Tietovaraston tietojen laatu ja arvo

Tutkielman tarkoituksena on tutkia case -organisaationa toimivan Tiehallinnon kahden tietovaraston, kuntotietorekisterin ja tiesääjärjestelmän tietojen laatua ja arvoa sekä selvittää, mitkä ominaisuudet näihin vaikuttavat ja miten nämä koetaan tällä hetkellä. Näiden ominaisuuksien tunnistaminen auttaa organisaatiota parantamaan tietovarastoidensa tietojen laatua, joka taas lisää niistä saatavaa arvoa. Tutkimus- ja tiedonkeruumenetelminä käytetään kvalitatiivista teemahaastattelua sekä kvantitatiivista web-pohjaista kyselylomaketta. Tutkimuksessa saatiin kuva kohdeorganisaation tietovarastojen tietojen koetusta laadusta ja arvosta ja siitä mistä nämä koostuvat. Tietovaraston tietojen laatuun ja arvoon vaikuttivat selvästi eri laatuominaisuudet. Tietovarastoilla on laatuominaisuuksia, joita käyttäjät pitävät tärkeinä ja joiden he kokevat korkealaatuisina tuottavan heille hyötyä. Tietovaraston käyttäjien työtehtävät, odotukset ja tarpeet määrittävät koetun laadun tason. Tietovaraston tietojen arvo muodostuu käyttäjän kokeman hyödyn ja laadun perusteella. Tietovaraston tietojen laatuominaisuuksiin, kuten esimerkiksi käytettävyyteen, virheettömyyteen ja saatavuuteen pystytään vaikuttamaan, koska nämä ovat kiinteästi tietovaraston tekniseen toteutukseen liittyviä tekijöitä. Tietovarastojen tietojen hyötyyn ja sen kautta koettuun arvoon ei pystytä suoraan vaikuttamaan, muuten kuin laatuominaisuuksia parantamalla.

Elements del practicum que afavoreixen la transferència de competències

El pràcticum és un entorn privilegiat per a la transferència de competències. Des d"aquesta perspectiva, s"ha desenvolupat el projecte «Anàlisi i avaluació de la transferibilitat de competències professionals de l"Educació Social en els centres de pràctiques» (2008MQD155) a la Universitat de Barcelona durant els cursos 2008-2010. La complexitat de l"objecte d"estudi aconsellava la utilització de mètodes qualitatius. Es va optar per un disseny d"investigació-acció a partir d"espais de reflexió. Des de la percepció dels participants, s"han identificat un conjunt d"elements que afavoreixen la transferència de competències en el marc del pràcticum, entre els quals cal destacar la necessitat d"una planificació conjunta i d"una planificació específica des de cadascun dels escenaris formatius vertebrada des de la reflexió-acció de la pràctica de l"estudiant. Per fer-ho possible, és necessari que els centres de pràctiques i els centres universitaris es reconeguin corresponsables de la formació pràctica.

Protocol per a la implantació d'eines didàctiques virtuals: competències i habilitats adquirides pels estudiants

L"adaptació al nou espai europeu d"educació superior (EEES) ha plantejat alguns canvis en l"enfocament de la formació universitària al nostre país. On abans era el docent el protagonista, ara és l"estudiant el que pren el rol d"actor principal de la seva formació, i l"aprenentatge s"orienta cap a una autonomia i reflexió més grans. En aquest escenari, les noves tecnologies ofereixen un ampli ventall d"opcions per millorar els processos formatius. En aquests sentit, el Grup d"Innovació Docent G IDEA ha participat activament en aquest procés d"adaptació des de ja fa uns quants anys, i ha creat una sèrie de recursos docents digitals que han estat àmpliament provats en diversos ensenyaments de la Facultat d"Economia i Empresa de la Universitat de Barcelona. L"objectiu d"aquest article és presentar el protocol dissenyat per l"equip d"investigadors del G IDEA per implantar aquestes eines didàctiques (webquestes i exercicis tutoritzats), i també els resultats d"una enquesta de satisfacció sobre les competències i habilitats adquirides pels nostres estudiants en la utilització dels recursos. Els resultats mostren, d"una banda, que no ha estat possible crear un mateix protocol aplicable a tots els recursos, a causa de les diferències en els objectius didàctics de les distintes eines docents implantades. D"altra banda, la valoració que els estudiants fan de la utilització de les eines és molt positiva, tot i que hi ha algunes diferències entre els recursos analitzats. Conèixer la valoració que l"alumnat fa d"aquests recursos permet al grup d"investigadors poder-los millorar i adequar al perfil dels estudiants perquè aquests en puguin treure el màxim profit possible.

