Patterns of Subject Mix in Higher Education Institutions : A First Empirical Analysis Using the AQUAMETH Database

Teaching and research are organised differently between subject domains: attempts to construct typologies of higher education institutions, however, often do not include quantitative indicators concerning subject mix which would allow systematic comparisons of large numbers of higher education institutions among different countries, as the availability of data for such indicators is limited. In this paper, we present an exploratory approach for the construction of such indicators. The database constructed in the AQUAMETH project, which includes also data disaggregated at the disciplinary level, is explored with the aim of understanding patterns of subject mix. For six European countries, an exploratory and descriptive analysis of staff composition divided in four large domains (medical sciences, engineering and technology, natural sciences and social sciences and humanities) is performed, which leads to a classification distinguishing between specialist and generalist institutions. Among the latter, a further distinction is made based on the presence or absence of a medical department. Preliminary exploration of this classification and its comparison with other indicators show the influence of long term dynamics on the subject mix of individual higher education institutions, but also underline disciplinary differences, for example regarding student to staff ratios, as well as national patterns, for example regarding the number of PhD degrees per 100 undergraduate students. Despite its many limitations, this exploratory approach allows defining a classification of higher education institutions that accounts for a large share of differences between the analysed higher education institutions.

Timetable database restructuring

Heriot-Watt University uses a software package called Syllabus Plus for its timetabling. This package can perform scheduling functions however it is currently employed only as a room booking system at present. In academic session 2008-2009 the university will be restructuring its academic year from 3 terms of 10 weeks to semesters of 14 weeks and therefore major changes will be required to the timetabling information. This project has two functions, both with practical and relevant applications to the timetabling of the university. The aims of the project are the ability to change population number of modules and activities, delete term 3 modules and activities, the ability to change module and activity name, and change the teaching week pattern from the semester

SelenoDB 1.0 : a database of selenoprotein genes, proteins and SECIS elements

Selenoproteins are a diverse group of proteinsusually misidentified and misannotated in sequencedatabases. The presence of an in-frame UGA (stop)codon in the coding sequence of selenoproteingenes precludes their identification and correctannotation. The in-frame UGA codons are recodedto cotranslationally incorporate selenocysteine,a rare selenium-containing amino acid. The developmentof ad hoc experimental and, more recently,computational approaches have allowed the efficientidentification and characterization of theselenoproteomes of a growing number of species.Today, dozens of selenoprotein families have beendescribed and more are being discovered in recentlysequenced species, but the correct genomic annotationis not available for the majority of thesegenes. SelenoDB is a long-term project that aims toprovide, through the collaborative effort of experimentaland computational researchers, automaticand manually curated annotations of selenoproteingenes, proteins and SECIS elements. Version 1.0 ofthe database includes an initial set of eukaryoticgenomic annotations, with special emphasis on thehuman selenoproteome, for immediate inspectionby selenium researchers or incorporation into moregeneral databases. SelenoDB is freely available athttp://www.selenodb.org.

The Multiscenario Multienvironment BioSecure Multimodal Database (BMDB)

A new multimodal biometric database designed and acquired within the framework of the European BioSecure Network of Excellence is presented. It is comprised of more than 600 individuals acquired simultaneously in three scenarios: 1) over the Internet, 2) in an office environment with desktop PC, and 3) in indoor/outdoor environments with mobile portable hardware. The three scenarios include a common part of audio/video data. Also, signature and fingerprint data have been acquired both with desktop PC and mobile portable hardware. Additionally, hand and iris data were acquired in the second scenario using desktop PC. Acquisition has been conducted by 11 European institutions. Additional features of the BioSecure Multimodal Database (BMDB) are: two acquisitionsessions, several sensors in certain modalities, balanced gender and age distributions, multimodal realistic scenarios with simple and quick tasks per modality, cross-European diversity, availability of demographic data, and compatibility with other multimodal databases. The novel acquisition conditions of the BMDB allow us to perform new challenging research and evaluation of eithermonomodal or multimodal biometric systems, as in the recent BioSecure Multimodal Evaluation campaign. A description of this campaign including baseline results of individual modalities from the new database is also given. The database is expected to beavailable for research purposes through the BioSecure Association during 2008.

