Brokered virtual hubs for facilitating access and use of geospatial Open Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mazzetti, Paolo; Latre, Miguel; Kamali, Nargess; Brumana, Raffaella; Braumann, Stefan; Nativi, Stefano

2016-04-01

Open Data is a major trend in current information technology scenario and it is often publicised as one of the pillars of the information society in the near future. In particular, geospatial Open Data have a huge potential also for Earth Sciences, through the enablement of innovative applications and services integrating heterogeneous information. However, open does not mean usable. As it was recognized at the very beginning of the Web revolution, many different degrees of openness exist: from simple sharing in a proprietary format to advanced sharing in standard formats and including semantic information. Therefore, to fully unleash the potential of geospatial Open Data, advanced infrastructures are needed to increase the data openness degree, enhancing their usability. In October 2014, the ENERGIC OD (European NEtwork for Redistributing Geospatial Information to user Communities - Open Data) project, funded by the European Union under the Competitiveness and Innovation framework Programme (CIP), has started. In response to the EU call, the general objective of the project is to "facilitate the use of open (freely available) geographic data from different sources for the creation of innovative applications and services through the creation of Virtual Hubs". The ENERGIC OD Virtual Hubs aim to facilitate the use of geospatial Open Data by lowering and possibly removing the main barriers which hampers geo-information (GI) usage by end-users and application developers. Data and services heterogeneity is recognized as one of the major barriers to Open Data (re-)use. It imposes end-users and developers to spend a lot of effort in accessing different infrastructures and harmonizing datasets. Such heterogeneity cannot be completely removed through the adoption of standard specifications for service interfaces, metadata and data models, since different infrastructures adopt different standards to answer to specific challenges and to address specific use-cases. Thus, beyond a certain extent, heterogeneity is irreducible especially in interdisciplinary contexts. ENERGIC OD Virtual Hubs address heterogeneity adopting a mediation and brokering approach: specific components (brokers) are dedicated to harmonize service interfaces, metadata and data models, enabling seamless discovery and access to heterogeneous infrastructures and datasets. As an innovation project, ENERGIC OD integrates several existing technologies to implement Virtual Hubs as single points of access to geospatial datasets provided by new or existing platforms and infrastructures, including INSPIRE-compliant systems and Copernicus services. A first version of the ENERGIC OD brokers has been implemented based on the GI-Suite Brokering Framework developed by CNR-IIA, and complemented with other tools under integration and development. It already enables mediated discovery and harmonized access to different geospatial Open Data sources. It is accessible by users as Software-as-a-Service through a browser. Moreover, open APIs and a Javascript library are available for application developers. Six ENERGIC OD Virtual Hubs have been currently deployed: one at regional level (Berlin metropolitan area) and five at national-level (in France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain). Each Virtual Hub manager decided the deployment strategy (local infrastructure or commercial Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud), and the list of connected Open Data sources. The ENERGIC OD Virtual Hubs are under test and validation through the development of ten different mobile and Web applications.

Crossing the Virtual World Barrier with OpenAvatar

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Joy, Bruce; Kavle, Lori; Tan, Ian

2012-01-01

There are multiple standards and formats for 3D models in virtual environments. The problem is that there is no open source platform for generating models out of discrete parts; this results in the process of having to "reinvent the wheel" when new games, virtual worlds and simulations want to enable their users to create their own avatars or easily customize in-world objects. OpenAvatar is designed to provide a framework to allow artists and programmers to create reusable assets which can be used by end users to generate vast numbers of complete models that are unique and functional. OpenAvatar serves as a framework which facilitates the modularization of 3D models allowing parts to be interchanged within a set of logical constraints.

Virtual GEOINT Center: C2ISR through an avatar's eyes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seibert, Mark; Tidbal, Travis; Basil, Maureen; Muryn, Tyler; Scupski, Joseph; Williams, Robert

2013-05-01

As the number of devices collecting and sending data in the world are increasing, finding ways to visualize and understand that data is becoming more and more of a problem. This has often been coined as the problem of "Big Data." The Virtual Geoint Center (VGC) aims to aid in solving that problem by providing a way to combine the use of the virtual world with outside tools. Using open-source software such as OpenSim and Blender, the VGC uses a visually stunning 3D environment to display the data sent to it. The VGC is broken up into two major components: The Kinect Minimap, and the Geoint Map. The Kinect Minimap uses the Microsoft Kinect and its open-source software to make a miniature display of people the Kinect detects in front of it. The Geoint Map collect smartphone sensor information from online databases and displays them in real time onto a map generated by Google Maps. By combining outside tools and the virtual world, the VGC can help a user "visualize" data, and provide additional tools to "understand" the data.

Is There a Second Life for Virtual Worlds?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ramaswami, Rama

2011-01-01

Just a few years ago, virtual worlds were credited with the power to transform the universe. Used since the late 1990s in military and medical applications, virtual worlds first gained mainstream media attention when Linden Lab released Second Life in 2003. While other worlds, including open source environments, have launched since then (examples…

Opening Up to Open Source: Looking at How Moodle Was Adopted in Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Costello, Eamon

2013-01-01

The virtual learning environment (VLE) has grown to become a piece of complex infrastructure that is now deemed critical to higher educational provision. This paper looks at Moodle and its adoption in higher education. Moodle's origins, as an open source VLE, are investigated and its growth examined in the context of how higher educational…

Visualization of N-body Simulations in Virtual Worlds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Knop, Robert A.; Ames, J.; Djorgovski, G.; Farr, W.; Hut, P.; Johnson, A.; McMillan, S.; Nakasone, A.; Vesperini, E.

2010-01-01

We report on work to use virtual worlds for visualizing the results of N-body calculations, on three levels. First, we have written a demonstration 3-body solver entirely in the scripting language of the popularly used virtual world Second Life. Second, we have written a physics module for the open source virtual world OpenSim that performs N-body calculations as the physics engine for the server, allowing natural 3-d visualization of the solution as the solution is being performed. Finally, we give an initial report on the potential use of virtual worlds to visualize calculations which have previously been performed, or which are being performed in other processes and reported to the virtual world server. This work has been performed as part of the Meta-Institute of Computational Astrophysics (MICA). http://www.mica-vw.org

New virtual laboratories presenting advanced motion control concepts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goubej, Martin; Krejčí, Alois; Reitinger, Jan

2015-11-01

The paper deals with development of software framework for rapid generation of remote virtual laboratories. Client-server architecture is chosen in order to employ real-time simulation core which is running on a dedicated server. Ordinary web browser is used as a final renderer to achieve hardware independent solution which can be run on different target platforms including laptops, tablets or mobile phones. The provided toolchain allows automatic generation of the virtual laboratory source code from the configuration file created in the open- source Inkscape graphic editor. Three virtual laboratories presenting advanced motion control algorithms have been developed showing the applicability of the proposed approach.

Open source tools for management and archiving of digital microscopy data to allow integration with patient pathology and treatment information

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Virtual microscopy includes digitisation of histology slides and the use of computer technologies for complex investigation of diseases such as cancer. However, automated image analysis, or website publishing of such digital images, is hampered by their large file sizes. Results We have developed two Java based open source tools: Snapshot Creator and NDPI-Splitter. Snapshot Creator converts a portion of a large digital slide into a desired quality JPEG image. The image is linked to the patient’s clinical and treatment information in a customised open source cancer data management software (Caisis) in use at the Australian Breast Cancer Tissue Bank (ABCTB) and then published on the ABCTB website (http://www.abctb.org.au) using Deep Zoom open source technology. Using the ABCTB online search engine, digital images can be searched by defining various criteria such as cancer type, or biomarkers expressed. NDPI-Splitter splits a large image file into smaller sections of TIFF images so that they can be easily analysed by image analysis software such as Metamorph or Matlab. NDPI-Splitter also has the capacity to filter out empty images. Conclusions Snapshot Creator and NDPI-Splitter are novel open source Java tools. They convert digital slides into files of smaller size for further processing. In conjunction with other open source tools such as Deep Zoom and Caisis, this suite of tools is used for the management and archiving of digital microscopy images, enabling digitised images to be explored and zoomed online. Our online image repository also has the capacity to be used as a teaching resource. These tools also enable large files to be sectioned for image analysis. Virtual Slides The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/5330903258483934 PMID:23402499

Analyzing huge pathology images with open source software

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Digital pathology images are increasingly used both for diagnosis and research, because slide scanners are nowadays broadly available and because the quantitative study of these images yields new insights in systems biology. However, such virtual slides build up a technical challenge since the images occupy often several gigabytes and cannot be fully opened in a computer’s memory. Moreover, there is no standard format. Therefore, most common open source tools such as ImageJ fail at treating them, and the others require expensive hardware while still being prohibitively slow. Results We have developed several cross-platform open source software tools to overcome these limitations. The NDPITools provide a way to transform microscopy images initially in the loosely supported NDPI format into one or several standard TIFF files, and to create mosaics (division of huge images into small ones, with or without overlap) in various TIFF and JPEG formats. They can be driven through ImageJ plugins. The LargeTIFFTools achieve similar functionality for huge TIFF images which do not fit into RAM. We test the performance of these tools on several digital slides and compare them, when applicable, to standard software. A statistical study of the cells in a tissue sample from an oligodendroglioma was performed on an average laptop computer to demonstrate the efficiency of the tools. Conclusions Our open source software enables dealing with huge images with standard software on average computers. They are cross-platform, independent of proprietary libraries and very modular, allowing them to be used in other open source projects. They have excellent performance in terms of execution speed and RAM requirements. They open promising perspectives both to the clinician who wants to study a single slide and to the research team or data centre who do image analysis of many slides on a computer cluster. Virtual slides The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/5955513929846272 PMID:23829479

Shipping Science Worldwide with Open Source Containers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Molineaux, J. P.; McLaughlin, B. D.; Pilone, D.; Plofchan, P. G.; Murphy, K. J.

2014-12-01

Scientific applications often present difficult web-hosting needs. Their compute- and data-intensive nature, as well as an increasing need for high-availability and distribution, combine to create a challenging set of hosting requirements. In the past year, advancements in container-based virtualization and related tooling have offered new lightweight and flexible ways to accommodate diverse applications with all the isolation and portability benefits of traditional virtualization. This session will introduce and demonstrate an open-source, single-interface, Platform-as-a-Serivce (PaaS) that empowers application developers to seamlessly leverage geographically distributed, public and private compute resources to achieve highly-available, performant hosting for scientific applications.

Open Source Service Agent (OSSA) in the intelligence community's Open Source Architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fiene, Bruce F.

1994-01-01

The Community Open Source Program Office (COSPO) has developed an architecture for the intelligence community's new Open Source Information System (OSIS). The architecture is a multi-phased program featuring connectivity, interoperability, and functionality. OSIS is based on a distributed architecture concept. The system is designed to function as a virtual entity. OSIS will be a restricted (non-public), user configured network employing Internet communications. Privacy and authentication will be provided through firewall protection. Connection to OSIS can be made through any server on the Internet or through dial-up modems provided the appropriate firewall authentication system is installed on the client.

NEDE: an open-source scripting suite for developing experiments in 3D virtual environments.

PubMed

Jangraw, David C; Johri, Ansh; Gribetz, Meron; Sajda, Paul

2014-09-30

As neuroscientists endeavor to understand the brain's response to ecologically valid scenarios, many are leaving behind hyper-controlled paradigms in favor of more realistic ones. This movement has made the use of 3D rendering software an increasingly compelling option. However, mastering such software and scripting rigorous experiments requires a daunting amount of time and effort. To reduce these startup costs and make virtual environment studies more accessible to researchers, we demonstrate a naturalistic experimental design environment (NEDE) that allows experimenters to present realistic virtual stimuli while still providing tight control over the subject's experience. NEDE is a suite of open-source scripts built on the widely used Unity3D game development software, giving experimenters access to powerful rendering tools while interfacing with eye tracking and EEG, randomizing stimuli, and providing custom task prompts. Researchers using NEDE can present a dynamic 3D virtual environment in which randomized stimulus objects can be placed, allowing subjects to explore in search of these objects. NEDE interfaces with a research-grade eye tracker in real-time to maintain precise timing records and sync with EEG or other recording modalities. Python offers an alternative for experienced programmers who feel comfortable mastering and integrating the various toolboxes available. NEDE combines many of these capabilities with an easy-to-use interface and, through Unity's extensive user base, a much more substantial body of assets and tutorials. Our flexible, open-source experimental design system lowers the barrier to entry for neuroscientists interested in developing experiments in realistic virtual environments. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Open Source Software and Design-Based Research Symbiosis in Developing 3D Virtual Learning Environments: Examples from the iSocial Project

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schmidt, Matthew; Galyen, Krista; Laffey, James; Babiuch, Ryan; Schmidt, Carla

2014-01-01

Design-based research (DBR) and open source software are both acknowledged as potentially productive ways for advancing learning technologies. These approaches have practical benefits for the design and development process and for building and leveraging community to augment and sustain design and development. This report presents a case study of…

OpenLMD, multimodal monitoring and control of LMD processing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rodríguez-Araújo, Jorge; García-Díaz, Antón

2017-02-01

This paper presents OpenLMD, a novel open-source solution for on-line multimodal monitoring of Laser Metal Deposition (LMD). The solution is also applicable to a wider range of laser-based applications that require on-line control (e.g. laser welding). OpenLMD is a middleware that enables the orchestration and virtualization of a LMD robot cell, using several open-source frameworks (e.g. ROS, OpenCV, PCL). The solution also allows reconfiguration by easy integration of multiple sensors and processing equipment. As a result, OpenLMD delivers significant advantages over existing monitoring and control approaches, such as improved scalability, and multimodal monitoring and data sharing capabilities.

Virtual Patients on the Semantic Web: A Proof-of-Application Study

PubMed Central

Dafli, Eleni; Antoniou, Panagiotis; Ioannidis, Lazaros; Dombros, Nicholas; Topps, David

2015-01-01

Background Virtual patients are interactive computer simulations that are increasingly used as learning activities in modern health care education, especially in teaching clinical decision making. A key challenge is how to retrieve and repurpose virtual patients as unique types of educational resources between different platforms because of the lack of standardized content-retrieving and repurposing mechanisms. Semantic Web technologies provide the capability, through structured information, for easy retrieval, reuse, repurposing, and exchange of virtual patients between different systems. Objective An attempt to address this challenge has been made through the mEducator Best Practice Network, which provisioned frameworks for the discovery, retrieval, sharing, and reuse of medical educational resources. We have extended the OpenLabyrinth virtual patient authoring and deployment platform to facilitate the repurposing and retrieval of existing virtual patient material. Methods A standalone Web distribution and Web interface, which contains an extension for the OpenLabyrinth virtual patient authoring system, was implemented. This extension was designed to semantically annotate virtual patients to facilitate intelligent searches, complex queries, and easy exchange between institutions. The OpenLabyrinth extension enables OpenLabyrinth authors to integrate and share virtual patient case metadata within the mEducator3.0 network. Evaluation included 3 successive steps: (1) expert reviews; (2) evaluation of the ability of health care professionals and medical students to create, share, and exchange virtual patients through specific scenarios in extended OpenLabyrinth (OLabX); and (3) evaluation of the repurposed learning objects that emerged from the procedure. Results We evaluated 30 repurposed virtual patient cases. The evaluation, with a total of 98 participants, demonstrated the system’s main strength: the core repurposing capacity. The extensive metadata schema presentation facilitated user exploration and filtering of resources. Usability weaknesses were primarily related to standard computer applications’ ease of use provisions. Most evaluators provided positive feedback regarding educational experiences on both content and system usability. Evaluation results replicated across several independent evaluation events. Conclusions The OpenLabyrinth extension, as part of the semantic mEducator3.0 approach, is a virtual patient sharing approach that builds on a collection of Semantic Web services and federates existing sources of clinical and educational data. It is an effective sharing tool for virtual patients and has been merged into the next version of the app (OpenLabyrinth 3.3). Such tool extensions may enhance the medical education arsenal with capacities of creating simulation/game-based learning episodes, massive open online courses, curricular transformations, and a future robust infrastructure for enabling mobile learning. PMID:25616272

Virtual patients on the semantic Web: a proof-of-application study.

PubMed

Dafli, Eleni; Antoniou, Panagiotis; Ioannidis, Lazaros; Dombros, Nicholas; Topps, David; Bamidis, Panagiotis D

2015-01-22

Virtual patients are interactive computer simulations that are increasingly used as learning activities in modern health care education, especially in teaching clinical decision making. A key challenge is how to retrieve and repurpose virtual patients as unique types of educational resources between different platforms because of the lack of standardized content-retrieving and repurposing mechanisms. Semantic Web technologies provide the capability, through structured information, for easy retrieval, reuse, repurposing, and exchange of virtual patients between different systems. An attempt to address this challenge has been made through the mEducator Best Practice Network, which provisioned frameworks for the discovery, retrieval, sharing, and reuse of medical educational resources. We have extended the OpenLabyrinth virtual patient authoring and deployment platform to facilitate the repurposing and retrieval of existing virtual patient material. A standalone Web distribution and Web interface, which contains an extension for the OpenLabyrinth virtual patient authoring system, was implemented. This extension was designed to semantically annotate virtual patients to facilitate intelligent searches, complex queries, and easy exchange between institutions. The OpenLabyrinth extension enables OpenLabyrinth authors to integrate and share virtual patient case metadata within the mEducator3.0 network. Evaluation included 3 successive steps: (1) expert reviews; (2) evaluation of the ability of health care professionals and medical students to create, share, and exchange virtual patients through specific scenarios in extended OpenLabyrinth (OLabX); and (3) evaluation of the repurposed learning objects that emerged from the procedure. We evaluated 30 repurposed virtual patient cases. The evaluation, with a total of 98 participants, demonstrated the system's main strength: the core repurposing capacity. The extensive metadata schema presentation facilitated user exploration and filtering of resources. Usability weaknesses were primarily related to standard computer applications' ease of use provisions. Most evaluators provided positive feedback regarding educational experiences on both content and system usability. Evaluation results replicated across several independent evaluation events. The OpenLabyrinth extension, as part of the semantic mEducator3.0 approach, is a virtual patient sharing approach that builds on a collection of Semantic Web services and federates existing sources of clinical and educational data. It is an effective sharing tool for virtual patients and has been merged into the next version of the app (OpenLabyrinth 3.3). Such tool extensions may enhance the medical education arsenal with capacities of creating simulation/game-based learning episodes, massive open online courses, curricular transformations, and a future robust infrastructure for enabling mobile learning.

Molecular Rift: Virtual Reality for Drug Designers.

PubMed

Norrby, Magnus; Grebner, Christoph; Eriksson, Joakim; Boström, Jonas

2015-11-23

Recent advances in interaction design have created new ways to use computers. One example is the ability to create enhanced 3D environments that simulate physical presence in the real world--a virtual reality. This is relevant to drug discovery since molecular models are frequently used to obtain deeper understandings of, say, ligand-protein complexes. We have developed a tool (Molecular Rift), which creates a virtual reality environment steered with hand movements. Oculus Rift, a head-mounted display, is used to create the virtual settings. The program is controlled by gesture-recognition, using the gaming sensor MS Kinect v2, eliminating the need for standard input devices. The Open Babel toolkit was integrated to provide access to powerful cheminformatics functions. Molecular Rift was developed with a focus on usability, including iterative test-group evaluations. We conclude with reflections on virtual reality's future capabilities in chemistry and education. Molecular Rift is open source and can be downloaded from GitHub.

Role of Open Source Tools and Resources in Virtual Screening for Drug Discovery.

PubMed

Karthikeyan, Muthukumarasamy; Vyas, Renu

2015-01-01

Advancement in chemoinformatics research in parallel with availability of high performance computing platform has made handling of large scale multi-dimensional scientific data for high throughput drug discovery easier. In this study we have explored publicly available molecular databases with the help of open-source based integrated in-house molecular informatics tools for virtual screening. The virtual screening literature for past decade has been extensively investigated and thoroughly analyzed to reveal interesting patterns with respect to the drug, target, scaffold and disease space. The review also focuses on the integrated chemoinformatics tools that are capable of harvesting chemical data from textual literature information and transform them into truly computable chemical structures, identification of unique fragments and scaffolds from a class of compounds, automatic generation of focused virtual libraries, computation of molecular descriptors for structure-activity relationship studies, application of conventional filters used in lead discovery along with in-house developed exhaustive PTC (Pharmacophore, Toxicophores and Chemophores) filters and machine learning tools for the design of potential disease specific inhibitors. A case study on kinase inhibitors is provided as an example.

Evaluation and selection of open-source EMR software packages based on integrated AHP and TOPSIS.

PubMed

Zaidan, A A; Zaidan, B B; Al-Haiqi, Ahmed; Kiah, M L M; Hussain, Muzammil; Abdulnabi, Mohamed

2015-02-01

Evaluating and selecting software packages that meet the requirements of an organization are difficult aspects of software engineering process. Selecting the wrong open-source EMR software package can be costly and may adversely affect business processes and functioning of the organization. This study aims to evaluate and select open-source EMR software packages based on multi-criteria decision-making. A hands-on study was performed and a set of open-source EMR software packages were implemented locally on separate virtual machines to examine the systems more closely. Several measures as evaluation basis were specified, and the systems were selected based a set of metric outcomes using Integrated Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and TOPSIS. The experimental results showed that GNUmed and OpenEMR software can provide better basis on ranking score records than other open-source EMR software packages. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Open source tools for management and archiving of digital microscopy data to allow integration with patient pathology and treatment information.

PubMed

Khushi, Matloob; Edwards, Georgina; de Marcos, Diego Alonso; Carpenter, Jane E; Graham, J Dinny; Clarke, Christine L

2013-02-12

Virtual microscopy includes digitisation of histology slides and the use of computer technologies for complex investigation of diseases such as cancer. However, automated image analysis, or website publishing of such digital images, is hampered by their large file sizes. We have developed two Java based open source tools: Snapshot Creator and NDPI-Splitter. Snapshot Creator converts a portion of a large digital slide into a desired quality JPEG image. The image is linked to the patient's clinical and treatment information in a customised open source cancer data management software (Caisis) in use at the Australian Breast Cancer Tissue Bank (ABCTB) and then published on the ABCTB website (http://www.abctb.org.au) using Deep Zoom open source technology. Using the ABCTB online search engine, digital images can be searched by defining various criteria such as cancer type, or biomarkers expressed. NDPI-Splitter splits a large image file into smaller sections of TIFF images so that they can be easily analysed by image analysis software such as Metamorph or Matlab. NDPI-Splitter also has the capacity to filter out empty images. Snapshot Creator and NDPI-Splitter are novel open source Java tools. They convert digital slides into files of smaller size for further processing. In conjunction with other open source tools such as Deep Zoom and Caisis, this suite of tools is used for the management and archiving of digital microscopy images, enabling digitised images to be explored and zoomed online. Our online image repository also has the capacity to be used as a teaching resource. These tools also enable large files to be sectioned for image analysis. The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/5330903258483934.

Navigating protected genomics data with UCSC Genome Browser in a Box.

PubMed

Haeussler, Maximilian; Raney, Brian J; Hinrichs, Angie S; Clawson, Hiram; Zweig, Ann S; Karolchik, Donna; Casper, Jonathan; Speir, Matthew L; Haussler, David; Kent, W James

2015-03-01

Genome Browser in a Box (GBiB) is a small virtual machine version of the popular University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) Genome Browser that can be run on a researcher's own computer. Once GBiB is installed, a standard web browser is used to access the virtual server and add personal data files from the local hard disk. Annotation data are loaded on demand through the Internet from UCSC or can be downloaded to the local computer for faster access. Software downloads and installation instructions are freely available for non-commercial use at https://genome-store.ucsc.edu/. GBiB requires the installation of open-source software VirtualBox, available for all major operating systems, and the UCSC Genome Browser, which is open source and free for non-commercial use. Commercial use of GBiB and the Genome Browser requires a license (http://genome.ucsc.edu/license/). © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press.

Creation of virtual patients for midwifery education.

PubMed

Urbanová, Eva; Bašková, Martina; Maskálová, Erika; Kvaltínyová, Eva

2018-07-01

The objective of the study was to create several new, original virtual patients (VPs) in the Slovak language, especially for educational purposes in midwifery. Virtual patients have been created for the needs of university midwifery education in Slovakia. The creation of the six virtual patients basically consisted of three fixed stages: preparation, design and development, implementation into the virtual environment. We used the Open Labyrinth (OL) virtual environment, an open-source system for creating VPs. The VPs include six various scenarios of the most common problems seen in midwifery practice: preterm birth, perinatal loss, gestational diabetes, ineffective breastfeeding, postpartum bleeding and sudden home birth. Currently, six original virtual patients are used in university midwifery education in Slovakia. We use them for contact teaching as well as self-study of students. They present the first VPs in Slovakia and the Czech Republic created in academic settings in these countries. The future perspective of a virtual patient as an interactive process between the student and the medium is that it can deepen and improve learning outcomes, solve specific midwifery issues, and reduce mistakes in the clinical environment. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

myChEMBL: a virtual machine implementation of open data and cheminformatics tools.

PubMed

Ochoa, Rodrigo; Davies, Mark; Papadatos, George; Atkinson, Francis; Overington, John P

2014-01-15

myChEMBL is a completely open platform, which combines public domain bioactivity data with open source database and cheminformatics technologies. myChEMBL consists of a Linux (Ubuntu) Virtual Machine featuring a PostgreSQL schema with the latest version of the ChEMBL database, as well as the latest RDKit cheminformatics libraries. In addition, a self-contained web interface is available, which can be modified and improved according to user specifications. The VM is available at: ftp://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/databases/chembl/VM/myChEMBL/current. The web interface and web services code is available at: https://github.com/rochoa85/myChEMBL.

Development of an Innovative Interactive Virtual Classroom System for K-12 Education Using Google App Engine

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mumba, Frackson; Zhu, Mengxia

2013-01-01

This paper presents a Simulation-based interactive Virtual ClassRoom web system (SVCR: www.vclasie.com) powered by the state-of-the-art cloud computing technology from Google SVCR integrates popular free open-source math, science and engineering simulations and provides functions such as secure user access control and management of courses,…

Virtual Labs (Science Gateways) as platforms for Free and Open Source Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lescinsky, David; Car, Nicholas; Fraser, Ryan; Friedrich, Carsten; Kemp, Carina; Squire, Geoffrey

2016-04-01

The Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement promotes community engagement in software development, as well as provides access to a range of sophisticated technologies that would be prohibitively expensive if obtained commercially. However, as geoinformatics and eResearch tools and services become more dispersed, it becomes more complicated to identify and interface between the many required components. Virtual Laboratories (VLs, also known as Science Gateways) simplify the management and coordination of these components by providing a platform linking many, if not all, of the steps in particular scientific processes. These enable scientists to focus on their science, rather than the underlying supporting technologies. We describe a modular, open source, VL infrastructure that can be reconfigured to create VLs for a wide range of disciplines. Development of this infrastructure has been led by CSIRO in collaboration with Geoscience Australia and the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) with support from the National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources (NeCTAR) and the Australian National Data Service (ANDS). Initially, the infrastructure was developed to support the Virtual Geophysical Laboratory (VGL), and has subsequently been repurposed to create the Virtual Hazards Impact and Risk Laboratory (VHIRL) and the reconfigured Australian National Virtual Geophysics Laboratory (ANVGL). During each step of development, new capabilities and services have been added and/or enhanced. We plan on continuing to follow this model using a shared, community code base. The VL platform facilitates transparent and reproducible science by providing access to both the data and methodologies used during scientific investigations. This is further enhanced by the ability to set up and run investigations using computational resources accessed through the VL. Data is accessed using registries pointing to catalogues within public data repositories (notably including the NCI National Environmental Research Data Interoperability Platform), or by uploading data directly from user supplied addresses or files. Similarly, scientific software is accessed through registries pointing to software repositories (e.g., GitHub). Runs are configured by using or modifying default templates designed by subject matter experts. After the appropriate computational resources are identified by the user, Virtual Machines (VMs) are spun up and jobs are submitted to service providers (currently the NeCTAR public cloud or Amazon Web Services). Following completion of the jobs the results can be reviewed and downloaded if desired. By providing a unified platform for science, the VL infrastructure enables sophisticated provenance capture and management. The source of input data (including both collection and queries), user information, software information (version and configuration details) and output information are all captured and managed as a VL resource which can be linked to output data sets. This provenance resource provides a mechanism for publication and citation for Free and Open Source Science.

Innovation in engineering education through computer assisted learning and virtual university model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Raicu, A.; Raicu, G.

2015-11-01

The paper presents the most important aspects of innovation in Engineering Education using Computer Assisted Learning. The authors propose to increase the quality of Engineering Education programs of study at European standards. The use of computer assisted learning methodologies in all studies is becoming an important resource in Higher Education. We intend to improve the concept of e-Learning using virtual terminals, online support and assisting special training through live seminars and interactive labs to develop a virtual university model. We intend to encourage computer assisted learning and innovation as sources of competitive advantage, to permit vision and learning analysis, identifies new sources of technology and ideas. Our work is based on our university datasets collected during last fifteen years using several e-Learning systems. In Constanta Maritime University (CMU), using eLearning and Knowledge Management Services (KMS) is very important and we apply it effectively to achieve strategic objectives, such as collaboration, sharing and good practice. We have experience in this field since 2000 year using Moodle as KMS in our university. The term KMS can be associated to Open Source Software, Open Standards, Open Protocols and Open Knowledge licenses, initiatives and policies. In CMU Virtual Campus we have today over 12500 active users. Another experience of the authors is the implementation of MariTrainer Wiki educational platform based on Dokeos and DekiWiki under MARICOMP and MEP Leonardo da Vinci Project. We'll also present in this paper a case study under EU funded project POSDRU, where the authors implemented other educational platform in Technological High Schools from Romania used over 1000 teachers. Based on large datasets the study tries to improve the concept of e-Learning teaching using the revolutionary technologies. The new concept present in this paper is that the teaching and learning will be interactive and live. The new and modern techniques are the flexible learning courses, the production of learning demonstrators and testing. All the information from the virtual educational platform remain open space, communication between participants and continued after graduation, so we can talk about creating and maintaining a community of graduates, a partnership with them. Every European University must have a department which aims to provide computer assisted learning using knowledge creation through learning, capture and explication, sharing and collaborative communication, access, use and reuse and knowledge archiving.

Building a virtual simulation platform for quasistatic breast ultrasound elastography using open source software: A preliminary investigation.

PubMed

Wang, Yu; Helminen, Emily; Jiang, Jingfeng

2015-09-01

Quasistatic ultrasound elastography (QUE) is being used to augment in vivo characterization of breast lesions. Results from early clinical trials indicated that there was a lack of confidence in image interpretation. Such confidence can only be gained through rigorous imaging tests using complex, heterogeneous but known media. The objective of this study is to build a virtual breast QUE simulation platform in the public domain that can be used not only for innovative QUE research but also for rigorous imaging tests. The main thrust of this work is to streamline biomedical ultrasound simulations by leveraging existing open source software packages including Field II (ultrasound simulator), VTK (geometrical visualization and processing), FEBio [finite element (FE) analysis], and Tetgen (mesh generator). However, integration of these open source packages is nontrivial and requires interdisciplinary knowledge. In the first step, a virtual breast model containing complex anatomical geometries was created through a novel combination of image-based landmark structures and randomly distributed (small) structures. Image-based landmark structures were based on data from the NIH Visible Human Project. Subsequently, an unstructured FE-mesh was created by Tetgen. In the second step, randomly positioned point scatterers were placed within the meshed breast model through an octree-based algorithm to make a virtual breast ultrasound phantom. In the third step, an ultrasound simulator (Field II) was used to interrogate the virtual breast phantom to obtain simulated ultrasound echo data. Of note, tissue deformation generated using a FE-simulator (FEBio) was the basis of deforming the original virtual breast phantom in order to obtain the postdeformation breast phantom for subsequent ultrasound simulations. Using the procedures described above, a full cycle of QUE simulations involving complex and highly heterogeneous virtual breast phantoms can be accomplished for the first time. Representative examples were used to demonstrate capabilities of this virtual simulation platform. In the first set of three ultrasound simulation examples, three heterogeneous volumes of interest were selected from a virtual breast ultrasound phantom to perform sophisticated ultrasound simulations. These resultant B-mode images realistically represented the underlying complex but known media. In the second set of three QUE examples, advanced applications in QUE were simulated. The first QUE example was to show breast tumors with complex shapes and/or compositions. The resultant strain images showed complex patterns that were normally seen in freehand clinical ultrasound data. The second and third QUE examples demonstrated (deformation-dependent) nonlinear strain imaging and time-dependent strain imaging, respectively. The proposed virtual QUE platform was implemented and successfully tested in this study. Through show-case examples, the proposed work has demonstrated its capabilities of creating sophisticated QUE data in a way that cannot be done through the manufacture of physical tissue-mimicking phantoms and other software. This open software architecture will soon be made available in the public domain and can be readily adapted to meet specific needs of different research groups to drive innovations in QUE.

Towards open-source, low-cost haptics for surgery simulation.

PubMed

Suwelack, Stefan; Sander, Christian; Schill, Julian; Serf, Manuel; Danz, Marcel; Asfour, Tamim; Burger, Wolfgang; Dillmann, Rüdiger; Speidel, Stefanie

2014-01-01

In minimally invasive surgery (MIS), virtual reality (VR) training systems have become a promising education tool. However, the adoption of these systems in research and clinical settings is still limited by the high costs of dedicated haptics hardware for MIS. In this paper, we present ongoing research towards an open-source, low-cost haptic interface for MIS simulation. We demonstrate the basic mechanical design of the device, the sensor setup as well as its software integration.

Open-Source Assisted Laboratory Automation through Graphical User Interfaces and 3D Printers: Application to Equipment Hyphenation for Higher-Order Data Generation.

PubMed

Siano, Gabriel G; Montemurro, Milagros; Alcaráz, Mirta R; Goicoechea, Héctor C

2017-10-17

Higher-order data generation implies some automation challenges, which are mainly related to the hidden programming languages and electronic details of the equipment. When techniques and/or equipment hyphenation are the key to obtaining higher-order data, the required simultaneous control of them demands funds for new hardware, software, and licenses, in addition to very skilled operators. In this work, we present Design of Inputs-Outputs with Sikuli (DIOS), a free and open-source code program that provides a general framework for the design of automated experimental procedures without prior knowledge of programming or electronics. Basically, instruments and devices are considered as nodes in a network, and every node is associated both with physical and virtual inputs and outputs. Virtual components, such as graphical user interfaces (GUIs) of equipment, are handled by means of image recognition tools provided by Sikuli scripting language, while handling of their physical counterparts is achieved using an adapted open-source three-dimensional (3D) printer. Two previously reported experiments of our research group, related to fluorescence matrices derived from kinetics and high-performance liquid chromatography, were adapted to be carried out in a more automated fashion. Satisfactory results, in terms of analytical performance, were obtained. Similarly, advantages derived from open-source tools assistance could be appreciated, mainly in terms of lesser intervention of operators and cost savings.

The Integration of CloudStack and OCCI/OpenNebula with DIRAC

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Méndez Muñoz, Víctor; Fernández Albor, Víctor; Graciani Diaz, Ricardo; Casajús Ramo, Adriàn; Fernández Pena, Tomás; Merino Arévalo, Gonzalo; José Saborido Silva, Juan

2012-12-01

The increasing availability of Cloud resources is arising as a realistic alternative to the Grid as a paradigm for enabling scientific communities to access large distributed computing resources. The DIRAC framework for distributed computing is an easy way to efficiently access to resources from both systems. This paper explains the integration of DIRAC with two open-source Cloud Managers: OpenNebula (taking advantage of the OCCI standard) and CloudStack. These are computing tools to manage the complexity and heterogeneity of distributed data center infrastructures, allowing to create virtual clusters on demand, including public, private and hybrid clouds. This approach has required to develop an extension to the previous DIRAC Virtual Machine engine, which was developed for Amazon EC2, allowing the connection with these new cloud managers. In the OpenNebula case, the development has been based on the CernVM Virtual Software Appliance with appropriate contextualization, while in the case of CloudStack, the infrastructure has been kept more general, which permits other Virtual Machine sources and operating systems being used. In both cases, CernVM File System has been used to facilitate software distribution to the computing nodes. With the resulting infrastructure, the cloud resources are transparent to the users through a friendly interface, like the DIRAC Web Portal. The main purpose of this integration is to get a system that can manage cloud and grid resources at the same time. This particular feature pushes DIRAC to a new conceptual denomination as interware, integrating different middleware. Users from different communities do not need to care about the installation of the standard software that is available at the nodes, nor the operating system of the host machine which is transparent to the user. This paper presents an analysis of the overhead of the virtual layer, doing some tests to compare the proposed approach with the existing Grid solution. License Notice: Published under licence in Journal of Physics: Conference Series by IOP Publishing Ltd.

Demonstration of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) Virtualization Capability in the US Army Research Laboratory (ARL)/Sustaining Base Network Assurance Branch (SBNAB) US Army Cyber Analytics Laboratory (ACAL) SCADA Hardware Testbed

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-05-01

application ,1 while the simulated PLC software is the open source ModbusPal Java application . When queried using the Modbus TCP protocol, ModbusPal reports...and programmable logic controller ( PLC ) components. The HMI and PLC components were instantiated with software and installed in multiple virtual...creating and capturing HMI– PLC network traffic over a 24-h period in the virtualized network and inspect the packets for errors.  Test the

The use of Facebook for virtual asynchronous focus groups in qualitative research.

PubMed

Biedermann, Narelle

2018-02-01

The Internet and the development of more user-engaging applications have opened a whole new world for researchers as a means of recruitment and data collection source. This paper describes the methodological approach of a research study that explored the experiences of Australian military spouses who packed up their family and home to accompany their spouse on an overseas posting. The study used Facebook as a recruitment tool and then as a data source through the conduct of an asynchronous virtual focus group. This paper outlines the advantages and disadvantages of this unique data source as a means of capturing the voices of a hard-to-reach population.

Analyzing huge pathology images with open source software.

PubMed

Deroulers, Christophe; Ameisen, David; Badoual, Mathilde; Gerin, Chloé; Granier, Alexandre; Lartaud, Marc

2013-06-06

Digital pathology images are increasingly used both for diagnosis and research, because slide scanners are nowadays broadly available and because the quantitative study of these images yields new insights in systems biology. However, such virtual slides build up a technical challenge since the images occupy often several gigabytes and cannot be fully opened in a computer's memory. Moreover, there is no standard format. Therefore, most common open source tools such as ImageJ fail at treating them, and the others require expensive hardware while still being prohibitively slow. We have developed several cross-platform open source software tools to overcome these limitations. The NDPITools provide a way to transform microscopy images initially in the loosely supported NDPI format into one or several standard TIFF files, and to create mosaics (division of huge images into small ones, with or without overlap) in various TIFF and JPEG formats. They can be driven through ImageJ plugins. The LargeTIFFTools achieve similar functionality for huge TIFF images which do not fit into RAM. We test the performance of these tools on several digital slides and compare them, when applicable, to standard software. A statistical study of the cells in a tissue sample from an oligodendroglioma was performed on an average laptop computer to demonstrate the efficiency of the tools. Our open source software enables dealing with huge images with standard software on average computers. They are cross-platform, independent of proprietary libraries and very modular, allowing them to be used in other open source projects. They have excellent performance in terms of execution speed and RAM requirements. They open promising perspectives both to the clinician who wants to study a single slide and to the research team or data centre who do image analysis of many slides on a computer cluster. The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here:http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/5955513929846272.

Virtual Screening with AutoDock: Theory and Practice

PubMed Central

Cosconati, Sandro; Forli, Stefano; Perryman, Alex L.; Harris, Rodney; Goodsell, David S.; Olson, Arthur J.

2011-01-01

Importance to the field Virtual screening is a computer-based technique for identifying promising compounds to bind to a target molecule of known structure. Given the rapidly increasing number of protein and nucleic acid structures, virtual screening continues to grow as an effective method for the discovery of new inhibitors and drug molecules. Areas covered in this review We describe virtual screening methods that are available in the AutoDock suite of programs, and several of our successes in using AutoDock virtual screening in pharmaceutical lead discovery. What the reader will gain A general overview of the challenges of virtual screening is presented, along with the tools available in the AutoDock suite of programs for addressing these challenges. Take home message Virtual screening is an effective tool for the discovery of compounds for use as leads in drug discovery, and the free, open source program AutoDock is an effective tool for virtual screening. PMID:21532931

Virtualization of event sources in wireless sensor networks for the internet of things.

PubMed

Lucas Martínez, Néstor; Martínez, José-Fernán; Hernández Díaz, Vicente

2014-12-01

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are generally used to collect information from the environment. The gathered data are delivered mainly to sinks or gateways that become the endpoints where applications can retrieve and process such data. However, applications would also expect from a WSN an event-driven operational model, so that they can be notified whenever occur some specific environmental changes instead of continuously analyzing the data provided periodically. In either operational model, WSNs represent a collection of interconnected objects, as outlined by the Internet of Things. Additionally, in order to fulfill the Internet of Things principles, Wireless Sensor Networks must have a virtual representation that allows indirect access to their resources, a model that should also include the virtualization of event sources in a WSN. Thus, in this paper a model for a virtual representation of event sources in a WSN is proposed. They are modeled as internet resources that are accessible by any internet application, following an Internet of Things approach. The model has been tested in a real implementation where a WSN has been deployed in an open neighborhood environment. Different event sources have been identified in the proposed scenario, and they have been represented following the proposed model.

Building a virtual simulation platform for quasistatic breast ultrasound elastography using open source software: A preliminary investigation

PubMed Central

Wang, Yu; Helminen, Emily; Jiang, Jingfeng

2015-01-01

Purpose: Quasistatic ultrasound elastography (QUE) is being used to augment in vivo characterization of breast lesions. Results from early clinical trials indicated that there was a lack of confidence in image interpretation. Such confidence can only be gained through rigorous imaging tests using complex, heterogeneous but known media. The objective of this study is to build a virtual breast QUE simulation platform in the public domain that can be used not only for innovative QUE research but also for rigorous imaging tests. Methods: The main thrust of this work is to streamline biomedical ultrasound simulations by leveraging existing open source software packages including Field II (ultrasound simulator), VTK (geometrical visualization and processing), FEBio [finite element (FE) analysis], and Tetgen (mesh generator). However, integration of these open source packages is nontrivial and requires interdisciplinary knowledge. In the first step, a virtual breast model containing complex anatomical geometries was created through a novel combination of image-based landmark structures and randomly distributed (small) structures. Image-based landmark structures were based on data from the NIH Visible Human Project. Subsequently, an unstructured FE-mesh was created by Tetgen. In the second step, randomly positioned point scatterers were placed within the meshed breast model through an octree-based algorithm to make a virtual breast ultrasound phantom. In the third step, an ultrasound simulator (Field II) was used to interrogate the virtual breast phantom to obtain simulated ultrasound echo data. Of note, tissue deformation generated using a FE-simulator (FEBio) was the basis of deforming the original virtual breast phantom in order to obtain the postdeformation breast phantom for subsequent ultrasound simulations. Using the procedures described above, a full cycle of QUE simulations involving complex and highly heterogeneous virtual breast phantoms can be accomplished for the first time. Results: Representative examples were used to demonstrate capabilities of this virtual simulation platform. In the first set of three ultrasound simulation examples, three heterogeneous volumes of interest were selected from a virtual breast ultrasound phantom to perform sophisticated ultrasound simulations. These resultant B-mode images realistically represented the underlying complex but known media. In the second set of three QUE examples, advanced applications in QUE were simulated. The first QUE example was to show breast tumors with complex shapes and/or compositions. The resultant strain images showed complex patterns that were normally seen in freehand clinical ultrasound data. The second and third QUE examples demonstrated (deformation-dependent) nonlinear strain imaging and time-dependent strain imaging, respectively. Conclusions: The proposed virtual QUE platform was implemented and successfully tested in this study. Through show-case examples, the proposed work has demonstrated its capabilities of creating sophisticated QUE data in a way that cannot be done through the manufacture of physical tissue-mimicking phantoms and other software. This open software architecture will soon be made available in the public domain and can be readily adapted to meet specific needs of different research groups to drive innovations in QUE. PMID:26328994

openBIS ELN-LIMS: an open-source database for academic laboratories.

PubMed

Barillari, Caterina; Ottoz, Diana S M; Fuentes-Serna, Juan Mariano; Ramakrishnan, Chandrasekhar; Rinn, Bernd; Rudolf, Fabian

2016-02-15

The open-source platform openBIS (open Biology Information System) offers an Electronic Laboratory Notebook and a Laboratory Information Management System (ELN-LIMS) solution suitable for the academic life science laboratories. openBIS ELN-LIMS allows researchers to efficiently document their work, to describe materials and methods and to collect raw and analyzed data. The system comes with a user-friendly web interface where data can be added, edited, browsed and searched. The openBIS software, a user guide and a demo instance are available at https://openbis-eln-lims.ethz.ch. The demo instance contains some data from our laboratory as an example to demonstrate the possibilities of the ELN-LIMS (Ottoz et al., 2014). For rapid local testing, a VirtualBox image of the ELN-LIMS is also available. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press.

Mapping, Awareness, and Virtualization Network Administrator Training Tool (MAVNATT) Architecture and Framework

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-06-01

unit may setup and teardown the entire tactical infrastructure multiple times per day. This tactical network administrator training is a critical...language and runs on Linux and Unix based systems. All provisioning is based around the Nagios Core application, a powerful backend solution for network...start up a large number of virtual machines quickly. CORE supports the simulation of fixed and mobile networks. CORE is open-source, written in Python

Architecture of web services in the enhancement of real-time 3D video virtualization in cloud environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bada, Adedayo; Wang, Qi; Alcaraz-Calero, Jose M.; Grecos, Christos

2016-04-01

This paper proposes a new approach to improving the application of 3D video rendering and streaming by jointly exploring and optimizing both cloud-based virtualization and web-based delivery. The proposed web service architecture firstly establishes a software virtualization layer based on QEMU (Quick Emulator), an open-source virtualization software that has been able to virtualize system components except for 3D rendering, which is still in its infancy. The architecture then explores the cloud environment to boost the speed of the rendering at the QEMU software virtualization layer. The capabilities and inherent limitations of Virgil 3D, which is one of the most advanced 3D virtual Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) available, are analyzed through benchmarking experiments and integrated into the architecture to further speed up the rendering. Experimental results are reported and analyzed to demonstrate the benefits of the proposed approach.

iGlobe Interactive Visualization and Analysis of Spatial Data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hogan, Patrick

2012-01-01

iGlobe is open-source software built on NASA World Wind virtual globe technology. iGlobe provides a growing set of tools for weather science, climate research, and agricultural analysis. Up until now, these types of sophisticated tools have been developed in isolation by national agencies, academic institutions, and research organizations. By providing an open-source solution to analyze and visualize weather, climate, and agricultural data, the scientific and research communities can more readily advance solutions needed to understand better the dynamics of our home planet, Earth

Open-Source Syringe Pump Library

PubMed Central

Wijnen, Bas; Hunt, Emily J.; Anzalone, Gerald C.; Pearce, Joshua M.

2014-01-01

This article explores a new open-source method for developing and manufacturing high-quality scientific equipment suitable for use in virtually any laboratory. A syringe pump was designed using freely available open-source computer aided design (CAD) software and manufactured using an open-source RepRap 3-D printer and readily available parts. The design, bill of materials and assembly instructions are globally available to anyone wishing to use them. Details are provided covering the use of the CAD software and the RepRap 3-D printer. The use of an open-source Rasberry Pi computer as a wireless control device is also illustrated. Performance of the syringe pump was assessed and the methods used for assessment are detailed. The cost of the entire system, including the controller and web-based control interface, is on the order of 5% or less than one would expect to pay for a commercial syringe pump having similar performance. The design should suit the needs of a given research activity requiring a syringe pump including carefully controlled dosing of reagents, pharmaceuticals, and delivery of viscous 3-D printer media among other applications. PMID:25229451

Large-scale virtual screening on public cloud resources with Apache Spark.

PubMed

Capuccini, Marco; Ahmed, Laeeq; Schaal, Wesley; Laure, Erwin; Spjuth, Ola

2017-01-01

Structure-based virtual screening is an in-silico method to screen a target receptor against a virtual molecular library. Applying docking-based screening to large molecular libraries can be computationally expensive, however it constitutes a trivially parallelizable task. Most of the available parallel implementations are based on message passing interface, relying on low failure rate hardware and fast network connection. Google's MapReduce revolutionized large-scale analysis, enabling the processing of massive datasets on commodity hardware and cloud resources, providing transparent scalability and fault tolerance at the software level. Open source implementations of MapReduce include Apache Hadoop and the more recent Apache Spark. We developed a method to run existing docking-based screening software on distributed cloud resources, utilizing the MapReduce approach. We benchmarked our method, which is implemented in Apache Spark, docking a publicly available target receptor against [Formula: see text]2.2 M compounds. The performance experiments show a good parallel efficiency (87%) when running in a public cloud environment. Our method enables parallel Structure-based virtual screening on public cloud resources or commodity computer clusters. The degree of scalability that we achieve allows for trying out our method on relatively small libraries first and then to scale to larger libraries. Our implementation is named Spark-VS and it is freely available as open source from GitHub (https://github.com/mcapuccini/spark-vs).Graphical abstract.

Design and Task Analysis for a Game-Based Shiphandling Simulator Using an Open Source Game Engine (DELTA3D)

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-09-01

Anthony Ciavarelli Second Reader: Roberto de Beauclair THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK i...Ciavarelli Thesis Co-Advisor Roberto de Beauclair Second Reader Mathias Kolsch Chair, Modeling, Virtual Environments, and Simulation

Applying Open Source Game Engine for Building Visual Simulation Training System of Fire Fighting

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yuan, Diping; Jin, Xuesheng; Zhang, Jin; Han, Dong

There's a growing need for fire departments to adopt a safe and fair method of training to ensure that the firefighting commander is in a position to manage a fire incident. Visual simulation training systems, with their ability to replicate and interact with virtual fire scenarios through the use of computer graphics or VR, become an effective and efficient method for fire ground education. This paper describes the system architecture and functions of a visual simulated training system of fire fighting on oil storage, which adopting Delat3D, a open source game and simulation engine, to provide realistic 3D views. It presents that using open source technology provides not only the commercial-level 3D effects but also a great reduction of cost.

Virtualization of Event Sources in Wireless Sensor Networks for the Internet of Things

PubMed Central

Martínez, Néstor Lucas; Martínez, José-Fernán; Díaz, Vicente Hernández

2014-01-01

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are generally used to collect information from the environment. The gathered data are delivered mainly to sinks or gateways that become the endpoints where applications can retrieve and process such data. However, applications would also expect from a WSN an event-driven operational model, so that they can be notified whenever occur some specific environmental changes instead of continuously analyzing the data provided periodically. In either operational model, WSNs represent a collection of interconnected objects, as outlined by the Internet of Things. Additionally, in order to fulfill the Internet of Things principles, Wireless Sensor Networks must have a virtual representation that allows indirect access to their resources, a model that should also include the virtualization of event sources in a WSN. Thus, in this paper a model for a virtual representation of event sources in a WSN is proposed. They are modeled as internet resources that are accessible by any internet application, following an Internet of Things approach. The model has been tested in a real implementation where a WSN has been deployed in an open neighborhood environment. Different event sources have been identified in the proposed scenario, and they have been represented following the proposed model. PMID:25470489

Virtual shelves in a digital library: a framework for access to networked information sources.

PubMed

Patrick, T B; Springer, G K; Mitchell, J A; Sievert, M E

1995-01-01

Develop a framework for collections-based access to networked information sources that addresses the problem of location-dependent access to information sources. This framework uses a metaphor of a virtual shelf. A virtual shelf is a general-purpose server that is dedicated to a particular information subject class. The identifier of one of these servers identifies its subject class. Location-independent call numbers are assigned to information sources. Call numbers are based on standard vocabulary codes. The call numbers are first mapped to the location-independent identifiers of virtual shelves. When access to an information resource is required, a location directory provides a second mapping of these location-independent server identifiers to actual network locations. The framework has been implemented in two different systems. One system is based on the Open System Foundation/Distributed Computing Environment and the other is based on the World Wide Web. This framework applies in new ways traditional methods of library classification and cataloging. It is compatible with two traditional styles of selecting information searching and browsing. Traditional methods may be combined with new paradigms of information searching that will be able to take advantage of the special properties of digital information. Cooperation between the library-informational science community and the informatics community can provide a means for a continuing application of the knowledge and techniques of library science to the new problems of networked information sources.

A new chapter in environmental sensing: The Open-Source Published Environmental Sensing (OPENS) laboratory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Selker, J. S.; Roques, C.; Higgins, C. W.; Good, S. P.; Hut, R.; Selker, A.

2015-12-01

The confluence of 3-Dimensional printing, low-cost solid-state-sensors, low-cost, low-power digital controllers (e.g., Arduinos); and open-source publishing (e.g., Github) is poised to transform environmental sensing. The Open-Source Published Environmental Sensing (OPENS) laboratory has launched and is available for all to use. OPENS combines cutting edge technologies and makes them available to the global environmental sensing community. OPENS includes a Maker lab space where people may collaborate in person or virtually via on-line forum for the publication and discussion of environmental sensing technology (Corvallis, Oregon, USA, please feel free to request a free reservation for space and equipment use). The physical lab houses a test-bed for sensors, as well as a complete classical machine shop, 3-D printers, electronics development benches, and workstations for code development. OPENS will provide a web-based formal publishing framework wherein global students and scientists can peer-review publish (with DOI) novel and evolutionary advancements in environmental sensor systems. This curated and peer-reviewed digital collection will include complete sets of "printable" parts and operating computer code for sensing systems. The physical lab will include all of the machines required to produce these sensing systems. These tools can be addressed in person or virtually, creating a truly global venue for advancement in monitoring earth's environment and agricultural systems. In this talk we will present an example of the process of design and publication the design and data from the OPENS-Permeameter. The publication includes 3-D printing code, Arduino (or other control/logging platform) operational code; sample data sets, and a full discussion of the design set in the scientific context of previous related devices. Editors for the peer-review process are currently sought - contact John.Selker@Oregonstate.edu or Clement.Roques@Oregonstate.edu.

Open source software integrated into data services of Japanese planetary explorations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yamamoto, Y.; Ishihara, Y.; Otake, H.; Imai, K.; Masuda, K.

2015-12-01

Scientific data obtained by Japanese scientific satellites and lunar and planetary explorations are archived in DARTS (Data ARchives and Transmission System). DARTS provides the data with a simple method such as HTTP directory listing for long-term preservation while DARTS tries to provide rich web applications for ease of access with modern web technologies based on open source software. This presentation showcases availability of open source software through our services. KADIAS is a web-based application to search, analyze, and obtain scientific data measured by SELENE(Kaguya), a Japanese lunar orbiter. KADIAS uses OpenLayers to display maps distributed from Web Map Service (WMS). As a WMS server, open source software MapServer is adopted. KAGUYA 3D GIS (KAGUYA 3D Moon NAVI) provides a virtual globe for the SELENE's data. The main purpose of this application is public outreach. NASA World Wind Java SDK is used to develop. C3 (Cross-Cutting Comparisons) is a tool to compare data from various observations and simulations. It uses Highcharts to draw graphs on web browsers. Flow is a tool to simulate a Field-Of-View of an instrument onboard a spacecraft. This tool itself is open source software developed by JAXA/ISAS, and the license is BSD 3-Caluse License. SPICE Toolkit is essential to compile FLOW. SPICE Toolkit is also open source software developed by NASA/JPL, and the website distributes many spacecrafts' data. Nowadays, open source software is an indispensable tool to integrate DARTS services.

Low Cost, Scalable Proteomics Data Analysis Using Amazon's Cloud Computing Services and Open Source Search Algorithms

PubMed Central

Halligan, Brian D.; Geiger, Joey F.; Vallejos, Andrew K.; Greene, Andrew S.; Twigger, Simon N.

2009-01-01

One of the major difficulties for many laboratories setting up proteomics programs has been obtaining and maintaining the computational infrastructure required for the analysis of the large flow of proteomics data. We describe a system that combines distributed cloud computing and open source software to allow laboratories to set up scalable virtual proteomics analysis clusters without the investment in computational hardware or software licensing fees. Additionally, the pricing structure of distributed computing providers, such as Amazon Web Services, allows laboratories or even individuals to have large-scale computational resources at their disposal at a very low cost per run. We provide detailed step by step instructions on how to implement the virtual proteomics analysis clusters as well as a list of current available preconfigured Amazon machine images containing the OMSSA and X!Tandem search algorithms and sequence databases on the Medical College of Wisconsin Proteomics Center website (http://proteomics.mcw.edu/vipdac). PMID:19358578

Low cost, scalable proteomics data analysis using Amazon's cloud computing services and open source search algorithms.

PubMed

Halligan, Brian D; Geiger, Joey F; Vallejos, Andrew K; Greene, Andrew S; Twigger, Simon N

2009-06-01

One of the major difficulties for many laboratories setting up proteomics programs has been obtaining and maintaining the computational infrastructure required for the analysis of the large flow of proteomics data. We describe a system that combines distributed cloud computing and open source software to allow laboratories to set up scalable virtual proteomics analysis clusters without the investment in computational hardware or software licensing fees. Additionally, the pricing structure of distributed computing providers, such as Amazon Web Services, allows laboratories or even individuals to have large-scale computational resources at their disposal at a very low cost per run. We provide detailed step-by-step instructions on how to implement the virtual proteomics analysis clusters as well as a list of current available preconfigured Amazon machine images containing the OMSSA and X!Tandem search algorithms and sequence databases on the Medical College of Wisconsin Proteomics Center Web site ( http://proteomics.mcw.edu/vipdac ).

Open core control software for surgical robots.

PubMed

Arata, Jumpei; Kozuka, Hiroaki; Kim, Hyung Wook; Takesue, Naoyuki; Vladimirov, B; Sakaguchi, Masamichi; Tokuda, Junichi; Hata, Nobuhiko; Chinzei, Kiyoyuki; Fujimoto, Hideo

2010-05-01

In these days, patients and doctors in operation room are surrounded by many medical devices as resulting from recent advancement of medical technology. However, these cutting-edge medical devices are working independently and not collaborating with each other, even though the collaborations between these devices such as navigation systems and medical imaging devices are becoming very important for accomplishing complex surgical tasks (such as a tumor removal procedure while checking the tumor location in neurosurgery). On the other hand, several surgical robots have been commercialized, and are becoming common. However, these surgical robots are not open for collaborations with external medical devices in these days. A cutting-edge "intelligent surgical robot" will be possible in collaborating with surgical robots, various kinds of sensors, navigation system and so on. On the other hand, most of the academic software developments for surgical robots are "home-made" in their research institutions and not open to the public. Therefore, open source control software for surgical robots can be beneficial in this field. From these perspectives, we developed Open Core Control software for surgical robots to overcome these challenges. In general, control softwares have hardware dependencies based on actuators, sensors and various kinds of internal devices. Therefore, these control softwares cannot be used on different types of robots without modifications. However, the structure of the Open Core Control software can be reused for various types of robots by abstracting hardware dependent parts. In addition, network connectivity is crucial for collaboration between advanced medical devices. The OpenIGTLink is adopted in Interface class which plays a role to communicate with external medical devices. At the same time, it is essential to maintain the stable operation within the asynchronous data transactions through network. In the Open Core Control software, several techniques for this purpose were introduced. Virtual fixture is well known technique as a "force guide" for supporting operators to perform precise manipulation by using a master-slave robot. The virtual fixture for precise and safety surgery was implemented on the system to demonstrate an idea of high-level collaboration between a surgical robot and a navigation system. The extension of virtual fixture is not a part of the Open Core Control system, however, the function such as virtual fixture cannot be realized without a tight collaboration between cutting-edge medical devices. By using the virtual fixture, operators can pre-define an accessible area on the navigation system, and the area information can be transferred to the robot. In this manner, the surgical console generates the reflection force when the operator tries to get out from the pre-defined accessible area during surgery. The Open Core Control software was implemented on a surgical master-slave robot and stable operation was observed in a motion test. The tip of the surgical robot was displayed on a navigation system by connecting the surgical robot with a 3D position sensor through the OpenIGTLink. The accessible area was pre-defined before the operation, and the virtual fixture was displayed as a "force guide" on the surgical console. In addition, the system showed stable performance in a duration test with network disturbance. In this paper, a design of the Open Core Control software for surgical robots and the implementation of virtual fixture were described. The Open Core Control software was implemented on a surgical robot system and showed stable performance in high-level collaboration works. The Open Core Control software is developed to be a widely used platform of surgical robots. Safety issues are essential for control software of these complex medical devices. It is important to follow the global specifications such as a FDA requirement "General Principles of Software Validation" or IEC62304. For following these regulations, it is important to develop a self-test environment. Therefore, a test environment is now under development to test various interference in operation room such as a noise of electric knife by considering safety and test environment regulations such as ISO13849 and IEC60508. The Open Core Control software is currently being developed software in open-source manner and available on the Internet. A communization of software interface is becoming a major trend in this field. Based on this perspective, the Open Core Control software can be expected to bring contributions in this field.

Telemedicine and pediatric radiology: a new environment for training, learning, and interactive discussions.

PubMed

Monteiro, Alexandra M V; Corrêa, Diogo Goulart; Santos, Alair Augusto Sarmet M D; Cavalcanti, Silvio A; Sakuno, Telma; Filgueiras, Tereza; Just, Eduardo; Santos, Munique; Messina, Luiz Ary; Haddad, Ana Estela; Marchiori, Edson

2011-12-01

To report the experience of the Brazilian Program of Pediatric Teleradiology in combining teleconferencing and a virtual learning environment for services integration, collaborative research, and continuing education in pediatric radiology. We performed virtual meetings from March 2005 to October 2010 on pediatric radiology-related themes, using a combination of videoconferences and Web conferences, which were recorded and made available in an open-source software (Moodle) for reuse. We performed 58 virtual sessions: 29 anatomical-clinical-radiological sessions, 28 on upgrading themes, and 1 virtual symposium. The average of connected points was 12 by videoconference and 39 by Web conference, and of 450 participants per event. At the time of this writing, 318 physicians and students are registered in the virtual learning environment, with a total of 14,678 accesses. Telemedicine is being included in pediatric radiology practice, as a means for distance education, training, and continuing integration between groups.

