WorldWideScience

Sample records for customizable federated search

  1. Evidence-based Medicine Search: a customizable federated search engine.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bracke, Paul J; Howse, David K; Keim, Samuel M

    2008-04-01

    This paper reports on the development of a tool by the Arizona Health Sciences Library (AHSL) for searching clinical evidence that can be customized for different user groups. The AHSL provides services to the University of Arizona's (UA's) health sciences programs and to the University Medical Center. Librarians at AHSL collaborated with UA College of Medicine faculty to create an innovative search engine, Evidence-based Medicine (EBM) Search, that provides users with a simple search interface to EBM resources and presents results organized according to an evidence pyramid. EBM Search was developed with a web-based configuration component that allows the tool to be customized for different specialties. Informal and anecdotal feedback from physicians indicates that EBM Search is a useful tool with potential in teaching evidence-based decision making. While formal evaluation is still being planned, a tool such as EBM Search, which can be configured for specific user populations, may help lower barriers to information resources in an academic health sciences center.

  2. Harvest: A Scalable, Customizable Discovery and Access System

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Bowman, C. M; Danzig, Peter B; Hardy, Darren R; Manber, Udi; Schwartz, Michael F

    1994-01-01

    .... In this paper we introduce Harvest, a system that provides a set of customizable tools for gathering information from diverse repositories, building topic-specific content indexes, flexibly searching...

  3. Customizable computing

    CERN Document Server

    Chen, Yu-Ting; Gill, Michael; Reinman, Glenn; Xiao, Bingjun

    2015-01-01

    Since the end of Dennard scaling in the early 2000s, improving the energy efficiency of computation has been the main concern of the research community and industry. The large energy efficiency gap between general-purpose processors and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) motivates the exploration of customizable architectures, where one can adapt the architecture to the workload. In this Synthesis lecture, we present an overview and introduction of the recent developments on energy-efficient customizable architectures, including customizable cores and accelerators, on-chip memory

  4. Integrated vs. Federated Search

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Løvschall, Kasper

    2009-01-01

    Oplæg om forskelle og ligheder mellem integrated og federated search i bibliotekskontekst. Holdt ved temadag om "Integrated Search - samsøgning i alle kilder" på Danmarks Biblioteksskole den 22. januar 2009.......Oplæg om forskelle og ligheder mellem integrated og federated search i bibliotekskontekst. Holdt ved temadag om "Integrated Search - samsøgning i alle kilder" på Danmarks Biblioteksskole den 22. januar 2009....

  5. SearchResultFinder: federated search made easy

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Trieschnigg, Rudolf Berend; Tjin-Kam-Jet, Kien; Hiemstra, Djoerd

    Building a federated search engine based on a large number existing web search engines is a challenge: implementing the programming interface (API) for each search engine is an exacting and time-consuming job. In this demonstration we present SearchResultFinder, a browser plugin which speeds up

  6. Customizable Time-Oriented Visualizations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kuhail, Mohammad Amin; Pantazos, Kostas; Lauesen, Søren

    2012-01-01

    Most commercial visualization tools support an easy and quick creation of conventional time-oriented visualizations such as line charts, but customization is limited. In contrast, some academic visualization tools and programming languages support the creation of some customizable time......-oriented visualizations but it is time consuming and hard. To combine efficiency, the effort required to develop a visualization, and customizability, the ability to tailor a visualization, we developed time-oriented building blocks that address the specifics of time (e.g. linear vs. cyclic or point-based vs. interval......-based) and consist of inner customizable parts (e.g. ticks). A combination of the time-oriented and other primitive graphical building blocks allowed the creation of several customizable advanced time-oriented visualizations. The appearance and behavior of the blocks are specified using spreadsheet-like formulas. We...

  7. Evaluation of Federated Searching Options for the School Library

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abercrombie, Sarah E.

    2008-01-01

    Three hosted federated search tools, Follett One Search, Gale PowerSearch Plus, and WebFeat Express, were configured and implemented in a school library. Databases from five vendors and the OPAC were systematically searched. Federated search results were compared with each other and to the results of the same searches in the database's native…

  8. Overview of the TREC 2013 federated web search track

    OpenAIRE

    Demeester, Thomas; Trieschnigg, D; Nguyen, D; Hiemstra, D

    2013-01-01

    The TREC Federated Web Search track is intended to promote research related to federated search in a realistic web setting, and hereto provides a large data collection gathered from a series of online search engines. This overview paper discusses the results of the first edition of the track, FedWeb 2013. The focus was on basic challenges in federated search: (1) resource selection, and (2) results merging. After an overview of the provided data collection and the relevance judgments for the ...

  9. Overview of the TREC 2014 Federated Web Search Track

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Demeester, Thomas; Trieschnigg, Rudolf Berend; Nguyen, Dong-Phuong; Zhou, Ke; Hiemstra, Djoerd

    2014-01-01

    The TREC Federated Web Search track facilitates research in topics related to federated web search, by providing a large realistic data collection sampled from a multitude of online search engines. The FedWeb 2013 challenges of Resource Selection and Results Merging challenges are again included in

  10. Resource Selection for Federated Search on the Web

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nguyen, Dong-Phuong; Demeester, Thomas; Trieschnigg, Rudolf Berend; Hiemstra, Djoerd

    A publicly available dataset for federated search reflecting a real web environment has long been bsent, making it difficult for researchers to test the validity of their federated search algorithms for the web setting. We present several experiments and analyses on resource selection on the web

  11. MTCB: A Multi-Tenant Customizable database Benchmark

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van der Zijden, WIm; Hiemstra, Djoerd; van Keulen, Maurice

    2017-01-01

    We argue that there is a need for Multi-Tenant Customizable OLTP systems. Such systems need a Multi-Tenant Customizable Database (MTC-DB) as a backing. To stimulate the development of such databases, we propose the benchmark MTCB. Benchmarks for OLTP exist and multi-tenant benchmarks exist, but no

  12. Overview of the TREC 2013 Federated Web Search Track

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Demeester, Thomas; Trieschnigg, Rudolf Berend; Nguyen, Dong-Phuong; Hiemstra, Djoerd

    2014-01-01

    The TREC Federated Web Search track is intended to promote research related to federated search in a realistic web setting, and hereto provides a large data collection gathered from a series of online search engines. This overview paper discusses the results of the first edition of the track, FedWeb

  13. Integrated vs. Federated Search:Hvad er hvad?

    OpenAIRE

    Løvschall, Kasper

    2009-01-01

    Oplæg om forskelle og ligheder mellem integrated og federated search i bibliotekskontekst. Holdt ved temadag om "Integrated Search - samsøgning i alle kilder" på Danmarks Biblioteksskole den 22. januar 2009.

  14. Overview of the TREC 2014 Federated Web Search Track

    OpenAIRE

    Demeester, Thomas; Trieschnigg, Rudolf Berend; Nguyen, Dong-Phuong; Zhou, Ke; Hiemstra, Djoerd

    2014-01-01

    The TREC Federated Web Search track facilitates research in topics related to federated web search, by providing a large realistic data collection sampled from a multitude of online search engines. The FedWeb 2013 challenges of Resource Selection and Results Merging challenges are again included in FedWeb 2014, and we additionally introduced the task of vertical selection. Other new aspects are the required link between the Resource Selection and Results Merging, and the importance of diversi...

  15. Drexel at TREC 2014 Federated Web Search Track

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-11-01

    of its input RS results. 1. INTRODUCTION Federated Web Search is the task of searching multiple search engines simultaneously and combining their...or distributed properly[5]. The goal of RS is then, for a given query, to select only the most promising search engines from all those available. Most...result pages of 149 search engines . 4000 queries are used in building the sample set. As a part of the Vertical Selection task, search engines are

  16. Federated Search in the Wild: the combined power of over a hundred search engines

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nguyen, Dong-Phuong; Demeester, Thomas; Trieschnigg, Rudolf Berend; Hiemstra, Djoerd

    2012-01-01

    Federated search has the potential of improving web search: the user becomes less dependent on a single search provider and parts of the deep web become available through a unified interface, leading to a wider variety in the retrieved search results. However, a publicly available dataset for

  17. Customizable orthopaedic oncology implants: one institution's experience with meeting current IRB and FDA requirements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Willis, Alexander R; Ippolito, Joseph A; Patterson, Francis R; Benevenia, Joseph; Beebe, Kathleen S

    2016-01-01

    Customizable orthopaedic implants are often needed for patients with primary malignant bone tumors due to unique anatomy or complex mechanical problems. Currently, obtaining customizable orthopaedic implants for orthopaedic oncology patients can be an arduous task involving submitting approval requests to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). There is great potential for the delay of a patient's surgery and unnecessary paperwork if the submission pathways are misunderstood or a streamlined protocol is not in place. The objective of this study was to review the existing FDA custom implant approval pathways and to determine whether this process was improved with an institutional protocol. An institutional protocol for obtaining IRB and FDA approval for customizable orthopaedic implants was established with the IRB at our institution in 2013. This protocol was approved by the IRB, such that new patients only require submission of a modification to the existing protocol with individualized patient information. During the two-year period of 2013-2014, eight patients were retrospectively identified as having required customizable implants for various orthopaedic oncology surgeries. The dates of request for IRB approval, request for FDA approval, and total time to surgery were recorded, along with the specific pathway utilized for FDA approval. The average patient age was 12 years old (7-21 years old). The average time to IRB approval of a modification to the pre-approved protocol was 14 days (7-21 days). Average time to FDA approval after submission of the IRB approval to the manufacturer was 12.5 days (7-19 days). FDA approval was obtained for all implants as compassionate use requests in accordance with Section 561 of the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act's expanded access provisions. Establishment of an institutional protocol with pre-approval by the IRB can expedite the otherwise time-consuming and complicated

  18. Evaluating a Federated Medical Search Engine

    Science.gov (United States)

    Belden, J.; Williams, J.; Richardson, B.; Schuster, K.

    2014-01-01

    Summary Background Federated medical search engines are health information systems that provide a single access point to different types of information. Their efficiency as clinical decision support tools has been demonstrated through numerous evaluations. Despite their rigor, very few of these studies report holistic evaluations of medical search engines and even fewer base their evaluations on existing evaluation frameworks. Objectives To evaluate a federated medical search engine, MedSocket, for its potential net benefits in an established clinical setting. Methods This study applied the Human, Organization, and Technology (HOT-fit) evaluation framework in order to evaluate MedSocket. The hierarchical structure of the HOT-factors allowed for identification of a combination of efficiency metrics. Human fit was evaluated through user satisfaction and patterns of system use; technology fit was evaluated through the measurements of time-on-task and the accuracy of the found answers; and organization fit was evaluated from the perspective of system fit to the existing organizational structure. Results Evaluations produced mixed results and suggested several opportunities for system improvement. On average, participants were satisfied with MedSocket searches and confident in the accuracy of retrieved answers. However, MedSocket did not meet participants’ expectations in terms of download speed, access to information, and relevance of the search results. These mixed results made it necessary to conclude that in the case of MedSocket, technology fit had a significant influence on the human and organization fit. Hence, improving technological capabilities of the system is critical before its net benefits can become noticeable. Conclusions The HOT-fit evaluation framework was instrumental in tailoring the methodology for conducting a comprehensive evaluation of the search engine. Such multidimensional evaluation of the search engine resulted in recommendations for

  19. D3.6 Report on implementation of the ECO Federated Search infrastructure

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ternier, Stefaan; Loozen, Kjeld; Viñuales, Javier; Tejera, Sara; Tomasini, Alessandra; Unruh, Sören

    2016-01-01

    This document describes the implementation of the ECO federated search architecture. It presents an analysis of various architectures and defines based on this analysis an architectural solution for federated search in ECO.

  20. Web Usage Mining Analysis of Federated Search Tools for Egyptian Scholars

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mohamed, Khaled A.; Hassan, Ahmed

    2008-01-01

    Purpose: This paper aims to examine the behaviour of the Egyptian scholars while accessing electronic resources through two federated search tools. The main purpose of this article is to provide guidance for federated search tool technicians and support teams about user issues, including the need for training. Design/methodology/approach: Log…

  1. Zebrafish Database: Customizable, Free, and Open-Source Solution for Facility Management.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yakulov, Toma Antonov; Walz, Gerd

    2015-12-01

    Zebrafish Database is a web-based customizable database solution, which can be easily adapted to serve both single laboratories and facilities housing thousands of zebrafish lines. The database allows the users to keep track of details regarding the various genomic features, zebrafish lines, zebrafish batches, and their respective locations. Advanced search and reporting options are available. Unique features are the ability to upload files and images that are associated with the respective records and an integrated calendar component that supports multiple calendars and categories. Built on the basis of the Joomla content management system, the Zebrafish Database is easily extendable without the need for advanced programming skills.

  2. What Snippets Say About Pages in Federated Web Search

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Demeester, Thomas; Nguyen, Dong-Phuong; Trieschnigg, Rudolf Berend; Develder, Chris; Hiemstra, Djoerd; Hou, Yuexian; Nie, Jian-Yun; Sun, Le; Wang, Bo; Zhang, Peng

    2012-01-01

    What is the likelihood that a Web page is considered relevant to a query, given the relevance assessment of the corresponding snippet? Using a new federated IR test collection that contains search results from over a hundred search engines on the internet, we are able to investigate such research

  3. Soak Up the Rain Customizable Outreach Tools

    Science.gov (United States)

    Get customizable Soak Up the Rain business card, posters, & a banner that can be downloaded & copied for use by citizens, municipalities, watershed & planning organizations & others in their stormwater/green infrastructure education & outreach efforts.

  4. Students are Confident Using Federated Search Tools as much as Single Databases. A Review of: Armstrong, A. (2009. Student perceptions of federated searching vs. single database searching. Reference Services Review, 37(3, 291-303. doi:10.1108/00907320910982785

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Deena Yanofsky

    2011-09-01

    Full Text Available Objective – To measure students’ perceptions of the ease-of-use and efficacy of a federated search tool versus a single multidisciplinary database.Design – An evaluation worksheet, employing a combination of quantitative and qualitative questions.Setting – A required, first-year English composition course taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC.Subjects – Thirty-one undergraduate students completed and submitted the worksheet.Methods – Students attended two library instruction sessions. The first session introduced participants to basic Boolean searching (using AND only, selecting appropriate keywords and searching for books in the library catalogue. In the second library session, students were handed an evaluation worksheet and, with no introduction to the process of searching article databases, were asked to find relevant articles on a research topic of their own choosing using both a federated search tool and a single multidisciplinary database. The evaluation worksheet was divided into four sections: step-by-step instructions for accessing the single multidisciplinary database and the federated search tool; space to record search strings in both resources; space to record the titles of up to five relevant articles; and a series of quantitative and qualitative questions regarding ease-of-use, relevancy of results, overall preference (if any between the two resources, likeliness of future use and other preferred research tools. Half of the participants received a worksheet with instructions to search the federated search tool before the single database; the order was reversed for the other half of the students. The evaluation worksheet was designed to be completed in one hour.Participant responses to qualitative questions were analyzed, codified and grouped into thematic categories. If a student mentioned more than one factor in responding to a question, their response was recorded in multiple categories.Main Results

  5. Customizable Scientific Web Portal for Fusion Research

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Abla, G; Kim, E; Schissel, D; Flannagan, S [General Atomics, San Diego (United States)

    2009-07-01

    The Web browser has become one of the major application interfaces for remotely participating in magnetic fusion experiments. Recently in other areas, web portals have begun to be deployed. These portals are used to present very diverse sources of information in a unified way. While a web portal has several benefits over other software interfaces, such as providing single point of access for multiple computational services, and eliminating the need for client software installation, the design and development of a web portal has unique challenges. One of the challenges is that a web portal needs to be fast and interactive despite a high volume of tools and information that it presents. Another challenge is the visual output on the web portal often is overwhelming due to the high volume of data generated by complex scientific instruments and experiments; therefore the applications and information should be customizable depending on the needs of users. An appropriate software architecture and web technologies can meet these problems. A web-portal has been designed to support the experimental activities of DIII-D researchers worldwide. It utilizes a multi-tier software architecture, and web 2.0 technologies, such as AJAX, Django, and Memcached, to develop a highly interactive and customizable user interface. It offers a customizable interface with personalized page layouts and list of services for users to select. The users can create a unique personalized working environment to fit their own needs and interests. Customizable services are: real-time experiment status monitoring, diagnostic data access, interactive data visualization. The web-portal also supports interactive collaborations by providing collaborative logbook, shared visualization and online instant message services. Furthermore, the web portal will provide a mechanism to allow users to create their own applications on the web portal as well as bridging capabilities to external applications such as

  6. FedWeb Greatest Hits: Presenting the New Test Collection for Federated Web Search

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Demeester, Thomas; Trieschnigg, Rudolf Berend; Zhou, Ke; Nguyen, Dong-Phuong; Hiemstra, Djoerd

    This paper presents 'FedWeb Greatest Hits', a large new test collection for research in web information retrieval. As a combination and extension of the datasets used in the TREC Federated Web Search Track, this collection opens up new research possibilities on federated web search challenges, as

  7. Undergraduates Prefer Federated Searching to Searching Databases Individually. A Review of: Belliston, C. Jeffrey, Jared L. Howland, & Brian C. Roberts. “Undergraduate Use of Federated Searching: A Survey of Preferences and Perceptions of Value-Added Functionality.” College & Research Libraries 68.6 (Nov. 2007: 472-86.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Genevieve Gore

    2008-09-01

    Full Text Available Objective – To determine whether use offederated searching by undergraduates saves time, meets their information needs, is preferred over searching databases individually, and provides results of higher quality. Design – Crossover study.Setting – Three American universities, all members of the Consortium of Church Libraries & Archives (CCLA: BYU (Brigham Young University, a large research university; BYUH (Brigham Young University – Hawaii, a small baccalaureate college; and BYUI (Brigham Young University – Idaho, a large baccalaureate collegeSubjects – Ninety-five participants recruited via e-mail invitations sent to a random sample of currently enrolled undergraduates at BYU, BYUH, and BYUI.Methods – Participants were given written directions to complete a literature search for journal articles on two biology-related topics using two search methods: 1. federated searching with WebFeat® (implemented in the same way for this study at the three universities and 2. a hyperlinked list of databases to search individually. Both methods used the same set of seven databases. Each topic was assigned in random order to one of the two search methods, also assigned in random order, for a total of two searches per participant. The time to complete the searches was recorded. Students compiled their list of citations, which were later normalized and graded. To analyze the quality of the citations, one quantitative rubric was created by librarians and one qualitative rubric was approved by a faculty member at BYU. The librarian-created rubric included the journal impact factor (from ISI’s Journal Citation Reports®, the proportion of citations from peer-reviewed journals (determined from Ulrichsweb.com™ to total citations, and the timeliness of the articles. The faculty-approved rubric included three criteria: relevance to the topic, quality of the individual citations (good quality: primary research results, peer-reviewed sources, and

  8. A Federated Search and Social Recommendation Widget

    OpenAIRE

    Govaerts, Sten; El Helou, Sandy; Gillet, Denis; Duval, Erik

    2011-01-01

    This paper presents a federated search and social recommen- dation widget. It describes the widget’s interface and the un- derlying social recommendation engine. A preliminary eval- uation of the widget’s usability and usefulness involving 15 subjects is also discussed. The evaluation helped identify us- ability problems that will be addressed prior to the widget’s usage in a real learning context.

  9. A Simple and Customizable Web Interface to the Virtual Solar Observatory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hughitt, V. Keith; Hourcle, J.; Suarez-Sola, I.; Davey, A.

