reviewed. The conditions of solution, limitations and possible applications of the models are discussed. The graphical and semi--graphical models are derived from numerical methods. Using the numerical methods is not always possible as running calculations takes time, whereas the specialized software and equipment are not always cheap. For these reasons, the application of analytical-empirical models is more useful for engineering. It is demonstrated that there is no simple, accurate and feasible analytical method for thawing time prediction. Consequently, simplified methods are needed for thawing time estimation of agricultural and food products. The review reveals the need for further improvement of the existing solutions or development of new ones that will enable accurate determination of thawing time within a wide range of practical conditions of heat transfer during processing. PMID:27904387

Using GDAL to Convert NetCDF 4 CF 1.6 to GeoTIFF: Interoperability Problems and Solutions for Data Providers and Distributors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Haran, T. M.; Brodzik, M. J.; Nordgren, B.; Estilow, T.; Scott, D. J.

2015-12-01

An increasing number of new Earth science datasets are being producedby data providers in self-describing, machine-independent file formatsincluding Hierarchical Data Format version 5 (HDF5) and NetworkCommon Data Form version 4 (netCDF-4). Furthermore data providers maybe producing netCDF-4 files that follow the conventions for Climateand Forecast metadata version 1.6 (CF 1.6) which, for datasets mappedto a projected raster grid covering all or a portion of the earth,includes the Coordinate Reference System (CRS) used to define howlatitude and longitude are mapped to grid coordinates, i.e. columnsand rows, and vice versa. One problem that users may encounter is thattheir preferred visualization and analysis tool may not yet includesupport for one of these newer formats. Moreover, data distributorssuch as NASA's NSIDC DAAC may not yet include support for on-the-flyconversion of data files for all data sets produced in a new format toa preferred older distributed format.There do exist open source solutions to this dilemma in the form ofsoftware packages that can translate files in one of the new formatsto one of the preferred formats. However these software packagesrequire that the file to be translated conform to the specificationsof its respective format. Although an online CF-Convention compliancechecker is available from cfconventions.org, a recent NSIDC userservices incident described here in detail involved an NSIDC-supporteddata set that passed the (then current) CF Checker Version 2.0.6, butwas in fact lacking two variables necessary for conformance. Thisproblem was not detected until GDAL, a software package which reliedon the missing variables, was employed by a user in an attempt totranslate the data into a different file format, namely GeoTIFF.This incident indicates that testing a candidate data product with oneor more software products written to accept the advertised conventionsis proposed as a practice which improves interoperability. Differencesbetween data file contents and software package expectations areexposed, affording an opportunity to improve conformance of software,data or both. The incident can also serve as a demonstration that dataproviders, distributors, and users can work together to improve dataproduct quality and interoperability.

MIBPB: a software package for electrostatic analysis.

PubMed

Chen, Duan; Chen, Zhan; Chen, Changjun; Geng, Weihua; Wei, Guo-Wei

2011-03-01

The Poisson-Boltzmann equation (PBE) is an established model for the electrostatic analysis of biomolecules. The development of advanced computational techniques for the solution of the PBE has been an important topic in the past two decades. This article presents a matched interface and boundary (MIB)-based PBE software package, the MIBPB solver, for electrostatic analysis. The MIBPB has a unique feature that it is the first interface technique-based PBE solver that rigorously enforces the solution and flux continuity conditions at the dielectric interface between the biomolecule and the solvent. For protein molecular surfaces, which may possess troublesome geometrical singularities, the MIB scheme makes the MIBPB by far the only existing PBE solver that is able to deliver the second-order convergence, that is, the accuracy increases four times when the mesh size is halved. The MIBPB method is also equipped with a Dirichlet-to-Neumann mapping technique that builds a Green's function approach to analytically resolve the singular charge distribution in biomolecules in order to obtain reliable solutions at meshes as coarse as 1 Å--whereas it usually takes other traditional PB solvers 0.25 Å to reach similar level of reliability. This work further accelerates the rate of convergence of linear equation systems resulting from the MIBPB by using the Krylov subspace (KS) techniques. Condition numbers of the MIBPB matrices are significantly reduced by using appropriate KS solver and preconditioner combinations. Both linear and nonlinear PBE solvers in the MIBPB package are tested by protein-solvent solvation energy calculations and analysis of salt effects on protein-protein binding energies, respectively. Copyright © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Comparison of Point Cloud Registration Algorithms for Better Result Assessment - Towards AN Open-Source Solution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lachat, E.; Landes, T.; Grussenmeyer, P.

2018-05-01

Terrestrial and airborne laser scanning, photogrammetry and more generally 3D recording techniques are used in a wide range of applications. After recording several individual 3D datasets known in local systems, one of the first crucial processing steps is the registration of these data into a common reference frame. To perform such a 3D transformation, commercial and open source software as well as programs from the academic community are available. Due to some lacks in terms of computation transparency and quality assessment in these solutions, it has been decided to develop an open source algorithm which is presented in this paper. It is dedicated to the simultaneous registration of multiple point clouds as well as their georeferencing. The idea is to use this algorithm as a start point for further implementations, involving the possibility of combining 3D data from different sources. Parallel to the presentation of the global registration methodology which has been employed, the aim of this paper is to confront the results achieved this way with the above-mentioned existing solutions. For this purpose, first results obtained with the proposed algorithm to perform the global registration of ten laser scanning point clouds are presented. An analysis of the quality criteria delivered by two selected software used in this study and a reflexion about these criteria is also performed to complete the comparison of the obtained results. The final aim of this paper is to validate the current efficiency of the proposed method through these comparisons.

The inverse Numerical Computer Program FLUX-BOT for estimating Vertical Water Fluxes from Temperature Time-Series.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Trauth, N.; Schmidt, C.; Munz, M.

2016-12-01

Heat as a natural tracer to quantify water fluxes between groundwater and surface water has evolved to a standard hydrological method. Typically, time series of temperatures in the surface water and in the sediment are observed and are subsequently evaluated by a vertical 1D representation of heat transport by advection and dispersion. Several analytical solutions as well as their implementation into user-friendly software exist in order to estimate water fluxes from the observed temperatures. Analytical solutions can be easily implemented but assumptions on the boundary conditions have to be made a priori, e.g. sinusoidal upper temperature boundary. Numerical models offer more flexibility and can handle temperature data which is characterized by irregular variations such as storm-event induced temperature changes and thus cannot readily be incorporated in analytical solutions. This also reduced the effort of data preprocessing such as the extraction of the diurnal temperature variation. We developed a software to estimate water FLUXes Based On Temperatures- FLUX-BOT. FLUX-BOT is a numerical code written in MATLAB which is intended to calculate vertical water fluxes in saturated sediments, based on the inversion of measured temperature time series observed at multiple depths. It applies a cell-centered Crank-Nicolson implicit finite difference scheme to solve the one-dimensional heat advection-conduction equation. Besides its core inverse numerical routines, FLUX-BOT includes functions visualizing the results and functions for performing uncertainty analysis. We provide applications of FLUX-BOT to generic as well as to measured temperature data to demonstrate its performance.

MIBPB: A software package for electrostatic analysis

PubMed Central

Chen, Duan; Chen, Zhan; Chen, Changjun; Geng, Weihua; Wei, Guo-Wei

2010-01-01

The Poisson-Boltzmann equation (PBE) is an established model for the electrostatic analysis of biomolecules. The development of advanced computational techniques for the solution of the PBE has been an important topic in the past two decades. This paper presents a matched interface and boundary (MIB) based PBE software package, the MIBPB solver, for electrostatic analysis. The MIBPB has a unique feature that it is the first interface technique based PBE solver that rigorously enforces the solution and flux continuity conditions at the dielectric interface between the biomolecule and the solvent. For protein molecular surfaces which may possess troublesome geometrical singularities, the MIB scheme makes the MIBPB by far the only existing PBE solver that is able to deliver the second order convergence, i.e., the accuracy increases four times when the mesh size is halved. The MIBPB method is also equipped with a Dirichlet-to-Neumann mapping (DNM) technique, that builds a Green's function approach to analytically resolve the singular charge distribution in biomolecules in order to obtain reliable solutions at meshes as coarse as 1Å — while it usually takes other traditional PB solvers 0.25Å to reach similar level of reliability. The present work further accelerates the rate of convergence of linear equation systems resulting from the MIBPB by utilizing the Krylov subspace (KS) techniques. Condition numbers of the MIBPB matrices are significantly reduced by using appropriate Krylov subspace solver and preconditioner combinations. Both linear and nonlinear PBE solvers in the MIBPB package are tested by protein-solvent solvation energy calculations and analysis of salt effects on protein-protein binding energies, respectively. PMID:20845420

Is innovative workforce planning software the solution to NHS staffing and cost crisis? An exploration of the locum industry.

PubMed

Theodoulou, Iakovos; Reddy, Akshaya Mohan; Wong, Jeremy

2018-03-20

Workforce planning in the British healthcare system (NHS) is associated with significant costs of agency staff employment. The introduction of a novel software (ABG) as a 'people to people economy' (P2PE) platform for temporary staff recruitment offers a potential solution to this problem. Consequently, the focus of this study was twofold - primarily to explore the locum doctor landscape, and secondarily to evaluate the implementation of P2PE in the healthcare industry. Documentary analysis was conducted alongside thirteen semi structured interviews across five informant groups: two industry experts, two healthcare consultants, an executive director, two speciality managers and six doctors. We found that locum doctors are indispensable to covering workforce shortages, yet existing planning and recruitment practices were found to be inefficient, inconsistent and lacking transparency. Contrarily, mobile-first solutions such as ABG seem to secure higher convenience, better transparency, cost and time efficiency. We also identified factors facilitating the successful diffusion of ABG; these were in line with classically cited characteristics of innovation such as trialability, observability, and scope for local reinvention. Drawing upon the concept of value-based healthcare coupled with the analysis of our findings led to the development of Information Exchange System (IES) model, a comprehensive framework allowing a thorough comparison of recruitment practices in healthcare. IES was used to evaluate ABG and its diffusion against other recruitment methods and ABG was found to outperform its alternatives, thus suggesting its potential to solve the staffing and cost crisis at the chosen hospital.

C to VHDL compiler

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berdychowski, Piotr P.; Zabolotny, Wojciech M.

2010-09-01

The main goal of C to VHDL compiler project is to make FPGA platform more accessible for scientists and software developers. FPGA platform offers unique ability to configure the hardware to implement virtually any dedicated architecture, and modern devices provide sufficient number of hardware resources to implement parallel execution platforms with complex processing units. All this makes the FPGA platform very attractive for those looking for efficient heterogeneous, computing environment. Current industry standard in development of digital systems on FPGA platform is based on HDLs. Although very effective and expressive in hands of hardware development specialists, these languages require specific knowledge and experience, unreachable for most scientists and software programmers. C to VHDL compiler project attempts to remedy that by creating an application, that derives initial VHDL description of a digital system (for further compilation and synthesis), from purely algorithmic description in C programming language. This idea itself is not new, and the C to VHDL compiler combines the best approaches from existing solutions developed over many previous years, with the introduction of some new unique improvements.

Towards a flexible array control and operation framework for CTA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Birsin, E.; Colomé, J.; Hoffmann, D.; Koeppel, H.; Lamanna, G.; Le Flour, T.; Lopatin, A.; Lyard, E.; Melkumyan, D.; Oya, I.; Panazol, J.-L.; Schlenstedt, S.; Schmidt, T.; Schwanke, U.; Stegmann, C.; Walter, R.; Wegner, P.; CTA Consortium

2012-12-01

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) [1] will be the successor to current Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACT) like H.E.S.S., MAGIC and VERITAS. CTA will improve in sensitivity by about an order of magnitude compared to the current generation of IACTs. The energy range will extend from well below 100 GeV to above 100 TeV. To accomplish these goals, CTA will consist of two arrays, one in each hemisphere, consisting of 50-80 telescopes and composed of three different telescope types with different mirror sizes. It will be the first open observatory for very high energy γ-ray astronomy. The Array Control working group of CTA is currently evaluating existing technologies which are best suited for a project like CTA. The considered solutions comprise the ALMA Common Software (ACS), the OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) and the Data Distribution Service (DDS) for bulk data transfer. The first applications, like an automatic observation scheduler and the control software for some prototype instrumentation have been developed.

Linked Data: Forming Partnerships at the Data Layer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shepherd, A.; Chandler, C. L.; Arko, R. A.; Jones, M. B.; Hitzler, P.; Janowicz, K.; Krisnadhi, A.; Schildhauer, M.; Fils, D.; Narock, T.; Groman, R. C.; O'Brien, M.; Patton, E. W.; Kinkade, D.; Rauch, S.

2015-12-01

The challenges presented by big data are straining data management software architectures of the past. For smaller existing data facilities, the technical refactoring of software layers become costly to scale across the big data landscape. In response to these challenges, data facilities will need partnerships with external entities for improved solutions to perform tasks such as data cataloging, discovery and reuse, and data integration and processing with provenance. At its surface, the concept of linked open data suggests an uncalculated altruism. Yet, in his concept of five star open data, Tim Berners-Lee explains the strategic costs and benefits of deploying linked open data from the perspective of its consumer and producer - a data partnership. The Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO) addresses some of the emerging needs of its research community by partnering with groups doing complementary work and linking their respective data layers using linked open data principles. Examples will show how these links, explicit manifestations of partnerships, reduce technical debt and provide a swift flexibility for future considerations.

Toolboxes for a standardised and systematic study of glycans

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Recent progress in method development for characterising the branched structures of complex carbohydrates has now enabled higher throughput technology. Automation of structure analysis then calls for software development since adding meaning to large data collections in reasonable time requires corresponding bioinformatics methods and tools. Current glycobioinformatics resources do cover information on the structure and function of glycans, their interaction with proteins or their enzymatic synthesis. However, this information is partial, scattered and often difficult to find to for non-glycobiologists. Methods Following our diagnosis of the causes of the slow development of glycobioinformatics, we review the "objective" difficulties encountered in defining adequate formats for representing complex entities and developing efficient analysis software. Results Various solutions already implemented and strategies defined to bridge glycobiology with different fields and integrate the heterogeneous glyco-related information are presented. Conclusions Despite the initial stage of our integrative efforts, this paper highlights the rapid expansion of glycomics, the validity of existing resources and the bright future of glycobioinformatics. PMID:24564482

Motofit - integrating neutron reflectometry acquisition, reduction and analysis into one, easy to use, package

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nelson, Andrew

2010-11-01

The efficient use of complex neutron scattering instruments is often hindered by the complex nature of their operating software. This complexity exists at each experimental step: data acquisition, reduction and analysis, with each step being as important as the previous. For example, whilst command line interfaces are powerful at automated acquisition they often reduce accessibility by novice users and sometimes reduce the efficiency for advanced users. One solution to this is the development of a graphical user interface which allows the user to operate the instrument by a simple and intuitive "push button" approach. This approach was taken by the Motofit software package for analysis of multiple contrast reflectometry data. Here we describe the extension of this package to cover the data acquisition and reduction steps for the Platypus time-of-flight neutron reflectometer. Consequently, the complete operation of an instrument is integrated into a single, easy to use, program, leading to efficient instrument usage.

Multidisciplinary Optimization for Aerospace Using Genetic Optimization

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pak, Chan-gi; Hahn, Edward E.; Herrera, Claudia Y.

2007-01-01

In support of the ARMD guidelines NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center is developing a multidisciplinary design and optimization tool This tool will leverage existing tools and practices, and allow the easy integration and adoption of new state-of-the-art software. Optimization has made its way into many mainstream applications. For example NASTRAN(TradeMark) has its solution sequence 200 for Design Optimization, and MATLAB(TradeMark) has an Optimization Tool box. Other packages, such as ZAERO(TradeMark) aeroelastic panel code and the CFL3D(TradeMark) Navier-Stokes solver have no built in optimizer. The goal of the tool development is to generate a central executive capable of using disparate software packages ina cross platform network environment so as to quickly perform optimization and design tasks in a cohesive streamlined manner. A provided figure (Figure 1) shows a typical set of tools and their relation to the central executive. Optimization can take place within each individual too, or in a loop between the executive and the tool, or both.

Tele-rehabilitation using in-house wearable ankle rehabilitation robot.

PubMed

Jamwal, Prashant K; Hussain, Shahid; Mir-Nasiri, Nazim; Ghayesh, Mergen H; Xie, Sheng Q

2018-01-01

This article explores wide-ranging potential of the wearable ankle robot for in-house rehabilitation. The presented robot has been conceptualized following a brief analysis of the existing technologies, systems, and solutions for in-house physical ankle rehabilitation. Configuration design analysis and component selection for ankle robot have been discussed as part of the conceptual design. The complexities of human robot interaction are closely encountered while maneuvering a rehabilitation robot. We present a fuzzy logic-based controller to perform the required robot-assisted ankle rehabilitation treatment. Designs of visual haptic interfaces have also been discussed, which will make the treatment interesting, and the subject will be motivated to exert more and regain lost functions rapidly. The complex nature of web-based communication between user and remotely sitting physiotherapy staff has also been discussed. A high-level software architecture appended with robot ensures user-friendly operations. This software is made up of three important components: patient-related database, graphical user interface (GUI), and a library of exercises creating virtual reality-specifically developed for ankle rehabilitation.

A Study of Clinically Related Open Source Software Projects

PubMed Central

Hogarth, Michael A.; Turner, Stuart

2005-01-01

Open source software development has recently gained significant interest due to several successful mainstream open source projects. This methodology has been proposed as being similarly viable and beneficial in the clinical application domain as well. However, the clinical software development venue differs significantly from the mainstream software venue. Existing clinical open source projects have not been well characterized nor formally studied so the ‘fit’ of open source in this domain is largely unknown. In order to better understand the open source movement in the clinical application domain, we undertook a study of existing open source clinical projects. In this study we sought to characterize and classify existing clinical open source projects and to determine metrics for their viability. This study revealed several findings which we believe could guide the healthcare community in its quest for successful open source clinical software projects. PMID:16779056

Integrated Functional and Executional Modelling of Software Using Web-Based Databases

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kulkarni, Deepak; Marietta, Roberta

1998-01-01

NASA's software subsystems undergo extensive modification and updates over the operational lifetimes. It is imperative that modified software should satisfy safety goals. This report discusses the difficulties encountered in doing so and discusses a solution based on integrated modelling of software, use of automatic information extraction tools, web technology and databases.

Delivering Software Process-Specific Project Courses in Tertiary Education Environment: Challenges and Solution

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rong, Guoping; Shao, Dong

2012-01-01

The importance of delivering software process courses to software engineering students has been more and more recognized in China in recent years. However, students usually cannot fully appreciate the value of software process courses by only learning methodology and principle in the classroom. Therefore, a process-specific project course was…

SPECS: Secure and Privacy Enhancing Communications Schemes for VANETs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chim, T. W.; Yiu, S. M.; Hui, L. C. K.; Jiang, Zoe L.; Li, Victor O. K.

Vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) is an emerging type of networks which facilitates vehicles on roads to communicate for driving safety. The basic idea is to allow arbitrary vehicles to broadcast ad hoc messages (e.g. traffic accidents) to other vehicles. However, this raises the concern of security and privacy. Messages should be signed and verified before they are trusted while the real identity of vehicles should not be revealed, but traceable by authorized party. Existing solutions either rely heavily on a tamper-proof hardware device, or cannot satisfy the privacy requirement and do not have an effective message verification scheme. In this paper, we provide a software-based solution which makes use of only two shared secrets to satisfy the privacy requirement and gives lower message overhead and at least 45% higher successful rate than previous solutions in the message verification phase using the bloom filter and the binary search techniques. We also provide the first group communication protocol to allow vehicles to authenticate and securely communicate with others in a group of known vehicles.

From Bridges and Rockets, Lessons for Software Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Holloway, C. Michael

2004-01-01

Although differences exist between building software systems and building physical structures such as bridges and rockets, enough similarities exist that software engineers can learn lessons from failures in traditional engineering disciplines. This paper draws lessons from two well-known failures the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940 and the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 and applies these lessons to software system development. The following specific applications are made: (1) the verification and validation of a software system should not be based on a single method, or a single style of methods; (2) the tendency to embrace the latest fad should be overcome; and (3) the introduction of software control into safety-critical systems should be done cautiously.

On Software Compatibility.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ershov, Andrei P.

The problem of compatibility of software hampers the development of computer application. One solution lies in standardization of languages, terms, peripherais, operating systems and computer characteristics. (AB)

Fault Tree Analysis Application for Safety and Reliability

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wallace, Dolores R.

2003-01-01

Many commercial software tools exist for fault tree analysis (FTA), an accepted method for mitigating risk in systems. The method embedded in the tools identifies a root as use in system components, but when software is identified as a root cause, it does not build trees into the software component. No commercial software tools have been built specifically for development and analysis of software fault trees. Research indicates that the methods of FTA could be applied to software, but the method is not practical without automated tool support. With appropriate automated tool support, software fault tree analysis (SFTA) may be a practical technique for identifying the underlying cause of software faults that may lead to critical system failures. We strive to demonstrate that existing commercial tools for FTA can be adapted for use with SFTA, and that applied to a safety-critical system, SFTA can be used to identify serious potential problems long before integrator and system testing.

SDMtoolbox 2.0: the next generation Python-based GIS toolkit for landscape genetic, biogeographic and species distribution model analyses

PubMed Central

Bennett, Joseph R.; French, Connor M.

2017-01-01

SDMtoolbox 2.0 is a software package for spatial studies of ecology, evolution, and genetics. The release of SDMtoolbox 2.0 allows researchers to use the most current ArcGIS software and MaxEnt software, and reduces the amount of time that would be spent developing common solutions. The central aim of this software is to automate complicated and repetitive spatial analyses in an intuitive graphical user interface. One core tenant facilitates careful parameterization of species distribution models (SDMs) to maximize each model’s discriminatory ability and minimize overfitting. This includes carefully processing of occurrence data, environmental data, and model parameterization. This program directly interfaces with MaxEnt, one of the most powerful and widely used species distribution modeling software programs, although SDMtoolbox 2.0 is not limited to species distribution modeling or restricted to modeling in MaxEnt. Many of the SDM pre- and post-processing tools have ‘universal’ analogs for use with any modeling software. The current version contains a total of 79 scripts that harness the power of ArcGIS for macroecology, landscape genetics, and evolutionary studies. For example, these tools allow for biodiversity quantification (such as species richness or corrected weighted endemism), generation of least-cost paths and corridors among shared haplotypes, assessment of the significance of spatial randomizations, and enforcement of dispersal limitations of SDMs projected into future climates—to only name a few functions contained in SDMtoolbox 2.0. Lastly, dozens of generalized tools exists for batch processing and conversion of GIS data types or formats, which are broadly useful to any ArcMap user. PMID:29230356

CCSDS Spacecraft Monitor and Control Mission Operations Interoperability Prototype

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lucord, Steve; Martinez, Lindolfo

2009-01-01

We are entering a new era in space exploration. Reduced operating budgets require innovative solutions to leverage existing systems to implement the capabilities of future missions. Custom solutions to fulfill mission objectives are no longer viable. Can NASA adopt international standards to reduce costs and increase interoperability with other space agencies? Can legacy systems be leveraged in a service oriented architecture (SOA) to further reduce operations costs? The Operations Technology Facility (OTF) at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) is collaborating with Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) to answer these very questions. The Mission Operations and Information Management Services Area (MOIMS) Spacecraft Monitor and Control (SM&C) Working Group within the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) is developing the Mission Operations standards to address this problem space. The set of proposed standards presents a service oriented architecture to increase the level of interoperability among space agencies. The OTF and DLR are developing independent implementations of the standards as part of an interoperability prototype. This prototype will address three key components: validation of the SM&C Mission Operations protocol, exploration of the Object Management Group (OMG) Data Distribution Service (DDS), and the incorporation of legacy systems in a SOA. The OTF will implement the service providers described in the SM&C Mission Operation standards to create a portal for interaction with a spacecraft simulator. DLR will implement the service consumers to perform the monitor and control of the spacecraft. The specifications insulate the applications from the underlying transport layer. We will gain experience with a DDS transport layer as we delegate responsibility to the middleware and explore transport bridges to connect disparate middleware products. A SOA facilitates the reuse of software components. The prototype will leverage the capabilities of existing legacy systems. Various custom applications and middleware solutions will be combined into one system providing the illusion of a set of homogenous services. This paper will document our journey as we implement the interoperability prototype. The team consists of software engineers with experience on the current command, telemetry and messaging systems that support the International Space Station (ISS) and Space Shuttle programs. Emphasis will be on the objectives, results and potential cost saving benefits.

DOIDB: Reusing DataCite's search software as metadata portal for GFZ Data Services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Elger, K.; Ulbricht, D.; Bertelmann, R.

2016-12-01

GFZ Data Services is the central service point for the publication of research data at the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ). It provides data publishing services to scientists of GFZ, associated projects, and associated institutions. The publishing services aim to make research data and physical samples visible and citable, by assigning persistent identifiers (DOI, IGSN) and by complementing existing IT infrastructure. To integrate several research domains a modular software stack that is made of free software components has been created to manage data and metadata as well as register persistent identifiers [1]. Pivotal component for the registration of DOIs is the DOIDB. It has been derived from three software components provided by DataCite [2] that moderate the registration of DOIs and the deposition of metadata, allow the dissemination of metadata, and provide a user interface to navigate and discover datasets. The DOIDB acts as a proxy to the DataCite infrastructure and in addition to the DataCite metadata schema, it allows to deposit and disseminate metadata following the schemas ISO19139 and NASA GCMD DIF. The search component has been modified to meet the requirements of a geosciences metadata portal. In particular, the search component has been altered to make use of Apache SOLRs capability to index and query spatial coordinates. Furthermore, the user interface has been adjusted to provide a first impression of the data by showing a map, summary information and subjects. DOIDB and its components are available on GitHub [3].We present a software solution for registration of DOIs that allows to integrate existing data systems, keeps track of registered DOIs, and provides a metadata portal to discover datasets [4]. [1] Ulbricht, D.; Elger, K.; Bertelmann, R.; Klump, J. panMetaDocs, eSciDoc, and DOIDB—An Infrastructure for the Curation and Publication of File-Based Datasets for GFZ Data Services. ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5, 25. http://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5030025[2] https://github.com/datacite[3] https://github.com/ulbricht/search/tree/doidb , https://github.com/ulbricht/mds/tree/doidb , https://github.com/ulbricht/oaip/tree/doidb[4] http://doidb.wdc-terra.org

Multidisciplinary Modeling Software for Analysis, Design, and Optimization of HRRLS Vehicles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Spradley, Lawrence W.; Lohner, Rainald; Hunt, James L.

2011-01-01

The concept for Highly Reliable Reusable Launch Systems (HRRLS) under the NASA Hypersonics project is a two-stage-to-orbit, horizontal-take-off / horizontal-landing, (HTHL) architecture with an air-breathing first stage. The first stage vehicle is a slender body with an air-breathing propulsion system that is highly integrated with the airframe. The light weight slender body will deflect significantly during flight. This global deflection affects the flow over the vehicle and into the engine and thus the loads and moments on the vehicle. High-fidelity multi-disciplinary analyses that accounts for these fluid-structures-thermal interactions are required to accurately predict the vehicle loads and resultant response. These predictions of vehicle response to multi physics loads, calculated with fluid-structural-thermal interaction, are required in order to optimize the vehicle design over its full operating range. This contract with ResearchSouth addresses one of the primary objectives of the Vehicle Technology Integration (VTI) discipline: the development of high-fidelity multi-disciplinary analysis and optimization methods and tools for HRRLS vehicles. The primary goal of this effort is the development of an integrated software system that can be used for full-vehicle optimization. This goal was accomplished by: 1) integrating the master code, FEMAP, into the multidiscipline software network to direct the coupling to assure accurate fluid-structure-thermal interaction solutions; 2) loosely-coupling the Euler flow solver FEFLO to the available and proven aeroelasticity and large deformation (FEAP) code; 3) providing a coupled Euler-boundary layer capability for rapid viscous flow simulation; 4) developing and implementing improved Euler/RANS algorithms into the FEFLO CFD code to provide accurate shock capturing, skin friction, and heat-transfer predictions for HRRLS vehicles in hypersonic flow, 5) performing a Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes computation on an HRRLS configuration; 6) integrating the RANS solver with the FEAP code for coupled fluid-structure-thermal capability; and 7) integrating the existing NASA SRGULL propulsion flow path prediction software with the FEFLO software for quasi-3D propulsion flow path predictions, 8) improving and integrating into the network, an existing adjoint-based design optimization code.

An Operations Management System for the Space Station

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rosenthal, H. G.

1986-09-01

This paper presents an overview of the conceptual design of an integrated onboard Operations Management System (OMS). Both hardware and software concepts are presented and the integrated space station network is discussed. It is shown that using currently available software technology, an integrated software solution for Space Station management and control, implemented with OMS software, is feasible.

Investigation into the development of computer aided design software for space based sensors

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pender, C. W.; Clark, W. L.

1987-01-01

The described effort is phase one of the development of a Computer Aided Design (CAD) software to be used to perform radiometric sensor design. The software package will be referred to as SCAD and is directed toward the preliminary phase of the design of space based sensor system. The approach being followed is to develop a modern, graphic intensive, user friendly software package using existing software as building blocks. The emphasis will be directed toward the development of a shell containing menus, smart defaults, and interfaces, which can accommodate a wide variety of existing application software packages. The shell will offer expected utilities such as graphics, tailored menus, and a variety of drivers for I/O devices. Following the development of the shell, the development of SCAD is planned as chiefly selection and integration of appropriate building blocks. The phase one development activities have included: the selection of hardware which will be used with SCAD; the determination of the scope of SCAD; the preliminary evaluation of a number of software packages for applicability to SCAD; determination of a method for achieving required capabilities where voids exist; and then establishing a strategy for binding the software modules into an easy to use tool kit.

Software engineering as an engineering discipline

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gibbs, Norman

1988-01-01

The goals of the Software Engineering Institute's Education Program are as follows: to increase the number of highly qualified software engineers--new software engineers and existing practitioners; and to be the leading center of expertise for software engineering education and training. A discussion of these goals is presented in vugraph form.

Phynx: an open source software solution supporting data management and web-based patient-level data review for drug safety studies in the general practice research database and other health care databases.

PubMed

Egbring, Marco; Kullak-Ublick, Gerd A; Russmann, Stefan

2010-01-01

To develop a software solution that supports management and clinical review of patient data from electronic medical records databases or claims databases for pharmacoepidemiological drug safety studies. We used open source software to build a data management system and an internet application with a Flex client on a Java application server with a MySQL database backend. The application is hosted on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. This solution named Phynx supports data management, Web-based display of electronic patient information, and interactive review of patient-level information in the individual clinical context. This system was applied to a dataset from the UK General Practice Research Database (GPRD). Our solution can be setup and customized with limited programming resources, and there is almost no extra cost for software. Access times are short, the displayed information is structured in chronological order and visually attractive, and selected information such as drug exposure can be blinded. External experts can review patient profiles and save evaluations and comments via a common Web browser. Phynx provides a flexible and economical solution for patient-level review of electronic medical information from databases considering the individual clinical context. It can therefore make an important contribution to an efficient validation of outcome assessment in drug safety database studies.

