Draper Station Analysis Tool

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bedrossian, Nazareth; Jang, Jiann-Woei; McCants, Edward; Omohundro, Zachary; Ring, Tom; Templeton, Jeremy; Zoss, Jeremy; Wallace, Jonathan; Ziegler, Philip

2011-01-01

Draper Station Analysis Tool (DSAT) is a computer program, built on commercially available software, for simulating and analyzing complex dynamic systems. Heretofore used in designing and verifying guidance, navigation, and control systems of the International Space Station, DSAT has a modular architecture that lends itself to modification for application to spacecraft or terrestrial systems. DSAT consists of user-interface, data-structures, simulation-generation, analysis, plotting, documentation, and help components. DSAT automates the construction of simulations and the process of analysis. DSAT provides a graphical user interface (GUI), plus a Web-enabled interface, similar to the GUI, that enables a remotely located user to gain access to the full capabilities of DSAT via the Internet and Webbrowser software. Data structures are used to define the GUI, the Web-enabled interface, simulations, and analyses. Three data structures define the type of analysis to be performed: closed-loop simulation, frequency response, and/or stability margins. DSAT can be executed on almost any workstation, desktop, or laptop computer. DSAT provides better than an order of magnitude improvement in cost, schedule, and risk assessment for simulation based design and verification of complex dynamic systems.

Protecting count queries in study design

PubMed Central

Sarwate, Anand D; Boxwala, Aziz A

2012-01-01

Objective Today's clinical research institutions provide tools for researchers to query their data warehouses for counts of patients. To protect patient privacy, counts are perturbed before reporting; this compromises their utility for increased privacy. The goal of this study is to extend current query answer systems to guarantee a quantifiable level of privacy and allow users to tailor perturbations to maximize the usefulness according to their needs. Methods A perturbation mechanism was designed in which users are given options with respect to scale and direction of the perturbation. The mechanism translates the true count, user preferences, and a privacy level within administrator-specified bounds into a probability distribution from which the perturbed count is drawn. Results Users can significantly impact the scale and direction of the count perturbation and can receive more accurate final cohort estimates. Strong and semantically meaningful differential privacy is guaranteed, providing for a unified privacy accounting system that can support role-based trust levels. This study provides an open source web-enabled tool to investigate visually and numerically the interaction between system parameters, including required privacy level and user preference settings. Conclusions Quantifying privacy allows system administrators to provide users with a privacy budget and to monitor its expenditure, enabling users to control the inevitable loss of utility. While current measures of privacy are conservative, this system can take advantage of future advances in privacy measurement. The system provides new ways of trading off privacy and utility that are not provided in current study design systems. PMID:22511018

Protecting count queries in study design.

PubMed

Vinterbo, Staal A; Sarwate, Anand D; Boxwala, Aziz A

2012-01-01

Today's clinical research institutions provide tools for researchers to query their data warehouses for counts of patients. To protect patient privacy, counts are perturbed before reporting; this compromises their utility for increased privacy. The goal of this study is to extend current query answer systems to guarantee a quantifiable level of privacy and allow users to tailor perturbations to maximize the usefulness according to their needs. A perturbation mechanism was designed in which users are given options with respect to scale and direction of the perturbation. The mechanism translates the true count, user preferences, and a privacy level within administrator-specified bounds into a probability distribution from which the perturbed count is drawn. Users can significantly impact the scale and direction of the count perturbation and can receive more accurate final cohort estimates. Strong and semantically meaningful differential privacy is guaranteed, providing for a unified privacy accounting system that can support role-based trust levels. This study provides an open source web-enabled tool to investigate visually and numerically the interaction between system parameters, including required privacy level and user preference settings. Quantifying privacy allows system administrators to provide users with a privacy budget and to monitor its expenditure, enabling users to control the inevitable loss of utility. While current measures of privacy are conservative, this system can take advantage of future advances in privacy measurement. The system provides new ways of trading off privacy and utility that are not provided in current study design systems.

Understanding Chinese-Speaking Open Courseware Users: A Case Study on User Engagement in an Open Courseware Portal in Taiwan (Opensource Opencourse Prototype System)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huang, Wen-Hao David; Lin, Meng-Fen Grace; Shen, Wendi

2012-01-01

The open educational resource (OER) movement has reached a critical mass due to recent technology advancements. In Taiwan, to overcome the language barrier, the Opensource Opencourse Prototype System (OOPS) plays a significant role in enabling Chinese-speaking users to benefit from this global education movement. However, our understanding about…

Demand Response Advanced Controls Framework and Assessment of Enabling Technology Costs

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

Potter, Jennifer; Cappers, Peter

The Demand Response Advanced Controls Framework and Assessment of Enabling Technology Costs research describe a variety of DR opportunities and the various bulk power system services they can provide. The bulk power system services are mapped to a generalized taxonomy of DR “service types”, which allows us to discuss DR opportunities and bulk power system services in fewer yet broader categories that share similar technological requirements which mainly drive DR enablement costs. The research presents a framework for the costs to automate DR and provides descriptions of the various elements that drive enablement costs. The report introduces the various DRmore » enabling technologies and end-uses, identifies the various services that each can provide to the grid and provides the cost assessment for each enabling technology. In addition to a report, this research includes a Demand Response Advanced Controls Database and User Manual. They are intended to provide users with the data that underlies this research and instructions for how to use that database more effectively and efficiently.« less

Software For Design Of Life-Support Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rudokas, Mary R.; Cantwell, Elizabeth R.; Robinson, Peter I.; Shenk, Timothy W.

1991-01-01

Design Assistant Workstation (DAWN) computer program is prototype of expert software system for analysis and design of regenerative, physical/chemical life-support systems that revitalize air, reclaim water, produce food, and treat waste. Incorporates both conventional software for quantitative mathematical modeling of physical, chemical, and biological processes and expert system offering user stored knowledge about materials and processes. Constructs task tree as it leads user through simulated process, offers alternatives, and indicates where alternative not feasible. Also enables user to jump from one design level to another.

Software Tools Streamline Project Management

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2009-01-01

Three innovative software inventions from Ames Research Center (NETMARK, Program Management Tool, and Query-Based Document Management) are finding their way into NASA missions as well as industry applications. The first, NETMARK, is a program that enables integrated searching of data stored in a variety of databases and documents, meaning that users no longer have to look in several places for related information. NETMARK allows users to search and query information across all of these sources in one step. This cross-cutting capability in information analysis has exponentially reduced the amount of time needed to mine data from days or weeks to mere seconds. NETMARK has been used widely throughout NASA, enabling this automatic integration of information across many documents and databases. NASA projects that use NETMARK include the internal reporting system and project performance dashboard, Erasmus, NASA s enterprise management tool, which enhances organizational collaboration and information sharing through document routing and review; the Integrated Financial Management Program; International Space Station Knowledge Management; Mishap and Anomaly Information Reporting System; and management of the Mars Exploration Rovers. Approximately $1 billion worth of NASA s projects are currently managed using Program Management Tool (PMT), which is based on NETMARK. PMT is a comprehensive, Web-enabled application tool used to assist program and project managers within NASA enterprises in monitoring, disseminating, and tracking the progress of program and project milestones and other relevant resources. The PMT consists of an integrated knowledge repository built upon advanced enterprise-wide database integration techniques and the latest Web-enabled technologies. The current system is in a pilot operational mode allowing users to automatically manage, track, define, update, and view customizable milestone objectives and goals. The third software invention, Query-Based Document Management (QBDM) is a tool that enables content or context searches, either simple or hierarchical, across a variety of databases. The system enables users to specify notification subscriptions where they associate "contexts of interest" and "events of interest" to one or more documents or collection(s) of documents. Based on these subscriptions, users receive notification when the events of interest occur within the contexts of interest for associated document or collection(s) of documents. Users can also associate at least one notification time as part of the notification subscription, with at least one option for the time period of notifications.

NFC Internal: An Indoor Navigation System

PubMed Central

Ozdenizci, Busra; Coskun, Vedat; Ok, Kerem

2015-01-01

Indoor navigation systems have recently become a popular research field due to the lack of GPS signals indoors. Several indoors navigation systems have already been proposed in order to eliminate deficiencies; however each of them has several technical and usability limitations. In this study, we propose NFC Internal, a Near Field Communication (NFC)-based indoor navigation system, which enables users to navigate through a building or a complex by enabling a simple location update, simply by touching NFC tags those are spread around and orient users to the destination. In this paper, we initially present the system requirements, give the design details and study the viability of NFC Internal with a prototype application and a case study. Moreover, we evaluate the performance of the system and compare it with existing indoor navigation systems. It is seen that NFC Internal has considerable advantages and significant contributions to existing indoor navigation systems in terms of security and privacy, cost, performance, robustness, complexity, user preference and commercial availability. PMID:25825976

Spaceflight Operations Services Grid (SOSG) Prototype Implementation and Feasibility Study

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bradford, Robert N.; Thigpen, William W.; Lisotta, Anthony J.; Redman, Sandra

2004-01-01

Science Operations Services Grid is focusing on building a prototype grid-based environment that incorporates existing and new spaceflight services to enable current and future NASA programs with cost savings and new and evolvable methods to conduct science in a distributed environment. The Science Operations Services Grid (SOSG) will provide a distributed environment for widely disparate organizations to conduct their systems and processes in a more efficient and cost effective manner. These organizations include those that: 1) engage in space-based science and operations, 2) develop space-based systems and processes, and 3) conduct scientific research, bringing together disparate scientific disciplines like geology and oceanography to create new information. In addition educational outreach will be significantly enhanced by providing to schools the same tools used by NASA with the ability of the schools to actively participate on many levels in the science generated by NASA from space and on the ground. The services range from voice, video and telemetry processing and display to data mining, high level processing and visualization tools all accessible from a single portal. In this environment, users would not require high end systems or processes at their home locations to use these services. Also, the user would need to know minimal details about the applications in order to utilize the services. In addition, security at all levels is an underlying goal of the project. The Science Operations Services Grid will focus on four tools that are currently used by the ISS Payload community along with nine more that are new to the community. Under the prototype four Grid virtual organizations PO) will be developed to represent four types of users. They are a Payload (experimenters) VO, a Flight Controllers VO, an Engineering and Science Collaborators VO and an Education and Public Outreach VO. The User-based services will be implemented to replicate the operational voice, video, telemetry and commanding systems. Once the User-based services are in place, they will be analyzed to establish feasibility for Grid enabling. If feasible then each User-based service will be Grid enabled. The remaining non-Grid services if not already Web enabled will be so enabled. In the end, four portals will be developed one for each VO. Each portal will contain the appropriate User-based services required for that VO to operate.

Interactive Controls Analysis (INCA)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bauer, Frank H.

1989-01-01

Version 3.12 of INCA provides user-friendly environment for design and analysis of linear control systems. System configuration and parameters easily adjusted, enabling INCA user to create compensation networks and perform sensitivity analysis in convenient manner. Full complement of graphical routines makes output easy to understand. Written in Pascal and FORTRAN.

Mining Feedback in Ranking and Recommendation Systems

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhuang, Ziming

2009-01-01

The amount of online information has grown exponentially over the past few decades, and users become more and more dependent on ranking and recommendation systems to address their information seeking needs. The advance in information technologies has enabled users to provide feedback on the utilities of the underlying ranking and recommendation…

Enabling Accessibility Through Model-Based User Interface Development.

PubMed

Ziegler, Daniel; Peissner, Matthias

2017-01-01

Adaptive user interfaces (AUIs) can increase the accessibility of interactive systems. They provide personalized display and interaction modes to fit individual user needs. Most AUI approaches rely on model-based development, which is considered relatively demanding. This paper explores strategies to make model-based development more attractive for mainstream developers.

Mechanical Engineering Design Project report: Enabler control systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cullen, Christian; Delvecchio, Dave; Scarborough, Alan; Havics, Andrew A.

1992-01-01

The Controls Group was assigned the responsibility for designing the Enabler's control system. The requirement for the design was that the control system must provide a simple user interface to control the boom articulation joints, chassis articulation joints, and the wheel drive. The system required controlling hydraulic motors on the Enabler by implementing 8-bit microprocessor boards. In addition, feedback to evaluate positions and velocities must be interfaced to provide the operator with confirmation as well as control.

Human-Vehicle Interface for Semi-Autonomous Operation of Uninhabited Aero Vehicles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jones, Henry L.; Frew, Eric W.; Woodley, Bruce R.; Rock, Stephen M.

2001-01-01

The robustness of autonomous robotic systems to unanticipated circumstances is typically insufficient for use in the field. The many skills of human user often fill this gap in robotic capability. To incorporate the human into the system, a useful interaction between man and machine must exist. This interaction should enable useful communication to be exchanged in a natural way between human and robot on a variety of levels. This report describes the current human-robot interaction for the Stanford HUMMINGBIRD autonomous helicopter. In particular, the report discusses the elements of the system that enable multiple levels of communication. An intelligent system agent manages the different inputs given to the helicopter. An advanced user interface gives the user and helicopter a method for exchanging useful information. Using this human-robot interaction, the HUMMINGBIRD has carried out various autonomous search, tracking, and retrieval missions.

Towards a Ubiquitous User Model for Profile Sharing and Reuse

PubMed Central

de Lourdes Martinez-Villaseñor, Maria; Gonzalez-Mendoza, Miguel; Hernandez-Gress, Neil

2012-01-01

People interact with systems and applications through several devices and are willing to share information about preferences, interests and characteristics. Social networking profiles, data from advanced sensors attached to personal gadgets, and semantic web technologies such as FOAF and microformats are valuable sources of personal information that could provide a fair understanding of the user, but profile information is scattered over different user models. Some researchers in the ubiquitous user modeling community envision the need to share user model's information from heterogeneous sources. In this paper, we address the syntactic and semantic heterogeneity of user models in order to enable user modeling interoperability. We present a dynamic user profile structure based in Simple Knowledge Organization for the Web (SKOS) to provide knowledge representation for ubiquitous user model. We propose a two-tier matching strategy for concept schemas alignment to enable user modeling interoperability. Our proposal is proved in the application scenario of sharing and reusing data in order to deal with overweight and obesity. PMID:23201995

Automated videography for residential communications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kurtz, Andrew F.; Neustaedter, Carman; Blose, Andrew C.

2010-02-01

The current widespread use of webcams for personal video communication over the Internet suggests that opportunities exist to develop video communications systems optimized for domestic use. We discuss both prior and existing technologies, and the results of user studies that indicate potential needs and expectations for people relative to personal video communications. In particular, users anticipate an easily used, high image quality video system, which enables multitasking communications during the course of real-world activities and provides appropriate privacy controls. To address these needs, we propose a potential approach premised on automated capture of user activity. We then describe a method that adapts cinematography principles, with a dual-camera videography system, to automatically control image capture relative to user activity, using semantic or activity-based cues to determine user position and motion. In particular, we discuss an approach to automatically manage shot framing, shot selection, and shot transitions, with respect to one or more local users engaged in real-time, unscripted events, while transmitting the resulting video to a remote viewer. The goal is to tightly frame subjects (to provide more detail), while minimizing subject loss and repeated abrupt shot framing changes in the images as perceived by a remote viewer. We also discuss some aspects of the system and related technologies that we have experimented with thus far. In summary, the method enables users to participate in interactive video-mediated communications while engaged in other activities.

Real-Time Remote Monitoring with Data Acquisition System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Faizal Zainal Abidin, Ahmad; Huzaimy Jusoh, Mohammad; James, Elster; Junid, Syed Abdul Mutalib Al; Mohd Yassin, Ahmad Ihsan

2015-11-01

The purpose of this system is to provide monitoring system for an electrical device and enable remote monitoring via web based application. This monitoring system allow the user to monitor the device condition from anywhere as the information will be synchronised to the website. The current and voltage reading of the monitored equipment, ambient temperature and humidity level are monitored and recorded. These parameters will be updated on the web page. All these sensor are connected to the microcontroller and the data will saved in micro secure digital (SD) card and send all the gathered information to a web page using the GPRS service connection synchronously. The collected data will be displayed on the website and the user enable to download the data directly from the website. The system will help user to monitor the devices condition and ambient changes with ease. The system is successfully developed, tested and has been installed at residential area in Taman Cahaya Alam, Section U12, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.

Uncovering the information core in recommender systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zeng, Wei; Zeng, An; Liu, Hao; Shang, Ming-Sheng; Zhou, Tao

2014-08-01

With the rapid growth of the Internet and overwhelming amount of information that people are confronted with, recommender systems have been developed to effectively support users' decision-making process in online systems. So far, much attention has been paid to designing new recommendation algorithms and improving existent ones. However, few works considered the different contributions from different users to the performance of a recommender system. Such studies can help us improve the recommendation efficiency by excluding irrelevant users. In this paper, we argue that in each online system there exists a group of core users who carry most of the information for recommendation. With them, the recommender systems can already generate satisfactory recommendation. Our core user extraction method enables the recommender systems to achieve 90% of the accuracy of the top-L recommendation by taking only 20% of the users into account. A detailed investigation reveals that these core users are not necessarily the large-degree users. Moreover, they tend to select high quality objects and their selections are well diversified.

In the blink of an eye: head mounted displays development within BAE Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cameron, Alex

2015-05-01

There has been an explosion of interest in head worn displays in recent years, particularly for consumer applications with an attendant ramping up of investment into key enabling technologies to provide what is essence a mobile computer display. However, head mounted system have been around for over 40 years and today's consumer products are building on a legacy of knowledge and technology created by companies such as BAE Systems who have been designing and fielding helmet mounted displays (HMD) for a wide range of specialist applications. Although the dominant application area has been military aviation, solutions have been fielded for solider, ground vehicle, simulation, medical, racing car and even subsea navigation applications. What sets these HMDs apart is that they provide the user with accurate conformal information embedded in the users real world view where the information presented is intuitive and easy to use because it overlays the real world and enables them to stay head up, eyes out, - improving their effectiveness, reducing workload and improving safety. Such systems are an enabling technology in the provision of enhanced Situation Awareness (SA) and reducing user workload in high intensity situations. These capabilities are finding much wider application in new types of compact man mounted audio/visual products enabled by the emergence of new families of micro displays, novel optical concepts and ultra-compact low power processing solutions. This paper therefore provides a personal summary of BAE Systems 40 year's journey in developing and fielding Head Mounted systems, their applications.

Improved Open-Microphone Speech Recognition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abrash, Victor

2002-12-01

Many current and future NASA missions make extreme demands on mission personnel both in terms of work load and in performing under difficult environmental conditions. In situations where hands are impeded or needed for other tasks, eyes are busy attending to the environment, or tasks are sufficiently complex that ease of use of the interface becomes critical, spoken natural language dialog systems offer unique input and output modalities that can improve efficiency and safety. They also offer new capabilities that would not otherwise be available. For example, many NASA applications require astronauts to use computers in micro-gravity or while wearing space suits. Under these circumstances, command and control systems that allow users to issue commands or enter data in hands-and eyes-busy situations become critical. Speech recognition technology designed for current commercial applications limits the performance of the open-ended state-of-the-art dialog systems being developed at NASA. For example, today's recognition systems typically listen to user input only during short segments of the dialog, and user input outside of these short time windows is lost. Mistakes detecting the start and end times of user utterances can lead to mistakes in the recognition output, and the dialog system as a whole has no way to recover from this, or any other, recognition error. Systems also often require the user to signal when that user is going to speak, which is impractical in a hands-free environment, or only allow a system-initiated dialog requiring the user to speak immediately following a system prompt. In this project, SRI has developed software to enable speech recognition in a hands-free, open-microphone environment, eliminating the need for a push-to-talk button or other signaling mechanism. The software continuously captures a user's speech and makes it available to one or more recognizers. By constantly monitoring and storing the audio stream, it provides the spoken dialog manager extra flexibility to recognize the signal with no audio gaps between recognition requests, as well as to rerecognize portions of the signal, or to rerecognize speech with different grammars, acoustic models, recognizers, start times, and so on. SRI expects that this new open-mic functionality will enable NASA to develop better error-correction mechanisms for spoken dialog systems, and may also enable new interaction strategies.

Improved Open-Microphone Speech Recognition

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Abrash, Victor

2002-01-01

Many current and future NASA missions make extreme demands on mission personnel both in terms of work load and in performing under difficult environmental conditions. In situations where hands are impeded or needed for other tasks, eyes are busy attending to the environment, or tasks are sufficiently complex that ease of use of the interface becomes critical, spoken natural language dialog systems offer unique input and output modalities that can improve efficiency and safety. They also offer new capabilities that would not otherwise be available. For example, many NASA applications require astronauts to use computers in micro-gravity or while wearing space suits. Under these circumstances, command and control systems that allow users to issue commands or enter data in hands-and eyes-busy situations become critical. Speech recognition technology designed for current commercial applications limits the performance of the open-ended state-of-the-art dialog systems being developed at NASA. For example, today's recognition systems typically listen to user input only during short segments of the dialog, and user input outside of these short time windows is lost. Mistakes detecting the start and end times of user utterances can lead to mistakes in the recognition output, and the dialog system as a whole has no way to recover from this, or any other, recognition error. Systems also often require the user to signal when that user is going to speak, which is impractical in a hands-free environment, or only allow a system-initiated dialog requiring the user to speak immediately following a system prompt. In this project, SRI has developed software to enable speech recognition in a hands-free, open-microphone environment, eliminating the need for a push-to-talk button or other signaling mechanism. The software continuously captures a user's speech and makes it available to one or more recognizers. By constantly monitoring and storing the audio stream, it provides the spoken dialog manager extra flexibility to recognize the signal with no audio gaps between recognition requests, as well as to rerecognize portions of the signal, or to rerecognize speech with different grammars, acoustic models, recognizers, start times, and so on. SRI expects that this new open-mic functionality will enable NASA to develop better error-correction mechanisms for spoken dialog systems, and may also enable new interaction strategies.

ScienceOrganizer System and Interface Summary

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Keller, Richard M.; Norvig, Peter (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

ScienceOrganizer is a specialized knowledge management tool designed to enhance the information storage, organization, and access capabilities of distributed NASA science teams. Users access ScienceOrganizer through an intuitive Web-based interface that enables them to upload, download, and organize project information - including data, documents, images, and scientific records associated with laboratory and field experiments. Information in ScienceOrganizer is "threaded", or interlinked, to enable users to locate, track, and organize interrelated pieces of scientific data. Linkages capture important semantic relationships among information resources in the repository, and these assist users in navigating through the information related to their projects.

Saguaro: a distributed operating system based on pools of servers. Annual report, 1 January 1984-31 December 1986

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

Andrews, G.R.

1986-03-03

Prototypes of components of the Saguaro distributed operating system were implemented and the design of the entire system refined based on the experience. The philosophy behind Saguaro is to support the illusion of a single virtual machine while taking advantage of the concurrency and robustness that are possible in a network architecture. Within the system, these advantages are realized by the use of pools of server processes and decentralized allocation protocols. Potential concurrency and robustness are also made available to the user through low-cost mechanisms to control placement of executing commands and files, and to support semi-transparent file replication andmore » access. Another unique aspect of Saguaro is its extensive use of type system to describe user data such as files and to specify the types of arguments to commands and procedures. This enables the system to assist in type checking and leads to a user interface in which command-specific templates are available to facilitate command invocation. A mechanism, channels, is also provided to enable users to construct applications containing general graphs of communication processes.« less

Audible vision for the blind and visually impaired in indoor open spaces.

PubMed

Yu, Xunyi; Ganz, Aura

2012-01-01

In this paper we introduce Audible Vision, a system that can help blind and visually impaired users navigate in large indoor open spaces. The system uses computer vision to estimate the location and orientation of the user, and enables the user to perceive his/her relative position to a landmark through 3D audio. Testing shows that Audible Vision can work reliably in real-life ever-changing environment crowded with people.

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

Davida, G.I.; Frankel, Y.; Matt, B.J.

In developing secure applications and systems, the designers often must incorporate secure user identification in the design specification. In this paper, the authors study secure off line authenticated user identification schemes based on a biometric system that can measure a user`s biometric accurately (up to some Hamming distance). The schemes presented here enhance identification and authorization in secure applications by binding a biometric template with authorization information on a token such as a magnetic strip. Also developed here are schemes specifically designed to minimize the compromise of a user`s private biometrics data, encapsulated in the authorization information, without requiring securemore » hardware tokens. In this paper the authors furthermore study the feasibility of biometrics performing as an enabling technology for secure system and application design. The authors investigate a new technology which allows a user`s biometrics to facilitate cryptographic mechanisms.« less

A Neural Network Approach to Intention Modeling for User-Adapted Conversational Agents

PubMed Central

Griol, David

2016-01-01

Spoken dialogue systems have been proposed to enable a more natural and intuitive interaction with the environment and human-computer interfaces. In this contribution, we present a framework based on neural networks that allows modeling of the user's intention during the dialogue and uses this prediction to dynamically adapt the dialogue model of the system taking into consideration the user's needs and preferences. We have evaluated our proposal to develop a user-adapted spoken dialogue system that facilitates tourist information and services and provide a detailed discussion of the positive influence of our proposal in the success of the interaction, the information and services provided, and the quality perceived by the users. PMID:26819592

Generically Used Expert Scheduling System (GUESS): User's Guide Version 1.0

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Liebowitz, Jay; Krishnamurthy, Vijaya; Rodens, Ira

1996-01-01

This user's guide contains instructions explaining how to best operate the program GUESS, a generic expert scheduling system. GUESS incorporates several important features for a generic scheduler, including automatic scheduling routines to generate a 'first' schedule for the user, a user interface that includes Gantt charts and enables the human scheduler to manipulate schedules manually, diagnostic report generators, and a variety of scheduling techniques. The current version of GUESS runs on an IBM PC or compatible in the Windows 3.1 or Windows '95 environment.

Indexing and retrieval of multimedia objects at different levels of granularity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Faudemay, Pascal; Durand, Gwenael; Seyrat, Claude; Tondre, Nicolas

1998-10-01

Intelligent access to multimedia databases for `naive user' should probably be based on queries formulation by `intelligent agents'. These agents should `understand' the semantics of the contents, learn user preferences and deliver to the user a subset of the source contents, for further navigation. The goal of such systems should be to enable `zero-command' access to the contents, while keeping the freedom of choice of the user. Such systems should interpret multimedia contents in terms of multiple audiovisual objects (from video to visual or audio object), and on actions and scenarios.

Bioculture System Expanding ISS Capabilities for Space Biosciences Research and Commercial Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sato, Kevin Y.

2013-01-01

Oral presentation at the ASGSR 2013 Annual Meeting. The presentation describes the NASA Bioculture System hardware design, capabilities, enabling science research capabilities, and flight concept of operations. The presentation is part of the Enabling Technologies special session and will be presented to perspective users in both academics and commercial communities.

From expert-derived user needs to user-perceived ease of use and usefulness: a two-phase mixed-methods evaluation framework.

PubMed

Boland, Mary Regina; Rusanov, Alexander; So, Yat; Lopez-Jimenez, Carlos; Busacca, Linda; Steinman, Richard C; Bakken, Suzanne; Bigger, J Thomas; Weng, Chunhua

2014-12-01

Underspecified user needs and frequent lack of a gold standard reference are typical barriers to technology evaluation. To address this problem, this paper presents a two-phase evaluation framework involving usability experts (phase 1) and end-users (phase 2). In phase 1, a cross-system functionality alignment between expert-derived user needs and system functions was performed to inform the choice of "the best available" comparison system to enable a cognitive walkthrough in phase 1 and a comparative effectiveness evaluation in phase 2. During phase 2, five quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods are mixed to assess usability: time-motion analysis, software log, questionnaires - System Usability Scale and the Unified Theory of Acceptance of Use of Technology, think-aloud protocols, and unstructured interviews. Each method contributes data for a unique measure (e.g., time motion analysis contributes task-completion-time; software log contributes action transition frequency). The measures are triangulated to yield complementary insights regarding user-perceived ease-of-use, functionality integration, anxiety during use, and workflow impact. To illustrate its use, we applied this framework in a formative evaluation of a software called Integrated Model for Patient Care and Clinical Trials (IMPACT). We conclude that this mixed-methods evaluation framework enables an integrated assessment of user needs satisfaction and user-perceived usefulness and usability of a novel design. This evaluation framework effectively bridges the gap between co-evolving user needs and technology designs during iterative prototyping and is particularly useful when it is difficult for users to articulate their needs for technology support due to the lack of a baseline. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Taming Pipelines, Users, and High Performance Computing with Rector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Estes, N. M.; Bowley, K. S.; Paris, K. N.; Silva, V. H.; Robinson, M. S.

2018-04-01

Rector is a high-performance job management system created by the LROC SOC team to enable processing of thousands of observations and ancillary data products as well as ad-hoc user jobs across a 634 CPU core processing cluster.

Cyber entertainment system using an immersive networked virtual environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ihara, Masayuki; Honda, Shinkuro; Kobayashi, Minoru; Ishibashi, Satoshi

2002-05-01

Authors are examining a cyber entertainment system that applies IPT (Immersive Projection Technology) displays to the entertainment field. This system enables users who are in remote locations to communicate with each other so that they feel as if they are together. Moreover, the system enables those users to experience a high degree of presence, this is due to provision of stereoscopic vision as well as a haptic interface and stereo sound. This paper introduces this system from the viewpoint of space sharing across the network and elucidates its operation using the theme of golf. The system is developed by integrating avatar control, an I/O device, communication links, virtual interaction, mixed reality, and physical simulations. Pairs of these environments are connected across the network. This allows the two players to experience competition. An avatar of each player is displayed by the other player's IPT display in the remote location and is driven by only two magnetic sensors. That is, in the proposed system, users don't need to wear any data suit with a lot of sensors and they are able to play golf without any encumbrance.

Enabling a systems biology knowledgebase with gaggle and firegoose

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

Baliga, Nitin S.

The overall goal of this project was to extend the existing Gaggle and Firegoose systems to develop an open-source technology that runs over the web and links desktop applications with many databases and software applications. This technology would enable researchers to incorporate workflows for data analysis that can be executed from this interface to other online applications. The four specific aims were to (1) provide one-click mapping of genes, proteins, and complexes across databases and species; (2) enable multiple simultaneous workflows; (3) expand sophisticated data analysis for online resources; and enhance open-source development of the Gaggle-Firegoose infrastructure. Gaggle is anmore » open-source Java software system that integrates existing bioinformatics programs and data sources into a user-friendly, extensible environment to allow interactive exploration, visualization, and analysis of systems biology data. Firegoose is an extension to the Mozilla Firefox web browser that enables data transfer between websites and desktop tools including Gaggle. In the last phase of this funding period, we have made substantial progress on development and application of the Gaggle integration framework. We implemented the workspace to the Network Portal. Users can capture data from Firegoose and save them to the workspace. Users can create workflows to start multiple software components programmatically and pass data between them. Results of analysis can be saved to the cloud so that they can be easily restored on any machine. We also developed the Gaggle Chrome Goose, a plugin for the Google Chrome browser in tandem with an opencpu server in the Amazon EC2 cloud. This allows users to interactively perform data analysis on a single web page using the R packages deployed on the opencpu server. The cloud-based framework facilitates collaboration between researchers from multiple organizations. We have made a number of enhancements to the cmonkey2 application to enable and improve the integration within different environments, and we have created a new tools pipeline for generating EGRIN2 models in a largely automated way.« less

Haptic feedback improves surgeons' user experience and fracture reduction in facial trauma simulation.

PubMed

Girod, Sabine; Schvartzman, Sara C; Gaudilliere, Dyani; Salisbury, Kenneth; Silva, Rebeka

2016-01-01

Computer-assisted surgical (CAS) planning tools are available for craniofacial surgery, but are usually based on computer-aided design (CAD) tools that lack the ability to detect the collision of virtual objects (i.e., fractured bone segments). We developed a CAS system featuring a sense of touch (haptic) that enables surgeons to physically interact with individual, patient-specific anatomy and immerse in a three-dimensional virtual environment. In this study, we evaluated initial user experience with our novel system compared to an existing CAD system. Ten surgery resident trainees received a brief verbal introduction to both the haptic and CAD systems. Users simulated mandibular fracture reduction in three clinical cases within a 15 min time limit for each system and completed a questionnaire to assess their subjective experience. We compared standard landmarks and linear and angular measurements between the simulated results and the actual surgical outcome and found that haptic simulation results were not significantly different from actual postoperative outcomes. In contrast, CAD results significantly differed from both the haptic simulation and actual postoperative results. In addition to enabling a more accurate fracture repair, the haptic system provided a better user experience than the CAD system in terms of intuitiveness and self-reported quality of repair.

GSFC Systems Test and Operation Language (STOL) functional requirements and language description

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Desjardins, R.; Hall, G.; Mcguire, J.; Merwarth, P.; Mocarsky, W.; Truszkowski, W.; Villasenor, A.; Brosi, F.; Burch, P.; Carey, D.

1978-01-01

The Systems Tests and Operation Language (STOL) provides the means for user communication with payloads, applications programs, and other ground system elements. It is a systems operation language that enables an operator or user to communicate a command to a computer system. The system interprets each high level language directive from the user and performs the indicated action, such as executing a program, printing out a snapshot, or sending a payload command. This document presents the following: (1) required language features and implementation considerations; (2) basic capabilities; (3) telemetry, command, and input/output directives; (4) procedure definition and control; (5) listing, extension, and STOL nucleus capabilities.

Space station operations task force. Panel 2 report: Ground operations and support systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1987-01-01

The Ground Operations Concept embodied in this report provides for safe multi-user utilization of the Space Station, eases user integration, and gives users autonomy and flexibility. It provides for meaningful multi-national participation while protecting U.S. interests. The concept also supports continued space operations technology development by maintaining NASA expertise and enabling technology evolution. Given attention here are pre/post flight operations, logistics, sustaining engineering/configuration management, transportation services/rescue, and information systems and communication.

Fact Sheets of CTAS and NASA Decision-Support Tools and Concepts

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, Katharine

2004-01-01

Distributed Air/Ground (DAG) Traffic Management (TM) is an integrated operational concept in which flight deck crews, air traffic service providers and aeronautical operational control personnel use distributed decision-making to enable user preferences and increase system capacity, while meeting air traffic management (ATM) requirements. It is a possible operational mode under the Free Flight concept outlined by the RTCA Task Force 3. The goal of DAG-TM is to enhance user flexibility/efficiency and increase system capacity, without adversely affecting system safety or restricting user accessibility to the National Airspace System (NAS). DAG-TM will be accomplished with a human-centered operational paradigm enabled by procedural and technological innovations. These innovations include automation aids, information sharing and Communication, Navigation, and Surveillance (CNS) / ATM technologies. The DAG-TM concept is intended to eliminate static restrictions to the maximum extent possible. In this paradigm, users may plan and operate according to their preferences - as the rule rather than the exception - with deviations occumng eyond the year 2015. Out of a total of 15 concept elements, 4 have been selected for initial sutidies (see Key Elements in sidebar). DAG-TM research is being performed at Ames, Glenn, and Langley Research Centers.

DAG-TM Concept Element 11 CNS Performance Assessment: ADS-B Performance in the TRACON

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Raghavan, Rajesh S.

2004-01-01

Distributed Air/Ground (DAG) Traffic Management (TM) is an integrated operational concept in which flight deck crews, air traffic service providers and aeronautical operational control personnel use distributed decision-making to enable user preferences and increase system capacity, while meeting air traffic management (ATM) safety requirements. It is a possible operational mode under the Free Flight concept outlined by the RTCA Task Force 3. The goal of DAG-TM is to enhance user flexibility/efficiency and increase system capacity, without adversely affecting system safety or restricting user accessibility to the National Airspace System (NAS). DAG-TM will be accomplished with a human-centered operational paradigm enabled by procedural and technological innovations. These innovations include automation aids, information sharing and Communication, Navigation, and Surveillance (CNS) / ATM technologies. The DAG-TM concept is intended to eliminate static restrictions to the maximum extent possible. In this paradigm, users may plan and operate according to their preferences - as the rule rather than the exception - with deviations occurring only as necessary. The DAG-TM concept elements aim to mitigate the extent and impact of dynamic NAS constraints, while maximizing the flexibility of airspace operations

AmeriFlux Data System Looking Forward

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Agarwal, D.; Cheah, Y. W.; Chu, H.; Keenan, T. F.; Pastorello, G.; Torn, M. S.; Humphrey, M.; Beekwilder, N.

2016-12-01

The AmeriFlux data system is turning 20 along with the network. This anniversary provides an opportunity to reimagine the data system and services to support the next 20 years of AmeriFlux. The next generation goals of the data system will be continuous data quality and consistency improvements, and also increased services to both tower owners and data users. An example change is new data citation capabilities and support leveraging Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) to enable easier citation and improved tracking of data usage. A new processing pipeline will enable more regular production of gap-filled and partitioned datasets. Automation will be continuously increased to help improve the time from data submission to user data availability. New standard data submission and processing formats will enable automation of the data submission and improved QA/QC processes. This new data system is made possible by the extensive work that the AmeriFlux data team at CDIAC has done over the last 20 years in close collaboration with the tower teams. This presentation will provide both a historical perspective and a vision for the future of the AmeriFlux data system.

Human-Robot Cooperation with Commands Embedded in Actions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kobayashi, Kazuki; Yamada, Seiji

In this paper, we first propose a novel interaction model, CEA (Commands Embedded in Actions). It can explain the way how some existing systems reduce the work-load of their user. We next extend the CEA and build ECEA (Extended CEA) model. The ECEA enables robots to achieve more complicated tasks. On this extension, we employ ACS (Action Coding System) which can describe segmented human acts and clarifies the relationship between user's actions and robot's actions in a task. The ACS utilizes the CEA's strong point which enables a user to send a command to a robot by his/her natural action for the task. The instance of the ECEA led by using the ACS is a temporal extension which has the user keep a final state of a previous his/her action. We apply the temporal extension of the ECEA for a sweeping task. The high-level task, a cooperative task between the user and the robot can be realized. The robot with simple reactive behavior can sweep the region of under an object when the user picks up the object. In addition, we measure user's cognitive loads on the ECEA and a traditional method, DCM (Direct Commanding Method) in the sweeping task, and compare between them. The results show that the ECEA has a lower cognitive load than the DCM significantly.

Viewing ISS Data in Real Time via the Internet

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Myers, Gerry; Chamberlain, Jim

2004-01-01

EZStream is a computer program that enables authorized users at diverse terrestrial locations to view, in real time, data generated by scientific payloads aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The only computation/communication resource needed for use of EZStream is a computer equipped with standard Web-browser software and a connection to the Internet. EZStream runs in conjunction with the TReK software, described in a prior NASA Tech Briefs article, that coordinates multiple streams of data for the ground communication system of the ISS. EZStream includes server components that interact with TReK within the ISS ground communication system and client components that reside in the users' remote computers. Once an authorized client has logged in, a server component of EZStream pulls the requested data from a TReK application-program interface and sends the data to the client. Future EZStream enhancements will include (1) extensions that enable the server to receive and process arbitrary data streams on its own and (2) a Web-based graphical-user-interface-building subprogram that enables a client who lacks programming expertise to create customized display Web pages.

Environmental management system for transportation maintenance operations : [technical brief].

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2014-04-01

This report provides the framework for the environmental management system to analyze : greenhouse gas emissions from transportation maintenance operations. The system enables user : to compare different scenarios and make informed decisions to minim...

Write, read and answer emails with a dry 'n' wireless brain-computer interface system.

PubMed

Pinegger, Andreas; Deckert, Lisa; Halder, Sebastian; Barry, Norbert; Faller, Josef; Käthner, Ivo; Hintermüller, Christoph; Wriessnegger, Selina C; Kübler, Andrea; Müller-Putz, Gernot R

2014-01-01

Brain-computer interface (BCI) users can control very complex applications such as multimedia players or even web browsers. Therefore, different biosignal acquisition systems are available to noninvasively measure the electrical activity of the brain, the electroencephalogram (EEG). To make BCIs more practical, hardware and software are nowadays designed more user centered and user friendly. In this paper we evaluated one of the latest innovations in the area of BCI: A wireless EEG amplifier with dry electrode technology combined with a web browser which enables BCI users to use standard webmail. With this system ten volunteers performed a daily life task: Write, read and answer an email. Experimental results of this study demonstrate the power of the introduced BCI system.

Design and pilot evaluation of a system to develop computer-based site-specific practice guidelines from decision models.

PubMed

Sanders, G D; Nease, R F; Owens, D K

2000-01-01

Local tailoring of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) requires experts in medicine and evidence synthesis unavailable in many practice settings. The authors' computer-based system enables developers and users to create, disseminate, and tailor CPGs, using normative decision models (DMs). ALCHEMIST, a web-based system, analyzes a DM, creates a CPG in the form of an annotated algorithm, and displays for the guideline user the optimal strategy. ALCHEMIST'S interface enables remote users to tailor the guideline by changing underlying input variables and observing the new annotated algorithm that is developed automatically. In a pilot evaluation of the system, a DM was used to evaluate strategies for staging non-small-cell lung cancer. Subjects (n = 15) compared the automatically created CPG with published guidelines for this staging and critiqued both using a previously developed instrument to rate the CPGs' usability, accountability, and accuracy on a scale of 0 (worst) to 2 (best), with higher scores reflecting higher quality. The mean overall score for the ALCHEMIST CPG was 1.502, compared with the published-CPG score of 0.987 (p = 0.002). The ALCHEMIST CPG scores for usability, accountability, and accuracy were 1.683, 1.393, and 1.430, respectively; the published CPG scores were 1.192, 0.941, and 0.830 (each comparison p < 0.05). On a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best), users' mean ratings of ALCHEMIST'S ease of use, usefulness of content, and presentation format were 4.76, 3.98, and 4.64, respectively. The results demonstrate the feasibility of a web-based system that automatically analyzes a DM and creates a CPG as an annotated algorithm, enabling remote users to develop site-specific CPGs. In the pilot evaluation, the ALCHEMIST guidelines met established criteria for quality and compared favorably with national CPGs. The high usability and usefulness ratings suggest that such systems can be a good tool for guideline development.

Interactive access to LP DAAC satellite data archives through a combination of open-source and custom middleware web services

USGS Publications Warehouse

Davis, Brian N.; Werpy, Jason; Friesz, Aaron M.; Impecoven, Kevin; Quenzer, Robert; Maiersperger, Tom; Meyer, David J.

2015-01-01

Current methods of searching for and retrieving data from satellite land remote sensing archives do not allow for interactive information extraction. Instead, Earth science data users are required to download files over low-bandwidth networks to local workstations and process data before science questions can be addressed. New methods of extracting information from data archives need to become more interactive to meet user demands for deriving increasingly complex information from rapidly expanding archives. Moving the tools required for processing data to computer systems of data providers, and away from systems of the data consumer, can improve turnaround times for data processing workflows. The implementation of middleware services was used to provide interactive access to archive data. The goal of this middleware services development is to enable Earth science data users to access remote sensing archives for immediate answers to science questions instead of links to large volumes of data to download and process. Exposing data and metadata to web-based services enables machine-driven queries and data interaction. Also, product quality information can be integrated to enable additional filtering and sub-setting. Only the reduced content required to complete an analysis is then transferred to the user.

Navigation Architecture for a Space Mobile Network

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Valdez, Jennifer E.; Ashman, Benjamin; Gramling, Cheryl; Heckler, Gregory W.; Carpenter, Russell

2016-01-01

The Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) Augmentation Service for Satellites (TASS) is a proposed beacon service to provide a global, space based GPS augmentation service based on the NASA Global Differential GPS (GDGPS) System. The TASS signal will be tied to the GPS time system and usable as an additional ranging and Doppler radiometric source. Additionally, it will provide data vital to autonomous navigation in the near Earth regime, including space weather information, TDRS ephemerides, Earth Orientation Parameters (EOP), and forward commanding capability. TASS benefits include enhancing situational awareness, enabling increased autonomy, and providing near real-time command access for user platforms. As NASA Headquarters' Space Communication and Navigation Office (SCaN) begins to move away from a centralized network architecture and towards a Space Mobile Network (SMN) that allows for user initiated services, autonomous navigation will be a key part of such a system. This paper explores how a TASS beacon service enables the Space Mobile Networking paradigm, what a typical user platform would require, and provides an in-depth analysis of several navigation scenarios and operations concepts. This paper provides an overview of the TASS beacon and its role within the SMN and user community. Supporting navigation analysis is presented for two user mission scenarios: an Earth observing spacecraft in low earth orbit (LEO), and a highly elliptical spacecraft in a lunar resonance orbit. These diverse flight scenarios indicate the breadth of applicability of the TASS beacon for upcoming users within the current network architecture and in the SMN.

How to engage end-users in smart energy behaviour?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Valkering, Pieter; Laes, Erik; Kessels, Kris; Uyterlinde, Matthijs; Straver, Koen

2014-12-01

End users will play a crucial role in up-coming smart grids that aim to link end-users and energy providers in a better balanced and more efficient electricity system. Within this context, this paper aims to deliver a coherent view on current good practice in end-user engagement in smart grid projects. It draws from a recent review of theoretical insights from sustainable consumption behaviour, social marketing and innovation systems and empirical insights from recent smart grid projects to create an inventory of common motivators, enablers and barriers of behavioural change, and the end-user engagement principles that can be derived from that. We conclude with identifying current research challenges as input for a research agenda on end-user engagement in smart grids.

Graphical user interface concepts for tactical augmented reality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Argenta, Chris; Murphy, Anne; Hinton, Jeremy; Cook, James; Sherrill, Todd; Snarski, Steve

2010-04-01

Applied Research Associates and BAE Systems are working together to develop a wearable augmented reality system under the DARPA ULTRA-Vis program†. Our approach to achieve the objectives of ULTRAVis, called iLeader, incorporates a full color 40° field of view (FOV) see-thru holographic waveguide integrated with sensors for full position and head tracking to provide an unobtrusive information system for operational maneuvers. iLeader will enable warfighters to mark-up the 3D battle-space with symbologic identification of graphical control measures, friendly force positions and enemy/target locations. Our augmented reality display provides dynamic real-time painting of symbols on real objects, a pose-sensitive 360° representation of relevant object positions, and visual feedback for a variety of system activities. The iLeader user interface and situational awareness graphical representations are highly intuitive, nondisruptive, and always tactically relevant. We used best human-factors practices, system engineering expertise, and cognitive task analysis to design effective strategies for presenting real-time situational awareness to the military user without distorting their natural senses and perception. We present requirements identified for presenting information within a see-through display in combat environments, challenges in designing suitable visualization capabilities, and solutions that enable us to bring real-time iconic command and control to the tactical user community.

Teaching Human Poses Interactively to a Social Robot

PubMed Central

Gonzalez-Pacheco, Victor; Malfaz, Maria; Fernandez, Fernando; Salichs, Miguel A.

2013-01-01

The main activity of social robots is to interact with people. In order to do that, the robot must be able to understand what the user is saying or doing. Typically, this capability consists of pre-programmed behaviors or is acquired through controlled learning processes, which are executed before the social interaction begins. This paper presents a software architecture that enables a robot to learn poses in a similar way as people do. That is, hearing its teacher's explanations and acquiring new knowledge in real time. The architecture leans on two main components: an RGB-D (Red-, Green-, Blue- Depth) -based visual system, which gathers the user examples, and an Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system, which processes the speech describing those examples. The robot is able to naturally learn the poses the teacher is showing to it by maintaining a natural interaction with the teacher. We evaluate our system with 24 users who teach the robot a predetermined set of poses. The experimental results show that, with a few training examples, the system reaches high accuracy and robustness. This method shows how to combine data from the visual and auditory systems for the acquisition of new knowledge in a natural manner. Such a natural way of training enables robots to learn from users, even if they are not experts in robotics. PMID:24048336

Teaching human poses interactively to a social robot.

PubMed

Gonzalez-Pacheco, Victor; Malfaz, Maria; Fernandez, Fernando; Salichs, Miguel A

2013-09-17

The main activity of social robots is to interact with people. In order to do that, the robot must be able to understand what the user is saying or doing. Typically, this capability consists of pre-programmed behaviors or is acquired through controlled learning processes, which are executed before the social interaction begins. This paper presents a software architecture that enables a robot to learn poses in a similar way as people do. That is, hearing its teacher's explanations and acquiring new knowledge in real time. The architecture leans on two main components: an RGB-D (Red-, Green-, Blue- Depth) -based visual system, which gathers the user examples, and an Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system, which processes the speech describing those examples. The robot is able to naturally learn the poses the teacher is showing to it by maintaining a natural interaction with the teacher. We evaluate our system with 24 users who teach the robot a predetermined set of poses. The experimental results show that, with a few training examples, the system reaches high accuracy and robustness. This method shows how to combine data from the visual and auditory systems for the acquisition of new knowledge in a natural manner. Such a natural way of training enables robots to learn from users, even if they are not experts in robotics.

Geostar - Navigation location system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Keyser, Donald A.

The author describes the Radiodetermination Satellite Service (RDSS). The initial phase of the RDSS provides for a unique service enabling central offices and headquarters to obtain position-location information and receive short digital messages from mobile user terminals throughout the contiguous United States, southern Canada, and northern Mexico. The system employs a spread-spectrum, CDMA modulation technique allowing multiple customers to use the system simultaneously, without preassigned coordination with fellow users. Position location is currently determined by employing an existing radio determination receiver, such as Loran-C, GPS, or Transit, in the mobile user terminal. In the early 1990s position location will be determined at a central earth station by time-differential ranging of the user terminals via two or more geostationary satellites. A brief overview of the RDSS system architecture is presented with emphasis on the user terminal and its diverse applications.

Natural interaction for unmanned systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Taylor, Glenn; Purman, Ben; Schermerhorn, Paul; Garcia-Sampedro, Guillermo; Lanting, Matt; Quist, Michael; Kawatsu, Chris

2015-05-01

Military unmanned systems today are typically controlled by two methods: tele-operation or menu-based, search-andclick interfaces. Both approaches require the operator's constant vigilance: tele-operation requires constant input to drive the vehicle inch by inch; a menu-based interface requires eyes on the screen in order to search through alternatives and select the right menu item. In both cases, operators spend most of their time and attention driving and minding the unmanned systems rather than on being a warfighter. With these approaches, the platform and interface become more of a burden than a benefit. The availability of inexpensive sensor systems in products such as Microsoft Kinect™ or Nintendo Wii™ has resulted in new ways of interacting with computing systems, but new sensors alone are not enough. Developing useful and usable human-system interfaces requires understanding users and interaction in context: not just what new sensors afford in terms of interaction, but how users want to interact with these systems, for what purpose, and how sensors might enable those interactions. Additionally, the system needs to reliably make sense of the user's inputs in context, translate that interpretation into commands for the unmanned system, and give feedback to the user. In this paper, we describe an example natural interface for unmanned systems, called the Smart Interaction Device (SID), which enables natural two-way interaction with unmanned systems including the use of speech, sketch, and gestures. We present a few example applications SID to different types of unmanned systems and different kinds of interactions.

Practical and Secure Recovery of Disk Encryption Key Using Smart Cards

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Omote, Kazumasa; Kato, Kazuhiko

In key-recovery methods using smart cards, a user can recover the disk encryption key in cooperation with the system administrator, even if the user has lost the smart card including the disk encryption key. However, the disk encryption key is known to the system administrator in advance in most key-recovery methods. Hence user's disk data may be read by the system administrator. Furthermore, if the disk encryption key is not known to the system administrator in advance, it is difficult to achieve a key authentication. In this paper, we propose a scheme which enables to recover the disk encryption key when the user's smart card is lost. In our scheme, the disk encryption key is not preserved anywhere and then the system administrator cannot know the key before key-recovery phase. Only someone who has a user's smart card and knows the user's password can decrypt that user's disk data. Furthermore, we measured the processing time required for user authentication in an experimental environment using a virtual machine monitor. As a result, we found that this processing time is short enough to be practical.

A satellite-based personal communication system for the 21st century

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sue, Miles K.; Dessouky, Khaled; Levitt, Barry; Rafferty, William

1990-01-01

Interest in personal communications (PCOMM) has been stimulated by recent developments in satellite and terrestrial mobile communications. A personal access satellite system (PASS) concept was developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which has many attractive user features, including service diversity and a handheld terminal. Significant technical challenges addressed in formulating the PASS space and ground segments are discussed. PASS system concept and basic design features, high risk enabling technologies, an optimized multiple access scheme, alternative antenna coverage concepts, the use of non-geostationary orbits, user terminal radiation constraints, and user terminal frequency reference are covered.

Effect of Knowledge Management on Organizational Performance: Enabling Thought Leadership and Social Capital through Technology Management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chalhoub, Michel S.

The present paper studies the relationship between social networks enabled by technological advances in social software, and overall business performance. With the booming popularity of online communication and the rise of knowledge communities, businesses are faced with a challenge as well as an opportunity - should they monitor the use of social software or encourage it and learn from it? We introduce the concept of user-autonomy and user-fun, which go beyond the traditional user-friendly requirement of existing information technologies. We identified 120 entities out of a sample of 164 from Mediterranean countries and the Gulf region, to focus on the effect of social exchange information systems in thought leadership.

Developing A Web-based User Interface for Semantic Information Retrieval

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Berrios, Daniel C.; Keller, Richard M.

2003-01-01

While there are now a number of languages and frameworks that enable computer-based systems to search stored data semantically, the optimal design for effective user interfaces for such systems is still uncle ar. Such interfaces should mask unnecessary query detail from users, yet still allow them to build queries of arbitrary complexity without significant restrictions. We developed a user interface supporting s emantic query generation for Semanticorganizer, a tool used by scient ists and engineers at NASA to construct networks of knowledge and dat a. Through this interface users can select node types, node attribute s and node links to build ad-hoc semantic queries for searching the S emanticOrganizer network.

Accelerating Translational Research by Clinically Driven Development of an Informatics Platform–A Case Study

PubMed Central

Abugessaisa, Imad; Saevarsdottir, Saedis; Tsipras, Giorgos; Lindblad, Staffan; Sandin, Charlotta; Nikamo, Pernilla; Ståhle, Mona; Malmström, Vivianne; Klareskog, Lars; Tegnér, Jesper

2014-01-01

Translational medicine is becoming increasingly dependent upon data generated from health care, clinical research, and molecular investigations. This increasing rate of production and diversity in data has brought about several challenges, including the need to integrate fragmented databases, enable secondary use of patient clinical data from health care in clinical research, and to create information systems that clinicians and biomedical researchers can readily use. Our case study effectively integrates requirements from the clinical and biomedical researcher perspectives in a translational medicine setting. Our three principal achievements are (a) a design of a user-friendly web-based system for management and integration of clinical and molecular databases, while adhering to proper de-identification and security measures; (b) providing a real-world test of the system functionalities using clinical cohorts; and (c) system integration with a clinical decision support system to demonstrate system interoperability. We engaged two active clinical cohorts, 747 psoriasis patients and 2001 rheumatoid arthritis patients, to demonstrate efficient query possibilities across the data sources, enable cohort stratification, extract variation in antibody patterns, study biomarker predictors of treatment response in RA patients, and to explore metabolic profiles of psoriasis patients. Finally, we demonstrated system interoperability by enabling integration with an established clinical decision support system in health care. To assure the usefulness and usability of the system, we followed two approaches. First, we created a graphical user interface supporting all user interactions. Secondly we carried out a system performance evaluation study where we measured the average response time in seconds for active users, http errors, and kilobits per second received and sent. The maximum response time was found to be 0.12 seconds; no server or client errors of any kind were detected. In conclusion, the system can readily be used by clinicians and biomedical researchers in a translational medicine setting. PMID:25203647

Accelerating translational research by clinically driven development of an informatics platform--a case study.

PubMed

Abugessaisa, Imad; Saevarsdottir, Saedis; Tsipras, Giorgos; Lindblad, Staffan; Sandin, Charlotta; Nikamo, Pernilla; Ståhle, Mona; Malmström, Vivianne; Klareskog, Lars; Tegnér, Jesper

2014-01-01

Translational medicine is becoming increasingly dependent upon data generated from health care, clinical research, and molecular investigations. This increasing rate of production and diversity in data has brought about several challenges, including the need to integrate fragmented databases, enable secondary use of patient clinical data from health care in clinical research, and to create information systems that clinicians and biomedical researchers can readily use. Our case study effectively integrates requirements from the clinical and biomedical researcher perspectives in a translational medicine setting. Our three principal achievements are (a) a design of a user-friendly web-based system for management and integration of clinical and molecular databases, while adhering to proper de-identification and security measures; (b) providing a real-world test of the system functionalities using clinical cohorts; and (c) system integration with a clinical decision support system to demonstrate system interoperability. We engaged two active clinical cohorts, 747 psoriasis patients and 2001 rheumatoid arthritis patients, to demonstrate efficient query possibilities across the data sources, enable cohort stratification, extract variation in antibody patterns, study biomarker predictors of treatment response in RA patients, and to explore metabolic profiles of psoriasis patients. Finally, we demonstrated system interoperability by enabling integration with an established clinical decision support system in health care. To assure the usefulness and usability of the system, we followed two approaches. First, we created a graphical user interface supporting all user interactions. Secondly we carried out a system performance evaluation study where we measured the average response time in seconds for active users, http errors, and kilobits per second received and sent. The maximum response time was found to be 0.12 seconds; no server or client errors of any kind were detected. In conclusion, the system can readily be used by clinicians and biomedical researchers in a translational medicine setting.

An electronic registry for physiotherapists in Belgium.

PubMed

Buyl, Ronald; Nyssen, Marc

2008-01-01

This paper describes the results of the KINELECTRICS project. Since more and more clinical documents are stored and transmitted in an electronic way, the aim of this project was to design an electronic version of the registry that contains all acts of physiotherapists. The solution we present here, not only meets all legal constraints, but also enables to verify the traceability and inalterability of the generated documents, by means of SHA-256 codes. The proposed structure, using XML technology can also form a basis for the development of tools that can be used by the controlling authorities. By means of a certification procedure for software systems, we succeeded in developing a user friendly system that enables end-users that use a quality labeled software package, to automatically produce all the legally necessary documents concerning the registry. Moreover, we hope that this development will be an incentive for non-users to start working in an electronic way.

Regional information guidance system based on hypermedia concept

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Matoba, Hiroshi; Hara, Yoshinori; Kasahara, Yutako

1990-08-01

A regional information guidance system has been developed on an image workstation. Two main features of this system are hypermedia data structure and friendly visual interface realized by the full-color frame memory system. As the hypermedia data structure manages regional information such as maps, pictures and explanations of points of interest, users can retrieve those information one by one, next to next according to their interest change. For example, users can retrieve explanation of a picture through the link between pictures and text explanations. Users can also traverse from one document to another by using keywords as cross reference indices. The second feature is to utilize a full-color, high resolution and wide space frame memory for visual interface design. This frame memory system enables real-time operation of image data and natural scene representation. The system also provides half tone representing function which enables fade-in/out presentations. This fade-in/out functions used in displaying and erasing menu and image data, makes visual interface soft for human eyes. The system we have developed is a typical example of multimedia applications. We expect the image workstation will play an important role as a platform for multimedia applications.

An object-oriented approach to the management of meteorological and hydrological data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Graves, S. J.; Williams, S. F.; Criswell, E. A.

1990-01-01

An interface to several meteorological and hydrological databases have been developed that enables researchers efficiently to access and interrelate data through a customized menu system. By extending a relational database system with object-oriented concepts, each user or group of users may have different 'views' of the data to allow user access to data in customized ways without altering the organization of the database. An application to COHMEX and WetNet, two earth science projects within NASA Marshall Space Flight Center's Earth Science and Applications Division, are described.