    2010-05-01

    As the variety and number of solar data sources continue to increase at a rapid rate, the importance of providing methods to search through these sources becomes increasingly important. By taking advantage of the power of modern JavaScript libraries, a new version of the Virtual Solar Observatory's web interface aims to provide a significantly faster and simpler way to explore the multitude of data repositories available. Querying asynchroniously serves not only to eliminates bottlenecks resulting from slow or unresponsive data providers, but also allows for displaying of results as soon as they are returned. Implicit pagination and post-query filtering enables users to work with large result-sets, while a more modular and customizable UI provides a mechanism for customizing both the look-and-feel and behavior of the VSO web interface. Finally, the new web interface features a custom widget system capable of displaying additional tools and information along-side of the standard VSO search form. Interested users can also write their own widgets and submit them for future incorporation into VSO.

  10. A Customizable Dashboarding System for Watershed Model Interpretation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Easton, Z. M.; Collick, A.; Wagena, M. B.; Sommerlot, A.; Fuka, D.

    2017-12-01

    Stakeholders, including policymakers, agricultural water managers, and small farm managers, can benefit from the outputs of commonly run watershed models. However, the information that each stakeholder needs is be different. While policy makers are often interested in the broader effects that small farm management may have on a watershed during extreme events or over long periods, farmers are often interested in field specific effects at daily or seasonal period. To provide stakeholders with the ability to analyze and interpret data from large scale watershed models, we have developed a framework that can support custom exploration of the large datasets produced. For the volume of data produced by these models, SQL-based data queries are not efficient; thus, we employ a "Not Only SQL" (NO-SQL) query language, which allows data to scale in both quantity and query volumes. We demonstrate a stakeholder customizable Dashboarding system that allows stakeholders to create custom `dashboards' to summarize model output specific to their needs. Dashboarding is a dynamic and purpose-based visual interface needed to display one-to-many database linkages so that the information can be presented for a single time period or dynamically monitored over time and allows a user to quickly define focus areas of interest for their analysis. We utilize a single watershed model that is run four times daily with a combined set of climate projections, which are then indexed, and added to an ElasticSearch datastore. ElasticSearch is a NO-SQL search engine built on top of Apache Lucene, a free and open-source information retrieval software library. Aligned with the ElasticSearch project is the open source visualization and analysis system, Kibana, which we utilize for custom stakeholder dashboarding. The dashboards create a visualization of the stakeholder selected analysis and can be extended to recommend robust strategies to support decision-making.

  11. Snippet-based relevance predictions for federated web search

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Demeester, Thomas; Nguyen, Dong-Phuong; Trieschnigg, Rudolf Berend; Develder, Chris; Hiemstra, Djoerd

    How well can the relevance of a page be predicted, purely based on snippets? This would be highly useful in a Federated Web Search setting where caching large amounts of result snippets is more feasible than caching entire pages. The experiments reported in this paper make use of result snippets and

  12. Federated Search and the Library Web Site: A Study of Association of Research Libraries Member Web Sites

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, Sarah C.

    2010-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate how federated search engines are incorporated into the Web sites of libraries in the Association of Research Libraries. In 2009, information was gathered for each library in the Association of Research Libraries with a federated search engine. This included the name of the federated search service and…

  13. Google vs. the Library: Student Preferences and Perceptions when Doing Research Using Google and a Federated Search Tool

    Science.gov (United States)

    Georgas, Helen

    2013-01-01

    Federated searching was once touted as the library world's answer to Google, but ten years since federated searching technology's inception, how does it actually compare? This study focuses on undergraduate student preferences and perceptions when doing research using both Google and a federated search tool. Students were asked about their…

  14. Medical Visualization and Simulation for Customizable Surgical Guides

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kroes, T.

    2015-01-01

    This thesis revolves around the development of medical visualization tools for the planning of CSG-based surgery. To this end, we performed an extensive computerassisted surgery (CAS) literature study, developed a novel optimization technique for customizable surgical guides (CSG), and introduce

  15. Building on the International Polar Year: Discovering Interdisciplinary Data Through Federated Search

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    L Yarmey

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available The legacy of the International Polar Year 2007–2008 (IPY includes advances in open data and meaningful progress towards interoperability of data, systems, and standards. Enabled by metadata brokering technologies and by the growing adoption of international metadata standards, federated data search welcomes diversity in Arctic data and recognizes the value of expertise in community data repositories. Federated search enables specialized data holdings to be discovered by broader audiences and complements the role of metadata registries such as the Global Change Master Directory, providing interoperability across the Arctic web-of-repositories.

  16. PFS: a distributed and customizable file system

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bosch, H.G.P.; Mullender, Sape J.

    1996-01-01

    In this paper we present our ongoing work on the Pegasus File System (PFS), a distributed and customizable file system that can be used for off-line file system experiments and on-line file system storage. PFS is best described as an object-oriented component library from which either a true file

  17. Federated or cached searches: providing expected performance from multiple invasive species databases

    Science.gov (United States)

    Graham, Jim; Jarnevich, Catherine S.; Simpson, Annie; Newman, Gregory J.; Stohlgren, Thomas J.

    2011-01-01

    Invasive species are a universal global problem, but the information to identify them, manage them, and prevent invasions is stored around the globe in a variety of formats. The Global Invasive Species Information Network is a consortium of organizations working toward providing seamless access to these disparate databases via the Internet. A distributed network of databases can be created using the Internet and a standard web service protocol. There are two options to provide this integration. First, federated searches are being proposed to allow users to search “deep” web documents such as databases for invasive species. A second method is to create a cache of data from the databases for searching. We compare these two methods, and show that federated searches will not provide the performance and flexibility required from users and a central cache of the datum are required to improve performance.

  18. Looking for a New Sport That Pays Well? Consider the Game of Federal Job Search.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Troutman, Kathryn Kraemer

    This paper compares searching for a Federal Job to taking up a new sport. Becoming good at a sport takes lessons and coaching, study of the rules, practice, investment in equipment and special clothes, time to play, scheduling, and ongoing interest with friend who enjoy the same sport. An Expert Player/Jobseeker in the Federal Job Search System…

  19. SemanticOrganizer: A Customizable Semantic Repository for Distributed NASA Project Teams

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keller, Richard M.; Berrios, Daniel C.; Carvalho, Robert E.; Hall, David R.; Rich, Stephen J.; Sturken, Ian B.; Swanson, Keith J.; Wolfe, Shawn R.

    2004-01-01

    SemanticOrganizer is a collaborative knowledge management system designed to support distributed NASA projects, including diverse teams of scientists, engineers, and accident investigators. The system provides a customizable, semantically structured information repository that stores work products relevant to multiple projects of differing types. SemanticOrganizer is one of the earliest and largest semantic web applications deployed at NASA to date, and has been used in diverse contexts ranging from the investigation of Space Shuttle Columbia's accident to the search for life on other planets. Although the underlying repository employs a single unified ontology, access control and ontology customization mechanisms make the repository contents appear different for each project team. This paper describes SemanticOrganizer, its customization facilities, and a sampling of its applications. The paper also summarizes some key lessons learned from building and fielding a successful semantic web application across a wide-ranging set of domains with diverse users.

  20. Architecture for knowledge-based and federated search of online clinical evidence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Coiera, Enrico; Walther, Martin; Nguyen, Ken; Lovell, Nigel H

    2005-10-24

    It is increasingly difficult for clinicians to keep up-to-date with the rapidly growing biomedical literature. Online evidence retrieval methods are now seen as a core tool to support evidence-based health practice. However, standard search engine technology is not designed to manage the many different types of evidence sources that are available or to handle the very different information needs of various clinical groups, who often work in widely different settings. The objectives of this paper are (1) to describe the design considerations and system architecture of a wrapper-mediator approach to federate search system design, including the use of knowledge-based, meta-search filters, and (2) to analyze the implications of system design choices on performance measurements. A trial was performed to evaluate the technical performance of a federated evidence retrieval system, which provided access to eight distinct online resources, including e-journals, PubMed, and electronic guidelines. The Quick Clinical system architecture utilized a universal query language to reformulate queries internally and utilized meta-search filters to optimize search strategies across resources. We recruited 227 family physicians from across Australia who used the system to retrieve evidence in a routine clinical setting over a 4-week period. The total search time for a query was recorded, along with the duration of individual queries sent to different online resources. Clinicians performed 1662 searches over the trial. The average search duration was 4.9 +/- 3.2 s (N = 1662 searches). Mean search duration to the individual sources was between 0.05 s and 4.55 s. Average system time (ie, system overhead) was 0.12 s. The relatively small system overhead compared to the average time it takes to perform a search for an individual source shows that the system achieves a good trade-off between performance and reliability. Furthermore, despite the additional effort required to incorporate the

  1. An Analysis of the Impact of Federated Search Products on Library Instruction Using the ACRL Standards

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cox, Christopher

    2006-01-01

    Federated search products are becoming more and more prevalent in academic libraries. What are the implications of this phenomenon for instruction librarians? An analysis of federated search products using the "Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education" and a thorough review of the literature offer insight concerning whether…

  2. Google vs. the Library (Part II): Student Search Patterns and Behaviors When Using Google and a Federated Search Tool

    Science.gov (United States)

    Georgas, Helen

    2014-01-01

    This study examines the information-seeking behavior of undergraduate students within a research context. Student searches were recorded while the participants used Google and a library (federated) search tool to find sources (one book, two articles, and one other source of their choosing) for a selected topic. The undergraduates in this study…

  3. IMp: The customizable LEGO® Pinned Insect Manipulator

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Steen Dupont

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available We present a pinned insect manipulator (IMp constructed of LEGO® building bricks with two axes of movement and two axes of rotation. In addition we present three variants of the IMp to emphasise the modular design, which facilitates resizing to meet the full range of pinned insect specimens, is fully customizable, collapsible, affordable and does not require specialist tools or knowledge to assemble.

  4. IMp: The customizable LEGO® Pinned Insect Manipulator

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dupont, Steen; Price, Benjamin; Blagoderov, Vladimir

    2015-01-01

    Abstract We present a pinned insect manipulator (IMp) constructed of LEGO® building bricks with two axes of movement and two axes of rotation. In addition we present three variants of the IMp to emphasise the modular design, which facilitates resizing to meet the full range of pinned insect specimens, is fully customizable, collapsible, affordable and does not require specialist tools or knowledge to assemble. PMID:25685035

  5. Customizable scientific web-portal for DIII-D nuclear fusion experiment

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Abla, G; Kim, E N; Schissel, D P, E-mail: abla@fusion.gat.co [General Atomics, PO Box 85608, San Diego, California 92186-5608 (United States)

    2010-04-01

    Increasing utilization of the Internet and convenient web technologies has made the web-portal a major application interface for remote participation and control of scientific instruments. While web-portals have provided a centralized gateway for multiple computational services, the amount of visual output often is overwhelming due to the high volume of data generated by complex scientific instruments and experiments. Since each scientist may have different priorities and areas of interest in the experiment, filtering and organizing information based on the individual user's need can increase the usability and efficiency of a web-portal. DIII-D is the largest magnetic nuclear fusion device in the US. A web-portal has been designed to support the experimental activities of DIII-D researchers worldwide. It offers a customizable interface with personalized page layouts and list of services for users to select. Each individual user can create a unique working environment to fit his own needs and interests. Customizable services are: real-time experiment status monitoring, diagnostic data access, interactive data analysis and visualization. The web-portal also supports interactive collaborations by providing collaborative logbook, and online instant announcement services. The DIII-D web-portal development utilizes multi-tier software architecture, and Web 2.0 technologies and tools, such as AJAX and Django, to develop a highly-interactive and customizable user interface.

  6. Customizable scientific web-portal for DIII-D nuclear fusion experiment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Abla, G; Kim, E N; Schissel, D P

    2010-01-01

    Increasing utilization of the Internet and convenient web technologies has made the web-portal a major application interface for remote participation and control of scientific instruments. While web-portals have provided a centralized gateway for multiple computational services, the amount of visual output often is overwhelming due to the high volume of data generated by complex scientific instruments and experiments. Since each scientist may have different priorities and areas of interest in the experiment, filtering and organizing information based on the individual user's need can increase the usability and efficiency of a web-portal. DIII-D is the largest magnetic nuclear fusion device in the US. A web-portal has been designed to support the experimental activities of DIII-D researchers worldwide. It offers a customizable interface with personalized page layouts and list of services for users to select. Each individual user can create a unique working environment to fit his own needs and interests. Customizable services are: real-time experiment status monitoring, diagnostic data access, interactive data analysis and visualization. The web-portal also supports interactive collaborations by providing collaborative logbook, and online instant announcement services. The DIII-D web-portal development utilizes multi-tier software architecture, and Web 2.0 technologies and tools, such as AJAX and Django, to develop a highly-interactive and customizable user interface.

  7. Customizable scientific web-portal for DIII-D nuclear fusion experiment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abla, G.; Kim, E. N.; Schissel, D. P.

    2010-04-01

    Increasing utilization of the Internet and convenient web technologies has made the web-portal a major application interface for remote participation and control of scientific instruments. While web-portals have provided a centralized gateway for multiple computational services, the amount of visual output often is overwhelming due to the high volume of data generated by complex scientific instruments and experiments. Since each scientist may have different priorities and areas of interest in the experiment, filtering and organizing information based on the individual user's need can increase the usability and efficiency of a web-portal. DIII-D is the largest magnetic nuclear fusion device in the US. A web-portal has been designed to support the experimental activities of DIII-D researchers worldwide. It offers a customizable interface with personalized page layouts and list of services for users to select. Each individual user can create a unique working environment to fit his own needs and interests. Customizable services are: real-time experiment status monitoring, diagnostic data access, interactive data analysis and visualization. The web-portal also supports interactive collaborations by providing collaborative logbook, and online instant announcement services. The DIII-D web-portal development utilizes multi-tier software architecture, and Web 2.0 technologies and tools, such as AJAX and Django, to develop a highly-interactive and customizable user interface.

  8. Customizable scientific web portal for fusion research

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Abla, G.; Kim, E.N.; Schissel, D.P.; Flanagan, S.M.

    2010-01-01

    Web browsers have become a major application interface for participating in scientific experiments such as those in magnetic fusion. The recent advances in web technologies motivated the deployment of interactive web applications with rich features. In the scientific world, web applications have been deployed in portal environments. When used in a scientific research environment, such as fusion experiments, web portals can present diverse sources of information in a unified interface. However, the design and development of a scientific web portal has its own challenges. One such challenge is that a web portal needs to be fast and interactive despite the high volume of information and number of tools it presents. Another challenge is that the visual output of the web portal must not be overwhelming to the end users, despite the high volume of data generated by fusion experiments. Therefore, the applications and information should be customizable depending on the needs of end users. In order to meet these challenges, the design and implementation of a web portal needs to support high interactivity and user customization. A web portal has been designed to support the experimental activities of DIII-D researchers worldwide by providing multiple services, such as real-time experiment status monitoring, diagnostic data access and interactive data visualization. The web portal also supports interactive collaborations by providing a collaborative logbook, shared visualization and online instant messaging services. The portal's design utilizes the multi-tier software architecture and has been implemented utilizing web 2.0 technologies, such as AJAX, Django, and Memcached, to develop a highly interactive and customizable user interface. It offers a customizable interface with personalized page layouts and list of services, which allows users to create a unique, personalized working environment to fit their own needs and interests. This paper describes the software

  9. Customizable scientific web portal for fusion research

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Abla, G., E-mail: abla@fusion.gat.co [General Atomics, P.O. Box 85608, San Diego, CA (United States); Kim, E.N.; Schissel, D.P.; Flanagan, S.M. [General Atomics, P.O. Box 85608, San Diego, CA (United States)

    2010-07-15

    Web browsers have become a major application interface for participating in scientific experiments such as those in magnetic fusion. The recent advances in web technologies motivated the deployment of interactive web applications with rich features. In the scientific world, web applications have been deployed in portal environments. When used in a scientific research environment, such as fusion experiments, web portals can present diverse sources of information in a unified interface. However, the design and development of a scientific web portal has its own challenges. One such challenge is that a web portal needs to be fast and interactive despite the high volume of information and number of tools it presents. Another challenge is that the visual output of the web portal must not be overwhelming to the end users, despite the high volume of data generated by fusion experiments. Therefore, the applications and information should be customizable depending on the needs of end users. In order to meet these challenges, the design and implementation of a web portal needs to support high interactivity and user customization. A web portal has been designed to support the experimental activities of DIII-D researchers worldwide by providing multiple services, such as real-time experiment status monitoring, diagnostic data access and interactive data visualization. The web portal also supports interactive collaborations by providing a collaborative logbook, shared visualization and online instant messaging services. The portal's design utilizes the multi-tier software architecture and has been implemented utilizing web 2.0 technologies, such as AJAX, Django, and Memcached, to develop a highly interactive and customizable user interface. It offers a customizable interface with personalized page layouts and list of services, which allows users to create a unique, personalized working environment to fit their own needs and interests. This paper describes the software

  10. Customizable pre-printed consent forms: a solution in light of the Montgomery ruling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Owen, Deborah; Aresti, Nick; Mulligan, Alex; Kosuge, Dennis

    2018-02-02

    This article presents an audit cycle supported quality improvement project addressing best practice in the consent process for lower limb arthroplasty which takes into account the new standard in surgical consent and the importance of material risks. 50 consecutive total hip and total knee replacement consent forms over a 3-month period were reviewed for legibility and completeness. Following the introduction of a new, pre-printed but customizable consent form the review process was repeated. The introduction of a customizable, pre-printed consent form that can be adjusted to reflect the individualized material risks of each patient increased legibility, reduced inappropriate human error variation and abolished the use of abbreviations and medical jargon. When used as part of an extended consent process, the authors feel that the use of pre-printed but customizable consent forms improves legibility, completeness and consistency and also provides the ability to highlight those complications that are of particular importance for that patient to satisfy the new accepted standard in surgical consent.

  11. An Analysis of the Applicability of Federal Law Regarding Hash-Based Searches of Digital Media

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-06-01

    similarity matching, Fourth Amend- ment, federal law, search and seizure, warrant search, consent search, border search. 15. NUMBER OF PAGES 107 16. PRICE ...containing a white powdery substance labeled flour [53]. 3.3.17 United States v Heckenkamp 482 F.3d 1142 (9th Circuit 2007) People have a reasonable

  12. A Customizable GeantV Calorimeter Application

    CERN Document Server

    Schmitz, Ryan; Vallecorsa, Sofia; Novak, Mihaly; CERN. Geneva. EP Department

    2017-01-01

    A customizable calorimeter application was written in GeantV. This application includes a GeantV-native detector construction file as well as GeantV-native physics models and new data collection structures. Including these features makes this one of the first examples of a completely standalone GeantV application. A comparison to Geant4 was made which showed the consistency of the GeantV-native physics models included in this example. Finally, the workflow improvements made by the creation of this application are described.

  13. IMp: The customizable LEGO(®) Pinned Insect Manipulator.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dupont, Steen; Price, Benjamin; Blagoderov, Vladimir

    2015-01-01

    We present a pinned insect manipulator (IMp) constructed of LEGO® building bricks with two axes of movement and two axes of rotation. In addition we present three variants of the IMp to emphasise the modular design, which facilitates resizing to meet the full range of pinned insect specimens, is fully customizable, collapsible, affordable and does not require specialist tools or knowledge to assemble.

  14. The Future of Federated Search, or What Will the World Look like in 10 Years

    Science.gov (United States)

    Turner, Rich

    2009-01-01

    In this article, the author contends that in 10 years, federated search--or search of any kind for that matter--won't exist. He elaborates that the "function" of search will exist--but not in a context with which anyone is familiar today. So if "search" doesn't exist in 2018, how will people find the information that they need across vast volumes…

  15. PFS: a distributed and customizable file system

    OpenAIRE

    Bosch, H.G.P.; Mullender, Sape J.

    1996-01-01

    In this paper we present our ongoing work on the Pegasus File System (PFS), a distributed and customizable file system that can be used for off-line file system experiments and on-line file system storage. PFS is best described as an object-oriented component library from which either a true file system or a file-system simulator can be constructed. Each of the components in the library is easily replaced by another implementation to accommodate a wide range of applications.