MyMolDB: a micromolecular database solution with open source and free components.

PubMed

Xia, Bing; Tai, Zheng-Fu; Gu, Yu-Cheng; Li, Bang-Jing; Ding, Li-Sheng; Zhou, Yan

2011-10-01

To manage chemical structures in small laboratories is one of the important daily tasks. Few solutions are available on the internet, and most of them are closed source applications. The open-source applications typically have limited capability and basic cheminformatics functionalities. In this article, we describe an open-source solution to manage chemicals in research groups based on open source and free components. It has a user-friendly interface with the functions of chemical handling and intensive searching. MyMolDB is a micromolecular database solution that supports exact, substructure, similarity, and combined searching. This solution is mainly implemented using scripting language Python with a web-based interface for compound management and searching. Almost all the searches are in essence done with pure SQL on the database by using the high performance of the database engine. Thus, impressive searching speed has been archived in large data sets for no external Central Processing Unit (CPU) consuming languages were involved in the key procedure of the searching. MyMolDB is an open-source software and can be modified and/or redistributed under GNU General Public License version 3 published by the Free Software Foundation (Free Software Foundation Inc. The GNU General Public License, Version 3, 2007. Available at: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html). The software itself can be found at http://code.google.com/p/mymoldb/. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Use of Google Earth to strengthen public health capacity and facilitate management of vector-borne diseases in resource-poor environments.

PubMed

Lozano-Fuentes, Saul; Elizondo-Quiroga, Darwin; Farfan-Ale, Jose Arturo; Loroño-Pino, Maria Alba; Garcia-Rejon, Julian; Gomez-Carro, Salvador; Lira-Zumbardo, Victor; Najera-Vazquez, Rosario; Fernandez-Salas, Ildefonso; Calderon-Martinez, Joaquin; Dominguez-Galera, Marco; Mis-Avila, Pedro; Morris, Natashia; Coleman, Michael; Moore, Chester G; Beaty, Barry J; Eisen, Lars

2008-09-01

Novel, inexpensive solutions are needed for improved management of vector-borne and other diseases in resource-poor environments. Emerging free software providing access to satellite imagery and simple editing tools (e.g. Google Earth) complement existing geographic information system (GIS) software and provide new opportunities for: (i) strengthening overall public health capacity through development of information for city infrastructures; and (ii) display of public health data directly on an image of the physical environment. We used freely accessible satellite imagery and a set of feature-making tools included in the software (allowing for production of polygons, lines and points) to generate information for city infrastructure and to display disease data in a dengue decision support system (DDSS) framework. Two cities in Mexico (Chetumal and Merida) were used to demonstrate that a basic representation of city infrastructure useful as a spatial backbone in a DDSS can be rapidly developed at minimal cost. Data layers generated included labelled polygons representing city blocks, lines representing streets, and points showing the locations of schools and health clinics. City blocks were colour-coded to show presence of dengue cases. The data layers were successfully imported in a format known as shapefile into a GIS software. The combination of Google Earth and free GIS software (e.g. HealthMapper, developed by WHO, and SIGEpi, developed by PAHO) has tremendous potential to strengthen overall public health capacity and facilitate decision support system approaches to prevention and control of vector-borne diseases in resource-poor environments.

Onboard shuttle on-line software requirements system: Prototype

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kolkhorst, Barbara; Ogletree, Barry

1989-01-01

The prototype discussed here was developed as proof of a concept for a system which could support high volumes of requirements documents with integrated text and graphics; the solution proposed here could be extended to other projects whose goal is to place paper documents in an electronic system for viewing and printing purposes. The technical problems (such as conversion of documentation between word processors, management of a variety of graphics file formats, and difficulties involved in scanning integrated text and graphics) would be very similar for other systems of this type. Indeed, technological advances in areas such as scanning hardware and software and display terminals insure that some of the problems encountered here will be solved in the near-term (less than five years). Examples of these solvable problems include automated input of integrated text and graphics, errors in the recognition process, and the loss of image information which results from the digitization process. The solution developed for the Online Software Requirements System is modular and allows hardware and software components to be upgraded or replaced as industry solutions mature. The extensive commercial software content allows the NASA customer to apply resources to solving the problem and maintaining documents.

VLBI-SLR Combination Solution Using GEODYN

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

MacMillan, Dan; Pavlis, Despina; Lemoine, Frank; Chinn, Douglas; Rowlands, David

2010-01-01

We would like to generate a multi-technique solution combining all of the geodetic techniques (VLBI, SLR, GPS, and DORIS) using the same software and using the same a priori models. Here we use GEODYN software and consider only the VLBI-SLR combination. Here we report initial results of our work on the combination. We first performed solutions with GEODYN using only VLBI data and found that VLBI EOP solution results produced with GEODYN agree with results using CALC/SOLVE at the 1-sigma level. We then combined the VLBI normal equations in GEODYN with weekly SLR normal equations for the period 2007-2008. Agreement of estimated Earth orientation parameters with IERS C04 were not significantly different for the VLBI-only, SLR-only, and VLBI+SLR solutions

Model format for a vaccine stability report and software solutions.

PubMed

Shin, Jinho; Southern, James; Schofield, Timothy

2009-11-01

A session of the International Association for Biologicals Workshop on Stability Evaluation of Vaccine, a Life Cycle Approach was devoted to a model format for a vaccine stability report, and software solutions. Presentations highlighted the utility of a model format that will conform to regulatory requirements and the ICH common technical document. However, there need be flexibility to accommodate individual company practices. Adoption of a model format is premised upon agreement regarding content between industry and regulators, and ease of use. Software requirements will include ease of use and protections against inadvertent misspecification of stability design or misinterpretation of program output.

Exploring the Use of a Test Automation Framework

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cervantes, Alex

2009-01-01

It is known that software testers, more often than not, lack the time needed to fully test the delivered software product within the time period allotted to them. When problems in the implementation phase of a development project occur, it normally causes the software delivery date to slide. As a result, testers either need to work longer hours, or supplementary resources need to be added to the test team in order to meet aggressive test deadlines. One solution to this problem is to provide testers with a test automation framework to facilitate the development of automated test solutions.

C-C1-04: Building a Health Services Information Technology Research Environment

PubMed Central

Gehrum, David W; Jones, JB; Romania, Gregory J; Young, David L; Lerch, Virginia R; Bruce, Christa A; Donkochik, Diane; Stewart, Walter F

2010-01-01

Background: The electronic health record (EHR) has opened a new era for health services research (HSR) where information technology (IT) is used to re-engineer care processes. While the EHR provides one means of advancing novel solutions, a promising strategy is to develop tools (e.g., online questionnaires, visual display tools, decision support) distinct from, but which interact with, the EHR. Development of such software tools outside the EHR offers an advantage in flexibility, sophistication, and ultimately in portability to other settings. However, institutional IT departments have an imperative to protect patient data and to standardize IT processes to ensure system-level security and support traditional business needs. Such imperatives usually present formidable process barriers to testing novel software solutions. We describe how, in collaboration with our IT department, we are creating an environment and a process that allows for routine and rapid testing of novel software solutions. Methods: We convened a working group consisting of IT and research personnel with expertise in information security, database design/management, web design, EHR programming, and health services research. The working group was tasked with developing a research IT environment to accomplish two objectives: maintain network/ data security and regulatory compliance; allow researchers working with external vendors to rapidly prototype and, in a clinical setting, test web-based tools. Results: Two parallel solutions, one focused on hardware, the second on oversight and management, were developed. First, we concluded that three separate, staged development environments were required to allow external vendor access for testing software and for transitioning software to be used in a clinic. In parallel, the extant oversight process for approving/managing access to internal/external personnel had to be altered to reflect the scope and scale of discrete research projects, as opposed to an enterpriselevel approach to IT management. Conclusions: Innovation in health services software development requires a flexible, scalable IT environment adapted to the unique objectives of a HSR software development model. In our experience, implementing the hardware solution is less challenging than the cultural change required to implement such a model and the modifications to administrative and oversight processes to sustain an environment for rapid product development and testing.

Closed-form solution of the Ogden-Hill's compressible hyperelastic model for ramp loading

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berezvai, Szabolcs; Kossa, Attila

2017-05-01

This article deals with the visco-hyperelastic modelling approach for compressible polymer foam materials. Polymer foams can exhibit large elastic strains and displacements in case of volumetric compression. In addition, they often show significant rate-dependent properties. This material behaviour can be accurately modelled using the visco-hyperelastic approach, in which the large strain viscoelastic description is combined with the rate-independent hyperelastic material model. In case of polymer foams, the most widely used compressible hyperelastic material model, the so-called Ogden-Hill's model, was applied, which is implemented in the commercial finite element (FE) software Abaqus. The visco-hyperelastic model is defined in hereditary integral form, therefore, obtaining a closed-form solution for the stress is not a trivial task. However, the parameter-fitting procedure could be much faster and accurate if closed-form solution exists. In this contribution, exact stress solutions are derived in case of uniaxial, biaxial and volumetric compression loading cases using ramp-loading history. The analytical stress solutions are compared with the stress results in Abaqus using FE analysis. In order to highlight the benefits of the analytical closed-form solution during the parameter-fitting process experimental work has been carried out on a particular open-cell memory foam material. The results of the material identification process shows significant accuracy improvement in the fitting procedure by applying the derived analytical solutions compared to the so-called separated approach applied in the engineering practice.

Current State of the Art Historic Building Information Modelling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dore, C.; Murphy, M.

2017-08-01

In an extensive review of existing literature a number of observations were made in relation to the current approaches for recording and modelling existing buildings and environments: Data collection and pre-processing techniques are becoming increasingly automated to allow for near real-time data capture and fast processing of this data for later modelling applications. Current BIM software is almost completely focused on new buildings and has very limited tools and pre-defined libraries for modelling existing and historic buildings. The development of reusable parametric library objects for existing and historic buildings supports modelling with high levels of detail while decreasing the modelling time. Mapping these parametric objects to survey data, however, is still a time-consuming task that requires further research. Promising developments have been made towards automatic object recognition and feature extraction from point clouds for as-built BIM. However, results are currently limited to simple and planar features. Further work is required for automatic accurate and reliable reconstruction of complex geometries from point cloud data. Procedural modelling can provide an automated solution for generating 3D geometries but lacks the detail and accuracy required for most as-built applications in AEC and heritage fields.

Development of a Unix/VME data acquisition system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miller, M. C.; Ahern, S.; Clark, S. M.

1992-01-01

The current status of a Unix-based VME data acquisition development project is described. It is planned to use existing Fortran data collection software to drive the existing CAMAC electronics via a VME CAMAC branch driver card and associated Daresbury Unix driving software. The first usable Unix driver has been written and produces single-action CAMAC cycles from test software. The data acquisition code has been implemented in test mode under Unix with few problems and effort is now being directed toward finalizing calls to the CAMAC-driving software and ultimate evaluation of the complete system.

Observatory software for the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vermeulen, Tom; Isani, Sidik; Withington, Kanoa; Ho, Kevin; Szeto, Kei; Murowinski, Rick

2016-07-01

The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope is currently in the conceptual design phase to redevelop its facility into the new Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE). MSE is designed to be the largest non-ELT optical/NIR astronomical telescope, and will be a fully dedicated facility for multi-object spectroscopy over a broad range of spectral resolutions. This paper outlines the software and control architecture envisioned for the new facility. The architecture will be designed around much of the existing software infrastructure currently used at CFHT as well as the latest proven opensource software. CFHT plans to minimize risk and development time by leveraging existing technology.

Dynamically allocated virtual clustering management system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marcus, Kelvin; Cannata, Jess

2013-05-01

The U.S Army Research Laboratory (ARL) has built a "Wireless Emulation Lab" to support research in wireless mobile networks. In our current experimentation environment, our researchers need the capability to run clusters of heterogeneous nodes to model emulated wireless tactical networks where each node could contain a different operating system, application set, and physical hardware. To complicate matters, most experiments require the researcher to have root privileges. Our previous solution of using a single shared cluster of statically deployed virtual machines did not sufficiently separate each user's experiment due to undesirable network crosstalk, thus only one experiment could be run at a time. In addition, the cluster did not make efficient use of our servers and physical networks. To address these concerns, we created the Dynamically Allocated Virtual Clustering management system (DAVC). This system leverages existing open-source software to create private clusters of nodes that are either virtual or physical machines. These clusters can be utilized for software development, experimentation, and integration with existing hardware and software. The system uses the Grid Engine job scheduler to efficiently allocate virtual machines to idle systems and networks. The system deploys stateless nodes via network booting. The system uses 802.1Q Virtual LANs (VLANs) to prevent experimentation crosstalk and to allow for complex, private networks eliminating the need to map each virtual machine to a specific switch port. The system monitors the health of the clusters and the underlying physical servers and it maintains cluster usage statistics for historical trends. Users can start private clusters of heterogeneous nodes with root privileges for the duration of the experiment. Users also control when to shutdown their clusters.

Experiences integrating autonomous components and legacy systems into tsunami early warning systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reißland, S.; Herrnkind, S.; Guenther, M.; Babeyko, A.; Comoglu, M.; Hammitzsch, M.

2012-04-01

Fostered by and embedded in the general development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) the evolution of Tsunami Early Warning Systems (TEWS) shows a significant development from seismic-centred to multi-sensor system architectures using additional sensors, e.g. sea level stations for the detection of tsunami waves and GPS stations for the detection of ground displacements. Furthermore, the design and implementation of a robust and scalable service infrastructure supporting the integration and utilisation of existing resources serving near real-time data not only includes sensors but also other components and systems offering services such as the delivery of feasible simulations used for forecasting in an imminent tsunami threat. In the context of the development of the German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) and the project Distant Early Warning System (DEWS) a service platform for both sensor integration and warning dissemination has been newly developed and demonstrated. In particular, standards of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) have been successfully incorporated. In the project Collaborative, Complex, and Critical Decision-Support in Evolving Crises (TRIDEC) new developments are used to extend the existing platform to realise a component-based technology framework for building distributed TEWS. This talk will describe experiences made in GITEWS, DEWS and TRIDEC while integrating legacy stand-alone systems and newly developed special-purpose software components into TEWS using different software adapters and communication strategies to make the systems work together in a corporate infrastructure. The talk will also cover task management and data conversion between the different systems. Practical approaches and software solutions for the integration of sensors, e.g. providing seismic and sea level data, and utilisation of special-purpose components, such as simulation systems, in TEWS will be presented.

NASA software specification and evaluation system design, part 2

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1976-01-01

A survey and analysis of the existing methods, tools and techniques employed in the development of software are presented along with recommendations for the construction of reliable software. Functional designs for software specification language, and the data base verifier are presented.

Computer Software for Intelligent Systems.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lenat, Douglas B.

1984-01-01

Discusses the development and nature of computer software for intelligent systems, indicating that the key to intelligent problem-solving lies in reducing the random search for solutions. Formal reasoning methods, expert systems, and sources of power in problem-solving are among the areas considered. Specific examples of such software are…

Experience with case tools in the design of process-oriented software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Novakov, Ognian; Sicard, Claude-Henri

1994-12-01

In Accelerator systems such as the CERN PS complex, process equipment has a life time which may exceed the typical life cycle of its related software. Taking into account the variety of such equipment, it is important to keep the analysis and design of the software in a system-independent form. This paper discusses the experience gathered in using commercial CASE tools for analysis, design and reverse engineering of different process-oriented software modules, with a principal emphasis on maintaining the initial analysis in a standardized form. Such tools have been in existence for several years, but this paper shows that they are not fully adapted to our needs. In particular, the paper stresses the problems of integrating such a tool into an existing data-base-dependent development chain, the lack of real-time simulation tools and of Object-Oriented concepts in existing commercial packages. Finally, the paper gives a broader view of software engineering needs in our particular context.

IEEE Computer Society/Software Engineering Institute Software Process Achievement (SPA) Award 2009

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-03-01

capabilities to our GDM. We also introduced software as a service ( SaaS ) as part our technology solutions and have further enhanced our ability to...model PROSPER Infosys production support methodology Q&P quality and productivity R&D research and development SaaS software as a service ... Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) 23 Table 10: Scientific Estimation Coverage by Service Line 27 CMU/SEI-2011-TR-008 | vi CMU/SEI-2011

Astronomy education and the Astrophysics Source Code Library

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Allen, Alice; Nemiroff, Robert J.

2016-01-01

The Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL) is an online registry of source codes used in refereed astrophysics research. It currently lists nearly 1,200 codes and covers all aspects of computational astrophysics. How can this resource be of use to educators and to the graduate students they mentor? The ASCL serves as a discovery tool for codes that can be used for one's own research. Graduate students can also investigate existing codes to see how common astronomical problems are approached numerically in practice, and use these codes as benchmarks for their own solutions to these problems. Further, they can deepen their knowledge of software practices and techniques through examination of others' codes.

Deployment and Operational Experiences with CernVM-FS at the GridKa Tier-1 Center

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alef, Manfred; Jäger, Axel; Petzold and, Andreas; Verstege, Bernhard

2012-12-01

In 2012 the GridKa Tier-1 computing center hosts 130 kHS06 computing resources and 14PB disk and 17PB tape space. These resources are shared between the four LHC VOs and a number of national and international VOs from high energy physics and other sciences. CernVM-FS has been deployed at GridKa to supplement the existing NFS-based system to access VO software on the worker nodes. It provides a solution tailored to the requirement of the LHC VOs. We will focus on the first operational experiences and the monitoring of CernVM-FS on the worker nodes and the squid caches.

Multi-Mission Simulation and Visualization for Real-Time Telemetry Display, Playback and EDL Event Reconstruction

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pomerantz, M. I.; Lim, C.; Myint, S.; Woodward, G.; Balaram, J.; Kuo, C.

2012-01-01

he Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) Reconstruction Task has developed a software system that provides mission operations personnel and analysts with a real time telemetry-based live display, playback and post-EDL reconstruction capability that leverages the existing high-fidelity, physics-based simulation framework and modern game engine-derived 3D visualization system developed in the JPL Dynamics and Real Time Simulation (DARTS) Lab. Developed as a multi-mission solution, the EDL Telemetry Visualization (ETV) system has been used for a variety of projects including NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), NASA'S Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) and JPL's MoonRise Lunar sample return proposal.

Creating, documenting and sharing network models.

PubMed

Crook, Sharon M; Bednar, James A; Berger, Sandra; Cannon, Robert; Davison, Andrew P; Djurfeldt, Mikael; Eppler, Jochen; Kriener, Birgit; Furber, Steve; Graham, Bruce; Plesser, Hans E; Schwabe, Lars; Smith, Leslie; Steuber, Volker; van Albada, Sacha

2012-01-01

As computational neuroscience matures, many simulation environments are available that are useful for neuronal network modeling. However, methods for successfully documenting models for publication and for exchanging models and model components among these projects are still under development. Here we briefly review existing software and applications for network model creation, documentation and exchange. Then we discuss a few of the larger issues facing the field of computational neuroscience regarding network modeling and suggest solutions to some of these problems, concentrating in particular on standardized network model terminology, notation, and descriptions and explicit documentation of model scaling. We hope this will enable and encourage computational neuroscientists to share their models more systematically in the future.

The Dream

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Peach, D.

2010-12-01

Models have become a routine research output over the past decade. They are used by many scientific disciplines in order to understand and analyses the processes and conditions within their domain of interest. This has resulted in a significant increase in scientific understanding and in a multitude of discipline specific models, modelling system software and workflows. There is now a growing realisation that to address the most pertinent questions of the age, such as climate change and the sustainable use of natural resources, we need to bringing together climate, ecological, hydrological, hydrogeological, geological and socio-economic models in order to provide the necessary framework to make truly informed decisions. At the British Geological Survey our vision is to provide scientists with the data, tools, techniques and support to address trans-disciplinary environmental questions impacting on human society. We hope to achieve this by being a leading member of an open community that will share data, applications and environmental models thus enabling collaboration and achieving sustainable solutions. The British Geological Survey has recently completed a scoping study with the aim of planning the implementation of the vision and preparing the organisation for the changes that are required to enable it to engage more effectively in trans-disciplinary modelling. This has resulted in the launch of a cross-cutting project call Data and Research for Environmental Applications and Models: The DREAM. The scoping study recognised that the investment and knowledge captured within the many existing scientific models represent a significant resource and not one that could be easily replicated in more centralised environmental modelling software. The only viable option in a ‘linked models’ approach which enables models to pass parameters between each other at runtime. This is perceived to be a pragmatic, achievable and cost-effective solution. This solution brings together the best and most appropriate scientific models and allows the various scientific disciplines to continue the development of their current models. The European Union has funded multi-national, multi-disciplinary research into ‘linked modelling’, using the Open Model Interchange (OPENMI) standard. This software used, in conjunction with critical underpinning activities such as data management, semantics and ontologies, understanding of uncertainty and visualisation, offers a rapidly maturing solution with the potential to fulfil The DREAM.

Combination of structured illumination and single molecule localization microscopy in one setup

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rossberger, Sabrina; Best, Gerrit; Baddeley, David; Heintzmann, Rainer; Birk, Udo; Dithmar, Stefan; Cremer, Christoph

2013-09-01

Understanding the positional and structural aspects of biological nanostructures simultaneously is as much a challenge as a desideratum. In recent years, highly accurate (20 nm) positional information of optically isolated targets down to the nanometer range has been obtained using single molecule localization microscopy (SMLM), while highly resolved (100 nm) spatial information has been achieved using structured illumination microscopy (SIM). In this paper, we present a high-resolution fluorescence microscope setup which combines the advantages of SMLM with SIM in order to provide high-precision localization and structural information in a single setup. Furthermore, the combination of the wide-field SIM image with the SMLM data allows us to identify artifacts produced during the visualization process of SMLM data, and potentially also during the reconstruction process of SIM images. We describe the SMLM-SIM combo and software, and apply the instrument in a first proof-of-principle to the same region of H3K293 cells to achieve SIM images with high structural resolution (in the 100 nm range) in overlay with the highly accurate position information of localized single fluorophores. Thus, with its robust control software, efficient switching between the SMLM and SIM mode, fully automated and user-friendly acquisition and evaluation software, the SMLM-SIM combo is superior over existing solutions.

Trust-Based and Context-Aware Authentication in a Software Architecture for Context and Proximity-Aware Services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lenzini, Gabriele

We describe an existing software architecture for context and proximity aware services that enables trust-based and context-aware authentication. A service is proximity aware when it automatically detects the presence of entities in its proximity. Authentication is context-aware when it uses contextual information to discern among different identities and to evaluate to which extent they are authentic. The software architecture that we describe here is functioning in our Institute: It manages a sensor network to detect the presence and location of users and their devices. A context manager is responsible to merge the different sources of contextual information, to solve potential contradictions, and to determine the level of authentication of the identity of the person approaching one of the services offered in the coffee-break corners of our Institute. In our solution for context-aware authentication, sensors are managed as if they were recommenders having subjective belief, disbelief, and uncertainty (i.e., trust) on the position and identity of users. A sensor’s subjective trust depends on what it has been sensing in the environment. We discuss the results of an array of simulations that we conducted to validate our concept of trust-based and context-aware authentication. We use Subjective Logic to manage trust.

Using Off-the-Shelf Gaming Controllers For Computer Control in the K-12 Classroom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bourgoin, N. L.; Withee, J.; Segee, M.; Birkel, S. D.; Albee, E.; Koons, P. O.; Zhu, Y.; Segee, B.

2009-12-01

In the classroom, the interaction between students, teachers, and datasets is becoming more game like. Software such as GoogleEarth allow students to interact with data on a more personal level; allowing them the dynamically change variables, move arbitrarily, and personalize their experience with the datasets. As this becomes more immersive, traditional software control such as keyboard and mouse begin to hold the student back in terms of intuitive interfacing with the data. This is a problem that has best been tackled by modern gaming systems such as the Wii, XBox 360, and Playstation 3 Systems. By utilizing the solutions given by these gaming systems, it is possible to further a students immersion with a system. Through an NSF ITEST (Information and Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers) grant, researchers at the University of Maine have experimented with using the game controller that is used for interacting with the Nintendo Wii (often called a Wiimote) with existing geodynamic systems in an effort to eases interaction with these systems. Since these game controllers operate using Bluetooth, a common protocol in computing, Wiimotes can easily communicate with existing laptop computers that are issued to Maine students. This paper describes the technical requirements, setup, and usage of Wiimotes as an input device to complex geodynamical systems for use in the K-12 classroom.

Social network of PESCA (Open Source Platform for eHealth).

PubMed

Sanchez, Carlos L; Romero-Cuevas, Miguel; Lopez, Diego M; Lorca, Julio; Alcazar, Francisco J; Ruiz, Sergio; Mercado, Carmen; Garcia-Fortea, Pedro

2008-01-01

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are revolutionizing how healthcare systems deliver top-quality care to citizens. In this way, Open Source Software (OSS) has demonstrated to be an important strategy to spread ICTs use. Several human and technological barriers in adopting OSS for healthcare have been identified. Human barriers include user acceptance, limited support, technical skillfulness, awareness, resistance to change, etc., while Technological barriers embrace need for open standards, heterogeneous OSS developed without normalization and metrics, lack of initiatives to evaluate existing health OSS and need for quality control and functional validation. The goals of PESCA project are to create a platform of interoperable modules to evaluate, classify and validate good practices in health OSS. Furthermore, a normalization platform will provide interoperable solutions in the fields of healthcare services, health surveillance, health literature, and health education, knowledge and research. Within the platform, the first goal to achieve is the setup of the collaborative work infrastructure. The platform is being organized as a Social Network which works to evaluate five scopes of every existing open source tools for eHealth: Open Source Software, Quality, Pedagogical, Security and privacy and Internationalization/I18N. In the meantime, the knowledge collected from the networking will configure a Good Practice Repository on eHealth promoting the effective use of ICT on behalf of the citizen's health.

A Novel Coupling Pattern in Computational Science and Engineering Software

EPA Science Inventory

Computational science and engineering (CSE) software is written by experts of certain area(s). Due to the specialization, existing CSE software may need to integrate other CSE software systems developed by different groups of experts. The coupling problem is one of the challenges...

A Novel Coupling Pattern in Computational Science and Engineering Software

EPA Science Inventory

Computational science and engineering (CSE) software is written by experts of certain area(s). Due to the specialization,existing CSE software may need to integrate other CSE software systems developed by different groups of experts. Thecoupling problem is one of the challenges f...

Specifications for Thesaurus Software.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Milstead, Jessica L.

1991-01-01

Presents specifications for software that is designed to support manual development and maintenance of information retrieval thesauri. Evaluation of existing software and design of custom software is discussed, requirements for integration with larger systems and for the user interface are described, and relationships among terms are discussed.…

Optimising the use of observational electronic health record data: Current issues, evolving opportunities, strategies and scope for collaboration.

PubMed

Liaw, Siaw-Teng; Powell-Davies, Gawaine; Pearce, Christopher; Britt, Helena; McGlynn, Lisa; Harris, Mark F

2016-03-01

With increasing computerisation in general practice, national primary care networks are mooted as sources of data for health services and population health research and planning. Existing data collection programs - MedicinesInsight, Improvement Foundation, Bettering the Evaluation and Care of Health (BEACH) - vary in purpose, governance, methodologies and tools. General practitioners (GPs) have significant roles as collectors, managers and users of electronic health record (EHR) data. They need to understand the challenges to their clinical and managerial roles and responsibilities. The aim of this article is to examine the primary and secondary use of EHR data, identify challenges, discuss solutions and explore directions. Representatives from existing programs, Medicare Locals, Local Health Districts and research networks held workshops on the scope, challenges and approaches to the quality and use of EHR data. Challenges included data quality, interoperability, fragmented governance, proprietary software, transparency, sustainability, competing ethical and privacy perspectives, and cognitive load on patients and clinicians. Proposed solutions included effective change management; transparent governance and management of intellectual property, data quality, security, ethical access, and privacy; common data models, metadata and tools; and patient/community engagement. Collaboration and common approaches to tools, platforms and governance are needed. Processes and structures must be transparent and acceptable to GPs.

Efficient QR sequential least square algorithm for high frequency GNSS precise point positioning seismic application

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barbu, Alina L.; Laurent-Varin, Julien; Perosanz, Felix; Mercier, Flavien; Marty, Jean-Charles

2018-01-01

The implementation into the GINS CNES geodetic software of a more efficient filter was needed to satisfy the users who wanted to compute high-rate GNSS PPP solutions. We selected the SRI approach and a QR factorization technique including an innovative algorithm which optimizes the matrix reduction step. A full description of this algorithm is given for future users. The new capacities of the software have been tested using a set of 1 Hz data from the Japanese GEONET network including the Mw 9.0 2011 Tohoku earthquake. Station coordinates solution agreed at a sub-decimeter level with previous publications as well as with solutions we computed with the National Resource Canada software. An additional benefit from the implementation of the SRI filter is the capability to estimate high-rate tropospheric parameters too. As the CPU time to estimate a 1 Hz kinematic solution from 1 h of data is now less than 1 min we could produced series of coordinates for the full 1300 stations of the Japanese network. The corresponding movie shows the impressive co-seismic deformation as well as the wave propagation along the island. The processing was straightforward using a cluster of PCs which illustrates the new potentiality of the GINS software for massive network high rate PPP processing.

Architected Agile Solutions for Software-Reliant Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boehm, Barry; Lane, Jo Ann; Koolmanojwong, Supannika; Turner, Richard

Systems are becoming increasingly reliant on software due to needs for rapid fielding of “70% capabilities,” interoperability, net-centricity, and rapid adaptation to change. The latter need has led to increased interest in agile methods of software development, in which teams rely on shared tacit interpersonal knowledge rather than explicit documented knowledge. However, such systems often need to be scaled up to higher level of performance and assurance, requiring stronger architectural support. Several organizations have recently transformed themselves by developing successful combinations of agility and architecture that can scale to projects of up to 100 personnel. This chapter identifies a set of key principles for such architected agile solutions for software-reliant systems, provides guidance for how much architecting is enough, and illustrates the key principles with several case studies.

Flexible control techniques for a lunar base

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kraus, Thomas W.

1992-01-01

The fundamental elements found in every terrestrial control system can be employed in all lunar applications. These elements include sensors which measure physical properties, controllers which acquire sensor data and calculate a control response, and actuators which apply the control output to the process. The unique characteristics of the lunar environment will certainly require the development of new control system technology. However, weightlessness, harsh atmospheric conditions, temperature extremes, and radiation hazards will most significantly impact the design of sensors and actuators. The controller and associated control algorithms, which are the most complex element of any control system, can be derived in their entirety from existing technology. Lunar process control applications -- ranging from small-scale research projects to full-scale processing plants -- will benefit greatly from the controller advances being developed today. In particular, new software technology aimed at commercial process monitoring and control applications will almost completely eliminate the need for custom programs and the lengthy development and testing cycle they require. The applicability of existing industrial software to lunar applications has other significant advantages in addition to cost and quality. This software is designed to run on standard hardware platforms and takes advantage of existing LAN and telecommunications technology. Further, in order to exploit the existing commercial market, the software is being designed to be implemented by users of all skill levels -- typically users who are familiar with their process, but not necessarily with software or control theory. This means that specialized technical support personnel will not need to be on-hand, and the associated costs are eliminated. Finally, the latest industrial software designed for the commercial market is extremely flexible, in order to fit the requirements of many types of processing applications with little or no customization. This means that lunar process control projects will not be delayed by unforeseen problems or last minute process modifications. The software will include all of the tools needed to adapt to virtually any changes. In contrast to other space programs which required the development of tremendous amounts of custom software, lunar-based processing facilities will benefit from the use of existing software technology which is being proven in commercial applications on Earth.