VirtualLeaf: an open-source framework for cell-based modeling of plant tissue growth and development.

PubMed

Merks, Roeland M H; Guravage, Michael; Inzé, Dirk; Beemster, Gerrit T S

2011-02-01

Plant organs, including leaves and roots, develop by means of a multilevel cross talk between gene regulation, patterned cell division and cell expansion, and tissue mechanics. The multilevel regulatory mechanisms complicate classic molecular genetics or functional genomics approaches to biological development, because these methodologies implicitly assume a direct relation between genes and traits at the level of the whole plant or organ. Instead, understanding gene function requires insight into the roles of gene products in regulatory networks, the conditions of gene expression, etc. This interplay is impossible to understand intuitively. Mathematical and computer modeling allows researchers to design new hypotheses and produce experimentally testable insights. However, the required mathematics and programming experience makes modeling poorly accessible to experimental biologists. Problem-solving environments provide biologically intuitive in silico objects ("cells", "regulation networks") required for setting up a simulation and present those to the user in terms of familiar, biological terminology. Here, we introduce the cell-based computer modeling framework VirtualLeaf for plant tissue morphogenesis. The current version defines a set of biologically intuitive C++ objects, including cells, cell walls, and diffusing and reacting chemicals, that provide useful abstractions for building biological simulations of developmental processes. We present a step-by-step introduction to building models with VirtualLeaf, providing basic example models of leaf venation and meristem development. VirtualLeaf-based models provide a means for plant researchers to analyze the function of developmental genes in the context of the biophysics of growth and patterning. VirtualLeaf is an ongoing open-source software project (http://virtualleaf.googlecode.com) that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Virtual Hubs for facilitating access to Open Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mazzetti, Paolo; Latre, Miguel Á.; Ernst, Julia; Brumana, Raffaella; Brauman, Stefan; Nativi, Stefano

2015-04-01

In October 2014 the ENERGIC-OD (European NEtwork for Redistributing Geospatial Information to user Communities - Open Data) project, funded by the European Union under the Competitiveness and Innovation framework Programme (CIP), has started. In response to the EU call, the general objective of the project is to "facilitate the use of open (freely available) geographic data from different sources for the creation of innovative applications and services through the creation of Virtual Hubs". In ENERGIC-OD, Virtual Hubs are conceived as information systems supporting the full life cycle of Open Data: publishing, discovery and access. They facilitate the use of Open Data by lowering and possibly removing the main barriers which hampers geo-information (GI) usage by end-users and application developers. Data and data services heterogeneity is recognized as one of the major barriers to Open Data (re-)use. It imposes end-users and developers to spend a lot of effort in accessing different infrastructures and harmonizing datasets. Such heterogeneity cannot be completely removed through the adoption of standard specifications for service interfaces, metadata and data models, since different infrastructures adopt different standards to answer to specific challenges and to address specific use-cases. Thus, beyond a certain extent, heterogeneity is irreducible especially in interdisciplinary contexts. ENERGIC-OD Virtual Hubs address heterogeneity adopting a mediation and brokering approach: specific components (brokers) are dedicated to harmonize service interfaces, metadata and data models, enabling seamless discovery and access to heterogeneous infrastructures and datasets. As an innovation project, ENERGIC-OD will integrate several existing technologies to implement Virtual Hubs as single points of access to geospatial datasets provided by new or existing platforms and infrastructures, including INSPIRE-compliant systems and Copernicus services. ENERGIC OD will deploy a set of five Virtual Hubs (VHs) at national level in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and an additional one at the European level. VHs will be provided according to the cloud Software-as-a-Services model. The main expected impact of VHs is the creation of new business opportunities opening up access to Research Data and Public Sector Information. Therefore, ENERGIC-OD addresses not only end-users, who will have the opportunity to access the VH through a geo-portal, but also application developers who will be able to access VH functionalities through simple Application Programming Interfaces (API). ENERGIC-OD Consortium will develop ten different applications on top of the deployed VHs. They aim to demonstrate how VHs facilitate the development of new and multidisciplinary applications based on the full exploitation of (open) GI, hence stimulating innovation and business activities.

Virtual shelves in a digital library: a framework for access to networked information sources.

PubMed Central

Patrick, T B; Springer, G K; Mitchell, J A; Sievert, M E

1995-01-01

OBJECTIVE: Develop a framework for collections-based access to networked information sources that addresses the problem of location-dependent access to information sources. DESIGN: This framework uses a metaphor of a virtual shelf. A virtual shelf is a general-purpose server that is dedicated to a particular information subject class. The identifier of one of these servers identifies its subject class. Location-independent call numbers are assigned to information sources. Call numbers are based on standard vocabulary codes. The call numbers are first mapped to the location-independent identifiers of virtual shelves. When access to an information resource is required, a location directory provides a second mapping of these location-independent server identifiers to actual network locations. RESULTS: The framework has been implemented in two different systems. One system is based on the Open System Foundation/Distributed Computing Environment and the other is based on the World Wide Web. CONCLUSIONS: This framework applies in new ways traditional methods of library classification and cataloging. It is compatible with two traditional styles of selecting information searching and browsing. Traditional methods may be combined with new paradigms of information searching that will be able to take advantage of the special properties of digital information. Cooperation between the library-informational science community and the informatics community can provide a means for a continuing application of the knowledge and techniques of library science to the new problems of networked information sources. PMID:8581554

The Virtual Genetics Lab: A Freely-Available Open-Source Genetics Simulation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

White, Brian; Bolker, Ethan; Koolar, Nikunj; Ma, Wei; Maw, Naing Naing; Yu, Chung Ying

2007-01-01

This lab is a computer simulation of transmission genetics. It presents students with a genetic phenomenon--the inheritance of a randomly--selected trait. The students' task is to determine how this trait is inherited by designing their own crosses and analyzing the results produced by the software.

It’s an app. It’s a hypervisor. It’s a hypapp. : Design and Implementation of an eXtensible and Modular Hypervisor Framework

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-06-26

existing commercial-grade virtualization solutions (e.g., Xen, Linux KVM, VMware, or L4 ), but generally do not require such rich functional- ity [9...ports multiprocessor configuration on both AMD and Intel x86 platforms. Xen [8], KVM [27], VMware [39], NOVA [33], Virtual- box‡‡ and L4 are some...popular general purpose (open-source) hypervisors and microkernels which have been used for var- ious hypervisor based research [9,15,26,30,32,34,45

Visualization of Vgi Data Through the New NASA Web World Wind Virtual Globe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brovelli, M. A.; Kilsedar, C. E.; Zamboni, G.

2016-06-01

GeoWeb 2.0, laying the foundations of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) systems, has led to platforms where users can contribute to the geographic knowledge that is open to access. Moreover, as a result of the advancements in 3D visualization, virtual globes able to visualize geographic data even on browsers emerged. However the integration of VGI systems and virtual globes has not been fully realized. The study presented aims to visualize volunteered data in 3D, considering also the ease of use aspects for general public, using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). The new Application Programming Interface (API) of NASA, Web World Wind, written in JavaScript and based on Web Graphics Library (WebGL) is cross-platform and cross-browser, so that the virtual globe created using this API can be accessible through any WebGL supported browser on different operating systems and devices, as a result not requiring any installation or configuration on the client-side, making the collected data more usable to users, which is not the case with the World Wind for Java as installation and configuration of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is required. Furthermore, the data collected through various VGI platforms might be in different formats, stored in a traditional relational database or in a NoSQL database. The project developed aims to visualize and query data collected through Open Data Kit (ODK) platform and a cross-platform application, where data is stored in a relational PostgreSQL and NoSQL CouchDB databases respectively.

Generalized Intelligent Framework for Tutoring (GIFT) Cloud/Virtual Open Campus Quick Start Guide (Revision 1)

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-06-01

for GIFT Cloud, the web -based application version of the Generalized Intelligent Framework for Tutoring (GIFT). GIFT is a modular, open-source...external applications. GIFT is available to users with a GIFT Account at no cost. GIFT Cloud is an implementation of GIFT. This web -based application...section. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. 3 3. Requirements for GIFT Cloud GIFT Cloud is accessed via a web browser

Building an Open-source Simulation Platform of Acoustic Radiation Force-based Breast Elastography

PubMed Central

Wang, Yu; Peng, Bo; Jiang, Jingfeng

2017-01-01

Ultrasound-based elastography including strain elastography (SE), acoustic radiation force Impulse (ARFI) imaging, point shear wave elastography (pSWE) and supersonic shear imaging (SSI) have been used to differentiate breast tumors among other clinical applications. The objective of this study is to extend a previously published virtual simulation platform built for ultrasound quasi-static breast elastography toward acoustic radiation force-based breast elastography. Consequently, the extended virtual breast elastography simulation platform can be used to validate image pixels with known underlying soft tissue properties (i.e. “ground truth”) in complex, heterogeneous media, enhancing confidence in elastographic image interpretations. The proposed virtual breast elastography system inherited four key components from the previously published virtual simulation platform: an ultrasound simulator (Field II), a mesh generator (Tetgen), a finite element solver (FEBio) and a visualization and data processing package (VTK). Using a simple message passing mechanism, functionalities have now been extended to acoustic radiation force-based elastography simulations. Examples involving three different numerical breast models with increasing complexity – one uniform model, one simple inclusion model and one virtual complex breast model derived from magnetic resonance imaging data, were used to demonstrate capabilities of this extended virtual platform. Overall, simulation results were compared with the published results. In the uniform model, the estimated shear wave speed (SWS) values were within 4% compared to the predetermined SWS values. In the simple inclusion and the complex breast models, SWS values of all hard inclusions in soft backgrounds were slightly underestimated, similar to what has been reported. The elastic contrast values and visual observation show that ARFI images have higher spatial resolution, while SSI images can provide higher inclusion-to-background contrast. In summary, our initial results were consistent with our expectations and what have been reported in the literature. The proposed (open-source) simulation platform can serve as a single gateway to perform many elastographic simulations in a transparent manner, thereby promoting collaborative developments. PMID:28075330

Building an open-source simulation platform of acoustic radiation force-based breast elastography

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Yu; Peng, Bo; Jiang, Jingfeng

2017-03-01

Ultrasound-based elastography including strain elastography, acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) imaging, point shear wave elastography and supersonic shear imaging (SSI) have been used to differentiate breast tumors among other clinical applications. The objective of this study is to extend a previously published virtual simulation platform built for ultrasound quasi-static breast elastography toward acoustic radiation force-based breast elastography. Consequently, the extended virtual breast elastography simulation platform can be used to validate image pixels with known underlying soft tissue properties (i.e. ‘ground truth’) in complex, heterogeneous media, enhancing confidence in elastographic image interpretations. The proposed virtual breast elastography system inherited four key components from the previously published virtual simulation platform: an ultrasound simulator (Field II), a mesh generator (Tetgen), a finite element solver (FEBio) and a visualization and data processing package (VTK). Using a simple message passing mechanism, functionalities have now been extended to acoustic radiation force-based elastography simulations. Examples involving three different numerical breast models with increasing complexity—one uniform model, one simple inclusion model and one virtual complex breast model derived from magnetic resonance imaging data, were used to demonstrate capabilities of this extended virtual platform. Overall, simulation results were compared with the published results. In the uniform model, the estimated shear wave speed (SWS) values were within 4% compared to the predetermined SWS values. In the simple inclusion and the complex breast models, SWS values of all hard inclusions in soft backgrounds were slightly underestimated, similar to what has been reported. The elastic contrast values and visual observation show that ARFI images have higher spatial resolution, while SSI images can provide higher inclusion-to-background contrast. In summary, our initial results were consistent with our expectations and what have been reported in the literature. The proposed (open-source) simulation platform can serve as a single gateway to perform many elastographic simulations in a transparent manner, thereby promoting collaborative developments.

NeuroVR 1.5 - a free virtual reality platform for the assessment and treatment in clinical psychology and neuroscience.

PubMed

Riva, Giuseppe; Carelli, Laura; Gaggioli, Andrea; Gorini, Alessandra; Vigna, Cinzia; Corsi, Riccardo; Faletti, Gianluca; Vezzadini, Luca

2009-01-01

At MMVR 2007 we presented NeuroVR (http://www.neurovr.org) a free virtual reality platform based on open-source software. The software allows non-expert users to adapt the content of 14 pre-designed virtual environments to the specific needs of the clinical or experimental setting. Following the feedbacks of the 700 users who downloaded the first version, we developed a new version - NeuroVR 1.5 - that improves the possibility for the therapist to enhance the patient's feeling of familiarity and intimacy with the virtual scene, by using external sounds, photos or videos. Specifically, the new version now includes full sound support and the ability of triggering external sounds and videos using the keyboard. The outcomes of different trials made using NeuroVR will be presented and discussed.

Developing a GIS for CO2 analysis using lightweight, open source components

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Verma, R.; Goodale, C. E.; Hart, A. F.; Kulawik, S. S.; Law, E.; Osterman, G. B.; Braverman, A.; Nguyen, H. M.; Mattmann, C. A.; Crichton, D. J.; Eldering, A.; Castano, R.; Gunson, M. R.

2012-12-01

There are advantages to approaching the realm of geographic information systems (GIS) using lightweight, open source components in place of a more traditional web map service (WMS) solution. Rapid prototyping, schema-less data storage, the flexible interchange of components, and open source community support are just some of the benefits. In our effort to develop an application supporting the geospatial and temporal rendering of remote sensing carbon-dioxide (CO2) data for the CO2 Virtual Science Data Environment project, we have connected heterogeneous open source components together to form a GIS. Utilizing widely popular open source components including the schema-less database MongoDB, Leaflet interactive maps, the HighCharts JavaScript graphing library, and Python Bottle web-services, we have constructed a system for rapidly visualizing CO2 data with reduced up-front development costs. These components can be aggregated together, resulting in a configurable stack capable of replicating features provided by more standard GIS technologies. The approach we have taken is not meant to replace the more established GIS solutions, but to instead offer a rapid way to provide GIS features early in the development of an application and to offer a path towards utilizing more capable GIS technology in the future.

Virtual Plant Tissue: Building Blocks for Next-Generation Plant Growth Simulation

PubMed Central

De Vos, Dirk; Dzhurakhalov, Abdiravuf; Stijven, Sean; Klosiewicz, Przemyslaw; Beemster, Gerrit T. S.; Broeckhove, Jan

2017-01-01

Motivation: Computational modeling of plant developmental processes is becoming increasingly important. Cellular resolution plant tissue simulators have been developed, yet they are typically describing physiological processes in an isolated way, strongly delimited in space and time. Results: With plant systems biology moving toward an integrative perspective on development we have built the Virtual Plant Tissue (VPTissue) package to couple functional modules or models in the same framework and across different frameworks. Multiple levels of model integration and coordination enable combining existing and new models from different sources, with diverse options in terms of input/output. Besides the core simulator the toolset also comprises a tissue editor for manipulating tissue geometry and cell, wall, and node attributes in an interactive manner. A parameter exploration tool is available to study parameter dependence of simulation results by distributing calculations over multiple systems. Availability: Virtual Plant Tissue is available as open source (EUPL license) on Bitbucket (https://bitbucket.org/vptissue/vptissue). The project has a website https://vptissue.bitbucket.io. PMID:28523006

Analyzing Virtual Physics Simulations with Tracker

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Claessens, Tom

2017-01-01

In the physics teaching community, Tracker is well known as a user-friendly open source video analysis software, authored by Douglas Brown. With this tool, the user can trace markers indicated on a video or on stroboscopic photos and perform kinematic analyses. Tracker also includes a data modeling tool that allows one to fit some theoretical…

Knowledge Ecologies in Fragile Online Learning Environments. Research: Information and Communication Technologies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Henning, Elizabeth; Van der Westhuizen, Duan; Diseko, Rabaitse

2005-01-01

This article gives an account of an inquiry into two different postgraduate student groups' ways of engaging with a virtual learning environment. Using a variety of data sources, including learning artefacts, interview data, open-ended qualitative questionnaires and online discussion postings, the inquiry captured processes of engagement of the…

Haptic/graphic rehabilitation: integrating a robot into a virtual environment library and applying it to stroke therapy.

PubMed

Sharp, Ian; Patton, James; Listenberger, Molly; Case, Emily

2011-08-08

Recent research that tests interactive devices for prolonged therapy practice has revealed new prospects for robotics combined with graphical and other forms of biofeedback. Previous human-robot interactive systems have required different software commands to be implemented for each robot leading to unnecessary developmental overhead time each time a new system becomes available. For example, when a haptic/graphic virtual reality environment has been coded for one specific robot to provide haptic feedback, that specific robot would not be able to be traded for another robot without recoding the program. However, recent efforts in the open source community have proposed a wrapper class approach that can elicit nearly identical responses regardless of the robot used. The result can lead researchers across the globe to perform similar experiments using shared code. Therefore modular "switching out"of one robot for another would not affect development time. In this paper, we outline the successful creation and implementation of a wrapper class for one robot into the open-source H3DAPI, which integrates the software commands most commonly used by all robots.

Distributed chemical computing using ChemStar: an open source java remote method invocation architecture applied to large scale molecular data from PubChem.

PubMed

Karthikeyan, M; Krishnan, S; Pandey, Anil Kumar; Bender, Andreas; Tropsha, Alexander

2008-04-01

We present the application of a Java remote method invocation (RMI) based open source architecture to distributed chemical computing. This architecture was previously employed for distributed data harvesting of chemical information from the Internet via the Google application programming interface (API; ChemXtreme). Due to its open source character and its flexibility, the underlying server/client framework can be quickly adopted to virtually every computational task that can be parallelized. Here, we present the server/client communication framework as well as an application to distributed computing of chemical properties on a large scale (currently the size of PubChem; about 18 million compounds), using both the Marvin toolkit as well as the open source JOELib package. As an application, for this set of compounds, the agreement of log P and TPSA between the packages was compared. Outliers were found to be mostly non-druglike compounds and differences could usually be explained by differences in the underlying algorithms. ChemStar is the first open source distributed chemical computing environment built on Java RMI, which is also easily adaptable to user demands due to its "plug-in architecture". The complete source codes as well as calculated properties along with links to PubChem resources are available on the Internet via a graphical user interface at http://moltable.ncl.res.in/chemstar/.

The SAMI2 Open Source Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huba, J. D.; Joyce, G.

2001-05-01

In the past decade, the Open Source Model for software development has gained popularity and has had numerous major achievements: emacs, Linux, the Gimp, and Python, to name a few. The basic idea is to provide the source code of the model or application, a tutorial on its use, and a feedback mechanism with the community so that the model can be tested, improved, and archived. Given the success of the Open Source Model, we believe it may prove valuable in the development of scientific research codes. With this in mind, we are `Open Sourcing' the low to mid-latitude ionospheric model that has recently been developed at the Naval Research Laboratory: SAMI2 (Sami2 is Another Model of the Ionosphere). The model is comprehensive and uses modern numerical techniques. The structure and design of SAMI2 make it relatively easy to understand and modify: the numerical algorithms are simple and direct, and the code is reasonably well-written. Furthermore, SAMI2 is designed to run on personal computers; prohibitive computational resources are not necessary, thereby making the model accessible and usable by virtually all researchers. For these reasons, SAMI2 is an excellent candidate to explore and test the open source modeling paradigm in space physics research. We will discuss various topics associated with this project. Research supported by the Office of Naval Research.

Development of Virtual Blade Model for Modelling Helicopter Rotor Downwash in OpenFOAM

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-12-01

UNCLASSIFIED Development of Virtual Blade Model for Modelling Helicopter Rotor Downwash in OpenFOAM Stefano Wahono Aerospace...Georgia Institute of Technology. The OpenFOAM predicted result was also shown to compare favourably with ANSYS Fluent predictions. RELEASE...UNCLASSIFIED Development of Virtual Blade Model for Modelling Helicopter Rotor Downwash in OpenFOAM Executive Summary The Infrared

Carbohydrates and sports practice: a Twitter virtual ethnography

PubMed

Rodríguez-Martín, Beatriz; Castillo, Carlos Alberto

2017-02-01

Introduction: Although carbohydrates consumption is a key factor to enhance sport performance, intake levels seem questioned by some amateur athletes, leading to develop an irrational aversion to carbohydrate known as “carbophobia”. On the other hand, food is the origin of virtual communities erected as a source of knowledge and a way to exchange information. Despite this, very few studies have analysed the influence of social media in eating behaviours. Objectives: To know the conceptualizations about carbohydrates intake and eating patterns related to carbophobia expressed in amateur athletes’ Twitter accounts. Methods: Qualitative research designed from Hine’s Virtual Ethnography. Virtual immersion was used for data collection in Twitter open accounts in a theoretical sample of tweets from amateur athletes. Discourse analysis of narrative information of tweets was carried out through open, axial and selective coding process and the constant comparison method. Results: Data analysis revealed four main categories that offered a picture of conceptualizations of carbohydrates: carbohydrates as suspects or guilty from slowing down training, carbophobia as a lifestyle, carbophobia as a religion and finally the love/hate relationship with carbohydrates. Conclusions: Low-carbohydrate diet is considered a healthy lifestyle in some amateur athletes. The results of this study show the power of virtual communication tools such as Twitter to support, promote and maintain uncommon and not necessarily healthy eating behaviours. Future studies should focus on the context in which these practices appear.

Efficacy of a Virtual Teaching Assistant in an Open Laboratory Environment for Electric Circuits

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saleheen, Firdous; Wang, Zicong; Picone, Joseph; Butz, Brian P.; Won, Chang-Hee

2018-01-01

In order to provide an on-demand, open electrical engineering laboratory, we developed an innovative software-based Virtual Open Laboratory Teaching Assistant (VOLTA). This web-based virtual assistant provides laboratory instructions, equipment usage videos, circuit simulation assistance, and hardware implementation diagnostics. VOLTA allows…

Open core control software for surgical robots

PubMed Central

Kozuka, Hiroaki; Kim, Hyung Wook; Takesue, Naoyuki; Vladimirov, B.; Sakaguchi, Masamichi; Tokuda, Junichi; Hata, Nobuhiko; Chinzei, Kiyoyuki; Fujimoto, Hideo

2010-01-01

Object In these days, patients and doctors in operation room are surrounded by many medical devices as resulting from recent advancement of medical technology. However, these cutting-edge medical devices are working independently and not collaborating with each other, even though the collaborations between these devices such as navigation systems and medical imaging devices are becoming very important for accomplishing complex surgical tasks (such as a tumor removal procedure while checking the tumor location in neurosurgery). On the other hand, several surgical robots have been commercialized, and are becoming common. However, these surgical robots are not open for collaborations with external medical devices in these days. A cutting-edge “intelligent surgical robot” will be possible in collaborating with surgical robots, various kinds of sensors, navigation system and so on. On the other hand, most of the academic software developments for surgical robots are “home-made” in their research institutions and not open to the public. Therefore, open source control software for surgical robots can be beneficial in this field. From these perspectives, we developed Open Core Control software for surgical robots to overcome these challenges. Materials and methods In general, control softwares have hardware dependencies based on actuators, sensors and various kinds of internal devices. Therefore, these control softwares cannot be used on different types of robots without modifications. However, the structure of the Open Core Control software can be reused for various types of robots by abstracting hardware dependent parts. In addition, network connectivity is crucial for collaboration between advanced medical devices. The OpenIGTLink is adopted in Interface class which plays a role to communicate with external medical devices. At the same time, it is essential to maintain the stable operation within the asynchronous data transactions through network. In the Open Core Control software, several techniques for this purpose were introduced. Virtual fixture is well known technique as a “force guide” for supporting operators to perform precise manipulation by using a master–slave robot. The virtual fixture for precise and safety surgery was implemented on the system to demonstrate an idea of high-level collaboration between a surgical robot and a navigation system. The extension of virtual fixture is not a part of the Open Core Control system, however, the function such as virtual fixture cannot be realized without a tight collaboration between cutting-edge medical devices. By using the virtual fixture, operators can pre-define an accessible area on the navigation system, and the area information can be transferred to the robot. In this manner, the surgical console generates the reflection force when the operator tries to get out from the pre-defined accessible area during surgery. Results The Open Core Control software was implemented on a surgical master–slave robot and stable operation was observed in a motion test. The tip of the surgical robot was displayed on a navigation system by connecting the surgical robot with a 3D position sensor through the OpenIGTLink. The accessible area was pre-defined before the operation, and the virtual fixture was displayed as a “force guide” on the surgical console. In addition, the system showed stable performance in a duration test with network disturbance. Conclusion In this paper, a design of the Open Core Control software for surgical robots and the implementation of virtual fixture were described. The Open Core Control software was implemented on a surgical robot system and showed stable performance in high-level collaboration works. The Open Core Control software is developed to be a widely used platform of surgical robots. Safety issues are essential for control software of these complex medical devices. It is important to follow the global specifications such as a FDA requirement “General Principles of Software Validation” or IEC62304. For following these regulations, it is important to develop a self-test environment. Therefore, a test environment is now under development to test various interference in operation room such as a noise of electric knife by considering safety and test environment regulations such as ISO13849 and IEC60508. The Open Core Control software is currently being developed software in open-source manner and available on the Internet. A communization of software interface is becoming a major trend in this field. Based on this perspective, the Open Core Control software can be expected to bring contributions in this field. PMID:20033506

VAGUE: a graphical user interface for the Velvet assembler.

PubMed

Powell, David R; Seemann, Torsten

2013-01-15

Velvet is a popular open-source de novo genome assembly software tool, which is run from the Unix command line. Most of the problems experienced by new users of Velvet revolve around constructing syntactically and semantically correct command lines, getting input files into acceptable formats and assessing the output. Here, we present Velvet Assembler Graphical User Environment (VAGUE), a multi-platform graphical front-end for Velvet. VAGUE aims to make sequence assembly accessible to a wider audience and to facilitate better usage amongst existing users of Velvet. VAGUE is implemented in JRuby and targets the Java Virtual Machine. It is available under an open-source GPLv2 licence from http://www.vicbioinformatics.com/. torsten.seemann@monash.edu.

Development of Thread-compatible Open Source Stack

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zimmermann, Lukas; Mars, Nidhal; Schappacher, Manuel; Sikora, Axel

2017-07-01

The Thread protocol is a recent development based on 6LoWPAN (IPv6 over IEEE 802.15.4), but with extensions regarding a more media independent approach, which - additionally - also promises true interoperability. To evaluate and analyse the operation of a Thread network a given open source 6LoWPAN stack for embedded devices (emb::6) has been extended in order to comply with the Thread specification. The implementation covers Mesh Link Establishment (MLE) and network layer functionality as well as 6LoWPAN mesh under routing mechanism based on MAC short addresses. The development has been verified on a virtualization platform and allows dynamical establishment of network topologies based on Thread’s partitioning algorithm.

Virtual Collections: An Earth Science Data Curation Service

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bugbee, K.; Ramachandran, R.; Maskey, M.; Gatlin, P. N.

2016-12-01

The role of Earth science data centers has traditionally been to maintain central archives that serve openly available Earth observation data. However, in order to ensure data are as useful as possible to a diverse user community, Earth science data centers must move beyond simply serving as an archive to offering innovative data services to user communities. A virtual collection, the end product of a curation activity that searches, selects, and synthesizes diffuse data and information resources around a specific topic or event, is a data curation service that improves the discoverability, accessibility and usability of Earth science data and also supports the needs of unanticipated users. Virtual collections minimize the amount of time and effort needed to begin research by maximizing certainty of reward and by providing a trustworthy source of data for unanticipated users. This presentation will define a virtual collection in the context of an Earth science data center and will highlight a virtual collection case study created at the Global Hydrology Resource Center data center.

Virtual Collections: An Earth Science Data Curation Service

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bugbee, Kaylin; Ramachandran, Rahul; Maskey, Manil; Gatlin, Patrick

2016-01-01

The role of Earth science data centers has traditionally been to maintain central archives that serve openly available Earth observation data. However, in order to ensure data are as useful as possible to a diverse user community, Earth science data centers must move beyond simply serving as an archive to offering innovative data services to user communities. A virtual collection, the end product of a curation activity that searches, selects, and synthesizes diffuse data and information resources around a specific topic or event, is a data curation service that improves the discoverability, accessibility, and usability of Earth science data and also supports the needs of unanticipated users. Virtual collections minimize the amount of the time and effort needed to begin research by maximizing certainty of reward and by providing a trustworthy source of data for unanticipated users. This presentation will define a virtual collection in the context of an Earth science data center and will highlight a virtual collection case study created at the Global Hydrology Resource Center data center.

World Reaction to Virtual Space

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1999-01-01

DRaW Computing developed virtual reality software for the International Space Station. Open Worlds, as the software has been named, can be made to support Java scripting and virtual reality hardware devices. Open Worlds permits the use of VRML script nodes to add virtual reality capabilities to the user's applications.

Multi-Level Secure Information Sharing Between Smart Cloud Systems of Systems

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-03-01

implementation of virtual hardware (VMWare), along with a commercial implementation of virtual networking (VPN), such as OpenVPN . 1. VMWare Virtualization...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MongoDB. Wikipedia. 2014b. Accessed February 26. s.v. “Open VPN,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ OpenVPN . Wikipedia. 2014c. Accessed

osni.info-Using free/libre/open source software to build a virtual international community for open source nursing informatics.

PubMed

Oyri, Karl; Murray, Peter J

2005-12-01

Many health informatics organizations seem to be slow to take up the advantages of dynamic, web-based technologies for providing services to, and interaction with, their members; these are often the very technologies they promote for use within healthcare environments. This paper aims to introduce some of the many free/libre/open source (FLOSS) applications that are now available to develop interactive websites and dynamic online communities as part of the structure of health informatics organizations, and to show how the Open Source Nursing Informatics Working Group (OSNI) of the special interest group in nursing informatics of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA-NI) is using some of these tools to develop an online community of nurse informaticians through their website, at . Some background introduction to FLOSS applications is used for the benefit of those less familiar with such tools, and examples of some of the FLOSS content management systems (CMS) being used by OSNI are described. The experiences of the OSNI will facilitate a knowledgeable nursing contribution to the wider discussions on the applications of FLOSS within health and healthcare, and provides a model that many other groups could adopt.

Sharing Water-related Information to Tackle Changes in the Hydrosphere - for Operational Needs (SWITCH-ON)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arheimer, Berit

2014-05-01

A recently started EU project (FP7 project No 603587) called SWITCH-ON will establish new infrastructure for water research in Europe. The overall goal of the project is to make use of open data, and add value to society by repurposing and refining data from various sources. SWITCH-ON will establish new forms of water research and facilitate the development of new products and services based on principles of sharing and community building. The basic for this work is a virtual water-science laboratory, which consists of open data, dedicated software tools and a set of protocols, hosted at the "SWITCH-ON water information" portal at http://water-switch-on.eu/. The laboratory will seamlessly integrate the open data with harmonised modelling tools and facilities the performance of virtual experiments of comparative science. Comparative science is a new form of research, which will advance science by contrasting water related processes in different environments and help understand complex processes in a more holistic way than individual studies The SWITCH-ON objectives are to use open data for implementing: 1) an innovative spatial information platform with open data tailored for direct water assessments, 2) an entirely new form of collaborative research for water-related sciences, 3) fourteen new operational products and services dedicated to appointed end-users, 4) new business and knowledge to inform individual and collective decisions in line with the Europe's smart growth and environmental objectives. The SWITCH-ON project will be one trigger in a contemporary global movement to better address environmental and societal challenges through openness and collaboration. The poster will present the project visions and achievements so far, and invite more research groups to use the virtual water-science laboratory.

Identification of Program Signatures from Cloud Computing System Telemetry Data

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

Nichols, Nicole M.; Greaves, Mark T.; Smith, William P.

Malicious cloud computing activity can take many forms, including running unauthorized programs in a virtual environment. Detection of these malicious activities while preserving the privacy of the user is an important research challenge. Prior work has shown the potential viability of using cloud service billing metrics as a mechanism for proxy identification of malicious programs. Previously this novel detection method has been evaluated in a synthetic and isolated computational environment. In this paper we demonstrate the ability of billing metrics to identify programs, in an active cloud computing environment, including multiple virtual machines running on the same hypervisor. The openmore » source cloud computing platform OpenStack, is used for private cloud management at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. OpenStack provides a billing tool (Ceilometer) to collect system telemetry measurements. We identify four different programs running on four virtual machines under the same cloud user account. Programs were identified with up to 95% accuracy. This accuracy is dependent on the distinctiveness of telemetry measurements for the specific programs we tested. Future work will examine the scalability of this approach for a larger selection of programs to better understand the uniqueness needed to identify a program. Additionally, future work should address the separation of signatures when multiple programs are running on the same virtual machine.« less

OpenClimateGIS - A Web Service Providing Climate Model Data in Commonly Used Geospatial Formats

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Erickson, T. A.; Koziol, B. W.; Rood, R. B.

2011-12-01

The goal of the OpenClimateGIS project is to make climate model datasets readily available in commonly used, modern geospatial formats used by GIS software, browser-based mapping tools, and virtual globes.The climate modeling community typically stores climate data in multidimensional gridded formats capable of efficiently storing large volumes of data (such as netCDF, grib) while the geospatial community typically uses flexible vector and raster formats that are capable of storing small volumes of data (relative to the multidimensional gridded formats). OpenClimateGIS seeks to address this difference in data formats by clipping climate data to user-specified vector geometries (i.e. areas of interest) and translating the gridded data on-the-fly into multiple vector formats. The OpenClimateGIS system does not store climate data archives locally, but rather works in conjunction with external climate archives that expose climate data via the OPeNDAP protocol. OpenClimateGIS provides a RESTful API web service for accessing climate data resources via HTTP, allowing a wide range of applications to access the climate data.The OpenClimateGIS system has been developed using open source development practices and the source code is publicly available. The project integrates libraries from several other open source projects (including Django, PostGIS, numpy, Shapely, and netcdf4-python).OpenClimateGIS development is supported by a grant from NOAA's Climate Program Office.

Investigating Advances in the Acquisition of Secure Systems Based on Open Architectures

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-08-30

markets (Guertin & Womble, 2012), efficient testing of component‐based OA...workalike of the closed‐source Second Life VW platform. Second Life (2012) is the current market leader in rapid virtual world development and...Strong Copyleft GPL, AGPL Many rights; obligations on “nearby” works Proprietary CTL , EULAs, TOSs Few rights Typical rights

Virtual Proctoring in Distance Education: An Open-Source Solution

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rose, Chris

2009-01-01

Students will cheat during exams, that is nothing new, but now that the Higher Education Act requires the proctoring of exams, distance education institutions now find that both they and their students have a major problem. Exams have to be proctored, but requiring distance education students to search out a reliable proctor and travel to a…

LINUX, Virtualization, and the Cloud: A Hands-On Student Introductory Lab

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Serapiglia, Anthony

2013-01-01

Many students are entering Computer Science education with limited exposure to operating systems and applications other than those produced by Apple or Microsoft. This gap in familiarity with the Open Source community can quickly be bridged with a simple exercise that can also be used to strengthen two other important current computing concepts,…

Open multi-agent control architecture to support virtual-reality-based man-machine interfaces

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Freund, Eckhard; Rossmann, Juergen; Brasch, Marcel

2001-10-01

Projective Virtual Reality is a new and promising approach to intuitively operable man machine interfaces for the commanding and supervision of complex automation systems. The user interface part of Projective Virtual Reality heavily builds on latest Virtual Reality techniques, a task deduction component and automatic action planning capabilities. In order to realize man machine interfaces for complex applications, not only the Virtual Reality part has to be considered but also the capabilities of the underlying robot and automation controller are of great importance. This paper presents a control architecture that has proved to be an ideal basis for the realization of complex robotic and automation systems that are controlled by Virtual Reality based man machine interfaces. The architecture does not just provide a well suited framework for the real-time control of a multi robot system but also supports Virtual Reality metaphors and augmentations which facilitate the user's job to command and supervise a complex system. The developed control architecture has already been used for a number of applications. Its capability to integrate sensor information from sensors of different levels of abstraction in real-time helps to make the realized automation system very responsive to real world changes. In this paper, the architecture will be described comprehensively, its main building blocks will be discussed and one realization that is built based on an open source real-time operating system will be presented. The software design and the features of the architecture which make it generally applicable to the distributed control of automation agents in real world applications will be explained. Furthermore its application to the commanding and control of experiments in the Columbus space laboratory, the European contribution to the International Space Station (ISS), is only one example which will be described.

The Virtual Mouse Brain: A Computational Neuroinformatics Platform to Study Whole Mouse Brain Dynamics.

PubMed

Melozzi, Francesca; Woodman, Marmaduke M; Jirsa, Viktor K; Bernard, Christophe

2017-01-01

Connectome-based modeling of large-scale brain network dynamics enables causal in silico interrogation of the brain's structure-function relationship, necessitating the close integration of diverse neuroinformatics fields. Here we extend the open-source simulation software The Virtual Brain (TVB) to whole mouse brain network modeling based on individual diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI)-based or tracer-based detailed mouse connectomes. We provide practical examples on how to use The Virtual Mouse Brain (TVMB) to simulate brain activity, such as seizure propagation and the switching behavior of the resting state dynamics in health and disease. TVMB enables theoretically driven experimental planning and ways to test predictions in the numerous strains of mice available to study brain function in normal and pathological conditions.

Open Biomedical Engineering education in Africa.

PubMed

Ahluwalia, Arti; Atwine, Daniel; De Maria, Carmelo; Ibingira, Charles; Kipkorir, Emmauel; Kiros, Fasil; Madete, June; Mazzei, Daniele; Molyneux, Elisabeth; Moonga, Kando; Moshi, Mainen; Nzomo, Martin; Oduol, Vitalice; Okuonzi, John

2015-08-01

Despite the virtual revolution, the mainstream academic community in most countries remains largely ignorant of the potential of web-based teaching resources and of the expansion of open source software, hardware and rapid prototyping. In the context of Biomedical Engineering (BME), where human safety and wellbeing is paramount, a high level of supervision and quality control is required before open source concepts can be embraced by universities and integrated into the curriculum. In the meantime, students, more than their teachers, have become attuned to continuous streams of digital information, and teaching methods need to adapt rapidly by giving them the skills to filter meaningful information and by supporting collaboration and co-construction of knowledge using open, cloud and crowd based technology. In this paper we present our experience in bringing these concepts to university education in Africa, as a way of enabling rapid development and self-sufficiency in health care. We describe the three summer schools held in sub-Saharan Africa where both students and teachers embraced the philosophy of open BME education with enthusiasm, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of opening education in this way in the developing and developed world.

ViPAR: a software platform for the Virtual Pooling and Analysis of Research Data.

PubMed

Carter, Kim W; Francis, Richard W; Carter, K W; Francis, R W; Bresnahan, M; Gissler, M; Grønborg, T K; Gross, R; Gunnes, N; Hammond, G; Hornig, M; Hultman, C M; Huttunen, J; Langridge, A; Leonard, H; Newman, S; Parner, E T; Petersson, G; Reichenberg, A; Sandin, S; Schendel, D E; Schalkwyk, L; Sourander, A; Steadman, C; Stoltenberg, C; Suominen, A; Surén, P; Susser, E; Sylvester Vethanayagam, A; Yusof, Z

2016-04-01

Research studies exploring the determinants of disease require sufficient statistical power to detect meaningful effects. Sample size is often increased through centralized pooling of disparately located datasets, though ethical, privacy and data ownership issues can often hamper this process. Methods that facilitate the sharing of research data that are sympathetic with these issues and which allow flexible and detailed statistical analyses are therefore in critical need. We have created a software platform for the Virtual Pooling and Analysis of Research data (ViPAR), which employs free and open source methods to provide researchers with a web-based platform to analyse datasets housed in disparate locations. Database federation permits controlled access to remotely located datasets from a central location. The Secure Shell protocol allows data to be securely exchanged between devices over an insecure network. ViPAR combines these free technologies into a solution that facilitates 'virtual pooling' where data can be temporarily pooled into computer memory and made available for analysis without the need for permanent central storage. Within the ViPAR infrastructure, remote sites manage their own harmonized research dataset in a database hosted at their site, while a central server hosts the data federation component and a secure analysis portal. When an analysis is initiated, requested data are retrieved from each remote site and virtually pooled at the central site. The data are then analysed by statistical software and, on completion, results of the analysis are returned to the user and the virtually pooled data are removed from memory. ViPAR is a secure, flexible and powerful analysis platform built on open source technology that is currently in use by large international consortia, and is made publicly available at [http://bioinformatics.childhealthresearch.org.au/software/vipar/]. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association.

Comparison of 3D reconstruction of mandible for pre-operative planning using commercial and open-source software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abdullah, Johari Yap; Omar, Marzuki; Pritam, Helmi Mohd Hadi; Husein, Adam; Rajion, Zainul Ahmad

2016-12-01

3D printing of mandible is important for pre-operative planning, diagnostic purposes, as well as for education and training. Currently, the processing of CT data is routinely performed with commercial software which increases the cost of operation and patient management for a small clinical setting. Usage of open-source software as an alternative to commercial software for 3D reconstruction of the mandible from CT data is scarce. The aim of this study is to compare two methods of 3D reconstruction of the mandible using commercial Materialise Mimics software and open-source Medical Imaging Interaction Toolkit (MITK) software. Head CT images with a slice thickness of 1 mm and a matrix of 512x512 pixels each were retrieved from the server located at the Radiology Department of Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia. The CT data were analysed and the 3D models of mandible were reconstructed using both commercial Materialise Mimics and open-source MITK software. Both virtual 3D models were saved in STL format and exported to 3matic and MeshLab software for morphometric and image analyses. Both models were compared using Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test and Hausdorff Distance. No significant differences were obtained between the 3D models of the mandible produced using Mimics and MITK software. The 3D model of the mandible produced using MITK open-source software is comparable to the commercial MIMICS software. Therefore, open-source software could be used in clinical setting for pre-operative planning to minimise the operational cost.

Exploring Infiniband Hardware Virtualization in OpenNebula towards Efficient High-Performance Computing

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

Pais Pitta de Lacerda Ruivo, Tiago; Bernabeu Altayo, Gerard; Garzoglio, Gabriele

2014-11-11

has been widely accepted that software virtualization has a big negative impact on high-performance computing (HPC) application performance. This work explores the potential use of Infiniband hardware virtualization in an OpenNebula cloud towards the efficient support of MPI-based workloads. We have implemented, deployed, and tested an Infiniband network on the FermiCloud private Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud. To avoid software virtualization towards minimizing the virtualization overhead, we employed a technique called Single Root Input/Output Virtualization (SRIOV). Our solution spanned modifications to the Linux’s Hypervisor as well as the OpenNebula manager. We evaluated the performance of the hardware virtualization on up to 56more » virtual machines connected by up to 8 DDR Infiniband network links, with micro-benchmarks (latency and bandwidth) as well as w a MPI-intensive application (the HPL Linpack benchmark).« less

syris: a flexible and efficient framework for X-ray imaging experiments simulation.

PubMed

Faragó, Tomáš; Mikulík, Petr; Ershov, Alexey; Vogelgesang, Matthias; Hänschke, Daniel; Baumbach, Tilo

2017-11-01

An open-source framework for conducting a broad range of virtual X-ray imaging experiments, syris, is presented. The simulated wavefield created by a source propagates through an arbitrary number of objects until it reaches a detector. The objects in the light path and the source are time-dependent, which enables simulations of dynamic experiments, e.g. four-dimensional time-resolved tomography and laminography. The high-level interface of syris is written in Python and its modularity makes the framework very flexible. The computationally demanding parts behind this interface are implemented in OpenCL, which enables fast calculations on modern graphics processing units. The combination of flexibility and speed opens new possibilities for studying novel imaging methods and systematic search of optimal combinations of measurement conditions and data processing parameters. This can help to increase the success rates and efficiency of valuable synchrotron beam time. To demonstrate the capabilities of the framework, various experiments have been simulated and compared with real data. To show the use case of measurement and data processing parameter optimization based on simulation, a virtual counterpart of a high-speed radiography experiment was created and the simulated data were used to select a suitable motion estimation algorithm; one of its parameters was optimized in order to achieve the best motion estimation accuracy when applied on the real data. syris was also used to simulate tomographic data sets under various imaging conditions which impact the tomographic reconstruction accuracy, and it is shown how the accuracy may guide the selection of imaging conditions for particular use cases.

Transmission from theory to practice: Experiences using open-source code development and a virtual short course to increase the adoption of new theoretical approaches

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harman, C. J.

2015-12-01

Even amongst the academic community, new theoretical tools can remain underutilized due to the investment of time and resources required to understand and implement them. This surely limits the frequency that new theory is rigorously tested against data by scientists outside the group that developed it, and limits the impact that new tools could have on the advancement of science. Reducing the barriers to adoption through online education and open-source code can bridge the gap between theory and data, forging new collaborations, and advancing science. A pilot venture aimed at increasing the adoption of a new theory of time-variable transit time distributions was begun in July 2015 as a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University and The Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science (CUAHSI). There were four main components to the venture: a public online seminar covering the theory, an open source code repository, a virtual short course designed to help participants apply the theory to their data, and an online forum to maintain discussion and build a community of users. 18 participants were selected for the non-public components based on their responses in an application, and were asked to fill out a course evaluation at the end of the short course, and again several months later. These evaluations, along with participation in the forum and on-going contact with the organizer suggest strengths and weaknesses in this combination of components to assist participants in adopting new tools.

Automated Selection of Hotspots (ASH): enhanced automated segmentation and adaptive step finding for Ki67 hotspot detection in adrenal cortical cancer.

PubMed

Lu, Hao; Papathomas, Thomas G; van Zessen, David; Palli, Ivo; de Krijger, Ronald R; van der Spek, Peter J; Dinjens, Winand N M; Stubbs, Andrew P

2014-11-25

In prognosis and therapeutics of adrenal cortical carcinoma (ACC), the selection of the most active areas in proliferative rate (hotspots) within a slide and objective quantification of immunohistochemical Ki67 Labelling Index (LI) are of critical importance. In addition to intratumoral heterogeneity in proliferative rate i.e. levels of Ki67 expression within a given ACC, lack of uniformity and reproducibility in the method of quantification of Ki67 LI may confound an accurate assessment of Ki67 LI. We have implemented an open source toolset, Automated Selection of Hotspots (ASH), for automated hotspot detection and quantification of Ki67 LI. ASH utilizes NanoZoomer Digital Pathology Image (NDPI) splitter to convert the specific NDPI format digital slide scanned from the Hamamatsu instrument into a conventional tiff or jpeg format image for automated segmentation and adaptive step finding hotspots detection algorithm. Quantitative hotspot ranking is provided by the functionality from the open source application ImmunoRatio as part of the ASH protocol. The output is a ranked set of hotspots with concomitant quantitative values based on whole slide ranking. We have implemented an open source automated detection quantitative ranking of hotspots to support histopathologists in selecting the 'hottest' hotspot areas in adrenocortical carcinoma. To provide wider community easy access to ASH we implemented a Galaxy virtual machine (VM) of ASH which is available from http://bioinformatics.erasmusmc.nl/wiki/Automated_Selection_of_Hotspots . The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/13000_2014_216.

Laser device

DOEpatents

Scott, Jill R.; Tremblay, Paul L.

2008-08-19

A laser device includes a virtual source configured to aim laser energy that originates from a true source. The virtual source has a vertical rotational axis during vertical motion of the virtual source and the vertical axis passes through an exit point from which the laser energy emanates independent of virtual source position. The emanating laser energy is collinear with an orientation line. The laser device includes a virtual source manipulation mechanism that positions the virtual source. The manipulation mechanism has a center of lateral pivot approximately coincident with a lateral index and a center of vertical pivot approximately coincident with a vertical index. The vertical index and lateral index intersect at an index origin. The virtual source and manipulation mechanism auto align the orientation line through the index origin during virtual source motion.

Debriefing in Moodle: Written Feedback on Trust and Knowledge Sharing in a Social Dilemma Game

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oertig, Margaret

2010-01-01

This article describes a new approach to debriefing that uses the discussion forum feature of the Moodle open source course management system to debrief a simulation game with undergraduate business students. The simulation game allowed the students to experience the fragility of trust when sharing knowledge in a global virtual project team. I…

Type practical application in spectral analysis, combining Labview and open source software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chioncel, C. P.; Anghel Drugarin, C. V.

2018-01-01

The paper presents the interconnection possibility of LabVIEW with his different opportunities and Scilab, one of the successful free MatLAB clones. The interconnection between those was made possible through the LabVIEW to Scilab gateway. This tool can be applied in virtual as well as in real laboratories, representing a true assistance for self-learning, too.

Google earth as a source of ancillary material in a history of psychology class.

PubMed

Stevison, Blake K; Biggs, Patrick T; Abramson, Charles I

2010-06-01

This article discusses the use of Google Earth to visit significant geographical locations associated with events in the history of psychology. The process of opening files, viewing content, adding placemarks, and saving customized virtual tours on Google Earth are explained. Suggestions for incorporating Google Earth into a history of psychology course are also described.

Metronome LKM: An open source virtual keyboard driver to measure experiment software latencies.

PubMed

Garaizar, Pablo; Vadillo, Miguel A

2017-10-01

Experiment software is often used to measure reaction times gathered with keyboards or other input devices. In previous studies, the accuracy and precision of time stamps has been assessed through several means: (a) generating accurate square wave signals from an external device connected to the parallel port of the computer running the experiment software, (b) triggering the typematic repeat feature of some keyboards to get an evenly separated series of keypress events, or (c) using a solenoid handled by a microcontroller to press the input device (keyboard, mouse button, touch screen) that will be used in the experimental setup. Despite the advantages of these approaches in some contexts, none of them can isolate the measurement error caused by the experiment software itself. Metronome LKM provides a virtual keyboard to assess an experiment's software. Using this open source driver, researchers can generate keypress events using high-resolution timers and compare the time stamps collected by the experiment software with those gathered by Metronome LKM (with nanosecond resolution). Our software is highly configurable (in terms of keys pressed, intervals, SysRq activation) and runs on 2.6-4.8 Linux kernels.

PhysioNet: physiologic signals, time series and related open source software for basic, clinical, and applied research.

PubMed

Moody, George B; Mark, Roger G; Goldberger, Ary L

2011-01-01

PhysioNet provides free web access to over 50 collections of recorded physiologic signals and time series, and related open-source software, in support of basic, clinical, and applied research in medicine, physiology, public health, biomedical engineering and computing, and medical instrument design and evaluation. Its three components (PhysioBank, the archive of signals; PhysioToolkit, the software library; and PhysioNetWorks, the virtual laboratory for collaborative development of future PhysioBank data collections and PhysioToolkit software components) connect researchers and students who need physiologic signals and relevant software with researchers who have data and software to share. PhysioNet's annual open engineering challenges stimulate rapid progress on unsolved or poorly solved questions of basic or clinical interest, by focusing attention on achievable solutions that can be evaluated and compared objectively using freely available reference data.

A lifting-surface theory solution for the diffraction of internal sound sources by an engine nacelle

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Martinez, R.

1986-07-01

Lifting-surface theory is used to solve the problem of diffraction by a rigid open-ended pipe of zero thickness and finite length, with application to the prediction of acoustic insertion-loss performance for the encasing structure of a ducted propeller or turbofan. An axisymmetric situation is assumed, and the incident field due to a force applied directly to the fluid in the cylinder axial direction is used. A virtual-source distribution of unsteady dipoles is found whose integrated component of radial velocity is set to cancel that of the incident field over the surface. The calculated virtual load is verified by whether its effect on the near-field input power at the actual source is consistent with the far-field power radiated by the system, a balance which is possible if the no-flow-through boundary condition has been satisfied over the rigid pipe surface such that the velocity component of the acoustic intensity is zero.

LIGSIFT: an open-source tool for ligand structural alignment and virtual screening.

PubMed

Roy, Ambrish; Skolnick, Jeffrey

2015-02-15

Shape-based alignment of small molecules is a widely used approach in computer-aided drug discovery. Most shape-based ligand structure alignment applications, both commercial and freely available ones, use the Tanimoto coefficient or similar functions for evaluating molecular similarity. Major drawbacks of using such functions are the size dependence of the score and the fact that the statistical significance of the molecular match using such metrics is not reported. We describe a new open-source ligand structure alignment and virtual screening (VS) algorithm, LIGSIFT, that uses Gaussian molecular shape overlay for fast small molecule alignment and a size-independent scoring function for efficient VS based on the statistical significance of the score. LIGSIFT was tested against the compounds for 40 protein targets available in the Directory of Useful Decoys and the performance was evaluated using the area under the ROC curve (AUC), the Enrichment Factor (EF) and Hit Rate (HR). LIGSIFT-based VS shows an average AUC of 0.79, average EF values of 20.8 and a HR of 59% in the top 1% of the screened library. LIGSIFT software, including the source code, is freely available to academic users at http://cssb.biology.gatech.edu/LIGSIFT. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. skolnick@gatech.edu. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Open-source platform to benchmark fingerprints for ligand-based virtual screening

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Similarity-search methods using molecular fingerprints are an important tool for ligand-based virtual screening. A huge variety of fingerprints exist and their performance, usually assessed in retrospective benchmarking studies using data sets with known actives and known or assumed inactives, depends largely on the validation data sets used and the similarity measure used. Comparing new methods to existing ones in any systematic way is rather difficult due to the lack of standard data sets and evaluation procedures. Here, we present a standard platform for the benchmarking of 2D fingerprints. The open-source platform contains all source code, structural data for the actives and inactives used (drawn from three publicly available collections of data sets), and lists of randomly selected query molecules to be used for statistically valid comparisons of methods. This allows the exact reproduction and comparison of results for future studies. The results for 12 standard fingerprints together with two simple baseline fingerprints assessed by seven evaluation methods are shown together with the correlations between methods. High correlations were found between the 12 fingerprints and a careful statistical analysis showed that only the two baseline fingerprints were different from the others in a statistically significant way. High correlations were also found between six of the seven evaluation methods, indicating that despite their seeming differences, many of these methods are similar to each other. PMID:23721588

A Model for an Open and Flexible E-Training Platform To Encourage Companies' Learning Culture and Meet Employees' Learning Needs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bagnasco, Andrea; Chirico, Marco; Parodi, Giancarlo; Scapolla, A. Marina

2003-01-01

Distance education is an answer to the demand for flexibility in training. The aim is to build a virtual learning community on the basis of a knowledge model that meets different learning needs. This article analyzes possible innovations in corporate training, and proposes a framework that integrates all information sources and offers practice…

Identification of source velocities on 3D structures in non-anechoic environments: Theoretical background and experimental validation of the inverse patch transfer functions method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aucejo, M.; Totaro, N.; Guyader, J.-L.

2010-08-01

In noise control, identification of the source velocity field remains a major problem open to investigation. Consequently, methods such as nearfield acoustical holography (NAH), principal source projection, the inverse frequency response function and hybrid NAH have been developed. However, these methods require free field conditions that are often difficult to achieve in practice. This article presents an alternative method known as inverse patch transfer functions, designed to identify source velocities and developed in the framework of the European SILENCE project. This method is based on the definition of a virtual cavity, the double measurement of the pressure and particle velocity fields on the aperture surfaces of this volume, divided into elementary areas called patches and the inversion of impedances matrices, numerically computed from a modal basis obtained by FEM. Theoretically, the method is applicable to sources with complex 3D geometries and measurements can be carried out in a non-anechoic environment even in the presence of other stationary sources outside the virtual cavity. In the present paper, the theoretical background of the iPTF method is described and the results (numerical and experimental) for a source with simple geometry (two baffled pistons driven in antiphase) are presented and discussed.

Open Distribution of Virtual Containers as a Key Framework for Open Educational Resources and STEAM Subjects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Corbi, Alberto; Burgos, Daniel

2017-01-01

This paper presents how virtual containers enhance the implementation of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) subjects as Open Educational Resources (OER). The publication initially summarizes the limitations of delivering open rich learning contents and corresponding assignments to students in college level STEAM areas. The…

Strengthened IAEA Safeguards-Imagery Analysis: Geospatial Tools for Nonproliferation Analysis

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

Pabian, Frank V

2012-08-14

This slide presentation focuses on the growing role and importance of imagery analysis for IAEA safeguards applications and how commercial satellite imagery, together with the newly available geospatial tools, can be used to promote 'all-source synergy.' As additional sources of openly available information, satellite imagery in conjunction with the geospatial tools can be used to significantly augment and enhance existing information gathering techniques, procedures, and analyses in the remote detection and assessment of nonproliferation relevant activities, facilities, and programs. Foremost of the geospatial tools are the 'Digital Virtual Globes' (i.e., GoogleEarth, Virtual Earth, etc.) that are far better than previouslymore » used simple 2-D plan-view line drawings for visualization of known and suspected facilities of interest which can be critical to: (1) Site familiarization and true geospatial context awareness; (2) Pre-inspection planning; (3) Onsite orientation and navigation; (4) Post-inspection reporting; (5) Site monitoring over time for changes; (6) Verification of states site declarations and for input to State Evaluation reports; and (7) A common basis for discussions among all interested parties (Member States). Additionally, as an 'open-source', such virtual globes can also provide a new, essentially free, means to conduct broad area search for undeclared nuclear sites and activities - either alleged through open source leads; identified on internet BLOGS and WIKI Layers, with input from a 'free' cadre of global browsers and/or by knowledgeable local citizens (a.k.a.: 'crowdsourcing'), that can include ground photos and maps; or by other initiatives based on existing information and in-house country knowledge. They also provide a means to acquire ground photography taken by locals, hobbyists, and tourists of the surrounding locales that can be useful in identifying and discriminating between relevant and non-relevant facilities and their associated infrastructure. The digital globes also provide highly accurate terrain mapping for better geospatial context and allow detailed 3-D perspectives of all sites or areas of interest. 3-D modeling software (i.e., Google's SketchUp6 newly available in 2007) when used in conjunction with these digital globes can significantly enhance individual building characterization and visualization (including interiors), allowing for better assessments including walk-arounds or fly-arounds and perhaps better decision making on multiple levels (e.g., the best placement for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) video monitoring cameras).« less

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

Spatial Information Processing: Standards-Based Open Source Visualization Technology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hogan, P.

2009-12-01

. Spatial information intelligence is a global issue that will increasingly affect our ability to survive as a species. Collectively we must better appreciate the complex relationships that make life on Earth possible. Providing spatial information in its native context can accelerate our ability to process that information. To maximize this ability to process information, three basic elements are required: data delivery (server technology), data access (client technology), and data processing (information intelligence). NASA World Wind provides open source client and server technologies based on open standards. The possibilities for data processing and data sharing are enhanced by this inclusive infrastructure for geographic information. It is interesting that this open source and open standards approach, unfettered by proprietary constraints, simultaneously provides for entirely proprietary use of this same technology. 1. WHY WORLD WIND? NASA World Wind began as a single program with specific functionality, to deliver NASA content. But as the possibilities for virtual globe technology became more apparent, we found that while enabling a new class of information technology, we were also getting in the way. Researchers, developers and even users expressed their desire for World Wind functionality in ways that would service their specific needs. They want it in their web pages. They want to add their own features. They want to manage their own data. They told us that only with this kind of flexibility, could their objectives and the potential for this technology be truly realized. World Wind client technology is a set of development tools, a software development kit (SDK) that allows a software engineer to create applications requiring geographic visualization technology. 2. MODULAR COMPONENTRY Accelerated evolution of a technology requires that the essential elements of that technology be modular components such that each can advance independent of the other elements. World Wind therefore changed its mission from providing a single information browser to enabling a whole class of 3D geographic applications. Instead of creating a single program, World Wind is a suite of components that can be selectively used in any number of programs. World Wind technology can be a part of any application, or it can be a window in a web page. Or it can be extended with additional functionalities by application and web developers. World Wind makes it possible to include virtual globe visualization and server technology in support of any objective. The world community can continually benefit from advances made in the technology by NASA in concert with the world community. 3. OPEN SOURCE AND OPEN STANDARDS NASA World Wind is NASA Open Source software. This means that the source code is fully accessible for anyone to freely use, even in association with proprietary technology. Imagery and other data provided by the World Wind servers reside in the public domain, including the data server technology itself. This allows others to deliver their own geospatial data and to provide custom solutions based on users specific needs.

Environments for online maritime simulators with cloud computing capabilities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Raicu, Gabriel; Raicu, Alexandra

2016-12-01

This paper presents the cloud computing environments, network principles and methods for graphical development in realistic naval simulation, naval robotics and virtual interactions. The aim of this approach is to achieve a good simulation quality in large networked environments using open source solutions designed for educational purposes. Realistic rendering of maritime environments requires near real-time frameworks with enhanced computing capabilities during distance interactions. E-Navigation concepts coupled with the last achievements in virtual and augmented reality will enhance the overall experience leading to new developments and innovations. We have to deal with a multiprocessing situation using advanced technologies and distributed applications using remote ship scenario and automation of ship operations.

Multilevel Parallelization of AutoDock 4.2.