Graphics Software For VT Terminals

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wang, Caroline

1991-01-01

VTGRAPH graphics software tool for DEC/VT computer terminal or terminals compatible with it, widely used by government and industry. Callable in FORTRAN or C language, library program enabling user to cope with many computer environments in which VT terminals used for window management and graphic systems. Provides PLOT10-like package plus color or shade capability for VT240, VT241, and VT300 terminals. User can easily design more-friendly user-interface programs and design PLOT10 programs on VT terminals with different computer systems. Requires ReGis graphics set terminal and FORTRAN compiler.

Improved Interactive Medical-Imaging System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ross, Muriel D.; Twombly, Ian A.; Senger, Steven

2003-01-01

An improved computational-simulation system for interactive medical imaging has been invented. The system displays high-resolution, three-dimensional-appearing images of anatomical objects based on data acquired by such techniques as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic-resonance imaging (MRI). The system enables users to manipulate the data to obtain a variety of views for example, to display cross sections in specified planes or to rotate images about specified axes. Relative to prior such systems, this system offers enhanced capabilities for synthesizing images of surgical cuts and for collaboration by users at multiple, remote computing sites.

GeoCrystal: graphic-interactive access to geodata archives

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goebel, Stefan; Haist, Joerg; Jasnoch, Uwe

2002-03-01

Recently there is spent a lot of effort to establish information systems and global infrastructures enabling both data suppliers and users to describe (-> eCommerce, metadata) as well as to find appropriate data. Examples for this are metadata information systems, online-shops or portals for geodata. The main disadvantages of existing approaches are insufficient methods and mechanisms leading users to (e.g. spatial) data archives. This affects aspects concerning usability and personalization in general as well as visual feedback techniques in the different steps of the information retrieval process. Several approaches aim at the improvement of graphical user interfaces by using intuitive metaphors, but only some of them offer 3D interfaces in the form of information landscapes or geographic result scenes in the context of information systems for geodata. This paper presents GeoCrystal, which basic idea is to adopt Venn diagrams to compose complex queries and to visualize search results in a 3D information and navigation space for geodata. These concepts are enhanced with spatial metaphors and 3D information landscapes (library for geodata) wherein users can specify searches for appropriate geodata and are enabled to graphic-interactively communicate with search results (book metaphor).

Navigation Architecture For A Space Mobile Network

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Valdez, Jennifer E.; Ashman, Benjamin; Gramling, Cheryl; Heckler, Gregory W.; Carpenter, Russell

2016-01-01

The Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) Augmentation Service for Satellites (TASS) is a proposed beacon service to provide a global, space-based GPS augmentation service based on the NASA Global Differential GPS (GDGPS) System. The TASS signal will be tied to the GPS time system and usable as an additional ranging and Doppler radiometric source. Additionally, it will provide data vital to autonomous navigation in the near Earth regime, including space weather information, TDRS ephemerides, Earth Orientation Parameters (EOP), and forward commanding capability. TASS benefits include enhancing situational awareness, enabling increased autonomy, and providing near real-time command access for user platforms. As NASA Headquarters Space Communication and Navigation Office (SCaN) begins to move away from a centralized network architecture and towards a Space Mobile Network (SMN) that allows for user initiated services, autonomous navigation will be a key part of such a system. This paper explores how a TASS beacon service enables the Space Mobile Networking paradigm, what a typical user platform would require, and provides an in-depth analysis of several navigation scenarios and operations concepts.

Mobile collaborative medical display system.

PubMed

Park, Sanghun; Kim, Wontae; Ihm, Insung

2008-03-01

Because of recent advances in wireless communication technologies, the world of mobile computing is flourishing with a variety of applications. In this study, we present an integrated architecture for a personal digital assistant (PDA)-based mobile medical display system that supports collaborative work between remote users. We aim to develop a system that enables users in different regions to share a working environment for collaborative visualization with the potential for exploring huge medical datasets. Our system consists of three major components: mobile client, gateway, and parallel rendering server. The mobile client serves as a front end and enables users to choose the visualization and control parameters interactively and cooperatively. The gateway handles requests and responses between mobile clients and the rendering server for efficient communication. Through the gateway, it is possible to share working environments between users, allowing them to work together in computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) mode. Finally, the parallel rendering server is responsible for performing heavy visualization tasks. Our experience indicates that some features currently available to our mobile clients for collaborative scientific visualization are limited due to the poor performance of mobile devices and the low bandwidth of wireless connections. However, as mobile devices and wireless network systems are experiencing considerable elevation in their capabilities, we believe that our methodology will be utilized effectively in building quite responsive, useful mobile collaborative medical systems in the very near future.

Technologies for user-preferred routing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McNally, B. D.; Sridhar, Banavar

1996-05-01

The 1995 report of the RTCA Board of Directors' Select Committee on Free Flight states that 'insufficient capacity, limited access, and excessive operating restrictions have escalated operating costs, increase delays, and decreased efficiency for all users' of the national airspace system. The Air Transport Association estimates the annual loss to be 3.5 billion dollars. The goal of the user preferred routing research is to develop integrated airborne and ground technologies that enable the highest possible level of unconstrained, user-preferred routing in enroute airspace.

A Mobile Food Record For Integrated Dietary Assessment*

PubMed Central

Ahmad, Ziad; Kerr, Deborah A.; Bosch, Marc; Boushey, Carol J.; Delp, Edward J.; Khanna, Nitin; Zhu, Fengqing

2017-01-01

This paper presents an integrated dietary assessment system based on food image analysis that uses mobile devices or smartphones. We describe two components of our integrated system: a mobile application and an image-based food nutrient database that is connected to the mobile application. An easy-to-use mobile application user interface is described that was designed based on user preferences as well as the requirements of the image analysis methods. The user interface is validated by user feedback collected from several studies. Food nutrient and image databases are also described which facilitates image-based dietary assessment and enable dietitians and other healthcare professionals to monitor patients dietary intake in real-time. The system has been tested and validated in several user studies involving more than 500 users who took more than 60,000 food images under controlled and community-dwelling conditions. PMID:28691119

Two Mechanisms to Avoid Control Conflicts Resulting from Uncoordinated Intent

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mishkin, Andrew H.; Dvorak, Daniel L.; Wagner, David A.; Bennett, Matthew B.

2013-01-01

This software implements a real-time access control protocol that is intended to make all connected users aware of the presence of other connected users, and which of them is currently in control of the system. Here, "in control" means that a single user is authorized and enabled to issue instructions to the system. The software The software also implements a goal scheduling mechanism that can detect situations where plans for the operation of a target system proposed by different users overlap and interact in conflicting ways. In such situations, the system can either simply report the conflict (rejecting one goal or the entire plan), or reschedule the goals in a way that does not conflict. The access control mechanism (and associated control protocol) is unique. Other access control mechanisms are generally intended to authenticate users, or exclude unauthorized access. This software does neither, and would likely depend on having some other mechanism to support those requirements.

JUICE: a data management system that facilitates the analysis of large volumes of information in an EST project workflow.

PubMed

Latorre, Mariano; Silva, Herman; Saba, Juan; Guziolowski, Carito; Vizoso, Paula; Martinez, Veronica; Maldonado, Jonathan; Morales, Andrea; Caroca, Rodrigo; Cambiazo, Veronica; Campos-Vargas, Reinaldo; Gonzalez, Mauricio; Orellana, Ariel; Retamales, Julio; Meisel, Lee A

2006-11-23

Expressed sequence tag (EST) analyses provide a rapid and economical means to identify candidate genes that may be involved in a particular biological process. These ESTs are useful in many Functional Genomics studies. However, the large quantity and complexity of the data generated during an EST sequencing project can make the analysis of this information a daunting task. In an attempt to make this task friendlier, we have developed JUICE, an open source data management system (Apache + PHP + MySQL on Linux), which enables the user to easily upload, organize, visualize and search the different types of data generated in an EST project pipeline. In contrast to other systems, the JUICE data management system allows a branched pipeline to be established, modified and expanded, during the course of an EST project. The web interfaces and tools in JUICE enable the users to visualize the information in a graphical, user-friendly manner. The user may browse or search for sequences and/or sequence information within all the branches of the pipeline. The user can search using terms associated with the sequence name, annotation or other characteristics stored in JUICE and associated with sequences or sequence groups. Groups of sequences can be created by the user, stored in a clipboard and/or downloaded for further analyses. Different user profiles restrict the access of each user depending upon their role in the project. The user may have access exclusively to visualize sequence information, access to annotate sequences and sequence information, or administrative access. JUICE is an open source data management system that has been developed to aid users in organizing and analyzing the large amount of data generated in an EST Project workflow. JUICE has been used in one of the first functional genomics projects in Chile, entitled "Functional Genomics in nectarines: Platform to potentiate the competitiveness of Chile in fruit exportation". However, due to its ability to organize and visualize data from external pipelines, JUICE is a flexible data management system that should be useful for other EST/Genome projects. The JUICE data management system is released under the Open Source GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). JUICE may be downloaded from http://genoma.unab.cl/juice_system/ or http://www.genomavegetal.cl/juice_system/.

Enabling Incremental Iterative Development at Scale: Quality Attribute Refinement and Allocation in Practice

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-06-01

abstract constraints along six dimen- sions for expansion: user, actions, data , business rules, interfaces, and quality attributes [Gottesdiener 2010...relevant open source systems. For example, the CONNECT and HADOOP Distributed File System (HDFS) projects have many user stories that deal with...Iteration Zero involves architecture planning before writing any code. An overly long Iteration Zero is equivalent to the dysfunctional “ Big Up-Front

Intelligent agents as a basis for natural language interfaces

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

Chin, D.N.

1987-01-01

Typical natural-language interfaces respond passively to the users's commands and queries. They cannot volunteer information, correction user misconceptions, or reject unethical requests. In order to do these things, a system must be an intelligent agent. UC (UNIX Consultant), a natural language system that helps the user solve problems in using the UNIX operating system, is such an intelligent agent. The agent component of UC in UCEgo. UCEgo provides UC with its own goals and plans. By adopting different goals in different situations, UCEgo creates and executes different plans, enabling it to interact appropriately with the user. UCEgo adopts goals frommore » its themes, adopts subgoals during planning, and adopts metagoals for dealing with goal interactions. It also adopts goals when it notices that the user either lacks necessary knowledge, or has incorrect beliefs. In these cases, UCEgo plans to volunteer information or correct the user's misconception as appropriate. The user's knowledge and beliefs are modeled by the KNOME (KNOwledge Model of Expertise) component of UC. KNOME is a double-stereotype system which categorizes users by expertise and categorizes UNIX facts by difficulty.« less

Information transfer satellite concept study. Volume 4: computer manual

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bergin, P.; Kincade, C.; Kurpiewski, D.; Leinhaupel, F.; Millican, F.; Onstad, R.

1971-01-01

The Satellite Telecommunications Analysis and Modeling Program (STAMP) provides the user with a flexible and comprehensive tool for the analysis of ITS system requirements. While obtaining minimum cost design points, the program enables the user to perform studies over a wide range of user requirements and parametric demands. The program utilizes a total system approach wherein the ground uplink and downlink, the spacecraft, and the launch vehicle are simultaneously synthesized. A steepest descent algorithm is employed to determine the minimum total system cost design subject to the fixed user requirements and imposed constraints. In the process of converging to the solution, the pertinent subsystem tradeoffs are resolved. This report documents STAMP through a technical analysis and a description of the principal techniques employed in the program.

Pins and posters: Paradigms for content publication on situated displays.

PubMed

José, Rui; Pinto, Hélder; Silva, Bruno; Melro, Ana

2013-01-01

Public-display systems are still far from being a medium for meeting people's diverse communication goals. Moving toward open displays will require publication paradigms that can overcome the challenges of meaningful engagement and enable users to fully understand and control the publication process. The metaphors of pins and posters have inspired two complementary paradigms for public displays. Researchers implemented these paradigms in the Instant Places system, which they deployed on 10 displays in diverse urban locations for six months. They collected user and system data regarding the users' practices. The findings improve the understanding of what might drive user-generated content in networks of urban displays. Such knowledge can inform the design of tools and procedures for situated publication in public displays.

Integrating clinical decision support systems for pharmacogenomic testing into clinical routine - a scoping review of designs of user-system interactions in recent system development.

PubMed

Hinderer, Marc; Boeker, Martin; Wagner, Sebastian A; Lablans, Martin; Newe, Stephanie; Hülsemann, Jan L; Neumaier, Michael; Binder, Harald; Renz, Harald; Acker, Till; Prokosch, Hans-Ulrich; Sedlmayr, Martin

2017-06-06

Pharmacogenomic clinical decision support systems (CDSS) have the potential to help overcome some of the barriers for translating pharmacogenomic knowledge into clinical routine. Before developing a prototype it is crucial for developers to know which pharmacogenomic CDSS features and user-system interactions have yet been developed, implemented and tested in previous pharmacogenomic CDSS efforts and if they have been successfully applied. We address this issue by providing an overview of the designs of user-system interactions of recently developed pharmacogenomic CDSS. We searched PubMed for pharmacogenomic CDSS published between January 1, 2012 and November 15, 2016. Thirty-two out of 118 identified articles were summarized and included in the final analysis. We then compared the designs of user-system interactions of the 20 pharmacogenomic CDSS we had identified. Alerts are the most widespread tools for physician-system interactions, but need to be implemented carefully to prevent alert fatigue and avoid liabilities. Pharmacogenomic test results and override reasons stored in the local EHR might help communicate pharmacogenomic information to other internal care providers. Integrating patients into user-system interactions through patient letters and online portals might be crucial for transferring pharmacogenomic data to external health care providers. Inbox messages inform physicians about new pharmacogenomic test results and enable them to request pharmacogenomic consultations. Search engines enable physicians to compare medical treatment options based on a patient's genotype. Within the last 5 years, several pharmacogenomic CDSS have been developed. However, most of the included articles are solely describing prototypes of pharmacogenomic CDSS rather than evaluating them. To support the development of prototypes further evaluation efforts will be necessary. In the future, pharmacogenomic CDSS will likely include prediction models to identify patients who are suitable for preemptive genotyping.

User-friendly cognitive training for the elderly: a technical report.

PubMed

Boquete, Luciano; Rodríguez-Ascariz, José Manuel; Amo-Usanos, Carlos; Martínez-Arribas, Alejandro; Amo-Usanos, Javier; Otón, Salvador

2011-01-01

This article presents a system that implements a cognitive training program in users' homes. The system comprises various applications designed to create a daily brain-fitness regime. The proposed mental training system uses television and a remote control specially designed for the elderly. This system integrates Java applications to promote brain-fitness training in three areas: arithmetic, memory, and idea association. The system comprises the following: Standard television set, simplified wireless remote control, black box (system's core hardware and software), brain-fitness games (language Java), and Wi-Fi-enabled Internet-connected router. All data from the user training sessions are monitored through a control center. This control center analyzes the evolution of the user and the proper performance of the system during the test. The implemented system has been tested by six healthy volunteers. The results for this user group demonstrated the accessibility and usability of the system in a controlled real environment. The impressions of the users were very favorable, and they reported high adaptability to the system. The mean score for usability and accessibility assigned by the users was 3.56 out of 5 points. The operation stress test (over 200 h) was successful. The proposed system was used to implement a cognitive training program in users' homes, which was developed to be a low-cost tool with a high degree of user interactivity. The results of this preliminary study indicate that this user-friendly system could be adopted as a form of cognitive training for the elderly.

Collaborative Planning of Robotic Exploration

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Norris, Jeffrey; Backes, Paul; Powell, Mark; Vona, Marsette; Steinke, Robert

2004-01-01

The Science Activity Planner (SAP) software system includes an uplink-planning component, which enables collaborative planning of activities to be undertaken by an exploratory robot on a remote planet or on Earth. Included in the uplink-planning component is the SAP-Uplink Browser, which enables users to load multiple spacecraft activity plans into a single window, compare them, and merge them. The uplink-planning component includes a subcomponent that implements the Rover Markup Language Activity Planning format (RML-AP), based on the Extensible Markup Language (XML) format that enables the representation, within a single document, of planned spacecraft and robotic activities together with the scientific reasons for the activities. Each such document is highly parseable and can be validated easily. Another subcomponent of the uplink-planning component is the Activity Dictionary Markup Language (ADML), which eliminates the need for two mission activity dictionaries - one in a human-readable format and one in a machine-readable format. Style sheets that have been developed along with the ADML format enable users to edit one dictionary in a user-friendly environment without compromising

Towards Context-Aware and User-Centered Analysis in Assistive Environments: A Methodology and a Software Tool.

PubMed

Fontecha, Jesús; Hervás, Ramón; Mondéjar, Tania; González, Iván; Bravo, José

2015-10-01

One of the main challenges on Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is to reach an appropriate acceptance level of the assistive systems, as well as to analyze and monitor end user tasks in a feasible and efficient way. The development and evaluation of AAL solutions based on user-centered perspective help to achive these goals. In this work, we have designed a methodology to integrate and develop analytics user-centered tools into assistive systems. An analysis software tool gathers information of end users from adapted psychological questionnaires and naturalistic observation of their own context. The aim is to enable an in-deep analysis focused on improving the life quality of elderly people and their caregivers.

[Web-based support system for medical device maintenance].

PubMed

Zhao, Jinhai; Hou, Wensheng; Chen, Haiyan; Tang, Wei; Wang, Yihui

2015-01-01

A Web-based technology system was put forward aiming at the actual problems of the long maintenance cycle and the difficulties of the maintenance and repairing of medical equipments. Based on analysis of platform system structure and function, using the key technologies such as search engine, BBS, knowledge base and etc, a platform for medical equipment service technician to use by online or offline was designed. The platform provides users with knowledge services and interactive services, enabling users to get a more ideal solution.

State criminal justice telecommunications (STACOM). Volume 4: Network design software user's guide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, J. J.

1977-01-01

A user's guide to the network design program is presented. The program is written in FORTRAN V and implemented on a UNIVAC 1108 computer under the EXEC-8 operating system which enables the user to construct least-cost network topologies for criminal justice digital telecommunications networks. A complete description of program features, inputs, processing logic, and outputs is presented, and a sample run and a program listing are included.

Fast-responder: Rapid mobile-phone access to recent remote sensing imagery for first responders

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Talbot, L. M.; Talbot, B. G.

We introduce Fast-Responder, a novel prototype data-dissemination application and architecture concept to rapidly deliver remote sensing imagery to smartphones to enable situational awareness. The architecture implements a Fast-Earth image caching system on the phone and interacts with a Fast-Earth server. Prototype evaluation successfully demonstrated that National Guard users could select a location, download multiple remote sensing images, and flicker between images, all in less than a minute on a 3G mobile commercial link. The Fast-Responder architecture is a significant advance that is designed to meet the needs of mobile users, such as National Guard response units, to rapidly access information during a crisis, such as a natural or man-made disaster. This paper focuses on the architecture design and advanced user interface concepts for small-screens for highly active mobile users. Novel Fast-Responder concepts can also enable rapid dissemination and evaluation of imagery on the desktop, opening new technology horizons for both desktop and mobile users.

Text-Content-Analysis based on the Syntactic Correlations between Ontologies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tenschert, Axel; Kotsiopoulos, Ioannis; Koller, Bastian

The work presented in this chapter is concerned with the analysis of semantic knowledge structures, represented in the form of Ontologies, through which Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are enriched with new semantic data. The objective of the enrichment process is to enable SLA negotiation in a way that is much more convenient for a Service Users. For this purpose the deployment of an SLA-Management-System as well as the development of an analyzing procedure for Ontologies is required. This chapter will refer to the BREIN, the FinGrid and the LarKC projects. The analyzing procedure examines the syntactic correlations of several Ontologies whose focus lies in the field of mechanical engineering. A method of analyzing text and content is developed as part of this procedure. In order to so, we introduce a formalism as well as a method for understanding content. The analysis and methods are integrated to an SLA Management System which enables a Service User to interact with the system as a service by negotiating the user requests and including the semantic knowledge. Through negotiation between Service User and Service Provider the analysis procedure considers the user requests by extending the SLAs with semantic knowledge. Through this the economic use of an SLA-Management-System is increased by the enhancement of SLAs with semantic knowledge structures. The main focus of this chapter is the analyzing procedure, respectively the Text-Content-Analysis, which provides the mentioned semantic knowledge structures.

EasyKSORD: A Platform of Keyword Search Over Relational Databases

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Peng, Zhaohui; Li, Jing; Wang, Shan

Keyword Search Over Relational Databases (KSORD) enables casual users to use keyword queries (a set of keywords) to search relational databases just like searching the Web, without any knowledge of the database schema or any need of writing SQL queries. Based on our previous work, we design and implement a novel KSORD platform named EasyKSORD for users and system administrators to use and manage different KSORD systems in a novel and simple manner. EasyKSORD supports advanced queries, efficient data-graph-based search engines, multiform result presentations, and system logging and analysis. Through EasyKSORD, users can search relational databases easily and read search results conveniently, and system administrators can easily monitor and analyze the operations of KSORD and manage KSORD systems much better.

Electron lithography STAR design guidelines. Part 1: The STAR user design manual

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Trotter, J. D.; Newman, W.

1982-01-01

The STAR system developed by NASA enables any user with a logic diagram to design a semicustom digital MOS integrated circuit. The system is comprised of a library of standard logic cells and computer programs to place, route, and display designs implemented with cells from the library. Library cells of the CMOS metal gate and CMOS silicon gate technologies were simulated using SPICE, and the results are shown and compared.

Facilitating Secure Sharing of Personal Health Data in the Cloud.

PubMed

Thilakanathan, Danan; Calvo, Rafael A; Chen, Shiping; Nepal, Surya; Glozier, Nick

2016-05-27

Internet-based applications are providing new ways of promoting health and reducing the cost of care. Although data can be kept encrypted in servers, the user does not have the ability to decide whom the data are shared with. Technically this is linked to the problem of who owns the data encryption keys required to decrypt the data. Currently, cloud service providers, rather than users, have full rights to the key. In practical terms this makes the users lose full control over their data. Trust and uptake of these applications can be increased by allowing patients to feel in control of their data, generally stored in cloud-based services. This paper addresses this security challenge by providing the user a way of controlling encryption keys independently of the cloud service provider. We provide a secure and usable system that enables a patient to share health information with doctors and specialists. We contribute a secure protocol for patients to share their data with doctors and others on the cloud while keeping complete ownership. We developed a simple, stereotypical health application and carried out security tests, performance tests, and usability tests with both students and doctors (N=15). We developed the health application as an app for Android mobile phones. We carried out the usability tests on potential participants and medical professionals. Of 20 participants, 14 (70%) either agreed or strongly agreed that they felt safer using our system. Using mixed methods, we show that participants agreed that privacy and security of health data are important and that our system addresses these issues. We presented a security protocol that enables patients to securely share their eHealth data with doctors and nurses and developed a secure and usable system that enables patients to share mental health information with doctors.

ESA Earth Observation Ground Segment Evolution Strategy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Benveniste, J.; Albani, M.; Laur, H.

2016-12-01

One of the key elements driving the evolution of EO Ground Segments, in particular in Europe, has been to enable the creation of added value from EO data and products. This requires the ability to constantly adapt and improve the service to a user base expanding far beyond the `traditional' EO user community of remote sensing specialists. Citizen scientists, the general public, media and educational actors form another user group that is expected to grow. Technological advances, Open Data policies, including those implemented by ESA and the EU, as well as an increasing number of satellites in operations (e.g. Copernicus Sentinels) have led to an enormous increase in available data volumes. At the same time, even with modern network and data handling services, fewer users can afford to bulk-download and consider all potentially relevant data and associated knowledge. The "EO Innovation Europe" concept is being implemented in Europe in coordination between the European Commission, ESA and other European Space Agencies, and industry. This concept is encapsulated in the main ideas of "Bringing the User to the Data" and "Connecting the Users" to complement the traditional one-to-one "data delivery" approach of the past. Both ideas are aiming to better "empower the users" and to create a "sustainable system of interconnected EO Exploitation Platforms", with the objective to enable large scale exploitation of European EO data assets for stimulating innovation and to maximize their impact. These interoperable/interconnected platforms are virtual environments in which the users - individually or collaboratively - have access to the required data sources and processing tools, as opposed to downloading and handling the data `at home'. EO-Innovation Europe has been structured around three elements: an enabling element (acting as a back office), a stimulating element and an outreach element (acting as a front office). Within the enabling element, a "mutualisation" of efforts and funding between public institutions should prevent an unnecessary duplication of investments for enabling infrastructures in Europe and will stimulate the existence of many exploitation platforms or value-adding add-ons funded by different public and private entities in the outreach element (front office).

Computer-assisted instruction and diagnosis of radiographic findings.

PubMed

Harper, D; Butler, C; Hodder, R; Allman, R; Woods, J; Riordan, D

1984-04-01

Recent advances in computer technology, including high bit-density storage, digital imaging, and the ability to interface microprocessors with videodisk, create enormous opportunities in the field of medical education. This program, utilizing a personal computer, videodisk, BASIC language, a linked textfile system, and a triangulation approach to the interpretation of radiographs developed by Dr. W. L. Thompson, can enable the user to engage in a user-friendly, dynamic teaching program in radiology, applicable to various levels of expertise. Advantages include a relatively more compact and inexpensive system with rapid access and ease of revision which requires little instruction to the user.

JUICE: a data management system that facilitates the analysis of large volumes of information in an EST project workflow

PubMed Central

Latorre, Mariano; Silva, Herman; Saba, Juan; Guziolowski, Carito; Vizoso, Paula; Martinez, Veronica; Maldonado, Jonathan; Morales, Andrea; Caroca, Rodrigo; Cambiazo, Veronica; Campos-Vargas, Reinaldo; Gonzalez, Mauricio; Orellana, Ariel; Retamales, Julio; Meisel, Lee A

2006-01-01

Background Expressed sequence tag (EST) analyses provide a rapid and economical means to identify candidate genes that may be involved in a particular biological process. These ESTs are useful in many Functional Genomics studies. However, the large quantity and complexity of the data generated during an EST sequencing project can make the analysis of this information a daunting task. Results In an attempt to make this task friendlier, we have developed JUICE, an open source data management system (Apache + PHP + MySQL on Linux), which enables the user to easily upload, organize, visualize and search the different types of data generated in an EST project pipeline. In contrast to other systems, the JUICE data management system allows a branched pipeline to be established, modified and expanded, during the course of an EST project. The web interfaces and tools in JUICE enable the users to visualize the information in a graphical, user-friendly manner. The user may browse or search for sequences and/or sequence information within all the branches of the pipeline. The user can search using terms associated with the sequence name, annotation or other characteristics stored in JUICE and associated with sequences or sequence groups. Groups of sequences can be created by the user, stored in a clipboard and/or downloaded for further analyses. Different user profiles restrict the access of each user depending upon their role in the project. The user may have access exclusively to visualize sequence information, access to annotate sequences and sequence information, or administrative access. Conclusion JUICE is an open source data management system that has been developed to aid users in organizing and analyzing the large amount of data generated in an EST Project workflow. JUICE has been used in one of the first functional genomics projects in Chile, entitled "Functional Genomics in nectarines: Platform to potentiate the competitiveness of Chile in fruit exportation". However, due to its ability to organize and visualize data from external pipelines, JUICE is a flexible data management system that should be useful for other EST/Genome projects. The JUICE data management system is released under the Open Source GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). JUICE may be downloaded from or . PMID:17123449

Interaction Junk: User Interaction-Based Evaluation of Visual Analytic Systems

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

Endert, Alexander; North, Chris

2012-10-14

With the growing need for visualization to aid users in understanding large, complex datasets, the ability for users to interact and explore these datasets is critical. As visual analytic systems have advanced to leverage powerful computational models and data analytics capabilities, the modes by which users engage and interact with the information are limited. Often, users are taxed with directly manipulating parameters of these models through traditional GUIs (e.g., using sliders to directly manipulate the value of a parameter). However, the purpose of user interaction in visual analytic systems is to enable visual data exploration – where users can focusmore » on their task, as opposed to the tool or system. As a result, users can engage freely in data exploration and decision-making, for the purpose of gaining insight. In this position paper, we discuss how evaluating visual analytic systems can be approached through user interaction analysis, where the goal is to minimize the cognitive translation between the visual metaphor and the mode of interaction (i.e., reducing the “Interactionjunk”). We motivate this concept through a discussion of traditional GUIs used in visual analytics for direct manipulation of model parameters, and the importance of designing interactions the support visual data exploration.« less

Computerized Placement Management Software (CPMS): User Manual, Version 3.0.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

College Entrance Examination Board, Princeton, NJ.

This guide is designed to enable the beginner, as well as the advanced user, to understand and use the Computerized Placement Management Software (CPMS). The CPMS is a system for evaluating information about students and recommending their placement into courses best suited for them. It also tracks their progress and maintains their records. The…

Bringing Up Gopher: Access to Local & Remote Electronic Resources for University Library Users.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, Melvin Marlo; And Others

Some of the administrative and organizational issues in creating a gopher, specifically a library gopher for university libraries, are discussed. In 1993 the Electronic Collections Task Force of the New Mexico State University library administration began to develop a library-based gopher system that would enable users to have unlimited access to…

Crowd Sensing-Enabling Security Service Recommendation for Social Fog Computing Systems

PubMed Central

Wu, Jun; Su, Zhou; Li, Jianhua

2017-01-01

Fog computing, shifting intelligence and resources from the remote cloud to edge networks, has the potential of providing low-latency for the communication from sensing data sources to users. For the objects from the Internet of Things (IoT) to the cloud, it is a new trend that the objects establish social-like relationships with each other, which efficiently brings the benefits of developed sociality to a complex environment. As fog service become more sophisticated, it will become more convenient for fog users to share their own services, resources, and data via social networks. Meanwhile, the efficient social organization can enable more flexible, secure, and collaborative networking. Aforementioned advantages make the social network a potential architecture for fog computing systems. In this paper, we design an architecture for social fog computing, in which the services of fog are provisioned based on “friend” relationships. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt at an organized fog computing system-based social model. Meanwhile, social networking enhances the complexity and security risks of fog computing services, creating difficulties of security service recommendations in social fog computing. To address this, we propose a novel crowd sensing-enabling security service provisioning method to recommend security services accurately in social fog computing systems. Simulation results show the feasibilities and efficiency of the crowd sensing-enabling security service recommendation method for social fog computing systems. PMID:28758943

Crowd Sensing-Enabling Security Service Recommendation for Social Fog Computing Systems.

PubMed

Wu, Jun; Su, Zhou; Wang, Shen; Li, Jianhua

2017-07-30

Fog computing, shifting intelligence and resources from the remote cloud to edge networks, has the potential of providing low-latency for the communication from sensing data sources to users. For the objects from the Internet of Things (IoT) to the cloud, it is a new trend that the objects establish social-like relationships with each other, which efficiently brings the benefits of developed sociality to a complex environment. As fog service become more sophisticated, it will become more convenient for fog users to share their own services, resources, and data via social networks. Meanwhile, the efficient social organization can enable more flexible, secure, and collaborative networking. Aforementioned advantages make the social network a potential architecture for fog computing systems. In this paper, we design an architecture for social fog computing, in which the services of fog are provisioned based on "friend" relationships. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt at an organized fog computing system-based social model. Meanwhile, social networking enhances the complexity and security risks of fog computing services, creating difficulties of security service recommendations in social fog computing. To address this, we propose a novel crowd sensing-enabling security service provisioning method to recommend security services accurately in social fog computing systems. Simulation results show the feasibilities and efficiency of the crowd sensing-enabling security service recommendation method for social fog computing systems.

Global Location-Based Access to Web Applications Using Atom-Based Automatic Update

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Singh, Kulwinder; Park, Dong-Won

We propose an architecture which enables people to enquire about information available in directory services by voice using regular phones. We implement a Virtual User Agent (VUA) which mediates between the human user and a business directory service. The system enables the user to search for the nearest clinic, gas station by price, motel by price, food / coffee, banks/ATM etc. and fix an appointment, or automatically establish a call between the user and the business party if the user prefers. The user also has an option to receive appointment confirmation by phone, SMS, or e-mail. The VUA is accessible by a toll free DID (Direct Inward Dialing) number using a phone by anyone, anywhere, anytime. We use the Euclidean formula for distance measurement. Since, shorter geodesic distances (on the Earth’s surface) correspond to shorter Euclidean distances (measured by a straight line through the Earth). Our proposed architecture uses Atom XML syndication format protocol for data integration, VoiceXML for creating the voice user interface (VUI) and CCXML for controlling the call components. We also provide an efficient algorithm for parsing Atom feeds which provide data to the system. Moreover, we describe a cost-effective way for providing global access to the VUA based on Asterisk (an open source IP-PBX). We also provide some information on how our system can be integrated with GPS for locating the user coordinates and therefore efficiently and spontaneously enhancing the system response. Additionally, the system has a mechanism for validating the phone numbers in its database, and it updates the number and other information such as daily price of gas, motel etc. automatically using an Atom-based feed. Currently, the commercial directory services (Example 411) do not have facilities to update the listing in the database automatically, so that why callers most of the times get out-of-date phone numbers or other information. Our system can be integrated very easily with an existing web infrastructure, thereby making the wealth of Web information easily available to the user by phone. This kind of system can be deployed as an extension to 911 and 411 services to share the workload with human operators. This paper presents all the underlying principles, architecture, features, and an example of the real world deployment of our proposed system. The source code and documentations are available for commercial productions.

Knob manager (KM) operators guide

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

NONE

1993-10-08

KM, Knob Manager, is a tool which enables the user to use the SUNDIALS knob box to adjust the settings of the control system. The followings are some features of KM: dynamic knob assignments with the user friendly interface; user-defined gain for individual knob; graphical displays for operating range and status of each process variable is assigned; backup and restore one or multiple process variable; save current settings to a file and recall the settings from that file in future.

An analysis of security system for intrusion in Smartphone environment.

PubMed

Louk, Maya; Lim, Hyotaek; Lee, HoonJae

2014-01-01

There are many malware applications in Smartphone. Smartphone's users may become unaware if their data has been recorded and stolen by intruders via malware. Smartphone--whether for business or personal use--may not be protected from malwares. Thus, monitoring, detecting, tracking, and notification (MDTN) have become the main purpose of the writing of this paper. MDTN is meant to enable Smartphone to prevent and reduce the number of cybercrimes. The methods are shown to be effective in protecting Smartphone and isolating malware and sending warning in the form of notification to the user about the danger in progress. In particular, (a) MDTN process is possible and will be enabled for Smartphone environment. (b) The methods are shown to be an advanced security for private sensitive data of the Smartphone user.

An Analysis of Security System for Intrusion in Smartphone Environment

PubMed Central

Louk, Maya; Lim, Hyotaek; Lee, HoonJae

2014-01-01

There are many malware applications in Smartphone. Smartphone's users may become unaware if their data has been recorded and stolen by intruders via malware. Smartphone—whether for business or personal use—may not be protected from malwares. Thus, monitoring, detecting, tracking, and notification (MDTN) have become the main purpose of the writing of this paper. MDTN is meant to enable Smartphone to prevent and reduce the number of cybercrimes. The methods are shown to be effective in protecting Smartphone and isolating malware and sending warning in the form of notification to the user about the danger in progress. In particular, (a) MDTN process is possible and will be enabled for Smartphone environment. (b) The methods are shown to be an advanced security for private sensitive data of the Smartphone user. PMID:25165754

CASAS: An Effective Measurement System for Life Skills.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stiles, Richard L.; And Others

The California Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS) is a comprehensive educational system designed to enable adult educators to develop and evaluate a life skills curriculum for competency based educational programs. The system comprises the CASAS Competency List, the CASAS Item Bank, the User's Manual, the Curriculum Index and Matrix, and…

QuakeSim 2.0

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Donnellan, Andrea; Parker, Jay W.; Lyzenga, Gregory A.; Granat, Robert A.; Norton, Charles D.; Rundle, John B.; Pierce, Marlon E.; Fox, Geoffrey C.; McLeod, Dennis; Ludwig, Lisa Grant

2012-01-01

QuakeSim 2.0 improves understanding of earthquake processes by providing modeling tools and integrating model applications and various heterogeneous data sources within a Web services environment. QuakeSim is a multisource, synergistic, data-intensive environment for modeling the behavior of earthquake faults individually, and as part of complex interacting systems. Remotely sensed geodetic data products may be explored, compared with faults and landscape features, mined by pattern analysis applications, and integrated with models and pattern analysis applications in a rich Web-based and visualization environment. Integration of heterogeneous data products with pattern informatics tools enables efficient development of models. Federated database components and visualization tools allow rapid exploration of large datasets, while pattern informatics enables identification of subtle, but important, features in large data sets. QuakeSim is valuable for earthquake investigations and modeling in its current state, and also serves as a prototype and nucleus for broader systems under development. The framework provides access to physics-based simulation tools that model the earthquake cycle and related crustal deformation. Spaceborne GPS and Inter ferometric Synthetic Aperture (InSAR) data provide information on near-term crustal deformation, while paleoseismic geologic data provide longerterm information on earthquake fault processes. These data sources are integrated into QuakeSim's QuakeTables database system, and are accessible by users or various model applications. UAVSAR repeat pass interferometry data products are added to the QuakeTables database, and are available through a browseable map interface or Representational State Transfer (REST) interfaces. Model applications can retrieve data from Quake Tables, or from third-party GPS velocity data services; alternatively, users can manually input parameters into the models. Pattern analysis of GPS and seismicity data has proved useful for mid-term forecasting of earthquakes, and for detecting subtle changes in crustal deformation. The GPS time series analysis has also proved useful as a data-quality tool, enabling the discovery of station anomalies and data processing and distribution errors. Improved visualization tools enable more efficient data exploration and understanding. Tools provide flexibility to science users for exploring data in new ways through download links, but also facilitate standard, intuitive, and routine uses for science users and end users such as emergency responders.

User Driven Data Mining, Visualization and Decision Making for NOAA Observing System and Data Investments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Austin, M.

2016-12-01

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) observing system enterprise represents a $2.4B annual investment. Earth observations from these systems are foundational to NOAA's mission to describe, understand, and predict the Earth's environment. NOAA's decision makers are charged with managing this complex portfolio of observing systems to serve the national interest effectively and efficiently. The Technology Planning & Integration for Observation (TPIO) Office currently maintains an observing system portfolio for NOAA's validated user observation requirements, observing capabilities, and resulting data products and services. TPIO performs data analytics to provide NOAA leadership business case recommendations for making sound budgetary decisions. Over the last year, TPIO has moved from massive spreadsheets to intuitive dashboards that enable Federal agencies as well as the general public the ability to explore user observation requirements and environmental observing systems that monitor and predict changes in the environment. This change has led to an organizational data management shift to analytics and visualizations by allowing analysts more time to focus on understanding the data, discovering insights, and effectively communicating the information to decision makers. Moving forward, the next step is to facilitate a cultural change toward self-serve data sharing across NOAA, other Federal agencies, and the public using intuitive data visualizations that answer relevant business questions for users of NOAA's Observing System Enterprise. Users and producers of environmental data will become aware of the need for enhancing communication to simplify information exchange to achieve multipurpose goals across a variety of disciplines. NOAA cannot achieve its goal of producing environmental intelligence without data that can be shared by multiple user communities. This presentation will describe where we are on this journey and will provide examples of these visualizations, promoting a better understanding of NOAA's environmental sensing capabilities that enable improved communication to decision makers in an effective and intuitive manner.

External Data and Attribute Hyperlink Programs for Promis*e(Registered Trademark)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Derengowski, Rich; Gruel, Andrew

2001-01-01

External Data and Attribute Hyperlink are computer programs that can be added to Promis*e(trademark) which is a commercial software system that automates routine tasks in the design (including drawing schematic diagrams) of electrical control systems. The programs were developed under the Stennis Space Center's (SSC) Dual Use Technology Development Program to provide capabilities for SSC's BMCS configuration management system which uses Promis*e(trademark). The External Data program enables the storage and management of information in an external database linked to a drawing. Changes can be made either in the database or on the drawing. Information that originates outside Promis*e(trademark) can be stored in custom fields that can be added to the database. Although this information is not available in Promis*e(trademark) printed drawings, it can be associated with symbols in the drawings, and can be retrieved through the drawings when the software is running. The Attribute Hyperlink program enables the addition of hyperlink information as attributes of symbols. This program enables the formation of a direct hyperlink between a schematic diagram and an Internet site or a file on a compact disk, on the user's hard drive, or on another computer on a network to which the user's computer is connected. The user can then obtain information directly related to the part (e.g., maintenance, or troubleshooting information) associated with the hyperlink.

Automated Test Case Generation for an Autopilot Requirement Prototype

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Giannakopoulou, Dimitra; Rungta, Neha; Feary, Michael

2011-01-01

Designing safety-critical automation with robust human interaction is a difficult task that is susceptible to a number of known Human-Automation Interaction (HAI) vulnerabilities. It is therefore essential to develop automated tools that provide support both in the design and rapid evaluation of such automation. The Automation Design and Evaluation Prototyping Toolset (ADEPT) enables the rapid development of an executable specification for automation behavior and user interaction. ADEPT supports a number of analysis capabilities, thus enabling the detection of HAI vulnerabilities early in the design process, when modifications are less costly. In this paper, we advocate the introduction of a new capability to model-based prototyping tools such as ADEPT. The new capability is based on symbolic execution that allows us to automatically generate quality test suites based on the system design. Symbolic execution is used to generate both user input and test oracles user input drives the testing of the system implementation, and test oracles ensure that the system behaves as designed. We present early results in the context of a component in the Autopilot system modeled in ADEPT, and discuss the challenges of test case generation in the HAI domain.

A novel pen-based Bluetooth-enabled insulin delivery system with insulin dose tracking and advice.

PubMed

Bailey, Timothy S; Stone, Jenine Y

2017-05-01

Diabetes is growing in prevalence internationally. As more individuals require insulin as part of their treatment, technology evolves to optimize delivery, improve adherence, and reduce dosing errors. Insulin pens outperform vial and syringe in simplicity, dosing accuracy, and user preference. Bolus advisors improve dosing confidence and treatment adherence. The InPen System offers a novel approach to treatment via a wireless pen that syncs to a mobile application featuring a bolus advisor, enabling convenient insulin dose tracking and more accurate bolus advice among other features. Areas covered: Existing technology for insulin delivery and bolus advice are reviewed. The mechanics and functionality of the InPen device are delineated. Findings from formative testing and usability studies of the InPen system are reported. Future directions for the InPen system in the treatment of diabetes are discussed. Expert opinion: Diabetes management is complex and largely data-driven. The InPen System offers a promising new opportunity to avail insulin pen-users of features known to improve treatment efficacy, which have otherwise primarily been available to those using pumps. Given that the majority of insulin users do not use insulin pumps, the InPen System is poised to improve glucose control in a significant portion of the diabetes population.

User participation in the development of the human/computer interface for control centers

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Broome, Richard; Quick-Campbell, Marlene; Creegan, James; Dutilly, Robert

1996-01-01

Technological advances coupled with the requirements to reduce operations staffing costs led to the demand for efficient, technologically-sophisticated mission operations control centers. The control center under development for the earth observing system (EOS) is considered. The users are involved in the development of a control center in order to ensure that it is cost-efficient and flexible. A number of measures were implemented in the EOS program in order to encourage user involvement in the area of human-computer interface development. The following user participation exercises carried out in relation to the system analysis and design are described: the shadow participation of the programmers during a day of operations; the flight operations personnel interviews; and the analysis of the flight operations team tasks. The user participation in the interface prototype development, the prototype evaluation, and the system implementation are reported on. The involvement of the users early in the development process enables the requirements to be better understood and the cost to be reduced.

Do turning visited routes in black maps into white promote sightseeing?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Izumi, Tomoko; Nakatani, Yoshio

2017-07-01

In this paper, we propose a new approach for promoting visiting various areas during a sightseeing based on the "FUrther BENEfit of a Kind of Inconvenience" (FUBEN-EKI) theory. FUBEN-EKI is a theory such that an inconvenient system in some aspect enables users to obtain more hidden benefits than convenient systems. Familiar navigation systems lead tourists to time efficient routes, and so the systems may limit their opportunities for new discoveries during their sightseeing. It is supposed that if tourists walk freely in various areas then they will have more change to find new discoveries. To promote visiting various areas, we propose a blacked-out map: The map is hidden by a black filter initially, but only the area where the user moves becomes clear. Since the user cannot see the map of unvisited area, the user thinks that the unvisited area might have interesting sightseeing spots. Moreover, to make all of the area clear, the user have to go to all of the area on the map.

Development Requirements for Spacesuit Elbow Joint

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Peters, Benjamin

2017-01-01

Functional Requirements for spacesuit elbow joint:1) The system is a conformal, single-axis spacesuit pressurized joint that encloses the elbow joint of the suited user and uses a defined interface to connect to the suit systems on either side of the joint.2) The system shall be designed to bear the loads incurred from the internal pressure of the system, as well as the expected loads induced by the user while enabling the user move the joint through the required range of motion. The joint torque of the system experienced by the user shall remain at or below the required specification for the entire range of motion.3) The design shall be constructed, at a minimum, as a two-layer system. The internal, air-tight layer shall be referred to as the bladder, and the layer on the unpressurized side of the bladder shall be referred to as the restraint. The design of the system may include additional features or layers, such as axial webbing, to meet the overall requirements of the design.

Some Dimensions of Data Quality in Statistical Systems

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1997-07-01

An important objective of a statistical data system is to enable users of the data to recommend (an organizations to take) rational action for solving problems or for improving quality of service of manufactured product. With this view in mind, this ...

SITE TECHNOLOGY CAPSULE: GIS\\KEY ENVIRONMENTAL DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

EPA Science Inventory

GIS/Key™ is a comprehensive environmental database management system that integrates site data and graphics, enabling the user to create geologic cross-sections; boring logs; potentiometric, isopleth, and structure maps; summary tables; and hydrographs. GIS/Key™ is menu-driven an...

DEFENSE RTD&E ONLINE SYSTEM (DROLS)

EPA Science Inventory

Web Enabled DROLS (WED) is a free subscription service available to registered users that provides online access to DTIC's Technical Reports and Research Summaries Databases. It replaces the former unclassified dial-up access to DROLS, DTIC's Defense RDT&E Online System. The Defe...

Personalization of Rule-based Web Services.

PubMed

Choi, Okkyung; Han, Sang Yong

2008-04-04

Nowadays Web users have clearly expressed their wishes to receive personalized services directly. Personalization is the way to tailor services directly to the immediate requirements of the user. However, the current Web Services System does not provide any features supporting this such as consideration of personalization of services and intelligent matchmaking. In this research a flexible, personalized Rule-based Web Services System to address these problems and to enable efficient search, discovery and construction across general Web documents and Semantic Web documents in a Web Services System is proposed. This system utilizes matchmaking among service requesters', service providers' and users' preferences using a Rule-based Search Method, and subsequently ranks search results. A prototype of efficient Web Services search and construction for the suggested system is developed based on the current work.

DIY-style GIS service in mobile navigation system integrated with web and wireless GIS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yan, Yongbin; Wu, Jianping; Fan, Caiyou; Wang, Minqi; Dai, Sheng

2007-06-01

Mobile navigation system based on handheld device can not only provide basic GIS services, but also enable these GIS services to be provided without location limit, to be more instantly interacted between users and devices. However, we still see that most navigation systems have common defects on user experience like limited map format, few map resources, and unable location share. To overcome the above defects, we propose DIY-style GIS service which provide users a more free software environment and allow uses to customize their GIS services. These services include defining geographical coordinate system of maps which helps to hugely enlarge the map source, editing vector feature, related property information and hotlink images, customizing covered area of download map via General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), and sharing users' location information via SMS (Short Message Service) which establishes the communication between users who needs GIS services. The paper introduces the integration of web and wireless GIS service in a mobile navigation system and presents an implementation sample of a DIY-Style GIS service in a mobile navigation system.

Integrating Social Networks and Remote Patient Monitoring Systems to Disseminate Notifications.

PubMed

Ribeiro, Hugo A; Germano, Eliseu; Carvalho, Sergio T; Albuquerque, Eduardo S

2017-01-01

Healthcare workforce shortage can be compensated by using information and communication technologies. Remote patient monitoring systems allow us to identify and communicate complications and anomalies. Integrating social networking services into remote patient monitoring systems enables users to manage their relationships. User defined relationships may be used to disseminate healthcare related notifications. Hence this integration leads to quicker interventions and may reduce hospital readmission rate. As a proof of concept, a module was integrated to a remote patient monitoring platform. A mobile application to manage relationships and receive notifications was also developed.

OpenTopography: Addressing Big Data Challenges Using Cloud Computing, HPC, and Data Analytics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Crosby, C. J.; Nandigam, V.; Phan, M.; Youn, C.; Baru, C.; Arrowsmith, R.

2014-12-01

OpenTopography (OT) is a geoinformatics-based data facility initiated in 2009 for democratizing access to high-resolution topographic data, derived products, and tools. Hosted at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), OT utilizes cyberinfrastructure, including large-scale data management, high-performance computing, and service-oriented architectures to provide efficient Web based access to large, high-resolution topographic datasets. OT collocates data with processing tools to enable users to quickly access custom data and derived products for their application. OT's ongoing R&D efforts aim to solve emerging technical challenges associated with exponential growth in data, higher order data products, as well as user base. Optimization of data management strategies can be informed by a comprehensive set of OT user access metrics that allows us to better understand usage patterns with respect to the data. By analyzing the spatiotemporal access patterns within the datasets, we can map areas of the data archive that are highly active (hot) versus the ones that are rarely accessed (cold). This enables us to architect a tiered storage environment consisting of high performance disk storage (SSD) for the hot areas and less expensive slower disk for the cold ones, thereby optimizing price to performance. From a compute perspective, OT is looking at cloud based solutions such as the Microsoft Azure platform to handle sudden increases in load. An OT virtual machine image in Microsoft's VM Depot can be invoked and deployed quickly in response to increased system demand. OT has also integrated SDSC HPC systems like the Gordon supercomputer into our infrastructure tier to enable compute intensive workloads like parallel computation of hydrologic routing on high resolution topography. This capability also allows OT to scale to HPC resources during high loads to meet user demand and provide more efficient processing. With a growing user base and maturing scientific user community comes new requests for algorithms and processing capabilities. To address this demand, OT is developing an extensible service based architecture for integrating community-developed software. This "plugable" approach to Web service deployment will enable new processing and analysis tools to run collocated with OT hosted data.

Business Performer-Centered Design of User Interfaces

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sousa, Kênia; Vanderdonckt, Jean

Business Performer-Centered Design of User Interfaces is a new design methodology that adopts business process (BP) definition and a business performer perspective for managing the life cycle of user interfaces of enterprise systems. In this methodology, when the organization has a business process culture, the business processes of an organization are firstly defined according to a traditional methodology for this kind of artifact. These business processes are then transformed into a series of task models that represent the interactive parts of the business processes that will ultimately lead to interactive systems. When the organization has its enterprise systems, but not yet its business processes modeled, the user interfaces of the systems help derive tasks models, which are then used to derive the business processes. The double linking between a business process and a task model, and between a task model and a user interface model makes it possible to ensure traceability of the artifacts in multiple paths and enables a more active participation of business performers in analyzing the resulting user interfaces. In this paper, we outline how a human-perspective is used tied to a model-driven perspective.

Participatory interaction design in user requirements specification in healthcare.

PubMed

Martikainen, Susanna; Ikävalko, Pauliina; Korpela, Mikko

2010-01-01

Healthcare information systems are accused of poor usability even in the popular media in Finland. Doctors especially have been very critical and actively expressed their opinions in public. User involvement and user-centered design methods are seen as the key solution to usability problems. In this paper we describe a research case where participatory methods were experimented within healthcare information systems development in medicinal care in a hospital. The study was part of a larger research project on Activity-driven Information Systems Development in healthcare. The study started by finding out about and modeling the present state of medicinal care in the hospital. After that it was important to define and model the goal state. The goal state, facilitated by the would-be software package, was modeled with the help of user interface drawings as one way of prototyping. Traditional usability methods were extended during the study. According to the health professionals' feedback, the use of participatory and user-centered interaction design methods, particularly user interface drawings enabled them to describe their requirements and create common understanding with the system developers.

SensorWeb 3G: Extending On-Orbit Sensor Capabilities to Enable Near Realtime User Configurability

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mandl, Daniel; Cappelaere, Pat; Frye, Stuart; Sohlberg, Rob; Ly, Vuong; Chien, Steve; Tran, Daniel; Davies, Ashley; Sullivan, Don; Ames, Troy;

MEMS-Based Communications Systems for Space-Based Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

DeLosSantos, Hector J.; Brunner, Robert A.; Lam, Juan F.; Hackett, Le Roy H.; Lohr, Ross F., Jr.; Larson, Lawrence E.; Loo, Robert Y.; Matloubian, Mehran; Tangonan, Gregory L.

1995-01-01

As user demand for higher capacity and flexibility in communications satellites increases, new ways to cope with the inherent limitations posed by the prohibitive mass and power consumption, needed to satisfy those requirements, are under investigation. Recent studies suggest that while new satellite architectures are necessary to enable multi-user, multi-data rate, multi-location satellite links, these new architectures will inevitably increase power consumption, and in turn, spacecraft mass, to such an extent that their successful implementation will demand novel lightweight/low power hardware approaches. In this paper, following a brief introduction to the fundamentals of communications satellites, we address the impact of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology, in particular micro-electro-mechanical (MEM) switches to mitigate the above mentioned problems and show that low-loss/wide bandwidth MEM switches will go a long way towards enabling higher capacity and flexibility space-based communications systems.

A novel web-enabled healthcare solution on health vault system.

PubMed

Liao, Lingxia; Chen, Min; Rodrigues, Joel J P C; Lai, Xiaorong; Vuong, Son

2012-06-01

Complicated Electronic Medical Records (EMR) systems have created problems in systems regarding an easy implementation and interoperability for a Web-enabled Healthcare Solution, which is normally provided by an independent healthcare giver with limited IT knowledge and interests. An EMR system with well-designed and user-friendly interface, such as Microsoft HealthVault System used as the back-end platform of a Web-enabled healthcare application will be an approach to deal with these problems. This paper analyzes the patient oriented Web-enabled healthcare service application as the new trend to delivery healthcare from hospital/clinic-centric to patient-centric, the current e-healthcare applications, and the main backend EMR systems. Then, we present a novel web-enabled healthcare solution based on Microsoft HealthVault EMR system to meet customers' needs, such as, low total cost, easily development and maintenance, and good interoperability. A sample system is given to show how the solution can be fulfilled, evaluated, and validated. We expect that this paper will provide a deep understanding of the available EMR systems, leading to insights for new solutions and approaches driven to next generation EMR systems.

Application-Defined Decentralized Access Control

PubMed Central

Xu, Yuanzhong; Dunn, Alan M.; Hofmann, Owen S.; Lee, Michael Z.; Mehdi, Syed Akbar; Witchel, Emmett

2014-01-01

DCAC is a practical OS-level access control system that supports application-defined principals. It allows normal users to perform administrative operations within their privilege, enabling isolation and privilege separation for applications. It does not require centralized policy specification or management, giving applications freedom to manage their principals while the policies are still enforced by the OS. DCAC uses hierarchically-named attributes as a generic framework for user-defined policies such as groups defined by normal users. For both local and networked file systems, its execution time overhead is between 0%–9% on file system microbenchmarks, and under 1% on applications. This paper shows the design and implementation of DCAC, as well as several real-world use cases, including sandboxing applications, enforcing server applications’ security policies, supporting NFS, and authenticating user-defined sub-principals in SSH, all with minimal code changes. PMID:25426493

Advanced Ground Systems Maintenance Cryogenics Test Lab Control System Upgrade Project

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Harp, Janice Leshay

2014-01-01

This project will outfit the Simulated Propellant Loading System (SPLS) at KSC's Cryogenics Test Laboratory with a new programmable logic control system. The control system upgrade enables the Advanced Ground Systems Maintenace Element Integration Team and other users of the SPLS to conduct testing in a controls environment similar to that used at the launch pad.

Decision Analysis for Remediation Technologies (DART) user`s manual

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

Sebo, D.

1997-09-01

This user`s manual is an introduction to the use of the Decision Analysis for Remediation Technology (DART) Report Generator. DART provides a user interface to a database containing site data (e.g., contaminants, waste depth, area) for sites within the Subsurface Contaminant Focus Area (SCFA). The database also contains SCFA requirements, needs, and technology information. The manual is arranged in two major sections. The first section describes loading DART onto a user system. The second section describes DART operation. DART operation is organized into sections by the user interface forms. For each form, user input, both optional and required, DART capabilities,more » and the result of user selections will be covered in sufficient detail to enable the user to understand DART, capabilities and determine how to use DART to meet specific needs.« less

Integrating Advance Organizers and Multidimensional Information Display in Electronic Performance Support Systems

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hung, Wei-Chen; Chao, Chia-An

2007-01-01

This study has reviewed major design approaches for electronic performance support systems and identified two common problems: users' inability to comprehend screen-based material and poorly designed instructional scaffolds. This paper presents a design approach, called the "Matrix-Aided Performance System" ("MAPS"), which enables these problems…

Design-Tradeoff Model For Space Station

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chamberlain, Robert G.; Smith, Jeffrey L.; Borden, Chester S.; Deshpande, Govind K.; Fox, George; Duquette, William H.; Dilullo, Larry A.; Seeley, Larry; Shishko, Robert

1990-01-01

System Design Tradeoff Model (SDTM) computer program produces information which helps to enforce consistency of design objectives throughout system. Mathematical model of set of possible designs for Space Station Freedom. Program finds particular design enabling station to provide specified amounts of resources to users at lowest total (or life-cycle) cost. Compares alternative design concepts by changing set of possible designs, while holding specified services to users constant, and then comparing costs. Finally, both costs and services varied simultaneously when comparing different designs. Written in Turbo C 2.0.

Literature concerning control and display technology applicable to the Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1990-01-01

A review is presented of the literature concerning control and display technology that is applicable to the Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV), a system being developed by NASA that will enable the user to remotely pilot it during a mission in space. In addition to the general review, special consideration is given to virtual image displays and their potential for use in the system, and a preliminary partial task analysis of the user's functions is also presented.

Segmenting healthcare terminology users: a strategic approach to large scale evolutionary development.

PubMed

Price, C; Briggs, K; Brown, P J

1999-01-01

Healthcare terminologies have become larger and more complex, aiming to support a diverse range of functions across the whole spectrum of healthcare activity. Prioritization of development, implementation and evaluation can be achieved by regarding the "terminology" as an integrated system of content-based and functional components. Matching these components to target segments within the healthcare community, supports a strategic approach to evolutionary development and provides essential product differentiation to enable terminology providers and systems suppliers to focus on end-user requirements.

GIS\\KEY™ ENVIRONMENTAL DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEM - INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY EVALUATION REPORT

EPA Science Inventory

GIS/Key™ is a comprehensive environmental database management system that integrates site data and graphics, enabling the user to create geologic cross-sections; boring logs; potentiometric, isopleth, and structure maps; summary tables; and hydrographs. GIS/Key™ is menu-driven an...