Project SYNERGY: Software Support for Underprepared Students. Software Implementation Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anandam, Kamala; And Others

Miami-Dade Community College's (MDCC's) implementation and assessment of computer software as a part of Project SYNERGY, a multi-institutional project funded by the International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation designed to seek technological solutions for helping students underprepared in reading, writing and mathematics, is described in this…

"Carbopolis": A Java Technology-Based Free Software for Environmental Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eichler, Marcelo Leandro; Xavier, Paulo Rafael; Araujo, Roberto Costa; Forte, Rafael Castro; Del Pino, Jose Claudio

2005-01-01

The goals of this paper are to describe some characteristics of the pedagogical project of the "Carbopolis" software and some programming solutions that were found during the computational implementation of this software. Relative to the first goal, some pedagogical features that are considered necessary to developing computerized learning…

Experiential Learning Using QlikView Business Intelligence Software

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Podeschi, R. J.

2015-01-01

This paper reports on the use of QlikView business intelligence software for use in a Business Intelligence (BI) course within an undergraduate information systems program. The course provides students with concepts related to data warehousing, data mining, visualizations, and software tools to provide business intelligence solutions for decision…

Leveraging Code Comments to Improve Software Reliability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tan, Lin

2009-01-01

Commenting source code has long been a common practice in software development. This thesis, consisting of three pieces of work, made novel use of the code comments written in natural language to improve software reliability. Our solution combines Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning, Statistics, and Program Analysis techniques to…

Software Solutions for Better Administration.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kazanjian, Edward

1997-01-01

The CO/OP (founded in 1973 as the Massachusetts Association of School Business Officials Cooperative Corporation) has created and produced administrative software for schools. Describes two areas in which software can increase revenue and provide protection for personnel: (1) invoice/accounts receivable for the rental of school space; and (2) an…

Cartographic applications software

USGS Publications Warehouse

,

1992-01-01

The Office of the Assistant Division Chief for Research, National Mapping Division, develops computer software for the solution of geometronic problems in the fields of surveying, geodesy, remote sensing, and photogrammetry. Software that has been developed using public funds is available on request for a nominal charge to recover the cost of duplication.

Knowledge Sharing through Pair Programming in Learning Environments: An Empirical Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kavitha, R. K.; Ahmed, M. S.

2015-01-01

Agile software development is an iterative and incremental methodology, where solutions evolve from self-organizing, cross-functional teams. Pair programming is a type of agile software development technique where two programmers work together with one computer for developing software. This paper reports the results of the pair programming…

Improving INPE'S balloon ground facilities for operation of the protoMIRAX experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mattiello-Francisco, F.; Rinke, E.; Fernandes, J. O.; Cardoso, L.; Cardoso, P.; Braga, J.

2014-10-01

The system requirements for reusing the scientific balloon ground facilities available at INPE were a challenge to the ground system engineers involved in the protoMIRAX X-ray astronomy experiment. A significant effort on software updating was required for the balloon ground station. Considering that protoMIRAX is a pathfinder for the MIRAX satellite mission, a ground infrastructure compatible with INPE's satellite operation approach would be useful and highly recommended to control and monitor the experiment during the balloon flights. This approach will make use of the SATellite Control System (SATCS), a software-based architecture developed at INPE for satellite commanding and monitoring. SATCS complies with particular operational requirements of different satellites by using several customized object-oriented software elements and frameworks. We present the ground solution designed for protoMIRAX operation, the Control and Reception System (CRS). A new server computer, properly configured with Ethernet, has extended the existing ground station facilities with switch, converters and new software (OPS/SERVER) in order to support the available uplink and downlink channels being mapped to TCP/IP gateways required by SATCS. Currently, the CRS development is customizing the SATCS for the kernel functions of protoMIRAX command and telemetry processing. Design-patterns, component-based libraries and metadata are widely used in the SATCS in order to extend the frameworks to address the Packet Utilization Standard (PUS) for ground-balloon communication, in compliance with the services provided by the data handling computer onboard the protoMIRAX balloon.

Embracing Open Source for NASA's Earth Science Data Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Baynes, Katie; Pilone, Dan; Boller, Ryan; Meyer, David; Murphy, Kevin

2017-01-01

The overarching purpose of NASAs Earth Science program is to develop a scientific understanding of Earth as a system. Scientific knowledge is most robust and actionable when resulting from transparent, traceable, and reproducible methods. Reproducibility includes open access to the data as well as the software used to arrive at results. Additionally, software that is custom-developed for NASA should be open to the greatest degree possible, to enable re-use across Federal agencies, reduce overall costs to the government, remove barriers to innovation, and promote consistency through the use of uniform standards. Finally, Open Source Software (OSS) practices facilitate collaboration between agencies and the private sector. To best meet these ends, NASAs Earth Science Division promotes the full and open sharing of not only all data, metadata, products, information, documentation, models, images, and research results but also the source code used to generate, manipulate and analyze them. This talk focuses on the challenges to open sourcing NASA developed software within ESD and the growing pains associated with establishing policies running the gamut of tracking issues, properly documenting build processes, engaging the open source community, maintaining internal compliance, and accepting contributions from external sources. This talk also covers the adoption of existing open source technologies and standards to enhance our custom solutions and our contributions back to the community. Finally, we will be introducing the most recent OSS contributions from NASA Earth Science program and promoting these projects for wider community review and adoption.

System and Software Reliability (C103)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wallace, Dolores

2003-01-01

Within the last decade better reliability models (hardware. software, system) than those currently used have been theorized and developed but not implemented in practice. Previous research on software reliability has shown that while some existing software reliability models are practical, they are no accurate enough. New paradigms of development (e.g. OO) have appeared and associated reliability models have been proposed posed but not investigated. Hardware models have been extensively investigated but not integrated into a system framework. System reliability modeling is the weakest of the three. NASA engineers need better methods and tools to demonstrate that the products meet NASA requirements for reliability measurement. For the new models for the software component of the last decade, there is a great need to bring them into a form that they can be used on software intensive systems. The Statistical Modeling and Estimation of Reliability Functions for Systems (SMERFS'3) tool is an existing vehicle that may be used to incorporate these new modeling advances. Adapting some existing software reliability modeling changes to accommodate major changes in software development technology may also show substantial improvement in prediction accuracy. With some additional research, the next step is to identify and investigate system reliability. System reliability models could then be incorporated in a tool such as SMERFS'3. This tool with better models would greatly add value in assess in GSFC projects.

Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial in the field of planetary science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Frigeri, A.

2012-12-01

Information technology applied to geospatial analyses has spread quickly in the last ten years. The availability of OpenData and data from collaborative mapping projects increased the interest on tools, procedures and methods to handle spatially-related information. Free Open Source Software projects devoted to geospatial data handling are gaining a good success as the use of interoperable formats and protocols allow the user to choose what pipeline of tools and libraries is needed to solve a particular task, adapting the software scene to his specific problem. In particular, the Free Open Source model of development mimics the scientific method very well, and researchers should be naturally encouraged to take part to the development process of these software projects, as this represent a very agile way to interact among several institutions. When it comes to planetary sciences, geospatial Free Open Source Software is gaining a key role in projects that commonly involve different subjects in an international scenario. Very popular software suites for processing scientific mission data (for example, ISIS) and for navigation/planning (SPICE) are being distributed along with the source code and the interaction between user and developer is often very strict, creating a continuum between these two figures. A very widely spread library for handling geospatial data (GDAL) has started to support planetary data from the Planetary Data System, and recent contributions enabled the support to other popular data formats used in planetary science, as the Vicar one. The use of Geographic Information System in planetary science is now diffused, and Free Open Source GIS, open GIS formats and network protocols allow to extend existing tools and methods developed to solve Earth based problems, also to the case of the study of solar system bodies. A day in the working life of a researcher using Free Open Source Software for geospatial will be presented, as well as benefits and solutions to possible detriments coming from the effort required by using, supporting and contributing.

Equivalent circuit modeling of a piezo-patch energy harvester on a thin plate with AC-DC conversion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bayik, B.; Aghakhani, A.; Basdogan, I.; Erturk, A.

2016-05-01

As an alternative to beam-like structures, piezoelectric patch-based energy harvesters attached to thin plates can be readily integrated to plate-like structures in automotive, marine, and aerospace applications, in order to directly exploit structural vibration modes of the host system without mass loading and volumetric occupancy of cantilever attachments. In this paper, a multi-mode equivalent circuit model of a piezo-patch energy harvester integrated to a thin plate is developed and coupled with a standard AC-DC conversion circuit. Equivalent circuit parameters are obtained in two different ways: (1) from the modal analysis solution of a distributed-parameter analytical model and (2) from the finite-element numerical model of the harvester by accounting for two-way coupling. After the analytical modeling effort, multi-mode equivalent circuit representation of the harvester is obtained via electronic circuit simulation software SPICE. Using the SPICE software, electromechanical response of the piezoelectric energy harvester connected to linear and nonlinear circuit elements are computed. Simulation results are validated for the standard AC-AC and AC-DC configurations. For the AC input-AC output problem, voltage frequency response functions are calculated for various resistive loads, and they show excellent agreement with modal analysis-based analytical closed-form solution and with the finite-element model. For the standard ideal AC input-DC output case, a full-wave rectifier and a smoothing capacitor are added to the harvester circuit for conversion of the AC voltage to a stable DC voltage, which is also validated against an existing solution by treating the single-mode plate dynamics as a single-degree-of-freedom system.

48 CFR 27.409 - Solicitation provisions and contract clauses

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... section); (ii) For the acquisition of existing data, commercial computer software, or other existing data... United States (see paragraph (i)(1) of this section); (v) For architect-engineer services or construction... software, use the clause with its Alternate III. Any greater or lesser rights regarding the use...

48 CFR 27.409 - Solicitation provisions and contract clauses

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... section); (ii) For the acquisition of existing data, commercial computer software, or other existing data... United States (see paragraph (i)(1) of this section); (v) For architect-engineer services or construction... software, use the clause with its Alternate III. Any greater or lesser rights regarding the use...

48 CFR 27.409 - Solicitation provisions and contract clauses

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... section); (ii) For the acquisition of existing data, commercial computer software, or other existing data... United States (see paragraph (i)(1) of this section); (v) For architect-engineer services or construction... software, use the clause with its Alternate III. Any greater or lesser rights regarding the use...

48 CFR 27.409 - Solicitation provisions and contract clauses

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... section); (ii) For the acquisition of existing data, commercial computer software, or other existing data... United States (see paragraph (i)(1) of this section); (v) For architect-engineer services or construction... software, use the clause with its Alternate III. Any greater or lesser rights regarding the use...

Integrated Functional and Executional Modelling of Software Using Web-Based Databases

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kulkarni, Deepak; Marietta, Roberta

1998-01-01

NASA's software subsystems undergo extensive modification and updates over the operational lifetimes. It is imperative that modified software should satisfy safety goals. This report discusses the difficulties encountered in doing so and discusses a solution based on integrated modelling of software, use of automatic information extraction tools, web technology and databases. To appear in an article of Journal of Database Management.

Reconstruction of Cyber and Physical Software Using Novel Spread Method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ma, Wubin; Deng, Su; Huang, Hongbin

2018-03-01

Cyber and Physical software has been concerned for many years since 2010. Actually, many researchers would disagree with the deployment of traditional Spread Method for reconstruction of Cyber and physical software, which embodies the key principles reconstruction of cyber physical system. NSM(novel spread method), our new methodology for reconstruction of cyber and physical software, is the solution to all of these challenges.

Beyond Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): The Next Generation Enterprise Resource Planning Environment

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-02-01

Software as a Service ( SaaS )— SaaS solutions involve conforming an organization’s...consumer of the utilized service . Service Models Software as a Service ( SaaS ) The capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider’s...operating system, platforms, and software installed. In contrast, Software as a Service ( SaaS ) abstracts the entire stack except for a few

Comparing (semi-) analytic solutions used to model the impact of deep carbon injection on the displacement and pressurization of the resident brine

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bandilla, K.; Kraemer, S. R.

2009-12-01

Injection of carbon dioxide into deep saline formations is seen as one possible technology for mitigating carbon emissions from utilities. The safety of the sequestered carbon dioxide is the focus of many studies with leakage through faults or abandoned wells as some of the main failure mechanisms. The focus of this study is on the displacement of resident brine and the resulting changes in pressure due to the injection of large volumes of super-critical phase carbon dioxide into the subsurface. The movement of brine becomes important if it travels vertically and reaches an existing or potential underground source of drinking water where an increase in salt content may threaten the viability of the drinking water source. Vertical displacement of brine may occur slowly through confining layers, or more rapidly through faults and abandoned wells. This presentation compares several (semi-) analytic solutions to determine their applicability to the problem of brine pressurization and displacement. The goal is to find ranges of formation parameters (e.g., formation seal conductivity, distance to lateral boundary, … ) for which simplifying assumption are justifiable Each simplification in the conceptual model (e.g., neglecting the lateral boundary turns a bounded domain into an infinite one) leads to a simpler (semi-) analytic solution. The process involves a solution hierarchy from the most complex solution down to the basic Theis solution. A software tool-kit implementing several (semi-) analytic solutions was developed for this study to facilitate the comparison of the solutions.

Benefits of an automated GLP final report preparation software solution.

PubMed

Elvebak, Larry E

2011-07-01

The final product of analytical laboratories performing US FDA-regulated (or GLP) method validation and bioanalysis studies is the final report. Although there are commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software/instrument systems available to laboratory managers to automate and manage almost every aspect of the instrumental and sample-handling processes of GLP studies, there are few software systems available to fully manage the GLP final report preparation process. This lack of appropriate COTS tools results in the implementation of rather Byzantine and manual processes to cobble together all the information needed to generate a GLP final report. The manual nature of these processes results in the need for several iterative quality control and quality assurance events to ensure data accuracy and report formatting. The industry is in need of a COTS solution that gives laboratory managers and study directors the ability to manage as many portions as possible of the GLP final report writing process and the ability to generate a GLP final report with the click of a button. This article describes the COTS software features needed to give laboratory managers and study directors such a solution.

Professional Ethics of Software Engineers: An Ethical Framework.

PubMed

Lurie, Yotam; Mark, Shlomo

2016-04-01

The purpose of this article is to propose an ethical framework for software engineers that connects software developers' ethical responsibilities directly to their professional standards. The implementation of such an ethical framework can overcome the traditional dichotomy between professional skills and ethical skills, which plagues the engineering professions, by proposing an approach to the fundamental tasks of the practitioner, i.e., software development, in which the professional standards are intrinsically connected to the ethical responsibilities. In so doing, the ethical framework improves the practitioner's professionalism and ethics. We call this approach Ethical-Driven Software Development (EDSD), as an approach to software development. EDSD manifests the advantages of an ethical framework as an alternative to the all too familiar approach in professional ethics that advocates "stand-alone codes of ethics". We believe that one outcome of this synergy between professional and ethical skills is simply better engineers. Moreover, since there are often different software solutions, which the engineer can provide to an issue at stake, the ethical framework provides a guiding principle, within the process of software development, that helps the engineer evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of different software solutions. It does not and cannot affect the end-product in and of-itself. However, it can and should, make the software engineer more conscious and aware of the ethical ramifications of certain engineering decisions within the process.

Key Technologies of Phone Storage Forensics Based on ARM Architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Jianghan; Che, Shengbing

2018-03-01

Smart phones are mainly running Android, IOS and Windows Phone three mobile platform operating systems. The android smart phone has the best market shares and its processor chips are almost ARM software architecture. The chips memory address mapping mechanism of ARM software architecture is different with x86 software architecture. To forensics to android mart phone, we need to understand three key technologies: memory data acquisition, the conversion mechanism from virtual address to the physical address, and find the system’s key data. This article presents a viable solution which does not rely on the operating system API for a complete solution to these three issues.

Software and the future of programming languages.

PubMed

Aho, Alfred V

2004-02-27

Although software is the key enabler of the global information infrastructure, the amount and extent of software in use in the world today are not widely understood, nor are the programming languages and paradigms that have been used to create the software. The vast size of the embedded base of existing software and the increasing costs of software maintenance, poor security, and limited functionality are posing significant challenges for the software R&D community.

Accuracy of GIPSY PPP from version 6.2: a robust method to remove outliers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hayal, Adem G.; Ugur Sanli, D.

2014-05-01

In this paper, we figure out the accuracy of GIPSY PPP from the latest version, version 6.2. As the research community prepares for the real-time PPP, it would be interesting to revise the accuracy of static GPS from the latest version of well established research software, the first among its kinds. Although the results do not significantly differ from the previous version, version 6.1.1, we still observe the slight improvement on the vertical component due to an enhanced second order ionospheric modeling which came out with the latest version. However, in this study, we rather turned our attention into outlier detection. Outliers usually occur among the solutions from shorter observation sessions and degrade the quality of the accuracy modeling. In our previous analysis from version 6.1.1, we argued that the elimination of outliers was cumbersome with the traditional method since repeated trials were needed, and subjectivity that could affect the statistical significance of the solutions might have been existed among the results (Hayal and Sanli, 2013). Here we overcome this problem using a robust outlier elimination method. Median is perhaps the simplest of the robust outlier detection methods in terms of applicability. At the same time, it might be considered to be the most efficient one with its highest breakdown point. In our analysis, we used a slightly different version of the median as introduced in Tut et al. 2013. Hence, we were able to remove suspected outliers at one run; which were, with the traditional methods, more problematic to remove this time from the solutions produced using the latest version of the software. References Hayal, AG, Sanli DU, Accuracy of GIPSY PPP from version 6, GNSS Precise Point Positioning Workshop: Reaching Full Potential, Vol. 1, pp. 41-42, (2013) Tut,İ., Sanli D.U., Erdogan B., Hekimoglu S., Efficiency of BERNESE single baseline rapid static positioning solutions with SEARCH strategy, Survey Review, Vol. 45, Issue 331, pp.296-304, (2013)

Grand challenges in mass storage: A systems integrators perspective

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, Richard R.; Mintz, Daniel G.

1993-01-01

Within today's much ballyhooed supercomputing environment, with its CFLOPS of CPU power, and Gigabit networks, there exists a major roadblock to computing success; that of Mass Storage. The solution to this mass storage problem is considered to be one of the 'Grand Challenges' facing the computer industry today, as well as long into the future. It has become obvious to us, as well as many others in the industry, that there is no clear single solution in sight. The Systems Integrator today is faced with a myriad of quandaries in approaching this challenge. He must first be innovative in approach, second choose hardware solutions that are volumetric efficient; high in signal bandwidth; available from multiple sources; competitively priced, and have forward growth extendibility. In addition he must also comply with a variety of mandated, and often conflicting software standards (GOSIP, POSIX, IEEE, MSRM 4.0, and others), and finally he must deliver a systems solution with the 'most bang for the buck' in terms of cost vs. performance factors. These quandaries challenge the Systems Integrator to 'push the envelope' in terms of his or her ingenuity and innovation on an almost daily basis. This dynamic is explored further, and an attempt to acquaint the audience with rational approaches to this 'Grand Challenge' is made.

Extended cooperation in clinical studies through exchange of CDISC metadata between different study software solutions.

PubMed

Kuchinke, W; Wiegelmann, S; Verplancke, P; Ohmann, C

2006-01-01

Our objectives were to analyze the possibility of an exchange of an entire clinical study between two different and independent study software solutions. The question addressed was whether a software-independent transfer of study metadata can be performed without programming efforts and with software routinely used for clinical research. Study metadata was transferred with ODM standard (CDISC). Study software systems employed were MACRO (InferMed) and XTrial (XClinical). For the Proof of Concept, a test study was created with MACRO and exported as ODM. For modification and validation of the ODM export file XML-Spy (Altova) and ODM-Checker (XML4Pharma) were used. Through exchange of a complete clinical study between two different study software solutions, a Proof of Concept of the technical feasibility of a system-independent metadata exchange was conducted successfully. The interchange of study metadata between two different systems at different centers was performed with minimal expenditure. A small number of mistakes had to be corrected in order to generate a syntactically correct ODM file and a "vendor extension" had to be inserted. After these modifications, XTrial exhibited the study, including all data fields, correctly. However, the optical appearance of both CRFs (case report forms) was different. ODM can be used as an exchange format for clinical studies between different study software. Thus, new forms of cooperation through exchange of metadata seem possible, for example the joint creation of electronic study protocols or CRFs at different research centers. Although the ODM standard represents a clinical study completely, it contains no information about the representation of data fields in CRFs.

Information System Engineering Supporting Observation, Orientation, Decision, and Compliant Action

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Georgakopoulos, Dimitrios

The majority of today's software systems and organizational/business structures have been built on the foundation of solving problems via long-term data collection, analysis, and solution design. This traditional approach of solving problems and building corresponding software systems and business processes, falls short in providing the necessary solutions needed to deal with many problems that require agility as the main ingredient of their solution. For example, such agility is needed in responding to an emergency, in military command control, physical security, price-based competition in business, investing in the stock market, video gaming, network monitoring and self-healing, diagnosis in emergency health care, and many other areas that are too numerous to list here. The concept of Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act (OODA) loops is a guiding principal that captures the fundamental issues and approach for engineering information systems that deal with many of these problem areas. However, there are currently few software systems that are capable of supporting OODA. In this talk, we provide a tour of the research issues and state of the art solutions for supporting OODA. In addition, we provide specific examples of OODA solutions we have developed for the video surveillance and emergency response domains.

Shortcomings of existing systems for registration and legal protection of software products and possible ways to overcome them

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liapidevskiy, A. V.; Petrov, A. S.; Zhmud, V. A.; Sherubneva, I. G.

2018-05-01

The paper reveals the shortcomings of the existing system of registration and legal protection of software products. The system has too many disadvantages and shortcomings. Explanatory examples are given. Possible ways of overcoming these shortcomings are discussed. The paper also gives possible prospects for the use of new digital technologies. Also in the paper, the information is provided about the modern software components for protecting intellectual property rights of State corporations

Improving Building Energy Simulation Programs Through Diagnostic Testing (Fact Sheet)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Not Available

2012-02-01

New test procedure evaluates quality and accuracy of energy analysis tools for the residential building retrofit market. Reducing the energy use of existing homes in the United States offers significant energy-saving opportunities, which can be identified through building simulation software tools that calculate optimal packages of efficiency measures. To improve the accuracy of energy analysis for residential buildings, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) Buildings Research team developed the Building Energy Simulation Test for Existing Homes (BESTEST-EX), a method for diagnosing and correcting errors in building energy audit software and calibration procedures. BESTEST-EX consists of building physics and utility billmore » calibration test cases, which software developers can use to compare their tools simulation findings to reference results generated with state-of-the-art simulation tools. Overall, the BESTEST-EX methodology: (1) Tests software predictions of retrofit energy savings in existing homes; (2) Ensures building physics calculations and utility bill calibration procedures perform to a minimum standard; and (3) Quantifies impacts of uncertainties in input audit data and occupant behavior. BESTEST-EX is helping software developers identify and correct bugs in their software, as well as develop and test utility bill calibration procedures.« less

GCE Data Toolbox for MATLAB - a software framework for automating environmental data processing, quality control and documentation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sheldon, W.; Chamblee, J.; Cary, R. H.

2013-12-01

Environmental scientists are under increasing pressure from funding agencies and journal publishers to release quality-controlled data in a timely manner, as well as to produce comprehensive metadata for submitting data to long-term archives (e.g. DataONE, Dryad and BCO-DMO). At the same time, the volume of digital data that researchers collect and manage is increasing rapidly due to advances in high frequency electronic data collection from flux towers, instrumented moorings and sensor networks. However, few pre-built software tools are available to meet these data management needs, and those tools that do exist typically focus on part of the data management lifecycle or one class of data. The GCE Data Toolbox has proven to be both a generalized and effective software solution for environmental data management in the Long Term Ecological Research Network (LTER). This open source MATLAB software library, developed by the Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER program, integrates metadata capture, creation and management with data processing, quality control and analysis to support the entire data lifecycle. Raw data can be imported directly from common data logger formats (e.g. SeaBird, Campbell Scientific, YSI, Hobo), as well as delimited text files, MATLAB files and relational database queries. Basic metadata are derived from the data source itself (e.g. parsed from file headers) and by value inspection, and then augmented using editable metadata templates containing boilerplate documentation, attribute descriptors, code definitions and quality control rules. Data and metadata content, quality control rules and qualifier flags are then managed together in a robust data structure that supports database functionality and ensures data validity throughout processing. A growing suite of metadata-aware editing, quality control, analysis and synthesis tools are provided with the software to support managing data using graphical forms and command-line functions, as well as developing automated workflows for unattended processing. Finalized data and structured metadata can be exported in a wide variety of text and MATLAB formats or uploaded to a relational database for long-term archiving and distribution. The GCE Data Toolbox can be used as a complete, light-weight solution for environmental data and metadata management, but it can also be used in conjunction with other cyber infrastructure to provide a more comprehensive solution. For example, newly acquired data can be retrieved from a Data Turbine or Campbell LoggerNet Database server for quality control and processing, then transformed to CUAHSI Observations Data Model format and uploaded to a HydroServer for distribution through the CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System. The GCE Data Toolbox can also be leveraged in analytical workflows developed using Kepler or other systems that support MATLAB integration or tool chaining. This software can therefore be leveraged in many ways to help researchers manage, analyze and distribute the data they collect.

The research and practice of spacecraft software engineering

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Chengxin; Wang, Jinghua; Xu, Xiaoguang

2017-06-01

In order to ensure the safety and reliability of spacecraft software products, it is necessary to execute engineering management. Firstly, the paper introduces the problems of unsystematic planning, uncertain classified management and uncontinuous improved mechanism in domestic and foreign spacecraft software engineering management. Then, it proposes a solution for software engineering management based on system-integrated ideology in the perspective of spacecraft system. Finally, a application result of spacecraft is given as an example. The research can provides a reference for executing spacecraft software engineering management and improving software product quality.

Managing configuration software of ground software applications with glueware

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Larsen, B.; Herrera, R.; Sesplaukis, T.; Cheng, L.; Sarrel, M.

2003-01-01

This paper reports on a simple, low-cost effort to streamline the configuration of the uplink software tools. Even though the existing ground system consisted of JPL and custom Cassini software rather than COTS, we chose a glueware approach--reintegrating with wrappers and bridges and adding minimal new functionality.

On Quality and Measures in Software Engineering

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bucur, Ion I.

2006-01-01

Complexity measures are mainly used to estimate vital information about reliability and maintainability of software systems from regular analysis of the source code. Such measures also provide constant feedback during a software project to assist the control of the development procedure. There exist several models to classify a software product's…

Mathematical formula recognition using graph grammar

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lavirotte, Stephane; Pottier, Loic

1998-04-01

This paper describes current results of Ofr, a system for extracting and understanding mathematical expressions in documents. Such a tool could be really useful to be able to re-use knowledge in scientific books which are not available in electronic form. We currently also study use of this system for direct input of formulas with a graphical tablet for computer algebra system softwares. Existing solutions for mathematical recognition have problems to analyze 2D expressions like vectors and matrices. This is because they often try to use extended classical grammar to analyze formulas, relatively to baseline. But a lot of mathematical notations do not respect rules for such a parsing and that is the reason why they fail to extend text parsing technic. We investigate graph grammar and graph rewriting as a solution to recognize 2D mathematical notations. Graph grammar provide a powerful formalism to describe structural manipulations of multi-dimensional data. The main two problems to solve are ambiguities between rules of grammar and construction of graph.

The use of process approach to base the need of automation of business processes in educational institutions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Frolova, M. A.; Razumova, T. A.

2017-01-01

This article is dedicated to the analysis of business processes in a comprehensive institution on the basis of the process approach. Decomposition of the processes in study is carried out by means of the IDEF0 methodology, both the basic mechanisms and control actions are determined, AS-IS diagrams for documentation support for educational service provision are developed. Disadvantages of the existing business processes are revealed on the basis of the diagrams and a way to solve the problem is proposed which allows increasing the efficiency of the use of labor resources. The results of the implementation of the solution that takes into account the use of software as a means of the solution are presented as TO-BE diagrams. The analysis carried out on the basis of the diagrams led to the conclusion about the need to automate the test-task database formation process for preparing students for the State Final Examination.

Experimental demonstration of bandwidth on demand (BoD) provisioning based on time scheduling in software-defined multi-domain optical networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Yongli; Li, Yajie; Wang, Xinbo; Chen, Bowen; Zhang, Jie

2016-09-01

A hierarchical software-defined networking (SDN) control architecture is designed for multi-domain optical networks with the Open Daylight (ODL) controller. The OpenFlow-based Control Virtual Network Interface (CVNI) protocol is deployed between the network orchestrator and the domain controllers. Then, a dynamic bandwidth on demand (BoD) provisioning solution is proposed based on time scheduling in software-defined multi-domain optical networks (SD-MDON). Shared Risk Link Groups (SRLG)-disjoint routing schemes are adopted to separate each tenant for reliability. The SD-MDON testbed is built based on the proposed hierarchical control architecture. Then the proposed time scheduling-based BoD (Ts-BoD) solution is experimentally demonstrated on the testbed. The performance of the Ts-BoD solution is evaluated with respect to blocking probability, resource utilization, and lightpath setup latency.

Project Management Software for Distributed Industrial Companies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dobrojević, M.; Medjo, B.; Rakin, M.; Sedmak, A.

This paper gives an overview of the development of a new software solution for project management, intended mainly to use in industrial environment. The main concern of the proposed solution is application in everyday engineering practice in various, mainly distributed industrial companies. Having this in mind, special care has been devoted to development of appropriate tools for tracking, storing and analysis of the information about the project, and in-time delivering to the right team members or other responsible persons. The proposed solution is Internet-based and uses LAMP/WAMP (Linux or Windows - Apache - MySQL - PHP) platform, because of its stability, versatility, open source technology and simple maintenance. Modular structure of the software makes it easy for customization according to client specific needs, with a very short implementation period. Its main advantages are simple usage, quick implementation, easy system maintenance, short training and only basic computer skills needed for operators.

Scientific Platform as a Service - Tools and solutions for efficient access to and analysis of oceanographic data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vines, Aleksander; Hansen, Morten W.; Korosov, Anton

2017-04-01

Existing infrastructure international and Norwegian projects, e.g., NorDataNet, NMDC and NORMAP, provide open data access through the OPeNDAP protocol following the conventions for CF (Climate and Forecast) metadata, designed to promote the processing and sharing of files created with the NetCDF application programming interface (API). This approach is now also being implemented in the Norwegian Sentinel Data Hub (satellittdata.no) to provide satellite EO data to the user community. Simultaneously with providing simplified and unified data access, these projects also seek to use and establish common standards for use and discovery metadata. This then allows development of standardized tools for data search and (subset) streaming over the internet to perform actual scientific analysis. A combinnation of software tools, which we call a Scientific Platform as a Service (SPaaS), will take advantage of these opportunities to harmonize and streamline the search, retrieval and analysis of integrated satellite and auxiliary observations of the oceans in a seamless system. The SPaaS is a cloud solution for integration of analysis tools with scientific datasets via an API. The core part of the SPaaS is a distributed metadata catalog to store granular metadata describing the structure, location and content of available satellite, model, and in situ datasets. The analysis tools include software for visualization (also online), interactive in-depth analysis, and server-based processing chains. The API conveys search requests between system nodes (i.e., interactive and server tools) and provides easy access to the metadata catalog, data repositories, and the tools. The SPaaS components are integrated in virtual machines, of which provisioning and deployment are automatized using existing state-of-the-art open-source tools (e.g., Vagrant, Ansible, Docker). The open-source code for scientific tools and virtual machine configurations is under version control at https://github.com/nansencenter/, and is coupled to an online continuous integration system (e.g., Travis CI).