PubMed

Norgan, Andrew P; Coffman, Paul K; Kocher, Jean-Pierre A; Katzmann, David J; Sosa, Carlos P

2011-04-28

Virtual (computational) screening is an increasingly important tool for drug discovery. AutoDock is a popular open-source application for performing molecular docking, the prediction of ligand-receptor interactions. AutoDock is a serial application, though several previous efforts have parallelized various aspects of the program. In this paper, we report on a multi-level parallelization of AutoDock 4.2 (mpAD4). Using MPI and OpenMP, AutoDock 4.2 was parallelized for use on MPI-enabled systems and to multithread the execution of individual docking jobs. In addition, code was implemented to reduce input/output (I/O) traffic by reusing grid maps at each node from docking to docking. Performance of mpAD4 was examined on two multiprocessor computers. Using MPI with OpenMP multithreading, mpAD4 scales with near linearity on the multiprocessor systems tested. In situations where I/O is limiting, reuse of grid maps reduces both system I/O and overall screening time. Multithreading of AutoDock's Lamarkian Genetic Algorithm with OpenMP increases the speed of execution of individual docking jobs, and when combined with MPI parallelization can significantly reduce the execution time of virtual screens. This work is significant in that mpAD4 speeds the execution of certain molecular docking workloads and allows the user to optimize the degree of system-level (MPI) and node-level (OpenMP) parallelization to best fit both workloads and computational resources.

Sharing Water-related Information to Tackle Changes in the Hydrosphere - for Operational Needs (SWITCH-ON)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arheimer, Berit

2015-04-01

Recently, a collaborative EU project started called SWITCH-ON (EU FP7 project No 603587) coordinated by SMHI to support the INSPIRE directive and the Open Data Strategy. The overall goal of the project is to establish a "one-stop-shop" web portal for easy access to European water information. The project will use open data, provide infrastructure for sharing and collaboration, and add value to society and research by repurposing and refining data from various sources. The SWITCH-ON project http://www.water-switch-on.eu/ will establish new forms of water research and facilitate the development of new products and services based on principles of sharing and community building in the water society. The SWITCH-ON objectives are to use open data for implementing: 1) an innovative spatial information platform (SIP) to find, bind, transform and publish data, 2) entirely new forms of collaborative research organised in a Virtual Water-Science Laboratory, open for any research group, 3) fourteen new operational products for water management and awareness, 4) outreach facilities for new water business and knowledge in line with the Europe's smart growth and environmental objectives. This poster will describe the overall project goals and especially the recent progress on developing a Virtual Water-Science Laboratory. Contact: waterswitchon@gmail.com

Design of Xen Hybrid Multiple Police Model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sun, Lei; Lin, Renhao; Zhu, Xianwei

2017-10-01

Virtualization Technology has attracted more and more attention. As a popular open-source virtualization tools, XEN is used more and more frequently. Xsm, XEN security model, has also been widespread concern. The safety status classification has not been established in the XSM, and it uses the virtual machine as a managed object to make Dom0 a unique administrative domain that does not meet the minimum privilege. According to these questions, we design a Hybrid multiple police model named SV_HMPMD that organically integrates multiple single security policy models include DTE,RBAC,BLP. It can fullfill the requirement of confidentiality and integrity for security model and use different particle size to different domain. In order to improve BLP’s practicability, the model introduce multi-level security labels. In order to divide the privilege in detail, we combine DTE with RBAC. In order to oversize privilege, we limit the privilege of domain0.

Workflow4Metabolomics: a collaborative research infrastructure for computational metabolomics

PubMed Central

Giacomoni, Franck; Le Corguillé, Gildas; Monsoor, Misharl; Landi, Marion; Pericard, Pierre; Pétéra, Mélanie; Duperier, Christophe; Tremblay-Franco, Marie; Martin, Jean-François; Jacob, Daniel; Goulitquer, Sophie; Thévenot, Etienne A.; Caron, Christophe

2015-01-01

Summary: The complex, rapidly evolving field of computational metabolomics calls for collaborative infrastructures where the large volume of new algorithms for data pre-processing, statistical analysis and annotation can be readily integrated whatever the language, evaluated on reference datasets and chained to build ad hoc workflows for users. We have developed Workflow4Metabolomics (W4M), the first fully open-source and collaborative online platform for computational metabolomics. W4M is a virtual research environment built upon the Galaxy web-based platform technology. It enables ergonomic integration, exchange and running of individual modules and workflows. Alternatively, the whole W4M framework and computational tools can be downloaded as a virtual machine for local installation. Availability and implementation: http://workflow4metabolomics.org homepage enables users to open a private account and access the infrastructure. W4M is developed and maintained by the French Bioinformatics Institute (IFB) and the French Metabolomics and Fluxomics Infrastructure (MetaboHUB). Contact: contact@workflow4metabolomics.org PMID:25527831

Workflow4Metabolomics: a collaborative research infrastructure for computational metabolomics.

PubMed

Giacomoni, Franck; Le Corguillé, Gildas; Monsoor, Misharl; Landi, Marion; Pericard, Pierre; Pétéra, Mélanie; Duperier, Christophe; Tremblay-Franco, Marie; Martin, Jean-François; Jacob, Daniel; Goulitquer, Sophie; Thévenot, Etienne A; Caron, Christophe

2015-05-01

The complex, rapidly evolving field of computational metabolomics calls for collaborative infrastructures where the large volume of new algorithms for data pre-processing, statistical analysis and annotation can be readily integrated whatever the language, evaluated on reference datasets and chained to build ad hoc workflows for users. We have developed Workflow4Metabolomics (W4M), the first fully open-source and collaborative online platform for computational metabolomics. W4M is a virtual research environment built upon the Galaxy web-based platform technology. It enables ergonomic integration, exchange and running of individual modules and workflows. Alternatively, the whole W4M framework and computational tools can be downloaded as a virtual machine for local installation. http://workflow4metabolomics.org homepage enables users to open a private account and access the infrastructure. W4M is developed and maintained by the French Bioinformatics Institute (IFB) and the French Metabolomics and Fluxomics Infrastructure (MetaboHUB). contact@workflow4metabolomics.org. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press.

SmartSIM - a virtual reality simulator for laparoscopy training using a generic physics engine.

PubMed

Khan, Zohaib Amjad; Kamal, Nabeel; Hameed, Asad; Mahmood, Amama; Zainab, Rida; Sadia, Bushra; Mansoor, Shamyl Bin; Hasan, Osman

2017-09-01

Virtual reality (VR) training simulators have started playing a vital role in enhancing surgical skills, such as hand-eye coordination in laparoscopy, and practicing surgical scenarios that cannot be easily created using physical models. We describe a new VR simulator for basic training in laparoscopy, i.e. SmartSIM, which has been developed using a generic open-source physics engine called the simulation open framework architecture (SOFA). This paper describes the systems perspective of SmartSIM including design details of both hardware and software components, while highlighting the critical design decisions. Some of the distinguishing features of SmartSIM include: (i) an easy-to-fabricate custom-built hardware interface; (ii) use of a generic physics engine to facilitate wider accessibility of our work and flexibility in terms of using various graphical modelling algorithms and their implementations; and (iii) an intelligent and smart evaluation mechanism that facilitates unsupervised and independent learning. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Psychophysical Evaluation of Three-Dimensional Auditory Displays

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wightman, Frederic L. (Principal Investigator)

1995-01-01

This report describes the process made during the first year of a three-year Cooperative Research Agreement (CRA NCC2-542). The CRA proposed a program of applied of psychophysical research designed to determine the requirements and limitations of three-dimensional (3-D) auditory display systems. These displays present synthesized stimuli to a pilot or virtual workstation operator that evoke auditory images at predetermined positions in space. The images can be either stationary or moving. In previous years. we completed a number of studies that provided data on listeners' abilities to localize stationary sound sources with 3-D displays. The current focus is on the use of 3-D displays in 'natural' listening conditions, which include listeners' head movements, moving sources, multiple sources and 'echoic' sources. The results of our research on two of these topics, the role of head movements and the role of echoes and reflections, were reported in the most recent Semi-Annual Pro-ress Report (Appendix A). In the period since the last Progress Report we have been studying a third topic, the localizability of moving sources. The results of this research are described. The fidelity of a virtual auditory display is critically dependent on precise measurement of the listener''s Head-Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs), which are used to produce the virtual auditory images. We continue to explore methods for improving our HRTF measurement technique. During this reporting period we compared HRTFs measured using our standard open-canal probe tube technique and HRTFs measured with the closed-canal insert microphones from the Crystal River Engineering Snapshot system.

Towards surgeon-authored VR training: the scene-development cycle.

PubMed

Dindar, Saleh; Nguyen, Thien; Peters, Jörg

2016-01-01

Enabling surgeon-educators to themselves create virtual reality (VR) training units promises greater variety, specialization, and relevance of the units. This paper describes a software bridge that semi-automates the scene-generation cycle, a key bottleneck in authoring, modeling, and developing VR units. Augmenting an open source modeling environment with physical behavior attachment and collision specifications yields single-click testing of the full force-feedback enabled anatomical scene.

CAGE IIIA Distributed Simulation Design Methodology

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-05-01

2 VHF Very High Frequency VLC Video LAN Codec – an Open-source cross-platform multimedia player and framework VM Virtual Machine VOIP Voice Over...Implementing Defence Experimentation (GUIDEx). The key challenges for this methodology are with understanding how to: • design it o define the...operation and to be available in the other nation’s simulations. The challenge for the CAGE campaign of experiments is to continue to build upon this

The Virtual Collaboration Environment: New Media for Crisis Response

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-05-01

openvce.net/forum-alternative-platforms and http://openvce.net/more), the open-source Drupal ®-based Proceedings of the 8th International ISCRAM... Drupal is a widely used modular content management system, with an active development community of its own. It provides a user management system and...authoring text documents (a facility felt to be lacking at the time in Drupal ). This wiki feature has itself been supplemented with experimental

Robot Rocket Rally

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-03-14

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A visitor to the Robot Rocket Rally tries his hand at virtual reality in a demonstration of the Oculus Rift technology, provided by the Open Source Robotics Foundation. The three-day event at Florida's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is highlighted by exhibits, games and demonstrations of a variety of robots, with exhibitors ranging from school robotics clubs to veteran NASA scientists and engineers. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Managing a tier-2 computer centre with a private cloud infrastructure

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bagnasco, Stefano; Berzano, Dario; Brunetti, Riccardo; Lusso, Stefano; Vallero, Sara

2014-06-01

In a typical scientific computing centre, several applications coexist and share a single physical infrastructure. An underlying Private Cloud infrastructure eases the management and maintenance of such heterogeneous applications (such as multipurpose or application-specific batch farms, Grid sites, interactive data analysis facilities and others), allowing dynamic allocation resources to any application. Furthermore, the maintenance of large deployments of complex and rapidly evolving middleware and application software is eased by the use of virtual images and contextualization techniques. Such infrastructures are being deployed in some large centres (see e.g. the CERN Agile Infrastructure project), but with several open-source tools reaching maturity this is becoming viable also for smaller sites. In this contribution we describe the Private Cloud infrastructure at the INFN-Torino Computer Centre, that hosts a full-fledged WLCG Tier-2 centre, an Interactive Analysis Facility for the ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC and several smaller scientific computing applications. The private cloud building blocks include the OpenNebula software stack, the GlusterFS filesystem and the OpenWRT Linux distribution (used for network virtualization); a future integration into a federated higher-level infrastructure is made possible by exposing commonly used APIs like EC2 and OCCI.

Template-based combinatorial enumeration of virtual compound libraries for lipids

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

A variety of software packages are available for the combinatorial enumeration of virtual libraries for small molecules, starting from specifications of core scaffolds with attachments points and lists of R-groups as SMILES or SD files. Although SD files include atomic coordinates for core scaffolds and R-groups, it is not possible to control 2-dimensional (2D) layout of the enumerated structures generated for virtual compound libraries because different packages generate different 2D representations for the same structure. We have developed a software package called LipidMapsTools for the template-based combinatorial enumeration of virtual compound libraries for lipids. Virtual libraries are enumerated for the specified lipid abbreviations using matching lists of pre-defined templates and chain abbreviations, instead of core scaffolds and lists of R-groups provided by the user. 2D structures of the enumerated lipids are drawn in a specific and consistent fashion adhering to the framework for representing lipid structures proposed by the LIPID MAPS consortium. LipidMapsTools is lightweight, relatively fast and contains no external dependencies. It is an open source package and freely available under the terms of the modified BSD license. PMID:23006594

Template-based combinatorial enumeration of virtual compound libraries for lipids.

PubMed

Sud, Manish; Fahy, Eoin; Subramaniam, Shankar

2012-09-25

A variety of software packages are available for the combinatorial enumeration of virtual libraries for small molecules, starting from specifications of core scaffolds with attachments points and lists of R-groups as SMILES or SD files. Although SD files include atomic coordinates for core scaffolds and R-groups, it is not possible to control 2-dimensional (2D) layout of the enumerated structures generated for virtual compound libraries because different packages generate different 2D representations for the same structure. We have developed a software package called LipidMapsTools for the template-based combinatorial enumeration of virtual compound libraries for lipids. Virtual libraries are enumerated for the specified lipid abbreviations using matching lists of pre-defined templates and chain abbreviations, instead of core scaffolds and lists of R-groups provided by the user. 2D structures of the enumerated lipids are drawn in a specific and consistent fashion adhering to the framework for representing lipid structures proposed by the LIPID MAPS consortium. LipidMapsTools is lightweight, relatively fast and contains no external dependencies. It is an open source package and freely available under the terms of the modified BSD license.

eLoom and Flatland: specification, simulation and visualization engines for the study of arbitrary hierarchical neural architectures.

PubMed

Caudell, Thomas P; Xiao, Yunhai; Healy, Michael J

2003-01-01

eLoom is an open source graph simulation software tool, developed at the University of New Mexico (UNM), that enables users to specify and simulate neural network models. Its specification language and libraries enables users to construct and simulate arbitrary, potentially hierarchical network structures on serial and parallel processing systems. In addition, eLoom is integrated with UNM's Flatland, an open source virtual environments development tool to provide real-time visualizations of the network structure and activity. Visualization is a useful method for understanding both learning and computation in artificial neural networks. Through 3D animated pictorially representations of the state and flow of information in the network, a better understanding of network functionality is achieved. ART-1, LAPART-II, MLP, and SOM neural networks are presented to illustrate eLoom and Flatland's capabilities.

Software platform virtualization in chemistry research and university teaching

PubMed Central

2009-01-01

Background Modern chemistry laboratories operate with a wide range of software applications under different operating systems, such as Windows, LINUX or Mac OS X. Instead of installing software on different computers it is possible to install those applications on a single computer using Virtual Machine software. Software platform virtualization allows a single guest operating system to execute multiple other operating systems on the same computer. We apply and discuss the use of virtual machines in chemistry research and teaching laboratories. Results Virtual machines are commonly used for cheminformatics software development and testing. Benchmarking multiple chemistry software packages we have confirmed that the computational speed penalty for using virtual machines is low and around 5% to 10%. Software virtualization in a teaching environment allows faster deployment and easy use of commercial and open source software in hands-on computer teaching labs. Conclusion Software virtualization in chemistry, mass spectrometry and cheminformatics is needed for software testing and development of software for different operating systems. In order to obtain maximum performance the virtualization software should be multi-core enabled and allow the use of multiprocessor configurations in the virtual machine environment. Server consolidation, by running multiple tasks and operating systems on a single physical machine, can lead to lower maintenance and hardware costs especially in small research labs. The use of virtual machines can prevent software virus infections and security breaches when used as a sandbox system for internet access and software testing. Complex software setups can be created with virtual machines and are easily deployed later to multiple computers for hands-on teaching classes. We discuss the popularity of bioinformatics compared to cheminformatics as well as the missing cheminformatics education at universities worldwide. PMID:20150997

Software platform virtualization in chemistry research and university teaching.

PubMed

Kind, Tobias; Leamy, Tim; Leary, Julie A; Fiehn, Oliver

2009-11-16

Modern chemistry laboratories operate with a wide range of software applications under different operating systems, such as Windows, LINUX or Mac OS X. Instead of installing software on different computers it is possible to install those applications on a single computer using Virtual Machine software. Software platform virtualization allows a single guest operating system to execute multiple other operating systems on the same computer. We apply and discuss the use of virtual machines in chemistry research and teaching laboratories. Virtual machines are commonly used for cheminformatics software development and testing. Benchmarking multiple chemistry software packages we have confirmed that the computational speed penalty for using virtual machines is low and around 5% to 10%. Software virtualization in a teaching environment allows faster deployment and easy use of commercial and open source software in hands-on computer teaching labs. Software virtualization in chemistry, mass spectrometry and cheminformatics is needed for software testing and development of software for different operating systems. In order to obtain maximum performance the virtualization software should be multi-core enabled and allow the use of multiprocessor configurations in the virtual machine environment. Server consolidation, by running multiple tasks and operating systems on a single physical machine, can lead to lower maintenance and hardware costs especially in small research labs. The use of virtual machines can prevent software virus infections and security breaches when used as a sandbox system for internet access and software testing. Complex software setups can be created with virtual machines and are easily deployed later to multiple computers for hands-on teaching classes. We discuss the popularity of bioinformatics compared to cheminformatics as well as the missing cheminformatics education at universities worldwide.

Open innovation and external sources of innovation. An opportunity to fuel the R&D pipeline and enhance decision making?

PubMed

Schuhmacher, Alexander; Gassmann, Oliver; McCracken, Nigel; Hinder, Markus

2018-05-08

Historically, research and development (R&D) in the pharmaceutical sector has predominantly been an in-house activity. To enable investments for game changing late-stage assets and to enable better and less costly go/no-go decisions, most companies have employed a fail early paradigm through the implementation of clinical proof-of-concept organizations. To fuel their pipelines, some pioneers started to complement their internal R&D efforts through collaborations as early as the 1990s. In recent years, multiple extrinsic and intrinsic factors induced an opening for external sources of innovation and resulted in new models for open innovation, such as open sourcing, crowdsourcing, public-private partnerships, innovations centres, and the virtualization of R&D. Three factors seem to determine the breadth and depth regarding how companies approach external innovation: (1) the company's legacy, (2) the company's willingness and ability to take risks and (3) the company's need to control IP and competitors. In addition, these factors often constitute the major hurdles to effectively leveraging external opportunities and assets. Conscious and differential choices of the R&D and business models for different companies and different divisions in the same company seem to best allow a company to fully exploit the potential of both internal and external innovations.

Heterogeneous compute in computer vision: OpenCL in OpenCV

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gasparakis, Harris

2014-02-01

We explore the relevance of Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) in Computer Vision, both as a long term vision, and as a near term emerging reality via the recently ratified OpenCL 2.0 Khronos standard. After a brief review of OpenCL 1.2 and 2.0, including HSA features such as Shared Virtual Memory (SVM) and platform atomics, we identify what genres of Computer Vision workloads stand to benefit by leveraging those features, and we suggest a new mental framework that replaces GPU compute with hybrid HSA APU compute. As a case in point, we discuss, in some detail, popular object recognition algorithms (part-based models), emphasizing the interplay and concurrent collaboration between the GPU and CPU. We conclude by describing how OpenCL has been incorporated in OpenCV, a popular open source computer vision library, emphasizing recent work on the Transparent API, to appear in OpenCV 3.0, which unifies the native CPU and OpenCL execution paths under a single API, allowing the same code to execute either on CPU or on a OpenCL enabled device, without even recompiling.

Virtual Observer Controller (VOC) for Small Unit Infantry Laser Simulation Training

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-04-01

per-seat license when deployed. As a result, ViaVoice was abandoned early in development. Next, the SPHINX engine from Carnegie Mellon University was...examined. Sphinx is Java-based software, providing cross-platform functionality, and it is also free, open-source software. Software developers at...IST had experience using SPHINX , so it was initially selected it to be the VOC speech engine. After implementing a small portion of the VOC grammar

Commonality and Variability Analysis for Xenon Family of Separation Virtual Machine Monitors (CVAX)

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-07-18

technical approach is a systematic application of Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE). A systematic application requires describing the family and... engineering Software family September 2016 – October 2016 OSD/OUSD/ATL/ASD(R&E)/RDOffice of Information Systems & Cyber Security RD / ASD(R&E) / AT&L...by the evolving open-source Xen hypervisor. The technical approach is a systematic application of Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE). A

Infrastructure Suitability Assessment Modeling for Cloud Computing Solutions

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-09-01

Virtualization vs . Para-Virtualization .......................................................10 Figure 4. Modeling alternatives in relation to model...the conceptual difference between full virtualization and para-virtualization. Figure 3. Full Virtualization vs . Para-Virtualization 2. XEN...Besides Microsoft’s own client implementations, dubbed “Remote Desktop Con- nection Client” for Windows® and Apple ® operating systems, various open

Database Organisation in a Web-Enabled Free and Open-Source Software (foss) Environment for Spatio-Temporal Landslide Modelling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Das, I.; Oberai, K.; Sarathi Roy, P.

2012-07-01

Landslides exhibit themselves in different mass movement processes and are considered among the most complex natural hazards occurring on the earth surface. Making landslide database available online via WWW (World Wide Web) promotes the spreading and reaching out of the landslide information to all the stakeholders. The aim of this research is to present a comprehensive database for generating landslide hazard scenario with the help of available historic records of landslides and geo-environmental factors and make them available over the Web using geospatial Free & Open Source Software (FOSS). FOSS reduces the cost of the project drastically as proprietary software's are very costly. Landslide data generated for the period 1982 to 2009 were compiled along the national highway road corridor in Indian Himalayas. All the geo-environmental datasets along with the landslide susceptibility map were served through WEBGIS client interface. Open source University of Minnesota (UMN) mapserver was used as GIS server software for developing web enabled landslide geospatial database. PHP/Mapscript server-side application serve as a front-end application and PostgreSQL with PostGIS extension serve as a backend application for the web enabled landslide spatio-temporal databases. This dynamic virtual visualization process through a web platform brings an insight into the understanding of the landslides and the resulting damage closer to the affected people and user community. The landslide susceptibility dataset is also made available as an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Feature Service (WFS) which can be accessed through any OGC compliant open source or proprietary GIS Software.

Beyond xMOOCs in healthcare education: study of the feasibility in integrating virtual patient systems and MOOC platforms.

PubMed

Stathakarou, Natalia; Zary, Nabil; Kononowicz, Andrzej A

2014-01-01

Background. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are an emerging trend in online learning. However, their technology is not yet completely adjusted to the needs of healthcare education. Integration of Virtual Patients within MOOCs to increase interactivity and foster clinical reasoning skills training, has been discussed in the past, but not verified by a practical implementation. Objective. To investigate the technical feasibility of integrating MOOCs with Virtual Patients for the purpose of enabling further research into the potential pedagogical benefits of this approach. Methods. We selected OpenEdx and Open Labyrinth as representative constituents of a MOOC platform and Virtual Patient system integration. Based upon our prior experience we selected the most fundamental technical requirement to address. Grounded in the available literature we identified an e-learning standard to guide the integration. We attempted to demonstrate the feasibility of the integration by designing a "proof-of-concept" prototype. The resulting pilot implementation was subject of verification by two test cases. Results. A Single Sign-On mechanism connecting Open Labyrinth with OpenEdx and based on the IMS LTI standard was successfully implemented and verified. Conclusion. We investigated the technical perspective of integrating Virtual Patients with MOOCs. By addressing this crucial technical requirement we set a base for future research on the educational benefits of using virtual patients in MOOCs. This provides new opportunities for integrating specialized software in healthcare education at massive scale.

Beyond xMOOCs in healthcare education: study of the feasibility in integrating virtual patient systems and MOOC platforms

PubMed Central

Zary, Nabil; Kononowicz, Andrzej A.

2014-01-01

Background. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are an emerging trend in online learning. However, their technology is not yet completely adjusted to the needs of healthcare education. Integration of Virtual Patients within MOOCs to increase interactivity and foster clinical reasoning skills training, has been discussed in the past, but not verified by a practical implementation. Objective. To investigate the technical feasibility of integrating MOOCs with Virtual Patients for the purpose of enabling further research into the potential pedagogical benefits of this approach. Methods. We selected OpenEdx and Open Labyrinth as representative constituents of a MOOC platform and Virtual Patient system integration. Based upon our prior experience we selected the most fundamental technical requirement to address. Grounded in the available literature we identified an e-learning standard to guide the integration. We attempted to demonstrate the feasibility of the integration by designing a “proof-of-concept” prototype. The resulting pilot implementation was subject of verification by two test cases. Results. A Single Sign-On mechanism connecting Open Labyrinth with OpenEdx and based on the IMS LTI standard was successfully implemented and verified. Conclusion. We investigated the technical perspective of integrating Virtual Patients with MOOCs. By addressing this crucial technical requirement we set a base for future research on the educational benefits of using virtual patients in MOOCs. This provides new opportunities for integrating specialized software in healthcare education at massive scale. PMID:25405078

Observation and theory of X-ray mirages

PubMed Central

Magnitskiy, Sergey; Nagorskiy, Nikolay; Faenov, Anatoly; Pikuz, Tatiana; Tanaka, Mamoko; Ishino, Masahiko; Nishikino, Masaharu; Fukuda, Yuji; Kando, Masaki; Kawachi, Tetsuya; Kato, Yoshiaki

2013-01-01

The advent of X-ray lasers allowed the realization of compact coherent soft X-ray sources, thus opening the way to a wide range of applications. Here we report the observation of unexpected concentric rings in the far-field beam profile at the output of a two-stage plasma-based X-ray laser, which can be considered as the first manifestation of a mirage phenomenon in X-rays. We have developed a method of solving the Maxwell–Bloch equations for this problem, and find that the experimentally observed phenomenon is due to the emergence of X-ray mirages in the plasma amplifier, appearing as phase-matched coherent virtual point sources. The obtained results bring a new insight into the physical nature of amplification of X-ray radiation in laser-induced plasma amplifiers and open additional opportunities for X-ray plasma diagnostics and extreme ultraviolet lithography. PMID:23733009

KLASS: Kennedy Launch Academy Simulation System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Garner, Lesley C.

2007-01-01

Software provides access to many sophisticated scientific instrumentation (Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), a Light Microscope, a Scanning Probe Microscope (covering Scanning Tunneling, Atomic Force, and Magnetic Force microscopy), and an Energy Dispersive Spectrometer for the SEM). Flash animation videos explain how each of the instruments work. Videos on how they are used at NASA and the sample preparation. Measuring and labeling tools provided with each instrument. Hands on experience of controlling the virtual instrument to conduct investigations, much like the real scientists at NASA do. Very open architecture. Open source on SourceForge. Extensive use of XML Target audience is high school and entry-level college students. "Many beginning students never get closer to an electron microscope than the photos in their textbooks. But anyone can get a sense of what the instrument can do by downloading this simulator from NASA's Kennedy Space Center." Science Magazine, April 8th, 2005

CHRONOS architecture: Experiences with an open-source services-oriented architecture for geoinformatics

USGS Publications Warehouse

Fils, D.; Cervato, C.; Reed, J.; Diver, P.; Tang, X.; Bohling, G.; Greer, D.

2009-01-01

CHRONOS's purpose is to transform Earth history research by seamlessly integrating stratigraphic databases and tools into a virtual on-line stratigraphic record. In this paper, we describe the various components of CHRONOS's distributed data system, including the encoding of semantic and descriptive data into a service-based architecture. We give examples of how we have integrated well-tested resources available from the open-source and geoinformatic communities, like the GeoSciML schema and the simple knowledge organization system (SKOS), into the services-oriented architecture to encode timescale and phylogenetic synonymy data. We also describe on-going efforts to use geospatially enhanced data syndication and informally including semantic information by embedding it directly into the XHTML Document Object Model (DOM). XHTML DOM allows machine-discoverable descriptive data such as licensing and citation information to be incorporated directly into data sets retrieved by users. ?? 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Observation and theory of X-ray mirages.

PubMed

Magnitskiy, Sergey; Nagorskiy, Nikolay; Faenov, Anatoly; Pikuz, Tatiana; Tanaka, Mamoko; Ishino, Masahiko; Nishikino, Masaharu; Fukuda, Yuji; Kando, Masaki; Kawachi, Tetsuya; Kato, Yoshiaki

2013-01-01

The advent of X-ray lasers allowed the realization of compact coherent soft X-ray sources, thus opening the way to a wide range of applications. Here we report the observation of unexpected concentric rings in the far-field beam profile at the output of a two-stage plasma-based X-ray laser, which can be considered as the first manifestation of a mirage phenomenon in X-rays. We have developed a method of solving the Maxwell-Bloch equations for this problem, and find that the experimentally observed phenomenon is due to the emergence of X-ray mirages in the plasma amplifier, appearing as phase-matched coherent virtual point sources. The obtained results bring a new insight into the physical nature of amplification of X-ray radiation in laser-induced plasma amplifiers and open additional opportunities for X-ray plasma diagnostics and extreme ultraviolet lithography.

Beyond seismic interferometry: imaging the earth's interior with virtual sources and receivers inside the earth

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wapenaar, C. P. A.; Van der Neut, J.; Thorbecke, J.; Broggini, F.; Slob, E. C.; Snieder, R.

2015-12-01

Imagine one could place seismic sources and receivers at any desired position inside the earth. Since the receivers would record the full wave field (direct waves, up- and downward reflections, multiples, etc.), this would give a wealth of information about the local structures, material properties and processes in the earth's interior. Although in reality one cannot place sources and receivers anywhere inside the earth, it appears to be possible to create virtual sources and receivers at any desired position, which accurately mimics the desired situation. The underlying method involves some major steps beyond standard seismic interferometry. With seismic interferometry, virtual sources can be created at the positions of physical receivers, assuming these receivers are illuminated isotropically. Our proposed method does not need physical receivers at the positions of the virtual sources; moreover, it does not require isotropic illumination. To create virtual sources and receivers anywhere inside the earth, it suffices to record the reflection response with physical sources and receivers at the earth's surface. We do not need detailed information about the medium parameters; it suffices to have an estimate of the direct waves between the virtual-source positions and the acquisition surface. With these prerequisites, our method can create virtual sources and receivers, anywhere inside the earth, which record the full wave field. The up- and downward reflections, multiples, etc. in the virtual responses are extracted directly from the reflection response at the surface. The retrieved virtual responses form an ideal starting point for accurate seismic imaging, characterization and monitoring.

77 FR 23512 - Advisory Committee on Apprenticeship; virtual meeting

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-04-19

...; virtual meeting AGENCY: Employment and Training Administration (ETA), Labor. ACTION: Notice of a virtual....S.C. APP. 1), notice is hereby given to announce a open virtual meeting of the Advisory Committee on... the public. A virtual meeting of the ACA provides cost savings and a greater degree of public...

Virtual Worlds for Virtual Organizing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rhoten, Diana; Lutters, Wayne

The members and resources of a virtual organization are dispersed across time and space, yet they function as a coherent entity through the use of technologies, networks, and alliances. As virtual organizations proliferate and become increasingly important in society, many may exploit the technical architecture s of virtual worlds, which are the confluence of computer-mediated communication, telepresence, and virtual reality originally created for gaming. A brief socio-technical history describes their early origins and the waves of progress followed by stasis that brought us to the current period of renewed enthusiasm. Examination of contemporary examples demonstrates how three genres of virtual worlds have enabled new arenas for virtual organizing: developer-defined closed worlds, user-modifiable quasi-open worlds, and user-generated open worlds. Among expected future trends are an increase in collaboration born virtually rather than imported from existing organizations, a tension between high-fidelity recreations of the physical world and hyper-stylized imaginations of fantasy worlds, and the growth of specialized worlds optimized for particular sectors, companies, or cultures.

Virtual knotting in proteins and other open curves

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alexander, Keith; Taylor, Alexander; Dennis, Mark

Long filaments naturally knot, from string to long-chain molecules. Knotting in a filament affects its properties, and may be very stable or disappear under slight manipulation. Knotting has been identified in protein backbones for which these mechanical constraints are of fundamental importance to their function, although they are open curves in which knots are not mathematically well defined; knotting can only be identified by closing the ends of the chain. We introduce a new method for resolving knotting in open curves using virtual knots, a wider class of topological objects that do not use a classical closure, capturing the topological ambiguity of open curves. Having analysed all proteins in the Protein Data Bank by this new scheme, we recover and extend previous knotting results, and identify topological interest in some new cases. The statistics of virtual knots in proteins are compared with those of Hamiltonian subchains on cubic lattices, identifying a regime of open curves in which the virtual knotting description is likely to be important. This work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust Programme Grant ``Scientific Properties of Complex Knots'' and the EPSRC.

AliEn—ALICE environment on the GRID

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saiz, P.; Aphecetche, L.; Bunčić, P.; Piskač, R.; Revsbech, J.-E.; Šego, V.; Alice Collaboration

2003-04-01

AliEn ( http://alien.cern.ch) (ALICE Environment) is a Grid framework built on top of the latest Internet standards for information exchange and authentication (SOAP, PKI) and common Open Source components. AliEn provides a virtual file catalogue that allows transparent access to distributed datasets and a number of collaborating Web services which implement the authentication, job execution, file transport, performance monitor and event logging. In the paper we will present the architecture and components of the system.

Molpher: a software framework for systematic chemical space exploration

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Chemical space is virtual space occupied by all chemically meaningful organic compounds. It is an important concept in contemporary chemoinformatics research, and its systematic exploration is vital to the discovery of either novel drugs or new tools for chemical biology. Results In this paper, we describe Molpher, an open-source framework for the systematic exploration of chemical space. Through a process we term ‘molecular morphing’, Molpher produces a path of structurally-related compounds. This path is generated by the iterative application of so-called ‘morphing operators’ that represent simple structural changes, such as the addition or removal of an atom or a bond. Molpher incorporates an optimized parallel exploration algorithm, compound logging and a two-dimensional visualization of the exploration process. Its feature set can be easily extended by implementing additional morphing operators, chemical fingerprints, similarity measures and visualization methods. Molpher not only offers an intuitive graphical user interface, but also can be run in batch mode. This enables users to easily incorporate molecular morphing into their existing drug discovery pipelines. Conclusions Molpher is an open-source software framework for the design of virtual chemical libraries focused on a particular mechanistic class of compounds. These libraries, represented by a morphing path and its surroundings, provide valuable starting data for future in silico and in vitro experiments. Molpher is highly extensible and can be easily incorporated into any existing computational drug design pipeline. PMID:24655571

Molpher: a software framework for systematic chemical space exploration.

PubMed

Hoksza, David; Skoda, Petr; Voršilák, Milan; Svozil, Daniel

2014-03-21

Chemical space is virtual space occupied by all chemically meaningful organic compounds. It is an important concept in contemporary chemoinformatics research, and its systematic exploration is vital to the discovery of either novel drugs or new tools for chemical biology. In this paper, we describe Molpher, an open-source framework for the systematic exploration of chemical space. Through a process we term 'molecular morphing', Molpher produces a path of structurally-related compounds. This path is generated by the iterative application of so-called 'morphing operators' that represent simple structural changes, such as the addition or removal of an atom or a bond. Molpher incorporates an optimized parallel exploration algorithm, compound logging and a two-dimensional visualization of the exploration process. Its feature set can be easily extended by implementing additional morphing operators, chemical fingerprints, similarity measures and visualization methods. Molpher not only offers an intuitive graphical user interface, but also can be run in batch mode. This enables users to easily incorporate molecular morphing into their existing drug discovery pipelines. Molpher is an open-source software framework for the design of virtual chemical libraries focused on a particular mechanistic class of compounds. These libraries, represented by a morphing path and its surroundings, provide valuable starting data for future in silico and in vitro experiments. Molpher is highly extensible and can be easily incorporated into any existing computational drug design pipeline.

Guidelines for developing distributed virtual environment applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stytz, Martin R.; Banks, Sheila B.

1998-08-01

We have conducted a variety of projects that served to investigate the limits of virtual environments and distributed virtual environment (DVE) technology for the military and medical professions. The projects include an application that allows the user to interactively explore a high-fidelity, dynamic scale model of the Solar System and a high-fidelity, photorealistic, rapidly reconfigurable aircraft simulator. Additional projects are a project for observing, analyzing, and understanding the activity in a military distributed virtual environment, a project to develop a distributed threat simulator for training Air Force pilots, a virtual spaceplane to determine user interface requirements for a planned military spaceplane system, and an automated wingman for use in supplementing or replacing human-controlled systems in a DVE. The last two projects are a virtual environment user interface framework; and a project for training hospital emergency department personnel. In the process of designing and assembling the DVE applications in support of these projects, we have developed rules of thumb and insights into assembling DVE applications and the environment itself. In this paper, we open with a brief review of the applications that were the source for our insights and then present the lessons learned as a result of these projects. The lessons we have learned fall primarily into five areas. These areas are requirements development, software architecture, human-computer interaction, graphical database modeling, and construction of computer-generated forces.

A VM-shared desktop virtualization system based on OpenStack

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Xi; Zhu, Mingfa; Xiao, Limin; Jiang, Yuanjie

2018-04-01

With the increasing popularity of cloud computing, desktop virtualization is rising in recent years as a branch of virtualization technology. However, existing desktop virtualization systems are mostly designed as a one-to-one mode, which one VM can only be accessed by one user. Meanwhile, previous desktop virtualization systems perform weakly in terms of response time and cost saving. This paper proposes a novel VM-Shared desktop virtualization system based on OpenStack platform. The paper modified the connecting process and the display data transmission process of the remote display protocol SPICE to support VM-Shared function. On the other hand, we propose a server-push display mode to improve user interactive experience. The experimental results show that our system performs well in response time and achieves a low CPU consumption.

Seismic interferometry of the Bighorn Mountains: Using virtual source gathers to increase fold in sparse-source, dense-receiver data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Plescia, S. M.; Sheehan, A. F.; Haines, S. S.; Cook, S. W.; Worthington, L. L.

2016-12-01

The Bighorn Arch Seismic Experiment (BASE) was a combined active- and passive-source seismic experiment designed to image deep structures including the Moho beneath a basement-involved foreland arch. In summer 2010, over 1800 Texan receivers, with 4.5 Hz vertical component geophones, were deployed at 100-m to 1-km spacing in a region spanning the Bighorn Arch and the adjacent Bighorn and Powder River Basins. Twenty explosive sources were used to create seismic energy during a two-week acquisition period. Teleseismic earthquakes and mine blasts were also recorded during this time period. We utilize both virtual source interferometry and traditional reflection processing to better understand the deep crustal features of the region and the Moho. The large number of receivers, compared to the limited, widely spaced (10 - 30 km) active-source shots, makes the data an ideal candidate for virtual source seismic interferometry to increase fold. Virtual source interferometry results in data representing a geometry where receiver locations act as if they were seismic source positions. A virtual source gather, the product of virtual source interferometry, is produced by the cross correlation of one receiver's recording, the reference trace, with the recordings of all other receivers in a given shot gather. The cross correlation is repeated for all shot gathers and the resulting traces are stacked. This process is repeated until a virtual source gather has been determined for every real receiver location. Virtual source gathers can be processed with a standard reflection seismic processing flow to yield a reflection section. Improper static corrections can be detrimental to effective stacking, and determination of proper statics is often difficult in areas of significant contrast such as between basin and mountain areas. As such, a natural synergy exists between virtual source interferometry and modern industry reflection seismic processing, with its emphasis on detailed static correction and dense acquisition geometries.

Apache Open Climate Workbench: Building Open Source Climate Science Tools and Community at the Apache Software Foundation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Joyce, M.; Ramirez, P.; Boustani, M.; Mattmann, C. A.; Khudikyan, S.; McGibbney, L. J.; Whitehall, K. D.

2014-12-01

Apache Open Climate Workbench (OCW; https://climate.apache.org/) is a Top-Level Project at the Apache Software Foundation that aims to provide a suite of tools for performing climate science evaluations using model outputs from a multitude of different sources (ESGF, CORDEX, U.S. NCA, NARCCAP) with remote sensing data from NASA, NOAA, and other agencies. Apache OCW is the second NASA project to become a Top-Level Project at the Apache Software Foundation. It grew out of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's (JPL) Regional Climate Model Evaluation System (RCMES) project, a collaboration between JPL and the University of California, Los Angeles' Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering (JIFRESSE). Apache OCW provides scientists and developers with tools for data manipulation, metrics for dataset comparisons, and a visualization suite. In addition to a powerful low-level API, Apache OCW also supports a web application for quick, browser-controlled evaluations, a command line application for local evaluations, and a virtual machine for isolated experimentation with minimal setup. This talk will look at the difficulties and successes of moving a closed community research project out into the wild world of open source. We'll explore the growing pains Apache OCW went through to become a Top-Level Project at the Apache Software Foundation as well as the benefits gained by opening up development to the broader climate and computer science communities.

AstroCloud, a Cyber-Infrastructure for Astronomy Research: Cloud Computing Environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, C.; Wang, J.; Cui, C.; He, B.; Fan, D.; Yang, Y.; Chen, J.; Zhang, H.; Yu, C.; Xiao, J.; Wang, C.; Cao, Z.; Fan, Y.; Hong, Z.; Li, S.; Mi, L.; Wan, W.; Wang, J.; Yin, S.

2015-09-01

AstroCloud is a cyber-Infrastructure for Astronomy Research initiated by Chinese Virtual Observatory (China-VO) under funding support from NDRC (National Development and Reform commission) and CAS (Chinese Academy of Sciences). Based on CloudStack, an open source software, we set up the cloud computing environment for AstroCloud Project. It consists of five distributed nodes across the mainland of China. Users can use and analysis data in this cloud computing environment. Based on GlusterFS, we built a scalable cloud storage system. Each user has a private space, which can be shared among different virtual machines and desktop systems. With this environments, astronomer can access to astronomical data collected by different telescopes and data centers easily, and data producers can archive their datasets safely.

The use of the virtual source technique in computing scattering from periodic ocean surfaces.

PubMed

Abawi, Ahmad T

2011-08-01

In this paper the virtual source technique is used to compute scattering of a plane wave from a periodic ocean surface. The virtual source technique is a method of imposing boundary conditions using virtual sources, with initially unknown complex amplitudes. These amplitudes are then determined by applying the boundary conditions. The fields due to these virtual sources are given by the environment Green's function. In principle, satisfying boundary conditions on an infinite surface requires an infinite number of sources. In this paper, the periodic nature of the surface is employed to populate a single period of the surface with virtual sources and m surface periods are added to obtain scattering from the entire surface. The use of an accelerated sum formula makes it possible to obtain a convergent sum with relatively small number of terms (∼40). The accuracy of the technique is verified by comparing its results with those obtained using the integral equation technique.

Agreements in Virtual Organizations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pankowska, Malgorzata

This chapter is an attempt to explain the important impact that contract theory delivers with respect to the concept of virtual organization. The author believes that not enough research has been conducted in order to transfer theoretical foundations for networking to the phenomena of virtual organizations and open autonomic computing environment to ensure the controllability and management of them. The main research problem of this chapter is to explain the significance of agreements for virtual organizations governance. The first part of this chapter comprises explanations of differences among virtual machines and virtual organizations for further descriptions of the significance of the first ones to the development of the second. Next, the virtual organization development tendencies are presented and problems of IT governance in highly distributed organizational environment are discussed. The last part of this chapter covers analysis of contracts and agreements management for governance in open computing environments.

NASA Sea Level Change Portal - It not just another portal site

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, T.; Quach, N.; Abercrombie, S. P.; Boening, C.; Brennan, H. P.; Gill, K. M.; Greguska, F. R., III; Jackson, R.; Larour, E. Y.; Shaftel, H.; Tenenbaum, L. F.; Zlotnicki, V.; Moore, B.; Moore, J.; Boeck, A.

2017-12-01

The NASA Sea Level Change Portal (https://sealevel.nasa.gov) is designed as a "one-stop" source for current sea level change information, including interactive tools for accessing and viewing regional data, a virtual dashboard of sea level indicators, and ongoing updates through a suite of editorial products that include content articles, graphics, videos, and animations. With increasing global temperatures warming the ocean and melting ice sheets and glaciers, there is an immediate need both for accelerating sea level change research and for making this research accessible to scientists in disparate discipline, to the general public, to policy makers and business. The immersive and innovative NASA portal debuted at the 2015 AGU attracts thousands of daily visitors and over 30K followers on Facebook®. Behind its intuitive interface is an extensible architecture that integrates site contents, data for various sources, visualization, horizontal-scale geospatial data analytic technology (called NEXUS), and an interactive 3D simulation platform (called the Virtual Earth System Laboratory). We will present an overview of our NASA portal and some of our architectural decisions along with discussion on our open-source, cloud-based data analytic technology that enables on-the-fly analysis of heterogeneous data.

Selective Listening Point Audio Based on Blind Signal Separation and Stereophonic Technology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Niwa, Kenta; Nishino, Takanori; Takeda, Kazuya

A sound field reproduction method is proposed that uses blind source separation and a head-related transfer function. In the proposed system, multichannel acoustic signals captured at distant microphones are decomposed to a set of location/signal pairs of virtual sound sources based on frequency-domain independent component analysis. After estimating the locations and the signals of the virtual sources by convolving the controlled acoustic transfer functions with each signal, the spatial sound is constructed at the selected point. In experiments, a sound field made by six sound sources is captured using 48 distant microphones and decomposed into sets of virtual sound sources. Since subjective evaluation shows no significant difference between natural and reconstructed sound when six virtual sources and are used, the effectiveness of the decomposing algorithm as well as the virtual source representation are confirmed.

Owgis 2.0: Open Source Java Application that Builds Web GIS Interfaces for Desktop Andmobile Devices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zavala Romero, O.; Chassignet, E.; Zavala-Hidalgo, J.; Pandav, H.; Velissariou, P.; Meyer-Baese, A.

2016-12-01

OWGIS is an open source Java and JavaScript application that builds easily configurable Web GIS sites for desktop and mobile devices. The current version of OWGIS generates mobile interfaces based on HTML5 technology and can be used to create mobile applications. The style of the generated websites can be modified using COMPASS, a well known CSS Authoring Framework. In addition, OWGIS uses several Open Geospatial Consortium standards to request datafrom the most common map servers, such as GeoServer. It is also able to request data from ncWMS servers, allowing the websites to display 4D data from NetCDF files. This application is configured by XML files that define which layers, geographic datasets, are displayed on the Web GIS sites. Among other features, OWGIS allows for animations; streamlines from vector data; virtual globe display; vertical profiles and vertical transects; different color palettes; the ability to download data; and display text in multiple languages. OWGIS users are mainly scientists in the oceanography, meteorology and climate fields.

Open Virtual Worlds as Pedagogical Research Tools: Learning from the Schome Park Programme

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Twining, Peter; Peachey, Anna

This paper introduces the term Open Virtual Worlds and argues that they are ‘unclaimed educational spaces’, which provide a valuable tool for researching pedagogy. Having explored these claims the way in which Teen Second Life® virtual world was used for pedagogical experimentation in the initial phases of the Schome Park Programme is described. Four sets of pedagogical dimensions that emerged are presented and illustrated with examples from the Schome Park Programme.

A Virtual Astronomical Research Machine in No Time (VARMiNT)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beaver, John

2012-05-01

We present early results of using virtual machine software to help make astronomical research computing accessible to a wider range of individuals. Our Virtual Astronomical Research Machine in No Time (VARMiNT) is an Ubuntu Linux virtual machine with free, open-source software already installed and configured (and in many cases documented). The purpose of VARMiNT is to provide a ready-to-go astronomical research computing environment that can be freely shared between researchers, or between amateur and professional, teacher and student, etc., and to circumvent the often-difficult task of configuring a suitable computing environment from scratch. Thus we hope that VARMiNT will make it easier for individuals to engage in research computing even if they have no ready access to the facilities of a research institution. We describe our current version of VARMiNT and some of the ways it is being used at the University of Wisconsin - Fox Valley, a two-year teaching campus of the University of Wisconsin System, as a means to enhance student independent study research projects and to facilitate collaborations with researchers at other locations. We also outline some future plans and prospects.

Low cost heads-up virtual reality (HUVR) with optical tracking and haptic feedback

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Margolis, Todd; DeFanti, Thomas A.; Dawe, Greg; Prudhomme, Andrew; Schulze, Jurgen P.; Cutchin, Steve

2011-03-01

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have created a new, relatively low-cost augmented reality system that enables users to touch the virtual environment they are immersed in. The Heads-Up Virtual Reality device (HUVR) couples a consumer 3D HD flat screen TV with a half-silvered mirror to project any graphic image onto the user's hands and into the space surrounding them. With his or her head position optically tracked to generate the correct perspective view, the user maneuvers a force-feedback (haptic) device to interact with the 3D image, literally 'touching' the object's angles and contours as if it was a tangible physical object. HUVR can be used for training and education in structural and mechanical engineering, archaeology and medicine as well as other tasks that require hand-eye coordination. One of the most unique characteristics of HUVR is that a user can place their hands inside of the virtual environment without occluding the 3D image. Built using open-source software and consumer level hardware, HUVR offers users a tactile experience in an immersive environment that is functional, affordable and scalable.

Bioinformatics Pipelines for Targeted Resequencing and Whole-Exome Sequencing of Human and Mouse Genomes: A Virtual Appliance Approach for Instant Deployment

PubMed Central

Saeed, Isaam; Wong, Stephen Q.; Mar, Victoria; Goode, David L.; Caramia, Franco; Doig, Ken; Ryland, Georgina L.; Thompson, Ella R.; Hunter, Sally M.; Halgamuge, Saman K.; Ellul, Jason; Dobrovic, Alexander; Campbell, Ian G.; Papenfuss, Anthony T.; McArthur, Grant A.; Tothill, Richard W.

2014-01-01

Targeted resequencing by massively parallel sequencing has become an effective and affordable way to survey small to large portions of the genome for genetic variation. Despite the rapid development in open source software for analysis of such data, the practical implementation of these tools through construction of sequencing analysis pipelines still remains a challenging and laborious activity, and a major hurdle for many small research and clinical laboratories. We developed TREVA (Targeted REsequencing Virtual Appliance), making pre-built pipelines immediately available as a virtual appliance. Based on virtual machine technologies, TREVA is a solution for rapid and efficient deployment of complex bioinformatics pipelines to laboratories of all sizes, enabling reproducible results. The analyses that are supported in TREVA include: somatic and germline single-nucleotide and insertion/deletion variant calling, copy number analysis, and cohort-based analyses such as pathway and significantly mutated genes analyses. TREVA is flexible and easy to use, and can be customised by Linux-based extensions if required. TREVA can also be deployed on the cloud (cloud computing), enabling instant access without investment overheads for additional hardware. TREVA is available at http://bioinformatics.petermac.org/treva/. PMID:24752294

Managing virtual machines with Vac and Vcycle

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McNab, A.; Love, P.; MacMahon, E.

2015-12-01

We compare the Vac and Vcycle virtual machine lifecycle managers and our experiences in providing production job execution services for ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, and the GridPP VO at sites in the UK, France and at CERN. In both the Vac and Vcycle systems, the virtual machines are created outside of the experiment's job submission and pilot framework. In the case of Vac, a daemon runs on each physical host which manages a pool of virtual machines on that host, and a peer-to-peer UDP protocol is used to achieve the desired target shares between experiments across the site. In the case of Vcycle, a daemon manages a pool of virtual machines on an Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud system such as OpenStack, and has within itself enough information to create the types of virtual machines to achieve the desired target shares. Both systems allow unused shares for one experiment to temporarily taken up by other experiements with work to be done. The virtual machine lifecycle is managed with a minimum of information, gathered from the virtual machine creation mechanism (such as libvirt or OpenStack) and using the proposed Machine/Job Features API from WLCG. We demonstrate that the same virtual machine designs can be used to run production jobs on Vac and Vcycle/OpenStack sites for ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, and GridPP, and that these technologies allow sites to be operated in a reliable and robust way.

An Interactive, Physics-Based Unmanned Ground Vehicle Simulator Leveraging Open Source Gaming Technology: Progress in the Development and Application of the Virtual Autonomous Navigation Environment (VANE) Desktop

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-01-01

interface, mechatronics, video games 1. INTRODUCTION Engineering methods have substantially and continuously evolved over the past 40 years. In the past...1970s, video games have pioneered interactive simulation and laid the groundwork for inexpensive computing that individuals, corporations, and...purposes. This has not gone unnoticed, and software technology and techniques evolved for video games are beginning to have extraordinary impact in

Build and Execute Environment

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

Guan, Qiang

At exascale, the challenge becomes to develop applications that run at scale and use exascale platforms reliably, efficiently, and flexibly. Workflows become much more complex because they must seamlessly integrate simulation and data analytics. They must include down-sampling, post-processing, feature extraction, and visualization. Power and data transfer limitations require these analysis tasks to be run in-situ or in-transit. We expect successful workflows will comprise multiple linked simulations along with tens of analysis routines. Users will have limited development time at scale and, therefore, must have rich tools to develop, debug, test, and deploy applications. At this scale, successful workflows willmore » compose linked computations from an assortment of reliable, well-defined computation elements, ones that can come and go as required, based on the needs of the workflow over time. We propose a novel framework that utilizes both virtual machines (VMs) and software containers to create a workflow system that establishes a uniform build and execution environment (BEE) beyond the capabilities of current systems. In this environment, applications will run reliably and repeatably across heterogeneous hardware and software. Containers, both commercial (Docker and Rocket) and open-source (LXC and LXD), define a runtime that isolates all software dependencies from the machine operating system. Workflows may contain multiple containers that run different operating systems, different software, and even different versions of the same software. We will run containers in open-source virtual machines (KVM) and emulators (QEMU) so that workflows run on any machine entirely in user-space. On this platform of containers and virtual machines, we will deliver workflow software that provides services, including repeatable execution, provenance, checkpointing, and future proofing. We will capture provenance about how containers were launched and how they interact to annotate workflows for repeatable and partial re-execution. We will coordinate the physical snapshots of virtual machines with parallel programming constructs, such as barriers, to automate checkpoint and restart. We will also integrate with HPC-specific container runtimes to gain access to accelerators and other specialized hardware to preserve native performance. Containers will link development to continuous integration. When application developers check code in, it will automatically be tested on a suite of different software and hardware architectures.« less

Wave field synthesis of a virtual source located in proximity to a loudspeaker array.

PubMed

Lee, Jung-Min; Choi, Jung-Woo; Kim, Yang-Hann

2013-09-01

For the derivation of 2.5-dimensional operator in wave field synthesis, a virtual source is assumed to be positioned far from a loudspeaker array. However, such far-field approximation inevitably results in a reproduction error when the virtual source is placed adjacent to an array. In this paper, a method is proposed to generate a virtual source close to and behind a continuous line array of loudspeakers. A driving function is derived by reducing a surface integral (Rayleigh integral) to a line integral based on the near-field assumption. The solution is then combined with the far-field formula of wave field synthesis by introducing a weighting function that can adjust the near- and far-field contribution of each driving function. This enables production of a virtual source anywhere in relation to the array. Simulations show the proposed method can reduce the reproduction error to below -18 dB, regardless of the virtual source position.

Interfacing HTCondor-CE with OpenStack

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bockelman, B.; Caballero Bejar, J.; Hover, J.

2017-10-01

Over the past few years, Grid Computing technologies have reached a high level of maturity. One key aspect of this success has been the development and adoption of newer Compute Elements to interface the external Grid users with local batch systems. These new Compute Elements allow for better handling of jobs requirements and a more precise management of diverse local resources. However, despite this level of maturity, the Grid Computing world is lacking diversity in local execution platforms. As Grid Computing technologies have historically been driven by the needs of the High Energy Physics community, most resource providers run the platform (operating system version and architecture) that best suits the needs of their particular users. In parallel, the development of virtualization and cloud technologies has accelerated recently, making available a variety of solutions, both commercial and academic, proprietary and open source. Virtualization facilitates performing computational tasks on platforms not available at most computing sites. This work attempts to join the technologies, allowing users to interact with computing sites through one of the standard Computing Elements, HTCondor-CE, but running their jobs within VMs on a local cloud platform, OpenStack, when needed. The system will re-route, in a transparent way, end user jobs into dynamically-launched VM worker nodes when they have requirements that cannot be satisfied by the static local batch system nodes. Also, once the automated mechanisms are in place, it becomes straightforward to allow an end user to invoke a custom Virtual Machine at the site. This will allow cloud resources to be used without requiring the user to establish a separate account. Both scenarios are described in this work.

Proteins analysed as virtual knots

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alexander, Keith; Taylor, Alexander J.; Dennis, Mark R.

2017-02-01

Long, flexible physical filaments are naturally tangled and knotted, from macroscopic string down to long-chain molecules. The existence of knotting in a filament naturally affects its configuration and properties, and may be very stable or disappear rapidly under manipulation and interaction. Knotting has been previously identified in protein backbone chains, for which these mechanical constraints are of fundamental importance to their molecular functionality, despite their being open curves in which the knots are not mathematically well defined; knotting can only be identified by closing the termini of the chain somehow. We introduce a new method for resolving knotting in open curves using virtual knots, which are a wider class of topological objects that do not require a classical closure and so naturally capture the topological ambiguity inherent in open curves. We describe the results of analysing proteins in the Protein Data Bank by this new scheme, recovering and extending previous knotting results, and identifying topological interest in some new cases. The statistics of virtual knots in protein chains are compared with those of open random walks and Hamiltonian subchains on cubic lattices, identifying a regime of open curves in which the virtual knotting description is likely to be important.

Proteins analysed as virtual knots

PubMed Central

Alexander, Keith; Taylor, Alexander J.; Dennis, Mark R.

2017-01-01

Long, flexible physical filaments are naturally tangled and knotted, from macroscopic string down to long-chain molecules. The existence of knotting in a filament naturally affects its configuration and properties, and may be very stable or disappear rapidly under manipulation and interaction. Knotting has been previously identified in protein backbone chains, for which these mechanical constraints are of fundamental importance to their molecular functionality, despite their being open curves in which the knots are not mathematically well defined; knotting can only be identified by closing the termini of the chain somehow. We introduce a new method for resolving knotting in open curves using virtual knots, which are a wider class of topological objects that do not require a classical closure and so naturally capture the topological ambiguity inherent in open curves. We describe the results of analysing proteins in the Protein Data Bank by this new scheme, recovering and extending previous knotting results, and identifying topological interest in some new cases. The statistics of virtual knots in protein chains are compared with those of open random walks and Hamiltonian subchains on cubic lattices, identifying a regime of open curves in which the virtual knotting description is likely to be important. PMID:28205562

High efficiency virtual impactor

DOEpatents

Loo, B.W.

1980-03-27

Environmental monitoring of atmospheric air is facilitated by a single stage virtual impactor for separating an inlet flow (Q/sub 0/) having particulate contaminants into a coarse particle flow (Q/sub 1/) and a fine particle flow (Q/sub 2/) to enable collection of such particles on different filters for separate analysis. An inlet particle acceleration nozzle and coarse particle collection probe member having a virtual impaction opening are aligned along a single axis and spaced apart to define a flow separation region at which the fine particle flow (Q/sub 2/) is drawn radially outward into a chamber while the coarse particle flow (Q/sub 1/) enters the virtual impaction opening.

New developments in the McStas neutron instrument simulation package

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Willendrup, P. K.; Knudsen, E. B.; Klinkby, E.; Nielsen, T.; Farhi, E.; Filges, U.; Lefmann, K.

2014-07-01

The McStas neutron ray-tracing software package is a versatile tool for building accurate simulators of neutron scattering instruments at reactors, short- and long-pulsed spallation sources such as the European Spallation Source. McStas is extensively used for design and optimization of instruments, virtual experiments, data analysis and user training. McStas was founded as a scientific, open-source collaborative code in 1997. This contribution presents the project at its current state and gives an overview of the main new developments in McStas 2.0 (December 2012) and McStas 2.1 (expected fall 2013), including many new components, component parameter uniformisation, partial loss of backward compatibility, updated source brilliance descriptions, developments toward new tools and user interfaces, web interfaces and a new method for estimating beam losses and background from neutron optics.

ERPLAB: an open-source toolbox for the analysis of event-related potentials

PubMed Central

Lopez-Calderon, Javier; Luck, Steven J.

2014-01-01

ERPLAB toolbox is a freely available, open-source toolbox for processing and analyzing event-related potential (ERP) data in the MATLAB environment. ERPLAB is closely integrated with EEGLAB, a popular open-source toolbox that provides many EEG preprocessing steps and an excellent user interface design. ERPLAB adds to EEGLAB’s EEG processing functions, providing additional tools for filtering, artifact detection, re-referencing, and sorting of events, among others. ERPLAB also provides robust tools for averaging EEG segments together to create averaged ERPs, for creating difference waves and other recombinations of ERP waveforms through algebraic expressions, for filtering and re-referencing the averaged ERPs, for plotting ERP waveforms and scalp maps, and for quantifying several types of amplitudes and latencies. ERPLAB’s tools can be accessed either from an easy-to-learn graphical user interface or from MATLAB scripts, and a command history function makes it easy for users with no programming experience to write scripts. Consequently, ERPLAB provides both ease of use and virtually unlimited power and flexibility, making it appropriate for the analysis of both simple and complex ERP experiments. Several forms of documentation are available, including a detailed user’s guide, a step-by-step tutorial, a scripting guide, and a set of video-based demonstrations. PMID:24782741

ERPLAB: an open-source toolbox for the analysis of event-related potentials.

PubMed

Lopez-Calderon, Javier; Luck, Steven J

2014-01-01

ERPLAB toolbox is a freely available, open-source toolbox for processing and analyzing event-related potential (ERP) data in the MATLAB environment. ERPLAB is closely integrated with EEGLAB, a popular open-source toolbox that provides many EEG preprocessing steps and an excellent user interface design. ERPLAB adds to EEGLAB's EEG processing functions, providing additional tools for filtering, artifact detection, re-referencing, and sorting of events, among others. ERPLAB also provides robust tools for averaging EEG segments together to create averaged ERPs, for creating difference waves and other recombinations of ERP waveforms through algebraic expressions, for filtering and re-referencing the averaged ERPs, for plotting ERP waveforms and scalp maps, and for quantifying several types of amplitudes and latencies. ERPLAB's tools can be accessed either from an easy-to-learn graphical user interface or from MATLAB scripts, and a command history function makes it easy for users with no programming experience to write scripts. Consequently, ERPLAB provides both ease of use and virtually unlimited power and flexibility, making it appropriate for the analysis of both simple and complex ERP experiments. Several forms of documentation are available, including a detailed user's guide, a step-by-step tutorial, a scripting guide, and a set of video-based demonstrations.

