Development of a data acquisition system to characterise sustainable energy technologies and to support Web-Based learning (DAQ-WBL)

Driven by concerns about rising energy costs, security of supply and climate change a new wave of Sustainable Energy Technologies (SET’s) have been embraced by the Irish consumer. Such systems as solar collectors, heat pumps and biomass boilers have become common due to government backed financial incentives and revisions of the building regulations. However, there is a deficit of knowledge and understanding of how these technologies operate and perform under Ireland’s maritime climate. This AQ-WBL project was designed to address both these needs by developing a Data Acquisition (DAQ) system to monitor the performance of such technologies and a web-based learning environment to disseminate performance characteristics and supplementary information about these systems. A DAQ system consisting of 108 sensors was developed as part of Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology’s (GMIT’s) Centre for the Integration of Sustainable EnergyTechnologies (CiSET) in an effort to benchmark the performance of solar thermal collectors and Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHP’s) under Irish maritime climate, research new methods of integrating these systems within the built environment and raise awareness of SET’s. It has operated reliably for over 2 years and has acquired over 25 million data points. Raising awareness of these SET’s is carried out through the dissemination of the performance data through an online learning environment. A learning environment was created to provide different user groups with a basic understanding of a SET’s with the support of performance data, through a novel 5 step learning process and two examples were developed for the solar thermal collectors and the weather station which can be viewed at http://www.kdp 1 .aquaculture.ie/index.aspx. This online learning environment has been demonstrated to and well received by different groups of GMIT’s undergraduate students and plans have been made to develop it further to support education, awareness, research and regional development.

Implementation of a customer relationship management system in an SME

The research conducted for this thesis has been carried out over a two year period as part of the Mobile Tools and Technology for customer care (MOTTO) project. The project was funded under the Applied Grant scheme administered by Enterprise Ireland and Nortel Networks Ltd. It was a partnership project between Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, University of Limerick, National University of Ireland Galway, and a global Internet and communications company, Nortel Networks. The project aimed to investigate the enabling mobile communications technologies in e-Business and mobile communications in the area of Business-to-Business (B2B) customer care. The development of the application discussed in this thesis was developed in conjunction with the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, University of Limerick and AMT Ireland. The decision to develop the application in the Electronics Company of AMT in Limerick came about as a result of the contact established by Mark Southern from the University of Limerick. Mark was involved in overseeing the development and assisted in establishing the user requirements.

Adaptive methods for user-centered organization of music collections

Zugl.: Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Informatik, Diss., 2011

Multimodal automatic user disposition recognition in human-machine interaction

Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik, Diss., 2013

Emotional and user-specific cues for improved analysis of naturalistic interactions

... ist es nicht möglich, die in dieser Arbeit identifizierten offenen Fragen restlos zu klären. Die Erweiterung der puren akustischen Emotionserkennung durch Berücksichtigung von anderen Modalitäten, Sprechercharakteristiken, Feedbacksignalen und Persönlichkeitsmerkmalen erlaubt es jedoch, länger andauernde natürliche Interaktionen zu untersuchen und dialogkritische Situationen zu erkennen. Technische Systeme, die diese erweiterte Emotionserkennung nutzen, passen sich an ihren Nutzer an und werden so zu seinem Begleiter und letztendlich zu seinem Companion.

Targeted search engines for children : search user interfaces and information-seeking behaviour

Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Informatik, Diss., 2015

System analysis of a Peer-to-Peer Video-on-Demand architecture: Kangaroo

Architectural design and deployment of Peer-to-Peer Video-on-Demand (P2PVoD) systems which support VCR functionalities is attracting the interest of an increasing number of research groups within the scientific community; especially due to the intrinsic characteristics of such systems and the benefits that peers could provide at reducing the server load. This work focuses on the performance analysis of a P2P-VoD system considering user behaviors obtained from real traces together with other synthetic user patterns. The experiments performed show that it is feasible to achieve a performance close to the best possible. Future work will consider monitoring the physical characteristics of the network in order to improve the design of different aspects of a VoD system.

