A model to develop a platform for personalised health applications

Antecedentes Europa vive una situación insostenible. Desde el 2008 se han reducido los recursos de los gobiernos a raíz de la crisis económica. El continente Europeo envejece con ritmo constante al punto que se prevé que en 2050 habrá sólo dos trabajadores por jubilado [54]. A esta situación se le añade el aumento de la incidencia de las enfermedades crónicas, relacionadas con el envejecimiento, cuyo coste puede alcanzar el 7% del PIB de un país [51]. Es necesario un cambio de paradigma. Una nueva manera de cuidar de la salud de las personas: sustentable, eficaz y preventiva más que curativa. Algunos estudios abogan por el cuidado personalizado de la salud (pHealth). En este modelo las prácticas médicas son adaptadas e individualizadas al paciente, desde la detección de los factores de riesgo hasta la personalización de los tratamientos basada en la respuesta del individuo [81]. El cuidado personalizado de la salud está asociado a menudo al uso de las tecnologías de la información y comunicación (TICs) que, con su desarrollo exponencial, ofrecen oportunidades interesantes para la mejora de la salud. El cambio de paradigma hacia el pHealth está lentamente ocurriendo, tanto en el ámbito de la investigación como en la industria, pero todavía no de manera significativa. Existen todavía muchas barreras relacionadas a la economía, a la política y la cultura. También existen barreras puramente tecnológicas, como la falta de sistemas de información interoperables [199]. A pesar de que los aspectos de interoperabilidad están evolucionando, todavía hace falta un diseño de referencia especialmente direccionado a la implementación y el despliegue en gran escala de sistemas basados en pHealth. La presente Tesis representa un intento de organizar la disciplina de la aplicación de las TICs al cuidado personalizado de la salud en un modelo de referencia, que permita la creación de plataformas de desarrollo de software para simplificar tareas comunes de desarrollo en este dominio. Preguntas de investigación RQ1 >Es posible definir un modelo, basado en técnicas de ingeniería del software, que represente el dominio del cuidado personalizado de la salud de una forma abstracta y representativa? RQ2 >Es posible construir una plataforma de desarrollo basada en este modelo? RQ3 >Esta plataforma ayuda a los desarrolladores a crear sistemas pHealth complejos e integrados? Métodos Para la descripción del modelo se adoptó el estándar ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010por ser lo suficientemente general y abstracto para el amplio enfoque de esta tesis [25]. El modelo está definido en varias partes: un modelo conceptual, expresado a través de mapas conceptuales que representan las partes interesadas (stakeholders), los artefactos y la información compartida; y escenarios y casos de uso para la descripción de sus funcionalidades. El modelo fue desarrollado de acuerdo a la información obtenida del análisis de la literatura, incluyendo 7 informes industriales y científicos, 9 estándares, 10 artículos en conferencias, 37 artículos en revistas, 25 páginas web y 5 libros. Basándose en el modelo se definieron los requisitos para la creación de la plataforma de desarrollo, enriquecidos por otros requisitos recolectados a través de una encuesta realizada a 11 ingenieros con experiencia en la rama. Para el desarrollo de la plataforma, se adoptó la metodología de integración continua [74] que permitió ejecutar tests automáticos en un servidor y también desplegar aplicaciones en una página web. En cuanto a la metodología utilizada para la validación se adoptó un marco para la formulación de teorías en la ingeniería del software [181]. Esto requiere el desarrollo de modelos y proposiciones que han de ser validados dentro de un ámbito de investigación definido, y que sirvan para guiar al investigador en la búsqueda de la evidencia necesaria para justificarla. La validación del modelo fue desarrollada mediante una encuesta online en tres rondas con un número creciente de invitados. El cuestionario fue enviado a 134 contactos y distribuido en algunos canales públicos como listas de correo y redes sociales. El objetivo era evaluar la legibilidad del modelo, su nivel de cobertura del dominio y su potencial utilidad en el diseño de sistemas derivados. El cuestionario incluía preguntas cuantitativas de tipo Likert y campos para recolección de comentarios. La plataforma de desarrollo fue validada en dos etapas. En la primera etapa se utilizó la plataforma en un experimento a pequeña escala, que consistió en una sesión de entrenamiento de 12 horas en la que 4 desarrolladores tuvieron que desarrollar algunos casos de uso y reunirse en un grupo focal para discutir su uso. La segunda etapa se realizó durante los tests de un proyecto en gran escala llamado HeartCycle [160]. En este proyecto un equipo de diseñadores y programadores desarrollaron tres aplicaciones en el campo de las enfermedades cardio-vasculares. Una de estas aplicaciones fue testeada en un ensayo clínico con pacientes reales. Al analizar el proyecto, el equipo de desarrollo se reunió en un grupo focal para identificar las ventajas y desventajas de la plataforma y su utilidad. Resultados Por lo que concierne el modelo que describe el dominio del pHealth, la parte conceptual incluye una descripción de los roles principales y las preocupaciones de los participantes, un modelo de los artefactos TIC que se usan comúnmente y un modelo para representar los datos típicos que son necesarios formalizar e intercambiar entre sistemas basados en pHealth. El modelo funcional incluye un conjunto de 18 escenarios, repartidos en: punto de vista de la persona asistida, punto de vista del cuidador, punto de vista del desarrollador, punto de vista de los proveedores de tecnologías y punto de vista de las autoridades; y un conjunto de 52 casos de uso repartidos en 6 categorías: actividades de la persona asistida, reacciones del sistema, actividades del cuidador, \engagement" del usuario, actividades del desarrollador y actividades de despliegue. Como resultado del cuestionario de validación del modelo, un total de 65 personas revisó el modelo proporcionando su nivel de acuerdo con las dimensiones evaluadas y un total de 248 comentarios sobre cómo mejorar el modelo. Los conocimientos de los participantes variaban desde la ingeniería del software (70%) hasta las especialidades médicas (15%), con declarado interés en eHealth (24%), mHealth (16%), Ambient Assisted Living (21%), medicina personalizada (5%), sistemas basados en pHealth (15%), informática médica (10%) e ingeniería biomédica (8%) con una media de 7.25_4.99 años de experiencia en estas áreas. Los resultados de la encuesta muestran que los expertos contactados consideran el modelo fácil de leer (media de 1.89_0.79 siendo 1 el valor