Post-processing open-source software for the CBCT monitoring of periapical lesions healing following endodontic treatment: technical report of two cases.

PubMed

Villoria, Eduardo M; Lenzi, Antônio R; Soares, Rodrigo V; Souki, Bernardo Q; Sigurdsson, Asgeir; Marques, Alexandre P; Fidel, Sandra R

2017-01-01

To describe the use of open-source software for the post-processing of CBCT imaging for the assessment of periapical lesions development after endodontic treatment. CBCT scans were retrieved from endodontic records of two patients. Three-dimensional virtual models, voxel counting, volumetric measurement (mm 3 ) and mean intensity of the periapical lesion were performed with ITK-SNAP v. 3.0 software. Three-dimensional models of the lesions were aligned and overlapped through the MeshLab software, which performed an automatic recording of the anatomical structures, based on the best fit. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the changes in lesions size after treatment were performed with the 3DMeshMetric software. The ITK-SNAP v. 3.0 showed the smaller value corresponding to the voxel count and the volume of the lesion segmented in yellow, indicating reduction in volume of the lesion after the treatment. A higher value of the mean intensity of the segmented image in yellow was also observed, which suggested new bone formation. Colour mapping and "point value" tool allowed the visualization of the reduction of periapical lesions in several regions. Researchers and clinicians in the monitoring of endodontic periapical lesions have the opportunity to use open-source software.

Phonon Calculations Using the Real-Space Multigrid Method (RMG)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Jiayong; Lu, Wenchang; Briggs, Emil; Cheng, Yongqiang; Ramirez-Cuesta, A. J.; Bernholc, Jerry

RMG, a DFT-based open-source package using the real-space multigrid method, has proven to work effectively on large scale systems with thousands of atoms. Our recent work has shown its practicability for high accuracy phonon calculations employing the frozen phonon method. In this method, a primary unit cell with a small lattice constant is enlarged to a supercell that is sufficiently large to obtain the force constants matrix by finite displacements of atoms in the supercell. An open-source package PhonoPy is used to determine the necessary displacements by taking symmetry into account. A python script coupling RMG and PhonoPy enables us to perform high-throughput calculations of phonon properties. We have applied this method to many systems, such as silicon, silica glass, ZIF-8, etc. Results from RMG are compared to the experimental spectra measured using the VISION inelastic neutron scattering spectrometer at the Spallation Neutron Source at ORNL, as well as results from other DFT codes. The computing resources were made available through the VirtuES (Virtual Experiments in Spectroscopy) project, funded by Laboratory Directed Research and Development program (LDRD project No. 7739)

Research on virtual network load balancing based on OpenFlow

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Peng, Rong; Ding, Lei

2017-08-01

The Network based on OpenFlow technology separate the control module and data forwarding module. Global deployment of load balancing strategy through network view of control plane is fast and of high efficiency. This paper proposes a Weighted Round-Robin Scheduling algorithm for virtual network and a load balancing plan for server load based on OpenFlow. Load of service nodes and load balancing tasks distribution algorithm will be taken into account.

Visualizing dynamic geosciences phenomena using an octree-based view-dependent LOD strategy within virtual globes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Jing; Wu, Huayi; Yang, Chaowei; Wong, David W.; Xie, Jibo

2011-09-01

Geoscientists build dynamic models to simulate various natural phenomena for a better understanding of our planet. Interactive visualizations of these geoscience models and their outputs through virtual globes on the Internet can help the public understand the dynamic phenomena related to the Earth more intuitively. However, challenges arise when the volume of four-dimensional data (4D), 3D in space plus time, is huge for rendering. Datasets loaded from geographically distributed data servers require synchronization between ingesting and rendering data. Also the visualization capability of display clients varies significantly in such an online visualization environment; some may not have high-end graphic cards. To enhance the efficiency of visualizing dynamic volumetric data in virtual globes, this paper proposes a systematic framework, in which an octree-based multiresolution data structure is implemented to organize time series 3D geospatial data to be used in virtual globe environments. This framework includes a view-dependent continuous level of detail (LOD) strategy formulated as a synchronized part of the virtual globe rendering process. Through the octree-based data retrieval process, the LOD strategy enables the rendering of the 4D simulation at a consistent and acceptable frame rate. To demonstrate the capabilities of this framework, data of a simulated dust storm event are rendered in World Wind, an open source virtual globe. The rendering performances with and without the octree-based LOD strategy are compared. The experimental results show that using the proposed data structure and processing strategy significantly enhances the visualization performance when rendering dynamic geospatial phenomena in virtual globes.

Challenges of Virtual and Open Distance Science Teacher Education in Zimbabwe

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mpofu, Vongai; Samukange, Tendai; Kusure, Lovemore M.; Zinyandu, Tinoidzwa M.; Denhere, Clever; Huggins, Nyakotyo; Wiseman, Chingombe; Ndlovu, Shakespear; Chiveya, Renias; Matavire, Monica; Mukavhi, Leckson; Gwizangwe, Isaac; Magombe, Elliot; Magomelo, Munyaradzi; Sithole, Fungai; Bindura University of Science Education (BUSE),

2012-01-01

This paper reports on a study of the implementation of science teacher education through virtual and open distance learning in the Mashonaland Central Province, Zimbabwe. The study provides insight into challenges faced by students and lecturers on inception of the program at four centres. Data was collected from completed evaluation survey forms…

The Impact of "Virtualization" on Independent Study Course Completion Rates: The British Columbia Open University Experiment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Giguere, Louis

2009-01-01

In 1997 the British Columbia Open University (BCOU) adopted a virtualization strategy based primarily on twinning off-line independent study distance education courses (textbook-based with study guide and telephone and e-mail tutor support) with alternate online versions (textbook-based with integrated conferencing and communications provided…

Game-Based Learning in an OpenSim-Supported Virtual Environment on Perceived Motivational Quality of Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Heesung; Ke, Fengfeng; Paek, Insu

2017-01-01

This experimental study was intended to examine whether game-based learning (GBL) that encompasses four particular game characteristics (challenges, a storyline, immediate rewards and the integration of game-play with learning content) in an OpenSimulator-supported virtual reality learning environment can improve perceived motivational quality of…

Multidimensional Environmental Data Resource Brokering on Computational Grids and Scientific Clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Montella, Raffaele; Giunta, Giulio; Laccetti, Giuliano

Grid computing has widely evolved over the past years, and its capabilities have found their way even into business products and are no longer relegated to scientific applications. Today, grid computing technology is not restricted to a set of specific grid open source or industrial products, but rather it is comprised of a set of capabilities virtually within any kind of software to create shared and highly collaborative production environments. These environments are focused on computational (workload) capabilities and the integration of information (data) into those computational capabilities. An active grid computing application field is the fully virtualization of scientific instruments in order to increase their availability and decrease operational and maintaining costs. Computational and information grids allow to manage real-world objects in a service-oriented way using industrial world-spread standards.

A virtual source model for Monte Carlo simulation of helical tomotherapy.

PubMed

Yuan, Jiankui; Rong, Yi; Chen, Quan

2015-01-08

The purpose of this study was to present a Monte Carlo (MC) simulation method based on a virtual source, jaw, and MLC model to calculate dose in patient for helical tomotherapy without the need of calculating phase-space files (PSFs). Current studies on the tomotherapy MC simulation adopt a full MC model, which includes extensive modeling of radiation source, primary and secondary jaws, and multileaf collimator (MLC). In the full MC model, PSFs need to be created at different scoring planes to facilitate the patient dose calculations. In the present work, the virtual source model (VSM) we established was based on the gold standard beam data of a tomotherapy unit, which can be exported from the treatment planning station (TPS). The TPS-generated sinograms were extracted from the archived patient XML (eXtensible Markup Language) files. The fluence map for the MC sampling was created by incorporating the percentage leaf open time (LOT) with leaf filter, jaw penumbra, and leaf latency contained from sinogram files. The VSM was validated for various geometry setups and clinical situations involving heterogeneous media and delivery quality assurance (DQA) cases. An agreement of < 1% was obtained between the measured and simulated results for percent depth doses (PDDs) and open beam profiles for all three jaw settings in the VSM commissioning. The accuracy of the VSM leaf filter model was verified in comparing the measured and simulated results for a Picket Fence pattern. An agreement of < 2% was achieved between the presented VSM and a published full MC model for heterogeneous phantoms. For complex clinical head and neck (HN) cases, the VSM-based MC simulation of DQA plans agreed with the film measurement with 98% of planar dose pixels passing on the 2%/2 mm gamma criteria. For patient treatment plans, results showed comparable dose-volume histograms (DVHs) for planning target volumes (PTVs) and organs at risk (OARs). Deviations observed in this study were consistent with literature. The VSM-based MC simulation approach can be feasibly built from the gold standard beam model of a tomotherapy unit. The accuracy of the VSM was validated against measurements in homogeneous media, as well as published full MC model in heterogeneous media.

A virtual source model for Monte Carlo simulation of helical tomotherapy

PubMed Central

Yuan, Jiankui; Rong, Yi

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study was to present a Monte Carlo (MC) simulation method based on a virtual source, jaw, and MLC model to calculate dose in patient for helical tomotherapy without the need of calculating phase‐space files (PSFs). Current studies on the tomotherapy MC simulation adopt a full MC model, which includes extensive modeling of radiation source, primary and secondary jaws, and multileaf collimator (MLC). In the full MC model, PSFs need to be created at different scoring planes to facilitate the patient dose calculations. In the present work, the virtual source model (VSM) we established was based on the gold standard beam data of a tomotherapy unit, which can be exported from the treatment planning station (TPS). The TPS‐generated sinograms were extracted from the archived patient XML (eXtensible Markup Language) files. The fluence map for the MC sampling was created by incorporating the percentage leaf open time (LOT) with leaf filter, jaw penumbra, and leaf latency contained from sinogram files. The VSM was validated for various geometry setups and clinical situations involving heterogeneous media and delivery quality assurance (DQA) cases. An agreement of <1% was obtained between the measured and simulated results for percent depth doses (PDDs) and open beam profiles for all three jaw settings in the VSM commissioning. The accuracy of the VSM leaf filter model was verified in comparing the measured and simulated results for a Picket Fence pattern. An agreement of <2% was achieved between the presented VSM and a published full MC model for heterogeneous phantoms. For complex clinical head and neck (HN) cases, the VSM‐based MC simulation of DQA plans agreed with the film measurement with 98% of planar dose pixels passing on the 2%/2 mm gamma criteria. For patient treatment plans, results showed comparable dose‐volume histograms (DVHs) for planning target volumes (PTVs) and organs at risk (OARs). Deviations observed in this study were consistent with literature. The VSM‐based MC simulation approach can be feasibly built from the gold standard beam model of a tomotherapy unit. The accuracy of the VSM was validated against measurements in homogeneous media, as well as published full MC model in heterogeneous media. PACS numbers: 87.53.‐j, 87.55.K‐ PMID:25679157

Lightweight scheduling of elastic analysis containers in a competitive cloud environment: a Docked Analysis Facility for ALICE

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berzano, D.; Blomer, J.; Buncic, P.; Charalampidis, I.; Ganis, G.; Meusel, R.

2015-12-01

During the last years, several Grid computing centres chose virtualization as a better way to manage diverse use cases with self-consistent environments on the same bare infrastructure. The maturity of control interfaces (such as OpenNebula and OpenStack) opened the possibility to easily change the amount of resources assigned to each use case by simply turning on and off virtual machines. Some of those private clouds use, in production, copies of the Virtual Analysis Facility, a fully virtualized and self-contained batch analysis cluster capable of expanding and shrinking automatically upon need: however, resources starvation occurs frequently as expansion has to compete with other virtual machines running long-living batch jobs. Such batch nodes cannot relinquish their resources in a timely fashion: the more jobs they run, the longer it takes to drain them and shut off, and making one-job virtual machines introduces a non-negligible virtualization overhead. By improving several components of the Virtual Analysis Facility we have realized an experimental “Docked” Analysis Facility for ALICE, which leverages containers instead of virtual machines for providing performance and security isolation. We will present the techniques we have used to address practical problems, such as software provisioning through CVMFS, as well as our considerations on the maturity of containers for High Performance Computing. As the abstraction layer is thinner, our Docked Analysis Facilities may feature a more fine-grained sizing, down to single-job node containers: we will show how this approach will positively impact automatic cluster resizing by deploying lightweight pilot containers instead of replacing central queue polls.

Web Service Distributed Management Framework for Autonomic Server Virtualization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Solomon, Bogdan; Ionescu, Dan; Litoiu, Marin; Mihaescu, Mircea

Virtualization for the x86 platform has imposed itself recently as a new technology that can improve the usage of machines in data centers and decrease the cost and energy of running a high number of servers. Similar to virtualization, autonomic computing and more specifically self-optimization, aims to improve server farm usage through provisioning and deprovisioning of instances as needed by the system. Autonomic systems are able to determine the optimal number of server machines - real or virtual - to use at a given time, and add or remove servers from a cluster in order to achieve optimal usage. While provisioning and deprovisioning of servers is very important, the way the autonomic system is built is also very important, as a robust and open framework is needed. One such management framework is the Web Service Distributed Management (WSDM) system, which is an open standard of the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). This paper presents an open framework built on top of the WSDM specification, which aims to provide self-optimization for applications servers residing on virtual machines.

Monitoring the englacial fracture state using virtual-reflector seismology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lindner, F.; Weemstra, C.; Walter, F.; Hadziioannou, C.

2017-12-01

Fracturing and changes in the englacial macroscopic water content change the elastic bulk properties of ice bodies. Small seismic velocity variations, resulting from such changes, can be measured using a technique called coda-wave interferometry. Here, coda refers to the later-arriving, multiply scattered waves. Often, this technique is applied to so-called virtual-source responses, which can be obtained using seismic interferometry (a simple crosscorrelation process). Compared to other media (e.g., the Earth's crust), however, ice bodies exhibit relatively little scattering. This complicates the application of coda-wave interferometry to the retrieved virtual-source responses. In this work, we therefore investigate the applicability of coda-wave interferometry to virtual-source responses obtained using two alternative seismic interferometric techniques, namely, seismic interferometry by multidimensional deconvolution (SI by MDD), and virtual-reflector seismology (VRS). To that end, we use synthetic data, as well as active-source glacier data acquired on Glacier de la Plaine Morte, Switzerland. Both SI by MDD and VRS allow the retrieval of more accurate virtual-source responses. In particular, the dependence of the retrieved virtual-source responses on the illumination pattern is reduced. We find that this results in more accurate glacial phase-velocity estimates. In addition, VRS introduces virtual reflections from a receiver contour (partly) enclosing the medium of interest. By acting as a sort of virtual reverberation, the coda resulting from the application of VRS significantly increases seismic monitoring capabilities, in particular in cases where natural scattering coda is not available.

A Dedicated Computational Platform for Cellular Monte Carlo T-CAD Software Tools

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-07-14

computer that establishes an encrypted Virtual Private Network ( OpenVPN [44]) based on the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) paradigm. Each user is given a...security certificate for each device used to connect to the computing nodes. Stable OpenVPN clients are available for Linux, Microsoft Windows, Apple OSX...platform is granted by an encrypted connection base on the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol, and implemented in the OpenVPN Virtual Personal Network

Source signature estimation from multimode surface waves via mode-separated virtual real source method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gao, Lingli; Pan, Yudi

2018-05-01

The correct estimation of the seismic source signature is crucial to exploration geophysics. Based on seismic interferometry, the virtual real source (VRS) method provides a model-independent way for source signature estimation. However, when encountering multimode surface waves, which are commonly seen in the shallow seismic survey, strong spurious events appear in seismic interferometric results. These spurious events introduce errors in the virtual-source recordings and reduce the accuracy of the source signature estimated by the VRS method. In order to estimate a correct source signature from multimode surface waves, we propose a mode-separated VRS method. In this method, multimode surface waves are mode separated before seismic interferometry. Virtual-source recordings are then obtained by applying seismic interferometry to each mode individually. Therefore, artefacts caused by cross-mode correlation are excluded in the virtual-source recordings and the estimated source signatures. A synthetic example showed that a correct source signature can be estimated with the proposed method, while strong spurious oscillation occurs in the estimated source signature if we do not apply mode separation first. We also applied the proposed method to a field example, which verified its validity and effectiveness in estimating seismic source signature from shallow seismic shot gathers containing multimode surface waves.

Wave field synthesis of moving virtual sound sources with complex radiation properties.

PubMed

Ahrens, Jens; Spors, Sascha

2011-11-01

An approach to the synthesis of moving virtual sound sources with complex radiation properties in wave field synthesis is presented. The approach exploits the fact that any stationary sound source of finite spatial extent radiates spherical waves at sufficient distance. The angular dependency of the radiation properties of the source under consideration is reflected by the amplitude and phase distribution on the spherical wave fronts. The sound field emitted by a uniformly moving monopole source is derived and the far-field radiation properties of the complex virtual source under consideration are incorporated in order to derive a closed-form expression for the loudspeaker driving signal. The results are illustrated via numerical simulations of the synthesis of the sound field of a sample moving complex virtual source.

78 FR 17431 - Antitrust Division

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-03-21

... Production Act of 1993--Interchangeable Virtual Instruments Foundation, Inc. Notice is hereby given that, on..., 15 U.S.C. 4301 et seq. (``the Act''), Interchangeable Virtual Instruments Foundation, Inc. has filed... in this group research project remains open, and Interchangeable Virtual Instruments Foundation, Inc...

The Spectral Game: leveraging Open Data and crowdsourcing for education

PubMed Central

2009-01-01

We report on the implementation of the Spectral Game, a web-based game where players try to match molecules to various forms of interactive spectra including 1D/2D NMR, Mass Spectrometry and Infrared spectra. Each correct selection earns the player one point and play continues until the player supplies an incorrect answer. The game is usually played using a web browser interface, although a version has been developed in the virtual 3D environment of Second Life. Spectra uploaded as Open Data to ChemSpider in JCAMP-DX format are used for the problem sets together with structures extracted from the website. The spectra are displayed using JSpecView, an Open Source spectrum viewing applet which affords zooming and integration. The application of the game to the teaching of proton NMR spectroscopy in an undergraduate organic chemistry class and a 2D Spectrum Viewer are also presented. PMID:20298527

Schools Open Doors to New E-Learning Rules, Ideas

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Education Week, 2012

2012-01-01

The world of virtual schooling is experiencing a host of major policy shifts that are opening doors for its expansion, but at the same time holding it up to greater scrutiny. This special report, the first in a three-part 2012-2013 series on virtual education, examines how state policymakers, educators, and schools are rethinking and changing the…

Innovation in prediction planning for anterior open bite correction.

PubMed

Almuzian, Mohammed; Almukhtar, Anas; O'Neil, Michael; Benington, Philip; Al Anezi, Thamer; Ayoub, Ashraf

2015-05-01

This study applies recent advances in 3D virtual imaging for application in the prediction planning of dentofacial deformities. Stereo-photogrammetry has been used to create virtual and physical models, which are creatively combined in planning the surgical correction of anterior open bite. The application of these novel methods is demonstrated through the surgical correction of a case.

Use and Mastery of Virtual Learning Environment in Brazilian Open University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gomez, Margarita Victoria

2014-01-01

This paper describes and analyses the dynamics of the use and/or mastery of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) by educators and students Open University, important part of the Brazilian Educational System. A questionnaire with 32 items was answered by 174 students/instructors/coordinators of the Media in Education and Physics courses, of two…

Making Sense of Students' Actions in an Open-Ended Virtual Laboratory Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gal, Ya'akov; Uzan, Oriel; Belford, Robert; Karabinos, Michael; Yaron, David

2015-01-01

A process for analyzing log files collected from open-ended learning environments is developed and tested on a virtual lab problem involving reaction stoichiometry. The process utilizes a set of visualization tools that, by grouping student actions in a hierarchical manner, helps experts make sense of the linear list of student actions recorded in…

The Virtual Environment for Rapid Prototyping of the Intelligent Environment

PubMed Central

Bouzouane, Abdenour; Gaboury, Sébastien

2017-01-01

Advances in domains such as sensor networks and electronic and ambient intelligence have allowed us to create intelligent environments (IEs). However, research in IE is being held back by the fact that researchers face major difficulties, such as a lack of resources for their experiments. Indeed, they cannot easily build IEs to evaluate their approaches. This is mainly because of economic and logistical issues. In this paper, we propose a simulator to build virtual IEs. Simulators are a good alternative to physical IEs because they are inexpensive, and experiments can be conducted easily. Our simulator is open source and it provides users with a set of virtual sensors that simulates the behavior of real sensors. This simulator gives the user the capacity to build their own environment, providing a model to edit inhabitants’ behavior and an interactive mode. In this mode, the user can directly act upon IE objects. This simulator gathers data generated by the interactions in order to produce datasets. These datasets can be used by scientists to evaluate several approaches in IEs. PMID:29112175

The Virtual Environment for Rapid Prototyping of the Intelligent Environment.

PubMed

Francillette, Yannick; Boucher, Eric; Bouzouane, Abdenour; Gaboury, Sébastien

2017-11-07

Advances in domains such as sensor networks and electronic and ambient intelligence have allowed us to create intelligent environments (IEs). However, research in IE is being held back by the fact that researchers face major difficulties, such as a lack of resources for their experiments. Indeed, they cannot easily build IEs to evaluate their approaches. This is mainly because of economic and logistical issues. In this paper, we propose a simulator to build virtual IEs. Simulators are a good alternative to physical IEs because they are inexpensive, and experiments can be conducted easily. Our simulator is open source and it provides users with a set of virtual sensors that simulates the behavior of real sensors. This simulator gives the user the capacity to build their own environment, providing a model to edit inhabitants' behavior and an interactive mode. In this mode, the user can directly act upon IE objects. This simulator gathers data generated by the interactions in order to produce datasets. These datasets can be used by scientists to evaluate several approaches in IEs.

75 FR 22769 - Sunshine Act Notice

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-04-30

.... ACTION: Notice of Virtual Public Forum for EAC Standards Board. Date and Time: Monday, May 17, 2010, 9 a.m. EDT through Tuesday, June 1, 2010, 9 p.m. EDT. Place: EAC Standards Board Virtual Meeting Room at... Standards Board Virtual Meeting Room. The virtual meeting room will open on Monday, May 17, 2010, at 9 a.m...

Coercive Narratives, Motivation and Role Playing in Virtual Worlds

DTIC Science & Technology

2002-01-01

resource for making immersive virtual environments highly engaging. Interaction also appeals to our natural desire to discover. Reading a book contains...participation in an open-ended Virtual Environment (VE). I intend to take advantage of a participants’ natural tendency to prefer interaction when possible...I hope this work will expand the potential of experience within virtual worlds. K e y w o r d s : Immersive Environments , Virtual Environments

Distracting people from sources of discomfort in a simulated aircraft environment.

PubMed

Lewis, Laura; Patel, Harshada; Cobb, Sue; D'Cruz, Mirabelle; Bues, Matthias; Stefani, Oliver; Grobler, Tredeaux

2016-07-19

Comfort is an important factor in the acceptance of transport systems. In 2010 and 2011, the European Commission (EC) put forward its vision for air travel in the year 2050 which envisaged the use of in-flight virtual reality. This paper addressed the EC vision by investigating the effect of virtual environments on comfort. Research has shown that virtual environments can provide entertaining experiences and can be effective distracters from painful experiences. To determine the extent to which a virtual environment could distract people from sources of discomfort. Experiments which involved inducing discomfort commonly experienced in-flight (e.g. limited space, noise) in order to determine the extent to which viewing a virtual environment could distract people from discomfort. Virtual environments can fully or partially distract people from sources of discomfort, becoming more effective when they are interesting. They are also more effective at distracting people from discomfort caused by restricted space than noise disturbances. Virtual environments have the potential to enhance passenger comfort by providing positive distractions from sources of discomfort. Further research is required to understand more fully the reasons why the effect was stronger for one source of discomfort than the other.

Virtual reality anatomy: is it comparable with traditional methods in the teaching of human forearm musculoskeletal anatomy?

PubMed

Codd, Anthony M; Choudhury, Bipasha

2011-01-01

The use of cadavers to teach anatomy is well established, but limitations with this approach have led to the introduction of alternative teaching methods. One such method is the use of three-dimensional virtual reality computer models. An interactive, three-dimensional computer model of human forearm anterior compartment musculoskeletal anatomy was produced using the open source 3D imaging program "Blender." The aim was to evaluate the use of 3D virtual reality when compared with traditional anatomy teaching methods. Three groups were identified from the University of Manchester second year Human Anatomy Research Skills Module class: a "control" group (no prior knowledge of forearm anatomy), a "traditional methods" group (taught using dissection and textbooks), and a "model" group (taught solely using e-resource). The groups were assessed on anatomy of the forearm by a ten question practical examination. ANOVA analysis showed the model group mean test score to be significantly higher than the control group (mean 7.25 vs. 1.46, P < 0.001) and not significantly different to the traditional methods group (mean 6.87, P > 0.5). Feedback from all users of the e-resource was positive. Virtual reality anatomy learning can be used to compliment traditional teaching methods effectively. Copyright © 2011 American Association of Anatomists.

Development of Virtual Resource Based IoT Proxy for Bridging Heterogeneous Web Services in IoT Networks.

PubMed

Jin, Wenquan; Kim, DoHyeun

2018-05-26

The Internet of Things is comprised of heterogeneous devices, applications, and platforms using multiple communication technologies to connect the Internet for providing seamless services ubiquitously. With the requirement of developing Internet of Things products, many protocols, program libraries, frameworks, and standard specifications have been proposed. Therefore, providing a consistent interface to access services from those environments is difficult. Moreover, bridging the existing web services to sensor and actuator networks is also important for providing Internet of Things services in various industry domains. In this paper, an Internet of Things proxy is proposed that is based on virtual resources to bridge heterogeneous web services from the Internet to the Internet of Things network. The proxy enables clients to have transparent access to Internet of Things devices and web services in the network. The proxy is comprised of server and client to forward messages for different communication environments using the virtual resources which include the server for the message sender and the client for the message receiver. We design the proxy for the Open Connectivity Foundation network where the virtual resources are discovered by the clients as Open Connectivity Foundation resources. The virtual resources represent the resources which expose services in the Internet by web service providers. Although the services are provided by web service providers from the Internet, the client can access services using the consistent communication protocol in the Open Connectivity Foundation network. For discovering the resources to access services, the client also uses the consistent discovery interface to discover the Open Connectivity Foundation devices and virtual resources.

Estimating the Economic Payoff to Virtual University Education: A Case Study of the Open University of Catalonia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Castaño-Muñoz, Jonatan; Carnoy, Martin; Duart, Josep M.

2016-01-01

There is surprisingly little analysis of the employment and earnings impact on students of taking and completing Internet-based programs and of how it compares with earnings outcomes for graduates of face-to-face universities. This paper analyzes a follow-up survey of students who began attending the virtual Internet-based Open University of…

Eco-Dialogical Learning and Translanguaging in Open-Ended 3D Virtual Learning Environments: Where Place, Time, and Objects Matter

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zheng, Dongping; Schmidt, Matthew; Hu, Ying; Liu, Min; Hsu, Jesse

2017-01-01

The purpose of this research was to explore the relationships between design, learning, and translanguaging in a 3D collaborative virtual learning environment for adolescent learners of Chinese and English. We designed an open-ended space congruent with ecological and dialogical perspectives on second language acquisition. In such a space,…

Facilitating learning through an international virtual collaborative practice: A case study.

PubMed

Wihlborg, Monne; Friberg, Elizabeth E; Rose, Karen M; Eastham, Linda

2018-02-01

Internationalisation of higher education involving information and communication technology such as e-learning opens opportunities for innovative learning approaches across nations and cultures. Describe a case in practice of collaborative and transformative learning in relation to 'internationalisation on home grounds' with the broader learning objective of 'becoming aware and knowledgeable'. A mutually developed project established a virtual international collaborative exchange for faculty and students using a course management software (MOODLE) and open access technology (Adobe CONNECT). Two research universities in Sweden and the United States. Approximately 90 nursing students from each university per semester over several semesters. A collaborative process to develop a joint learning community to construct a virtual module and learning activity involving academics and nursing students in two countries using principles of meaning construction and negotiated learning. Developed possibilities for dealing with the challenges and finding strategies for a future higher education system that opens dialogues worldwide. Virtual international exchanges open innovative communication and learning contexts across nations and cultures. Internationalisation is so much more than students and teachers' mobility. 'Internationalisation on home grounds' (internationalisation for all) should receive more attention to support faculty and student collaboration, learning, and professional development. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Source fields reconstruction with 3D mapping by means of the virtual acoustic volume concept

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Forget, S.; Totaro, N.; Guyader, J. L.; Schaeffer, M.

2016-10-01

This paper presents the theoretical framework of the virtual acoustic volume concept and two related inverse Patch Transfer Functions (iPTF) identification methods (called u-iPTF and m-iPTF depending on the chosen boundary conditions for the virtual volume). They are based on the application of Green's identity on an arbitrary closed virtual volume defined around the source. The reconstruction of sound source fields combines discrete acoustic measurements performed at accessible positions around the source with the modal behavior of the chosen virtual acoustic volume. The mode shapes of the virtual volume can be computed by a Finite Element solver to handle the geometrical complexity of the source. As a result, it is possible to identify all the acoustic source fields at the real surface of an irregularly shaped structure and irrespective of its acoustic environment. The m-iPTF method is introduced for the first time in this paper. Conversely to the already published u-iPTF method, the m-iPTF method needs only acoustic pressure and avoids particle velocity measurements. This paper is focused on its validation, both with numerical computations and by experiments on a baffled oil pan.

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.

Pre-Service Teachers' Perspectives on Using Scenario-Based Virtual Worlds in Science Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kennedy-Clark, Shannon

2011-01-01

This paper presents the findings of a study on the current knowledge and attitudes of pre-service teachers on the use of scenario-based multi-user virtual environments in science education. The 28 participants involved in the study were introduced to "Virtual Singapura," a multi-user virtual environment, and completed an open-ended questionnaire.…

Virtual Tool Mark Generation for Efficient Striation Analysis

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

Ekstrand, Laura; Zhang, Song; Grieve, Taylor

2014-02-16

This study introduces a tool mark analysis approach based upon 3D scans of screwdriver tip and marked plate surfaces at the micrometer scale from an optical microscope. An open-source 3D graphics software package is utilized to simulate the marking process as the projection of the tip's geometry in the direction of tool travel. The edge of this projection becomes a virtual tool mark that is compared to cross-sections of the marked plate geometry using the statistical likelihood algorithm introduced by Chumbley et al. In a study with both sides of six screwdriver tips and 34 corresponding marks, the method distinguishedmore » known matches from known nonmatches with zero false-positive matches and two false-negative matches. For matches, it could predict the correct marking angle within ±5–10°. Individual comparisons could be made in seconds on a desktop computer, suggesting that the method could save time for examiners.« less

WaveAR: A software tool for calculating parameters for water waves with incident and reflected components

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Landry, Blake J.; Hancock, Matthew J.; Mei, Chiang C.; García, Marcelo H.

2012-09-01

The ability to determine wave heights and phases along a spatial domain is vital to understanding a wide range of littoral processes. The software tool presented here employs established Stokes wave theory and sampling methods to calculate parameters for the incident and reflected components of a field of weakly nonlinear waves, monochromatic at first order in wave slope and propagating in one horizontal dimension. The software calculates wave parameters over an entire wave tank and accounts for reflection, weak nonlinearity, and a free second harmonic. Currently, no publicly available program has such functionality. The included MATLAB®-based open source code has also been compiled for Windows®, Mac® and Linux® operating systems. An additional companion program, VirtualWave, is included to generate virtual wave fields for WaveAR. Together, the programs serve as ideal analysis and teaching tools for laboratory water wave systems.

Development and user evaluation of a virtual rehabilitation system for wobble board balance training.

PubMed

Fitzgerald, Diarmaid; Trakarnratanakul, Nanthana; Dunne, Lucy; Smyth, Barry; Caulfield, Brian

2008-01-01

We have developed a prototype virtual reality-based balance training system using a single inertial orientation sensor attached to the upper surface of a wobble board. This input device has been interfaced with Neverball, an open source computer game to create the balance training platform. Users can exercise with the system by standing on the wobble board and tilting it in different directions to control an on-screen environment. We have also developed a customized instruction manual to use when setting up the system. To evaluate the usability our prototype system we undertook a user evaluation study with twelve healthy novice participants. Participants were required to assemble the system using an instruction manual and then perform balance exercises with the system. Following this period of exercise VRUSE, a usability evaluation questionnaire, was completed by participants. Results indicated a high level of usability in all categories evaluated.

Ultrafast Synthetic Transmit Aperture Imaging Using Hadamard-Encoded Virtual Sources With Overlapping Sub-Apertures.

PubMed

Ping Gong; Pengfei Song; Shigao Chen

2017-06-01

The development of ultrafast ultrasound imaging offers great opportunities to improve imaging technologies, such as shear wave elastography and ultrafast Doppler imaging. In ultrafast imaging, there are tradeoffs among image signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), resolution, and post-compounded frame rate. Various approaches have been proposed to solve this tradeoff, such as multiplane wave imaging or the attempts of implementing synthetic transmit aperture imaging. In this paper, we propose an ultrafast synthetic transmit aperture (USTA) imaging technique using Hadamard-encoded virtual sources with overlapping sub-apertures to enhance both image SNR and resolution without sacrificing frame rate. This method includes three steps: 1) create virtual sources using sub-apertures; 2) encode virtual sources using Hadamard matrix; and 3) add short time intervals (a few microseconds) between transmissions of different virtual sources to allow overlapping sub-apertures. The USTA was tested experimentally with a point target, a B-mode phantom, and in vivo human kidney micro-vessel imaging. Compared with standard coherent diverging wave compounding with the same frame rate, improvements on image SNR, lateral resolution (+33%, with B-mode phantom imaging), and contrast ratio (+3.8 dB, with in vivo human kidney micro-vessel imaging) have been achieved. The f-number of virtual sources, the number of virtual sources used, and the number of elements used in each sub-aperture can be flexibly adjusted to enhance resolution and SNR. This allows very flexible optimization of USTA for different applications.

SU-G-IeP4-04: DD-Neutron Source Collimation for Neutron Stimulated Emission Computed Tomography: A Monte Carlo Simulation Study

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

Fong, G; Kapadia, A

Purpose: To optimize collimation and shielding for a deuterium-deuterium (DD) neutron generator for an inexpensive and compact clinical neutron imaging system. The envisioned application is cancer diagnosis through Neutron Stimulated Emission Computed Tomography (NSECT). Methods: Collimator designs were tested with an isotropic 2.5 MeV neutron source through GEANT4 simulations. The collimator is a 52×52×52 cm{sup 3} polyethylene block coupled with a 1 cm lead sheet in sequence. Composite opening was modeled into the collimator to permit passage of neutrons. The opening varied in shape (cylindrical vs. tapered), size (1–5 cm source-side and target-side openings) and aperture placements (13–39 cm frommore » source-side). Spatial and energy distribution of neutrons and gammas were tracked from each collimator design. Parameters analyzed were primary beam width (FWHM), divergence, and efficiency (percent transmission) for different configurations of the collimator. Select resultant outputs were then used for simulated NSECT imaging of a virtual breast phantom containing a 2.5 cm diameter tumor to assess the effect of the collimator on spatial resolution, noise, and scan time. Finally, composite shielding enclosure made of polyethylene and lead was designed and evaluated to block 99.99% of neutron and gamma radiation generated in the system. Results: Analysis of primary beam indicated the beam-width is linear to the aperture size. Increasing source-side opening allowed at least 20% more neutron throughput for all designs relative to the cylindrical openings. Maximum throughput for all designs was 364% relative to cylindrical openings. Conclusion: The work indicates potential for collimating and shielding a DD neutron generator for use in a clinical NSECT system. The proposed collimator designs produced a well-defined collimated neutron beam that can be used to image samples of interest with millimeter resolution. Balance in output efficiency, noise reduction, and scan time should be considered to determine the optimal design for specific NSECT applications.« less

Virtual Patients in a Behavioral Medicine Massive Open Online Course (MOOC): A Case-Based Analysis of Technical Capacity and User Navigation Pathways.

PubMed

Kononowicz, Andrzej A; Berman, Anne H; Stathakarou, Natalia; McGrath, Cormac; Bartyński, Tomasz; Nowakowski, Piotr; Malawski, Maciej; Zary, Nabil

2015-09-10

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been criticized for focusing on presentation of short video clip lectures and asking theoretical multiple-choice questions. A potential way of vitalizing these educational activities in the health sciences is to introduce virtual patients. Experiences from such extensions in MOOCs have not previously been reported in the literature. This study analyzes technical challenges and solutions for offering virtual patients in health-related MOOCs and describes patterns of virtual patient use in one such course. Our aims are to reduce the technical uncertainty related to these extensions, point to aspects that could be optimized for a better learner experience, and raise prospective research questions by describing indicators of virtual patient use on a massive scale. The Behavioral Medicine MOOC was offered by Karolinska Institutet, a medical university, on the EdX platform in the autumn of 2014. Course content was enhanced by two virtual patient scenarios presented in the OpenLabyrinth system and hosted on the VPH-Share cloud infrastructure. We analyzed web server and session logs and a participant satisfaction survey. Navigation pathways were summarized using a visual analytics tool developed for the purpose of this study. The number of course enrollments reached 19,236. At the official closing date, 2317 participants (12.1% of total enrollment) had declared completing the first virtual patient assignment and 1640 (8.5%) participants confirmed completion of the second virtual patient assignment. Peak activity involved 359 user sessions per day. The OpenLabyrinth system, deployed on four virtual servers, coped well with the workload. Participant survey respondents (n=479) regarded the activity as a helpful exercise in the course (83.1%). Technical challenges reported involved poor or restricted access to videos in certain areas of the world and occasional problems with lost sessions. The visual analyses of user pathways display the parts of virtual patient scenarios that elicited less interest and may have been perceived as nonchallenging options. Analyzing the user navigation pathways allowed us to detect indications of both surface and deep approaches to the content material among the MOOC participants. This study reported on first inclusion of virtual patients in a MOOC. It adds to the body of knowledge by demonstrating how a biomedical cloud provider service can ensure technical capacity and flexible design of a virtual patient platform on a massive scale. The study also presents a new way of analyzing the use of branched virtual patients by visualization of user navigation pathways. Suggestions are offered on improvements to the design of virtual patients in MOOCs.

Virtual Patients in a Behavioral Medicine Massive Open Online Course (MOOC): A Case-Based Analysis of Technical Capacity and User Navigation Pathways

PubMed Central

Berman, Anne H; Stathakarou, Natalia; McGrath, Cormac; Bartyński, Tomasz; Nowakowski, Piotr; Malawski, Maciej; Zary, Nabil

2015-01-01

Background Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been criticized for focusing on presentation of short video clip lectures and asking theoretical multiple-choice questions. A potential way of vitalizing these educational activities in the health sciences is to introduce virtual patients. Experiences from such extensions in MOOCs have not previously been reported in the literature. Objective This study analyzes technical challenges and solutions for offering virtual patients in health-related MOOCs and describes patterns of virtual patient use in one such course. Our aims are to reduce the technical uncertainty related to these extensions, point to aspects that could be optimized for a better learner experience, and raise prospective research questions by describing indicators of virtual patient use on a massive scale. Methods The Behavioral Medicine MOOC was offered by Karolinska Institutet, a medical university, on the EdX platform in the autumn of 2014. Course content was enhanced by two virtual patient scenarios presented in the OpenLabyrinth system and hosted on the VPH-Share cloud infrastructure. We analyzed web server and session logs and a participant satisfaction survey. Navigation pathways were summarized using a visual analytics tool developed for the purpose of this study. Results The number of course enrollments reached 19,236. At the official closing date, 2317 participants (12.1% of total enrollment) had declared completing the first virtual patient assignment and 1640 (8.5%) participants confirmed completion of the second virtual patient assignment. Peak activity involved 359 user sessions per day. The OpenLabyrinth system, deployed on four virtual servers, coped well with the workload. Participant survey respondents (n=479) regarded the activity as a helpful exercise in the course (83.1%). Technical challenges reported involved poor or restricted access to videos in certain areas of the world and occasional problems with lost sessions. The visual analyses of user pathways display the parts of virtual patient scenarios that elicited less interest and may have been perceived as nonchallenging options. Analyzing the user navigation pathways allowed us to detect indications of both surface and deep approaches to the content material among the MOOC participants. Conclusions This study reported on first inclusion of virtual patients in a MOOC. It adds to the body of knowledge by demonstrating how a biomedical cloud provider service can ensure technical capacity and flexible design of a virtual patient platform on a massive scale. The study also presents a new way of analyzing the use of branched virtual patients by visualization of user navigation pathways. Suggestions are offered on improvements to the design of virtual patients in MOOCs. PMID:27731844

The Evolution of Medical Training Simulation in the U.S. Military.

PubMed

Linde, Amber S; Kunkler, Kevin

2016-01-01

The United States has been at war since 2003. During that time, training using Medical Simulation technology has been developed and integrated into military medical training for combat medics, nurses and surgeons. Efforts stemming from the Joint Programmatic Committee-1 (JPC-1) Medical Simulation and Training Portfolio has allowed for the improvement and advancement in military medical training by focusing on research in simulation training technology in order to achieve this. Based upon lessons learned capability gaps have been identified concerning the necessity to validate and enhance combat medial training simulators. These capability gaps include 1) Open Source/Open Architecture; 2) Modularity and Interoperability; and 3) Material and Virtual Reality (VR) Models. Using the capability gaps, JPC-1 has identified important research endeavors that need to be explored.

Open Knee: Open Source Modeling & Simulation to Enable Scientific Discovery and Clinical Care in Knee Biomechanics

PubMed Central

Erdemir, Ahmet

2016-01-01

Virtual representations of the knee joint can provide clinicians, scientists, and engineers the tools to explore mechanical function of the knee and its tissue structures in health and disease. Modeling and simulation approaches such as finite element analysis also provide the possibility to understand the influence of surgical procedures and implants on joint stresses and tissue deformations. A large number of knee joint models are described in the biomechanics literature. However, freely accessible, customizable, and easy-to-use models are scarce. Availability of such models can accelerate clinical translation of simulations, where labor intensive reproduction of model development steps can be avoided. The interested parties can immediately utilize readily available models for scientific discovery and for clinical care. Motivated by this gap, this study aims to describe an open source and freely available finite element representation of the tibiofemoral joint, namely Open Knee, which includes detailed anatomical representation of the joint's major tissue structures, their nonlinear mechanical properties and interactions. Three use cases illustrate customization potential of the model, its predictive capacity, and its scientific and clinical utility: prediction of joint movements during passive flexion, examining the role of meniscectomy on contact mechanics and joint movements, and understanding anterior cruciate ligament mechanics. A summary of scientific and clinically directed studies conducted by other investigators are also provided. The utilization of this open source model by groups other than its developers emphasizes the premise of model sharing as an accelerator of simulation-based medicine. Finally, the imminent need to develop next generation knee models are noted. These are anticipated to incorporate individualized anatomy and tissue properties supported by specimen-specific joint mechanics data for evaluation, all acquired in vitro from varying age groups and pathological states. PMID:26444849

Open Knee: Open Source Modeling and Simulation in Knee Biomechanics.

PubMed

Erdemir, Ahmet

2016-02-01

Virtual representations of the knee joint can provide clinicians, scientists, and engineers the tools to explore mechanical functions of the knee and its tissue structures in health and disease. Modeling and simulation approaches such as finite element analysis also provide the possibility to understand the influence of surgical procedures and implants on joint stresses and tissue deformations. A large number of knee joint models are described in the biomechanics literature. However, freely accessible, customizable, and easy-to-use models are scarce. Availability of such models can accelerate clinical translation of simulations, where labor-intensive reproduction of model development steps can be avoided. Interested parties can immediately utilize readily available models for scientific discovery and clinical care. Motivated by this gap, this study aims to describe an open source and freely available finite element representation of the tibiofemoral joint, namely Open Knee, which includes the detailed anatomical representation of the joint's major tissue structures and their nonlinear mechanical properties and interactions. Three use cases illustrate customization potential of the model, its predictive capacity, and its scientific and clinical utility: prediction of joint movements during passive flexion, examining the role of meniscectomy on contact mechanics and joint movements, and understanding anterior cruciate ligament mechanics. A summary of scientific and clinically directed studies conducted by other investigators are also provided. The utilization of this open source model by groups other than its developers emphasizes the premise of model sharing as an accelerator of simulation-based medicine. Finally, the imminent need to develop next-generation knee models is noted. These are anticipated to incorporate individualized anatomy and tissue properties supported by specimen-specific joint mechanics data for evaluation, all acquired in vitro from varying age groups and pathological states. Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.

Training Language Teachers to Sustain Self-Directed Language Learning: An Exploration of Advisers' Experiences on a Web-Based Open Virtual Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bailly, Sophie; Ciekanski, Maud; Guély-Costa, Eglantine

2013-01-01

This article describes the rationale for pedagogical, technological and organizational choices in the design of a web-based and open virtual learning environment (VLE) promoting and sustaining self-directed language learning. Based on the last forty years of research on learner autonomy at the CRAPEL according to Holec's definition (1988), we…

Virtual School Counseling

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Osborn, Debra S.; Peterson, Gary W.; Hale, Rebecca R.

2015-01-01

The advent of virtual schools opens doors to opportunity for delivery of student services via the Internet. Through the use of structured interviews with four practicing Florida virtual school counselors, and a follow-up survey, the authors examined the experiences and reflections of school counselors who are employed full time in a statewide…

The Virtual Classroom: A Catalyst for Institutional Transformation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Subramaniam, Nantha Kumar; Kandasamy, Maheswari

2011-01-01

This study explores the use of the virtual classroom which has been created in "myVLE", a learning management system used by the Open University Malaysia (OUM). The virtual classroom in "myVLE" is an asynchronous-based online learning environment that delivers course materials to learners and provides collaboration and…

Virtual Peace Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Firer, Ruth

2008-01-01

This article is based on the convictions that peace education is the basis for any sustainable non-violent relations between parties in a conflict, and that virtual peace education is almost the only feasible way to practise peace education in an open violent conflict as is the current Israeli/Palestinians one. Moreover, virtual peace education…

The Experiment Factory: Standardizing Behavioral Experiments.

PubMed

Sochat, Vanessa V; Eisenberg, Ian W; Enkavi, A Zeynep; Li, Jamie; Bissett, Patrick G; Poldrack, Russell A

2016-01-01

The administration of behavioral and experimental paradigms for psychology research is hindered by lack of a coordinated effort to develop and deploy standardized paradigms. While several frameworks (Mason and Suri, 2011; McDonnell et al., 2012; de Leeuw, 2015; Lange et al., 2015) have provided infrastructure and methods for individual research groups to develop paradigms, missing is a coordinated effort to develop paradigms linked with a system to easily deploy them. This disorganization leads to redundancy in development, divergent implementations of conceptually identical tasks, disorganized and error-prone code lacking documentation, and difficulty in replication. The ongoing reproducibility crisis in psychology and neuroscience research (Baker, 2015; Open Science Collaboration, 2015) highlights the urgency of this challenge: reproducible research in behavioral psychology is conditional on deployment of equivalent experiments. A large, accessible repository of experiments for researchers to develop collaboratively is most efficiently accomplished through an open source framework. Here we present the Experiment Factory, an open source framework for the development and deployment of web-based experiments. The modular infrastructure includes experiments, virtual machines for local or cloud deployment, and an application to drive these components and provide developers with functions and tools for further extension. We release this infrastructure with a deployment (http://www.expfactory.org) that researchers are currently using to run a set of over 80 standardized web-based experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk. By providing open source tools for both deployment and development, this novel infrastructure holds promise to bring reproducibility to the administration of experiments, and accelerate scientific progress by providing a shared community resource of psychological paradigms.

The Experiment Factory: Standardizing Behavioral Experiments

PubMed Central

Sochat, Vanessa V.; Eisenberg, Ian W.; Enkavi, A. Zeynep; Li, Jamie; Bissett, Patrick G.; Poldrack, Russell A.

2016-01-01

The administration of behavioral and experimental paradigms for psychology research is hindered by lack of a coordinated effort to develop and deploy standardized paradigms. While several frameworks (Mason and Suri, 2011; McDonnell et al., 2012; de Leeuw, 2015; Lange et al., 2015) have provided infrastructure and methods for individual research groups to develop paradigms, missing is a coordinated effort to develop paradigms linked with a system to easily deploy them. This disorganization leads to redundancy in development, divergent implementations of conceptually identical tasks, disorganized and error-prone code lacking documentation, and difficulty in replication. The ongoing reproducibility crisis in psychology and neuroscience research (Baker, 2015; Open Science Collaboration, 2015) highlights the urgency of this challenge: reproducible research in behavioral psychology is conditional on deployment of equivalent experiments. A large, accessible repository of experiments for researchers to develop collaboratively is most efficiently accomplished through an open source framework. Here we present the Experiment Factory, an open source framework for the development and deployment of web-based experiments. The modular infrastructure includes experiments, virtual machines for local or cloud deployment, and an application to drive these components and provide developers with functions and tools for further extension. We release this infrastructure with a deployment (http://www.expfactory.org) that researchers are currently using to run a set of over 80 standardized web-based experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk. By providing open source tools for both deployment and development, this novel infrastructure holds promise to bring reproducibility to the administration of experiments, and accelerate scientific progress by providing a shared community resource of psychological paradigms. PMID:27199843

D Virtual CH Interactive Information Systems for a Smart Web Browsing Experience for Desktop Pcs and Mobile Devices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Scianna, A.; La Guardia, M.

2018-05-01

Recently, the diffusion of knowledge on Cultural Heritage (CH) has become an element of primary importance for its valorization. At the same time, the diffusion of surveys based on UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) technologies and new methods of photogrammetric reconstruction have opened new possibilities for 3D CH representation. Furthermore the recent development of faster and more stable internet connections leads people to increase the use of mobile devices. In the light of all this, the importance of the development of Virtual Reality (VR) environments applied to CH is strategic for the diffusion of knowledge in a smart solution. In particular, the present work shows how, starting from a basic survey and the further photogrammetric reconstruction of a cultural good, is possible to built a 3D CH interactive information system useful for desktop and mobile devices. For this experimentation the Arab-Norman church of the Trinity of Delia (in Castelvetrano-Sicily-Italy) has been adopted as case study. The survey operations have been carried out considering different rapid methods of acquisition (UAV camera, SLR camera and smartphone camera). The web platform to publish the 3D information has been built using HTML5 markup language and WebGL JavaScript libraries (Three.js libraries). This work presents the construction of a 3D navigation system for a web-browsing of a virtual CH environment, with the integration of first person controls and 3D popup links. This contribution adds a further step to enrich the possibilities of open-source technologies applied to the world of CH valorization on web.

Virtual and physical toys: open-ended features for non-formal learning.

PubMed

Petersson, Eva; Brooks, Anthony

2006-04-01

This paper examines the integrated toy--both physical and virtual--as an essential resource for collaborative learning. This learning incorporates rehabilitation, training, and education. The data derived from two different cases. Pedagogical issues related to non-formal learning and open-ended features of design are discussed. Findings suggest that social, material, and expressive affordances constitute a base for an alterative interface to encourage children's play and learning.

Open Education Students' Perspectives on Using Virtual Museums Application in Teaching History Subjects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ulusoy, Kadir

2010-01-01

The study was made to determine whether the attitudes of the open education faculty students, will be changed or not by virtual museum application. The pre-test and post-test model of the experimental design was used in the research. A group of 20 was formed as an experimental group. The pre-test was given to the group before the study and the…

Telemanipulation, telepresence, and virtual reality for surgery in the year 2000

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Satava, Richard M.

1995-12-01

The new technologic revolution in medicine is based upon information technologies, and telemanipulation, telepresence and virtual reality are essential components. Telepresence surgery returns the look and feel of `open surgery' to the surgeon and promises enhancement of physical capabilities above normal human performance. Virtual reality provides basic medical education, simulation of surgical procedures, medical forces and disaster medicine practice, and virtual prototyping of medical equipment.

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).

76 FR 80405 - Notice Pursuant to the National Cooperative Research and Production Act of 1993-Interchangeable...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-12-23

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Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-01-02

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Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-05-20

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Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-05-20

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2011-03-25

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2010-09-08

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A Virtual World Workshop Environment for Learning Agile Software Development Techniques

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Parsons, David; Stockdale, Rosemary

2012-01-01

Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) are the subject of increasing interest for educators and trainers. This article reports on a longitudinal project that seeks to establish a virtual agile software development workshop hosted in the Open Wonderland MUVE, designed to help learners to understand the basic principles of some core agile software…

Innovation Education Enabled through a Collaborative Virtual Reality Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thorsteinsson, Gisli; Page, Tom; Lehtonen, Miika; Ha, Joong Gyu

2006-01-01

This article provides a descriptive account of the development of an approach to the support of design and technology education with 3D Virtual Reality (VR) technologies on an open and distance learning basis. This work promotes an understanding of the implications and possibilities of advanced virtual learning technologies in education for…

Portal to the World: AIHEC Virtual Library Opens Doors for Native Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kirby, Jane

2004-01-01

The Internet keeps growing at lightning speed. Now, "tribal college" students have a tool to assist them in locating accurate information quickly: the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) Virtual Library. The AIHEC Virtual Library provides a focused entryway into the Internet research field. Librarians report that it supplements…

Embodying self-compassion within virtual reality and its effects on patients with depression.

PubMed

Falconer, Caroline J; Rovira, Aitor; King, John A; Gilbert, Paul; Antley, Angus; Fearon, Pasco; Ralph, Neil; Slater, Mel; Brewin, Chris R

2016-01-01

Self-criticism is a ubiquitous feature of psychopathology and can be combatted by increasing levels of self-compassion. However, some patients are resistant to self-compassion. To investigate whether the effects of self-identification with virtual bodies within immersive virtual reality could be exploited to increase self-compassion in patients with depression. We developed an 8-minute scenario in which 15 patients practised delivering compassion in one virtual body and then experienced receiving it from themselves in another virtual body. In an open trial, three repetitions of this scenario led to significant reductions in depression severity and self-criticism, as well as to a significant increase in self-compassion, from baseline to 4-week follow-up. Four patients showed clinically significant improvement. The results indicate that interventions using immersive virtual reality may have considerable clinical potential and that further development of these methods preparatory to a controlled trial is now warranted. None. © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2016. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence.

Hologram-reconstruction signal enhancement

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mezrich, R. S.

1977-01-01

Principle of heterodyne detection is used to combine object beam and reconstructed virtual image beam. All light valves in page composer are opened, and virtual-image beam is allowed to interfere with light from valves.

A desktop system of virtual morphometric globes for Mars and the Moon

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Florinsky, I. V.; Filippov, S. V.

2017-03-01

Global morphometric models can be useful for earth and planetary studies. Virtual globes - programs implementing interactive three-dimensional (3D) models of planets - are increasingly used in geo- and planetary sciences. We describe the development of a desktop system of virtual morphometric globes for Mars and the Moon. As the initial data, we used 15'-gridded global digital elevation models (DEMs) extracted from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) and the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) gridded archives. For two celestial bodies, we derived global digital models of several morphometric attributes, such as horizontal curvature, vertical curvature, minimal curvature, maximal curvature, and catchment area. To develop the system, we used Blender, the free open-source software for 3D modeling and visualization. First, a 3D sphere model was generated. Second, the global morphometric maps were imposed to the sphere surface as textures. Finally, the real-time 3D graphics Blender engine was used to implement rotation and zooming of the globes. The testing of the developed system demonstrated its good performance. Morphometric globes clearly represent peculiarities of planetary topography, according to the physical and mathematical sense of a particular morphometric variable.

Special issue on enabling open and interoperable access to Planetary Science and Heliophysics databases and tools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2018-01-01

The large amount of data generated by modern space missions calls for a change of organization of data distribution and access procedures. Although long term archives exist for telescopic and space-borne observations, high-level functions need to be developed on top of these repositories to make Planetary Science and Heliophysics data more accessible and to favor interoperability. Results of simulations and reference laboratory data also need to be integrated to support and interpret the observations. Interoperable software and interfaces have recently been developed in many scientific domains. The Virtual Observatory (VO) interoperable standards developed for Astronomy by the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) can be adapted to Planetary Sciences, as demonstrated by the VESPA (Virtual European Solar and Planetary Access) team within the Europlanet-H2020-RI project. Other communities have developed their own standards: GIS (Geographic Information System) for Earth and planetary surfaces tools, SPASE (Space Physics Archive Search and Extract) for space plasma, PDS4 (NASA Planetary Data System, version 4) and IPDA (International Planetary Data Alliance) for planetary mission archives, etc, and an effort to make them interoperable altogether is starting, including automated workflows to process related data from different sources.

Graphics interfaces and numerical simulations: Mexican Virtual Solar Observatory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hernández, L.; González, A.; Salas, G.; Santillán, A.

2007-08-01

Preliminary results associated to the computational development and creation of the Mexican Virtual Solar Observatory (MVSO) are presented. Basically, the MVSO prototype consists of two parts: the first, related to observations that have been made during the past ten years at the Solar Observation Station (EOS) and at the Carl Sagan Observatory (OCS) of the Universidad de Sonora in Mexico. The second part is associated to the creation and manipulation of a database produced by numerical simulations related to solar phenomena, we are using the MHD ZEUS-3D code. The development of this prototype was made using mysql, apache, java and VSO 1.2. based GNU and `open source philosophy'. A graphic user interface (GUI) was created in order to make web-based, remote numerical simulations. For this purpose, Mono was used, because it is provides the necessary software to develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux. Although this project is still under development, we hope to have access, by means of this portal, to other virtual solar observatories and to be able to count on a database created through numerical simulations or, given the case, perform simulations associated to solar phenomena.

OpenSHS: Open Smart Home Simulator.

PubMed

Alshammari, Nasser; Alshammari, Talal; Sedky, Mohamed; Champion, Justin; Bauer, Carolin

2017-05-02

This paper develops a new hybrid, open-source, cross-platform 3D smart home simulator, OpenSHS, for dataset generation. OpenSHS offers an opportunity for researchers in the field of the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning to test and evaluate their models. Following a hybrid approach, OpenSHS combines advantages from both interactive and model-based approaches. This approach reduces the time and efforts required to generate simulated smart home datasets. We have designed a replication algorithm for extending and expanding a dataset. A small sample dataset produced, by OpenSHS, can be extended without affecting the logical order of the events. The replication provides a solution for generating large representative smart home datasets. We have built an extensible library of smart devices that facilitates the simulation of current and future smart home environments. Our tool divides the dataset generation process into three distinct phases: first design: the researcher designs the initial virtual environment by building the home, importing smart devices and creating contexts; second, simulation: the participant simulates his/her context-specific events; and third, aggregation: the researcher applies the replication algorithm to generate the final dataset. We conducted a study to assess the ease of use of our tool on the System Usability Scale (SUS).

OpenSHS: Open Smart Home Simulator

PubMed Central

Alshammari, Nasser; Alshammari, Talal; Sedky, Mohamed; Champion, Justin; Bauer, Carolin

2017-01-01

This paper develops a new hybrid, open-source, cross-platform 3D smart home simulator, OpenSHS, for dataset generation. OpenSHS offers an opportunity for researchers in the field of the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning to test and evaluate their models. Following a hybrid approach, OpenSHS combines advantages from both interactive and model-based approaches. This approach reduces the time and efforts required to generate simulated smart home datasets. We have designed a replication algorithm for extending and expanding a dataset. A small sample dataset produced, by OpenSHS, can be extended without affecting the logical order of the events. The replication provides a solution for generating large representative smart home datasets. We have built an extensible library of smart devices that facilitates the simulation of current and future smart home environments. Our tool divides the dataset generation process into three distinct phases: first design: the researcher designs the initial virtual environment by building the home, importing smart devices and creating contexts; second, simulation: the participant simulates his/her context-specific events; and third, aggregation: the researcher applies the replication algorithm to generate the final dataset. We conducted a study to assess the ease of use of our tool on the System Usability Scale (SUS). PMID:28468330

The Virtual Geophysics Laboratory (VGL): Scientific Workflows Operating Across Organizations and Across Infrastructures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cox, S. J.; Wyborn, L. A.; Fraser, R.; Rankine, T.; Woodcock, R.; Vote, J.; Evans, B.

2012-12-01

The Virtual Geophysics Laboratory (VGL) is web portal that provides geoscientists with an integrated online environment that: seamlessly accesses geophysical and geoscience data services from the AuScope national geoscience information infrastructure; loosely couples these data to a variety of gesocience software tools; and provides large scale processing facilities via cloud computing. VGL is a collaboration between CSIRO, Geoscience Australia, National Computational Infrastructure, Monash University, Australian National University and the University of Queensland. The VGL provides a distributed system whereby a user can enter an online virtual laboratory to seamlessly connect to OGC web services for geoscience data. The data is supplied in open standards formats using international standards like GeoSciML. A VGL user uses a web mapping interface to discover and filter the data sources using spatial and attribute filters to define a subset. Once the data is selected the user is not required to download the data. VGL collates the service query information for later in the processing workflow where it will be staged directly to the computing facilities. The combination of deferring data download and access to Cloud computing enables VGL users to access their data at higher resolutions and to undertake larger scale inversions, more complex models and simulations than their own local computing facilities might allow. Inside the Virtual Geophysics Laboratory, the user has access to a library of existing models, complete with exemplar workflows for specific scientific problems based on those models. For example, the user can load a geological model published by Geoscience Australia, apply a basic deformation workflow provided by a CSIRO scientist, and have it run in a scientific code from Monash. Finally the user can publish these results to share with a colleague or cite in a paper. This opens new opportunities for access and collaboration as all the resources (models, code, data, processing) are shared in the one virtual laboratory. VGL provides end users with access to an intuitive, user-centered interface that leverages cloud storage and cloud and cluster processing from both the research communities and commercial suppliers (e.g. Amazon). As the underlying data and information services are agnostic of the scientific domain, they can support many other data types. This fundamental characteristic results in a highly reusable virtual laboratory infrastructure that could also be used for example natural hazards, satellite processing, soil geochemistry, climate modeling, agriculture crop modeling.