Towards an emotion-driven interactive music system: ridging the gaps between affect, physiology and sound generation

Report for the scientific sojourn at the Stanford University from January until June 2007. Music is well known for affecting human emotional states, yet the relationship between specific musical parameters and emotional responses is still not clear. With the advent of new human-computer interaction (HCI) technologies, it is now possible to derive emotion-related information from physiological data and use it as an input to interactive music systems. Providing such implicit musical HCI will be highly relevant for a number of applications including music therapy, diagnosis, nteractive gaming, and physiologically-based musical instruments. A key question in such physiology-based compositions is how sound synthesis parameters can be mapped to emotional states of valence and arousal. We used both verbal and heart rate responses to evaluate the affective power of five musical parameters. Our results show that a significant correlation exists between heart rate and the subjective evaluation of well-defined musical parameters. Brightness and loudness showed to be arousing parameters on subjective scale while harmonicity and even partial attenuation factor resulted in heart rate changes typically associated to valence. This demonstrates that a rational approach to designing emotion-driven music systems for our public installations and music therapy applications is possible.

EuroDia: a beta-cell gene expression resource.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a major disease affecting nearly 280 million people worldwide. Whilst the pathophysiological mechanisms leading to disease are poorly understood, dysfunction of the insulin-producing pancreatic beta-cells is key event for disease development. Monitoring the gene expression profiles of pancreatic beta-cells under several genetic or chemical perturbations has shed light on genes and pathways involved in T2DM. The EuroDia database has been established to build a unique collection of gene expression measurements performed on beta-cells of three organisms, namely human, mouse and rat. The Gene Expression Data Analysis Interface (GEDAI) has been developed to support this database. The quality of each dataset is assessed by a series of quality control procedures to detect putative hybridization outliers. The system integrates a web interface to several standard analysis functions from R/Bioconductor to identify differentially expressed genes and pathways. It also allows the combination of multiple experiments performed on different array platforms of the same technology. The design of this system enables each user to rapidly design a custom analysis pipeline and thus produce their own list of genes and pathways. Raw and normalized data can be downloaded for each experiment. The flexible engine of this database (GEDAI) is currently used to handle gene expression data from several laboratory-run projects dealing with different organisms and platforms. Database URL: http://eurodia.vital-it.ch.

Endogenous steroid profiling in the athlete biological passport.

The Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) is an individual electronic document that collects data regarding a specific athlete that is useful in differentiating between natural physiologic variations of selected biomarkers and deviations caused by artificial manipulations. A subsidiary of the endocrine module of the ABP, that which here is called Athlete Steroidal Passport (ASP), collects data on markers of an altered metabolism of endogenous steroidal hormones measured in urine samples. The ASP aims to identify not only doping with anabolic-androgenic steroids, but also most indirect steroid doping strategies such as doping with estrogen receptor antagonists and aromatase inhibitors. Development of specific markers of steroid doping, use of the athlete's previous measurements to define individual limits, with the athlete becoming his or her own reference, the inclusion of heterogeneous factors such as the UDPglucuronosyltransferase B17 genotype of the athlete, the knowledge of potentially confounding effects such as heavy alcohol consumption, the development of an external quality control system to control analytical uncertainty, and finally the use of Bayesian inferential methods to evaluate the value of indirect evidence have made the ASP a valuable alternative to deter steroid doping in elite sports. The ASP can be used to target athletes for gas chromatography/combustion/ isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC/C/IRMS) testing, to withdraw temporarily the athlete from competing when an abnormality has been detected, and ultimately to lead to an antidoping infraction if that abnormality cannot be explained by a medical condition. Although the ASP has been developed primarily to ensure fairness in elite sports, its application in endocrinology for clinical purposes is straightforward in an evidence-based medicine paradigm.