The Alps Vegetation Database - a geo-referenced community-level archive of all terrestrial plants occurring in the Alps.

Mountain ranges are biodiversity hotspots worldwide and provide refuge to many organisms under contemporary climate change. Gathering field information on mountain biodiversity over time is of primary importance to understand the response of biotic communities to climate changes. For plants, several long-term observation sites and networks of mountain biodiversity are emerging worldwide to gather field data and monitor altitudinal range shifts and community composition changes under contemporary climate change. Most of these monitoring sites, however, focus on alpine ecosystems and mountain summits, such as the global observation research initiative in alpine environments (GLORIA). Here we describe the Alps Vegetation Database, a comprehensive community level archive (GIVD ID EU-00-014) which aims at compiling all available geo-referenced vegetation plots from lowland forests to alpine grasslands across the greatest mountain range in Europe: the Alps. This research initiative was funded between 2008 and 2011 by the Danish Council for Independent Research and was part of a larger project to compare cross-scale plant community structure between the Alps and the Scandes. The Alps Vegetation Database currently harbours 35,731 geo-referenced vegetation plots and 5,023 valid taxa across Mediterranean, temperate and alpine environments. The data are mainly used by the main contributors of the Alps Vegetation Database in an ecoinformatics approach to test hypotheses related to plant macroecology and biogeography, but external proposals for joint collaborations are welcome.

Preliminary results of the Social Impact Research Group of MEDEX: the request database (2000-2002) of two Meteorological Services

One of the aims of the MEDEX project is to improve the knowledge of high-impact weather events in the Mediterranean. According to the guidelines of this project, a pilot study was carried out in two regions of Spain (the Balearic Islands and Catalonia) by the Social Impact Research group of MEDEX. The main goal is to suggest some general and suitable criteria about how to analyse requests received in Meteorological Services arising out of the damage caused by weather events. Thus, all the requests received between 2000 and 2002 at the Servei Meteorològic de Catalunya as well as at the Division of AEMET in the Balearic Islands were analysed. Firstly, the proposed criteria in order to build the database are defined and discussed. Secondly, the temporal distribution of the requests for damage claims is analysed. On average, almost half of them were received during the first month after the event happened. During the first six months, the percentage increases by 90%. Thirdly, various factors are taken into account to determine the impact of specific events on society. It is remarkable that the greatest number of requests is for those episodes with simultaneous heavy rain and strong wind, and finally, those that are linked to high population density.

Permanent.Plot.ch - a database for Swiss permanent vegetation plots

The aim of the Permanent.Plot.ch project is the conservation of historical data about permanent plots in Switzerland and the monitoring of vegetation in a context of environmental changes (mainly climate and land use). Permanent plots are currently being recognized as valuable tools to monitor long-term effects of environmental changes on vegetation. Often used in short studies (3 to 5 years), they are generally abandoned at the end of projects. However, their full potential might only be revealed after 10 or more years, once the location is lost. For instance, some of the oldest permanent plots in Switzerland (first half of the 20th century) were nearly lost, although they are now very valuable data. The Permanent.Plot.ch national database (GIVD ID EU-CH-001), by storing historical and recent data, will allow to ensuring future access to data from permanent vegetation plots. As the database contains some private data, it is not directly available on internet but an overview of the data can be downloaded from internet (http://www.unil.ch/ppch) and precise data are available on request.

Extremity exposure in nuclear medicine therapy with 90Y-labelled substances - Results of the ORAMED project

90Y-labelled radiopharmaceuticals offer promising prospects for radionuclide therapies of tumours, e.g. radioimmunotherapies (RIT), (EANM, 2007), peptide receptor radiotherapies (PRRT), (Otte et al., 1998), and selective internal radiotherapies (SIRT), (Salem and Thurston, 2006). 90Y, an almost pure high-energy beta radiation emitter (Eβ,max = 2.28 MeV), is a favourable radionuclide for therapeutic purposes. However, when preparing and performing these therapies, high activities of 90Y (>1 GBq) are to be manipulated and technicians, physicians and nurses may receive high skin exposures to the hands. If radiation protection standards are low, the exposure of staff can exceed the annual skin dose limit of 500 mSv. Within a particular work package (WP4) of the ORAMED project, comprehensive measurements in nuclear medicine departments of several hospitals in 6 European countries were carried out. The study focussed on 90Y-labelled substances such as Zevalin® and DOTATOC to achieve a representative database on staff exposure. This paper summarises the most important results and conclusions for individual monitoring of skin exposure of staff.