más favorable y 5 el peor), suficientemente abstracto (1.99_0.88) y formal (2.13_0.77), con una cobertura suficiente del dominio (2.26_0.95), útil para describir el dominio (2.02_0.7) y para generar sistemas más específicos (2_0.75). Los expertos también reportan un interés parcial en utilizar el modelo en su trabajo (2.48_0.91). Gracias a sus comentarios, el modelo fue mejorado y enriquecido con conceptos que faltaban, aunque no se pudo demonstrar su mejora en las dimensiones evaluadas, dada la composición diferente de personas en las tres rondas de evaluación. Desde el modelo, se generó una plataforma de desarrollo llamada \pHealth Patient Platform (pHPP)". La plataforma desarrollada incluye librerías, herramientas de programación y desarrollo, un tutorial y una aplicación de ejemplo. Se definieron cuatro módulos principales de la arquitectura: el Data Collection Engine, que permite abstraer las fuentes de datos como sensores o servicios externos, mapeando los datos a bases de datos u ontologías, y permitiendo interacción basada en eventos; el GUI Engine, que abstrae la interfaz de usuario en un modelo de interacción basado en mensajes; y el Rule Engine, que proporciona a los desarrolladores un medio simple para programar la lógica de la aplicación en forma de reglas \if-then". Después de que la plataforma pHPP fue utilizada durante 5 años en el proyecto HeartCycle, 5 desarrolladores fueron reunidos en un grupo de discusión para analizar y evaluar la plataforma. De estas evaluaciones se concluye que la plataforma fue diseñada para encajar las necesidades de los ingenieros que trabajan en la rama, permitiendo la separación de problemas entre las distintas especialidades, y simplificando algunas tareas de desarrollo como el manejo de datos y la interacción asíncrona. A pesar de ello, se encontraron algunos defectos a causa de la inmadurez de algunas tecnologías empleadas, y la ausencia de algunas herramientas específicas para el dominio como el procesado de datos o algunos protocolos de comunicación relacionados con la salud. Dentro del proyecto HeartCycle la plataforma fue utilizada para el desarrollo de la aplicación \Guided Exercise", un sistema TIC para la rehabilitación de pacientes que han sufrido un infarto del miocardio. El sistema fue testeado en un ensayo clínico randomizado en el cual a 55 pacientes se les dio el sistema para su uso por 21 semanas. De los resultados técnicos del ensayo se puede concluir que, a pesar de algunos errores menores prontamente corregidos durante el estudio, la plataforma es estable y fiable. Conclusiones La investigación llevada a cabo en esta Tesis y los resultados obtenidos proporcionan las respuestas a las tres preguntas de investigación que motivaron este trabajo: RQ1 Se ha desarrollado un modelo para representar el dominio de los sistemas personalizados de salud. La evaluación hecha por los expertos de la rama concluye que el modelo representa el dominio con precisión y con un balance apropiado entre abstracción y detalle. RQ2 Se ha desarrollado, con éxito, una plataforma de desarrollo basada en el modelo. RQ3 Se ha demostrado que la plataforma es capaz de ayudar a los desarrolladores en la creación de software pHealth complejos. Las ventajas de la plataforma han sido demostradas en el ámbito de un proyecto de gran escala, aunque el enfoque genérico adoptado indica que la plataforma podría ofrecer beneficios también en otros contextos. Los resultados de estas evaluaciones ofrecen indicios de que, ambos, el modelo y la plataforma serán buenos candidatos para poderse convertir en una referencia para futuros desarrollos de sistemas pHealth. ABSTRACT Background Europe is living in an unsustainable situation. The economic crisis has been reducing governments' economic resources since 2008 and threatening social and health systems, while the proportion of older people in the European population continues to increase so that it is foreseen that in 2050 there will be only two workers per retiree [54]. To this situation it should be added the rise, strongly related to age, of chronic diseases the burden of which has been estimated to be up to the 7% of a country's gross domestic product [51]. There is a need for a paradigm shift, the need for a new way of caring for people's health, shifting the focus from curing conditions that have arisen to a sustainable and effective approach with the emphasis on prevention. Some advocate the adoption of personalised health care (pHealth), a model where medical practices are tailored to the patient's unique life, from the detection of risk factors to the customization of treatments based on each individual's response [81]. Personalised health is often associated to the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), that, with its exponential development, offers interesting opportunities for improving healthcare. The shift towards pHealth is slowly taking place, both in research and in industry, but the change is not significant yet. Many barriers still exist related to economy, politics and culture, while others are purely technological, like the lack of interoperable information systems [199]. Though interoperability aspects are evolving, there is still the need of a reference design, especially tackling implementation and large scale deployment of pHealth systems. This thesis contributes to organizing the subject of ICT systems for personalised health into a reference model that allows for the creation of software development platforms to ease common development issues in the domain. Research questions RQ1 Is it possible to define a model, based on software engineering techniques, for representing the personalised health domain in an abstract and representative way? RQ2 Is it possible to build a development platform based on this model? RQ3 Does the development platform help developers create complex integrated pHealth systems? Methods As method for describing the model, the ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 framework [25] is adopted for its generality and high level of abstraction. The model is specified in different parts: a conceptual model, which makes use of concept maps, for representing stakeholders, artefacts and shared information, and in scenarios and use cases for the representation of the functionalities of pHealth systems. The model was derived from literature analysis, including 7 industrial and scientific reports, 9 electronic standards, 10 conference proceedings papers, 37 journal papers, 25 websites and 5 books. Based on the reference model, requirements were drawn for building the development platform enriched with a set of requirements gathered in a survey run among 11 experienced engineers. For developing the platform, the continuous integration methodology [74] was adopted which allowed to perform automatic tests on a server and also to deploy