Polymorphisms in DNA-repair genes in a cohort of prostate cancer patients from different areas in Spain: heterogeneity between populations as a confounding factor in association studies

Background: Differences in the distribution of genotypes between individuals of the same ethnicity are an important confounder factor commonly undervalued in typical association studies conducted in radiogenomics. Objective: To evaluate the genotypic distribution of SNPs in a wide set of Spanish prostate cancer patients for determine the homogeneity of the population and to disclose potential bias. Design, Setting, and Participants: A total of 601 prostate cancer patients from Andalusia, Basque Country, Canary and Catalonia were genotyped for 10 SNPs located in 6 different genes associated to DNA repair: XRCC1 (rs25487, rs25489, rs1799782), ERCC2 (rs13181), ERCC1 (rs11615), LIG4 (rs1805388, rs1805386), ATM (rs17503908, rs1800057) and P53 (rs1042522). The SNP genotyping was made in a Biotrove OpenArrayH NT Cycler. Outcome Measurements and Statistical Analysis: Comparisons of genotypic and allelic frequencies among populations, as well as haplotype analyses were determined using the web-based environment SNPator. Principal component analysis was made using the SnpMatrix and XSnpMatrix classes and methods implemented as an R package. Non-supervised hierarchical cluster of SNP was made using MultiExperiment Viewer. Results and Limitations: We observed that genotype distribution of 4 out 10 SNPs was statistically different among the studied populations, showing the greatest differences between Andalusia and Catalonia. These observations were confirmed in cluster analysis, principal component analysis and in the differential distribution of haplotypes among the populations. Because tumor characteristics have not been taken into account, it is possible that some polymorphisms may influence tumor characteristics in the same way that it may pose a risk factor for other disease characteristics. Conclusion: Differences in distribution of genotypes within different populations of the same ethnicity could be an important confounding factor responsible for the lack of validation of SNPs associated with radiation-induced toxicity, especially when extensive meta-analysis with subjects from different countries are carried out.

Actividades de aprendizaje y evaluación a través del Campus Virtual. Experiencia en Fisiología y Fisiopatología I del Grado de Farmacia

[spa] Nuestro objetivo consiste en fomentar, entre alumnos internos del Departamento de Fisiología, el autoaprendizaje, el trabajo autónomo y en equipo, espíritu crítico y habilidad para buscar y analizar información. A la vez se pretende iniciar a estos alumnos en los sistemas de transferencia de resultados de la investigación básica a la investigación aplicada. Para ello a los alumnos se les proporciona materiales que contienen información sobre las materias objeto de aprendizaje y enlaces a diferentes sitios webs de interés relacionados con el tema. En ellos se promueve la exposición de trabajos y la participación en jornadas especializadas. El uso de estos materiales bajo supervisión del profesorado, ha permitido la mejora del conocimiento en Fisiología y la creación de equipos especializados en diferentes aspectos de la Fisiología. Además, la transferencia de información entre alumnos, ha propiciado que puedan adquirir una visión clara y amplia sobre qué es un trabajo de investigación básica o un trabajo de investigación aplicada, así como la importancia del trabajo en equipo, lo que ha posibilitado que pudieran diseñar pequeños experimentos y estudiar su aplicabilidad. Al final del periodo de formación, los alumnos demostraron haber adquirido las competencias genéricas CG1, CG3, CG5, CG6, CG11, CG13 y CG15 incluidas en la ficha Verifica para el Grado en Farmacia, así como las competencias específicas para el módulo 5 (Medicina y Farmacología) CEM5.8, CEM5.9 y CEM5.11, concluyendo así que la aplicación de métodos de enseñanza basados en el autoaprendizaje (bajo supervisión de equipos docentes) constituye una excelente herramienta para la promoción de la adquisición de competencias generales y específicas en el Grado en Farmacia.