QUADrATiC: scalable gene expression connectivity mapping for repurposing FDA-approved therapeutics.

PubMed

O'Reilly, Paul G; Wen, Qing; Bankhead, Peter; Dunne, Philip D; McArt, Darragh G; McPherson, Suzanne; Hamilton, Peter W; Mills, Ken I; Zhang, Shu-Dong

2016-05-04

Gene expression connectivity mapping has proven to be a powerful and flexible tool for research. Its application has been shown in a broad range of research topics, most commonly as a means of identifying potential small molecule compounds, which may be further investigated as candidates for repurposing to treat diseases. The public release of voluminous data from the Library of Integrated Cellular Signatures (LINCS) programme further enhanced the utilities and potentials of gene expression connectivity mapping in biomedicine. We describe QUADrATiC ( http://go.qub.ac.uk/QUADrATiC ), a user-friendly tool for the exploration of gene expression connectivity on the subset of the LINCS data set corresponding to FDA-approved small molecule compounds. It enables the identification of compounds for repurposing therapeutic potentials. The software is designed to cope with the increased volume of data over existing tools, by taking advantage of multicore computing architectures to provide a scalable solution, which may be installed and operated on a range of computers, from laptops to servers. This scalability is provided by the use of the modern concurrent programming paradigm provided by the Akka framework. The QUADrATiC Graphical User Interface (GUI) has been developed using advanced Javascript frameworks, providing novel visualization capabilities for further analysis of connections. There is also a web services interface, allowing integration with other programs or scripts. QUADrATiC has been shown to provide an improvement over existing connectivity map software, in terms of scope (based on the LINCS data set), applicability (using FDA-approved compounds), usability and speed. It offers potential to biological researchers to analyze transcriptional data and generate potential therapeutics for focussed study in the lab. QUADrATiC represents a step change in the process of investigating gene expression connectivity and provides more biologically-relevant results than previous alternative solutions.

Software Solution Saves Dollars

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trotter, Andrew

2004-01-01

This article discusses computer software that can give classrooms and computer labs the capabilities of costly PC's at a small fraction of the cost. A growing number of cost-conscious school districts are finding budget relief in low-cost computer software known as "open source" that can do everything from manage school Web sites to equip…

Examining Operational Software Influence on User Satisfaction within Small Manufacturing Businesses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Frey, W. Bruce

2010-01-01

Managing a business requires vigilance and diligence. Small business owners are often ignored by IT vendors and inundated by the choices of software applications and therefore, need help finding a viable operating software solution for small business decisions and development. The extent, if any, of a significant influence of operational software…

Proposing an Evidence-Based Strategy for Software Requirements Engineering.

PubMed

Lindoerfer, Doris; Mansmann, Ulrich

2016-01-01

This paper discusses an evidence-based approach to software requirements engineering. The approach is called evidence-based, since it uses publications on the specific problem as a surrogate for stakeholder interests, to formulate risks and testing experiences. This complements the idea that agile software development models are more relevant, in which requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams. The strategy is exemplified and applied to the development of a Software Requirements list used to develop software systems for patient registries.

Usability Considerations in Developing a Graphic Interface for Intra Office Communications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yammiyavar, Pradeep; Jain, Piyush

This paper outlines the basis of incorporating functional features in a new GUI based software under development for addressing comprehensive communication and interaction needs within an office environment. Bench marking of features in existing communication software products such as Microsoft Outlook, IBM Lotusnotes, Office Communicator, Mozilla Thunderbird etc. was done by asking a set of questions related to the usage of these existing softwares. Usability issues were identified through a user survey involving 30 subjects of varied profiles (domain, designation, age etc.) in a corporate office. It is posited that existing software products that have been developed for a universal market may be highly underutilized or have redundant features especially for use as an intra office (within the same office) communication medium. Simultaneously they may not cater to some very contextual requirements of intra office communications. Based on the findings of the survey of feature preferences & usability of existing products, a simple 'person to person' communicating medium for intra office situations was visualized with a new interactive GUI. Usability issues that need to be considered for a new intra-office product have been brought out.

The Dangers of Failure Masking in Fault-Tolerant Software: Aspects of a Recent In-Flight Upset Event

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnson, C. W.; Holloway, C. M.

2007-01-01

On 1 August 2005, a Boeing Company 777-200 aircraft, operating on an international passenger flight from Australia to Malaysia, was involved in a significant upset event while flying on autopilot. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau's investigation into the event discovered that an anomaly existed in the component software hierarchy that allowed inputs from a known faulty accelerometer to be processed by the air data inertial reference unit (ADIRU) and used by the primary flight computer, autopilot and other aircraft systems. This anomaly had existed in original ADIRU software, and had not been detected in the testing and certification process for the unit. This paper describes the software aspects of the incident in detail, and suggests possible implications concerning complex, safety-critical, fault-tolerant software.

The HEP Software and Computing Knowledge Base

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wenaus, T.

2017-10-01

HEP software today is a rich and diverse domain in itself and exists within the mushrooming world of open source software. As HEP software developers and users we can be more productive and effective if our work and our choices are informed by a good knowledge of what others in our community have created or found useful. The HEP Software and Computing Knowledge Base, hepsoftware.org, was created to facilitate this by serving as a collection point and information exchange on software projects and products, services, training, computing facilities, and relating them to the projects, experiments, organizations and science domains that offer them or use them. It was created as a contribution to the HEP Software Foundation, for which a HEP S&C knowledge base was a much requested early deliverable. This contribution will motivate and describe the system, what it offers, its content and contributions both existing and needed, and its implementation (node.js based web service and javascript client app) which has emphasized ease of use for both users and contributors.

ICW eHealth Framework.

PubMed

Klein, Karsten; Wolff, Astrid C; Ziebold, Oliver; Liebscher, Thomas

2008-01-01

The ICW eHealth Framework (eHF) is a powerful infrastructure and platform for the development of service-oriented solutions in the health care business. It is the culmination of many years of experience of ICW in the development and use of in-house health care solutions and represents the foundation of ICW product developments based on the Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE). The ICW eHealth Framework has been leveraged to allow development by external partners - enabling adopters a straightforward integration into ICW solutions. The ICW eHealth Framework consists of reusable software components, development tools, architectural guidelines and conventions defining a full software-development and product lifecycle. From the perspective of a partner, the framework provides services and infrastructure capabilities for integrating applications within an eHF-based solution. This article introduces the ICW eHealth Framework's basic architectural concepts and technologies. It provides an overview of its module and component model, describes the development platform that supports the complete software development lifecycle of health care applications and outlines technological aspects, mainly focusing on application development frameworks and open standards.

Present status of computational tools for maglev development

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wang, Z.; Chen, S.S.; Rote, D.M.

1991-10-01

High-speed vehicles that employ magnetic levitation (maglev) have received great attention worldwide as a means of relieving both highway and air-traffic congestion. At this time, Japan and Germany are leading the development of maglev. After fifteen years of inactivity that is attributed to technical policy decisions, the federal government of the United States has reconsidered the possibility of using maglev in the United States. The National Maglev Initiative (NMI) was established in May 1990 to assess the potential of maglev in the United States. One of the tasks of the NMI, which is also the objective of this report, ismore » to determine the status of existing computer software that can be applied to maglev-related problems. The computational problems involved in maglev assessment, research, and development can be classified into two categories: electromagnetic and mechanical. Because most maglev problems are complicated and difficult to solve analytically, proper numerical methods are needed to find solutions. To determine the status of maglev-related software, developers and users of computer codes were surveyed. The results of the survey are described in this report. 25 refs.« less

Oculomatic: High speed, reliable, and accurate open-source eye tracking for humans and non-human primates.

PubMed

Zimmermann, Jan; Vazquez, Yuriria; Glimcher, Paul W; Pesaran, Bijan; Louie, Kenway

2016-09-01

Video-based noninvasive eye trackers are an extremely useful tool for many areas of research. Many open-source eye trackers are available but current open-source systems are not designed to track eye movements with the temporal resolution required to investigate the mechanisms of oculomotor behavior. Commercial systems are available but employ closed source hardware and software and are relatively expensive, limiting wide-spread use. Here we present Oculomatic, an open-source software and modular hardware solution to eye tracking for use in humans and non-human primates. Oculomatic features high temporal resolution (up to 600Hz), real-time eye tracking with high spatial accuracy (<0.5°), and low system latency (∼1.8ms, 0.32ms STD) at a relatively low-cost. Oculomatic compares favorably to our existing scleral search-coil system while being fully non invasive. We propose that Oculomatic can support a wide range of research into the properties and neural mechanisms of oculomotor behavior. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Theoretical and software considerations for general dynamic analysis using multilevel substructured models

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schmidt, R. J.; Dodds, R. H., Jr.

1985-01-01

The dynamic analysis of complex structural systems using the finite element method and multilevel substructured models is presented. The fixed-interface method is selected for substructure reduction because of its efficiency, accuracy, and adaptability to restart and reanalysis. This method is extended to reduction of substructures which are themselves composed of reduced substructures. The implementation and performance of the method in a general purpose software system is emphasized. Solution algorithms consistent with the chosen data structures are presented. It is demonstrated that successful finite element software requires the use of software executives to supplement the algorithmic language. The complexity of the implementation of restart and reanalysis porcedures illustrates the need for executive systems to support the noncomputational aspects of the software. It is shown that significant computational efficiencies can be achieved through proper use of substructuring and reduction technbiques without sacrificing solution accuracy. The restart and reanalysis capabilities and the flexible procedures for multilevel substructured modeling gives economical yet accurate analyses of complex structural systems.

3D body scanning technology for fashion and apparel industry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

D'Apuzzo, Nicola

2007-01-01

This paper presents an overview of 3D body scanning technologies with applications to the fashion and apparel industry. Complete systems for the digitization of the human body exist since more than fifteen years. One of the main users of this technology with application in the textile field was the military industry. In fact, body scanning technology is being successfully employed since many years in military bases for a fast selection of the correct size of uniforms for the entire staff. Complete solutions were especially developed for this field of application. Many different research projects were issued for the exploitation of the same technology in the commercial field. Experiments were performed and start-up projects are to time running in different parts of the world by installing full body scanning systems in various locations such as shopping malls, boutiques or dedicated scanning centers. Everything is actually ready to be exploited and all the required hardware, software and solutions are available: full body scanning systems, software for the automatic and reliable extraction of body measurements, e-kiosk and web solutions for the presentation of garments, high-end and low-end virtual-try-on systems. However, complete solutions in this area have still not yet found the expected commercial success. Today, with the on-going large cost reduction given by the appearance of new competitors, methods for digitization of the human body becomes more interesting for the fashion and apparel industry. Therefore, a large expansion of these technologies is expected in the near future. To date, different methods are used commercially for the measurement of the human body. These can be divided into three major distinguished groups: laser-scanning, projection of light patterns, combination modeling and image processing. The different solutions have strengths and weaknesses that profile their suitability for specific applications. This paper gives an overview of their differences and characteristics and expresses clues for the selection of the adequate method. A special interest is given to practical examples of the commercial exploitation of human body digitization with applications to the fashion and apparel industry.

A flexible architecture for advanced process control solutions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Faron, Kamyar; Iourovitski, Ilia

2005-05-01

Advanced Process Control (APC) is now mainstream practice in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Over the past decade and a half APC has evolved from a "good idea", and "wouldn"t it be great" concept to mandatory manufacturing practice. APC developments have primarily dealt with two major thrusts, algorithms and infrastructure, and often the line between them has been blurred. The algorithms have evolved from very simple single variable solutions to sophisticated and cutting edge adaptive multivariable (input and output) solutions. Spending patterns in recent times have demanded that the economics of a comprehensive APC infrastructure be completely justified for any and all cost conscious manufacturers. There are studies suggesting integration costs as high as 60% of the total APC solution costs. Such cost prohibitive figures clearly diminish the return on APC investments. This has limited the acceptance and development of pure APC infrastructure solutions for many fabs. Modern APC solution architectures must satisfy the wide array of requirements from very manual R&D environments to very advanced and automated "lights out" manufacturing facilities. A majority of commercially available control solutions and most in house developed solutions lack important attributes of scalability, flexibility, and adaptability and hence require significant resources for integration, deployment, and maintenance. Many APC improvement efforts have been abandoned and delayed due to legacy systems and inadequate architectural design. Recent advancements (Service Oriented Architectures) in the software industry have delivered ideal technologies for delivering scalable, flexible, and reliable solutions that can seamlessly integrate into any fabs" existing system and business practices. In this publication we shall evaluate the various attributes of the architectures required by fabs and illustrate the benefits of a Service Oriented Architecture to satisfy these requirements. Blue Control Technologies has developed an advance service oriented architecture Run to Run Control System which addresses these requirements.

Stability analysis on the flow and heat transfer of nanofluid past a stretching/shrinking cylinder with suction effect

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bakar, Nor Ashikin Abu; Bachok, Norfifah; Arifin, Norihan Md.; Pop, Ioan

2018-06-01

The steady boundary layer flow over a stretching/shrinking cylinder with suction effect is numerically studied. Using a similarity transformations, the governing partial differential equations are transformed into a set of nonlinear differential equations and have been solved numerically using a bvp4c code in Matlab software. The nanofluid model used is taking into account the effects of Brownian motion and thermophoresis. The influences of the governing parameters namely the curvature parameter γ, mass suction parameter S, Brownian motion parameter Nb and thermophoresis parameter Nt on the flow, heat and mass transfers characteristics are presented graphically. The numerical results obtained for the skin friction coefficient, local Nusselt number and local Sherwood number are thoroughly determined and presented graphically for several values of the governing parameters. From our investigation, it is found that the non-unique (dual) solutions exist for a certain range of mass suction parameter. It is observed that as curvature parameter increases, the skin friction coefficient and heat transfer rate decrease, meanwhile the mass transfer rates increase. Moreover, the stability analysis showed that the first solution is linearly stable, while the second solution is linearly unstable.

Role of partial miscibility on pressure buildup due to constant rate injection of CO2 into closed and open brine aquifers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mathias, Simon A.; Gluyas, Jon G.; GonzáLez MartíNez de Miguel, Gerardo J.; Hosseini, Seyyed A.

2011-12-01

This work extends an existing analytical solution for pressure buildup because of CO2 injection in brine aquifers by incorporating effects associated with partial miscibility. These include evaporation of water into the CO2 rich phase and dissolution of CO2 into brine and salt precipitation. The resulting equations are closed-form, including the locations of the associated leading and trailing shock fronts. Derivation of the analytical solution involves making a number of simplifying assumptions including: vertical pressure equilibrium, negligible capillary pressure, and constant fluid properties. The analytical solution is compared to results from TOUGH2 and found to accurately approximate the extent of the dry-out zone around the well, the resulting permeability enhancement due to residual brine evaporation, the volumetric saturation of precipitated salt, and the vertically averaged pressure distribution in both space and time for the four scenarios studied. While brine evaporation is found to have a considerable effect on pressure, the effect of CO2 dissolution is found to be small. The resulting equations remain simple to evaluate in spreadsheet software and represent a significant improvement on current methods for estimating pressure-limited CO2 storage capacity.

The inverse electroencephalography pipeline

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weinstein, David Michael

The inverse electroencephalography (EEG) problem is defined as determining which regions of the brain are active based on remote measurements recorded with scalp EEG electrodes. An accurate solution to this problem would benefit both fundamental neuroscience research and clinical neuroscience applications. However, constructing accurate patient-specific inverse EEG solutions requires complex modeling, simulation, and visualization algorithms, and to date only a few systems have been developed that provide such capabilities. In this dissertation, a computational system for generating and investigating patient-specific inverse EEG solutions is introduced, and the requirements for each stage of this Inverse EEG Pipeline are defined and discussed. While the requirements of many of the stages are satisfied with existing algorithms, others have motivated research into novel modeling and simulation methods. The principal technical results of this work include novel surface-based volume modeling techniques, an efficient construction for the EEG lead field, and the Open Source release of the Inverse EEG Pipeline software for use by the bioelectric field research community. In this work, the Inverse EEG Pipeline is applied to three research problems in neurology: comparing focal and distributed source imaging algorithms; separating measurements into independent activation components for multifocal epilepsy; and localizing the cortical activity that produces the P300 effect in schizophrenia.

PT-SAFE: a software tool for development and annunciation of medical audible alarms.

PubMed

Bennett, Christopher L; McNeer, Richard R

2012-03-01

Recent reports by The Joint Commission as well as the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation have indicated that medical audible alarm effectiveness needs to be improved. Several recent studies have explored various approaches to improving the audible alarms, motivating the authors to develop real-time software capable of comparing such alarms. We sought to devise software that would allow for the development of a variety of audible alarm designs that could also integrate into existing operating room equipment configurations. The software is meant to be used as a tool for alarm researchers to quickly evaluate novel alarm designs. A software tool was developed for the purpose of creating and annunciating audible alarms. The alarms consisted of annunciators that were mapped to vital sign data received from a patient monitor. An object-oriented approach to software design was used to create a tool that is flexible and modular at run-time, can annunciate wave-files from disk, and can be programmed with MATLAB by the user to create custom alarm algorithms. The software was tested in a simulated operating room to measure technical performance and to validate the time-to-annunciation against existing equipment alarms. The software tool showed efficacy in a simulated operating room environment by providing alarm annunciation in response to physiologic and ventilator signals generated by a human patient simulator, on average 6.2 seconds faster than existing equipment alarms. Performance analysis showed that the software was capable of supporting up to 15 audible alarms on a mid-grade laptop computer before audio dropouts occurred. These results suggest that this software tool provides a foundation for rapidly staging multiple audible alarm sets from the laboratory to a simulation environment for the purpose of evaluating novel alarm designs, thus producing valuable findings for medical audible alarm standardization.

49 CFR Appendix C to Part 236 - Safety Assurance Criteria and Processes

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... system (all its elements including hardware and software) must be designed to assure safe operation with... unsafe errors in the software due to human error in the software specification, design, or coding phases... (hardware or software, or both) are used in combination to ensure safety. If a common mode failure exists...

The optimal community detection of software based on complex networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, Guoyan; Zhang, Peng; Zhang, Bing; Yin, Tengteng; Ren, Jiadong

2016-02-01

The community structure is important for software in terms of understanding the design patterns, controlling the development and the maintenance process. In order to detect the optimal community structure in the software network, a method Optimal Partition Software Network (OPSN) is proposed based on the dependency relationship among the software functions. First, by analyzing the information of multiple execution traces of one software, we construct Software Execution Dependency Network (SEDN). Second, based on the relationship among the function nodes in the network, we define Fault Accumulation (FA) to measure the importance of the function node and sort the nodes with measure results. Third, we select the top K(K=1,2,…) nodes as the core of the primal communities (only exist one core node). By comparing the dependency relationships between each node and the K communities, we put the node into the existing community which has the most close relationship. Finally, we calculate the modularity with different initial K to obtain the optimal division. With experiments, the method OPSN is verified to be efficient to detect the optimal community in various softwares.

OpenMEEG: opensource software for quasistatic bioelectromagnetics.

PubMed

Gramfort, Alexandre; Papadopoulo, Théodore; Olivi, Emmanuel; Clerc, Maureen

2010-09-06

Interpreting and controlling bioelectromagnetic phenomena require realistic physiological models and accurate numerical solvers. A semi-realistic model often used in practise is the piecewise constant conductivity model, for which only the interfaces have to be meshed. This simplified model makes it possible to use Boundary Element Methods. Unfortunately, most Boundary Element solutions are confronted with accuracy issues when the conductivity ratio between neighboring tissues is high, as for instance the scalp/skull conductivity ratio in electro-encephalography. To overcome this difficulty, we proposed a new method called the symmetric BEM, which is implemented in the OpenMEEG software. The aim of this paper is to present OpenMEEG, both from the theoretical and the practical point of view, and to compare its performances with other competing software packages. We have run a benchmark study in the field of electro- and magneto-encephalography, in order to compare the accuracy of OpenMEEG with other freely distributed forward solvers. We considered spherical models, for which analytical solutions exist, and we designed randomized meshes to assess the variability of the accuracy. Two measures were used to characterize the accuracy. the Relative Difference Measure and the Magnitude ratio. The comparisons were run, either with a constant number of mesh nodes, or a constant number of unknowns across methods. Computing times were also compared. We observed more pronounced differences in accuracy in electroencephalography than in magnetoencephalography. The methods could be classified in three categories: the linear collocation methods, that run very fast but with low accuracy, the linear collocation methods with isolated skull approach for which the accuracy is improved, and OpenMEEG that clearly outperforms the others. As far as speed is concerned, OpenMEEG is on par with the other methods for a constant number of unknowns, and is hence faster for a prescribed accuracy level. This study clearly shows that OpenMEEG represents the state of the art for forward computations. Moreover, our software development strategies have made it handy to use and to integrate with other packages. The bioelectromagnetic research community should therefore be able to benefit from OpenMEEG with a limited development effort.

OpenMEEG: opensource software for quasistatic bioelectromagnetics

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background Interpreting and controlling bioelectromagnetic phenomena require realistic physiological models and accurate numerical solvers. A semi-realistic model often used in practise is the piecewise constant conductivity model, for which only the interfaces have to be meshed. This simplified model makes it possible to use Boundary Element Methods. Unfortunately, most Boundary Element solutions are confronted with accuracy issues when the conductivity ratio between neighboring tissues is high, as for instance the scalp/skull conductivity ratio in electro-encephalography. To overcome this difficulty, we proposed a new method called the symmetric BEM, which is implemented in the OpenMEEG software. The aim of this paper is to present OpenMEEG, both from the theoretical and the practical point of view, and to compare its performances with other competing software packages. Methods We have run a benchmark study in the field of electro- and magneto-encephalography, in order to compare the accuracy of OpenMEEG with other freely distributed forward solvers. We considered spherical models, for which analytical solutions exist, and we designed randomized meshes to assess the variability of the accuracy. Two measures were used to characterize the accuracy. the Relative Difference Measure and the Magnitude ratio. The comparisons were run, either with a constant number of mesh nodes, or a constant number of unknowns across methods. Computing times were also compared. Results We observed more pronounced differences in accuracy in electroencephalography than in magnetoencephalography. The methods could be classified in three categories: the linear collocation methods, that run very fast but with low accuracy, the linear collocation methods with isolated skull approach for which the accuracy is improved, and OpenMEEG that clearly outperforms the others. As far as speed is concerned, OpenMEEG is on par with the other methods for a constant number of unknowns, and is hence faster for a prescribed accuracy level. Conclusions This study clearly shows that OpenMEEG represents the state of the art for forward computations. Moreover, our software development strategies have made it handy to use and to integrate with other packages. The bioelectromagnetic research community should therefore be able to benefit from OpenMEEG with a limited development effort. PMID:20819204

Cloud computing geospatial application for water resources based on free and open source software and open standards - a prototype

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Delipetrev, Blagoj

2016-04-01

Presently, most of the existing software is desktop-based, designed to work on a single computer, which represents a major limitation in many ways, starting from limited computer processing, storage power, accessibility, availability, etc. The only feasible solution lies in the web and cloud. This abstract presents research and development of a cloud computing geospatial application for water resources based on free and open source software and open standards using hybrid deployment model of public - private cloud, running on two separate virtual machines (VMs). The first one (VM1) is running on Amazon web services (AWS) and the second one (VM2) is running on a Xen cloud platform. The presented cloud application is developed using free and open source software, open standards and prototype code. The cloud application presents a framework how to develop specialized cloud geospatial application that needs only a web browser to be used. This cloud application is the ultimate collaboration geospatial platform because multiple users across the globe with internet connection and browser can jointly model geospatial objects, enter attribute data and information, execute algorithms, and visualize results. The presented cloud application is: available all the time, accessible from everywhere, it is scalable, works in a distributed computer environment, it creates a real-time multiuser collaboration platform, the programing languages code and components are interoperable, and it is flexible in including additional components. The cloud geospatial application is implemented as a specialized water resources application with three web services for 1) data infrastructure (DI), 2) support for water resources modelling (WRM), 3) user management. The web services are running on two VMs that are communicating over the internet providing services to users. The application was tested on the Zletovica river basin case study with concurrent multiple users. The application is a state-of-the-art cloud geospatial collaboration platform. The presented solution is a prototype and can be used as a foundation for developing of any specialized cloud geospatial applications. Further research will be focused on distributing the cloud application on additional VMs, testing the scalability and availability of services.

Medical data sheet in safe havens - A tri-layer cryptic solution.

PubMed

Praveenkumar, Padmapriya; Amirtharajan, Rengarajan; Thenmozhi, K; Balaguru Rayappan, John Bosco

2015-07-01

Secured sharing of the diagnostic reports and scan images of patients among doctors with complementary expertise for collaborative treatment will help to provide maximum care through faster and decisive decisions. In this context, a tri-layer cryptic solution has been proposed and implemented on Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) images to establish a secured communication for effective referrals among peers without compromising the privacy of patients. In this approach, a blend of three cryptic schemes, namely Latin square image cipher (LSIC), discrete Gould transform (DGT) and Rubik׳s encryption, has been adopted. Among them, LSIC provides better substitution, confusion and shuffling of the image blocks; DGT incorporates tamper proofing with authentication; and Rubik renders a permutation of DICOM image pixels. The developed algorithm has been successfully implemented and tested in both the software (MATLAB 7) and hardware Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) environments. Specifically, the encrypted data were tested by transmitting them through an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel model. Furthermore, the sternness of the implemented algorithm was validated by employing standard metrics such as the unified average changing intensity (UACI), number of pixels change rate (NPCR), correlation values and histograms. The estimated metrics have also been compared with the existing methods and dominate in terms of large key space to defy brute force attack, cropping attack, strong key sensitivity and uniform pixel value distribution on encryption. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Model-based machine learning.

PubMed

Bishop, Christopher M

2013-02-13

Several decades of research in the field of machine learning have resulted in a multitude of different algorithms for solving a broad range of problems. To tackle a new application, a researcher typically tries to map their problem onto one of these existing methods, often influenced by their familiarity with specific algorithms and by the availability of corresponding software implementations. In this study, we describe an alternative methodology for applying machine learning, in which a bespoke solution is formulated for each new application. The solution is expressed through a compact modelling language, and the corresponding custom machine learning code is then generated automatically. This model-based approach offers several major advantages, including the opportunity to create highly tailored models for specific scenarios, as well as rapid prototyping and comparison of a range of alternative models. Furthermore, newcomers to the field of machine learning do not have to learn about the huge range of traditional methods, but instead can focus their attention on understanding a single modelling environment. In this study, we show how probabilistic graphical models, coupled with efficient inference algorithms, provide a very flexible foundation for model-based machine learning, and we outline a large-scale commercial application of this framework involving tens of millions of users. We also describe the concept of probabilistic programming as a powerful software environment for model-based machine learning, and we discuss a specific probabilistic programming language called Infer.NET, which has been widely used in practical applications.

Model-based machine learning

PubMed Central

Bishop, Christopher M.

2013-01-01

Several decades of research in the field of machine learning have resulted in a multitude of different algorithms for solving a broad range of problems. To tackle a new application, a researcher typically tries to map their problem onto one of these existing methods, often influenced by their familiarity with specific algorithms and by the availability of corresponding software implementations. In this study, we describe an alternative methodology for applying machine learning, in which a bespoke solution is formulated for each new application. The solution is expressed through a compact modelling language, and the corresponding custom machine learning code is then generated automatically. This model-based approach offers several major advantages, including the opportunity to create highly tailored models for specific scenarios, as well as rapid prototyping and comparison of a range of alternative models. Furthermore, newcomers to the field of machine learning do not have to learn about the huge range of traditional methods, but instead can focus their attention on understanding a single modelling environment. In this study, we show how probabilistic graphical models, coupled with efficient inference algorithms, provide a very flexible foundation for model-based machine learning, and we outline a large-scale commercial application of this framework involving tens of millions of users. We also describe the concept of probabilistic programming as a powerful software environment for model-based machine learning, and we discuss a specific probabilistic programming language called Infer.NET, which has been widely used in practical applications. PMID:23277612

Efficient and effective pruning strategies for health data de-identification.

PubMed

Prasser, Fabian; Kohlmayer, Florian; Kuhn, Klaus A

2016-04-30

Privacy must be protected when sensitive biomedical data is shared, e.g. for research purposes. Data de-identification is an important safeguard, where datasets are transformed to meet two conflicting objectives: minimizing re-identification risks while maximizing data quality. Typically, de-identification methods search a solution space of possible data transformations to find a good solution to a given de-identification problem. In this process, parts of the search space must be excluded to maintain scalability. The set of transformations which are solution candidates is typically narrowed down by storing the results obtained during the search process and then using them to predict properties of the output of other transformations in terms of privacy (first objective) and data quality (second objective). However, due to the exponential growth of the size of the search space, previous implementations of this method are not well-suited when datasets contain many attributes which need to be protected. As this is often the case with biomedical research data, e.g. as a result of longitudinal collection, we have developed a novel method. Our approach combines the mathematical concept of antichains with a data structure inspired by prefix trees to represent properties of a large number of data transformations while requiring only a minimal amount of information to be stored. To analyze the improvements which can be achieved by adopting our method, we have integrated it into an existing algorithm and we have also implemented a simple best-first branch and bound search (BFS) algorithm as a first step towards methods which fully exploit our approach. We have evaluated these implementations with several real-world datasets and the k-anonymity privacy model. When integrated into existing de-identification algorithms for low-dimensional data, our approach reduced memory requirements by up to one order of magnitude and execution times by up to 25 %. This allowed us to increase the size of solution spaces which could be processed by almost a factor of 10. When using the simple BFS method, we were able to further increase the size of the solution space by a factor of three. When used as a heuristic strategy for high-dimensional data, the BFS approach outperformed a state-of-the-art algorithm by up to 12 % in terms of the quality of output data. This work shows that implementing methods of data de-identification for real-world applications is a challenging task. Our approach solves a problem often faced by data custodians: a lack of scalability of de-identification software when used with datasets having realistic schemas and volumes. The method described in this article has been implemented into ARX, an open source de-identification software for biomedical data.

RootGraph: a graphic optimization tool for automated image analysis of plant roots

PubMed Central

Cai, Jinhai; Zeng, Zhanghui; Connor, Jason N.; Huang, Chun Yuan; Melino, Vanessa; Kumar, Pankaj; Miklavcic, Stanley J.

