Los depósitos cooperativos de la Biblioteca Digital de Cataluña : tipología, procesos y software

Desde 1999 el Consorcio de Bibliotecas Universitarias de Cataluña (CBUC) ha creado una nueva línea de trabajo, junto con el Centro de Supercomputación de Cataluña (CESCA), para promocionar la investigación que se lleva a cabo en Cataluña y al mismo tiempo contribuir al movimiento mundial de depositar la producción académica y de investigación en la red de forma abierta. Este movimiento mundial, que recibe el nombre de Open Access, ha sido puesto en marcha con la finalidad de crear alternativas al paradigma de pagar por tener acceso a la información que se ha elaborado, muy a menudo, con financiación y recursos públicos. Esta nueva línea de trabajo son los depósitos institucionales. En esta comunicación presentamos brevemente el estado actual de los depósitos cooperativos implementados, su contenido (estándares usados, derechos de autor, preservación, etc.) y su continente (programas y tecnología utilizada, protocolos, etc.).

Benchmarking therapeutic drug monitoring software: A review of available computer tools

Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) aims to optimize treatments by individualizing dosage regimens based on the measurement of blood concentrations. Dosage individualization to maintain concentrations within a target range requires pharmacokinetic and clinical capabilities. Bayesian calculations currently represent the gold standard TDM approach but require computation assistance. In recent decades computer programs have been developed to assist clinicians in this assignment. The aim of this survey was to assess and compare computer tools designed to support TDM clinical activities. The literature and the Internet were searched to identify software. All programs were tested on personal computers. Each program was scored against a standardized grid covering pharmacokinetic relevance, user friendliness, computing aspects, interfacing and storage. A weighting factor was applied to each criterion of the grid to account for its relative importance. To assess the robustness of the software, six representative clinical vignettes were processed through each of them. Altogether, 12 software tools were identified, tested and ranked, representing a comprehensive review of the available software. Numbers of drugs handled by the software vary widely (from two to 180), and eight programs offer users the possibility of adding new drug models based on population pharmacokinetic analyses. Bayesian computation to predict dosage adaptation from blood concentration (a posteriori adjustment) is performed by ten tools, while nine are also able to propose a priori dosage regimens, based only on individual patient covariates such as age, sex and bodyweight. Among those applying Bayesian calculation, MM-USC*PACK© uses the non-parametric approach. The top two programs emerging from this benchmark were MwPharm© and TCIWorks. Most other programs evaluated had good potential while being less sophisticated or less user friendly. Programs vary in complexity and might not fit all healthcare settings. Each software tool must therefore be regarded with respect to the individual needs of hospitals or clinicians. Programs should be easy and fast for routine activities, including for non-experienced users. Computer-assisted TDM is gaining growing interest and should further improve, especially in terms of information system interfacing, user friendliness, data storage capability and report generation.

Firms in Scottish High Technology Clusters: software, life sciences, microelectronics, optoelectronics and digital media – preliminary evidence and analysis on firm size, growth and optimality

This paper reports on: (a) new primary source evidence on; and (b) statistical and econometric analysis of high technology clusters in Scotland. It focuses on the following sectors: software, life sciences, microelectronics, optoelectronics, and digital media. Evidence on a postal and e-mailed questionnaire is presented and discussed under the headings of: performance, resources, collaboration & cooperation, embeddedness, and innovation. The sampled firms are characterised as being small (viz. micro-firms and SMEs), knowledge intensive (largely graduate staff), research intensive (mean spend on R&D GBP 842k), and internationalised (mainly selling to markets beyond Europe). Preliminary statistical evidence is presented on Gibrat’s Law (independence of growth and size) and the Schumpeterian Hypothesis (scale economies in R&D). Estimates suggest a short-run equilibrium size of just 100 employees, but a long-run equilibrium size of 1000 employees. Further, to achieve the Schumpeterian effect (of marked scale economies in R&D), estimates suggest that firms have to grow to very much larger sizes of beyond 3,000 employees. We argue that the principal way of achieving the latter scale may need to be by takeovers and mergers, rather than by internally driven growth.