Implementation of a virtual laryngoscope system using efficient reconstruction algorithms.

PubMed

Luo, Shouhua; Yan, Yuling

2009-08-01

Conventional fiberoptic laryngoscope may cause discomfort to the patient and in some cases it can lead to side effects that include perforation, infection and hemorrhage. Virtual laryngoscopy (VL) can overcome this problem and further it may lower the risk of operation failures. Very few virtual endoscope (VE) based investigations of the larynx have been described in the literature. CT data sets from a healthy subject were used for the VL studies. An algorithm of preprocessing and region-growing for 3-D image segmentation is developed. An octree based approach is applied in our VL system which facilitates a rapid construction of iso-surfaces. Some locating techniques are used for fast rendering and navigation (fly-through). Our VL visualization system provides for real time and efficient 'fly-through' navigation. The virtual camera can be arranged so that it moves along the airway in either direction. Snap shots were taken during fly-throughs. The system can automatically adjust the direction of the virtual camera and prevent collisions of the camera and the wall of the airway. A virtual laryngoscope (VL) system using OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) platform for interactive rendering and 3D visualization of the laryngeal framework and upper airway is established. OpenGL is supported on major operating systems and works with every major windowing system. The VL system runs on regular PC workstations and was successfully tested and evaluated using CT data from a normal subject.

Enabling Research Network Connectivity to Clouds with Virtual Router Technology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seuster, R.; Casteels, K.; Leavett-Brown, CR; Paterson, M.; Sobie, RJ

2017-10-01

The use of opportunistic cloud resources by HEP experiments has significantly increased over the past few years. Clouds that are owned or managed by the HEP community are connected to the LHCONE network or the research network with global access to HEP computing resources. Private clouds, such as those supported by non-HEP research funds are generally connected to the international research network; however, commercial clouds are either not connected to the research network or only connect to research sites within their national boundaries. Since research network connectivity is a requirement for HEP applications, we need to find a solution that provides a high-speed connection. We are studying a solution with a virtual router that will address the use case when a commercial cloud has research network connectivity in a limited region. In this situation, we host a virtual router in our HEP site and require that all traffic from the commercial site transit through the virtual router. Although this may increase the network path and also the load on the HEP site, it is a workable solution that would enable the use of the remote cloud for low I/O applications. We are exploring some simple open-source solutions. In this paper, we present the results of our studies and how it will benefit our use of private and public clouds for HEP computing.

A proposal for an open source graphical environment for simulating x-ray optics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sanchez del Rio, Manuel; Rebuffi, Luca; Demsar, Janez; Canestrari, Niccolo; Chubar, Oleg

2014-09-01

A new graphic environment to drive X-ray optics simulation packages such as SHADOW and SRW is proposed. The aim is to simulate a virtual experiment, including the description of the electron beam and simulate the emitted radiation, the optics, the scattering by the sample and radiation detection. Python is chosen as common interaction language. The ingredients of the new application, a glossary of variables for optical component, the selection of visualization tools, and the integration of all these components in a high level workflow environment built on Orange are presented.

Using Cesium for 3D Thematic Visualisations on the Web

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gede, Mátyás

2018-05-01

Cesium (http://cesiumjs.org) is an open source, WebGL-based JavaScript library for virtual globes and 3D maps. It is an excellent tool for 3D thematic visualisations, but to use its full functionality it has to be feed with its own file format, CZML. Unfortunately, this format is not yet supported by any major GIS software. This paper intro- duces a plugin for QGIS, developed by the author, which facilitates the creation of CZML file for various types of visualisations. The usability of Cesium is also examined in various hardware/software environments.

Data Visualization Using Immersive Virtual Reality Tools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cioc, Alexandru; Djorgovski, S. G.; Donalek, C.; Lawler, E.; Sauer, F.; Longo, G.

2013-01-01

The growing complexity of scientific data poses serious challenges for an effective visualization. Data sets, e.g., catalogs of objects detected in sky surveys, can have a very high dimensionality, ~ 100 - 1000. Visualizing such hyper-dimensional data parameter spaces is essentially impossible, but there are ways of visualizing up to ~ 10 dimensions in a pseudo-3D display. We have been experimenting with the emerging technologies of immersive virtual reality (VR) as a platform for a scientific, interactive, collaborative data visualization. Our initial experiments used the virtual world of Second Life, and more recently VR worlds based on its open source code, OpenSimulator. There we can visualize up to ~ 100,000 data points in ~ 7 - 8 dimensions (3 spatial and others encoded as shapes, colors, sizes, etc.), in an immersive virtual space where scientists can interact with their data and with each other. We are now developing a more scalable visualization environment using the popular (practically an emerging standard) Unity 3D Game Engine, coded using C#, JavaScript, and the Unity Scripting Language. This visualization tool can be used through a standard web browser, or a standalone browser of its own. Rather than merely plotting data points, the application creates interactive three-dimensional objects of various shapes, colors, and sizes, and of course the XYZ positions, encoding various dimensions of the parameter space, that can be associated interactively. Multiple users can navigate through this data space simultaneously, either with their own, independent vantage points, or with a shared view. At this stage ~ 100,000 data points can be easily visualized within seconds on a simple laptop. The displayed data points can contain linked information; e.g., upon a clicking on a data point, a webpage with additional information can be rendered within the 3D world. A range of functionalities has been already deployed, and more are being added. We expect to make this visualization tool freely available to the academic community within a few months, on an experimental (beta testing) basis.

Virtual versus physical channel for sex networking in men having sex with men of sauna customers in the City of Hong Kong.

PubMed

Lee, Shui-Shan; Lam, Agnes N S; Lee, Chi-Kei; Wong, Ngai-Sze

2012-01-01

Advances in communication technology may affect networking pattern, thereby influencing the dynamics of sex partnership. The aim of the study is to explore the impacts of partner sourcing through internet and related channels on exposure risk to sexually transmitted infections (STI) including HIV. Using venue-based sampling, a cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted at saunas frequented by men having sex with men (MSM) in Hong Kong. Comparison was made between MSM sourcing partners through physical venues alone versus concomitant users of physical and virtual channels, the latter referring to internet and smart-phone applications, using bivariate logistic regression. Over a 7-week study period, 299 MSM were recruited from 9 saunas. Three main types of sex partners were distinguished: steady (46.8%), regular (26.4%) and casual (96.0%) partners. Users of sauna (n = 78) were compared with concomitant users of saunas and virtual channels (n = 179) for partner sourcing. Sauna-visiting virtual channel users were younger and inclined to use selected physical venues for sourcing partners. Smart-phone users (n = 90) were not different from other internet-users in terms of age, education level and single/mixed self-identified body appearance. Classifying respondents into high risk and low risk MSM by their frequency of condom use, concomitant use of both sauna and virtual channels accounted for a higher proportion in the high risk category (71.6% vs. 58.2%, OR = 1.81, p<0.05). In virtual channel users, partner sourcing through smart-phone was not associated with a higher practice of unprotected sex. MSM sauna customers commonly use virtual channels for sex partner sourcing. Unprotected sex is more prevalent in sauna customers who use virtual channel for sex partner sourcing. While the popularity of smart-phone is rising, its use is not associated with increased behavioural risk for HIV/STI transmission.

3D Printing in the Laboratory: Maximize Time and Funds with Customized and Open-Source Labware.

PubMed

Coakley, Meghan; Hurt, Darrell E

2016-08-01

3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is the computer-guided process of fabricating physical objects by depositing successive layers of material. It has transformed manufacturing across virtually every industry, bringing about incredible advances in research and medicine. The rapidly growing consumer market now includes convenient and affordable "desktop" 3D printers. These are being used in the laboratory to create custom 3D-printed equipment, and a growing community of designers are contributing open-source, cost-effective innovations that can be used by both professionals and enthusiasts. User stories from investigators at the National Institutes of Health and the biomedical research community demonstrate the power of 3D printing to save valuable time and funding. While adoption of 3D printing has been slow in the biosciences to date, the potential is vast. The market predicts that within several years, 3D printers could be commonplace within the home; with so many practical uses for 3D printing, we anticipate that the technology will also play an increasingly important role in the laboratory. © 2016 Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening.

3D Printing in the Laboratory: Maximize Time and Funds with Customized and Open-Source Labware

PubMed Central

Coakley, Meghan; Hurt, Darrell E.

2016-01-01

3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is the computer-guided process of fabricating physical objects by depositing successive layers of material. It has transformed manufacturing across virtually every industry, bringing about incredible advances in research and medicine. The rapidly growing consumer market now includes convenient and affordable “desktop” 3D printers. These are being used in the laboratory to create custom 3D-printed equipment, and a growing community of designers are contributing open-source, cost-effective innovations that can be used by both professionals and enthusiasts. User stories from investigators at the National Institutes of Health and the biomedical research community demonstrate the power of 3D printing to save valuable time and funding. While adoption of 3D printing has been slow in the biosciences to date, the potential is vast. The market predicts that within several years, 3D printers could be commonplace within the home; with so many practical uses for 3D printing, we anticipate that the technology will also play an increasingly important role in the laboratory. PMID:27197798

Binaural room simulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lehnert, H.; Blauert, Jens; Pompetzki, W.

1991-01-01

In every-day listening the auditory event perceived by a listener is determined not only by the sound signal that a sound emits but also by a variety of environmental parameters. These parameters are the position, orientation and directional characteristics of the sound source, the listener's position and orientation, the geometrical and acoustical properties of surfaces which affect the sound field and the sound propagation properties of the surrounding fluid. A complete set of these parameters can be called an Acoustic Environment. If the auditory event perceived by a listener is manipulated in such a way that the listener is shifted acoustically into a different acoustic environment without moving himself physically, a Virtual Acoustic Environment has been created. Here, we deal with a special technique to set up nearly arbitrary Virtual Acoustic Environments, the Binaural Room Simulation. The purpose of the Binaural Room Simulation is to compute the binaural impulse response related to a virtual acoustic environment taking into account all parameters mentioned above. One possible way to describe a Virtual Acoustic Environment is the concept of the virtual sound sources. Each of the virtual sources emits a certain signal which is correlated but not necessarily identical with the signal emitted by the direct sound source. If source and receiver are non moving, the acoustic environment becomes a linear time-invariant system. Then, the Binaural Impulse Response from the source to a listener' s eardrums contains all relevant auditory information related to the Virtual Acoustic Environment. Listening into the simulated environment can easily be achieved by convolving the Binaural Impulse Response with dry signals and representing the results via headphones.

Virtual Classroom Instruction and Academic Performance of Educational Technology Students in Distance Education, Enugu State

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Akpan, Sylvester J.; Etim, Paulinus J.; Udom, Stella Ogechi

2016-01-01

The virtual classroom and distance education have created new teaching pedagogy. This study was carried out to investigate Virtual Classroom Instruction on Academic Performance of Educational Technology Students in Distance Education, Enugu State. The population for this study was limited to the Students in National Open University, Enugu study…

NASA World Wind, Open Source 4D Geospatial Visualization Platform: *.NET & Java* for EDUCATION

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hogan, P.; Kuehnel, F.

2006-12-01

NASA World Wind has only one goal, to provide the maximum opportunity for geospatial information to be experienced, be it education, science, research, business, or government. The benefits to understanding for information delivered in the context of its 4D virtual reality are extraordinary. The NASA World Wind visualization platform is open source and therefore lends itself well to being extended to service *any* requirements, be they proprietary and commercial or simply available. Data accessibility is highly optimized using standard formats including internationally certified open standards (W*S). Although proprietary applications can be built based on World Wind, and proprietary data delivered that leverage World Wind, there is nothing proprietary about the visualization platform itself or the multiple planetary data sets readily available, including global animations of live weather. NASA World Wind is being used by NASA research teams as well as being a formal part of high school and university curriculum. The National Guard uses World Wind for emergency response activities and State governments have incorporated high resolution imagery for GIS management as well as for their cross-agency emergency response activities. The U.S. federal government uses NASA World Wind for a myriad of GIS and security-related issues (NSA, NGA, DOE, FAA, etc.).

NASA World Wind, Open Source 4D Geospatial Visualization Platform: *.NET & Java*

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hogan, P.; Coughlan, J.

2006-12-01

NASA World Wind has only one goal, to provide the maximum opportunity for geospatial information to be experienced, be it education, science, research, business, or government. The benefits to understanding for information delivered in the context of its 4D virtual reality are extraordinary. The NASA World Wind visualization platform is open source and therefore lends itself well to being extended to service *any* requirements, be they proprietary and commercial or simply available. Data accessibility is highly optimized using standard formats including internationally certified open standards (W*S). Although proprietary applications can be built based on World Wind, and proprietary data delivered that leverage World Wind, there is nothing proprietary about the visualization platform itself or the multiple planetary data sets readily available, including global animations of live weather. NASA World Wind is being used by NASA research teams as well as being a formal part of high school and university curriculum. The National Guard uses World Wind for emergency response activities and State governments have incorporated high resolution imagery for GIS management as well as for their cross-agency emergency response activities. The U.S. federal government uses NASA World Wind for a myriad of GIS and security-related issues (NSA, NGA, DOE, FAA, etc.).

Global Health Innovation Technology Models.

PubMed

Harding, Kimberly

2016-01-01

Chronic technology and business process disparities between High Income, Low Middle Income and Low Income (HIC, LMIC, LIC) research collaborators directly prevent the growth of sustainable Global Health innovation for infectious and rare diseases. There is a need for an Open Source-Open Science Architecture Framework to bridge this divide. We are proposing such a framework for consideration by the Global Health community, by utilizing a hybrid approach of integrating agnostic Open Source technology and healthcare interoperability standards and Total Quality Management principles. We will validate this architecture framework through our programme called Project Orchid. Project Orchid is a conceptual Clinical Intelligence Exchange and Virtual Innovation platform utilizing this approach to support clinical innovation efforts for multi-national collaboration that can be locally sustainable for LIC and LMIC research cohorts. The goal is to enable LIC and LMIC research organizations to accelerate their clinical trial process maturity in the field of drug discovery, population health innovation initiatives and public domain knowledge networks. When sponsored, this concept will be tested by 12 confirmed clinical research and public health organizations in six countries. The potential impact of this platform is reduced drug discovery and public health innovation lag time and improved clinical trial interventions, due to reliable clinical intelligence and bio-surveillance across all phases of the clinical innovation process.

Global Health Innovation Technology Models

PubMed Central

Harding, Kimberly

2016-01-01

Chronic technology and business process disparities between High Income, Low Middle Income and Low Income (HIC, LMIC, LIC) research collaborators directly prevent the growth of sustainable Global Health innovation for infectious and rare diseases. There is a need for an Open Source-Open Science Architecture Framework to bridge this divide. We are proposing such a framework for consideration by the Global Health community, by utilizing a hybrid approach of integrating agnostic Open Source technology and healthcare interoperability standards and Total Quality Management principles. We will validate this architecture framework through our programme called Project Orchid. Project Orchid is a conceptual Clinical Intelligence Exchange and Virtual Innovation platform utilizing this approach to support clinical innovation efforts for multi-national collaboration that can be locally sustainable for LIC and LMIC research cohorts. The goal is to enable LIC and LMIC research organizations to accelerate their clinical trial process maturity in the field of drug discovery, population health innovation initiatives and public domain knowledge networks. When sponsored, this concept will be tested by 12 confirmed clinical research and public health organizations in six countries. The potential impact of this platform is reduced drug discovery and public health innovation lag time and improved clinical trial interventions, due to reliable clinical intelligence and bio-surveillance across all phases of the clinical innovation process.

PiCO QL: A software library for runtime interactive queries on program data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fragkoulis, Marios; Spinellis, Diomidis; Louridas, Panos

PiCO QL is an open source C/C++ software whose scientific scope is real-time interactive analysis of in-memory data through SQL queries. It exposes a relational view of a system's or application's data structures, which is queryable through SQL. While the application or system is executing, users can input queries through a web-based interface or issue web service requests. Queries execute on the live data structures through the respective relational views. PiCO QL makes a good candidate for ad-hoc data analysis in applications and for diagnostics in systems settings. Applications of PiCO QL include the Linux kernel, the Valgrind instrumentation framework, a GIS application, a virtual real-time observatory of stellar objects, and a source code analyser.

JHelioviewer: Open-Source Software for Discovery and Image Access in the Petabyte Age (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mueller, D.; Dimitoglou, G.; Langenberg, M.; Pagel, S.; Dau, A.; Nuhn, M.; Garcia Ortiz, J. P.; Dietert, H.; Schmidt, L.; Hughitt, V. K.; Ireland, J.; Fleck, B.

2010-12-01

The unprecedented torrent of data returned by the Solar Dynamics Observatory is both a blessing and a barrier: a blessing for making available data with significantly higher spatial and temporal resolution, but a barrier for scientists to access, browse and analyze them. With such staggering data volume, the data is bound to be accessible only from a few repositories and users will have to deal with data sets effectively immobile and practically difficult to download. From a scientist's perspective this poses three challenges: accessing, browsing and finding interesting data while avoiding the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack. To address these challenges, we have developed JHelioviewer, an open-source visualization software that lets users browse large data volumes both as still images and movies. We did so by deploying an efficient image encoding, storage, and dissemination solution using the JPEG 2000 standard. This solution enables users to access remote images at different resolution levels as a single data stream. Users can view, manipulate, pan, zoom, and overlay JPEG 2000 compressed data quickly, without severe network bandwidth penalties. Besides viewing data, the browser provides third-party metadata and event catalog integration to quickly locate data of interest, as well as an interface to the Virtual Solar Observatory to download science-quality data. As part of the Helioviewer Project, JHelioviewer offers intuitive ways to browse large amounts of heterogeneous data remotely and provides an extensible and customizable open-source platform for the scientific community.

A Tour of Big Data, Open Source Data Management Technologies from the Apache Software Foundation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mattmann, C. A.

2012-12-01

The Apache Software Foundation, a non-profit foundation charged with dissemination of open source software for the public good, provides a suite of data management technologies for distributed archiving, data ingestion, data dissemination, processing, triage and a host of other functionalities that are becoming critical in the Big Data regime. Apache is the world's largest open source software organization, boasting over 3000 developers from around the world all contributing to some of the most pervasive technologies in use today, from the HTTPD web server that powers a majority of Internet web sites to the Hadoop technology that is now projected at over a $1B dollar industry. Apache data management technologies are emerging as de facto off-the-shelf components for searching, distributing, processing and archiving key science data sets both geophysical, space and planetary based, all the way to biomedicine. In this talk, I will give a virtual tour of the Apache Software Foundation, its meritocracy and governance structure, and also its key big data technologies that organizations can take advantage of today and use to save cost, schedule, and resources in implementing their Big Data needs. I'll illustrate the Apache technologies in the context of several national priority projects, including the U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA), and in the International Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project that are stretching the boundaries of volume, velocity, complexity, and other key Big Data dimensions.

Controlled-source seismic interferometry with one way wave fields

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van der Neut, J.; Wapenaar, K.; Thorbecke, J. W.

2008-12-01

In Seismic Interferometry we generally cross-correlate registrations at two receiver locations and sum over an array of sources to retrieve a Green's function as if one of the receiver locations hosts a (virtual) source and the other receiver location hosts an actual receiver. One application of this concept is to redatum an area of surface sources to a downhole receiver location, without requiring information about the medium between the sources and receivers, thus providing an effective tool for imaging below complex overburden, which is also known as the Virtual Source method. We demonstrate how elastic wavefield decomposition can be effectively combined with controlled-source Seismic Interferometry to generate virtual sources in a downhole receiver array that radiate only down- or upgoing P- or S-waves with receivers sensing only down- or upgoing P- or S- waves. For this purpose we derive exact Green's matrix representations from a reciprocity theorem for decomposed wavefields. Required is the deployment of multi-component sources at the surface and multi- component receivers in a horizontal borehole. The theory is supported with a synthetic elastic model, where redatumed traces are compared with those of a directly modeled reflection response, generated by placing active sources at the virtual source locations and applying elastic wavefield decomposition on both source and receiver side.

A Simple Double-Source Model for Interference of Capillaries

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hou, Zhibo; Zhao, Xiaohong; Xiao, Jinghua

2012-01-01

A simple but physically intuitive double-source model is proposed to explain the interferogram of a laser-capillary system, where two effective virtual sources are used to describe the rays reflected by and transmitted through the capillary. The locations of the two virtual sources are functions of the observing positions on the target screen. An…

78 FR 40146 - Notice of Meeting

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-07-03

... Subcommittee Meetings by Virtual Review. SUMMARY: The subcommittee listed below is part of AHRQ's Health... Research Training Virtual Review. Date: July 11, 2013 (Open from 9:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. on July 11 and...

Scalable computing for evolutionary genomics.

PubMed

Prins, Pjotr; Belhachemi, Dominique; Möller, Steffen; Smant, Geert

2012-01-01

Genomic data analysis in evolutionary biology is becoming so computationally intensive that analysis of multiple hypotheses and scenarios takes too long on a single desktop computer. In this chapter, we discuss techniques for scaling computations through parallelization of calculations, after giving a quick overview of advanced programming techniques. Unfortunately, parallel programming is difficult and requires special software design. The alternative, especially attractive for legacy software, is to introduce poor man's parallelization by running whole programs in parallel as separate processes, using job schedulers. Such pipelines are often deployed on bioinformatics computer clusters. Recent advances in PC virtualization have made it possible to run a full computer operating system, with all of its installed software, on top of another operating system, inside a "box," or virtual machine (VM). Such a VM can flexibly be deployed on multiple computers, in a local network, e.g., on existing desktop PCs, and even in the Cloud, to create a "virtual" computer cluster. Many bioinformatics applications in evolutionary biology can be run in parallel, running processes in one or more VMs. Here, we show how a ready-made bioinformatics VM image, named BioNode, effectively creates a computing cluster, and pipeline, in a few steps. This allows researchers to scale-up computations from their desktop, using available hardware, anytime it is required. BioNode is based on Debian Linux and can run on networked PCs and in the Cloud. Over 200 bioinformatics and statistical software packages, of interest to evolutionary biology, are included, such as PAML, Muscle, MAFFT, MrBayes, and BLAST. Most of these software packages are maintained through the Debian Med project. In addition, BioNode contains convenient configuration scripts for parallelizing bioinformatics software. Where Debian Med encourages packaging free and open source bioinformatics software through one central project, BioNode encourages creating free and open source VM images, for multiple targets, through one central project. BioNode can be deployed on Windows, OSX, Linux, and in the Cloud. Next to the downloadable BioNode images, we provide tutorials online, which empower bioinformaticians to install and run BioNode in different environments, as well as information for future initiatives, on creating and building such images.

Virtual Patients in a Behavioral Medicine Massive Open Online Course (MOOC): A Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Participants' Perceptions.

PubMed

Berman, Anne H; Biguet, Gabriele; Stathakarou, Natalia; Westin-Hägglöf, Beata; Jeding, Kerstin; McGrath, Cormac; Zary, Nabil; Kononowicz, Andrzej A

2017-10-01

The purpose of this article is to explore learners' perceptions of using virtual patients in a behavioral medicine Massive Open Online Course (MOOCs) and thereby describe innovative ways of disseminating knowledge in health-related areas. A 5-week MOOC on behavioral medicine was hosted on the edX platform. The authors developed two branched virtual patients consisting of video recordings of a live standardized patient, with multiple clinical decision points and narration unfolding depending on learners' choices. Students interacted with the virtual patients to treat stress and sleep problems. Answers to the exit survey and participant comments from the discussion forum were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. In total, 19,236 participants enrolled in the MOOC, out of which 740 received the final certificate. The virtual patients were completed by 2317 and 1640 participants respectively. Among survey respondents (n = 442), 83.1% agreed that the virtual patient exercise was helpful. The qualitative analysis resulted in themes covering what it was like to work with the virtual patient, with subthemes on learner-centered education, emotions/eustress, game comparisons, what the participants learned, what surprised them, how confident participants felt about applying interventions in practice, suggestions for improvement, and previous experiences of virtual patients. Students were enthusiastic about interacting with the virtual patients as a means to apply new knowledge about behavioral medicine interventions. The most common suggestion was to incorporate more interactive cases with various levels of complexity. Further research should include patient outcomes and focus on interprofessional aspects of learning with virtual patients in a MOOC.

Design Concerns in the Engineering of Virtual Worlds for Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rapanotti, Lucia; Hall, Jon G.

2011-01-01

The convergence of 3D simulation and social networking into current multi-user virtual environments has opened the door to new forms of interaction for learning in order to complement the face-to-face and Web 2.0-based systems. Yet, despite a growing user community, design knowledge for virtual worlds remains patchy, particularly when it comes to…

Embodying self-compassion within virtual reality and its effects on patients with depression

PubMed Central

Falconer, Caroline J.; Rovira, Aitor; King, John A.; Gilbert, Paul; Antley, Angus; Fearon, Pasco; Ralph, Neil; Slater, Mel

2016-01-01

Background Self-criticism is a ubiquitous feature of psychopathology and can be combatted by increasing levels of self-compassion. However, some patients are resistant to self-compassion. Aims To investigate whether the effects of self-identification with virtual bodies within immersive virtual reality could be exploited to increase self-compassion in patients with depression. Method We developed an 8-minute scenario in which 15 patients practised delivering compassion in one virtual body and then experienced receiving it from themselves in another virtual body. Results In an open trial, three repetitions of this scenario led to significant reductions in depression severity and self-criticism, as well as to a significant increase in self-compassion, from baseline to 4-week follow-up. Four patients showed clinically significant improvement. Conclusions The results indicate that interventions using immersive virtual reality may have considerable clinical potential and that further development of these methods preparatory to a controlled trial is now warranted. Declaration of interest None. Copyright and usage © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2016. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. PMID:27703757

Open access for ALICE analysis based on virtualization technology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buncic, P.; Gheata, M.; Schutz, Y.

2015-12-01

Open access is one of the important leverages for long-term data preservation for a HEP experiment. To guarantee the usability of data analysis tools beyond the experiment lifetime it is crucial that third party users from the scientific community have access to the data and associated software. The ALICE Collaboration has developed a layer of lightweight components built on top of virtualization technology to hide the complexity and details of the experiment-specific software. Users can perform basic analysis tasks within CernVM, a lightweight generic virtual machine, paired with an ALICE specific contextualization. Once the virtual machine is launched, a graphical user interface is automatically started without any additional configuration. This interface allows downloading the base ALICE analysis software and running a set of ALICE analysis modules. Currently the available tools include fully documented tutorials for ALICE analysis, such as the measurement of strange particle production or the nuclear modification factor in Pb-Pb collisions. The interface can be easily extended to include an arbitrary number of additional analysis modules. We present the current status of the tools used by ALICE through the CERN open access portal, and the plans for future extensions of this system.

Feasibility and accuracy of computational robot-assisted partial nephrectomy planning by virtual partial nephrectomy analysis.

PubMed

Isotani, Shuji; Shimoyama, Hirofumi; Yokota, Isao; China, Toshiyuki; Hisasue, Shin-ichi; Ide, Hisamitsu; Muto, Satoru; Yamaguchi, Raizo; Ukimura, Osamu; Horie, Shigeo

2015-05-01

To evaluate the feasibility and accuracy of virtual partial nephrectomy analysis, including a color-coded three-dimensional virtual surgical planning and a quantitative functional analysis, in predicting the surgical outcomes of robot-assisted partial nephrectomy. Between 2012 and 2014, 20 patients underwent virtual partial nephrectomy analysis before undergoing robot-assisted partial nephrectomy. Virtual partial nephrectomy analysis was carried out with the following steps: (i) evaluation of the arterial branch for selective clamping by showing the vascular-supplied area; (ii) simulation of the optimal surgical margin in precise segmented three-dimensional model for prediction of collecting system opening; and (iii) detailed volumetric analyses and estimates of postoperative renal function based on volumetric change. At operation, the surgeon identified the targeted artery and determined the surgical margin according to the virtual partial nephrectomy analysis. The surgical outcomes between the virtual partial nephrectomy analysis and the actual robot-assisted partial nephrectomy were compared. All 20 patients had negative cancer surgical margins and no urological complications. The tumor-specific renal arterial supply areas were shown in color-coded three-dimensional model visualization in all cases. The prediction value of collecting system opening was 85.7% for sensitivity and 100% for specificity. The predicted renal resection volume was significantly correlated with actual resected specimen volume (r(2) = 0.745, P < 0.001). The predicted estimated glomerular filtration rate was significantly correlated with actual postoperative estimated glomerular filtration rate (r(2) = 0.736, P < 0.001). Virtual partial nephrectomy analysis is able to provide the identification of tumor-specific renal arterial supply, prediction of collecting system opening and prediction of postoperative renal function. This technique might allow urologists to compare various arterial clamping methods and resection margins with surgical outcomes in a non-invasive manner. © 2015 The Japanese Urological Association.

A vision and strategy for the virtual physiological human in 2010 and beyond.

PubMed

Hunter, Peter; Coveney, Peter V; de Bono, Bernard; Diaz, Vanessa; Fenner, John; Frangi, Alejandro F; Harris, Peter; Hose, Rod; Kohl, Peter; Lawford, Pat; McCormack, Keith; Mendes, Miriam; Omholt, Stig; Quarteroni, Alfio; Skår, John; Tegner, Jesper; Randall Thomas, S; Tollis, Ioannis; Tsamardinos, Ioannis; van Beek, Johannes H G M; Viceconti, Marco

2010-06-13

European funding under framework 7 (FP7) for the virtual physiological human (VPH) project has been in place now for nearly 2 years. The VPH network of excellence (NoE) is helping in the development of common standards, open-source software, freely accessible data and model repositories, and various training and dissemination activities for the project. It is also helping to coordinate the many clinically targeted projects that have been funded under the FP7 calls. An initial vision for the VPH was defined by framework 6 strategy for a European physiome (STEP) project in 2006. It is now time to assess the accomplishments of the last 2 years and update the STEP vision for the VPH. We consider the biomedical science, healthcare and information and communications technology challenges facing the project and we propose the VPH Institute as a means of sustaining the vision of VPH beyond the time frame of the NoE.

A vision and strategy for the virtual physiological human in 2010 and beyond

PubMed Central

Hunter, Peter; Coveney, Peter V.; de Bono, Bernard; Diaz, Vanessa; Fenner, John; Frangi, Alejandro F.; Harris, Peter; Hose, Rod; Kohl, Peter; Lawford, Pat; McCormack, Keith; Mendes, Miriam; Omholt, Stig; Quarteroni, Alfio; Skår, John; Tegner, Jesper; Randall Thomas, S.; Tollis, Ioannis; Tsamardinos, Ioannis; van Beek, Johannes H. G. M.; Viceconti, Marco

2010-01-01

European funding under framework 7 (FP7) for the virtual physiological human (VPH) project has been in place now for nearly 2 years. The VPH network of excellence (NoE) is helping in the development of common standards, open-source software, freely accessible data and model repositories, and various training and dissemination activities for the project. It is also helping to coordinate the many clinically targeted projects that have been funded under the FP7 calls. An initial vision for the VPH was defined by framework 6 strategy for a European physiome (STEP) project in 2006. It is now time to assess the accomplishments of the last 2 years and update the STEP vision for the VPH. We consider the biomedical science, healthcare and information and communications technology challenges facing the project and we propose the VPH Institute as a means of sustaining the vision of VPH beyond the time frame of the NoE. PMID:20439264

3D-Lab: a collaborative web-based platform for molecular modeling.

PubMed

Grebner, Christoph; Norrby, Magnus; Enström, Jonatan; Nilsson, Ingemar; Hogner, Anders; Henriksson, Jonas; Westin, Johan; Faramarzi, Farzad; Werner, Philip; Boström, Jonas

2016-09-01

The use of 3D information has shown impact in numerous applications in drug design. However, it is often under-utilized and traditionally limited to specialists. We want to change that, and present an approach making 3D information and molecular modeling accessible and easy-to-use 'for the people'. A user-friendly and collaborative web-based platform (3D-Lab) for 3D modeling, including a blazingly fast virtual screening capability, was developed. 3D-Lab provides an interface to automatic molecular modeling, like conformer generation, ligand alignments, molecular dockings and simple quantum chemistry protocols. 3D-Lab is designed to be modular, and to facilitate sharing of 3D-information to promote interactions between drug designers. Recent enhancements to our open-source virtual reality tool Molecular Rift are described. The integrated drug-design platform allows drug designers to instantaneously access 3D information and readily apply advanced and automated 3D molecular modeling tasks, with the aim to improve decision-making in drug design projects.

Use of Docker for deployment and testing of astronomy software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Morris, D.; Voutsinas, S.; Hambly, N. C.; Mann, R. G.

2017-07-01

We describe preliminary investigations of using Docker for the deployment and testing of astronomy software. Docker is a relatively new containerization technology that is developing rapidly and being adopted across a range of domains. It is based upon virtualization at operating system level, which presents many advantages in comparison to the more traditional hardware virtualization that underpins most cloud computing infrastructure today. A particular strength of Docker is its simple format for describing and managing software containers, which has benefits for software developers, system administrators and end users. We report on our experiences from two projects - a simple activity to demonstrate how Docker works, and a more elaborate set of services that demonstrates more of its capabilities and what they can achieve within an astronomical context - and include an account of how we solved problems through interaction with Docker's very active open source development community, which is currently the key to the most effective use of this rapidly-changing technology.

Advances in edge-diffraction modeling for virtual-acoustic simulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Calamia, Paul Thomas

In recent years there has been growing interest in modeling sound propagation in complex, three-dimensional (3D) virtual environments. With diverse applications for the military, the gaming industry, psychoacoustics researchers, architectural acousticians, and others, advances in computing power and 3D audio-rendering techniques have driven research and development aimed at closing the gap between the auralization and visualization of virtual spaces. To this end, this thesis focuses on improving the physical and perceptual realism of sound-field simulations in virtual environments through advances in edge-diffraction modeling. To model sound propagation in virtual environments, acoustical simulation tools commonly rely on geometrical-acoustics (GA) techniques that assume asymptotically high frequencies, large flat surfaces, and infinitely thin ray-like propagation paths. Such techniques can be augmented with diffraction modeling to compensate for the effect of surface size on the strength and directivity of a reflection, to allow for propagation around obstacles and into shadow zones, and to maintain soundfield continuity across reflection and shadow boundaries. Using a time-domain, line-integral formulation of the Biot-Tolstoy-Medwin (BTM) diffraction expression, this thesis explores various aspects of diffraction calculations for virtual-acoustic simulations. Specifically, we first analyze the periodic singularity of the BTM integrand and describe the relationship between the singularities and higher-order reflections within wedges with open angle less than 180°. Coupled with analytical approximations for the BTM expression, this analysis allows for accurate numerical computations and a continuous sound field in the vicinity of an arbitrary wedge geometry insonified by a point source. Second, we describe an edge-subdivision strategy that allows for fast diffraction calculations with low error relative to a numerically more accurate solution. Third, to address the considerable increase in propagation paths due to diffraction, we describe a simple procedure for identifying and culling insignificant diffraction components during a virtual-acoustic simulation. Finally, we present a novel method to find GA components using diffraction parameters that ensures continuity at reflection and shadow boundaries.

Hydrodynamics of the Certas™ programmable valve for the treatment of hydrocephalus

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background The new Certas™ shunt for the treatment of hydrocephalus has seven standard pressure settings that according to the manufacturer range from 36 to 238 mmH2O, and an additional “Virtual Off” setting with an opening pressure >400 mmH2O. Information on actual pressure response and reliability of shunt performance is important in clinical application, especially the “Virtual Off” setting as a non-surgical replacement for shunt ligation. The objective of this study was to evaluate the in-vitro hydrodynamic performance of the Certas™ shunt. Methods Six new Certas™ shunts with proximal and distal catheters were tested with an automated, computerized test system that raised the pressure from zero to a maximum pressure and back to zero at each valve setting. Opening pressure and flow resistance were determined. Results For settings 1–7 the measured opening pressure range was 26 to 247 mmH2O, and the mean change in opening pressure for a one-step adjustment was between 33 and 38 mmH2O. For setting 8 (“Virtual Off”) the measured mean opening pressure was 494 ± 34 mmH2O (range 451 to 556 mmH2O). The mean outflow resistance was 7.0 mmHg/ml/min (outflow conductance 17.9 μl/s/kPa). Conclusions The six shunts had similar characteristics and closely matched the manufacturer’s specifications for opening pressure at settings 1–7. The opening pressure for the “Virtual Off” setting was nearly 500 mmH2O, which is 100 mmH2O higher than the manufacturer’s specification of “>400” and should be functionally off for most patients with communicating hydrocephalus. Clinical studies are needed to evaluate if the CSF dynamic profile persists after implantation in patients. PMID:22643114

Virtual Specimens

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Paor, D. G.

2009-12-01

Virtual Field Trips have been around almost as long as the Worldwide Web itself yet virtual explorers do not generally return to their desktops with folders full of virtual hand specimens. Collection of real specimens on fields trips for later analysis in the lab (or at least in the pub) has been an important part of classical field geoscience education and research for generations but concern for the landscape and for preservation of key outcrops from wanton destruction has lead to many restrictions. One of the author’s favorite outcrops was recently vandalized presumably by a geologist who felt the need to bash some of the world’s most spectacular buckle folds with a rock sledge. It is not surprising, therefore, that geologists sometimes leave fragile localities out of field trip itineraries. Once analyzed, most specimens repose in drawers or bins, never to be seen again. Some end up in teaching collections but recent pedagogical research shows that undergraduate students have difficulty relating specimens both to their collection location and ultimate provenance in the lithosphere. Virtual specimens can be created using 3D modeling software and imported into virtual globes such as Google Earth (GE) where, they may be linked to virtual field trip stops or restored to their source localities on the paleo-globe. Sensitive localities may be protected by placemark approximation. The GE application program interface (API) has a distinct advantage over the stand-alone GE application when it comes to viewing and manipulating virtual specimens. When instances of the virtual globe are embedded in web pages using the GE plug-in, Collada models of specimens can be manipulated with javascript controls residing in the enclosing HTML, permitting specimens to be magnified, rotated in 3D, and sliced. Associated analytical data may be linked into javascript and localities for comparison at various points on the globe referenced by ‘fetching’ KML. Virtual specimens open up new possibilities for distance learning, where design of effective lab exercises has long been an issue, and they permit independent evaluation of published field research by reviewers who do not have access to the physical field area. Although their creation can be labor intensive, the benefits of virtual specimens for education and research are potentially great. Interactive 3D Specimen of Sierra Granodiorite at Outcrop Location

Open web system of Virtual labs for nuclear and applied physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saldikov, I. S.; Afanasyev, V. V.; Petrov, V. I.; Ternovykh, M. Yu

2017-01-01

An example of virtual lab work on unique experimental equipment is presented. The virtual lab work is software based on a model of real equipment. Virtual labs can be used for educational process in nuclear safety and analysis field. As an example it includes the virtual lab called “Experimental determination of the material parameter depending on the pitch of a uranium-water lattice”. This paper included general description of this lab. A description of a database on the support of laboratory work on unique experimental equipment which is included this work, its concept development are also presented.

Network Virtualization - Opportunities and Challenges for Operators

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carapinha, Jorge; Feil, Peter; Weissmann, Paul; Thorsteinsson, Saemundur E.; Etemoğlu, Çağrı; Ingþórsson, Ólafur; Çiftçi, Selami; Melo, Márcio

In the last few years, the concept of network virtualization has gained a lot of attention both from industry and research projects. This paper evaluates the potential of network virtualization from an operator's perspective, with the short-term goal of optimizing service delivery and rollout, and on a longer term as an enabler of technology integration and migration. Based on possible scenarios for implementing and using network virtualization, new business roles and models are examined. Open issues and topics for further evaluation are identified. In summary, the objective is to identify the challenges but also new opportunities for telecom operators raised by network virtualization.

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

Huang, Z; Jiang, W; Stuart, B

Purpose: Since electrons are easily scattered, the virtual source position for electrons is expected to locate below the x-ray target of Medical Linacs. However, the effective SSD method yields the electron virtual position above the x-ray target for some applicators for some energy in Siemens Linacs. In this study, we propose to use IC Profiler (Sun Nuclear) for evaluating the electron virtual source position for the standard electron applicators for various electron energies. Methods: The profile measurements for various nominal source-to-detector distances (SDDs) of 100–115 cm were carried out for electron beam energies of 6–18 MeV. Two methods were used:more » one was to use a 0.125 cc ion chamber (PTW, Type 31010) with buildup mounted in a PTW water tank without water filled; and the other was to use IC Profiler with a buildup to achieve charge particle equilibrium. The full width at half-maximum (FWHM) method was used to determine the field sizes for the measured profiles. Backprojecting (by a straight line) the distance between the 50% points on the beam profiles for the various SDDs, yielded the virtual source position for each applicator. Results: The profiles were obtained and the field sizes were determined by FWHM. The virtual source positions were determined through backprojection of profiles for applicators (5, 10, 15, 20, 25). For instance, they were 96.415 cm (IC Profiler) vs 95.844 cm (scanning ion chamber) for 9 MeV electrons with 10×10 cm applicator and 97.160 cm vs 97.161 cm for 12 MeV electrons with 10×10 cm applicator. The differences in the virtual source positions between IC profiler and scanning ion chamber were within 1.5%. Conclusion: IC Profiler provides a practical method for determining the electron virtual source position and its results are consistent with those obtained by profiles of scanning ion chamber with buildup.« less

Skill training in multimodal virtual environments.

PubMed

Gopher, Daniel

2012-01-01

Multimodal, immersive, virtual reality (VR) techniques open new perspectives for perceptual-motor skill trainers. They also introduce new risks and dangers. This paper describes the benefits and pitfalls of multimodal training and the cognitive building blocks of a multimodal, VR training simulators.

Study of medical education in 3D surgical modeling by surgeons with free open-source software: Example of mandibular reconstruction with fibula free flap and creation of its surgical guides.

PubMed

Ganry, L; Hersant, B; Bosc, R; Leyder, P; Quilichini, J; Meningaud, J P

2018-02-27

Benefits of 3D printing techniques, biomodeling and surgical guides are well known in surgery, especially when the same surgeon who performed the surgery participated in the virtual surgical planning. Our objective was to evaluate the transfer of know how of a neutral 3D surgical modeling free open-source software protocol to surgeons with different surgical specialities. A one-day training session was organised in 3D surgical modeling applied to one mandibular reconstruction case with fibula free flap and creation of its surgical guides. Surgeon satisfaction was analysed before and after the training. Of 22 surgeons, 59% assessed the training as excellent or very good and 68% considered changing their daily surgical routine and would try to apply our open-source software protocol in their department after a single training day. The mean capacity in using the software improved from 4.13 on 10 before to 6.59 on 10 after training for OsiriX ® software, from 1.14 before to 5.05 after training for Meshlab ® , from 0.45 before to 4.91 after training for Netfabb ® and from 1.05 before and 4.41 after training for Blender ® . According to surgeons, using the software Blender ® became harder as the day went on. Despite improvement in the capacity in using software for all participants, more than a single training day is needed for the transfer of know how on 3D modeling with open-source software. Although the know-how transfer, overall satisfaction, actual learning outcomes and relevance of this training were appropriated, a longer training including different topics will be needed to improve training quality. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

A Web Portal-Based Time-Aware KML Animation Tool for Exploring Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Hydrological Events

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bao, X.; Cai, X.; Liu, Y.

2009-12-01

Understanding spatiotemporal dynamics of hydrological events such as storms and droughts is highly valuable for decision making on disaster mitigation and recovery. Virtual Globe-based technologies such as Google Earth and Open Geospatial Consortium KML standards show great promises for collaborative exploration of such events using visual analytical approaches. However, currently there are two barriers for wider usage of such approaches. First, there lacks an easy way to use open source tools to convert legacy or existing data formats such as shapefiles, geotiff, or web services-based data sources to KML and to produce time-aware KML files. Second, an integrated web portal-based time-aware animation tool is currently not available. Thus users usually share their files in the portal but have no means to visually explore them without leaving the portal environment which the users are familiar with. We develop a web portal-based time-aware KML animation tool for viewing extreme hydrologic events. The tool is based on Google Earth JavaScript API and Java Portlet standard 2.0 JSR-286, and it is currently deployable in one of the most popular open source portal frameworks, namely Liferay. We have also developed an open source toolkit kml-soc-ncsa (http://code.google.com/p/kml-soc-ncsa/) to facilitate the conversion of multiple formats into KML and the creation of time-aware KML files. We illustrate our tool using some example cases, in which drought and storm events with both time and space dimension can be explored in this web-based KML animation portlet. The tool provides an easy-to-use web browser-based portal environment for multiple users to collaboratively share and explore their time-aware KML files as well as improving the understanding of the spatiotemporal dynamics of the hydrological events.

The Virtual Maternity Clinic: a teaching and learning innovation for midwifery education.

PubMed

Phillips, Diane; Duke, Maxine; Nagle, Cate; Macfarlane, Susie; Karantzas, Gery; Patterson, Denise

2013-10-01

There are challenges for midwifery students in developing skill and competency due to limited placements in antenatal clinics. The Virtual Maternity Clinic, an online resource, was developed to support student learning in professional midwifery practice. Identifying students' perceptions of the Virtual Maternity Clinic; learning about the impact of the Virtual Maternity Clinic on the students' experience of its use and access; and learning about the level of student satisfaction of the Virtual Maternity Clinic. Two interventions were used including pre and post evaluations of the online learning resource with data obtained from questionnaires using open ended and dichotomous responses and rating scales. The pre-Virtual Maternity Clinic intervention used a qualitative design and the post-Virtual Maternity Clinic intervention applied both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Three campuses of Deakin University, located in Victoria, Australia. Midwifery students enrolled in the Bachelor of Nursing/Bachelor of Midwifery and Graduate Diploma of Midwifery were recruited across three campuses of Deakin University (n=140). Thematic analysis of the pre-Virtual Maternity Clinic intervention (return rate n=119) related to students' expectations of this resource. The data for the post-Virtual Maternity Clinic intervention (return rate n=42) including open-ended responses were thematically analysed; dichotomous data examined in the form of frequencies and percentages of agreement and disagreement; and 5-rating scales were analysed using Pearson's correlations (α=.05, two-tailed). Results showed from the pre-Virtual Maternity Clinic intervention that students previously had placements in antenatal clinics were optimistic about the online learning resource. The post-Virtual Maternity Clinic intervention results indicated that students were satisfied with the Virtual Maternity Clinic as a learning resource despite some technological issues. The Virtual Maternity Clinic provides benefits for students in repeated observation of the practice of the midwife to support their professional learning and practice development. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Anomalous single-electron transfer in common-gate quadruple-dot single-electron devices with asymmetric junction capacitances

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Imai, Shigeru; Ito, Masato

2018-06-01

In this paper, anomalous single-electron transfer in common-gate quadruple-dot turnstile devices with asymmetric junction capacitances is revealed. That is, the islands have the same total number of excess electrons at high and low gate voltages of the swing that transfers a single electron. In another situation, two electrons enter the islands from the source and two electrons leave the islands for the source and drain during a gate voltage swing cycle. First, stability diagrams of the turnstile devices are presented. Then, sequences of single-electron tunneling events by gate voltage swings are investigated, which demonstrate the above-mentioned anomalous single-electron transfer between the source and the drain. The anomalous single-electron transfer can be understood by regarding the four islands as “three virtual islands and a virtual source or drain electrode of a virtual triple-dot device”. The anomalous behaviors of the four islands are explained by the normal behavior of the virtual islands transferring a single electron and the behavior of the virtual electrode.

Designing normative open virtual enterprises

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Garcia, Emilia; Giret, Adriana; Botti, Vicente

2016-03-01

There is an increasing interest on developing virtual enterprises in order to deal with the globalisation of the economy, the rapid growth of information technologies and the increase of competitiveness. In this paper we deal with the development of normative open virtual enterprises (NOVEs). They are systems with a global objective that are composed of a set of heterogeneous entities and enterprises that exchange services following a specific normative context. In order to analyse and design systems of this kind the multi-agent paradigm seems suitable because it offers a specific solution for supporting the social and contractual relationships between enterprises and for formalising their business processes. This paper presents how the Regulated Open Multi-agent systems (ROMAS) methodology, an agent-oriented software methodology, can be used to analyse and design NOVEs. ROMAS offers a complete development process that allows identifying and formalising of the structure of NOVEs, their normative context and the interactions among their members. The use of ROMAS is exemplified by means of a case study that represents an automotive supply chain.

Putting humans in the loop: Using crowdsourced snow information to inform water management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fedorov, Roman; Giuliani, Matteo; Castelletti, Andrea; Fraternali, Piero

2016-04-01

The unprecedented availability of user generated data on the Web due to the advent of online services, social networks, and crowdsourcing, is opening new opportunities for enhancing real-time monitoring and modeling of environmental systems based on data that are public, low-cost, and spatio-temporally dense, possibly contributing to our ability of making better decisions. In this work, we contribute a novel crowdsourcing procedure for computing virtual snow indexes from public web images, either produced by users or generated by touristic webcams, which is based on a complex architecture designed for automatically crawling content from multiple web data sources. The procedure retains only geo-tagged images containing a mountain skyline, identifies the visible peaks in each image using a public online digital terrain model, and classifies the mountain image pixels as snow or no-snow. This operation yields a snow mask per image, from which it is possible to extract time series of virtual snow indexes representing a proxy of the snow covered area. The value of the obtained virtual snow indexes is estimated in a real world water management problem. We consider the snow-dominated catchment of Lake Como, a regulated lake in Northern Italy, where snowmelt represents the most important contribution to seasonal lake storage, and we used the virtual snow indexes for informing the daily operation of the lake's dam. Numerical results show that such information is effective in extending the anticipation capacity of the lake operations, ultimately improving the system performance.

Exploring Chemical Space for Drug Discovery Using the Chemical Universe Database

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Herein we review our recent efforts in searching for bioactive ligands by enumeration and virtual screening of the unknown chemical space of small molecules. Enumeration from first principles shows that almost all small molecules (>99.9%) have never been synthesized and are still available to be prepared and tested. We discuss open access sources of molecules, the classification and representation of chemical space using molecular quantum numbers (MQN), its exhaustive enumeration in form of the chemical universe generated databases (GDB), and examples of using these databases for prospective drug discovery. MQN-searchable GDB, PubChem, and DrugBank are freely accessible at www.gdb.unibe.ch. PMID:23019491

The Unidata Integrated Data Viewer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weber, W. J.; Ho, Y.

2016-12-01

The Unidata Integrated Data Viewer (IDV) is a free and open source, virtual globe, software application that enables three dimensional viewing of earth science data. The Unidata IDV is data agnostic and can display and analyze disparate data in a single view. This capability facilitates cross discipline research and allows for multiple observation platforms to be displayed simultaneously for any given event. The Unidata IDV is a mature application, written in JAVA, and has been serving the earth science community for over 15 years. This demonstration will focus on near real time global satelliteobservations, the integration of the COSMIC radio occultation data set that profiles the atmosphere, and high resolution numerical weather prediction.

Vombat: an open source proof-of-concept for the use of Digital outcrop models as reference frame for stratigraphic observations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Penasa, Luca; Franceschi, Marco; Preto, Nereo; Girardeau-Montaut, Daniel

2015-04-01

Three-dimensional Virtual Outcrop Models (VOMs), often produced using terrestrial laser scanning or photogrammetry, have become popular in the Geosciences. The main feature of a VOM is that it allows for a quantification of the 3D geometry and/or distribution of geologic features that range from rock properties to structural elements. This actually generated much of the interest in VOMs by the oil and gas industry. The potential importance of a VOM in stratigraphy, however, does not seems completely disclosed yet. Indeed outcrops are the primary sources of data for a number of stratigraphic studies (e.g. palaeontology, sedimentology, cyclostratigraphy, geochemistry...). All the observations are typically reported on stratigraphic logs which constitute an idealized representation of the stratigraphic series, drawn by the researcher on the basis of the features that has to be highlighted. The observations are localized by means of manual measurements and a certain amount of subjectivity in log drawing is involved. These facts can prevent the log from being properly pinned to the real outcrop. Moreover, the integration of stratigraphic logs made by different researchers studying the same outcrop may be difficult. The exposure conditions of outcrops can change through time, to the point that they can become unaccessible or even be destroyed. In such a case, linking the stratigraphic log to its physical counterpart becomes impossible. This can be particularly relevant when a classical outcrop or even a GSSP is considered. A VOM may prove useful to tackle these issues, by providing a more objective stratigraphic reference for measurements and by preserving an outcrop through time as a visual representation, thus permitting reference and accurate comparison between observations made through time. Finally, a VOM itself may contain relevant stratigraphic information (e.g. scalar fields associated with the point cloud as intensity, rgb data or hyperspectral information from passive remote sensing devices). This information requires to be merged with geological data collected in the field, in a consistent and reproducible way. We present Vombat, a proof-of-concept of open-source software to illustrate some of the possibilities in terms of information storage, visualization and exploitation of outcrop stratigraphic information. Our solution integrates with CloudCompare, a software that permits to visualize and edit point clouds. A dedicated algorithm estimates stratigraphic attitudes from point cloud data, without the need of exposed planar bedding surfaces. These attitudes can be used to define a virtual stratigraphic section. Composite sections can then be realized defining stratigraphic constraints between different reference frames. Any observation can be displayed in a stratigraphic framework that is directly generated from a VOM. The virtual outcrop, the samples and the stratigraphic reference frames can be saved into an XML file. In the future, the adoption of a standard format (e.g. GeoSciML) will permit easier exchange of stratigraphic data among researchers. The software constitutes a first step towards the full exploitation of VOMs in stratigraphy, is stored at http://github.com/luca-penasa/vombat‏ and is open source. Comments and suggestions are most welcome and will help focusing and refining the software and its tools.

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.

Tele-surgery: a new virtual tool for medical education.

PubMed

Russomano, Thais; Cardoso, Ricardo B; Fernandes, Jefferson; Cardoso, Paulizan G; Alves, Jarcedy M; Pianta, Christina D; Souza, Hamilton P; Lopes, Maria Helena I

2009-01-01

The rapid evolution of telecommunication technology has enabled advances to be made in low cost video-conferencing through the improvement of high speed computer communication networks and the enhancement of Internet security protocols. As a result of this progress, eHealth education programs are becoming a reality in universities, providing the opportunity for students to have greater interaction at live surgery classes by means of virtual participation. Undergraduate students can be introduced to new concepts of medical care, remote second opinion and to telecommunication systems, whilst virtually experiencing surgical procedures and lectures. The better access this provides to the operating theater environment, the patient and the surgeon can improve the learning process for students. An analogical system was used for this experimental pilot project due to the benefits of it being low cost with a comparatively easy setup. The tele-surgery lectures were also transmitted to other universities by means of a Pentium 4 computer using open source software and connected to a portable image acquisition device located in the São Lucas University Hospital. Telemedicine technology has proven to be an important instrument for the improvement of medical education and health care. This study allowed health professionals, professors and students to have greater interaction during surgical procedures, thus enabling a greater opportunity for knowledge exchange.

Research on Visualization of Ground Laser Radar Data Based on Osg

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, H.; Hu, C.; Zhang, F.; Xue, H.

2018-04-01

Three-dimensional (3D) laser scanning is a new advanced technology integrating light, machine, electricity, and computer technologies. It can conduct 3D scanning to the whole shape and form of space objects with high precision. With this technology, you can directly collect the point cloud data of a ground object and create the structure of it for rendering. People use excellent 3D rendering engine to optimize and display the 3D model in order to meet the higher requirements of real time realism rendering and the complexity of the scene. OpenSceneGraph (OSG) is an open source 3D graphics engine. Compared with the current mainstream 3D rendering engine, OSG is practical, economical, and easy to expand. Therefore, OSG is widely used in the fields of virtual simulation, virtual reality, science and engineering visualization. In this paper, a dynamic and interactive ground LiDAR data visualization platform is constructed based on the OSG and the cross-platform C++ application development framework Qt. In view of the point cloud data of .txt format and the triangulation network data file of .obj format, the functions of 3D laser point cloud and triangulation network data display are realized. It is proved by experiments that the platform is of strong practical value as it is easy to operate and provides good interaction.

Tracing catchment fine sediment sources using the new SIFT (SedIment Fingerprinting Tool) open source software.

PubMed

Pulley, S; Collins, A L

2018-09-01

The mitigation of diffuse sediment pollution requires reliable provenance information so that measures can be targeted. Sediment source fingerprinting represents one approach for supporting these needs, but recent methodological developments have resulted in an increasing complexity of data processing methods rendering the approach less accessible to non-specialists. A comprehensive new software programme (SIFT; SedIment Fingerprinting Tool) has therefore been developed which guides the user through critical data analysis decisions and automates all calculations. Multiple source group configurations and composite fingerprints are identified and tested using multiple methods of uncertainty analysis. This aims to explore the sediment provenance information provided by the tracers more comprehensively than a single model, and allows for model configurations with high uncertainties to be rejected. This paper provides an overview of its application to an agricultural catchment in the UK to determine if the approach used can provide a reduction in uncertainty and increase in precision. Five source group classifications were used; three formed using a k-means cluster analysis containing 2, 3 and 4 clusters, and two a-priori groups based upon catchment geology. Three different composite fingerprints were used for each classification and bi-plots, range tests, tracer variability ratios and virtual mixtures tested the reliability of each model configuration. Some model configurations performed poorly when apportioning the composition of virtual mixtures, and different model configurations could produce different sediment provenance results despite using composite fingerprints able to discriminate robustly between the source groups. Despite this uncertainty, dominant sediment sources were identified, and those in close proximity to each sediment sampling location were found to be of greatest importance. This new software, by integrating recent methodological developments in tracer data processing, guides users through key steps. Critically, by applying multiple model configurations and uncertainty assessment, it delivers more robust solutions for informing catchment management of the sediment problem than many previously used approaches. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Who Networks? The Social Psychology of Virtual Communities

DTIC Science & Technology

2004-06-01

virtual life: the open side - characterized by communities of interest, civil society movements, virtual “states,” and 4 online gaming communities...network of people hailing from Sicily. Sometimes the offline/ online similari- ties mesh even more, as when a gaming society in a small Swedish town...Commercially owned and regulated graphics-based Massively Multi- Player Gaming Communities (EverQuest, The Matrix Online ®, etc.) • UseNET

GeauxDock: Accelerating Structure-Based Virtual Screening with Heterogeneous Computing

PubMed Central

Fang, Ye; Ding, Yun; Feinstein, Wei P.; Koppelman, David M.; Moreno, Juana; Jarrell, Mark; Ramanujam, J.; Brylinski, Michal

2016-01-01

Computational modeling of drug binding to proteins is an integral component of direct drug design. Particularly, structure-based virtual screening is often used to perform large-scale modeling of putative associations between small organic molecules and their pharmacologically relevant protein targets. Because of a large number of drug candidates to be evaluated, an accurate and fast docking engine is a critical element of virtual screening. Consequently, highly optimized docking codes are of paramount importance for the effectiveness of virtual screening methods. In this communication, we describe the implementation, tuning and performance characteristics of GeauxDock, a recently developed molecular docking program. GeauxDock is built upon the Monte Carlo algorithm and features a novel scoring function combining physics-based energy terms with statistical and knowledge-based potentials. Developed specifically for heterogeneous computing platforms, the current version of GeauxDock can be deployed on modern, multi-core Central Processing Units (CPUs) as well as massively parallel accelerators, Intel Xeon Phi and NVIDIA Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). First, we carried out a thorough performance tuning of the high-level framework and the docking kernel to produce a fast serial code, which was then ported to shared-memory multi-core CPUs yielding a near-ideal scaling. Further, using Xeon Phi gives 1.9× performance improvement over a dual 10-core Xeon CPU, whereas the best GPU accelerator, GeForce GTX 980, achieves a speedup as high as 3.5×. On that account, GeauxDock can take advantage of modern heterogeneous architectures to considerably accelerate structure-based virtual screening applications. GeauxDock is open-sourced and publicly available at www.brylinski.org/geauxdock and https://figshare.com/articles/geauxdock_tar_gz/3205249. PMID:27420300

Implementation of virtual corporation: the challenge of future business in Indonesia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Umar Daihani, Dadan

2017-12-01

This paper presents a descriptive analysis of the development of virtual organizations in the business. Recently, many commercials activities were carried virtually. Online shops are growing everywhere; furthermore hotel reservations, ticket booking, as well as purchasing process are all done through the cyberspace. In the government, administrative process has migrated to electronic systems such as E-budgeting, E-KTP, E-procurement and online visa application. This era is not excessive if it is said as the era of E-anything. To address the issue, we employed survey based study on APJII survey and other related sources. Furthermore, the data is analysed based on the theory of development of virtual organizations and virtual corporations by using the six social sciences paradigm. This study showed that the Internet users in Indonesia have increased progressively from year to year. Therefore, the e-commerce market in Indonesia is growing rapidly as well. By looking at the growth of Internet users and the reasons for their use, it can not be denied that the internet-based business in Indonesia is a very promising (from the electronic shop, logistics and online transportation (known as online taxi) such as, Gojek, Grab, UBER, etc). One thing that should be prepared is the wise and proper government regulation. The electronic technology-based business activity of course is a necessity, and can’t be inhibited its development. However, if the infrastructure such as the regulation and culture of the community are not ready yet, then it can lead to the social conflict such as a conflict between conventional taxi and online taxi players (Gojek, Grab, Uber etc). We hope this paper will open the horizon and our mind of looking at the emergence of new patterns in business.

GeauxDock: Accelerating Structure-Based Virtual Screening with Heterogeneous Computing.