  16. Ultrasmall and customizable multichannel electrodes for extracellular recordings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Piironen, Arto; Weckström, Matti; Vähäsöyrinki, Mikko

    2011-03-01

    Increasing demand exists for smaller multichannel electrodes that enable simultaneous recordings of many neurons in a noninvasive manner. We report a novel method for manufacturing ultrasmall carbon fiber electrodes with up to seven closely spaced recording sites. The electrodes were designed to minimize damage to neuronal circuitry and to be fully customizable in three dimensions so that their dimensions can be optimally matched to those of the targeted neuron population.

  17. A Customizable Language Learning Support System Using Ontology-Driven Engine

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Jingyun; Mendori, Takahiko; Xiong, Juan

    2013-01-01

    This paper proposes a framework for web-based language learning support systems designed to provide customizable pedagogical procedures based on the analysis of characteristics of both learner and course. This framework employs a course-centered ontology and a teaching method ontology as the foundation for the student model, which includes learner…

  18. Customizable Digital Receivers for Radar

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moller, Delwyn; Heavey, Brandon; Sadowy, Gregory

    2008-01-01

    Compact, highly customizable digital receivers are being developed for the system described in 'Radar Interferometer for Topographic Mapping of Glaciers and Ice Sheets' (NPO-43962), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 31, No. 7 (August 2007), page 72. The receivers are required to operate in unison, sampling radar returns received by the antenna elements in a digital beam-forming (DBF) mode. The design of these receivers could also be adapted to commercial radar systems. At the time of reporting the information for this article, there were no commercially available digital receivers capable of satisfying all of the operational requirements and compact enough to be mounted directly on the antenna elements. A provided figure depicts the overall system of which the digital receivers are parts. Each digital receiver includes an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a demultiplexer (DMUX), and a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). The ADC effects 10-bit band-pass sampling of input signals having frequencies up to 3.5 GHz. The input samples are demultiplexed at a user-selectable rate of 1:2 or 1:4, then buffered in part of the FPGA that functions as a first-in/first-out (FIFO) memory. Another part of the FPGA serves as a controller for the ADC, DMUX, and FIFO memory and as an interface between (1) the rest of the receiver and (2) a front-panel data port (FPDP) bus, which is an industry-standard parallel data bus that has a high data-rate capability and multichannel configuration suitable for DBF. Still other parts of the FPGA in each receiver perform signal-processing functions. The digital receivers can be configured to operate in a stand-alone mode, or in a multichannel mode as needed for DBF. The customizability of the receiver makes it applicable to a broad range of system architectures. The capability for operation of receivers in either a stand-alone or a DBF mode enables the use of the receivers in an unprecedentedly wide variety of radar systems.

  19. Customizable PCR-microplate array for differential identification of multiple pathogens.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Woubit, Abdela; Yehualaeshet, Teshome; Roberts, Sherrelle; Graham, Martha; Kim, Moonil; Samuel, Temesgen

    2013-11-01

    Customizable PCR-microplate arrays were developed for the rapid identification of Salmonella Typhimurium, Salmonella Saintpaul, Salmonella Typhi, Shigella dysenteriae, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Francisella tularensis subsp. tularensis, Francisella tularensis subsp. novicida, Vibrio cholerae, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Yersinia pestis, and Yersinia pseudotuberculosis. Previously, we identified highly specific primers targeting each of these pathogens. Here, we report the development of customizable PCR-microplate arrays for simultaneous identification of the pathogens using the primers identified. A mixed aliquot of genomic DNA from 38 strains was used to validate three PCR-microplate array formats. Identical PCR conditions were used to run all the samples on the three formats. Specific amplifications were obtained on all three custom plates. In preliminary tests performed to evaluate the sensitivity of these assays in samples inoculated in the laboratory with Salmonella Typhimurium, amplifications were obtained from 1 g of beef hot dog inoculated at as low as 9 CFU/ml or from milk inoculated at as low as 78 CFU/ml. Such microplate arrays could be valuable tools for initial identification or secondary confirmation of contamination by these pathogens.

  20. NASA's GeneLab Phase II: Federated Search and Data Discovery

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berrios, Daniel C.; Costes, Sylvain V.; Tran, Peter B.

    2017-01-01

    GeneLab is currently being developed by NASA to accelerate 'open science' biomedical research in support of the human exploration of space and the improvement of life on earth. Phase I of the four-phase GeneLab Data Systems (GLDS) project emphasized capabilities for submission, curation, search, and retrieval of genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics ('omics') data from biomedical research of space environments. The focus of development of the GLDS for Phase II has been federated data search for and retrieval of these kinds of data across other open-access systems, so that users are able to conduct biological meta-investigations using data from a variety of sources. Such meta-investigations are key to corroborating findings from many kinds of assays and translating them into systems biology knowledge and, eventually, therapeutics.

  1. NASAs GeneLab Phase II: Federated Search and Data Discovery

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berrios, Daniel C.; Costes, Sylvain; Tran, Peter

    2017-01-01

    GeneLab is currently being developed by NASA to accelerate open science biomedical research in support of the human exploration of space and the improvement of life on earth. Phase I of the four-phase GeneLab Data Systems (GLDS) project emphasized capabilities for submission, curation, search, and retrieval of genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics (omics) data from biomedical research of space environments. The focus of development of the GLDS for Phase II has been federated data search for and retrieval of these kinds of data across other open-access systems, so that users are able to conduct biological meta-investigations using data from a variety of sources. Such meta-investigations are key to corroborating findings from many kinds of assays and translating them into systems biology knowledge and, eventually, therapeutics.

  2. A Shared Infrastructure for Federated Search Across Distributed Scientific Metadata Catalogs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reed, S. A.; Truslove, I.; Billingsley, B. W.; Grauch, A.; Harper, D.; Kovarik, J.; Lopez, L.; Liu, M.; Brandt, M.

    2013-12-01

    The vast amount of science metadata can be overwhelming and highly complex. Comprehensive analysis and sharing of metadata is difficult since institutions often publish to their own repositories. There are many disjoint standards used for publishing scientific data, making it difficult to discover and share information from different sources. Services that publish metadata catalogs often have different protocols, formats, and semantics. The research community is limited by the exclusivity of separate metadata catalogs and thus it is desirable to have federated search interfaces capable of unified search queries across multiple sources. Aggregation of metadata catalogs also enables users to critique metadata more rigorously. With these motivations in mind, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and Advanced Cooperative Arctic Data and Information Service (ACADIS) implemented two search interfaces for the community. Both the NSIDC Search and ACADIS Arctic Data Explorer (ADE) use a common infrastructure which keeps maintenance costs low. The search clients are designed to make OpenSearch requests against Solr, an Open Source search platform. Solr applies indexes to specific fields of the metadata which in this instance optimizes queries containing keywords, spatial bounds and temporal ranges. NSIDC metadata is reused by both search interfaces but the ADE also brokers additional sources. Users can quickly find relevant metadata with minimal effort and ultimately lowers costs for research. This presentation will highlight the reuse of data and code between NSIDC and ACADIS, discuss challenges and milestones for each project, and will identify creation and use of Open Source libraries.

  3. A Customizable Text Classifier for Text Mining

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yun-liang Zhang

    2007-12-01

    Full Text Available Text mining deals with complex and unstructured texts. Usually a particular collection of texts that is specified to one or more domains is necessary. We have developed a customizable text classifier for users to mine the collection automatically. It derives from the sentence category of the HNC theory and corresponding techniques. It can start with a few texts, and it can adjust automatically or be adjusted by user. The user can also control the number of domains chosen and decide the standard with which to choose the texts based on demand and abundance of materials. The performance of the classifier varies with the user's choice.

  4. Development of a Customizable Health IT Usability Evaluation Scale

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yen, Po-Yin; Wantland, Dean; Bakken, Suzanne

    2010-01-01

    We developed a customizable questionnaire, the Health Information Technology (IT) Usability Evaluation Scale (Health-ITUES) and conducted an exploratory factor analysis to examine the scale’s psychometric properties. Nurses (n=377) completed Health-ITUES to rate the usability of a web-based communication system for scheduling nursing staff. The analysis revealed a four-factor structure of Health-ITUES. The results provided preliminary evidence for the factorial validity and internal consistency reliability of Health-ITUES. PMID:21347112

  5. Evaluating a federated medical search engine: tailoring the methodology and reporting the evaluation outcomes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saparova, D; Belden, J; Williams, J; Richardson, B; Schuster, K

    2014-01-01

    Federated medical search engines are health information systems that provide a single access point to different types of information. Their efficiency as clinical decision support tools has been demonstrated through numerous evaluations. Despite their rigor, very few of these studies report holistic evaluations of medical search engines and even fewer base their evaluations on existing evaluation frameworks. To evaluate a federated medical search engine, MedSocket, for its potential net benefits in an established clinical setting. This study applied the Human, Organization, and Technology (HOT-fit) evaluation framework in order to evaluate MedSocket. The hierarchical structure of the HOT-factors allowed for identification of a combination of efficiency metrics. Human fit was evaluated through user satisfaction and patterns of system use; technology fit was evaluated through the measurements of time-on-task and the accuracy of the found answers; and organization fit was evaluated from the perspective of system fit to the existing organizational structure. Evaluations produced mixed results and suggested several opportunities for system improvement. On average, participants were satisfied with MedSocket searches and confident in the accuracy of retrieved answers. However, MedSocket did not meet participants' expectations in terms of download speed, access to information, and relevance of the search results. These mixed results made it necessary to conclude that in the case of MedSocket, technology fit had a significant influence on the human and organization fit. Hence, improving technological capabilities of the system is critical before its net benefits can become noticeable. The HOT-fit evaluation framework was instrumental in tailoring the methodology for conducting a comprehensive evaluation of the search engine. Such multidimensional evaluation of the search engine resulted in recommendations for system improvement.

  6. Printing Tablets with Fully Customizable Release Profiles for Personalized Medicine.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sun, Yajuan; Soh, Siowling

    2015-12-16

    Personalizing the release profiles of drugs is important for different people with different medical and biological conditions. A technically simple and low-cost method to fabricate fully customizable tablets that can deliver drugs with any type of release profile is described. The customization is intuitively straightforward: the desired profile can simply be "drawn" and printed by a 3D printer. © 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  7. A Customizable Chamber for Measuring Cell Migration.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chowdhury, Aniqa N; Vo, Huu Tri; Olang, Sharon; Mappus, Elliott; Peterson, Brian; Hlavac, Nora; Harvey, Tyler; Dean, Delphine

    2017-03-12

    Cell migration is a vital part of immune responses, growth, and wound healing. Cell migration is a complex process that involves interactions between cells, the extracellular matrix, and soluble and non-soluble chemical factors (e.g., chemoattractants). Standard methods for measuring the migration of cells, such as the Boyden chamber assay, work by counting cells on either side of a divider. These techniques are easy to use; however, they offer little geometric modification for different applications. In contrast, microfluidic devices can be used to observe cell migration with customizable concentration gradients of soluble factors 1 , 2 . However, methods for making microfluidics based assays can be difficult to learn. Here, we describe an easy method for creating cell culture chambers to measure cell migration in response to chemical concentration gradients. Our cell migration chamber method can create different linear concentration gradients in order to study cell migration for a variety of applications. This method is relatively easy to use and is typically performed by undergraduate students. The microchannel chamber was created by placing an acrylic insert in the shape of the final microchannel chamber well into a Petri dish. After this, poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) was poured on top of the insert. The PDMS was allowed to harden and then the insert was removed. This allowed for the creation of wells in any desired shape or size. Cells may be subsequently added to the microchannel chamber, and soluble agents can be added to one of the wells by soaking an agarose block in the desired agent. The agarose block is added to one of the wells, and time-lapse images can be taken of the microchannel chamber in order to quantify cell migration. Variations to this method can be made for a given application, making this method highly customizable.

  8. BIOCAT: a pattern recognition platform for customizable biological image classification and annotation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Jie; Lamichhane, Santosh; Sterne, Gabriella; Ye, Bing; Peng, Hanchuan

    2013-10-04

    Pattern recognition algorithms are useful in bioimage informatics applications such as quantifying cellular and subcellular objects, annotating gene expressions, and classifying phenotypes. To provide effective and efficient image classification and annotation for the ever-increasing microscopic images, it is desirable to have tools that can combine and compare various algorithms, and build customizable solution for different biological problems. However, current tools often offer a limited solution in generating user-friendly and extensible tools for annotating higher dimensional images that correspond to multiple complicated categories. We develop the BIOimage Classification and Annotation Tool (BIOCAT). It is able to apply pattern recognition algorithms to two- and three-dimensional biological image sets as well as regions of interest (ROIs) in individual images for automatic classification and annotation. We also propose a 3D anisotropic wavelet feature extractor for extracting textural features from 3D images with xy-z resolution disparity. The extractor is one of the about 20 built-in algorithms of feature extractors, selectors and classifiers in BIOCAT. The algorithms are modularized so that they can be "chained" in a customizable way to form adaptive solution for various problems, and the plugin-based extensibility gives the tool an open architecture to incorporate future algorithms. We have applied BIOCAT to classification and annotation of images and ROIs of different properties with applications in cell biology and neuroscience. BIOCAT provides a user-friendly, portable platform for pattern recognition based biological image classification of two- and three- dimensional images and ROIs. We show, via diverse case studies, that different algorithms and their combinations have different suitability for various problems. The customizability of BIOCAT is thus expected to be useful for providing effective and efficient solutions for a variety of biological

  9. Individual customizable in-store textile production

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kemper, M.; Bücher, D.; Gloy, Y.-S.; Gries, T.

    2017-10-01

    The target of every company is to satisfy customer demands. Especially the clothing industry has to serve individual customer requirements. Textile products always have been and still are the defining attributes of people’s appearance. Consumer’s demands towards commercial clothing companies have been changing rapidly during the recent years. Two global megatrends have supported this change: Individualization and digitalization. Individualization created demand for frequent collection changes, while still keeping availability high. Digitalization supported the quick distribution of new trends and forced a higher amount of request during peak periods. This paper outlines how a highly individual and customizable fashion product can be produced in a store environment. It focuses on the conceptual design, taking into account the interdisciplinary approach combining production technology with IT-systems, but also addresses the economical challenge with help of a value stream analysis.

  10. Textpresso Central: a customizable platform for searching, text mining, viewing, and curating biomedical literature.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Müller, H-M; Van Auken, K M; Li, Y; Sternberg, P W

    2018-03-09

    The biomedical literature continues to grow at a rapid pace, making the challenge of knowledge retrieval and extraction ever greater. Tools that provide a means to search and mine the full text of literature thus represent an important way by which the efficiency of these processes can be improved. We describe the next generation of the Textpresso information retrieval system, Textpresso Central (TPC). TPC builds on the strengths of the original system by expanding the full text corpus to include the PubMed Central Open Access Subset (PMC OA), as well as the WormBase C. elegans bibliography. In addition, TPC allows users to create a customized corpus by uploading and processing documents of their choosing. TPC is UIMA compliant, to facilitate compatibility with external processing modules, and takes advantage of Lucene indexing and search technology for efficient handling of millions of full text documents. Like Textpresso, TPC searches can be performed using keywords and/or categories (semantically related groups of terms), but to provide better context for interpreting and validating queries, search results may now be viewed as highlighted passages in the context of full text. To facilitate biocuration efforts, TPC also allows users to select text spans from the full text and annotate them, create customized curation forms for any data type, and send resulting annotations to external curation databases. As an example of such a curation form, we describe integration of TPC with the Noctua curation tool developed by the Gene Ontology (GO) Consortium. Textpresso Central is an online literature search and curation platform that enables biocurators and biomedical researchers to search and mine the full text of literature by integrating keyword and category searches with viewing search results in the context of the full text. It also allows users to create customized curation interfaces, use those interfaces to make annotations linked to supporting evidence statements

  11. Internet search patterns of human immunodeficiency virus and the digital divide in the Russian Federation: infoveillance study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zheluk, Andrey; Quinn, Casey; Hercz, Daniel; Gillespie, James A

    2013-11-12

    Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a serious health problem in the Russian Federation. However, the true scale of HIV in Russia has long been the subject of considerable debate. Using digital surveillance to monitor diseases has become increasingly popular in high income countries. But Internet users may not be representative of overall populations, and the characteristics of the Internet-using population cannot be directly ascertained from search pattern data. This exploratory infoveillance study examined if Internet search patterns can be used for disease surveillance in a large middle-income country with a dispersed population. This study had two main objectives: (1) to validate Internet search patterns against national HIV prevalence data, and (2) to investigate the relationship between search patterns and the determinants of Internet access. We first assessed whether online surveillance is a valid and reliable method for monitoring HIV in the Russian Federation. Yandex and Google both provided tools to study search patterns in the Russian Federation. We evaluated the relationship between both Yandex and Google aggregated search patterns and HIV prevalence in 2011 at national and regional tiers. Second, we analyzed the determinants of Internet access to determine the extent to which they explained regional variations in searches for the Russian terms for "HIV" and "AIDS". We sought to extend understanding of the characteristics of Internet searching populations by data matching the determinants of Internet access (age, education, income, broadband access price, and urbanization ratios) and searches for the term "HIV" using principal component analysis (PCA). We found generally strong correlations between HIV prevalence and searches for the terms "HIV" and "AIDS". National correlations for Yandex searches for "HIV" were very strongly correlated with HIV prevalence (Spearman rank-order coefficient [rs]=.881, P ≤ .001) and strongly correlated for "AIDS" (rs

  12. Customizable Visualizations with Formula-Linked Building Blocks

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kuhail, Mohammad Amin; Lauesen, Søren

    different appearance or behavior than what the widgets support. Another approach is to combine primitive graphical elements using traditional programming or visualization toolkits. Traditional programming allows high customizability, but it is time consuming and hard to develop advanced visualizations......One approach to visualization construction is to use complex blocks (widgets) that are tailored for specific visualizations, and customize the visualizations by setting the properties of the widgets. This approach allows fast and easy visualization construction but falls short if the user wants....... Visualization toolkits allow easier visualization creation in some cases, but customization and interaction are tedious. As an alternative, we developed uVis visualization tool that uses spreadsheet-like formulas to connect building blocks. uVis formulas can refer to building blocks and database tables. We...

  13. A method for easily customizable gradient gel electrophoresis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miller, Andrew J; Roman, Brandon; Norstrom, Eric

    2016-09-15

    Gradient polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis is a powerful tool for the resolution of polypeptides by relative mobility. Here, we present a simplified method for generating polyacrylamide gradient gels for routine analysis without the need for specialized mixing equipment. The method allows for easily customizable gradients which can be optimized for specific polypeptide resolution requirements. Moreover, the method eliminates the possibility of buffer cross contamination in mixing equipment, and the time and resources saved with this method in place of traditional gradient mixing, or the purchase of pre-cast gels, are noteworthy given the frequency with which many labs use gradient gel SDS-PAGE. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  14. A Taxonomic Search Engine: federating taxonomic databases using web services.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Page, Roderic D M

    2005-03-09

    The taxonomic name of an organism is a key link between different databases that store information on that organism. However, in the absence of a single, comprehensive database of organism names, individual databases lack an easy means of checking the correctness of a name. Furthermore, the same organism may have more than one name, and the same name may apply to more than one organism. The Taxonomic Search Engine (TSE) is a web application written in PHP that queries multiple taxonomic databases (ITIS, Index Fungorum, IPNI, NCBI, and uBIO) and summarises the results in a consistent format. It supports "drill-down" queries to retrieve a specific record. The TSE can optionally suggest alternative spellings the user can try. It also acts as a Life Science Identifier (LSID) authority for the source taxonomic databases, providing globally unique identifiers (and associated metadata) for each name. The Taxonomic Search Engine is available at http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/portal/ and provides a simple demonstration of the potential of the federated approach to providing access to taxonomic names.