El e-mail marketing como herramienta de comunicación de OLR Software SL

El present treball compta amb dues parts. La primera es una recopilació sobre temes relacionats amb el correu electrònic i el seu ús: la seva història; els elements que el composen; serveis i programes que ofereix, l´ús d’aquesta eina; l’importància d´aquest dins del e-marketing; la seva efectivitat com a eina de marketing; atributs que se li assignen; les seves principals aplicacions; legislació que el regula; i altres dades que poden ser de gran utilitat a l´hora de fer una tramesa de correu electrònic. La segona part d´aquest treball conté una investigació quantitativa sobre alguns elements o variables que poden influir en l´efectivitat final de la tramesa massiva de correus electrònics realitzada per una empresa amb finalitat comercial.

Estimating the Impact on Efficiency of the Adoption of a Voluntary Environmental Standard: An Empirical Study of the Global Copper Mining Industry

This paper uses data on the world's copper mining industry to measure the impact on efficiency of the adoption of the ISO 14001 environmental standard. Anecdotal and case study literature suggests that firms are motivated to adopt this standard so as to achieve greater efficiency through changes in operating procedures and processes. Using plant level panel data from 1992-2007 on most of the world's industrial copper mines, the study uses stochastic frontier methods to investigate the effects of ISO adoption. The variety of models used in this study find that adoption either tends to improve efficiency or has no impact on efficiency, but no evidence is found that ISO adoption decreases efficiency.

EuroDia: a beta-cell gene expression resource.

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

A Data mining approach to indirect inference

Consider a model with parameter phi, and an auxiliary model with parameter theta. Let phi be a randomly sampled from a given density over the known parameter space. Monte Carlo methods can be used to draw simulated data and compute the corresponding estimate of theta, say theta_tilde. A large set of tuples (phi, theta_tilde) can be generated in this manner. Nonparametric methods may be use to fit the function E(phi|theta_tilde=a), using these tuples. It is proposed to estimate phi using the fitted E(phi|theta_tilde=theta_hat), where theta_hat is the auxiliary estimate, using the real sample data. This is a consistent and asymptotically normally distributed estimator, under certain assumptions. Monte Carlo results for dynamic panel data and vector autoregressions show that this estimator can have very attractive small sample properties. Confidence intervals can be constructed using the quantiles of the phi for which theta_tilde is close to theta_hat. Such confidence intervals are found to have very accurate coverage.

Creació d'un media center amb software lliure

Treball de recerca realitzat per un alumne d'ensenyament secundari i guardonat amb un Premi CIRIT per fomentar l'esperit científic del Jovent l'any 2009. L’objectiu d’aquest treball de recerca és la creació d’un dispositiu encarregat de centralitzar totes les necessitats multimèdia de casa nostra i distribuir aquest contingut a tots els terminals de la xarxa local d’una manera senzilla i automatitzada. Aquest dispositiu s’ha dissenyat per estar connectat a una televisió d’alta definició, que permetrà la reproducció i l’organització de tot el nostre multimèdia d’una manera còmoda i fàcil. El media center s’encarrega de gestionar la nostra filmoteca, fototeca, biblioteca musical i sèries de TV de manera transparent i automàtica. A més a més, l’usuari pot accedir a tot el multimèdia emmagatzemat al media center des de qualsevol dispositiu de la xarxa local a través de protocols com CIFS o UPnP, en un intent de replicar el cloud computing a escala local. El dispositiu ha estat dissenyat per a suportar tot tipus de formats i subtítols, assegurant la compatibilitat total amb arxius lliures de DRM. El seu disseny minimalista i silenciós el fa perfecte per a substituir el reproductor de DVD de la sala. Tot això sense oblidar el seu baix consum, de l’ordre d’un 75% inferior al d’un PC convencional.