PubMed

Fang, Ye; Ding, Yun; Feinstein, Wei P; Koppelman, David M; Moreno, Juana; Jarrell, Mark; Ramanujam, J; Brylinski, Michal

2016-01-01

Computational modeling of drug binding to proteins is an integral component of direct drug design. Particularly, structure-based virtual screening is often used to perform large-scale modeling of putative associations between small organic molecules and their pharmacologically relevant protein targets. Because of a large number of drug candidates to be evaluated, an accurate and fast docking engine is a critical element of virtual screening. Consequently, highly optimized docking codes are of paramount importance for the effectiveness of virtual screening methods. In this communication, we describe the implementation, tuning and performance characteristics of GeauxDock, a recently developed molecular docking program. GeauxDock is built upon the Monte Carlo algorithm and features a novel scoring function combining physics-based energy terms with statistical and knowledge-based potentials. Developed specifically for heterogeneous computing platforms, the current version of GeauxDock can be deployed on modern, multi-core Central Processing Units (CPUs) as well as massively parallel accelerators, Intel Xeon Phi and NVIDIA Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). First, we carried out a thorough performance tuning of the high-level framework and the docking kernel to produce a fast serial code, which was then ported to shared-memory multi-core CPUs yielding a near-ideal scaling. Further, using Xeon Phi gives 1.9× performance improvement over a dual 10-core Xeon CPU, whereas the best GPU accelerator, GeForce GTX 980, achieves a speedup as high as 3.5×. On that account, GeauxDock can take advantage of modern heterogeneous architectures to considerably accelerate structure-based virtual screening applications. GeauxDock is open-sourced and publicly available at www.brylinski.org/geauxdock and https://figshare.com/articles/geauxdock_tar_gz/3205249.

The EarthServer Federation: State, Role, and Contribution to GEOSS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Merticariu, Vlad; Baumann, Peter

2016-04-01

The intercontinental EarthServer initiative has established a European datacube platform with proven scalability: known databases exceed 100 TB, and single queries have been split across more than 1,000 cloud nodes. Its service interface being rigorously based on the OGC "Big Geo Data" standards, Web Coverage Service (WCS) and Web Coverage Processing Service (WCPS), a series of clients can dock into the services, ranging from open-source OpenLayers and QGIS over open-source NASA WorldWind to proprietary ESRI ArcGIS. Datacube fusion in a "mix and match" style is supported by the platform technolgy, the rasdaman Array Database System, which transparently federates queries so that users simply approach any node of the federation to access any data item, internally optimized for minimal data transfer. Notably, rasdaman is part of GEOSS GCI. NASA is contributing its Web WorldWind virtual globe for user-friendly data extraction, navigation, and analysis. Integrated datacube / metadata queries are contributed by CITE. Current federation members include ESA (managed by MEEO sr.l.), Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF), Australia's National Computational Infrastructure, and Jacobs University (adding in Planetary Science). Further data centers have expressed interest in joining. We present the EarthServer approach, discuss its underlying technology, and illustrate the contribution this datacube platform can make to GEOSS.

Virtual Organizations: An Overview

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nami, Mohammad Reza

The need to remain competitive in the open market forces companies to concentrate on their core competencies while searching for alliances when additional skills or resources are needed to fulfill business opportunities. The changing business situation of companies and customer needs have motivated researchers to introduce Virtual Organization (VO) idea. A Virtual Organization is always a form of partnership and managing partners and handling partnerships are crucial. Virtual organizations are defined as a temporary collection of enterprises that cooperate and share resources, knowledge, and competencies to better respond to business opportunities. This paper presents base concepts of virtual organizations including properties, management concepts, operational concepts, and main issues in collaboration such as security and authentication.

Accuracy of Dual-Energy Virtual Monochromatic CT Numbers: Comparison between the Single-Source Projection-Based and Dual-Source Image-Based Methods.

PubMed

Ueguchi, Takashi; Ogihara, Ryota; Yamada, Sachiko

2018-03-21

To investigate the accuracy of dual-energy virtual monochromatic computed tomography (CT) numbers obtained by two typical hardware and software implementations: the single-source projection-based method and the dual-source image-based method. A phantom with different tissue equivalent inserts was scanned with both single-source and dual-source scanners. A fast kVp-switching feature was used on the single-source scanner, whereas a tin filter was used on the dual-source scanner. Virtual monochromatic CT images of the phantom at energy levels of 60, 100, and 140 keV were obtained by both projection-based (on the single-source scanner) and image-based (on the dual-source scanner) methods. The accuracy of virtual monochromatic CT numbers for all inserts was assessed by comparing measured values to their corresponding true values. Linear regression analysis was performed to evaluate the dependency of measured CT numbers on tissue attenuation, method, and their interaction. Root mean square values of systematic error over all inserts at 60, 100, and 140 keV were approximately 53, 21, and 29 Hounsfield unit (HU) with the single-source projection-based method, and 46, 7, and 6 HU with the dual-source image-based method, respectively. Linear regression analysis revealed that the interaction between the attenuation and the method had a statistically significant effect on the measured CT numbers at 100 and 140 keV. There were attenuation-, method-, and energy level-dependent systematic errors in the measured virtual monochromatic CT numbers. CT number reproducibility was comparable between the two scanners, and CT numbers had better accuracy with the dual-source image-based method at 100 and 140 keV. Copyright © 2018 The Association of University Radiologists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Retrieval of reflections from ambient noise using illumination diagnosis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vidal, C. Almagro; Draganov, D.; van der Neut, J.; Drijkoningen, G.; Wapenaar, K.

2014-09-01

Seismic interferometry (SI) enables the retrieval of virtual sources at the location of receivers. In the case of passive SI, no active sources are used for the retrieval of the reflection response of the subsurface, but ambient-noise recordings only. The resulting retrieved response is determined by the illumination characteristics of the recorded ambient noise. Characteristics like geometrical distribution and signature of the noise sources, together with the complexity of the medium and the length of the noise records, determine the quality of the retrieved virtual-shot events. To retrieve body wave reflections, one needs to correlate body-wave noise. A source of such noise might be regional seismicity. In regions with notable human presence, the dominant noise sources are generally located at or close to the surface. In the latter case, the noise will be dominated by surface waves and consequently also the retrieved virtual common-source panels will contain dominant retrieved surface waves, drowning out possible retrieved reflections. In order to retrieve reflection events, suppression of the surface waves becomes the most important pre-processing goal. Because of the reasons mentioned above, we propose a fast method to evaluate the illumination characteristics of ambient noise using the correlation results from ambient-noise records. The method is based on the analysis of the so-called source function of the retrieved virtual-shot panel, and evaluates the apparent slowness of arrivals in the correlation results that pass through the position of the virtual source and at zero time. The results of the diagnosis are used to suppress the retrieval of surface waves and therefore to improve the quality of the retrieved reflection response. We explain the approach using modelled data from transient and continuous noise sources and an example from a passive field data set recorded at Annerveen, Northern Netherlands.

Finding Information on the State Virtual Libraries

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pappas, Marjorie L.

2004-01-01

The number of state virtual libraries is rapidly expanding. These virtual libraries might include collections of subscription databases; state weblinks and resources; digital collections of primary source documents; and a state union catalog or links to school, public, and academic library catalogs. Most of these virtual libraries include an…

Optics simulations: a Python workshop

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ghalila, H.; Ammar, A.; Varadharajan, S.; Majdi, Y.; Zghal, M.; Lahmar, S.; Lakshminarayanan, V.

2017-08-01

Numerical simulations allow teachers and students to indirectly perform sophisticated experiments that cannot be realizable otherwise due to cost and other constraints. During the past few decades there has been an explosion in the development of numerical tools concurrently with open source environments such as Python software. This availability of open source software offers an incredible opportunity for advancing teaching methodologies as well as in research. More specifically it is possible to correlate theoretical knowledge with experimental measurements using "virtual" experiments. We have been working on the development of numerical simulation tools using the Python program package and we have concentrated on geometric and physical optics simulations. The advantage of doing hands-on numerical experiments is that it allows the student learner to be an active participant in the pedagogical/learning process rather than playing a passive role as in the traditional lecture format. Even in laboratory classes because of constraints of space, lack of equipment and often-large numbers of students, many students play a passive role since they work in groups of 3 or more students. Furthermore these new tools help students get a handle on numerical methods as well simulations and impart a "feel" for the physics under investigation.

OASYS (OrAnge SYnchrotron Suite): an open-source graphical environment for x-ray virtual experiments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rebuffi, Luca; Sanchez del Rio, Manuel

2017-08-01

The evolution of the hardware platforms, the modernization of the software tools, the access to the codes of a large number of young people and the popularization of the open source software for scientific applications drove us to design OASYS (ORange SYnchrotron Suite), a completely new graphical environment for modelling X-ray experiments. The implemented software architecture allows to obtain not only an intuitive and very-easy-to-use graphical interface, but also provides high flexibility and rapidity for interactive simulations, making configuration changes to quickly compare multiple beamline configurations. Its purpose is to integrate in a synergetic way the most powerful calculation engines available. OASYS integrates different simulation strategies via the implementation of adequate simulation tools for X-ray Optics (e.g. ray tracing and wave optics packages). It provides a language to make them to communicate by sending and receiving encapsulated data. Python has been chosen as main programming language, because of its universality and popularity in scientific computing. The software Orange, developed at the University of Ljubljana (SLO), is the high level workflow engine that provides the interaction with the user and communication mechanisms.

Autoplot: a Browser for Science Data on the Web

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Faden, J.; Weigel, R. S.; West, E. E.; Merka, J.

2008-12-01

Autoplot (www.autoplot.org) is software for plotting data from many different sources and in many different file formats. Data from CDF, CEF, Fits, NetCDF, and OpenDAP can be plotted, along with many other sources such as ASCII tables and Excel spreadsheets. This is done by adapting these various data formats and APIs into a common data model that borrows from the netCDF and CDF data models. Autoplot uses a web browser metaphor to simplify use. The user specifies a parameter URL, for example a CDF file accessible via http with a parameter name appended, and the file resource is downloaded and the parameter is rendered in a scientifically meaningful way. When data span multiple files, the user can use a file name template in the URL to aggregate (combine) a set of remote files. So the problem of aggregating data across file boundaries is handled on the client side, allowing simple web servers to be used. The das2 graphics library provides rich controls for exploring the data. Scripting is supported through Python, providing not just programmatic control, but for calculating new parameters in a language that will look familiar to IDL and Matlab users. Autoplot is Java-based software, and will run on most computers without a burdensome installation process. It can also used as an applet or as a servlet that serves static images. Autoplot was developed as part of the Virtual Radiation Belt Observatory (ViRBO) project, and is also being used for the Virtual Magnetospheric Observatory (VMO). It is expected that this flexible, general-purpose plotting tool will be useful for allowing a data provider to add instant visualization capabilities to a directory of files or for general use in the Virtual Observatory environment.

Reaching nearby sources: comparison between real and virtual sound and visual targets

PubMed Central

Parseihian, Gaëtan; Jouffrais, Christophe; Katz, Brian F. G.

2014-01-01

Sound localization studies over the past century have predominantly been concerned with directional accuracy for far-field sources. Few studies have examined the condition of near-field sources and distance perception. The current study concerns localization and pointing accuracy by examining source positions in the peripersonal space, specifically those associated with a typical tabletop surface. Accuracy is studied with respect to the reporting hand (dominant or secondary) for auditory sources. Results show no effect on the reporting hand with azimuthal errors increasing equally for the most extreme source positions. Distance errors show a consistent compression toward the center of the reporting area. A second evaluation is carried out comparing auditory and visual stimuli to examine any bias in reporting protocol or biomechanical difficulties. No common bias error was observed between auditory and visual stimuli indicating that reporting errors were not due to biomechanical limitations in the pointing task. A final evaluation compares real auditory sources and anechoic condition virtual sources created using binaural rendering. Results showed increased azimuthal errors, with virtual source positions being consistently overestimated to more lateral positions, while no significant distance perception was observed, indicating a deficiency in the binaural rendering condition relative to the real stimuli situation. Various potential reasons for this discrepancy are discussed with several proposals for improving distance perception in peripersonal virtual environments. PMID:25228855

Cross-Cultural Discussions in a 3D Virtual Environment and Their Affordances for Learners' Motivation and Foreign Language Discussion Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jauregi, Kristi; Kuure, Leena; Bastian, Pim; Reinhardt, Dennis; Koivisto, Tuomo

2015-01-01

Within the European TILA project a case study was carried out where pupils from schools in Finland and the Netherlands engaged in debating sessions using the 3D virtual world of OpenSim once a week for a period of 5 weeks. The case study had two main objectives: (1) to study the impact that the discussion tasks undertaken in a virtual environment…

Open Access

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Suber, Peter

2012-01-01

The Internet lets us share perfect copies of our work with a worldwide audience at virtually no cost. We take advantage of this revolutionary opportunity when we make our work "open access": digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. Open access is made possible by the Internet and copyright-holder…

Resurrecting Legacy Code Using Ontosoft Knowledge-Sharing and Digital Object Management to Revitalize and Reproduce Software for Groundwater Management Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kwon, N.; Gentle, J.; Pierce, S. A.

2015-12-01

Software code developed for research is often used for a relatively short period of time before it is abandoned, lost, or becomes outdated. This unintentional abandonment of code is a valid problem in the 21st century scientific process, hindering widespread reusability and increasing the effort needed to develop research software. Potentially important assets, these legacy codes may be resurrected and documented digitally for long-term reuse, often with modest effort. Furthermore, the revived code may be openly accessible in a public repository for researchers to reuse or improve. For this study, the research team has begun to revive the codebase for Groundwater Decision Support System (GWDSS), originally developed for participatory decision making to aid urban planning and groundwater management, though it may serve multiple use cases beyond those originally envisioned. GWDSS was designed as a java-based wrapper with loosely federated commercial and open source components. If successfully revitalized, GWDSS will be useful for both practical applications as a teaching tool and case study for groundwater management, as well as informing theoretical research. Using the knowledge-sharing approaches documented by the NSF-funded Ontosoft project, digital documentation of GWDSS is underway, from conception to development, deployment, characterization, integration, composition, and dissemination through open source communities and geosciences modeling frameworks. Information assets, documentation, and examples are shared using open platforms for data sharing and assigned digital object identifiers. Two instances of GWDSS version 3.0 are being created: 1) a virtual machine instance for the original case study to serve as a live demonstration of the decision support tool, assuring the original version is usable, and 2) an open version of the codebase, executable installation files, and developer guide available via an open repository, assuring the source for the application is accessible with version control and potential for new branch developments. Finally, metadata about the software has been completed within the OntoSoft portal to provide descriptive curation, make GWDSS searchable, and complete documentation of the scientific software lifecycle.

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.

Planning Image-Based Measurements in Wind Tunnels by Virtual Imaging

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kushner, Laura Kathryn; Schairer, Edward T.

2011-01-01

Virtual imaging is routinely used at NASA Ames Research Center to plan the placement of cameras and light sources for image-based measurements in production wind tunnel tests. Virtual imaging allows users to quickly and comprehensively model a given test situation, well before the test occurs, in order to verify that all optical testing requirements will be met. It allows optimization of the placement of cameras and light sources and leads to faster set-up times, thereby decreasing tunnel occupancy costs. This paper describes how virtual imaging was used to plan optical measurements for three tests in production wind tunnels at NASA Ames.

Towards a Semantic-Based Approach for Affect and Metaphor Detection

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhang, Li; Barnden, John

2013-01-01

Affect detection from open-ended virtual improvisational contexts is a challenging task. To achieve this research goal, the authors developed an intelligent agent which was able to engage in virtual improvisation and perform sentence-level affect detection from user inputs. This affect detection development was efficient for the improvisational…

Networked Experiments and Scientific Resource Sharing in Cooperative Knowledge Spaces

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cikic, Sabine; Jeschke, Sabina; Ludwig, Nadine; Sinha, Uwe; Thomsen, Christian

2007-01-01

Cooperative knowledge spaces create new potentials for the experimental fields in natural sciences and engineering because they enhance the accessibility of experimental setups through virtual laboratories and remote technology, opening them for collaborative and distributed usage. A concept for extending existing virtual knowledge spaces for the…

OpenSim-Supported Virtual Learning Environment: Transformative Content Representation, Facilitation, and Learning Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Heesung; Ke, Fengfeng

2016-01-01

The pedagogical and design considerations for the use of a virtual reality (VR) learning environment are important for prospective and current teachers. However, empirical research investigating how preservice teachers interact with transformative content representation, facilitation, and learning activities in a VR educational simulation is still…

The VLAB OER Experience: Modeling Potential-Adopter Student Acceptance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Raman, Raghu; Achuthan, Krishnashree; Nedungadi, Prema; Diwakar, Shyam; Bose, Ranjan

2014-01-01

Virtual Labs (VLAB) is a multi-institutional Open Educational Resources (OER) initiative, exclusively focused on lab experiments for engineering education. This project envisages building a large OER repository, containing over 1650 virtual experiments mapped to the engineering curriculum. The introduction of VLAB is a paradigm shift in an…

Virtual Teaching Dispositions in an Open Distance Learning Environment: Origins, Measurement and Impact

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martins, Nico; Ungerer, Leona M.

2017-01-01

An understanding of the key characteristics and implicit competencies underlying online teaching is essential to distance education institutions that embark on the assertive use of technology in their tuition development and delivery. The Virtual Teaching Dispositions Scale (VTDS) assists in investigating professional teaching dispositions…

Tasks for Easily Modifiable Virtual Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Swier, Robert

2014-01-01

Recent studies of learner interaction in virtual worlds have tended to select basic tasks involving open-ended communication. There is evidence that such tasks are supportive of language acquisition, however it may also be beneficial to consider more complex tasks. Research in task-based learning has identified features such as non-linguistic…

Meaningful Learning and Creativity in Virtual Worlds

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ferguson, Rebecca

2011-01-01

Virtual worlds open new possibilities for learners, prompting a reconsideration of how learning takes place, and setting education in a context of playfulness, delight and creativity. They provide environments in which it is not only possible but also necessary to generate and try out ideas. They therefore offer opportunities to explore new…

Helioviewer.org: Enhanced Solar & Heliospheric Data Visualization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stys, J. E.; Ireland, J.; Hughitt, V. K.; Mueller, D.

2013-12-01

Helioviewer.org enables the simultaneous exploration of multiple heterogeneous solar data sets. In the latest iteration of this open-source web application, Hinode XRT and Yohkoh SXT join SDO, SOHO, STEREO, and PROBA2 as supported data sources. A newly enhanced user-interface expands the utility of Helioviewer.org by adding annotations backed by data from the Heliospheric Events Knowledgebase (HEK). Helioviewer.org can now overlay solar feature and event data via interactive marker pins, extended regions, data labels, and information panels. An interactive time-line provides enhanced browsing and visualization to image data set coverage and solar events. The addition of a size-of-the-Earth indicator provides a sense of the scale to solar and heliospheric features for education and public outreach purposes. Tight integration with the Virtual Solar Observatory and SDO AIA cutout service enable solar physicists to seamlessly import science data into their SSW/IDL or SunPy/Python data analysis environments.

cellPACK: A Virtual Mesoscope to Model and Visualize Structural Systems Biology

PubMed Central

Johnson, Graham T.; Autin, Ludovic; Al-Alusi, Mostafa; Goodsell, David S.; Sanner, Michel F.; Olson, Arthur J.

2014-01-01

cellPACK assembles computational models of the biological mesoscale, an intermediate scale (10−7–10−8m) between molecular and cellular biology. cellPACK’s modular architecture unites existing and novel packing algorithms to generate, visualize and analyze comprehensive 3D models of complex biological environments that integrate data from multiple experimental systems biology and structural biology sources. cellPACK is currently available as open source code, with tools for validation of models and with recipes and models for five biological systems: blood plasma, cytoplasm, synaptic vesicles, HIV and a mycoplasma cell. We have applied cellPACK to model distributions of HIV envelope protein to test several hypotheses for consistency with experimental observations. Biologists, educators, and outreach specialists can interact with cellPACK models, develop new recipes and perform packing experiments through scripting and graphical user interfaces at http://cellPACK.org. PMID:25437435

The Victor C++ library for protein representation and advanced manipulation.

PubMed

Hirsh, Layla; Piovesan, Damiano; Giollo, Manuel; Ferrari, Carlo; Tosatto, Silvio C E

2015-04-01

Protein sequence and structure representation and manipulation require dedicated software libraries to support methods of increasing complexity. Here, we describe the VIrtual Constrution TOol for pRoteins (Victor) C++ library, an open source platform dedicated to enabling inexperienced users to develop advanced tools and gathering contributions from the community. The provided application examples cover statistical energy potentials, profile-profile sequence alignments and ab initio loop modeling. Victor was used over the last 15 years in several publications and optimized for efficiency. It is provided as a GitHub repository with source files and unit tests, plus extensive online documentation, including a Wiki with help files and tutorials, examples and Doxygen documentation. The C++ library and online documentation, distributed under a GPL license are available from URL: http://protein.bio.unipd.it/victor/. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

BioRuby: bioinformatics software for the Ruby programming language.

PubMed

Goto, Naohisa; Prins, Pjotr; Nakao, Mitsuteru; Bonnal, Raoul; Aerts, Jan; Katayama, Toshiaki

2010-10-15

The BioRuby software toolkit contains a comprehensive set of free development tools and libraries for bioinformatics and molecular biology, written in the Ruby programming language. BioRuby has components for sequence analysis, pathway analysis, protein modelling and phylogenetic analysis; it supports many widely used data formats and provides easy access to databases, external programs and public web services, including BLAST, KEGG, GenBank, MEDLINE and GO. BioRuby comes with a tutorial, documentation and an interactive environment, which can be used in the shell, and in the web browser. BioRuby is free and open source software, made available under the Ruby license. BioRuby runs on all platforms that support Ruby, including Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. And, with JRuby, BioRuby runs on the Java Virtual Machine. The source code is available from http://www.bioruby.org/. katayama@bioruby.org

Virtual reality for spherical images

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pilarczyk, Rafal; Skarbek, Władysław

2017-08-01

Paper presents virtual reality application framework and application concept for mobile devices. Framework uses Google Cardboard library for Android operating system. Framework allows to create virtual reality 360 video player using standard OpenGL ES rendering methods. Framework provides network methods in order to connect to web server as application resource provider. Resources are delivered using JSON response as result of HTTP requests. Web server also uses Socket.IO library for synchronous communication between application and server. Framework implements methods to create event driven process of rendering additional content based on video timestamp and virtual reality head point of view.

HTC Vive MeVisLab integration via OpenVR for medical applications

PubMed Central

Egger, Jan; Gall, Markus; Wallner, Jürgen; Boechat, Pedro; Hann, Alexander; Li, Xing; Chen, Xiaojun; Schmalstieg, Dieter

2017-01-01

Virtual Reality, an immersive technology that replicates an environment via computer-simulated reality, gets a lot of attention in the entertainment industry. However, VR has also great potential in other areas, like the medical domain, Examples are intervention planning, training and simulation. This is especially of use in medical operations, where an aesthetic outcome is important, like for facial surgeries. Alas, importing medical data into Virtual Reality devices is not necessarily trivial, in particular, when a direct connection to a proprietary application is desired. Moreover, most researcher do not build their medical applications from scratch, but rather leverage platforms like MeVisLab, MITK, OsiriX or 3D Slicer. These platforms have in common that they use libraries like ITK and VTK, and provide a convenient graphical interface. However, ITK and VTK do not support Virtual Reality directly. In this study, the usage of a Virtual Reality device for medical data under the MeVisLab platform is presented. The OpenVR library is integrated into the MeVisLab platform, allowing a direct and uncomplicated usage of the head mounted display HTC Vive inside the MeVisLab platform. Medical data coming from other MeVisLab modules can directly be connected per drag-and-drop to the Virtual Reality module, rendering the data inside the HTC Vive for immersive virtual reality inspection. PMID:28323840

HTC Vive MeVisLab integration via OpenVR for medical applications.

PubMed

Egger, Jan; Gall, Markus; Wallner, Jürgen; Boechat, Pedro; Hann, Alexander; Li, Xing; Chen, Xiaojun; Schmalstieg, Dieter

2017-01-01

Virtual Reality, an immersive technology that replicates an environment via computer-simulated reality, gets a lot of attention in the entertainment industry. However, VR has also great potential in other areas, like the medical domain, Examples are intervention planning, training and simulation. This is especially of use in medical operations, where an aesthetic outcome is important, like for facial surgeries. Alas, importing medical data into Virtual Reality devices is not necessarily trivial, in particular, when a direct connection to a proprietary application is desired. Moreover, most researcher do not build their medical applications from scratch, but rather leverage platforms like MeVisLab, MITK, OsiriX or 3D Slicer. These platforms have in common that they use libraries like ITK and VTK, and provide a convenient graphical interface. However, ITK and VTK do not support Virtual Reality directly. In this study, the usage of a Virtual Reality device for medical data under the MeVisLab platform is presented. The OpenVR library is integrated into the MeVisLab platform, allowing a direct and uncomplicated usage of the head mounted display HTC Vive inside the MeVisLab platform. Medical data coming from other MeVisLab modules can directly be connected per drag-and-drop to the Virtual Reality module, rendering the data inside the HTC Vive for immersive virtual reality inspection.

WeaVR: a self-contained and wearable immersive virtual environment simulation system.

PubMed

Hodgson, Eric; Bachmann, Eric R; Vincent, David; Zmuda, Michael; Waller, David; Calusdian, James

2015-03-01

We describe WeaVR, a computer simulation system that takes virtual reality technology beyond specialized laboratories and research sites and makes it available in any open space, such as a gymnasium or a public park. Novel hardware and software systems enable HMD-based immersive virtual reality simulations to be conducted in any arbitrary location, with no external infrastructure and little-to-no setup or site preparation. The ability of the WeaVR system to provide realistic motion-tracked navigation for users, to improve the study of large-scale navigation, and to generate usable behavioral data is shown in three demonstrations. First, participants navigated through a full-scale virtual grocery store while physically situated in an open grass field. Trajectory data are presented for both normal tracking and for tracking during the use of redirected walking that constrained users to a predefined area. Second, users followed a straight path within a virtual world for distances of up to 2 km while walking naturally and being redirected to stay within the field, demonstrating the ability of the system to study large-scale navigation by simulating virtual worlds that are potentially unlimited in extent. Finally, the portability and pedagogical implications of this system were demonstrated by taking it to a regional high school for live use by a computer science class on their own school campus.

Advanced 3-dimensional planning in neurosurgery.

PubMed

Ferroli, Paolo; Tringali, Giovanni; Acerbi, Francesco; Schiariti, Marco; Broggi, Morgan; Aquino, Domenico; Broggi, Giovanni

2013-01-01

During the past decades, medical applications of virtual reality technology have been developing rapidly, ranging from a research curiosity to a commercially and clinically important area of medical informatics and technology. With the aid of new technologies, the user is able to process large amounts of data sets to create accurate and almost realistic reconstructions of anatomic structures and related pathologies. As a result, a 3-diensional (3-D) representation is obtained, and surgeons can explore the brain for planning or training. Further improvement such as a feedback system increases the interaction between users and models by creating a virtual environment. Its use for advanced 3-D planning in neurosurgery is described. Different systems of medical image volume rendering have been used and analyzed for advanced 3-D planning: 1 is a commercial "ready-to-go" system (Dextroscope, Bracco, Volume Interaction, Singapore), whereas the others are open-source-based software (3-D Slicer, FSL, and FreesSurfer). Different neurosurgeons at our institution experienced how advanced 3-D planning before surgery allowed them to facilitate and increase their understanding of the complex anatomic and pathological relationships of the lesion. They all agreed that the preoperative experience of virtually planning the approach was helpful during the operative procedure. Virtual reality for advanced 3-D planning in neurosurgery has achieved considerable realism as a result of the available processing power of modern computers. Although it has been found useful to facilitate the understanding of complex anatomic relationships, further effort is needed to increase the quality of the interaction between the user and the model.

NOAO observing proposal processing system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bell, David J.; Gasson, David; Hartman, Mia

2002-12-01

Since going electronic in 1994, NOAO has continued to refine and enhance its observing proposal handling system. Virtually all related processes are now handled electronically. Members of the astronomical community can submit proposals through email, web form or via Gemini's downloadable Phase-I Tool. NOAO staff can use online interfaces for administrative tasks, technical reviews, telescope scheduling, and compilation of various statistics. In addition, all information relevant to the TAC process is made available online. The system, now known as ANDES, is designed as a thin-client architecture (web pages are now used for almost all database functions) built using open source tools (FreeBSD, Apache, MySQL, Perl, PHP) to process descriptively-marked (LaTeX, XML) proposal documents.

'The Lived Experience of Climate Changé: An Interdisciplinary and Competence-Based Masters Track Using Open Educational Resources and Virtual Mobility

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abbott, Dina; de Kraker, Joop; Pérez, Paquita; van Scheltinga, Catharien Terwisscha; Willems, Patrick; Wilson, Gordon

Drawing on the authors' involvement in a European Union Erasmus project, this paper explores a new holistic approach to climate change education which uses as a source of active/social learning and knowledge construction the diversity of different disciplinary and sectoral approaches. We further argue for a corresponding pedagogy based on developing transboundary competences where the communicative engagement across space and time, and between diverse perspectives and standpoints, is ICT-enabled. Meeting these challenges is a normative goal, not only for this expanded interdisciplinary approach to climate change education, but also for a global resolution of the climate change issue itself.

Breaking BAD: A Data Serving Vision for Big Active Data

PubMed Central

Carey, Michael J.; Jacobs, Steven; Tsotras, Vassilis J.

2017-01-01

Virtually all of today’s Big Data systems are passive in nature. Here we describe a project to shift Big Data platforms from passive to active. We detail a vision for a scalable system that can continuously and reliably capture Big Data to enable timely and automatic delivery of new information to a large pool of interested users as well as supporting analyses of historical information. We are currently building a Big Active Data (BAD) system by extending an existing scalable open-source BDMS (AsterixDB) in this active direction. This first paper zooms in on the Data Serving piece of the BAD puzzle, including its key concepts and user model. PMID:29034377

Access Control of Web and Java Based Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tso, Kam S.; Pajevski, Michael J.; Johnson, Bryan

2011-01-01

Cyber security has gained national and international attention as a result of near continuous headlines from financial institutions, retail stores, government offices and universities reporting compromised systems and stolen data. Concerns continue to rise as threats of service interruption, and spreading of viruses become ever more prevalent and serious. Controlling access to application layer resources is a critical component in a layered security solution that includes encryption, firewalls, virtual private networks, antivirus, and intrusion detection. In this paper we discuss the development of an application-level access control solution, based on an open-source access manager augmented with custom software components, to provide protection to both Web-based and Java-based client and server applications.

Open-Source, Distributed Computational Environment for Virtual Materials Exploration

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-01-01

compromising structural integrity.  For  example, advanced designs could specify advanced materials processing techniques such as heat  treatments  in specific...orchestration of execution of multiple standalone codes at varying  length scales will need advanced  high ‐performance computing (HPC) integration in...possible hooks that could be used to  coordinate larger  workflows spanning tools developed by different groups.    The  high  level approach explored

The Determination of Heat Capacity Ratios in a Simple Open System

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holden, Glen L.

2007-01-01

A virtually closed system is treated as open and compared to known results. The classic experiment of Clement and Desormes provides the conceptual framework for this open system approach in determining the molar heat capacity ratios, lambda. This alternate view, extends the theoretical treatment beyond the first law of thermodynamics for closed…

Emergent Stratification in Solid Tumors Selects for Reduced Cohesion of Tumor Cells: A Multi-Cell, Virtual-Tissue Model of Tumor Evolution Using CompuCell3D.

PubMed

Swat, Maciej H; Thomas, Gilberto L; Shirinifard, Abbas; Clendenon, Sherry G; Glazier, James A

2015-01-01

Tumor cells and structure both evolve due to heritable variation of cell behaviors and selection over periods of weeks to years (somatic evolution). Micro-environmental factors exert selection pressures on tumor-cell behaviors, which influence both the rate and direction of evolution of specific behaviors, especially the development of tumor-cell aggression and resistance to chemotherapies. In this paper, we present, step-by-step, the development of a multi-cell, virtual-tissue model of tumor somatic evolution, simulated using the open-source CompuCell3D modeling environment. Our model includes essential cell behaviors, microenvironmental components and their interactions. Our model provides a platform for exploring selection pressures leading to the evolution of tumor-cell aggression, showing that emergent stratification into regions with different cell survival rates drives the evolution of less cohesive cells with lower levels of cadherins and higher levels of integrins. Such reduced cohesivity is a key hallmark in the progression of many types of solid tumors.

VirGO: A Visual Browser for the ESO Science Archive Facility

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chéreau, Fabien

2012-04-01

VirGO is the next generation Visual Browser for the ESO Science Archive Facility developed by the Virtual Observatory (VO) Systems Department. It is a plug-in for the popular open source software Stellarium adding capabilities for browsing professional astronomical data. VirGO gives astronomers the possibility to easily discover and select data from millions of observations in a new visual and intuitive way. Its main feature is to perform real-time access and graphical display of a large number of observations by showing instrumental footprints and image previews, and to allow their selection and filtering for subsequent download from the ESO SAF web interface. It also allows the loading of external FITS files or VOTables, the superimposition of Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) background images, and the visualization of the sky in a `real life' mode as seen from the main ESO sites. All data interfaces are based on Virtual Observatory standards which allow access to images and spectra from external data centers, and interaction with the ESO SAF web interface or any other VO applications supporting the PLASTIC messaging system.

Emergent Stratification in Solid Tumors Selects for Reduced Cohesion of Tumor Cells: A Multi-Cell, Virtual-Tissue Model of Tumor Evolution Using CompuCell3D

PubMed Central

Swat, Maciej H.; Thomas, Gilberto L.; Shirinifard, Abbas; Clendenon, Sherry G.; Glazier, James A.

2015-01-01

Tumor cells and structure both evolve due to heritable variation of cell behaviors and selection over periods of weeks to years (somatic evolution). Micro-environmental factors exert selection pressures on tumor-cell behaviors, which influence both the rate and direction of evolution of specific behaviors, especially the development of tumor-cell aggression and resistance to chemotherapies. In this paper, we present, step-by-step, the development of a multi-cell, virtual-tissue model of tumor somatic evolution, simulated using the open-source CompuCell3D modeling environment. Our model includes essential cell behaviors, microenvironmental components and their interactions. Our model provides a platform for exploring selection pressures leading to the evolution of tumor-cell aggression, showing that emergent stratification into regions with different cell survival rates drives the evolution of less cohesive cells with lower levels of cadherins and higher levels of integrins. Such reduced cohesivity is a key hallmark in the progression of many types of solid tumors. PMID:26083246

Rocker: Open source, easy-to-use tool for AUC and enrichment calculations and ROC visualization.

PubMed

Lätti, Sakari; Niinivehmas, Sanna; Pentikäinen, Olli T

2016-01-01

Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve with the calculation of area under curve (AUC) is a useful tool to evaluate the performance of biomedical and chemoinformatics data. For example, in virtual drug screening ROC curves are very often used to visualize the efficiency of the used application to separate active ligands from inactive molecules. Unfortunately, most of the available tools for ROC analysis are implemented into commercially available software packages, or are plugins in statistical software, which are not always the easiest to use. Here, we present Rocker, a simple ROC curve visualization tool that can be used for the generation of publication quality images. Rocker also includes an automatic calculation of the AUC for the ROC curve and Boltzmann-enhanced discrimination of ROC (BEDROC). Furthermore, in virtual screening campaigns it is often important to understand the early enrichment of active ligand identification, for this Rocker offers automated calculation routine. To enable further development of Rocker, it is freely available (MIT-GPL license) for use and modifications from our web-site (http://www.jyu.fi/rocker).

Pharmit: interactive exploration of chemical space.

PubMed

Sunseri, Jocelyn; Koes, David Ryan

2016-07-08

Pharmit (http://pharmit.csb.pitt.edu) provides an online, interactive environment for the virtual screening of large compound databases using pharmacophores, molecular shape and energy minimization. Users can import, create and edit virtual screening queries in an interactive browser-based interface. Queries are specified in terms of a pharmacophore, a spatial arrangement of the essential features of an interaction, and molecular shape. Search results can be further ranked and filtered using energy minimization. In addition to a number of pre-built databases of popular compound libraries, users may submit their own compound libraries for screening. Pharmit uses state-of-the-art sub-linear algorithms to provide interactive screening of millions of compounds. Queries typically take a few seconds to a few minutes depending on their complexity. This allows users to iteratively refine their search during a single session. The easy access to large chemical datasets provided by Pharmit simplifies and accelerates structure-based drug design. Pharmit is available under a dual BSD/GPL open-source license. © The Author(s) 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Department of Energy's Virtual Lab Infrastructure for Integrated Earth System Science Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Williams, D. N.; Palanisamy, G.; Shipman, G.; Boden, T.; Voyles, J.

2014-12-01

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) Climate and Environmental Sciences Division (CESD) produces a diversity of data, information, software, and model codes across its research and informatics programs and facilities. This information includes raw and reduced observational and instrumentation data, model codes, model-generated results, and integrated data products. Currently, most of this data and information are prepared and shared for program specific activities, corresponding to CESD organization research. A major challenge facing BER CESD is how best to inventory, integrate, and deliver these vast and diverse resources for the purpose of accelerating Earth system science research. This talk provides a concept for a CESD Integrated Data Ecosystem and an initial roadmap for its implementation to address this integration challenge in the "Big Data" domain. Towards this end, a new BER Virtual Laboratory Infrastructure will be presented, which will include services and software connecting the heterogeneous CESD data holdings, and constructed with open source software based on industry standards, protocols, and state-of-the-art technology.

A Virtual Research Environment for a Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer (SIMS)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wiedenbeck, M.; Schäfer, L.; Klump, J.; Galkin, A.

2013-12-01

Overview: This poster describes the development of a Virtual Research Environment for the Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer (SIMS) at GFZ Potsdam. Background: Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometers (SIMS) are extremely sensitive instruments for analyzing the surfaces of solid and thin film samples. These instruments are rare, expensive and experienced operators are very highly sought after. As such, measurement time is a precious commodity, until now only accessible to small numbers of researchers. The challenge: The Virtual SIMS Project aims to set up a Virtual Research Environment for the operation of the CAMECA IMS 1280-HR instrument at the GFZ Potsdam. The objective of the VRE is to provide SIMS access not only to researchers locally present in Potsdam but also to scientists working with SIMS cooperation partners in e.g., South Africa, Brazil or India. The requirements: The system should address the complete spectrum of laboratory procedures - from online application for measurement time, to remote access for data acquisition to data archiving for the subsequent publication and for future reuse. The approach: The targeted Virtual SIMS Environment will consist of a: 1. Web Server running the Virtual SIMS website providing general information about the project, lab access proposal forms and calendar for the timing of project related tasks. 2. LIMS Server, responsible for scheduling procedures, data management and, if applicable, accounting and billing. 3. Remote SIMS Tool, devoted to the operation of the experiment within a remote control environment. 4. Publishing System, which supports the publication of results in cooperation with the GFZ Library services. 5. Training Simulator, which offers the opportunity to rehearse experiments and to prepare for possible events such as a power outages or interruptions to broadband services. First results: The SIMS Virtual Research Environment will be mainly based on open source software, the only exception being the CAMECA IMS 1280-HR SIMS operating under LabView. The Publishing System will be based on eSciDoc, which is already successfully used by the GFZ scientific library. For the LIMS Server we are currently testing various options. The challenge, however, is the successful integration of all the various components and, where necessary, the definition of useful interfaces between the modules.

Water footprints of cities - indicators for sustainable consumption and production

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hoff, H.; Döll, P.; Fader, M.; Gerten, D.; Hauser, S.; Siebert, S.

2013-02-01

Water footprints have been proposed as sustainability indicators, relating the consumption of goods like food to the amount of water necessary for their production and the impacts of that water use in the source regions. We have further developed the existing water footprint methodology by globally resolving virtual water flows and import and source regions at 5 arc minutes spatial resolution, and by assessing local impacts of export production. Applying this method to three exemplary cities, Berlin, Delhi and Lagos, we find major differences in amounts, composition, and origin of green and blue virtual water imports, due to differences in diets, trade integration and crop water productivities in the source regions. While almost all of Delhi's and Lagos' virtual water imports are of domestic origin, Berlin on average imports from more than 4000 km distance, in particular soy (livestock feed), coffee and cocoa. While 42% of Delhi's virtual water imports are blue water based, the fractions for Berlin and Lagos are 2% and 0.5%, respectively, roughly equal to local drinking water abstractions of these cities. Some of the external source regions of Berlin's virtual water imports appear to be critically water scarce and/or food insecure. However for deriving recommendations on sustainable consumption and trade, further analysis of context-specific costs and benefits associated with export production will be required.

Virtual Action Learning: A Pilot in Building Leadership Capacity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Radcliff, Phil

2017-01-01

This account of practice encompasses a pilot virtual action learning programme with a small group of learners. This was an 18-month extension to the one-week Leadership Open Programme that the participants had previously completed at the Business School. It includes insights from an evaluation study completed in early 2016. It considers in…

What to Expect from a Virtual University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vignare, Karen

2009-01-01

Virtual universities (VUs) were formed to open up access to higher education for new and existing students, and they continue to grow and thrive. They come in all sizes and organizational and business models, and most differ from their founding institutions. However, VUs face more rigorous requirements for accountability and reporting. Most of…

Bilingual Virtual Reference: It's Better than Searching the Open Web

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lupien, Pascal

2004-01-01

Online library services have been mostly available uniquely in English. To serve the diverse communities that uses library services, a growing number of libraries have been investigating the ins and outs of offering virtual reference in languages other than English. Developing this kind of service in languages spoken by various library user groups…

Effects of Game-Based Learning in an Opensim-Supported Virtual Environment on Mathematical Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Heesung; Ke, Fengfeng

2017-01-01

This experimental study was intended to examine whether the integration of game characteristics in the OpenSimulator-supported virtual reality (VR) learning environment can improve mathematical achievement for elementary school students. In this pre- and posttest experimental comparison study, data were collected from 132 fourth graders through an…

An Effective Construction Method of Modular Manipulator 3D Virtual Simulation Platform

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Xianhua; Lv, Lei; Sheng, Rui; Sun, Qing; Zhang, Leigang

2018-06-01

This work discusses about a fast and efficient method of constructing an open 3D manipulator virtual simulation platform which make it easier for teachers and students to learn about positive and inverse kinematics of a robot manipulator. The method was carried out using MATLAB. In which, the Robotics Toolbox, MATLAB GUI and 3D animation with the help of modelling using SolidWorks, were fully applied to produce a good visualization of the system. The advantages of using quickly build is its powerful function of the input and output and its ability to simulate a 3D manipulator realistically. In this article, a Schunk six DOF modular manipulator was constructed by the author's research group to be used as example. The implementation steps of this method was detailed described, and thereafter, a high-level open and realistic visualization manipulator 3D virtual simulation platform was achieved. With the graphs obtained from simulation, the test results show that the manipulator 3D virtual simulation platform can be constructed quickly with good usability and high maneuverability, and it can meet the needs of scientific research and teaching.

Realistic terrain visualization based on 3D virtual world technology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, Fengru; Lin, Hui; Chen, Bin; Xiao, Cai

2009-09-01

The rapid advances in information technologies, e.g., network, graphics processing, and virtual world, have provided challenges and opportunities for new capabilities in information systems, Internet applications, and virtual geographic environments, especially geographic visualization and collaboration. In order to achieve meaningful geographic capabilities, we need to explore and understand how these technologies can be used to construct virtual geographic environments to help to engage geographic research. The generation of three-dimensional (3D) terrain plays an important part in geographical visualization, computer simulation, and virtual geographic environment applications. The paper introduces concepts and technologies of virtual worlds and virtual geographic environments, explores integration of realistic terrain and other geographic objects and phenomena of natural geographic environment based on SL/OpenSim virtual world technologies. Realistic 3D terrain visualization is a foundation of construction of a mirror world or a sand box model of the earth landscape and geographic environment. The capabilities of interaction and collaboration on geographic information are discussed as well. Further virtual geographic applications can be developed based on the foundation work of realistic terrain visualization in virtual environments.

Realistic terrain visualization based on 3D virtual world technology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, Fengru; Lin, Hui; Chen, Bin; Xiao, Cai

2010-11-01

The rapid advances in information technologies, e.g., network, graphics processing, and virtual world, have provided challenges and opportunities for new capabilities in information systems, Internet applications, and virtual geographic environments, especially geographic visualization and collaboration. In order to achieve meaningful geographic capabilities, we need to explore and understand how these technologies can be used to construct virtual geographic environments to help to engage geographic research. The generation of three-dimensional (3D) terrain plays an important part in geographical visualization, computer simulation, and virtual geographic environment applications. The paper introduces concepts and technologies of virtual worlds and virtual geographic environments, explores integration of realistic terrain and other geographic objects and phenomena of natural geographic environment based on SL/OpenSim virtual world technologies. Realistic 3D terrain visualization is a foundation of construction of a mirror world or a sand box model of the earth landscape and geographic environment. The capabilities of interaction and collaboration on geographic information are discussed as well. Further virtual geographic applications can be developed based on the foundation work of realistic terrain visualization in virtual environments.

Selective structural source identification

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Totaro, Nicolas

2018-04-01

In the field of acoustic source reconstruction, the inverse Patch Transfer Function (iPTF) has been recently proposed and has shown satisfactory results whatever the shape of the vibrating surface and whatever the acoustic environment. These two interesting features are due to the virtual acoustic volume concept underlying the iPTF methods. The aim of the present article is to show how this concept of virtual subsystem can be used in structures to reconstruct the applied force distribution. Some virtual boundary conditions can be applied on a part of the structure, called virtual testing structure, to identify the force distribution applied in that zone regardless of the presence of other sources outside the zone under consideration. In the present article, the applicability of the method is only demonstrated on planar structures. However, the final example show how the method can be applied to a complex shape planar structure with point welded stiffeners even in the tested zone. In that case, if the virtual testing structure includes the stiffeners the identified force distribution only exhibits the positions of external applied forces. If the virtual testing structure does not include the stiffeners, the identified force distribution permits to localize the forces due to the coupling between the structure and the stiffeners through the welded points as well as the ones due to the external forces. This is why this approach is considered here as a selective structural source identification method. It is demonstrated that this approach clearly falls in the same framework as the Force Analysis Technique, the Virtual Fields Method or the 2D spatial Fourier transform. Even if this approach has a lot in common with these latters, it has some interesting particularities like its low sensitivity to measurement noise.

A rotation-translation invariant molecular descriptor of partial charges and its use in ligand-based virtual screening

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Measures of similarity for chemical molecules have been developed since the dawn of chemoinformatics. Molecular similarity has been measured by a variety of methods including molecular descriptor based similarity, common molecular fragments, graph matching and 3D methods such as shape matching. Similarity measures are widespread in practice and have proven to be useful in drug discovery. Because of our interest in electrostatics and high throughput ligand-based virtual screening, we sought to exploit the information contained in atomic coordinates and partial charges of a molecule. Results A new molecular descriptor based on partial charges is proposed. It uses the autocorrelation function and linear binning to encode all atoms of a molecule into two rotation-translation invariant vectors. Combined with a scoring function, the descriptor allows to rank-order a database of compounds versus a query molecule. The proposed implementation is called ACPC (AutoCorrelation of Partial Charges) and released in open source. Extensive retrospective ligand-based virtual screening experiments were performed and other methods were compared with in order to validate the method and associated protocol. Conclusions While it is a simple method, it performed remarkably well in experiments. At an average speed of 1649 molecules per second, it reached an average median area under the curve of 0.81 on 40 different targets; hence validating the proposed protocol and implementation. PMID:24887178

Interface for Physics Simulation Engines

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Damer, Bruce

2007-01-01

DSS-Prototyper is an open-source, realtime 3D virtual environment software that supports design simulation for the new Vision for Space Exploration (VSE). This is a simulation of NASA's proposed Robotic Lunar Exploration Program, second mission (RLEP2). It simulates the Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM), which is designed to carry up to four astronauts to the lunar surface for durations of a week or longer. This simulation shows the virtual vehicle making approaches and landings on a variety of lunar terrains. The physics of the descent engine thrust vector, production of dust, and the dynamics of the suspension are all modeled in this set of simulations. The RLEP2 simulations are drivable (by keyboard or joystick) virtual rovers with controls for speed and motor torque, and can be articulated into higher or lower centers of gravity (depending on driving hazards) to enable drill placement. Gravity also can be set to lunar, terrestrial, or zero-g. This software has been used to support NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in simulations of proposed vehicles for robotically exploring the lunar surface for water ice, and could be used to model all other aspects of the VSE from the Ares launch vehicles and Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) to the International Space Station (ISS). This simulator may be installed and operated on any Windows PC with an installed 3D graphics card.

JHelioviewer: Open-Source Software for Discovery and Image Access in the Petabyte Age

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mueller, D.; Dimitoglou, G.; Garcia Ortiz, J.; Langenberg, M.; Nuhn, M.; Dau, A.; Pagel, S.; Schmidt, L.; Hughitt, V. K.; Ireland, J.; Fleck, B.

2011-12-01

The unprecedented torrent of data returned by the Solar Dynamics Observatory is both a blessing and a barrier: a blessing for making available data with significantly higher spatial and temporal resolution, but a barrier for scientists to access, browse and analyze them. With such staggering data volume, the data is accessible only from a few repositories and users have to deal with data sets effectively immobile and practically difficult to download. From a scientist's perspective this poses three challenges: accessing, browsing and finding interesting data while avoiding the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack. To address these challenges, we have developed JHelioviewer, an open-source visualization software that lets users browse large data volumes both as still images and movies. We did so by deploying an efficient image encoding, storage, and dissemination solution using the JPEG 2000 standard. This solution enables users to access remote images at different resolution levels as a single data stream. Users can view, manipulate, pan, zoom, and overlay JPEG 2000 compressed data quickly, without severe network bandwidth penalties. Besides viewing data, the browser provides third-party metadata and event catalog integration to quickly locate data of interest, as well as an interface to the Virtual Solar Observatory to download science-quality data. As part of the ESA/NASA Helioviewer Project, JHelioviewer offers intuitive ways to browse large amounts of heterogeneous data remotely and provides an extensible and customizable open-source platform for the scientific community. In addition, the easy-to-use graphical user interface enables the general public and educators to access, enjoy and reuse data from space missions without barriers.

Enhancing participatory approach in water resources management: development of a survey to evaluate stakeholders needs and priorities related to software capabilities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Foglia, L.; Rossetto, R.; Borsi, I.; Josef, S.; Boukalova, Z.; Triana, F.; Ghetta, M.; Sabbatini, T.; Bonari, E.; Cannata, M.; De Filippis, G.

2016-12-01

The EU H2020 FREEWAT project (FREE and open source software tools for WATer resource management) aims at simplifying the application of EU-water related Directives, by developing an open source and public domain, GIS-integrated platform for planning and management of ground- and surface-water resources. The FREEWAT platform is conceived as a canvas, where several distributed and physically-based simulation codes are virtually integrated. The choice of such codes was supported by the result of a survey performed by means of questionnaires distributed to 14 case study FREEWAT project partners and several stakeholders. This was performed in the first phase of the project within the WP 6 (Enhanced science and participatory approach evidence-based decision making), Task 6.1 (Definition of a "needs/tools" evaluation grid). About 30% among all the invited entities and institutions from several EU and non-EU Countries expressed their interest in contributing to the survey. Most of them were research institutions, government and geoenvironmental companies and river basin authorities.The result of the questionnaire provided a spectrum of needs and priorities of partners/stakeholders, which were addressed during the development phase of the FREEWAT platform. The main needs identified were related to ground- and surface-water quality, sustainable water management, interaction between groundwater/surface-water bodies, and design and management of Managed Aquifer Recharge schemes. Needs and priorities were then connected to the specific EU Directives and Regulations to be addressed.One of the main goals of the questionnaires was to collect information and suggestions regarding the use of existing commercial/open-source software tools to address needs and priorities, and regarding the needs to address specific water-related processes/problems.

Evaluation of procedural learning transfer from a virtual environment to a real situation: a case study on tank maintenance training.

PubMed

Ganier, Franck; Hoareau, Charlotte; Tisseau, Jacques

2014-01-01

Virtual reality opens new opportunities for operator training in complex tasks. It lowers costs and has fewer constraints than traditional training. The ultimate goal of virtual training is to transfer knowledge gained in a virtual environment to an actual real-world setting. This study tested whether a maintenance procedure could be learnt equally well by virtual-environment and conventional training. Forty-two adults were divided into three equally sized groups: virtual training (GVT® [generic virtual training]), conventional training (using a real tank suspension and preparation station) and control (no training). Participants then performed the procedure individually in the real environment. Both training types (conventional and virtual) produced similar levels of performance when the procedure was carried out in real conditions. Performance level for the two trained groups was better in terms of success and time taken to complete the task, time spent consulting job instructions and number of times the instructor provided guidance.

Research on three-dimensional visualization based on virtual reality and Internet

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Zongmin; Yang, Haibo; Zhao, Hongling; Li, Jiren; Zhu, Qiang; Zhang, Xiaohong; Sun, Kai

2007-06-01

To disclose and display water information, a three-dimensional visualization system based on Virtual Reality (VR) and Internet is researched for demonstrating "digital water conservancy" application and also for routine management of reservoir. To explore and mine in-depth information, after completion of modeling high resolution DEM with reliable quality, topographical analysis, visibility analysis and reservoir volume computation are studied. And also, some parameters including slope, water level and NDVI are selected to classify easy-landslide zone in water-level-fluctuating zone of reservoir area. To establish virtual reservoir scene, two kinds of methods are used respectively for experiencing immersion, interaction and imagination (3I). First virtual scene contains more detailed textures to increase reality on graphical workstation with virtual reality engine Open Scene Graph (OSG). Second virtual scene is for internet users with fewer details for assuring fluent speed.

Access Control of Web- and Java-Based Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tso, Kam S.; Pajevski, Michael J.

2013-01-01

Cybersecurity has become a great concern as threats of service interruption, unauthorized access, stealing and altering of information, and spreading of viruses have become more prevalent and serious. Application layer access control of applications is a critical component in the overall security solution that also includes encryption, firewalls, virtual private networks, antivirus, and intrusion detection. An access control solution, based on an open-source access manager augmented with custom software components, was developed to provide protection to both Web-based and Javabased client and server applications. The DISA Security Service (DISA-SS) provides common access control capabilities for AMMOS software applications through a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) and network- accessible security services for authentication, single sign-on, authorization checking, and authorization policy management. The OpenAM access management technology designed for Web applications can be extended to meet the needs of Java thick clients and stand alone servers that are commonly used in the JPL AMMOS environment. The DISA-SS reusable components have greatly reduced the effort for each AMMOS subsystem to develop its own access control strategy. The novelty of this work is that it leverages an open-source access management product that was designed for Webbased applications to provide access control for Java thick clients and Java standalone servers. Thick clients and standalone servers are still commonly used in businesses and government, especially for applications that require rich graphical user interfaces and high-performance visualization that cannot be met by thin clients running on Web browsers

Optimal allocation of physical water resources integrated with virtual water trade in water scarce regions: A case study for Beijing, China.

PubMed

Ye, Quanliang; Li, Yi; Zhuo, La; Zhang, Wenlong; Xiong, Wei; Wang, Chao; Wang, Peifang

2018-02-01

This study provides an innovative application of virtual water trade in the traditional allocation of physical water resources in water scarce regions. A multi-objective optimization model was developed to optimize the allocation of physical water and virtual water resources to different water users in Beijing, China, considering the trade-offs between economic benefit and environmental impacts of water consumption. Surface water, groundwater, transferred water and reclaimed water constituted the physical resource of water supply side, while virtual water flow associated with the trade of five major crops (barley, corn, rice, soy and wheat) and three livestock products (beef, pork and poultry) in agricultural sector (calculated by the trade quantities of products and their virtual water contents). Urban (daily activities and public facilities), industry, environment and agriculture (products growing) were considered in water demand side. As for the traditional allocation of physical water resources, the results showed that agriculture and urban were the two predominant water users (accounting 54% and 28%, respectively), while groundwater and surface water satisfied around 70% water demands of different users (accounting 36% and 34%, respectively). When considered the virtual water trade of eight agricultural products in water allocation procedure, the proportion of agricultural consumption decreased to 45% in total water demand, while the groundwater consumption decreased to 24% in total water supply. Virtual water trade overturned the traditional components of water supplied from different sources for agricultural consumption, and became the largest water source in Beijing. Additionally, it was also found that environmental demand took a similar percentage of water consumption in each water source. Reclaimed water was the main water source for industrial and environmental users. The results suggest that physical water resources would mainly satisfy the consumption of urban and environment, and the unbalance between water supply and demand could be filled by virtual water import in water scarce regions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Framework for Developing Competencies in Open and Distance Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arinto, Patricia B.

2013-01-01

Many open universities and distance education institutions have shifted from a predominantly print-based mode of delivery to an online mode characterised by the use of virtual learning environments and various web technologies. This paper describes the impact of the shift to open and distance e-learning (ODeL), as this trend might be called, on…

Science Practical Work Instructional Technologies and Open Distance Learning in Science Teacher Training: A Case Study in Zimbabwe

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bhukuvhani, Crispen; Mupa, Mathew; Mhishi, Misheck; Dziva, Daimond

2012-01-01

The practical work component offers unique challenges for university science courses. This is even more pertinent in an Open and Distance Learning (ODL) environment like the Bindura University of Science Education's Virtual and Open Distance Learning (VODL) programme. Effective ODL education should be flexible enough to accommodate science…

Dynamic provisioning of local and remote compute resources with OpenStack

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Giffels, M.; Hauth, T.; Polgart, F.; Quast, G.

2015-12-01

Modern high-energy physics experiments rely on the extensive usage of computing resources, both for the reconstruction of measured events as well as for Monte-Carlo simulation. The Institut fur Experimentelle Kernphysik (EKP) at KIT is participating in both the CMS and Belle experiments with computing and storage resources. In the upcoming years, these requirements are expected to increase due to growing amount of recorded data and the rise in complexity of the simulated events. It is therefore essential to increase the available computing capabilities by tapping into all resource pools. At the EKP institute, powerful desktop machines are available to users. Due to the multi-core nature of modern CPUs, vast amounts of CPU time are not utilized by common desktop usage patterns. Other important providers of compute capabilities are classical HPC data centers at universities or national research centers. Due to the shared nature of these installations, the standardized software stack required by HEP applications cannot be installed. A viable way to overcome this constraint and offer a standardized software environment in a transparent manner is the usage of virtualization technologies. The OpenStack project has become a widely adopted solution to virtualize hardware and offer additional services like storage and virtual machine management. This contribution will report on the incorporation of the institute's desktop machines into a private OpenStack Cloud. The additional compute resources provisioned via the virtual machines have been used for Monte-Carlo simulation and data analysis. Furthermore, a concept to integrate shared, remote HPC centers into regular HEP job workflows will be presented. In this approach, local and remote resources are merged to form a uniform, virtual compute cluster with a single point-of-entry for the user. Evaluations of the performance and stability of this setup and operational experiences will be discussed.

Nessi: An EEG-Controlled Web Browser for Severely Paralyzed Patients

PubMed Central

Bensch, Michael; Karim, Ahmed A.; Mellinger, Jürgen; Hinterberger, Thilo; Tangermann, Michael; Bogdan, Martin; Rosenstiel, Wolfgang; Birbaumer, Niels

2007-01-01

We have previously demonstrated that an EEG-controlled web browser based on self-regulation of slow cortical potentials (SCPs) enables severely paralyzed patients to browse the internet independently of any voluntary muscle control. However, this system had several shortcomings, among them that patients could only browse within a limited number of web pages and had to select links from an alphabetical list, causing problems if the link names were identical or if they were unknown to the user (as in graphical links). Here we describe a new EEG-controlled web browser, called Nessi, which overcomes these shortcomings. In Nessi, the open source browser, Mozilla, was extended by graphical in-place markers, whereby different brain responses correspond to different frame colors placed around selectable items, enabling the user to select any link on a web page. Besides links, other interactive elements are accessible to the user, such as e-mail and virtual keyboards, opening up a wide range of hypertext-based applications. PMID:18350132

Diagnostic pathology in 2012: development of digital pathology in an open access journal

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Abstract Herein we describe and interpret the digital world of diagnostic surgical pathology, and take the in Pathology leading Open Access Journal Diagnostic Pathology as example. Virtual slide http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/1944221953867351 PMID:23305209

Localising Content for an XMOOC in the UAE

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eppard, Jenny; Reddy, Preeya

2017-01-01

Universities in the UAE are entering the age of virtual and open access education. This paper describes the evolution of a MOOC at a state-funded university in Dubai. We will describe the challenges as well as a reflection of our experiences as creating virtual learning spaces in this culture differs somewhat from Western models. [For the complete…

Web3D Technologies in Learning, Education and Training: Motivations, Issues, Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chittaro, Luca; Ranon, Roberto

2007-01-01

Web3D open standards allow the delivery of interactive 3D virtual learning environments through the Internet, reaching potentially large numbers of learners worldwide, at any time. This paper introduces the educational use of virtual reality based on Web3D technologies. After briefly presenting the main Web3D technologies, we summarize the…

User Preferences in Reference Services: Virtual Reference and Academic Libraries

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cummings, Joel; Cummings, Lara; Frederiksen, Linda

2007-01-01

This study examines the use of chat in an academic library's user population and where virtual reference services might fit within the spectrum of public services offered by academic libraries. Using questionnaires, this research demonstrates that many within the academic community are open to the idea of chat-based reference or using chat for…

Virtual Communication Processes of Open and Distance Education: Some Contributions from the Cultural Studies Field

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fainholc, Beatriz

2015-01-01

The pressures of the information and digital culture exhibit innovation, but also a hegemonic power, and act in reciprocity with the global economy. Theoretical concepts and practical actions need to be revisited, to build equity in virtual communication. A sociological-cultural focus of communication mediated by technology, cannot occur without…

Toying with the World: Children, Virtual Pets and the Value of Mobility

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ruckenstein, Minna

2010-01-01

This article approaches childhood as an emergent condition in which children, their caregivers and toys all take an active part and argues that the focus on toys opens important insights for studying processes of social reproduction and change. This is demonstrated by describing children's interactions with virtual pets that encourage children to…

Nodal Analysis Optimization Based on the Use of Virtual Current Sources: A Powerful New Pedagogical Method

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chatzarakis, G. E.