packaged releases on a web site. As a validation methodology, a theory building framework for SW engineering was adopted from [181]. The framework, chosen as a guide to find evidence for justifying the research questions, imposed the creation of theories based on models and propositions to be validated within a scope. The validation of the model was conducted as an on-line survey in three validation rounds, encompassing a growing number of participants. The survey was submitted to 134 experts of the field and on some public channels like relevant mailing lists and social networks. Its objective was to assess the model's readability, its level of coverage of the domain and its potential usefulness in the design of actual, derived systems. The questionnaires included quantitative Likert scale questions and free text inputs for comments. The development platform was validated in two scopes. As a small-scale experiment, the platform was used in a 12 hours training session where 4 developers had to perform an exercise consisting in developing a set of typical pHealth use cases At the end of the session, a focus group was held to identify benefits and drawbacks of the platform. The second validation was held as a test-case study in a large scale research project called HeartCycle the aim of which was to develop a closed-loop disease management system for heart failure and coronary heart disease patients [160]. During this project three applications were developed by a team of programmers and designers. One of these applications was tested in a clinical trial with actual patients. At the end of the project, the team was interviewed in a focus group to assess the role the platform had within the project. Results For what regards the model that describes the pHealth domain, its conceptual part includes a description of the main roles and concerns of pHealth stakeholders, a model of the ICT artefacts that are commonly adopted and a model representing the typical data that need to be formalized among pHealth systems. The functional model includes a set of 18 scenarios, divided into assisted person's view, caregiver's view, developer's view, technology and services providers' view and authority's view, and a set of 52 Use Cases grouped in 6 categories: assisted person's activities, system reactions, caregiver's activities, user engagement, developer's activities and deployer's activities. For what concerns the validation of the model, a total of 65 people participated in the online survey providing their level of agreement in all the assessed dimensions and a total of 248 comments on how to improve and complete the model. Participants' background spanned from engineering and software development (70%) to medical specialities (15%), with declared interest in the fields of eHealth (24%), mHealth (16%), Ambient Assisted Living (21%), Personalized Medicine (5%), Personal Health Systems (15%), Medical Informatics (10%) and Biomedical Engineering (8%) with an average of 7.25_4.99 years of experience in these fields. From the analysis of the answers it is possible to observe that the contacted experts considered the model easily readable (average of 1.89_0.79 being 1 the most favourable scoring and 5 the worst), sufficiently abstract (1.99_0.88) and formal (2.13_0.77) for its purpose, with a sufficient coverage of the domain (2.26_0.95), useful for describing the domain (2.02_0.7) and for generating more specific systems (2_0.75) and they reported a partial interest in using the model in their job (2.48_0.91). Thanks to their comments, the model was improved and enriched with concepts that were missing at the beginning, nonetheless it was not possible to prove an improvement among the iterations, due to the diversity of the participants in the three rounds. From the model, a development platform for the pHealth domain was generated called pHealth Patient Platform (pHPP). The platform includes a set of libraries, programming and deployment tools, a tutorial and a sample application. The main four modules of the architecture are: the Data Collection Engine, which allows abstracting sources of information like sensors or external services, mapping data to databases and ontologies, and allowing event-based interaction and filtering, the GUI Engine, which abstracts the user interface in a message-like interaction model, the Workow Engine, which allows programming the application's user interaction ows with graphical workows, and the Rule Engine, which gives developers a simple means for programming the application's logic in the form of \if-then" rules. After the 5 years experience of HeartCycle, partially programmed with pHPP, 5 developers were joined in a focus group to discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the platform. The view that emerged from the training course and the focus group was that the platform is well-suited to the needs of the engineers working in the field, it allowed the separation of concerns among the different specialities and it simplified some common development tasks like data management and asynchronous interaction. Nevertheless, some deficiencies were pointed out in terms of a lack of maturity of some technological choices, and for the absence of some domain-specific tools, e.g. for data processing or for health-related communication protocols. Within HeartCycle, the platform was used to develop part of the Guided Exercise system, a composition of ICT tools for the physical rehabilitation of patients who suffered from myocardial infarction. The system developed using the platform was tested in a randomized controlled clinical trial, in which 55 patients used the system for 21 weeks. The technical results of this trial showed that the system was stable and reliable. Some minor bugs were detected, but these were promptly corrected using the platform. This shows that the platform, as well as facilitating the development task, can be successfully used to produce reliable software. Conclusions The research work carried out in developing this thesis provides responses to the three three research questions that were the motivation for the work. RQ1 A model was developed representing the domain of personalised health systems, and the assessment of experts in the field was that it represents the domain accurately, with an appropriate balance between abstraction and detail. RQ2 A development platform based on the model was successfully developed. RQ3 The platform has been shown to assist developers create complex pHealth software. This was demonstrated within the scope of one large-scale project, but the generic approach adopted provides indications that it would offer benefits more widely. The results of these evaluations provide indications that both the model and the platform are good candidates for being a reference for future pHealth developments.