Phenol-Explorer 3.0: a major update of the Phenol-Explorer database to incorporate data on the effects of food processing on polyphenol content

Polyphenols are a major class of bioactive phytochemicals whose consumption may play a role in the prevention of a number of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, type II diabetes and cancers. Phenol-Explorer, launched in 2009, is the only freely available web-based database on the content of polyphenols in food and their in vivo metabolism and pharmacokinetics. Here we report the third release of the database (Phenol-Explorer 3.0), which adds data on the effects of food processing on polyphenol contents in foods. Data on >100 foods, covering 161 polyphenols or groups of polyphenols before and after processing, were collected from 129 peer-reviewed publications and entered into new tables linked to the existing relational design. The effect of processing on polyphenol content is expressed in the form of retention factor coefficients, or the proportion of a given polyphenol retained after processing, adjusted for change in water content. The result is the first database on the effects of food processing on polyphenol content and, following the model initially defined for Phenol-Explorer, all data may be traced back to original sources. The new update will allow polyphenol scientists to more accurately estimate polyphenol exposure from dietary surveys. Database URL: http://www.phenol-explorer.eu

A novel approach to the determination of clinical decision thresholds

Our objective was to determine the test and treatment thresholds for common acute primary care conditions. We presented 200 clinicians with a series of web-based clinical vignettes, describing patients with possible influenza, acute coronary syndrome (ACS), pneumonia, deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and urinary tract infection (UTI). We randomly varied the probability of disease and asked whether the clinician wanted to rule out disease, order tests or rule in disease. By randomly varying the probability, we obtained clinical decisions across a broad range of disease probabilities that we used to create threshold curves. For influenza, the test (4.5% vs 32%, p<0.001) and treatment (55% vs 68%, p=0.11) thresholds were lower for US compared with Swiss physicians. US physicians had somewhat higher test (3.8% vs 0.7%, p=0.107) and treatment (76% vs 58%, p=0.005) thresholds for ACS than Swiss physicians. For both groups, the range between test and treatment thresholds was greater for ACS than for influenza (which is sensible, given the consequences of incorrect diagnosis). For pneumonia, US physicians had a trend towards higher test thresholds and lower treatment thresholds (48% vs 64%, p=0.076) than Swiss physicians. The DVT and UTI scenarios did not provide easily interpretable data, perhaps due to poor wording of the vignettes. We have developed a novel approach for determining decision thresholds. We found important differences in thresholds for US and Swiss physicians that may be a function of differences in healthcare systems. Our results can also guide development of clinical decision rules and guidelines.

Phenotypic and genotypic characteristics of cryopyrin-associated periodic syndrome: a series of 136 patients from the Eurofever Registry.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate genetic, demographic and clinical features in patients with cryopyrin-associated periodic syndrome (CAPS) from the Eurofever Registry, with a focus on genotype-phenotype correlations and predictive disease severity markers. METHODS: A web-based registry retrospectively collected data on patients with CAPS. Experts in the disease independently validated all cases. Patients carrying NLRP3 variants and germline-mutation-negative patients were included. RESULTS: 136 patients were analysed. The median age at disease onset was 9 months, and the median duration of follow-up was 15 years. Skin rash, musculoskeletal involvement and fever were the most prevalent features. Neurological involvement (including severe complications) was noted in 40% and 12% of the patients, respectively, with ophthalmological involvement in 71%, and neurosensory hearing loss in 42%. 133 patients carried a heterozygous, germline mutation, and 3 patients were mutation-negative (despite complete NLRP3 gene screening). Thirty-one different NLRP3 mutations were recorded; 7 accounted for 78% of the patients, whereas 24 rare variants were found in 27 cases. The latter were significantly associated with early disease onset, neurological complications (including severe complications) and severe musculoskeletal involvement. The T348M variant was associated with early disease onset, chronic course and hearing loss. Neurological involvement was less strongly associated with V198M, E311 K and A439 V alleles. Early onset was predictive of severe neurological complications and hearing loss. CONCLUSIONS: Patients carrying rare NLRP3 variants are at risk of severe CAPS; onset before the age of 6 months is associated with more severe neurological involvement and hearing loss. These findings may have an impact on treatment decisions.