  15. Generation of Customizable Micro-wavy Pattern through Grayscale Direct Image Lithography.

    Science.gov (United States)

    He, Ran; Wang, Shunqiang; Andrews, Geoffrey; Shi, Wentao; Liu, Yaling

    2016-02-23

    With the increasing amount of research work in surface studies, a more effective method of producing patterned microstructures is highly desired due to the geometric limitations and complex fabricating process of current techniques. This paper presents an efficient and cost-effective method to generate customizable micro-wavy pattern using direct image lithography. This method utilizes a grayscale Gaussian distribution effect to model inaccuracies inherent in the polymerization process, which are normally regarded as trivial matters or errors. The measured surface profiles and the mathematical prediction show a good agreement, demonstrating the ability of this method to generate wavy patterns with precisely controlled features. An accurate pattern can be generated with customizable parameters (wavelength, amplitude, wave shape, pattern profile, and overall dimension). This mask-free photolithography approach provides a rapid fabrication method that is capable of generating complex and non-uniform 3D wavy patterns with the wavelength ranging from 12 μm to 2100 μm and an amplitude-to-wavelength ratio as large as 300%. Microfluidic devices with pure wavy and wavy-herringbone patterns suitable for capture of circulating tumor cells are made as a demonstrative application. A completely customized microfluidic device with wavy patterns can be created within a few hours without access to clean room or commercial photolithography equipment.

  16. Generation of Customizable Micro-wavy Pattern through Grayscale Direct Image Lithography

    Science.gov (United States)

    He, Ran; Wang, Shunqiang; Andrews, Geoffrey; Shi, Wentao; Liu, Yaling

    2016-02-01

    With the increasing amount of research work in surface studies, a more effective method of producing patterned microstructures is highly desired due to the geometric limitations and complex fabricating process of current techniques. This paper presents an efficient and cost-effective method to generate customizable micro-wavy pattern using direct image lithography. This method utilizes a grayscale Gaussian distribution effect to model inaccuracies inherent in the polymerization process, which are normally regarded as trivial matters or errors. The measured surface profiles and the mathematical prediction show a good agreement, demonstrating the ability of this method to generate wavy patterns with precisely controlled features. An accurate pattern can be generated with customizable parameters (wavelength, amplitude, wave shape, pattern profile, and overall dimension). This mask-free photolithography approach provides a rapid fabrication method that is capable of generating complex and non-uniform 3D wavy patterns with the wavelength ranging from 12 μm to 2100 μm and an amplitude-to-wavelength ratio as large as 300%. Microfluidic devices with pure wavy and wavy-herringbone patterns suitable for capture of circulating tumor cells are made as a demonstrative application. A completely customized microfluidic device with wavy patterns can be created within a few hours without access to clean room or commercial photolithography equipment.

  17. Customizable engineered blood vessels using 3D printed inserts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pinnock, Cameron B; Meier, Elizabeth M; Joshi, Neeraj N; Wu, Bin; Lam, Mai T

    2016-04-15

    Current techniques for tissue engineering blood vessels are not customizable for vascular size variation and vessel wall thickness. These critical parameters vary widely between the different arteries in the human body, and the ability to engineer vessels of varying sizes could increase capabilities for disease modeling and treatment options. We present an innovative method for producing customizable, tissue engineered, self-organizing vascular constructs by replicating a major structural component of blood vessels - the smooth muscle layer, or tunica media. We utilize a unique system combining 3D printed plate inserts to control construct size and shape, and cell sheets supported by a temporary fibrin hydrogel to encourage cellular self-organization into a tubular form resembling a natural artery. To form the vascular construct, 3D printed inserts are adhered to tissue culture plates, fibrin hydrogel is deposited around the inserts, and human aortic smooth muscle cells are then seeded atop the fibrin hydrogel. The gel, aided by the innate contractile properties of the smooth muscle cells, aggregates towards the center post insert, creating a tissue ring of smooth muscle cells. These rings are then stacked into the final tubular construct. Our methodology is robust, easily repeatable and allows for customization of cellular composition, vessel wall thickness, and length of the vessel construct merely by varying the size of the 3D printed inserts. This platform has potential for facilitating more accurate modeling of vascular pathology, serving as a drug discovery tool, or for vessel repair in disease treatment. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  18. ABrowse - a customizable next-generation genome browser framework

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kong Lei

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background With the rapid growth of genome sequencing projects, genome browser is becoming indispensable, not only as a visualization system but also as an interactive platform to support open data access and collaborative work. Thus a customizable genome browser framework with rich functions and flexible configuration is needed to facilitate various genome research projects. Results Based on next-generation web technologies, we have developed a general-purpose genome browser framework ABrowse which provides interactive browsing experience, open data access and collaborative work support. By supporting Google-map-like smooth navigation, ABrowse offers end users highly interactive browsing experience. To facilitate further data analysis, multiple data access approaches are supported for external platforms to retrieve data from ABrowse. To promote collaborative work, an online user-space is provided for end users to create, store and share comments, annotations and landmarks. For data providers, ABrowse is highly customizable and configurable. The framework provides a set of utilities to import annotation data conveniently. To build ABrowse on existing annotation databases, data providers could specify SQL statements according to database schema. And customized pages for detailed information display of annotation entries could be easily plugged in. For developers, new drawing strategies could be integrated into ABrowse for new types of annotation data. In addition, standard web service is provided for data retrieval remotely, providing underlying machine-oriented programming interface for open data access. Conclusions ABrowse framework is valuable for end users, data providers and developers by providing rich user functions and flexible customization approaches. The source code is published under GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 and is accessible at http://www.abrowse.org/. To demonstrate all the features of ABrowse, a live demo for

  19. ABrowse--a customizable next-generation genome browser framework.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kong, Lei; Wang, Jun; Zhao, Shuqi; Gu, Xiaocheng; Luo, Jingchu; Gao, Ge

    2012-01-05

    With the rapid growth of genome sequencing projects, genome browser is becoming indispensable, not only as a visualization system but also as an interactive platform to support open data access and collaborative work. Thus a customizable genome browser framework with rich functions and flexible configuration is needed to facilitate various genome research projects. Based on next-generation web technologies, we have developed a general-purpose genome browser framework ABrowse which provides interactive browsing experience, open data access and collaborative work support. By supporting Google-map-like smooth navigation, ABrowse offers end users highly interactive browsing experience. To facilitate further data analysis, multiple data access approaches are supported for external platforms to retrieve data from ABrowse. To promote collaborative work, an online user-space is provided for end users to create, store and share comments, annotations and landmarks. For data providers, ABrowse is highly customizable and configurable. The framework provides a set of utilities to import annotation data conveniently. To build ABrowse on existing annotation databases, data providers could specify SQL statements according to database schema. And customized pages for detailed information display of annotation entries could be easily plugged in. For developers, new drawing strategies could be integrated into ABrowse for new types of annotation data. In addition, standard web service is provided for data retrieval remotely, providing underlying machine-oriented programming interface for open data access. ABrowse framework is valuable for end users, data providers and developers by providing rich user functions and flexible customization approaches. The source code is published under GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 and is accessible at http://www.abrowse.org/. To demonstrate all the features of ABrowse, a live demo for Arabidopsis thaliana genome has been built at http://arabidopsis.cbi.edu.cn/.

  20. ABrowse - a customizable next-generation genome browser framework

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-01-01

    Background With the rapid growth of genome sequencing projects, genome browser is becoming indispensable, not only as a visualization system but also as an interactive platform to support open data access and collaborative work. Thus a customizable genome browser framework with rich functions and flexible configuration is needed to facilitate various genome research projects. Results Based on next-generation web technologies, we have developed a general-purpose genome browser framework ABrowse which provides interactive browsing experience, open data access and collaborative work support. By supporting Google-map-like smooth navigation, ABrowse offers end users highly interactive browsing experience. To facilitate further data analysis, multiple data access approaches are supported for external platforms to retrieve data from ABrowse. To promote collaborative work, an online user-space is provided for end users to create, store and share comments, annotations and landmarks. For data providers, ABrowse is highly customizable and configurable. The framework provides a set of utilities to import annotation data conveniently. To build ABrowse on existing annotation databases, data providers could specify SQL statements according to database schema. And customized pages for detailed information display of annotation entries could be easily plugged in. For developers, new drawing strategies could be integrated into ABrowse for new types of annotation data. In addition, standard web service is provided for data retrieval remotely, providing underlying machine-oriented programming interface for open data access. Conclusions ABrowse framework is valuable for end users, data providers and developers by providing rich user functions and flexible customization approaches. The source code is published under GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 and is accessible at http://www.abrowse.org/. To demonstrate all the features of ABrowse, a live demo for Arabidopsis thaliana genome

  1. Practitioner-Customizable Clinical Information Systems: A Case Study to Ground Further Research and Development Opportunities

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cecily Morrison

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available The uptake of electronic records and information technology support in intensive care medicine has been slower than many people predicted. One of the engineering challenges to overcome has been the subtle, but important, variation in clinical practice in different units. A relatively recent innovation that addresses this challenge is practitioner-customizable clinical information systems, allowing clinicians wide scope in adjusting their systems to suit their clinical practice. However, these systems present a significant design challenge, not only of added technical complexity, but in providing tools that support clinicians in doing many of the tasks of a software engineer. This paper reviews the use of a commercially available clinical information system that is intended to be practitioner-customizable, and considers the further design and development of tools to support healthcare practitioners doing end-user customization on their own clinical information systems.

  2. karyoploteR: an R/Bioconductor package to plot customizable genomes displaying arbitrary data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gel, Bernat; Serra, Eduard

    2017-10-01

    Data visualization is a crucial tool for data exploration, analysis and interpretation. For the visualization of genomic data there lacks a tool to create customizable non-circular plots of whole genomes from any species. We have developed karyoploteR, an R/Bioconductor package to create linear chromosomal representations of any genome with genomic annotations and experimental data plotted along them. Plot creation process is inspired in R base graphics, with a main function creating karyoplots with no data and multiple additional functions, including custom functions written by the end-user, adding data and other graphical elements. This approach allows the creation of highly customizable plots from arbitrary data with complete freedom on data positioning and representation. karyoploteR is released under Artistic-2.0 License. Source code and documentation are freely available through Bioconductor (http://www.bioconductor.org/packages/karyoploteR) and at the examples and tutorial page at https://bernatgel.github.io/karyoploter_tutorial. bgel@igtp.cat. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

  3. MEMS variable capacitance devices utilizing the substrate: I. Novel devices with a customizable tuning range

    KAUST Repository

    Elshurafa, Amro M.; El-Masry, Ezz I.

    2010-01-01

    , customizable, tuning ranges and/or ratios. The proposed structures can provide theoretical tuning ranges anywhere from 4.9 to 35 and from 3.4 to 26 respectively with a simple, yet effective, layout modification as opposed to the previously reported devices

  4. Lexicon Sextant: Modeling a Mnemonic System for Customizable Browser Information Organization and Management

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shen, Siu-Tsen

    2016-01-01

    This paper presents an ongoing study of the development of a customizable web browser information organization and management system, which the author has named Lexicon Sextant (LS). LS is a user friendly, graphical web based add-on to the latest generation of web browsers, such as Google Chrome, making it easier and more intuitive to store and…

  5. Multilingual Federated Searching Across Heterogeneous Collections.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Powell, James; Fox, Edward A.

    1998-01-01

    Describes a scalable system for searching heterogeneous multilingual collections on the World Wide Web. Details Searchable Database Markup Language (SearchDB-ML) for describing the characteristics of a search engine and its interface, and a protocol for requesting word translations between languages. (Author)

  6. A Taxonomic Search Engine: Federating taxonomic databases using web services

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Page Roderic DM

    2005-03-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The taxonomic name of an organism is a key link between different databases that store information on that organism. However, in the absence of a single, comprehensive database of organism names, individual databases lack an easy means of checking the correctness of a name. Furthermore, the same organism may have more than one name, and the same name may apply to more than one organism. Results The Taxonomic Search Engine (TSE is a web application written in PHP that queries multiple taxonomic databases (ITIS, Index Fungorum, IPNI, NCBI, and uBIO and summarises the results in a consistent format. It supports "drill-down" queries to retrieve a specific record. The TSE can optionally suggest alternative spellings the user can try. It also acts as a Life Science Identifier (LSID authority for the source taxonomic databases, providing globally unique identifiers (and associated metadata for each name. Conclusion The Taxonomic Search Engine is available at http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/portal/ and provides a simple demonstration of the potential of the federated approach to providing access to taxonomic names.

  7. CWI and TU Delft at TREC 2013: Contextual Suggestion, Federated Web Search, KBA, and Web Tracks

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    A. Bellogín Kouki (Alejandro); G.G. Gebremeskel (Gebre); J. He (Jiyin); J.J.P. Lin (Jimmy); A. Said (Alan); T. Samar (Thaer); A.P. de Vries (Arjen); J.B.P. Vuurens (Jeroen)

    2014-01-01

    htmlabstractThis paper provides an overview of the work done at the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) and Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) for different tracks of TREC 2013. We participated in the Contextual Suggestion Track, the Federated Web Search Track, the Knowledge Base

  8. Customizable Computer-Based Interaction Analysis for Coaching and Self-Regulation in Synchronous CSCL Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lonchamp, Jacques

    2010-01-01

    Computer-based interaction analysis (IA) is an automatic process that aims at understanding a computer-mediated activity. In a CSCL system, computer-based IA can provide information directly to learners for self-assessment and regulation and to tutors for coaching support. This article proposes a customizable computer-based IA approach for a…

  9. VennDiagram: a package for the generation of highly-customizable Venn and Euler diagrams in R

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Boutros Paul C

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Visualization of orthogonal (disjoint or overlapping datasets is a common task in bioinformatics. Few tools exist to automate the generation of extensively-customizable, high-resolution Venn and Euler diagrams in the R statistical environment. To fill this gap we introduce VennDiagram, an R package that enables the automated generation of highly-customizable, high-resolution Venn diagrams with up to four sets and Euler diagrams with up to three sets. Results The VennDiagram package offers the user the ability to customize essentially all aspects of the generated diagrams, including font sizes, label styles and locations, and the overall rotation of the diagram. We have implemented scaled Venn and Euler diagrams, which increase graphical accuracy and visual appeal. Diagrams are generated as high-definition TIFF files, simplifying the process of creating publication-quality figures and easing integration with established analysis pipelines. Conclusions The VennDiagram package allows the creation of high quality Venn and Euler diagrams in the R statistical environment.

  10. VennDiagram: a package for the generation of highly-customizable Venn and Euler diagrams in R.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Hanbo; Boutros, Paul C

    2011-01-26

    Visualization of orthogonal (disjoint) or overlapping datasets is a common task in bioinformatics. Few tools exist to automate the generation of extensively-customizable, high-resolution Venn and Euler diagrams in the R statistical environment. To fill this gap we introduce VennDiagram, an R package that enables the automated generation of highly-customizable, high-resolution Venn diagrams with up to four sets and Euler diagrams with up to three sets. The VennDiagram package offers the user the ability to customize essentially all aspects of the generated diagrams, including font sizes, label styles and locations, and the overall rotation of the diagram. We have implemented scaled Venn and Euler diagrams, which increase graphical accuracy and visual appeal. Diagrams are generated as high-definition TIFF files, simplifying the process of creating publication-quality figures and easing integration with established analysis pipelines. The VennDiagram package allows the creation of high quality Venn and Euler diagrams in the R statistical environment.

  11. What We've Learned From Doing Usability Testing on OpenURL Resolvers and Federated Search Engines

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cervone, Frank

    2005-01-01

    OpenURL resolvers and federated search engines are important new services in the library field. For some librarians, these services may seem "old hat" by now, but for the majority these services are still in the early stages of implementation or planning. In many cases, these two services are offered as a seamlessly integrated whole.…

  12. Many Libraries Have Gone to Federated Searching to Win Users Back from Google. Is It Working?

    Science.gov (United States)

    King, Douglas

    2008-01-01

    In the last issue, this journal asked a question on many librarians' minds, and it was pleased with the depth and variety of responses. As suggested by this journal editorial board member Oliver Pesch, readers were asked, "Many libraries have gone to federated searching to win users back from Google. Is it working?" Respondents approached the…

  13. Concepts for the Development of a Customizable Checklist for Use by Patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fernando, Rohesh J; Shapiro, Fred E; Rosenberg, Noah M; Bader, Angela M; Urman, Richard D

    2015-06-10

    Checklists are tools that are developed to complete tasks by drawing on specific and relevant knowledge and supporting communication at critical times. If checklists were designed specifically for patient use, they could promote patient engagement, potentially leading to improved quality of care. Physicians of all specialties, nurses, patients, patient advocates, and administrators can take an active role in checklist development and dissemination. Our method to investigate concepts in developing a customizable patient checklist included a literature search concerning existing checklists and resources currently available to patients. Literature containing expert opinion regarding checklists, professional organization statements, and patients and providers were consulted. A template for designing a patient checklist was developed incorporating methods from previous literature and resources regarding checklists. This template includes a development, drafting, and validation phase. Sample content for inclusion in potential checklists for patients with diabetes and patients undergoing anesthesia was devised. Developed by physicians with input from patients and other involved health-care providers such as nurses, this relatively novel concept of a patient's checklist creates a role for the patient to ensure their own safety. With increasing attention to high-quality and cost-effective health care, patient satisfaction surveys will be assessed to rate overall health care. Further development of checklists will need to be guided by specific medical conditions and acceptance by patients and providers. Providers can use these checklists as a method to gauge a patient's understanding of an intervention, solidify the patient-doctor relationship, and improve patient safety.

  14. Search and Orchestration of Data and Processes in a Federated Environment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Siao Him Fa, J.; Reed, T. W.; Tan, C.; West, G.; McMeekin, D. A.; Moncrieff, S.; Cox, S.

    2015-06-01

    This paper describes on-going research on streamlining the access and use of spatial data and processes in Australia. Spatial data in Australia is available on-line at many levels of government from local authorities, state and territories (jurisdictions), and nationally from the Commonwealth and other sources. Much of this data is available via Open Geospatial Consortium and World Wide Web Consortium standard web services. This abstract discusses three related research topics that have been identified by a wide range of stakeholders through a comprehensive consultation process. These are search and discovery, federation and orchestration of data and processes. The commonality across the three research topics is that they all require Semantic Web and Artificial Intelligence methods and embrace the various standards, and if needed, propose modifications to such standards.

  15. A customizable open-source framework for measuring and equalizing e2e delays in shared video watching

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    M.A. Montagud Climent (Mario); F. Boronat (Fernando); P.S. Cesar Garcia (Pablo Santiago)

    2014-01-01

    htmlabstractLow-latency and media sync are essential requirements to enable interactive multi-party services, such as Social TV. In this work, we present an open-source and customizable framework that allows measuring end-to-end (e2e) video delays and provides support for different types of media

  16. Additive Manufacturing of Patient-Customizable Scaffolds for Tubular Tissues Using the Melt-Drawing Method.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tan, Yu Jun; Tan, Xipeng; Yeong, Wai Yee; Tor, Shu Beng

    2016-11-03

    Polymeric fibrous scaffolds for guiding cell growth are designed to be potentially used for the tissue engineering (TE) of tubular organs including esophagi, blood vessels, tracheas, etc. Tubular scaffolds were fabricated via melt-drawing of highly elastic poly(l-lactide-co-ε-caprolactone) (PLC) fibers layer-by-layer on a cylindrical mandrel. The diameter and length of the scaffolds are customizable via 3D printing of the mandrel. Thickness of the scaffolds was varied by changing the number of layers of the melt-drawing process. The morphology and tensile properties of the PLC fibers were investigated. The fibers were highly aligned with a uniform diameter. Their diameters and tensile properties were tunable by varying the melt-drawing speeds. These tailorable topographies and tensile properties show that the additive-based scaffold fabrication technique is customizable at the micro- and macro-scale for different tubular tissues. The merits of these scaffolds in TE were further shown by the finding that myoblast and fibroblast cells seeded onto the scaffolds in vitro showed appropriate cell proliferation and distribution. Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) differentiated to smooth muscle lineage on the microfibrous scaffolds in the absence of soluble induction factors, showing cellular shape modulation and scaffold elasticity may encourage the myogenic differentiation of stem cells.