2015-01-01

This paper outlines a numerical scheme for accurate, detailed, and high-throughput image analysis of plant roots. In contrast to existing root image analysis tools that focus on root system-average traits, a novel, fully automated and robust approach for the detailed characterization of root traits, based on a graph optimization process is presented. The scheme, firstly, distinguishes primary roots from lateral roots and, secondly, quantifies a broad spectrum of root traits for each identified primary and lateral root. Thirdly, it associates lateral roots and their properties with the specific primary root from which the laterals emerge. The performance of this approach was evaluated through comparisons with other automated and semi-automated software solutions as well as against results based on manual measurements. The comparisons and subsequent application of the algorithm to an array of experimental data demonstrate that this method outperforms existing methods in terms of accuracy, robustness, and the ability to process root images under high-throughput conditions. PMID:26224880

MathWorks Simulink and C++ integration with the new VLT PLC-based standard development platform for instrument control systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kiekebusch, Mario J.; Di Lieto, Nicola; Sandrock, Stefan; Popovic, Dan; Chiozzi, Gianluca

2014-07-01

ESO is in the process of implementing a new development platform, based on PLCs, for upcoming VLT control systems (new instruments and refurbishing of existing systems to manage obsolescence issues). In this context, we have evaluated the integration and reuse of existing C++ libraries and Simulink models into the real-time environment of BECKHOFF Embedded PCs using the capabilities of the latest version of TwinCAT software and MathWorks Embedded Coder. While doing so the aim was to minimize the impact of the new platform by adopting fully tested solutions implemented in C++. This allows us to reuse the in house expertise, as well as extending the normal capabilities of the traditional PLC programming environments. We present the progress of this work and its application in two concrete cases: 1) field rotation compensation for instrument tracking devices like derotators, 2) the ESO standard axis controller (ESTAC), a generic model-based controller implemented in Simulink and used for the control of telescope main axes.

Bilingual parallel programming

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Foster, I.; Overbeek, R.

1990-01-01

Numerous experiments have demonstrated that computationally intensive algorithms support adequate parallelism to exploit the potential of large parallel machines. Yet successful parallel implementations of serious applications are rare. The limiting factor is clearly programming technology. None of the approaches to parallel programming that have been proposed to date -- whether parallelizing compilers, language extensions, or new concurrent languages -- seem to adequately address the central problems of portability, expressiveness, efficiency, and compatibility with existing software. In this paper, we advocate an alternative approach to parallel programming based on what we call bilingual programming. We present evidence that this approach providesmore » and effective solution to parallel programming problems. The key idea in bilingual programming is to construct the upper levels of applications in a high-level language while coding selected low-level components in low-level languages. This approach permits the advantages of a high-level notation (expressiveness, elegance, conciseness) to be obtained without the cost in performance normally associated with high-level approaches. In addition, it provides a natural framework for reusing existing code.« less

Economic Incentives for Cybersecurity: Using Economics to Design Technologies Ready for Deployment

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Vishik, Claire; Sheldon, Frederick T; Ott, David

Cybersecurity practice lags behind cyber technology achievements. Solutions designed to address many problems may and do exist but frequently cannot be broadly deployed due to economic constraints. Whereas security economics focuses on the cost/benefit analysis and supply/demand, we believe that more sophisticated theoretical approaches, such as economic modeling, rarely utilized, would derive greater societal benefits. Unfortunately, today technologists pursuing interesting and elegant solutions have little knowledge of the feasibility for broad deployment of their results and cannot anticipate the influences of other technologies, existing infrastructure, and technology evolution, nor bring the solutions lifecycle into the equation. Additionally, potentially viable solutionsmore » are not adopted because the risk perceptions by potential providers and users far outweighs the economic incentives to support introduction/adoption of new best practices and technologies that are not well enough defined. In some cases, there is no alignment with redominant and future business models as well as regulatory and policy requirements. This paper provides an overview of the economics of security, reviewing work that helped to define economic models for the Internet economy from the 1990s. We bring forward examples of potential use of theoretical economics in defining metrics for emerging technology areas, positioning infrastructure investment, and building real-time response capability as part of software development. These diverse examples help us understand the gaps in current research. Filling these gaps will be instrumental for defining viable economic incentives, economic policies, regulations as well as early-stage technology development approaches, that can speed up commercialization and deployment of new technologies in cybersecurity.« less

Is There Such a Thing as Free Software? The Pros and Cons of Open-Source Software

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trappler, Thomas J.

2009-01-01

Today's higher education environment is marked by heightened accountability and decreased budgets. In such an environment, no higher education institution can afford to ignore alternative approaches that could result in more effective and less costly solutions. Open-source software (OSS) can serve as a viable alternative to traditional proprietary…

Designing Online Software for Teaching the Concept of Variable That Facilitates Mental Interaction with the Material: Systemic Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koehler, Natalya A.; Thompson, Ann D.; Correia, Ana-Paula; Hagedorn, Linda Serra

2015-01-01

Our case study is a response to the need for research and reporting on specific strategies employed by software designers to produce effective multimedia instructional solutions. A systemic approach for identifying appropriate software features and conducting a formative evaluation that evaluates both the overall effectiveness of the multimedia…

A Guideline of Using Case Method in Software Engineering Courses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zainal, Dzulaiha Aryanee Putri; Razali, Rozilawati; Shukur, Zarina

2014-01-01

Software Engineering (SE) education has been reported to fall short in producing high quality software engineers. In seeking alternative solutions, Case Method (CM) is regarded as having potential to solve the issue. CM is a teaching and learning (T&L) method that has been found to be effective in Social Science education. In principle,…

Benefits of Software GPS Receivers for Enhanced Signal Processing

DTIC Science & Technology

2000-01-01

1 Published in GPS SOLUTIONS 4(1) Summer, 2000, pages 56-66. Benefits of Software GPS Receivers for Enhanced Signal Processing Alison Brown...Diego, CA 92110-3127 Number of Pages: 24 Number of Figures: 20 ABSTRACT In this paper the architecture of a software GPS receiver is described...and an analysis is included of the performance of a software GPS receiver when tracking the GPS signals in challenging environments. Results are

A free software for pore-scale modelling: solving Stokes equation for velocity fields and permeability values in 3D pore geometries

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gerke, Kirill; Vasilyev, Roman; Khirevich, Siarhei; Karsanina, Marina; Collins, Daniel; Korost, Dmitry; Mallants, Dirk

2015-04-01

In this contribution we introduce a novel free software which solves the Stokes equation to obtain velocity fields for low Reynolds-number flows within externally generated 3D pore geometries. Provided with velocity fields, one can calculate permeability for known pressure gradient boundary conditions via Darcy's equation. Finite-difference schemes of 2nd and 4th order of accuracy are used together with an artificial compressibility method to iteratively converge to a steady-state solution of Stokes' equation. This numerical approach is much faster and less computationally demanding than the majority of open-source or commercial softwares employing other algorithms (finite elements/volumes, lattice Boltzmann, etc.) The software consists of two parts: 1) a pre and post-processing graphical interface, and 2) a solver. The latter is efficiently parallelized to use any number of available cores (the speedup on 16 threads was up to 10-12 depending on hardware). Due to parallelization and memory optimization our software can be used to obtain solutions for 300x300x300 voxels geometries on modern desktop PCs. The software was successfully verified by testing it against lattice Boltzmann simulations and analytical solutions. To illustrate the software's applicability for numerous problems in Earth Sciences, a number of case studies have been developed: 1) identifying the representative elementary volume for permeability determination within a sandstone sample, 2) derivation of permeability/hydraulic conductivity values for rock and soil samples and comparing those with experimentally obtained values, 3) revealing the influence of the amount of fine-textured material such as clay on filtration properties of sandy soil. This work was partially supported by RSF grant 14-17-00658 (pore-scale modelling) and RFBR grants 13-04-00409-a and 13-05-01176-a.

Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics (CIG)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gurnis, M.; Kellogg, L. H.; Bloxham, J.; Hager, B. H.; Spiegelman, M.; Willett, S.; Wysession, M. E.; Aivazis, M.

2004-12-01

Solid earth geophysicists have a long tradition of writing scientific software to address a wide range of problems. In particular, computer simulations came into wide use in geophysics during the decade after the plate tectonic revolution. Solution schemes and numerical algorithms that developed in other areas of science, most notably engineering, fluid mechanics, and physics, were adapted with considerable success to geophysics. This software has largely been the product of individual efforts and although this approach has proven successful, its strength for solving problems of interest is now starting to show its limitations as we try to share codes and algorithms or when we want to recombine codes in novel ways to produce new science. With funding from the NSF, the US community has embarked on a Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics (CIG) that will develop, support, and disseminate community-accessible software for the greater geodynamics community from model developers to end-users. The software is being developed for problems involving mantle and core dynamics, crustal and earthquake dynamics, magma migration, seismology, and other related topics. With a high level of community participation, CIG is leveraging state-of-the-art scientific computing into a suite of open-source tools and codes. The infrastructure that we are now starting to develop will consist of: (a) a coordinated effort to develop reusable, well-documented and open-source geodynamics software; (b) the basic building blocks - an infrastructure layer - of software by which state-of-the-art modeling codes can be quickly assembled; (c) extension of existing software frameworks to interlink multiple codes and data through a superstructure layer; (d) strategic partnerships with the larger world of computational science and geoinformatics; and (e) specialized training and workshops for both the geodynamics and broader Earth science communities. The CIG initiative has already started to leverage and develop long-term strategic partnerships with open source development efforts within the larger thrusts of scientific computing and geoinformatics. These strategic partnerships are essential as the frontier has moved into multi-scale and multi-physics problems in which many investigators now want to use simulation software for data interpretation, data assimilation, and hypothesis testing.

NEWFIRM Software--System Integration Using OPC

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Daly, P. N.

2004-07-01

The NOAO Extremely Wide-Field Infra-Red Mosaic (NEWFIRM) camera is being built to satisfy the survey science requirements on the KPNO Mayall and CTIO Blanco 4m telescopes in an era of 8m+ aperture telescopes. Rather than re-invent the wheel, the software system to control the instrument has taken existing software packages and re-used what is appropriate. The result is an end-to-end observation control system using technology components from DRAMA, ORAC, observing tools, GWC, existing in-house motor controllers and new developments like the MONSOON pixel server.

CometQuest: A Rosetta Adventure

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Leon, Nancy J.; Fisher, Diane K.; Novati, Alexander; Chmielewski, Artur B.; Fitzpatrick, Austin J.; Angrum, Andrea

2012-01-01

This software is a higher-performance implementation of tiled WMS, with integral support for KML and time-varying data. This software is compliant with the Open Geospatial WMS standard, and supports KML natively as a WMS return type, including support for the time attribute. Regionated KML wrappers are generated that match the existing tiled WMS dataset. Ping and JPG formats are supported, and the software is implemented as an Apache 2.0 module that supports a threading execution model that is capable of supporting very high request rates. The module intercepts and responds to WMS requests that match certain patterns and returns the existing tiles. If a KML format that matches an existing pyramid and tile dataset is requested, regionated KML is generated and returned to the requesting application. In addition, KML requests that do not match the existing tile datasets generate a KML response that includes the corresponding JPG WMS request, effectively adding KML support to a backing WMS server.

Tiled WMS/KML Server V2

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Plesea, Lucian

2012-01-01

This software is a higher-performance implementation of tiled WMS, with integral support for KML and time-varying data. This software is compliant with the Open Geospatial WMS standard, and supports KML natively as a WMS return type, including support for the time attribute. Regionated KML wrappers are generated that match the existing tiled WMS dataset. Ping and JPG formats are supported, and the software is implemented as an Apache 2.0 module that supports a threading execution model that is capable of supporting very high request rates. The module intercepts and responds to WMS requests that match certain patterns and returns the existing tiles. If a KML format that matches an existing pyramid and tile dataset is requested, regionated KML is generated and returned to the requesting application. In addition, KML requests that do not match the existing tile datasets generate a KML response that includes the corresponding JPG WMS request, effectively adding KML support to a backing WMS server.

BABAR: an R package to simplify the normalisation of common reference design microarray-based transcriptomic datasets

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background The development of DNA microarrays has facilitated the generation of hundreds of thousands of transcriptomic datasets. The use of a common reference microarray design allows existing transcriptomic data to be readily compared and re-analysed in the light of new data, and the combination of this design with large datasets is ideal for 'systems'-level analyses. One issue is that these datasets are typically collected over many years and may be heterogeneous in nature, containing different microarray file formats and gene array layouts, dye-swaps, and showing varying scales of log2- ratios of expression between microarrays. Excellent software exists for the normalisation and analysis of microarray data but many data have yet to be analysed as existing methods struggle with heterogeneous datasets; options include normalising microarrays on an individual or experimental group basis. Our solution was to develop the Batch Anti-Banana Algorithm in R (BABAR) algorithm and software package which uses cyclic loess to normalise across the complete dataset. We have already used BABAR to analyse the function of Salmonella genes involved in the process of infection of mammalian cells. Results The only input required by BABAR is unprocessed GenePix or BlueFuse microarray data files. BABAR provides a combination of 'within' and 'between' microarray normalisation steps and diagnostic boxplots. When applied to a real heterogeneous dataset, BABAR normalised the dataset to produce a comparable scaling between the microarrays, with the microarray data in excellent agreement with RT-PCR analysis. When applied to a real non-heterogeneous dataset and a simulated dataset, BABAR's performance in identifying differentially expressed genes showed some benefits over standard techniques. Conclusions BABAR is an easy-to-use software tool, simplifying the simultaneous normalisation of heterogeneous two-colour common reference design cDNA microarray-based transcriptomic datasets. We show BABAR transforms real and simulated datasets to allow for the correct interpretation of these data, and is the ideal tool to facilitate the identification of differentially expressed genes or network inference analysis from transcriptomic datasets. PMID:20128918

Geographic Information Systems and Web Page Development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reynolds, Justin

2004-01-01

The Facilities Engineering and Architectural Branch is responsible for the design and maintenance of buildings, laboratories, and civil structures. In order to improve efficiency and quality, the FEAB has dedicated itself to establishing a data infrastructure based on Geographic Information Systems, GIs. The value of GIS was explained in an article dating back to 1980 entitled "Need for a Multipurpose Cadastre which stated, "There is a critical need for a better land-information system in the United States to improve land-conveyance procedures, furnish a basis for equitable taxation, and provide much-needed information for resource management and environmental planning." Scientists and engineers both point to GIS as the solution. What is GIS? According to most text books, Geographic Information Systems is a class of software that stores, manages, and analyzes mapable features on, above, or below the surface of the earth. GIS software is basically database management software to the management of spatial data and information. Simply put, Geographic Information Systems manage, analyze, chart, graph, and map spatial information. At the outset, I was given goals and expectations from my branch and from my mentor with regards to the further implementation of GIs. Those goals are as follows: (1) Continue the development of GIS for the underground structures. (2) Extract and export annotated data from AutoCAD drawing files and construct a database (to serve as a prototype for future work). (3) Examine existing underground record drawings to determine existing and non-existing underground tanks. Once this data was collected and analyzed, I set out on the task of creating a user-friendly database that could be assessed by all members of the branch. It was important that the database be built using programs that most employees already possess, ruling out most AutoCAD-based viewers. Therefore, I set out to create an Access database that translated onto the web using Internet Explorer as the foundation. After some programming, it was possible to view AutoCAD files and other GIS-related applications on Internet Explorer, while providing the user with a variety of editing commands and setting options. I was also given the task of launching a divisional website using Macromedia Flash and other web- development programs.

Standardisation of radiation portal monitor controls and readouts.

PubMed

Tinker, M

2010-10-01

There is an urgent need to standardise the numbering configuration of radiation portal monitor sensing panels. Currently, manufacturers use conflicting numbering schemes that may confuse operators of these varied systems. There is a similar problem encountered with the varied choices of coloured indicator lights and coloured print lines designated for gamma and neutron alarms. In addition, second-party software that changes the alarm colour scheme may also have been installed. Furthermore, no provision exists for the colour blind or to provide work stations with only black ink on alarm printouts. These inconsistencies and confusing set-ups could inadvertently cause a misinterpretation of the alarm, resulting in the potential release of a radiological hazard into a sovereign country. These issues are discussed, and a proposed solution is offered.

[Prospects of systemic radioecology in solving innovative tasks of nuclear power engineering].

PubMed

Spiridonov, S I

2014-01-01

A need of systemic radioecological studies in the strategy developed by the atomic industry in Russia in the XXI century has been justified. The priorities in the radioecology of nuclear power engineering of natural safety associated with the development of the radiation-migration equivalence concept, comparative evaluation of innovative nuclear technologies and forecasting methods of various emergencies have been identified. Also described is an algorithm for the integrated solution of these tasks that includes elaboration of methodological approaches, methods and software allowing dose burdens to humans and biota to be estimated. The rationale of using radioecological risks for the analysis of uncertainties in the environmental contamination impacts,at different stages of the existing and innovative nuclear fuel cycles is shown.

Sensitivity Analysis and Optimization of Aerodynamic Configurations with Blend Surfaces

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Thomas, A. M.; Tiwari, S. N.

1997-01-01

A novel (geometrical) parametrization procedure using solutions to a suitably chosen fourth order partial differential equation is used to define a class of airplane configurations. Inclusive in this definition are surface grids, volume grids, and grid sensitivity. The general airplane configuration has wing, fuselage, vertical tail and horizontal tail. The design variables are incorporated into the boundary conditions, and the solution is expressed as a Fourier series. The fuselage has circular cross section, and the radius is an algebraic function of four design parameters and an independent computational variable. Volume grids are obtained through an application of the Control Point Form method. A graphic interface software is developed which dynamically changes the surface of the airplane configuration with the change in input design variable. The software is made user friendly and is targeted towards the initial conceptual development of any aerodynamic configurations. Grid sensitivity with respect to surface design parameters and aerodynamic sensitivity coefficients based on potential flow is obtained using an Automatic Differentiation precompiler software tool ADIFOR. Aerodynamic shape optimization of the complete aircraft with twenty four design variables is performed. Unstructured and structured volume grids and Euler solutions are obtained with standard software to demonstrate the feasibility of the new surface definition.

CONAN: copy number variation analysis software for genome-wide association studies

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) based on single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) revolutionized our perception of the genetic regulation of complex traits and diseases. Copy number variations (CNVs) promise to shed additional light on the genetic basis of monogenic as well as complex diseases and phenotypes. Indeed, the number of detected associations between CNVs and certain phenotypes are constantly increasing. However, while several software packages support the determination of CNVs from SNP chip data, the downstream statistical inference of CNV-phenotype associations is still subject to complicated and inefficient in-house solutions, thus strongly limiting the performance of GWAS based on CNVs. Results CONAN is a freely available client-server software solution which provides an intuitive graphical user interface for categorizing, analyzing and associating CNVs with phenotypes. Moreover, CONAN assists the evaluation process by visualizing detected associations via Manhattan plots in order to enable a rapid identification of genome-wide significant CNV regions. Various file formats including the information on CNVs in population samples are supported as input data. Conclusions CONAN facilitates the performance of GWAS based on CNVs and the visual analysis of calculated results. CONAN provides a rapid, valid and straightforward software solution to identify genetic variation underlying the 'missing' heritability for complex traits that remains unexplained by recent GWAS. The freely available software can be downloaded at http://genepi-conan.i-med.ac.at. PMID:20546565

Cybersecurity, massive data processing, community interaction, and other developments at WWW-based computational X-ray Server

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stepanov, Sergey

2013-03-01

X-Ray Server (x-server.gmca.aps.anl.gov) is a WWW-based computational server for modeling of X-ray diffraction, reflection and scattering data. The modeling software operates directly on the server and can be accessed remotely either from web browsers or from user software. In the later case the server can be deployed as a software library or a data fitting engine. As the server recently surpassed the milestones of 15 years online and 1.5 million calculations, it accumulated a number of technical solutions that are discussed in this paper. The developed approaches to detecting physical model limits and user calculations failures, solutions to spam and firewall problems, ways to involve the community in replenishing databases and methods to teach users automated access to the server programs may be helpful for X-ray researchers interested in using the server or sharing their own software online.

Copyright Protection for Computer Software: Is There a Need for More Protection?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ku, Linlin

Because the computer industry's expansion has been much faster than has the development of laws protecting computer software and since the practice of software piracy seems to be alive and well, the issue of whether existing laws can provide effective protection for software needs further discussion. Three bodies of law have been used to protect…

Storage system software solutions for high-end user needs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hogan, Carole B.

1992-01-01

Today's high-end storage user is one that requires rapid access to a reliable terabyte-capacity storage system running in a distributed environment. This paper discusses conventional storage system software and concludes that this software, designed for other purposes, cannot meet high-end storage requirements. The paper also reviews the philosophy and design of evolving storage system software. It concludes that this new software, designed with high-end requirements in mind, provides the potential for solving not only the storage needs of today but those of the foreseeable future as well.

Methodology of decreasing software complexity using ontology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

DÄ browska-Kubik, Katarzyna

2015-09-01

In this paper a model of web application`s source code, based on the OSD ontology (Ontology for Software Development), is proposed. This model is applied to implementation and maintenance phase of software development process through the DevOntoCreator tool [5]. The aim of this solution is decreasing software complexity of that source code, using many different maintenance techniques, like creation of documentation, elimination dead code, cloned code or bugs, which were known before [1][2]. Due to this approach saving on software maintenance costs of web applications will be possible.

Software Reuse Issues

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Voigt, Susan J. (Editor); Smith, Kathryn A. (Editor)

1989-01-01

NASA Langley Research Center sponsored a Workshop on NASA Research in Software Reuse on November 17-18, 1988 in Melbourne, Florida, hosted by Software Productivity Solutions, Inc. Participants came from four NASA centers and headquarters, eight NASA contractor companies, and three research institutes. Presentations were made on software reuse research at the four NASA centers; on Eli, the reusable software synthesis system designed and currently under development by SPS; on Space Station Freedom plans for reuse; and on other reuse research projects. This publication summarizes the presentations made and the issues discussed during the workshop.

An Investigation of Expert Systems Usage for Software Requirements Development in the Strategic Defense Initiative Environment.

DTIC Science & Technology

1986-06-10

the solution of the base could be the solution of the target. If expert systems are to mimic humans , then they should inherently utilize analogy. In the...expert systems environment, the theory of frames for representing knowledge developed partly because humans usually solve problems by first seeing if...Goals," Computer, May 1975, p. 17. 8. A.I. Wasserman, "Some Principles of User Software Engineering for Information Systems ," Digest of Papers, COMPCON

Concept for a common operational picture in a guidance vehicle

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wagner, Boris; Eck, Ralf; Maier, Sebastian

2017-05-01

A Common Operational Picture (COP) shows many operational aspects in coded form inside a geodata representation like a map. For building this picture, many specialized groups produce information. Beside the operating forces these are intelligences, logistics, or the own leaders planning group. Operations in which a COP is used typically are disaster management or military actions. An existing software for Interactive Visualization of Integrated Geodata runs on Tablet-PCs, PCs, Digital Map Tables and video walls. It is already used by the Deutsche Führungsakademie (military academy) for the education of staff officers. German civil disaster management agency decided to use the Digital Map Table for their intelligence analysis. In a mobile scenario, however, novel requirements have to be taken into account to adapt the software to the new environment. This paper investigates these requirements as well as the possible adaptions to provide a COP across multiple players on the go. When acting together, the groups do this in a widespread manner. They are physically spread and they use a variety of software and hardware to produce their contribution. This requires hardware to be ruggedized, mobile, and to support a variety of interfaces. The limited bandwidth in such a setting poses the main challenge for the software, which has to synchronize exchanging a minimum of information. Especially for mobile participants, a solution is planned that scales the amount of data (maps/intelligence data) to the available equipment, the upcoming mission, and the underlying theatre. Special focus is laid on a guidance vehicle leading a convoy.

FEBio: finite elements for biomechanics.

PubMed

Maas, Steve A; Ellis, Benjamin J; Ateshian, Gerard A; Weiss, Jeffrey A

2012-01-01

In the field of computational biomechanics, investigators have primarily used commercial software that is neither geared toward biological applications nor sufficiently flexible to follow the latest developments in the field. This lack of a tailored software environment has hampered research progress, as well as dissemination of models and results. To address these issues, we developed the FEBio software suite (http://mrl.sci.utah.edu/software/febio), a nonlinear implicit finite element (FE) framework, designed specifically for analysis in computational solid biomechanics. This paper provides an overview of the theoretical basis of FEBio and its main features. FEBio offers modeling scenarios, constitutive models, and boundary conditions, which are relevant to numerous applications in biomechanics. The open-source FEBio software is written in C++, with particular attention to scalar and parallel performance on modern computer architectures. Software verification is a large part of the development and maintenance of FEBio, and to demonstrate the general approach, the description and results of several problems from the FEBio Verification Suite are presented and compared to analytical solutions or results from other established and verified FE codes. An additional simulation is described that illustrates the application of FEBio to a research problem in biomechanics. Together with the pre- and postprocessing software PREVIEW and POSTVIEW, FEBio provides a tailored solution for research and development in computational biomechanics.

Application of Design Patterns in Refactoring Software Design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Baggs. Rjpda; Shaykhian, Gholam Ali

2007-01-01

Refactoring software design is a method of changing software design while explicitly preserving its unique design functionalities. Presented approach is to utilize design patterns as the basis for refactoring software design. Comparison of a design solution will be made through C++ programming language examples to exploit this approach. Developing reusable component will be discussed, the paper presents that the construction of such components can diminish the added burden of both refactoring and the use of design patterns.

Apply Design Patterns to Refactor Software Design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Baggs, Rhoda; Shaykhian, Gholam Ali

2007-01-01

Refactoring software design is a method of changing software design while explicitly preserving its unique design functionalities. Presented approach is to utilize design patterns as the basis for refactoring software design. Comparison of a design solution will be made through C++ programming language examples to exploit this approach. Developing reusable component will be discussed, the paper presents that the construction of such components can diminish the added burden of both refactoring and the use of design patterns.

Evaluation of DICOM viewer software for workflow integration in clinical trials

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Haak, Daniel; Page, Charles E.; Kabino, Klaus; Deserno, Thomas M.

2015-03-01

The digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM) protocol is nowadays the leading standard for capture, exchange and storage of image data in medical applications. A broad range of commercial, free, and open source software tools supporting a variety of DICOM functionality exists. However, different from patient's care in hospital, DICOM has not yet arrived in electronic data capture systems (EDCS) for clinical trials. Due to missing integration, even just the visualization of patient's image data in electronic case report forms (eCRFs) is impossible. Four increasing levels for integration of DICOM components into EDCS are conceivable, raising functionality but also demands on interfaces with each level. Hence, in this paper, a comprehensive evaluation of 27 DICOM viewer software projects is performed, investigating viewing functionality as well as interfaces for integration. Concerning general, integration, and viewing requirements the survey involves the criteria (i) license, (ii) support, (iii) platform, (iv) interfaces, (v) two-dimensional (2D) and (vi) three-dimensional (3D) image viewing functionality. Optimal viewers are suggested for applications in clinical trials for 3D imaging, hospital communication, and workflow. Focusing on open source solutions, the viewers ImageJ and MicroView are superior for 3D visualization, whereas GingkoCADx is advantageous for hospital integration. Concerning workflow optimization in multi-centered clinical trials, we suggest the open source viewer Weasis. Covering most use cases, an EDCS and PACS interconnection with Weasis is suggested.

User Documentation for Multiple Software Releases

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Humphrey, R.

1982-01-01

In proposed solution to problems of frequent software releases and updates, documentation would be divided into smaller packages, each of which contains data relating to only one of several software components. Changes would not affect entire document. Concept would improve dissemination of information regarding changes and would improve quality of data supporting packages. Would help to insure both timeliness and more thorough scrutiny of changes.

A Full-Featured User Friendly CO 2-EOR and Sequestration Planning Software

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Savage, Bill

A Full-Featured, User Friendly CO 2-EOR and Sequestration Planning Software This project addressed the development of an integrated software solution that includes a graphical user interface, numerical simulation, visualization tools and optimization processes for reservoir simulation modeling of CO 2-EOR. The objective was to assist the industry in the development of domestic energy resources by expanding the application of CO 2-EOR technologies, and ultimately to maximize the CO 2} sequestration capacity of the U.S. The software resulted in a field-ready application for the industry to address the current CO 2-EOR technologies. The software has been made available to the publicmore » without restrictions and with user friendly operating documentation and tutorials. The software (executable only) can be downloaded from NITEC’s website at www.nitecllc.com. This integrated solution enables the design, optimization and operation of CO 2-EOR processes for small and mid-sized operators, who currently cannot afford the expensive, time intensive solutions that the major oil companies enjoy. Based on one estimate, small oil fields comprise 30% of the of total economic resource potential for the application of CO 2-EOR processes in the U.S. This corresponds to 21.7 billion barrels of incremental, technically recoverable oil using the current “best practices”, and 31.9 billion barrels using “next-generation” CO 2-EOR techniques. The project included a Case Study of a prospective CO 2-EOR candidate field in Wyoming by a small independent, Linc Energy Petroleum Wyoming, Inc. NITEC LLC has an established track record of developing innovative and user friendly software. The Principle Investigator is an experienced manager and engineer with expertise in software development, numerical techniques, and GUI applications. Unique, presently-proprietary NITEC technologies have been integrated into this application to further its ease of use and technical functionality.« less

Managing Written Directives: A Software Solution to Streamline Workflow.

PubMed

Wagner, Robert H; Savir-Baruch, Bital; Gabriel, Medhat S; Halama, James R; Bova, Davide

2017-06-01

A written directive is required by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for any use of 131 I above 1.11 MBq (30 μCi) and for patients receiving radiopharmaceutical therapy. This requirement has also been adopted and must be enforced by the agreement states. As the introduction of new radiopharmaceuticals increases therapeutic options in nuclear medicine, time spent on regulatory paperwork also increases. The pressure of managing these time-consuming regulatory requirements may heighten the potential for inaccurate or incomplete directive data and subsequent regulatory violations. To improve on the paper-trail method of directive management, we created a software tool using a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-compliant database. This software allows for secure data-sharing among physicians, technologists, and managers while saving time, reducing errors, and eliminating the possibility of loss and duplication. Methods: The software tool was developed using Visual Basic, which is part of the Visual Studio development environment for the Windows platform. Patient data are deposited in an Access database on a local HIPAA-compliant secure server or hard disk. Once a working version had been developed, it was installed at our institution and used to manage directives. Updates and modifications of the software were released regularly until no more significant problems were found with its operation. Results: The software has been used at our institution for over 2 y and has reliably kept track of all directives. All physicians and technologists use the software daily and find it superior to paper directives. They can retrieve active directives at any stage of completion, as well as completed directives. Conclusion: We have developed a software solution for the management of written directives that streamlines and structures the departmental workflow. This solution saves time, centralizes the information for all staff to share, and decreases confusion about the creation, completion, filing, and retrieval of directives. © 2017 by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.