Fighting in a Contested Space Environment: Training Marines for Operations with Degraded or Denied Space-Enabled Capabilities

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-06-01

System UFG Ulchi Freedom Guardian UFO UHF Follow-On System UHF Ultra-High Frequency URE User Range Error VTC Video Teleconference WGS Wideband...in the UHF band; two legacy systems, Fleet Satellite Communication System (FLTSATCOM) and UHF Follow-on ( UFO ), and the new constellation being

Promoting Social Network Awareness: A Social Network Monitoring System

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cadima, Rita; Ferreira, Carlos; Monguet, Josep; Ojeda, Jordi; Fernandez, Joaquin

2010-01-01

To increase communication and collaboration opportunities, members of a community must be aware of the social networks that exist within that community. This paper describes a social network monitoring system--the KIWI system--that enables users to register their interactions and visualize their social networks. The system was implemented in a…

Managing Sustainable Data Infrastructures: The Gestalt of EOSDIS

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Behnke, Jeanne; Lowe, Dawn; Lindsay, Francis; Lynnes, Chris; Mitchell, Andrew

2016-01-01

EOSDIS epitomizes a System of Systems, whose many varied and distributed parts are integrated into a single, highly functional organized science data system. A distributed architecture was adopted to ensure discipline-specific support for the science data, while also leveraging standards and establishing policies and tools to enable interdisciplinary research, and analysis across multiple scientific instruments. The EOSDIS is composed of system elements such as geographically distributed archive centers used to manage the stewardship of data. The infrastructure consists of underlying capabilities connections that enable the primary system elements to function together. For example, one key infrastructure component is the common metadata repository, which enables discovery of all data within the EOSDIS system. EOSDIS employs processes and standards to ensure partners can work together effectively, and provide coherent services to users.

Public-Private Partnership: Joint recommendations to improve downloads of large Earth observation data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ramachandran, R.; Murphy, K. J.; Baynes, K.; Lynnes, C.

2016-12-01

With the volume of Earth observation data expanding rapidly, cloud computing is quickly changing the way Earth observation data is processed, analyzed, and visualized. The cloud infrastructure provides the flexibility to scale up to large volumes of data and handle high velocity data streams efficiently. Having freely available Earth observation data collocated on a cloud infrastructure creates opportunities for innovation and value-added data re-use in ways unforeseen by the original data provider. These innovations spur new industries and applications and spawn new scientific pathways that were previously limited due to data volume and computational infrastructure issues. NASA, in collaboration with Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, have jointly developed a set of recommendations to enable efficient transfer of Earth observation data from existing data systems to a cloud computing infrastructure. The purpose of these recommendations is to provide guidelines against which all data providers can evaluate existing data systems and be used to improve any issues uncovered to enable efficient search, access, and use of large volumes of data. Additionally, these guidelines ensure that all cloud providers utilize a common methodology for bulk-downloading data from data providers thus preventing the data providers from building custom capabilities to meet the needs of individual cloud providers. The intent is to share these recommendations with other Federal agencies and organizations that serve Earth observation to enable efficient search, access, and use of large volumes of data. Additionally, the adoption of these recommendations will benefit data users interested in moving large volumes of data from data systems to any other location. These data users include the cloud providers, cloud users such as scientists, and other users working in a high performance computing environment who need to move large volumes of data.

Personalized use of ICT--from telemonitoring to ambient assisted living.

PubMed

Norgall, Thomas; Wichert, Reiner

2013-01-01

Individual availability of information and communications technology (ICT) has enabled "Personal Health" applications like the continuous ubiquitous telemonitoring of vital signs. The concept of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) goes beyond health and care applications utilizing home automation technology for supporting individuals with specific needs, particularly enabling elderly to live in their accustomed home as long as possible. These users usually suffer from more than one disease and need compensation of several impairments. Most current AAL projects and products however provide insulated solutions addressing only a small selection of these user needs. For comprehensive dynamic system adaptation to changing user needs an open platform supporting interoperable components is required. While the industry-driven Continua Health Alliance developed a corresponding Personal Health ecosystem, the ongoing European project universAAL aims at a universal platform for both AAL and Personal Health applications.

Pilot In Command: A Feasibility Assessment of Autonomous Flight Management Operations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wing, David J.; Ballin, Mark G.; Krishnamurthy, Karthik

2004-01-01

Several years of NASA research have produced the air traffic management operational concept of Autonomous Flight Management with high potential for operational feasibility, significant system and user benefits, and safety. Among the chief potential benefits are demand-adaptive or scalable capacity, user flexibility and autonomy that may finally enable truly successful business strategies, and compatibility with current-day operations such that the implementation rate can be driven from within the user community. A concept summary of Autonomous Flight Management is provided, including a description of how these operations would integrate in shared airspace with existing ground-controlled flight operations. The mechanisms enabling the primary benefits are discussed, and key findings of a feasibility assessment of airborne autonomous operations are summarized. Concept characteristics that impact safety are presented, and the potential for initially implementing Autonomous Flight Management is discussed.

Interactive, Secure Web-enabled Aircraft Engine Simulation Using XML Databinding Integration

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lin, Risheng; Afjeh, Abdollah A.

2003-01-01

This paper discusses the detailed design of an XML databinding framework for aircraft engine simulation. The framework provides an object interface to access and use engine data. while at the same time preserving the meaning of the original data. The Language independent representation of engine component data enables users to move around XML data using HTTP through disparate networks. The application of this framework is demonstrated via a web-based turbofan propulsion system simulation using the World Wide Web (WWW). A Java Servlet based web component architecture is used for rendering XML engine data into HTML format and dealing with input events from the user, which allows users to interact with simulation data from a web browser. The simulation data can also be saved to a local disk for archiving or to restart the simulation at a later time.

A multimedia comprehensive informatics system with decision support tools for a multi-site collaboration research of stroke rehabilitation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Ximing; Documet, Jorge; Garrison, Kathleen A.; Winstein, Carolee J.; Liu, Brent

2012-02-01

Stroke is a major cause of adult disability. The Interdisciplinary Comprehensive Arm Rehabilitation Evaluation (I-CARE) clinical trial aims to evaluate a therapy for arm rehabilitation after stroke. A primary outcome measure is correlative analysis between stroke lesion characteristics and standard measures of rehabilitation progress, from data collected at seven research facilities across the country. Sharing and communication of brain imaging and behavioral data is thus a challenge for collaboration. A solution is proposed as a web-based system with tools supporting imaging and informatics related data. In this system, users may upload anonymized brain images through a secure internet connection and the system will sort the imaging data for storage in a centralized database. Users may utilize an annotation tool to mark up images. In addition to imaging informatics, electronic data forms, for example, clinical data forms, are also integrated. Clinical information is processed and stored in the database to enable future data mining related development. Tele-consultation is facilitated through the development of a thin-client image viewing application. For convenience, the system supports access through desktop PC, laptops, and iPAD. Thus, clinicians may enter data directly into the system via iPAD while working with participants in the study. Overall, this comprehensive imaging informatics system enables users to collect, organize and analyze stroke cases efficiently.

Dynamic Spectrum Access for Internet of Things Service in Cognitive Radio-Enabled LPWANs

PubMed Central

Moon, Bongkyo

2017-01-01

In this paper, we focus on a dynamic spectrum access strategy for Internet of Things (IoT) applications in two types of radio systems: cellular networks and cognitive radio-enabled low power wide area networks (CR-LPWANs). The spectrum channel contention between the licensed cellular networks and the unlicensed CR-LPWANs, which work with them, only takes place within the cellular radio spectrum range. Our aim is to maximize the spectrum capacity for the unlicensed users while ensuring that it never interferes with the licensed network. Therefore, in this paper we propose a dynamic spectrum access strategy for CR-LPWANs operating in both licensed and unlicensed bands. The simulation and the numerical analysis by using a matrix geometric approach for the strategy are presented. Finally, we obtain the blocking probability of the licensed users, the mean dwell time of the unlicensed user, and the total carried traffic and combined service quality for the licensed and unlicensed users. The results show that the proposed strategy can maximize the spectrum capacity for the unlicensed users using IoT applications as well as keep the service quality of the licensed users independent of them. PMID:29206215

Dynamic Spectrum Access for Internet of Things Service in Cognitive Radio-Enabled LPWANs.

PubMed

Moon, Bongkyo

2017-12-05

In this paper, we focus on a dynamic spectrum access strategy for Internet of Things (IoT) applications in two types of radio systems: cellular networks and cognitive radio-enabled low power wide area networks (CR-LPWANs). The spectrum channel contention between the licensed cellular networks and the unlicensed CR-LPWANs, which work with them, only takes place within the cellular radio spectrum range. Our aim is to maximize the spectrum capacity for the unlicensed users while ensuring that it never interferes with the licensed network. Therefore, in this paper we propose a dynamic spectrum access strategy for CR-LPWANs operating in both licensed and unlicensed bands. The simulation and the numerical analysis by using a matrix geometric approach for the strategy are presented. Finally, we obtain the blocking probability of the licensed users, the mean dwell time of the unlicensed user, and the total carried traffic and combined service quality for the licensed and unlicensed users. The results show that the proposed strategy can maximize the spectrum capacity for the unlicensed users using IoT applications as well as keep the service quality of the licensed users independent of them.

Performance-Driven Hybrid Full-Body Character Control for Navigation and Interaction in Virtual Environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mousas, Christos; Anagnostopoulos, Christos-Nikolaos

2017-06-01

This paper presents a hybrid character control interface that provides the ability to synthesize in real-time a variety of actions based on the user's performance capture. The proposed methodology enables three different performance interaction modules: the performance animation control that enables the direct mapping of the user's pose to the character, the motion controller that synthesizes the desired motion of the character based on an activity recognition methodology, and the hybrid control that lies within the performance animation and the motion controller. With the methodology presented, the user will have the freedom to interact within the virtual environment, as well as the ability to manipulate the character and to synthesize a variety of actions that cannot be performed directly by him/her, but which the system synthesizes. Therefore, the user is able to interact with the virtual environment in a more sophisticated fashion. This paper presents examples of different scenarios based on the three different full-body character control methodologies.

The EU-project United4Health: User-centred design of an information system for a Norwegian telemedicine service.

PubMed

Smaradottir, Berglind; Gerdes, Martin; Martinez, Santiago; Fensli, Rune

2016-10-01

Organizational changes of health care services in Norway brought to light a need for new clinical pathways. This study presents the design and evaluation of an information system for a new telemedicine service for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients after hospital discharge. A user-centred design approach was employed composed of a workshop with end-users, two user tests and a field trial. For data collection, qualitative methods such as observations, semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire were used. User workshop's outcome informed the implementation of the system initial prototype, evaluated by end-users in a usability laboratory. Several usability and functionality issues were identified and solved, such as the interface between the initial colour scheme and the triage colours. Iterative refinements were made and a second user evaluation showed that the main issues were solved. The responses to a questionnaire presented a high score of user satisfaction. In the final phase, a field trial showed satisfactory use of the system. This study showed how the target end-users groups were actively involved in identifying the needs, suggestions and preferences. These aspects were addressed in the development of an information system through a user-centred design process. The process efficiently enabled users to give feedback about design and functionality. Continuous refinement of the system was the key to full development and suitability for the telemedicine service. This research was a result of the international cooperation between partners within the project United4Health, a part of the Seventh Framework Programme for Research of the European Union. © The Author(s) 2015.

Community-Based ECG Monitoring System for Patients with Cardiovascular Diseases.

PubMed

Lin, Bor-Shyh; Wong, Alice M; Tseng, Kevin C

2016-04-01

This study aims to develop a community-based electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring system for cardiac outpatients to wirelessly detect heart rate, provide personalized healthcare, and enhance interactive social contact because of the prevalence of deaths from cardiovascular disease and the growing problem of aging in the world. The system not only strengthens the performance of the ECG monitoring system but also emphasizes the ergonomic design of wearable devices and user interfaces. In addition, it enables medical professionals to diagnose cardiac symptoms remotely and electronically manage medical reports and suggestions. The experimental result shows high performance of the dry electrode, even in dynamic conditions. The comparison result with different ECG healthcare systems shows the essential factors that the system should possess and the capability of the proposed system. Finally, a user survey was conducted based on the unified theory of acceptance and users of technology (UTAUT) model.

Development and Evaluation of Disaster Information Management System Using Digital Pens and Tabletop User Interfaces

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fukada, Hidemi; Kobayashi, Kazue; Satou, Kenji; Kawana, Hideyuki; Masuda, Tomohiro

Most traditional disaster information systems are necessary to post expert staff with high computer literacy to operate the system quickly and correctly in the tense situation when a disaster occurs. However, in the current disaster response system of local governments, it is not easy for local governments to post such expert staff because they are struggling with staff cuts due to administrative and fiscal reform. In this research, we propose a disaster information management system that can be easily operated, even under the disorderly conditions of a disaster, by municipal personnel in charge of disaster management. This system achieves usability enabling easy input of damage information, even by local government staff with no expertise, by using a digital pen and tabletop user interface. Evaluation was conducted by prospective users using a prototype, and the evaluation results are satisfactory with regard to the function and operationality of the proposed system.

Tavaxy: integrating Taverna and Galaxy workflows with cloud computing support.

PubMed

Abouelhoda, Mohamed; Issa, Shadi Alaa; Ghanem, Moustafa

2012-05-04

Over the past decade the workflow system paradigm has evolved as an efficient and user-friendly approach for developing complex bioinformatics applications. Two popular workflow systems that have gained acceptance by the bioinformatics community are Taverna and Galaxy. Each system has a large user-base and supports an ever-growing repository of application workflows. However, workflows developed for one system cannot be imported and executed easily on the other. The lack of interoperability is due to differences in the models of computation, workflow languages, and architectures of both systems. This lack of interoperability limits sharing of workflows between the user communities and leads to duplication of development efforts. In this paper, we present Tavaxy, a stand-alone system for creating and executing workflows based on using an extensible set of re-usable workflow patterns. Tavaxy offers a set of new features that simplify and enhance the development of sequence analysis applications: It allows the integration of existing Taverna and Galaxy workflows in a single environment, and supports the use of cloud computing capabilities. The integration of existing Taverna and Galaxy workflows is supported seamlessly at both run-time and design-time levels, based on the concepts of hierarchical workflows and workflow patterns. The use of cloud computing in Tavaxy is flexible, where the users can either instantiate the whole system on the cloud, or delegate the execution of certain sub-workflows to the cloud infrastructure. Tavaxy reduces the workflow development cycle by introducing the use of workflow patterns to simplify workflow creation. It enables the re-use and integration of existing (sub-) workflows from Taverna and Galaxy, and allows the creation of hybrid workflows. Its additional features exploit recent advances in high performance cloud computing to cope with the increasing data size and complexity of analysis.The system can be accessed either through a cloud-enabled web-interface or downloaded and installed to run within the user's local environment. All resources related to Tavaxy are available at http://www.tavaxy.org.

The computer integrated documentation project: A merge of hypermedia and AI techniques

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mathe, Nathalie; Boy, Guy

1993-01-01

To generate intelligent indexing that allows context-sensitive information retrieval, a system must be able to acquire knowledge directly through interaction with users. In this paper, we present the architecture for CID (Computer Integrated Documentation). CID is a system that enables integration of various technical documents in a hypertext framework and includes an intelligent browsing system that incorporates indexing in context. CID's knowledge-based indexing mechanism allows case based knowledge acquisition by experimentation. It utilizes on-line user information requirements and suggestions either to reinforce current indexing in case of success or to generate new knowledge in case of failure. This allows CID's intelligent interface system to provide helpful responses, based on previous experience (user feedback). We describe CID's current capabilities and provide an overview of our plans for extending the system.

An Algorithm Enabling Blind Users to Find and Read Barcodes

PubMed Central

Tekin, Ender; Coughlan, James M.

2010-01-01

Most camera-based systems for finding and reading barcodes are designed to be used by sighted users (e.g. the Red Laser iPhone app), and assume the user carefully centers the barcode in the image before the barcode is read. Blind individuals could benefit greatly from such systems to identify packaged goods (such as canned goods in a supermarket), but unfortunately in their current form these systems are completely inaccessible because of their reliance on visual feedback from the user. To remedy this problem, we propose a computer vision algorithm that processes several frames of video per second to detect barcodes from a distance of several inches; the algorithm issues directional information with audio feedback (e.g. “left,” “right”) and thereby guides a blind user holding a webcam or other portable camera to locate and home in on a barcode. Once the barcode is detected at sufficiently close range, a barcode reading algorithm previously developed by the authors scans and reads aloud the barcode and the corresponding product information. We demonstrate encouraging experimental results of our proposed system implemented on a desktop computer with a webcam held by a blindfolded user; ultimately the system will be ported to a camera phone for use by visually impaired users. PMID:20617114

Performance Evaluation Model for Application Layer Firewalls.

PubMed

Xuan, Shichang; Yang, Wu; Dong, Hui; Zhang, Jiangchuan

2016-01-01

Application layer firewalls protect the trusted area network against information security risks. However, firewall performance may affect user experience. Therefore, performance analysis plays a significant role in the evaluation of application layer firewalls. This paper presents an analytic model of the application layer firewall, based on a system analysis to evaluate the capability of the firewall. In order to enable users to improve the performance of the application layer firewall with limited resources, resource allocation was evaluated to obtain the optimal resource allocation scheme in terms of throughput, delay, and packet loss rate. The proposed model employs the Erlangian queuing model to analyze the performance parameters of the system with regard to the three layers (network, transport, and application layers). Then, the analysis results of all the layers are combined to obtain the overall system performance indicators. A discrete event simulation method was used to evaluate the proposed model. Finally, limited service desk resources were allocated to obtain the values of the performance indicators under different resource allocation scenarios in order to determine the optimal allocation scheme. Under limited resource allocation, this scheme enables users to maximize the performance of the application layer firewall.

Engaging technology-resistant elderly people: Empirical evidence from an ICT-enabled social environment.

PubMed

Papa, Filomena; Cornacchia, Michele; Sapio, Bartolomeo; Nicolò, Enrico

2017-01-01

This paper presents a qualitative investigation on user reactions, opinions, and sentiments about a TV-based technological solution developed within the EasyReach Project of the EU Ambient Assisted Living Joint Program to promote social interaction of less educated elderly people, that is, those individuals who, because of poor scholarization, low income, and, possibly, linguistic barriers, still find it difficult to use computers in order to improve their socialization. Experimental data were collected by extensive trials involving 40 real-end users. A methodology called "scenario engagement" was applied to get participants engaged in a live demonstration with the mediation of a facilitator who assisted elderly people to interact with the system. Results point out that the system can be effectively employed to foster social interaction, particularly when it is introduced in a collective use environment (e.g., Senior Center). Although the focus of the investigation was on information and communication technology-enabled social environments, the end users themselves strongly suggested to include in future system releases extra functions considered as essential opportunities for their potential digital lives: that is, medical or health services and bridges toward public administration.

A Programming Language Environment for the Unassisted Learner.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thomas, P. G.; Ince, D. C.

1982-01-01

Describes the computing environment and command language for a new programing language called OUSBASIC which is designed to enable naive users to interact usefully, with little assistance, with a computer system. (Author/CHC)

Planetary Surface Visualization and Analytics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Law, E. S.; Solar System Treks Team

2018-04-01

An introduction and update of the Solar System Treks Project which provides a suite of interactive visualization and analysis tools to enable users (engineers, scientists, public) to access large amounts of mapped planetary data products.

Netlib services and resources

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

Browne, S.V.; Green, S.C.; Moore, K.

1994-04-01

The Netlib repository, maintained by the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, contains freely available software, documents, and databases of interest to the numerical, scientific computing, and other communities. This report includes both the Netlib User`s Guide and the Netlib System Manager`s Guide, and contains information about Netlib`s databases, interfaces, and system implementation. The Netlib repository`s databases include the Performance Database, the Conferences Database, and the NA-NET mail forwarding and Whitepages Databases. A variety of user interfaces enable users to access the Netlib repository in the manner most convenient and compatible with their networking capabilities. These interfaces includemore » the Netlib email interface, the Xnetlib X Windows client, the netlibget command-line TCP/IP client, anonymous FTP, anonymous RCP, and gopher.« less

SpicyNodes Radial Map Engine

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Douma, M.; Ligierko, G.; Angelov, I.

2008-10-01

The need for information has increased exponentially over the past decades. The current systems for constructing, exploring, classifying, organizing, and searching information face the growing challenge of enabling their users to operate efficiently and intuitively in knowledge-heavy environments. This paper presents SpicyNodes, an advanced user interface for difficult interaction contexts. It is based on an underlying structure known as a radial map, which allows users to manipulate and interact in a natural manner with entities called nodes. This technology overcomes certain limitations of existing solutions and solves the problem of browsing complex sets of linked information. SpicyNodes is also an organic system that projects users into a living space, stimulating exploratory behavior and fostering creative thought. Our interactive radial layout is used for educational purposes and has the potential for numerous other applications.

Optimizing Search and Ranking in Folksonomy Systems by Exploiting Context Information

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abel, Fabian; Henze, Nicola; Krause, Daniel

Tagging systems enable users to annotate resources with freely chosen keywords. The evolving bunch of tag assignments is called folksonomy and there exist already some approaches that exploit folksonomies to improve resource retrieval. In this paper, we analyze and compare graph-based ranking algorithms: FolkRank and SocialPageRank. We enhance these algorithms by exploiting the context of tags, and evaluate the results on the GroupMe! dataset. In GroupMe!, users can organize and maintain arbitrary Web resources in self-defined groups. When users annotate resources in GroupMe!, this can be interpreted in context of a certain group. The grouping activity itself is easy for users to perform. However, it delivers valuable semantic information about resources and their context. We present GRank that uses the context information to improve and optimize the detection of relevant search results, and compare different strategies for ranking result lists in folksonomy systems.

Support patient search on pathology reports with interactive online learning based data extraction.

PubMed

Zheng, Shuai; Lu, James J; Appin, Christina; Brat, Daniel; Wang, Fusheng

2015-01-01

Structural reporting enables semantic understanding and prompt retrieval of clinical findings about patients. While synoptic pathology reporting provides templates for data entries, information in pathology reports remains primarily in narrative free text form. Extracting data of interest from narrative pathology reports could significantly improve the representation of the information and enable complex structured queries. However, manual extraction is tedious and error-prone, and automated tools are often constructed with a fixed training dataset and not easily adaptable. Our goal is to extract data from pathology reports to support advanced patient search with a highly adaptable semi-automated data extraction system, which can adjust and self-improve by learning from a user's interaction with minimal human effort. We have developed an online machine learning based information extraction system called IDEAL-X. With its graphical user interface, the system's data extraction engine automatically annotates values for users to review upon loading each report text. The system analyzes users' corrections regarding these annotations with online machine learning, and incrementally enhances and refines the learning model as reports are processed. The system also takes advantage of customized controlled vocabularies, which can be adaptively refined during the online learning process to further assist the data extraction. As the accuracy of automatic annotation improves overtime, the effort of human annotation is gradually reduced. After all reports are processed, a built-in query engine can be applied to conveniently define queries based on extracted structured data. We have evaluated the system with a dataset of anatomic pathology reports from 50 patients. Extracted data elements include demographical data, diagnosis, genetic marker, and procedure. The system achieves F-1 scores of around 95% for the majority of tests. Extracting data from pathology reports could enable more accurate knowledge to support biomedical research and clinical diagnosis. IDEAL-X provides a bridge that takes advantage of online machine learning based data extraction and the knowledge from human's feedback. By combining iterative online learning and adaptive controlled vocabularies, IDEAL-X can deliver highly adaptive and accurate data extraction to support patient search.

An Interactive Web System for Field Data Sharing and Collaboration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weng, Y.; Sun, F.; Grigsby, J. D.

2010-12-01

A Web 2.0 system is designed and developed to facilitate data collection for the field studies in the Geological Sciences department at Ball State University. The system provides a student-centered learning platform that enables the users to first upload their collected data in various formats, interact and collaborate dynamically online, and ultimately create a shared digital repository of field experiences. The data types considered for the system and their corresponding format and requirements are listed in the table below. The system has six main functionalities as follows. (1) Only the registered users can access the system with confidential identification and password. (2) Each user can upload/revise/delete data in various formats such as image, audio, video, and text files to the system. (3) Interested users are allowed to co-edit the contents and join the collaboration whiteboard for further discussion. (4) The system integrates with Google, Yahoo, or Flickr to search for similar photos with same tags. (5) Users can search the web system according to the specific key words. (6) Photos with recorded GPS readings can be mashed and mapped to Google Maps/Earth for visualization. Application of the system to geology field trips at Ball State University will be demonstrated to assess the usability of the system.Data Requirements

Constructing Stylish Characters on Computer Graphics Systems.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldman, Gary S.

1980-01-01

Computer graphics systems typically produce a single, machine-like character font. At most, these systems enable the user to (1) alter the aspect ratio (height-to-width ratio) of the characters, (2) specify a transformation matrix to slant the characters, and (3) define a virtual pen table to change the lineweight of the plotted characters.…

PERCEPT Indoor Navigation System for the Blind and Visually Impaired: Architecture and Experimentation

PubMed Central

Ganz, Aura; Schafer, James; Gandhi, Siddhesh; Puleo, Elaine; Wilson, Carole; Robertson, Meg

2012-01-01

We introduce PERCEPT system, an indoor navigation system for the blind and visually impaired. PERCEPT will improve the quality of life and health of the visually impaired community by enabling independent living. Using PERCEPT, blind users will have independent access to public health facilities such as clinics, hospitals, and wellness centers. Access to healthcare facilities is crucial for this population due to the multiple health conditions that they face such as diabetes and its complications. PERCEPT system trials with 24 blind and visually impaired users in a multistory building show PERCEPT system effectiveness in providing appropriate navigation instructions to these users. The uniqueness of our system is that it is affordable and that its design follows orientation and mobility principles. We hope that PERCEPT will become a standard deployed in all indoor public spaces, especially in healthcare and wellness facilities. PMID:23316225

Interactive computation of coverage regions for indoor wireless communication

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abbott, A. Lynn; Bhat, Nitin; Rappaport, Theodore S.

1995-12-01

This paper describes a system which assists in the strategic placement of rf base stations within buildings. Known as the site modeling tool (SMT), this system allows the user to display graphical floor plans and to select base station transceiver parameters, including location and orientation, interactively. The system then computes and highlights estimated coverage regions for each transceiver, enabling the user to assess the total coverage within the building. For single-floor operation, the user can choose between distance-dependent and partition- dependent path-loss models. Similar path-loss models are also available for the case of multiple floors. This paper describes the method used by the system to estimate coverage for both directional and omnidirectional antennas. The site modeling tool is intended to be simple to use by individuals who are not experts at wireless communication system design, and is expected to be very useful in the specification of indoor wireless systems.

Enhancing User Customization through Novel Software Architecture for Utility Scale Solar Siting Software

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

Brant Peery; Sam Alessi; Randy Lee

2014-06-01

There is a need for a spatial decision support application that allows users to create customized metrics for comparing proposed locations of a new solar installation. This document discusses how PVMapper was designed to overcome the customization problem through the development of loosely coupled spatial and decision components in a JavaScript plugin architecture. This allows the user to easily add functionality and data to the system. The paper also explains how PVMapper provides the user with a dynamic and customizable decision tool that enables them to visually modify the formulas that are used in the decision algorithms that convert datamore » to comparable metrics. The technologies that make up the presentation and calculation software stack are outlined. This document also explains the architecture that allows the tool to grow through custom plugins created by the software users. Some discussion is given on the difficulties encountered while designing the system.« less

Democratisation of AAC Symbol Choices Using Technology.

PubMed

Draffan, E A; Wald, Mike; Zeinoun, Nadine; Banes, David

2017-01-01

The use of an online voting system has been developed to enable democratic choices of newly designed symbols to support speech, language and literacy skills in a localisation situation. The system works for those using and supporting Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) symbols on electronic systems by the provision of simplified scales of acceptance and adapted grids. The methodology and results highlighted the importance of user participation at the outset and concrete examples of symbol adaptations that were found necessary to ensure higher levels of user satisfaction. Design changes included appropriate local dress codes, linguistic nuances, social settings, the built environment and religious sensitivities.

Information management and analysis system for groundwater data in Thailand

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gill, D.; Luckananurung, P.

1992-01-01

The Ground Water Division of the Thai Department of Mineral Resources maintains a large archive of groundwater data with information on some 50,000 water wells. Each well file contains information on well location, well completion, borehole geology, water levels, water quality, and pumping tests. In order to enable efficient use of this information a computer-based system for information management and analysis was created. The project was sponsored by the United Nations Development Program and the Thai Department of Mineral Resources. The system was designed to serve users who lack prior training in automated data processing. Access is through a friendly user/system dialogue. Tasks are segmented into a number of logical steps, each of which is managed by a separate screen. Selective retrieval is possible by four different methods of area definition and by compliance with user-specified constraints on any combination of database variables. The main types of outputs are: (1) files of retrieved data, screened according to users' specifications; (2) an assortment of pre-formatted reports; (3) computed geochemical parameters and various diagrams of water chemistry derived therefrom; (4) bivariate scatter diagrams and linear regression analysis; (5) posting of data and computed results on maps; and (6) hydraulic aquifer characteristics as computed from pumping tests. Data are entered directly from formatted screens. Most records can be copied directly from hand-written documents. The database-management program performs data integrity checks in real time, enabling corrections at the time of input. The system software can be grouped into: (1) database administration and maintenance—these functions are carried out by the SIR/DBMS software package; (2) user communication interface for task definition and execution control—the interface is written in the operating system command language (VMS/DCL) and in FORTRAN 77; and (3) scientific data-processing programs, written in FORTRAN 77. The system was implemented on a DEC MicroVAX II computer.

A system overview of the Aerospace Safety Research and Data Institute data management programs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1972-01-01

The NASA Aerospace Safety Information System, is an interactive, generalized data base management system. The on-line retrieval aspects provide for operating from a variety of terminals (or in batch mode). NASIS retrieval enables the user to expand and display (review) the terms of index (cross reference) files, select desired index terms, combine sets of documents corresponding to selected terms and display the resulting records. It also allows the user to print (record) this information on a high speed printer if desired. NASIS also provides the ability to store the strategy of any given session the user has executed. It has a searching and publication ability through generalized linear search and report generating modules which may be performed interactively or in a batch mode. The user may specify formats for the terminal from which he is operating. The system features an interactive user's guide which explains the various commands available and how to use them as well as explanations for all system messages. This explain capability may be extended, without program changes, to include descriptions of the various files in use. Coupled with the ability of NASIS to run in an MTT (multi-terminal task) mode is its automatic accumulation of statistics on each user of the system as well as each file.

Model evaluation using a community benchmarking system for land surface models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mu, M.; Hoffman, F. M.; Lawrence, D. M.; Riley, W. J.; Keppel-Aleks, G.; Kluzek, E. B.; Koven, C. D.; Randerson, J. T.

2014-12-01

Evaluation of atmosphere, ocean, sea ice, and land surface models is an important step in identifying deficiencies in Earth system models and developing improved estimates of future change. For the land surface and carbon cycle, the design of an open-source system has been an important objective of the International Land Model Benchmarking (ILAMB) project. Here we evaluated CMIP5 and CLM models using a benchmarking system that enables users to specify models, data sets, and scoring systems so that results can be tailored to specific model intercomparison projects. Our scoring system used information from four different aspects of global datasets, including climatological mean spatial patterns, seasonal cycle dynamics, interannual variability, and long-term trends. Variable-to-variable comparisons enable investigation of the mechanistic underpinnings of model behavior, and allow for some control of biases in model drivers. Graphics modules allow users to evaluate model performance at local, regional, and global scales. Use of modular structures makes it relatively easy for users to add new variables, diagnostic metrics, benchmarking datasets, or model simulations. Diagnostic results are automatically organized into HTML files, so users can conveniently share results with colleagues. We used this system to evaluate atmospheric carbon dioxide, burned area, global biomass and soil carbon stocks, net ecosystem exchange, gross primary production, ecosystem respiration, terrestrial water storage, evapotranspiration, and surface radiation from CMIP5 historical and ESM historical simulations. We found that the multi-model mean often performed better than many of the individual models for most variables. We plan to publicly release a stable version of the software during fall of 2014 that has land surface, carbon cycle, hydrology, radiation and energy cycle components.

Rule-based graph theory to enable exploration of the space system architecture design space

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arney, Dale Curtis

The primary goal of this research is to improve upon system architecture modeling in order to enable the exploration of design space options. A system architecture is the description of the functional and physical allocation of elements and the relationships, interactions, and interfaces between those elements necessary to satisfy a set of constraints and requirements. The functional allocation defines the functions that each system (element) performs, and the physical allocation defines the systems required to meet those functions. Trading the functionality between systems leads to the architecture-level design space that is available to the system architect. The research presents a methodology that enables the modeling of complex space system architectures using a mathematical framework. To accomplish the goal of improved architecture modeling, the framework meets five goals: technical credibility, adaptability, flexibility, intuitiveness, and exhaustiveness. The framework is technically credible, in that it produces an accurate and complete representation of the system architecture under consideration. The framework is adaptable, in that it provides the ability to create user-specified locations, steady states, and functions. The framework is flexible, in that it allows the user to model system architectures to multiple destinations without changing the underlying framework. The framework is intuitive for user input while still creating a comprehensive mathematical representation that maintains the necessary information to completely model complex system architectures. Finally, the framework is exhaustive, in that it provides the ability to explore the entire system architecture design space. After an extensive search of the literature, graph theory presents a valuable mechanism for representing the flow of information or vehicles within a simple mathematical framework. Graph theory has been used in developing mathematical models of many transportation and network flow problems in the past, where nodes represent physical locations and edges represent the means by which information or vehicles travel between those locations. In space system architecting, expressing the physical locations (low-Earth orbit, low-lunar orbit, etc.) and steady states (interplanetary trajectory) as nodes and the different means of moving between the nodes (propulsive maneuvers, etc.) as edges formulates a mathematical representation of this design space. The selection of a given system architecture using graph theory entails defining the paths that the systems take through the space system architecture graph. A path through the graph is defined as a list of edges that are traversed, which in turn defines functions performed by the system. A structure to compactly represent this information is a matrix, called the system map, in which the column indices are associated with the systems that exist and row indices are associated with the edges, or functions, to which each system has access. Several contributions have been added to the state of the art in space system architecture analysis. The framework adds the capability to rapidly explore the design space without the need to limit trade options or the need for user interaction during the exploration process. The unique mathematical representation of a system architecture, through the use of the adjacency, incidence, and system map matrices, enables automated design space exploration using stochastic optimization processes. The innovative rule-based graph traversal algorithm ensures functional feasibility of each system architecture that is analyzed, and the automatic generation of the system hierarchy eliminates the need for the user to manually determine the relationships between systems during or before the design space exploration process. Finally, the rapid evaluation of system architectures for various mission types enables analysis of the system architecture design space for multiple destinations within an evolutionary exploration program. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).

Facilitating Secure Sharing of Personal Health Data in the Cloud

PubMed Central

Nepal, Surya; Glozier, Nick

2016-01-01

Background Internet-based applications are providing new ways of promoting health and reducing the cost of care. Although data can be kept encrypted in servers, the user does not have the ability to decide whom the data are shared with. Technically this is linked to the problem of who owns the data encryption keys required to decrypt the data. Currently, cloud service providers, rather than users, have full rights to the key. In practical terms this makes the users lose full control over their data. Trust and uptake of these applications can be increased by allowing patients to feel in control of their data, generally stored in cloud-based services. Objective This paper addresses this security challenge by providing the user a way of controlling encryption keys independently of the cloud service provider. We provide a secure and usable system that enables a patient to share health information with doctors and specialists. Methods We contribute a secure protocol for patients to share their data with doctors and others on the cloud while keeping complete ownership. We developed a simple, stereotypical health application and carried out security tests, performance tests, and usability tests with both students and doctors (N=15). Results We developed the health application as an app for Android mobile phones. We carried out the usability tests on potential participants and medical professionals. Of 20 participants, 14 (70%) either agreed or strongly agreed that they felt safer using our system. Using mixed methods, we show that participants agreed that privacy and security of health data are important and that our system addresses these issues. Conclusions We presented a security protocol that enables patients to securely share their eHealth data with doctors and nurses and developed a secure and usable system that enables patients to share mental health information with doctors. PMID:27234691

Oceanids command and control (C2) data system - Marine autonomous systems data for vehicle piloting, scientific data users, operational data assimilation, and big data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buck, J. J. H.; Phillips, A.; Lorenzo, A.; Kokkinaki, A.; Hearn, M.; Gardner, T.; Thorne, K.

2017-12-01

The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) operate a fleet of approximately 36 autonomous marine platforms including submarine gliders, autonomous underwater vehicles, and autonomous surface vehicles. Each platform effectivity has the capability to observe the ocean and collect data akin to a small research vessel. This is creating a growth in data volumes and complexity while the amount of resource available to manage data remains static. The OceanIds Command and Control (C2) project aims to solve these issues by fully automating the data archival, processing and dissemination. The data architecture being implemented jointly by NOC and the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) includes a single Application Programming Interface (API) gateway to handle authentication, forwarding and delivery of both metadata and data. Technicians and principle investigators will enter expedition data prior to deployment of vehicles enabling automated data processing when vehicles are deployed. The system will support automated metadata acquisition from platforms as this technology moves towards operational implementation. The metadata exposure to the web builds on a prototype developed by the European Commission supported SenseOCEAN project and is via open standards including World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) RDF/XML and the use of the Semantic Sensor Network ontology and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) SensorML standard. Data will be delivered in the marine domain Everyone's Glider Observatory (EGO) format and OGC Observations and Measurements. Additional formats will be served by implementation of endpoints such as the NOAA ERDDAP tool. This standardised data delivery via the API gateway enables timely near-real-time data to be served to Oceanids users, BODC users, operational users and big data systems. The use of open standards will also enable web interfaces to be rapidly built on the API gateway and delivery to European research infrastructures that include aligned reference models for data infrastructure.

GEOS-5 Chemistry Transport Model User's Guide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kouatchou, J.; Molod, A.; Nielsen, J. E.; Auer, B.; Putman, W.; Clune, T.

2015-01-01

The Goddard Earth Observing System version 5 (GEOS-5) General Circulation Model (GCM) makes use of the Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF) to enable model configurations with many functions. One of the options of the GEOS-5 GCM is the GEOS-5 Chemistry Transport Model (GEOS-5 CTM), which is an offline simulation of chemistry and constituent transport driven by a specified meteorology and other model output fields. This document describes the basic components of the GEOS-5 CTM, and is a user's guide on to how to obtain and run simulations on the NCCS Discover platform. In addition, we provide information on how to change the model configuration input files to meet users' needs.

Enabling Discoveries in Earth Sciences Through the Geosciences Network (GEON)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seber, D.; Baru, C.; Memon, A.; Lin, K.; Youn, C.

2005-12-01

Taking advantage of the state-of-the-art information technology resources GEON researchers are building a cyberinfrastructure designed to enable data sharing, semantic data integration, high-end computations and 4D visualization in easy-to-use web-based environments. The GEON Network currently allows users to search and register Earth science resources such as data sets (GIS layers, GMT files, geoTIFF images, ASCII files, relational databases etc), software applications or ontologies. Portal based access mechanisms enable developers to built dynamic user interfaces to conduct advanced processing and modeling efforts across distributed computers and supercomputers. Researchers and educators can access the networked resources through the GEON portal and its portlets that were developed to conduct better and more comprehensive science and educational studies. For example, the SYNSEIS portlet in GEON enables users to access in near-real time seismic waveforms from the IRIS Data Management Center, easily build a 3D geologic model within the area of the seismic station(s) and the epicenter and perform a 3D synthetic seismogram analysis to understand the lithospheric structure and earthquake source parameters for any given earthquake in the US. Similarly, GEON's workbench area enables users to create their own work environment and copy, visualize and analyze any data sets within the network, and create subsets of the data sets for their own purposes. Since all these resources are built as part of a Service-oriented Architecture (SOA), they are also used in other development platforms. One such platform is Kepler Workflow system which can access web service based resources and provides users with graphical programming interfaces to build a model to conduct computations and/or visualization efforts using the networked resources. Developments in the area of semantic integration of the networked datasets continue to advance and prototype studies can be accessed via the GEON portal at www.geongrid.org

Development of expert systems for analyzing electronic documents

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abeer Yassin, Al-Azzawi; Shidlovskiy, S.; Jamal, A. A.

2018-05-01

The paper analyses a Database Management System (DBMS). Expert systems, Databases, and database technology have become an essential component of everyday life in the modern society. As databases are widely used in every organization with a computer system, data resource control and data management are very important [1]. DBMS is the most significant tool developed to serve multiple users in a database environment consisting of programs that enable users to create and maintain a database. This paper focuses on development of a database management system for General Directorate for education of Diyala in Iraq (GDED) using Clips, java Net-beans and Alfresco and system components, which were previously developed in Tomsk State University at the Faculty of Innovative Technology.

IQARIS : a tool for the intelligent querying, analysis, and retrieval from information systems.

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

Hummel, J. R.; Silver, R. B.

Information glut is one of the primary characteristics of the electronic age. Managing such large volumes of information (e.g., keeping track of the types, where they are, their relationships, who controls them, etc.) can be done efficiently with an intelligent, user-oriented information management system. The purpose of this paper is to describe a concept for managing information resources based on an intelligent information technology system developed by the Argonne National Laboratory for managing digital libraries. The Argonne system, Intelligent Query (IQ), enables users to query digital libraries and view the holdings that match the query from different perspectives.

iTesla Power Systems Library (iPSL): A Modelica library for phasor time-domain simulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vanfretti, L.; Rabuzin, T.; Baudette, M.; Murad, M.

The iTesla Power Systems Library (iPSL) is a Modelica package providing a set of power system components for phasor time-domain modeling and simulation. The Modelica language provides a systematic approach to develop models using a formal mathematical description, that uniquely specifies the physical behavior of a component or the entire system. Furthermore, the standardized specification of the Modelica language (Modelica Association [1]) enables unambiguous model exchange by allowing any Modelica-compliant tool to utilize the models for simulation and their analyses without the need of a specific model transformation tool. As the Modelica language is being developed with open specifications, any tool that implements these requirements can be utilized. This gives users the freedom of choosing an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) of their choice. Furthermore, any integration solver can be implemented within a Modelica tool to simulate Modelica models. Additionally, Modelica is an object-oriented language, enabling code factorization and model re-use to improve the readability of a library by structuring it with object-oriented hierarchy. The developed library is released under an open source license to enable a wider distribution and let the user customize it to their specific needs. This paper describes the iPSL and provides illustrative application examples.

Meeting People's Needs in a Fully Interoperable Domotic Environment

PubMed Central

Miori, Vittorio; Russo, Dario; Concordia, Cesare

2012-01-01

The key idea underlying many Ambient Intelligence (AmI) projects and applications is context awareness, which is based mainly on their capacity to identify users and their locations. The actual computing capacity should remain in the background, in the periphery of our awareness, and should only move to the center if and when necessary. Computing thus becomes ‘invisible’, as it is embedded in the environment and everyday objects. The research project described herein aims to realize an Ambient Intelligence-based environment able to improve users' quality of life by learning their habits and anticipating their needs. This environment is part of an adaptive, context-aware framework designed to make today's incompatible heterogeneous domotic systems fully interoperable, not only for connecting sensors and actuators, but for providing comprehensive connections of devices to users. The solution is a middleware architecture based on open and widely recognized standards capable of abstracting the peculiarities of underlying heterogeneous technologies and enabling them to co-exist and interwork, without however eliminating their differences. At the highest level of this infrastructure, the Ambient Intelligence framework, integrated with the domotic sensors, can enable the system to recognize any unusual or dangerous situations and anticipate health problems or special user needs in a technological living environment, such as a house or a public space. PMID:22969322

Meeting people's needs in a fully interoperable domotic environment.

PubMed

Miori, Vittorio; Russo, Dario; Concordia, Cesare

2012-01-01

The key idea underlying many Ambient Intelligence (AmI) projects and applications is context awareness, which is based mainly on their capacity to identify users and their locations. The actual computing capacity should remain in the background, in the periphery of our awareness, and should only move to the center if and when necessary. Computing thus becomes 'invisible', as it is embedded in the environment and everyday objects. The research project described herein aims to realize an Ambient Intelligence-based environment able to improve users' quality of life by learning their habits and anticipating their needs. This environment is part of an adaptive, context-aware framework designed to make today's incompatible heterogeneous domotic systems fully interoperable, not only for connecting sensors and actuators, but for providing comprehensive connections of devices to users. The solution is a middleware architecture based on open and widely recognized standards capable of abstracting the peculiarities of underlying heterogeneous technologies and enabling them to co-exist and interwork, without however eliminating their differences. At the highest level of this infrastructure, the Ambient Intelligence framework, integrated with the domotic sensors, can enable the system to recognize any unusual or dangerous situations and anticipate health problems or special user needs in a technological living environment, such as a house or a public space.

Modelling parallel programs and multiprocessor architectures with AXE

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Yan, Jerry C.; Fineman, Charles E.

1991-01-01

AXE, An Experimental Environment for Parallel Systems, was designed to model and simulate for parallel systems at the process level. It provides an integrated environment for specifying computation models, multiprocessor architectures, data collection, and performance visualization. AXE is being used at NASA-Ames for developing resource management strategies, parallel problem formulation, multiprocessor architectures, and operating system issues related to the High Performance Computing and Communications Program. AXE's simple, structured user-interface enables the user to model parallel programs and machines precisely and efficiently. Its quick turn-around time keeps the user interested and productive. AXE models multicomputers. The user may easily modify various architectural parameters including the number of sites, connection topologies, and overhead for operating system activities. Parallel computations in AXE are represented as collections of autonomous computing objects known as players. Their use and behavior is described. Performance data of the multiprocessor model can be observed on a color screen. These include CPU and message routing bottlenecks, and the dynamic status of the software.

Validity of association rules extracted by healthcare-data-mining.

PubMed

Takeuchi, Hiroshi; Kodama, Naoki

2014-01-01

A personal healthcare system used with cloud computing has been developed. It enables a daily time-series of personal health and lifestyle data to be stored in the cloud through mobile devices. The cloud automatically extracts personally useful information, such as rules and patterns concerning the user's lifestyle and health condition embedded in their personal big data, by using healthcare-data-mining. This study has verified that the extracted rules on the basis of a daily time-series data stored during a half- year by volunteer users of this system are valid.

A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH FOR PHYSIOLOGICALLY BASED PHARMACOKINETIC (PBPK) MODELS USING THE EXPOSURE RELATED DOSE ESTIMATING MODEL (ERDEM) SYSTEM

EPA Science Inventory

The implementation of a comprehensive PBPK modeling approach resulted in ERDEM, a complex PBPK modeling system. ERDEM provides a scalable and user-friendly environment that enables researchers to focus on data input values rather than writing program code. ERDEM efficiently m...

Applications of geographic information systems (GIS) for highway traffic noise analysis : case studies of select transportation agencies

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2012-11-30

Noise from highway traffic can be pervasive in areas near roadways. How and to what extent noise travels is strongly influenced by geospatial features such as terrain and elevation. Thus geographic information systems (GIS), which enable users to mor...

EpiPOD : community vaccination and dispensing model user's guide.

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

Berry, M.; Samsa, M.; Walsh, D.

EpiPOD is a modeling system that enables local, regional, and county health departments to evaluate and refine their plans for mass distribution of antiviral and antibiotic medications and vaccines. An intuitive interface requires users to input as few or as many plan specifics as are available in order to simulate a mass treatment campaign. Behind the input interface, a system dynamics model simulates pharmaceutical supply logistics, hospital and first-responder personnel treatment, population arrival dynamics and treatment, and disease spread. When the simulation is complete, users have estimates of the number of illnesses in the population at large, the number ofmore » ill persons seeking treatment, and queuing and delays within the mass treatment system--all metrics by which the plan can be judged.« less

Materials properties numerical database system established and operational at CINDAS/Purdue University

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ho, C. Y.; Li, H. H.

1989-01-01

A computerized comprehensive numerical database system on the mechanical, thermophysical, electronic, electrical, magnetic, optical, and other properties of various types of technologically important materials such as metals, alloys, composites, dielectrics, polymers, and ceramics has been established and operational at the Center for Information and Numerical Data Analysis and Synthesis (CINDAS) of Purdue University. This is an on-line, interactive, menu-driven, user-friendly database system. Users can easily search, retrieve, and manipulate the data from the database system without learning special query language, special commands, standardized names of materials, properties, variables, etc. It enables both the direct mode of search/retrieval of data for specified materials, properties, independent variables, etc., and the inverted mode of search/retrieval of candidate materials that meet a set of specified requirements (which is the computer-aided materials selection). It enables also tabular and graphical displays and on-line data manipulations such as units conversion, variables transformation, statistical analysis, etc., of the retrieved data. The development, content, accessibility, etc., of the database system are presented and discussed.

Subtitle Synchronization across Multiple Screens and Devices

PubMed Central

Rodriguez-Alsina, Aitor; Talavera, Guillermo; Orero, Pilar; Carrabina, Jordi

2012-01-01

Ambient Intelligence is a new paradigm in which environments are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people. This is having an increasing importance in multimedia applications, which frequently rely on sensors to provide useful information to the user. In this context, multimedia applications must adapt and personalize both content and interfaces in order to reach acceptable levels of context-specific quality of service for the user, and enable the content to be available anywhere and at any time. The next step is to make content available to everybody in order to overcome the existing access barriers to content for users with specific needs, or else to adapt to different platforms, hence making content fully usable and accessible. Appropriate access to video content, for instance, is not always possible due to the technical limitations of traditional video packaging, transmission and presentation. This restricts the flexibility of subtitles and audio-descriptions to be adapted to different devices, contexts and users. New Web standards built around HTML5 enable more featured applications with better adaptation and personalization facilities, and thus would seem more suitable for accessible AmI environments. This work presents a video subtitling system that enables the customization, adaptation and synchronization of subtitles across different devices and multiple screens. The benefits of HTML5 applications for building the solution are analyzed along with their current platform support. Moreover, examples of the use of the application in three different cases are presented. Finally, the user experience of the solution is evaluated. PMID:23012513

Subtitle synchronization across multiple screens and devices.

PubMed

Rodriguez-Alsina, Aitor; Talavera, Guillermo; Orero, Pilar; Carrabina, Jordi

2012-01-01

Ambient Intelligence is a new paradigm in which environments are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people. This is having an increasing importance in multimedia applications, which frequently rely on sensors to provide useful information to the user. In this context, multimedia applications must adapt and personalize both content and interfaces in order to reach acceptable levels of context-specific quality of service for the user, and enable the content to be available anywhere and at any time. The next step is to make content available to everybody in order to overcome the existing access barriers to content for users with specific needs, or else to adapt to different platforms, hence making content fully usable and accessible. Appropriate access to video content, for instance, is not always possible due to the technical limitations of traditional video packaging, transmission and presentation. This restricts the flexibility of subtitles and audio-descriptions to be adapted to different devices, contexts and users. New Web standards built around HTML5 enable more featured applications with better adaptation and personalization facilities, and thus would seem more suitable for accessible AmI environments. This work presents a video subtitling system that enables the customization, adaptation and synchronization of subtitles across different devices and multiple screens. The benefits of HTML5 applications for building the solution are analyzed along with their current platform support. Moreover, examples of the use of the application in three different cases are presented. Finally, the user experience of the solution is evaluated.

Promoting scientific collaboration and research through integrated social networking capabilities within the OpenTopography Portal

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nandigam, V.; Crosby, C. J.; Baru, C.

2009-04-01

LiDAR (Light Distance And Ranging) topography data offer earth scientists the opportunity to study the earth's surface at very high resolutions. As a result, the popularity of these data is growing dramatically. However, the management, distribution, and analysis of community LiDAR data sets is a challenge due to their massive size (multi-billion point, mutli-terabyte). We have also found that many earth science users of these data sets lack the computing resources and expertise required to process these data. We have developed the OpenTopography Portal to democratize access to these large and computationally challenging data sets. The OpenTopography Portal uses cyberinfrastructure technology developed by the GEON project to provide access to LiDAR data in a variety of formats. LiDAR data products available range from simple Google Earth visualizations of LiDAR-derived hillshades to 1 km2 tiles of standard digital elevation model (DEM) products as well as LiDAR point cloud data and user generated custom-DEMs. We have found that the wide spectrum of LiDAR users have variable scientific applications, computing resources and technical experience and thus require a data system with multiple distribution mechanisms and platforms to serve a broader range of user communities. Because the volume of LiDAR topography data available is rapidly expanding, and data analysis techniques are evolving, there is a need for the user community to be able to communicate and interact to share knowledge and experiences. To address this need, the OpenTopography Portal enables social networking capabilities through a variety of collaboration tools, web 2.0 technologies and customized usage pattern tracking. Fundamentally, these tools offer users the ability to communicate, to access and share documents, participate in discussions, and to keep up to date on upcoming events and emerging technologies. The OpenTopography portal achieves the social networking capabilities by integrating various software technologies and platforms. These include the Expression Engine Content Management System (CMS) that comes with pre-packaged collaboration tools like blogs and wikis, the Gridsphere portal framework that contains the primary GEON LiDAR System portlet with user job monitoring capabilities and a java web based discussion forum (Jforums) application all seamlessly integrated under one portal. The OpenTopography Portal also provides integrated authentication mechanism between the various CMS collaboration tools and the core gridsphere based portlets. The integration of these various technologies allows for enhanced user interaction capabilities within the portal. By integrating popular collaboration tools like discussion forums and blogs we can promote conversation and openness among users. The ability to ask question and share expertise in forum discussions allows users to easily find information and interact with users facing similar challenges. The OpenTopography Blog enables our domain experts to post ideas, news items, commentary, and other resources in order to foster discussion and information sharing. The content management capabilities of the portal allow for easy updates to information in the form of publications, documents, and news articles. Access to the most current information fosters better decision-making. As has become the standard for web 2.0 technologies, the OpenTopography Portal is fully RSS enabled to allow users of the portal to keep track of news items, forum discussions, blog updates, and system outages. We are currently exploring how the information captured by user and job monitoring components of the Gridsphere based GEON LiDAR System can be harnessed to provide a recommender system that will help users to identify appropriate processing parameters and to locate related documents and data. By seamlessly integrating the various platforms and technologies under one single portal, we can take advantage of popular online collaboration tools that are either stand alone or software platform restricted. The availability of these collaboration tools along with the data will foster more community interaction and increase the strength and vibrancy of the LiDAR topography user community.

CRISPR Primer Designer: Design primers for knockout and chromosome imaging CRISPR-Cas system.

PubMed

Yan, Meng; Zhou, Shi-Rong; Xue, Hong-Wei

2015-07-01

The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-associated system enables biologists to edit genomes precisely and provides a powerful tool for perturbing endogenous gene regulation, modulation of epigenetic markers, and genome architecture. However, there are concerns about the specificity of the system, especially the usages of knocking out a gene. Previous designing tools either were mostly built-in websites or ran as command-line programs, and none of them ran locally and acquired a user-friendly interface. In addition, with the development of CRISPR-derived systems, such as chromosome imaging, there were still no tools helping users to generate specific end-user spacers. We herein present CRISPR Primer Designer for researchers to design primers for CRISPR applications. The program has a user-friendly interface, can analyze the BLAST results by using multiple parameters, score for each candidate spacer, and generate the primers when using a certain plasmid. In addition, CRISPR Primer Designer runs locally and can be used to search spacer clusters, and exports primers for the CRISPR-Cas system-based chromosome imaging system. © 2014 Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

HiRel: Hybrid Automated Reliability Predictor (HARP) integrated reliability tool system, (version 7.0). Volume 3: HARP Graphics Oriented (GO) input user's guide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bavuso, Salvatore J.; Rothmann, Elizabeth; Mittal, Nitin; Koppen, Sandra Howell

1994-01-01

The Hybrid Automated Reliability Predictor (HARP) integrated Reliability (HiRel) tool system for reliability/availability prediction offers a toolbox of integrated reliability/availability programs that can be used to customize the user's application in a workstation or nonworkstation environment. HiRel consists of interactive graphical input/output programs and four reliability/availability modeling engines that provide analytical and simulative solutions to a wide host of highly reliable fault-tolerant system architectures and is also applicable to electronic systems in general. The tool system was designed at the outset to be compatible with most computing platforms and operating systems, and some programs have been beta tested within the aerospace community for over 8 years. This document is a user's guide for the HiRel graphical preprocessor Graphics Oriented (GO) program. GO is a graphical user interface for the HARP engine that enables the drawing of reliability/availability models on a monitor. A mouse is used to select fault tree gates or Markov graphical symbols from a menu for drawing.

Towards a consensus on a hearing preservation classification system.

PubMed

Skarzynski, Henryk; van de Heyning, P; Agrawal, S; Arauz, S L; Atlas, M; Baumgartner, W; Caversaccio, M; de Bodt, M; Gavilan, J; Godey, B; Green, K; Gstoettner, W; Hagen, R; Han, D M; Kameswaran, M; Karltorp, E; Kompis, M; Kuzovkov, V; Lassaletta, L; Levevre, F; Li, Y; Manikoth, M; Martin, J; Mlynski, R; Mueller, J; O'Driscoll, M; Parnes, L; Prentiss, S; Pulibalathingal, S; Raine, C H; Rajan, G; Rajeswaran, R; Rivas, J A; Rivas, A; Skarzynski, P H; Sprinzl, G; Staecker, H; Stephan, K; Usami, S; Yanov, Y; Zernotti, M E; Zimmermann, K; Lorens, A; Mertens, G

2013-01-01

The comprehensive Hearing Preservation classification system presented in this paper is suitable for use for all cochlear implant users with measurable pre-operative residual hearing. If adopted as a universal reporting standard, as it was designed to be, it should prove highly beneficial by enabling future studies to quickly and easily compare the results of previous studies and meta-analyze their data. To develop a comprehensive Hearing Preservation classification system suitable for use for all cochlear implant users with measurable pre-operative residual hearing. The HEARRING group discussed and reviewed a number of different propositions of a HP classification systems and reviewed critical appraisals to develop a qualitative system in accordance with the prerequisites. The Hearing Preservation Classification System proposed herein fulfills the following necessary criteria: 1) classification is independent from users' initial hearing, 2) it is appropriate for all cochlear implant users with measurable pre-operative residual hearing, 3) it covers the whole range of pure tone average from 0 to 120 dB; 4) it is easy to use and easy to understand.

Affordable and personalized lighting using inverse modeling and virtual sensors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Basu, Chandrayee; Chen, Benjamin; Richards, Jacob; Dhinakaran, Aparna; Agogino, Alice; Martin, Rodney

2014-03-01

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) have great potential to enable personalized intelligent lighting systems while reducing building energy use by 50%-70%. As a result WSN systems are being increasingly integrated in state-ofart intelligent lighting systems. In the future these systems will enable participation of lighting loads as ancillary services. However, such systems can be expensive to install and lack the plug-and-play quality necessary for user-friendly commissioning. In this paper we present an integrated system of wireless sensor platforms and modeling software to enable affordable and user-friendly intelligent lighting. It requires ⇠ 60% fewer sensor deployments compared to current commercial systems. Reduction in sensor deployments has been achieved by optimally replacing the actual photo-sensors with real-time discrete predictive inverse models. Spatially sparse and clustered sub-hourly photo-sensor data captured by the WSN platforms are used to develop and validate a piece-wise linear regression of indoor light distribution. This deterministic data-driven model accounts for sky conditions and solar position. The optimal placement of photo-sensors is performed iteratively to achieve the best predictability of the light field desired for indoor lighting control. Using two weeks of daylight and artificial light training data acquired at the Sustainability Base at NASA Ames, the model was able to predict the light level at seven monitored workstations with 80%-95% accuracy. We estimate that 10% adoption of this intelligent wireless sensor system in commercial buildings could save 0.2-0.25 quads BTU of energy nationwide.

