Recerca de l'eficiència en aplicacions SIG per Android

A causa de l'increment del nombre de consumidors de dades geogràfiques, sobretot de dispositius mòbils, els sistemes d'informació geogràfica es troben davant el repte de reduir el coll d'ampolla que suposa l'arquitectura client-servidor clàssica. Una de les solucions a aquest problema és la translació de part de la intel·ligència al node client, així com la creació de xarxes descentralitzades (peer to peer),L'objectiu d'aquesta recerca és demostrar la viabilitat d'una infraestructura client mòbil-servidor, on el client no és únicament un consumidor més, si no que es torna un node intel·ligent.Per fer aquest estudi s'ha desenvolupat una aplicació pel sistema operatiu Android que consumeix dades d'OpenStreetMap. Aquesta aplicació utilitza tècniques de tessel·lat, catching i descàrrega de dades en background segons la posició de l'usuari, per facilitar el consum i reduir el flux de dades intercanviades entre el client i el servidor. També s'ha creat un servei web intern al dispositiu mòbil per a la creació de xarxes peer to peer, les quals permetin un intercanvi de dades entre els terminals mòbils. En aquest treball s'ha demostrat la viabilitat de la infraestructura a través del impacte de l'ús de les tècniques comentades anteriorment sobre el dispositiu client. Per mesurar l'impacte s'ha tingut en compte la càrrega de la CPU (la qual repercuteix al consum de la bateria) i el temps de resposta del sistema. Els resultats de les proves realitzades indiquen que aquestes tècniques redueixen el temps de cerca de punts d'interès d'una manera dràstica, però que també tenen un alt impacte a la CPU i en el temps de càrrega, sobretot en dispositius amb menys capacitats.

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This contribution introduces Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a performance measurement technique. DEA helps decision makers for the following reasons: (1) By calculating an efficiency score, it indicates if a firm is efficient or has capacity for improvement; (2) By setting target values for input and output, it calculates how much input must be decreased or output increased in order to become efficient; (3) By identifying the nature of returns to scale, it indicates if a firm has to decrease or increase its scale (or size) in order to minimise the average total cost; (4) By identifying a set of benchmarks, it specifies which other firms' processes need to be analysed in order to improve its own practices. This contribution presents the essentials about DEA, alongside a case study to intuitively understand its application. It also introduces Win4DEAP, a software package that conducts efficiency analysis based on DEA methodology. The methodical background of DEA is presented for more demanding readers. Finally, four advanced topics of DEA are treated: adjustment to the environment, preferences, sensitivity analysis and time series data.

Understanding informal payments in health care: motivation of health workers in Tanzania

BACKGROUND: There is growing evidence that informal payments for health care are fairly common in many low- and middle-income countries. Informal payments are reported to have a negative consequence on equity and quality of care; it has been suggested, however, that they may contribute to health worker motivation and retention. Given the significance of motivation and retention issues in human resources for health, a better understanding of the relationships between the two phenomena is needed. This study attempts to assess whether and in what ways informal payments occur in Kibaha, Tanzania. Moreover, it aims to assess how informal earnings might help boost health worker motivation and retention. METHODS: Nine focus groups were conducted in three health facilities of different levels in the health system. In total, 64 health workers participated in the focus group discussions (81% female, 19% male) and where possible, focus groups were divided by cadre. All data were processed and analysed by means of the NVivo software package. RESULTS: The use of informal payments in the study area was confirmed by this study. Furthermore, a negative relationship between informal payments and job satisfaction and better motivation is suggested. Participants mentioned that they felt enslaved by patients as a result of being bribed and this resulted in loss of self-esteem. Furthermore, fear of detection was a main demotivating factor. These factors seem to counterbalance the positive effect of financial incentives. Moreover, informal payments were not found to be related to retention of health workers in the public health system. Other factors such as job security seemed to be more relevant for retention. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that the practice of informal payments contributes to the general demotivation of health workers and negatively affects access to health care services and quality of the health system. Policy action is needed that not only provides better financial incentives for individuals but also tackles an environment in which corruption is endemic.