Propuesta de Acciones para la Formación de profesionales de Electrónica, Informática y Telecomunicaciones para las empresas del Sector: informe final

La incorporación de las Tecnologías de la Información y de las Comunicaciones (TIC) a la práctica totalidad de los sectores de actividad económica y social está provocando en todos los países desarrollados una demanda, en buena parte insatisfecha, de profesionales capaces de desarrollar, aplicar y utilizar estas tecnologías.

MedVir: 3D visual interface applied to gene profile analysis

The use of data mining techniques for the gene profile discovery of diseases, such as cancer, is becoming usual in many researches. These techniques do not usually analyze the relationships between genes in depth, depending on the different variety of manifestations of the disease (related to patients). This kind of analysis takes a considerable amount of time and is not always the focus of the research. However, it is crucial in order to generate personalized treatments to fight the disease. Thus, this research focuses on finding a mechanism for gene profile analysis to be used by the medical and biologist experts. Results: In this research, the MedVir framework is proposed. It is an intuitive mechanism based on the visualization of medical data such as gene profiles, patients, clinical data, etc. MedVir, which is based on an Evolutionary Optimization technique, is a Dimensionality Reduction (DR) approach that presents the data in a three dimensional space. Furthermore, thanks to Virtual Reality technology, MedVir allows the expert to interact with the data in order to tailor it to the experience and knowledge of the expert.

Análisis de riesgos en los sistemas de información: un enfoque difuso

En los modelos promovidos por las normativas internacionales de análisis de riesgos en los sistemas de información, los activos están interrelacionados entre sí, de modo que un ataque sobre uno de ellos se puede transmitir a lo largo de toda la red, llegando a alcanzar a los activos más valiosos para la organización. Es necesario entonces asignar el valor de todos los activos, así como las relaciones de dependencia directas e indirectas entre estos, o la probabilidad de materialización de una amenaza y la degradación que ésta puede provocar sobre los activos. Sin embargo, los expertos encargados de asignar tales valores, a menudo aportan información vaga e incierta, de modo que las técnicas difusas pueden ser muy útiles en este ámbito. Pero estas técnicas no están libres de ciertas dificultades, como la necesidad de uso de una aritmética adecuada al modelo o el establecimiento de medidas de similitud apropiadas. En este documento proponemos un tratamiento difuso para los modelos de análisis de riesgos promovidos por las metodologías internacionales, mediante el establecimiento de tales elementos.Abstract— Assets are interrelated in risk analysis methodologies for information systems promoted by international standards. This means that an attack on one asset can be propagated through the network and threaten an organization’s most valuable assets. It is necessary to valuate all assets, the direct and indirect asset dependencies, as well as the probability of threats and the resulting asset degradation. However, the experts in charge to assign such values often provide only vague and uncertain information. Fuzzy logic can be very helpful in such situation, but it is not free of some difficulties, such as the need of a proper arithmetic to the model under consideration or the establishment of appropriate similarity measures. Throughout this paper we propose a fuzzy treatment for risk analysis models promoted by international methodologies through the establishment of such elements.

A fuzzy approach to risk analysis in information systems

Assets are interrelated in risk analysis methodologies for information systems promoted by international standards. This means that an attack on one asset can be propagated through the network and threaten an organization's most valuable assets. It is necessary to valuate all assets, the direct and indirect asset dependencies, as well as the probability of threats and the resulting asset degradation. These methodologies do not, however, consider uncertain valuations and use precise values on different scales, usually percentages. Linguistic terms are used by the experts to represent assets values, dependencies and frequency and asset degradation associated with possible threats. Computations are based on the trapezoidal fuzzy numbers associated with these linguistic terms.

An interactive method of fuzzy probability elicitation in risk analysis

Expert knowledge is used to assign probabilities to events in many risk analysis models. However, experts sometimes find it hard to provide specific values for these probabilities, preferring to express vague or imprecise terms that are mapped using a previously defined fuzzy number scale. The rigidity of these scales generates bias in the probability elicitation process and does not allow experts to adequately express their probabilistic judgments. We present an interactive method for extracting a fuzzy number from experts that represents their probabilistic judgments for a given event, along with a quality measure of the probabilistic judgments, useful in a final information filtering and analysis sensitivity process.

The University in the Cloud Computing.