Design and Construction of an Entity Resolution System that Supports Entity Identity Information Management and Asserted Resolution

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nelson, Eric Derrand

2011-01-01

This work describes the design and construction of an open source, entity resolution system that enables users to assign and maintain persistent identifiers for master data items. Two key features of this system that are not available in current ER systems and that make persistent identification possible are (1) The capture and management of…

Archived data management system in Kentucky.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2007-05-01

Archived Data User Service (ADUS) was added to the national ITS architecture in 1999 to enable multiple uses for ITS-generated data. In Kentucky, ARTIMIS and TRIMARC are collecting volume, speed, occupancy, length-based classification, and incident d...

Propulsion Diagnostic Method Evaluation Strategy (ProDiMES) User's Guide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Simon, Donald L.

2010-01-01

This report is a User's Guide for the Propulsion Diagnostic Method Evaluation Strategy (ProDiMES). ProDiMES is a standard benchmarking problem and a set of evaluation metrics to enable the comparison of candidate aircraft engine gas path diagnostic methods. This Matlab (The Mathworks, Inc.) based software tool enables users to independently develop and evaluate diagnostic methods. Additionally, a set of blind test case data is also distributed as part of the software. This will enable the side-by-side comparison of diagnostic approaches developed by multiple users. The Users Guide describes the various components of ProDiMES, and provides instructions for the installation and operation of the tool.

Integrated nuclear data utilisation system for innovative reactors.

PubMed

Yamano, N; Hasegawa, A; Kato, K; Igashira, M

2005-01-01

A five-year research and development project on an integrated nuclear data utilisation system was initiated in 2002, for developing innovative nuclear energy systems such as accelerator-driven systems. The integrated nuclear data utilisation system will be constructed as a modular code system, which consists of two sub-systems: the nuclear data search and plotting sub-system, and the nuclear data processing and utilisation sub-system. The system will be operated with a graphical user interface in order to enable easy utilisation through the Internet by both nuclear design engineers and nuclear data evaluators. This paper presents an overview of the integrated nuclear data utilisation system, describes the development of a prototype system to examine the operability of the user interface and discusses specifications of the two sub-systems.

Facilitating Navigation Through Large Archives

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shelton, Robert O.; Smith, Stephanie L.; Troung, Dat; Hodgson, Terry R.

2005-01-01

Automated Visual Access (AVA) is a computer program that effectively makes a large collection of information visible in a manner that enables a user to quickly and efficiently locate information resources, with minimal need for conventional keyword searches and perusal of complex hierarchical directory systems. AVA includes three key components: (1) a taxonomy that comprises a collection of words and phrases, clustered according to meaning, that are used to classify information resources; (2) a statistical indexing and scoring engine; and (3) a component that generates a graphical user interface that uses the scoring data to generate a visual map of resources and topics. The top level of an AVA display is a pictorial representation of an information archive. The user enters the depicted archive by either clicking on a depiction of subject area cluster, selecting a topic from a list, or entering a query into a text box. The resulting display enables the user to view candidate information entities at various levels of detail. Resources are grouped spatially by topic with greatest generality at the top layer and increasing detail with depth. The user can zoom in or out of specific sites or into greater or lesser content detail.

Enhanced International Space Station Ku-Band Telemetry Service

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cecil, Andrew J.; Pitts, R. Lee; Welch, Steven J.; Bryan, Jason D.

2014-01-01

The International Space Station (ISS) is in an operational configuration. To fully utilize the ISS and take advantage of the modern protocols and updated Ku-band access, the Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC) has designed an approach to extend the Kuband forward link access for payload investigators to their on-orbit payloads. This dramatically increases the ground to ISS communications for those users. This access also enables the ISS flight controllers operating in the Payload Operations and Integration Center to have more direct control over the systems they are responsible for managing and operating. To extend the Ku-band forward link to the payload user community the development of a new command server is necessary. The HOSC subsystems were updated to process the Internet Protocol Encapsulated packets, enable users to use the service based on their approved services, and perform network address translation to insure that the packets are forwarded from the user to the correct payload repeating that process in reverse from ISS to the payload user. This paper presents the architecture, implementation, and lessons learned. This will include the integration of COTS hardware and software as well as how the device is incorporated into the operational mission of the ISS. Thus, this paper also discusses how this technology can be applicable to payload users of the ISS.

Modular modeling system for building distributed hydrologic models with a user-friendly software package

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wi, S.; Ray, P. A.; Brown, C.

2015-12-01

A software package developed to facilitate building distributed hydrologic models in a modular modeling system is presented. The software package provides a user-friendly graphical user interface that eases its practical use in water resources-related research and practice. The modular modeling system organizes the options available to users when assembling models according to the stages of hydrological cycle, such as potential evapotranspiration, soil moisture accounting, and snow/glacier melting processes. The software is intended to be a comprehensive tool that simplifies the task of developing, calibrating, validating, and using hydrologic models through the inclusion of intelligent automation to minimize user effort, and reduce opportunities for error. Processes so far automated include the definition of system boundaries (i.e., watershed delineation), climate and geographical input generation, and parameter calibration. Built-in post-processing toolkits greatly improve the functionality of the software as a decision support tool for water resources system management and planning. Example post-processing toolkits enable streamflow simulation at ungauged sites with predefined model parameters, and perform climate change risk assessment by means of the decision scaling approach. The software is validated through application to watersheds representing a variety of hydrologic regimes.

Method and Apparatus for Virtual Interactive Medical Imaging by Multiple Remotely-Located Users

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ross, Muriel D. (Inventor); Twombly, Ian Alexander (Inventor); Senger, Steven O. (Inventor)

2003-01-01

A virtual interactive imaging system allows the displaying of high-resolution, three-dimensional images of medical data to a user and allows the user to manipulate the images, including rotation of images in any of various axes. The system includes a mesh component that generates a mesh to represent a surface of an anatomical object, based on a set of data of the object, such as from a CT or MRI scan or the like. The mesh is generated so as to avoid tears, or holes, in the mesh, providing very high-quality representations of topographical features of the object, particularly at high- resolution. The system further includes a virtual surgical cutting tool that enables the user to simulate the removal of a piece or layer of a displayed object, such as a piece of skin or bone, view the interior of the object, manipulate the removed piece, and reattach the removed piece if desired. The system further includes a virtual collaborative clinic component, which allows the users of multiple, remotely-located computer systems to collaboratively and simultaneously view and manipulate the high-resolution, three-dimensional images of the object in real-time.

BrainIACS: a system for web-based medical image processing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kishore, Bhaskar; Bazin, Pierre-Louis; Pham, Dzung L.

2009-02-01

We describe BrainIACS, a web-based medical image processing system that permits and facilitates algorithm developers to quickly create extensible user interfaces for their algorithms. Designed to address the challenges faced by algorithm developers in providing user-friendly graphical interfaces, BrainIACS is completely implemented using freely available, open-source software. The system, which is based on a client-server architecture, utilizes an AJAX front-end written using the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and Java Servlets running on Apache Tomcat as its back-end. To enable developers to quickly and simply create user interfaces for configuring their algorithms, the interfaces are described using XML and are parsed by our system to create the corresponding user interface elements. Most of the commonly found elements such as check boxes, drop down lists, input boxes, radio buttons, tab panels and group boxes are supported. Some elements such as the input box support input validation. Changes to the user interface such as addition and deletion of elements are performed by editing the XML file or by using the system's user interface creator. In addition to user interface generation, the system also provides its own interfaces for data transfer, previewing of input and output files, and algorithm queuing. As the system is programmed using Java (and finally Java-script after compilation of the front-end code), it is platform independent with the only requirements being that a Servlet implementation be available and that the processing algorithms can execute on the server platform.

A Web-Based GIS for Reporting Water Usage in the High Plains Underground Water Conservation District

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jia, M.; Deeds, N.; Winckler, M.

2012-12-01

The High Plains Underground Water Conservation District (HPWD) is the largest and oldest of the Texas water conservation districts, and oversees approximately 1.7 million irrigated acres. Recent rule changes have motivated HPWD to develop a more automated system to allow owners and operators to report well locations, meter locations, meter readings, the association between meters and wells, and contiguous acres. INTERA, Inc. has developed a web-based interactive system for HPWD water users to report water usage and for the district to better manage its water resources. The HPWD web management system utilizes state-of-the-art GIS techniques, including cloud-based Amazon EC2 virtual machine, ArcGIS Server, ArcSDE and ArcGIS Viewer for Flex, to support web-based water use management. The system enables users to navigate to their area of interest using a well-established base-map and perform a variety of operations and inquiries against their spatial features. The application currently has six components: user privilege management, property management, water meter registration, area registration, meter-well association and water use report. The system is composed of two main databases: spatial database and non-spatial database. With the help of Adobe Flex application at the front end and ArcGIS Server as the middle-ware, the spatial feature geometry and attributes update will be reflected immediately in the back end. As a result, property owners, along with the HPWD staff, collaborate together to weave the fabric of the spatial database. Interactions between the spatial and non-spatial databases are established by Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services to record water-use report, user-property associations, owner-area associations, as well as meter-well associations. Mobile capabilities will be enabled in the near future for field workers to collect data and synchronize them to the spatial database. The entire solution is built on a highly scalable cloud server to dynamically allocate the computational resources so as to reduce the cost on security and hardware maintenance. In addition to the default capabilities provided by ESRI, customizations include 1) enabling interactions between spatial and non-spatial databases, 2) providing role-based feature editing, 3) dynamically filtering spatial features on the map based on user accounts and 4) comprehensive data validation.

Flexible and Transparent User Authentication for Mobile Devices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Clarke, Nathan; Karatzouni, Sevasti; Furnell, Steven

The mobile device has become a ubiquitous technology that is capable of supporting an increasingly large array of services, applications and information. Given their increasing importance, it is imperative to ensure that such devices are not misused or abused. Unfortunately, a key enabling control to prevent this, user authentication, has not kept up with the advances in device technology. This paper presents the outcomes of a 2 year study that proposes the use of transparent and continuous biometric authentication of the user: providing more comprehensive identity verification; minimizing user inconvenience; and providing security throughout the period of use. A Non-Intrusive and Continuous Authentication (NICA) system is described that maintains a continuous measure of confidence in the identity of the user, removing access to sensitive services and information with low confidence levels and providing automatic access with higher confidence levels. An evaluation of the framework is undertaken from an end-user perspective via a trial involving 27 participants. Whilst the findings raise concerns over education, privacy and intrusiveness, overall 92% of users felt the system offered a more secure environment when compared to existing forms of authentication.

Speech-recognition interfaces for music information retrieval

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goto, Masataka

2005-09-01

This paper describes two hands-free music information retrieval (MIR) systems that enable a user to retrieve and play back a musical piece by saying its title or the artist's name. Although various interfaces for MIR have been proposed, speech-recognition interfaces suitable for retrieving musical pieces have not been studied. Our MIR-based jukebox systems employ two different speech-recognition interfaces for MIR, speech completion and speech spotter, which exploit intentionally controlled nonverbal speech information in original ways. The first is a music retrieval system with the speech-completion interface that is suitable for music stores and car-driving situations. When a user only remembers part of the name of a musical piece or an artist and utters only a remembered fragment, the system helps the user recall and enter the name by completing the fragment. The second is a background-music playback system with the speech-spotter interface that can enrich human-human conversation. When a user is talking to another person, the system allows the user to enter voice commands for music playback control by spotting a special voice-command utterance in face-to-face or telephone conversations. Experimental results from use of these systems have demonstrated the effectiveness of the speech-completion and speech-spotter interfaces. (Video clips: http://staff.aist.go.jp/m.goto/MIR/speech-if.html)

Exploiting co-adaptation for the design of symbiotic neuroprosthetic assistants.

PubMed

Sanchez, Justin C; Mahmoudi, Babak; DiGiovanna, Jack; Principe, Jose C

2009-04-01

The success of brain-machine interfaces (BMI) is enabled by the remarkable ability of the brain to incorporate the artificial neuroprosthetic 'tool' into its own cognitive space and use it as an extension of the user's body. Unlike other tools, neuroprosthetics create a shared space that seamlessly spans the user's internal goal representation of the world and the external physical environment enabling a much deeper human-tool symbiosis. A key factor in the transformation of 'simple tools' into 'intelligent tools' is the concept of co-adaptation where the tool becomes functionally involved in the extraction and definition of the user's goals. Recent advancements in the neuroscience and engineering of neuroprosthetics are providing a blueprint for how new co-adaptive designs based on reinforcement learning change the nature of a user's ability to accomplish tasks that were not possible using conventional methodologies. By designing adaptive controls and artificial intelligence into the neural interface, tools can become active assistants in goal-directed behavior and further enhance human performance in particular for the disabled population. This paper presents recent advances in computational and neural systems supporting the development of symbiotic neuroprosthetic assistants.

A cloud-based semantic wiki for user training in healthcare process management.

PubMed

Papakonstantinou, D; Poulymenopoulou, M; Malamateniou, F; Vassilacopoulos, G

2011-01-01

Successful healthcare process design requires active participation of users who are familiar with the cooperative and collaborative nature of healthcare delivery, expressed in terms of healthcare processes. Hence, a reusable, flexible, agile and adaptable training material is needed with the objective to enable users instill their knowledge and expertise in healthcare process management and (re)configuration activities. To this end, social software, such as a wiki, could be used as it supports cooperation and collaboration anytime, anywhere and combined with semantic web technology that enables structuring pieces of information for easy retrieval, reuse and exchange between different systems and tools. In this paper a semantic wiki is presented as a means for developing training material for healthcare providers regarding healthcare process management. The semantic wiki should act as a collective online memory containing training material that is accessible to authorized users, thus enhancing the training process with collaboration and cooperation capabilities. It is proposed that the wiki is stored in a secure virtual private cloud that is accessible from anywhere, be it an excessively open environment, while meeting the requirements of redundancy, high performance and autoscaling.

Secure and QoS-Managed Information Exchange Between Enterprise and Constrained Environments

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-01-01

systems and enterprise services during mission operation can enable greater situational awareness and empowerment for the tactical user . For example...April 01, 2007. [17] Robbins, D., Unmanned Aircraft Operational Integration using MITRE’s Cursor on Target, The Edge, Volume 10, Number 2, MITRE...appropriate level of security protection and quality of service (QoS) for the tactical users is one possibility. Such an approach is not cost ef

An IoT-Enabled Stroke Rehabilitation System Based on Smart Wearable Armband and Machine Learning.

PubMed

Yang, Geng; Deng, Jia; Pang, Gaoyang; Zhang, Hao; Li, Jiayi; Deng, Bin; Pang, Zhibo; Xu, Juan; Jiang, Mingzhe; Liljeberg, Pasi; Xie, Haibo; Yang, Huayong

2018-01-01

Surface electromyography signal plays an important role in hand function recovery training. In this paper, an IoT-enabled stroke rehabilitation system was introduced which was based on a smart wearable armband (SWA), machine learning (ML) algorithms, and a 3-D printed dexterous robot hand. User comfort is one of the key issues which should be addressed for wearable devices. The SWA was developed by integrating a low-power and tiny-sized IoT sensing device with textile electrodes, which can measure, pre-process, and wirelessly transmit bio-potential signals. By evenly distributing surface electrodes over user's forearm, drawbacks of classification accuracy poor performance can be mitigated. A new method was put forward to find the optimal feature set. ML algorithms were leveraged to analyze and discriminate features of different hand movements, and their performances were appraised by classification complexity estimating algorithms and principal components analysis. According to the verification results, all nine gestures can be successfully identified with an average accuracy up to 96.20%. In addition, a 3-D printed five-finger robot hand was implemented for hand rehabilitation training purpose. Correspondingly, user's hand movement intentions were extracted and converted into a series of commands which were used to drive motors assembled inside the dexterous robot hand. As a result, the dexterous robot hand can mimic the user's gesture in a real-time manner, which shows the proposed system can be used as a training tool to facilitate rehabilitation process for the patients after stroke.

[Development of a secure and cost-effective infrastructure for the access of arbitrary web-based image distribution systems].

PubMed

Hackländer, T; Kleber, K; Schneider, H; Demabre, N; Cramer, B M

2004-08-01

To build an infrastructure that enables radiologists on-call and external users a teleradiological access to the HTML-based image distribution system inside the hospital via internet. In addition, no investment costs should arise on the user side and the image data should be sent renamed using cryptographic techniques. A pure HTML-based system manages the image distribution inside the hospital, with an open source project extending this system through a secure gateway outside the firewall of the hospital. The gateway handles the communication between the external users and the HTML server within the network of the hospital. A second firewall is installed between the gateway and the external users and builds up a virtual private network (VPN). A connection between the gateway and the external user is only acknowledged if the computers involved authenticate each other via certificates and the external users authenticate via a multi-stage password system. All data are transferred encrypted. External users get only access to images that have been renamed to a pseudonym by means of automated processing before. With an ADSL internet access, external users achieve an image load frequency of 0.4 CT images per second. More than 90 % of the delay during image transfer results from security checks within the firewalls. Data passing the gateway induce no measurable delay. Project goals were realized by means of an infrastructure that works vendor independently with any HTML-based image distribution systems. The requirements of data security were realized using state-of-the-art web techniques. Adequate access and transfer speed lead to a widespread acceptance of the system on the part of external users.

ShakeAlert Users Transition to the Production Prototype System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Strauss, J. A.; Vinci, M.; Steele, W. P.; Hellweg, M.; Allen, R. M.; DeGroot, R. M.

2016-12-01

The ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning system transitioned from the demonstration system into the fully-fledged production prototype system this year. Users were migrated over to the new system concurrent with the release of the ShakeAlert UserDisplay Version 2.5.0. The production prototype system provides robust connectivity, fail-over mechanisms to ensure that alarms are deliverd even if one connection fails, and provides a framework to connect future stations, participants, and other sources as the project expands to the full public system. We will present an overview of key user sectors that are either testing or launching pilot projects for the system within their organizations. We will outline the implementation of certain actions, and highlight accomplishments and challenges the Beta Users encounter in fully implementing ShakeAlert within their organizations. By better studying these issues, project partners can better assist the users in incorporating early warning in their operations. Opening up the system to allow for pilot projects enables ShakeAlert users to develop hardware, software, and policy solutions for actions in response to early warning alerts in a controlled environment. This is the first step on the path toward limited rollouts. The pilot groups leverage the expertise of our stakeholders to develop the `last mile' alert distribution and responses. The transition went smoothly in February 2015, for users in California, and we expect to connect with more beta users and pilot groups in this next phase. User transition is planned for Fall 2016 for users in the Pacific Northwest. Beta Users, such as municipalities, emergency response groups, and county officials, lifelines, schools, and private industry continue to meet with ShakeAlert partners to 1) further education and training on both benefits and limitations 2) strategize on implementation actions, such as opening fire house bay doors in response to an alarm, and 3) coordinate continued engagement as the system comes online with more Users and in more areas. The newly created Joint Committee on Communication, Education, and Outreach is aiding with the education and training aspect of the rollout.

Agricultural Conservation Planning Toolbox User's Manual

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Agricultural Conservation Planning Framework (ACPF) comprises an approach for applying concepts of precision conservation to watershed planning in agricultural landscapes. To enable application of this approach, USDA/ARS has developed a set of Geographic Information System (GIS) based software tools...

Environmental Response Laboratory Network (ERLN) WebEDR Quick Reference Guide

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

The Web Electronic Data Review is a web-based system that performs automated data processing on laboratory-submitted Electronic Data Deliverables (EDDs). Enables users to perform technical audits on data, and against Measurement Quality Objectives (MQOs).

Research on Spoken Dialogue Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Aist, Gregory; Hieronymus, James; Dowding, John; Hockey, Beth Ann; Rayner, Manny; Chatzichrisafis, Nikos; Farrell, Kim; Renders, Jean-Michel

2010-01-01

Research in the field of spoken dialogue systems has been performed with the goal of making such systems more robust and easier to use in demanding situations. The term "spoken dialogue systems" signifies unified software systems containing speech-recognition, speech-synthesis, dialogue management, and ancillary components that enable human users to communicate, using natural spoken language or nearly natural prescribed spoken language, with other software systems that provide information and/or services.

Integrated Instrumentation and Sensor Systems Enabling Condition-Based Maintenance of Aerospace Equipment

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-01-01

systems . For some specific sensor requirements in the domains considered here, for example, assessing system behavior and component state in gas turbine ...Cost Objectives. In general , the implication of the suitability and life cycle cost [LCC] driven objectives for integrated instrumentation/sensor system ...section should be considered. In general , the systems engineering approach provided clear benefits in defining user significant IISS system requirements and

An indoor navigation system for the visually impaired.

PubMed

Guerrero, Luis A; Vasquez, Francisco; Ochoa, Sergio F

2012-01-01

Navigation in indoor environments is highly challenging for the severely visually impaired, particularly in spaces visited for the first time. Several solutions have been proposed to deal with this challenge. Although some of them have shown to be useful in real scenarios, they involve an important deployment effort or use artifacts that are not natural for blind users. This paper presents an indoor navigation system that was designed taking into consideration usability as the quality requirement to be maximized. This solution enables one to identify the position of a person and calculates the velocity and direction of his movements. Using this information, the system determines the user's trajectory, locates possible obstacles in that route, and offers navigation information to the user. The solution has been evaluated using two experimental scenarios. Although the results are still not enough to provide strong conclusions, they indicate that the system is suitable to guide visually impaired people through an unknown built environment.

MODFLOW-CDSS, a version of MODFLOW-2005 with modifications for Colorado Decision Support Systems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Banta, Edward R.

2011-01-01

MODFLOW-CDSS is a three-dimensional, finite-difference groundwater-flow model based on MODFLOW-2005, with two modifications. The first modification is the introduction of a Partition Stress Boundaries capability, which enables the user to partition a selected subset of MODFLOW's stress-boundary packages, with each partition defined by a separate input file. Volumetric water-budget components of each partition are tracked and listed separately in the volumetric water-budget tables. The second modification enables the user to specify that execution of a simulation should continue despite failure of the solver to satisfy convergence criteria. This modification is particularly intended to be used in conjunction with automated model-analysis software; its use is not recommended for other purposes.

An Overview of MICRO-CMI.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McIsaac, Donald; And Others

The MICRO-CMI system designed at the University of Wisconsin combines the grouping, diagnosis, and prescription functions of two previously designed systems, with the additional dimension of a sheet scanner to input grades and to score tests. Moreover, the user may specify a unique program of studies for each student, thus enabling the support of…

Electronic Bulletin Boards.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Landberg, Ted

This manual is intended to provide guidance to those interested in establishing an electronic bulletin board system (BBS) that enables users to send and read messages both individually and by teleconferencing, and to transfer files to and from the system. The manual begins with a definition of a BBS and explains its uses and facilities. It then…

User Acceptance of a Proposed Self-Evaluation and Continuous Assessment System

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Robles-Gómez, Antonio; Ros, Salvador; Hernández, Roberto; Tobarra, Llanos; Caminero, Agustin C.; Agudo, José M.

2015-01-01

The WWW nowadays enables faculty to develop new Internet-based applications that can be used to enhance classroom instruction. There is a clear evolution towards the implementation of new service-oriented learning/teaching systems, which can be considered as the latest generation of Internet-based platforms. This work first describes a…

Mindtagger: A Demonstration of Data Labeling in Knowledge Base Construction.

PubMed

Shin, Jaeho; Ré, Christopher; Cafarella, Michael

2015-08-01

End-to-end knowledge base construction systems using statistical inference are enabling more people to automatically extract high-quality domain-specific information from unstructured data. As a result of deploying DeepDive framework across several domains, we found new challenges in debugging and improving such end-to-end systems to construct high-quality knowledge bases. DeepDive has an iterative development cycle in which users improve the data. To help our users, we needed to develop principles for analyzing the system's error as well as provide tooling for inspecting and labeling various data products of the system. We created guidelines for error analysis modeled after our colleagues' best practices, in which data labeling plays a critical role in every step of the analysis. To enable more productive and systematic data labeling, we created Mindtagger, a versatile tool that can be configured to support a wide range of tasks. In this demonstration, we show in detail what data labeling tasks are modeled in our error analysis guidelines and how each of them is performed using Mindtagger.

LiPD and CSciBox: A Case Study in Why Data Standards are Important for Paleoscience

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weiss, I.; Bradley, E.; McKay, N.; Emile-Geay, J.; de Vesine, L. R.; Anderson, K. A.; White, J. W. C.; Marchitto, T. M., Jr.

2016-12-01

CSciBox [1] is an integrated software system that helps geoscientists build and evaluate age models. Its user chooses from a number of built-in analysis tools, composing them into an analysis workflow and applying it to paleoclimate proxy datasets. CSciBox employs modern database technology to store both the data and the analysis results in an easily accessible and searchable form, and offers the user access to the computational toolbox, the data, and the results via a graphical user interface and a sophisticated plotter. Standards are a staple of modern life, and underlie any form of automation. Without data standards, it is difficult, if not impossible, to construct effective computer tools for paleoscience analysis. The LiPD (Linked Paleo Data) framework [2] enables the storage of both data and metadata in systematic, meaningful, machine-readable ways. LiPD has been a primary enabler of CSciBox's goals of usability, interoperability, and reproducibility. Building LiPD capabilities into CSciBox's importer, for instance, eliminated the need to ask the user about file formats, variable names, relationships between columns in the input file, etc. Building LiPD capabilities into the exporter facilitated the storage of complete details about the input data-provenance, preprocessing steps, etc.-as well as full descriptions of any analyses that were performed using the CSciBox tool, along with citations to appropriate references. This comprehensive collection of data and metadata, which is all linked together in a semantically meaningful, machine-readable way, not only completely documents the analyses and makes them reproducible. It also enables interoperability with any other software system that employs the LiPD standard. [1] www.cs.colorado.edu/ lizb/cscience.html[2] McKay & Emile-Geay, Climate of the Past 12:1093 (2016)

Neural-Network Simulator

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mitchell, Paul H.

1991-01-01

F77NNS (FORTRAN 77 Neural Network Simulator) computer program simulates popular back-error-propagation neural network. Designed to take advantage of vectorization when used on computers having this capability, also used on any computer equipped with ANSI-77 FORTRAN Compiler. Problems involving matching of patterns or mathematical modeling of systems fit class of problems F77NNS designed to solve. Program has restart capability so neural network solved in stages suitable to user's resources and desires. Enables user to customize patterns of connections between layers of network. Size of neural network F77NNS applied to limited only by amount of random-access memory available to user.

Program Helps Simulate Neural Networks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Villarreal, James; Mcintire, Gary

1993-01-01

Neural Network Environment on Transputer System (NNETS) computer program provides users high degree of flexibility in creating and manipulating wide variety of neural-network topologies at processing speeds not found in conventional computing environments. Supports back-propagation and back-propagation-related algorithms. Back-propagation algorithm used is implementation of Rumelhart's generalized delta rule. NNETS developed on INMOS Transputer(R). Predefines back-propagation network, Jordan network, and reinforcement network to assist users in learning and defining own networks. Also enables users to configure other neural-network paradigms from NNETS basic architecture. Small portion of software written in OCCAM(R) language.

Ranking Reputation and Quality in Online Rating Systems

PubMed Central

Liao, Hao; Zeng, An; Xiao, Rui; Ren, Zhuo-Ming; Chen, Duan-Bing; Zhang, Yi-Cheng

2014-01-01

How to design an accurate and robust ranking algorithm is a fundamental problem with wide applications in many real systems. It is especially significant in online rating systems due to the existence of some spammers. In the literature, many well-performed iterative ranking methods have been proposed. These methods can effectively recognize the unreliable users and reduce their weight in judging the quality of objects, and finally lead to a more accurate evaluation of the online products. In this paper, we design an iterative ranking method with high performance in both accuracy and robustness. More specifically, a reputation redistribution process is introduced to enhance the influence of highly reputed users and two penalty factors enable the algorithm resistance to malicious behaviors. Validation of our method is performed in both artificial and real user-object bipartite networks. PMID:24819119

Moving Ahead With Eye Power

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2002-01-01

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's collaborated with LC Technologies, Inc., to improve LCT's Eyegaze Communication System, an eye tracker that enables people with severe cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, strokes, brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, and ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) to communicate and control their environment using their eye movements. To operate the system, the user sits in front of the computer monitor while the camera focuses on one eye. By looking at control keys on the monitor for a fraction of a second, the user can 'talk' with speech synthesis, type, operate a telephone, access the Internet and e-mail, and run computer software. Nothing is attached to the user's head or body, and the improved size and portability allow the system to be mounted on a wheelchair. LCT and JPL are working on several other areas of improvement that have commercial add-on potential.

Common Graphics Library (CGL). Volume 1: LEZ user's guide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Taylor, Nancy L.; Hammond, Dana P.; Hofler, Alicia S.; Miner, David L.

1988-01-01

Users are introduced to and instructed in the use of the Langley Easy (LEZ) routines of the Common Graphics Library (CGL). The LEZ routines form an application independent graphics package which enables the user community to view data quickly and easily, while providing a means of generating scientific charts conforming to the publication and/or viewgraph process. A distinct advantage for using the LEZ routines is that the underlying graphics package may be replaced or modified without requiring the users to change their application programs. The library is written in ANSI FORTRAN 77, and currently uses a CORE-based underlying graphics package, and is therefore machine independent, providing support for centralized and/or distributed computer systems.

Web tools for large-scale 3D biological images and atlases

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Large-scale volumetric biomedical image data of three or more dimensions are a significant challenge for distributed browsing and visualisation. Many images now exceed 10GB which for most users is too large to handle in terms of computer RAM and network bandwidth. This is aggravated when users need to access tens or hundreds of such images from an archive. Here we solve the problem for 2D section views through archive data delivering compressed tiled images enabling users to browse through very-large volume data in the context of a standard web-browser. The system provides an interactive visualisation for grey-level and colour 3D images including multiple image layers and spatial-data overlay. Results The standard Internet Imaging Protocol (IIP) has been extended to enable arbitrary 2D sectioning of 3D data as well a multi-layered images and indexed overlays. The extended protocol is termed IIP3D and we have implemented a matching server to deliver the protocol and a series of Ajax/Javascript client codes that will run in an Internet browser. We have tested the server software on a low-cost linux-based server for image volumes up to 135GB and 64 simultaneous users. The section views are delivered with response times independent of scale and orientation. The exemplar client provided multi-layer image views with user-controlled colour-filtering and overlays. Conclusions Interactive browsing of arbitrary sections through large biomedical-image volumes is made possible by use of an extended internet protocol and efficient server-based image tiling. The tools open the possibility of enabling fast access to large image archives without the requirement of whole image download and client computers with very large memory configurations. The system was demonstrated using a range of medical and biomedical image data extending up to 135GB for a single image volume. PMID:22676296

MEMS-based microprojection system with a 1.5cc optical engine

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kilcher, Lucio; Abelé, Nicolas

2012-03-01

Lemoptix develops next-generation of Micro-Opto-Electromechanical Systems (MOEMS)-based laser scanning and microprojection technologies and products for professional and industrial applications. Lemoptix LSCAN laser scanning micromirrors are designed to be integrated by OEM (original equipment manufacturer) customers into a number of applications such as printers and industrial sensors, enhancing performances and enabling the development of smaller, higher resolution and lower cost products. Lemoptix MVIEW, world's smallest laser microprojection systems are ideal for integration by OEMs and ODMs (original design manufacturers) into various demanding applications such as headup displays in cars or mobile devices. Embedded MVIEW modules will enable the projection of content and information directly from the device on any nearby surface, enabling users to conveniently view and share information and content without the typical limitations of physical displays.

Quiz Making Activities Using the Multi-Mouse Quiz System in an Elementary School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhou, Juan; Mori, Mikihiko; Ueda, Hiroshi; Kita, Hajime

2013-01-01

The Multi-Mouse Quiz System is an application used to treat quizzes in a classroom or other learning environment. The system comprises the Multi Mouse Quiz (MMQ) and MMQEditor. The MMQ is an application of Single Display Groupware (SDG), which enables multiple users to answer quizzes by connecting several mice to an ordinary computer. The…

SWATShare- A Platform for Collaborative Hydrology Research and Education with Cyber-enabled Sharing, Running and Visualization of SWAT Models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rajib, M. A.; Merwade, V.; Song, C.; Zhao, L.; Kim, I. L.; Zhe, S.

2014-12-01

Setting up of any hydrologic model requires a large amount of efforts including compilation of all the data, creation of input files, calibration and validation. Given the amount of efforts involved, it is possible that models for a watershed get created multiple times by multiple groups or organizations to accomplish different research, educational or policy goals. To reduce the duplication of efforts and enable collaboration among different groups or organizations around an already existing hydrology model, a platform is needed where anyone can search for existing models, perform simple scenario analysis and visualize model results. The creator and users of a model on such a platform can then collaborate to accomplish new research or educational objectives. From this perspective, a prototype cyber-infrastructure (CI), called SWATShare, is developed for sharing, running and visualizing Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) models in an interactive GIS-enabled web environment. Users can utilize SWATShare to publish or upload their own models, search and download existing SWAT models developed by others, run simulations including calibration using high performance resources provided by XSEDE and Cloud. Besides running and sharing, SWATShare hosts a novel spatio-temporal visualization system for SWAT model outputs. In temporal scale, the system creates time-series plots for all the hydrology and water quality variables available along the reach as well as in watershed-level. In spatial scale, the system can dynamically generate sub-basin level thematic maps for any variable at any user-defined date or date range; and thereby, allowing users to run animations or download the data for subsequent analyses. In addition to research, SWATShare can also be used within a classroom setting as an educational tool for modeling and comparing the hydrologic processes under different geographic and climatic settings. SWATShare is publicly available at https://www.water-hub.org/swatshare.

Design and implementation of location-based wireless targeted advertising

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Benjamin; Xu, Deyin

2001-10-01

As advertisements are time and location sensitive, a challenge for wireless marketing is to have advertisements delivered when and where they are most convenient. In this paper we introduce a two-stage auction model for location-based wireless targeted advertising. This system extends the notion of location-based service by using location information to target advertising, and does so specifically by enabling advertisers to specify their preferences and bid for advertisement delivery, where those preferences are then used in a subsequent automated auction of actual deliveries to wireless data users. The automated auction in the second stage is especially effective because it can use information about the individual user profile data, including customer relationship management system contents as well as location from the wireless system's location management service, including potentially location history such as current trajectory from recent history and longer-term historical trip records for that user. Through two-stage auction, real-time bidding by advertisers and matching ads contents to mobile users help advertising information reach maximal value.

Automated Planning Enables Complex Protocols on Liquid-Handling Robots.

PubMed

Whitehead, Ellis; Rudolf, Fabian; Kaltenbach, Hans-Michael; Stelling, Jörg

2018-03-16

Robotic automation in synthetic biology is especially relevant for liquid handling to facilitate complex experiments. However, research tasks that are not highly standardized are still rarely automated in practice. Two main reasons for this are the substantial investments required to translate molecular biological protocols into robot programs, and the fact that the resulting programs are often too specific to be easily reused and shared. Recent developments of standardized protocols and dedicated programming languages for liquid-handling operations addressed some aspects of ease-of-use and portability of protocols. However, either they focus on simplicity, at the expense of enabling complex protocols, or they entail detailed programming, with corresponding skills and efforts required from the users. To reconcile these trade-offs, we developed Roboliq, a software system that uses artificial intelligence (AI) methods to integrate (i) generic formal, yet intuitive, protocol descriptions, (ii) complete, but usually hidden, programming capabilities, and (iii) user-system interactions to automatically generate executable, optimized robot programs. Roboliq also enables high-level specifications of complex tasks with conditional execution. To demonstrate the system's benefits for experiments that are difficult to perform manually because of their complexity, duration, or time-critical nature, we present three proof-of-principle applications for the reproducible, quantitative characterization of GFP variants.

A Service Oriented Infrastructure for Earth Science exchange

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Burnett, M.; Mitchell, A.

2008-12-01

NASA's Earth Science Distributed Information System (ESDIS) program has developed an infrastructure for the exchange of Earth Observation related resources. Fundamentally a platform for Service Oriented Architectures, ECHO provides standards-based interfaces based on the basic interactions for a SOA pattern: Publish, Find and Bind. This infrastructure enables the realization of the benefits of Service Oriented Architectures, namely the reduction of stove-piped systems, the opportunity for reuse and flexibility to meet dynamic business needs, on a global scale. ECHO is the result of the infusion of IT technologies, including those standards of Web Services and Service Oriented Architecture technologies. The infrastructure is based on standards and leverages registries for data, services, clients and applications. As an operational system, ECHO currently representing over 110 million Earth Observation resources from a wide number of provider organizations. These partner organizations each have a primary mission - serving a particular facet of the Earth Observation community. Through ECHO, those partners can serve the needs of not only their target portion of the community, but also enable a wider range of users to discover and leverage their data resources, thereby increasing the value of their offerings. The Earth Observation community benefits from this infrastructure because it provides a set of common mechanisms for the discovery and access to resources from a much wider range of data and service providers. ECHO enables innovative clients to be built for targeted user types and missions. There several examples of those clients already in process. Applications built on this infrastructure can include User-driven, GUI-clients (web-based or thick clients), analysis programs (as intermediate components of larger systems), models or decision support systems. This paper will provide insight into the development of ECHO, as technologies were evaluated for infusion, and a summary of how technologies where leveraged into a significant operational system for the Earth Observation community.

Tavaxy: Integrating Taverna and Galaxy workflows with cloud computing support

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Over the past decade the workflow system paradigm has evolved as an efficient and user-friendly approach for developing complex bioinformatics applications. Two popular workflow systems that have gained acceptance by the bioinformatics community are Taverna and Galaxy. Each system has a large user-base and supports an ever-growing repository of application workflows. However, workflows developed for one system cannot be imported and executed easily on the other. The lack of interoperability is due to differences in the models of computation, workflow languages, and architectures of both systems. This lack of interoperability limits sharing of workflows between the user communities and leads to duplication of development efforts. Results In this paper, we present Tavaxy, a stand-alone system for creating and executing workflows based on using an extensible set of re-usable workflow patterns. Tavaxy offers a set of new features that simplify and enhance the development of sequence analysis applications: It allows the integration of existing Taverna and Galaxy workflows in a single environment, and supports the use of cloud computing capabilities. The integration of existing Taverna and Galaxy workflows is supported seamlessly at both run-time and design-time levels, based on the concepts of hierarchical workflows and workflow patterns. The use of cloud computing in Tavaxy is flexible, where the users can either instantiate the whole system on the cloud, or delegate the execution of certain sub-workflows to the cloud infrastructure. Conclusions Tavaxy reduces the workflow development cycle by introducing the use of workflow patterns to simplify workflow creation. It enables the re-use and integration of existing (sub-) workflows from Taverna and Galaxy, and allows the creation of hybrid workflows. Its additional features exploit recent advances in high performance cloud computing to cope with the increasing data size and complexity of analysis. The system can be accessed either through a cloud-enabled web-interface or downloaded and installed to run within the user's local environment. All resources related to Tavaxy are available at http://www.tavaxy.org. PMID:22559942

The DIAS/CEOS Water Portal, distributed system using brokering architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miura, Satoko; Sekioka, Shinichi; Kuroiwa, Kaori; Kudo, Yoshiyuki

2015-04-01

The DIAS/CEOS Water Portal is a one of the DIAS (Data Integration and Analysis System, http://www.editoria.u-tokyo.ac.jp/projects/dias/?locale=en_US) systems for data distribution for users including, but not limited to, scientists, decision makers and officers like river administrators. This portal has two main functions; one is to search and access data and the other is to register and share use cases which use datasets provided via this portal. This presentation focuses on the first function, to search and access data. The Portal system is distributed in the sense that, while the portal system is located in Tokyo, the data is located in archive centers which are globally distributed. For example, some in-situ data is archived at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Earth Observing Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, USA. The NWP station time series and global gridded model output data is archived at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPIM) in cooperation with the World Data Center for Climate in Hamburg, Germany. Part of satellite data is archived at DIAS storage at the University of Tokyo, Japan. This portal itself does not store data. Instead, according to requests made by users on the web page, it retrieves data from distributed data centers on-the-fly and lets them download and see rendered images/plots. Although some data centers have unique meta data format and/or data search protocols, our portal's brokering function enables users to search across various data centers at one time, like one-stop shopping. And this portal is also connected to other data brokering systems, including GEOSS DAB (Discovery and Access Broker). As a result, users can search over thousands of datasets, millions of files at one time. Our system mainly relies on the open source software GI-cat (http://essi-lab.eu/do/view/GIcat), Opensearch protocol and OPeNDAP protocol to enable the above functions. Details on how it works will be introduced during the presentation. Users can access the DIAS/CEOS Water Portal system at http://waterportal.ceos.org/.

An Infrastructure to Enable Lightweight Context-Awareness for Mobile Users

PubMed Central

Curiel, Pablo; Lago, Ana B.

2013-01-01

Mobile phones enable us to carry out a wider range of tasks every day, and as a result they have become more ubiquitous than ever. However, they are still more limited in terms of processing power and interaction capabilities than traditional computers, and the often distracting and time-constricted scenarios in which we use them do not help in alleviating these limitations. Context-awareness is a valuable technique to address these issues, as it enables to adapt application behaviour to each situation. In this paper we present a context management infrastructure for mobile environments, aimed at controlling context information life-cycle in this kind of scenarios, with the main goal of enabling application and services to adapt their behaviour to better meet end-user needs. This infrastructure relies on semantic technologies and open standards to improve interoperability, and is based on a central element, the context manager. This element acts as a central context repository and takes most of the computational burden derived from dealing with this kind of information, thus relieving from these tasks to more resource-scarce devices in the system. PMID:23899932

iPad: Semantic annotation and markup of radiological images.

PubMed

Rubin, Daniel L; Rodriguez, Cesar; Shah, Priyanka; Beaulieu, Chris

2008-11-06

Radiological images contain a wealth of information,such as anatomy and pathology, which is often not explicit and computationally accessible. Information schemes are being developed to describe the semantic content of images, but such schemes can be unwieldy to operationalize because there are few tools to enable users to capture structured information easily as part of the routine research workflow. We have created iPad, an open source tool enabling researchers and clinicians to create semantic annotations on radiological images. iPad hides the complexity of the underlying image annotation information model from users, permitting them to describe images and image regions using a graphical interface that maps their descriptions to structured ontologies semi-automatically. Image annotations are saved in a variety of formats,enabling interoperability among medical records systems, image archives in hospitals, and the Semantic Web. Tools such as iPad can help reduce the burden of collecting structured information from images, and it could ultimately enable researchers and physicians to exploit images on a very large scale and glean the biological and physiological significance of image content.

A dynamic family practice information system for enhanced financial management.

PubMed

Hofman, M N; Hughes, R L

1982-08-01

The definition of the fiscal unit/family structure has enabled users of the FMIS, or family practices in Colorado and Wyoming, to maintain accurate, ongoing financial information on their patients. In turn, this structure has been a major incentive for maintaining accurate family information, and a distinct benefit to FMIS users. This article has presented the rationale, design, and method of implementation of the fiscal unit structure, with the intention of presenting this concept to others for use in other information systems used in maintaining family-oriented financial and medical information for medical practices.

Logical optimization for database uniformization

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Grant, J.

1984-01-01

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

A 'smart' tube holder enables real-time sample monitoring in a standard lab centrifuge.

PubMed

Hoang, Tony; Moskwa, Nicholas; Halvorsen, Ken

2018-01-01

The centrifuge is among the oldest and most widely used pieces of laboratory equipment, with significant applications that include clinical diagnostics and biomedical research. A major limitation of laboratory centrifuges is their "black box" nature, limiting sample observation to before and after centrifugation. Thus, optimized protocols require significant trial and error, while unoptimized protocols waste time by centrifuging longer than necessary or material due to incomplete sedimentation. Here, we developed an instrumented centrifuge tube receptacle compatible with several commercial benchtop centrifuges that can provide real-time sample analysis during centrifugation. We demonstrated the system by monitoring cell separations during centrifugation for different spin speeds, concentrations, buffers, cell types, and temperatures. We show that the collected data are valuable for analytical purposes (e.g. quality control), or as feedback to the user or the instrument. For the latter, we verified an adaptation where complete sedimentation turned off the centrifuge and notified the user by a text message. Our system adds new functionality to existing laboratory centrifuges, saving users time and providing useful feedback. This add-on potentially enables new analytical applications for an instrument that has remained largely unchanged for decades.

A ‘smart’ tube holder enables real-time sample monitoring in a standard lab centrifuge

PubMed Central

Hoang, Tony; Moskwa, Nicholas

2018-01-01

The centrifuge is among the oldest and most widely used pieces of laboratory equipment, with significant applications that include clinical diagnostics and biomedical research. A major limitation of laboratory centrifuges is their “black box” nature, limiting sample observation to before and after centrifugation. Thus, optimized protocols require significant trial and error, while unoptimized protocols waste time by centrifuging longer than necessary or material due to incomplete sedimentation. Here, we developed an instrumented centrifuge tube receptacle compatible with several commercial benchtop centrifuges that can provide real-time sample analysis during centrifugation. We demonstrated the system by monitoring cell separations during centrifugation for different spin speeds, concentrations, buffers, cell types, and temperatures. We show that the collected data are valuable for analytical purposes (e.g. quality control), or as feedback to the user or the instrument. For the latter, we verified an adaptation where complete sedimentation turned off the centrifuge and notified the user by a text message. Our system adds new functionality to existing laboratory centrifuges, saving users time and providing useful feedback. This add-on potentially enables new analytical applications for an instrument that has remained largely unchanged for decades. PMID:29659624

Earth Observing System Data Gateway

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pfister, Robin; McMahon, Joe; Amrhein, James; Sefert, Ed; Marsans, Lorena; Solomon, Mark; Nestler, Mark

2006-01-01

The Earth Observing System Data Gateway (EDG) software provides a "one-stop-shopping" standard interface for exploring and ordering Earth-science data stored at geographically distributed sites. EDG enables a user to do the following: 1) Search for data according to high-level criteria (e.g., geographic location, time, or satellite that acquired the data); 2) Browse the results of a search, viewing thumbnail sketches of data that satisfy the user s criteria; and 3) Order selected data for delivery to a specified address on a chosen medium (e.g., compact disk or magnetic tape). EDG consists of (1) a component that implements a high-level client/server protocol, and (2) a collection of C-language libraries that implement the passing of protocol messages between an EDG client and one or more EDG servers. EDG servers are located at sites usually called "Distributed Active Archive Centers" (DAACs). Each DAAC may allow access to many individual data items, called "granules" (e.g., single Landsat images). Related granules are grouped into collections called "data sets." EDG enables a user to send a search query to multiple DAACs simultaneously, inspect the resulting information, select browseable granules, and then order selected data from the different sites in a seamless fashion.

Multisensor signal processing techniques (hybrid GPS Loran-C with RAIM)

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1991-09-01

One of the major elements in alleviating existing problems in en route airspace is : to allow more aircraft to traverse a given volume of airspace. Recent developments : in navigation systems will support this effort by enabling user preferred routes...

Route Advising in a Dynamic Environment - A High-Tech Approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Firdhous, M. F. M.; Basnayake, D. L.; Kodithuwakku, K. H. L.; Hatthalla, N. K.; Charlin, N. W.; Bandara, P. M. R. I. K.

Finding the optimal path between two locations in the Colombo city is not a straight forward task, because of the complex road system and the huge traffic jams etc. This paper presents a system to find the optimal driving direction between two locations within the Colombo city, considering road rules (one way, two ways or fully closed in both directions). The system contains three main modules - core module, web module and mobile module, additionally there are two user interfaces one for normal users and the other for administrative users. Both these interfaces can be accessed using a web browser or a GPRS enabled mobile phone. The system is developed based on the Geographic Information System (GIS) technology. GIS is considered as the best option to integrate hardware, software, and data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information. The core of the system is MapServer (MS4W) used along with the other supporting technologies such as PostGIS, PostgreSQL, pgRouting, ASP.NET and C#.

Main control computer security model of closed network systems protection against cyber attacks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seymen, Bilal

2014-06-01

The model that brings the data input/output under control in closed network systems, that maintains the system securely, and that controls the flow of information through the Main Control Computer which also brings the network traffic under control against cyber-attacks. The network, which can be controlled single-handedly thanks to the system designed to enable the network users to make data entry into the system or to extract data from the system securely, intends to minimize the security gaps. Moreover, data input/output record can be kept by means of the user account assigned for each user, and it is also possible to carry out retroactive tracking, if requested. Because the measures that need to be taken for each computer on the network regarding cyber security, do require high cost; it has been intended to provide a cost-effective working environment with this model, only if the Main Control Computer has the updated hardware.

Digital Multicasting of Multiple Audio Streams

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Macha, Mitchell; Bullock, John

2007-01-01

The Mission Control Center Voice Over Internet Protocol (MCC VOIP) system (see figure) comprises hardware and software that effect simultaneous, nearly real-time transmission of as many as 14 different audio streams to authorized listeners via the MCC intranet and/or the Internet. The original version of the MCC VOIP system was conceived to enable flight-support personnel located in offices outside a spacecraft mission control center to monitor audio loops within the mission control center. Different versions of the MCC VOIP system could be used for a variety of public and commercial purposes - for example, to enable members of the general public to monitor one or more NASA audio streams through their home computers, to enable air-traffic supervisors to monitor communication between airline pilots and air-traffic controllers in training, and to monitor conferences among brokers in a stock exchange. At the transmitting end, the audio-distribution process begins with feeding the audio signals to analog-to-digital converters. The resulting digital streams are sent through the MCC intranet, using a user datagram protocol (UDP), to a server that converts them to encrypted data packets. The encrypted data packets are then routed to the personal computers of authorized users by use of multicasting techniques. The total data-processing load on the portion of the system upstream of and including the encryption server is the total load imposed by all of the audio streams being encoded, regardless of the number of the listeners or the number of streams being monitored concurrently by the listeners. The personal computer of a user authorized to listen is equipped with special- purpose MCC audio-player software. When the user launches the program, the user is prompted to provide identification and a password. In one of two access- control provisions, the program is hard-coded to validate the user s identity and password against a list maintained on a domain-controller computer at the MCC. In the other access-control provision, the program verifies that the user is authorized to have access to the audio streams. Once both access-control checks are completed, the audio software presents a graphical display that includes audiostream-selection buttons and volume-control sliders. The user can select all or any subset of the available audio streams and can adjust the volume of each stream independently of that of the other streams. The audio-player program spawns a "read" process for the selected stream(s). The spawned process sends, to the router(s), a "multicast-join" request for the selected streams. The router(s) responds to the request by sending the encrypted multicast packets to the spawned process. The spawned process receives the encrypted multicast packets and sends a decryption packet to audio-driver software. As the volume or muting features are changed by the user, interrupts are sent to the spawned process to change the corresponding attributes sent to the audio-driver software. The total latency of this system - that is, the total time from the origination of the audio signals to generation of sound at a listener s computer - lies between four and six seconds.

Lowering the Barriers to Using Data: Enabling Desktop-based HPD Science through Virtual Environments and Web Data Services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Druken, K. A.; Trenham, C. E.; Steer, A.; Evans, B. J. K.; Richards, C. J.; Smillie, J.; Allen, C.; Pringle, S.; Wang, J.; Wyborn, L. A.

2016-12-01

The Australian National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) provides access to petascale data in climate, weather, Earth observations, and genomics, and terascale data in astronomy, geophysics, ecology and land use, as well as social sciences. The data is centralized in a closely integrated High Performance Computing (HPC), High Performance Data (HPD) and cloud facility. Despite this, there remain significant barriers for many users to find and access the data: simply hosting a large volume of data is not helpful if researchers are unable to find, access, and use the data for their particular need. Use cases demonstrate we need to support a diverse range of users who are increasingly crossing traditional research discipline boundaries. To support their varying experience, access needs and research workflows, NCI has implemented an integrated data platform providing a range of services that enable users to interact with our data holdings. These services include: - A GeoNetwork catalog built on standardized Data Management Plans to search collection metadata, and find relevant datasets; - Web data services to download or remotely access data via OPeNDAP, WMS, WCS and other protocols; - Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) built on a highly integrated on-site cloud with access to both the HPC peak machine and research data collections. The VDI is a fully featured environment allowing visualization, code development and analysis to take place in an interactive desktop environment; and - A Learning Management System (LMS) containing User Guides, Use Case examples and Jupyter Notebooks structured into courses, so that users can self-teach how to use these facilities with examples from our system across a range of disciplines. We will briefly present these components, and discuss how we engage with data custodians and consumers to develop standardized data structures and services that support the range of needs. We will also highlight some key developments that have improved user experience in utilizing the services, particularly enabling transdisciplinary science. This work combines with other developments at NCI to increase the confidence of scientists from any field to undertake research and analysis on these important data collections regardless of their preferred work environment or level of skill.

Interactive Schematic Integration Within the Propellant System Modeling Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Coote, David; Ryan, Harry; Burton, Kenneth; McKinney, Lee; Woodman, Don

2012-01-01

Task requirements for rocket propulsion test preparations of the test stand facilities drive the need to model the test facility propellant systems prior to constructing physical modifications. The Propellant System Modeling Environment (PSME) is an initiative designed to enable increased efficiency and expanded capabilities to a broader base of NASA engineers in the use of modeling and simulation (M&S) technologies for rocket propulsion test and launch mission requirements. PSME will enable a wider scope of users to utilize M&S of propulsion test and launch facilities for predictive and post-analysis functionality by offering a clean, easy-to-use, high-performance application environment.

Living with an autonomous spatiotemporal home heating system: Exploration of the user experiences (UX) through a longitudinal technology intervention-based mixed-methods approach.

PubMed

Kruusimagi, Martin; Sharples, Sarah; Robinson, Darren

2017-11-01

Rising energy demands place pressure on domestic energy consumption, but savings can be delivered through home automation and engaging users with their heating and energy behaviours. The aim of this paper is to explore user experiences (UX) of living with an automated heating system regarding experiences of control, understanding of the system, emerging thermal behaviours, and interactions with the system as this area is not sufficiently researched in the existing homes setting through extended deployment. We present a longitudinal deployment of a quasi-autonomous spatiotemporal home heating system in three homes. Users were provided with a smartphone control application linked to a self-learning heating algorithm. Rich qualitative and quantitative data presented here enabled a holistic exploration of UX. The paper's contribution focuses on highlighting key aspects of UX living with an automated heating systems including (i) adoption of the control interface into the social context, (ii) how users' vigilance in maintaining preferred conditions prevailed as a better indicator of system over-ride than gross deviation from thermal comfort, (iii) limited but motivated proactivity in system-initiated communications as best strategy for soliciting user feedback when inference fails, and (iv) two main motivations for interacting with the interface - managing irregularities when absent from the house and maintaining immediate comfort, latter compromising of a checking behaviour that can transit to a system state alteration behaviour depending on mismatches. We conclude by highlighting the complex socio-technical context in which thermal decisions are made in a situated action manner, and by calling for a more holistic, UX-focused approach in the design of automated home systems involving user experiences. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Intelligent Data Visualization for Cross-Checking Spacecraft System Diagnosis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ong, James C.; Remolina, Emilio; Breeden, David; Stroozas, Brett A.; Mohammed, John L.

2012-01-01

Any reasoning system is fallible, so crew members and flight controllers must be able to cross-check automated diagnoses of spacecraft or habitat problems by considering alternate diagnoses and analyzing related evidence. Cross-checking improves diagnostic accuracy because people can apply information processing heuristics, pattern recognition techniques, and reasoning methods that the automated diagnostic system may not possess. Over time, cross-checking also enables crew members to become comfortable with how the diagnostic reasoning system performs, so the system can earn the crew s trust. We developed intelligent data visualization software that helps users cross-check automated diagnoses of system faults more effectively. The user interface displays scrollable arrays of timelines and time-series graphs, which are tightly integrated with an interactive, color-coded system schematic to show important spatial-temporal data patterns. Signal processing and rule-based diagnostic reasoning automatically identify alternate hypotheses and data patterns that support or rebut the original and alternate diagnoses. A color-coded matrix display summarizes the supporting or rebutting evidence for each diagnosis, and a drill-down capability enables crew members to quickly view graphs and timelines of the underlying data. This system demonstrates that modest amounts of diagnostic reasoning, combined with interactive, information-dense data visualizations, can accelerate system diagnosis and cross-checking.

Nonintrusive iris image acquisition system based on a pan-tilt-zoom camera and light stripe projection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yoon, Soweon; Jung, Ho Gi; Park, Kang Ryoung; Kim, Jaihie

2009-03-01

Although iris recognition is one of the most accurate biometric technologies, it has not yet been widely used in practical applications. This is mainly due to user inconvenience during the image acquisition phase. Specifically, users try to adjust their eye position within small capture volume at a close distance from the system. To overcome these problems, we propose a novel iris image acquisition system that provides users with unconstrained environments: a large operating range, enabling movement from standing posture, and capturing good-quality iris images in an acceptable time. The proposed system has the following three contributions compared with previous works: (1) the capture volume is significantly increased by using a pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera guided by a light stripe projection, (2) the iris location in the large capture volume is found fast due to 1-D vertical face searching from the user's horizontal position obtained by the light stripe projection, and (3) zooming and focusing on the user's irises at a distance are accurate and fast using the estimated 3-D position of a face by the light stripe projection and the PTZ camera. Experimental results show that the proposed system can capture good-quality iris images in 2.479 s on average at a distance of 1.5 to 3 m, while allowing a limited amount of movement by the user.

Objectifying user critique. A means of continuous quality assurance for physician discharge letter composition.

PubMed

Oschem, M; Mahler, V; Prokosch, H U

2011-01-01

The aim of this study is to objectify user critique rendering it usable for quality assurance. Based on formative and summative evaluation results we strive to promote software improvements; in our case, the physician discharge letter composition process at the Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Erlangen, Germany. We developed a novel six-step approach to objectify user critique: 1) acquisition of user critique using subjectivist methods, 2) creation of a workflow model, 3) definition of hypothesis and indicators, 4) measuring of indicators, 5) analyzing results, 6) optimization of the system regarding both subjectivist and objectivist evaluation results. In particular, we derived indicators and workflows directly from user critique/narratives. The identified indicators were mapped onto workflow activities, creating a link between user critique and the evaluated system. Users criticized a new discharge letter system as "too slow" and "too labor-intensive" in comparison with the previously used system. In a stepwise approach we collected subjective user critique, derived a comprehensive process model including deviations and deduced a set of five indicators for objectivist evaluation: processing time, system-related waiting time, number of mouse clicks, number of keyboard inputs, and throughput time. About 3500 measurements have been performed to compare the workflow-steps of both systems, regarding 20 discharge letters. Although the difference of the mean total processing time between both systems was statistically insignificant (2011.7 s vs. 1971.5 s; p = 0.457), we detected a significant difference in waiting times (101.8 s vs. 37.2 s; p <0.001) and number of user interactions (77 vs. 69; p <0.001) in favor of the old system, thus objectifying user critique. Our six-step approach enables objectification of user critique, resulting in objective values for continuous quality assurance. To our knowledge no previous study in medical informatics mapped user critique onto workflow steps. Subjectivist analysis prompted us to use the indicator system-related waiting time for the objectivist study, which was rarely done before. We consider combining subjectivist and objectivist methods as a key point of our approach. Future work will concentrate on automated measurement of indicators.