Development of a Database for Drilled Shaft Foundation Testing (DSHAFT), June 2012

Drilled shafts have been used in the US for more than 100 years in bridges and buildings as a deep foundation alternative. For many of these applications, the drilled shafts were designed using the Working Stress Design (WSD) approach. Even though WSD has been used successfully in the past, a move toward Load Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) for foundation applications began when the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) issued a policy memorandum on June 28, 2000.The policy memorandum requires all new bridges initiated after October 1, 2007, to be designed according to the LRFD approach. This ensures compatibility between the superstructure and substructure designs, and provides a means of consistently incorporating sources of uncertainty into each load and resistance component. Regionally-calibrated LRFD resistance factors are permitted by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) to improve the economy and competitiveness of drilled shafts. To achieve this goal, a database for Drilled SHAft Foundation Testing (DSHAFT) has been developed. DSHAFT is aimed at assimilating high quality drilled shaft test data from Iowa and the surrounding regions, and identifying the need for further tests in suitable soil profiles. This report introduces DSHAFT and demonstrates its features and capabilities, such as an easy-to-use storage and sharing tool for providing access to key information (e.g., soil classification details and cross-hole sonic logging reports). DSHAFT embodies a model for effective, regional LRFD calibration procedures consistent with PIle LOad Test (PILOT) database, which contains driven pile load tests accumulated from the state of Iowa. PILOT is now available for broader use at the project website: http://srg.cce.iastate.edu/lrfd/. DSHAFT, available in electronic form at http://srg.cce.iastate.edu/dshaft/, is currently comprised of 32 separate load tests provided by Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and Nebraska state departments of transportation and/or department of roads. In addition to serving as a manual for DSHAFT and providing a summary of the available data, this report provides a preliminary analysis of the load test data from Iowa, and will open up opportunities for others to share their data through this quality–assured process, thereby providing a platform to improve LRFD approach to drilled shafts, especially in the Midwest region.

Maintenance Asset Management Project -- Phase II, July 31, 2013

Expanded abstract: Iowa Department of Transportation (IA DOT) is finalizing research to streamline field inventory/inspection of culverts by Maintenance and Construction staff while maximizing the use of tablet technologies. The project began in 2011 to develop some new best practices for field staff to assist in the inventory, inspection and maintenance of assets along the roadway. The team has spent the past year working through the complexities of identifying the most appropriate tablet hardware for field data collection. A small scale deployment of tablets occurred in spring of 2013 to collect several safety related assets (culverts, signs, guardrail, and incidents). Data can be collected in disconnected or connected modes and there is an associated desktop environment where data can be viewed and queried after being synced into the master database. The development of a deployment plan and related workflow processes are underway; which will eventually feed information into IA DOTs larger asset management system and make the information available for decision making. The team is also working with the IA DOT Design Office on Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) data processing and the IA DOT Construction office with a new digital As-Built plan process to leverage the complete data life-cycle so information can be developed once and leveraged by the Maintenance staff farther along in the process.

Development of LRFD Procedures for Bridge Pile Foundations in Iowa, Volume I: An Electronic Database for PIle LOad Tests (PILOT), TR-573, 2011