DnaSP, DNA polymorphism analyses by the coalescent and other methods

DnaSP is a software package for the analysis of DNA polymorphism data. Present version introduces several new modules and features which, among other options allow: (1) handling big data sets (~5 Mb per sequence); (2) conducting a large number of coalescent-based tests by Monte Carlo computer simulations; (3) extensive analyses of the genetic differentiation and gene flow among populations; (4) analysing the evolutionary pattern of preferred and unpreferred codons; (5) generating graphical outputs for an easy visualization of results. Availability: The software package, including complete documentation and examples, is freely available to academic users from: http://www.ub.es/dnasp

Genome-wide DNA polymorphism analyses using VariScan

BACKGROUND: DNA sequence polymorphisms analysis can provide valuable information on the evolutionary forces shaping nucleotide variation, and provides an insight into the functional significance of genomic regions. The recent ongoing genome projects will radically improve our capabilities to detect specific genomic regions shaped by natural selection. Current available methods and software, however, are unsatisfactory for such genome-wide analysis. RESULTS: We have developed methods for the analysis of DNA sequence polymorphisms at the genome-wide scale. These methods, which have been tested on a coalescent-simulated and actual data files from mouse and human, have been implemented in the VariScan software package version 2.0. Additionally, we have also incorporated a graphical-user interface. The main features of this software are: i) exhaustive population-genetic analyses including those based on the coalescent theory; ii) analysis adapted to the shallow data generated by the high-throughput genome projects; iii) use of genome annotations to conduct a comprehensive analyses separately for different functional regions; iv) identification of relevant genomic regions by the sliding-window and wavelet-multiresolution approaches; v) visualization of the results integrated with current genome annotations in commonly available genome browsers. CONCLUSION: VariScan is a powerful and flexible suite of software for the analysis of DNA polymorphisms. The current version implements new algorithms, methods, and capabilities, providing an important tool for an exhaustive exploratory analysis of genome-wide DNA polymorphism data.

Spatiotemporal analysis of multichannel EEG: CARTOOL.

This paper describes methods to analyze the brain's electric fields recorded with multichannel Electroencephalogram (EEG) and demonstrates their implementation in the software CARTOOL. It focuses on the analysis of the spatial properties of these fields and on quantitative assessment of changes of field topographies across time, experimental conditions, or populations. Topographic analyses are advantageous because they are reference independents and thus render statistically unambiguous results. Neurophysiologically, differences in topography directly indicate changes in the configuration of the active neuronal sources in the brain. We describe global measures of field strength and field similarities, temporal segmentation based on topographic variations, topographic analysis in the frequency domain, topographic statistical analysis, and source imaging based on distributed inverse solutions. All analysis methods are implemented in a freely available academic software package called CARTOOL. Besides providing these analysis tools, CARTOOL is particularly designed to visualize the data and the analysis results using 3-dimensional display routines that allow rapid manipulation and animation of 3D images. CARTOOL therefore is a helpful tool for researchers as well as for clinicians to interpret multichannel EEG and evoked potentials in a global, comprehensive, and unambiguous way.

Interoperability and Technology for a Language Resources Factory

This document describes some of the technological aspects of a project devoted to the creation of a factory for language resources. The project’s objectives are explained, as well as the idea to create a distributed infrastructure of web services. This document focuses on two main topics of the factory: (1) the technological approaches chosen to develop the factory, i.e. software, protocols, servers, etc. (2) and Interoperability as the main challenge is to permit different NLP tools work together in the factory. This document explains why XCES and GrAF are chosen as the main formats used for the linguistic data exchange.

Networking of differentially expressed genes in human cancer cells resistant to methotrexate