2009-01-01

This paper presents a new pedagogical method for nodal analysis optimization based on the use of virtual current sources, applicable to any linear electric circuit (LEC), regardless of its complexity. The proposed method leads to straightforward solutions, mostly arrived at by inspection. Furthermore, the method is easily adapted to computer…

Psychophysical evaluation of three-dimensional auditory displays

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wightman, Frederic L.

1991-01-01

Work during this reporting period included the completion of our research on the use of principal components analysis (PCA) to model the acoustical head related transfer functions (HRTFs) that are used to synthesize virtual sources for three dimensional auditory displays. In addition, a series of studies was initiated on the perceptual errors made by listeners when localizing free-field and virtual sources. Previous research has revealed that under certain conditions these perceptual errors, often called 'confusions' or 'reversals', are both large and frequent, thus seriously comprising the utility of a 3-D virtual auditory display. The long-range goal of our work in this area is to elucidate the sources of the confusions and to develop signal-processing strategies to reduce or eliminate them.

The SCEC/UseIT Intern Program: Creating Open-Source Visualization Software Using Diverse Resources

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Francoeur, H.; Callaghan, S.; Perry, S.; Jordan, T.

2004-12-01

The Southern California Earthquake Center undergraduate IT intern program (SCEC UseIT) conducts IT research to benefit collaborative earth science research. Through this program, interns have developed real-time, interactive, 3D visualization software using open-source tools. Dubbed LA3D, a distribution of this software is now in use by the seismic community. LA3D enables the user to interactively view Southern California datasets and models of importance to earthquake scientists, such as faults, earthquakes, fault blocks, digital elevation models, and seismic hazard maps. LA3D is now being extended to support visualizations anywhere on the planet. The new software, called SCEC-VIDEO (Virtual Interactive Display of Earth Objects), makes use of a modular, plugin-based software architecture which supports easy development and integration of new data sets. Currently SCEC-VIDEO is in beta testing, with a full open-source release slated for the future. Both LA3D and SCEC-VIDEO were developed using a wide variety of software technologies. These, which included relational databases, web services, software management technologies, and 3-D graphics in Java, were necessary to integrate the heterogeneous array of data sources which comprise our software. Currently the interns are working to integrate new technologies and larger data sets to increase software functionality and value. In addition, both LA3D and SCEC-VIDEO allow the user to script and create movies. Thus program interns with computer science backgrounds have been writing software while interns with other interests, such as cinema, geology, and education, have been making movies that have proved of great use in scientific talks, media interviews, and education. Thus, SCEC UseIT incorporates a wide variety of scientific and human resources to create products of value to the scientific and outreach communities. The program plans to continue with its interdisciplinary approach, increasing the relevance of the software and expanding its use in the scientific community.

Low-Virtuality Leptoproduction of Open-Charm as a Probe of the Gluon Sivers Function

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Godbole, Rohini M.; Kaushik, Abhiram; Misra, Anuradha

2018-05-01

We propose low-virtuality leptoproduction of open-charm, p^\\uparrow l→ D^0+X, as a probe of the gluon Sivers function (GSF). At leading-order, this process directly probes the gluon content of the proton, making detection of a trasverse single-spin asymmetry in the process a clear indication of a non-zero GSF. Considering the kinematics of the proposed future Electron-Ion Collider, we present predictions for asymmetry using fits of the GSF available in literature. We also study the asymmetry at the level of muons produced in D-meson decays and find that the asymmetry is preserved therein as well.

AstroDAbis: Annotations and Cross-Matches for Remote Catalogues

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gray, N.; Mann, R. G.; Morris, D.; Holliman, M.; Noddle, K.

2012-09-01

Astronomers are good at sharing data, but poorer at sharing knowledge. Almost all astronomical data ends up in open archives, and access to these is being simplified by the development of the global Virtual Observatory (VO). This is a great advance, but the fundamental problem remains that these archives contain only basic observational data, whereas all the astrophysical interpretation of that data — which source is a quasar, which a low-mass star, and which an image artefact — is contained in journal papers, with very little linkage back from the literature to the original data archives. It is therefore currently impossible for an astronomer to pose a query like “give me all sources in this data archive that have been identified as quasars” and this limits the effective exploitation of these archives, as the user of an archive has no direct means of taking advantage of the knowledge derived by its previous users. The AstroDAbis service aims to address this, in a prototype service enabling astronomers to record annotations and cross-identifications in the AstroDAbis service, annotating objects in other catalogues. We have deployed two interfaces to the annotations, namely one astronomy-specific one using the TAP protocol (Dowler et al. 2011), and a second exploiting generic Linked Open Data (LOD) and RDF techniques.

Performance analysis of the Microsoft Kinect sensor for 2D Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) techniques.

PubMed

Kamarudin, Kamarulzaman; Mamduh, Syed Muhammad; Shakaff, Ali Yeon Md; Zakaria, Ammar

2014-12-05

This paper presents a performance analysis of two open-source, laser scanner-based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) techniques (i.e., Gmapping and Hector SLAM) using a Microsoft Kinect to replace the laser sensor. Furthermore, the paper proposes a new system integration approach whereby a Linux virtual machine is used to run the open source SLAM algorithms. The experiments were conducted in two different environments; a small room with no features and a typical office corridor with desks and chairs. Using the data logged from real-time experiments, each SLAM technique was simulated and tested with different parameter settings. The results show that the system is able to achieve real time SLAM operation. The system implementation offers a simple and reliable way to compare the performance of Windows-based SLAM algorithm with the algorithms typically implemented in a Robot Operating System (ROS). The results also indicate that certain modifications to the default laser scanner-based parameters are able to improve the map accuracy. However, the limited field of view and range of Kinect's depth sensor often causes the map to be inaccurate, especially in featureless areas, therefore the Kinect sensor is not a direct replacement for a laser scanner, but rather offers a feasible alternative for 2D SLAM tasks.

Performance Analysis of the Microsoft Kinect Sensor for 2D Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) Techniques

PubMed Central

Kamarudin, Kamarulzaman; Mamduh, Syed Muhammad; Shakaff, Ali Yeon Md; Zakaria, Ammar

2014-01-01

This paper presents a performance analysis of two open-source, laser scanner-based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) techniques (i.e., Gmapping and Hector SLAM) using a Microsoft Kinect to replace the laser sensor. Furthermore, the paper proposes a new system integration approach whereby a Linux virtual machine is used to run the open source SLAM algorithms. The experiments were conducted in two different environments; a small room with no features and a typical office corridor with desks and chairs. Using the data logged from real-time experiments, each SLAM technique was simulated and tested with different parameter settings. The results show that the system is able to achieve real time SLAM operation. The system implementation offers a simple and reliable way to compare the performance of Windows-based SLAM algorithm with the algorithms typically implemented in a Robot Operating System (ROS). The results also indicate that certain modifications to the default laser scanner-based parameters are able to improve the map accuracy. However, the limited field of view and range of Kinect's depth sensor often causes the map to be inaccurate, especially in featureless areas, therefore the Kinect sensor is not a direct replacement for a laser scanner, but rather offers a feasible alternative for 2D SLAM tasks. PMID:25490595

Implementation of Grid Tier 2 and Tier 3 facilities on a Distributed OpenStack Cloud

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Limosani, Antonio; Boland, Lucien; Coddington, Paul; Crosby, Sean; Huang, Joanna; Sevior, Martin; Wilson, Ross; Zhang, Shunde

2014-06-01

The Australian Government is making a AUD 100 million investment in Compute and Storage for the academic community. The Compute facilities are provided in the form of 30,000 CPU cores located at 8 nodes around Australia in a distributed virtualized Infrastructure as a Service facility based on OpenStack. The storage will eventually consist of over 100 petabytes located at 6 nodes. All will be linked via a 100 Gb/s network. This proceeding describes the development of a fully connected WLCG Tier-2 grid site as well as a general purpose Tier-3 computing cluster based on this architecture. The facility employs an extension to Torque to enable dynamic allocations of virtual machine instances. A base Scientific Linux virtual machine (VM) image is deployed in the OpenStack cloud and automatically configured as required using Puppet. Custom scripts are used to launch multiple VMs, integrate them into the dynamic Torque cluster and to mount remote file systems. We report on our experience in developing this nation-wide ATLAS and Belle II Tier 2 and Tier 3 computing infrastructure using the national Research Cloud and storage facilities.

Dynamic provisioning of a HEP computing infrastructure on a shared hybrid HPC system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meier, Konrad; Fleig, Georg; Hauth, Thomas; Janczyk, Michael; Quast, Günter; von Suchodoletz, Dirk; Wiebelt, Bernd

2016-10-01

Experiments in high-energy physics (HEP) rely on elaborate hardware, software and computing systems to sustain the high data rates necessary to study rare physics processes. The Institut fr Experimentelle Kernphysik (EKP) at KIT is a member of the CMS and Belle II experiments, located at the LHC and the Super-KEKB accelerators, respectively. These detectors share the requirement, that enormous amounts of measurement data must be processed and analyzed and a comparable amount of simulated events is required to compare experimental results with theoretical predictions. Classical HEP computing centers are dedicated sites which support multiple experiments and have the required software pre-installed. Nowadays, funding agencies encourage research groups to participate in shared HPC cluster models, where scientist from different domains use the same hardware to increase synergies. This shared usage proves to be challenging for HEP groups, due to their specialized software setup which includes a custom OS (often Scientific Linux), libraries and applications. To overcome this hurdle, the EKP and data center team of the University of Freiburg have developed a system to enable the HEP use case on a shared HPC cluster. To achieve this, an OpenStack-based virtualization layer is installed on top of a bare-metal cluster. While other user groups can run their batch jobs via the Moab workload manager directly on bare-metal, HEP users can request virtual machines with a specialized machine image which contains a dedicated operating system and software stack. In contrast to similar installations, in this hybrid setup, no static partitioning of the cluster into a physical and virtualized segment is required. As a unique feature, the placement of the virtual machine on the cluster nodes is scheduled by Moab and the job lifetime is coupled to the lifetime of the virtual machine. This allows for a seamless integration with the jobs sent by other user groups and honors the fairshare policies of the cluster. The developed thin integration layer between OpenStack and Moab can be adapted to other batch servers and virtualization systems, making the concept also applicable for other cluster operators. This contribution will report on the concept and implementation of an OpenStack-virtualized cluster used for HEP workflows. While the full cluster will be installed in spring 2016, a test-bed setup with 800 cores has been used to study the overall system performance and dedicated HEP jobs were run in a virtualized environment over many weeks. Furthermore, the dynamic integration of the virtualized worker nodes, depending on the workload at the institute's computing system, will be described.

A smarter way to search, share and utilize open-spatial online data for energy R&D - Custom machine learning and GIS tools in U.S. DOE's virtual data library & laboratory, EDX

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rose, K.; Bauer, J.; Baker, D.; Barkhurst, A.; Bean, A.; DiGiulio, J.; Jones, K.; Jones, T.; Justman, D.; Miller, R., III; Romeo, L.; Sabbatino, M.; Tong, A.

2017-12-01

As spatial datasets are increasingly accessible through open, online systems, the opportunity to use these resources to address a range of Earth system questions grows. Simultaneously, there is a need for better infrastructure and tools to find and utilize these resources. We will present examples of advanced online computing capabilities, hosted in the U.S. DOE's Energy Data eXchange (EDX), that address these needs for earth-energy research and development. In one study the computing team developed a custom, machine learning, big data computing tool designed to parse the web and return priority datasets to appropriate servers to develop an open-source global oil and gas infrastructure database. The results of this spatial smart search approach were validated against expert-driven, manual search results which required a team of seven spatial scientists three months to produce. The custom machine learning tool parsed online, open systems, including zip files, ftp sites and other web-hosted resources, in a matter of days. The resulting resources were integrated into a geodatabase now hosted for open access via EDX. Beyond identifying and accessing authoritative, open spatial data resources, there is also a need for more efficient tools to ingest, perform, and visualize multi-variate, spatial data analyses. Within the EDX framework, there is a growing suite of processing, analytical and visualization capabilities that allow multi-user teams to work more efficiently in private, virtual workspaces. An example of these capabilities are a set of 5 custom spatio-temporal models and data tools that form NETL's Offshore Risk Modeling suite that can be used to quantify oil spill risks and impacts. Coupling the data and advanced functions from EDX with these advanced spatio-temporal models has culminated with an integrated web-based decision-support tool. This platform has capabilities to identify and combine data across scales and disciplines, evaluate potential environmental, social, and economic impacts, highlight knowledge or technology gaps, and reduce uncertainty for a range of `what if' scenarios relevant to oil spill prevention efforts. These examples illustrate EDX's growing capabilities for advanced spatial data search and analysis to support geo-data science needs.

Open Source Dataturbine (OSDT) Android Sensorpod in Environmental Observing Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fountain, T. R.; Shin, P.; Tilak, S.; Trinh, T.; Smith, J.; Kram, S.

2014-12-01

The OSDT Android SensorPod is a custom-designed mobile computing platform for assembling wireless sensor networks for environmental monitoring applications. Funded by an award from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the OSDT SensorPod represents a significant technological advance in the application of mobile and cloud computing technologies to near-real-time applications in environmental science, natural resources management, and disaster response and recovery. It provides a modular architecture based on open standards and open-source software that allows system developers to align their projects with industry best practices and technology trends, while avoiding commercial vendor lock-in to expensive proprietary software and hardware systems. The integration of mobile and cloud-computing infrastructure represents a disruptive technology in the field of environmental science, since basic assumptions about technology requirements are now open to revision, e.g., the roles of special purpose data loggers and dedicated site infrastructure. The OSDT Android SensorPod was designed with these considerations in mind, and the resulting system exhibits the following characteristics - it is flexible, efficient and robust. The system was developed and tested in the three science applications: 1) a fresh water limnology deployment in Wisconsin, 2) a near coastal marine science deployment at the UCSD Scripps Pier, and 3) a terrestrial ecological deployment in the mountains of Taiwan. As part of a public education and outreach effort, a Facebook page with daily ocean pH measurements from the UCSD Scripps pier was developed. Wireless sensor networks and the virtualization of data and network services is the future of environmental science infrastructure. The OSDT Android SensorPod was designed and developed to harness these new technology developments for environmental monitoring applications.

A virtual photon energy fluence model for Monte Carlo dose calculation.

PubMed

Fippel, Matthias; Haryanto, Freddy; Dohm, Oliver; Nüsslin, Fridtjof; Kriesen, Stephan

2003-03-01

The presented virtual energy fluence (VEF) model of the patient-independent part of the medical linear accelerator heads, consists of two Gaussian-shaped photon sources and one uniform electron source. The planar photon sources are located close to the bremsstrahlung target (primary source) and to the flattening filter (secondary source), respectively. The electron contamination source is located in the plane defining the lower end of the filter. The standard deviations or widths and the relative weights of each source are free parameters. Five other parameters correct for fluence variations, i.e., the horn or central depression effect. If these parameters and the field widths in the X and Y directions are given, the corresponding energy fluence distribution can be calculated analytically and compared to measured dose distributions in air. This provides a method of fitting the free parameters using the measurements for various square and rectangular fields and a fixed number of monitor units. The next step in generating the whole set of base data is to calculate monoenergetic central axis depth dose distributions in water which are used to derive the energy spectrum by deconvolving the measured depth dose curves. This spectrum is also corrected to take the off-axis softening into account. The VEF model is implemented together with geometry modules for the patient specific part of the treatment head (jaws, multileaf collimator) into the XVMC dose calculation engine. The implementation into other Monte Carlo codes is possible based on the information in this paper. Experiments are performed to verify the model by comparing measured and calculated dose distributions and output factors in water. It is demonstrated that open photon beams of linear accelerators from two different vendors are accurately simulated using the VEF model. The commissioning procedure of the VEF model is clinically feasible because it is based on standard measurements in air and water. It is also useful for IMRT applications because a full Monte Carlo simulation of the treatment head would be too time-consuming for many small fields.

[The virtual library in equity, health, and human development].

PubMed

Valdés, América

2002-01-01

This article attempts to describe the rationale that has led to the development of information sources dealing with equity, health, and human development in countries of Latin America and the Caribbean within the context of the Virtual Health Library (Biblioteca Virtual en Salud, BVS). Such information sources include the scientific literature, databases in printed and electronic format, institutional directories and lists of specialists, lists of events and courses, distance education programs, specialty journals and bulletins, as well as other means of disseminating health information. The pages that follow deal with the development of a Virtual Library in Equity, Health, and Human Development, an effort rooted in the conviction that decision-making and policy geared toward achieving greater equity in health must, of necessity, be based on coherent, well-organized, and readily accessible first-rate scientific information. Information is useless unless it is converted into knowledge that benefits society. The Virtual Library in Equity, Health, and Human Development is a coordinated effort to develop a decentralized regional network of scientific information sources, with strict quality control, from which public officials can draw data and practical examples that can help them set health and development policies geared toward achieving greater equity for all.

Enhancing Security by System-Level Virtualization in Cloud Computing Environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sun, Dawei; Chang, Guiran; Tan, Chunguang; Wang, Xingwei

Many trends are opening up the era of cloud computing, which will reshape the IT industry. Virtualization techniques have become an indispensable ingredient for almost all cloud computing system. By the virtual environments, cloud provider is able to run varieties of operating systems as needed by each cloud user. Virtualization can improve reliability, security, and availability of applications by using consolidation, isolation, and fault tolerance. In addition, it is possible to balance the workloads by using live migration techniques. In this paper, the definition of cloud computing is given; and then the service and deployment models are introduced. An analysis of security issues and challenges in implementation of cloud computing is identified. Moreover, a system-level virtualization case is established to enhance the security of cloud computing environments.

Experiences from CSCW in Virtual Classrooms.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Multisilta, Jari

The rapid development of modern information and communications technologies has opened new possibilities for establishing and delivering distance learning. In addition, the new learning paradigm based on cognitive learning theories can emphasize the quality of the learning process. The open learning environment that utilizes modern communications…

Reduced order modeling of head related transfer functions for virtual acoustic displays

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Willhite, Joel A.; Frampton, Kenneth D.; Grantham, D. Wesley

2003-04-01

The purpose of this work is to improve the computational efficiency in acoustic virtual applications by creating and testing reduced order models of the head related transfer functions used in localizing sound sources. State space models of varying order were generated from zero-elevation Head Related Impulse Responses (HRIRs) using Kungs Single Value Decomposition (SVD) technique. The inputs to the models are the desired azimuths of the virtual sound sources (from minus 90 deg to plus 90 deg, in 10 deg increments) and the outputs are the left and right ear impulse responses. Trials were conducted in an anechoic chamber in which subjects were exposed to real sounds that were emitted by individual speakers across a numbered speaker array, phantom sources generated from the original HRIRs, and phantom sound sources generated with the different reduced order state space models. The error in the perceived direction of the phantom sources generated from the reduced order models was compared to errors in localization using the original HRIRs.

A source-attractor approach to network detection of radiation sources

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

Wu, Qishi; Barry, M. L..; Grieme, M.

Radiation source detection using a network of detectors is an active field of research for homeland security and defense applications. We propose Source-attractor Radiation Detection (SRD) method to aggregate measurements from a network of detectors for radiation source detection. SRD method models a potential radiation source as a magnet -like attractor that pulls in pre-computed virtual points from the detector locations. A detection decision is made if a sufficient level of attraction, quantified by the increase in the clustering of the shifted virtual points, is observed. Compared with traditional methods, SRD has the following advantages: i) it does not requiremore » an accurate estimate of the source location from limited and noise-corrupted sensor readings, unlike the localizationbased methods, and ii) its virtual point shifting and clustering calculation involve simple arithmetic operations based on the number of detectors, avoiding the high computational complexity of grid-based likelihood estimation methods. We evaluate its detection performance using canonical datasets from Domestic Nuclear Detection Office s (DNDO) Intelligence Radiation Sensors Systems (IRSS) tests. SRD achieves both lower false alarm rate and false negative rate compared to three existing algorithms for network source detection.« less

Games, Simulations and Virtual Labs for Science Education: a Compendium and Some Examples

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Russell, R. M.

2012-12-01

We have assembled a list of computer-based simulations, games, and virtual labs for science education. This list, with links to the sources of these resources, is available online. The entries span a broad range of science, math, and engineering topics. They also span a range of target student ages, from elementary school to university students. We will provide a brief overview of this web site and the resources found on it. We will also briefly demonstrate some of our own educational simulations and games. Computer-based simulations and virtual labs are valuable resources for science educators in various settings, allowing learners to experiment and explore "what if" scenarios. Educational computer games can motivate learners in both formal and informal settings, encouraging them to spend much more time exploring a topic than they might otherwise be inclined to do. Part of this presentation is effectively a "literature review" of numerous sources of simulations, games, and virtual labs. Although we have encountered several nice collections of such resources, those collections seem to be restricted in scope. They either represent materials developed by a specific group or agency (e.g. NOAA's games web site) or are restricted to a specific discipline (e.g. geology simulations and virtual labs). This presentation directs viewers to games, simulations, and virtual labs from many different sources and spanning a broad range of STEM disciplines.

3D geospatial visualizations: Animation and motion effects on spatial objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Evangelidis, Konstantinos; Papadopoulos, Theofilos; Papatheodorou, Konstantinos; Mastorokostas, Paris; Hilas, Constantinos

2018-02-01

Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), in combination with high quality raster graphics provide realistic three-dimensional (3D) representations of the globe (virtual globe) and amazing navigation experience over the terrain through earth browsers. In addition, the adoption of interoperable geospatial mark-up languages (e.g. KML) and open programming libraries (Javascript) makes it also possible to create 3D spatial objects and convey on them the sensation of any type of texture by utilizing open 3D representation models (e.g. Collada). One step beyond, by employing WebGL frameworks (e.g. Cesium.js, three.js) animation and motion effects are attributed on 3D models. However, major GIS-based functionalities in combination with all the above mentioned visualization capabilities such as for example animation effects on selected areas of the terrain texture (e.g. sea waves) as well as motion effects on 3D objects moving in dynamically defined georeferenced terrain paths (e.g. the motion of an animal over a hill, or of a big fish in an ocean etc.) are not widely supported at least by open geospatial applications or development frameworks. Towards this we developed and made available to the research community, an open geospatial software application prototype that provides high level capabilities for dynamically creating user defined virtual geospatial worlds populated by selected animated and moving 3D models on user specified locations, paths and areas. At the same time, the generated code may enhance existing open visualization frameworks and programming libraries dealing with 3D simulations, with the geospatial aspect of a virtual world.

Towards a Global Service Registry for the World-Wide LHC Computing Grid

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Field, Laurence; Alandes Pradillo, Maria; Di Girolamo, Alessandro

2014-06-01

The World-Wide LHC Computing Grid encompasses a set of heterogeneous information systems; from central portals such as the Open Science Grid's Information Management System and the Grid Operations Centre Database, to the WLCG information system, where the information sources are the Grid services themselves. Providing a consistent view of the information, which involves synchronising all these informations systems, is a challenging activity that has lead the LHC virtual organisations to create their own configuration databases. This experience, whereby each virtual organisation's configuration database interfaces with multiple information systems, has resulted in the duplication of effort, especially relating to the use of manual checks for the handling of inconsistencies. The Global Service Registry aims to address this issue by providing a centralised service that aggregates information from multiple information systems. It shows both information on registered resources (i.e. what should be there) and available resources (i.e. what is there). The main purpose is to simplify the synchronisation of the virtual organisation's own configuration databases, which are used for job submission and data management, through the provision of a single interface for obtaining all the information. By centralising the information, automated consistency and validation checks can be performed to improve the overall quality of information provided. Although internally the GLUE 2.0 information model is used for the purpose of integration, the Global Service Registry in not dependent on any particular information model for ingestion or dissemination. The intention is to allow the virtual organisation's configuration databases to be decoupled from the underlying information systems in a transparent way and hence simplify any possible future migration due to the evolution of those systems. This paper presents the Global Service Registry architecture, its advantages compared to the current situation and how it can support the evolution of information systems.

Evidence-based design and development of a VR-based treadmill system for gait research and rehabilitation of patients with Parkinson's disease.

PubMed

Pérez-Sanpablo, Alberto Isaac; González-Mendoza, Arturo; Quiñones-Uriostegui, Ivett; Rodríguez-Reyes, Gerardo; Núñez-Carrera, Lidia; Hernández-Arenas, Claudia; Boll-Woehrlen, Marie Catherine; Alessi Montero, Aldo

2014-07-01

Virtual reality (VR) in neurorehabilitation allows to reduce patient's risk and allows him to learn on a faster way. Up to now VR has been used in patients with Parkinson disease (PD) as a research tool and none of the developed systems are used in clinical practice. The goal of this project is to develop a VR-based system for gait therapy, and gait research of patients with PD designed based on published evidence. The developed system uses a digital camera to measure spatiotemporal gait parameters. The software was developed in C#, using Open-Source libraries that facilitates VR programming. The system has potential uses in clinical and research settings.

Particle physics and polyedra proximity calculation for hazard simulations in large-scale industrial plants

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Plebe, Alice; Grasso, Giorgio

2016-12-01

This paper describes a system developed for the simulation of flames inside an open-source 3D computer graphic software, Blender, with the aim of analyzing in virtual reality scenarios of hazards in large-scale industrial plants. The advantages of Blender are of rendering at high resolution the very complex structure of large industrial plants, and of embedding a physical engine based on smoothed particle hydrodynamics. This particle system is used to evolve a simulated fire. The interaction of this fire with the components of the plant is computed using polyhedron separation distance, adopting a Voronoi-based strategy that optimizes the number of feature distance computations. Results on a real oil and gas refining industry are presented.

How to Make a Virtual Landscape with Outcrops for Use in Geoscience Teaching

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Houghton, J.; Gordon, C.; Craven, B.; Robinson, A.; Lloyd, G. E. E.; Morgan, D. J.

2016-12-01

We are using screen-based virtual reality landscapes to augment the teaching of basic geological field skills and to enhance 3D visualisation skills. Here we focus on the processes of creating these landscapes, both imagined and real, in the Unity 3D game engine. The virtual landscapes are terrains with embedded data for mapping exercises, or draped geological maps for understanding the 3D interaction of the geology with the topography. The nature of the landscapes built depends on the learning outcomes of the intended teaching exercise. For example, a simple model of two hills and a valley over which to drape a series of different geological maps can be used to enhance the understanding of the 3D interaction of the geology with the topography. A more complex topography reflecting the underlying geology can be used for geological mapping exercises. The process starts with a contour image or DEM, which needs to be converted into RAW files to be imported into Unity. Within Unity itself, there are a series of steps needed to create a world around the terrain (the setting of cameras, lighting, skyboxes etc) before the terrain can be painted with vegetation and populated with assets or before a splatmap of the geology can be added. We discuss how additional features such as a GPS unit or compass can be included. We are also working to create landscapes based on real localities, both in response to the demand for greater realism and to support students unable to access the field due to health or mobility issues. This includes adding 3D photogrammetric images of outcrops into the worlds. This process uses the open source/freeware tools VisualSFM and MeshLab to create files suitable to be imported into Unity. This project is a collaboration between the University of Leeds and Leeds College of Art, UK, and all our virtual landscapes are freely available online at www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/.

A selective array activation method for the generation of a focused source considering listening position.

PubMed

Song, Min-Ho; Choi, Jung-Woo; Kim, Yang-Hann

2012-02-01

A focused source can provide an auditory illusion of a virtual source placed between the loudspeaker array and the listener. When a focused source is generated by time-reversed acoustic focusing solution, its use as a virtual source is limited due to artifacts caused by convergent waves traveling towards the focusing point. This paper proposes an array activation method to reduce the artifacts for a selected listening point inside an array of arbitrary shape. Results show that energy of convergent waves can be reduced up to 60 dB for a large region including the selected listening point. © 2012 Acoustical Society of America

Virtual Reality Based Collaborative Design by Children with High-Functioning Autism: Design-Based Flexibility, Identity, and Norm Construction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ke, Fengfeng; Lee, Sungwoong

2016-01-01

This exploratory case study examined the process and potential impact of collaborative architectural design and construction in an OpenSimulator-based virtual reality (VR) on the social skills development of children with high-functioning autism (HFA). Two children with a formal medical diagnosis of HFA and one typically developing peer, aged…

Level of Abstraction and Feelings of Presence in Virtual Space: Business English Negotiation in Open Wonderland

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Judy F.; Warden, Clyde A.; Tai, David Wen-Shung; Chen, Farn-Shing; Chao, Chich-Yang

2011-01-01

Virtual spaces allow abstract representations of reality that not only encourage student self-directed learning but also reinforce core content of the learning objective through visual metaphors not reproducible in the physical world. One of the advantages of such a space is the ability to escape the restrictions of the physical classroom, yet…

Learning in Virtual Forest: A Forest Ecosystem in the Web-Based Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jussila, Terttu; Virtanen, Viivi

2014-01-01

Virtual Forest is a web-based, open-access learning environment about forests designed for primary-school pupils between the ages of 10 and 13 years. It is pedagogically designed to develop an understanding of ecology, to enhance conceptual development and to give a holistic view of forest ecosystems. Various learning tools, such as concept maps,…

Employing Virtual Humans for Education and Training in X3D/VRML Worlds

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ieronutti, Lucio; Chittaro, Luca

2007-01-01

Web-based education and training provides a new paradigm for imparting knowledge; students can access the learning material anytime by operating remotely from any location. Web3D open standards, such as X3D and VRML, support Web-based delivery of Educational Virtual Environments (EVEs). EVEs have a great potential for learning and training…

CyberDeutsch: Language Production and User Preferences in a Moodle Virtual Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stickler, Ursula; Hampel, Regine

2010-01-01

This case study focuses on two learners who took part in an intensive online German course offered to intermediate level students in the Department of Languages of the Open University. The course piloted the use of a Moodle-based virtual learning environment and a range of new online tools which lend themselves to different types of language…

High efficiency virtual impactor

DOEpatents

Loo, Billy W.

1981-01-01

Environmental monitoring of atmospheric air is facilitated by a single stage virtual impactor (11) for separating an inlet flow (Q.sub.O) having particulate contaminants into a coarse particle flow (Q.sub.1) and a fine particle flow (Q.sub.2) to enable collection of such particles on different filters (19a, 19b) for separate analysis. An inlet particle acceleration nozzle (28) and coarse particle collection probe member (37) having a virtual impaction opening (41) are aligned along a single axis (13) and spaced apart to define a flow separation region (14) at which the fine particle flow (Q.sub.2) is drawn radially outward into a chamber (21) while the coarse particle flow (Q.sub.1) enters the virtual impaction opening (41). Symmetrical outlet means (47) for the chamber (21) provide flow symmetry at the separation region (14) to assure precise separation of particles about a cutpoint size and to minimize losses by wall impaction and gravitational settling. Impulse defocusing means (42) in the probe member (37) provides uniform coarse particle deposition on the filter (19a) to aid analysis. Particle losses of less than 1% for particles in the 0 to 20 micron range may be realized.

Staghorn: An Automated Large-Scale Distributed System Analysis Platform

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

Gabert, Kasimir; Burns, Ian; Elliott, Steven

2016-09-01

Conducting experiments on large-scale distributed computing systems is becoming significantly easier with the assistance of emulation. Researchers can now create a model of a distributed computing environment and then generate a virtual, laboratory copy of the entire system composed of potentially thousands of virtual machines, switches, and software. The use of real software, running at clock rate in full virtual machines, allows experiments to produce meaningful results without necessitating a full understanding of all model components. However, the ability to inspect and modify elements within these models is bound by the limitation that such modifications must compete with the model,more » either running in or alongside it. This inhibits entire classes of analyses from being conducted upon these models. We developed a mechanism to snapshot an entire emulation-based model as it is running. This allows us to \\freeze time" and subsequently fork execution, replay execution, modify arbitrary parts of the model, or deeply explore the model. This snapshot includes capturing packets in transit and other input/output state along with the running virtual machines. We were able to build this system in Linux using Open vSwitch and Kernel Virtual Machines on top of Sandia's emulation platform Firewheel. This primitive opens the door to numerous subsequent analyses on models, including state space exploration, debugging distributed systems, performance optimizations, improved training environments, and improved experiment repeatability.« less

Gender-Specific Covariations between Competencies, Interest and Effort during Science Learning in Virtual Environments

PubMed Central

Christophel, Eva; Schnotz, Wolfgang

2017-01-01

Women are still underrepresented in engineering courses although some German universities offer separate women’s engineering courses which include virtual STEM learning environments. To outline information about fundamental aspects relevant for virtual STEM learning, one has to reveal which similarities both genders in virtual learning show. Moreover, the question arises as to whether there are in fact differences in the virtual science learning of female and male learners. Working with virtual STEM learning environments requires strategic and arithmetic-operative competences. Even if we assume that female and male learners have similar competences levels, their correlational pattern of competences, motivational variables, and invested effort during virtual STEM learning might differ. If such gender differences in the correlations between cognitive and motivational variables and learning behavior were revealed, it would be possible to finetune study conditions for female students in a separate engineering course and shape virtual STEM learning in a more gender-appropriate manner. That might support an increase in the number of women in engineering courses. To reveal the differences and similarities between female and male learners, a field study was conducted with 56 students (female = 27, male = 29) as part of the Open MINT Labs project (the German term for Open STEM Labs, OML). The participants had to complete a virtual STEM learning environment during their regular science lessons. The data were collected with questionnaires. The results revealed that the strategic competences of both genders were positively correlated with situational interest in the virtual learning environment. This result shows the big impact strategic competences have for both genders regarding their situational interest. In contrast, the correlations between mental effort and competences differed between female and male participants. Especially female learners’ mental effort decreased if they had more strategic competences. On the other hand, female learners’ mental effort increased if they had more arithmetic-operative competences. All in all, female learners seem to be more sensitive to differences in their strategic and arithmetic-operative competences regarding their mental effort. These results imply that the implementation of separate women’s engineering courses could be an interesting approach. PMID:29114234

MOLA: a bootable, self-configuring system for virtual screening using AutoDock4/Vina on computer clusters.

PubMed

Abreu, Rui Mv; Froufe, Hugo Jc; Queiroz, Maria João Rp; Ferreira, Isabel Cfr

2010-10-28

Virtual screening of small molecules using molecular docking has become an important tool in drug discovery. However, large scale virtual screening is time demanding and usually requires dedicated computer clusters. There are a number of software tools that perform virtual screening using AutoDock4 but they require access to dedicated Linux computer clusters. Also no software is available for performing virtual screening with Vina using computer clusters. In this paper we present MOLA, an easy-to-use graphical user interface tool that automates parallel virtual screening using AutoDock4 and/or Vina in bootable non-dedicated computer clusters. MOLA automates several tasks including: ligand preparation, parallel AutoDock4/Vina jobs distribution and result analysis. When the virtual screening project finishes, an open-office spreadsheet file opens with the ligands ranked by binding energy and distance to the active site. All results files can automatically be recorded on an USB-flash drive or on the hard-disk drive using VirtualBox. MOLA works inside a customized Live CD GNU/Linux operating system, developed by us, that bypass the original operating system installed on the computers used in the cluster. This operating system boots from a CD on the master node and then clusters other computers as slave nodes via ethernet connections. MOLA is an ideal virtual screening tool for non-experienced users, with a limited number of multi-platform heterogeneous computers available and no access to dedicated Linux computer clusters. When a virtual screening project finishes, the computers can just be restarted to their original operating system. The originality of MOLA lies on the fact that, any platform-independent computer available can he added to the cluster, without ever using the computer hard-disk drive and without interfering with the installed operating system. With a cluster of 10 processors, and a potential maximum speed-up of 10x, the parallel algorithm of MOLA performed with a speed-up of 8,64× using AutoDock4 and 8,60× using Vina.

Gender-Specific Covariations between Competencies, Interest and Effort during Science Learning in Virtual Environments.

PubMed

Christophel, Eva; Schnotz, Wolfgang

2017-01-01

Women are still underrepresented in engineering courses although some German universities offer separate women's engineering courses which include virtual STEM learning environments. To outline information about fundamental aspects relevant for virtual STEM learning, one has to reveal which similarities both genders in virtual learning show. Moreover, the question arises as to whether there are in fact differences in the virtual science learning of female and male learners. Working with virtual STEM learning environments requires strategic and arithmetic-operative competences. Even if we assume that female and male learners have similar competences levels, their correlational pattern of competences, motivational variables, and invested effort during virtual STEM learning might differ. If such gender differences in the correlations between cognitive and motivational variables and learning behavior were revealed, it would be possible to finetune study conditions for female students in a separate engineering course and shape virtual STEM learning in a more gender-appropriate manner. That might support an increase in the number of women in engineering courses. To reveal the differences and similarities between female and male learners, a field study was conducted with 56 students (female = 27, male = 29) as part of the Open MINT Labs project (the German term for Open STEM Labs, OML). The participants had to complete a virtual STEM learning environment during their regular science lessons. The data were collected with questionnaires. The results revealed that the strategic competences of both genders were positively correlated with situational interest in the virtual learning environment. This result shows the big impact strategic competences have for both genders regarding their situational interest. In contrast, the correlations between mental effort and competences differed between female and male participants. Especially female learners' mental effort decreased if they had more strategic competences. On the other hand, female learners' mental effort increased if they had more arithmetic-operative competences. All in all, female learners seem to be more sensitive to differences in their strategic and arithmetic-operative competences regarding their mental effort. These results imply that the implementation of separate women's engineering courses could be an interesting approach.

NOWCASTING AND FORECASTING BEACH BACTERIA CONCENTRATIONS USING EPA VIRTUAL BEACH SOFTWARE

EPA Science Inventory

Evidence shows that traditional persistence-based beach closure decision making is inadequate, beaches are closed when they could be open and kept open when they should be closed. Intense interest is now focused on efforts to nowcast beach conditions using surrogate variables, su...

VERCE: a productive e-Infrastructure and e-Science environment for data-intensive seismology research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vilotte, J. P.; Atkinson, M.; Spinuso, A.; Rietbrock, A.; Michelini, A.; Igel, H.; Frank, A.; Carpené, M.; Schwichtenberg, H.; Casarotti, E.; Filgueira, R.; Garth, T.; Germünd, A.; Klampanos, I.; Krause, A.; Krischer, L.; Leong, S. H.; Magnoni, F.; Matser, J.; Moguilny, G.

2015-12-01

Seismology addresses both fundamental problems in understanding the Earth's internal wave sources and structures and augmented societal applications, like earthquake and tsunami hazard assessment and risk mitigation; and puts a premium on open-data accessible by the Federated Digital Seismological Networks. The VERCE project, "Virtual Earthquake and seismology Research Community e-science environment in Europe", has initiated a virtual research environment to support complex orchestrated workflows combining state-of-art wave simulation codes and data analysis tools on distributed computing and data infrastructures (DCIs) along with multiple sources of observational data and new capabilities to combine simulation results with observational data. The VERCE Science Gateway provides a view of all the available resources, supporting collaboration with shared data and methods, with data access controls. The mapping to DCIs handles identity management, authority controls, transformations between representations and controls, and access to resources. The framework for computational science that provides simulation codes, like SPECFEM3D, democratizes their use by getting data from multiple sources, managing Earth models and meshes, distilling them as input data, and capturing results with meta-data. The dispel4py data-intensive framework allows for developing data-analysis applications using Python and the ObsPy library, which can be executed on different DCIs. A set of tools allows coupling with seismology and external data services. Provenance driven tools validate results and show relationships between data to facilitate method improvement. Lessons learned from VERCE training lead us to conclude that solid-Earth scientists could make significant progress by using VERCE e-science environment. VERCE has already contributed to the European Plate Observation System (EPOS), and is part of the EPOS implementation phase. Its cross-disciplinary capabilities are being extended for the EPOS implantation phase.

Improvements of sound localization abilities by the facial ruff of the barn owl (Tyto alba) as demonstrated by virtual ruff removal.

PubMed

Hausmann, Laura; von Campenhausen, Mark; Endler, Frank; Singheiser, Martin; Wagner, Hermann

2009-11-05

When sound arrives at the eardrum it has already been filtered by the body, head, and outer ear. This process is mathematically described by the head-related transfer functions (HRTFs), which are characteristic for the spatial position of a sound source and for the individual ear. HRTFs in the barn owl (Tyto alba) are also shaped by the facial ruff, a specialization that alters interaural time differences (ITD), interaural intensity differences (ILD), and the frequency spectrum of the incoming sound to improve sound localization. Here we created novel stimuli to simulate the removal of the barn owl's ruff in a virtual acoustic environment, thus creating a situation similar to passive listening in other animals, and used these stimuli in behavioral tests. HRTFs were recorded from an owl before and after removal of the ruff feathers. Normal and ruff-removed conditions were created by filtering broadband noise with the HRTFs. Under normal virtual conditions, no differences in azimuthal head-turning behavior between individualized and non-individualized HRTFs were observed. The owls were able to respond differently to stimuli from the back than to stimuli from the front having the same ITD. By contrast, such a discrimination was not possible after the virtual removal of the ruff. Elevational head-turn angles were (slightly) smaller with non-individualized than with individualized HRTFs. The removal of the ruff resulted in a large decrease in elevational head-turning amplitudes. The facial ruff a) improves azimuthal sound localization by increasing the ITD range and b) improves elevational sound localization in the frontal field by introducing a shift of iso-ILD lines out of the midsagittal plane, which causes ILDs to increase with increasing stimulus elevation. The changes at the behavioral level could be related to the changes in the binaural physical parameters that occurred after the virtual removal of the ruff. These data provide new insights into the function of external hearing structures and open up the possibility to apply the results on autonomous agents, creation of virtual auditory environments for humans, or in hearing aids.

Virtual worlds: a new frontier for nurse education?

PubMed

Green, Janet; Wyllie, Aileen; Jackson, Debra

2014-01-01

Virtual worlds have the potential to offer nursing students social networking and, learning, opportunities through the use of collaborative and immersive learning. If nursing educators, are to stay, abreast of contemporary learning opportunities an exploration of the potential benefits of, virtual, worlds and their possibilities is needed. Literature was sourced that explored virtual worlds, and their, use in education, but nursing education specifically. It is clear that immersive learning has, positive, benefits for nursing, however the best way to approach virtual reality in nursing education, has yet to, be ascertained.

Cytopathology whole slide images and adaptive tutorials for postgraduate pathology trainees: a randomized crossover trial.

PubMed

Van Es, Simone L; Kumar, Rakesh K; Pryor, Wendy M; Salisbury, Elizabeth L; Velan, Gary M

2015-09-01

To determine whether cytopathology whole slide images and virtual microscopy adaptive tutorials aid learning by postgraduate trainees, we designed a randomized crossover trial to evaluate the quantitative and qualitative impact of whole slide images and virtual microscopy adaptive tutorials compared with traditional glass slide and textbook methods of learning cytopathology. Forty-three anatomical pathology registrars were recruited from Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia. Online assessments were used to determine efficacy, whereas user experience and perceptions of efficiency were evaluated using online Likert scales and open-ended questions. Outcomes of online assessments indicated that, with respect to performance, learning with whole slide images and virtual microscopy adaptive tutorials was equivalent to using traditional methods. High-impact learning, efficiency, and equity of learning from virtual microscopy adaptive tutorials were strong themes identified in open-ended responses. Participants raised concern about the lack of z-axis capability in the cytopathology whole slide images, suggesting that delivery of z-stacked whole slide images online may be important for future educational development. In this trial, learning cytopathology with whole slide images and virtual microscopy adaptive tutorials was found to be as effective as and perceived as more efficient than learning from glass slides and textbooks. The use of whole slide images and virtual microscopy adaptive tutorials has the potential to provide equitable access to effective learning from teaching material of consistently high quality. It also has broader implications for continuing professional development and maintenance of competence and quality assurance in specialist practice. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Virtual study groups and online Observed Structured Clinical Examinations practices - enabling trainees to enable themselves.

PubMed

Davidson, Dennisa; Evans, Lois

2018-03-01

To explore online study groups as augmentation tools in preparing for the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Observed Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCE) for fellowship. An online survey of New Zealand trainees was carried out to assess exam preparedness and openness to virtual study groups and results analysed. Relevant material around virtual study groups for fellowship examinations was reviewed and used to inform a pilot virtual study group. Four New Zealand trainees took part in the pilot project, looking at using a virtual platform to augment OSCE preparation. Of the 50 respondents 36% felt adequately prepared for the OSCE. Sixty-four per cent were interested in using a virtual platform to augment their study. Virtual study groups were noted to be especially important for rural trainees, none of whom felt able to form study groups for themselves. The pilot virtual study group was trialled successfully. All four trainees reported the experience as subjectively beneficial to their examination preparation. Virtual platforms hold promise as an augmentation strategy for exam preparation, especially for rural trainees who are more geographically isolated and less likely to have peers preparing for the same examinations.

Will E-Business Shape the Future of Open and Distance Learning?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oblinger, Diana

2001-01-01

Explores the impact that electronic business is likely to have on the growth of open and distance learning. Discusses global consortia and global virtual universities; technological developments, including Web qualities; value chains; pricing models; the importance of scale; operating efficiencies; and increasing competition. (Author/LRW)

Oregon State University | Oregon State University

Science.gov Websites

Services About Academics Research Outreach Athletics OSU150 Current Students Online Students Future Students Faculty and Staff Parents and Family Open Menu Open Search search for people and pages Search OSU - and ours. More Research. Virtual Tour Tools and Services Audience Menu Future Students Current

Virtual day of the midwife: a global 'pyjama party'.

PubMed

Stewart, Sarah

2014-06-01

The Virtual International Day of the Midwife (VIDM) (www.vidm.org) is an annual online conference designed to break down traditional barriers to continuing professional development (CPD); provide online opportunities for international midwifery networking; and model open access communication and collaboration practices. Whilst the VIDM is designed to reach midwives all around the world, issues of access to the Internet, language and cultural differences prevent some midwives from attending, especially those who live in resource-poor countries. Nevertheless, the VIDM has successfully demonstrated how CPD can be delivered to midwives in a flexible and cost-effective way, as well as bring them together in a truly global open and collaborative environment.

Office-Based Three-Dimensional Printing Workflow for Craniomaxillofacial Fracture Repair.

PubMed

Elegbede, Adekunle; Diaconu, Silviu C; McNichols, Colton H L; Seu, Michelle; Rasko, Yvonne M; Grant, Michael P; Nam, Arthur J

2018-03-08

Three-dimensional printing of patient-specific models is being used in various aspects of craniomaxillofacial reconstruction. Printing is typically outsourced to off-site vendors, with the main disadvantages being increased costs and time for production. Office-based 3-dimensional printing has been proposed as a means to reduce costs and delays, but remains largely underused because of the perception among surgeons that it is futuristic, highly technical, and prohibitively expensive. The goal of this report is to demonstrate the feasibility and ease of incorporating in-office 3-dimensional printing into the standard workflow for facial fracture repair.Patients with complex mandible fractures requiring open repair were identified. Open-source software was used to create virtual 3-dimensional skeletal models of the, initial injury pattern, and then the ideally reduced fractures based on preoperative computed tomography (CT) scan images. The virtual 3-dimensional skeletal models were then printed in our office using a commercially available 3-dimensional printer and bioplastic filament. The 3-dimensional skeletal models were used as templates to bend and shape titanium plates that were subsequently used for intraoperative fixation.Average print time was 6 hours. Excluding the 1-time cost of the 3-dimensional printer of $2500, roughly the cost of a single commercially produced model, the average material cost to print 1 model mandible was $4.30. Postoperative CT imaging demonstrated precise, predicted reduction in all patients.Office-based 3-dimensional printing of skeletal models can be routinely used in repair of facial fractures in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

Participatory Gis: Experimentations for a 3d Social Virtual Globe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brovelli, M. A.; Minghini, M.; Zamboni, G.

2013-08-01

The dawn of GeoWeb 2.0, the geographic extension of Web 2.0, has opened new possibilities in terms of online dissemination and sharing of geospatial contents, thus laying the foundations for a fruitful development of Participatory GIS (PGIS). The purpose of the study is to investigate the extension of PGIS applications, which are quite mature in the traditional bi-dimensional framework, up to the third dimension. More in detail, the system should couple a powerful 3D visualization with an increase of public participation by means of a tool allowing data collecting from mobile devices (e.g. smartphones and tablets). The PGIS application, built using the open source NASA World Wind virtual globe, is focussed on the cultural and tourism heritage of Como city, located in Northern Italy. An authentication mechanism was implemented, which allows users to create and manage customized projects through cartographic mash-ups of Web Map Service (WMS) layers. Saved projects populate a catalogue which is available to the entire community. Together with historical maps and the current cartography of the city, the system is also able to manage geo-tagged multimedia data, which come from user field-surveys performed through mobile devices and report POIs (Points Of Interest). Each logged user can then contribute to POIs characterization by adding textual and multimedia information (e.g. images, audios and videos) directly on the globe. All in all, the resulting application allows users to create and share contributions as it usually happens on social platforms, additionally providing a realistic 3D representation enhancing the expressive power of data.

KinImmerse: Macromolecular VR for NMR ensembles

PubMed Central

Block, Jeremy N; Zielinski, David J; Chen, Vincent B; Davis, Ian W; Vinson, E Claire; Brady, Rachael; Richardson, Jane S; Richardson, David C

2009-01-01

Background In molecular applications, virtual reality (VR) and immersive virtual environments have generally been used and valued for the visual and interactive experience – to enhance intuition and communicate excitement – rather than as part of the actual research process. In contrast, this work develops a software infrastructure for research use and illustrates such use on a specific case. Methods The Syzygy open-source toolkit for VR software was used to write the KinImmerse program, which translates the molecular capabilities of the kinemage graphics format into software for display and manipulation in the DiVE (Duke immersive Virtual Environment) or other VR system. KinImmerse is supported by the flexible display construction and editing features in the KiNG kinemage viewer and it implements new forms of user interaction in the DiVE. Results In addition to molecular visualizations and navigation, KinImmerse provides a set of research tools for manipulation, identification, co-centering of multiple models, free-form 3D annotation, and output of results. The molecular research test case analyzes the local neighborhood around an individual atom within an ensemble of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) models, enabling immersive visual comparison of the local conformation with the local NMR experimental data, including target curves for residual dipolar couplings (RDCs). Conclusion The promise of KinImmerse for production-level molecular research in the DiVE is shown by the locally co-centered RDC visualization developed there, which gave new insights now being pursued in wider data analysis. PMID:19222844

How much can a single webcam tell to the operation of a water system?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Giuliani, Matteo; Castelletti, Andrea; Fedorov, Roman; Fraternali, Piero

2017-04-01

Recent advances in environmental monitoring are making a wide range of hydro-meteorological data available with a great potential to enhance understanding, modelling and management of environmental processes. Despite this progress, continuous monitoring of highly spatiotemporal heterogeneous processes is not well established yet, especially in inaccessible sites. In this context, the unprecedented availability of user-generated data on the web might open new opportunities for enhancing real-time monitoring and modeling of environmental systems based on data that are public, low-cost, and spatiotemporally dense. In this work, we focus on snow and contribute a novel crowdsourcing procedure for extracting snow-related information from public web images, either produced by users or generated by touristic webcams. A fully automated process fetches mountain images from multiple sources, identifies the peaks present therein, and estimates virtual snow indexes representing a proxy of the snow-covered area. The operational value of the obtained virtual snow indexes is then assessed for a real-world water-management problem, where we use these indexes for informing the daily control of a regulated lake supplying water for multiple purposes. Numerical results show that such information is effective in extending the anticipation capacity of the lake operations, ultimately improving the system performance. Our procedure has the potential for complementing traditional snow-related information, minimizing costs and efforts for obtaining the virtual snow indexes and, at the same time, maximizing the portability of the procedure to several locations where such public images are available.

Using crowdsourced web content for informing water systems operations in snow-dominated catchments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Giuliani, Matteo; Castelletti, Andrea; Fedorov, Roman; Fraternali, Piero

2016-12-01

Snow is a key component of the hydrologic cycle in many regions of the world. Despite recent advances in environmental monitoring that are making a wide range of data available, continuous snow monitoring systems that can collect data at high spatial and temporal resolution are not well established yet, especially in inaccessible high-latitude or mountainous regions. The unprecedented availability of user-generated data on the web is opening new opportunities for enhancing real-time monitoring and modeling of environmental systems based on data that are public, low-cost, and spatiotemporally dense. In this paper, we contribute a novel crowdsourcing procedure for extracting snow-related information from public web images, either produced by users or generated by touristic webcams. A fully automated process fetches mountain images from multiple sources, identifies the peaks present therein, and estimates virtual snow indexes representing a proxy of the snow-covered area. Our procedure has the potential for complementing traditional snow-related information, minimizing costs and efforts for obtaining the virtual snow indexes and, at the same time, maximizing the portability of the procedure to several locations where such public images are available. The operational value of the obtained virtual snow indexes is assessed for a real-world water-management problem, the regulation of Lake Como, where we use these indexes for informing the daily operations of the lake. Numerical results show that such information is effective in extending the anticipation capacity of the lake operations, ultimately improving the system performance.

CUAHSI Data Services: Tools and Cyberinfrastructure for Water Data Discovery, Research and Collaboration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seul, M.; Brazil, L.; Castronova, A. M.

2017-12-01

CUAHSI Data Services: Tools and Cyberinfrastructure for Water Data Discovery, Research and CollaborationEnabling research surrounding interdisciplinary topics often requires a combination of finding, managing, and analyzing large data sets and models from multiple sources. This challenge has led the National Science Foundation to make strategic investments in developing community data tools and cyberinfrastructure that focus on water data, as it is central need for many of these research topics. CUAHSI (The Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc.) is a non-profit organization funded by the National Science Foundation to aid students, researchers, and educators in using and managing data and models to support research and education in the water sciences. This presentation will focus on open-source CUAHSI-supported tools that enable enhanced data discovery online using advanced searching capabilities and computational analysis run in virtual environments pre-designed for educators and scientists so they can focus their efforts on data analysis rather than IT set-up.

Discovery of d-amino acid oxidase inhibitors based on virtual screening against the lid-open enzyme conformation.

PubMed

Szilágyi, Bence; Skok, Žiga; Rácz, Anita; Frlan, Rok; Ferenczy, György G; Ilaš, Janez; Keserű, György M

2018-06-01

d-Amino acid oxidase (DAAO) inhibitors are typically small polar compounds with often suboptimal pharmacokinetic properties. Features of the native binding site limit the operational freedom of further medicinal chemistry efforts. We therefore initiated a structure based virtual screening campaign based on the X-ray structures of DAAO complexes where larger ligands shifted the loop (lid opening) covering the native binding site. The virtual screening of our in-house collection followed by the in vitro test of the best ranked compounds led to the identification of a new scaffold with micromolar IC 50 . Subsequent SAR explorations enabled us to identify submicromolar inhibitors. Docking studies supported by in vitro activity measurements suggest that compounds bind to the active site with a salt-bridge characteristic to DAAO inhibitor binding. In addition, displacement of and interaction with the loop covering the active site contributes significantly to the activity of the most potent compounds. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Spatial cell firing during virtual navigation of open arenas by head-restrained mice.

PubMed

Chen, Guifen; King, John Andrew; Lu, Yi; Cacucci, Francesca; Burgess, Neil

2018-06-18

We present a mouse virtual reality (VR) system which restrains head-movements to horizontal rotations, compatible with multi-photon imaging. This system allows expression of the spatial navigation and neuronal firing patterns characteristic of real open arenas (R). Comparing VR to R: place and grid, but not head-direction, cell firing had broader spatial tuning; place, but not grid, cell firing was more directional; theta frequency increased less with running speed; whereas increases in firing rates with running speed and place and grid cells' theta phase precession were similar. These results suggest that the omni-directional place cell firing in R may require local-cues unavailable in VR, and that the scale of grid and place cell firing patterns, and theta frequency, reflect translational motion inferred from both virtual (visual and proprioceptive) and real (vestibular translation and extra-maze) cues. By contrast, firing rates and theta phase precession appear to reflect visual and proprioceptive cues alone. © 2018, Chen et al.

Planning and Management of Real-Time Geospatialuas Missions Within a Virtual Globe Environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nebiker, S.; Eugster, H.; Flückiger, K.; Christen, M.

2011-09-01

This paper presents the design and development of a hardware and software framework supporting all phases of typical monitoring and mapping missions with mini and micro UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). The developed solution combines state-of-the art collaborative virtual globe technologies with advanced geospatial imaging techniques and wireless data link technologies supporting the combined and highly reliable transmission of digital video, high-resolution still imagery and mission control data over extended operational ranges. The framework enables the planning, simulation, control and real-time monitoring of UAS missions in application areas such as monitoring of forest fires, agronomical research, border patrol or pipeline inspection. The geospatial components of the project are based on the Virtual Globe Technology i3D OpenWebGlobe of the Institute of Geomatics Engineering at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW). i3D OpenWebGlobe is a high-performance 3D geovisualisation engine supporting the web-based streaming of very large amounts of terrain and POI data.

Connecting geoscience systems and data using Linked Open Data in the Web of Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ritschel, Bernd; Neher, Günther; Iyemori, Toshihiko; Koyama, Yukinobu; Yatagai, Akiyo; Murayama, Yasuhiro; Galkin, Ivan; King, Todd; Fung, Shing F.; Hughes, Steve; Habermann, Ted; Hapgood, Mike; Belehaki, Anna

2014-05-01

Linked Data or Linked Open Data (LOD) in the realm of free and publically accessible data is one of the most promising and most used semantic Web frameworks connecting various types of data and vocabularies including geoscience and related domains. The semantic Web extension to the commonly existing and used World Wide Web is based on the meaning of entities and relationships or in different words classes and properties used for data in a global data and information space, the Web of Data. LOD data is referenced and mash-uped by URIs and is retrievable using simple parameter controlled HTTP-requests leading to a result which is human-understandable or machine-readable. Furthermore the publishing and mash-up of data in the semantic Web realm is realized by specific Web standards, such as RDF, RDFS, OWL and SPARQL defined for the Web of Data. Semantic Web based mash-up is the Web method to aggregate and reuse various contents from different sources, such as e.g. using FOAF as a model and vocabulary for the description of persons and organizations -in our case- related to geoscience projects, instruments, observations, data and so on. On the example of three different geoscience data and information management systems, such as ESPAS, IUGONET and GFZ ISDC and the associated science data and related metadata or better called context data, the concept of the mash-up of systems and data using the semantic Web approach and the Linked Open Data framework is described in this publication. Because the three systems are based on different data models, data storage structures and technical implementations an extra semantic Web layer upon the existing interfaces is used for mash-up solutions. In order to satisfy the semantic Web standards, data transition processes, such as the transfer of content stored in relational databases or mapped in XML documents into SPARQL capable databases or endpoints using D2R or XSLT is necessary. In addition, the use of mapped and/or merged domain specific and cross-domain vocabularies in the sense of terminological ontologies are the foundation for a virtually unified data retrieval and access in IUGONET, ESPAS and GFZ ISDC data management systems. SPARQL endpoints realized either by originally RDF databases, e.g. Virtuoso or by virtual SPARQL endpoints, e.g. D2R services enable an only upon Web standard-based mash-up of domain-specific systems and data, such as in this case the space weather and geomagnetic domain but also cross-domain connection to data and vocabularies, e.g. related to NASA's VxOs, particularly VWO or NASA's PDS data system within LOD. LOD - Linked Open Data RDF - Resource Description Framework RDFS - RDF Schema OWL - Ontology Web Language SPARQL - SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language FOAF - Friends of a Friend ontology ESPAS - Near Earth Space Data Infrastructure for e-Science (Project) IUGONET - Inter-university Upper Atmosphere Global Observation Network (Project) GFZ ISDC - German Research Centre for Geosciences Information System and Data Center XML - Extensible Mark-up Language D2R - (Relational) Database to RDF (Transformation) XSLT - Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation Virtuoso - OpenLink Virtuoso Universal Server (including RDF data management) NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration VOx - Virtual Observatories VWO - Virtual Wave Observatory PDS - Planetary Data System

Dynamic Clamp in Cardiac and Neuronal Systems Using RTXI

PubMed Central

Ortega, Francis A.; Butera, Robert J.; Christini, David J.; White, John A.; Dorval, Alan D.

2016-01-01

The injection of computer-simulated conductances through the dynamic clamp technique has allowed researchers to probe the intercellular and intracellular dynamics of cardiac and neuronal systems with great precision. By coupling computational models to biological systems, dynamic clamp has become a proven tool in electrophysiology with many applications, such as generating hybrid networks in neurons or simulating channelopathies in cardiomyocytes. While its applications are broad, the approach is straightforward: synthesizing traditional patch clamp, computational modeling, and closed-loop feedback control to simulate a cellular conductance. Here, we present two example applications: artificial blocking of the inward rectifier potassium current in a cardiomyocyte and coupling of a biological neuron to a virtual neuron through a virtual synapse. The design and implementation of the necessary software to administer these dynamic clamp experiments can be difficult. In this chapter, we provide an overview of designing and implementing a dynamic clamp experiment using the Real-Time eXperiment Interface (RTXI), an open- source software system tailored for real-time biological experiments. We present two ways to achieve this using RTXI’s modular format, through the creation of a custom user-made module and through existing modules found in RTXI’s online library. PMID:25023319

VirGO: A Visual Browser for the ESO Science Archive Facility

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chéreau, F.