ARCHITECTING USER-CENTRIC PRIVACY-AS-A-SET-OF-SERVICES: DIGITAL IDENTITY RELATED PRIVACY FRAMEWORK

AbstractDigitalization gives to the Internet the power by allowing several virtual representations of reality, including that of identity. We leave an increasingly digital footprint in cyberspace and this situation puts our identity at high risks. Privacy is a right and fundamental social value that could play a key role as a medium to secure digital identities. Identity functionality is increasingly delivered as sets of services, rather than monolithic applications. So, an identity layer in which identity and privacy management services are loosely coupled, publicly hosted and available to on-demand calls could be more realistic and an acceptable situation. Identity and privacy should be interoperable and distributed through the adoption of service-orientation and implementation based on open standards (technical interoperability). Ihe objective of this project is to provide a way to implement interoperable user-centric digital identity-related privacy to respond to the need of distributed nature of federated identity systems. It is recognized that technical initiatives, emerging standards and protocols are not enough to guarantee resolution for the concerns surrounding a multi-facets and complex issue of identity and privacy. For this reason they should be apprehended within a global perspective through an integrated and a multidisciplinary approach. The approach dictates that privacy law, policies, regulations and technologies are to be crafted together from the start, rather than attaching it to digital identity after the fact. Thus, we draw Digital Identity-Related Privacy (DigldeRP) requirements from global, domestic and business-specific privacy policies. The requirements take shape of business interoperability. We suggest a layered implementation framework (DigldeRP framework) in accordance to model-driven architecture (MDA) approach that would help organizations' security team to turn business interoperability into technical interoperability in the form of a set of services that could accommodate Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA): Privacy-as-a-set-of- services (PaaSS) system. DigldeRP Framework will serve as a basis for vital understanding between business management and technical managers on digital identity related privacy initiatives. The layered DigldeRP framework presents five practical layers as an ordered sequence as a basis of DigldeRP project roadmap, however, in practice, there is an iterative process to assure that each layer supports effectively and enforces requirements of the adjacent ones. Each layer is composed by a set of blocks, which determine a roadmap that security team could follow to successfully implement PaaSS. Several blocks' descriptions are based on OMG SoaML modeling language and BPMN processes description. We identified, designed and implemented seven services that form PaaSS and described their consumption. PaaSS Java QEE project), WSDL, and XSD codes are given and explained.

Interest of qualitative and quantitative profiling of endocannabinoids for evaluation of their implication in drug addiction process

Introduction: In the middle of the 90's, the discovery of endogenous ligands for cannabinoid receptors opened a new era in this research field. Amides and esters of arachidonic acid have been identified as these endogenous ligands. Arachidonoylethanolamide (anandamide or AEA) and 2-Arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) seem to be the most important of these lipid messengers. In addition, virodhamine (VA), noladin ether (2-AGE), and N-arachidonoyl dopamine (NADA) have been shown to bind to CB receptors with varying affinities. During recent years, it has become more evident that the EC system is part of fundamental regulatory mechanisms in many physiological processes such as stress and anxiety responses, depression, anorexia and bulimia, schizophrenia disorders, neuroprotection, Parkinson disease, anti-proliferative effects on cancer cells, drug addiction, and atherosclerosis. Aims: This work presents the problematic of EC analysis and the input of Information Dependant Acquisition based on hybrid triple quadrupole linear ion trap (QqQLIT) system for the profiling of these lipid mediators. Methods: The method was developed on a LC Ultimate 3000 series (Dionex, Sunnyvale, CA, USA) coupled to a QTrap 4000 system (Applied biosystems, Concord, ON, Canada). The ECs were separated on an XTerra C18 MS column (50 × 3.0 mm i.d., 3.5 μm) with a 5 min gradient elution. For confirmatory analysis, an information-dependant acquisition experiment was performed with selected reaction monitoring (SRM) as survey scan and enhanced produced ion (EPI) as dependant scan. Results: The assay was found to be linear in the concentration range of 0.1-5 ng/mL for AEA, 0.3-5 ng/mL for VA, 2-AGE, and NADA and 1-20 ng/mL for 2-AG using 0.5 mL of plasma. Repeatability and intermediate precision were found less than 15% over the tested concentration ranges. Under non-pathophysiological conditions, only AEA and 2-AG were actually detected in plasma with concentration ranges going from 104 to 537 pg/mL and from 2160 to 3990 pg/mL respectively. We have particularly focused our scopes on the evaluation of EC level changes in biological matrices through drug addiction and atherosclerosis processes. We will present preliminary data obtained during pilot study after administration of cannabis on human patients. Conclusion: ECs have been shown to play a key role in regulation of many pathophysiological processes. Medical research in these different fields continues to growth in order to understand and to highlight the predominant role of EC in the CNS and peripheral tissues signalisation. The profiling of these lipids needs to develop rapid, highly sensitive and selective analytical methods.