Software Solution Builds Project Consensus.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Graue, David

2003-01-01

Describes the use of Autodesk Revit, a computer software system for design and documentation of buildings, in the planning of the University Center of Chicago, a large residence hall involving the cooperation of DePaul University, Columbia College, and Roosevelt University. (EV)

Technology Solutions for School Food Service.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Begalle, Mary

2002-01-01

Considers ways to include schools' food service departments in technology planning. Discusses school food service software applications, considerations and challenges of automating food service operations, and business-to-business Internet solutions. (EV)

openEHR Based Systems and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

PubMed

Sousa, Mariana; Ferreira, Duarte; Santos-Pereira, Cátia; Bacelar, Gustavo; Frade, Samuel; Pestana, Olívia; Cruz-Correia, Ricardo

2018-01-01

The concerns about privacy and personal data protection resulted in reforms of the existing legislation in European Union (EU). The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) aims to reform the existing measures on the topic of personal data protection of the European Union citizens, with a strong input on the rights and freedoms of people and in the establishment of rules for the processing of personal data. OpenEHR is a standard that embodies many principles of interoperable and secure software for electronic health records. This work aims to understand to what extent the openEHR standard can be considered a solution for the requirements needed by GDPR. A list of requirements for a Hospital Information Systems (HIS) compliant with GDPR and an identification of openEHR specifications was made. The requirements were categorized and compared with the specifications. The requirements identified for the systems were matched with the openEHR specifications, which result in 16 requirements matched with openEHR. All the specifications identified matched at least one requirement. OpenEHR is a solution for the development of HIS that reinforce privacy and personal data protection, ensuring that they are contemplated in the system development. The institutions can secure that their Eletronic Health Record are compliant with GDPR while safeguarding the medical data quality and, as a result, the healthcare delivery.

A method and software framework for enriching private biomedical sources with data from public online repositories.

PubMed

Anguita, Alberto; García-Remesal, Miguel; Graf, Norbert; Maojo, Victor

2016-04-01

Modern biomedical research relies on the semantic integration of heterogeneous data sources to find data correlations. Researchers access multiple datasets of disparate origin, and identify elements-e.g. genes, compounds, pathways-that lead to interesting correlations. Normally, they must refer to additional public databases in order to enrich the information about the identified entities-e.g. scientific literature, published clinical trial results, etc. While semantic integration techniques have traditionally focused on providing homogeneous access to private datasets-thus helping automate the first part of the research, and there exist different solutions for browsing public data, there is still a need for tools that facilitate merging public repositories with private datasets. This paper presents a framework that automatically locates public data of interest to the researcher and semantically integrates it with existing private datasets. The framework has been designed as an extension of traditional data integration systems, and has been validated with an existing data integration platform from a European research project by integrating a private biological dataset with data from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Evaluating a digital ship design tool prototype: Designers' perceptions of novel ergonomics software.

PubMed

Mallam, Steven C; Lundh, Monica; MacKinnon, Scott N

2017-03-01

Computer-aided solutions are essential for naval architects to manage and optimize technical complexities when developing a ship's design. Although there are an array of software solutions aimed to optimize the human element in design, practical ergonomics methodologies and technological solutions have struggled to gain widespread application in ship design processes. This paper explores how a new ergonomics technology is perceived by naval architecture students using a mixed-methods framework. Thirteen Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering Masters students participated in the study. Overall, results found participants perceived the software and its embedded ergonomics tools to benefit their design work, increasing their empathy and ability to understand the work environment and work demands end-users face. However, participant's questioned if ergonomics could be practically and efficiently implemented under real-world project constraints. This revealed underlying social biases and a fundamental lack of understanding in engineering postgraduate students regarding applied ergonomics in naval architecture. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

TeraStitcher - A tool for fast automatic 3D-stitching of teravoxel-sized microscopy images

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Further advances in modern microscopy are leading to teravoxel-sized tiled 3D images at high resolution, thus increasing the dimension of the stitching problem of at least two orders of magnitude. The existing software solutions do not seem adequate to address the additional requirements arising from these datasets, such as the minimization of memory usage and the need to process just a small portion of data. Results We propose a free and fully automated 3D Stitching tool designed to match the special requirements coming out of teravoxel-sized tiled microscopy images that is able to stitch them in a reasonable time even on workstations with limited resources. The tool was tested on teravoxel-sized whole mouse brain images with micrometer resolution and it was also compared with the state-of-the-art stitching tools on megavoxel-sized publicy available datasets. This comparison confirmed that the solutions we adopted are suited for stitching very large images and also perform well on datasets with different characteristics. Indeed, some of the algorithms embedded in other stitching tools could be easily integrated in our framework if they turned out to be more effective on other classes of images. To this purpose, we designed a software architecture which separates the strategies that use efficiently memory resources from the algorithms which may depend on the characteristics of the acquired images. Conclusions TeraStitcher is a free tool that enables the stitching of Teravoxel-sized tiled microscopy images even on workstations with relatively limited resources of memory (<8 GB) and processing power. It exploits the knowledge of approximate tile positions and uses ad-hoc strategies and algorithms designed for such very large datasets. The produced images can be saved into a multiresolution representation to be efficiently retrieved and processed. We provide TeraStitcher both as standalone application and as plugin of the free software Vaa3D. PMID:23181553

Why PACS is no longer a four-letter word.

PubMed

Chopra, R M

2000-01-01

The real value of PACS is not realized until widespread adoption exists among physicians other than interpreting radiologists. Referring physicians at the office level, in the operating room and in other departments must be willing to embrace the reading of images on monitors. That takes time. The payoff for a PACS system is therefore not realized until sometime in the future. Given the huge up-front capital expenditure required of PACS solutions, it is no wonder that the decision has historically been a difficult one to make. Enter the application service provider (ASP). The marriage of the ASP model to PACS seems to be one of the true "killer apps" currently available in the healthcare technology space. An ASP can host and maintain the software inherent in PACS solutions. Images are centrally archived over the short-, medium-, and long-term timeframe, utilizing state-of-art data management facilities. Some ASPs also provide the necessary bandwidth to office sites and the small amount of hardware that is required onsite, such as viewing stations or monitors. Costs for Internet-based image management under the ASP model rely on a pay-as-you-go formula, which may include all software, support, required hardware and bandwidth as part of the service. There may be a minor up-front fee for installation. The ASP pricing model eliminates the huge gamble an organization takes on "big iron" PACS purchases. Those benefits rely on the first rule of finance: a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. PACS and ASPs were made for one another. Because the financial benefits of PACS are realized over time, the timing of cash flows is extremely important. Other benefits inherent in the ASP model such as scalability, diminished need for IT personnel, software version integrity and better pricing because of economies of scale are attractive also.

SOILSOLN: A Program for Teaching Equilibria Modeling of Soil Solution Composition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wolt, Jeffrey D.

1989-01-01

Presents a computer program for use in teaching ion speciation in soil solutions. Provides information on the structure of the program, execution, and software specifications. The program estimates concentrations of ion pairs, hydrolytic species, metal-organic complexes, and free ions in solutions. (Author/RT)

Estimating the Earth's geometry, rotation and gravity field using a multi-satellite SLR solution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stefka, V.; Blossfeld, M.; Mueller, H.; Gerstl, M.; Panafidina, N.

2012-12-01

Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) is the unique technique to determine station coordinates, Earth Orientation Parameter (EOP) and Stokes coefficients of the Earth's gravity field in one common adjustment. These parameters form the so called "three pillars" (Plag & Pearlman, 2009) of the Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS). In its function as official analysis center of the International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS), DGFI is developing and maintaining software to process SLR observations called "DGFI Orbit and Geodetic parameter estimation Software" (DOGS). The software is used to analyze SLR observations and to compute multi-satellite solutions. To take benefit of different orbit performances (e.g. inclination and altitude), a solution using ten different spherical satellites (ETALON1/2, LAGEOS1/2, STELLA, STARLETTE, AJISAI, LARETS, LARES, BLITS) covering the period of 12 years of observations is computed. The satellites are relatively weighted using a variance component estimation (VCE). The obtained weights are analyzed w.r.t. the potential of the satellite to monitor changes in the Earths geometry, rotation and gravity field. The estimated parameters (station coordinates and EOP) are validated w.r.t. official time series of the IERS. The Stokes coefficients are compared to recent gravity field solutions.

Estimating the Earth's gravity field using a multi-satellite SLR solution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bloßfeld, Mathis; Stefka, Vojtech; Müller, Horst; Gerstl, Michael

2013-04-01

Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) is the unique technique to determine station coordinates, Earth Orientation Parameter (EOP) and Stokes coefficients of the Earth's gravity field in one common adjustment. These parameters form the so called "three pillars" (Plag & Pearlman, 2009) of the Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS). In its function as official analysis center of the International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS), DGFI is developing and maintaining software to process SLR observations called "DGFI Orbit and Geodetic parameter estimation Software" (DOGS). The software is used to analyze SLR observations and to compute multi-satellite solutions. To take benefit of different orbit performances (e.g. inclination and altitude), a solution using ten different spherical satellites (ETALON1/2, LAGEOS1/2, STELLA, STARLETTE, AJISAI, LARETS, LARES, BLITS) covering 12 years of observations is computed. The satellites are relatively weighted using a variance component estimation (VCE). The obtained weights are analyzed w.r.t. the potential of the satellite to monitor changes in the Earths geometry, rotation and gravity field. The estimated parameters (station coordinates and EOP) are validated w.r.t. official time series of the IERS. The obtained Stokes coefficients are compared to recent gravity field solutions and discussed in detail.

Maximum entropy analysis of polarized fluorescence decay of (E)GFP in aqueous solution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Novikov, Eugene G.; Skakun, Victor V.; Borst, Jan Willem; Visser, Antonie J. W. G.

2018-01-01

The maximum entropy method (MEM) was used for the analysis of polarized fluorescence decays of enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) in buffered water/glycerol mixtures, obtained with time-correlated single-photon counting (Visser et al 2016 Methods Appl. Fluoresc. 4 035002). To this end, we used a general-purpose software module of MEM that was earlier developed to analyze (complex) laser photolysis kinetics of ligand rebinding reactions in oxygen binding proteins. We demonstrate that the MEM software provides reliable results and is easy to use for the analysis of both total fluorescence decay and fluorescence anisotropy decay of aqueous solutions of EGFP. The rotational correlation times of EGFP in water/glycerol mixtures, obtained by MEM as maxima of the correlation-time distributions, are identical to the single correlation times determined by global analysis of parallel and perpendicular polarized decay components. The MEM software is also able to determine homo-FRET in another dimeric GFP, for which the transfer correlation time is an order of magnitude shorter than the rotational correlation time. One important advantage utilizing MEM analysis is that no initial guesses of parameters are required, since MEM is able to select the least correlated solution from the feasible set of solutions.

Finite Element Implementation of Mechanochemical Phenomena in Neutral Deformable Porous Media Under Finite Deformation

PubMed Central

Ateshian, Gerard A.; Albro, Michael B.; Maas, Steve; Weiss, Jeffrey A.

2011-01-01

Biological soft tissues and cells may be subjected to mechanical as well as chemical (osmotic) loading under their natural physiological environment or various experimental conditions. The interaction of mechanical and chemical effects may be very significant under some of these conditions, yet the highly nonlinear nature of the set of governing equations describing these mechanisms poses a challenge for the modeling of such phenomena. This study formulated and implemented a finite element algorithm for analyzing mechanochemical events in neutral deformable porous media under finite deformation. The algorithm employed the framework of mixture theory to model the porous permeable solid matrix and interstitial fluid, where the fluid consists of a mixture of solvent and solute. A special emphasis was placed on solute-solid matrix interactions, such as solute exclusion from a fraction of the matrix pore space (solubility) and frictional momentum exchange that produces solute hindrance and pumping under certain dynamic loading conditions. The finite element formulation implemented full coupling of mechanical and chemical effects, providing a framework where material properties and response functions may depend on solid matrix strain as well as solute concentration. The implementation was validated using selected canonical problems for which analytical or alternative numerical solutions exist. This finite element code includes a number of unique features that enhance the modeling of mechanochemical phenomena in biological tissues. The code is available in the public domain, open source finite element program FEBio (http://mrl.sci.utah.edu/software). PMID:21950898

LogiKit - assisting complex logic specification and implementation for embedded control systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Diglio, A.; Nicolodi, B.

2002-07-01

LogiKit provides an overall lifecycle solution. LogiKit is a powerful software engineering case toolkit for requirements specification, simulation and documentation. LogiKit also provides an automatic ADA software design, code and unit test generator.

Bias and design in software specifications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Straub, Pablo A.; Zelkowitz, Marvin V.

1990-01-01

Implementation bias in a specification is an arbitrary constraint in the solution space. Presented here is a model of bias in software specifications. Bias is defined in terms of the specification process and a classification of the attributes of the software product. Our definition of bias provides insight into both the origin and the consequences of bias. It also shows that bias is relative and essentially unavoidable. Finally, we describe current work on defining a measure of bias, formalizing our model, and relating bias to software defects.

The existence of semiregular solutions to elliptic spectral problems with discontinuous nonlinearities

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pavlenko, V N; Potapov, D K

2015-09-30

This paper is concerned with the existence of semiregular solutions to the Dirichlet problem for an equation of elliptic type with discontinuous nonlinearity and when the differential operator is not assumed to be formally self-adjoint. Theorems on the existence of semiregular (positive and negative) solutions for the problem under consideration are given, and a principle of upper and lower solutions giving the existence of semiregular solutions is established. For positive values of the spectral parameter, elliptic spectral problems with discontinuous nonlinearities are shown to have nontrivial semiregular (positive and negative) solutions. Bibliography: 32 titles.

Software archeology: a case study in software quality assurance and design

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Macdonald, John M; Lloyd, Jane A; Turner, Cameron J

2009-01-01

Ideally, quality is designed into software, just as quality is designed into hardware. However, when dealing with legacy systems, demonstrating that the software meets required quality standards may be difficult to achieve. As the need to demonstrate the quality of existing software was recognized at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), an effort was initiated to uncover and demonstrate that legacy software met the required quality standards. This effort led to the development of a reverse engineering approach referred to as software archaeology. This paper documents the software archaeology approaches used at LANL to document legacy software systems. A case studymore » for the Robotic Integrated Packaging System (RIPS) software is included.« less

Reuse Metrics for Object Oriented Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bieman, James M.

1998-01-01

One way to increase the quality of software products and the productivity of software development is to reuse existing software components when building new software systems. In order to monitor improvements in reuse, the level of reuse must be measured. In this NASA supported project we (1) derived a suite of metrics which quantify reuse attributes for object oriented, object based, and procedural software, (2) designed prototype tools to take these measurements in Ada, C++, Java, and C software, (3) evaluated the reuse in available software, (4) analyzed the relationship between coupling, cohesion, inheritance, and reuse, (5) collected object oriented software systems for our empirical analyses, and (6) developed quantitative criteria and methods for restructuring software to improve reusability.

Comparison of Methods for Characterizing Nonideal Solute Self-Association by Sedimentation Equilibrium

PubMed Central

Scott, David J.; Winzor, Donald J.

2009-01-01

Abstract We have examined in detail analytical solutions of expressions for sedimentation equilibrium in the analytical ultracentrifuge to describe self-association under nonideal conditions. We find that those containing the radial dependence of total solute concentration that incorporate the Adams-Fujita assumption for composition-dependence of activity coefficients reveal potential shortcomings for characterizing such systems. Similar deficiencies are shown in the use of the NONLIN software incorporating the same assumption about the interrelationship between activity coefficients for monomer and polymer species. These difficulties can be overcome by iterative analyses incorporating expressions for the composition-dependence of activity coefficients predicted by excluded volume considerations. A recommendation is therefore made for the replacement of current software packages by programs that incorporate rigorous statistical-mechanical allowance for thermodynamic nonideality in sedimentation equilibrium distributions reflecting solute self-association. PMID:19651047

Architectural Implications of Cloud Computing

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-10-24

Public Cloud Infrastructure-as-a- Service (IaaS) Software -as-a- Service ( SaaS ) Cloud Computing Types Platform-as-a- Service (PaaS) Based on Type of...Twitter #SEIVirtualForum © 2011 Carnegie Mellon University Software -as-a- Service ( SaaS ) Model of software deployment in which a third-party...and System Solutions (RTSS) Program. Her current interests and projects are in service -oriented architecture (SOA), cloud computing, and context

Information technologies in optimization process of monitoring of software and hardware status

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nikitin, P. V.; Savinov, A. N.; Bazhenov, R. I.; Ryabov, I. V.

2018-05-01

The article describes a model of a hardware and software monitoring system for a large company that provides customers with software as a service (SaaS solution) using information technology. The main functions of the monitoring system are: provision of up-todate data for analyzing the state of the IT infrastructure, rapid detection of the fault and its effective elimination. The main risks associated with the provision of these services are described; the comparative characteristics of the software are given; author's methods of monitoring the status of software and hardware are proposed.

Training survey -- educational profile for Hanford HANDI 2000 project

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wilson, D.

Fluor Daniel Hanford, Inc. (FDH) is currently adopting streamlined business processes through integrated software solutions. Replacing the legacy software (current/replacement systems, attached) also avoids significant maintenance required to resolve Year 2000 issues. This initiative is being referred to as `HANDI 2000`. The software being implemented in the first phase of this project includes Indus International`s PASSPORT Software, Peoplesoft and Primavera P3 Software. The project, which encompasses all the system replacements that will occur, has been named `HANDI 2000.` The PASSPORT applications being implemented are Inventory Management, Purchasing, Contract Management, Accounts Payable, and MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets).

How Well Can Existing Software Support Processes Accomplish Sustainment of a Non-Developmental Item-Based Acquisition Strategy

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-04-06

Research Hypothesis ........................................................................................................... 15 Research Design ...user community and of accommodating advancing software applications by the vendors. Research Design My approach to this project was to conduct... design descriptions , requirements specifications, test documentation, interface requirement specifications, product specifications, and software

Guidance on Software Maintenance. Final Report. Reports on Computer Science and Technology.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin, Roger J.; Osborne, Wilma M.

Based on informal discussions with personnel at selected federal agencies and private sector organizations and on additional research, this publication addresses issues and problems of software maintenance and suggests actions and procedures which can help software maintenance organizations meet the growing demands of maintaining existing systems.…

78 FR 66865 - Acquisition Regulation: Patents, Data, and Copyrights

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-11-07

... obligations under current law. The proposed changes include policy revisions for computer software developed.... Computer Software DOE's existing Rights in Technical Data-Technology Transfer clause at 970.5227-2 provides mechanisms by which computer software first produced by a DOE contractor may be made available to the public...

DSS command software update

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stinnett, W. G.

1980-01-01

The modifications, additions, and testing results for a version of the Deep Space Station command software, generated for support of the Voyager Saturn encounter, are discussed. The software update requirements included efforts to: (1) recode portions of the software to permit recovery of approximately 2000 words of memory; (2) correct five Voyager Ground data System liens; (3) provide capability to automatically turn off the command processor assembly local printer during periods of low activity; and (4) correct anomalies existing in the software.

Product-oriented Software Certification Process for Software Synthesis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nelson, Stacy; Fischer, Bernd; Denney, Ewen; Schumann, Johann; Richardson, Julian; Oh, Phil

2004-01-01

The purpose of this document is to propose a product-oriented software certification process to facilitate use of software synthesis and formal methods. Why is such a process needed? Currently, software is tested until deemed bug-free rather than proving that certain software properties exist. This approach has worked well in most cases, but unfortunately, deaths still occur due to software failure. Using formal methods (techniques from logic and discrete mathematics like set theory, automata theory and formal logic as opposed to continuous mathematics like calculus) and software synthesis, it is possible to reduce this risk by proving certain software properties. Additionally, software synthesis makes it possible to automate some phases of the traditional software development life cycle resulting in a more streamlined and accurate development process.

Software Defined Network Monitoring Scheme Using Spectral Graph Theory and Phantom Nodes

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-09-01

networks is the emergence of software - defined networking ( SDN ) [1]. SDN has existed for the...Chapter III for network monitoring. A. SOFTWARE DEFINED NETWORKS SDNs provide a new and innovative method to simplify network hardware by logically...and R. Giladi, “Performance analysis of software - defined networking ( SDN ),” in Proc. of IEEE 21st International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis

Canputer Science and Technology: Introduction to Software Packages

DTIC Science & Technology

1984-04-01

Table 5 Sources of Software Packages.20 Table 6 Reference Services Matrix . 33 Table 7 Reference Matrix.40 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Document...consideration should be given to the acquisition of appropriate software packages to replace or upgrade existing services and to provide services not...Consequently, there are many companies that produce only software packages, and are committed to providing training, service , and support. These vendors

Lessons in modern digital field geology: Open source software, 3D techniques, and the new world of digital mapping

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pavlis, Terry; Hurtado, Jose; Langford, Richard; Serpa, Laura

2014-05-01

Although many geologists refuse to admit it, it is time to put paper-based geologic mapping into the historical archives and move to the full potential of digital mapping techniques. For our group, flat map digital geologic mapping is now a routine operation in both research and instruction. Several software options are available, and basic proficiency with the software can be learned in a few hours of instruction and practice. The first practical field GIS software, ArcPad, remains a viable, stable option on Windows-based systems. However, the vendor seems to be moving away from ArcPad in favor of mobile software solutions that are difficult to implement without GIS specialists. Thus, we have pursued a second software option based on the open source program QGIS. Our QGIS system uses the same shapefile-centric data structure as our ArcPad system, including similar pop-up data entry forms and generic graphics for easy data management in the field. The advantage of QGIS is that the same software runs on virtually all common platforms except iOS, although the Android version remains unstable as of this writing. A third software option we are experimenting with for flat map-based field work is Fieldmove, a derivative of the 3D-capable program Move developed by Midland Valley. Our initial experiments with Fieldmove are positive, particularly with the new, inexpensive (<300Euros) Windows tablets. However, the lack of flexibility in data structure makes for cumbersome workflows when trying to interface our existing shapefile-centric data structures to Move. Nonetheless, in spring 2014 we will experiment with full-3D immersion in the field using the full Move software package in combination with ground based LiDAR and photogrammetry. One new workflow suggested by our initial experiments is that field geologists should consider using photogrammetry software to capture 3D visualizations of key outcrops. This process is now straightforward in several software packages, and it affords a previously unheard of potential for communicating the complexity of key exposures. For example, in studies of metamorphic structures we often search for days to find "Rosetta Stone" outcrops that display key geometric relationships. While conventional photographs rarely can capture the essence of the field exposure, capturing a true 3D representation of the exposure with multiple photos from many orientations can solve this communication problem. As spatial databases evolve these 3D models should be readily importable into the database.

Numerical Analyses of Subsoil-structure Interaction in Original Non-commercial Software based on FEM

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cajka, R.; Vaskova, J.; Vasek, J.

2018-04-01

For decades attention has been paid to interaction of foundation structures and subsoil and development of interaction models. Given that analytical solutions of subsoil-structure interaction could be deduced only for some simple shapes of load, analytical solutions are increasingly being replaced by numerical solutions (eg. FEM – Finite element method). Numerical analyses provides greater possibilities for taking into account the real factors involved in the subsoil-structure interaction and was also used in this article. This makes it possible to design the foundation structures more efficiently and still reliably and securely. Currently there are several software that, can deal with the interaction of foundations and subsoil. It has been demonstrated that non-commercial software called MKPINTER (created by Cajka) provides appropriately results close to actual measured values. In MKPINTER software stress-strain analysis of elastic half-space by means of Gauss numerical integration and Jacobean of transformation is done. Input data for numerical analysis were observed by experimental loading test of concrete slab. The loading was performed using unique experimental equipment which was constructed in the area Faculty of Civil Engineering, VŠB-TU Ostrava. The purpose of this paper is to compare resulting deformation of the slab with values observed during experimental loading test.

Light extraction efficiency analysis of GaN-based light-emitting diodes with nanopatterned sapphire substrates.

PubMed

Pan, Jui-Wen; Tsai, Pei-Jung; Chang, Kao-Der; Chang, Yung-Yuan

2013-03-01

In this paper, we propose a method to analyze the light extraction efficiency (LEE) enhancement of a nanopatterned sapphire substrates (NPSS) light-emitting diode (LED) by comparing wave optics software with ray optics software. Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations represent the wave optics software and Light Tools (LTs) simulations represent the ray optics software. First, we find the trends of and an optimal solution for the LEE enhancement when the 2D-FDTD simulations are used to save on simulation time and computational memory. The rigorous coupled-wave analysis method is utilized to explain the trend we get from the 2D-FDTD algorithm. The optimal solution is then applied in 3D-FDTD and LTs simulations. The results are similar and the difference in LEE enhancement between the two simulations does not exceed 8.5% in the small LED chip area. More than 10(4) times computational memory is saved during the LTs simulation in comparison to the 3D-FDTD simulation. Moreover, LEE enhancement from the side of the LED can be obtained in the LTs simulation. An actual-size NPSS LED is simulated using the LTs. The results show a more than 307% improvement in the total LEE enhancement of the NPSS LED with the optimal solution compared to the conventional LED.

APRON: A Cellular Processor Array Simulation and Hardware Design Tool

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barr, David R. W.; Dudek, Piotr

2009-12-01

We present a software environment for the efficient simulation of cellular processor arrays (CPAs). This software (APRON) is used to explore algorithms that are designed for massively parallel fine-grained processor arrays, topographic multilayer neural networks, vision chips with SIMD processor arrays, and related architectures. The software uses a highly optimised core combined with a flexible compiler to provide the user with tools for the design of new processor array hardware architectures and the emulation of existing devices. We present performance benchmarks for the software processor array implemented on standard commodity microprocessors. APRON can be configured to use additional processing hardware if necessary and can be used as a complete graphical user interface and development environment for new or existing CPA systems, allowing more users to develop algorithms for CPA systems.

Supercomputer modeling of flow past hypersonic flight vehicles

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ermakov, M. K.; Kryukov, I. A.

2017-02-01

A software platform for MPI-based parallel solution of the Navier-Stokes (Euler) equations for viscous heat-conductive compressible perfect gas on 3-D unstructured meshes is developed. The discretization and solution of the Navier-Stokes equations are constructed on generalized S.K. Godunov’s method and the second order approximation in space and time. Developed software platform allows to carry out effectively flow past hypersonic flight vehicles simulations for the Mach numbers 6 and higher, and numerical meshes with up to 1 billion numerical cells and with up to 128 processors.

Problems in Analyzing Time Series with Gaps and Their Solution with the WinABD Software Package

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Desherevskii, A. V.; Zhuravlev, V. I.; Nikolsky, A. N.; Sidorin, A. Ya.

2017-12-01

Technologies for the analysis of time series with gaps are considered. Some algorithms of signal extraction (purification) and evaluation of its characteristics, such as rhythmic components, are discussed for series with gaps. Examples are given for the analysis of data obtained during long-term observations at the Garm geophysical test site and in other regions. The technical solutions used in the WinABD software are considered to most efficiently arrange the operation of relevant algorithms in the presence of observational defects.

In the right order of brush strokes: a sketch of a software philosophy retrospective.

PubMed

Pyshkin, Evgeny

2014-01-01

This paper follows a discourse on software recognized as a product of art and human creativity progressing probably for as long as software exists. A retrospective view on computer science and software philosophy development is introduced. In so doing we discover parallels between software and various branches of human creative manifestations. Aesthetic properties and mutual dependency of the form and matter of art works are examined in their application to software programs. While exploring some philosophical and even artistic reflection on software we consider extended comprehension of technical sciences of programming and software engineering within the realm of liberal arts.

Evaluation of Open-Source Hard Real Time Software Packages

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mattei, Nicholas S.

2004-01-01

Reliable software is, at times, hard to find. No piece of software can be guaranteed to work in every situation that may arise during its use here at Glenn Research Center or in space. The job of the Software Assurance (SA) group in the Risk Management Office is to rigorously test the software in an effort to ensure it matches the contract specifications. In some cases the SA team also researches new alternatives for selected software packages. This testing and research is an integral part of the department of Safety and Mission Assurance. Real Time operation in reference to a computer system is a particular style of handing the timing and manner with which inputs and outputs are handled. A real time system executes these commands and appropriate processing within a defined timing constraint. Within this definition there are two other classifications of real time systems: hard and soft. A soft real time system is one in which if the particular timing constraints are not rigidly met there will be no critical results. On the other hand, a hard real time system is one in which if the timing constraints are not met the results could be catastrophic. An example of a soft real time system is a DVD decoder. If the particular piece of data from the input is not decoded and displayed to the screen at exactly the correct moment nothing critical will become of it, the user may not even notice it. However, a hard real time system is needed to control the timing of fuel injections or steering on the Space Shuttle; a delay of even a fraction of a second could be catastrophic in such a complex system. The current real time system employed by most NASA projects is Wind River's VxWorks operating system. This is a proprietary operating system that can be configured to work with many of NASA s needs and it provides very accurate and reliable hard real time performance. The down side is that since it is a proprietary operating system it is also costly to implement. The prospect of replacing this somewhat costly implementation is the focus of one of the SA group s current research projects. The explosion of open source software in the last ten years has led to the development of a multitude of software solutions which were once only produced by major corporations. The benefits of these open projects include faster release and bug patching cycles as well as inexpensive if not free software solutions. The main packages for hard real time solutions under Linux are Real Time Application Interface (RTAI) and two varieties of Real Time Linux (RTL), RTLFree and RTLPro. During my time here at NASA I have been testing various hard real time solutions operating as layers on the Linux Operating System. All testing is being run on an Intel SBC 2590 which is a common embedded hardware platform. The test plan was provided to me by the Software Assurance group at the start of my internship and my job has been to test the systems by developing and executing the test cases on the hardware. These tests are constructed so that the Software Assurance group can get hard test data for a comparison between the open source and proprietary implementations of hard real time solutions.

Software Requirements for the Move to Unix

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rees, Paul

This document provides information concerning the software requirements of each STARLINK site to move entirely to UNIX. It provides a list of proposed UNIX migration deadlines for all sites and lists of software requirements, both STARLINK and non-STARLINK software, which must be met before the existing VMS hardware can be switched off. The information presented in this document is used for the planning of software porting and distribution activities and also for setting realistic migration deadlines for STARLINK sites. The information on software requirements has been provided by STARLINK Site Managers.

Simple solution to the medical instrumentation software problem

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leif, Robert C.; Leif, Suzanne B.; Leif, Stephanie H.; Bingue, E.

1995-04-01

Medical devices now include a substantial software component, which is both difficult and expensive to produce and maintain. Medical software must be developed according to `Good Manufacturing Practices', GMP. Good Manufacturing Practices as specified by the FDA and ISO requires the definition and compliance to a software processes which ensures quality products by specifying a detailed method of software construction. The software process should be based on accepted standards. US Department of Defense software standards and technology can both facilitate the development and improve the quality of medical systems. We describe the advantages of employing Mil-Std-498, Software Development and Documentation, and the Ada programming language. Ada provides the very broad range of functionalities, from embedded real-time to management information systems required by many medical devices. It also includes advanced facilities for object oriented programming and software engineering.

GERICOS: A Generic Framework for the Development of On-Board Software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Plasson, P.; Cuomo, C.; Gabriel, G.; Gauthier, N.; Gueguen, L.; Malac-Allain, L.

2016-08-01

This paper presents an overview of the GERICOS framework (GEneRIC Onboard Software), its architecture, its various layers and its future evolutions. The GERICOS framework, developed and qualified by LESIA, offers a set of generic, reusable and customizable software components for the rapid development of payload flight software. The GERICOS framework has a layered structure. The first layer (GERICOS::CORE) implements the concept of active objects and forms an abstraction layer over the top of real-time kernels. The second layer (GERICOS::BLOCKS) offers a set of reusable software components for building flight software based on generic solutions to recurrent functionalities. The third layer (GERICOS::DRIVERS) implements software drivers for several COTS IP cores of the LEON processor ecosystem.