Software Supports Distributed Operations via the Internet

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Norris, Jeffrey; Backers, Paul; Steinke, Robert

2003-01-01

Multi-mission Encrypted Communication System (MECS) is a computer program that enables authorized, geographically dispersed users to gain secure access to a common set of data files via the Internet. MECS is compatible with legacy application programs and a variety of operating systems. The MECS architecture is centered around maintaining consistent replicas of data files cached on remote computers. MECS monitors these files and, whenever one is changed, the changed file is committed to a master database as soon as network connectivity makes it possible to do so. MECS provides subscriptions for remote users to automatically receive new data as they are generated. Remote users can be producers as well as consumers of data. Whereas a prior program that provides some of the same services treats disconnection of a user from the network of users as an error from which recovery must be effected, MECS treats disconnection as a nominal state of the network: This leads to a different design that is more efficient for serving many users, each of whom typically connects and disconnects frequently and wants only a small fraction of the data at any given time.

Brain Computer Interface on Track to Home.

PubMed

Miralles, Felip; Vargiu, Eloisa; Dauwalder, Stefan; Solà, Marc; Müller-Putz, Gernot; Wriessnegger, Selina C; Pinegger, Andreas; Kübler, Andrea; Halder, Sebastian; Käthner, Ivo; Martin, Suzanne; Daly, Jean; Armstrong, Elaine; Guger, Christoph; Hintermüller, Christoph; Lowish, Hannah

2015-01-01

The novel BackHome system offers individuals with disabilities a range of useful services available via brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), to help restore their independence. This is the time such technology is ready to be deployed in the real world, that is, at the target end users' home. This has been achieved by the development of practical electrodes, easy to use software, and delivering telemonitoring and home support capabilities which have been conceived, implemented, and tested within a user-centred design approach. The final BackHome system is the result of a 3-year long process involving extensive user engagement to maximize effectiveness, reliability, robustness, and ease of use of a home based BCI system. The system is comprised of ergonomic and hassle-free BCI equipment; one-click software services for Smart Home control, cognitive stimulation, and web browsing; and remote telemonitoring and home support tools to enable independent home use for nonexpert caregivers and users. BackHome aims to successfully bring BCIs to the home of people with limited mobility to restore their independence and ultimately improve their quality of life.

Brain Computer Interface on Track to Home

PubMed Central

Miralles, Felip; Dauwalder, Stefan; Müller-Putz, Gernot; Wriessnegger, Selina C.; Pinegger, Andreas; Kübler, Andrea; Halder, Sebastian; Käthner, Ivo; Guger, Christoph; Lowish, Hannah

2015-01-01

The novel BackHome system offers individuals with disabilities a range of useful services available via brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), to help restore their independence. This is the time such technology is ready to be deployed in the real world, that is, at the target end users' home. This has been achieved by the development of practical electrodes, easy to use software, and delivering telemonitoring and home support capabilities which have been conceived, implemented, and tested within a user-centred design approach. The final BackHome system is the result of a 3-year long process involving extensive user engagement to maximize effectiveness, reliability, robustness, and ease of use of a home based BCI system. The system is comprised of ergonomic and hassle-free BCI equipment; one-click software services for Smart Home control, cognitive stimulation, and web browsing; and remote telemonitoring and home support tools to enable independent home use for nonexpert caregivers and users. BackHome aims to successfully bring BCIs to the home of people with limited mobility to restore their independence and ultimately improve their quality of life. PMID:26167530

Video-Game-Like Engine for Depicting Spacecraft Trajectories

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Upchurch, Paul R.

2009-01-01

GoView is a video-game-like software engine, written in the C and C++ computing languages, that enables real-time, three-dimensional (3D)-appearing visual representation of spacecraft and trajectories (1) from any perspective; (2) at any spatial scale from spacecraft to Solar-system dimensions; (3) in user-selectable time scales; (4) in the past, present, and/or future; (5) with varying speeds; and (6) forward or backward in time. GoView constructs an interactive 3D world by use of spacecraft-mission data from pre-existing engineering software tools. GoView can also be used to produce distributable application programs for depicting NASA orbital missions on personal computers running the Windows XP, Mac OsX, and Linux operating systems. GoView enables seamless rendering of Cartesian coordinate spaces with programmable graphics hardware, whereas prior programs for depicting spacecraft trajectories variously require non-Cartesian coordinates and/or are not compatible with programmable hardware. GoView incorporates an algorithm for nonlinear interpolation between arbitrary reference frames, whereas the prior programs are restricted to special classes of inertial and non-inertial reference frames. Finally, whereas the prior programs present complex user interfaces requiring hours of training, the GoView interface provides guidance, enabling use without any training.

Technical skills measurement based on a cyber-physical system for endovascular surgery simulation.

PubMed

Tercero, Carlos; Kodama, Hirokatsu; Shi, Chaoyang; Ooe, Katsutoshi; Ikeda, Seiichi; Fukuda, Toshio; Arai, Fumihito; Negoro, Makoto; Kwon, Guiryong; Najdovski, Zoran

2013-09-01

Quantification of medical skills is a challenge, particularly simulator-based training. In the case of endovascular intervention, it is desirable that a simulator accurately recreates the morphology and mechanical characteristics of the vasculature while enabling scoring. For this purpose, we propose a cyber-physical system composed of optical sensors for a catheter's body motion encoding, a magnetic tracker for motion capture of an operator's hands, and opto-mechatronic sensors for measuring the interaction of the catheter tip with the vasculature model wall. Two pilot studies were conducted for measuring technical skills, one for distinguishing novices from experts and the other for measuring unnecessary motion. The proficiency levels were measurable between expert and novice and also between individual novice users. The results enabled scoring of the user's proficiency level, using sensitivity, reaction time, time to complete a task and respect for tissue integrity as evaluation criteria. Additionally, unnecessary motion was also measurable. The development of cyber-physical simulators for other domains of medicine depend on the study of photoelastic materials for human tissue modelling, and enables quantitative evaluation of skills using surgical instruments and a realistic representation of human tissue. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Surface-tension driven open microfluidic platform for hanging droplet culture

PubMed Central

de Groot, T. E.; Veserat, K. S.; Berthier, E.; Beebe, D. J.; Theberge, A. B.

2015-01-01

The hanging droplet technique for three-dimensional tissue culture has been used for decades in biology labs, with the core technology remaining relatively unchanged. Recently microscale approaches have expanded the capabilities of the hanging droplet method, making it more user-friendly. We present a spontaneously driven, open hanging droplet culture platform to address many limitations of current platforms. Our platform makes use of two interconnected hanging droplet wells, a larger well where cells are cultured and a smaller well for user interface via a pipette. The two-well system results in lower shear stress in the culture well during fluid exchange, enabling shear sensitive or non-adherent cells to be cultured in a droplet. The ability to perform fluid exchanges in-droplet enables long-term culture, treatment, and characterization without disruption of the culture. The open well format of the platform was utilized to perform time-dependent coculture, enabling culture configurations with bone tissue scaffolds and cells grown in suspension. The open nature of the system allowed the direct addition or removal of tissue over the course of an experiment, manipulations that would be impractical in other microfluidic or hanging droplet culture platforms. PMID:26660268

"Head up and eyes out" advances in head mounted displays capabilities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cameron, Alex

2013-06-01

There are a host of helmet and head mounted displays, flooding the market place with displays which provide what is essentially a mobile computer display. What sets aviators HMDs apart is that they provide the user with accurate conformal information embedded in the pilots real world view (see through display) where the information presented is intuitive and easy to use because it overlays the real world (mix of sensor imagery, symbolic information and synthetic imagery) and enables them to stay head up, eyes out, - improving their effectiveness, reducing workload and improving safety. Such systems are an enabling technology in the provision of enhanced Situation Awareness (SA) and reducing user workload in high intensity situations. Safety Is Key; so the addition of these HMD functions cannot detract from the aircrew protection functions of conventional aircrew helmets which also include life support and audio communications. These capabilities are finding much wider application in new types of compact man mounted audio/visual products enabled by the emergence of new families of micro displays, novel optical concepts and ultra-compact low power processing solutions. This papers attempts to capture the key drivers and needs for future head mounted systems for aviation applications.

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

A personal digital assistant application (MobilDent) for dental fieldwork data collection, information management and database handling.

PubMed

Forsell, M; Häggström, M; Johansson, O; Sjögren, P

2008-11-08

To develop a personal digital assistant (PDA) application for oral health assessment fieldwork, including back-office and database systems (MobilDent). System design, construction and implementation of PDA, back-office and database systems. System requirements for MobilDent were collected, analysed and translated into system functions. User interfaces were implemented and system architecture was outlined. MobilDent was based on a platform with. NET (Microsoft) components, using an SQL Server 2005 (Microsoft) for data storage with Windows Mobile (Microsoft) operating system. The PDA devices were Dell Axim. System functions and user interfaces were specified for MobilDent. User interfaces for PDA, back-office and database systems were based on. NET programming. The PDA user interface was based on Windows suitable to a PDA display, whereas the back-office interface was designed for a normal-sized computer screen. A synchronisation module (MS Active Sync, Microsoft) was used to enable download of field data from PDA to the database. MobilDent is a feasible application for oral health assessment fieldwork, and the oral health assessment database may prove a valuable source for care planning, educational and research purposes. Further development of the MobilDent system will include wireless connectivity with download-on-demand technology.

Linking information and people in a social system for academic conferences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brusilovsky, Peter; Oh, Jung Sun; López, Claudia; Parra, Denis; Jeng, Wei

2017-04-01

This paper investigates the feasibility of maintaining a social information system to support attendees at an academic conference. The main challenge of this work was to create an infrastructure where users' social activities, such as bookmarking, tagging, and social linking could be used to enhance user navigation and maximize the users' ability to locate two important types of information in conference settings: presentations to attend and attendees to meet. We developed Conference Navigator 3, a social conference support system that integrates a conference schedule planner with a social linking service. We examined its potential and functions in the context of a medium-scale academic conference. In this paper, we present the design of the system's socially enabled features and report the results of a conference-based study. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of social information systems for supporting academic conferences. Despite the low number of potential users and the short timeframe in which conferences took place, the usage of the system was high enough to provide sufficient data for social mechanisms. The study shows that most critical social features were highly appreciated and used, and provides direction for further research.

Swarm Intelligence: New Techniques for Adaptive Systems to Provide Learning Support

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wong, Lung-Hsiang; Looi, Chee-Kit

2012-01-01

The notion of a system adapting itself to provide support for learning has always been an important issue of research for technology-enabled learning. One approach to provide adaptivity is to use social navigation approaches and techniques which involve analysing data of what was previously selected by a cluster of users or what worked for…

Rapid deployment of internet-connected environmental monitoring devices

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Advances in electronic sensing and monitoring systems and the growth of the communications infrastructure have enabled users to gain immediate access to information and interaction with physical devices. To facilitate the uploading, viewing, and sharing of data via the internet, while avoiding the ...

Development of Educational Support System for Learning Image Processing Enabling Client-Side Programming Aided by Java Servlet Technology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Furukawa, Tatsuya; Aoki, Noriyuki; Ohchi, Masashi; Nakao, Masaki

The image proccessing has become a useful and important technology in various reserch and development fields. According to such demands for engineering problems, we have designed and implemented the educational support system for that using a Java Applet technology. However in the conventional system, it required the tedious procedure for the end user to code his own programs. Therefore, in this study, we have improved the defect in the previous system by using a Java Servlet technology. The new system will make it possible for novice user to experience a practical digital image proccessing and an advanced programming with ease. We will describe the architecture of the proposed system function, that has been introduced to facilitate the client-side programming.

A Java-Enabled Interactive Graphical Gas Turbine Propulsion System Simulator

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reed, John A.; Afjeh, Abdollah A.

1997-01-01

This paper describes a gas turbine simulation system which utilizes the newly developed Java language environment software system. The system provides an interactive graphical environment which allows the quick and efficient construction and analysis of arbitrary gas turbine propulsion systems. The simulation system couples a graphical user interface, developed using the Java Abstract Window Toolkit, and a transient, space- averaged, aero-thermodynamic gas turbine analysis method, both entirely coded in the Java language. The combined package provides analytical, graphical and data management tools which allow the user to construct and control engine simulations by manipulating graphical objects on the computer display screen. Distributed simulations, including parallel processing and distributed database access across the Internet and World-Wide Web (WWW), are made possible through services provided by the Java environment.

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

Steed, Chad Allen

EDENx is a multivariate data visualization tool that allows interactive user driven analysis of large-scale data sets with high dimensionality. EDENx builds on our earlier system, called EDEN to enable analysis of more dimensions and larger scale data sets. EDENx provides an initial overview of summary statistics for each variable in the data set under investigation. EDENx allows the user to interact with graphical summary plots of the data to investigate subsets and their statistical associations. These plots include histograms, binned scatterplots, binned parallel coordinate plots, timeline plots, and graphical correlation indicators. From the EDENx interface, a user can selectmore » a subsample of interest and launch a more detailed data visualization via the EDEN system. EDENx is best suited for high-level, aggregate analysis tasks while EDEN is more appropriate for detail data investigations.« less

Designing an Awareness Display for Senior Home Care Professionals

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vastenburg, Martijn H.; Vroegindeweij, Robbert J.

Home care professionals play a central role in supporting elderly people when they need help to continue living in their own homes. Using awareness systems, caregivers might better be able to consider the actual and changing needs of individual clients, and better be prepared for the home visits. In the present situation, the functional requirements on a awareness systems for professional caregivers are unknown, and caregivers tend to be unaware of the potential use of these sensor-based systems. This paper presents a case study in which the user needs are studied using a working prototype; the prototype is used to make target users experience an awareness system in their everyday work practice, and thereby enable them to better reflect upon the user needs and the potential use of these systemsWhereas caregivers were skeptical at first, they did value the prototype in the evaluation phase. In the exit interviews, the caregivers came up with an interesting list of requirements and design directions for a future awareness display.

A user anonymity preserving three-factor authentication scheme for telecare medicine information systems.

PubMed

Tan, Zuowen

2014-03-01

The telecare medicine information system enables the patients gain health monitoring at home and access medical services over internet or mobile networks. In recent years, the schemes based on cryptography have been proposed to address the security and privacy issues in the telecare medicine information systems. However, many schemes are insecure or they have low efficiency. Recently, Awasthi and Srivastava proposed a three-factor authentication scheme for telecare medicine information systems. In this paper, we show that their scheme is vulnerable to the reflection attacks. Furthermore, it fails to provide three-factor security and the user anonymity. We propose a new three-factor authentication scheme for the telecare medicine information systems. Detailed analysis demonstrates that the proposed scheme provides mutual authentication, server not knowing password and freedom of password, biometric update and three-factor security. Moreover, the new scheme provides the user anonymity. As compared with the previous three-factor authentication schemes, the proposed scheme is more secure and practical.

Nuclear Engine System Simulation (NESS). Version 2.0: Program user's guide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pelaccio, Dennis G.; Scheil, Christine M.; Petrosky, Lyman

1993-01-01

This Program User's Guide discusses the Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) engine system design features and capabilities modeled in the Nuclear Engine System Simulation (NESS): Version 2.0 program (referred to as NESS throughout the remainder of this document), as well as its operation. NESS was upgraded to include many new modeling capabilities not available in the original version delivered to NASA LeRC in Dec. 1991, NESS's new features include the following: (1) an improved input format; (2) an advanced solid-core NERVA-type reactor system model (ENABLER 2); (3) a bleed-cycle engine system option; (4) an axial-turbopump design option; (5) an automated pump-out turbopump assembly sizing option; (6) an off-design gas generator engine cycle design option; (7) updated hydrogen properties; (8) an improved output format; and (9) personal computer operation capability. Sample design cases are presented in the user's guide that demonstrate many of the new features associated with this upgraded version of NESS, as well as design modeling features associated with the original version of NESS.

Definition and testing of the hydrologic component of the pilot land data system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ragan, Robert M.; Sircar, Jayanta K.

1987-01-01

The specific aim was to develop within the Pilot Land Data System (PLDS) software design environment, an easily implementable and user friendly geometric correction procedure to readily enable the georeferencing of imagery data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) onboard the NOAA series spacecraft. A software subsystem was developed within the guidelines set by the PLDS development environment utilizing NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Image Analysis Facility's (IAF's) Land Analysis Software (LAS) coding standards. The IAS current program development environment, the Transportable Applications Executive (TAE), operates under a VAX VMS operating system and was used as the user interface. A brief overview of the ICARUS algorithm that was implemented in the set of functions developed, is provided. The functional specifications decription is provided, and a list of the individual programs and directory names containing the source and executables installed in the IAF system are listed. A user guide is provided for the LAS system documentation format for the three functions developed.

An open-architecture approach to defect analysis software for mask inspection systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pereira, Mark; Pai, Ravi R.; Reddy, Murali Mohan; Krishna, Ravi M.

2009-04-01

Industry data suggests that Mask Inspection represents the second biggest component of Mask Cost and Mask Turn Around Time (TAT). Ever decreasing defect size targets lead to more sensitive mask inspection across the chip, thus generating too many defects. Hence, more operator time is being spent in analyzing and disposition of defects. Also, the fact that multiple Mask Inspection Systems and Defect Analysis strategies would typically be in use in a Mask Shop or a Wafer Foundry further complicates the situation. In this scenario, there is a need for a versatile, user friendly and extensible Defect Analysis software that reduces operator analysis time and enables correct classification and disposition of mask defects by providing intuitive visual and analysis aids. We propose a new vendor-neutral defect analysis software, NxDAT, based on an open architecture. The open architecture of NxDAT makes it easily extensible to support defect analysis for mask inspection systems from different vendors. The capability to load results from mask inspection systems from different vendors either directly or through a common interface enables the functionality of establishing correlation between inspections carried out by mask inspection systems from different vendors. This capability of NxDAT enhances the effectiveness of defect analysis as it directly addresses the real-life scenario where multiple types of mask inspection systems from different vendors co-exist in mask shops or wafer foundries. The open architecture also potentially enables loading wafer inspection results as well as loading data from other related tools such as Review Tools, Repair Tools, CD-SEM tools etc, and correlating them with the corresponding mask inspection results. A unique concept of Plug-In interface to NxDAT further enhances the openness of the architecture of NxDAT by enabling end-users to add their own proprietary defect analysis and image processing algorithms. The plug-in interface makes it possible for the end-users to make use of their collected knowledge through the years of experience in mask inspection process by encapsulating the knowledge into software utilities and plugging them into NxDAT. The plug-in interface is designed with the intent of enabling the pro-active mask defect analysis teams to build competitive differentiation into their defect analysis process while protecting their knowledge internally within their company. By providing interface with all major standard layout and mask data formats, NxDAT enables correlation of defect data on reticles with design and mask databases, further extending the effectiveness of defect analysis for D2DB inspection. NxDAT also includes many other advanced features for easy and fast navigation, visual display of defects, defect selection, multi-tier classification, defect clustering and gridding, sophisticated CD and contact measurement analysis, repeatability analysis such as adder analysis, defect trend, capture rate etc.

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

HERMA-Heartbeat Microwave Authentication

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Haque, Salman-ul Mohammed (Inventor); Chow, Edward (Inventor); McKee, Michael Ray (Inventor); Tkacenko, Andre (Inventor); Lux, James Paul (Inventor)

2018-01-01

Systems and methods for identifying and/or authenticating individuals utilizing microwave sensing modules are disclosed. A HEaRtbeat Microwave Authentication (HERMA) system can enable the active identification and/or authentication of a user by analyzing reflected RF signals that contain a person's unique characteristics related to their heartbeats. An illumination signal is transmitted towards a person where a reflected signal captures the motion of the skin and tissue (i.e. displacement) due to the person's heartbeats. The HERMA system can utilize existing transmitters in a mobile device (e.g. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Cellphone signals) as the illumination source with at least one external receive antenna. The received reflected signals can be pre-processed and analyzed to identify and/or authenticate a user.

Cloud-based robot remote control system for smart factory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wu, Zhiming; Li, Lianzhong; Xu, Yang; Zhai, Jingmei

2015-12-01

With the development of internet technologies and the wide application of robots, there is a prospect (trend/tendency) of integration between network and robots. A cloud-based robot remote control system over networks for smart factory is proposed, which enables remote users to control robots and then realize intelligent production. To achieve it, a three-layer system architecture is designed including user layer, service layer and physical layer. Remote control applications running on the cloud server is developed on Microsoft Azure. Moreover, DIV+ CSS technologies are used to design human-machine interface to lower maintenance cost and improve development efficiency. Finally, an experiment is implemented to verify the feasibility of the program.

Agile data management for curation of genomes to watershed datasets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Varadharajan, C.; Agarwal, D.; Faybishenko, B.; Versteeg, R.

2015-12-01

A software platform is being developed for data management and assimilation [DMA] as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Genomes to Watershed Sustainable Systems Science Focus Area 2.0. The DMA components and capabilities are driven by the project science priorities and the development is based on agile development techniques. The goal of the DMA software platform is to enable users to integrate and synthesize diverse and disparate field, laboratory, and simulation datasets, including geological, geochemical, geophysical, microbiological, hydrological, and meteorological data across a range of spatial and temporal scales. The DMA objectives are (a) developing an integrated interface to the datasets, (b) storing field monitoring data, laboratory analytical results of water and sediments samples collected into a database, (c) providing automated QA/QC analysis of data and (d) working with data providers to modify high-priority field and laboratory data collection and reporting procedures as needed. The first three objectives are driven by user needs, while the last objective is driven by data management needs. The project needs and priorities are reassessed regularly with the users. After each user session we identify development priorities to match the identified user priorities. For instance, data QA/QC and collection activities have focused on the data and products needed for on-going scientific analyses (e.g. water level and geochemistry). We have also developed, tested and released a broker and portal that integrates diverse datasets from two different databases used for curation of project data. The development of the user interface was based on a user-centered design process involving several user interviews and constant interaction with data providers. The initial version focuses on the most requested feature - i.e. finding the data needed for analyses through an intuitive interface. Once the data is found, the user can immediately plot and download data through the portal. The resulting product has an interface that is more intuitive and presents the highest priority datasets that are needed by the users. Our agile approach has enabled us to build a system that is keeping pace with the science needs while utilizing limited resources.

The Geodetic Seamless Archive Centers Service Layer: A System Architecture for Federating Geodesy Data Repositories

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McWhirter, J.; Boler, F. M.; Bock, Y.; Jamason, P.; Squibb, M. B.; Noll, C. E.; Blewitt, G.; Kreemer, C. W.

2010-12-01

Three geodesy Archive Centers, Scripps Orbit and Permanent Array Center (SOPAC), NASA's Crustal Dynamics Data Information System (CDDIS) and UNAVCO are engaged in a joint effort to define and develop a common Web Service Application Programming Interface (API) for accessing geodetic data holdings. This effort is funded by the NASA ROSES ACCESS Program to modernize the original GPS Seamless Archive Centers (GSAC) technology which was developed in the 1990s. A new web service interface, the GSAC-WS, is being developed to provide uniform and expanded mechanisms through which users can access our data repositories. In total, our respective archives hold tens of millions of files and contain a rich collection of site/station metadata. Though we serve similar user communities, we currently provide a range of different access methods, query services and metadata formats. This leads to a lack of consistency in the userís experience and a duplication of engineering efforts. The GSAC-WS API and its reference implementation in an underlying Java-based GSAC Service Layer (GSL) supports metadata and data queries into site/station oriented data archives. The general nature of this API makes it applicable to a broad range of data systems. The overall goals of this project include providing consistent and rich query interfaces for end users and client programs, the development of enabling technology to facilitate third party repositories in developing these web service capabilities and to enable the ability to perform data queries across a collection of federated GSAC-WS enabled repositories. A fundamental challenge faced in this project is to provide a common suite of query services across a heterogeneous collection of data yet enabling each repository to expose their specific metadata holdings. To address this challenge we are developing a "capabilities" based service where a repository can describe its specific query and metadata capabilities. Furthermore, the architecture of the GSL is based on a model-view paradigm that decouples the underlying data model semantics from particular representations of the data model. This will allow for the GSAC-WS enabled repositories to evolve their service offerings to incorporate new metadata definition formats (e.g., ISO-19115, FGDC, JSON, etc.) and new techniques for accessing their holdings. Building on the core GSAC-WS implementations the project is also developing a federated/distributed query service. This service will seamlessly integrate with the GSAC Service Layer and will support data and metadata queries across a collection of federated GSAC repositories.

FermiLib v0.1

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

MCCLEAN, JARROD; HANER, THOMAS; STEIGER, DAMIAN

FermiLib is an open source software package designed to facilitate the development and testing of algorithms for simulations of fermionic systems on quantum computers. Fermionic simulations represent an important application of early quantum devices with a lot of potential high value targets, such as quantum chemistry for the development of new catalysts. This software strives to provide a link between the required domain expertise in specific fermionic applications and quantum computing to enable more users to directly interface with, and develop for, these applications. It is an extensible Python library designed to interface with the high performance quantum simulator, ProjectQ,more » as well as application specific software such as PSI4 from the domain of quantum chemistry. Such software is key to enabling effective user facilities in quantum computation research.« less

Proteomics to go: Proteomatic enables the user-friendly creation of versatile MS/MS data evaluation workflows.

PubMed

Specht, Michael; Kuhlgert, Sebastian; Fufezan, Christian; Hippler, Michael

2011-04-15

We present Proteomatic, an operating system independent and user-friendly platform that enables the construction and execution of MS/MS data evaluation pipelines using free and commercial software. Required external programs such as for peptide identification are downloaded automatically in the case of free software. Due to a strict separation of functionality and presentation, and support for multiple scripting languages, new processing steps can be added easily. Proteomatic is implemented in C++/Qt, scripts are implemented in Ruby, Python and PHP. All source code is released under the LGPL. Source code and installers for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux are freely available at http://www.proteomatic.org. michael.specht@uni-muenster.de Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Exploiting geo-distributed clouds for a e-health monitoring system with minimum service delay and privacy preservation.

PubMed

Shen, Qinghua; Liang, Xiaohui; Shen, Xuemin; Lin, Xiaodong; Luo, Henry Y

2014-03-01

In this paper, we propose an e-health monitoring system with minimum service delay and privacy preservation by exploiting geo-distributed clouds. In the system, the resource allocation scheme enables the distributed cloud servers to cooperatively assign the servers to the requested users under the load balance condition. Thus, the service delay for users is minimized. In addition, a traffic-shaping algorithm is proposed. The traffic-shaping algorithm converts the user health data traffic to the nonhealth data traffic such that the capability of traffic analysis attacks is largely reduced. Through the numerical analysis, we show the efficiency of the proposed traffic-shaping algorithm in terms of service delay and privacy preservation. Furthermore, through the simulations, we demonstrate that the proposed resource allocation scheme significantly reduces the service delay compared to two other alternatives using jointly the short queue and distributed control law.

Interplay Between Energy-Market Dynamics and Physical Stability of a Smart Power Grid

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Picozzi, Sergio; Mammoli, Andrea; Sorrentino, Francesco

2013-03-01

A smart power grid is being envisioned for the future which, among other features, should enable users to play the dual role of consumers as well as producers and traders of energy, thanks to emerging renewable energy production and energy storage technologies. As a complex dynamical system, any power grid is subject to physical instabilities. With existing grids, such instabilities tend to be caused by natural disasters, human errors, or weather-related peaks in demand. In this work we analyze the impact, upon the stability of a smart grid, of the energy-market dynamics arising from users' ability to buy from and sell energy to other users. The stability analysis of the resulting dynamical system is performed assuming different proposed models for this market of the future, and the corresponding stability regions in parameter space are identified. We test our theoretical findings by comparing them with data collected from some existing prototype systems.

Payload Operations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cissom, R. D.; Melton, T. L.; Schneider, M. P.; Lapenta, C. C.

1999-01-01

The objective of this paper is to provide the future ISS scientist and/or engineer a sense of what ISS payload operations are expected to be. This paper uses a real-time operations scenario to convey this message. The real-time operations scenario begins at the initiation of payload operations and runs through post run experiment analysis. In developing this scenario, it is assumed that the ISS payload operations flight and ground capabilities are fully available for use by the payload user community. Emphasis is placed on telescience operations whose main objective is to enable researchers to utilize experiment hardware onboard the International Space Station as if it were located in their terrestrial laboratory. An overview of the Payload Operations Integration Center (POIC) systems and user ground system options is included to provide an understanding of the systems and interfaces users will utilize to perform payload operations. Detailed information regarding POIC capabilities can be found in the POIC Capabilities Document, SSP 50304.

Near-line Archive Data Mining at the Goddard Distributed Active Archive Center

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pham, L.; Mack, R.; Eng, E.; Lynnes, C.

2002-12-01

NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) is generating immense volumes of data, in some cases too much to provide to users with data-intensive needs. As an alternative to moving the data to the user and his/her research algorithms, we are providing a means to move the algorithms to the data. The Near-line Archive Data Mining (NADM) system is the Goddard Earth Sciences Distributed Active Archive Center's (GES DAAC) web data mining portal to the EOS Data and Information System (EOSDIS) data pool, a 50-TB online disk cache. The NADM web portal enables registered users to submit and execute data mining algorithm codes on the data in the EOSDIS data pool. A web interface allows the user to access the NADM system. The users first develops personalized data mining code on their home platform and then uploads them to the NADM system. The C, FORTRAN and IDL languages are currently supported. The user developed code is automatically audited for any potential security problems before it is installed within the NADM system and made available to the user. Once the code has been installed the user is provided a test environment where he/she can test the execution of the software against data sets of the user's choosing. When the user is satisfied with the results, he/she can promote their code to the "operational" environment. From here the user can interactively run his/her code on the data available in the EOSDIS data pool. The user can also set up a processing subscription. The subscription will automatically process new data as it becomes available in the EOSDIS data pool. The generated mined data products are then made available for FTP pickup. The NADM system uses the GES DAAC-developed Simple Scalable Script-based Science Processor (S4P) to automate tasks and perform the actual data processing. Users will also have the option of selecting a DAAC-provided data mining algorithm and using it to process the data of their choice.

The roles of users personal characteristics and organisational support in the attitude towards using ERP systems in a Spanish public hospital.

PubMed

Escobar-Rodriguez, Tomas; Bartual-Sopena, Lourdes

Enterprise resources planning (ERP) systems enable central and integrative control over all processes throughout an organisation by ensuring one data entry point and the use of a common database. T his paper analyses the attitude of healthcare personnel towards the use of an ERP system in a Spanish public hospital, identifying influencing factors. This research is based on a regression analysis of latent variables using the optimisation technique of partial least squares. We propose a research model including possible relationships among different constructs using the technology acceptance model. Our results show that the personal characteristics of potential users are key factors in explaining attitude towards using ERP systems.

The nutrition advisor expert system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Huse, Scott M.; Shyne, Scott S.

1991-01-01

The Nutrition Advisor Expert System (NAES) is an expert system written in the C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS). NAES provides expert knowledge and guidance into the complex world of nutrition management by capturing the knowledge of an expert and placing it at the user's fingertips. Specifically, NAES enables the user to: (1) obtain precise nutrition information for food items; (2) perform nutritional analysis of meal(s), flagging deficiencies based upon the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowances; (3) predict possible ailments based upon observed nutritional deficiency trends; (4) obtain a top ten listing of food items for a given nutrient; and (5) conveniently upgrade the data base. An explanation facility for the ailment prediction feature is also provided to document the reasoning process.

New applications for the EUTELTRACS service

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Colcy, Jean-Noel; Vanderbrouck, Laurent

1995-01-01

The EUTELTRACS two-way Mobile Satellite Messaging and Automatic Satellite Position Reporting (ASPR) service is Europe's first commercially operated Mobile Satellite Service. It was introduced by the European Telecommunications Satellite Organization (EUTELSAT) for commercial service in 1991. The system is based on a centralized network architecture organized around a single hub station operated by EUTELSAT. Initially the system was designed with a close user group architecture enabling a mobile user to communicate exclusively with its own headquarters. This paper describes the new applications (design and tests prior to their introduction into service) especially developed for the European market and particularly the Double Hop Services opening the system to authorized external entities. In addition, the European Commission (EC) pilot demonstrations in which the EUTELTRACS system is involved are described.

Multi-focus and multi-level techniques for visualization and analysis of networks with thematic data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cossalter, Michele; Mengshoel, Ole J.; Selker, Ted

2013-01-01

Information-rich data sets bring several challenges in the areas of visualization and analysis, even when associated with node-link network visualizations. This paper presents an integration of multi-focus and multi-level techniques that enable interactive, multi-step comparisons in node-link networks. We describe NetEx, a visualization tool that enables users to simultaneously explore different parts of a network and its thematic data, such as time series or conditional probability tables. NetEx, implemented as a Cytoscape plug-in, has been applied to the analysis of electrical power networks, Bayesian networks, and the Enron e-mail repository. In this paper we briefly discuss visualization and analysis of the Enron social network, but focus on data from an electrical power network. Specifically, we demonstrate how NetEx supports the analytical task of electrical power system fault diagnosis. Results from a user study with 25 subjects suggest that NetEx enables more accurate isolation of complex faults compared to an especially designed software tool.

Common Graphics Library (CGL). Volume 2: Low-level user's guide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Taylor, Nancy L.; Hammond, Dana P.; Theophilos, Pauline M.

1989-01-01

The intent is to instruct the users of the Low-Level routines of the Common Graphics Library (CGL). The Low-Level routines form an application-independent graphics package enabling the user community to construct and design scientific charts conforming to the publication and/or viewgraph process. The Low-Level routines allow the user to design unique or unusual report-quality charts from a set of graphics utilities. The features of these routines can be used stand-alone or in conjunction with other packages to enhance or augment their capabilities. This library is written in ANSI FORTRAN 77, and currently uses a CORE-based underlying graphics package, and is therefore machine-independent, providing support for centralized and/or distributed computer systems.

The Space Mobile Network

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Israel, David

2017-01-01

The definition and development of the next generation space communications and navigation architecture is underway. The primary goals are to remove communications and navigations constraints from missions and to enable increased autonomy. The Space Mobile Network (SMN) is an architectural concept that includes new technology and operations that will provide flight systems with an similar user experience to terrestrial wireless mobile networks. This talk will describe the SMN and its proposed new features, such as Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN), optical communications, and User Initiated Services (UIS).

Batch Proving and Proof Scripting in PVS

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Munoz, Cesar A.

2007-01-01

The batch execution modes of PVS are powerful, but highly technical, features of the system that are mostly accessible to expert users. This paper presents a PVS tool, called ProofLite, that extends the theorem prover interface with a batch proving utility and a proof scripting notation. ProofLite enables a semi-literate proving style where specification and proof scripts reside in the same file. The goal of ProofLite is to provide batch proving and proof scripting capabilities to regular, non-expert, users of PVS.

User's guide to the UTIL-ODRC tape processing program. [for the Orbital Data Reduction Center

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Juba, S. M. (Principal Investigator)

1981-01-01

The UTIL-ODRC computer compatible tape processing program, its input/output requirements, and its interface with the EXEC 8 operating system are described. It is a multipurpose orbital data reduction center (ODRC) tape processing program enabling the user to create either exact duplicate tapes and/or tapes in SINDA/HISTRY format. Input data elements for PRAMPT/FLOPLT and/or BATCH PLOT programs, a temperature summary, and a printed summary can also be produced.

A User Authentication Scheme Based on Elliptic Curves Cryptography for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

PubMed Central

Chen, Huifang; Ge, Linlin; Xie, Lei

2015-01-01

The feature of non-infrastructure support in a wireless ad hoc network (WANET) makes it suffer from various attacks. Moreover, user authentication is the first safety barrier in a network. A mutual trust is achieved by a protocol which enables communicating parties to authenticate each other at the same time and to exchange session keys. For the resource-constrained WANET, an efficient and lightweight user authentication scheme is necessary. In this paper, we propose a user authentication scheme based on the self-certified public key system and elliptic curves cryptography for a WANET. Using the proposed scheme, an efficient two-way user authentication and secure session key agreement can be achieved. Security analysis shows that our proposed scheme is resilient to common known attacks. In addition, the performance analysis shows that our proposed scheme performs similar or better compared with some existing user authentication schemes. PMID:26184224

A User Authentication Scheme Based on Elliptic Curves Cryptography for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks.

PubMed

Chen, Huifang; Ge, Linlin; Xie, Lei

2015-07-14

The feature of non-infrastructure support in a wireless ad hoc network (WANET) makes it suffer from various attacks. Moreover, user authentication is the first safety barrier in a network. A mutual trust is achieved by a protocol which enables communicating parties to authenticate each other at the same time and to exchange session keys. For the resource-constrained WANET, an efficient and lightweight user authentication scheme is necessary. In this paper, we propose a user authentication scheme based on the self-certified public key system and elliptic curves cryptography for a WANET. Using the proposed scheme, an efficient two-way user authentication and secure session key agreement can be achieved. Security analysis shows that our proposed scheme is resilient to common known attacks. In addition, the performance analysis shows that our proposed scheme performs similar or better compared with some existing user authentication schemes.

Enhanced, Partially Redundant Emergency Notification System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pounds, Clark D.

2005-01-01

The Johnson Space Center Emergency Notification System (JENS) software utilizes pre-existing computation and communication infrastructure to augment a prior variable-tone, siren-based, outdoor alarm system, in order to enhance the ability to give notice of emergencies to employees working in multiple buildings. The JENS software includes a component that implements an administrative Web site. Administrators can grant and deny access to the administrative site and to an originator Web site that enables authorized individuals to quickly compose and issue alarms. The originator site also facilitates maintenance and review of alarms already issued. A custom client/server application program enables an originator to notify every user who is logged in on a Microsoft Windows-based desktop computer by means of a pop-up message that interrupts, but does not disrupt, the user s work. Alternatively or in addition, the originator can send an alarm message to recipients on an e-mail distribution list and/or can post the notice on an internal Web site. An alarm message can consist of (1) text describing the emergency and suggesting a course of action and (2) a replica of the corresponding audible outdoor alarm.

CMIS: Crime Map Information System for Safety Environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kasim, Shahreen; Hafit, Hanayanti; Yee, Ng Peng; Hashim, Rathiah; Ruslai, Husni; Jahidin, Kamaruzzaman; Syafwan Arshad, Mohammad

2016-11-01

Crime Map is an online web based geographical information system that assists the public and users to visualize crime activities geographically. It acts as a platform for the public communities to share crime activities they encountered. Crime and violence plague the communities we are living in. As part of the community, crime prevention is everyone's responsibility. The purpose of Crime Map is to provide insights of the crimes occurring around Malaysia and raise the public's awareness on crime activities in their neighbourhood. For that, Crime Map visualizes crime activities on a geographical heat maps, generated based on geospatial data. Crime Map analyse data obtained from crime reports to generate useful information on crime trends. At the end of the development, users should be able to make use of the system to access to details of crime reported, crime analysis and report crimes activities. The development of Crime Map also enable the public to obtain insights about crime activities in their area. Thus, enabling the public to work together with the law enforcer to prevent and fight crime.

Dynamic and adaptive policy models for coalition operations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Verma, Dinesh; Calo, Seraphin; Chakraborty, Supriyo; Bertino, Elisa; Williams, Chris; Tucker, Jeremy; Rivera, Brian; de Mel, Geeth R.

2017-05-01

It is envisioned that the success of future military operations depends on the better integration, organizationally and operationally, among allies, coalition members, inter-agency partners, and so forth. However, this leads to a challenging and complex environment where the heterogeneity and dynamism in the operating environment intertwines with the evolving situational factors that affect the decision-making life cycle of the war fighter. Therefore, the users in such environments need secure, accessible, and resilient information infrastructures where policy-based mechanisms adopt the behaviours of the systems to meet end user goals. By specifying and enforcing a policy based model and framework for operations and security which accommodates heterogeneous coalitions, high levels of agility can be enabled to allow rapid assembly and restructuring of system and information resources. However, current prevalent policy models (e.g., rule based event-condition-action model and its variants) are not sufficient to deal with the highly dynamic and plausibly non-deterministic nature of these environments. Therefore, to address the above challenges, in this paper, we present a new approach for policies which enables managed systems to take more autonomic decisions regarding their operations.

Large-scale gene function analysis with the PANTHER classification system.

PubMed

Mi, Huaiyu; Muruganujan, Anushya; Casagrande, John T; Thomas, Paul D

2013-08-01

The PANTHER (protein annotation through evolutionary relationship) classification system (http://www.pantherdb.org/) is a comprehensive system that combines gene function, ontology, pathways and statistical analysis tools that enable biologists to analyze large-scale, genome-wide data from sequencing, proteomics or gene expression experiments. The system is built with 82 complete genomes organized into gene families and subfamilies, and their evolutionary relationships are captured in phylogenetic trees, multiple sequence alignments and statistical models (hidden Markov models or HMMs). Genes are classified according to their function in several different ways: families and subfamilies are annotated with ontology terms (Gene Ontology (GO) and PANTHER protein class), and sequences are assigned to PANTHER pathways. The PANTHER website includes a suite of tools that enable users to browse and query gene functions, and to analyze large-scale experimental data with a number of statistical tests. It is widely used by bench scientists, bioinformaticians, computer scientists and systems biologists. In the 2013 release of PANTHER (v.8.0), in addition to an update of the data content, we redesigned the website interface to improve both user experience and the system's analytical capability. This protocol provides a detailed description of how to analyze genome-wide experimental data with the PANTHER classification system.

A Database-Based and Web-Based Meta-CASE System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eessaar, Erki; Sgirka, Rünno

Each Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) system provides support to a software process or specific tasks or activities that are part of a software process. Each meta-CASE system allows us to create new CASE systems. The creators of a new CASE system have to specify abstract syntax of the language that is used in the system and functionality as well as non-functional properties of the new system. Many meta-CASE systems record their data directly in files. In this paper, we introduce a meta-CASE system, the enabling technology of which is an object-relational database system (ORDBMS). The system allows users to manage specifications of languages and create models by using these languages. The system has web-based and form-based user interface. We have created a proof-of-concept prototype of the system by using PostgreSQL ORDBMS and PHP scripting language.

Addressing hypertext design and conversion issues

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Glusko, Robert J.

1990-01-01

Hypertext is a network of information units connected by relational links. A hypertext system is a configuration of hardware and software that presents a hypertext to users and allows them to manage and access the information that it contains. Hypertext is also a user interface concept that closely supports the ways that people use printed information. Hypertext concepts encourage modularity and the elimination of redundancy in data bases because information can be stored only once but viewed in any appropriate context. Hypertext is such a hot idea because it is an enabling technology in that workstations and personal computers finally provide enough local processing power for hypertext user interfaces.

Using Modules with MPICH-G2 (and "Loose Ends")

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chang, Johnny; Thigpen, William W. (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

A new approach to running complex, distributed MPI jobs using the MPICH-G2 library is described. This approach allows the user to switch between different versions of compilers, system libraries, MPI libraries, etc. via the "module" command. The key idea is a departure from the prescribed "(jobtype=mpi)" approach to running distributed MPI jobs. The new method requires the user to provide a script that will be run as the "executable" with the "(jobtype=single)" RSL attribute. The major advantage of the proposed method is to enable users to decide in their own script what modules, environment, etc. they would like to have in running their job.

NASA Meteoroid Engineering Model Release 2.0

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Moorhead, A. V.; Koehler, H. M.; Cooke, W. J.

2015-01-01

The Meteoroid Engineering Model release 2.0 (MEMR2) software is NASA's most current and accurate model of the meteoroid environment. It enables the user to generate a trajectory-specific meteoroid environment for spacecraft traveling within the inner solar system. In addition to the total meteoroid flux, MEMR2 provides the user with meteoroid directionality and velocity information. Users have the ability to make a number of analysis and output choices that tailor the resulting environment to their needs. This Technical Memorandum outlines the history of MEMR2, the meteoroid environment it describes, and makes recommendations for the correct use of the software and interpretation of its results.

User-centric design of a personal assistance robot (FRASIER) for active aging.

PubMed

Padir, Taşkin; Skorinko, Jeanine; Dimitrov, Velin

2015-01-01

We present our preliminary results from the design process for developing the Worcester Polytechnic Institute's personal assistance robot, FRASIER, as an intelligent service robot for enabling active aging. The robot capabilities include vision-based object detection, tracking the user and help with carrying heavy items such as grocery bags or cafeteria trays. This work-in-progress report outlines our motivation and approach to developing the next generation of service robots for the elderly. Our main contribution in this paper is the development of a set of specifications based on the adopted user-centered design process, and realization of the prototype system designed to meet these specifications.

RoboJockey: Designing an Entertainment Experience with Robots.

PubMed

Yoshida, Shigeo; Shirokura, Takumi; Sugiura, Yuta; Sakamoto, Daisuke; Ono, Tetsuo; Inami, Masahiko; Igarashi, Takeo

2016-01-01

The RoboJockey entertainment system consists of a multitouch tabletop interface for multiuser collaboration. RoboJockey enables a user to choreograph a mobile robot or a humanoid robot by using a simple visual language. With RoboJockey, a user can coordinate the mobile robot's actions with a combination of back, forward, and rotating movements and coordinate the humanoid robot's actions with a combination of arm and leg movements. Every action is automatically performed to background music. RoboJockey was demonstrated to the public during two pilot studies, and the authors observed users' behavior. Here, they report the results of their observations and discuss the RoboJockey entertainment experience.

Generic Software Architecture for Prognostics (GSAP) User Guide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Teubert, Christopher Allen; Daigle, Matthew John; Watkins, Jason; Sankararaman, Shankar; Goebel, Kai

2016-01-01

The Generic Software Architecture for Prognostics (GSAP) is a framework for applying prognostics. It makes applying prognostics easier by implementing many of the common elements across prognostic applications. The standard interface enables reuse of prognostic algorithms and models across systems using the GSAP framework.

Ontological knowledge engine and health screening data enabled ubiquitous personalized physical fitness (UFIT).

PubMed

Su, Chuan-Jun; Chiang, Chang-Yu; Chih, Meng-Chun

2014-03-07

Good physical fitness generally makes the body less prone to common diseases. A personalized exercise plan that promotes a balanced approach to fitness helps promotes fitness, while inappropriate forms of exercise can have adverse consequences for health. This paper aims to develop an ontology-driven knowledge-based system for generating custom-designed exercise plans based on a user's profile and health status, incorporating international standard Health Level Seven International (HL7) data on physical fitness and health screening. The generated plan exposing Representational State Transfer (REST) style web services which can be accessed from any Internet-enabled device and deployed in cloud computing environments. To ensure the practicality of the generated exercise plans, encapsulated knowledge used as a basis for inference in the system is acquired from domain experts. The proposed Ubiquitous Exercise Plan Generation for Personalized Physical Fitness (UFIT) will not only improve health-related fitness through generating personalized exercise plans, but also aid users in avoiding inappropriate work outs.

Ontological Knowledge Engine and Health Screening Data Enabled Ubiquitous Personalized Physical Fitness (UFIT)

PubMed Central

Su, Chuan-Jun; Chiang, Chang-Yu; Chih, Meng-Chun

2014-01-01

Good physical fitness generally makes the body less prone to common diseases. A personalized exercise plan that promotes a balanced approach to fitness helps promotes fitness, while inappropriate forms of exercise can have adverse consequences for health. This paper aims to develop an ontology-driven knowledge-based system for generating custom-designed exercise plans based on a user's profile and health status, incorporating international standard Health Level Seven International (HL7) data on physical fitness and health screening. The generated plan exposing Representational State Transfer (REST) style web services which can be accessed from any Internet-enabled device and deployed in cloud computing environments. To ensure the practicality of the generated exercise plans, encapsulated knowledge used as a basis for inference in the system is acquired from domain experts. The proposed Ubiquitous Exercise Plan Generation for Personalized Physical Fitness (UFIT) will not only improve health-related fitness through generating personalized exercise plans, but also aid users in avoiding inappropriate work outs. PMID:24608002

Data-Driven Software Framework for Web-Based ISS Telescience

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tso, Kam S.

2005-01-01

Software that enables authorized users to monitor and control scientific payloads aboard the International Space Station (ISS) from diverse terrestrial locations equipped with Internet connections is undergoing development. This software reflects a data-driven approach to distributed operations. A Web-based software framework leverages prior developments in Java and Extensible Markup Language (XML) to create portable code and portable data, to which one can gain access via Web-browser software on almost any common computer. Open-source software is used extensively to minimize cost; the framework also accommodates enterprise-class server software to satisfy needs for high performance and security. To accommodate the diversity of ISS experiments and users, the framework emphasizes openness and extensibility. Users can take advantage of available viewer software to create their own client programs according to their particular preferences, and can upload these programs for custom processing of data, generation of views, and planning of experiments. The same software system, possibly augmented with a subset of data and additional software tools, could be used for public outreach by enabling public users to replay telescience experiments, conduct their experiments with simulated payloads, and create their own client programs and other custom software.

Image processing and applications based on visualizing navigation service

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hwang, Chyi-Wen

2015-07-01

When facing the "overabundant" of semantic web information, in this paper, the researcher proposes the hierarchical classification and visualizing RIA (Rich Internet Application) navigation system: Concept Map (CM) + Semantic Structure (SS) + the Knowledge on Demand (KOD) service. The aim of the Multimedia processing and empirical applications testing, was to investigating the utility and usability of this visualizing navigation strategy in web communication design, into whether it enables the user to retrieve and construct their personal knowledge or not. Furthermore, based on the segment markets theory in the Marketing model, to propose a User Interface (UI) classification strategy and formulate a set of hypermedia design principles for further UI strategy and e-learning resources in semantic web communication. These research findings: (1) Irrespective of whether the simple declarative knowledge or the complex declarative knowledge model is used, the "CM + SS + KOD navigation system" has a better cognition effect than the "Non CM + SS + KOD navigation system". However, for the" No web design experience user", the navigation system does not have an obvious cognition effect. (2) The essential of classification in semantic web communication design: Different groups of user have a diversity of preference needs and different cognitive styles in the CM + SS + KOD navigation system.

Addition of flexible body option to the TOLA computer program. Part 2: User and programmer documentation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dick, J. W.; Benda, B. J.

1975-01-01

User and programmer oriented documentation for the flexible body option of the Takeoff and Landing Analysis (TOLA) computer program are provided. The user information provides sufficient knowledge of the development and use of the option to enable the engineering user to successfully operate the modified program and understand the results. The programmer's information describes the option structure and logic enabling a programmer to make major revisions to this part of the TOLA computer program.

AEOSS design guide for system analysis on Advanced Earth-Orbital Spacecraft Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, Hwa-Ping

1990-01-01

Advanced Earth Orbital Spacecraft System (AEOSS) enables users to project the requried power, weight, and cost for a generic earth-orbital spacecraft system. These variables are calculated on the component and subsystem levels, and then the system level. The included six subsystems are electric power, thermal control, structure, auxillary propulsion, attitude control, and communication, command, and data handling. The costs are computed using statistically determined models that were derived from the flown spacecraft in the past and were categorized into classes according to their functions and structural complexity. Selected design and performance analyses for essential components and subsystems are also provided. AEOSS has the feature permitting a user to enter known values of these parameters, totally and partially, at all levels. All information is of vital importance to project managers of subsystems or a spacecraft system. AEOSS is a specially tailored software coded from the relational database program of the Acius; 4th Dimension with a Macintosh version. Because of the licensing agreement, two versions of the AEOSS documents were prepared. This version AEOSS Design Guide, is for users to exploit the full capacity of the 4th Dimension. It is for a user who wants to alter or expand the program structures, the program statements, and the program procedures. The user has to possess a 4th Dimension first.

A virtual reality patient simulation system for teaching emergency response skills to U.S. Navy medical providers.

PubMed

Freeman, K M; Thompson, S F; Allely, E B; Sobel, A L; Stansfield, S A; Pugh, W M

2001-01-01

Rapid and effective medical intervention in response to civil and military-related disasters is crucial for saving lives and limiting long-term disability. Inexperienced providers may suffer in performance when faced with limited supplies and the demands of stabilizing casualties not generally encountered in the comparatively resource-rich hospital setting. Head trauma and multiple injury cases are particularly complex to diagnose and treat, requiring the integration and processing of complex multimodal data. In this project, collaborators adapted and merged existing technologies to produce a flexible, modular patient simulation system with both three-dimensional virtual reality and two-dimensional flat screen user interfaces for teaching cognitive assessment and treatment skills. This experiential, problem-based training approach engages the user in a stress-filled, high fidelity world, providing multiple learning opportunities within a compressed period of time and without risk. The system simulates both the dynamic state of the patient and the results of user intervention, enabling trainees to watch the virtual patient deteriorate or stabilize as a result of their decision-making speed and accuracy. Systems can be deployed to the field enabling trainees to practice repeatedly until their skills are mastered and to maintain those skills once acquired. This paper describes the technologies and the process used to develop the trainers, the clinical algorithms, and the incorporation of teaching points. We also characterize aspects of the actual simulation exercise through the lens of the trainee.

Kadenza: Kepler/K2 Raw Cadence Data Reader

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barentsen, Geert; Cardoso, José Vinícius de Miranda

2018-03-01

Kadenza enables time-critical data analyses to be carried out using NASA's Kepler Space Telescope. It enables users to convert Kepler's raw data files into user-friendly Target Pixel Files upon downlink from the spacecraft. The primary motivation for this tool is to enable the microlensing, supernova, and exoplanet communities to create quicklook lightcurves for transient events which require rapid follow-up.

MOPED enables discoveries through consistently processed proteomics data

PubMed Central

Higdon, Roger; Stewart, Elizabeth; Stanberry, Larissa; Haynes, Winston; Choiniere, John; Montague, Elizabeth; Anderson, Nathaniel; Yandl, Gregory; Janko, Imre; Broomall, William; Fishilevich, Simon; Lancet, Doron; Kolker, Natali; Kolker, Eugene

2014-01-01

The Model Organism Protein Expression Database (MOPED, http://moped.proteinspire.org), is an expanding proteomics resource to enable biological and biomedical discoveries. MOPED aggregates simple, standardized and consistently processed summaries of protein expression and metadata from proteomics (mass spectrometry) experiments from human and model organisms (mouse, worm and yeast). The latest version of MOPED adds new estimates of protein abundance and concentration, as well as relative (differential) expression data. MOPED provides a new updated query interface that allows users to explore information by organism, tissue, localization, condition, experiment, or keyword. MOPED supports the Human Proteome Project’s efforts to generate chromosome and diseases specific proteomes by providing links from proteins to chromosome and disease information, as well as many complementary resources. MOPED supports a new omics metadata checklist in order to harmonize data integration, analysis and use. MOPED’s development is driven by the user community, which spans 90 countries guiding future development that will transform MOPED into a multi-omics resource. MOPED encourages users to submit data in a simple format. They can use the metadata a checklist generate a data publication for this submission. As a result, MOPED will provide even greater insights into complex biological processes and systems and enable deeper and more comprehensive biological and biomedical discoveries. PMID:24350770

Synthetic environment employing a craft for providing user perspective reference

DOEpatents

Maples, Creve; Peterson, Craig A.

1997-10-21

A multi-dimensional user oriented synthetic environment system allows application programs to be programmed and accessed with input/output device independent, generic functional commands which are a distillation of the actual functions performed by any application program. A shared memory structure allows the translation of device specific commands to device independent, generic functional commands. Complete flexibility of the mapping of synthetic environment data to the user is thereby allowed. Accordingly, synthetic environment data may be provided to the user on parallel user information processing channels allowing the subcognitive mind to act as a filter, eliminating irrelevant information and allowing the processing of increase amounts of data by the user. The user is further provided with a craft surrounding the user within the synthetic environment, which craft, imparts important visual referential an motion parallax cues, enabling the user to better appreciate distances and directions within the synthetic environment. Display of this craft in close proximity to the user's point of perspective may be accomplished without substantially degrading the image resolution of the displayed portions of the synthetic environment.

Is talking to an automated teller machine natural and fun?

PubMed

Chan, F Y; Khalid, H M

Usability and affective issues of using automatic speech recognition technology to interact with an automated teller machine (ATM) are investigated in two experiments. The first uncovered dialogue patterns of ATM users for the purpose of designing the user interface for a simulated speech ATM system. Applying the Wizard-of-Oz methodology, multiple mapping and word spotting techniques, the speech driven ATM accommodates bilingual users of Bahasa Melayu and English. The second experiment evaluates the usability of a hybrid speech ATM, comparing it with a simulated manual ATM. The aim is to investigate how natural and fun can talking to a speech ATM be for these first-time users. Subjects performed the withdrawal and balance enquiry tasks. The ANOVA was performed on the usability and affective data. The results showed significant differences between systems in the ability to complete the tasks as well as in transaction errors. Performance was measured on the time taken by subjects to complete the task and the number of speech recognition errors that occurred. On the basis of user emotions, it can be said that the hybrid speech system enabled pleasurable interaction. Despite the limitations of speech recognition technology, users are set to talk to the ATM when it becomes available for public use.

Location Privacy for Mobile Crowd Sensing through Population Mapping †

PubMed Central

Shin, Minho; Cornelius, Cory; Kapadia, Apu; Triandopoulos, Nikos; Kotz, David

2015-01-01

Opportunistic sensing allows applications to “task” mobile devices to measure context in a target region. For example, one could leverage sensor-equipped vehicles to measure traffic or pollution levels on a particular street or users' mobile phones to locate (Bluetooth-enabled) objects in their vicinity. In most proposed applications, context reports include the time and location of the event, putting the privacy of users at increased risk: even if identifying information has been removed from a report, the accompanying time and location can reveal sufficient information to de-anonymize the user whose device sent the report. We propose and evaluate a novel spatiotemporal blurring mechanism based on tessellation and clustering to protect users' privacy against the system while reporting context. Our technique employs a notion of probabilistic k-anonymity; it allows users to perform local blurring of reports efficiently without an online anonymization server before the data are sent to the system. The proposed scheme can control the degree of certainty in location privacy and the quality of reports through a system parameter. We outline the architecture and security properties of our approach and evaluate our tessellation and clustering algorithm against real mobility traces. PMID:26131676

Ergatis: a web interface and scalable software system for bioinformatics workflows

PubMed Central

Orvis, Joshua; Crabtree, Jonathan; Galens, Kevin; Gussman, Aaron; Inman, Jason M.; Lee, Eduardo; Nampally, Sreenath; Riley, David; Sundaram, Jaideep P.; Felix, Victor; Whitty, Brett; Mahurkar, Anup; Wortman, Jennifer; White, Owen; Angiuoli, Samuel V.

2010-01-01

Motivation: The growth of sequence data has been accompanied by an increasing need to analyze data on distributed computer clusters. The use of these systems for routine analysis requires scalable and robust software for data management of large datasets. Software is also needed to simplify data management and make large-scale bioinformatics analysis accessible and reproducible to a wide class of target users. Results: We have developed a workflow management system named Ergatis that enables users to build, execute and monitor pipelines for computational analysis of genomics data. Ergatis contains preconfigured components and template pipelines for a number of common bioinformatics tasks such as prokaryotic genome annotation and genome comparisons. Outputs from many of these components can be loaded into a Chado relational database. Ergatis was designed to be accessible to a broad class of users and provides a user friendly, web-based interface. Ergatis supports high-throughput batch processing on distributed compute clusters and has been used for data management in a number of genome annotation and comparative genomics projects. Availability: Ergatis is an open-source project and is freely available at http://ergatis.sourceforge.net Contact: jorvis@users.sourceforge.net PMID:20413634

Advanced Fire Information System - A real time fire information system for Africa

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Frost, P. E.; Roy, D. P.