State of Logistics and Operations Management in Finnish and Swedish Companies – Survey Research Findings

In this research we are examining what is the status of logistics and operations management in Finnish and Swedish companies. Empirical data is based on the web based questionnaire, which was completed in the end of 2007 and early 2008. Our examination consists of roughly 30 answers from largest manufacturing (highest representation in our sample), trade and logistics/distribution companies. Generally it could be argued that these companies operate in complex environment, where number of products, raw materials/components and suppliers is high. However, usually companies rely on small amount of suppliers per raw material/component (highest frequency is 2), and this was especially the case among Swedish companies, and among those companies, which favoured overseas sourcing. Sample consisted of companies which mostly are operating in an international environment, and are quite often multinationals. Our survey findings reveal that companies in general have taken logistics and information technology as part of their strategy process; utilization of performance measures as well as system implementations have followed the strategy decisions. In the transportation mode side we identify that road transports dominate all transport flow classes (inbound, internal and outbound), followed by sea and air. Surprisingly small amount of companies use railways, but in general we could argue that Swedish companies prefer this mode over Finnish counterparts. With respect of operations outsourcing, we found that more traditional areas of logistics outsourcing are driving factors in company's performance measurement priority. In contrary to previous research, our results indicate that the scope of outsourcing is not that wide in logistics/operations management area, and companies are not planning to outsource more in the near future. Some support is found for more international operations and increased outsourcing activity. From the increased time pressure of companies, we find evidence that local as well as overseas customers expect deliveries within days or weeks, but suppliers usually supply within weeks or months. So, basically this leads into considerable inventory holding. Interestingly local and overseas sourcing strategy does not have that great influence on lead time performance of these particular sourcing areas - local strategy is anyway considerably better in responding on market changes due to shorter supply lead times. In the end of our research work we have completed correlation analysis concerning items asked with Likert scale. Our analysis shows that seeing logistics more like a process rather than function, applying time based management, favouring partnerships and measuring logistics within different performance dimensions results on preferred features and performance found in logistics literature.

Effects of business-to-business customer orientation, satisfaction and retention on firm profitability

The objective of this master’s thesis was to examine the effect of customer orientation on customer satisfaction and how customer satisfaction and customer retention contribute to firm profitability. Beside customer orientation, also other antecedents of customer satisfaction, i.e. service quality, flexibility, trust and commitment, were investigated as control variables. Literature review revealed several research gaps concerning research of the key concepts. These research calls were also answered. The empirical study focused on one case company, a telecommunication expert. The data for the empirical part was collected with web-based questionnaire from case company’s business customers in January-February 2008. Sample (N=95) produced 59 answers, thus the response rate of the survey was 62,1%. The data was analyzed by using statistical analysis program, SPSS. As a conclusion, the results indicate that customer orientation do not affect customer satisfaction directly, but through service quality, flexibility and trust. Moreover, customer satisfaction has positive impacts on commitment and intentions to stay as a customer in the future, but not on profitability. In the present study, only past purchase behavior, measured with customer database measure, is positively related to firm profitability.