Experimentació amb un receptor software GPS-Galileo d'alta sensibilitat per a entorns interiors

Este proyecto se centra en el análisis de señales GPS, utilizando un receptor software desarrollado con Matlab en un proyecto de investigación para la Agencia Espacial Europea (ESA), llevado a cabo por parte del departamento de Telecomunicaciones e Ingeniería de Sistemas de la ETSE. Este software utiliza técnicas de procesado de señal de alta sensibilidad (HS-GNSS) que permite al usuario determinar su posición en entornos de difícil propagación como puede ser el caso de los escenarios interiores. Los datos experimentales se analizan en función del nivel de multipath que afecta a la señal de cada uno de los satélites, y la degradación que los escenarios interiores provocan en las señales, a causa del mobiliario, paredes, personas, etc. Para analizar los datos experimentales, se ha utilizado una métrica presentada en el congreso internacional EuCAP 2009, con la que es posible caracterizar las señales en función del nivel de multipath.

Análisis de prestaciones de sistemas de comunicaciones inalámbricas en aplicaciones de robótica: sistema software

Una característica importante de la robótica es la comunicación entre sistema base y robot que puede establecerse de forma remota. Ello representa la base del proyecto que se describe a continuación, el cual se descompone de dos partes, una por cada miembro del proyecto: sistema software y sistema hardware. En el sistema software analizaremos las diferentes tecnologías inalámbricas (características, funcionamiento, seguridad, etc.), se realizará una comparativa de los diferentes módulos de comunicación y finalmente decidiremos aquellos que nos interesa para la implementación en Radiofrecuencia (RF) y Bluetooth. En este sistema también estudiaremos la interfaz gráfica que se utilizará, así como los programas creados en este entorno para realizar las implementaciones. En el sistema hardware trataremos de realizar el control de dos periféricos de forma independiente, un servomotor y un sonar, que nos servirán como ejemplo para analizar una posible comunicación entre varios robots y un PC. Por lo tanto, en este apartado analizaremos a fondo los diferentes componentes que harán posible tanto la comunicación, vía RF y Bluetooth, como el control de los diferentes dispositivos.

MSight: an image analysis software for liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry.

Images obtained from high-throughput mass spectrometry (MS) contain information that remains hidden when looking at a single spectrum at a time. Image processing of liquid chromatography-MS datasets can be extremely useful for quality control, experimental monitoring and knowledge extraction. The importance of imaging in differential analysis of proteomic experiments has already been established through two-dimensional gels and can now be foreseen with MS images. We present MSight, a new software designed to construct and manipulate MS images, as well as to facilitate their analysis and comparison.

Creación de una aplicación web basada en software libre para la visualización y consulta de información catastral del Ajuntament de Cerdanyola del Vallès

La aplicación web creada tiene como objetivo convertirse en un instrumento útil para la consulta de información catastral del municipio de Cerdanyola del Vallès, ampliando el alcance de la información al personal del Ajuntament. Entre esta información, se incluye cartografía catastral urbana y rústica de diferentes años y la posibilidad de efectuar una serie de consultas alfanuméricas sencillas sobre la misma.

3D visualization software to analyze topological outcomes of topoisomerase reactions.

The action of various DNA topoisomerases frequently results in characteristic changes in DNA topology. Important information for understanding mechanistic details of action of these topoisomerases can be provided by investigating the knot types resulting from topoisomerase action on circular DNA forming a particular knot type. Depending on the topological bias of a given topoisomerase reaction, one observes different subsets of knotted products. To establish the character of topological bias, one needs to be aware of all possible topological outcomes of intersegmental passages occurring within a given knot type. However, it is not trivial to systematically enumerate topological outcomes of strand passage from a given knot type. We present here a 3D visualization software (TopoICE-X in KnotPlot) that incorporates topological analysis methods in order to visualize, for example, knots that can be obtained from a given knot by one intersegmental passage. The software has several other options for the topological analysis of mechanisms of action of various topoisomerases.