  17. ACHP | Unified Federal Review

    Science.gov (United States)

    Search skip specific nav links Home arrow Unified Federal Review Three logos: 1) Executive Office of the Homeland Security. Unified Federal Environmental and Historic Preservation Review Process Please visit the new location for the Unified Federal Review located here: http://www.fema.gov/environmental-historic

  18. AIE-doped poly(ionic liquid) photonic spheres: a single sphere-based customizable sensing platform for the discrimination of multi-analytes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Wanlin; Gao, Ning; Cui, Jiecheng; Wang, Chen; Wang, Shiqiang; Zhang, Guanxin; Dong, Xiaobiao; Zhang, Deqing; Li, Guangtao

    2017-09-01

    By simultaneously exploiting the unique properties of ionic liquids and aggregation-induced emission (AIE) luminogens, as well as photonic structures, a novel customizable sensing system for multi-analytes was developed based on a single AIE-doped poly(ionic liquid) photonic sphere. It was found that due to the extraordinary multiple intermolecular interactions involved in the ionic liquid units, one single sphere could differentially interact with broader classes of analytes, thus generating response patterns with remarkable diversity. Moreover, the optical properties of both the AIE luminogen and photonic structure integrated in the poly(ionic liquid) sphere provide multidimensional signal channels for transducing the involved recognition process in a complementary manner and the acquisition of abundant and sufficient sensing information could be easily achieved on only one sphere sensor element. More importantly, the sensing performance of our poly(ionic liquid) photonic sphere is designable and customizable through a simple ion-exchange reaction and target-oriented multi-analyte sensing can be conveniently realized using a selective receptor species, such as counterions, showing great flexibility and extendibility. The power of our single sphere-based customizable sensing system was exemplified by the successful on-demand detection and discrimination of four multi-analyte challenge systems: all 20 natural amino acids, nine important phosphate derivatives, ten metal ions and three pairs of enantiomers. To further demonstrate the potential of our spheres for real-life application, 20 amino acids in human urine and their 26 unprecedented complex mixtures were also discriminated between by the single sphere-based array.

  19. TALENs: customizable molecular DNA scissors for genome engineering of plants.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Kunling; Gao, Caixia

    2013-06-20

    Precise genome modification with engineered nucleases is a powerful tool for studying basic biology and applied biotechnology. Transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), consisting of an engineered specific (TALE) DNA binding domain and a Fok I cleavage domain, are newly developed versatile reagents for genome engineering in different organisms. Because of the simplicity of the DNA recognition code and their modular assembly, TALENs can act as customizable molecular DNA scissors inducing double-strand breaks (DSBs) at given genomic location. Thus, they provide a valuable approach to targeted genome modifications such as mutations, insertions, replacements or chromosome rearrangements. In this article, we review the development of TALENs, and summarize the principles and tools for TALEN-mediated gene targeting in plant cells, as well as current and potential strategies for use in plant research and crop improvement. Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  20. Component-Customizable Porous Rare-Earth-Based Colloidal Spheres towards Highly Effective Catalysts and Bioimaging Applications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Cheng Chao; Rui, Xianhong; Wei, Weifeng; Chen, Libao; Yu, Yan

    2017-11-16

    Multicomponent porous colloidal spheres are of interest because they not only show a combination of the properties associated with all different components, but also usually present synergy effects. However, a combination of different components in a single porous sphere is still greatly challenged due to the different precipitation behaviors of each component. In this work, we have developed a general synthetic route to prepare several categories of porous monodisperse rare-earth (RE)-based colloidal spheres with customizable elemental compositions and a uniform element distribution. The two-step synthetic strategy is based on the integration of coordination chemistry precipitation of RE ions and a subsequent ion-exchange process, which steers clear of obstacles, such as differences in solubility product constant, that are to be found in traditional co-precipitation methods. Our approach provides a new mixing mechanism to realize homogeneous distribution of each element within the porous spheres. An array of binary, ternary, and even senary RE colloidal porous spheres with diameters of 500 nm to 700 nm has been successfully synthesized. Taking advantage of their good dispersibility, porosity, and customizable components, these porous RE oxide spheres show excellent catalytic activity for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol, and promising application in single-phase multifunctional bioprobes. © 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  1. Editable Supercapacitors with Customizable Stretchability Based on Mechanically Strengthened Ultralong MnO2 Nanowire Composite.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lv, Zhisheng; Luo, Yifei; Tang, Yuxin; Wei, Jiaqi; Zhu, Zhiqiang; Zhou, Xinran; Li, Wenlong; Zeng, Yi; Zhang, Wei; Zhang, Yanyan; Qi, Dianpeng; Pan, Shaowu; Loh, Xian Jun; Chen, Xiaodong

    2018-01-01

    Although some progress has been made on stretchable supercapacitors, traditional stretchable supercapacitors fabricated by predesigning structured electrodes for device assembling still lack the device-level editability and programmability. To adapt to wearable electronics with arbitrary configurations, it is highly desirable to develop editable supercapacitors that can be directly transferred into desirable shapes and stretchability. In this work, editable supercapacitors for customizable shapes and stretchability using electrodes based on mechanically strengthened ultralong MnO 2 nanowire composites are developed. A supercapacitor edited with honeycomb-like structure shows a specific capacitance of 227.2 mF cm -2 and can be stretched up to 500% without degradation of electrochemical performance, which is superior to most of the state-of-the-art stretchable supercapacitors. In addition, it maintains nearly 98% of the initial capacitance after 10 000 stretch-and-release cycles under 400% tensile strain. As a representative of concept for system integration, the editable supercapacitors are integrated with a strain sensor, and the system exhibits a stable sensing performance even under arm swing. Being highly stretchable, easily programmable, as well as connectable in series and parallel, an editable supercapacitor with customizable stretchability is promising to produce stylish energy storage devices to power various portable, stretchable, and wearable devices. © 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  2. Search without Boundaries Using Simple APIs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tong, Qi

    2009-01-01

    The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Library, where the author serves as the digital services librarian, is increasingly challenged to make it easier for users to find information from many heterogeneous information sources. Information is scattered throughout different software applications (i.e., library catalog, federated search engine, link resolver, and vendor websites), and each specializes in one thing. How could the library integrate the functionalities of one application with another and provide a single point of entry for users to search across? To improve the user experience, the library launched an effort to integrate the federated search engine into the library's intranet website. The result is a simple search box that leverages the federated search engine's built-in application programming interfaces (APIs). In this article, the author describes how this project demonstrated the power of APIs and their potential to be used by other enterprise search portals inside or outside of the library.

  3. The OPEnSampler: A Low-Cost, Low-Weight, Customizable and Modular Open Source 24-Unit Automatic Water Sampler

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nelke, M.; Selker, J. S.; Udell, C.

    2017-12-01

    Reliable automatic water samplers allow repetitive sampling of various water sources over long periods of time without requiring a researcher on site, reducing human error as well as the monetary and time costs of traveling to the field, particularly when the scale of the sample period is hours or days. The high fixed cost of buying a commercial sampler with little customizability can be a barrier to research requiring repetitive samples, such as the analysis of septic water pre- and post-treatment. DIY automatic samplers proposed in the past sacrifice maximum volume, customizability, or scope of applications, among other features, in exchange for a lower net cost. The purpose of this project was to develop a low-cost, highly customizable, robust water sampler that is capable of sampling many sources of water for various analytes. A lightweight aluminum-extrusion frame was designed and assembled, chosen for its mounting system, strength, and low cost. Water is drawn from two peristaltic pumps through silicone tubing and directed into 24 foil-lined 250mL bags using solenoid valves. A programmable Arduino Uno microcontroller connected to a circuit board communicates with a battery operated real-time clock, initiating sampling stages. Period and volume settings are programmable in-field by the user via serial commands. The OPEnSampler is an open design, allowing the user to decide what components to use and the modular theme of the frame allows fast mounting of new manufactured or 3D printed components. The 24-bag system weighs less than 10kg and the material cost is under $450. Up to 6L of sample water can be drawn at a rate of 100mL/minute in either direction. Faster flowrates are achieved by using more powerful peristaltic pumps. Future design changes could allow a greater maximum volume by filling the unused space with more containers and adding GSM communications to send real time status information.

  4. Customizable cap implants for neurophysiological experimentation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blonde, Jackson D; Roussy, Megan; Luna, Rogelio; Mahmoudian, Borna; Gulli, Roberto A; Barker, Kevin C; Lau, Jonathan C; Martinez-Trujillo, Julio C

    2018-04-22

    Several primate neurophysiology laboratories have adopted acrylic-free, custom-fit cranial implants. These implants are often comprised of titanium or plastic polymers, such as polyether ether ketone (PEEK). Titanium is favored for its mechanical strength and osseointegrative properties whereas PEEK is notable for its lightweight, machinability, and MRI compatibility. Recent titanium/PEEK implants have proven to be effective in minimizing infection and implant failure, thereby prolonging experiments and optimizing the scientific contribution of a single primate. We created novel, customizable PEEK 'cap' implants that contour to the primate's skull. The implants were created using MRI and/or CT data, SolidWorks software and CNC-machining. Three rhesus macaques were implanted with a PEEK cap implant. Head fixation and chronic recordings were successfully performed. Improvements in design and surgical technique solved issues of granulation tissue formation and headpost screw breakage. Primate cranial implants have traditionally been fastened to the skull using acrylic and anchor screws. This technique is prone to skin recession, infection, and implant failure. More recent methods have used imaging data to create custom-fit titanium/PEEK implants with radially extending feet or vertical columns. Compared to our design, these implants are more surgically invasive over time, have less force distribution, and/or do not optimize the utilizable surface area of the skull. Our PEEK cap implants served as an effective and affordable means to perform electrophysiological experimentation while reducing surgical invasiveness, providing increased strength, and optimizing useful surface area. Crown Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  5. A Customizable MR Brain Imaging Atlas of Structure and Function for Decision Support.

    Science.gov (United States)

    U., Sinha; S., El-Saden; G., Duckwiler; L., Thompson; S., Ardekani; H., Kangarloo

    2003-01-01

    We present a MR brain atlas for structure and function (diffusion weighted images). The atlas is customizable for contrast and orientation to match the current patient images. In addition, the atlas also provides normative values of MR parameters. The atlas is designed on informatics principles to provide context sensitive decision support at the time of primary image interpretation. Additional support for diagnostic interpretation is provided by a list of expert created most relevant ‘Image Finding Descriptors’ that will serve as cues to the user. The architecture of the atlas module is integrated into the image workflow of a radiology department to provide support at the time of primary diagnosis. PMID:14728244

  6. Development of the Exams Data Analysis Spreadsheet as a Tool to Help Instructors Conduct Customizable Analyses of Student ACS Exam Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brandriet, Alexandra; Holme, Thomas

    2015-01-01

    The American Chemical Society Examinations Institute (ACS-EI) has recently developed the Exams Data Analysis Spread (EDAS) as a tool to help instructors conduct customizable analyses of their student data from ACS exams. The EDAS calculations allow instructors to analyze their students' performances both at the total score and individual item…

  7. Injuries and illnesses among Federal Emergency Management Agency-certified search-and-recovery and search-and-rescue dogs deployed to Oso, Washington, following the March 22, 2014, State Route 530 landslide.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gordon, Lori E

    2015-10-15

    To establish types and rates of injuries and illnesses among search-and-recovery and search-and-rescue dogs deployed to Oso, Wash, following the March 22, 2014, State Route 530 landslide. Medical records review and cross-sectional survey. 25 Federal Emergency Management Agency-certified search dogs. On-site medical records and postdeployment laboratory test results were reviewed and an electronic survey was distributed to handlers within 8 days after demobilization. Dogs worked a total of 244 search shifts totaling 2,015 hours. Injuries and illnesses were reported in 21 (84%) dogs. Wounds (abrasions, pad wear, paw pad splits, and lacerations) were the most common injury, with an incidence rate of 28.3 wounds/1,000 hours worked. Dehydration was the most common illness, with an incidence rate of 10.4 cases of dehydration/1,000 hours worked. Total incidence rate for all health events was 66.5 events/1,000 hours worked. Two search dogs were removed from search operations for 2 days because of health issues. All others continued search operations while receiving treatment for their medical issues. All health issues were resolved during the deployment or within 2 weeks after demobilization. Results revealed that search dogs deployed to the Oso, Wash, landslide incurred injuries and illnesses similar to those reported following other disasters (dehydration, wounding, vomiting, and diarrhea) but also incurred medical issues not previously documented (acute caudal myopathy, cutaneous mass ruptures, and fever). The reported medical issues were minor; however, prompt veterinary care helped prevent them from developing into more serious conditions.

  8. IntaRNA 2.0: enhanced and customizable prediction of RNA–RNA interactions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mann, Martin; Wright, Patrick R.

    2017-01-01

    Abstract The IntaRNA algorithm enables fast and accurate prediction of RNA–RNA hybrids by incorporating seed constraints and interaction site accessibility. Here, we introduce IntaRNAv2, which enables enhanced parameterization as well as fully customizable control over the prediction modes and output formats. Based on up to date benchmark data, the enhanced predictive quality is shown and further improvements due to more restrictive seed constraints are highlighted. The extended web interface provides visualizations of the new minimal energy profiles for RNA–RNA interactions. These allow a detailed investigation of interaction alternatives and can reveal potential interaction site multiplicity. IntaRNAv2 is freely available (source and binary), and distributed via the conda package manager. Furthermore, it has been included into the Galaxy workflow framework and its already established web interface enables ad hoc usage. PMID:28472523

  9. "Cyt/Nuc," a Customizable and Documenting ImageJ Macro for Evaluation of Protein Distributions Between Cytosol and Nucleus.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grune, Tilman; Kehm, Richard; Höhn, Annika; Jung, Tobias

    2018-05-01

    Large amounts of data from multi-channel, high resolution, fluorescence microscopic images require tools that provide easy, customizable, and reproducible high-throughput analysis. The freeware "ImageJ" has become one of the standard tools for scientific image analysis. Since ImageJ offers recording of "macros," even a complex multi-step process can be easily applied fully automated to large numbers of images, saving both time and reducing human subjective evaluation. In this work, we present "Cyt/Nuc," an ImageJ macro, able to recognize and to compare the nuclear and cytosolic areas of tissue samples, in order to investigate distributions of immunostained proteins between both compartments, while it documents in detail the whole process of evaluation and pattern recognition. As practical example, the redistribution of the 20S proteasome, the main intracellular protease in mammalian cells, is investigated in NZO-mouse liver after feeding the animals different diets. A significant shift in proteasomal distribution between cytosol and nucleus in response to metabolic stress was revealed using "Cyt/Nuc" via automatized quantification of thousands of nuclei within minutes. "Cyt/Nuc" is easy to use and highly customizable, matches the precision of careful manual evaluation and bears the potential for quick detection of any shift in intracellular protein distribution. © 2018 The Authors. Biotechnology Journal Published by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

  10. Open Search Environments: The Free Alternative to Commercial Search Services

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adrian O'Riordan

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available Open search systems present a free and less restricted alternative to commercial search services. This paper explores the space of open search technology looking in particular at the issue of interoperability. A description of current protocols and formats for engineering open search applications is presented. The suitability of these technologies and issues around their adoption and operation are discussed. This open search approach is especially proving a fitting choice in applications involving the harvesting of resources and information integration. Principal among the technological solutions are OpenSearch and SRU. OpenSearch and SRU implement a federated model to enable existing and new search engines and search clients communicate. Applications and instances where Opensearch and SRU can be combined are presented. Other relevant technologies such as OpenURL, Apache Solr, and OAI-PMH are also discussed. The deployment of these freely licensed open standards in digital library applications is now a genuine alternative to commercial or proprietary systems.

  11. Customizable Electronic Laboratory Online (CELO): A Web-based Data Management System Builder for Biomedical Research Laboratories

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fong, Christine; Brinkley, James F.

    2006-01-01

    A common challenge among today’s biomedical research labs is managing growing amounts of research data. In order to reduce the time and resource costs of building data management tools, we designed the Customizable Electronic Laboratory Online (CELO) system. CELO automatically creates a generic database and web interface for laboratories that submit a simple web registration form. Laboratories can then use a collection of predefined XML templates to assist with the design of a database schema. Users can immediately utilize the web-based system to query data, manage multimedia files, and securely share data remotely over the internet. PMID:17238541

  12. ACHP | Federal Programs that Can Support Heritage Tourism

    Science.gov (United States)

    Search skip specific nav links Home arrow Heritage Tourism arrow Federal Programs that Can Support Heritage Tourism Federal Programs that Can Support Heritage Tourism The following is a sampling of federal programs that can help promote and support local or regional heritage tourism initiatives. Historic

  13. IntaRNA 2.0: enhanced and customizable prediction of RNA-RNA interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mann, Martin; Wright, Patrick R; Backofen, Rolf

    2017-07-03

    The IntaRNA algorithm enables fast and accurate prediction of RNA-RNA hybrids by incorporating seed constraints and interaction site accessibility. Here, we introduce IntaRNAv2, which enables enhanced parameterization as well as fully customizable control over the prediction modes and output formats. Based on up to date benchmark data, the enhanced predictive quality is shown and further improvements due to more restrictive seed constraints are highlighted. The extended web interface provides visualizations of the new minimal energy profiles for RNA-RNA interactions. These allow a detailed investigation of interaction alternatives and can reveal potential interaction site multiplicity. IntaRNAv2 is freely available (source and binary), and distributed via the conda package manager. Furthermore, it has been included into the Galaxy workflow framework and its already established web interface enables ad hoc usage. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

  14. Design of customizable automated low cost eye testing system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    K, Ganesan; D, Shalini

    2014-03-01

    In many underdeveloped and third world countries, eye care is often neglected due to illiteracy. Particularly people in rural areas suffer with eye problems due to mal nutrition. The government is spending lot of money and efforts in screening the people at periodic intervals. One of the challenges faced by the doctors is screening the school children. The standard Snellen letter chart based diagnostic system does not work always. There are instances where the first few students who undergo this diagnostic system, memorize the letter sequence of the Snellen letter chart and convey the same to other fellow students. Hence other students simply read out the Snellen letter sequence from their memory, not by looking at the Snellen letter chart. Thus there is a need of randomizing the sequence of letters being displayed on the Snellen letter chart for every student to be diagnosed for eye testing. In the present paper we are proposing a customizable, software based, cost effective solution which involves a standard personal computer (PC) fitted with a camera, headphone and speaker system. The envisaged system can be administered even by the trained persons. The proposed system is also suitable for remote diagnosis of patients, particularly in the field of telemedicine.

  15. Physiological effects of stress related to helicopter travel in Federal Emergency Management Agency search-and-rescue canines.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perry, E; Gulson, N; Liu Cross, T-W; Swanson, K S

    2017-01-01

    Working canines are deployed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as part of a National Disaster Response Plan. Stress associated with helicopter flight and the resulting physical effects on the dog are unknown. Our objective was to test the hypotheses that (1) helicopter travel affects the physiology and faecal microbiota of working canines, but that (2) physiological consequences of helicopter travel will not negatively affect their work performance. A total of nine FEMA canines were loaded onto helicopters and flown for 30 min in July 2015. Rectal temperature, behavioural stress indicators and saliva swabs (for cortisol) were collected at baseline, loading, mid-flight and post-flight. After flight, canines completed a standardised search exercise to monitor work performance. Faecal samples were collected for microbial DNA extraction and Illumina sequencing. All canines were on a standardised diet (CANIDAE ® Grain Free PURE Land ® ) for 3 weeks prior to the study. Visible indicators of stress were observed at loading and at mid-flight and corresponded with an increase ( P  travel did not affect search performance ( P  > 0·05). We found that α- and β-diversity measures of faecal microbiota were not affected ( P  > 0·05). Our data suggest that although helicopter travel may cause physiological changes that have been associated with stress in working dogs, it does not make an impact on their search performance or the stability of faecal microbiota.