With the advancement of Information and Communication Technology ICT which favors increasingly fast, easy, and accessible communication for all and which can reach large groups of people, there have been changes, in recent years in our society that have modified the way we interact, communicate and transmit information. Access to this, it is possible, not only through computers situated in a fixed location, but new mobile devices make it available, wherever the user happens to be located. Now, information "travels" with the user. These forms of communication, transmission and access to information, have also affected the way to conceive and manage business. To these new forms of business that the Internet has brought, is now added the concept of companies in the Cloud Computing ClC. The ClC technology is based on the supply and consumption of services on demand and pay per use, and it gives a 180 degree turn to the business management concept. Small and large businesses may use the latest developments in ICT, to manage their organizations without the need for expensive investments in them. This will enable enterprises to focus more specifically within the scope of their business, leaving the ICT control to the experts. We believe that education can also and should benefit from these new philosophies. ?Due to the global economic crisis in general and each country in particular, economic cutbacks have come to most universities. These are seen in the need to raise tuition rates, which makes increasingly fewer students have the opportunity to pursue higher education?. In this paper we propose using ClC technologies in universities and we make a dissertation on the advantages that it can provide to both: universities and students. For the universities, we expose two focuses, one: ?to reorganize university ICT structures with the ClC philosophy? and the other one, ?to extend the offer of the university education with education on demand?. Regarding the former we propose to use public or private Clouds, to reuse resources across the education community, to save costs on infrastructure investment, in upgrades and in maintenance of ICT, and paying only for what you use and with the ability to scale according to needs. Regarding the latter, we propose an educational model in the ClC, to increase the current university offerings, using educational units in the form of low-cost services and where students pay only for the units consumed on demand. For the students, they could study at any university in the world (virtually), from anywhere, without travel costs: money and time, and what is most important paying only for what they consume. We think that this proposal of education on demand may represent a great change in the current educational model, because strict registration deadlines disappear, and also the problem of economically disadvantaged students, who will not have to raise large amounts of money for an annual tuition. Also it will decrease the problem of loss of the money invested in an enrollment when the student dropout. In summary we think that this proposal is interesting for both, universities and students, we aim for "Higher education from anywhere, with access from any mobile device, at any time, without requiring large investments for students, and with reuse and optimization of resources by universities. Cost by consumption and consumption by service?. We argue for a Universal University "wisdom and knowledge accessible to all?

A visual framework to accelerate knowledge discovery based on dimensionality reduction minimizing degradation of quality

Tradicionalmente, el uso de técnicas de análisis de datos ha sido una de las principales vías para el descubrimiento de conocimiento oculto en grandes cantidades de datos, recopilados por expertos en diferentes dominios. Por otra parte, las técnicas de visualización también se han usado para mejorar y facilitar este proceso. Sin embargo, existen limitaciones serias en la obtención de conocimiento, ya que suele ser un proceso lento, tedioso y en muchas ocasiones infructífero, debido a la dificultad de las personas para comprender conjuntos de datos de grandes dimensiones. Otro gran inconveniente, pocas veces tenido en cuenta por los expertos que analizan grandes conjuntos de datos, es la degradación involuntaria a la que someten a los datos durante las tareas de análisis, previas a la obtención final de conclusiones. Por degradación quiere decirse que los datos pueden perder sus propiedades originales, y suele producirse por una reducción inapropiada de los datos, alterando así su naturaleza original y llevando en muchos casos a interpretaciones y conclusiones erróneas que podrían tener serias implicaciones. Además, este hecho adquiere una importancia trascendental cuando los datos pertenecen al dominio médico o biológico, y la vida de diferentes personas depende de esta toma final de decisiones, en algunas ocasiones llevada a cabo de forma inapropiada. Ésta es la motivación de la presente tesis, la cual propone un nuevo framework visual, llamado MedVir, que combina la potencia de técnicas avanzadas de visualización y minería de datos para tratar de dar solución a estos grandes inconvenientes existentes en el proceso de descubrimiento de información válida. El objetivo principal es hacer más fácil, comprensible, intuitivo y rápido el proceso de adquisición de conocimiento al que se enfrentan los expertos cuando trabajan con grandes conjuntos de datos en diferentes dominios. Para ello, en primer lugar, se lleva a cabo una fuerte disminución en el tamaño de los datos con el objetivo de facilitar al experto su manejo, y a la vez preservando intactas, en la medida de lo posible, sus propiedades originales. Después, se hace uso de efectivas técnicas de visualización para representar los datos obtenidos, permitiendo al experto interactuar de forma sencilla e intuitiva con los datos, llevar a cabo diferentes tareas de análisis de datos y así estimular visualmente su capacidad de comprensión. De este modo, el objetivo subyacente se basa en abstraer al experto, en la medida de lo posible, de la complejidad de sus datos originales para presentarle una versión más comprensible, que facilite y acelere la tarea final de descubrimiento de conocimiento. MedVir se ha aplicado satisfactoriamente, entre otros, al campo de la magnetoencefalografía (MEG), que consiste en la predicción en la rehabilitación de lesiones cerebrales traumáticas (Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) rehabilitation prediction). Los resultados obtenidos demuestran la efectividad del framework a la hora de acelerar y facilitar el proceso de descubrimiento de conocimiento sobre conjuntos de datos reales. ABSTRACT Traditionally, the use of data analysis techniques has been one of the main ways of discovering knowledge hidden in large amounts of data, collected by experts in different domains. Moreover, visualization techniques have also been used to enhance and facilitate this process. However, there are serious limitations in the process of knowledge acquisition, as it is often a slow, tedious and many times fruitless process, due to the difficulty for human beings to understand large datasets. Another major drawback, rarely considered by experts that analyze large datasets, is the involuntary degradation to which they subject the data during analysis tasks, prior to obtaining the final conclusions. Degradation means that data can lose part of their original properties, and it is usually caused by improper data reduction, thereby altering their original nature and often leading to erroneous interpretations and conclusions that could have serious implications. Furthermore, this fact gains a trascendental importance when the data belong to medical or biological domain, and the lives of people depends on the final decision-making, which is sometimes conducted improperly. This is the motivation of this thesis, which proposes a new visual framework, called MedVir, which combines the power of advanced visualization techniques and data mining to try to solve these major problems existing in the process of discovery of valid information. Thus, the main objective is to facilitate and to make more understandable, intuitive and fast the process of knowledge acquisition that experts face when working with large datasets in different domains. To achieve this, first, a strong reduction in the size of the data is carried out in order to make the management of the data easier to the expert, while preserving intact, as far as possible, the original properties of the data. Then, effective visualization techniques are used to represent the obtained data, allowing the expert to interact easily and intuitively with the data, to carry out different data analysis tasks, and so visually stimulating their comprehension capacity. Therefore, the underlying objective is based on abstracting the expert, as far as possible, from the complexity of the original data to present him a more understandable version, thus facilitating and accelerating the task of knowledge discovery. MedVir has been succesfully applied to, among others, the field of magnetoencephalography (MEG), which consists in predicting the rehabilitation of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The results obtained successfully demonstrate the effectiveness of the framework to accelerate and facilitate the process of knowledge discovery on real world datasets.