2012-12-01

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) lead by the Meraka Institute and supported by the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) developed the Advanced Fire Information System (AFIS) to provide near real time fire information to a variety of operational and science fire users including disaster managers, fire fighters, farmers and forest managers located across Southern and Eastern Africa. The AFIS combines satellite data with ground based observations and statistics and distributes the information via mobile phone technology. The system was launched in 2004, and Eskom (South Africa' and Africa's largest power utility) quickly became the biggest user and today more than 300 Eskom line managers and support staff receive cell phone and email fire alert messages whenever a wildfire is within 2km of any of the 28 000km of Eskom electricity transmission lines. The AFIS uses Earth observation satellites from NASA and Europe to detect possible actively burning fires and their fire radiative power (FRP). The polar orbiting MODIS Terra and Aqua satellites provide data at around 10am, 15pm, 22am and 3am daily, while the European Geostationary MSG satellite provides 15 minute updates at lower spatial resolution. The AFIS processing system ingests the raw satellite data and within minutes of the satellite overpass generates fire location and FRP based fire intensity information. The AFIS and new functionality are presented including an incident report and permiting system that can be used to differentiate between prescribed burns and uncontrolled wild fires, and the provision of other information including 5-day fire danger forecasts, vegetation curing information and historical burned area maps. A new AFIS mobile application for IOS and Android devices as well as a fire reporting tool are showcased that enable both the dissemination and alerting of fire information and enable user upload of geo tagged photographs and on the fly creation of fire reports for user defined areas of interest.

MOBILESAT: Australia's own

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wagg, Michael

1990-01-01

Australia will be introducing a dedicated Mobile Satellite Communications System following the launch of the AUSSAT-B satellites late in 1991. The Mobile Satellite System, MOBILESAT, will provide circuit switched voice/data services and packet-switched data services for land, aeronautical and maritime users. Here, an overview is given of the development program being undertaken within Australia to enable a fully commercial service to be introduced in 1992.

Wireless as Enabler of Innovation in 21.

PubMed

Ball, Eddie; Vasileiadis, Athanasios

2017-01-01

This paper overviews new and emerging wireless technologies that could positively impact on the lives of the elderly or disabled, as Social Care users of Assistive Technology (AT) for 'independent living'. Novel Internet of Things (IoT) radio systems and wireless locating systems being researched at The University of Sheffield are discussed in the context of Social Care technology use-cases.

Case-based lung image categorization and retrieval for interstitial lung diseases: clinical workflows.

PubMed

Depeursinge, Adrien; Vargas, Alejandro; Gaillard, Frédéric; Platon, Alexandra; Geissbuhler, Antoine; Poletti, Pierre-Alexandre; Müller, Henning

2012-01-01

Clinical workflows and user interfaces of image-based computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) for interstitial lung diseases in high-resolution computed tomography are introduced and discussed. Three use cases are implemented to assist students, radiologists, and physicians in the diagnosis workup of interstitial lung diseases. In a first step, the proposed system shows a three-dimensional map of categorized lung tissue patterns with quantification of the diseases based on texture analysis of the lung parenchyma. Then, based on the proportions of abnormal and normal lung tissue as well as clinical data of the patients, retrieval of similar cases is enabled using a multimodal distance aggregating content-based image retrieval (CBIR) and text-based information search. The global system leads to a hybrid detection-CBIR-based CAD, where detection-based and CBIR-based CAD show to be complementary both on the user's side and on the algorithmic side. The proposed approach is in accordance with the classical workflow of clinicians searching for similar cases in textbooks and personal collections. The developed system enables objective and customizable inter-case similarity assessment, and the performance measures obtained with a leave-one-patient-out cross-validation (LOPO CV) are representative of a clinical usage of the system.

Towards high-throughput automated targeted femtosecond laser-based transfection of adherent cells

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Antkowiak, Maciej; Torres-Mapa, Maria Leilani; Gunn-Moore, Frank; Dholakia, Kishan

2011-03-01

Femtosecond laser induced cell membrane poration has proven to be an attractive alternative to the classical methods of drug and gene delivery. It is a selective, sterile, non-contact technique that offers a highly localized operation, low toxicity and consistent performance. However, its broader application still requires the development of robust, high-throughput and user-friendly systems. We present a system capable of unassisted enhanced targeted optoinjection and phototransfection of adherent mammalian cells with a femtosecond laser. We demonstrate the advantages of a dynamic diffractive optical element, namely a spatial light modulator (SLM) for precise three dimensional positioning of the beam. It enables the implementation of a "point-and-shoot" system in which using the software interface a user simply points at the cell and a predefined sequence of precisely positioned doses can be applied. We show that irradiation in three axial positions alleviates the problem of exact beam positioning on the cell membrane and doubles the number of viably optoinjected cells when compared with a single dose. The presented system enables untargeted raster scan irradiation which provides transfection of adherent cells at the throughput of 1 cell per second.

Simple, Scalable, Script-based, Science Processor for Measurements - Data Mining Edition (S4PM-DME)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pham, L. B.; Eng, E. K.; Lynnes, C. S.; Berrick, S. W.; Vollmer, B. E.

2005-12-01

The S4PM-DME is the Goddard Earth Sciences Distributed Active Archive Center's (GES DAAC) web-based data mining environment. The S4PM-DME replaces the Near-line Archive Data Mining (NADM) system with a better web environment and a richer set of production rules. S4PM-DME enables registered users to submit and execute custom data mining algorithms. The S4PM-DME system uses the GES DAAC developed Simple Scalable Script-based Science Processor for Measurements (S4PM) to automate tasks and perform the actual data processing. A web interface allows the user to access the S4PM-DME system. The user first develops personalized data mining algorithm on his/her home platform and then uploads them to the S4PM-DME system. Algorithms in C and FORTRAN languages are currently supported. The user developed algorithm is automatically audited for any potential security problems before it is installed within the S4PM-DME system and made available to the user. Once the algorithm has been installed the user can promote the algorithm to the "operational" environment. From here the user can search and order the data available in the GES DAAC archive for his/her science algorithm. The user can also set up a processing subscription. The subscription will automatically process new data as it becomes available in the GES DAAC archive. The generated mined data products are then made available for FTP pickup. The benefits of using S4PM-DME are 1) to decrease the downloading time it typically takes a user to transfer the GES DAAC data to his/her system thus off-load the heavy network traffic, 2) to free-up the load on their system, and last 3) to utilize the rich and abundance ocean, atmosphere data from the MODIS and AIRS instruments available from the GES DAAC.

An Indoor Navigation System for the Visually Impaired

PubMed Central

Guerrero, Luis A.; Vasquez, Francisco; Ochoa, Sergio F.

2012-01-01

Navigation in indoor environments is highly challenging for the severely visually impaired, particularly in spaces visited for the first time. Several solutions have been proposed to deal with this challenge. Although some of them have shown to be useful in real scenarios, they involve an important deployment effort or use artifacts that are not natural for blind users. This paper presents an indoor navigation system that was designed taking into consideration usability as the quality requirement to be maximized. This solution enables one to identify the position of a person and calculates the velocity and direction of his movements. Using this information, the system determines the user's trajectory, locates possible obstacles in that route, and offers navigation information to the user. The solution has been evaluated using two experimental scenarios. Although the results are still not enough to provide strong conclusions, they indicate that the system is suitable to guide visually impaired people through an unknown built environment. PMID:22969398

Sensor Webs with a Service-Oriented Architecture for On-demand Science Products

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mandl, Daniel; Ungar, Stephen; Ames, Troy; Justice, Chris; Frye, Stuart; Chien, Steve; Tran, Daniel; Cappelaere, Patrice; Derezinsfi, Linda; Paules, Granville;

Subway Environmental Design Handbook, Volume II, Subway Environment Simulation Computer Program, Version 4, Part 1, User's Manual

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1975-10-01

This document forms part of the Subway Environmental Design Handbook. It contains the background information and instructions to enable an engineer to perform an analysis of a subway system by using the Subway Environment Simulation (SES) computer pr...

COMPREHENSIVE PBPK MODELING APPROACH USING THE EXPOSURE RELATED DOSE ESTIMATING MODEL (ERDEM)

EPA Science Inventory

ERDEM, a complex PBPK modeling system, is the result of the implementation of a comprehensive PBPK modeling approach. ERDEM provides a scalable and user-friendly environment that enables researchers to focus on data input values rather than writing program code. It efficiently ...

77 FR 53830 - Retirement of FASTforward

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-09-04

... States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM[supreg]) 602.5.0 to terminate the use of FASTforward...-address system, was developed in 1996 to enable Multi-Line Optical Character Reader (MLOCR) users a means... the following changes to Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual...

A Multi-Temporal Context-Aware System for Competences Management

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rosa, João H.; Barbosa, Jorge L.; Kich, Marcos; Brito, Lucas

2015-01-01

The evolution of computing technology and wireless networks has contributed to the miniaturization of mobile devices and their increase in power, providing services anywhere and anytime. In this scenario, applications have considered the user's contexts to make decisions (Context Awareness). Context-aware applications have enabled new…

Improving Airline Safety

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1998-01-01

Under a NASA-Ames Space Act Agreement, Coryphaeus Software and Simauthor, Inc., developed an Aviation Performance Measuring System (APMS). This software, developed for the aerospace and airline industry, enables the replay of Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) data in a flexible, user-configurable, real-time, high fidelity 3D (three dimensional) environment.

Real English Project Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cautin, Harvey; Regan, Edward

Requirements are discussed for an information retrieval language that enables users to employ natural language sentences in interaction with computer-stored files. Anticipated modes of operation of the system are outlined. These are: the search mode, the dictionary mode, the tables mode, and the statistical mode. Analysis of sample sentences…

A Pervasive Social Networking Application: I-NFC enabled Florist Smart Advisor

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Swee Wen, Khoo; Mahinderjit Singh, Manmeet

2016-11-01

Location based service is an information and entertainment service, accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of the geographical position of the mobile device. NFC location based service is using one of the modes of NFC such as peer-to-peer, reader/writer, and card emulation to obtain the information of the object and then get the location of the object. In this paper, the proposed solution is I- NFC-enabled Pervasive Social Networking apps for florists. It combines the NFC location based service with Online Social Network (OSN). In addition, a smart advisor in the system to provide output in making their own decision while purchasing products.The development of the system demonstrates that a designed commerce site is provided which enable a communication between NFC-enabled smartphone, NFC-enabled application and OSN. GPS functionalities also implemented to provide map and location of business services. Smart advisor also designed to provide information for users who do not have ideas what to purchase.

User Interface Technology for Formal Specification Development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lowry, Michael; Philpot, Andrew; Pressburger, Thomas; Underwood, Ian; Lum, Henry, Jr. (Technical Monitor)

1994-01-01

Formal specification development and modification are an essential component of the knowledge-based software life cycle. User interface technology is needed to empower end-users to create their own formal specifications. This paper describes the advanced user interface for AMPHION1 a knowledge-based software engineering system that targets scientific subroutine libraries. AMPHION is a generic, domain-independent architecture that is specialized to an application domain through a declarative domain theory. Formal specification development and reuse is made accessible to end-users through an intuitive graphical interface that provides semantic guidance in creating diagrams denoting formal specifications in an application domain. The diagrams also serve to document the specifications. Automatic deductive program synthesis ensures that end-user specifications are correctly implemented. The tables that drive AMPHION's user interface are automatically compiled from a domain theory; portions of the interface can be customized by the end-user. The user interface facilitates formal specification development by hiding syntactic details, such as logical notation. It also turns some of the barriers for end-user specification development associated with strongly typed formal languages into active sources of guidance, without restricting advanced users. The interface is especially suited for specification modification. AMPHION has been applied to the domain of solar system kinematics through the development of a declarative domain theory. Testing over six months with planetary scientists indicates that AMPHION's interactive specification acquisition paradigm enables users to develop, modify, and reuse specifications at least an order of magnitude more rapidly than manual program development.

Enhancing Users' Participation in Business Process Modeling through Ontology-Based Training

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Macris, A.; Malamateniou, F.; Vassilacopoulos, G.

Successful business process design requires active participation of users who are familiar with organizational activities and business process modelling concepts. Hence, there is a need to provide users with reusable, flexible, agile and adaptable training material in order to enable them instil their knowledge and expertise in business process design and automation activities. Knowledge reusability is of paramount importance in designing training material on process modelling since it enables users participate actively in process design/redesign activities stimulated by the changing business environment. This paper presents a prototype approach for the design and use of training material that provides significant advantages to both the designer (knowledge - content reusability and semantic web enabling) and the user (semantic search, knowledge navigation and knowledge dissemination). The approach is based on externalizing domain knowledge in the form of ontology-based knowledge networks (i.e. training scenarios serving specific training needs) so that it is made reusable.

Adaptive digital beamforming for a CDMA mobile communications payload

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Munoz-Garcia, Samuel G.; Ruiz, Javier Benedicto

1993-01-01

In recent years, Spread-Spectrum Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) has become a very popular access scheme for mobile communications due to a variety of reasons: excellent performance in multipath environments, high scope for frequency reuse, graceful degradation near saturation, etc. In this way, a CDMA system can support simultaneous digital communication among a large community of relatively uncoordinated users sharing a given frequency band. Nevertheless, there are also important problems associated with the use of CDMA. First, in a conventional CDMA scheme, the signature sequences of asynchronous users are not orthogonal and, as the number of active users increases, the self-noise generated by the mutual interference between users considerably degrades the performance, particularly in the return link. Furthermore, when there is a large disparity in received powers - due to differences in slant range or atmospheric attenuation - the non-zero cross-correlation between the signals gives rise to the so-called near-far problem. This leads to an inefficient utilization of the satellite resources and, consequently, to a drastic reduction in capacity. Several techniques were proposed to overcome this problem, such as Synchronized CDMA - in which the signature sequences of the different users are quasi-orthogonal - and power control. At the expense of increased network complexity and user coordination, these techniques enable the system capacity to be restored by equitably sharing the satellite resources among the users. An alternative solution is presented based upon the use of time-reference adaptive digital beamforming on board the satellite. This technique enables a high number of independently steered beams to be generated from a single phased array antenna, which automatically track the desired user signal and null the unwanted interference source. In order to use a time-reference adaptive antenna in a communications system, the main challenge is to obtain a reference signal highly correlated with the desired user signal and uncorrelated with the interferences. CDMA lends itself very easily to the generation of such a reference signal, thanks to the a priori knowledge of the user's signature sequence. First, the integration of an adaptive antenna in an asynchronous CDMA system is analyzed. The adaptive antenna system can provide increased interference rejection - much higher than that afforded by the code alone - and, since CDMA is mainly interference limited, any reduction in interference converts directly and linearly into an increase in capacity. Analyses and computer simulations are presented that show how an asynchronous CDMA system incorporating adaptive beamforming can provide at least as much capacity as a synchronous system. More importantly, the proposed concept allows the near-far effect to be mitigated without requiring a tight coordination of the users in terms of transmitted power control or network synchronization. The system is extremely robust to the near-far effect because the signals reaching the satellite from directions other than that of the desired user - which are likely to have different power levels - are adaptively canceled by the antenna. Finally, a payload architecture is presented that illustrates the practical implementation of this concept. This digital payload architecture demonstrates that with the advent of high performance CMOS digital processing, the on-board implementation of complex DSP techniques - in particular Digital Beamforming - has become possible, being most attractive for Mobile Satellite Communications.

Adaptive digital beamforming for a CDMA mobile communications payload

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Munoz-Garcia, Samuel G.; Ruiz, Javier Benedicto

In recent years, Spread-Spectrum Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) has become a very popular access scheme for mobile communications due to a variety of reasons: excellent performance in multipath environments, high scope for frequency reuse, graceful degradation near saturation, etc. In this way, a CDMA system can support simultaneous digital communication among a large community of relatively uncoordinated users sharing a given frequency band. Nevertheless, there are also important problems associated with the use of CDMA. First, in a conventional CDMA scheme, the signature sequences of asynchronous users are not orthogonal and, as the number of active users increases, the self-noise generated by the mutual interference between users considerably degrades the performance, particularly in the return link. Furthermore, when there is a large disparity in received powers - due to differences in slant range or atmospheric attenuation - the non-zero cross-correlation between the signals gives rise to the so-called near-far problem. This leads to an inefficient utilization of the satellite resources and, consequently, to a drastic reduction in capacity. Several techniques were proposed to overcome this problem, such as Synchronized CDMA - in which the signature sequences of the different users are quasi-orthogonal - and power control. At the expense of increased network complexity and user coordination, these techniques enable the system capacity to be restored by equitably sharing the satellite resources among the users. An alternative solution is presented based upon the use of time-reference adaptive digital beamforming on board the satellite. This technique enables a high number of independently steered beams to be generated from a single phased array antenna, which automatically track the desired user signal and null the unwanted interference source. In order to use a time-reference adaptive antenna in a communications system, the main challenge is to obtain a reference signal highly correlated with the desired user signal and uncorrelated with the interferences. CDMA lends itself very easily to the generation of such a reference signal, thanks to the a priori knowledge of the user's signature sequence. First, the integration of an adaptive antenna in an asynchronous CDMA system is analyzed. The adaptive antenna system can provide increased interference rejection - much higher than that afforded by the code alone - and, since CDMA is mainly interference limited, any reduction in interference converts directly and linearly into an increase in capacity. Analyses and computer simulations are presented that show how an asynchronous CDMA system incorporating adaptive beamforming can provide at least as much capacity as a synchronous system. More importantly, the proposed concept allows the near-far effect to be mitigated without requiring a tight coordination of the users in terms of transmitted power control or network synchronization. The system is extremely robust to the near-far effect because the signals reaching the satellite from directions other than that of the desired user - which are likely to have different power levels - are adaptively canceled by the antenna. Finally, a payload architecture is presented that illustrates the practical implementation of this concept.

Tennessee StreamStats: A Web-Enabled Geographic Information System Application for Automating the Retrieval and Calculation of Streamflow Statistics

USGS Publications Warehouse

Ladd, David E.; Law, George S.

2007-01-01

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) provides streamflow and other stream-related information needed to protect people and property from floods, to plan and manage water resources, and to protect water quality in the streams. Streamflow statistics provided by the USGS, such as the 100-year flood and the 7-day 10-year low flow, frequently are used by engineers, land managers, biologists, and many others to help guide decisions in their everyday work. In addition to streamflow statistics, resource managers often need to know the physical and climatic characteristics (basin characteristics) of the drainage basins for locations of interest to help them understand the mechanisms that control water availability and water quality at these locations. StreamStats is a Web-enabled geographic information system (GIS) application that makes it easy for users to obtain streamflow statistics, basin characteristics, and other information for USGS data-collection stations and for ungaged sites of interest. If a user selects the location of a data-collection station, StreamStats will provide previously published information for the station from a database. If a user selects a location where no data are available (an ungaged site), StreamStats will run a GIS program to delineate a drainage basin boundary, measure basin characteristics, and estimate streamflow statistics based on USGS streamflow prediction methods. A user can download a GIS feature class of the drainage basin boundary with attributes including the measured basin characteristics and streamflow estimates.

LoyalTracker: Visualizing Loyalty Dynamics in Search Engines.

PubMed

Shi, Conglei; Wu, Yingcai; Liu, Shixia; Zhou, Hong; Qu, Huamin

2014-12-01

The huge amount of user log data collected by search engine providers creates new opportunities to understand user loyalty and defection behavior at an unprecedented scale. However, this also poses a great challenge to analyze the behavior and glean insights into the complex, large data. In this paper, we introduce LoyalTracker, a visual analytics system to track user loyalty and switching behavior towards multiple search engines from the vast amount of user log data. We propose a new interactive visualization technique (flow view) based on a flow metaphor, which conveys a proper visual summary of the dynamics of user loyalty of thousands of users over time. Two other visualization techniques, a density map and a word cloud, are integrated to enable analysts to gain further insights into the patterns identified by the flow view. Case studies and the interview with domain experts are conducted to demonstrate the usefulness of our technique in understanding user loyalty and switching behavior in search engines.

Framework for End-User Programming of Cross-Smart Space Applications

PubMed Central

Palviainen, Marko; Kuusijärvi, Jarkko; Ovaska, Eila

2012-01-01

Cross-smart space applications are specific types of software services that enable users to share information, monitor the physical and logical surroundings and control it in a way that is meaningful for the user's situation. For developing cross-smart space applications, this paper makes two main contributions: it introduces (i) a component design and scripting method for end-user programming of cross-smart space applications and (ii) a backend framework of components that interwork to support the brunt of the RDFScript translation, and the use and execution of ontology models. Before end-user programming activities, the software professionals must develop easy-to-apply Driver components for the APIs of existing software systems. Thereafter, end-users are able to create applications from the commands of the Driver components with the help of the provided toolset. The paper also introduces the reference implementation of the framework, tools for the Driver component development and end-user programming of cross-smart space applications and the first evaluation results on their application. PMID:23202169

Context-based user grouping for multi-casting in heterogeneous radio networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mannweiler, C.; Klein, A.; Schneider, J.; Schotten, H. D.

2011-08-01

Along with the rise of sophisticated smartphones and smart spaces, the availability of both static and dynamic context information has steadily been increasing in recent years. Due to the popularity of social networks, these data are complemented by profile information about individual users. Making use of this information by classifying users in wireless networks enables targeted content and advertisement delivery as well as optimizing network resources, in particular bandwidth utilization, by facilitating group-based multi-casting. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a web service for advanced user classification based on user, network, and environmental context information. The service employs simple and advanced clustering algorithms for forming classes of users. Available service functionalities include group formation, context-aware adaptation, and deletion as well as the exposure of group characteristics. Moreover, the results of a performance evaluation, where the service has been integrated in a simulator modeling user behavior in heterogeneous wireless systems, are presented.

Identifying influential user communities on the social network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hu, Weishu; Gong, Zhiguo; Hou U, Leong; Guo, Jingzhi

2015-10-01

Nowadays social network services have been popularly used in electronic commerce systems. Users on the social network can develop different relationships based on their common interests and activities. In order to promote the business, it is interesting to explore hidden relationships among users developed on the social network. Such knowledge can be used to locate target users for different advertisements and to provide effective product recommendations. In this paper, we define and study a novel community detection problem that is to discover the hidden community structure in large social networks based on their common interests. We observe that the users typically pay more attention to those users who share similar interests, which enable a way to partition the users into different communities according to their common interests. We propose two algorithms to detect influential communities using common interests in large social networks efficiently and effectively. We conduct our experimental evaluation using a data set from Epinions, which demonstrates that our method achieves 4-11.8% accuracy improvement over the state-of-the-art method.

Enhancement/upgrade of Engine Structures Technology Best Estimator (EST/BEST) Software System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shah, Ashwin

2003-01-01

This report describes the work performed during the contract period and the capabilities included in the EST/BEST software system. The developed EST/BEST software system includes the integrated NESSUS, IPACS, COBSTRAN, and ALCCA computer codes required to perform the engine cycle mission and component structural analysis. Also, the interactive input generator for NESSUS, IPACS, and COBSTRAN computer codes have been developed and integrated with the EST/BEST software system. The input generator allows the user to create input from scratch as well as edit existing input files interactively. Since it has been integrated with the EST/BEST software system, it enables the user to modify EST/BEST generated files and perform the analysis to evaluate the benefits. Appendix A gives details of how to use the newly added features in the EST/BEST software system.

Virtual reality systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnson, David W.

1992-01-01

Virtual realities are a type of human-computer interface (HCI) and as such may be understood from a historical perspective. In the earliest era, the computer was a very simple, straightforward machine. Interaction was human manipulation of an inanimate object, little more than the provision of an explicit instruction set to be carried out without deviation. In short, control resided with the user. In the second era of HCI, some level of intelligence and control was imparted to the system to enable a dialogue with the user. Simple context sensitive help systems are early examples, while more sophisticated expert system designs typify this era. Control was shared more equally. In this, the third era of the HCI, the constructed system emulates a particular environment, constructed with rules and knowledge about 'reality'. Control is, in part, outside the realm of the human-computer dialogue. Virtual reality systems are discussed.

VisitSense: Sensing Place Visit Patterns from Ambient Radio on Smartphones for Targeted Mobile Ads in Shopping Malls.

PubMed

Kim, Byoungjip; Kang, Seungwoo; Ha, Jin-Young; Song, Junehwa

2015-07-16

In this paper, we introduce a novel smartphone framework called VisitSense that automatically detects and predicts a smartphone user's place visits from ambient radio to enable behavioral targeting for mobile ads in large shopping malls. VisitSense enables mobile app developers to adopt visit-pattern-aware mobile advertising for shopping mall visitors in their apps. It also benefits mobile users by allowing them to receive highly relevant mobile ads that are aware of their place visit patterns in shopping malls. To achieve the goal, VisitSense employs accurate visit detection and prediction methods. For accurate visit detection, we develop a change-based detection method to take into consideration the stability change of ambient radio and the mobility change of users. It performs well in large shopping malls where ambient radio is quite noisy and causes existing algorithms to easily fail. In addition, we proposed a causality-based visit prediction model to capture the causality in the sequential visit patterns for effective prediction. We have developed a VisitSense prototype system, and a visit-pattern-aware mobile advertising application that is based on it. Furthermore, we deploy the system in the COEX Mall, one of the largest shopping malls in Korea, and conduct diverse experiments to show the effectiveness of VisitSense.

Development of a Common User Interface for the Launch Decision Support System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Scholtz, Jean C.

1991-01-01

The Launch Decision Support System (LDSS) is software to be used by the NASA Test Director (NTD) in the firing room during countdown. This software is designed to assist the NTD with time management, that is, when to resume from a hold condition. This software will assist the NTD in making and evaluating alternate plans and will keep him advised of the existing situation. As such, the interface to this software must be designed to provide the maximum amount of information in the clearest fashion and in a timely manner. This research involves applying user interface guidelines to a mature prototype of LDSS and developing displays that will enable the users to easily and efficiently obtain information from the LDSS displays. This research also extends previous work on organizing and prioritizing human-computer interaction knowledge.

Cassini Archive Tracking System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Conner, Diane; Sayfi, Elias; Tinio, Adrian

2006-01-01

The Cassini Archive Tracking System (CATS) is a computer program that enables tracking of scientific data transfers from originators to the Planetary Data System (PDS) archives. Without CATS, there is no systematic means of locating products in the archive process or ensuring their completeness. By keeping a database of transfer communications and status, CATS enables the Cassini Project and the PDS to efficiently and accurately report on archive status. More importantly, problem areas are easily identified through customized reports that can be generated on the fly from any Web-enabled computer. A Web-browser interface and clearly defined authorization scheme provide safe distributed access to the system, where users can perform functions such as create customized reports, record a transfer, and respond to a transfer. CATS ensures that Cassini provides complete science archives to the PDS on schedule and that those archives are available to the science community by the PDS. The three-tier architecture is loosely coupled and designed for simple adaptation to multimission use. Written in the Java programming language, it is portable and can be run on any Java-enabled Web server.

A burst compression and expansion technique for variable-rate users in satellite-switched TDMA networks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Budinger, James M.

1990-01-01

A burst compression and expansion technique is described for asynchronously interconnecting variable-data-rate users with cost-efficient ground terminals in a satellite-switched, time-division-multiple-access (SS/TDMA) network. Compression and expansion buffers in each ground terminal convert between lower rate, asynchronous, continuous-user data streams and higher-rate TDMA bursts synchronized with the satellite-switched timing. The technique described uses a first-in, first-out (FIFO) memory approach which enables the use of inexpensive clock sources by both the users and the ground terminals and obviates the need for elaborate user clock synchronization processes. A continous range of data rates from kilobits per second to that approaching the modulator burst rate (hundreds of megabits per second) can be accommodated. The technique was developed for use in the NASA Lewis Research Center System Integration, Test, and Evaluation (SITE) facility. Some key features of the technique have also been implemented in the gound terminals developed at NASA Lewis for use in on-orbit evaluation of the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) high burst rate (HBR) system.

Support for User Interfaces for Distributed Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eychaner, Glenn; Niessner, Albert

2005-01-01

An extensible Java(TradeMark) software framework supports the construction and operation of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for distributed computing systems typified by ground control systems that send commands to, and receive telemetric data from, spacecraft. Heretofore, such GUIs have been custom built for each new system at considerable expense. In contrast, the present framework affords generic capabilities that can be shared by different distributed systems. Dynamic class loading, reflection, and other run-time capabilities of the Java language and JavaBeans component architecture enable the creation of a GUI for each new distributed computing system with a minimum of custom effort. By use of this framework, GUI components in control panels and menus can send commands to a particular distributed system with a minimum of system-specific code. The framework receives, decodes, processes, and displays telemetry data; custom telemetry data handling can be added for a particular system. The framework supports saving and later restoration of users configurations of control panels and telemetry displays with a minimum of effort in writing system-specific code. GUIs constructed within this framework can be deployed in any operating system with a Java run-time environment, without recompilation or code changes.

GeoViQua: quality-aware geospatial data discovery and evaluation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bigagli, L.; Papeschi, F.; Mazzetti, P.; Nativi, S.

2012-04-01

GeoViQua (QUAlity aware VIsualization for the Global Earth Observation System of Systems) is a recently started FP7 project aiming at complementing the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) with rigorous data quality specifications and quality-aware capabilities, in order to improve reliability in scientific studies and policy decision-making. GeoViQua main scientific and technical objective is to enhance the GEOSS Common Infrastructure (GCI) providing the user community with innovative quality-aware search and evaluation tools, which will be integrated in the GEO-Portal, as well as made available to other end-user interfaces. To this end, GeoViQua will promote the extension of the current standard metadata for geographic information with accurate and expressive quality indicators, also contributing to the definition of a quality label (GEOLabel). GeoViQua proposed solutions will be assessed in several pilot case studies covering the whole Earth Observation chain, from remote sensing acquisition to data processing, to applications in the main GEOSS Societal Benefit Areas. This work presents the preliminary results of GeoViQua Work Package 4 "Enhanced geo-search tools" (WP4), started in January 2012. Its major anticipated technical innovations are search and evaluation tools that communicate and exploit data quality information from the GCI. In particular, GeoViQua will investigate a graphical search interface featuring a coherent and meaningful aggregation of statistics and metadata summaries (e.g. in the form of tables, charts), thus enabling end users to leverage quality constraints for data discovery and evaluation. Preparatory work on WP4 requirements indicated that users need the "best" data for their purpose, implying a high degree of subjectivity in judgment. This suggests that the GeoViQua system should exploit a combination of provider-generated metadata (objective indicators such as summary statistics), system-generated metadata (contextual/tracking information such as provenance of data and metadata), and user-generated metadata (informal user comments, usage information, rating, etc.). Moreover, metadata should include sufficiently complete access information, to allow rich data visualization and propagation. The following main enabling components are currently identified within WP4: - Quality-aware access services, e.g. a quality-aware extension of the OGC Sensor Observation Service (SOS-Q) specification, to support quality constraints for sensor data publishing and access; - Quality-aware discovery services, namely a quality-aware extension of the OGC Catalog Service for the Web (CSW-Q), to cope with quality constrained search; - Quality-augmentation broker (GeoViQua Broker), to support the linking and combination of the existing GCI metadata with GeoViQua- and user-generated metadata required to support the users in selecting the "best" data for their intended use. We are currently developing prototypes of the above quality-enabled geo-search components, that will be assessed in a sensor-based pilot case study in the next months. In particular, the GeoViQua Broker will be integrated with the EuroGEOSS Broker, to implement CSW-Q and federate (either via distribution or harvesting schemes) quality-aware data sources, GeoViQua will constitute a valuable test-bed for advancing the current best practices and standards in geospatial quality representation and exploitation. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under Grant Agreement n° 265178.

Affective loop experiences: designing for interactional embodiment.

PubMed

Höök, Kristina

2009-12-12

Involving our corporeal bodies in interaction can create strong affective experiences. Systems that both can be influenced by and influence users corporeally exhibit a use quality we name an affective loop experience. In an affective loop experience, (i) emotions are seen as processes, constructed in the interaction, starting from everyday bodily, cognitive or social experiences; (ii) the system responds in ways that pull the user into the interaction, touching upon end users' physical experiences; and (iii) throughout the interaction the user is an active, meaning-making individual choosing how to express themselves-the interpretation responsibility does not lie with the system. We have built several systems that attempt to create affective loop experiences with more or less successful results. For example, eMoto lets users send text messages between mobile phones, but in addition to text, the messages also have colourful and animated shapes in the background chosen through emotion-gestures with a sensor-enabled stylus pen. Affective Diary is a digital diary with which users can scribble their notes, but it also allows for bodily memorabilia to be recorded from body sensors mapping to users' movement and arousal and placed along a timeline. Users can see patterns in their bodily reactions and relate them to various events going on in their lives. The experiences of building and deploying these systems gave us insights into design requirements for addressing affective loop experiences, such as how to design for turn-taking between user and system, how to create for 'open' surfaces in the design that can carry users' own meaning-making processes, how to combine modalities to create for a 'unity' of expression, and the importance of mirroring user experience in familiar ways that touch upon their everyday social and corporeal experiences. But a more important lesson gained from deploying the systems is how emotion processes are co-constructed and experienced inseparable from all other aspects of everyday life. Emotion processes are part of our social ways of being in the world; they dye our dreams, hopes and bodily experiences of the world. If we aim to design for affective interaction experiences, we need to place them into this larger picture.

Affective loop experiences: designing for interactional embodiment

PubMed Central

Höök, Kristina

2009-01-01

Involving our corporeal bodies in interaction can create strong affective experiences. Systems that both can be influenced by and influence users corporeally exhibit a use quality we name an affective loop experience. In an affective loop experience, (i) emotions are seen as processes, constructed in the interaction, starting from everyday bodily, cognitive or social experiences; (ii) the system responds in ways that pull the user into the interaction, touching upon end users' physical experiences; and (iii) throughout the interaction the user is an active, meaning-making individual choosing how to express themselves—the interpretation responsibility does not lie with the system. We have built several systems that attempt to create affective loop experiences with more or less successful results. For example, eMoto lets users send text messages between mobile phones, but in addition to text, the messages also have colourful and animated shapes in the background chosen through emotion-gestures with a sensor-enabled stylus pen. Affective Diary is a digital diary with which users can scribble their notes, but it also allows for bodily memorabilia to be recorded from body sensors mapping to users' movement and arousal and placed along a timeline. Users can see patterns in their bodily reactions and relate them to various events going on in their lives. The experiences of building and deploying these systems gave us insights into design requirements for addressing affective loop experiences, such as how to design for turn-taking between user and system, how to create for ‘open’ surfaces in the design that can carry users' own meaning-making processes, how to combine modalities to create for a ‘unity’ of expression, and the importance of mirroring user experience in familiar ways that touch upon their everyday social and corporeal experiences. But a more important lesson gained from deploying the systems is how emotion processes are co-constructed and experienced inseparable from all other aspects of everyday life. Emotion processes are part of our social ways of being in the world; they dye our dreams, hopes and bodily experiences of the world. If we aim to design for affective interaction experiences, we need to place them into this larger picture. PMID:19884153

Wearable wireless User Interface Cursor-Controller (UIC-C).

PubMed

Marjanovic, Nicholas; Kerr, Kevin; Aranda, Ricardo; Hickey, Richard; Esmailbeigi, Hananeh

2017-07-01

Controlling a computer or a smartphone's cursor allows the user to access a world full of information. For millions of people with limited upper extremities motor function, controlling the cursor becomes profoundly difficult. Our team has developed the User Interface Cursor-Controller (UIC-C) to assist the impaired individuals in regaining control over the cursor. The UIC-C is a hands-free device that utilizes the tongue muscle to control the cursor movements. The entire device is housed inside a subject specific retainer. The user maneuvers the cursor by manipulating a joystick imbedded inside the retainer via their tongue. The joystick movement commands are sent to an electronic device via a Bluetooth connection. The device is readily recognizable as a cursor controller by any Bluetooth enabled electronic device. The device testing results have shown that the time it takes the user to control the cursor accurately via the UIC-C is about three times longer than a standard computer mouse controlled via the hand. The device does not require any permanent modifications to the body; therefore, it could be used during the period of acute rehabilitation of the hands. With the development of modern smart homes, and enhancement electronics controlled by the computer, UIC-C could be integrated into a system that enables individuals with permanent impairment, the ability to control the cursor. In conclusion, the UIC-C device is designed with the goal of allowing the user to accurately control a cursor during the periods of either acute or permanent upper extremities impairment.

A voxel visualization and analysis system based on AutoCAD

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marschallinger, Robert

1996-05-01

A collection of AutoLISP programs is presented which enable the visualization and analysis of voxel models by AutoCAD rel. 12/rel. 13. The programs serve as an interactive, graphical front end for manipulating the results of three-dimensional modeling software producing block estimation data. ASCII data files describing geometry and attributes per estimation block are imported and stored as a voxel array. Each voxel may contain multiple attributes, therefore different parameters may be incorporated in one voxel array. Voxel classification is implemented on a layer basis providing flexible treatment of voxel classes such as recoloring, peeling, or volumetry. A versatile clipping tool enables slicing voxel arrays according to combinations of three perpendicular clipping planes. The programs feature an up-to-date, graphical user interface for user-friendly operation by non AutoCAD specialists.

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.

iFall: an Android application for fall monitoring and response.

PubMed

Sposaro, Frank; Tyson, Gary

2009-01-01

Injuries due to falls are among the leading causes of hospitalization in elderly persons, often resulting in a rapid decline in quality of life or death. Rapid response can improve the patients outcome, but this is often lacking when the injured person lives alone and the nature of the injury complicates calling for help. This paper presents an alert system for fall detection using common commercially available electronic devices to both detect the fall and alert authorities. We use an Android-based smart phone with an integrated tri-axial accelerometer. Data from the accelerometer is evaluated with several threshold based algorithms and position data to determine a fall. The threshold is adaptive based on user provided parameters such as: height, weight, and level of activity. The algorithm adapts to unique movements that a phone experiences as opposed to similar systems which require users to mount accelerometers to their chest or trunk. If a fall is suspected a notification is raised requiring the user's response. If the user does not respond, the system alerts pre-specified social contacts with an informational message via SMS. If a contact responds the system commits an audible notification, automatically connects, and enables the speakerphone. If a social contact confirms a fall, an appropriate emergency service is alerted. Our system provides a realizable, cost effective solution to fall detection using a simple graphical interface while not overwhelming the user with uncomfortable sensors.

Applications of artificial intelligence to space station and automated software techniques: High level robot command language

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mckee, James W.

1989-01-01

The objective is to develop a system that will allow a person not necessarily skilled in the art of programming robots to quickly and naturally create the necessary data and commands to enable a robot to perform a desired task. The system will use a menu driven graphical user interface. This interface will allow the user to input data to select objects to be moved. There will be an imbedded expert system to process the knowledge about objects and the robot to determine how they are to be moved. There will be automatic path planning to avoid obstacles in the work space and to create a near optimum path. The system will contain the software to generate the required robot instructions.

Adjustably Autonomous Multi-agent Plan Execution with an Internal Spacecraft Free-Flying Robot Prototype

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dorais, Gregory A.; Nicewarner, Keith

2006-01-01

We present an multi-agent model-based autonomy architecture with monitoring, planning, diagnosis, and execution elements. We discuss an internal spacecraft free-flying robot prototype controlled by an implementation of this architecture and a ground test facility used for development. In addition, we discuss a simplified environment control life support system for the spacecraft domain also controlled by an implementation of this architecture. We discuss adjustable autonomy and how it applies to this architecture. We describe an interface that provides the user situation awareness of both autonomous systems and enables the user to dynamically edit the plans prior to and during execution as well as control these agents at various levels of autonomy. This interface also permits the agents to query the user or request the user to perform tasks to help achieve the commanded goals. We conclude by describing a scenario where these two agents and a human interact to cooperatively detect, diagnose and recover from a simulated spacecraft fault.

Software for Remote Monitoring of Space-Station Payloads

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schneider, Michelle; Lippincott, Jeff; Chubb, Steve; Whitaker, Jimmy; Gillis, Robert; Sellers, Donna; Sims, Chris; Rice, James

2003-01-01

Telescience Resource Kit (TReK) is a suite of application programs that enable geographically dispersed users to monitor scientific payloads aboard the International Space Station (ISS). TReK provides local ground support services that can simultaneously receive, process, record, playback, and display data from multiple sources. TReK also provides interfaces to use the remote services provided by the Payload Operations Integration Center which manages all ISS payloads. An application programming interface (API) allows for payload users to gain access to all data processed by TReK and allows payload-specific tools and programs to be built or integrated with TReK. Used in conjunction with other ISS-provided tools, TReK provides the ability to integrate payloads with the operational ground system early in the lifecycle. This reduces the potential for operational problems and provides "cradle-to-grave" end-to-end operations. TReK contains user guides and self-paced tutorials along with training applications to allow the user to become familiar with the system.

Reduction of User Interaction by Autonomy

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Morfopoulos, Arin; McHenry, Michael; Matthies, Larry

2006-01-01

This paper describes experiments that quantify the improvement that autonomous behaviors enable in the amount of user interaction required to navigate a robot in urban environments. Many papers have discussed various ways to measure the absolute level of autonomy of a system; we measured the relative improvement of autonomous behaviors over teleoperation across multiple traverses of the same course. We performed four runs each on an 'easy' course and a 'hard' course, where half the runs were teleoperated and half used more autonomous behaviors. Statistics show 40-70% reductions in the amount of time the user interacts with the control station; however, with the behaviors tested, user attention remained on the control station even when he was not interacting. Reducing the need for attention will require better obstacle detection and avoidance and better absolute position estimation.

Toward an Alternative Learning Environment Interface for Learning Management Systems

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abdous, M'hammed

2013-01-01

An effective learning environment interface (LEI) is a means to enable students to focus on learning and to understand content, while establishing connections and relationships among course activities. Using this fundamental premise, we propose a flexible, user-centered, and seamless LEI which is intended to remediate the fragmented interface…

Program Supports Scientific Visualization

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Keith, Stephan

1994-01-01

Primary purpose of General Visualization System (GVS) computer program is to support scientific visualization of data generated by panel-method computer program PMARC_12 (inventory number ARC-13362) on Silicon Graphics Iris workstation. Enables user to view PMARC geometries and wakes as wire frames or as light shaded objects. GVS is written in C language.

Inducing Fuzzy Models for Student Classification

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nykanen, Ossi

2006-01-01

We report an approach for implementing predictive fuzzy systems that manage capturing both the imprecision of the empirically induced classifications and the imprecision of the intuitive linguistic expressions via the extensive use of fuzzy sets. From end-users' point of view, the approach enables encapsulating the technical details of the…

Adaptive Social Learning Based on Crowdsourcing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Karataev, Evgeny; Zadorozhny, Vladimir

2017-01-01

Many techniques have been developed to enhance learning experience with computer technology. A particularly great influence of technology on learning came with the emergence of the web and adaptive educational hypermedia systems. While the web enables users to interact and collaborate with each other to create, organize, and share knowledge via…

Help at Hand

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Demski, Jennifer

2009-01-01

This article describes how centralized presentation control systems enable IT support staff to monitor equipment and assist end users more efficiently. At Temple University, 70 percent of the classrooms are equipped with an AMX touch panel, linked via a Netlink controller to an in-classroom computer, projector, DVD/VCR player, and speakers. The…

Netmeld v. 1.0

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

BERG, MICHAEL; RILEY, MARSHALL

System assessments typically yield large quantities of data from disparate sources for an analyst to scrutinize for issues. Netmeld is used to parse input from different file formats, store the data in a common format, allow users to easily query it, and enable analysts to tie different analysis tools together using a common back-end.

Dominie: Teaching and Assessment Strategies. CAL Research Group Technical Report No. 74.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Spensley, Fiona; Elsom-Cook, Mark

This document outlines the strategies that are used for teaching and assessment in Dominie, an intelligent tutoring system designed to enable the user to operate a computer interface independently. Eight interaction modes are described in detail: four teaching strategies (cognitive apprenticeship, successive refinement, discovery learning, and…

Smart-device environmental control systems: experiences of people with cervical spinal cord injuries.

PubMed

Hooper, Bethany; Verdonck, Michele; Amsters, Delena; Myburg, Michelle; Allan, Emily

2017-09-06

Environmental control systems (ECS) are devices that enable people with severe physical limitations to independently control household appliances. Recent advancements in the area of environmental control technology have led to the development of ECS that can be controlled through mainstream smart-devices. There is limited research on ECS within Australia and no known research addressing smart-device ECS. The current study sought to explore users' experiences with smart-device ECS within Australia. The study followed a single embedded case study method. Participants (n = 5) were existing ECS users with a cervical spinal cord injury. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with participants, reflexive journals and field notes. An inductive approach was used to analyze the data thematically. The experience of using a smart-device ECS presented both opportunities and costs to users. The opportunities included: independent control, choice, peace of mind, connection, effective resource use, and control over smart-phone functions and applications. The associated costs included: financial, time, frustration, and technical limitations. While findings are similar to previous research into traditional ECS this study indicates that smart-device ECS also offered a new opportunity for users to access mainstream smart-device functions and applications. Future research should investigate methods and resources that practitioners could utilize to better support new users of smart-device ECS. Implications for Rehabilitation As with traditional environmental control systems, users of smart environmental control systems report increased independence, choice and control. Smart-device environmental control systems provide users with access to mainstream smart-device functions and applications, which facilitate connection to family and the outside world. The costs to the user of smart-device environmental control systems include monetary and time investment, dealing with technical limitations and resulting frustration. Prescribers and installers must consider ways to mitigate these costs experienced by users.

Description of web-enhanced virtual character simulation system to standardize patient hand-offs.

PubMed

Filichia, Lori; Halan, Shivashankar; Blackwelder, Ethan; Rossen, Brent; Lok, Benjamin; Korndorffer, James; Cendan, Juan

2011-04-01

The 80-h work week has increased discontinuity of patient care resulting in reports of increased medication errors and preventable adverse events. Graduate medical programs are addressing these shortcomings in a number of ways. We have developed a computer simulation platform called the Virtual People Factory (VPF), which allows us to capture and simulate the dialogue between a real user and a virtual character. We have converted the system to reflect a physician in the process of "checking-out" a patient to a covering physician. The responses are tracked and matched to educator-defined information termed "discoveries." Our proof of concept represented a typical post-operative patient with tachycardia. The system is web enabled. So far, 26 resident users at two institutions have completed the module. The critical discovery of tachycardia was identified by 62% of users. Residents spend 85% of the time asking intraoperative, postoperative, and past medical history questions. The system improves over time such that there is a near-doubling of questions that yield appropriate answers between users 13 and 22. Users who identified the virtual patient's underlying tachycardia expressed more concern and were more likely to order further testing for the patient in a post-module questionnaire (P = 0.13 and 0.08, respectively, NS). The VPF system can capture unique details about the hand-off interchange. The system improves with sequential users such that better matching of questions and answers occurs within the initial 25 users allowing rapid development of new modules. A catalog of hand-off modules could be easily developed. Wide-scale web-based deployment was uncomplicated. Identification of the critical findings appropriately translated to user concern for the patient though our series was too small to reach significance. Performance metrics based on the identification of critical discoveries could be used to assess readiness of the user to carry off a successful hand-off. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Collaborative Aerial-Drawing System for Supporting Co-Creative Communication

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Osaki, Akihiro; Taniguchi, Hiroyuki; Miwa, Yoshiyuki

This paper describes the collaborative augmented reality (AR) system with which multiple users can handwrite 3D lines in the air simultaneously and manipulate the lines directly in the real world. In addition, we propose a new technique for co-creative communication utilizing the 3D drawing activity. Up to now, the various 3D user interfaces have been proposed. Although most of them aim to solve the specific problems in the virtual environments, the possibility of the 3D drawing expression has not been explored yet. Accordingly, we paid special attention to the interaction with the real objects in daily life, and considered to manipulate real objects and 3D lines without any distinctions by the same action. The developed AR system consists of a stereoscopic head-mounted display, a drawing tool, 6DOF sensors measuring three-dimensional position and Euler angles, and the 3D user interface, which enables to push, grasp and pitch 3D lines directly by use of the drawing tool. Additionally users can pick up desired color from either a landscape or a virtual line through the direct interaction with this tool. For sharing 3D lines among multiple users at the same place, the distributed-type AR system has been developed that mutually sends and receives drawn data between systems. With the developed system, users can proceed to design jointly in the real space through arranging each 3D drawing by direct manipulation. Moreover, a new application to the entertainment has become possible to play sports like catch, fencing match, or the like.

A Web-based Distributed Voluntary Computing Platform for Large Scale Hydrological Computations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demir, I.; Agliamzanov, R.

2014-12-01

Distributed volunteer computing can enable researchers and scientist to form large parallel computing environments to utilize the computing power of the millions of computers on the Internet, and use them towards running large scale environmental simulations and models to serve the common good of local communities and the world. Recent developments in web technologies and standards allow client-side scripting languages to run at speeds close to native application, and utilize the power of Graphics Processing Units (GPU). Using a client-side scripting language like JavaScript, we have developed an open distributed computing framework that makes it easy for researchers to write their own hydrologic models, and run them on volunteer computers. Users will easily enable their websites for visitors to volunteer sharing their computer resources to contribute running advanced hydrological models and simulations. Using a web-based system allows users to start volunteering their computational resources within seconds without installing any software. The framework distributes the model simulation to thousands of nodes in small spatial and computational sizes. A relational database system is utilized for managing data connections and queue management for the distributed computing nodes. In this paper, we present a web-based distributed volunteer computing platform to enable large scale hydrological simulations and model runs in an open and integrated environment.

Interactive SIGHT: textual access to simple bar charts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demir, Seniz; Oliver, David; Schwartz, Edward; Elzer, Stephanie; Carberry, Sandra; Mccoy, Kathleen F.; Chester, Daniel

2010-12-01

Information graphics, such as bar charts and line graphs, are an important component of many articles from popular media. The majority of such graphics have an intention (a high-level message) to communicate to the graph viewer. Since the intended message of a graphic is often not repeated in the accompanying text, graphics together with the textual segments contribute to the overall purpose of an article and cannot be ignored. Unfortunately, these visual displays are provided in a format which is not readily accessible to everyone. For example, individuals with sight impairments who use screen readers to listen to documents have limited access to the graphics. This article presents a new accessibility tool, the Interactive SIGHT (Summarizing Information GrapHics Textually) system, that is intended to enable visually impaired users to access the knowledge that one would gain from viewing information graphics found on the web. The current system, which is implemented as a browser extension that works on simple bar charts, can be invoked by a user via a keystroke combination while navigating the web. Once launched, Interactive SIGHT first provides a brief summary that conveys the underlying intention of a bar chart along with the chart's most significant and salient features, and then produces history-aware follow-up responses to provide further information about the chart upon request from the user. We present two user studies that were conducted with sighted and visually impaired users to determine how effective the initial summary and follow-up responses are in conveying the informational content of bar charts, and to evaluate how easy it is to use the system interface. The evaluation results are promising and indicate that the system responses are well-structured and enable visually impaired users to answer key questions about bar charts in an easy-to-use manner. Post-experimental interviews revealed that visually impaired participants were very satisfied with the system offering different options to access the content of a chart to meet their specific needs and that they would use Interactive SIGHT if it was publicly available so as not to have to ignore graphics on the web. Being a language based assistive technology designed to compensate for the lack of sight, our work paves the road for a stronger acceptance of natural language interfaces to graph interpretation that we believe will be of great benefit to the visually impaired community.

Usability in telemedicine systems-A literature survey.

PubMed

Klaassen, B; van Beijnum, B J F; Hermens, H J

2016-09-01

The rapid development of sensors and communication technologies enable the growth of new innovative services in healthcare, such as Telemedicine. An essential ingredient in the development of a telemedicine system and its final acceptance by end users are usability studies. The principles of usability engineering, evaluations and telemedicine are well established, and it may contribute to the adoption and eventually deployment of such systems and services. An in-depth usability analysis, including performance and attitude measures, requires knowledge about available usability techniques, and is depending on the amount of resources. Therefore it is worth investigating how usability methods are applied in developing telemedicine systems. Our hypothesis is: with increasing research and development of telemedicine systems, we expect that various usability methods are more equally employed for different end-user groups and applications. A literature survey was conducted to find telemedicine systems that have been evaluated for usability or ease of use. The elements of the PICO framework were used as a basis for the selection criteria in the literature search. The search was not limited by year. Two independent reviewers screened all search results first by title, and then by abstract for inclusion. Articles were included up to May 2015. In total, 127 publications were included in this survey. The number of publications on telemedicine systems significantly increased after 2008. Older adults and end-users with cardiovascular conditions were among largest target end-user groups. Remote monitoring systems were found the most, in 90 publications. Questionnaires are the most common means for evaluating telemedicine systems, and were found in 88 publications. Questionnaires are used frequently in studies focusing on cardiovascular diseases, Parkinson's disease and older adult conditions. Interviews are found the most in publications related to stroke. In total 71% of the publications were trial-orientated and the remaining process orientated. An increase in telemedicine research, development and applications is found worldwide, with the majority of publications conducted in America. Monitoring patients in their homes can lead to better healthcare at lower costs which implies an increased demand of new healthcare strategies like telemedicine. We expected that with the increase in telemedicine research and development, a greater range of usability methods would also be employed in the included publications. This is not the case. Researchers employed questionnaires as a preferred usability method for each type of telemedicine system and most end-users. However, in process-orientated studies a greater range of usability evaluations were applied, with fewer differences found in the amount of publications for each evaluation method. Questionnaires enable researchers to evaluate a system quickly on end users, as it requires less expertise on the evaluation method compared to the other methods. They are easily distributed and are customizable. The use of questionnaires is therefore an evaluation method of choice for a variety of telemedicine systems and end-users. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Australian SKA Pathfinder: operations management and user engagement

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harvey-Smith, Lisa

2016-07-01

This paper describes the science operations model for the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope. ASKAP is a radio interferometer currently being commissioned in Western Australia. It will be operated by a dedicated team of observatory staff with the support of telescope monitoring, control and scheduling software. These tools, as well as the proposal tools and data archive will enable the telescope to operate with little direct input from the astronomy user. The paper also discusses how close engagement with the telescope user community has been maintained throughout the ASKAP construction and commissioning phase, leading to positive outcomes including early input into the design of telescope systems and a vibrant early science program.

Public Health Analysis Transport Optimization Model v. 1.0

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

Beyeler, Walt; Finley, Patrick; Walser, Alex

PHANTOM models logistic functions of national public health systems. The system enables public health officials to visualize and coordinate options for public health surveillance, diagnosis, response and administration in an integrated analytical environment. Users may simulate and analyze system performance applying scenarios that represent current conditions or future contingencies what-if analyses of potential systemic improvements. Public health networks are visualized as interactive maps, with graphical displays of relevant system performance metrics as calculated by the simulation modeling components.

Framework for near-field-communication-based geo-localization and personalization for Android-based smartphones--application in hospital environments.

PubMed

Meng, Philipp; Fehre, Karsten; Rappelsberger, Andrea; Adlassnig, Klaus-Peter

2014-01-01

Various applications using near field communication (NFC) have been developed for the medical sector. As a method of short-range wireless contact-driven data transfer, NFC is a useful tool in medicine. It can be used to transfer data such as blood pressure, control adherence to medication, or transmit in vivo data. The first proposed general framework uses NFC as a mechanism for indoor geo-localization in hospitals. NFC geo-localization is economical compared to classical concepts using indoor GPS or WLAN triangulation, and the granularity of location retrieval can be defined at a tag level. Using this framework, we facilitate the development of medical applications that require exact indoor geo-localization. Multi-user Android systems are addressed in the second framework. Using private NFC tags, users are able to carry on their personal settings for enabled applications. This eliminates the need for multiple user accounts on common Android devices, improves usability, and eases technical administration. Based on the prototypes presented here, we show a novel concept of using NFC-enabled Android devices in hospital environments.

A Ballistic Limit Analysis Program for Shielding Against Micrometeoroids and Orbital Debris

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ryan, Shannon; Christiansen, Erie

2010-01-01

A software program has been developed that enables the user to quickly and simply perform ballistic limit calculations for common spacecraft structures that are subject to hypervelocity impact of micrometeoroid and orbital debris (MMOD) projectiles. This analysis program consists of two core modules: design, and; performance. The design module enables a user to calculate preliminary dimensions of a shield configuration (e.g., thicknesses/areal densities, spacing, etc.) for a ?design? particle (diameter, density, impact velocity, incidence). The performance module enables a more detailed shielding analysis, providing the performance of a user-defined shielding configuration over the range of relevant in-orbit impact conditions.

Autonomous power expert system advanced development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Quinn, Todd M.; Walters, Jerry L.

1991-01-01

The autonomous power expert (APEX) system is being developed at Lewis Research Center to function as a fault diagnosis advisor for a space power distribution test bed. APEX is a rule-based system capable of detecting faults and isolating the probable causes. APEX also has a justification facility to provide natural language explanations about conclusions reached during fault isolation. To help maintain the health of the power distribution system, additional capabilities were added to APEX. These capabilities allow detection and isolation of incipient faults and enable the expert system to recommend actions/procedure to correct the suspected fault conditions. New capabilities for incipient fault detection consist of storage and analysis of historical data and new user interface displays. After the cause of a fault is determined, appropriate recommended actions are selected by rule-based inferencing which provides corrective/extended test procedures. Color graphics displays and improved mouse-selectable menus were also added to provide a friendlier user interface. A discussion of APEX in general and a more detailed description of the incipient detection, recommended actions, and user interface developments during the last year are presented.

Spatial issues in user interface design from a graphic design perspective

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Marcus, Aaron

1989-01-01

The user interface of a computer system is a visual display that provides information about the status of operations on data within the computer and control options to the user that enable adjustments to these operations. From the very beginning of computer technology the user interface was a spatial display, although its spatial features were not necessarily complex or explicitly recognized by the users. All text and nonverbal signs appeared in a virtual space generally thought of as a single flat plane of symbols. Current technology of high performance workstations permits any element of the display to appear as dynamic, multicolor, 3-D signs in a virtual 3-D space. The complexity of appearance and the user's interaction with the display provide significant challenges to the graphic designer of current and future user interfaces. In particular, spatial depiction provides many opportunities for effective communication of objects, structures, processes, navigation, selection, and manipulation. Issues are presented that are relevant to the graphic designer seeking to optimize the user interface's spatial attributes for effective visual communication.

Development of a Web Based Simulating System for Earthquake Modeling on the Grid

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seber, D.; Youn, C.; Kaiser, T.

2007-12-01

Existing cyberinfrastructure-based information, data and computational networks now allow development of state- of-the-art, user-friendly simulation environments that democratize access to high-end computational environments and provide new research opportunities for many research and educational communities. Within the Geosciences cyberinfrastructure network, GEON, we have developed the SYNSEIS (SYNthetic SEISmogram) toolkit to enable efficient computations of 2D and 3D seismic waveforms for a variety of research purposes especially for helping to analyze the EarthScope's USArray seismic data in a speedy and efficient environment. The underlying simulation software in SYNSEIS is a finite difference code, E3D, developed by LLNL (S. Larsen). The code is embedded within the SYNSEIS portlet environment and it is used by our toolkit to simulate seismic waveforms of earthquakes at regional distances (<1000km). Architecturally, SYNSEIS uses both Web Service and Grid computing resources in a portal-based work environment and has a built in access mechanism to connect to national supercomputer centers as well as to a dedicated, small-scale compute cluster for its runs. Even though Grid computing is well-established in many computing communities, its use among domain scientists still is not trivial because of multiple levels of complexities encountered. We grid-enabled E3D using our own dialect XML inputs that include geological models that are accessible through standard Web services within the GEON network. The XML inputs for this application contain structural geometries, source parameters, seismic velocity, density, attenuation values, number of time steps to compute, and number of stations. By enabling a portal based access to a such computational environment coupled with its dynamic user interface we enable a large user community to take advantage of such high end calculations in their research and educational activities. Our system can be used to promote an efficient and effective modeling environment to help scientists as well as educators in their daily activities and speed up the scientific discovery process.