  16. SU-E-T-333: Towards Customizable Radiotherapy Enhancement (CuRE) for Prostate Cancer Using Cisplatin Nanoparticles

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sinha, N; Cifter, G; Sajo, E; Ngwa, W

    2014-01-01

    Purpose: Replacing routinely used brachytherapy spacers with multifunctional ones loaded with cisplatin nanoparticles (CNP), which can be released into the tumor after implantation, could enable customizable radiation boosting to the prostate tumor in addition to chemotherapy effect. This study investigates the feasibility of customizing the intra-tumor biodistribution and corresponding dose enhancement (DEF) over time for the released CNP as a function of nanoparticle size. Methods: Dose enhancement factors (DEF) due to photon-induced emission of photo-/Auger electrons from CNPs were calculated as a function of concentration using previously published analytical calculation method. An experimentally determined diffusion coefficient (D) for 10 nm nanoparticles in mouse tumor model was employed to estimate D for other sizes using the Stoke- Einstein equation. The error function diffusion model in the experimental study was applied to generate the intra-tumor concentration profile for a burst release of CNPs from the spacer over time. The corresponding DEF profiles were then determined for brachytherapy using Pd-103 and I-125 sources. Results: As expected, the generated profiles showed greater DEF over time for smaller CNP sizes at sample distances from the spacer. For example, for a centrally located spacer, clinically significant DEF (> 20%) could be achieved near the tumor periphery (ca. 0.85 cm distance from the spacer for average PCa tumor size) after 20, and 100 days, respectively for CNPs sizes of 2 nm, and 10 nm, using I-125. Meanwhile for Pd-103, clinically significant DEF could be achieved at the same position after 22 and 108 days, respectively, for same size particles. Conclusion: Our preliminary results demonstrate the feasibility of customizing dose enhancement to prostate tumors as a function of spacer location, brachytherapy source type or size of CNPs released from multifunctional spacers. Such an approach could enable customizable radiation boosting

  17. SU-E-T-333: Towards Customizable Radiotherapy Enhancement (CuRE) for Prostate Cancer Using Cisplatin Nanoparticles

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sinha, N [Wentworth Institute of Technology, Boston, MA (United States); Cifter, G [University of Massachusetts Lowell, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Lowell, MA (United States); Sajo, E [UniversityMassachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA (United States); Ngwa, W [Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA (United States)

    2014-06-01

    Purpose: Replacing routinely used brachytherapy spacers with multifunctional ones loaded with cisplatin nanoparticles (CNP), which can be released into the tumor after implantation, could enable customizable radiation boosting to the prostate tumor in addition to chemotherapy effect. This study investigates the feasibility of customizing the intra-tumor biodistribution and corresponding dose enhancement (DEF) over time for the released CNP as a function of nanoparticle size. Methods: Dose enhancement factors (DEF) due to photon-induced emission of photo-/Auger electrons from CNPs were calculated as a function of concentration using previously published analytical calculation method. An experimentally determined diffusion coefficient (D) for 10 nm nanoparticles in mouse tumor model was employed to estimate D for other sizes using the Stoke- Einstein equation. The error function diffusion model in the experimental study was applied to generate the intra-tumor concentration profile for a burst release of CNPs from the spacer over time. The corresponding DEF profiles were then determined for brachytherapy using Pd-103 and I-125 sources. Results: As expected, the generated profiles showed greater DEF over time for smaller CNP sizes at sample distances from the spacer. For example, for a centrally located spacer, clinically significant DEF (> 20%) could be achieved near the tumor periphery (ca. 0.85 cm distance from the spacer for average PCa tumor size) after 20, and 100 days, respectively for CNPs sizes of 2 nm, and 10 nm, using I-125. Meanwhile for Pd-103, clinically significant DEF could be achieved at the same position after 22 and 108 days, respectively, for same size particles. Conclusion: Our preliminary results demonstrate the feasibility of customizing dose enhancement to prostate tumors as a function of spacer location, brachytherapy source type or size of CNPs released from multifunctional spacers. Such an approach could enable customizable radiation boosting

  18. Fully printable, strain-engineered electronic wrap for customizable soft electronics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Byun, Junghwan; Lee, Byeongmoon; Oh, Eunho; Kim, Hyunjong; Kim, Sangwoo; Lee, Seunghwan; Hong, Yongtaek

    2017-03-24

    Rapid growth of stretchable electronics stimulates broad uses in multidisciplinary fields as well as industrial applications. However, existing technologies are unsuitable for implementing versatile applications involving adaptable system design and functions in a cost/time-effective way because of vacuum-conditioned, lithographically-predefined processes. Here, we present a methodology for a fully printable, strain-engineered electronic wrap as a universal strategy which makes it more feasible to implement various stretchable electronic systems with customizable layouts and functions. The key aspects involve inkjet-printed rigid island (PRI)-based stretchable platform technology and corresponding printing-based automated electronic functionalization methodology, the combination of which provides fully printed, customized layouts of stretchable electronic systems with simplified process. Specifically, well-controlled contact line pinning effect of printed polymer solution enables the formation of PRIs with tunable thickness; and surface strain analysis on those PRIs leads to the optimized stability and device-to-island fill factor of strain-engineered electronic wraps. Moreover, core techniques of image-based automated pinpointing, surface-mountable device based electronic functionalizing, and one-step interconnection networking of PRIs enable customized circuit design and adaptable functionalities. To exhibit the universality of our approach, multiple types of practical applications ranging from self-computable digital logics to display and sensor system are demonstrated on skin in a customized form.

  19. Fully printable, strain-engineered electronic wrap for customizable soft electronics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Byun, Junghwan; Lee, Byeongmoon; Oh, Eunho; Kim, Hyunjong; Kim, Sangwoo; Lee, Seunghwan; Hong, Yongtaek

    2017-03-01

    Rapid growth of stretchable electronics stimulates broad uses in multidisciplinary fields as well as industrial applications. However, existing technologies are unsuitable for implementing versatile applications involving adaptable system design and functions in a cost/time-effective way because of vacuum-conditioned, lithographically-predefined processes. Here, we present a methodology for a fully printable, strain-engineered electronic wrap as a universal strategy which makes it more feasible to implement various stretchable electronic systems with customizable layouts and functions. The key aspects involve inkjet-printed rigid island (PRI)-based stretchable platform technology and corresponding printing-based automated electronic functionalization methodology, the combination of which provides fully printed, customized layouts of stretchable electronic systems with simplified process. Specifically, well-controlled contact line pinning effect of printed polymer solution enables the formation of PRIs with tunable thickness; and surface strain analysis on those PRIs leads to the optimized stability and device-to-island fill factor of strain-engineered electronic wraps. Moreover, core techniques of image-based automated pinpointing, surface-mountable device based electronic functionalizing, and one-step interconnection networking of PRIs enable customized circuit design and adaptable functionalities. To exhibit the universality of our approach, multiple types of practical applications ranging from self-computable digital logics to display and sensor system are demonstrated on skin in a customized form.

  20. A customizable multi-channel loudness compensation method based on WDRC for digital hearing aids

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Jiebin; Wang, Mingjiang; Ma, Min

    2017-08-01

    Loudness compensation is the most significant signal processing algorithm in digital hearing aids at present. An algorithm of multi-channel loudness compensation for embedded system has been put forward in this paper. The number of channels is customizable in this algorithm. The algorithm can set different number and different width of channels for each patient based on frequency domain wide dynamic range compression. First, according to the requirement of patient to divide the frequency domain into multiple unequal frequency bands. And then calculate the gain of each channel according to the input-output curve of sound pressure level. Finally, the time-domain impulse response of gain is computed from Mel filter banks. It is used in conjunction with speech enhancement processing in hearing aids. Simulation results show that the algorithm can effectively enhance the loudness for different frequencies.

  1. Internet search and krokodil in the Russian Federation: an infoveillance study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zheluk, Andrey; Quinn, Casey; Meylakhs, Peter

    2014-09-18

    Krokodil is an informal term for a cheap injectable illicit drug domestically prepared from codeine-containing medication (CCM). The method of krokodil preparation may produce desomorphine as well as toxic reactants that cause extensive tissue necrosis. The first confirmed report of krokodil use in Russia took place in 2004. In 2012, reports of krokodil-related injection injuries began to appear beyond Russia in Western Europe and the United States. This exploratory study had two main objectives: (1) to determine if Internet search patterns could detect regularities in behavioral responses to Russian CCM policy at the population level, and (2) to determine if complementary data sources could explain the regularities we observed. First, we obtained krokodil-related search pattern data for each Russia subregion (oblast) between 2011 and 2012. Second, we analyzed several complementary data sources included krokodil-related court cases, and related search terms on both Google and Yandex to evaluate the characteristics of terms accompanying krokodil-related search queries. In the 6 months preceding CCM sales restrictions, 21 of Russia's 83 oblasts had search rates higher than the national average (mean) of 16.67 searches per 100,000 population for terms associated with krokodil. In the 6 months following restrictions, mean national searches dropped to 9.65 per 100,000. Further, the number of oblasts recording a higher than average search rate dropped from 30 to 16. Second, we found krokodil-related court appearances were moderately positively correlated (Spearman correlation=.506, P≤.001) with behaviors consistent with an interest in the production and use of krokodil across Russia. Finally, Google Trends and Google and Yandex related terms suggested consistent public interest in the production and use of krokodil as well as for CCM as analgesic medication during the date range covered by this study. Illicit drug use data are generally regarded as difficult to obtain

  2. A Real-Time Web of Things Framework with Customizable Openness Considering Legacy Devices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Shuai; Yu, Le; Cheng, Bo

    2016-09-28

    With the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), resources and applications based on it have emerged on a large scale. However, most efforts are "silo" solutions where devices and applications are tightly coupled. Infrastructures are needed to connect sensors to the Internet, open up and break the current application silos and move to a horizontal application mode. Based on the concept of Web of Things (WoT), many infrastructures have been proposed to integrate the physical world with the Web. However, issues such as no real-time guarantee, lack of fine-grained control of data, and the absence of explicit solutions for integrating heterogeneous legacy devices, hinder their widespread and practical use. To address these issues, this paper proposes a WoT resource framework that provides the infrastructures for the customizable openness and sharing of users' data and resources under the premise of ensuring the real-time behavior of their own applications. The proposed framework is validated by actual systems and experimental evaluations.

  3. Web-Based Customizable Viewer for Mars Network Overflight Opportunities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gladden, Roy E.; Wallick, Michael N.; Allard, Daniel A.

    2012-01-01

    This software displays a full summary of information regarding the overflight opportunities between any set of lander and orbiter pairs that the user has access to view. The information display can be customized, allowing the user to choose which fields to view/hide and filter. The software works from a Web browser on any modern operating system. A full summary of information pertaining to an overflight is available, including the proposed, tentative, requested, planned, and implemented. This gives the user a chance to quickly check for inconsistencies and fix any problems. Overflights from multiple lander/ orbiter pairs can be compared instantly, and information can be filtered through the query and shown/hidden, giving the user a customizable view of the data. The information can be exported to a CSV (comma separated value) or XML (extensible markup language) file. The software only grants access to users who are authorized to view the information. This application is an addition to the MaROS Web suite. Prior to this addition, information pertaining to overflight opportunities would have a limited amount of data (displayed graphically) and could only be shown in strict temporal ordering. This new display shows more information, allows direct comparisons between overflights, and allows the data to be manipulated in ways that it was unable to be done in the past. The current software solution is to use CSV files to view the overflight opportunities.

  4. Metal-Free, Site-Selective Peptide Modification by Conversion of "Customizable" Units into β-Substituted Dehydroamino Acids.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saavedra, Carlos J; Hernández, Dácil; Boto, Alicia

    2018-01-12

    Our site-selective modification of serine or threonine units in peptides allows the generation of β-substituted dehydroamino acids, which increase peptide resistance to hydrolysis and may improve their biological properties. Both the terminal and internal positions can be modified, and different customizable units can be activated separately. Remarkably, high Z selectivity is achieved, even at internal positions. The conversion involves a one-pot oxidative radical scission/phosphorylation process by using the low-toxicity (diacetoxyiodo)benzene/iodine system as the scission reagent. The resulting α-amino phosphonates undergo a Horner-Wadsworth-Emmons reaction to produce the dehydroamino acid derivatives (in a Z/E ratio of usually >98:2) under mild and metal-free conditions. © 2018 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  5. Multimedia Presentation and Transmission Standards and Their Support for Automatic Analysis, Conversion and Scaling: A Survey

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Koivisto, A

    2000-01-01

    .... Another recent trend has been user-adaptive services, which most of the popular search engines already provide through customizable front ends as well as a wide range of audio and multimedia search facilities...

  6. OpenGeneMed: a portable, flexible and customizable informatics hub for the coordination of next-generation sequencing studies in support of precision medicine trials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Palmisano, Alida; Zhao, Yingdong; Li, Ming-Chung; Polley, Eric C; Simon, Richard M

    2017-09-01

    Trials involving genomic-driven treatment selection require the coordination of many teams interacting with a great variety of information. The need of better informatics support to manage this complex set of operations motivated the creation of OpenGeneMed. OpenGeneMed is a stand-alone and customizable version of GeneMed (Zhao et al. GeneMed: an informatics hub for the coordination of next-generation sequencing studies that support precision oncology clinical trials. Cancer Inform 2015;14(Suppl 2):45), a web-based interface developed for the National Cancer Institute Molecular Profiling-based Assignment of Cancer Therapy (NCI-MPACT) clinical trial coordinated by the NIH. OpenGeneMed streamlines clinical trial management and it can be used by clinicians, lab personnel, statisticians and researchers as a communication hub. It automates the annotation of genomic variants identified by sequencing tumor DNA, classifies the actionable mutations according to customizable rules and facilitates quality control in reviewing variants. The system generates summarized reports with detected genomic alterations that a treatment review team can use for treatment assignment. OpenGeneMed allows collaboration to happen seamlessly along the clinical pipeline; it helps reduce errors made transferring data between groups and facilitates clear documentation along the pipeline. OpenGeneMed is distributed as a stand-alone virtual machine, ready for deployment and use from a web browser; its code is customizable to address specific needs of different clinical trials and research teams. Examples on how to change the code are provided in the technical documentation distributed with the virtual machine. In summary, OpenGeneMed offers an initial set of features inspired by our experience with GeneMed, a system that has been proven to be efficient and successful for coordinating the application of next-generation sequencing in the NCI-MPACT trial. Published by Oxford University Press 2016. This

  7. Maintaining the momentum of Open Search in Earth Science Data discovery

    Science.gov (United States)

    Newman, D. J.; Lynnes, C.

    2013-12-01

    Federated Search for Earth Observation data has been a hallmark of EOSDIS (Earth Observing System Data and Information System) for two decades. Originally, the EOSDIS Version 0 system provided both data-collection-level and granule/file-level search in the mid 1990s with EOSDIS-specific socket protocols and message formats. Since that time, the advent of several standards has helped to simplify EOSDIS federated search, beginning with HTTP as the transfer protocol. Most recently, OpenSearch (www.opensearch.org) was employed for the EOS Clearinghouse (ECHO), based on a set of conventions that had been developed within the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Federation. The ECHO OpenSearch API has evolved to encompass the ESIP RFC and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Open Search standard. Uptake of the ECHO Open Search API has been significant and has made ECHO accessible to client developers that found the previous ECHO SOAP API and current REST API too complex. Client adoption of the OpenSearch API appears to be largely driven by the simplicity of the OpenSearch convention. This simplicity is thus important to retain as the standard and convention evolve. For example, ECHO metrics indicate that the vast majority of ECHO users favor the following search criteria when using the REST API, - Spatial - bounding box, polygon, line and point - Temporal - start and end time - Keywords - free text Fewer than 10% of searches use additional constraints, particularly those requiring a controlled vocabulary, such as instrument, sensor, etc. This suggests that ongoing standardization efforts around OpenSearch usage for Earth Observation data may be more productive if oriented toward improving support for the Spatial, Temporal and Keyword search aspects. Areas still requiring improvement include support of - Concrete requirements for keyword constraints - Phrasal search for keyword constraints - Temporal constraint relations - Terminological symmetry between search URLs

  8. Project Lefty: More Bang for the Search Query

    Science.gov (United States)

    Varnum, Ken

    2010-01-01

    This article describes the Project Lefty, a search system that, at a minimum, adds a layer on top of traditional federated search tools that will make the wait for results more worthwhile for researchers. At best, Project Lefty improves search queries and relevance rankings for web-scale discovery tools to make the results themselves more relevant…

  9. mySearch changed my life – a resource discovery journey

    OpenAIRE

    Crowley, Emma J.

    2013-01-01

    mySearch: the federated years mySearch: choosing a new platform mySearch: EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) Implementing a new system Technical challenges Has resource discovery enhanced experiences at BU? Ongoing challenges Implications for library management systems Implications for information literacy Questions

  10. Rosette Assay: Highly Customizable Dot-Blot for SH2 Domain Screening.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ng, Khong Y; Machida, Kazuya

    2017-01-01

    With a growing number of high-throughput studies, structural analyses, and availability of protein-protein interaction databases, it is now possible to apply web-based prediction tools to SH2 domain-interactions. However, in silico prediction is not always reliable and requires experimental validation. Rosette assay is a dot blot-based reverse-phase assay developed for the assessment of binding between SH2 domains and their ligands. It is conveniently customizable, allowing for low- to high-throughput analysis of interactions between various numbers of SH2 domains and their ligands, e.g., short peptides, purified proteins, and cell lysates. The binding assay is performed in a 96-well plate (MBA or MWA apparatus) in which a sample spotted membrane is incubated with up to 96 labeled SH2 domains. Bound domains are detected and quantified using a chemiluminescence or near-infrared fluorescence (IR) imaging system. In this chapter, we describe a practical protocol for rosette assay to assess interactions between synthesized tyrosine phosphorylated peptides and a library of GST-tagged SH2 domains. Since the methodology is not confined to assessment of SH2-pTyr interactions, rosette assay can be broadly utilized for ligand and drug screening using different protein interaction domains or antibodies.

  11. Improving e-book access via a library-developed full-text search tool.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Foust, Jill E; Bergen, Phillip; Maxeiner, Gretchen L; Pawlowski, Peter N

    2007-01-01

    This paper reports on the development of a tool for searching the contents of licensed full-text electronic book (e-book) collections. The Health Sciences Library System (HSLS) provides services to the University of Pittsburgh's medical programs and large academic health system. The HSLS has developed an innovative tool for federated searching of its e-book collections. Built using the XML-based Vivísimo development environment, the tool enables a user to perform a full-text search of over 2,500 titles from the library's seven most highly used e-book collections. From a single "Google-style" query, results are returned as an integrated set of links pointing directly to relevant sections of the full text. Results are also grouped into categories that enable more precise retrieval without reformulation of the search. A heuristic evaluation demonstrated the usability of the tool and a web server log analysis indicated an acceptable level of usage. Based on its success, there are plans to increase the number of online book collections searched. This library's first foray into federated searching has produced an effective tool for searching across large collections of full-text e-books and has provided a good foundation for the development of other library-based federated searching products.

  12. Hybrid chromophore/template nanostructures: a customizable platform material for solar energy storage and conversion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kolpak, Alexie M; Grossman, Jeffrey C

    2013-01-21

    Challenges with cost, cyclability, and/or low energy density have largely prevented the development of solar thermal fuels, a potentially attractive alternative energy technology based on molecules that can capture and store solar energy as latent heat in a closed cycle. In this paper, we present a set of novel hybrid photoisomer/template solar thermal fuels that can potentially circumvent these challenges. Using first-principles computations, we demonstrate that these fuels, composed of organic photoisomers bound to inexpensive carbon-based templates, can reversibly store solar energy at densities comparable to Li-ion batteries. Furthermore, we show that variation of the template material in combination with the photoisomer can be used to optimize many of the key performance metrics of the fuel-i.e., the energy density, the storage lifetime, the temperature of the output heat, and the efficiency of the solar-to-heat conversion. Our work suggests that the solar thermal fuels concept can be translated into a practical and highly customizable energy storage and conversion technology.