The Knowledge-Based Software Assistant: Beyond CASE

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Carozzoni, Joseph A.

1993-01-01

This paper will outline the similarities and differences between two paradigms of software development. Both support the whole software life cycle and provide automation for most of the software development process, but have different approaches. The CASE approach is based on a set of tools linked by a central data repository. This tool-based approach is data driven and views software development as a series of sequential steps, each resulting in a product. The Knowledge-Based Software Assistant (KBSA) approach, a radical departure from existing software development practices, is knowledge driven and centers around a formalized software development process. KBSA views software development as an incremental, iterative, and evolutionary process with development occurring at the specification level.

Existence and numerical simulation of periodic traveling wave solutions to the Casimir equation for the Ito system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abbasbandy, S.; Van Gorder, R. A.; Hajiketabi, M.; Mesrizadeh, M.

2015-10-01

We consider traveling wave solutions to the Casimir equation for the Ito system (a two-field extension of the KdV equation). These traveling waves are governed by a nonlinear initial value problem with an interesting nonlinearity (which actually amplifies in magnitude as the size of the solution becomes small). The nonlinear problem is parameterized by two initial constant values, and we demonstrate that the existence of solutions is strongly tied to these parameter values. For our interests, we are concerned with positive, bounded, periodic wave solutions. We are able to classify parameter regimes which admit such solutions in full generality, thereby obtaining a nice existence result. Using the existence result, we are then able to numerically simulate the positive, bounded, periodic solutions. We elect to employ a group preserving scheme in order to numerically study these solutions, and an outline of this approach is provided. The numerical simulations serve to illustrate the properties of these solutions predicted analytically through the existence result. Physically, these results demonstrate the existence of a type of space-periodic structure in the Casimir equation for the Ito model, which propagates as a traveling wave.

Internet Business Solutions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1997-01-01

Cogent Software, Inc. was formed in January 1995 by David Atkinson and Irene Woerner, both former employees of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Several other Cogent employees also worked at JPL. Atkinson headed JPL's Information Systems Technology section and Woerner lead the Advanced User Interfaces Group. Cogent's mission is to help companies organize and manage their online content by developing advanced software for the next generation of online directories and information catalogs. The company offers a complete range of Internet solutions, including Internet access, Web site design, local and wide-area networks, and custom software for online commerce applications. Cogent also offers DesignSphere Online, an electronic community for the communications arts industry. Customers range from small offices to manufacturers with thousands of employees, including Chemi-Con, one of the largest manufacturers of capacitors in the world.

IBM system/360 assembly language interval arithmetic software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Phillips, E. J.

1972-01-01

Computer software designed to perform interval arithmetic is described. An interval is defined as the set of all real numbers between two given numbers including or excluding one or both endpoints. Interval arithmetic consists of the various elementary arithmetic operations defined on the set of all intervals, such as interval addition, subtraction, union, etc. One of the main applications of interval arithmetic is in the area of error analysis of computer calculations. For example, it has been used sucessfully to compute bounds on sounding errors in the solution of linear algebraic systems, error bounds in numerical solutions of ordinary differential equations, as well as integral equations and boundary value problems. The described software enables users to implement algorithms of the type described in references efficiently on the IBM 360 system.

The State of Software for Evolutionary Biology.

PubMed

Darriba, Diego; Flouri, Tomáš; Stamatakis, Alexandros

2018-05-01

With Next Generation Sequencing data being routinely used, evolutionary biology is transforming into a computational science. Thus, researchers have to rely on a growing number of increasingly complex software. All widely used core tools in the field have grown considerably, in terms of the number of features as well as lines of code and consequently, also with respect to software complexity. A topic that has received little attention is the software engineering quality of widely used core analysis tools. Software developers appear to rarely assess the quality of their code, and this can have potential negative consequences for end-users. To this end, we assessed the code quality of 16 highly cited and compute-intensive tools mainly written in C/C++ (e.g., MrBayes, MAFFT, SweepFinder, etc.) and JAVA (BEAST) from the broader area of evolutionary biology that are being routinely used in current data analysis pipelines. Because, the software engineering quality of the tools we analyzed is rather unsatisfying, we provide a list of best practices for improving the quality of existing tools and list techniques that can be deployed for developing reliable, high quality scientific software from scratch. Finally, we also discuss journal as well as science policy and, more importantly, funding issues that need to be addressed for improving software engineering quality as well as ensuring support for developing new and maintaining existing software. Our intention is to raise the awareness of the community regarding software engineering quality issues and to emphasize the substantial lack of funding for scientific software development.

Emulsion liquid membrane for textile dye removal: Stability study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kusumastuti, Adhi; Syamwil, Rodia; Anis, Samsudin

2017-03-01

Although textile dyes is basically available in very low concentration; it should be removed due to the toxicity to human body and environment. Among the existing methods, emulsion liquid membrane (ELM) is a promising method by providing high interfacial area and the ability to remove a very low concentration of the solute. The optimal emulsions were produced using commercially supplied homogeniser. The drop size was measured by the aid of microscope and image J software. Initially, methylene blue in simulated wastewater was extracted using a stirrer. Methylene blue concentration was determined using spectrophotometer. The research obtained optimal emulsion at surfactant concentration of 4 wt. %, kerosene as diluent, emulsification time of 30 min, emulsification speed of 2000 rpm. The lowest membrane breakage and the longest stability time were about 0.11% and 150 min, respectively.

Xcas as a Programming Environment for Stability Conditions for a Class of Differential Equation Models in Economics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Halkos, George E.; Tsilika, Kyriaki D.

2011-09-01

In this paper we examine the property of asymptotic stability in several dynamic economic systems, modeled in ordinary differential equation formulations of time parameter t. Asymptotic stability ensures intertemporal equilibrium for the economic quantity the solution stands for, regardless of what the initial conditions happen to be. Existence of economic equilibrium in continuous time models is checked via a Symbolic language, the Xcas program editor. Using stability theorems of differential equations as background a brief overview of symbolic capabilities of free software Xcas is given. We present computational experience with a programming style for stability results of ordinary linear and nonlinear differential equations. Numerical experiments on traditional applications of economic dynamics exhibit the simplicity clarity and brevity of input and output of our computer codes.

SensorDB: a virtual laboratory for the integration, visualization and analysis of varied biological sensor data.

PubMed

Salehi, Ali; Jimenez-Berni, Jose; Deery, David M; Palmer, Doug; Holland, Edward; Rozas-Larraondo, Pablo; Chapman, Scott C; Georgakopoulos, Dimitrios; Furbank, Robert T

2015-01-01

To our knowledge, there is no software or database solution that supports large volumes of biological time series sensor data efficiently and enables data visualization and analysis in real time. Existing solutions for managing data typically use unstructured file systems or relational databases. These systems are not designed to provide instantaneous response to user queries. Furthermore, they do not support rapid data analysis and visualization to enable interactive experiments. In large scale experiments, this behaviour slows research discovery, discourages the widespread sharing and reuse of data that could otherwise inform critical decisions in a timely manner and encourage effective collaboration between groups. In this paper we present SensorDB, a web based virtual laboratory that can manage large volumes of biological time series sensor data while supporting rapid data queries and real-time user interaction. SensorDB is sensor agnostic and uses web-based, state-of-the-art cloud and storage technologies to efficiently gather, analyse and visualize data. Collaboration and data sharing between different agencies and groups is thereby facilitated. SensorDB is available online at http://sensordb.csiro.au.

Value added data archiving

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Berard, Peter R.

1993-01-01

Researchers in the Molecular Sciences Research Center (MSRC) of Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) currently generate massive amounts of scientific data. The amount of data that will need to be managed by the turn of the century is expected to increase significantly. Automated tools that support the management, maintenance, and sharing of this data are minimal. Researchers typically manage their own data by physically moving datasets to and from long term storage devices and recording a dataset's historical information in a laboratory notebook. Even though it is not the most efficient use of resources, researchers have tolerated the process. The solution to this problem will evolve over the next three years in three phases. PNL plans to add sophistication to existing multilevel file system (MLFS) software by integrating it with an object database management system (ODBMS). The first phase in the evolution is currently underway. A prototype system of limited scale is being used to gather information that will feed into the next two phases. This paper describes the prototype system, identifies the successes and problems/complications experienced to date, and outlines PNL's long term goals and objectives in providing a permanent solution.

Solute solver 'what if' module for modeling urea kinetics.

PubMed

Daugirdas, John T

2016-11-01

The publicly available Solute Solver module allows calculation of a variety of two-pool urea kinetic measures of dialysis adequacy using pre- and postdialysis plasma urea and estimated dialyzer clearance or estimated urea distribution volumes as inputs. However, the existing program does not have a 'what if' module, which would estimate the plasma urea values as well as commonly used measures of hemodialysis adequacy for a patient with a given urea distribution volume and urea nitrogen generation rate dialyzed according to a particular dialysis schedule. Conventional variable extracellular volume 2-pool urea kinetic equations were used. A javascript-HTML Web form was created that can be used on any personal computer equipped with internet browsing software, to compute commonly used Kt/V-based measures of hemodialysis adequacy for patients with differing amounts of residual kidney function and following a variety of treatment schedules. The completed Web form calculator may be particularly useful in computing equivalent continuous clearances for incremental hemodialysis strategies. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of ERA-EDTA. All rights reserved.

Metro Optical Networks for Homeland Security

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bechtel, James H.

Metro optical networks provide an enticing opportunity for strengthening homeland security. Many existing and emerging fiber-optic networks can be adapted for enhanced security applications. Applications include airports, theme parks, sports venues, and border surveillance systems. Here real-time high-quality video and captured images can be collected, transported, processed, and stored for security applications. Video and data collection are important also at correctional facilities, courts, infrastructure (e.g., dams, bridges, railroads, reservoirs, power stations), and at military and other government locations. The scaling of DWDM-based networks allows vast amounts of data to be collected and transported including biometric features of individuals at security check points. Here applications will be discussed along with potential solutions and challenges. Examples of solutions to these problems are given. This includes a discussion of metropolitan aggregation platforms for voice, video, and data that are SONET compliant for use in SONET networks and the use of DWDM technology for scaling and transporting a variety of protocols. Element management software allows not only network status monitoring, but also provides optimized allocation of network resources through the use of optical switches or electrical cross connects.

Applied spectrophotometry: analysis of a biochemical mixture.

PubMed

Trumbo, Toni A; Schultz, Emeric; Borland, Michael G; Pugh, Michael Eugene

2013-01-01

Spectrophotometric analysis is essential for determining biomolecule concentration of a solution and is employed ubiquitously in biochemistry and molecular biology. The application of the Beer-Lambert-Bouguer Lawis routinely used to determine the concentration of DNA, RNA or protein. There is however a significant difference in determining the concentration of a given species (RNA, DNA, protein) in isolation (a contrived circumstance) as opposed to determining that concentration in the presence of other species (a more realistic situation). To present the student with a more realistic laboratory experience and also to fill a hole that we believe exists in student experience prior to reaching a biochemistry course, we have devised a three week laboratory experience designed so that students learn to: connect laboratory practice with theory, apply the Beer-Lambert-Bougert Law to biochemical analyses, demonstrate the utility and limitations of example quantitative colorimetric assays, demonstrate the utility and limitations of UV analyses for biomolecules, develop strategies for analysis of a solution of unknown biomolecular composition, use digital micropipettors to make accurate and precise measurements, and apply graphing software. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

easyHealthApps: e-Health Apps dynamic generation for smartphones & tablets.

PubMed

Paschou, Mersini; Sakkopoulos, Evangelos; Tsakalidis, Athanasios

2013-06-01

Mobile phones and especially smartphones have been embraced by a rapidly increasing number of people worldwide and this trend is expected to evolve even more in the years to come. There are numerous smartphone Apps that record critical medical data in an effort to solve a particular health issue each time. We studied such applications and not surprisingly, we have found that development and design effort is often repeated. Software patterns have been detected to exist, however re-usability has not been enforced. This leads to lost programming manpower and to increased probability of repeating bugs in Apps. Moreover, at the moment smartphone e-Health Apps demand time, effort and costs for development. Unfortunately even simple data recording Apps are practically impossible to be produced by multiple health domain users who are not developers. In this work, we propose, design and implement a simple and integrated solution which gives healthcare professionals and researchers the ability to create their own data intensive smartphone applications, independent of the desired healthcare domain. The proposed approach applies efficient software techniques that hide development from the users and enable App creation through a simple Web User Interface. The Apps produced are in native format and it is possible to dynamically receive m-Health business logic and the chosen UI. Evaluation of the proposed solution has shown that the generated Apps are functionally and UI equivalent to human-coded Apps according to a number of comparison parameters. Furthermore, e-Health professionals show particular interest in developing Apps on their own for a particular domain they focus on.

OnEarth: An Open Source Solution for Efficiently Serving High-Resolution Mapped Image Products

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thompson, C. K.; Plesea, L.; Hall, J. R.; Roberts, J. T.; Cechini, M. F.; Schmaltz, J. E.; Alarcon, C.; Huang, T.; McGann, J. M.; Chang, G.; Boller, R. A.; Ilavajhala, S.; Murphy, K. J.; Bingham, A. W.

2013-12-01

This presentation introduces OnEarth, a server side software package originally developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), that facilitates network-based, minimum-latency geolocated image access independent of image size or spatial resolution. The key component in this package is the Meta Raster Format (MRF), a specialized raster file extension to the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) consisting of an internal indexed pyramid of image tiles. Imagery to be served is converted to the MRF format and made accessible online via an expandable set of server modules handling requests in several common protocols, including the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) compliant Web Map Tile Service (WMTS) as well as Tiled WMS and Keyhole Markup Language (KML). OnEarth has recently transitioned to open source status and is maintained and actively developed as part of GIBS (Global Imagery Browse Services), a collaborative project between JPL and Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). The primary function of GIBS is to enhance and streamline the data discovery process and to support near real-time (NRT) applications via the expeditious ingestion and serving of full-resolution imagery representing science products from across the NASA Earth Science spectrum. Open source software solutions are leveraged where possible in order to utilize existing available technologies, reduce development time, and enlist wider community participation. We will discuss some of the factors and decision points in transitioning OnEarth to a suitable open source paradigm, including repository and licensing agreement decision points, institutional hurdles, and perceived benefits. We will also provide examples illustrating how OnEarth is integrated within GIBS and other applications.

AWARE: Adaptive Software Monitoring and Dynamic Reconfiguration for Critical Infrastructure Protection

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-04-29

in which we applied these adaptation patterns to an adaptive news web server intended to tolerate extremely heavy, unexpected loads. To address...collection of existing models used as benchmarks for OO-based refactoring and an existing web -based repository called REMODD to provide users with model...invariant properties. Specifically, we developed Avida- MDE (based on the Avida digital evolution platform) to support the automatic generation of software

A computer software system for the generation of global ocean tides including self-gravitation and crustal loading effects

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Estes, R. H.

1977-01-01

A computer software system is described which computes global numerical solutions of the integro-differential Laplace tidal equations, including dissipation terms and ocean loading and self-gravitation effects, for arbitrary diurnal and semidiurnal tidal constituents. The integration algorithm features a successive approximation scheme for the integro-differential system, with time stepping forward differences in the time variable and central differences in spatial variables. Solutions for M2, S2, N2, K2, K1, O1, P1 tidal constituents neglecting the effects of ocean loading and self-gravitation and a converged M2, solution including ocean loading and self-gravitation effects are presented in the form of cotidal and corange maps.

Production roll out plan for HANDI 2000 business management system

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Adams, D.E.

The Hanford Data Integration 2000 (HANDI 2000) Project will result in an integrated and comprehensive set of functional applications containing core information necessary to support the Project Hanford Management Contract (PHMC). It is based on the Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) product solution with commercially proven business processes. The COTS product solution set, of Passport (PP) and PeopleSoft (PS) software, supports finance, supply, human resources, and payroll activities under the current PHMC direction. The PP software is an integrated application for Accounts Payable, Contract Management, Inventory Management, Purchasing and Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS). The PS software is an integrated application for Projects,more » General Ledger, Human Resources Training, Payroll, and Base Benefits. This set of software constitutes the Business Management System (BMS) and MSDS, a subset of the HANDI 2000 suite of systems. The primary objective of the Production Roll Out Plan is to communicate the methods and schedules for implementation and roll out to end users of BMS.« less

Performing Quantitative Imaging Acquisition, Analysis and Visualization Using the Best of Open Source and Commercial Software Solutions.

PubMed

Shenoy, Shailesh M

2016-07-01

A challenge in any imaging laboratory, especially one that uses modern techniques, is to achieve a sustainable and productive balance between using open source and commercial software to perform quantitative image acquisition, analysis and visualization. In addition to considering the expense of software licensing, one must consider factors such as the quality and usefulness of the software's support, training and documentation. Also, one must consider the reproducibility with which multiple people generate results using the same software to perform the same analysis, how one may distribute their methods to the community using the software and the potential for achieving automation to improve productivity.

Full Life-Cycle Defect Management Assessment: Initial Inspection Data Collection Results and Research Questions for Further Study

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shull, Forrest; Feldmann, Raimund; Haingaertner, Ralf; Regardie, Myrna; Seaman, Carolyn

2007-01-01

It is often the case in software projects that when schedule and budget resources are limited, the Verification and Validation (V&V) activities suffer. Fewer V&V activities can be afforded and moreover, short-term challenges can result in V&V activities being scaled back or dropped altogether. As a result, too often the default solution is to save activities for improving software quality until too late in the life-cycle, relying on late-term code inspections followed by thorough testing activities to reduce defect counts to acceptable levels. As many project managers realize, however, this is a resource-intensive way of achieving the required quality for software. The Full Life-cycle Defect Management Assessment Initiative, funded by NASA s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance under the Software Assurance Research Program, aims to address these problems by: Improving the effectiveness of early life-cycle V&V activities to make their benefits more attractive to team leads. Specifically, we focus on software inspection, a proven method that can be applied to any software work product, long before executable code has been developed; Better communicating this effectiveness to software development teams, along with suggestions for parameters to improve in the future to increase effectiveness; Analyzing the impact of early life-cycle V&V on the effectiveness and cost required for late life-cycle V&V activities, such as testing, in order to make the tradeoffs more apparent. This white paper reports on an initial milestone in this work, the development of a preliminary model of inspection effectiveness across multiple NASA Centers. This model contributes toward reaching our project goals by: Allowing an examination of inspection parameters, across different types of projects and different work products, for an analysis of factors that impact defect detection effectiveness. Allowing a comparison of this NASA-specific model to existing recommendations in the literature regarding how to plan effective inspections. Forming a baseline model which can be extended to incorporate factors describing: the numbers and types of defects that are missed by inspections; how such defects flow downstream through software development phases; how effectively they can be caught by testing activities in the late stages of development. The model has been implemented in a prototype web-enabled decision-support tool which allows developers to enter their inspection data and receive feedback based on a comparison against the model. The tool also allows users to access reusable materials (such as checklists) from projects included in the baseline. Both the tool itself and the model underlying it will continue to be extended throughout the remainder of this initiative. As results of analyzing inspection effectiveness for defect containment are determined, they can be shared via the tool and also via updates to existing training courses on metrics and software inspections. Moreover, the tool will help satisfy key CMMI requirements for the NASA Centers, as it will enable NASA to take a global view across peer review results for various types of projects to identify systemic problems. This analysis can result in continuous improvements to the approach to verification.

Development of modular control software for construction 3D-printer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bazhanov, A.; Yudin, D.; Porkhalo, V.

2018-03-01

This article discusses the approach to developing modular software for real-time control of an industrial construction 3D printer. The proposed structure of a two-level software solution is implemented for a robotic system that moves in a Cartesian coordinate system with multi-axis interpolation. An algorithm for the formation and analysis of a path is considered to enable the most effective control of printing through dynamic programming.

Reuse-Driven Software Processes Guidebook. Version 02.00.03

DTIC Science & Technology

1993-11-01

a required sys - tem without unduly constraining the details of the solution. The Naval Research Laboratory Software Cost Reduction project developed...conventional manner. The emphasis is still on the development of "one-of-a-kind" sys - tems and the phased completion and review of corresponding...Application Engineering to improve the life-cycle productivity of Sy - 21 OVM ftrdauntals of Syatbes the total software development enterprise. The

SHI(EL)DS: A Novel Hardware-Based Security Backplane to Enhance Security with Minimal Impact to System Operation

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-03-01

executables. The current roadblock to detecting Type I Malware consistantly is the practice of legitimate software , such as antivirus programs, using this... Software Security Systems . . 31 3.2.2 Advantages of Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 3.2.3 Trustworthiness of Information . . . . . . . . . 33...Towards a Hardware Security Backplane . . . . . . . . . 42 IV. Review of State of the Art Computer Security Solutions . . . . . 46 4.1 Software

Integrating MPI and deduplication engines: a software architecture roadmap.

PubMed

Baksi, Dibyendu

2009-03-01

The objective of this paper is to clarify the major concepts related to architecture and design of patient identity management software systems so that an implementor looking to solve a specific integration problem in the context of a Master Patient Index (MPI) and a deduplication engine can address the relevant issues. The ideas presented are illustrated in the context of a reference use case from Integrating the Health Enterprise Patient Identifier Cross-referencing (IHE PIX) profile. Sound software engineering principles using the latest design paradigm of model driven architecture (MDA) are applied to define different views of the architecture. The main contribution of the paper is a clear software architecture roadmap for implementors of patient identity management systems. Conceptual design in terms of static and dynamic views of the interfaces is provided as an example of platform independent model. This makes the roadmap applicable to any specific solutions of MPI, deduplication library or software platform. Stakeholders in need of integration of MPIs and deduplication engines can evaluate vendor specific solutions and software platform technologies in terms of fundamental concepts and can make informed decisions that preserve investment. This also allows freedom from vendor lock-in and the ability to kick-start integration efforts based on a solid architecture.

Theoretical NMR correlations based Structure Discussion.

PubMed

Junker, Jochen

2011-07-28

The constitutional assignment of natural products by NMR spectroscopy is usually based on 2D NMR experiments like COSY, HSQC, and HMBC. The actual difficulty of the structure elucidation problem depends more on the type of the investigated molecule than on its size. The moment HMBC data is involved in the process or a large number of heteroatoms is present, a possibility of multiple solutions fitting the same data set exists. A structure elucidation software can be used to find such alternative constitutional assignments and help in the discussion in order to find the correct solution. But this is rarely done. This article describes the use of theoretical NMR correlation data in the structure elucidation process with WEBCOCON, not for the initial constitutional assignments, but to define how well a suggested molecule could have been described by NMR correlation data. The results of this analysis can be used to decide on further steps needed to assure the correctness of the structural assignment. As first step the analysis of the deviation of carbon chemical shifts is performed, comparing chemical shifts predicted for each possible solution with the experimental data. The application of this technique to three well known compounds is shown. Using NMR correlation data alone for the description of the constitutions is not always enough, even when including 13C chemical shift prediction.

Accelerating large-scale protein structure alignments with graphics processing units

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Large-scale protein structure alignment, an indispensable tool to structural bioinformatics, poses a tremendous challenge on computational resources. To ensure structure alignment accuracy and efficiency, efforts have been made to parallelize traditional alignment algorithms in grid environments. However, these solutions are costly and of limited accessibility. Others trade alignment quality for speedup by using high-level characteristics of structure fragments for structure comparisons. Findings We present ppsAlign, a parallel protein structure Alignment framework designed and optimized to exploit the parallelism of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). As a general-purpose GPU platform, ppsAlign could take many concurrent methods, such as TM-align and Fr-TM-align, into the parallelized algorithm design. We evaluated ppsAlign on an NVIDIA Tesla C2050 GPU card, and compared it with existing software solutions running on an AMD dual-core CPU. We observed a 36-fold speedup over TM-align, a 65-fold speedup over Fr-TM-align, and a 40-fold speedup over MAMMOTH. Conclusions ppsAlign is a high-performance protein structure alignment tool designed to tackle the computational complexity issues from protein structural data. The solution presented in this paper allows large-scale structure comparisons to be performed using massive parallel computing power of GPU. PMID:22357132

Global review of open access risk assessment software packages valid for global or continental scale analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Daniell, James; Simpson, Alanna; Gunasekara, Rashmin; Baca, Abigail; Schaefer, Andreas; Ishizawa, Oscar; Murnane, Rick; Tijssen, Annegien; Deparday, Vivien; Forni, Marc; Himmelfarb, Anne; Leder, Jan

2015-04-01

Over the past few decades, a plethora of open access software packages for the calculation of earthquake, volcanic, tsunami, storm surge, wind and flood have been produced globally. As part of the World Bank GFDRR Review released at the Understanding Risk 2014 Conference, over 80 such open access risk assessment software packages were examined. Commercial software was not considered in the evaluation. A preliminary analysis was used to determine whether the 80 models were currently supported and if they were open access. This process was used to select a subset of 31 models that include 8 earthquake models, 4 cyclone models, 11 flood models, and 8 storm surge/tsunami models for more detailed analysis. By using multi-criteria analysis (MCDA) and simple descriptions of the software uses, the review allows users to select a few relevant software packages for their own testing and development. The detailed analysis evaluated the models on the basis of over 100 criteria and provides a synopsis of available open access natural hazard risk modelling tools. In addition, volcano software packages have since been added making the compendium of risk software tools in excess of 100. There has been a huge increase in the quality and availability of open access/source software over the past few years. For example, private entities such as Deltares now have an open source policy regarding some flood models (NGHS). In addition, leaders in developing risk models in the public sector, such as Geoscience Australia (EQRM, TCRM, TsuDAT, AnuGA) or CAPRA (ERN-Flood, Hurricane, CRISIS2007 etc.), are launching and/or helping many other initiatives. As we achieve greater interoperability between modelling tools, we will also achieve a future wherein different open source and open access modelling tools will be increasingly connected and adapted towards unified multi-risk model platforms and highly customised solutions. It was seen that many software tools could be improved by enabling user-defined exposure and vulnerability. Without this function, many tools can only be used regionally and not at global or continental scale. It is becoming increasingly easy to use multiple packages for a single region and/or hazard to characterize the uncertainty in the risk, or use as checks for the sensitivities in the analysis. There is a potential for valuable synergy between existing software. A number of open source software packages could be combined to generate a multi-risk model with multiple views of a hazard. This extensive review has simply attempted to provide a platform for dialogue between all open source and open access software packages and to hopefully inspire collaboration between developers, given the great work done by all open access and open source developers.

Deep space network software cost estimation model

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tausworthe, R. C.

1981-01-01

A parametric software cost estimation model prepared for Jet PRopulsion Laboratory (JPL) Deep Space Network (DSN) Data System implementation tasks is described. The resource estimation mdel modifies and combines a number of existing models. The model calibrates the task magnitude and difficulty, development environment, and software technology effects through prompted responses to a set of approximately 50 questions. Parameters in the model are adjusted to fit JPL software life-cycle statistics.

Packaging Software Assets for Reuse

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mattmann, C. A.; Marshall, J. J.; Downs, R. R.

2010-12-01

The reuse of existing software assets such as code, architecture, libraries, and modules in current software and systems development projects can provide many benefits, including reduced costs, in time and effort, and increased reliability. Many reusable assets are currently available in various online catalogs and repositories, usually broken down by disciplines such as programming language (Ibiblio for Maven/Java developers, PyPI for Python developers, CPAN for Perl developers, etc.). The way these assets are packaged for distribution can play a role in their reuse - an asset that is packaged simply and logically is typically easier to understand, install, and use, thereby increasing its reusability. A well-packaged asset has advantages in being more reusable and thus more likely to provide benefits through its reuse. This presentation will discuss various aspects of software asset packaging and how they can affect the reusability of the assets. The characteristics of well-packaged software will be described. A software packaging domain model will be introduced, and some existing packaging approaches examined. An example case study of a Reuse Enablement System (RES), currently being created by near-term Earth science decadal survey missions, will provide information about the use of the domain model. Awareness of these factors will help software developers package their reusable assets so that they can provide the most benefits for software reuse.

Knowledge Retrieval Solutions.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Khan, Kamran

1998-01-01

Excalibur RetrievalWare offers true knowledge retrieval solutions. Its fundamental technologies, Adaptive Pattern Recognition Processing and Semantic Networks, have capabilities for knowledge discovery and knowledge management of full-text, structured and visual information. The software delivers a combination of accuracy, extensibility,…

Using Dissimilarity Metrics to Identify Interesting Designs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Feather, Martin; Kiper, James

2006-01-01

A computer program helps to blend the power of automated-search software, which is able to generate large numbers of design solutions, with the insight of expert designers, who are able to identify preferred designs but do not have time to examine all the solutions. From among the many automated solutions to a given design problem, the program selects a smaller number of solutions that are worthy of scrutiny by the experts in the sense that they are sufficiently dissimilar from each other. The program makes the selection in an interactive process that involves a sequence of data-mining steps interspersed with visual displays of results of these steps to the experts. At crucial points between steps, the experts provide directives to guide the process. The program uses heuristic search techniques to identify nearly optimal design solutions and uses dissimilarity metrics defined by the experts to characterize the degree to which solutions are interestingly different. The search, data-mining, and visualization features of the program were derived from previously developed risk-management software used to support a risk-centric design methodology

Plagiarism Detection by Online Solutions.

PubMed

Masic, Izet; Begic, Edin; Dobraca, Amra

2017-01-01

The problem of plagiarism represents one of the burning issues of the modern scientific world. Detection of plagiarism is a problem that the Editorial Board encounters in their daily work. Software solutions represent a good solution for the detection of plagiarism. The problem of plagiarism will become most discussed topic of the modern scientific world, especially due to the development of standard measures, which rank the work of one author. Investment in education, education of young research personnel about the importance of scientific research, with paying particular attention on ethical behavior, becomes an imperative of academic staff. Editors have to invest additional effort in the development of the base of reviewers team as well as in their proper guidance, because after all, despite the software solutions, they are the best weapon to fight plagiarism. Peer review process should be a key of successful operation of each journal.

Compositional Solution Space Quantification for Probabilistic Software Analysis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Borges, Mateus; Pasareanu, Corina S.; Filieri, Antonio; d'Amorim, Marcelo; Visser, Willem

2014-01-01

Probabilistic software analysis aims at quantifying how likely a target event is to occur during program execution. Current approaches rely on symbolic execution to identify the conditions to reach the target event and try to quantify the fraction of the input domain satisfying these conditions. Precise quantification is usually limited to linear constraints, while only approximate solutions can be provided in general through statistical approaches. However, statistical approaches may fail to converge to an acceptable accuracy within a reasonable time. We present a compositional statistical approach for the efficient quantification of solution spaces for arbitrarily complex constraints over bounded floating-point domains. The approach leverages interval constraint propagation to improve the accuracy of the estimation by focusing the sampling on the regions of the input domain containing the sought solutions. Preliminary experiments show significant improvement on previous approaches both in results accuracy and analysis time.

Pathways to Lean Software Development: An Analysis of Effective Methods of Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hanson, Richard D.