Evolution of the EOSDIS Data User Communities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Krupp, B. M.; Murphy, K. J.; Wanchoo, L.; Chang, H.

2011-12-01

Since NASA's EOS Terra platform began operations in early FY2000, data centers affiliated with the EOS Data and Information System (EOSDIS) have distributed over 12.8 Petabytes (PB) and 1.2 billion files of data to over 2.3 million distinct users through the end of FY2010. Metrics on data ingest, archive, and distribution have been collected throughout the EOS era by different automated systems. The functionality of these systems has improved over the years, allowing more types of metrics analyses to be made with greater precision. The ESDIS Metrics System (EMS) replaced the earlier ESDIS Data Gathering and Reporting System (EDGRS) in FY2005. Since then it has collected increasingly more accurate information about data users obtaining products from the many EOSDIS data centers. The information allows characterization of the various EOSDIS user communities, and enables studies of how these communities have changed over time. User information obtained when an order is placed, or products are downloaded from a data center's FTP site, include the user's IP host (or IP address) and email address. The EMS system is able to resolve most IP addresses to specific domains. Combined with science discipline information associated with the data products themselves, users and data distributions to them can be characterized in a number of ways, including by countries, disciplines (e.g. Atmosphere, Ocean, Land), and [most readily for the United States] affiliations (Government, Education, Non-profit, or Commercial). The purpose of this investigation is to analyze patterns of data distributions within the different user groups mentioned above and to trace their evolution over time. Results show, for example, that the number of foreign users has increased greatly over the years, as has the number of countries receiving EOSDIS data products. These kinds of studies can be very useful to the various data centers. By gaining a better understanding of how their user communities are evolving, and how patterns of data product distributions are changing, data centers will be better able to serve the needs of the users.

CASE/A - COMPUTER AIDED SYSTEM ENGINEERING AND ANALYSIS, ECLSS/ATCS SERIES

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bacskay, A.

1994-01-01

Design and analysis of Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) and Active Thermal Control Systems (ATCS) for spacecraft missions requires powerful software that is flexible and responsive to the demands of particular projects. CASE/A is an interactive trade study and analysis tool designed to increase productivity during all phases of systems engineering. The graphics-based command-driven package provides a user-friendly environment in which the engineer can analyze the performance and interface characteristics of an ECLS/ATC system. The package is useful during all phases of a spacecraft design program, from initial conceptual design trade studies to the actual flight, including pre-flight prediction and in-flight anomaly analysis. The CASE/A program consists of three fundamental parts: 1) the schematic management system, 2) the database management system, and 3) the simulation control and execution system. The schematic management system allows the user to graphically construct a system model by arranging icons representing system components and connecting the components with physical fluid streams. Version 4.1 contains 51 fully coded and documented default component routines. New components can be added by the user through the "blackbox" component option. The database management system supports the storage and manipulation of component data, output data, and solution control data through interactive edit screens. The simulation control and execution system initiates and controls the iterative solution process, displaying time status and any necessary diagnostic messages. In addition to these primary functions, the program provides three other important functional areas: 1) model output management, 2) system utility commands, and 3) user operations logic capacity. The model output management system provides tabular and graphical output capability. Complete fluid constituent mass fraction and properties data (mass flow, pressure, temperature, specific heat, density, and viscosity) is generated at user-selected output intervals and stored for reference. The Integrated Plot Utility (IPU) provides plotting capability for all data output. System utility commands are provided to enable the user to operate more efficiently in the CASE/A environment. The user is able to customize a simulation through optional operations FORTRAN logic. This user-developed code is compiled and linked with a CASE/A model and enables the user to control and timeline component operating parameters during various phases of the iterative solution process. CASE/A provides for transient tracking of the flow stream constituents and determination of their thermodynamic state throughout an ECLSS/ATCS simulation, performing heat transfer, chemical reaction, mass/energy balance, and system pressure drop analysis based on user-specified operating conditions. The program tracks each constituent through all combination and decomposition states while maintaining a mass and energy balance on the overall system. This allows rapid assessment of ECLSS designs, the impact of alternate technologies, and impacts due to changes in metabolic forcing functions, consumables usage, and system control considerations. CASE/A is written in FORTRAN 77 for the DEC VAX/VMS computer series, and requires 12Mb of disk storage and a minimum paging file quota of 20,000 pages. The program operates on the Tektronix 4014 graphics standard and VT100 text standard. The program requires a Tektronix 4014 or later graphics terminal, third party composite graphics/text terminal, or personal computer loaded with appropriate VT100/TEK 4014 emulator software. The use of composite terminals or personal computers with popular emulation software is recommended for enhanced CASE/A operations and general ease of use. The program is available on an unlabeled 9-track 6250 BPI DEC VAX BACKUP format magnetic tape. CASE/A development began in 1985 under contract to NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center. The latest version (4.1) was released in 1990. Tektronix and TEK 4014 are trademarks of Tektronix, Inc. VT100 is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation.

The automated ground network system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Smith, Miles T.; Militch, Peter N.

1993-01-01

The primary goal of the Automated Ground Network System (AGNS) project is to reduce Ground Network (GN) station life-cycle costs. To accomplish this goal, the AGNS project will employ an object-oriented approach to develop a new infrastructure that will permit continuous application of new technologies and methodologies to the Ground Network's class of problems. The AGNS project is a Total Quality (TQ) project. Through use of an open collaborative development environment, developers and users will have equal input into the end-to-end design and development process. This will permit direct user input and feedback and will enable rapid prototyping for requirements clarification. This paper describes the AGNS objectives, operations concept, and proposed design.

A practical indoor context-aware surveillance system with multi-Kinect sensors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jia, Lili; You, Ying; Li, Tiezhu; Zhang, Shun

2014-11-01

In this paper we develop a novel practical application, which give scalable services to the end users when abnormal actives are happening. Architecture of the application has been presented consisting of network infrared cameras and a communication module. In this intelligent surveillance system we use Kinect sensors as the input cameras. Kinect is an infrared laser camera which its user can access the raw infrared sensor stream. We install several Kinect sensors in one room to track the human skeletons. Each sensor returns the body positions with 15 coordinates in its own coordinate system. We use calibration algorithms to calibrate all the body positions points into one unified coordinate system. With the body positions points, we can infer the surveillance context. Furthermore, the messages from the metadata index matrix will be sent to mobile phone through communication module. User will instantly be aware of an abnormal case happened in the room without having to check the website. In conclusion, theoretical analysis and experimental results in this paper show that the proposed system is reasonable and efficient. And the application method introduced in this paper is not only to discourage the criminals and assist police in the apprehension of suspects, but also can enabled the end-users monitor the indoor environments anywhere and anytime by their phones.

A cooperative transponder system for improved traffic safety, localizing road users in the 5 GHz band

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schaffer, B.; Kalverkamp, G.; Chaabane, M.; Biebl, E. M.

2012-09-01

We present a multi-user cooperative mobile transponder system which enables cars to localize pedestrians, bicyclists and other road users in order to improve traffic safety. The system operates at a center frequency of 5.768 GHz, offering the ability to test precision localization technology at frequencies close to the newly designated automotive safety related bands around 5.9 GHz. By carrying out a roundtrip time of flight measurement, the sensor can determine the distance from the onboard localization unit of a car to a road user who is equipped with an active transponder, employing the idea of a secondary radar and pulse compression. The onboard unit sends out a pseudo noise coded interrogation pulse, which is answered by one or more transponders after a short waiting time. Each transponder uses a different waiting time in order to allow for time division multiple access. We present the system setup as well as range measurement results, achieving an accuracy up to centimeters for the distance measurement and a range in the order of hundred meters. We also discuss the effect of clock drift and offset on distance accuracy for different waiting times and show how the system can be improved to further increase precision in a multiuser environment.

DNA Bipedal Motor Achieves a Large Number of Steps Due to Operation Using Microfluidics-Based Interface.

PubMed

Tomov, Toma E; Tsukanov, Roman; Glick, Yair; Berger, Yaron; Liber, Miran; Avrahami, Dorit; Gerber, Doron; Nir, Eyal

2017-04-25

Realization of bioinspired molecular machines that can perform many and diverse operations in response to external chemical commands is a major goal in nanotechnology, but current molecular machines respond to only a few sequential commands. Lack of effective methods for introduction and removal of command compounds and low efficiencies of the reactions involved are major reasons for the limited performance. We introduce here a user interface based on a microfluidics device and single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy that allows efficient introduction and removal of chemical commands and enables detailed study of the reaction mechanisms involved in the operation of synthetic molecular machines. The microfluidics provided 64 consecutive DNA strand commands to a DNA-based motor system immobilized inside the microfluidics, driving a bipedal walker to perform 32 steps on a DNA origami track. The microfluidics enabled removal of redundant strands, resulting in a 6-fold increase in processivity relative to an identical motor operated without strand removal and significantly more operations than previously reported for user-controlled DNA nanomachines. In the motor operated without strand removal, redundant strands interfere with motor operation and reduce its performance. The microfluidics also enabled computer control of motor direction and speed. Furthermore, analysis of the reaction kinetics and motor performance in the absence of redundant strands, made possible by the microfluidics, enabled accurate modeling of the walker processivity. This enabled identification of dynamic boundaries and provided an explanation, based on the "trap state" mechanism, for why the motor did not perform an even larger number of steps. This understanding is very important for the development of future motors with significantly improved performance. Our universal interface enables two-way communication between user and molecular machine and, relying on concepts similar to that of solid-phase synthesis, removes limitations on the number of external stimuli. This interface, therefore, is an important step toward realization of reliable, processive, reproducible, and useful externally controlled DNA nanomachines.

Towards free 3D end-point control for robotic-assisted human reaching using binocular eye tracking.

PubMed

Maimon-Dror, Roni O; Fernandez-Quesada, Jorge; Zito, Giuseppe A; Konnaris, Charalambos; Dziemian, Sabine; Faisal, A Aldo

2017-07-01

Eye-movements are the only directly observable behavioural signals that are highly correlated with actions at the task level, and proactive of body movements and thus reflect action intentions. Moreover, eye movements are preserved in many movement disorders leading to paralysis (or amputees) from stroke, spinal cord injury, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and muscular dystrophy among others. Despite this benefit, eye tracking is not widely used as control interface for robotic interfaces in movement impaired patients due to poor human-robot interfaces. We demonstrate here how combining 3D gaze tracking using our GT3D binocular eye tracker with custom designed 3D head tracking system and calibration method enables continuous 3D end-point control of a robotic arm support system. The users can move their own hand to any location of the workspace by simple looking at the target and winking once. This purely eye tracking based system enables the end-user to retain free head movement and yet achieves high spatial end point accuracy in the order of 6 cm RMSE error in each dimension and standard deviation of 4 cm. 3D calibration is achieved by moving the robot along a 3 dimensional space filling Peano curve while the user is tracking it with their eyes. This results in a fully automated calibration procedure that yields several thousand calibration points versus standard approaches using a dozen points, resulting in beyond state-of-the-art 3D accuracy and precision.

A Flexible Evolvable Architecture for Constellation Mission Systems User Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Trimble, Jay P.; Crocker, Alan R.

2008-01-01

While simulating a complex set of repair tasks to be performed by EVA crewmembers on an upcoming mission, flight controllers and astronauts determine that the repair will take much longer than originally anticipated. All equipment in the vicinity of the worksite must be powered off to maintain a safe environment for the astronauts. Because heater power will be unavailable, several critical components will now be at risk of freezing and permanent damage. If an impending thermal violation is detected, Mission Control will have very limited time to react. Therefore, flight controllers must not only modify their procedures to account for these risks, they must also incorporate into their displays outputs from thermal models, alternate temperature measurements, new alarm limits, and emergency power-on commands to enable the detection and response to freezing conditions. Current software for mission control systems makes scenarios like this difficult to address. Given the time frame for modifying software, operations teams are left with labor-intensive operational workarounds as their only options. NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) and NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) are collaborating on the development of a flexible software system for mission operations that will enable greater user flexibility than has been available to date. Using composable software, end users in the scenario described above could recompose procedures and command and control displays to allow flight controllers to monitor temperature measurements, identify time-critical conditions, and execute the procedures required to respond to these conditions before flight hardware is permanently damaged.

An Integrated Decision Support System for Water Quality Management of Songhua River Basin

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Haiping; Yin, Qiuxiao; Chen, Ling

2010-11-01

In the Songhua River Basin of China, many water resource and water environment conflicts interact. A Decision Support System (DSS) for the water quality management has been established for the Basin. The System is featured by the incorporation of a numerical water quality model system into a conventional water quality management system which usually consists of geographic information system (GIS), WebGIS technology, database system and network technology. The model system is built based on DHI MIKE software comprising of a basin rainfall-runoff module, a basin pollution load evaluation module, a river hydrodynamic module and a river water quality module. The DSS provides a friendly graphical user interface that enables the rapid and transparent calculation of various water quality management scenarios, and also enables the convenient access and interpretation of the modeling results to assist the decision-making.

PCCEServer

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

Perry, Marcia; Agarwal, Deb

2003-03-17

The PCCEServer application is a server that should be used in conjunction with the LBNLSecureMessaging user interface to enable secure synchronous and asynchronous messaging. It provides authentication and authorization services for members of a collaboration group via PKI/SSL and maintains an access control list. Members of collaboration groups using the LBNLSecureMessaging client must register identifying information. including usemame and password and an optional X.509 certificate, with the PCCEServer. This registration not only restricts access to instant messaging, but augments the LBNLSecureMessaging's IRC-based chat facility with persistence. Users register permanent unique user ids by which they are knowTl to other usersmore » in the system and create permanent venues intended for group conversations on a tong-term or continuous basis. In addition, the PCCEServer enhances instant messaging with presence and awareness information such as user availability, and it allows users to leave notes asynchronously for other users who are online or offline. Written in Java, it is a standalone application that can run on any platform that supports a Java Virtual Machine.« less

Towards Gesture-Based Multi-User Interactions in Collaborative Virtual Environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pretto, N.; Poiesi, F.

2017-11-01

We present a virtual reality (VR) setup that enables multiple users to participate in collaborative virtual environments and interact via gestures. A collaborative VR session is established through a network of users that is composed of a server and a set of clients. The server manages the communication amongst clients and is created by one of the users. Each user's VR setup consists of a Head Mounted Display (HMD) for immersive visualisation, a hand tracking system to interact with virtual objects and a single-hand joypad to move in the virtual environment. We use Google Cardboard as a HMD for the VR experience and a Leap Motion for hand tracking, thus making our solution low cost. We evaluate our VR setup though a forensics use case, where real-world objects pertaining to a simulated crime scene are included in a VR environment, acquired using a smartphone-based 3D reconstruction pipeline. Users can interact using virtual gesture-based tools such as pointers and rulers.

Specializing network analysis to detect anomalous insider actions

PubMed Central

Chen, You; Nyemba, Steve; Zhang, Wen; Malin, Bradley

2012-01-01

Collaborative information systems (CIS) enable users to coordinate efficiently over shared tasks in complex distributed environments. For flexibility, they provide users with broad access privileges, which, as a side-effect, leave such systems vulnerable to various attacks. Some of the more damaging malicious activities stem from internal misuse, where users are authorized to access system resources. A promising class of insider threat detection models for CIS focuses on mining access patterns from audit logs, however, current models are limited in that they assume organizations have significant resources to generate label cases for training classifiers or assume the user has committed a large number of actions that deviate from “normal” behavior. In lieu of the previous assumptions, we introduce an approach that detects when specific actions of an insider deviate from expectation in the context of collaborative behavior. Specifically, in this paper, we introduce a specialized network anomaly detection model, or SNAD, to detect such events. This approach assesses the extent to which a user influences the similarity of the group of users that access a particular record in the CIS. From a theoretical perspective, we show that the proposed model is appropriate for detecting insider actions in dynamic collaborative systems. From an empirical perspective, we perform an extensive evaluation of SNAD with the access logs of two distinct environments: the patient record access logs a large electronic health record system (6,015 users, 130,457 patients and 1,327,500 accesses) and the editing logs of Wikipedia (2,394,385 revisors, 55,200 articles and 6,482,780 revisions). We compare our model with several competing methods and demonstrate SNAD is significantly more effective: on average it achieves 20–30% greater area under an ROC curve. PMID:23399988

Space Images for NASA JPL Android Version

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nelson, Jon D.; Gutheinz, Sandy C.; Strom, Joshua R.; Arca, Jeremy M.; Perez, Martin; Boggs, Karen; Stanboli, Alice

2013-01-01

This software addresses the demand for easily accessible NASA JPL images and videos by providing a user friendly and simple graphical user interface that can be run via the Android platform from any location where Internet connection is available. This app is complementary to the iPhone version of the application. A backend infrastructure stores, tracks, and retrieves space images from the JPL Photojournal and Institutional Communications Web server, and catalogs the information into a streamlined rating infrastructure. This system consists of four distinguishing components: image repository, database, server-side logic, and Android mobile application. The image repository contains images from various JPL flight projects. The database stores the image information as well as the user rating. The server-side logic retrieves the image information from the database and categorizes each image for display. The Android mobile application is an interfacing delivery system that retrieves the image information from the server for each Android mobile device user. Also created is a reporting and tracking system for charting and monitoring usage. Unlike other Android mobile image applications, this system uses the latest emerging technologies to produce image listings based directly on user input. This allows for countless combinations of images returned. The backend infrastructure uses industry-standard coding and database methods, enabling future software improvement and technology updates. The flexibility of the system design framework permits multiple levels of display possibilities and provides integration capabilities. Unique features of the software include image/video retrieval from a selected set of categories, image Web links that can be shared among e-mail users, sharing to Facebook/Twitter, marking as user's favorites, and image metadata searchable for instant results.

An Ambient Intelligence Framework for the Provision of Geographically Distributed Multimedia Content to Mobility Impaired Users

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kehagias, Dionysios D.; Giakoumis, Dimitris; Tzovaras, Dimitrios; Bekiaris, Evangelos; Wiethoff, Marion

This chapter presents an ambient intelligence framework whose goal is to facilitate the information needs of mobility impaired users on the move. This framework couples users with geographically distributed services and the corresponding multimedia content, enabling access to context-sensitive information based on user geographic location and the use case under consideration. It provides a multi-modal facility that is realized through a set of mobile devices and user interfaces that address the needs of ten different types of user impairments. The overall ambient intelligence framework enables users who are equipped with mobile devices to access multimedia content in order to undertake activities relevant to one or more of the following domains: transportation, tourism and leisure, personal support services, work, business, education, social relations and community building. User experience is being explored against those activities through a specific usage scenario.

Power mobility with collision avoidance for older adults: user, caregiver, and prescriber perspectives.

PubMed

Wang, Rosalie H; Korotchenko, Alexandra; Hurd Clarke, Laura; Mortenson, W Ben; Mihailidis, Alex

2013-01-01

Collision avoidance technology has the capacity to facilitate safer mobility among older power mobility users with physical, sensory, and cognitive impairments, thus enabling independence for more users. Little is known about consumers' perceptions of collision avoidance. This article draws on interviews (29 users, 5 caregivers, and 10 prescribers) to examine views on design and utilization of this technology. Data analysis identified three themes: "useful situations or contexts," "technology design issues and real-life application," and "appropriateness of collision avoidance technology for a variety of users." Findings support ongoing development of collision avoidance for older adult users. The majority of participants supported the technology and felt that it might benefit current users and users with visual impairments, but might be unsuitable for people with significant cognitive impairments. Some participants voiced concerns regarding the risk for injury with power mobility use and some identified situations where collision avoidance might be beneficial (driving backward, avoiding dynamic obstacles, negotiating outdoor barriers, and learning power mobility use). Design issues include the need for context awareness, reliability, and user interface specifications. User desire to maintain driving autonomy supports development of collaboratively controlled systems. This research lays the groundwork for future development by illustrating consumer requirements for this technology.

Design architecture for multi-zone HVAC control systems from existing single-zone systems using wireless sensor networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Redfern, Andrew; Koplow, Michael; Wright, Paul

2007-01-01

Most residential heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems utilize a single zone for conditioning air throughout the entire house. While inexpensive, these systems lead to wide temperature distributions and inefficient cooling due to the difference in thermal loads in different rooms. The end result is additional cost to the end user because the house is over conditioned. To reduce the total amount of energy used in a home and to increase occupant comfort there is a need for a better control system using multiple temperature zones. Typical multi-zone systems are costly and require extensive infrastructure to function. Recent advances in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have enabled a low cost drop-in wireless vent register control system. The register control system is controlled by a master controller unit, which collects sensor data from a distributed wireless sensor network. Each sensor node samples local settings (occupancy, light, humidity and temperature) and reports the data back to the master control unit. The master control unit compiles the incoming data and then actuates the vent resisters to control the airflow throughout the house. The control system also utilizes a smart thermostat with a movable set point to enable the user to define their given comfort levels. The new system can reduce the run time of the HVAC system and thus decreasing the amount of energy used and increasing the comfort of the home occupations.

Web Program for Development of GUIs for Cluster Computers

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Czikmantory, Akos; Cwik, Thomas; Klimeck, Gerhard; Hua, Hook; Oyafuso, Fabiano; Vinyard, Edward

2003-01-01

WIGLAF (a Web Interface Generator and Legacy Application Facade) is a computer program that provides a Web-based, distributed, graphical-user-interface (GUI) framework that can be adapted to any of a broad range of application programs, written in any programming language, that are executed remotely on any cluster computer system. WIGLAF enables the rapid development of a GUI for controlling and monitoring a specific application program running on the cluster and for transferring data to and from the application program. The only prerequisite for the execution of WIGLAF is a Web-browser program on a user's personal computer connected with the cluster via the Internet. WIGLAF has a client/server architecture: The server component is executed on the cluster system, where it controls the application program and serves data to the client component. The client component is an applet that runs in the Web browser. WIGLAF utilizes the Extensible Markup Language to hold all data associated with the application software, Java to enable platform-independent execution on the cluster system and the display of a GUI generator through the browser, and the Java Remote Method Invocation software package to provide simple, effective client/server networking.

Emotion scents: a method of representing user emotions on GUI widgets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cernea, Daniel; Weber, Christopher; Ebert, Achim; Kerren, Andreas

2013-01-01

The world of desktop interfaces has been dominated for years by the concept of windows and standardized user interface (UI) components. Still, while supporting the interaction and information exchange between the users and the computer system, graphical user interface (GUI) widgets are rather one-sided, neglecting to capture the subjective facets of the user experience. In this paper, we propose a set of design guidelines for visualizing user emotions on standard GUI widgets (e.g., buttons, check boxes, etc.) in order to enrich the interface with a new dimension of subjective information by adding support for emotion awareness as well as post-task analysis and decision making. We highlight the use of an EEG headset for recording the various emotional states of the user while he/she is interacting with the widgets of the interface. We propose a visualization approach, called emotion scents, that allows users to view emotional reactions corresponding to di erent GUI widgets without in uencing the layout or changing the positioning of these widgets. Our approach does not focus on highlighting the emotional experience during the interaction with an entire system, but on representing the emotional perceptions and reactions generated by the interaction with a particular UI component. Our research is motivated by enabling emotional self-awareness and subjectivity analysis through the proposed emotionenhanced UI components for desktop interfaces. These assumptions are further supported by an evaluation of emotion scents.

IBM NJE protocol emulator for VAX/VMS

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

Engert, D.E.

1981-01-01

Communications software has been written at Argonne National Laboratory to enable a VAX/VMS system to participate as an end-node in a standard IBM network by emulating the Network Job Entry (NJE) protocol. NJE is actually a collection of programs that support job networking for the operating systems used on most large IBM-compatible computers (e.g., VM/370, MVS with JES2 or JES3, SVS, MVT with ASP or HASP). Files received by the VAX can be printed or saved in user-selected disk files. Files sent to the network can be routed to any node in the network for printing, punching, or job submission,more » as well as to a VM/370 user's virtual reader. Files sent from the VAX are queued and transmitted asynchronously to allow users to perform other work while files are awaiting transmission. No changes are required to the IBM software.« less

Multithreaded hybrid feature tracking for markerless augmented reality.

PubMed

Lee, Taehee; Höllerer, Tobias

2009-01-01

We describe a novel markerless camera tracking approach and user interaction methodology for augmented reality (AR) on unprepared tabletop environments. We propose a real-time system architecture that combines two types of feature tracking. Distinctive image features of the scene are detected and tracked frame-to-frame by computing optical flow. In order to achieve real-time performance, multiple operations are processed in a synchronized multi-threaded manner: capturing a video frame, tracking features using optical flow, detecting distinctive invariant features, and rendering an output frame. We also introduce user interaction methodology for establishing a global coordinate system and for placing virtual objects in the AR environment by tracking a user's outstretched hand and estimating a camera pose relative to it. We evaluate the speed and accuracy of our hybrid feature tracking approach, and demonstrate a proof-of-concept application for enabling AR in unprepared tabletop environments, using bare hands for interaction.

IsoMAP (Isoscape Modeling, Analysis, and Prediction)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miller, C. C.; Bowen, G. J.; Zhang, T.; Zhao, L.; West, J. B.; Liu, Z.; Rapolu, N.

2009-12-01

IsoMAP is a TeraGrid-based web portal aimed at building the infrastructure that brings together distributed multi-scale and multi-format geospatial datasets to enable statistical analysis and modeling of environmental isotopes. A typical workflow enabled by the portal includes (1) data source exploration and selection, (2) statistical analysis and model development; (3) predictive simulation of isotope distributions using models developed in (1) and (2); (4) analysis and interpretation of simulated spatial isotope distributions (e.g., comparison with independent observations, pattern analysis). The gridded models and data products created by one user can be shared and reused among users within the portal, enabling collaboration and knowledge transfer. This infrastructure and the research it fosters can lead to fundamental changes in our knowledge of the water cycle and ecological and biogeochemical processes through analysis of network-based isotope data, but it will be important A) that those with whom the data and models are shared can be sure of the origin, quality, inputs, and processing history of these products, and B) the system is agile and intuitive enough to facilitate this sharing (rather than just ‘allow’ it). IsoMAP researchers are therefore building into the portal’s architecture several components meant to increase the amount of metadata about users’ products and to repurpose those metadata to make sharing and discovery more intuitive and robust to both expected, professional users as well as unforeseeable populations from other sectors.

PASMet: a web-based platform for prediction, modelling and analyses of metabolic systems

PubMed Central

Sriyudthsak, Kansuporn; Mejia, Ramon Francisco; Arita, Masanori; Hirai, Masami Yokota

2016-01-01

PASMet (Prediction, Analysis and Simulation of Metabolic networks) is a web-based platform for proposing and verifying mathematical models to understand the dynamics of metabolism. The advantages of PASMet include user-friendliness and accessibility, which enable biologists and biochemists to easily perform mathematical modelling. PASMet offers a series of user-functions to handle the time-series data of metabolite concentrations. The functions are organised into four steps: (i) Prediction of a probable metabolic pathway and its regulation; (ii) Construction of mathematical models; (iii) Simulation of metabolic behaviours; and (iv) Analysis of metabolic system characteristics. Each function contains various statistical and mathematical methods that can be used independently. Users who may not have enough knowledge of computing or programming can easily and quickly analyse their local data without software downloads, updates or installations. Users only need to upload their files in comma-separated values (CSV) format or enter their model equations directly into the website. Once the time-series data or mathematical equations are uploaded, PASMet automatically performs computation on server-side. Then, users can interactively view their results and directly download them to their local computers. PASMet is freely available with no login requirement at http://pasmet.riken.jp/ from major web browsers on Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. PMID:27174940

The SeaDAS Processing and Analysis System: SeaWiFS, MODIS, and Beyond

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

MacDonald, M. D.; Ruebens, M.; Wang, L.; Franz, B. A.

2005-12-01

The SeaWiFS Data Analysis System (SeaDAS) is a comprehensive software package for the processing, display, and analysis of ocean data from a variety of satellite sensors. Continuous development and user support by programmers and scientists for more than a decade has helped to make SeaDAS the most widely used software package in the world for ocean color applications, with a growing base of users from the land and sea surface temperature community. Full processing support for past (CZCS, OCTS, MOS) and present (SeaWiFS, MODIS) sensors, and anticipated support for future missions such as NPP/VIIRS, enables end users to reproduce the standard ocean archive product suite distributed by NASA's Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG), as well as a variety of evaluation and intermediate ocean, land, and atmospheric products. Availability of the processing algorithm source codes and a software build environment also provide users with the tools to implement custom algorithms. Recent SeaDAS enhancements include synchronization of MODIS processing with the latest code and calibration updates from the MODIS Calibration Support Team (MCST), support for all levels of MODIS processing including Direct Broadcast, a port to the Macintosh OS X operating system, release of the display/analysis-only SeaDAS-Lite, and an extremely active web-based user support forum.

Structured Analysis of the Logistics Support Analysis (LSA) Task, and Integrated Logistic Support (ILS) Element, ’Standardization and Interoperability (S and I)’.

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-11-01

system, using graphic techniques which enable users, analysts, and designers to get a clear and common picture of the system and how its parts fit...boxes into hierarchies suitable for computer implementation. ŗ. Structured Design uses tools, especially graphic ones, to render systems readily...LSA, PROCESSES, DATA FLOWS, DATA STORES, EX"RNAL ENTITIES, OVERALL SYSTEMS DESIGN PROCESS, over 19, ABSTRACT (Continue on reverse if necessary and

Web survey data collection and retrieval to plan teleradiology implementation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alaoui, Adil; Collmann, Jeff R.; Johnson, Jeffrey A.; Lindisch, David; Nguyen, Dan; Mun, Seong K.

2003-05-01

This case study details the experience of system engineers of the Imaging Science and Information Systems Center, Georgetown University Medical Center (ISIS) and radiologists from the department of Radiology in the implementation of a new Teleradiology system. The Teleradiology system enables radiologists to view medical images from remote sites under those circumstances where a resident radiologist needs assistance in evaluating the images after hours and during weekends; it also enables clinicians access to patients" medical images from different workstations within the hospital. The Implementation of the Teleradiology project was preceded by an evaluation phase to perform testing, gather users feedback using a web site and collect information that helped eliminate system bugs, complete recommendations regarding minimum hardware configuration and bandwidth and enhance system"s functions, this phase included a survey-based system assessment of computer configurations, Internet connections, problem identification, and recommendations for improvement, and a testing period with 2 radiologists and ISIS engineers; The second phase was designed to launch the system and make it available to all attending radiologists in the department. To accomplish the first phase of the project a web site was designed and ASP pages were created to enable users to securely logon and enter feedback and recommendations into an SQL database. This efficient, accurate data flow alleviated networking, software and hardware problems. Corrective recommendations were immediately forwarded to the software vendor. The vendor responded with software updates that better met the needs of the radiologists. The ISIS Center completed recommendations for minimum hardware and bandwidth requirements. This experience illustrates that the approach used in collecting the data and facilitating the teamwork between the system engineers and radiologists was instrumental in the project"s success. Major problems with the Teleradiology system were discovered and remedied early by linking the actual practice experience of the physicians to the system improvements.

Integrated Web-Based Access to and use of Satellite Remote Sensing Data for Improved Decision Making in Hydrologic Applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Teng, W.; Chiu, L.; Kempler, S.; Liu, Z.; Nadeau, D.; Rui, H.

2006-12-01

Using NASA satellite remote sensing data from multiple sources for hydrologic applications can be a daunting task and requires a detailed understanding of the data's internal structure and physical implementation. Gaining this understanding and applying it to data reduction is a time-consuming task that must be undertaken before the core investigation can begin. In order to facilitate such investigations, the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) has developed the GES-DISC Interactive Online Visualization ANd aNalysis Infrastructure or "Giovanni," which supports a family of Web interfaces (instances) that allow users to perform interactive visualization and analysis online without downloading any data. Two such Giovanni instances are particularly relevant to hydrologic applications: the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Online Visualization and Analysis System (TOVAS) and the Agricultural Online Visualization and Analysis System (AOVAS), both highly popular and widely used for a variety of applications, including those related to several NASA Applications of National Priority, such as Agricultural Efficiency, Disaster Management, Ecological Forecasting, Homeland Security, and Public Health. Dynamic, context- sensitive Web services provided by TOVAS and AOVAS enable users to seamlessly access NASA data from within, and deeply integrate the data into, their local client environments. One example is between TOVAS and Florida International University's TerraFly, a Web-enabled system that serves a broad segment of the research and applications community, by facilitating access to various textual, remotely sensed, and vector data. Another example is between AOVAS and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA FAS)'s Crop Explorer, the primary decision support tool used by FAS to monitor the production, supply, and demand of agricultural commodities worldwide. AOVAS is also part of GES DISC's Agricultural Information System (AIS), which can operationally provide satellite remote sensing data products (e.g., near- real-time rainfall) and analysis services to agricultural users. AIS enables the remote, interoperable access to distributed data, by using the GrADS-Data Server (GDS) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)- compliant MapServer. The latter allows the access of AIS data from any OGC-compliant client, such as the Earth-Sun System Gateway (ESG) or Google Earth. The Giovanni system is evolving towards a Service- Oriented Architecture and is highly customizable (e.g., adding new products or services), thus availing the hydrologic applications user community of Giovanni's simple-to-use and powerful capabilities to improve decision-making.

HappyFace as a generic monitoring tool for HEP experiments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kawamura, Gen; Magradze, Erekle; Musheghyan, Haykuhi; Quadt, Arnulf; Rzehorz, Gerhard

2015-12-01

The importance of monitoring on HEP grid computing systems is growing due to a significant increase in their complexity. Computer scientists and administrators have been studying and building effective ways to gather information on and clarify a status of each local grid infrastructure. The HappyFace project aims at making the above-mentioned workflow possible. It aggregates, processes and stores the information and the status of different HEP monitoring resources into the common database of HappyFace. The system displays the information and the status through a single interface. However, this model of HappyFace relied on the monitoring resources which are always under development in the HEP experiments. Consequently, HappyFace needed to have direct access methods to the grid application and grid service layers in the different HEP grid systems. To cope with this issue, we use a reliable HEP software repository, the CernVM File System. We propose a new implementation and an architecture of HappyFace, the so-called grid-enabled HappyFace. It allows its basic framework to connect directly to the grid user applications and the grid collective services, without involving the monitoring resources in the HEP grid systems. This approach gives HappyFace several advantages: Portability, to provide an independent and generic monitoring system among the HEP grid systems. Eunctionality, to allow users to perform various diagnostic tools in the individual HEP grid systems and grid sites. Elexibility, to make HappyFace beneficial and open for the various distributed grid computing environments. Different grid-enabled modules, to connect to the Ganga job monitoring system and to check the performance of grid transfers among the grid sites, have been implemented. The new HappyFace system has been successfully integrated and now it displays the information and the status of both the monitoring resources and the direct access to the grid user applications and the grid collective services.

GeosciNET: Building a Global Geoinformatics Partnership

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Snyder, W. S.; Lehnert, K. A.; Ito, E.; Harms, U.; Klump, J.

2008-12-01

GeosciNET is a collaboration of several existing geoinformatics efforts organized to provide a more effective data system for geoscience projects. Current members are: CoreWall (www.corewall.org), Geoinformatics for Geochemistry (GfG; www.geoinfogeochem.org), System for Earth Sample Registration (SESAR; www.geosamples.org ), GeoStrat SYS (www.geostratsys.org (formerly: PaleoStrat, www.paleostrat.org)), and the International Continental Drilling Program (ICDP; www.icdp-online.org). GeosciNET's basic goal is to advance coordination, complementarity, and interoperability, and minimize duplication of efforts among the involved partner systems in order to streamline the development and operation of geoinformatics efforts. We believe that by advancing the development and data holdings of its member groups, the overall value of each site will be significantly enhanced and better meet the needs of the users. With the existing membership, GeosciNET can offer a comprehensive, integrated system for data acquisition, dissemination, archiving, visualization, integration, and analysis. The system will enable a single researcher or a group of collaborators to keep track of, visualize, and digitally archive any type of sample- or stratigraphic-based data produced from drill holes, dredges, measured stratigraphic sections, the field, or the laboratory. The challenge is to build a linked system that provides users a library of research data as well as tools to input, discover, access, integrate, manipulate, analyze, and model interdisciplinary data - all without corrupting the original data and insuring that the data are attributed to the originator at all times. Science runs on data, but despite the importance of data (legacy or otherwise), there are currently few convenient mechanisms that enable users to easily input their data into databases. While some efforts such as GfG databases, PetDB and SedDB have worked hard to compile such data, only users' active participation can capture the major part of critical legacy data, and insure that new data enter the digital stream as they are generated. GeosciNET wants to lower the barriers so users can take advantage of geoinformatics resources and embrace its promise as the platform for doing the science of the future. Once these benefits are understood by the user community, the obstacles that currently exist in building a larger geoinformatics system will start to erode. User participation requires the proper tools such as translators that can recognize tags and parse the data accordingly, and incentives such as tools for visualization, synthesis and analysis, and digital collaboration space. A major focus for GeosciNET is to support individual researchers and projects that do not have their own dedicated data management and education and outreach programs. One of the greatest challenges for geoinformatics lies in being perceived as a friendly resource by its users where they can easily link their observations and analyses and integrate them with other data. GeosciNET will be experimenting with mechanisms to accomplish these goals.

Improved computer programs for calculating potential flow in propulsion system inlets

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stockman, N. O.; Farrell, C. A., Jr.

1977-01-01

Computer programs to calculate the incompressible potential flow corrected for compressibility in axisymmetric inlets at arbitrary operating conditions are presented. Included are a statement of the problem to be solved, a description of each of the programs and sufficient documentation, including a test case, to enable a user to run the programs.

User Oriented Techniques to Support Interaction and Decision Making with Large Educational Databases

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hartley, Roger; Almuhaidib, Saud M. Y.

2007-01-01

Information Technology is developing rapidly and providing policy/decision makers with large amounts of information that require processing and analysis. Decision support systems (DSS) aim to provide tools that not only help such analyses, but enable the decision maker to experiment and simulate the effects of different policies and selection…

One Server Fits All

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Villano, Matt

2006-01-01

The benefits of deploying a communications system that runs over the Internet Protocol are well documented. Sending voice over the Internet, a process commonly known as VoIP, has been shown to save money on long distance calls, make voice mail more accessible, and enable users to answer their phones from anywhere. The technology also makes adding…

Implementation guide for turbidity threshold sampling: principles, procedures, and analysis

Treesearch

Jack Lewis; Rand Eads

2009-01-01

Turbidity Threshold Sampling uses real-time turbidity and river stage information to automatically collect water quality samples for estimating suspended sediment loads. The system uses a programmable data logger in conjunction with a stage measurement device, a turbidity sensor, and a pumping sampler. Specialized software enables the user to control the sampling...

Autonomous Multi-sensor Coordination: The Science Goal Monitor

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Koratkar, Anuradha; Jung, John; Geiger, Jenny; Grosvenor, Sandy

2004-01-01

Next-generation science and exploration systems will employ new observation strategies that will use multiple sensors in a dynamic environment to provide high quality monitoring, self-consistent analyses and informed decision making. The Science Goal Monitor (SGM) is a prototype software tool being developed to explore the nature of automation necessary to enable dynamic observing of earth phenomenon. The tools being developed in SGM improve our ability to autonomously monitor multiple independent sensors and coordinate reactions to better observe the dynamic phenomena. The SGM system enables users to specify events of interest and how to react when an event is detected. The system monitors streams of data to identify occurrences of the key events previously specified by the scientist/user. When an event occurs, the system autonomously coordinates the execution of the users desired reactions between different sensors. The information can be used to rapidly respond to a variety of fast temporal events. Investigators will no longer have to rely on after-the-fact data analysis to determine what happened. Our paper describes a series of prototype demonstrations that we have developed using SGM and NASA's Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite and Earth Observing Systems Aqua/Terra spacecrafts MODIS instrument. Our demonstrations show the promise of coordinating data from different sources, analyzing the data for a relevant event, autonomously updating and rapidly obtaining a follow-on relevant image. SGM is being used to investigate forest fires, floods and volcanic eruptions. We are now identifying new earth science scenarios that will have more complex SGM reasoning. By developing and testing a prototype in an operational environment, we are also establishing and gathering metrics to gauge the success of automating science campaigns.

Real-Time Agent-Based Modeling Simulation with in-situ Visualization of Complex Biological Systems: A Case Study on Vocal Fold Inflammation and Healing.

PubMed

Seekhao, Nuttiiya; Shung, Caroline; JaJa, Joseph; Mongeau, Luc; Li-Jessen, Nicole Y K

2016-05-01

We present an efficient and scalable scheme for implementing agent-based modeling (ABM) simulation with In Situ visualization of large complex systems on heterogeneous computing platforms. The scheme is designed to make optimal use of the resources available on a heterogeneous platform consisting of a multicore CPU and a GPU, resulting in minimal to no resource idle time. Furthermore, the scheme was implemented under a client-server paradigm that enables remote users to visualize and analyze simulation data as it is being generated at each time step of the model. Performance of a simulation case study of vocal fold inflammation and wound healing with 3.8 million agents shows 35× and 7× speedup in execution time over single-core and multi-core CPU respectively. Each iteration of the model took less than 200 ms to simulate, visualize and send the results to the client. This enables users to monitor the simulation in real-time and modify its course as needed.

SensorDB: a virtual laboratory for the integration, visualization and analysis of varied biological sensor data.

PubMed

Salehi, Ali; Jimenez-Berni, Jose; Deery, David M; Palmer, Doug; Holland, Edward; Rozas-Larraondo, Pablo; Chapman, Scott C; Georgakopoulos, Dimitrios; Furbank, Robert T

2015-01-01

To our knowledge, there is no software or database solution that supports large volumes of biological time series sensor data efficiently and enables data visualization and analysis in real time. Existing solutions for managing data typically use unstructured file systems or relational databases. These systems are not designed to provide instantaneous response to user queries. Furthermore, they do not support rapid data analysis and visualization to enable interactive experiments. In large scale experiments, this behaviour slows research discovery, discourages the widespread sharing and reuse of data that could otherwise inform critical decisions in a timely manner and encourage effective collaboration between groups. In this paper we present SensorDB, a web based virtual laboratory that can manage large volumes of biological time series sensor data while supporting rapid data queries and real-time user interaction. SensorDB is sensor agnostic and uses web-based, state-of-the-art cloud and storage technologies to efficiently gather, analyse and visualize data. Collaboration and data sharing between different agencies and groups is thereby facilitated. SensorDB is available online at http://sensordb.csiro.au.

My care pathways - creating open innovation in healthcare.

PubMed

Lundberg, Nina; Koch, Sabine; Hägglund, Maria; Bolin, Peter; Davoody, Nadia; Eltes, Johan; Jarlman, Olof; Perlich, Anja; Vimarlund, Vivian; Winsnes, Casper

2013-01-01

In this paper we describe initial results from the Swedish innovation project "My Care Pathways" which envisions enabling citizens to track their own health by providing them with online access to their historical, current and prospective future events. We describe an information infrastructure and its base services as well as the use of this solution as an open source platform for open innovation in healthcare. This will facilitate the development of end-user e-services for citizens. We have technically enabled the information infrastructure in close collaboration with decision makers in three Swedish health care regions, and system vendors as well as with National eHealth projects. Close collaboration between heterogeneous actors made implementation in real practice possible. However, a number of challenges, mainly related to legal and business issues, persist when implementing our results. Future work should therefore target the development of business models for sustainable provision of end-user e-services in a public health care system such as the Swedish one. Also, a legal analysis of the development of third party provider (nonhealthcare based) personal health data e-services should be done.

Olelo: a web application for intuitive exploration of biomedical literature

PubMed Central

Niedermeier, Julian; Jankrift, Marcel; Tietböhl, Sören; Stachewicz, Toni; Folkerts, Hendrik; Uflacker, Matthias; Neves, Mariana

2017-01-01

Abstract Researchers usually query the large biomedical literature in PubMed via keywords, logical operators and filters, none of which is very intuitive. Question answering systems are an alternative to keyword searches. They allow questions in natural language as input and results reflect the given type of question, such as short answers and summaries. Few of those systems are available online but they experience drawbacks in terms of long response times and they support a limited amount of question and result types. Additionally, user interfaces are usually restricted to only displaying the retrieved information. For our Olelo web application, we combined biomedical literature and terminologies in a fast in-memory database to enable real-time responses to researchers’ queries. Further, we extended the built-in natural language processing features of the database with question answering and summarization procedures. Combined with a new explorative approach of document filtering and a clean user interface, Olelo enables a fast and intelligent search through the ever-growing biomedical literature. Olelo is available at http://www.hpi.de/plattner/olelo. PMID:28472397

Solving Equations of Multibody Dynamics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jain, Abhinandan; Lim, Christopher

2007-01-01

Darts++ is a computer program for solving the equations of motion of a multibody system or of a multibody model of a dynamic system. It is intended especially for use in dynamical simulations performed in designing and analyzing, and developing software for the control of, complex mechanical systems. Darts++ is based on the Spatial-Operator- Algebra formulation for multibody dynamics. This software reads a description of a multibody system from a model data file, then constructs and implements an efficient algorithm that solves the dynamical equations of the system. The efficiency and, hence, the computational speed is sufficient to make Darts++ suitable for use in realtime closed-loop simulations. Darts++ features an object-oriented software architecture that enables reconfiguration of system topology at run time; in contrast, in related prior software, system topology is fixed during initialization. Darts++ provides an interface to scripting languages, including Tcl and Python, that enable the user to configure and interact with simulation objects at run time.

Facilitating access to information in large documents with an intelligent hypertext system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mathe, Nathalie

1993-01-01

Retrieving specific information from large amounts of documentation is not an easy task. It could be facilitated if information relevant in the current problem solving context could be automatically supplied to the user. As a first step towards this goal, we have developed an intelligent hypertext system called CID (Computer Integrated Documentation) and tested it on the Space Station Freedom requirement documents. The CID system enables integration of various technical documents in a hypertext framework and includes an intelligent context-sensitive indexing and retrieval mechanism. This mechanism utilizes on-line user information requirements and relevance feedback either to reinforce current indexing in case of success or to generate new knowledge in case of failure. This allows the CID system to provide helpful responses, based on previous usage of the documentation, and to improve its performance over time.

An Approach for Quality of Service Management

DTIC Science & Technology

1998-10-01

architecture enables us to quantitatively measure QoS, and to analytically plan and allocate resource. This work was supported in part by the Defense...in their requirements for the rate of services and resources available to them at the time of use of the application systems. Therefore there is an...system should be able to reconcile these different demands to maximize the user’s preference and to make the most effective use of the system. So it

Small Business Innovations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1992-01-01

The purpose of QASE RT is to enable system analysts and software engineers to evaluate performance and reliability implications of design alternatives. The program resulted from two Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) projects. After receiving a description of the system architecture and workload from the user, QASE RT translates the system description into simulation models and executes them. Simulation provides detailed performance evaluation. The results of the evaluations are service and response times, offered load and device utilizations and functional availability.

New Web Services for Broader Access to National Deep Submergence Facility Data Resources Through the Interdisciplinary Earth Data Alliance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ferrini, V. L.; Grange, B.; Morton, J. J.; Soule, S. A.; Carbotte, S. M.; Lehnert, K.

2016-12-01

The National Deep Submergence Facility (NDSF) operates the Human Occupied Vehicle (HOV) Alvin, the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Jason, and the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Sentry. These vehicles are deployed throughout the global oceans to acquire sensor data and physical samples for a variety of interdisciplinary science programs. As part of the EarthCube Integrative Activity Alliance Testbed Project (ATP), new web services were developed to improve access to existing online NDSF data and metadata resources. These services make use of tools and infrastructure developed by the Interdisciplinary Earth Data Alliance (IEDA) and enable programmatic access to metadata and data resources as well as the development of new service-driven user interfaces. The Alvin Frame Grabber and Jason Virtual Van enable the exploration of frame-grabbed images derived from video cameras on NDSF dives. Metadata available for each image includes time and vehicle position, data from environmental sensors, and scientist-generated annotations, and data are organized and accessible by cruise and/or dive. A new FrameGrabber web service and service-driven user interface were deployed to offer integrated access to these data resources through a single API and allows users to search across content curated in both systems. In addition, a new NDSF Dive Metadata web service and service-driven user interface was deployed to provide consolidated access to basic information about each NDSF dive (e.g. vehicle name, dive ID, location, etc), which is important for linking distributed data resources curated in different data systems.

MEMOSys: Bioinformatics platform for genome-scale metabolic models

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background Recent advances in genomic sequencing have enabled the use of genome sequencing in standard biological and biotechnological research projects. The challenge is how to integrate the large amount of data in order to gain novel biological insights. One way to leverage sequence data is to use genome-scale metabolic models. We have therefore designed and implemented a bioinformatics platform which supports the development of such metabolic models. Results MEMOSys (MEtabolic MOdel research and development System) is a versatile platform for the management, storage, and development of genome-scale metabolic models. It supports the development of new models by providing a built-in version control system which offers access to the complete developmental history. Moreover, the integrated web board, the authorization system, and the definition of user roles allow collaborations across departments and institutions. Research on existing models is facilitated by a search system, references to external databases, and a feature-rich comparison mechanism. MEMOSys provides customizable data exchange mechanisms using the SBML format to enable analysis in external tools. The web application is based on the Java EE framework and offers an intuitive user interface. It currently contains six annotated microbial metabolic models. Conclusions We have developed a web-based system designed to provide researchers a novel application facilitating the management and development of metabolic models. The system is freely available at http://www.icbi.at/MEMOSys. PMID:21276275

Smart energy management system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Desai, Aniruddha; Singh, Jugdutt

2010-04-01

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

Real Time Baseball Database

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fukue, Yasuhiro

The author describes the system outline, features and operations of "Nikkan Sports Realtime Basaball Database" which was developed and operated by Nikkan Sports Shimbun, K. K. The system enables to input numerical data of professional baseball games as they proceed simultaneously, and execute data updating at realtime, just-in-time. Other than serving as supporting tool for prepareing newspapers it is also available for broadcasting media, general users through NTT dial Q2 and others.

Clinical benchmarking enabled by the digital health record.

PubMed

Ricciardi, T N; Masarie, F E; Middleton, B

2001-01-01

Office-based physicians are often ill equipped to report aggregate information about their patients and practice of medicine, since their practices have relied upon paper records for the management of clinical information. Physicians who do not have access to large-scale information technology support can now benefit from low-cost clinical documentation and reporting tools. We developed a hosted clinical data mart for users of a web-enabled charting tool, targeting the solo or small group practice. The system uses secure Java Server Pages with a dashboard-like menu to provide point-and-click access to simple reports such as case mix, medications, utilization, productivity, and patient demographics in its first release. The system automatically normalizes user-entered clinical terms to enhance the quality of structured data. Individual providers benefit from rapid patient identification for disease management, quality of care self-assessments, drug recalls, and compliance with clinical guidelines. The system provides knowledge integration by linking to trusted sources of online medical information in context. Information derived from the clinical record is clinically more accurate than billing data. Provider self-assessment and benchmarking empowers physicians, who may resent "being profiled" by external entities. In contrast to large-scale data warehouse projects, the current system delivers immediate value to individual physicians who choose an electronic clinical documentation tool.

A novel methodology for estimating upper limits of major cost drivers for profitable conceptual launch system architectures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rhodes, Russel E.; Byrd, Raymond J.

1998-01-01

This paper presents a ``back of the envelope'' technique for fast, timely, on-the-spot, assessment of affordability (profitability) of commercial space transportation architectural concepts. The tool presented here is not intended to replace conventional, detailed costing methodology. The process described enables ``quick look'' estimations and assumptions to effectively determine whether an initial concept (with its attendant cost estimating line items) provides focus for major leapfrog improvement. The Cost Charts Users Guide provides a generic sample tutorial, building an approximate understanding of the basic launch system cost factors and their representative magnitudes. This process will enable the user to develop a net ``cost (and price) per payload-mass unit to orbit'' incorporating a variety of significant cost drivers, supplemental to basic vehicle cost estimates. If acquisition cost and recurring cost factors (as a function of cost per payload-mass unit to orbit) do not meet the predetermined system-profitability goal, the concept in question will be clearly seen as non-competitive. Multiple analytical approaches, and applications of a variety of interrelated assumptions, can be examined in a quick, (on-the-spot) cost approximation analysis as this tool has inherent flexibility. The technique will allow determination of concept conformance to system objectives.

Managing Sustainable Data Infrastructures: The Gestalt of EOSDIS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Behnke, J.; Lindsay, F. E.; Lowe, D. R.; Mitchell, A. E.; Lynnes, C.

2016-12-01

NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) has been a central component of the NASA Earth observation program since the 1990's. The data collected by NASA's remote sensing instruments represent a significant public investment in research. EOSDIS provides free and open access to this data to a worldwide public research community. From the very beginning, EOSDIS was conceived as a system built on partnerships between NASA Centers, US agencies and academia. EOSDIS manages a wide range of Earth science discipline data that include cryosphere, land cover change, polar processes, field campaigns, ocean surface, digital elevation, atmosphere dynamics and composition, and inter-disciplinary research, among many others. Over the years, EOSDIS has evolved to support increasingly complex and diverse NASA Earth Science data collections. EOSDIS epitomizes a System of Systems, whose many varied and distributed parts are integrated into a single, highly functional organized science data system. A distributed architecture was adopted to ensure discipline-specific support for the science data, while also leveraging standards and establishing policies and tools to enable interdisciplinary research, and analysis across multiple scientific instruments. The EOSDIS is composed of system elements such as geographically distributed archive centers used to manage the stewardship of data. The infrastructure consists of underlying capabilities/connections that enable the primary system elements to function together. For example, one key infrastructure component is the common metadata repository, which enables discovery of all data within the EOSDIS system. . EOSDIS employs processes and standards to ensure partners can work together effectively, and provide coherent services to users. While the separation into domain-specific science archives helps to manage the wide variety of missions and datasets, the common services and practices serve to knit the overall system together into a coherent whole, with sharing of data, metadata, information and software making EOSDIS more than the simple sum of its parts. This paper will describe those parts and how the whole system works together to deliver Earth science data to millions of users.

KML-Based Access and Visualization of High Resolution LiDAR Topography

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Crosby, C. J.; Blair, J. L.; Nandigam, V.; Memon, A.; Baru, C.; Arrowsmith, J. R.

2008-12-01

Over the past decade, there has been dramatic growth in the acquisition of LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) high-resolution topographic data for earth science studies. Capable of providing digital elevation models (DEMs) more than an order of magnitude higher resolution than those currently available, LiDAR data allow earth scientists to study the processes that contribute to landscape evolution at resolutions not previously possible yet essential for their appropriate representation. These datasets also have significant implications for earth science education and outreach because they provide an accurate representation of landforms and geologic hazards. Unfortunately, the massive volume of data produced by LiDAR mapping technology can be a barrier to their use. To make these data available to a larger user community, we have been exploring the use of Keyhole Markup Language (KML) and Google Earth to provide access to LiDAR data products and visualizations. LiDAR digital elevation models are typically delivered in a tiled format that lends itself well to a KML-based distribution system. For LiDAR datasets hosted in the GEON OpenTopography Portal (www.opentopography.org) we have developed KML files that show the extent of available LiDAR DEMs and provide direct access to the data products. Users interact with these KML files to explore the extent of the available data and are able to select DEMs that correspond to their area of interest. Selection of a tile loads a download that the user can then save locally for analysis in their software of choice. The GEON topography system also has tools available that allow users to generate custom DEMs from LiDAR point cloud data. This system is powerful because it enables users to access massive volumes of raw LiDAR data and to produce DEM products that are optimized to their science applications. We have developed a web service that converts the custom DEM models produced by the system to a hillshade that is delivered to the user as a KML groundoverlay. The KML product enables users to quickly and easily visualize the DEMs in Google Earth. By combining internet-based LiDAR data processing with KML visualization products, users are able to execute computationally intensive data sub-setting, processing and visualization without having local access to computing resources, GIS software, or data processing expertise. Finally, GEON has partnered with the US Geological Survey to generate region-dependant network linked KML visualizations for large volumes of LiDAR derived hillshades of the Northern San Andreas fault system. These data, acquired by the NSF-funded GeoEarthScope project, offer an unprecedented look at active faults in the northern portion of the San Andreas system. Through the region-dependant network linked KML, users can seamlessly access 1 meter hillshades (both 315 and 45 degree sun angles) for the full 1400 square kilometer dataset, without downloading huge volumes of data. This type of data access has great utility for users ranging from earthquake scientists to K-12 educators who wish to introduce cutting edge real world data into their earth science lessons.

Design Dimensions Enabling Divergent Behaviour across Physical, Digital, and Social Library Interfaces

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Björneborn, Lennart

What design dimensions across physical, digital, and social library interfaces may enable and trigger users to find more information resources than planned or known in advance? The paper outlines a conceptual framework with libraries as integrative interfaces across physical, digital, and social affordances and users that mix convergent (goal-directed) and divergent (exploratory) information behaviour. Ten design dimensions that enable and trigger divergent behaviour are outlined. Implications for persuasive design are discussed.

Closha: bioinformatics workflow system for the analysis of massive sequencing data.

PubMed

Ko, GunHwan; Kim, Pan-Gyu; Yoon, Jongcheol; Han, Gukhee; Park, Seong-Jin; Song, Wangho; Lee, Byungwook

2018-02-19

While next-generation sequencing (NGS) costs have fallen in recent years, the cost and complexity of computation remain substantial obstacles to the use of NGS in bio-medical care and genomic research. The rapidly increasing amounts of data available from the new high-throughput methods have made data processing infeasible without automated pipelines. The integration of data and analytic resources into workflow systems provides a solution to the problem by simplifying the task of data analysis. To address this challenge, we developed a cloud-based workflow management system, Closha, to provide fast and cost-effective analysis of massive genomic data. We implemented complex workflows making optimal use of high-performance computing clusters. Closha allows users to create multi-step analyses using drag and drop functionality and to modify the parameters of pipeline tools. Users can also import the Galaxy pipelines into Closha. Closha is a hybrid system that enables users to use both analysis programs providing traditional tools and MapReduce-based big data analysis programs simultaneously in a single pipeline. Thus, the execution of analytics algorithms can be parallelized, speeding up the whole process. We also developed a high-speed data transmission solution, KoDS, to transmit a large amount of data at a fast rate. KoDS has a file transfer speed of up to 10 times that of normal FTP and HTTP. The computer hardware for Closha is 660 CPU cores and 800 TB of disk storage, enabling 500 jobs to run at the same time. Closha is a scalable, cost-effective, and publicly available web service for large-scale genomic data analysis. Closha supports the reliable and highly scalable execution of sequencing analysis workflows in a fully automated manner. Closha provides a user-friendly interface to all genomic scientists to try to derive accurate results from NGS platform data. The Closha cloud server is freely available for use from http://closha.kobic.re.kr/ .

Science Gateways, Scientific Workflows and Open Community Software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pierce, M. E.; Marru, S.