  13. Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... to main content Home Open menu About Member Agencies Data Previous Reports Resources Infographics Past Products Federal Data Resources Glossary Contact Agency Contacts Resource Links Subject Area Contacts FAQ Search ...

  14. A Real-Time Web of Things Framework with Customizable Openness Considering Legacy Devices

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shuai Zhao

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available With the development of the Internet of Things (IoT, resources and applications based on it have emerged on a large scale. However, most efforts are “silo” solutions where devices and applications are tightly coupled. Infrastructures are needed to connect sensors to the Internet, open up and break the current application silos and move to a horizontal application mode. Based on the concept of Web of Things (WoT, many infrastructures have been proposed to integrate the physical world with the Web. However, issues such as no real-time guarantee, lack of fine-grained control of data, and the absence of explicit solutions for integrating heterogeneous legacy devices, hinder their widespread and practical use. To address these issues, this paper proposes a WoT resource framework that provides the infrastructures for the customizable openness and sharing of users’ data and resources under the premise of ensuring the real-time behavior of their own applications. The proposed framework is validated by actual systems and experimental evaluations.

  15. Alephweb: a search engine based on the federated structure ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Revue d'Information Scientifique et Technique. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue · Archives · Journal Home > Vol 7, No 1 (1997) >. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

  16. MEMS variable capacitance devices utilizing the substrate: I. Novel devices with a customizable tuning range

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Elshurafa, Amro M; El-Masry, Ezz I

    2010-01-01

    This paper, the first in a series of two, presents a paradigm shift in the design of MEMS parallel plate PolyMUMPS variable capacitance devices by proposing two structures that utilize the substrate and are able to provide predetermined, customizable, tuning ranges and/or ratios. The proposed structures can provide theoretical tuning ranges anywhere from 4.9 to 35 and from 3.4 to 26 respectively with a simple, yet effective, layout modification as opposed to the previously reported devices where the tuning range is fixed and cannot be varied. Theoretical analysis is carried out and verified with measurements of fabricated devices. The first proposed device possessed initially a tuning range of 4.4. Two variations of the structure having tuning ranges of 3 and 3.4, all at 1 GHz, were also successfully developed and tested. The second proposed variable capacitance device behaved as a switch.

  17. ACHP | Heritage Tourism and the Federal Government: Summit I Proceedings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Search skip specific nav links Home arrow Publications arrow Intro: Heritage Tourism and the Federal Government: Summit I—Report of Proceedings Heritage Tourism and the Federal Government: Summit I—Report of tourism promotes the preservation of communities' historic resources, educates tourists and local

  18. ACHP | Heritage Tourism and the Federal Government: Summit II Proceedings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Search skip specific nav links Home arrow Publications arrow Intro: Heritage Tourism and the Federal Government: Summit II—Report of Proceedings Heritage Tourism and the Federal Government: Summit II—Report Heritage tourism promotes the preservation of communities' historic resources, educates tourists and local

  19. ACHP | Heritage Tourism and the Federal Government: Northern New Mexico

    Science.gov (United States)

    Publications Search skip specific nav links Home arrow Publications arrow Intro: Heritage Tourism and the Federal Government: Northern New Mexico Perspectives Heritage Tourism and the Federal Government: Northern information Heritage tourism offers a triple benefit to communities—it promotes the preservation of their

  20. Processing biological literature with customizable Web services supporting interoperable formats.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rak, Rafal; Batista-Navarro, Riza Theresa; Carter, Jacob; Rowley, Andrew; Ananiadou, Sophia

    2014-01-01

    Web services have become a popular means of interconnecting solutions for processing a body of scientific literature. This has fuelled research on high-level data exchange formats suitable for a given domain and ensuring the interoperability of Web services. In this article, we focus on the biological domain and consider four interoperability formats, BioC, BioNLP, XMI and RDF, that represent domain-specific and generic representations and include well-established as well as emerging specifications. We use the formats in the context of customizable Web services created in our Web-based, text-mining workbench Argo that features an ever-growing library of elementary analytics and capabilities to build and deploy Web services straight from a convenient graphical user interface. We demonstrate a 2-fold customization of Web services: by building task-specific processing pipelines from a repository of available analytics, and by configuring services to accept and produce a combination of input and output data interchange formats. We provide qualitative evaluation of the formats as well as quantitative evaluation of automatic analytics. The latter was carried out as part of our participation in the fourth edition of the BioCreative challenge. Our analytics built into Web services for recognizing biochemical concepts in BioC collections achieved the highest combined scores out of 10 participating teams. Database URL: http://argo.nactem.ac.uk. © The Author(s) 2014. Published by Oxford University Press.

  1. Improving e-book access via a library-developed full-text search tool*

    Science.gov (United States)

    Foust, Jill E.; Bergen, Phillip; Maxeiner, Gretchen L.; Pawlowski, Peter N.

    2007-01-01

    Purpose: This paper reports on the development of a tool for searching the contents of licensed full-text electronic book (e-book) collections. Setting: The Health Sciences Library System (HSLS) provides services to the University of Pittsburgh's medical programs and large academic health system. Brief Description: The HSLS has developed an innovative tool for federated searching of its e-book collections. Built using the XML-based Vivísimo development environment, the tool enables a user to perform a full-text search of over 2,500 titles from the library's seven most highly used e-book collections. From a single “Google-style” query, results are returned as an integrated set of links pointing directly to relevant sections of the full text. Results are also grouped into categories that enable more precise retrieval without reformulation of the search. Results/Evaluation: A heuristic evaluation demonstrated the usability of the tool and a web server log analysis indicated an acceptable level of usage. Based on its success, there are plans to increase the number of online book collections searched. Conclusion: This library's first foray into federated searching has produced an effective tool for searching across large collections of full-text e-books and has provided a good foundation for the development of other library-based federated searching products. PMID:17252065

  2. Design and development of a customizable telemedicine platform for improving access to healthcare for underserved populations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goel, Neha A; Alam, Amal A; Eggert, Emily M R; Acharya, Soumyadipta

    2017-07-01

    Telemedicine offers a method to bridge the healthcare access gap in low and middle income countries (LMICs) by connecting providers with patients using appropriate technology. Here we describe the design and development of a novel modular telemedicine platform, Intelehealth, that would enable health systems to connect remote doctors with patients in rural clinics using a customizable Android-based platform and a cloud-based electronic health record system at the backend (OpenMRS). This open source platform enables task shifting of medically relevant information gathering by a local health worker, transmission of this information to a remote doctor, and a telephonic conversation between the doctor and the patient that subsequently allows for delivery of an appropriate therapeutic plan. Intelehealth is designed to operate on a low bandwidth internet environment, and will be tested and validated in rural health clinics in India.

  3. Numerical optimization of alignment reproducibility for customizable surgical guides.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kroes, Thomas; Valstar, Edward; Eisemann, Elmar

    2015-10-01

    Computer-assisted orthopedic surgery aims at minimizing invasiveness, postoperative pain, and morbidity with computer-assisted preoperative planning and intra-operative guidance techniques, of which camera-based navigation and patient-specific templates (PST) are the most common. PSTs are one-time templates that guide the surgeon initially in cutting slits or drilling holes. This method can be extended to reusable and customizable surgical guides (CSG), which can be adapted to the patients' bone. Determining the right set of CSG input parameters by hand is a challenging task, given the vast amount of input parameter combinations and the complex physical interaction between the PST/CSG and the bone. This paper introduces a novel algorithm to solve the problem of choosing the right set of input parameters. Our approach predicts how well a CSG instance is able to reproduce the planned alignment based on a physical simulation and uses a genetic optimization algorithm to determine optimal configurations. We validate our technique with a prototype of a pin-based CSG and nine rapid prototyped distal femora. The proposed optimization technique has been compared to manual optimization by experts, as well as participants with domain experience. Using the optimization technique, the alignment errors remained within practical boundaries of 1.2 mm translation and [Formula: see text] rotation error. In all cases, the proposed method outperformed manual optimization. Manually optimizing CSG parameters turns out to be a counterintuitive task. Even after training, subjects with and without anatomical background fail in choosing appropriate CSG configurations. Our optimization algorithm ensures that the CSG is configured correctly, and we could demonstrate that the intended alignment of the CSG is accurately reproduced on all tested bone geometries.

  4. HTTP-based Search and Ordering Using ECHO's REST-based and OpenSearch APIs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baynes, K.; Newman, D. J.; Pilone, D.

    2012-12-01

    Metadata is an important entity in the process of cataloging, discovering, and describing Earth science data. NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) ClearingHOuse (ECHO) acts as the core metadata repository for EOSDIS data centers, providing a centralized mechanism for metadata and data discovery and retrieval. By supporting both the ESIP's Federated Search API and its own search and ordering interfaces, ECHO provides multiple capabilities that facilitate ease of discovery and access to its ever-increasing holdings. Users are able to search and export metadata in a variety of formats including ISO 19115, json, and ECHO10. This presentation aims to inform technically savvy clients interested in automating search and ordering of ECHO's metadata catalog. The audience will be introduced to practical and applicable examples of end-to-end workflows that demonstrate finding, sub-setting and ordering data that is bound by keyword, temporal and spatial constraints. Interaction with the ESIP OpenSearch Interface will be highlighted, as will ECHO's own REST-based API.

  5. WebMGA: a customizable web server for fast metagenomic sequence analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Sitao; Zhu, Zhengwei; Fu, Liming; Niu, Beifang; Li, Weizhong

    2011-09-07

    The new field of metagenomics studies microorganism communities by culture-independent sequencing. With the advances in next-generation sequencing techniques, researchers are facing tremendous challenges in metagenomic data analysis due to huge quantity and high complexity of sequence data. Analyzing large datasets is extremely time-consuming; also metagenomic annotation involves a wide range of computational tools, which are difficult to be installed and maintained by common users. The tools provided by the few available web servers are also limited and have various constraints such as login requirement, long waiting time, inability to configure pipelines etc. We developed WebMGA, a customizable web server for fast metagenomic analysis. WebMGA includes over 20 commonly used tools such as ORF calling, sequence clustering, quality control of raw reads, removal of sequencing artifacts and contaminations, taxonomic analysis, functional annotation etc. WebMGA provides users with rapid metagenomic data analysis using fast and effective tools, which have been implemented to run in parallel on our local computer cluster. Users can access WebMGA through web browsers or programming scripts to perform individual analysis or to configure and run customized pipelines. WebMGA is freely available at http://weizhongli-lab.org/metagenomic-analysis. WebMGA offers to researchers many fast and unique tools and great flexibility for complex metagenomic data analysis.

  6. WebMGA: a customizable web server for fast metagenomic sequence analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Niu Beifang

    2011-09-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The new field of metagenomics studies microorganism communities by culture-independent sequencing. With the advances in next-generation sequencing techniques, researchers are facing tremendous challenges in metagenomic data analysis due to huge quantity and high complexity of sequence data. Analyzing large datasets is extremely time-consuming; also metagenomic annotation involves a wide range of computational tools, which are difficult to be installed and maintained by common users. The tools provided by the few available web servers are also limited and have various constraints such as login requirement, long waiting time, inability to configure pipelines etc. Results We developed WebMGA, a customizable web server for fast metagenomic analysis. WebMGA includes over 20 commonly used tools such as ORF calling, sequence clustering, quality control of raw reads, removal of sequencing artifacts and contaminations, taxonomic analysis, functional annotation etc. WebMGA provides users with rapid metagenomic data analysis using fast and effective tools, which have been implemented to run in parallel on our local computer cluster. Users can access WebMGA through web browsers or programming scripts to perform individual analysis or to configure and run customized pipelines. WebMGA is freely available at http://weizhongli-lab.org/metagenomic-analysis. Conclusions WebMGA offers to researchers many fast and unique tools and great flexibility for complex metagenomic data analysis.

  7. MEMS variable capacitance devices utilizing the substrate: I. Novel devices with a customizable tuning range

    KAUST Repository

    Elshurafa, Amro M.

    2010-03-22

    This paper, the first in a series of two, presents a paradigm shift in the design of MEMS parallel plate PolyMUMPS variable capacitance devices by proposing two structures that utilize the substrate and are able to provide predetermined, customizable, tuning ranges and/or ratios. The proposed structures can provide theoretical tuning ranges anywhere from 4.9 to 35 and from 3.4 to 26 respectively with a simple, yet effective, layout modification as opposed to the previously reported devices where the tuning range is fixed and cannot be varied. Theoretical analysis is carried out and verified with measurements of fabricated devices. The first proposed device possessed initially a tuning range of 4.4. Two variations of the structure having tuning ranges of 3 and 3.4, all at 1 GHz, were also successfully developed and tested. The second proposed variable capacitance device behaved as a switch. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd.

  8. An open source/real-time atomic force microscope architecture to perform customizable force spectroscopy experiments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Materassi, Donatello; Baschieri, Paolo; Tiribilli, Bruno; Zuccheri, Giampaolo; Samorì, Bruno

    2009-08-01

    We describe the realization of an atomic force microscope architecture designed to perform customizable experiments in a flexible and automatic way. Novel technological contributions are given by the software implementation platform (RTAI-LINUX), which is free and open source, and from a functional point of view, by the implementation of hard real-time control algorithms. Some other technical solutions such as a new way to estimate the optical lever constant are described as well. The adoption of this architecture provides many degrees of freedom in the device behavior and, furthermore, allows one to obtain a flexible experimental instrument at a relatively low cost. In particular, we show how such a system has been employed to obtain measures in sophisticated single-molecule force spectroscopy experiments [Fernandez and Li, Science 303, 1674 (2004)]. Experimental results on proteins already studied using the same methodologies are provided in order to show the reliability of the measure system.

  9. Regional Integration: A Political Federation of the East African ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The aim of this paper is to explore the possibility and viability of an East African political federation project. Since the late 1800s under the then British East Africa, the countries of East Africa have been searching for ways to integrate. The search led to the establishment of the East African Community (EAC) in December ...

  10. On the Right for Lawful Court in Investigation and Search Activities

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chechetin A. E.

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available On the basis of the existing federal legislation and decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation the author reveals and analyzes jurisdiction of the petition of the agency which conducts investigation and search operations, with the help of an example, i.e. conducting investigation and search operations concerning the judge of the Region Court in Rostov-on-Don with the purpose of verification the information about extortion of a bribe by him

  11. NeuroFlow: A General Purpose Spiking Neural Network Simulation Platform using Customizable Processors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cheung, Kit; Schultz, Simon R; Luk, Wayne

    2015-01-01

    NeuroFlow is a scalable spiking neural network simulation platform for off-the-shelf high performance computing systems using customizable hardware processors such as Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). Unlike multi-core processors and application-specific integrated circuits, the processor architecture of NeuroFlow can be redesigned and reconfigured to suit a particular simulation to deliver optimized performance, such as the degree of parallelism to employ. The compilation process supports using PyNN, a simulator-independent neural network description language, to configure the processor. NeuroFlow supports a number of commonly used current or conductance based neuronal models such as integrate-and-fire and Izhikevich models, and the spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) rule for learning. A 6-FPGA system can simulate a network of up to ~600,000 neurons and can achieve a real-time performance of 400,000 neurons. Using one FPGA, NeuroFlow delivers a speedup of up to 33.6 times the speed of an 8-core processor, or 2.83 times the speed of GPU-based platforms. With high flexibility and throughput, NeuroFlow provides a viable environment for large-scale neural network simulation.

  12. MIRASS: medical informatics research activity support system using information mashup network.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kiah, M L M; Zaidan, B B; Zaidan, A A; Nabi, Mohamed; Ibraheem, Rabiu

    2014-04-01

    The advancement of information technology has facilitated the automation and feasibility of online information sharing. The second generation of the World Wide Web (Web 2.0) enables the collaboration and sharing of online information through Web-serving applications. Data mashup, which is considered a Web 2.0 platform, plays an important role in information and communication technology applications. However, few ideas have been transformed into education and research domains, particularly in medical informatics. The creation of a friendly environment for medical informatics research requires the removal of certain obstacles in terms of search time, resource credibility, and search result accuracy. This paper considers three glitches that researchers encounter in medical informatics research; these glitches include the quality of papers obtained from scientific search engines (particularly, Web of Science and Science Direct), the quality of articles from the indices of these search engines, and the customizability and flexibility of these search engines. A customizable search engine for trusted resources of medical informatics was developed and implemented through data mashup. Results show that the proposed search engine improves the usability of scientific search engines for medical informatics. Pipe search engine was found to be more efficient than other engines.

  13. Federal Highway Administration 100-year coating study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-11-01

    The Federal Highway Administration 100-Year Coating Study was initiated in August 2009 to search for durable : coating systems at a reasonable cost. The objective of the study was to identify and evaluate coating materials that can : provide 100 year...

  14. Global OpenSearch

    Science.gov (United States)

    Newman, D. J.; Mitchell, A. E.

    2015-12-01

    At AGU 2014, NASA EOSDIS demonstrated a case-study of an OpenSearch framework for Earth science data discovery. That framework leverages the IDN and CWIC OpenSearch API implementations to provide seamless discovery of data through the 'two-step' discovery process as outlined by the Federation for Earth Sciences (ESIP) OpenSearch Best Practices. But how would an Earth Scientist leverage this framework and what are the benefits? Using a client that understands the OpenSearch specification and, for further clarity, the various best practices and extensions, a scientist can discovery a plethora of data not normally accessible either by traditional methods (NASA Earth Data Search, Reverb, etc) or direct methods (going to the source of the data) We will demonstrate, via the CWICSmart web client, how an earth scientist can access regional data on a regional phenomena in a uniform and aggregated manner. We will demonstrate how an earth scientist can 'globalize' their discovery. You want to find local data on 'sea surface temperature of the Indian Ocean'? We can help you with that. 'European meteorological data'? Yes. 'Brazilian rainforest satellite imagery'? That too. CWIC allows you to get earth science data in a uniform fashion from a large number of disparate, world-wide agencies. This is what we mean by Global OpenSearch.

  15. GeneLab Phase 2: Integrated Search Data Federation of Space Biology Experimental Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tran, P. B.; Berrios, D. C.; Gurram, M. M.; Hashim, J. C. M.; Raghunandan, S.; Lin, S. Y.; Le, T. Q.; Heher, D. M.; Thai, H. T.; Welch, J. D.; hide

    2016-01-01

    The GeneLab project is a science initiative to maximize the scientific return of omics data collected from spaceflight and from ground simulations of microgravity and radiation experiments, supported by a data system for a public bioinformatics repository and collaborative analysis tools for these data. The mission of GeneLab is to maximize the utilization of the valuable biological research resources aboard the ISS by collecting genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic (so-called omics) data to enable the exploration of the molecular network responses of terrestrial biology to space environments using a systems biology approach. All GeneLab data are made available to a worldwide network of researchers through its open-access data system. GeneLab is currently being developed by NASA to support Open Science biomedical research in order to enable the human exploration of space and improve life on earth. Open access to Phase 1 of the GeneLab Data Systems (GLDS) was implemented in April 2015. Download volumes have grown steadily, mirroring the growth in curated space biology research data sets (61 as of June 2016), now exceeding 10 TB/month, with over 10,000 file downloads since the start of Phase 1. For the period April 2015 to May 2016, most frequently downloaded were data from studies of Mus musculus (39) followed closely by Arabidopsis thaliana (30), with the remaining downloads roughly equally split across 12 other organisms (each 10 of total downloads). GLDS Phase 2 is focusing on interoperability, supporting data federation, including integrated search capabilities, of GLDS-housed data sets with external data sources, such as gene expression data from NIHNCBIs Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), proteomic data from EBIs PRIDE system, and metagenomic data from Argonne National Laboratory's MG-RAST. GEO and MG-RAST employ specifications for investigation metadata that are different from those used by the GLDS and PRIDE (e.g., ISA-Tab). The GLDS Phase 2 system

  16. Search 40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR): Protection of the Environment

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — Title 40 is the section of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) that deals with EPA's mission of protecting human health and the environment. This web page provides...