For well over 100 years, the Working Stress Design (WSD) approach has been the traditional basis for geotechnical design with regard to settlements or failure conditions. However, considerable effort has been put forth over the past couple of decades in relation to the adoption of the Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) approach into geotechnical design. With the goal of producing engineered designs with consistent levels of reliability, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) issued a policy memorandum on June 28, 2000, requiring all new bridges initiated after October 1, 2007, to be designed according to the LRFD approach. Likewise, regionally calibrated LRFD resistance factors were permitted by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) to improve the economy of bridge foundation elements. Thus, projects TR-573, TR-583 and TR-584 were undertaken by a research team at Iowa State University’s Bridge Engineering Center with the goal of developing resistance factors for pile design using available pile static load test data. To accomplish this goal, the available data were first analyzed for reliability and then placed in a newly designed relational database management system termed PIle LOad Tests (PILOT), to which this first volume of the final report for project TR-573 is dedicated. PILOT is an amalgamated, electronic source of information consisting of both static and dynamic data for pile load tests conducted in the State of Iowa. The database, which includes historical data on pile load tests dating back to 1966, is intended for use in the establishment of LRFD resistance factors for design and construction control of driven pile foundations in Iowa. Although a considerable amount of geotechnical and pile load test data is available in literature as well as in various State Department of Transportation files, PILOT is one of the first regional databases to be exclusively used in the development of LRFD resistance factors for the design and construction control of driven pile foundations. Currently providing an electronically organized assimilation of geotechnical and pile load test data for 274 piles of various types (e.g., steel H-shaped, timber, pipe, Monotube, and concrete), PILOT (http://srg.cce.iastate.edu/lrfd/) is on par with such familiar national databases used in the calibration of LRFD resistance factors for pile foundations as the FHWA’s Deep Foundation Load Test Database. By narrowing geographical boundaries while maintaining a high number of pile load tests, PILOT exemplifies a model for effective regional LRFD calibration procedures.

GIS-Based Accident Location and Analysis System (GIS-ALAS) Project Report: Phase 1, 1998

This report summarizes progress made in Phase 1 of the GIS-based Accident Location and Analysis System (GIS-ALAS) project. The GIS-ALAS project builds on several longstanding efforts by the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT), law enforcement agencies, Iowa State University, and several other entities to create a locationally-referenced highway accident database for Iowa. Most notable of these efforts is the Iowa DOT’s development of a PC-based accident location and analysis system (PC-ALAS), a system that has been well received by users since it was introduced in 1989. With its pull-down menu structure, PC-ALAS is more portable and user-friendly than its mainframe predecessor. Users can obtain accident statistics for locations during specified time periods. Searches may be refined to identify accidents of specific types or involving drivers with certain characteristics. Output can be viewed on a computer screen, sent to a file, or printed using pre-defined formats.

Implementation of an Integrated Activity-Based Costing in a Holistic Database Management System and its Implications for Operations Management

Diplomityössä on tutkittu reaaliaikaisen toimintolaskennan toteuttamista suomalaisen lasersiruja valmistavan PK-yrityksen tietojärjestelmään. Lisäksi on tarkasteltu toimintolaskennan vaikutuksia operatiiviseen toimintaan sekä toimintojen johtamiseen. Työn kirjallisuusosassa on käsitelty kirjallisuuslähteiden perusteella toimintolaskennan teorioita, laskentamenetelmiä sekä teknisessä toteutuksessa käytettyjä teknologioita. Työn toteutusosassa suunniteltiin ja toteutettiin WWW-pohjainen toimintolaskentajärjestelmä case-yrityksen kustannuslaskennan sekä taloushallinnon avuksi. Työkalu integroitiin osaksi yrityksen toiminnanohjaus- sekä valmistuksenohjausjärjestelmää. Perinteisiin toimintolaskentamallien tiedonkeruujärjestelmiin verrattuna case-yrityksessä syötteet toimintolaskentajärjestelmälle tulevat reaaliaikaisesti osana suurempaa tietojärjestelmäintegraatiota.Diplomityö pyrkii luomaan suhteen toimintolaskennan vaatimusten ja tietokantajärjestelmien välille. Toimintolaskentajärjestelmää yritys voi hyödyntää esimerkiksi tuotteiden hinnoittelussa ja kustannuslaskennassa näkemällä tuotteisiin liittyviä kustannuksia eri näkökulmista. Päätelmiä voidaan tehdä tarkkaan kustannusinformaatioon perustuen sekä määrittää järjestelmän tuottaman datan perusteella, onko tietyn projektin, asiakkuuden tai tuotteen kehittäminen taloudellisesti kannattavaa.