2014-12-01

Science gateways and scientific workflows occupy different ends of the spectrum of user-focused cyberinfrastructure. Gateways, sometimes called science portals, provide a way for enabling large numbers of users to take advantage of advanced computing resources (supercomputers, advanced storage systems, science clouds) by providing Web and desktop interfaces and supporting services. Scientific workflows, at the other end of the spectrum, support advanced usage of cyberinfrastructure that enable "power users" to undertake computational experiments that are not easily done through the usual mechanisms (managing simulations across multiple sites, for example). Despite these different target communities, gateways and workflows share many similarities and can potentially be accommodated by the same software system. For example, pipelines to process InSAR imagery sets or to datamine GPS time series data are workflows. The results and the ability to make downstream products may be made available through a gateway, and power users may want to provide their own custom pipelines. In this abstract, we discuss our efforts to build an open source software system, Apache Airavata, that can accommodate both gateway and workflow use cases. Our approach is general, and we have applied the software to problems in a number of scientific domains. In this talk, we discuss our applications to usage scenarios specific to earth science, focusing on earthquake physics examples drawn from the QuakSim.org and GeoGateway.org efforts. We also examine the role of the Apache Software Foundation's open community model as a way to build up common commmunity codes that do not depend upon a single "owner" to sustain. Pushing beyond open source software, we also see the need to provide gateways and workflow systems as cloud services. These services centralize operations, provide well-defined programming interfaces, scale elastically, and have global-scale fault tolerance. We discuss our work providing Apache Airavata as a hosted service to provide these features.

Multiscale Hy3S: hybrid stochastic simulation for supercomputers.

PubMed

Salis, Howard; Sotiropoulos, Vassilios; Kaznessis, Yiannis N

2006-02-24

Stochastic simulation has become a useful tool to both study natural biological systems and design new synthetic ones. By capturing the intrinsic molecular fluctuations of "small" systems, these simulations produce a more accurate picture of single cell dynamics, including interesting phenomena missed by deterministic methods, such as noise-induced oscillations and transitions between stable states. However, the computational cost of the original stochastic simulation algorithm can be high, motivating the use of hybrid stochastic methods. Hybrid stochastic methods partition the system into multiple subsets and describe each subset as a different representation, such as a jump Markov, Poisson, continuous Markov, or deterministic process. By applying valid approximations and self-consistently merging disparate descriptions, a method can be considerably faster, while retaining accuracy. In this paper, we describe Hy3S, a collection of multiscale simulation programs. Building on our previous work on developing novel hybrid stochastic algorithms, we have created the Hy3S software package to enable scientists and engineers to both study and design extremely large well-mixed biological systems with many thousands of reactions and chemical species. We have added adaptive stochastic numerical integrators to permit the robust simulation of dynamically stiff biological systems. In addition, Hy3S has many useful features, including embarrassingly parallelized simulations with MPI; special discrete events, such as transcriptional and translation elongation and cell division; mid-simulation perturbations in both the number of molecules of species and reaction kinetic parameters; combinatorial variation of both initial conditions and kinetic parameters to enable sensitivity analysis; use of NetCDF optimized binary format to quickly read and write large datasets; and a simple graphical user interface, written in Matlab, to help users create biological systems and analyze data. We demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of Hy3S with examples, including a large-scale system benchmark and a complex bistable biochemical network with positive feedback. The software itself is open-sourced under the GPL license and is modular, allowing users to modify it for their own purposes. Hy3S is a powerful suite of simulation programs for simulating the stochastic dynamics of networks of biochemical reactions. Its first public version enables computational biologists to more efficiently investigate the dynamics of realistic biological systems.

The Wildland Fire Emissions Information System: Providing information for carbon cycle studies with open source geospatial tools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

French, N. H.; Erickson, T.; McKenzie, D.

2008-12-01

A major goal of the North American Carbon Program is to resolve uncertainties in understanding and managing the carbon cycle of North America. As carbon modeling tools become more comprehensive and spatially oriented, accurate datasets to spatially quantify carbon emissions from fire are needed, and these data resources need to be accessible to users for decision-making. Under a new NASA Carbon Cycle Science project, Drs. Nancy French and Tyler Erickson, of the Michigan Technological University, Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI), are teaming with specialists with the USDA Forest Service Fire and Environmental Research Applications (FERA) team to provide information for mapping fire-derived carbon emissions to users. The project focus includes development of a web-based system to provide spatially resolved fire emissions estimates for North America in a user-friendly environment. The web-based Decision Support System will be based on a variety of open source technologies. The Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCS) raster map of fuels and MODIS-derived burned area vector maps will be processed using the Geographic Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) and OGR Simple Features Library. Tabular and spatial project data will be stored in a PostgreSQL/PostGIS, a spatially enabled relational database server. The browser-based user interface will be created using the Django web page framework to allow user input for the decision support system. The OpenLayers mapping framework will be used to provide users with interactive maps within the browser. In addition, the data products will be made available in standard open data formats such as KML, to allow for easy integration into other spatial models and data systems.

Tactile Data Entry System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Adams, Richard J.

2015-01-01

The patent-pending Glove-Enabled Computer Operations (GECO) design leverages extravehicular activity (EVA) glove design features as platforms for instrumentation and tactile feedback, enabling the gloves to function as human-computer interface devices. Flexible sensors in each finger enable control inputs that can be mapped to any number of functions (e.g., a mouse click, a keyboard strike, or a button press). Tracking of hand motion is interpreted alternatively as movement of a mouse (change in cursor position on a graphical user interface) or a change in hand position on a virtual keyboard. Programmable vibro-tactile actuators aligned with each finger enrich the interface by creating the haptic sensations associated with control inputs, such as recoil of a button press.

Uncovering the essential links in online commercial networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zeng, Wei; Fang, Meiling; Shao, Junming; Shang, Mingsheng

2016-09-01

Recommender systems are designed to effectively support individuals' decision-making process on various web sites. It can be naturally represented by a user-object bipartite network, where a link indicates that a user has collected an object. Recently, research on the information backbone has attracted researchers' interests, which is a sub-network with fewer nodes and links but carrying most of the relevant information. With the backbone, a system can generate satisfactory recommenda- tions while saving much computing resource. In this paper, we propose an enhanced topology-aware method to extract the information backbone in the bipartite network mainly based on the information of neighboring users and objects. Our backbone extraction method enables the recommender systems achieve more than 90% of the accuracy of the top-L recommendation, however, consuming only 20% links. The experimental results show that our method outperforms the alternative backbone extraction methods. Moreover, the structure of the information backbone is studied in detail. Finally, we highlight that the information backbone is one of the most important properties of the bipartite network, with which one can significantly improve the efficiency of the recommender system.

An interactive web-based system using cloud for large-scale visual analytics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kaseb, Ahmed S.; Berry, Everett; Rozolis, Erik; McNulty, Kyle; Bontrager, Seth; Koh, Youngsol; Lu, Yung-Hsiang; Delp, Edward J.

2015-03-01

Network cameras have been growing rapidly in recent years. Thousands of public network cameras provide tremendous amount of visual information about the environment. There is a need to analyze this valuable information for a better understanding of the world around us. This paper presents an interactive web-based system that enables users to execute image analysis and computer vision techniques on a large scale to analyze the data from more than 65,000 worldwide cameras. This paper focuses on how to use both the system's website and Application Programming Interface (API). Given a computer program that analyzes a single frame, the user needs to make only slight changes to the existing program and choose the cameras to analyze. The system handles the heterogeneity of the geographically distributed cameras, e.g. different brands, resolutions. The system allocates and manages Amazon EC2 and Windows Azure cloud resources to meet the analysis requirements.

Analysis of OFDMA receiver with carrier frequency offset and common carrier frequency offset (CCFO)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gauni, Sabitha; Kumar, R.

2013-01-01

The technique of Orthogonal frequency multiplexing (OFDM) is used to mitigate the multipath effects and to achieve better data rate. When these systems are extended to enable multiple access wireless multimedia communications they are more beneficial. The performance of the OFDM systems degrades with frequency offset and phase offset. The OFDM multiple access (OFDMA) technology allots groups of the OFDM subcarriers allocated to different users for transmission. In this paper we study the interference effects of the individual subcarriers with the neighbouring subcarriers which also plays a role in the system degradation is termed as Multiuser Interference (MUI). The effect of Carrier frequency offset (CFO) on these systems is also taken in account. There are conventional CFO compensation methods for OFDMA systems the CFOs are usually compensated by directly eliminating the intercarrier interference (ICI) caused by the residual CFOs for individual users.

Fundamental Data Standards for Science Data System Interoperability and Data Correlation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hughes, J. Steven; Gopala Krishna, Barla; Rye, Elizabeth; Crichton, Daniel

The advent of the Web and languages such as XML have brought an explosion of online science data repositories and the promises of correlated data and interoperable systems. However there have been relatively few successes in meeting the expectations of science users in the internet age. For example a Google-like search for images of Mars will return many highly-derived and appropriately tagged images but largely ignore the majority of images in most online image repositories. Once retrieved, users are further frustrated by poor data descriptions, arcane formats, and badly organized ancillary information. A wealth of research indicates that shared information models are needed to enable system interoperability and data correlation. However, at a more fundamental level, data correlation and system interoperability are dependant on a relatively few shared data standards. A com-mon data dictionary standard, for example, allows the controlled vocabulary used in a science repository to be shared with potential collaborators. Common data registry and product iden-tification standards enable systems to efficiently find, locate, and retrieve data products and their metadata from remote repositories. Information content standards define categories of descriptive data that help make the data products scientifically useful to users who were not part of the original team that produced the data. The Planetary Data System (PDS) has a plan to move the PDS to a fully online, federated system. This plan addresses new demands on the system including increasing data volume, numbers of missions, and complexity of missions. A key component of this plan is the upgrade of the PDS Data Standards. The adoption of the core PDS data standards by the International Planetary Data Alliance (IPDA) adds the element of international cooperation to the plan. This presentation will provide an overview of the fundamental data standards being adopted by the PDS that transcend science domains and that will help to meet the PDS's and IPDA's system interoperability and data correlation requirements.

Enabling plant synthetic biology through genome engineering.

PubMed

Baltes, Nicholas J; Voytas, Daniel F

2015-02-01

Synthetic biology seeks to create new biological systems, including user-designed plants and plant cells. These systems can be employed for a variety of purposes, ranging from producing compounds of industrial or therapeutic value, to reducing crop losses by altering cellular responses to pathogens or climate change. To realize the full potential of plant synthetic biology, techniques are required that provide control over the genetic code - enabling targeted modifications to DNA sequences within living plant cells. Such control is now within reach owing to recent advances in the use of sequence-specific nucleases to precisely engineer genomes. We discuss here the enormous potential provided by genome engineering for plant synthetic biology. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Enabling the Differently-Abled

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pal, Sonali

2009-01-01

It is perhaps unfortunate that enabling technologies do not come with an "ability warning", as they generally require the user to already have acquired a certain level of IT skills, in a similar way that online courses require users to have a certain level of prior IT knowledge. Accessing a computer and making the most of e-learning…

User-composable Electronic Health Record Improves Efficiency of Clinician Data Viewing for Patient Case Appraisal: A Mixed-Methods Study.

PubMed

Senathirajah, Yalini; Kaufman, David; Bakken, Suzanne

2016-01-01

Challenges in the design of electronic health records (EHRs) include designing usable systems that must meet the complex, rapidly changing, and high-stakes information needs of clinicians. The ability to move and assemble elements together on the same page has significant human-computer interaction (HCI) and efficiency advantages, and can mitigate the problems of negotiating multiple fixed screens and the associated cognitive burdens. We compare MedWISE-a novel EHR that supports user-composable displays-with a conventional EHR in terms of the number of repeat views of data elements for patient case appraisal. The study used mixed-methods for examination of clinical data viewing in four patient cases. The study compared use of an experimental user-composable EHR with use of a conventional EHR, for case appraisal. Eleven clinicians used a user-composable EHR in a case appraisal task in the laboratory setting. This was compared with log file analysis of the same patient cases in the conventional EHR. We investigated the number of repeat views of the same clinical information during a session and across these two contexts, and compared them using Fisher's exact test. There was a significant difference (p<.0001) in proportion of cases with repeat data element viewing between the user-composable EHR (14.6 percent) and conventional EHR (72.6 percent). Users of conventional EHRs repeatedly viewed the same information elements in the same session, as revealed by log files. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that conventional systems require that the user view many screens and remember information between screens, causing the user to forget information and to have to access the information a second time. Other mechanisms (such as reduction in navigation over a population of users due to interface sharing, and information selection) may also contribute to increased efficiency in the experimental system. Systems that allow a composable approach that enables the user to gather together on the same screen any desired information elements may confer cognitive support benefits that can increase productive use of systems by reducing fragmented information. By reducing cognitive overload, it can also enhance the user experience.

Mission Control Technologies: A New Way of Designing and Evolving Mission Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Trimble, Jay; Walton, Joan; Saddler, Harry

2006-01-01

Current mission operations systems are built as a collection of monolithic software applications. Each application serves the needs of a specific user base associated with a discipline or functional role. Built to accomplish specific tasks, each application embodies specialized functional knowledge and has its own data storage, data models, programmatic interfaces, user interfaces, and customized business logic. In effect, each application creates its own walled-off environment. While individual applications are sometimes reused across multiple missions, it is expensive and time consuming to maintain these systems, and both costly and risky to upgrade them in the light of new requirements or modify them for new purposes. It is even more expensive to achieve new integrated activities across a set of monolithic applications. These problems impact the lifecycle cost (especially design, development, testing, training, maintenance, and integration) of each new mission operations system. They also inhibit system innovation and evolution. This in turn hinders NASA's ability to adopt new operations paradigms, including increasingly automated space systems, such as autonomous rovers, autonomous onboard crew systems, and integrated control of human and robotic missions. Hence, in order to achieve NASA's vision affordably and reliably, we need to consider and mature new ways to build mission control systems that overcome the problems inherent in systems of monolithic applications. The keys to the solution are modularity and interoperability. Modularity will increase extensibility (evolution), reusability, and maintainability. Interoperability will enable composition of larger systems out of smaller parts, and enable the construction of new integrated activities that tie together, at a deep level, the capabilities of many of the components. Modularity and interoperability together contribute to flexibility. The Mission Control Technologies (MCT) Project, a collaboration of multiple NASA Centers, led by NASA Ames Research Center, is building a framework to enable software to be assembled from flexible collections of components and services.

A User Study: Keyboard and Applications to Simplify Smartphone Adoption for Seniors.

PubMed

Austad, Hanne O; Liverud, Anders E; Chan, Richard; Røhne, Mette

2017-01-01

The aim of the user study was to evaluate how the developed assistive physical keyboard, the Ezi-PAD, and integrated senior friendly applications, can encourage non-smartphone seniors to start using the smartphone and enable senior smartphone users to continue using a smartphone in spite of increasing motoric or visual impairment. A number of seniors with different experience and impairment, aged 64 to 86, were equipped with a smartphone and an Ezi-PAD assembly. After basic training, their use of the smartphone was monitored for up to 2 months. Five out of nine participants used the system for 2 months, and found the Ezi-PAD easy to use. The senior friendly applications gave extra utilitarian value to the phone.

MiRTE: Mixed Reality Triage and Evacuation game for Mass Casualty information systems design, testing and training.

PubMed

Yu, Xunyi; Ganz, Aura

2011-01-01

In this paper we introduce a Mixed Reality Triage and Evacuation game, MiRTE, that is used in the development, testing and training of Mass Casualty Incident (MCI) information systems for first responders. Using the Source game engine from Valve software, MiRTE creates immersive virtual environments to simulate various incident scenarios, and enables interactions between multiple players/first responders. What distinguishes it from a pure computer simulation game is that it can interface with external mass casualty incident management systems, such as DIORAMA. The game will enable system developers to specify technical requirements of underlying technology, and test different alternatives of design. After the information system hardware and software are completed, the game can simulate various algorithms such as localization technologies, and interface with an actual user interface on PCs and Smartphones. We implemented and tested the game with the DIORAMA system.

A Compositional Relevance Model for Adaptive Information Retrieval

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mathe, Nathalie; Chen, James; Lu, Henry, Jr. (Technical Monitor)

1994-01-01

There is a growing need for rapid and effective access to information in large electronic documentation systems. Access can be facilitated if information relevant in the current problem solving context can be automatically supplied to the user. This includes information relevant to particular user profiles, tasks being performed, and problems being solved. However most of this knowledge on contextual relevance is not found within the contents of documents, and current hypermedia tools do not provide any easy mechanism to let users add this knowledge to their documents. We propose a compositional relevance network to automatically acquire the context in which previous information was found relevant. The model records information on the relevance of references based on user feedback for specific queries and contexts. It also generalizes such information to derive relevant references for similar queries and contexts. This model lets users filter information by context of relevance, build personalized views of documents over time, and share their views with other users. It also applies to any type of multimedia information. Compared to other approaches, it is less costly and doesn't require any a priori statistical computation, nor an extended training period. It is currently being implemented into the Computer Integrated Documentation system which enables integration of various technical documents in a hypertext framework.

Modeling and evaluating user behavior in exploratory visual analysis

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

Reda, Khairi; Johnson, Andrew E.; Papka, Michael E.

Empirical evaluation methods for visualizations have traditionally focused on assessing the outcome of the visual analytic process as opposed to characterizing how that process unfolds. There are only a handful of methods that can be used to systematically study how people use visualizations, making it difficult for researchers to capture and characterize the subtlety of cognitive and interaction behaviors users exhibit during visual analysis. To validate and improve visualization design, however, it is important for researchers to be able to assess and understand how users interact with visualization systems under realistic scenarios. This paper presents a methodology for modeling andmore » evaluating the behavior of users in exploratory visual analysis. We model visual exploration using a Markov chain process comprising transitions between mental, interaction, and computational states. These states and the transitions between them can be deduced from a variety of sources, including verbal transcripts, videos and audio recordings, and log files. This model enables the evaluator to characterize the cognitive and computational processes that are essential to insight acquisition in exploratory visual analysis, and reconstruct the dynamics of interaction between the user and the visualization system. We illustrate this model with two exemplar user studies, and demonstrate the qualitative and quantitative analytical tools it affords.« less

Extraction of Multilayered Social Networks from Activity Data

PubMed Central

Bródka, Piotr; Kazienko, Przemysław; Gaworecki, Jarosław

2014-01-01

The data gathered in all kinds of web-based systems, which enable users to interact with each other, provides an opportunity to extract social networks that consist of people and relationships between them. The emerging structures are very complex due to the number and type of discovered connections. In web-based systems, the characteristic element of each interaction between users is that there is always an object that serves as a communication medium. This can be, for example, an e-mail sent from one user to another or post at the forum authored by one user and commented on by others. Based on these objects and activities that users perform towards them, different kinds of relationships can be identified and extracted. Additional challenge arises from the fact that hierarchies can exist between objects; for example, a forum consists of one or more groups of topics, and each of them contains topics that finally include posts. In this paper, we propose a new method for creation of multilayered social network based on the data about users activities towards different types of objects between which the hierarchy exists. Due to the flattening, preprocessing procedure of new layers and new relationships in the multilayered social network can be identified and analysed. PMID:25105159

Motion-sensor fusion-based gesture recognition and its VLSI architecture design for mobile devices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhu, Wenping; Liu, Leibo; Yin, Shouyi; Hu, Siqi; Tang, Eugene Y.; Wei, Shaojun

2014-05-01

With the rapid proliferation of smartphones and tablets, various embedded sensors are incorporated into these platforms to enable multimodal human-computer interfaces. Gesture recognition, as an intuitive interaction approach, has been extensively explored in the mobile computing community. However, most gesture recognition implementations by now are all user-dependent and only rely on accelerometer. In order to achieve competitive accuracy, users are required to hold the devices in predefined manner during the operation. In this paper, a high-accuracy human gesture recognition system is proposed based on multiple motion sensor fusion. Furthermore, to reduce the energy overhead resulted from frequent sensor sampling and data processing, a high energy-efficient VLSI architecture implemented on a Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA board is also proposed. Compared with the pure software implementation, approximately 45 times speed-up is achieved while operating at 20 MHz. The experiments show that the average accuracy for 10 gestures achieves 93.98% for user-independent case and 96.14% for user-dependent case when subjects hold the device randomly during completing the specified gestures. Although a few percent lower than the conventional best result, it still provides competitive accuracy acceptable for practical usage. Most importantly, the proposed system allows users to hold the device randomly during operating the predefined gestures, which substantially enhances the user experience.

A Formal Approach to Domain-Oriented Software Design Environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lowry, Michael; Philpot, Andrew; Pressburger, Thomas; Underwood, Ian; Lum, Henry, Jr. (Technical Monitor)

1994-01-01

This paper describes a formal approach to domain-oriented software design environments, based on declarative domain theories, formal specifications, and deductive program synthesis. A declarative domain theory defines the semantics of a domain-oriented specification language and its relationship to implementation-level subroutines. Formal specification development and reuse is made accessible to end-users through an intuitive graphical interface that guides them in creating diagrams denoting formal specifications. The diagrams also serve to document the specifications. Deductive program synthesis ensures that end-user specifications are correctly implemented. AMPHION has been applied to the domain of solar system kinematics through the development of a declarative domain theory, which includes an axiomatization of JPL's SPICELIB subroutine library. Testing over six months with planetary scientists indicates that AMPHION's interactive specification acquisition paradigm enables users to develop, modify, and reuse specifications at least an order of magnitude more rapidly than manual program development. Furthermore, AMPHION synthesizes one to two page programs consisting of calls to SPICELIB subroutines from these specifications in just a few minutes. Test results obtained by metering AMPHION's deductive program synthesis component are examined. AMPHION has been installed at JPL and is currently undergoing further refinement in preparation for distribution to hundreds of SPICELIB users worldwide. Current work to support end-user customization of AMPHION's specification acquisition subsystem is briefly discussed, as well as future work to enable domain-expert creation of new AMPHION applications through development of suitable domain theories.

Enabling NVM for Data-Intensive Scientific Services

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

Carns, Philip; Jenkins, John; Seo, Sangmin

Specialized, transient data services are playing an increasingly prominent role in data-intensive scientific computing. These services offer flexible, on-demand pairing of applications with storage hardware using semantics that are optimized for the problem domain. Concurrent with this trend, upcoming scientific computing and big data systems will be deployed with emerging NVM technology to achieve the highest possible price/productivity ratio. Clearly, therefore, we must develop techniques to facilitate the confluence of specialized data services and NVM technology. In this work we explore how to enable the composition of NVM resources within transient distributed services while still retaining their essential performance characteristics.more » Our approach involves eschewing the conventional distributed file system model and instead projecting NVM devices as remote microservices that leverage user-level threads, RPC services, RMA-enabled network transports, and persistent memory libraries in order to maximize performance. We describe a prototype system that incorporates these concepts, evaluate its performance for key workloads on an exemplar system, and discuss how the system can be leveraged as a component of future data-intensive architectures.« less

ICAROUS - Integrated Configurable Algorithms for Reliable Operations Of Unmanned Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Consiglio, María; Muñoz, César; Hagen, George; Narkawicz, Anthony; Balachandran, Swee

2016-01-01

NASA's Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) project aims at enabling near-term, safe operations of small UAS vehicles in uncontrolled airspace, i.e., Class G airspace. A far-term goal of UTM research and development is to accommodate the expected rise in small UAS traffic density throughout the National Airspace System (NAS) at low altitudes for beyond visual line-of-sight operations. This paper describes a new capability referred to as ICAROUS (Integrated Configurable Algorithms for Reliable Operations of Unmanned Systems), which is being developed under the UTM project. ICAROUS is a software architecture comprised of highly assured algorithms for building safety-centric, autonomous, unmanned aircraft applications. Central to the development of the ICAROUS algorithms is the use of well-established formal methods to guarantee higher levels of safety assurance by monitoring and bounding the behavior of autonomous systems. The core autonomy-enabling capabilities in ICAROUS include constraint conformance monitoring and contingency control functions. ICAROUS also provides a highly configurable user interface that enables the modular integration of mission-specific software components.

ICAROUS: Integrated Configurable Architecture for Unmanned Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Consiglio, Maria C.

2016-01-01

NASA's Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) project aims at enabling near-term, safe operations of small UAS vehicles in uncontrolled airspace, i.e., Class G airspace. A far-term goal of UTM research and development is to accommodate the expected rise in small UAS traffic density throughout the National Airspace System (NAS) at low altitudes for beyond visual line-of-sight operations. This video describes a new capability referred to as ICAROUS (Integrated Configurable Algorithms for Reliable Operations of Unmanned Systems), which is being developed under the auspices of the UTM project. ICAROUS is a software architecture comprised of highly assured algorithms for building safety-centric, autonomous, unmanned aircraft applications. Central to the development of the ICAROUS algorithms is the use of well-established formal methods to guarantee higher levels of safety assurance by monitoring and bounding the behavior of autonomous systems. The core autonomy-enabling capabilities in ICAROUS include constraint conformance monitoring and autonomous detect and avoid functions. ICAROUS also provides a highly configurable user interface that enables the modular integration of mission-specific software components.

GLOBE Program's Data and Information System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Memarsadeghi, N.; Overoye, D.; Lewis, C.; Butler, D. M.; Ramapriyan, H.

2016-12-01

"The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program is an international science and education program that provides students and the public worldwide with the opportunity to participate in data collection and the scientific process, and contribute meaningfully to our understanding of the Earth system and global environment" (www.globe.gov ). GLOBE Program has a rich community of students, teachers, scientists, trainers, country coordinators, and alumni across the world, technologically spanning both high- and low-end users. There are 117 GLOBE participating countries from around the world. GLOBE's Science data protocols and educational material span atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, soil (pedosphere), and Earth as a System scientific areas (http://www.globe.gov/do-globe/globe-teachers-guide). GLOBE's Data and Information System (DIS), when first introduced in 1995, was a cutting edge system that was well-received and innovative for its time. However, internet-based technologies have changed dramatically since then. Projects to modernize and evolve the GLOBE DIS started in 2010, resulting in today's GLOBE DIS. The current GLOBE DIS is now built upon the latest information technologies and is engaging and supporting the user community with advanced tools and services to further the goals of the GLOBE Program. GLOBE DIS consists of over 20 years of observation and training data, a rich set of software systems and applications for data entry, visualization, and analysis, as well as tools for training users in various science data protocols and enabling collaborations among members of the international user community. We present the existing GLOBE DIS, application technologies, and lessons learned for their operations, development, sustaining engineering, and data management practices. Examples of GLOBE DIS technologies include Liferay System for integrated user and content management, a Postgress/PostGIS database, Ruby on Rails for Data Entry systems, and OpenGeo for Visualization system.

A simple and reliable health monitoring system for shoulder health: proposal.

PubMed

Liu, Shuo-Fang; Lee, Yann-Long

2014-02-26

The current health care system is complex and inefficient. A simple and reliable health monitoring system that can help patients perform medical self-diagnosis is seldom readily available. Because the medical system is vast and complex, it has hampered or delayed patients in seeking medical advice or treatment in a timely manner, which may potentially affect the patient's chances of recovery, especially those with severe sicknesses such as cancer, and heart disease. The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology in designing a simple, low cost, Internet-based health-screening platform. This health-screening platform will enable patients to perform medical self-diagnosis over the Internet. Historical data has shown the importance of early detection to ensure patients receive proper treatment and speedy recovery. The platform is designed with special emphasis on the user interface. Standard Web-based user-interface design is adopted so the user feels ease to operate in a familiar Web environment. In addition, graphics such as charts and graphs are used generously to help users visualize and understand the result of the diagnostic. The system is developed using hypertext preprocessor (PHP) programming language. One important feature of this system platform is that it is built to be a stand-alone platform, which tends to have better user privacy security. The prototype system platform was developed by the National Cheng Kung University Ergonomic and Design Laboratory. The completed prototype of this system platform was submitted to the Taiwan Medical Institute for evaluation. The evaluation of 120 participants showed that this platform system is a highly effective tool in health-screening applications, and has great potential for improving the medical care quality for the general public.

Design and Implementation of a Set-Top Box-Based Homecare System Using Hybrid Cloud.

PubMed

Lin, Bor-Shing; Hsiao, Pei-Chi; Cheng, Po-Hsun; Lee, I-Jung; Jan, Gene Eu

2015-11-01

Telemedicine has become a prevalent topic in recent years, and several telemedicine systems have been proposed; however, such systems are an unsuitable fit for the daily requirements of users. The system proposed in this study was developed as a set-top box integrated with the Android™ (Google, Mountain View, CA) operating system to provide a convenient and user-friendly interface. The proposed system can assist with family healthcare management, telemedicine service delivery, and information exchange among hospitals. To manage the system, a novel type of hybrid cloud architecture was also developed. Updated information is stored on a public cloud, enabling medical staff members to rapidly access information when diagnosing patients. In the long term, the stored data can be reduced to improve the efficiency of the database. The proposed design offers a robust architecture for storing data in a homecare system and can thus resolve network overload and congestion resulting from accumulating data, which are inherent problems in centralized architectures, thereby improving system efficiency.

Challenges in Securing the Interface Between the Cloud and Pervasive Systems

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

Lagesse, Brent J

2011-01-01

Cloud computing presents an opportunity for pervasive systems to leverage computational and storage resources to accomplish tasks that would not normally be possible on such resource-constrained devices. Cloud computing can enable hardware designers to build lighter systems that last longer and are more mobile. Despite the advantages cloud computing offers to the designers of pervasive systems, there are some limitations of leveraging cloud computing that must be addressed. We take the position that cloud-based pervasive system must be secured holistically and discuss ways this might be accomplished. In this paper, we discuss a pervasive system utilizing cloud computing resources andmore » issues that must be addressed in such a system. In this system, the user's mobile device cannot always have network access to leverage resources from the cloud, so it must make intelligent decisions about what data should be stored locally and what processes should be run locally. As a result of these decisions, the user becomes vulnerable to attacks while interfacing with the pervasive system.« less

Ground Operations Aerospace Language (GOAL). Volume 4: Interpretive code translator

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1973-01-01

This specification identifies and describes the principal functions and elements of the Interpretive Code Translator which has been developed for use with the GOAL Compiler. This translator enables the user to convert a compliled GOAL program to a highly general binary format which is designed to enable interpretive execution. The translator program provides user controls which are designed to enable the selection of various output types and formats. These controls provide a means for accommodating many of the implementation options which are discussed in the Interpretive Code Guideline document. The technical design approach is given. The relationship between the translator and the GOAL compiler is explained and the principal functions performed by the Translator are described. Specific constraints regarding the use of the Translator are discussed. The control options are described. These options enable the user to select outputs to be generated by the translator and to control vrious aspects of the translation processing.

Heterogeneous distributed query processing: The DAVID system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jacobs, Barry E.

1985-01-01

The objective of the Distributed Access View Integrated Database (DAVID) project is the development of an easy to use computer system with which NASA scientists, engineers and administrators can uniformly access distributed heterogeneous databases. Basically, DAVID will be a database management system that sits alongside already existing database and file management systems. Its function is to enable users to access the data in other languages and file systems without having to learn the data manipulation languages. Given here is an outline of a talk on the DAVID project and several charts.

EMERALD: Coping with the Explosion of Seismic Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

West, J. D.; Fouch, M. J.; Arrowsmith, R.

2009-12-01

The geosciences are currently generating an unparalleled quantity of new public broadband seismic data with the establishment of large-scale seismic arrays such as the EarthScope USArray, which are enabling new and transformative scientific discoveries of the structure and dynamics of the Earth’s interior. Much of this explosion of data is a direct result of the formation of the IRIS consortium, which has enabled an unparalleled level of open exchange of seismic instrumentation, data, and methods. The production of these massive volumes of data has generated new and serious data management challenges for the seismological community. A significant challenge is the maintenance and updating of seismic metadata, which includes information such as station location, sensor orientation, instrument response, and clock timing data. This key information changes at unknown intervals, and the changes are not generally communicated to data users who have already downloaded and processed data. Another basic challenge is the ability to handle massive seismic datasets when waveform file volumes exceed the fundamental limitations of a computer’s operating system. A third, long-standing challenge is the difficulty of exchanging seismic processing codes between researchers; each scientist typically develops his or her own unique directory structure and file naming convention, requiring that codes developed by another researcher be rewritten before they can be used. To address these challenges, we are developing EMERALD (Explore, Manage, Edit, Reduce, & Analyze Large Datasets). The overarching goal of the EMERALD project is to enable more efficient and effective use of seismic datasets ranging from just a few hundred to millions of waveforms with a complete database-driven system, leading to higher quality seismic datasets for scientific analysis and enabling faster, more efficient scientific research. We will present a preliminary (beta) version of EMERALD, an integrated, extensible, standalone database server system based on the open-source PostgreSQL database engine. The system is designed for fast and easy processing of seismic datasets, and provides the necessary tools to manage very large datasets and all associated metadata. EMERALD provides methods for efficient preprocessing of seismic records; large record sets can be easily and quickly searched, reviewed, revised, reprocessed, and exported. EMERALD can retrieve and store station metadata and alert the user to metadata changes. The system provides many methods for visualizing data, analyzing dataset statistics, and tracking the processing history of individual datasets. EMERALD allows development and sharing of visualization and processing methods using any of 12 programming languages. EMERALD is designed to integrate existing software tools; the system provides wrapper functionality for existing widely-used programs such as GMT, SOD, and TauP. Users can interact with EMERALD via a web browser interface, or they can directly access their data from a variety of database-enabled external tools. Data can be imported and exported from the system in a variety of file formats, or can be directly requested and downloaded from the IRIS DMC from within EMERALD.

ISPyB for BioSAXS, the gateway to user autonomy in solution scattering experiments.

PubMed

De Maria Antolinos, Alejandro; Pernot, Petra; Brennich, Martha E; Kieffer, Jérôme; Bowler, Matthew W; Delageniere, Solange; Ohlsson, Staffan; Malbet Monaco, Stephanie; Ashton, Alun; Franke, Daniel; Svergun, Dmitri; McSweeney, Sean; Gordon, Elspeth; Round, Adam

2015-01-01

Logging experiments with the laboratory-information management system ISPyB (Information System for Protein crystallography Beamlines) enhances the automation of small-angle X-ray scattering of biological macromolecules in solution (BioSAXS) experiments. The ISPyB interface provides immediate user-oriented online feedback and enables data cross-checking and downstream analysis. To optimize data quality and completeness, ISPyBB (ISPyB for BioSAXS) makes it simple for users to compare the results from new measurements with previous acquisitions from the same day or earlier experiments in order to maximize the ability to collect all data required in a single synchrotron visit. The graphical user interface (GUI) of ISPyBB has been designed to guide users in the preparation of an experiment. The input of sample information and the ability to outline the experimental aims in advance provides feedback on the number of measurements required, calculation of expected sample volumes and time needed to collect the data: all of this information aids the users to better prepare for their trip to the synchrotron. A prototype version of the ISPyBB database is now available at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) beamline BM29 and is already greatly appreciated by academic users and industrial clients. It will soon be available at the PETRA III beamline P12 and the Diamond Light Source beamlines I22 and B21.

ISPyB for BioSAXS, the gateway to user autonomy in solution scattering experiments

PubMed Central

De Maria Antolinos, Alejandro; Pernot, Petra; Brennich, Martha E.; Kieffer, Jérôme; Bowler, Matthew W.; Delageniere, Solange; Ohlsson, Staffan; Malbet Monaco, Stephanie; Ashton, Alun; Franke, Daniel; Svergun, Dmitri; McSweeney, Sean; Gordon, Elspeth; Round, Adam

2015-01-01

Logging experiments with the laboratory-information management system ISPyB (Information System for Protein crystallography Beamlines) enhances the automation of small-angle X-ray scattering of biological macromolecules in solution (BioSAXS) experiments. The ISPyB interface provides immediate user-oriented online feedback and enables data cross-checking and downstream analysis. To optimize data quality and completeness, ISPyBB (ISPyB for BioSAXS) makes it simple for users to compare the results from new measurements with previous acquisitions from the same day or earlier experiments in order to maximize the ability to collect all data required in a single synchrotron visit. The graphical user interface (GUI) of ISPyBB has been designed to guide users in the preparation of an experiment. The input of sample information and the ability to outline the experimental aims in advance provides feedback on the number of measurements required, calculation of expected sample volumes and time needed to collect the data: all of this information aids the users to better prepare for their trip to the synchrotron. A prototype version of the ISPyBB database is now available at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) beamline BM29 and is already greatly appreciated by academic users and industrial clients. It will soon be available at the PETRA III beamline P12 and the Diamond Light Source beamlines I22 and B21. PMID:25615862

EarthCube as an information resource marketplace; the GEAR Project conceptual design

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Richard, S. M.; Zaslavsky, I.; Gupta, A.; Valentine, D.

2015-12-01

Geoscience Architecture for Research (GEAR) is approaching EarthCube design as a complex and evolving socio-technical federation of systems. EarthCube is intended to support the science research enterprise, for which there is no centralized command and control, requirements are a moving target, the function and behavior of the system must evolve and adapt as new scientific paradigms emerge, and system participants are conducting research that inherently implies seeking new ways of doing things. EarthCube must address evolving user requirements and enable domain and project systems developed under different management and for different purposes to work together. The EC architecture must focus on creating a technical environment that enables new capabilities by combining existing and newly developed resources in various ways, and encourages development of new resource designs intended for re-use and interoperability. In a sense, instead of a single architecture design, GEAR provides a way to accommodate multiple designs tuned to different tasks. This agile, adaptive, evolutionary software development style is based on a continuously updated portfolio of compatible components that enable new sub-system architecture. System users make decisions about which components to use in this marketplace based on performance, satisfaction, and impact metrics collected continuously to evaluate components, determine priorities, and guide resource allocation decisions by the system governance agency. EC is designed as a federation of independent systems, and although the coordinator of the EC system may be named an enterprise architect, the focus of the role needs to be organizing resources, assessing their readiness for interoperability with the existing EC component inventory, managing dependencies between transient subsystems, mechanisms of stakeholder engagement and inclusion, and negotiation of standard interfaces, rather than actual specification of components. Composition of components will be developed by projects that involve both domain scientists and CI experts for specific research problems. We believe an agile, marketplace type approach is an essential architectural strategy for EarthCube.

Enabling Web-Based GIS Tools for Internet and Mobile Devices To Improve and Expand NASA Data Accessibility and Analysis Functionality for the Renewable Energy and Agricultural Applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ross, A.; Stackhouse, P. W.; Tisdale, B.; Tisdale, M.; Chandler, W.; Hoell, J. M., Jr.; Kusterer, J.

2014-12-01

The NASA Langley Research Center Science Directorate and Atmospheric Science Data Center have initiated a pilot program to utilize Geographic Information System (GIS) tools that enable, generate and store climatological averages using spatial queries and calculations in a spatial database resulting in greater accessibility of data for government agencies, industry and private sector individuals. The major objectives of this effort include the 1) Processing and reformulation of current data to be consistent with ESRI and openGIS tools, 2) Develop functions to improve capability and analysis that produce "on-the-fly" data products, extending these past the single location to regional and global scales. 3) Update the current web sites to enable both web-based and mobile application displays for optimization on mobile platforms, 4) Interact with user communities in government and industry to test formats and usage of optimization, and 5) develop a series of metrics that allow for monitoring of progressive performance. Significant project results will include the the development of Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) compliant web services (WMS, WCS, WFS, WPS) that serve renewable energy and agricultural application products to users using GIS software and tools. Each data product and OGC service will be registered within ECHO, the Common Metadata Repository, the Geospatial Platform, and Data.gov to ensure the data are easily discoverable and provide data users with enhanced access to SSE data, parameters, services, and applications. This effort supports cross agency, cross organization, and interoperability of SSE data products and services by collaborating with DOI, NRCan, NREL, NCAR, and HOMER for requirements vetting and test bed users before making available to the wider public.

A client/server system for Internet access to biomedical text/image databanks.

PubMed

Thoma, G R; Long, L R; Berman, L E

1996-01-01

Internet access to mixed text/image databanks is finding application in the medical world. An example is a database of medical X-rays and associated data consisting of demographic, socioeconomic, physician's exam, medical laboratory and other information collected as part of a nationwide health survey conducted by the government. Another example is a collection of digitized cryosection images, CT and MR taken of cadavers as part of the National Library of Medicine's Visible Human Project. In both cases, the challenge is to provide access to both the image and the associated text for a wide end user community to create atlases, conduct epidemiological studies, to develop image-specific algorithms for compression, enhancement and other types of image processing, among many other applications. The databanks mentioned above are being created in prototype form. This paper describes the prototype system developed for the archiving of the data and the client software to enable a broad range of end users to access the archive, retrieve text and image data, display the data and manipulate the images. System design considerations include; data organization in a relational database management system with object-oriented extensions; a hierarchical organization of the image data by different resolution levels for different user classes; client design based on common hardware and software platforms incorporating SQL search capability, X Window, Motif and TAE (a development environment supporting rapid prototyping and management of graphic-oriented user interfaces); potential to include ultra high resolution display monitors as a user option; intuitive user interface paradigm for building complex queries; and contrast enhancement, magnification and mensuration tools for better viewing by the user.

Medical Device Guidebook: A browser information resource for medical device users.

PubMed

Clarkson, Douglas M

2017-03-01

A web based information resource - the 'Medical Device Guidebook' - for the enabling of safe use of medical devices is described. Medical devices are described within a 'catalogue' of specific models and information on a specific model is provided within a consistent set of information 'keys'. These include 'user manuals', 'points of caution', 'clinical use framework', 'training/assessment material', 'frequently asked questions', 'authorised user comments' and 'consumables'. The system allows identification of known risk/hazards associated with specific devices, triggered, for example, by national alerts or locally raised safety observations. This provides a mechanism for more effective briefing of equipment users on the associated hazards of equipment. A feature of the system is the inclusion of a specific 'Operational Procedure' for each device, where the lack of this focus is shown in the literature to often be a key factor in equipment misuse and associated patient injury. The 'Guidebook' provides a mechanism for the development of an information resource developed within local clinical networks and encourages a consistent approach to medical device use. Copyright © 2017 IPEM. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Large Scale Environmental Monitoring through Integration of Sensor and Mesh Networks.

PubMed

Jurdak, Raja; Nafaa, Abdelhamid; Barbirato, Alessio

2008-11-24

Monitoring outdoor environments through networks of wireless sensors has received interest for collecting physical and chemical samples at high spatial and temporal scales. A central challenge to environmental monitoring applications of sensor networks is the short communication range of the sensor nodes, which increases the complexity and cost of monitoring commodities that are located in geographically spread areas. To address this issue, we propose a new communication architecture that integrates sensor networks with medium range wireless mesh networks, and provides users with an advanced web portal for managing sensed information in an integrated manner. Our architecture adopts a holistic approach targeted at improving the user experience by optimizing the system performance for handling data that originates at the sensors, traverses the mesh network, and resides at the server for user consumption. This holistic approach enables users to set high level policies that can adapt the resolution of information collected at the sensors, set the preferred performance targets for their application, and run a wide range of queries and analysis on both real-time and historical data. All system components and processes will be described in this paper.

Arkansas Groundwater-Quality Network

USGS Publications Warehouse

Pugh, Aaron L.; Jackson, Barry T.; Miller, Roger

2014-01-01

Arkansas is the fourth largest user of groundwater in the United States, where groundwater accounts for two-thirds of the total water use. Groundwater use in the State increased by 510 percent between 1965 and 2005 (Holland, 2007). The Arkansas Groundwater-Quality Network is a Web map interface (http://ar.water.usgs.gov/wqx) that provides rapid access to the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) National Water Information System (NWIS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (USEPA) STOrage and RETrieval (STORET) databases of ambient water information. The interface enables users to perform simple graphical analysis and download selected water-quality data.

Agile development of ontologies through conversation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Braines, Dave; Bhattal, Amardeep; Preece, Alun D.; de Mel, Geeth

2016-05-01

Ontologies and semantic systems are necessarily complex but offer great potential in terms of their ability to fuse information from multiple sources in support of situation awareness. Current approaches do not place the ontologies directly into the hands of the end user in the field but instead hide them away behind traditional applications. We have been experimenting with human-friendly ontologies and conversational interactions to enable non-technical business users to interact with and extend these dynamically. In this paper we outline our approach via a worked example, covering: OWL ontologies, ITA Controlled English, Sensor/mission matching and conversational interactions between human and machine agents.

Hazard Assessment Computer System HACS/UIM Users’ Operation Manual. Volume I.

DTIC Science & Technology

1981-09-01

941999-A U NCL A SSI7IED USCG-D-75-AL R_1 3 ~hhE~ I EEmhh.EEohmhE 2 I 1.I25 1.fl4 L MICROCOP RtfSCLUTItN IEST HTAK ’I’l ONAL BURLAU OF STANDARDS-1963...to assist in obtaining the compound recognition code used to refer- ence data for a particular chemical, a separate set of indices have been produced...and are given in a separate report. These indices enable a user of HACS to obtain a compound recognition code for a chemical given either the compound

Mixed Initiative Visual Analytics Using Task-Driven Recommendations

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

Cook, Kristin A.; Cramer, Nicholas O.; Israel, David

2015-12-07

Visual data analysis is composed of a collection of cognitive actions and tasks to decompose, internalize, and recombine data to produce knowledge and insight. Visual analytic tools provide interactive visual interfaces to data to support tasks involved in discovery and sensemaking, including forming hypotheses, asking questions, and evaluating and organizing evidence. Myriad analytic models can be incorporated into visual analytic systems, at the cost of increasing complexity in the analytic discourse between user and system. Techniques exist to increase the usability of interacting with such analytic models, such as inferring data models from user interactions to steer the underlying modelsmore » of the system via semantic interaction, shielding users from having to do so explicitly. Such approaches are often also referred to as mixed-initiative systems. Researchers studying the sensemaking process have called for development of tools that facilitate analytic sensemaking through a combination of human and automated activities. However, design guidelines do not exist for mixed-initiative visual analytic systems to support iterative sensemaking. In this paper, we present a candidate set of design guidelines and introduce the Active Data Environment (ADE) prototype, a spatial workspace supporting the analytic process via task recommendations invoked by inferences on user interactions within the workspace. ADE recommends data and relationships based on a task model, enabling users to co-reason with the system about their data in a single, spatial workspace. This paper provides an illustrative use case, a technical description of ADE, and a discussion of the strengths and limitations of the approach.« less

Enabling User to User Interactions in Web Lectures with History-Aware User Awareness

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ketterl, Markus; Mertens, Robert; Wiesen, Christoph; Vornberger, Oliver

2011-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a user interface for web lectures for engaging with other users while working with video based learning content. The application allows its users to ask questions about the content and to get answers from those users that currently online are more familiar with it. The filtering is based on the…

A control system for a powered prosthesis using positional and myoelectric inputs from the shoulder complex.

PubMed

Losier, Y; Englehart, K; Hudgins, B

2007-01-01

The integration of multiple input sources within a control strategy for powered upper limb prostheses could provide smoother, more intuitive multi-joint reaching movements based on the user's intended motion. The work presented in this paper presents the results of using myoelectric signals (MES) of the shoulder area in combination with the position of the shoulder as input sources to multiple linear discriminant analysis classifiers. Such an approach may provide users with control signals capable of controlling three degrees of freedom (DOF). This work is another important step in the development of hybrid systems that will enable simultaneous control of multiple degrees of freedom used for reaching tasks in a prosthetic limb.

Price comparisons on the internet based on computational intelligence.

PubMed

Kim, Jun Woo; Ha, Sung Ho

2014-01-01

Information-intensive Web services such as price comparison sites have recently been gaining popularity. However, most users including novice shoppers have difficulty in browsing such sites because of the massive amount of information gathered and the uncertainty surrounding Web environments. Even conventional price comparison sites face various problems, which suggests the necessity of a new approach to address these problems. Therefore, for this study, an intelligent product search system was developed that enables price comparisons for online shoppers in a more effective manner. In particular, the developed system adopts linguistic price ratings based on fuzzy logic to accommodate user-defined price ranges, and personalizes product recommendations based on linguistic product clusters, which help online shoppers find desired items in a convenient manner.

Price Comparisons on the Internet Based on Computational Intelligence

PubMed Central

Kim, Jun Woo; Ha, Sung Ho

2014-01-01

Information-intensive Web services such as price comparison sites have recently been gaining popularity. However, most users including novice shoppers have difficulty in browsing such sites because of the massive amount of information gathered and the uncertainty surrounding Web environments. Even conventional price comparison sites face various problems, which suggests the necessity of a new approach to address these problems. Therefore, for this study, an intelligent product search system was developed that enables price comparisons for online shoppers in a more effective manner. In particular, the developed system adopts linguistic price ratings based on fuzzy logic to accommodate user-defined price ranges, and personalizes product recommendations based on linguistic product clusters, which help online shoppers find desired items in a convenient manner. PMID:25268901

Grid-based implementation of XDS-I as part of image-enabled EHR for regional healthcare in Shanghai.

PubMed

Zhang, Jianguo; Zhang, Kai; Yang, Yuanyuan; Sun, Jianyong; Ling, Tonghui; Wang, Guangrong; Ling, Yun; Peng, Derong

2011-03-01

Due to the rapid growth of Shanghai city to 20 million residents, the balance between healthcare supply and demand has become an important issue. The local government hopes to ameliorate this problem by developing an image-enabled electronic healthcare record (EHR) sharing mechanism between certain hospitals. This system is designed to enable healthcare collaboration and reduce healthcare costs by allowing review of prior examination data obtained at other hospitals. Here, we present a design method and implementation solution of image-enabled EHRs (i-EHRs) and describe the implementation of i-EHRs in four hospitals and one regional healthcare information center, as well as their preliminary operating results. We designed the i-EHRs with service-oriented architecture (SOA) and combined the grid-based image management and distribution capability, which are compliant with IHE XDS-I integration profile. There are seven major components and common services included in the i-EHRs. In order to achieve quick response for image retrieving in low-bandwidth network environments, we use a JPEG2000 interactive protocol and progressive display technique to transmit images from a Grid Agent as Imaging Source Actor to the PACS workstation as Imaging Consumer Actor. The first phase of pilot testing of our image-enabled EHR was implemented in the Zhabei district of Shanghai for imaging document sharing and collaborative diagnostic purposes. The pilot testing began in October 2009; there have been more than 50 examinations daily transferred between the City North Hospital and the three community hospitals for collaborative diagnosis. The feedback from users at all hospitals is very positive, with respondents stating the system to be easy to use and reporting no interference with their normal radiology diagnostic operation. The i-EHR system can provide event-driven automatic image delivery for collaborative imaging diagnosis across multiple hospitals based on work flow requirements. This project demonstrated that the grid-based implementation of IHE XDS-I for image-enabled EHR could scale effectively to serve a regional healthcare solution with collaborative imaging services. The feedback from users of community hospitals and large hospital is very positive.

Structured Analysis of the Logistic Support Analysis (LSA) Task, ’Integrated Logistic Support (ILS) Assessment Maintenance Planning E-1 Element’ (APJ 966-204)

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-10-01

Structured Analysis involves building a logical (non-physical) model of a system, using graphic techniques which enable users, analysts, and designers to... Design uses tools, especially graphic ones, to render systems readily understandable. 8 Ř. Structured Design offers a set of strategies for...in the overall systems design process, and an overview of the assessment procedures, as well as a guide to the overall assessment. 20. DISTRIBUTION

Soft Electronics Enabled Ergonomic Human-Computer Interaction for Swallowing Training

PubMed Central

Lee, Yongkuk; Nicholls, Benjamin; Sup Lee, Dong; Chen, Yanfei; Chun, Youngjae; Siang Ang, Chee; Yeo, Woon-Hong

2017-01-01

We introduce a skin-friendly electronic system that enables human-computer interaction (HCI) for swallowing training in dysphagia rehabilitation. For an ergonomic HCI, we utilize a soft, highly compliant (“skin-like”) electrode, which addresses critical issues of an existing rigid and planar electrode combined with a problematic conductive electrolyte and adhesive pad. The skin-like electrode offers a highly conformal, user-comfortable interaction with the skin for long-term wearable, high-fidelity recording of swallowing electromyograms on the chin. Mechanics modeling and experimental quantification captures the ultra-elastic mechanical characteristics of an open mesh microstructured sensor, conjugated with an elastomeric membrane. Systematic in vivo studies investigate the functionality of the soft electronics for HCI-enabled swallowing training, which includes the application of a biofeedback system to detect swallowing behavior. The collection of results demonstrates clinical feasibility of the ergonomic electronics in HCI-driven rehabilitation for patients with swallowing disorders. PMID:28429757

Soft Electronics Enabled Ergonomic Human-Computer Interaction for Swallowing Training

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Yongkuk; Nicholls, Benjamin; Sup Lee, Dong; Chen, Yanfei; Chun, Youngjae; Siang Ang, Chee; Yeo, Woon-Hong

2017-04-01

We introduce a skin-friendly electronic system that enables human-computer interaction (HCI) for swallowing training in dysphagia rehabilitation. For an ergonomic HCI, we utilize a soft, highly compliant (“skin-like”) electrode, which addresses critical issues of an existing rigid and planar electrode combined with a problematic conductive electrolyte and adhesive pad. The skin-like electrode offers a highly conformal, user-comfortable interaction with the skin for long-term wearable, high-fidelity recording of swallowing electromyograms on the chin. Mechanics modeling and experimental quantification captures the ultra-elastic mechanical characteristics of an open mesh microstructured sensor, conjugated with an elastomeric membrane. Systematic in vivo studies investigate the functionality of the soft electronics for HCI-enabled swallowing training, which includes the application of a biofeedback system to detect swallowing behavior. The collection of results demonstrates clinical feasibility of the ergonomic electronics in HCI-driven rehabilitation for patients with swallowing disorders.

A novel teaching system for industrial robots.

PubMed

Lin, Hsien-I; Lin, Yu-Hsiang

2014-03-27

The most important tool for controlling an industrial robotic arm is a teach pendant, which controls the robotic arm movement in work spaces and accomplishes teaching tasks. A good teaching tool should be easy to operate and can complete teaching tasks rapidly and effortlessly. In this study, a new teaching system is proposed for enabling users to operate robotic arms and accomplish teaching tasks easily. The proposed teaching system consists of the teach pen, optical markers on the pen, a motion capture system, and the pen tip estimation algorithm. With the marker positions captured by the motion capture system, the pose of the teach pen is accurately calculated by the pen tip algorithm and used to control the robot tool frame. In addition, Fitts' Law is adopted to verify the usefulness of this new system, and the results show that the system provides high accuracy, excellent operation performance, and a stable error rate. In addition, the system maintains superior performance, even when users work on platforms with different inclination angles.

A Novel Teaching System for Industrial Robots

PubMed Central

Lin, Hsien-I; Lin, Yu-Hsiang

2014-01-01

The most important tool for controlling an industrial robotic arm is a teach pendant, which controls the robotic arm movement in work spaces and accomplishes teaching tasks. A good teaching tool should be easy to operate and can complete teaching tasks rapidly and effortlessly. In this study, a new teaching system is proposed for enabling users to operate robotic arms and accomplish teaching tasks easily. The proposed teaching system consists of the teach pen, optical markers on the pen, a motion capture system, and the pen tip estimation algorithm. With the marker positions captured by the motion capture system, the pose of the teach pen is accurately calculated by the pen tip algorithm and used to control the robot tool frame. In addition, Fitts' Law is adopted to verify the usefulness of this new system, and the results show that the system provides high accuracy, excellent operation performance, and a stable error rate. In addition, the system maintains superior performance, even when users work on platforms with different inclination angles. PMID:24681669

Policy Process Editor for P3BM Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

James, Mark; Chang, Hsin-Ping; Chow, Edward T.; Crichton, Gerald A.

2010-01-01

A computer program enables generation, in the form of graphical representations of process flows with embedded natural-language policy statements, input to a suite of policy-, process-, and performance-based management (P3BM) software. This program (1) serves as an interface between users and the Hunter software, which translates the input into machine-readable form; and (2) enables users to initialize and monitor the policy-implementation process. This program provides an intuitive graphical interface for incorporating natural-language policy statements into business-process flow diagrams. Thus, the program enables users who dictate policies to intuitively embed their intended process flows as they state the policies, reducing the likelihood of errors and reducing the time between declaration and execution of policy.

MIT-Skywalker: On the use of a markerless system.

PubMed

Goncalves, Rogerio S; Hamilton, Taya; Krebs, Hermano I

2017-07-01

This paper describes our efforts to employ the Microsoft Kinect as a low cost vision control system for the MIT-Skywalker, a robotic gait rehabilitation device. The Kinect enables an alternative markerless solution to control the MIT-Skywalker and allows a more user-friendly set-up. A study involving eight healthy subjects and two stroke survivors using the MIT-Skywalker device demonstrates the advantages and challenges of this new proposed approach.

The Human-Robot Interaction Operating System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fong, Terrence; Kunz, Clayton; Hiatt, Laura M.; Bugajska, Magda

2006-01-01

In order for humans and robots to work effectively together, they need to be able to converse about abilities, goals and achievements. Thus, we are developing an interaction infrastructure called the "Human-Robot Interaction Operating System" (HRI/OS). The HRI/OS provides a structured software framework for building human-robot teams, supports a variety of user interfaces, enables humans and robots to engage in task-oriented dialogue, and facilitates integration of robots through an extensible API.

NASA EOSDIS Evolution in the BigData Era

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lynnes, Christopher

2015-01-01

NASA's EOSDIS system faces several challenges in the Big Data Era. Although volumes are large (but not unmanageably so), the variety of different data collections is daunting. That variety also brings with it a large and diverse user community. One key evolution EOSDIS is working toward is to enable more science analysis to be performed close to the data.

Computer programs for calculating two-dimensional potential flow in and about propulsion system inlets

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hawk, J. D.; Stockman, N. O.; Farrell, C. A., Jr.

1978-01-01

Incompressible potential flow calculations are presented that were corrected for compressibility in two-dimensional inlets at arbitrary operating conditions. Included are a statement of the problem to be solved, a description of each of the computer programs, and sufficient documentation, including a test case, to enable a user to run the program.

Transforming Space Missions into Service Oriented Architectures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mandl, Dan; Frye, Stuart; Cappelaere, Pat

2006-01-01

This viewgraph presentation reviews the vision of the sensor web enablement via a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). An generic example is given of a user finding a service through the Web, and initiating a request for the desired observation. The parts that comprise this system and how they interact are reviewed. The advantages of the use of SOA are reviewed.

77 FR 75894 - Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals With Hearing and...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-12-26

... Individuals With Hearing and Speech Disabilities; E911 Requirements for IP-Enabled Service Providers AGENCY... no uniform numbering system for iTRS services; some iTRS users were reached via an IP address, while...-digit number and his IP address, making it relatively traceable (unlike conventional PSTN spoofing...

Real English: A Translator to Enable Natural Language Man-Machine Conversation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gautin, Harvey

This dissertation presents a pragmatic interpreter/translator called Real English to serve as a natural language man-machine communication interface in a multi-mode on-line information retrieval system. This multi-mode feature affords the user a library-like searching tool by giving him access to a dictionary, lexicon, thesaurus, synonym table,…

Make E-Learning Effortless! Impact of a Redesigned User Interface on Usability through the Application of an Affordance Design Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Park, Hyungjoo; Song, Hae-Deok

2015-01-01

Given that a user interface interacts with users, a critical factor to be considered in improving the usability of an e-learning user interface is user-friendliness. Affordances enable users to more easily approach and engage in learning tasks because they strengthen positive, activating emotions. However, most studies on affordances limit…