KATS: A Knowledge Acquisition Tool Based on Electronic Document Processing

This paper describes a particular knowledge acquisition tool for the construction and maintenance of the knowledge model of an intelligent system for emergency management in the field of hydrology. This tool has been developed following an innovative approach directed to end-users non familiarized in computer oriented terminology. According to this approach, the tool is conceived as a document processor specialized in a particular domain (hydrology) in such a way that the whole knowledge model is viewed by the user as an electronic document. The paper first describes the characteristics of the knowledge model of the intelligent system and summarizes the problems that we found during the development and maintenance of such type of model. Then, the paper describes the KATS tool, a software application that we have designed to help in this task to be used by users who are not experts in computer programming. Finally, the paper shows a comparison between KATS and other approaches for knowledge acquisition.

La sociedad ante el desafío de la informática

Conferencia pronunciada en el Ateneo de Santander el día 24 de Noviembre de 1982. El autor expresa sus pensamientos y opiniones acerca de la informatización de la sociedad. La pregunta que nos asalta al comprobar las innovaciones que simplifican nuestras actividades, generalmente a costa de la pérdida de una diminuta parcela de nuestra libertad, es ¿a dónde nos dirigimos?. A responder esta pregunta se orientan las reflexiones y consideraciones de esta conferencia

CorkClass 1.0: Aplicación informática para la clasificación del corcho

El documento es una aplicación informática, programada en Visual Basic® para Microsoft Excel®, y contiene un programa denominado CorkClass 1.0. Es un software de clasificación de corcho en plancha por calidades a partir de su calibre – grosor – y de las anomalías o singularidades apreciables en su sección transversal. CorkClass 1.0 trabaja con dos clases de calidad: corcho taponable y refugo. A partir de la valoración de las variables obtenida por el usuario, la aplicación decide a qué clase pertenece la pieza. Esta clasificación se realiza en base a dos modelos. Cuando disponemos de medida del coeficiente de porosidad (mediante métodos de análisis de imagen), podemos clasificar en base al modelo completo (2TC) o al reducido (2TR), aunque los resultados generales se mostrarán tomando la clasificación del modelo completo para cada pieza. En caso de no disponer de medida del coeficiente de porosidad, la clasificación se realizará únicamente en base al modelo reducido (2TR), cuya clasificación para cada pieza será tomada para el cálculo de los resultados generales . El programa ha sido desarrollado por la UPM y el INIA-CIFOR y validado para muestras procedentes tanto de las distintas regiones de España como del resto de regiones de procedencia del alcornoque (Quercus suber L.), por lo que su ámbito de aplicación es universal.

A machine learning approach to identify clinical trials involving nanodrugs and nanodevices from ClinicalTrials.gov

BACKGROUND: Clinical Trials (CTs) are essential for bridging the gap between experimental research on new drugs and their clinical application. Just like CTs for traditional drugs and biologics have helped accelerate the translation of biomedical findings into medical practice, CTs for nanodrugs and nanodevices could advance novel nanomaterials as agents for diagnosis and therapy. Although there is publicly available information about nanomedicine-related CTs, the online archiving of this information is carried out without adhering to criteria that discriminate between studies involving nanomaterials or nanotechnology-based processes (nano), and CTs that do not involve nanotechnology (non-nano). Finding out whether nanodrugs and nanodevices were involved in a study from CT summaries alone is a challenging task. At the time of writing, CTs archived in the well-known online registry ClinicalTrials.gov are not easily told apart as to whether they are nano or non-nano CTs-even when performed by domain experts, due to the lack of both a common definition for nanotechnology and of standards for reporting nanomedical experiments and results. METHODS: We propose a supervised learning approach for classifying CT summaries from ClinicalTrials.gov according to whether they fall into the nano or the non-nano categories. Our method involves several stages: i) extraction and manual annotation of CTs as nano vs. non-nano, ii) pre-processing and automatic classification, and iii) performance evaluation using several state-of-the-art classifiers under different transformations of the original dataset. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The performance of the best automated classifier closely matches that of experts (AUC over 0.95), suggesting that it is feasible to automatically detect the presence of nanotechnology products in CT summaries with a high degree of accuracy. This can significantly speed up the process of finding whether reports on ClinicalTrials.gov might be relevant to a particular nanoparticle or nanodevice, which is essential to discover any precedents for nanotoxicity events or advantages for targeted drug therapy.