Sähköisen taloushallinnon vaikutus tilitoimistojen tuottavuuteen Case: Heeros Systems Oy

Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkasteltiin tuottavuuden käsitettä ja mittaamista palvelualoilla. Tutkielman tavoitteena oli kuvata ja ymmärtää sähköisen taloushallinnon vaikutusta tilitoimistojen tuottavuuteen. Aihetta lähestyttiin sähköisiä taloushallinto-ohjelmia valmistavan case-yhtiö Heeros Systems Oy:n avulla. Tutkimus on luonteeltaan laadullinen tutkimus, jonka tutkimusmenetelmä-nä käytettiin teemahaastatteluja. Tutkimusaineisto kerättiin haastattelemal-la yhteensä kymmentä tutkimuksen kohteena olevan tilitoimiston edusta-jaa. Tutkimuksen perusteella ei havaittu sähköisen taloushallinnon selkeästi vaikuttavan tilitoimistojen tuottavuuteen tässä vaiheessa, mutta toiminto-ympäristön sähköistyessä, esimerkiksi verkkolaskujen yleistyessä, tilan-teen uskotaan muuttuvan nopeasti. Tällöin tuottavuuden kasvu edellyttää työprosessin muuttamista ja huolellista suunnittelua.

Building distributed high availability system

Today’s commercial web sites are under heavy user load and they are expected to be operational and available at all times. Distributed system architectures have been developed to provide a scalable and failure tolerant high availability platform for these web based services. The focus on this thesis was to specify and implement resilient and scalable locally distributed high availability system architecture for a web based service. Theory part concentrates on the fundamental characteristics of distributed systems and presents common scalable high availability server architectures that are used in web based services. In the practical part of the thesis the implemented new system architecture is explained. Practical part also includes two different test cases that were done to test the system's performance capacity.

Modelando conocimiento para planificar asignaturas en la UOC

El conocimiento a representar en el presente trabajo es la planificación de una asignatura de la UOC. Dicha planificación se realizará desde una doble perspectiva. Se realizará una primera planificación estándar de la asignatura, realizada por el profesor responsable de la misma y en la que se incluyen todos los ítems y fechas claves. Una segunda planificación será realizada por el estudiante y partirá de esta primera, introduciendo las restricciones temporales personales del estudiante y sus limitaciones horarias.

Evaluación de la Competencia 'aplicar los conocimientos para lograr resultados (nivel I)' en el primer curso de grado en derecho

Uno de los temas que merece ser objeto de reflexión en el nuevo marco docente diseñado en España como consecuencia de la convergencia hacia el Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior es el de la evaluación, pues ésta adquiere una nueva dimensión al colocarse el estudiante en el centro del proceso de aprendizaje y al aplicarse un enfoque docente basado en competencias y, por ello, se hace necesario replantearse su naturaleza y el diseño de todos los elementos estructurales que la configuran. El objeto de nuestro trabajo se circunscribe a la evaluación de una competencia determinada en el primer curso de grado en Derecho y a la experiencia adquirida en distintas universidades, públicas y privadas, en los primeros años de su aplicación; centrándonos, en concreto, en el caso práctico semipresencial (trabajo colaborativo) como actividad decisiva para el aprendizaje de la competencia asignada a nuestra disciplina y procedimiento óptimo para evaluar su adquisición.

Search and Discovery : OER's Open Loop

Open educational resources (OER) promise increased access, participation, quality, and relevance, in addition to cost reduction. These seemingly fantastic promises are based on the supposition that educators and learners will discover existing resources, improve them, and share the results, resulting in a virtuous cycle of improvement and re-use. By anecdotal metrics, existing web scale search is not working for OER. This situation impairs the cycle underlying the promise of OER, endangering long term growth and sustainability. While the scope of the problem is vast, targeted improvements in areas of curation, indexing, and data exchange can improve the situation, and create opportunities for further scale. I explore the way the system is currently inadequate, discuss areas for targeted improvement, and describe a prototype system built to test these ideas. I conclude with suggestions for further exploration and development.