Analysis of prion strains by PrPSc profiling in sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

BACKGROUND: Prion diseases are a group of invariably fatal neurodegenerative disorders affecting humans and a wide range of mammals. An essential part of the infectious agent, termed the prion, is composed of an abnormal isoform (PrPSc) of a host-encoded normal cellular protein (PrPC). The conversion of PrPC to PrPSc is thought to play a crucial role in the development of prion diseases and leads to PrPSc deposition, mainly in the central nervous system. Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD), the most common form of human prion disease, presents with a marked clinical heterogeneity. This diversity is accompanied by a molecular signature which can be defined by histological, biochemical, and genetic means. The molecular classification of sCJD is an important tool to aid in the understanding of underlying disease mechanisms and the development of therapy protocols. Comparability of classifications is hampered by disparity of applied methods and inter-observer variability. METHODS AND FINDINGS: To overcome these difficulties, we developed a new quantification protocol for PrPSc by using internal standards on each Western blot, which allows for generation and direct comparison of individual PrPSc profiles. By studying PrPSc profiles and PrPSc type expression within nine defined central nervous system areas of 50 patients with sCJD, we were able to show distinct PrPSc distribution patterns in diverse subtypes of sCJD. Furthermore, we were able to demonstrate the co-existence of more than one PrPSc type in individuals with sCJD in about 20% of all patients and in more than 50% of patients heterozygous for a polymorphism on codon 129 of the gene encoding the prion protein (PRNP). CONCLUSION: PrPSc profiling represents a valuable tool for the molecular classification of human prion diseases and has important implications for their diagnosis by brain biopsy. Our results show that the co-existence of more than one PrPSc type might be influenced by genetic and brain region-specific determinants. These findings provide valuable insights into the generation of distinct PrPSc types.

Open to the users' needs : combining user-centered design, standards and open source software

This case study introduces our continuous work to enhance the virtual classroom in order to provide faculty and students with an environment open to their needs, compliant with learning standards and, therefore compatible with other e-learning environments, and based on open source software. The result is a modulable, sustainable and interoperable learning environment that can be adapted to different teaching and learning situations by incorporating the LMS integrated tools as well as wikis, blogs, forums and Moodle activities among others.

Microarray profiling of mononuclear peripheral blood cells identifies novel candidate genes related to chemoradiation response in rectal cancer.

Preoperative chemoradiation significantly improves oncological outcome in locally advanced rectal cancer. However there is no effective method of predicting tumor response to chemoradiation in these patients. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells have emerged recently as pathology markers of cancer and other diseases, making possible their use as therapy predictors. Furthermore, the importance of the immune response in radiosensivity of solid organs led us to hypothesized that microarray gene expression profiling of peripheral blood mononuclear cells could identify patients with response to chemoradiation in rectal cancer. Thirty five 35 patients with locally advanced rectal cancer were recruited initially to perform the study. Peripheral blood samples were obtained before neaodjuvant treatment. RNA was extracted and purified to obtain cDNA and cRNA for hybridization of microarrays included in Human WG CodeLink bioarrays. Quantitative real time PCR was used to validate microarray experiment data. Results were correlated with pathological response, according to Mandard´s criteria and final UICC Stage (patients with tumor regression grade 1-2 and downstaging being defined as responders and patients with grade 3-5 and no downstaging as non-responders). Twenty seven out of 35 patients were finally included in the study. We performed a multiple t-test using Significance Analysis of Microarrays, to find those genes differing significantly in expression, between responders (n = 11) and non-responders (n = 16) to CRT. The differently expressed genes were: BC 035656.1, CIR, PRDM2, CAPG, FALZ, HLA-DPB2, NUPL2, and ZFP36. The measurement of FALZ (p = 0.029) gene expression level determined by qRT-PCR, showed statistically significant differences between the two groups. Gene expression profiling reveals novel genes in peripheral blood samples of mononuclear cells that could predict responders and non-responders to chemoradiation in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer. Moreover, our investigation added further evidence to the importance of mononuclear cells' mediated response in the neoadjuvant treatment of rectal cancer.