A rigorous approach to facilitate and guarantee the correctness of the genetic testing management in human genome information systems

Abstract Background Recent medical and biological technology advances have stimulated the development of new testing systems that have been providing huge, varied amounts of molecular and clinical data. Growing data volumes pose significant challenges for information processing systems in research centers. Additionally, the routines of genomics laboratory are typically characterized by high parallelism in testing and constant procedure changes. Results This paper describes a formal approach to address this challenge through the implementation of a genetic testing management system applied to human genome laboratory. We introduced the Human Genome Research Center Information System (CEGH) in Brazil, a system that is able to support constant changes in human genome testing and can provide patients updated results based on the most recent and validated genetic knowledge. Our approach uses a common repository for process planning to ensure reusability, specification, instantiation, monitoring, and execution of processes, which are defined using a relational database and rigorous control flow specifications based on process algebra (ACP). The main difference between our approach and related works is that we were able to join two important aspects: 1) process scalability achieved through relational database implementation, and 2) correctness of processes using process algebra. Furthermore, the software allows end users to define genetic testing without requiring any knowledge about business process notation or process algebra. Conclusions This paper presents the CEGH information system that is a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) based on a formal framework to support genetic testing management for Mendelian disorder studies. We have proved the feasibility and showed usability benefits of a rigorous approach that is able to specify, validate, and perform genetic testing using easy end user interfaces.

A knapsack problem as a tool to solve the production planning problem in small foundries

According to recent research carried out in the foundry sector, one of the most important concerns of the industries is to improve their production planning. A foundry production plan involves two dependent stages: (1) determining the alloys to be merged and (2) determining the lots that will be produced. The purpose of this study is to draw up plans of minimum production cost for the lot-sizing problem for small foundries. As suggested in the literature, the proposed heuristic addresses the problem stages in a hierarchical way. Firstly, the alloys are determined and, subsequently, the items that are produced from them. In this study, a knapsack problem as a tool to determine the items to be produced from furnace loading was proposed. Moreover, we proposed a genetic algorithm to explore some possible sets of alloys and to determine the production planning for a small foundry. Our method attempts to overcome the difficulties in finding good production planning presented by the method proposed in the literature. The computational experiments show that the proposed methods presented better results than the literature. Furthermore, the proposed methods do not need commercial software, which is favorable for small foundries. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Entropy Production in Nonequilibrium Systems at Stationary States

We present a stochastic approach to nonequilibrium thermodynamics based on the expression of the entropy production rate advanced by Schnakenberg for systems described by a master equation. From the microscopic Schnakenberg expression we get the macroscopic bilinear form for the entropy production rate in terms of fluxes and forces. This is performed by placing the system in contact with two reservoirs with distinct sets of thermodynamic fields and by assuming an appropriate form for the transition rate. The approach is applied to an interacting lattice gas model in contact with two heat and particle reservoirs. On a square lattice, a continuous symmetry breaking phase transition takes place such that at the nonequilibrium ordered phase a heat flow sets in even when the temperatures of the reservoirs are the same. The entropy production rate is found to have a singularity at the critical point of the linear-logarithm type.

Production of nursing care in primary health care services

This descriptive and quantitative study aimed to characterize the production of nursing care in primary health care services in a region of the city of Ribeirao Preto, state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The study sample comprised care actions delivered by nurses and registered in the HygiaWeb Information System, from 2006 to 2009. Statistical analysis was performed. Results showed that nursing care delivered by nurses accounted for 9.5 to 14.6% of total professional care provided by professionals. Eventual care actions were the most frequent. The concentration of programmatic care was higher for children, women, pregnant and postpartum women. In conclusion, the predominance of eventual care demonstrated that the health system has been focused on acute conditions. Little of nursing work has been directed at the achievement of comprehensiveness, considering the inexpressive share of longitudinal follow up in total care delivery. The expansion of nursing staff represents potential for care delivery to the population, but further qualification of nursing actions is needed.

Reference model for implementing an MRP system in a highly diverse component and seasonal lean production environment

Companies are currently choosing to integrate logics and systems to achieve better solutions. These combinations also include companies striving to join the logic of material requirement planning (MRP) system with the systems of lean production. The purpose of this article was to design an MRP as part of the implementation of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) in a company that produces agricultural implements, which has used the lean production system since 1998. This proposal is based on the innovation theory, theory networks, lean production systems, ERP systems and the hybrid production systems, which use both components and MRP systems, as concepts of lean production systems. The analytical approach of innovation networks enables verification of the links and relationships among the companies and departments of the same corporation. The analysis begins with the MRP implementation project carried out in a Brazilian metallurgical company and follows through the operationalisation of the MRP project, until its production stabilisation. The main point is that the MRP system should help the company's operations with regard to its effective agility to respond in time to demand fluctuations, facilitating the creation process and controlling the branch offices in other countries that use components produced in the matrix, hence ensuring more accurate estimates of stockpiles. Consequently, it presents the enterprise knowledge development organisational modelling methodology in order to represent further models (goals, actors and resources, business rules, business process and concepts) that should be included in this MRP implementation process for the new configuration of the production system.