BACKGROUND: The need for an integrated view of data obtained from high-throughput technologies gave rise to network analyses. These are especially useful to rationalize how external perturbations propagate through the expression of genes. To address this issue in the case of drug resistance, we constructed biological association networks of genes differentially expressed in cell lines resistant to methotrexate (MTX). METHODS: Seven cell lines representative of different types of cancer, including colon cancer (HT29 and Caco2), breast cancer (MCF-7 and MDA-MB-468), pancreatic cancer (MIA PaCa-2), erythroblastic leukemia (K562) and osteosarcoma (Saos-2), were used. The differential expression pattern between sensitive and MTX-resistant cells was determined by whole human genome microarrays and analyzed with the GeneSpring GX software package. Genes deregulated in common between the different cancer cell lines served to generate biological association networks using the Pathway Architect software. RESULTS: Dikkopf homolog-1 (DKK1) is a highly interconnected node in the network generated with genes in common between the two colon cancer cell lines, and functional validations of this target using small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) showed a chemosensitization toward MTX. Members of the UDP-glucuronosyltransferase 1A (UGT1A) family formed a network of genes differentially expressed in the two breast cancer cell lines. siRNA treatment against UGT1A also showed an increase in MTX sensitivity. Eukaryotic translation elongation factor 1 alpha 1 (EEF1A1) was overexpressed among the pancreatic cancer, leukemia and osteosarcoma cell lines, and siRNA treatment against EEF1A1 produced a chemosensitization toward MTX. CONCLUSIONS: Biological association networks identified DKK1, UGT1As and EEF1A1 as important gene nodes in MTX-resistance. Treatments using siRNA technology against these three genes showed chemosensitization toward MTX.

Pavement Thickness Design for Local Roads in Iowa, TR-586, 2010

Three pavement design software packages were compared with regards to how they were different in determining design input parameters and their influences on the pavement thickness. StreetPave designs the concrete pavement thickness based on the PCA method and the equivalent asphalt pavement thickness. The WinPAS software performs both concrete and asphalt pavements following the AASHTO 1993 design method. The APAI software designs asphalt pavements based on pre-mechanistic/empirical AASHTO methodology. First, the following four critical design input parameters were identified: traffic, subgrade strength, reliability, and design life. The sensitivity analysis of these four design input parameters were performed using three pavement design software packages to identify which input parameters require the most attention during pavement design. Based on the current pavement design procedures and sensitivity analysis results, a prototype pavement design and sensitivity analysis (PD&SA) software package was developed to retrieve the pavement thickness design value for a given condition and allow a user to perform a pavement design sensitivity analysis. The prototype PD&SA software is a computer program that stores pavement design results in database that is designed for the user to input design data from the variety of design programs and query design results for given conditions. The prototype Pavement Design and Sensitivity Analysis (PA&SA) software package was developed to demonstrate the concept of retrieving the pavement design results from the database for a design sensitivity analysis. This final report does not include the prototype software which will be validated and tested during the next phase.

Genome-wide DNA polymorphism analyses using VariScan

BACKGROUND: DNA sequence polymorphisms analysis can provide valuable information on the evolutionary forces shaping nucleotide variation, and provides an insight into the functional significance of genomic regions. The recent ongoing genome projects will radically improve our capabilities to detect specific genomic regions shaped by natural selection. Current available methods and software, however, are unsatisfactory for such genome-wide analysis. RESULTS: We have developed methods for the analysis of DNA sequence polymorphisms at the genome-wide scale. These methods, which have been tested on a coalescent-simulated and actual data files from mouse and human, have been implemented in the VariScan software package version 2.0. Additionally, we have also incorporated a graphical-user interface. The main features of this software are: i) exhaustive population-genetic analyses including those based on the coalescent theory; ii) analysis adapted to the shallow data generated by the high-throughput genome projects; iii) use of genome annotations to conduct a comprehensive analyses separately for different functional regions; iv) identification of relevant genomic regions by the sliding-window and wavelet-multiresolution approaches; v) visualization of the results integrated with current genome annotations in commonly available genome browsers. CONCLUSION: VariScan is a powerful and flexible suite of software for the analysis of DNA polymorphisms. The current version implements new algorithms, methods, and capabilities, providing an important tool for an exhaustive exploratory analysis of genome-wide DNA polymorphism data.

Arterial wall dosimetry for non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients treated with radioimmunotherapy.