2014-01-01

This qualitative Delphi study explored the challenges that exist in delivering software on time, within budget, and with the original scope identified. The literature review identified many attempts over the past several decades to reform the methods used to develop software. These attempts found that the classical waterfall method, which is…

Plug-In Tutor Agents: Still Pluggin'

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ritter, Steven

2016-01-01

"An Architecture for Plug-in Tutor Agents" (Ritter and Koedinger 1996) proposed a software architecture designed around the idea that tutors could be built as plug-ins for existing software applications. Looking back on the paper now, we can see that certain assumptions about the future of software architecture did not come to be, making…

An Ontology for Software Engineering Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ling, Thong Chee; Jusoh, Yusmadi Yah; Adbullah, Rusli; Alwi, Nor Hayati

2013-01-01

Software agents communicate using ontology. It is important to build an ontology for specific domain such as Software Engineering Education. Building an ontology from scratch is not only hard, but also incur much time and cost. This study aims to propose an ontology through adaptation of the existing ontology which is originally built based on a…

An Exploratory Study of Software Cost Estimating at the Electronic Systems Division.

DTIC Science & Technology

1976-07-01

action’. to improve the software cost Sestimating proces., While thin research was limited to the M.nD onvironment, the same types of problema may exist...Methods in Social Science. Now York: Random House, 1969. 57. Smith, Ronald L. Structured Programming Series (Vol. XI) - Estimating Software Project

Digital data collection in paleoanthropology.

PubMed

Reed, Denné; Barr, W Andrew; Mcpherron, Shannon P; Bobe, René; Geraads, Denis; Wynn, Jonathan G; Alemseged, Zeresenay

2015-01-01

Understanding patterns of human evolution across space and time requires synthesizing data collected by independent research teams, and this effort is part of a larger trend to develop cyber infrastructure and e-science initiatives. At present, paleoanthropology cannot easily answer basic questions about the total number of fossils and artifacts that have been discovered, or exactly how those items were collected. In this paper, we examine the methodological challenges to data integration, with the hope that mitigating the technical obstacles will further promote data sharing. At a minimum, data integration efforts must document what data exist and how the data were collected (discovery), after which we can begin standardizing data collection practices with the aim of achieving combined analyses (synthesis). This paper outlines a digital data collection system for paleoanthropology. We review the relevant data management principles for a general audience and supplement this with technical details drawn from over 15 years of paleontological and archeological field experience in Africa and Europe. The system outlined here emphasizes free open-source software (FOSS) solutions that work on multiple computer platforms; it builds on recent advances in open-source geospatial software and mobile computing. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Intelligent model-based diagnostics for vehicle health management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Luo, Jianhui; Tu, Fang; Azam, Mohammad S.; Pattipati, Krishna R.; Willett, Peter K.; Qiao, Liu; Kawamoto, Masayuki

2003-08-01

The recent advances in sensor technology, remote communication and computational capabilities, and standardized hardware/software interfaces are creating a dramatic shift in the way the health of vehicles is monitored and managed. These advances facilitate remote monitoring, diagnosis and condition-based maintenance of automotive systems. With the increased sophistication of electronic control systems in vehicles, there is a concomitant increased difficulty in the identification of the malfunction phenomena. Consequently, the current rule-based diagnostic systems are difficult to develop, validate and maintain. New intelligent model-based diagnostic methodologies that exploit the advances in sensor, telecommunications, computing and software technologies are needed. In this paper, we will investigate hybrid model-based techniques that seamlessly employ quantitative (analytical) models and graph-based dependency models for intelligent diagnosis. Automotive engineers have found quantitative simulation (e.g. MATLAB/SIMULINK) to be a vital tool in the development of advanced control systems. The hybrid method exploits this capability to improve the diagnostic system's accuracy and consistency, utilizes existing validated knowledge on rule-based methods, enables remote diagnosis, and responds to the challenges of increased system complexity. The solution is generic and has the potential for application in a wide range of systems.

A Generic Evaluation Model for Semantic Web Services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shafiq, Omair

Semantic Web Services research has gained momentum over the last few Years and by now several realizations exist. They are being used in a number of industrial use-cases. Soon software developers will be expected to use this infrastructure to build their B2B applications requiring dynamic integration. However, there is still a lack of guidelines for the evaluation of tools developed to realize Semantic Web Services and applications built on top of them. In normal software engineering practice such guidelines can already be found for traditional component-based systems. Also some efforts are being made to build performance models for servicebased systems. Drawing on these related efforts in component-oriented and servicebased systems, we identified the need for a generic evaluation model for Semantic Web Services applicable to any realization. The generic evaluation model will help users and customers to orient their systems and solutions towards using Semantic Web Services. In this chapter, we have presented the requirements for the generic evaluation model for Semantic Web Services and further discussed the initial steps that we took to sketch such a model. Finally, we discuss related activities for evaluating semantic technologies.

InteractiveROSETTA: a graphical user interface for the PyRosetta protein modeling suite.

PubMed

Schenkelberg, Christian D; Bystroff, Christopher

2015-12-15

Modern biotechnical research is becoming increasingly reliant on computational structural modeling programs to develop novel solutions to scientific questions. Rosetta is one such protein modeling suite that has already demonstrated wide applicability to a number of diverse research projects. Unfortunately, Rosetta is largely a command-line-driven software package which restricts its use among non-computational researchers. Some graphical interfaces for Rosetta exist, but typically are not as sophisticated as commercial software. Here, we present InteractiveROSETTA, a graphical interface for the PyRosetta framework that presents easy-to-use controls for several of the most widely used Rosetta protocols alongside a sophisticated selection system utilizing PyMOL as a visualizer. InteractiveROSETTA is also capable of interacting with remote Rosetta servers, facilitating sophisticated protocols that are not accessible in PyRosetta or which require greater computational resources. InteractiveROSETTA is freely available at https://github.com/schenc3/InteractiveROSETTA/releases and relies upon a separate download of PyRosetta which is available at http://www.pyrosetta.org after obtaining a license (free for academic use). © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

The Next Generation of Lab and Classroom Computing - The Silver Lining

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-12-01

desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution, as well as the computing solutions at three universities, was selected as the basis for comparison. The research... infrastructure , VDI, hardware cost, software cost, manpower, availability, cloud computing, private cloud, bring your own device, BYOD, thin client...virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution, as well as the computing solutions at three universities, was selected as the basis for comparison. The

Edaq530: A Transparent, Open-End and Open-Source Measurement Solution in Natural Science Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kopasz, Katalin; Makra, Peter; Gingl, Zoltan

2011-01-01

We present Edaq530, a low-cost, compact and easy-to-use digital measurement solution consisting of a thumb-sized USB-to-sensor interface and measurement software. The solution is fully open-source, our aim being to provide a viable alternative to professional solutions. Our main focus in designing Edaq530 has been versatility and transparency. In…

Comparison of particle tracking algorithms in commercial CFD packages: sedimentation and diffusion.

PubMed

Robinson, Risa J; Snyder, Pam; Oldham, Michael J

2007-05-01

Computational fluid dynamic modeling software has enabled microdosimetry patterns of inhaled toxins and toxicants to be predicted and visualized, and is being used in inhalation toxicology and risk assessment. These predicted microdosimetry patterns in airway structures are derived from predicted airflow patterns within these airways and particle tracking algorithms used in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software packages. Although these commercial CFD codes have been tested for accuracy under various conditions, they have not been well tested for respiratory flows in general. Nor has their particle tracking algorithm accuracy been well studied. In this study, three software packages, Fluent Discrete Phase Model (DPM), Fluent Fine Particle Model (FPM), and ANSYS CFX, were evaluated. Sedimentation and diffusion were each isolated in a straight tube geometry and tested for accuracy. A range of flow rates corresponding to adult low activity (minute ventilation = 10 L/min) and to heavy exertion (minute ventilation = 60 L/min) were tested by varying the range of dimensionless diffusion and sedimentation parameters found using the Weibel symmetric 23 generation lung morphology. Numerical results for fully developed parabolic and uniform (slip) profiles were compared respectively, to Pich (1972) and Yu (1977) analytical sedimentation solutions. Schum and Yeh (1980) equations for sedimentation were also compared. Numerical results for diffusional deposition were compared to analytical solutions of Ingham (1975) for parabolic and uniform profiles. Significant differences were found among the various CFD software packages and between numerical and analytical solutions. Therefore, it is prudent to validate CFD predictions against analytical solutions in idealized geometry before tackling the complex geometries of the respiratory tract.

Homoclinic accretion solutions in the Schwarzschild-anti-de Sitter space-time

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mach, Patryk

2015-04-01

The aim of this paper is to clarify the distinction between homoclinic and standard (global) Bondi-type accretion solutions in the Schwarzschild-anti-de Sitter space-time. The homoclinic solutions have recently been discovered numerically for polytropic equations of state. Here I show that they exist also for certain isothermal (linear) equations of state, and an analytic solution of this type is obtained. It is argued that the existence of such solutions is generic, although for sufficiently relativistic matter models (photon gas, ultrahard equation of state) there exist global solutions that can be continued to infinity, similarly to standard Michel's solutions in the Schwarzschild space-time. In contrast to that global solutions should not exist for matter models with a nonvanishing rest-mass component, and this is demonstrated for polytropes. For homoclinic isothermal solutions I derive an upper bound on the mass of the black hole for which stationary transonic accretion is allowed.

The Role of Computers in Research and Development at Langley Research Center

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wieseman, Carol D. (Compiler)

1994-01-01

This document is a compilation of presentations given at a workshop on the role cf computers in research and development at the Langley Research Center. The objectives of the workshop were to inform the Langley Research Center community of the current software systems and software practices in use at Langley. The workshop was organized in 10 sessions: Software Engineering; Software Engineering Standards, methods, and CASE tools; Solutions of Equations; Automatic Differentiation; Mosaic and the World Wide Web; Graphics and Image Processing; System Design Integration; CAE Tools; Languages; and Advanced Topics.

EPOS-GNSS - Improving the infrastructure for GNSS data and products in Europe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fernandes, Rui; Bos, Machiel; Bruyninx, Carine; Crocker, Paul; Dousa, Jan; Socquet, Anne; Walpersdorf, Andrea; Avallone, Antonio; Ganas, Athanassios; Gunnar, Benedikt; Ionescu, Constantin; Kenyeres, Ambrus; Ozener, Haluk; Vergnolle, Mathilde; Lidberg, Martin; Liwosz, Tomek; Soehne, Wolfgang

2017-04-01

EPOS-IP WP10 - "GNSS Data & Products" is the Working Package 10 of the European Plate Observing System - Implementation Phase project in charge of implementing services for the geo-sciences community to access existing Pan-European Geodetic Infrastructures. WP10 is currently formed by representatives of participating European institutions but in the operational phase contributions will be solicited from the entire geodetic community. In fact, WP10 also includes members from other institutions/countries that formally are not participating in the EPOS-IP but will be key players in the future services to be provided by EPOS. Additionally, several partners are also key partners at EUREF, which is also actively collaborating with EPOS. The geodetic component of EPOS is dealing essentially with implementing an e-infrastructure to store and disseminate the continuous GNSS data from existing Research Infrastructures. Present efforts are on developing geodetic tools to support Solid Earth research by optimizing the existing resources. However, other research and technical applications (e.g., reference frames, meteorology, space weather) can also benefit in the future from the optimization of the geodetic resources in Europe. We present and discuss the status of the implementation of the thematic and core services (TCS) for GNSS data within EPOS and the related business plan. We explain the tools and web-services being developed towards the implementation of the best solutions that will permit to the end-users, and in particular geo-scientists, to access the geodetic data, derived solutions, and associated metadata using a transparent and standardized processes. We also detail the different DDSS (Data, Data-Products, Services, Software) that will be made available for the Operational Phase of EPOS, which will start to be tested and made available during 2017 and 2018.

Large Scale Software Building with CMake in ATLAS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Elmsheuser, J.; Krasznahorkay, A.; Obreshkov, E.; Undrus, A.; ATLAS Collaboration

2017-10-01

The offline software of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) serves as the platform for detector data reconstruction, simulation and analysis. It is also used in the detector’s trigger system to select LHC collision events during data taking. The ATLAS offline software consists of several million lines of C++ and Python code organized in a modular design of more than 2000 specialized packages. Because of different workflows, many stable numbered releases are in parallel production use. To accommodate specific workflow requests, software patches with modified libraries are distributed on top of existing software releases on a daily basis. The different ATLAS software applications also require a flexible build system that strongly supports unit and integration tests. Within the last year this build system was migrated to CMake. A CMake configuration has been developed that allows one to easily set up and build the above mentioned software packages. This also makes it possible to develop and test new and modified packages on top of existing releases. The system also allows one to detect and execute partial rebuilds of the release based on single package changes. The build system makes use of CPack for building RPM packages out of the software releases, and CTest for running unit and integration tests. We report on the migration and integration of the ATLAS software to CMake and show working examples of this large scale project in production.

Specification, Design, and Analysis of Advanced HUMS Architectures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mukkamala, Ravi

2004-01-01

During the two-year project period, we have worked on several aspects of domain-specific architectures for HUMS. In particular, we looked at using scenario-based approach for the design and designed a language for describing such architectures. The language is now being used in all aspects of our HUMS design. In particular, we have made contributions in the following areas. 1) We have employed scenarios in the development of HUMS in three main areas. They are: (a) To improve reusability by using scenarios as a library indexing tool and as a domain analysis tool; (b) To improve maintainability by recording design rationales from two perspectives - problem domain and solution domain; (c) To evaluate the software architecture. 2) We have defined a new architectural language called HADL or HUMS Architectural Definition Language. It is a customized version of xArch/xADL. It is based on XML and, hence, is easily portable from domain to domain, application to application, and machine to machine. Specifications written in HADL can be easily read and parsed using the currently available XML parsers. Thus, there is no need to develop a plethora of software to support HADL. 3) We have developed an automated design process that involves two main techniques: (a) Selection of solutions from a large space of designs; (b) Synthesis of designs. However, the automation process is not an absolute Artificial Intelligence (AI) approach though it uses a knowledge-based system that epitomizes a specific HUMS domain. The process uses a database of solutions as an aid to solve the problems rather than creating a new design in the literal sense. Since searching is adopted as the main technique, the challenges involved are: (a) To minimize the effort in searching the database where a very large number of possibilities exist; (b) To develop representations that could conveniently allow us to depict design knowledge evolved over many years; (c) To capture the required information that aid the automation process.

RNAiFold2T: Constraint Programming design of thermo-IRES switches.

PubMed

Garcia-Martin, Juan Antonio; Dotu, Ivan; Fernandez-Chamorro, Javier; Lozano, Gloria; Ramajo, Jorge; Martinez-Salas, Encarnacion; Clote, Peter

2016-06-15

RNA thermometers (RNATs) are cis-regulatory elements that change secondary structure upon temperature shift. Often involved in the regulation of heat shock, cold shock and virulence genes, RNATs constitute an interesting potential resource in synthetic biology, where engineered RNATs could prove to be useful tools in biosensors and conditional gene regulation. Solving the 2-temperature inverse folding problem is critical for RNAT engineering. Here we introduce RNAiFold2T, the first Constraint Programming (CP) and Large Neighborhood Search (LNS) algorithms to solve this problem. Benchmarking tests of RNAiFold2T against existent programs (adaptive walk and genetic algorithm) inverse folding show that our software generates two orders of magnitude more solutions, thus allowing ample exploration of the space of solutions. Subsequently, solutions can be prioritized by computing various measures, including probability of target structure in the ensemble, melting temperature, etc. Using this strategy, we rationally designed two thermosensor internal ribosome entry site (thermo-IRES) elements, whose normalized cap-independent translation efficiency is approximately 50% greater at 42 °C than 30 °C, when tested in reticulocyte lysates. Translation efficiency is lower than that of the wild-type IRES element, which on the other hand is fully resistant to temperature shift-up. This appears to be the first purely computational design of functional RNA thermoswitches, and certainly the first purely computational design of functional thermo-IRES elements. RNAiFold2T is publicly available as part of the new release RNAiFold3.0 at https://github.com/clotelab/RNAiFold and http://bioinformatics.bc.edu/clotelab/RNAiFold, which latter has a web server as well. The software is written in C ++ and uses OR-Tools CP search engine. clote@bc.edu Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press.

qPortal: A platform for data-driven biomedical research.

PubMed

Mohr, Christopher; Friedrich, Andreas; Wojnar, David; Kenar, Erhan; Polatkan, Aydin Can; Codrea, Marius Cosmin; Czemmel, Stefan; Kohlbacher, Oliver; Nahnsen, Sven

2018-01-01

Modern biomedical research aims at drawing biological conclusions from large, highly complex biological datasets. It has become common practice to make extensive use of high-throughput technologies that produce big amounts of heterogeneous data. In addition to the ever-improving accuracy, methods are getting faster and cheaper, resulting in a steadily increasing need for scalable data management and easily accessible means of analysis. We present qPortal, a platform providing users with an intuitive way to manage and analyze quantitative biological data. The backend leverages a variety of concepts and technologies, such as relational databases, data stores, data models and means of data transfer, as well as front-end solutions to give users access to data management and easy-to-use analysis options. Users are empowered to conduct their experiments from the experimental design to the visualization of their results through the platform. Here, we illustrate the feature-rich portal by simulating a biomedical study based on publically available data. We demonstrate the software's strength in supporting the entire project life cycle. The software supports the project design and registration, empowers users to do all-digital project management and finally provides means to perform analysis. We compare our approach to Galaxy, one of the most widely used scientific workflow and analysis platforms in computational biology. Application of both systems to a small case study shows the differences between a data-driven approach (qPortal) and a workflow-driven approach (Galaxy). qPortal, a one-stop-shop solution for biomedical projects offers up-to-date analysis pipelines, quality control workflows, and visualization tools. Through intensive user interactions, appropriate data models have been developed. These models build the foundation of our biological data management system and provide possibilities to annotate data, query metadata for statistics and future re-analysis on high-performance computing systems via coupling of workflow management systems. Integration of project and data management as well as workflow resources in one place present clear advantages over existing solutions.

Global Situational Awareness with Free Tools

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-01-15

Client Technical Solutions • Software Engineering Measurement and Analysis • Architecture Practices • Product Line Practice • Team Software Process...multiple data sources • Snort (Snorby on Security Onion ) • Nagios • SharePoint RSS • Flow • Others • Leverage standard data formats • Keyhole Markup Language

Exploiting OAuth 2.0: from User Delegation for OGC Services to a Generic Federation-as-a-Service Solution for Federated Identity Management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kershaw, Philip; Jensen, Jens; Stephens, Ag; van Engen, Willem

2013-04-01

We explore an application of OAuth to enable user delegation for OGC-based services and the evolution of this solution to form part of a wider Federation-as-a-Service offering for federated identity management. OAuth has established itself in the commercial sector as a means for users to delegate access to secured resources under their control to third parties. It has also found its way into the academic and research domains as a solution for user delegation. Notable examples including the CILogon project for Teragrid in the US, and also, closer to the Earth Sciences, as part of the OGC Web Services, Phase 6 Testbed. Both are examples of OAuth 1.0 implementations. Version 2.0 has seen significant changes to this original specification which have not been without controversy but it has arguably provided a greater degree of flexibility in how it can be applied and the use cases that it can address. At CEDA (Centre for Environmental Data Archival, STFC), a Python implementation of OAuth 2.0 was made to explore these capabilities with a focus on providing a solution for user delegation for data access, processing and visualisation services for the Earth Observation and Climate sciences domains. The initial goal was to provide a means of delegating short-lived user credentials to trusted services along the same lines as the established approach of Proxy certificates widely used in Grid computing. For the OGC and other HTTP-based services employed by CEDA, OAuth makes a natural fit for this role, integrating with minimal impact on existing interfaces. Working implementations have been made for CEDA's COWS Web Processing Service and Web Map Service. Packaging the software and making it available in Open Source repositories together with the generic nature of the solution have made it readily exploitable in other application domains. At the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (Nijmegen, The Netherlands), the software will be used to integrate some tools in the CLARIN infrastructure*. Enhancements have been fedback to the package through this activity. Collaboration with STFC's Scientific Computing department has also seen this solution expand and evolve to support a more demanding set of use cases required to meet the needs for Contrail, an EU Framework 7 project. The goal of Contrail is to develop an Open Source solution for federating resources from multiple Cloud providers. Bringing the solution developed with OAuth together with technologies such as SAML and OpenID it has been possible to develop a generic suite of services to support federated access and identity management, a Federation-as-a-Service package. This is showing promise with trials with the EUDAT project. A deployment of the Contrail software is also planned for CEMS (the facility for Climate and Environmental Monitoring from Space), a new joint academic-industry led facility based at the STFC Harwell site providing access to large-volume Earth Observation and Climate datasets through a Cloud-based service model. * This work is part of the programme of BiG Grid, the Dutch e-Science Grid, which is financially supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, NWO.

Unisys' experience in software quality and productivity management of an existing system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Munson, John B.

1988-01-01

A summary of Quality Improvement techniques, implementation, and results in the maintenance, management, and modification of large software systems for the Space Shuttle Program's ground-based systems is provided.

Reading Diagnosis via the Microcomputer (The Printout).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weisberg, Renee; Balajthy, Ernest

1989-01-01

Examines and evaluates microcomputer software designed to assist in diagnosing students' reading abilities and making instructional decisions. Claims that existing software shows valuable potential when used sensibly and critically by trained reading clinicians. (MM)

Direct-Solve Image-Based Wavefront Sensing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lyon, Richard G.

2009-01-01

A method of wavefront sensing (more precisely characterized as a method of determining the deviation of a wavefront from a nominal figure) has been invented as an improved means of assessing the performance of an optical system as affected by such imperfections as misalignments, design errors, and fabrication errors. The method is implemented by software running on a single-processor computer that is connected, via a suitable interface, to the image sensor (typically, a charge-coupled device) in the system under test. The software collects a digitized single image from the image sensor. The image is displayed on a computer monitor. The software directly solves for the wavefront in a time interval of a fraction of a second. A picture of the wavefront is displayed. The solution process involves, among other things, fast Fourier transforms. It has been reported to the effect that some measure of the wavefront is decomposed into modes of the optical system under test, but it has not been reported whether this decomposition is postprocessing of the solution or part of the solution process.

Development of a Software Tool to Automate ADCO Flight Controller Console Planning Tasks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Anderson, Mark G.

2011-01-01

This independent study project covers the development of the International Space Station (ISS) Attitude Determination and Control Officer (ADCO) Planning Exchange APEX Tool. The primary goal of the tool is to streamline existing manual and time-intensive planning tools into a more automated, user-friendly application that interfaces with existing products and allows the ADCO to produce accurate products and timelines more effectively. This paper will survey the current ISS attitude planning process and its associated requirements, goals, documentation and software tools and how a software tool could simplify and automate many of the planning actions which occur at the ADCO console. The project will be covered from inception through the initial prototype delivery in November 2011 and will include development of design requirements and software as well as design verification and testing.

Oscillating solutions for nonlinear Helmholtz equations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mandel, Rainer; Montefusco, Eugenio; Pellacci, Benedetta

2017-12-01

Existence results for radially symmetric oscillating solutions for a class of nonlinear autonomous Helmholtz equations are given and their exact asymptotic behaviour at infinity is established. Some generalizations to nonautonomous radial equations as well as existence results for nonradial solutions are found. Our theorems prove the existence of standing waves solutions of nonlinear Klein-Gordon or Schrödinger equations with large frequencies.

A soft computing based approach using modified selection strategy for feature reduction of medical systems.

PubMed

Zuhtuogullari, Kursat; Allahverdi, Novruz; Arikan, Nihat

2013-01-01

The systems consisting high input spaces require high processing times and memory usage. Most of the attribute selection algorithms have the problems of input dimensions limits and information storage problems. These problems are eliminated by means of developed feature reduction software using new modified selection mechanism with middle region solution candidates adding. The hybrid system software is constructed for reducing the input attributes of the systems with large number of input variables. The designed software also supports the roulette wheel selection mechanism. Linear order crossover is used as the recombination operator. In the genetic algorithm based soft computing methods, locking to the local solutions is also a problem which is eliminated by using developed software. Faster and effective results are obtained in the test procedures. Twelve input variables of the urological system have been reduced to the reducts (reduced input attributes) with seven, six, and five elements. It can be seen from the obtained results that the developed software with modified selection has the advantages in the fields of memory allocation, execution time, classification accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity values when compared with the other reduction algorithms by using the urological test data.

Software reengineering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fridge, Ernest M., III

1991-01-01

Programs in use today generally have all of the function and information processing capabilities required to do their specified job. However, older programs usually use obsolete technology, are not integrated properly with other programs, and are difficult to maintain. Reengineering is becoming a prominent discipline as organizations try to move their systems to more modern and maintainable technologies. The Johnson Space Center (JSC) Software Technology Branch (STB) is researching and developing a system to support reengineering older FORTRAN programs into more maintainable forms that can also be more readily translated to a modern languages such as FORTRAN 8x, Ada, or C. This activity has led to the development of maintenance strategies for design recovery and reengineering. These strategies include a set of standards, methodologies, and the concepts for a software environment to support design recovery and reengineering. A brief description of the problem being addressed and the approach that is being taken by the STB toward providing an economic solution to the problem is provided. A statement of the maintenance problems, the benefits and drawbacks of three alternative solutions, and a brief history of the STB experience in software reengineering are followed by the STB new FORTRAN standards, methodology, and the concepts for a software environment.

Modern Corneal Eye-Banking Using a Software-Based IT Management Solution.

PubMed

Kern, C; Kortuem, K; Wertheimer, C; Nilmayer, O; Dirisamer, M; Priglinger, S; Mayer, W J

2018-01-01

Increasing government legislation and regulations in manufacturing have led to additional documentation regarding the pharmaceutical product requirements of corneal grafts in the European Union. The aim of this project was to develop a software within a hospital information system (HIS) to support the documentation process, to improve the management of the patient waiting list and to increase informational flow between the clinic and eye bank. After an analysis of the current documentation process, a new workflow and software were implemented in our electronic health record (EHR) system. The software takes over most of the documentation and reduces the time required for record keeping. It guarantees real-time tracing of all steps during human corneal tissue processing from the start of production until allocation during surgery and includes follow-up within the HIS. Moreover, listing of the patient for surgery as well as waiting list management takes place in the same system. The new software for corneal eye banking supports the whole process chain by taking over both most of the required documentation and the management of the transplant waiting list. It may provide a standardized IT-based solution for German eye banks working within the same HIS.

A Soft Computing Based Approach Using Modified Selection Strategy for Feature Reduction of Medical Systems

PubMed Central

Zuhtuogullari, Kursat; Allahverdi, Novruz; Arikan, Nihat

2013-01-01

The systems consisting high input spaces require high processing times and memory usage. Most of the attribute selection algorithms have the problems of input dimensions limits and information storage problems. These problems are eliminated by means of developed feature reduction software using new modified selection mechanism with middle region solution candidates adding. The hybrid system software is constructed for reducing the input attributes of the systems with large number of input variables. The designed software also supports the roulette wheel selection mechanism. Linear order crossover is used as the recombination operator. In the genetic algorithm based soft computing methods, locking to the local solutions is also a problem which is eliminated by using developed software. Faster and effective results are obtained in the test procedures. Twelve input variables of the urological system have been reduced to the reducts (reduced input attributes) with seven, six, and five elements. It can be seen from the obtained results that the developed software with modified selection has the advantages in the fields of memory allocation, execution time, classification accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity values when compared with the other reduction algorithms by using the urological test data. PMID:23573172

Heterogeneity prevails: the state of clinical trial data management in Europe - results of a survey of ECRIN centres

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background The use of Clinical Data Management Systems (CDMS) has become essential in clinical trials to handle the increasing amount of data that must be collected and analyzed. With a CDMS trial data are captured at investigator sites with "electronic Case Report Forms". Although more and more of these electronic data management systems are used in academic research centres an overview of CDMS products and of available data management and quality management resources for academic clinical trials in Europe is missing. Methods The ECRIN (European Clinical Research Infrastructure Network) data management working group conducted a two-part standardized survey on data management, software tools, and quality management for clinical trials. The questionnaires were answered by nearly 80 centres/units (with an overall response rate of 47% and 43%) from 12 European countries and EORTC. Results Our survey shows that about 90% of centres have a CDMS in routine use. Of these CDMS nearly 50% are commercial systems; Open Source solutions don't play a major role. In general, solutions used for clinical data management are very heterogeneous: 20 different commercial CDMS products (7 Open Source solutions) in addition to 17/18 proprietary systems are in use. The most widely employed CDMS products are MACRO™ and Capture System™, followed by solutions that are used in at least 3 centres: eResearch Network™, CleanWeb™, GCP Base™ and SAS™. Although quality management systems for data management are in place in most centres/units, there exist some deficits in the area of system validation. Conclusions Because the considerable heterogeneity of data management software solutions may be a hindrance to cooperation based on trial data exchange, standards like CDISC (Clinical Data Interchange Standard Consortium) should be implemented more widely. In a heterogeneous environment the use of data standards can simplify data exchange, increase the quality of data and prepare centres for new developments (e.g. the use of EHR for clinical research). Because data management and the use of electronic data capture systems in clinical trials are characterized by the impact of regulations and guidelines, ethical concerns are discussed. In this context quality management becomes an important part of compliant data management. To address these issues ECRIN will establish certified data centres to support electronic data management and associated compliance needs of clinical trial centres in Europe. PMID:20663165

Four simple recommendations to encourage best practices in research software

PubMed Central

Jiménez, Rafael C.; Kuzak, Mateusz; Alhamdoosh, Monther; Barker, Michelle; Batut, Bérénice; Borg, Mikael; Capella-Gutierrez, Salvador; Chue Hong, Neil; Cook, Martin; Corpas, Manuel; Flannery, Madison; Garcia, Leyla; Gelpí, Josep Ll.; Gladman, Simon; Goble, Carole; González Ferreiro, Montserrat; Gonzalez-Beltran, Alejandra; Griffin, Philippa C.; Grüning, Björn; Hagberg, Jonas; Holub, Petr; Hooft, Rob; Ison, Jon; Katz, Daniel S.; Leskošek, Brane; López Gómez, Federico; Oliveira, Luis J.; Mellor, David; Mosbergen, Rowland; Mulder, Nicola; Perez-Riverol, Yasset; Pergl, Robert; Pichler, Horst; Pope, Bernard; Sanz, Ferran; Schneider, Maria V.; Stodden, Victoria; Suchecki, Radosław; Svobodová Vařeková, Radka; Talvik, Harry-Anton; Todorov, Ilian; Treloar, Andrew; Tyagi, Sonika; van Gompel, Maarten; Vaughan, Daniel; Via, Allegra; Wang, Xiaochuan; Watson-Haigh, Nathan S.; Crouch, Steve

2017-01-01

Scientific research relies on computer software, yet software is not always developed following practices that ensure its quality and sustainability. This manuscript does not aim to propose new software development best practices, but rather to provide simple recommendations that encourage the adoption of existing best practices. Software development best practices promote better quality software, and better quality software improves the reproducibility and reusability of research. These recommendations are designed around Open Source values, and provide practical suggestions that contribute to making research software and its source code more discoverable, reusable and transparent. This manuscript is aimed at developers, but also at organisations, projects, journals and funders that can increase the quality and sustainability of research software by encouraging the adoption of these recommendations. PMID:28751965