CleanEx: a database of heterogeneous gene expression data based on a consistent gene nomenclature and linked to an improved annotation system

Résumé: L'automatisation du séquençage et de l'annotation des génomes, ainsi que l'application à large échelle de méthodes de mesure de l'expression génique, génèrent une quantité phénoménale de données pour des organismes modèles tels que l'homme ou la souris. Dans ce déluge de données, il devient très difficile d'obtenir des informations spécifiques à un organisme ou à un gène, et une telle recherche aboutit fréquemment à des réponses fragmentées, voir incomplètes. La création d'une base de données capable de gérer et d'intégrer aussi bien les données génomiques que les données transcriptomiques peut grandement améliorer la vitesse de recherche ainsi que la qualité des résultats obtenus, en permettant une comparaison directe de mesures d'expression des gènes provenant d'expériences réalisées grâce à des techniques différentes. L'objectif principal de ce projet, appelé CleanEx, est de fournir un accès direct aux données d'expression publiques par le biais de noms de gènes officiels, et de représenter des données d'expression produites selon des protocoles différents de manière à faciliter une analyse générale et une comparaison entre plusieurs jeux de données. Une mise à jour cohérente et régulière de la nomenclature des gènes est assurée en associant chaque expérience d'expression de gène à un identificateur permanent de la séquence-cible, donnant une description physique de la population d'ARN visée par l'expérience. Ces identificateurs sont ensuite associés à intervalles réguliers aux catalogues, en constante évolution, des gènes d'organismes modèles. Cette procédure automatique de traçage se fonde en partie sur des ressources externes d'information génomique, telles que UniGene et RefSeq. La partie centrale de CleanEx consiste en un index de gènes établi de manière hebdomadaire et qui contient les liens à toutes les données publiques d'expression déjà incorporées au système. En outre, la base de données des séquences-cible fournit un lien sur le gène correspondant ainsi qu'un contrôle de qualité de ce lien pour différents types de ressources expérimentales, telles que des clones ou des sondes Affymetrix. Le système de recherche en ligne de CleanEx offre un accès aux entrées individuelles ainsi qu'à des outils d'analyse croisée de jeux de donnnées. Ces outils se sont avérés très efficaces dans le cadre de la comparaison de l'expression de gènes, ainsi que, dans une certaine mesure, dans la détection d'une variation de cette expression liée au phénomène d'épissage alternatif. Les fichiers et les outils de CleanEx sont accessibles en ligne (http://www.cleanex.isb-sib.ch/). Abstract: The automatic genome sequencing and annotation, as well as the large-scale gene expression measurements methods, generate a massive amount of data for model organisms. Searching for genespecific or organism-specific information througout all the different databases has become a very difficult task, and often results in fragmented and unrelated answers. The generation of a database which will federate and integrate genomic and transcriptomic data together will greatly improve the search speed as well as the quality of the results by allowing a direct comparison of expression results obtained by different techniques. The main goal of this project, called the CleanEx database, is thus to provide access to public gene expression data via unique gene names and to represent heterogeneous expression data produced by different technologies in a way that facilitates joint analysis and crossdataset comparisons. A consistent and uptodate gene nomenclature is achieved by associating each single gene expression experiment with a permanent target identifier consisting of a physical description of the targeted RNA population or the hybridization reagent used. These targets are then mapped at regular intervals to the growing and evolving catalogues of genes from model organisms, such as human and mouse. The completely automatic mapping procedure relies partly on external genome information resources such as UniGene and RefSeq. The central part of CleanEx is a weekly built gene index containing crossreferences to all public expression data already incorporated into the system. In addition, the expression target database of CleanEx provides gene mapping and quality control information for various types of experimental resources, such as cDNA clones or Affymetrix probe sets. The Affymetrix mapping files are accessible as text files, for further use in external applications, and as individual entries, via the webbased interfaces . The CleanEx webbased query interfaces offer access to individual entries via text string searches or quantitative expression criteria, as well as crossdataset analysis tools, and crosschip gene comparison. These tools have proven to be very efficient in expression data comparison and even, to a certain extent, in detection of differentially expressed splice variants. The CleanEx flat files and tools are available online at: http://www.cleanex.isbsib. ch/.