Tumors in non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) patients are often proximal to the major blood vessels in the abdomen or neck. In external-beam radiotherapy, these tumors present a challenge because imaging resolution prevents the beam from being targeted to the tumor lesion without also irradiating the artery wall. This problem has led to potentially life-threatening delayed toxicity. Because radioimmunotherapy has resulted in long-term survival of NHL patients, we investigated whether the absorbed dose (AD) to the artery wall in radioimmunotherapy of NHL is of potential concern for delayed toxicity. SPECT resolution is not sufficient to enable dosimetric analysis of anatomic features of the thickness of the aortic wall. Therefore, we present a model of aortic wall toxicity based on data from 4 patients treated with (131)I-tositumomab. METHODS: Four NHL patients with periaortic tumors were administered pretherapeutic (131)I-tositumomab. Abdominal SPECT and whole-body planar images were obtained at 48, 72, and 144 h after tracer administration. Blood-pool activity concentrations were obtained from regions of interest drawn on the heart on the planar images. Tumor and blood activity concentrations, scaled to therapeutic administered activities-both standard and myeloablative-were input into a geometry and tracking model (GEANT, version 4) of the aorta. The simulated energy deposited in the arterial walls was collected and fitted, and the AD and biologic effective dose values to the aortic wall and tumors were obtained for standard therapeutic and hypothetical myeloablative administered activities. RESULTS: Arterial wall ADs from standard therapy were lower (0.6-3.7 Gy) than those typical from external-beam therapy, as were the tumor ADs (1.4-10.5 Gy). The ratios of tumor AD to arterial wall AD were greater for radioimmunotherapy by a factor of 1.9-4.0. For myeloablative therapy, artery wall ADs were in general less than those typical for external-beam therapy (9.4-11.4 Gy for 3 of 4 patients) but comparable for 1 patient (32.6 Gy). CONCLUSION: Blood vessel radiation dose can be estimated using the software package 3D-RD combined with GEANT modeling. The dosimetry analysis suggested that arterial wall toxicity is highly unlikely in standard dose radioimmunotherapy but should be considered a potential concern and limiting factor in myeloablative therapy.

Modeling of Pressurizer Using APROS and TRACE Thermal Hydraulic Codes

Diplomityön tavoitteena on paineistimen yksityiskohtainen mallintaminen APROS- ja TRACE- termohydrauliikkaohjelmistoja käyttäen. Rakennetut paineistinmallit testattiin vertaamalla laskentatuloksia paineistimen täyttymistä, tyhjentymistä ja ruiskutusta käsittelevistä erilliskokeista saatuun mittausdataan. Tutkimuksen päätavoitteena on APROSin paineistinmallin validoiminen käyttäen vertailuaineistona PACTEL ATWS-koesarjan sopivia paineistinkokeita sekä MIT Pressurizer- ja Neptunus- erilliskokeita. Lisäksi rakennettiin malli Loviisan ydinvoimalaitoksen paineistimesta, jota käytettiin turbiinitrippitransientin simulointiin tarkoituksena selvittää mahdolliset voimalaitoksen ja koelaitteistojen mittakaavaerosta johtuvat vaikutukset APROSin paineistinlaskentaan. Kokeiden simuloinnissa testattiin erilaisia noodituksia ja mallinnusvaihtoehtoja, kuten entalpian ensimmäisen ja toisen kertaluvun diskretisointia, ja APROSin sekä TRACEn antamia tuloksia vertailtiin kattavasti toisiinsa. APROSin paineistinmallin lämmönsiirtokorrelaatioissa havaittiin merkittävä puute ja laskentatuloksiin saatiin huomattava parannus ottamalla käyttöön uusi seinämälauhtumismalli. Työssä tehdyt TRACE-simulaatiot ovat osa United States Nuclear Regulatory Commissionin kansainvälistä CAMP-koodinkehitys-ja validointiohjelmaa.

Tiedonvaihto - ja tietojärjestelmäyhteentoimivuus kahden sotilaallisen koalition välillä