Sistema de selección automática de soluciones tecnológicas de seguridad

Desde la aparición de Internet, hace ya más de 20 años ha existido por parte de diversos sectores de la sociedad, científicos, empresas, usuarios, etc. la inquietud por la aplicación de esta tecnología a lo que se ha dado en llamar “El Internet de las Cosas”, que no es más que el control a distancia de cualquier elemento útil o necesario para la vida cotidiana y la industria. Sin embargo el desarrollo masivo de aplicaciones orientadas a esto, no ha evolucionado hasta que no se han producido avances importantes en dos campos: por un lado, en las Redes Inalámbricas de Sensores (WSN), redes compuestas por un conjunto de pequeños dispositivos capaces de transmitir la información que recogen, haciéndola llegar desde su propia red inalámbrica, a otras de amplia cobertura y por otro con la miniaturización cada vez mayor de dispositivos capaces de tener una autonomía suficiente como para procesar datos e interconectarse entre sí. Al igual que en las redes de ordenadores convencionales, las WSN se pueden ver comprometidas en lo que a seguridad se refiere, ya que la masiva implementación de estas redes hará que millones de Terabytes de datos, muchas veces comprometidos o sometidos a estrictas Leyes de protección de los mismos, circulen en la sociedad de la información, de forma que lo que nace como una ventaja muy interesante para sus usuarios, puede convertirse en una pesadilla debido a la amenaza constante hacia los servicios mínimos de seguridad que las compañías desarrolladoras han de garantizar a los usuarios de sus aplicaciones. Éstas, y con el objetivo de proveer un ámbito de seguridad mínimo, deben de realizar un minucioso estudio de la aplicación en particular que se quiere ofrecer con una WSN y también de las características específicas de la red ya que, al estar formadas por dispositivos prácticamente diminutos, pueden tener ciertas limitaciones en cuanto al tamaño de la batería, capacidad de procesamiento, memoria, etc. El presente proyecto desarrolla una aplicación, única, ya que en la actualidad no existe un software con similares características y que aporta un avance importante en dos campos principalmente: por un lado ayudará a los usuarios que deseen desplegar una aplicación en una red WSN a determinar de forma automática cuales son los mecanismos y servicios específicos de seguridad que se han de implementar en dicha red para esa aplicación concreta y, por otro lado proporcionará un apoyo extra a expertos de seguridad que estén investigando en la materia ya que, servirá de plataforma de pruebas para centralizar la información sobre seguridad que se tengan en ese momento en una base de conocimientos única, proporcionando también un método útil de prueba para posibles escenarios virtuales. ABSTRACT. It has been more than 20 years since the Internet appeared and with it, scientists, companies, users, etc. have been wanted to apply this technology to their environment which means to control remotely devices, which are useful for the industry or aspects of the daily life. However, the huge development of these applications oriented to that use, has not evolve till some important researches has been occurred in two fields: on one hand, the field of the Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) which are networks composed of little devices that are able to transmit the information that they gather making it to pass through from their wireless network to other wider networks and on the other hand with the increase of the miniaturization of the devices which are able to work in autonomous mode so that to process data and connect to each other. WSN could be compromised in the matter of security as well as the conventional computer networks, due to the massive implementation of this kind of networks will cause that millions of Terabytes of data will be going around in the information society, thus what it is thought at first as an interesting advantage for people, could turn to be a nightmare because of the continuous threat to the minimal security services that developing companies must guarantee their applications users. These companies, and with the aim to provide a minimal security realm, they have to do a strict research about the application that they want to implement in one WSN and the specific characteristics of the network as they are made by tiny devices so that they could have certain limitations related to the battery, throughput, memory, etc. This project develops a unique application since, nowadays, there is not any software with similar characteristics and it will be really helpful in mainly two areas: on one side, it will help users who want to deploy an application in one WSN to determine in an automatically way, which ones security services and mechanisms are those which is necessary to implement in that network for the concrete application and, on the other side, it will provide an extra help for the security experts who are researching in wireless sensor network security so that ti will an exceptional platform in order to centralize information about security in the Wireless Sensor Networks in an exclusive knowledge base, providing at the same time a useful method to test virtual scenarios.