2008-08-01

VirGO is the next generation Visual Browser for the ESO Science Archive Facility developed by the Virtual Observatory (VO) Systems Department. It is a plug-in for the popular open source software Stellarium adding capabilities for browsing professional astronomical data. VirGO gives astronomers the possibility to easily discover and select data from millions of observations in a new visual and intuitive way. Its main feature is to perform real-time access and graphical display of a large number of observations by showing instrumental footprints and image previews, and to allow their selection and filtering for subsequent download from the ESO SAF web interface. It also allows the loading of external FITS files or VOTables, the superimposition of Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) background images, and the visualization of the sky in a `real life' mode as seen from the main ESO sites. All data interfaces are based on Virtual Observatory standards which allow access to images and spectra from external data centers, and interaction with the ESO SAF web interface or any other VO applications supporting the PLASTIC messaging system. The main website for VirGO is at http://archive.eso.org/cms/virgo.

Routine clinical application of virtual reality in abdominal surgery.

PubMed

Sampogna, Gianluca; Pugliese, Raffaele; Elli, Marco; Vanzulli, Angelo; Forgione, Antonello

2017-06-01

The advantages of 3D reconstruction, immersive virtual reality (VR) and 3D printing in abdominal surgery have been enunciated for many years, but still today their application in routine clinical practice is almost nil. We investigate their feasibility, user appreciation and clinical impact. Fifteen patients undergoing pancreatic, hepatic or renal surgery were studied realizing a 3D reconstruction of target anatomy. Then, an immersive VR environment was developed to import 3D models, and some details of the 3D scene were printed. All the phases of our workflow employed open-source software and low-cost hardware, easily implementable by other surgical services. A qualitative evaluation of the three approaches was performed by 20 surgeons, who filled in a specific questionnaire regarding a clinical case for each organ considered. Preoperative surgical planning and intraoperative guidance was feasible for all patients included in the study. The vast majority of surgeons interviewed scored their quality and usefulness as very good. Despite extra time, costs and efforts necessary to implement these systems, the benefits shown by the analysis of questionnaires recommend to invest more resources to train physicians to adopt these technologies routinely, even if further and larger studies are still mandatory.

Analyzing Virtual Physics Simulations with Tracker

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Claessens, Tom

2017-12-01

In the physics teaching community, Tracker is well known as a user-friendly open source video analysis software, authored by Douglas Brown. With this tool, the user can trace markers indicated on a video or on stroboscopic photos and perform kinematic analyses. Tracker also includes a data modeling tool that allows one to fit some theoretical equations of motion onto experimentally obtained data. In the field of particle mechanics, Tracker has been effectively used for learning and teaching about projectile motion, "toss up" and free-fall vertical motion, and to explain the principle of mechanical energy conservation. Also, Tracker has been successfully used in rigid body mechanics to interpret the results of experiments with rolling/slipping cylinders and moving rods. In this work, I propose an original method in which Tracker is used to analyze virtual computer simulations created with a physics-based motion solver, instead of analyzing video recording or stroboscopic photos. This could be an interesting approach to study kinematics and dynamics problems in physics education, in particular when there is no or limited access to physical labs. I demonstrate the working method with a typical (but quite challenging) problem in classical mechanics: a slipping/rolling cylinder on a rough surface.

The Reality of Virtual Worlds: Pros and Cons of Their Application to Foreign Language Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Garrido-Iñigo, Paloma; Rodríguez-Moreno, Francisco

2015-01-01

This article presents our experience of testing the OpenSim platform as a tool in teaching French to 108 tourism students at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Madrid, Spain). The article begins with some theoretical reflections on the behaviour of the student when using a virtual platform by means of an avatar, and with our observations of how this…

Teaching by Satellite in a European Virtual Classroom. [and] Open Universities--Their Rationale, Characteristics and Prospects. ZIFF Papiere 92.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Keegan, Desmond; Holmberg, Borje

The first of two papers in this publication is "Teaching by Satellite in a European Virtual Classroom" (Desmond Keegan). It describes the first accredited university course by satellite, a 1-year certificate course in safety and health at work offered by the University College Dublin. It discusses the enrollment of 219 students at 10…

Towards Competence-Based Learning Design Driven Remote and Virtual Labs Recommendations for Science Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zervas, Panagiotis; Sergis, Stylianos; Sampson, Demetrios G.; Fyskilis, Stefanos

2015-01-01

Remote and virtual labs (RVLs) are widely used by science education teachers in their daily teaching practice. This has led to a plethora of RVLs that are offered with or without cost. In order to organise them and facilitate their search and findability, several RVL web-based repositories have been operated. As a result, a key open challenge is…

Institutional, Public and Individual Learning Dynamics of the Andy Holt Virtual Library.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peckham, Robert

The Andy Holt Virtual Library, with a focus on the Humanities and Fine Arts, is free and open to the public, though designed to serve the learning communities within the College of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of Tennessee-Martin (UT). It also plays a resource role in UT's New College and the Tennessee Governors School for the…

MUSCLEMOTION: A Versatile Open Software Tool to Quantify Cardiomyocyte and Cardiac Muscle Contraction In Vitro and In Vivo.

PubMed

Sala, Luca; van Meer, Berend J; Tertoolen, Leon G J; Bakkers, Jeroen; Bellin, Milena; Davis, Richard P; Denning, Chris; Dieben, Michel A E; Eschenhagen, Thomas; Giacomelli, Elisa; Grandela, Catarina; Hansen, Arne; Holman, Eduard R; Jongbloed, Monique R M; Kamel, Sarah M; Koopman, Charlotte D; Lachaud, Quentin; Mannhardt, Ingra; Mol, Mervyn P H; Mosqueira, Diogo; Orlova, Valeria V; Passier, Robert; Ribeiro, Marcelo C; Saleem, Umber; Smith, Godfrey L; Burton, Francis L; Mummery, Christine L

2018-02-02

There are several methods to measure cardiomyocyte and muscle contraction, but these require customized hardware, expensive apparatus, and advanced informatics or can only be used in single experimental models. Consequently, data and techniques have been difficult to reproduce across models and laboratories, analysis is time consuming, and only specialist researchers can quantify data. Here, we describe and validate an automated, open-source software tool (MUSCLEMOTION) adaptable for use with standard laboratory and clinical imaging equipment that enables quantitative analysis of normal cardiac contraction, disease phenotypes, and pharmacological responses. MUSCLEMOTION allowed rapid and easy measurement of movement from high-speed movies in (1) 1-dimensional in vitro models, such as isolated adult and human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes; (2) 2-dimensional in vitro models, such as beating cardiomyocyte monolayers or small clusters of human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes; (3) 3-dimensional multicellular in vitro or in vivo contractile tissues, such as cardiac "organoids," engineered heart tissues, and zebrafish and human hearts. MUSCLEMOTION was effective under different recording conditions (bright-field microscopy with simultaneous patch-clamp recording, phase contrast microscopy, and traction force microscopy). Outcomes were virtually identical to the current gold standards for contraction measurement, such as optical flow, post deflection, edge-detection systems, or manual analyses. Finally, we used the algorithm to quantify contraction in in vitro and in vivo arrhythmia models and to measure pharmacological responses. Using a single open-source method for processing video recordings, we obtained reliable pharmacological data and measures of cardiac disease phenotype in experimental cell, animal, and human models. © 2017 The Authors.

Combining photorealistic immersive geovisualization and high-resolution geospatial data to enhance human-scale viewshed modelling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tabrizian, P.; Petrasova, A.; Baran, P.; Petras, V.; Mitasova, H.; Meentemeyer, R. K.

2017-12-01

Viewshed modelling- a process of defining, parsing and analysis of landscape visual space's structure within GIS- has been commonly used in applications ranging from landscape planning and ecosystem services assessment to geography and archaeology. However, less effort has been made to understand whether and to what extent these objective analyses predict actual on-the-ground perception of human observer. Moreover, viewshed modelling at the human-scale level require incorporation of fine-grained landscape structure (eg., vegetation) and patterns (e.g, landcover) that are typically omitted from visibility calculations or unrealistically simulated leading to significant error in predicting visual attributes. This poster illustrates how photorealistic Immersive Virtual Environments and high-resolution geospatial data can be used to integrate objective and subjective assessments of visual characteristics at the human-scale level. We performed viewshed modelling for a systematically sampled set of viewpoints (N=340) across an urban park using open-source GIS (GRASS GIS). For each point a binary viewshed was computed on a 3D surface model derived from high-density leaf-off LIDAR (QL2) points. Viewshed map was combined with high-resolution landcover (.5m) derived through fusion of orthoimagery, lidar vegetation, and vector data. Geo-statistics and landscape structure analysis was performed to compute topological and compositional metrics for visual-scale (e.g., openness), complexity (pattern, shape and object diversity), and naturalness. Based on the viewshed model output, a sample of 24 viewpoints representing the variation of visual characteristics were selected and geolocated. For each location, 360o imagery were captured using a DSL camera mounted on a GIGA PAN robot. We programmed a virtual reality application through which human subjects (N=100) immersively experienced a random representation of selected environments via a head-mounted display (Oculus Rift CV1), and rated each location on perceived openness, naturalness and complexity. Regression models were performed to correlate model outputs with participants' responses. The results indicated strong, significant correlations for openness, and naturalness and moderate correlation for complexity estimations.

Comparison of two propeller source models for aircraft interior noise studies

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mahan, J. R.; Fuller, C. R.

1986-01-01

The sensitivity of the predicted synchrophasing (SP) effectiveness trends to the propeller source model issued is investigated with reference to the development of advanced turboprop engines for transport aircraft. SP effectiveness is shown to be sensitive to the type of source model used. For the virtually rotating dipole source model, the SP effectiveness is sensitive to the direction of rotation at some frequencies but not at others. The SP effectiveness obtained from the virtually rotating dipole model is not very sensitive to the radial location of the source distribution within reasonable limits. Finally, the predicted SP effectiveness is shown to be more sensitive to the details of the source model used for the case of corotation than for the case of counterrotation.

e-Infrastuctures interoperability: the Geohazards Exploitation Platform for the use of satellite earth observations in Geosciences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Caumont, Herve; Brito, Fabrice; Mathot, Emmanuel; Barchetta, Francesco; Loeschau, Frank

2015-04-01

We present recent achievements with the Geohazards Exploitation Platform (GEP), a European contribution to the GEO SuperSites, and its interoperability with the MEDiterranean SUpersite Volcanoes (MED-SUV) e- infrastructure. The GEP is a catalyst for the use of satellite Earth observation missions, providing data to initiatives such as the GEO Geohazard Supersites and Natural Laboratories (GSNL), the Volcano and Seismic Hazards CEOS Pilots or the European Plate Observing System (EPOS). As satellite sensors are delivering increasing amounts of data, researchers need more computational science tools and services. The GEP contribution in this regard allows scientists to access different data types, relevant to the same area and phenomena and to directly stage selected inputs to scalable processing applications that deliver EO-based science products. With the GEP concept of operation for improved collaboration, a partner can bring its processing tools, use from his workspace other shared toolboxes and access large data repositories. GEP is based on Open Source Software components, on a Cloud Services architecture inheriting a range of ESA and EC funded innovations, and is associating the scientific community and SMEs in implementing new capabilities. Via MED-SUV, we are making discoverable and accessible a large number of products over the Mt. Etna, Vesu- vius/Campi Flegrei volcanic areas, which are of broader interest for Geosciences researchers, so they can process ENVISAT MERIS, ENVISAT ASAR, and ERS SAR data (both Level 1 and Level 2) hosted in the ESA clusters and in ESA's Virtual Archive, TerraSAR-X data hosted in DLR's Virtual Archive, as well as data hosted in other dedicated MED-SUV Virtual Archives (e.g. for LANDSAT, EOS-1). GEP will gradually access Sentinel-1A data, other space agencies data and value-added products. Processed products can also be published and archived on the MED-SUV e-Infrastructure. In this effort, data policy rules applied to the acquisitions are verified against the GEOSS Data Collection of Open Resources for Everyone (GEOSS Data-CORE) principles. The resulting infras- tructure repositories include connectivity to the GEOSS Data Access Broker (DAB), through the "OGC CS-W OpenSearch Geo and Time extensions" interface standard, a key interoperability arrangement used by the MED- SUV systems, making EO data products available to both the project partners and the broader initiatives. GEP is also proposing and further developing hosted processing, aimed at MED-SUV researchers' work on new methods to integrate in-situ and satellite sensors data: a set of users services (concept of Platform-as-a-Service, or PaaS) for generating value-added products, including tools to design and develop Hadoop-enabled processing chains. The PaaS core engine is the Developer Cloud Sandboxes service, where scalable processing chains are prepared and validated. The PaaS makes use of Virtual Machines technology, and of middleware for scaling-out processing tasks via interfaces to commercial Cloud Providers, or through research agreements to academic re- sources like EGI.eu. After integration, processors are deployed and invoked 'as-a-Service' by partners via OGC Web Processing Service standard interface, or shared as reusable virtualized resources. Recent integration work covered e.g. ROI_PAC, GMTSAR and DORIS ADORE toolboxes along with supporting processing services such as DEM generation. Such approach has been discussed also with the MARSite project, ensuring the adopted solu- tions are aligned. As part of the MED-SUV project, we are developing tools and services supporting researchers working on new data fusion methods, and fostering collaboration between different end users and partners, including towards the GEO communities. Overall, the approach provides an integrated European contribution for the exploitation of decades of scientific data gathered from Earth observation satellites.

Simulations, Games, and Virtual Labs for Science Education: a Compendium and Some Examples

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Russell, R. M.

2011-12-01

We have assembled a list of computer-based simulations, games, and virtual labs for science education. This list, with links to the sources of these resources, is available online. The entries span a broad range of science, math, and engineering topics. They also span a range of target student ages, from elementary school to university students. We will provide a brief overview of this web site and the resources found on it. We will also briefly demonstrate some of our own educational simulations, including the "Very, Very Simple Climate Model", and report on formative evaluations of these resources. Computer-based simulations and virtual labs are valuable resources for science educators in various settings, allowing learners to experiment and explore "what if" scenarios. Educational computer games can motivate learners in both formal and informal settings, encouraging them to spend much more time exploring a topic than they might otherwise be inclined to do. Part of this presentation is effectively a "literature review" of numerous sources of simulations, games, and virtual labs. Although we have encountered several nice collections of such resources, those collections seem to be restricted in scope. They either represent materials developed by a specific group or agency (e.g. NOAA's games web site) or are restricted to a specific discipline (e.g. geology simulations and virtual labs). This presentation directs viewers to games, simulations, and virtual labs from many different sources and spanning a broad range of STEM disciplines.

Review of high energy diffraction in real and virtual photon-proton scattering at HERA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wolf, G.

2010-11-01

The electron-proton collider HERA at DESY opened the door for the study of diffraction in real and virtual photon-proton scattering at centre-of-mass energies W up to 250 GeV and for large negative mass squared -Q2 of the virtual photon up to Q2 = 1600 GeV2. At W = 220 GeV and Q2 = 4 GeV2, diffraction accounts for about 15% of the total virtual photon-proton cross section, decreasing to ≈5% at Q2 = 200 GeV2. An overview of the results obtained by the experiments H1 and ZEUS on the production of neutral vector mesons and on inclusive diffraction up to the year 2008 is presented.

LHCb experience with running jobs in virtual machines

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McNab, A.; Stagni, F.; Luzzi, C.

2015-12-01

The LHCb experiment has been running production jobs in virtual machines since 2013 as part of its DIRAC-based infrastructure. We describe the architecture of these virtual machines and the steps taken to replicate the WLCG worker node environment expected by user and production jobs. This relies on the uCernVM system for providing root images for virtual machines. We use the CernVM-FS distributed filesystem to supply the root partition files, the LHCb software stack, and the bootstrapping scripts necessary to configure the virtual machines for us. Using this approach, we have been able to minimise the amount of contextualisation which must be provided by the virtual machine managers. We explain the process by which the virtual machine is able to receive payload jobs submitted to DIRAC by users and production managers, and how this differs from payloads executed within conventional DIRAC pilot jobs on batch queue based sites. We describe our operational experiences in running production on VM based sites managed using Vcycle/OpenStack, Vac, and HTCondor Vacuum. Finally we show how our use of these resources is monitored using Ganglia and DIRAC.

Testing the Data Assimilation Capability of the Profiler Virtual Module

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-02-01

ARL-TR-7601 ● FEB 2016 US Army Research Laboratory Testing the Data Assimilation Capability of the Profiler Virtual Module by...originator. ARL-TR-7601 ● FEB 2016 US Army Research Laboratory Testing the Data Assimilation Capability of the Profiler Virtual...hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and

Identification and modification of dominant noise sources in diesel engines

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hayward, Michael D.

Determination of dominant noise sources in diesel engines is an integral step in the creation of quiet engines, but is a process which can involve an extensive series of expensive, time-consuming fired and motored tests. The goal of this research is to determine dominant noise source characteristics of a diesel engine in the near and far-fields with data from fewer tests than is currently required. Pre-conditioning and use of numerically robust methods to solve a set of cross-spectral density equations results in accurate calculation of the transfer paths between the near- and far-field measurement points. Application of singular value decomposition to an input cross-spectral matrix determines the spectral characteristics of a set of independent virtual sources, that, when scaled and added, result in the input cross spectral matrix. Each virtual source power spectral density is a singular value resulting from the decomposition performed over a range of frequencies. The complex relationship between virtual and physical sources is estimated through determination of virtual source contributions to each input measurement power spectral density. The method is made more user-friendly through use of a percentage contribution color plotting technique, where different normalizations can be used to help determine the presence of sources and the strengths of their contributions. Convolution of input measurements with the estimated path impulse responses results in a set of far-field components, to which the same singular value contribution plotting technique can be applied, thus allowing dominant noise source characteristics in the far-field to also be examined. Application of the methods presented results in determination of the spectral characteristics of dominant noise sources both in the near- and far-fields from one fired test, which significantly reduces the need for extensive fired and motored testing. Finally, it is shown that the far-field noise time history of a physically altered engine can be simulated through modification of singular values and recalculation of transfer paths between input and output measurements of previously recorded data.

Virtual water trade and bilateral conflicts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

De Angelis, Enrico; Metulini, Rodolfo; Bove, Vincenzo; Riccaboni, Massimo

2017-12-01

In light of growing water scarcity, virtual water, or the water embedded in key water-intensive commodities, has been an active area of debate among practitioners and academics alike. As of yet, however, there is no consensus on whether water scarcity affects conflict behavior and we still lack empirical research intending to account for the role of virtual water in affecting the odds of militarized disputes between states. Using quantitative methods and data on virtual water trade, we find that bilateral and multilateral trade openness reduce the probability of war between any given pair of countries, which is consistent with the strategic role of this important commodity and the opportunity cost associated with the loss of trade gains. We also find that the substantive effect of virtual water trade is comparable to that of oil and gas, the archetypal natural resources, in determining interstate conflicts' probability.

Virtual instrument: remote control and monitoring of an artificial heart driver

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nguyen, An H.; Farrar, David

1993-07-01

A development of a virtual instrument based on the top-down model approach for an artificial heart driver is presented. Driver parameters and status were being dynamically updated on the virtual system at the remote station. The virtual system allowed the remote operator to interact with the physical heart driver as if he/she were at the local station. Besides use as an effective training tool, the system permits an expert operator to monitor and also control the Thoratec heart driver from a distant location. We believe that the virtual instrument for biomedical devices in general and for the Thoratec heart driver in particular, not only improves system reliability but also opens up a real possibility in reducing medical cost. Utilizing the top-down scheme developed recently for telerobotics, realtime operation in both instrument display and remote communication were possible via a low bandwidth telephone medium.

Social Networking: A Collaborative Open Educational Resource

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Toetenel, Lisette

2014-01-01

Studies undertaken since the introduction of Web 2.0 have focussed mainly on open educational resources (OERs) such as email, blogging and virtual learning environments. No consistent efforts have been undertaken to study the use of social networking sites as a tool for learning in the second language classroom. This study examined the use of…

Identity federation in OpenStack - an introduction to hybrid clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Denis, Marek; Castro Leon, Jose; Ormancey, Emmanuel; Tedesco, Paolo

2015-12-01

We are evaluating cloud identity federation available in the OpenStack ecosystem that allows for on premise bursting into remote clouds with use of local identities (i.e. domain accounts). Further enhancements to identity federation are a clear way to hybrid cloud architectures - virtualized infrastructures layered across independent private and public clouds.

An Exploratory Study of Emotional Affordance of a Massive Open Online Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cheng, Jeremy C. Y.

2014-01-01

This exploratory study examines emotional affordance of a massive open online course (MOOC). Postings in a discussion forum of a MOOC in computer science are analysed following a research design informed by virtual ethnography. Emotional affordance is investigated, focusing on non-achievement emotions which are not directly linked to achievement…

Psychophysical Evaluation of Three-Dimensional Auditory Displays

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wightman, Frederic L.

1996-01-01

This report describes the progress made during the second year of a three-year Cooperative Research Agreement. The CRA proposed a program of applied psychophysical research designed to determine the requirements and limitations of three-dimensional (3-D) auditory display systems. These displays present synthesized stimuli to a pilot or virtual workstation operator that evoke auditory images at predetermined positions in space. The images can be either stationary or moving. In previous years, we completed a number of studies that provided data on listeners' abilities to localize stationary sound sources with 3-D displays. The current focus is on the use of 3-D displays in 'natural' listening conditions, which include listeners'head movements, moving sources, multiple sources and 'echoic' sources. The results of our research on one of these topics, the localization of multiple sources, was reported in the most recent Semi-Annual Progress Report (Appendix A). That same progress report described work on two related topics, the influence of a listener's a-priori knowledge of source characteristics and the discriminability of real and virtual sources. In the period since the last Progress Report we have conducted several new studies to evaluate the effectiveness of a new and simpler method for measuring the HRTF's that are used to synthesize virtual sources and have expanded our studies of multiple sources. The results of this research are described below.

Virtual Evidence Cart - RP (VEC-RP).

PubMed

Liu, Fang; Fontelo, Paul; Muin, Michael; Ackerman, Michael

2005-01-01

VEC-RP (Virtual Evident Cart) is an open, Web-based, searchable collection of clinical questions and relevant references from MEDLINE/PubMed for healthcare professionals. The architecture consists of four parts: clinical questions, relevant articles from MEDLINE/PubMed, "bottom-line" answers, and peer reviews of entries. Only registered users can add reviews but unregistered users can read them. Feedback from physicians, mostly in the Philippines (RP) who tested the system, is positive.

Virtual Libraries: Virtual Communities. Abstracts, Fulltext Documents and PowerPoint Presentations of Papers and Demos Given at the International Association of Technological University Libraries (IATUL) Conference (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, July 3-7, 2000).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

International Association of Technological Univ. Libraries, Gothenburg (Sweden).

This proceedings of the International Association of Technological University Libraries (IATUL) contains the opening address by IATUL president Nancy Fjallbrant and the full text of the following papers: "Building Info-Skills by Degrees: Embedding Information Literacy in University Study" (Wendy Abbott and Deborah Peach); "UQ…

A low cost indoor localization system for mobile robot experimental setup

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Adinandra, S.; Syarif, A.

2018-04-01

Indoor localization becomes one of the most important part in mobile robot system One fundamental requirement is to provide an easy-to-use and practical localization system for real-time experiments. In this paper we propose a combination of a recent open source virtual reality (VR) tools, a simple MATLAB code and a low cost USB webcam as an indoor mobile robot localization system Using the VR tools as a server and MATLAB as a client, the proposed solution can cover up to 1.6 [m] × 3.2 [m] with the measurement position accuracy up to 1.2 [cm]. The system is insensitive to light, easy to move and can be quickly set up. A series of successful real-time experiments with three different mobile robot types has been conducted.

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

Exercise environment for Introduction to Cyber Technologies class. This software is essentially a collection of short scripts, configuration files, and small executables that form the exercise component of the Sandia Cyber Technologies Academy's Introduction to Cyber Technologies class. It builds upon other open-source technologies, such as Debian Linux and minimega, to provide comprehensive Linux and networking exercises that make learning these topics exciting and fun. Sample exercises: a pre-built set of home directories the student must navigate through to learn about privilege escalation, the creation of a virtual network playground designed to teach the student about the resiliency of themore » Internet, and a two-hour Capture the Flag challenge for the final lesson. There are approximately thirty (30) exercises included for the students to complete as part of the course.« less

Exploring Design Requirements for Repurposing Dental Virtual Patients From the Web to Second Life: A Focus Group Study

PubMed Central

Antoniou, Panagiotis E; Athanasopoulou, Christina A; Dafli, Eleni

2014-01-01

Background Since their inception, virtual patients have provided health care educators with a way to engage learners in an experience simulating the clinician’s environment without danger to learners and patients. This has led this learning modality to be accepted as an essential component of medical education. With the advent of the visually and audio-rich 3-dimensional multi-user virtual environment (MUVE), a new deployment platform has emerged for educational content. Immersive, highly interactive, multimedia-rich, MUVEs that seamlessly foster collaboration provide a new hotbed for the deployment of medical education content. Objective This work aims to assess the suitability of the Second Life MUVE as a virtual patient deployment platform for undergraduate dental education, and to explore the requirements and specifications needed to meaningfully repurpose Web-based virtual patients in MUVEs. Methods Through the scripting capabilities and available art assets in Second Life, we repurposed an existing Web-based periodontology virtual patient into Second Life. Through a series of point-and-click interactions and multiple-choice queries, the user experienced a specific periodontology case and was asked to provide the optimal responses for each of the challenges of the case. A focus group of 9 undergraduate dentistry students experienced both the Web-based and the Second Life version of this virtual patient. The group convened 3 times and discussed relevant issues such as the group’s computer literacy, the assessment of Second Life as a virtual patient deployment platform, and compared the Web-based and MUVE-deployed virtual patients. Results A comparison between the Web-based and the Second Life virtual patient revealed the inherent advantages of the more experiential and immersive Second Life virtual environment. However, several challenges for the successful repurposing of virtual patients from the Web to the MUVE were identified. The identified challenges for repurposing of Web virtual patients to the MUVE platform from the focus group study were (1) increased case complexity to facilitate the user’s gaming preconception in a MUVE, (2) necessity to decrease textual narration and provide the pertinent information in a more immersive sensory way, and (3) requirement to allow the user to actuate the solutions of problems instead of describing them through narration. Conclusions For a successful systematic repurposing effort of virtual patients to MUVEs such as Second Life, the best practices of experiential and immersive game design should be organically incorporated in the repurposing workflow (automated or not). These findings are pivotal in an era in which open educational content is transferred to and shared among users, learners, and educators of various open repositories/environments. PMID:24927470

A Process Study of the Development of Virtual Research Environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ahmed, I.; Cooper, K.; McGrath, R.; Griego, G.; Poole, M. S.; Hanisch, R. J.

2014-05-01

In recent years, cyberinfrastructures have been deployed to create virtual research environments (VREs) - such as the Virtual Astronomical Observatory (VAO) - to enhance the quality and speed of scientific research, and to foster global scientific communities. Our study utilizes process methodology to study the evolution of VREs. This approach focuses on a series of events that bring about or lead to some outcome, and attempts to specify the generative mechanism that could produce the event series. This paper briefly outlines our approach and describes initial results of a case study of the VAO, one of the participating VREs. The case study is based on interviews with seven individuals participating in the VAO, and analysis of project documents and online resources. These sources are hand tagged to identify events related to the thematic tracks, to yield a narrative of the project. Results demonstrate the event series of an organization through traditional methods augmented by virtual sources.

Enhancements to VTK enabling Scientific Visualization in Immersive Environments

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

O'Leary, Patrick; Jhaveri, Sankhesh; Chaudhary, Aashish

Modern scientific, engineering and medical computational sim- ulations, as well as experimental and observational data sens- ing/measuring devices, produce enormous amounts of data. While statistical analysis provides insight into this data, scientific vi- sualization is tactically important for scientific discovery, prod- uct design and data analysis. These benefits are impeded, how- ever, when scientific visualization algorithms are implemented from scratch—a time-consuming and redundant process in im- mersive application development. This process can greatly ben- efit from leveraging the state-of-the-art open-source Visualization Toolkit (VTK) and its community. Over the past two (almost three) decades, integrating VTK with a virtual reality (VR)more » environment has only been attempted to varying degrees of success. In this pa- per, we demonstrate two new approaches to simplify this amalga- mation of an immersive interface with visualization rendering from VTK. In addition, we cover several enhancements to VTK that pro- vide near real-time updates and efficient interaction. Finally, we demonstrate the combination of VTK with both Vrui and OpenVR immersive environments in example applications.« less

Wave Field Synthesis of moving sources with arbitrary trajectory and velocity profile.

PubMed

Firtha, Gergely; Fiala, Péter

2017-08-01

The sound field synthesis of moving sound sources is of great importance when dynamic virtual sound scenes are to be reconstructed. Previous solutions considered only virtual sources moving uniformly along a straight trajectory, synthesized employing a linear loudspeaker array. This article presents the synthesis of point sources following an arbitrary trajectory. Under high-frequency assumptions 2.5D Wave Field Synthesis driving functions are derived for arbitrary shaped secondary source contours by adapting the stationary phase approximation to the dynamic description of sources in motion. It is explained how a referencing function should be chosen in order to optimize the amplitude of synthesis on an arbitrary receiver curve. Finally, a finite difference implementation scheme is considered, making the presented approach suitable for real-time applications.

Incorporating Virtual Reactions into a Logic-based Ligand-based Virtual Screening Method to Discover New Leads

PubMed Central

Reynolds, Christopher R; Muggleton, Stephen H; Sternberg, Michael J E

2015-01-01

The use of virtual screening has become increasingly central to the drug development pipeline, with ligand-based virtual screening used to screen databases of compounds to predict their bioactivity against a target. These databases can only represent a small fraction of chemical space, and this paper describes a method of exploring synthetic space by applying virtual reactions to promising compounds within a database, and generating focussed libraries of predicted derivatives. A ligand-based virtual screening tool Investigational Novel Drug Discovery by Example (INDDEx) is used as the basis for a system of virtual reactions. The use of virtual reactions is estimated to open up a potential space of 1.21×1012 potential molecules. A de novo design algorithm known as Partial Logical-Rule Reactant Selection (PLoRRS) is introduced and incorporated into the INDDEx methodology. PLoRRS uses logical rules from the INDDEx model to select reactants for the de novo generation of potentially active products. The PLoRRS method is found to increase significantly the likelihood of retrieving molecules similar to known actives with a p-value of 0.016. Case studies demonstrate that the virtual reactions produce molecules highly similar to known actives, including known blockbuster drugs. PMID:26583052

Toward a Virtual Solar Observatory: Starting Before the Petabytes Fall

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gurman, J. B.; Fisher, Richard R. (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

NASA is currently engaged in the study phase of a modest effort to establish a Virtual Solar Observatory (VSO). The VSO would serve ground- and space-based solar physics data sets from a distributed network of archives through a small number of interfaces to the scientific community. The basis of this approach, as of all planned virtual observatories, is the translation of metadata from the various sources via source-specific dictionaries so the user will not have to distinguish among keyword usages. A single Web interface should give access to all the distributed data. We present the current status of the VSO, its initial scope, and its relation to the European EGSO effort.

Water footprints of cities - indicators for sustainable consumption and production

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hoff, H.; Döll, P.; Fader, M.; Gerten, D.; Hauser, S.; Siebert, S.

2014-01-01

Water footprints have been proposed as sustainability indicators, relating the consumption of goods like food to the amount of water necessary for their production and the impacts of that water use in the source regions. We further developed the existing water footprint methodology, by globally resolving virtual water flows from production to consumption regions for major food crops at 5 arcmin spatial resolution. We distinguished domestic and international flows, and assessed local impacts of export production. Applying this method to three exemplary cities, Berlin, Delhi and Lagos, we find major differences in amounts, composition, and origin of green and blue virtual water imports, due to differences in diets, trade integration and crop water productivities in the source regions. While almost all of Delhi's and Lagos' virtual water imports are of domestic origin, Berlin on average imports from more than 4000 km distance, in particular soy (livestock feed), coffee and cocoa. While 42% of Delhi's virtual water imports are blue water based, the fractions for Berlin and Lagos are 2 and 0.5%, respectively, roughly equal to the water volumes abstracted in these two cities for domestic water use. Some of the external source regions of Berlin's virtual water imports appear to be critically water scarce and/or food insecure. However, for deriving recommendations on sustainable consumption and trade, further analysis of context-specific costs and benefits associated with export production will be required.

Correction of Spatial Bias in Oligonucleotide Array Data

PubMed Central

Lemieux, Sébastien

2013-01-01

Background. Oligonucleotide microarrays allow for high-throughput gene expression profiling assays. The technology relies on the fundamental assumption that observed hybridization signal intensities (HSIs) for each intended target, on average, correlate with their target's true concentration in the sample. However, systematic, nonbiological variation from several sources undermines this hypothesis. Background hybridization signal has been previously identified as one such important source, one manifestation of which appears in the form of spatial autocorrelation. Results. We propose an algorithm, pyn, for the elimination of spatial autocorrelation in HSIs, exploiting the duality of desirable mutual information shared by probes in a common probe set and undesirable mutual information shared by spatially proximate probes. We show that this correction procedure reduces spatial autocorrelation in HSIs; increases HSI reproducibility across replicate arrays; increases differentially expressed gene detection power; and performs better than previously published methods. Conclusions. The proposed algorithm increases both precision and accuracy, while requiring virtually no changes to users' current analysis pipelines: the correction consists merely of a transformation of raw HSIs (e.g., CEL files for Affymetrix arrays). A free, open-source implementation is provided as an R package, compatible with standard Bioconductor tools. The approach may also be tailored to other platform types and other sources of bias. PMID:23573083

An explosively driven high-power microwave pulsed power system.

PubMed

Elsayed, M A; Neuber, A A; Dickens, J C; Walter, J W; Kristiansen, M; Altgilbers, L L

2012-02-01

The increased popularity of high power microwave systems and the various sources to drive them is the motivation behind the work to be presented. A stand-alone, self-contained explosively driven high power microwave pulsed power system has been designed, built, and tested at Texas Tech University's Center for Pulsed Power and Power Electronics. The system integrates four different sub-units that are composed of a battery driven prime power source utilizing capacitive energy storage, a dual stage helical flux compression generator as the main energy amplification device, an integrated power conditioning system with inductive energy storage including a fast opening electro-explosive switch, and a triode reflex geometry virtual cathode oscillator as the microwave radiating source. This system has displayed a measured electrical source power level of over 5 GW and peak radiated microwaves of about 200 MW. It is contained within a 15 cm diameter housing and measures 2 m in length, giving a housing volume of slightly less than 39 l. The system and its sub-components have been extensively studied, both as integrated and individual units, to further expand on components behavior and operation physics. This report will serve as a detailed design overview of each of the four subcomponents and provide detailed analysis of the overall system performance and benchmarks.

An explosively driven high-power microwave pulsed power system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Elsayed, M. A.; Neuber, A. A.; Dickens, J. C.; Walter, J. W.; Kristiansen, M.; Altgilbers, L. L.

2012-02-01

The increased popularity of high power microwave systems and the various sources to drive them is the motivation behind the work to be presented. A stand-alone, self-contained explosively driven high power microwave pulsed power system has been designed, built, and tested at Texas Tech University's Center for Pulsed Power and Power Electronics. The system integrates four different sub-units that are composed of a battery driven prime power source utilizing capacitive energy storage, a dual stage helical flux compression generator as the main energy amplification device, an integrated power conditioning system with inductive energy storage including a fast opening electro-explosive switch, and a triode reflex geometry virtual cathode oscillator as the microwave radiating source. This system has displayed a measured electrical source power level of over 5 GW and peak radiated microwaves of about 200 MW. It is contained within a 15 cm diameter housing and measures 2 m in length, giving a housing volume of slightly less than 39 l. The system and its sub-components have been extensively studied, both as integrated and individual units, to further expand on components behavior and operation physics. This report will serve as a detailed design overview of each of the four subcomponents and provide detailed analysis of the overall system performance and benchmarks.

Prototype architecture for a VLSI level zero processing system. [Space Station Freedom

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shi, Jianfei; Grebowsky, Gerald J.; Horner, Ward P.; Chesney, James R.

1989-01-01

The prototype architecture and implementation of a high-speed level zero processing (LZP) system are discussed. Due to the new processing algorithm and VLSI technology, the prototype LZP system features compact size, low cost, high processing throughput, and easy maintainability and increased reliability. Though extensive control functions have been done by hardware, the programmability of processing tasks makes it possible to adapt the system to different data formats and processing requirements. It is noted that the LZP system can handle up to 8 virtual channels and 24 sources with combined data volume of 15 Gbytes per orbit. For greater demands, multiple LZP systems can be configured in parallel, each called a processing channel and assigned a subset of virtual channels. The telemetry data stream will be steered into different processing channels in accordance with their virtual channel IDs. This super system can cope with a virtually unlimited number of virtual channels and sources. In the near future, it is expected that new disk farms with data rate exceeding 150 Mbps will be available from commercial vendors due to the advance in disk drive technology.

An Interactive Web-Based Analysis Framework for Remote Sensing Cloud Computing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, X. Z.; Zhang, H. M.; Zhao, J. H.; Lin, Q. H.; Zhou, Y. C.; Li, J. H.

2015-07-01

Spatiotemporal data, especially remote sensing data, are widely used in ecological, geographical, agriculture, and military research and applications. With the development of remote sensing technology, more and more remote sensing data are accumulated and stored in the cloud. An effective way for cloud users to access and analyse these massive spatiotemporal data in the web clients becomes an urgent issue. In this paper, we proposed a new scalable, interactive and web-based cloud computing solution for massive remote sensing data analysis. We build a spatiotemporal analysis platform to provide the end-user with a safe and convenient way to access massive remote sensing data stored in the cloud. The lightweight cloud storage system used to store public data and users' private data is constructed based on open source distributed file system. In it, massive remote sensing data are stored as public data, while the intermediate and input data are stored as private data. The elastic, scalable, and flexible cloud computing environment is built using Docker, which is a technology of open-source lightweight cloud computing container in the Linux operating system. In the Docker container, open-source software such as IPython, NumPy, GDAL, and Grass GIS etc., are deployed. Users can write scripts in the IPython Notebook web page through the web browser to process data, and the scripts will be submitted to IPython kernel to be executed. By comparing the performance of remote sensing data analysis tasks executed in Docker container, KVM virtual machines and physical machines respectively, we can conclude that the cloud computing environment built by Docker makes the greatest use of the host system resources, and can handle more concurrent spatial-temporal computing tasks. Docker technology provides resource isolation mechanism in aspects of IO, CPU, and memory etc., which offers security guarantee when processing remote sensing data in the IPython Notebook. Users can write complex data processing code on the web directly, so they can design their own data processing algorithm.

PhysiCell: An open source physics-based cell simulator for 3-D multicellular systems.

PubMed

Ghaffarizadeh, Ahmadreza; Heiland, Randy; Friedman, Samuel H; Mumenthaler, Shannon M; Macklin, Paul

2018-02-01

Many multicellular systems problems can only be understood by studying how cells move, grow, divide, interact, and die. Tissue-scale dynamics emerge from systems of many interacting cells as they respond to and influence their microenvironment. The ideal "virtual laboratory" for such multicellular systems simulates both the biochemical microenvironment (the "stage") and many mechanically and biochemically interacting cells (the "players" upon the stage). PhysiCell-physics-based multicellular simulator-is an open source agent-based simulator that provides both the stage and the players for studying many interacting cells in dynamic tissue microenvironments. It builds upon a multi-substrate biotransport solver to link cell phenotype to multiple diffusing substrates and signaling factors. It includes biologically-driven sub-models for cell cycling, apoptosis, necrosis, solid and fluid volume changes, mechanics, and motility "out of the box." The C++ code has minimal dependencies, making it simple to maintain and deploy across platforms. PhysiCell has been parallelized with OpenMP, and its performance scales linearly with the number of cells. Simulations up to 105-106 cells are feasible on quad-core desktop workstations; larger simulations are attainable on single HPC compute nodes. We demonstrate PhysiCell by simulating the impact of necrotic core biomechanics, 3-D geometry, and stochasticity on the dynamics of hanging drop tumor spheroids and ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) of the breast. We demonstrate stochastic motility, chemical and contact-based interaction of multiple cell types, and the extensibility of PhysiCell with examples in synthetic multicellular systems (a "cellular cargo delivery" system, with application to anti-cancer treatments), cancer heterogeneity, and cancer immunology. PhysiCell is a powerful multicellular systems simulator that will be continually improved with new capabilities and performance improvements. It also represents a significant independent code base for replicating results from other simulation platforms. The PhysiCell source code, examples, documentation, and support are available under the BSD license at http://PhysiCell.MathCancer.org and http://PhysiCell.sf.net.

Implementing virtual reality interfaces for the geosciences

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

Bethel, W.; Jacobsen, J.; Austin, A.

1996-06-01

For the past few years, a multidisciplinary team of computer and earth scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has been exploring the use of advanced user interfaces, commonly called {open_quotes}Virtual Reality{close_quotes} (VR), coupled with visualization and scientific computing software. Working closely with industry, these efforts have resulted in an environment in which VR technology is coupled with existing visualization and computational tools. VR technology may be thought of as a user interface. It is useful to think of a spectrum, ranging the gamut from command-line interfaces to completely immersive environments. In the former, one uses the keyboard to enter threemore » or six-dimensional parameters. In the latter, three or six-dimensional information is provided by trackers contained either in hand-held devices or attached to the user in some fashion, e.g. attached to a head-mounted display. Rich, extensible and often complex languages are a vehicle whereby the user controls parameters to manipulate object position and location in a virtual world, but the keyboard is the obstacle in that typing is cumbersome, error-prone and typically slow. In the latter, the user can interact with these parameters by means of motor skills which are highly developed. Two specific geoscience application areas will be highlighted. In the first, we have used VR technology to manipulate three-dimensional input parameters, such as the spatial location of injection or production wells in a reservoir simulator. In the second, we demonstrate how VR technology has been used to manipulate visualization tools, such as a tool for computing streamlines via manipulation of a {open_quotes}rake.{close_quotes} The rake is presented to the user in the form of a {open_quotes}virtual well{close_quotes} icon, and provides parameters used by the streamlines algorithm.« less

AR Feels "Softer" than VR: Haptic Perception of Stiffness in Augmented versus Virtual Reality.

PubMed

Gaffary, Yoren; Le Gouis, Benoit; Marchal, Maud; Argelaguet, Ferran; Arnaldi, Bruno; Lecuyer, Anatole

2017-11-01

Does it feel the same when you touch an object in Augmented Reality (AR) or in Virtual Reality (VR)? In this paper we study and compare the haptic perception of stiffness of a virtual object in two situations: (1) a purely virtual environment versus (2) a real and augmented environment. We have designed an experimental setup based on a Microsoft HoloLens and a haptic force-feedback device, enabling to press a virtual piston, and compare its stiffness successively in either Augmented Reality (the virtual piston is surrounded by several real objects all located inside a cardboard box) or in Virtual Reality (the same virtual piston is displayed in a fully virtual scene composed of the same other objects). We have conducted a psychophysical experiment with 12 participants. Our results show a surprising bias in perception between the two conditions. The virtual piston is on average perceived stiffer in the VR condition compared to the AR condition. For instance, when the piston had the same stiffness in AR and VR, participants would select the VR piston as the stiffer one in 60% of cases. This suggests a psychological effect as if objects in AR would feel "softer" than in pure VR. Taken together, our results open new perspectives on perception in AR versus VR, and pave the way to future studies aiming at characterizing potential perceptual biases.

Towards a Digital Body: The Virtual Arm Illusion

PubMed Central

Slater, Mel; Perez-Marcos, Daniel; Ehrsson, H. Henrik; Sanchez-Vives, Maria V.

2008-01-01

The integration of the human brain with computers is an interesting new area of applied neuroscience, where one application is replacement of a person's real body by a virtual representation. Here we demonstrate that a virtual limb can be made to feel part of your body if appropriate multisensory correlations are provided. We report an illusion that is invoked through tactile stimulation on a person's hidden real right hand with synchronous virtual visual stimulation on an aligned 3D stereo virtual arm projecting horizontally out of their shoulder. An experiment with 21 male participants showed displacement of ownership towards the virtual hand, as illustrated by questionnaire responses and proprioceptive drift. A control experiment with asynchronous tapping was carried out with a different set of 20 male participants who did not experience the illusion. After 5 min of stimulation the virtual arm rotated. Evidence suggests that the extent of the illusion was also correlated with the degree of muscle activity onset in the right arm as measured by EMG during this period that the arm was rotating, for the synchronous but not the asynchronous condition. A completely virtual object can therefore be experienced as part of one's self, which opens up the possibility that an entire virtual body could be felt as one's own in future virtual reality applications or online games, and be an invaluable tool for the understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying body ownership. PMID:18958207

Coded-Aperture X- or gamma -ray telescope with Least- squares image reconstruction. III. Data acquisition and analysis enhancements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kohman, T. P.

1995-05-01

The design of a cosmic X- or gamma -ray telescope with least- squares image reconstruction and its simulated operation have been described (Rev. Sci. Instrum. 60, 3396 and 3410 (1989)). Use of an auxiliary open aperture ("limiter") ahead of the coded aperture limits the object field to fewer pixels than detector elements, permitting least-squares reconstruction with improved accuracy in the imaged field; it also yields a uniformly sensitive ("flat") central field. The design has been enhanced to provide for mask-antimask operation. This cancels and eliminates uncertainties in the detector background, and the simulated results have virtually the same statistical accuracy (pixel-by-pixel output-input RMSD) as with a single mask alone. The simulations have been made more realistic by incorporating instrumental blurring of sources. A second-stage least-squares procedure had been developed to determine the precise positions and total fluxes of point sources responsible for clusters of above-background pixels in the field resulting from the first-stage reconstruction. Another program converts source positions in the image plane to celestial coordinates and vice versa, the image being a gnomic projection of a region of the sky.

The Effect of Contextualized Conversational Feedback in a Complex Open-Ended Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Segedy, James R.; Kinnebrew, John S.; Biswas, Gautam

2013-01-01

Betty's Brain is an open-ended learning environment in which students learn about science topics by teaching a virtual agent named Betty through the construction of a visual causal map that represents the relevant science phenomena. The task is complex, and success requires the use of metacognitive strategies that support knowledge acquisition,…

How Secure is the Next-Generation Internet? An Examination of IPv6

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-10-01

pp. 329 – 336. 87. World IPv6 Launch (2012) http://www.worldipv6launch.org. 88. Feilner, M. (2006) OpenVPN : Building and Integrating Virtual Private...traditionally based on IPsec, OpenVPN is actually a TLS-based VPN solution [88]. A.3 Conclusions This case study has demonstrated the ease with which an

Scaling the CERN OpenStack cloud

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bell, T.; Bompastor, B.; Bukowiec, S.; Castro Leon, J.; Denis, M. K.; van Eldik, J.; Fermin Lobo, M.; Fernandez Alvarez, L.; Fernandez Rodriguez, D.; Marino, A.; Moreira, B.; Noel, B.; Oulevey, T.; Takase, W.; Wiebalck, A.; Zilli, S.

2015-12-01

CERN has been running a production OpenStack cloud since July 2013 to support physics computing and infrastructure services for the site. In the past year, CERN Cloud Infrastructure has seen a constant increase in nodes, virtual machines, users and projects. This paper will present what has been done in order to make the CERN cloud infrastructure scale out.

The Blended Learning Environment: A Viable Alternative for Special Needs Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rivera, Jennifer Hall

2017-01-01

The traditional classroom provides a classical medium for educating students by allowing an open forum of communication between the pupil and teacher. The last twenty-five years have opened a new realm of possibilities in education through the use of technology and virtual supplemental resources, designed to engage learners in all academic levels.…

Personalised Learning in the Open Classroom: The Mutuality of Teacher and Student Agency

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Deed, Craig; Cox, Peter; Dorman, Jeffrey; Edwards, Debra; Farrelly, Cathleen; Keeffe, Mary; Lovejoy, Valerie; Mow, Lucy; Sellings, Peter; Prain, Vaughan; Waldrip, Bruce; Yager, Zali

2014-01-01

In this paper we examine how agency is characterised by teachers and students when personalised learning is enacted in the contemporary open classroom. A case study is outlined that identifies teacher reasoning for practice, the use of physical and virtual learning spaces, and student reaction to teacher facilitation of personalised learning.…

Interface Design Implications for Recalling the Spatial Configuration of Virtual Auditory Environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McMullen, Kyla A.

Although the concept of virtual spatial audio has existed for almost twenty-five years, only in the past fifteen years has modern computing technology enabled the real-time processing needed to deliver high-precision spatial audio. Furthermore, the concept of virtually walking through an auditory environment did not exist. The applications of such an interface have numerous potential uses. Spatial audio has the potential to be used in various manners ranging from enhancing sounds delivered in virtual gaming worlds to conveying spatial locations in real-time emergency response systems. To incorporate this technology in real-world systems, various concerns should be addressed. First, to widely incorporate spatial audio into real-world systems, head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) must be inexpensively created for each user. The present study further investigated an HRTF subjective selection procedure previously developed within our research group. Users discriminated auditory cues to subjectively select their preferred HRTF from a publicly available database. Next, the issue of training to find virtual sources was addressed. Listeners participated in a localization training experiment using their selected HRTFs. The training procedure was created from the characterization of successful search strategies in prior auditory search experiments. Search accuracy significantly improved after listeners performed the training procedure. Next, in the investigation of auditory spatial memory, listeners completed three search and recall tasks with differing recall methods. Recall accuracy significantly decreased in tasks that required the storage of sound source configurations in memory. To assess the impacts of practical scenarios, the present work assessed the performance effects of: signal uncertainty, visual augmentation, and different attenuation modeling. Fortunately, source uncertainty did not affect listeners' ability to recall or identify sound sources. The present study also found that the presence of visual reference frames significantly increased recall accuracy. Additionally, the incorporation of drastic attenuation significantly improved environment recall accuracy. Through investigating the aforementioned concerns, the present study made initial footsteps guiding the design of virtual auditory environments that support spatial configuration recall.

40 CFR Table 3 to Subpart Wwww of... - Organic HAP Emissions Limits for Existing Open Molding Sources, New Open Molding Sources Emitting...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... Existing Open Molding Sources, New Open Molding Sources Emitting Less Than 100 TPY of HAP, and New and... CATEGORIES National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants: Reinforced Plastic Composites... Existing Open Molding Sources, New Open Molding Sources Emitting Less Than 100 TPY of HAP, and New and...

NASA World Wind: A New Mission

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hogan, P.; Gaskins, T.; Bailey, J. E.

2008-12-01

Virtual Globes are well into their first generation, providing increasingly rich and beautiful visualization of more types and quantities of information. However, they are still mostly single and proprietary programs, akin to a web browser whose content and functionality are controlled and constrained largely by the browser's manufacturer. Today Google and Microsoft determine what we can and cannot see and do in these programs. NASA World Wind started out in nearly the same mode, a single program with limited functionality and information content. But as the possibilities of virtual globes became more apparent, we found that while enabling a new class of information visualization, we were also getting in the way. Many users want to provide World Wind functionality and information in their programs, not ours. They want it in their web pages. They want to include their own features. They told us that only with this kind of flexibility, could their objectives and the potential of the technology be truly realized. World Wind therefore changed its mission: from providing a single information browser to enabling a whole class of 3D geographic applications. Instead of creating one program, we create components to be used in any number of programs. World Wind is NASA open source software. With the source code being fully visible, anyone can readily use it and freely extend it to serve any use. Imagery and other information provided by the World Wind servers is also free and unencumbered, including the server technology to deliver geospatial data. World Wind developers can therefore provide exclusive and custom solutions based on user needs.

OpenStereo: Open Source, Cross-Platform Software for Structural Geology Analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Grohmann, C. H.; Campanha, G. A.

2010-12-01

Free and open source software (FOSS) are increasingly seen as synonyms of innovation and progress. Freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software (through access to the source code) assure a high level of positive feedback between users and developers, which results in stable, secure and constantly updated systems. Several software packages for structural geology analysis are available to the user, with commercial licenses or that can be downloaded at no cost from the Internet. Some provide basic tools of stereographic projections such as plotting poles, great circles, density contouring, eigenvector analysis, data rotation etc, while others perform more specific tasks, such as paleostress or geotechnical/rock stability analysis. This variety also means a wide range of data formating for input, Graphical User Interface (GUI) design and graphic export format. The majority of packages is built for MS-Windows and even though there are packages for the UNIX-based MacOS, there aren't native packages for *nix (UNIX, Linux, BSD etc) Operating Systems (OS), forcing the users to run these programs with emulators or virtual machines. Those limitations lead us to develop OpenStereo, an open source, cross-platform software for stereographic projections and structural geology. The software is written in Python, a high-level, cross-platform programming language and the GUI is designed with wxPython, which provide a consistent look regardless the OS. Numeric operations (like matrix and linear algebra) are performed with the Numpy module and all graphic capabilities are provided by the Matplolib library, including on-screen plotting and graphic exporting to common desktop formats (emf, eps, ps, pdf, png, svg). Data input is done with simple ASCII text files, with values of dip direction and dip/plunge separated by spaces, tabs or commas. The user can open multiple file at the same time (or the same file more than once), and overlay different elements of each dataset (poles, great circles etc). The GUI shows the opened files in a tree structure, similar to “layers” of many illustration software, where the vertical order of the files in the tree reflects the drawing order of the selected elements. At this stage, the software performs plotting operations of poles to planes, lineations, great circles, density contours and rose diagrams. A set of statistics is calculated for each file and its eigenvalues and eigenvectors are used to suggest if the data is clustered about a mean value or distributed along a girdle. Modified Flinn, Triangular and histograms plots are also available. Next step of development will focus on tools as merging and rotation of datasets, possibility to save 'projects' and paleostress analysis. In its current state, OpenStereo requires Python, wxPython, Numpy and Matplotlib installed in the system. We recommend installing PythonXY or the Enthought Python Distribution on MS-Windows and MacOS machines, since all dependencies are provided. Most Linux distributions provide an easy way to install all dependencies through software repositories. OpenStereo is released under the GNU General Public License. Programmers willing to contribute are encouraged to contact the authors directly. FAPESP Grant #09/17675-5

Exploring multi-scale forest above ground biomass estimation with optical remote sensing imageries

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koju, U.; Zhang, J.; Gilani, H.

2017-02-01

Forest shares 80% of total exchange of carbon between the atmosphere and the terrestrial ecosystem. Due to this monitoring of forest above ground biomass (as carbon can be calculated as 0.47 part of total biomass) has become very important. Forest above ground biomass as being the major portion of total forest biomass should be given a very careful consideration in its estimation. It is hoped to be useful in addressing the ongoing problems of deforestation and degradation and to gain carbon mitigation benefits through mechanisms like Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). Many methods of above ground biomass estimation are in used ranging from use of optical remote sensing imageries of very high to very low resolution to SAR data and LIDAR. This paper describes a multi-scale approach for assessing forest above ground biomass, and ultimately carbon stocks, using very high imageries, open source medium resolution and medium resolution satellite datasets with a very limited number of field plots. We found this method is one of the most promising method for forest above ground biomass estimation with higher accuracy and low cost budget. Pilot study was conducted in Chitwan district of Nepal on the estimation of biomass using this technique. The GeoEye-1 (0.5m), Landsat (30m) and Google Earth (GE) images were used remote sensing imageries. Object-based image analysis (OBIA) classification technique was done on Geo-eye imagery for the tree crown delineation at the watershed level. After then, crown projection area (CPA) vs. biomass model was developed and validated at the watershed level. Open source GE imageries were used to calculate the CPA and biomass from virtual plots at district level. Using data mining technique, different parameters from Landsat imageries along with the virtual sample biomass were used for upscaling biomass estimation at district level. We found, this approach can considerably reduce field data requirements for estimation of biomass and carbon in comparison with inventory methods based on enumeration of all trees in a plot. The proposed methodology is very cost effective and can be replicated with limited resources and time.

Optimization of Transmit Parameters in Cardiac Strain Imaging With Full and Partial Aperture Coherent Compounding.

PubMed

Sayseng, Vincent; Grondin, Julien; Konofagou, Elisa E

2018-05-01

Coherent compounding methods using the full or partial transmit aperture have been investigated as a possible means of increasing strain measurement accuracy in cardiac strain imaging; however, the optimal transmit parameters in either compounding approach have yet to be determined. The relationship between strain estimation accuracy and transmit parameters-specifically the subaperture, angular aperture, tilt angle, number of virtual sources, and frame rate-in partial aperture (subaperture compounding) and full aperture (steered compounding) fundamental mode cardiac imaging was thus investigated and compared. Field II simulation of a 3-D cylindrical annulus undergoing deformation and twist was developed to evaluate accuracy of 2-D strain estimation in cross-sectional views. The tradeoff between frame rate and number of virtual sources was then investigated via transthoracic imaging in the parasternal short-axis view of five healthy human subjects, using the strain filter to quantify estimation precision. Finally, the optimized subaperture compounding sequence (25-element subperture, 90° angular aperture, 10 virtual sources, 300-Hz frame rate) was compared to the optimized steered compounding sequence (60° angular aperture, 15° tilt, 10 virtual sources, 300-Hz frame rate) via transthoracic imaging of five healthy subjects. Both approaches were determined to estimate cumulative radial strain with statistically equivalent precision (subaperture compounding E(SNRe %) = 3.56, and steered compounding E(SNRe %) = 4.26).

Effectiveness of Interaural Delays Alone as Cues During Dynamic Sound Localization

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wenzel, Elizabeth M.; Null, Cynthia H. (Technical Monitor)

1996-01-01

The contribution of interaural time differences (ITDs) to the localization of virtual sound sources with and without head motion was examined. Listeners estimated the apparent azimuth, elevation and distance of virtual sources presented over headphones. Stimuli (3 sec., white noise) were synthesized from minimum-phase representations of nonindividualized head-related transfer functions (HRTFs); binaural magnitude spectra were derived from the minimum phase estimates and ITDs were represented as a pure delay. During dynamic conditions, listeners were encouraged to move their heads; head position was tracked and stimuli were synthesized in real time using a Convolvotron to simulate a stationary external sound source. Two synthesis conditions were tested: (1) both interaural level differences (ILDs) and ITDs correctly correlated with source location and head motion, (2) ITDs correct, no ILDs (flat magnitude spectrum). Head movements reduced azimuth confusions primarily when interaural cues were correctly correlated, although a smaller effect was also seen for ITDs alone. Externalization was generally poor for ITD-only conditions and was enhanced by head motion only for normal HRTFs. Overall the data suggest that, while ITDs alone can provide a significant cue for azimuth, the errors most commonly associated with virtual sources are reduced by location-dependent magnitude cues.

GISpark: A Geospatial Distributed Computing Platform for Spatiotemporal Big Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, S.; Zhong, E.; Wang, E.; Zhong, Y.; Cai, W.; Li, S.; Gao, S.

2016-12-01

Geospatial data are growing exponentially because of the proliferation of cost effective and ubiquitous positioning technologies such as global remote-sensing satellites and location-based devices. Analyzing large amounts of geospatial data can provide great value for both industrial and scientific applications. Data- and compute- intensive characteristics inherent in geospatial big data increasingly pose great challenges to technologies of data storing, computing and analyzing. Such challenges require a scalable and efficient architecture that can store, query, analyze, and visualize large-scale spatiotemporal data. Therefore, we developed GISpark - a geospatial distributed computing platform for processing large-scale vector, raster and stream data. GISpark is constructed based on the latest virtualized computing infrastructures and distributed computing architecture. OpenStack and Docker are used to build multi-user hosting cloud computing infrastructure for GISpark. The virtual storage systems such as HDFS, Ceph, MongoDB are combined and adopted for spatiotemporal data storage management. Spark-based algorithm framework is developed for efficient parallel computing. Within this framework, SuperMap GIScript and various open-source GIS libraries can be integrated into GISpark. GISpark can also integrated with scientific computing environment (e.g., Anaconda), interactive computing web applications (e.g., Jupyter notebook), and machine learning tools (e.g., TensorFlow/Orange). The associated geospatial facilities of GISpark in conjunction with the scientific computing environment, exploratory spatial data analysis tools, temporal data management and analysis systems make up a powerful geospatial computing tool. GISpark not only provides spatiotemporal big data processing capacity in the geospatial field, but also provides spatiotemporal computational model and advanced geospatial visualization tools that deals with other domains related with spatial property. We tested the performance of the platform based on taxi trajectory analysis. Results suggested that GISpark achieves excellent run time performance in spatiotemporal big data applications.

Sharing programming resources between Bio* projects through remote procedure call and native call stack strategies.

PubMed

Prins, Pjotr; Goto, Naohisa; Yates, Andrew; Gautier, Laurent; Willis, Scooter; Fields, Christopher; Katayama, Toshiaki

2012-01-01

Open-source software (OSS) encourages computer programmers to reuse software components written by others. In evolutionary bioinformatics, OSS comes in a broad range of programming languages, including C/C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, and R. To avoid writing the same functionality multiple times for different languages, it is possible to share components by bridging computer languages and Bio* projects, such as BioPerl, Biopython, BioRuby, BioJava, and R/Bioconductor. In this chapter, we compare the two principal approaches for sharing software between different programming languages: either by remote procedure call (RPC) or by sharing a local call stack. RPC provides a language-independent protocol over a network interface; examples are RSOAP and Rserve. The local call stack provides a between-language mapping not over the network interface, but directly in computer memory; examples are R bindings, RPy, and languages sharing the Java Virtual Machine stack. This functionality provides strategies for sharing of software between Bio* projects, which can be exploited more often. Here, we present cross-language examples for sequence translation, and measure throughput of the different options. We compare calling into R through native R, RSOAP, Rserve, and RPy interfaces, with the performance of native BioPerl, Biopython, BioJava, and BioRuby implementations, and with call stack bindings to BioJava and the European Molecular Biology Open Software Suite. In general, call stack approaches outperform native Bio* implementations and these, in turn, outperform RPC-based approaches. To test and compare strategies, we provide a downloadable BioNode image with all examples, tools, and libraries included. The BioNode image can be run on VirtualBox-supported operating systems, including Windows, OSX, and Linux.