Tämä diplomityö käsittelee kahden sotilaallisen koalition yhteentoimivuuden haasteita ja toteutusta kaupallisintyökaluin. Työ pohjautuu kahteen todelliseen, palvelusuuntautunutta arkkitehtuurisuunnittelua (SOA) hyödyntäneeseen integraatioprojektiin jotka on toteutettu Suomen IBM:n Palveluyksikössä vuosina 2006 - 2007. Työn tavoitteena on ollut tutkia sotilaallisten koalitioiden järjestelmä - ja tiedonvaihtoyhteentoimivuuden menetelmiä, näkökulmia ja teknistä toteutusta kaupallisin ohjelmistotuottein ja yhteistä tietomallia käyttäen. Lisäksi esitetään puolustustoimialan erityispiirteet tietojärjestelmätoimittajien ohjelmistokehitys - prosesseihin liittyen. Tätä varten tutkittiin koalitioiden käyttöön tarkoitettuja olemassa olevia ohjelmistoarkkitehtuureja ja yhteentoimivuusmalleja sekä sovitettiin niitä SOA - arkkitehtuuriajatteluun. Työn teoreettisena pohjana käytettiin organisatorisen ja teknisen yhteentoimivuuden kuvaavaa Layers of Coalition Interoperability (LCI) - mallia, minkä jälkeen mallin teknistä osiota käytettiin pohjana SOA - palveluihin perustuvan esimerkkijärjestelmän kehittämiseen kahden kuvitteellisen koalition tiedonvaihtoa varten. Työn keskeisinä tuloksina on syntynyt suunnitelma koalitioiden taustajärjestelmien yhdistämisestä dynaamisten SOA- palveluiden avulla yhteiseen JC3IEDM - tietomalliin. Tämä tietomalli vuorostaan antaa mahdollisuuden järjestelmän laajentamiseen esimerkiksi avustusjärjestöjen, poliisivoimien ja terveydenhuollon organisaatioiden tarpeisiin.

Paperikoneen lajinvaihdon säätötapojen vertailu

Työn tavoitteena oli vertailla paperikoneen lajinvaihdon säätötapoja. Vertailun kohteina olivat Metso Automationin IQGradeChange lajinvaihto-ohjelmisto ja operaattoreiden käsin tekemät lajinvaihdot. Kattavan tutkimusaineiston saamiseksi paperikoneen lajinvaihtodataa kerättiin seitsemän kuukauden ajan. Kerätyt lajinvaihdot käytiin läpi Matlab-ympäristössä lajinvaihtoaikojen selvittämiseksi. Lisäksi lajinvaihdoista laskettiin tuotannon muutokset ((t/h)/min) vanhan ja uudenlajin välillä, jotta päästiin selvyyteen lajinvaihdon laajuudesta ja eri lajinvaihtotapojen suorituskyvyistä. Koeajojaksona paperikoneelta kerättiin kaikkiaan 130 lajinvaihdon tiedot. Näistä lajinvaihdoista 58 tehtiin IQGradeChange lajinvaihto-ohjelmistolla ja 72 oli operaattoreiden käsin tekemiä lajinvaihtoja. Kerätyistä 130 lajinvaihdosta 27 kappaletta päättyi ratakatkoon. Yhtenä tehtävänä olikin tutkia katkoon päättyneitä lajinvaihtoja.

Networking of differentially expressed genes in human cancer cells resistant to methotrexate

BACKGROUND: The need for an integrated view of data obtained from high-throughput technologies gave rise to network analyses. These are especially useful to rationalize how external perturbations propagate through the expression of genes. To address this issue in the case of drug resistance, we constructed biological association networks of genes differentially expressed in cell lines resistant to methotrexate (MTX). METHODS: Seven cell lines representative of different types of cancer, including colon cancer (HT29 and Caco2), breast cancer (MCF-7 and MDA-MB-468), pancreatic cancer (MIA PaCa-2), erythroblastic leukemia (K562) and osteosarcoma (Saos-2), were used. The differential expression pattern between sensitive and MTX-resistant cells was determined by whole human genome microarrays and analyzed with the GeneSpring GX software package. Genes deregulated in common between the different cancer cell lines served to generate biological association networks using the Pathway Architect software. RESULTS: Dikkopf homolog-1 (DKK1) is a highly interconnected node in the network generated with genes in common between the two colon cancer cell lines, and functional validations of this target using small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) showed a chemosensitization toward MTX. Members of the UDP-glucuronosyltransferase 1A (UGT1A) family formed a network of genes differentially expressed in the two breast cancer cell lines. siRNA treatment against UGT1A also showed an increase in MTX sensitivity. Eukaryotic translation elongation factor 1 alpha 1 (EEF1A1) was overexpressed among the pancreatic cancer, leukemia and osteosarcoma cell lines, and siRNA treatment against EEF1A1 produced a chemosensitization toward MTX. CONCLUSIONS: Biological association networks identified DKK1, UGT1As and EEF1A1 as important gene nodes in MTX-resistance. Treatments using siRNA technology against these three genes showed chemosensitization toward MTX.