Aplicación web para la realización de experimentos astronómicos del proyecto GLORIA en la plataforma Facebook

La Ciencia Ciudadana nace del resultado de involucrar en las investigaciones científicas a todo tipo de personas, las cuales pueden participar en un determinado experimento analizando o recopilando datos. No hace falta que tengan una formación científica para poder participar, es decir cualquiera puede contribuir con su granito de arena. La ciencia ciudadana se ha convertido en un elemento a tener en cuenta a la hora de realizar tareas científicas que requieren mucha dedicación, o que simplemente por el volumen de trabajo que estas implican, resulta casi imposible que puedan ser realizadas por una sola persona o un pequeño grupo de trabajo. El proyecto GLORIA (GLObal Robotic-telescopes Intelligent Array) es la primera red de telescopios robóticos del mundo de acceso libre que permite a los usuarios participar en la investigación astronómica mediante la observación con telescopios robóticos, y/o analizando los datos que otros usuarios han adquirido con GLORIA, o desde otras bases de datos de libre acceso. Con el objetivo de contribuir a esta iniciativa se ha propuesto crear una plataforma web que pasará a formar parte del Proyecto GLORIA, en la que se puedan realizar experimentos astronómicos. Con el objetivo de fomentar la ciencia y el aprendizaje colaborativo se propone construir una aplicación web que se ejecute en la plataforma Facebook. Los experimentos los proporciona la red de telescopios del proyecto GLORIA mediante servicios web y están definidos mediante XML. La aplicación web recibe el XML con la descripción del experimento, lo interpreta y lo representa en la plataforma Facebook para que los usuarios potenciales puedan realizar los experimentos. Los resultados de los experimentos realizados se envían a una base de datos de libre acceso que será gestionada por el proyecto GLORIA, para su posterior análisis por parte de expertos. ---ABSTRACT---The citizen’s science is born out of the result of involving all type of people in scientific investigations, in which, they can participate in a determined experiment analyzing or compiling data. There is no need to have a scientific training in order to participate, but, anyone could contribute doing one’s bit. The citizen’s science has become an element to take into account when carrying out scientific tasks that require a lot dedication, or that, for the volume of work that these involve, are nearly impossible to be carried out by one person or a small working group. The GLORIA Project (Global Robotic-Telescopes Intelligent Array) is the first network of free access robotic telescopes in the world that permits the users to participate in the astronomic investigation by means of observation with robotic telescopes, and/or analyzing data from other users that have obtained through GLORIA, or from other free-access databases. With the aim of contributing to this initiative, a web platform has been created and will be part of the GLORIA Project, in which astronomic experiments can be carried out. With the objective of promoting science and collaborative apprenticeship, a web application carried out in the FACEBOOK platform is to be built. The experiments are founded by the telescopes network of the GLORIA project by means of web services and are defined through XML. The web application receives the XML with the description of the experiment, interprets it and represents it in the FACEBOOK platform in order for potential users may perform the experiments. The results of the experiments carried out are sent to a free-access database that will be managed by the GLORIA Project for its analysis on the part of experts.

An Analysis Of The Recommended Knowledge For The Software Project Management Discipline

According to the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge), project management is “the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements” [1]. Project Management has proven to be one of the most important disciplines at the moment of determining the success of any project [2][3][4]. Given that many of the activities covered by this discipline can be said that are “horizontal” for any kind of domain, the importance of acknowledge the concepts and practices becomes even more obvious. The specific case of the projects that fall in the domain of Software Engineering are not the exception about the great influence of Project Management for their success. The critical role that this discipline plays in the industry has come to numbers. A report by McKinsey & Co [4] shows that the establishment of programs for the teaching of critical skills of project management can improve the performance of the project in time and costs. As an example of the above, the reports exposes: “One defense organization used these programs to train several waves of project managers and leaders who together administered a portfolio of more than 1,000 capital projects ranging in Project management size from $100,000 to $500 million. Managers who successfully completed the training were able to cut costs on most projects by between 20 and 35 percent. Over time, the organization expects savings of about 15 percent of its entire baseline spending”. In a white paper by the PMI (Project Management Institute) about the value of project management [5], it is stated that: “Leading organizations across sectors and geographic borders have been steadily embracing project management as a way to control spending and improve project results”. According to the research made by the PMI for the paper, after the economical crisis “Executives discovered that adhering to project management methods and strategies reduced risks, cut costs and improved success rates—all vital to surviving the economic crisis”. In every elite company, a proper execution of the project management discipline has become a must. Several members of the software industry have putted effort into achieving ways of assuring high quality results from projects; many standards, best practices, methodologies and other resources have been produced by experts from different fields of expertise. In the industry and the academic community, there is a continuous research on how to teach better software engineering together with project management [4][6]. For the general practices of Project Management the PMI produced a guide of the required knowledge that any project manager should have in their toolbox to lead any kind of project, this guide is called the PMBOK. On the side of best practices 10 and required knowledge for the Software Engineering discipline, the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) developed the SWEBOK (Software Engineering Body of Knowledge) in collaboration with software industry experts and academic researchers, introducing into the guide many of the needed knowledge for a 5-year expertise software engineer [7]. The SWEBOK also covers management from the perspective of a software project. This thesis is developed to provide guidance to practitioners and members of the academic community about project management applied to software engineering. The way used in this thesis to get useful information for practitioners is to take an industry-approved guide for software engineering professionals such as the SWEBOK, and compare the content to what is found in the PMBOK. After comparing the contents of the SWEBOK and the PMBOK, what is found missing in the SWEBOK is used to give recommendations on how to enrich project management skills for a software engineering professional. Recommendations for members of the academic community on the other hand, are given taking into account the GSwE2009 (Graduated Software Engineering 2009) standard [8]. GSwE2009 is often used as a main reference for software engineering master programs [9]. The standard is mostly based on the content of the SWEBOK, plus some contents that are considered to reinforce the education of software engineering. Given the similarities between the SWEBOK and the GSwE2009, the results of comparing SWEBOK and PMBOK are also considered valid to enrich what the GSwE2009 proposes. So in the end the recommendations for practitioners end up being also useful for the academic community and their strategies to teach project management in the context of software engineering.