  17. sRNAnalyzer-a flexible and customizable small RNA sequencing data analysis pipeline.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Xiaogang; Kim, Taek-Kyun; Baxter, David; Scherler, Kelsey; Gordon, Aaron; Fong, Olivia; Etheridge, Alton; Galas, David J; Wang, Kai

    2017-12-01

    Although many tools have been developed to analyze small RNA sequencing (sRNA-Seq) data, it remains challenging to accurately analyze the small RNA population, mainly due to multiple sequence ID assignment caused by short read length. Additional issues in small RNA analysis include low consistency of microRNA (miRNA) measurement results across different platforms, miRNA mapping associated with miRNA sequence variation (isomiR) and RNA editing, and the origin of those unmapped reads after screening against all endogenous reference sequence databases. To address these issues, we built a comprehensive and customizable sRNA-Seq data analysis pipeline-sRNAnalyzer, which enables: (i) comprehensive miRNA profiling strategies to better handle isomiRs and summarization based on each nucleotide position to detect potential SNPs in miRNAs, (ii) different sequence mapping result assignment approaches to simulate results from microarray/qRT-PCR platforms and a local probabilistic model to assign mapping results to the most-likely IDs, (iii) comprehensive ribosomal RNA filtering for accurate mapping of exogenous RNAs and summarization based on taxonomy annotation. We evaluated our pipeline on both artificial samples (including synthetic miRNA and Escherichia coli cultures) and biological samples (human tissue and plasma). sRNAnalyzer is implemented in Perl and available at: http://srnanalyzer.systemsbiology.net/. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

  18. sRNAnalyzer—a flexible and customizable small RNA sequencing data analysis pipeline

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Taek-Kyun; Baxter, David; Scherler, Kelsey; Gordon, Aaron; Fong, Olivia; Etheridge, Alton; Galas, David J.

    2017-01-01

    Abstract Although many tools have been developed to analyze small RNA sequencing (sRNA-Seq) data, it remains challenging to accurately analyze the small RNA population, mainly due to multiple sequence ID assignment caused by short read length. Additional issues in small RNA analysis include low consistency of microRNA (miRNA) measurement results across different platforms, miRNA mapping associated with miRNA sequence variation (isomiR) and RNA editing, and the origin of those unmapped reads after screening against all endogenous reference sequence databases. To address these issues, we built a comprehensive and customizable sRNA-Seq data analysis pipeline—sRNAnalyzer, which enables: (i) comprehensive miRNA profiling strategies to better handle isomiRs and summarization based on each nucleotide position to detect potential SNPs in miRNAs, (ii) different sequence mapping result assignment approaches to simulate results from microarray/qRT-PCR platforms and a local probabilistic model to assign mapping results to the most-likely IDs, (iii) comprehensive ribosomal RNA filtering for accurate mapping of exogenous RNAs and summarization based on taxonomy annotation. We evaluated our pipeline on both artificial samples (including synthetic miRNA and Escherichia coli cultures) and biological samples (human tissue and plasma). sRNAnalyzer is implemented in Perl and available at: http://srnanalyzer.systemsbiology.net/. PMID:29069500

  19. Bengala customizável para mulheres com deficiência visual

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniele Lugli

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available A pessoa que tem apenas resquícios ou não possui o sentido da visão necessita de auxílio para se orientar e movimentar. A tecnologia assistiva denominada bengala longa, ou bengala branca, é a mais comumente utilizada para este fim. Porém, por ser também um objeto identificador da deficiência visual, em muitos casos, é rejeitada por seus potenciais usuários. Existem muitos fatores de ordem prática que incomodam esses usuários, entretanto, a aparência da bengala é um aspecto ainda pouco explorado, mas que também contribui para esta rejeição, principalmente por parte de mulheres com a deficiência visual adquirida, que possuem acentuada vaidade e recordações visuais de sua vida anterior à cegueira. Dessa forma, com o objetivo de melhorar aspectos práticos e estéticos da bengala longa, foi realizada uma pesquisa com mulheres entre 19 e 65 anos no Instituto Paranaense de Cegos, a fim de identificar quais características poderiam ser melhoradas no objeto para minimizar sua rejeição. Para isso, foram utilizadas ferramentas derivadas da abordagem Human-centered design, que possibilitam uma maior interação e consequente aproximação da realidade desses usuários. A partir das informações coletadas, foi desenvolvido um conceito de bengala feminina customizável, com partes móveis que permitem às usuárias variar a aparência do objeto conforme seu gosto pessoal ou situação de uso.

  20. MyE-Wall: Design of a Web Portal Fully Customizable and Ontology Based

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrea Roggerone

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Web is a measureless growing information source. Here we could have the common user that surf the web for fun, and the particular user surfing the web to work, for instance, the financial analyst that hopes to find some financial information.These users are similar in their habit to visit ever
    a pool of 10-15 websites where they are sure to find interesting information. In this paper, we introduce the architecture of a Rich Internet Application (RIA that uses the power of Semantics to create a new type of Web Portal fully customizable that we will call MyE-Wall. In this portal, the user can’t attach widget, but modules containing each one the section of a particular web site. Therefore, the idea is allow a user to create of a new website composed by a patchwork of different website’s sections selected by himself. Here we use semantics for two reasons: (i to process the structure of a particular website and create the corresponding module to attach on the portal (ii to provide the application of a set of features (reasoning engine, swrl rules, etc... to reason on the information collected, according the preferences that the user
    could have specified in his own profile.

  1. Development of a Customizable Programme for Improving Interprofessional Team Meetings: An Action Research Approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Dongen, Jerôme Jean Jacques; van Bokhoven, Marloes Amantia; Goossens, Wilhelmus Nicolaas Marie; Daniëls, Ramon; van der Weijden, Trudy; Beurskens, Anna

    2018-01-25

    Interprofessional teamwork is increasingly necessary in primary care to meet the needs of people with complex care demands. Needs assessment shows that this requires efficient interprofessional team meetings, focusing on patients' personal goals. The aim of this study was to develop a programme to improve the efficiency and patient-centredness of such meetings. Action research approach: a first draft of the programme was developed, and iteratively used and evaluated by three primary care teams. Data were collected using observations, interviews and a focus group, and analysed using directed content analysis. The final programme comprises a framework to reflect on team functioning, and training activities supplemented by a toolbox. Training is intended for the chairperson and a co-chair, and aims at organizing and structuring meetings, and enhancing patient-centredness. Our findings emphasize the essential role of the team's chairperson, who, in addition to technically structuring meetings, should act as a change agent guiding team development. Findings show that the programme should be customizable to each individual team's context and participants' learning objectives. Becoming acquainted with new structures can be considered a growth process, in which teams have to find their way, with the chairperson as change agent.

  2. Teolenn: an efficient and customizable workflow to design high-quality probes for microarray experiments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jourdren, Laurent; Duclos, Aurélie; Brion, Christian; Portnoy, Thomas; Mathis, Hugues; Margeot, Antoine; Le Crom, Stéphane

    2010-01-01

    Despite the development of new high-throughput sequencing techniques, microarrays are still attractive tools to study small genome organisms, thanks to sample multiplexing and high-feature densities. However, the oligonucleotide design remains a delicate step for most users. A vast array of software is available to deal with this problem, but each program is developed with its own strategy, which makes the choice of the best solution difficult. Here we describe Teolenn, a universal probe design workflow developed with a flexible and customizable module organization allowing fixed or variable length oligonucleotide generation. In addition, our software is able to supply quality scores for each of the designed probes. In order to assess the relevance of these scores, we performed a real hybridization using a tiling array designed against the Trichoderma reesei fungus genome. We show that our scoring pipeline correlates with signal quality for 97.2% of all the designed probes, allowing for a posteriori comparisons between quality scores and signal intensities. This result is useful in discarding any bad scoring probes during the design step in order to get high-quality microarrays. Teolenn is available at http://transcriptome.ens.fr/teolenn/. PMID:20176570

  3. An interactive RADIANCE toolkit for customizable CT dose monitoring and reporting.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cook, Tessa S; Sundaram, Anand; Boonn, William W; Kim, Woojin

    2013-08-01

    The need for tools to monitor imaging-related radiation has grown dramatically in recent years. RADIANCE, a freely available open-source dose-monitoring tool, was developed in response to the need for an informatics solution in this realm. A number of open-source as well as commercial solutions have since been developed to enable radiology practices to monitor radiation dose parameters for modalities ranging from computed tomography to radiography to fluoroscopy. However, it is not sufficient to simply collect this data; it is equally important to be able to review it in the appropriate context. Most of the currently available dose-monitoring solutions have some type of reporting capability, such as a real-time dashboard or a static report. Previous versions of RADIANCE have included a real-time dashboard with pre-set screens that plot effective dose estimates according to different criteria, as well as monthly scorecards to summarize dose estimates for individuals within a radiology practice. In this work, we present the RADIANCE toolkit, a customizable reporting solution that allows users to generate reports of interest to them, summarizing a variety of metrics that can be grouped according to useful parameters. The output of the toolkit can be used for real-time dose monitoring or scheduled reporting, such as to a quality assurance committee. Making dose parameter data more accessible and more meaningful to the user promotes dose reduction efforts such as regular protocol review and optimization, and ultimately improves patient care by decreasing unnecessary radiation exposure.

  4. Search without Boundaries Using Simple APIs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tong, Qi (Helen)

    2009-01-01

    The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Library, where the author serves as the digital services librarian, is increasingly challenged to make it easier for users to find information from many heterogeneous information sources. Information is scattered throughout different software applications (i.e., library catalog, federated search engine, link…

  5. An intelligent knowledge-based and customizable home care system framework with ubiquitous patient monitoring and alerting techniques.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Yen-Lin; Chiang, Hsin-Han; Yu, Chao-Wei; Chiang, Chuan-Yen; Liu, Chuan-Ming; Wang, Jenq-Haur

    2012-01-01

    This study develops and integrates an efficient knowledge-based system and a component-based framework to design an intelligent and flexible home health care system. The proposed knowledge-based system integrates an efficient rule-based reasoning model and flexible knowledge rules for determining efficiently and rapidly the necessary physiological and medication treatment procedures based on software modules, video camera sensors, communication devices, and physiological sensor information. This knowledge-based system offers high flexibility for improving and extending the system further to meet the monitoring demands of new patient and caregiver health care by updating the knowledge rules in the inference mechanism. All of the proposed functional components in this study are reusable, configurable, and extensible for system developers. Based on the experimental results, the proposed intelligent homecare system demonstrates that it can accomplish the extensible, customizable, and configurable demands of the ubiquitous healthcare systems to meet the different demands of patients and caregivers under various rehabilitation and nursing conditions.

  6. An Intelligent Knowledge-Based and Customizable Home Care System Framework with Ubiquitous Patient Monitoring and Alerting Techniques

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yen-Lin Chen

    2012-08-01

    Full Text Available This study develops and integrates an efficient knowledge-based system and a component-based framework to design an intelligent and flexible home health care system. The proposed knowledge-based system integrates an efficient rule-based reasoning model and flexible knowledge rules for determining efficiently and rapidly the necessary physiological and medication treatment procedures based on software modules, video camera sensors, communication devices, and physiological sensor information. This knowledge-based system offers high flexibility for improving and extending the system further to meet the monitoring demands of new patient and caregiver health care by updating the knowledge rules in the inference mechanism. All of the proposed functional components in this study are reusable, configurable, and extensible for system developers. Based on the experimental results, the proposed intelligent homecare system demonstrates that it can accomplish the extensible, customizable, and configurable demands of the ubiquitous healthcare systems to meet the different demands of patients and caregivers under various rehabilitation and nursing conditions.

  7. Data Federation Strategies for ATLAS using XRootD

    CERN Document Server

    Gardner, R; The ATLAS collaboration; Duckeck, G; Elmsheuser, J; Hanushevski, A; Hönig, F; Iven, J; Legger, F; Vukotic, I; Yang, W

    2014-01-01

    In the past year the ATLAS Collaboration accelerated its program to federate data storage resources using an architecture based on XRootD with its attendant redirection and storage integration services. The main goal of the federation is an improvement in the data access experience for the end user while allowing more efficient and intelligent use of computing resources. Along with these advances come integration with existing ATLAS production services (PanDA and its pilot services) and data management services (DQ2, and in the next generation, Rucio). Functional testing of the federation has been integrated into the standard ATLAS and WLCG monitoring frameworks and a dedicated set of tools provides high granularity information on its current and historical usage. We use a federation topology designed to search from the site's local storage outward to its region and to globally distributed storage resources. We describe programmatic testing of various federation access modes including direct access over the w...

  8. Data Federation Strategies for ATLAS using XRootD

    CERN Document Server

    Gardner, R; The ATLAS collaboration; Duckeck, G; Elmsheuser, J; Hanushevski, A; Hönig, F; Iven, J; Legger, F; Vukotic, I; Yang, W

    2013-01-01

    In the past year the ATLAS Collaboration accelerated its program to federate data storage resources using an architecture based on XRootD with its attendant redirection and storage integration services. The main goal of the federation is an improvement in the data access experience for the end user while allowing more efficient and intelligent use of computing resources. Along with these advances come integration with existing ATLAS production services (PanDA and its pilot services) and data management services (DQ2, and in the next generation, Rucio). Functional testing of the federation has been integrated into the standard ATLAS and WLCG monitoring frameworks and a dedicated set of tools provides high granularity information on its current and historical usage. We use a federation topology designed to search from the site's local storage outward to its region and to globally distributed storage resources. We describe programmatic testing of various federation access modes including direct access over the w...

  9. Privacy-Preserving Patient Similarity Learning in a Federated Environment: Development and Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Junghye; Sun, Jimeng; Wang, Fei; Wang, Shuang; Jun, Chi-Hyuck; Jiang, Xiaoqian

    2018-04-13

    There is an urgent need for the development of global analytic frameworks that can perform analyses in a privacy-preserving federated environment across multiple institutions without privacy leakage. A few studies on the topic of federated medical analysis have been conducted recently with the focus on several algorithms. However, none of them have solved similar patient matching, which is useful for applications such as cohort construction for cross-institution observational studies, disease surveillance, and clinical trials recruitment. The aim of this study was to present a privacy-preserving platform in a federated setting for patient similarity learning across institutions. Without sharing patient-level information, our model can find similar patients from one hospital to another. We proposed a federated patient hashing framework and developed a novel algorithm to learn context-specific hash codes to represent patients across institutions. The similarities between patients can be efficiently computed using the resulting hash codes of corresponding patients. To avoid security attack from reverse engineering on the model, we applied homomorphic encryption to patient similarity search in a federated setting. We used sequential medical events extracted from the Multiparameter Intelligent Monitoring in Intensive Care-III database to evaluate the proposed algorithm in predicting the incidence of five diseases independently. Our algorithm achieved averaged area under the curves of 0.9154 and 0.8012 with balanced and imbalanced data, respectively, in κ-nearest neighbor with κ=3. We also confirmed privacy preservation in similarity search by using homomorphic encryption. The proposed algorithm can help search similar patients across institutions effectively to support federated data analysis in a privacy-preserving manner. ©Junghye Lee, Jimeng Sun, Fei Wang, Shuang Wang, Chi-Hyuck Jun, Xiaoqian Jiang. Originally published in JMIR Medical Informatics (http

  10. Mobile Phone Health Applications for the Federal Sector.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burrows, Christin S; Weigel, Fred K

    2016-01-01

    As the US healthcare system moves toward a mobile care model, mobile phones will play a significant role in the future of healthcare delivery. Today, 90% of American adults own a mobile phone and 64% own a smartphone, yet many healthcare organizations are only beginning to explore the opportunities in which mobile phones can improve and streamline care. After searching Google Scholar, the Association for Computing Machinery Database, and PubMed for articles related to mobile phone health applications and cell phone text message health, we selected articles and studies related to the application of mobile phones in healthcare. From our initial review, we identified the potential application areas and continued to refine our search, identifying a total of 55 articles for additional review and analysis. From the literature, we identified 3 main themes for mobile phone implementation in improving healthcare: primary, preventive, and population health. We recommend federal health leaders pursue the value and potential in these areas; not only because 90% of Americans already own mobile phones, but also because mobile phone integration can provide substantial access and potential cost savings. From the positive findings of multiple studies in primary, preventive, and population health, we propose a 5-year federal implementation plan to integrate mobile phone capabilities into federal healthcare delivery. Our proposal has the potential to improve access, reduce costs, and increase patient satisfaction, therefore changing the way the federal sector delivers healthcare by 2021.

  11. Improving PHENIX search with Solr, Nutch and Drupal

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Morrison, Dave; Sourikova, Irina

    2012-01-01

    During its 20 years of R and D, construction and operation the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) has accumulated large amounts of proprietary collaboration data that is hosted on many servers around the world and is not open for commercial search engines for indexing and searching. The legacy search infrastructure did not scale well with the fast growing PHENIX document base and produced results inadequate in both precision and recall. After considering the possible alternatives that would provide an aggregated, fast, full text search of a variety of data sources and file formats we decided to use Nutch [1] as a web crawler and Solr [2] as a search engine. To present XML-based Solr search results in a user-friendly format we use Drupal [3] as a web interface to Solr. We describe the experience of building a federated search for a heterogeneous collection of 10 million PHENIX documents with Nutch, Solr and Drupal.

  12. Improving PHENIX search with Solr, Nutch and Drupal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morrison, Dave; Sourikova, Irina

    2012-12-01

    During its 20 years of R&D, construction and operation the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) has accumulated large amounts of proprietary collaboration data that is hosted on many servers around the world and is not open for commercial search engines for indexing and searching. The legacy search infrastructure did not scale well with the fast growing PHENIX document base and produced results inadequate in both precision and recall. After considering the possible alternatives that would provide an aggregated, fast, full text search of a variety of data sources and file formats we decided to use Nutch [1] as a web crawler and Solr [2] as a search engine. To present XML-based Solr search results in a user-friendly format we use Drupal [3] as a web interface to Solr. We describe the experience of building a federated search for a heterogeneous collection of 10 million PHENIX documents with Nutch, Solr and Drupal.

  13. Canadian energy and climate policies: A SWOT analysis in search of federal/provincial coherence

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fertel, Camille; Bahn, Olivier; Vaillancourt, Kathleen; Waaub, Jean-Philippe

    2013-01-01

    This paper presents an analysis of Canadian energy and climate policies in terms of the coherence between federal and provincial/territorial strategies. After briefly describing the institutional, energy, and climate contexts, we perform a SWOT analysis on the themes of energy security, energy efficiency, and technology and innovation. Within this analytical framework, we discuss the coherence of federal and provincial policies and of energy and climate policies. Our analysis shows that there is a lack of consistency in the Canadian energy and climate strategies beyond the application of market principles. Furthermore, in certain sectors, the Canadian approach amounts to an amalgam of decisions made at a provincial level without cooperation with other provinces or with the federal government. One way to improve policy coherence would be to increase the cooperation between the different jurisdictions by using a combination of policy tools and by relying on existing intergovernmental agencies. - Highlights: • We perform a SWOT analysis of the Canadian energy and climate policies. • We analyse policy coherence between federal and provincial/territorial strategies. • We show that a lack of coordination leads to a weak coherence among policies. • The absence of cooperation results in additional costs for Canada

  14. Increasing the strength and bioactivity of collagen scaffolds using customizable arrays of 3D-printed polymer fibers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mozdzen, Laura C; Rodgers, Ryan; Banks, Jessica M; Bailey, Ryan C; Harley, Brendan A C

    2016-03-01

    Tendon is a highly aligned connective tissue which transmits force from muscle to bone. Each year, people in the US sustain more than 32 million tendon injuries. To mitigate poor functional outcomes due to scar formation, current surgical techniques rely heavily on autografts. Biomaterial platforms and tissue engineering methods offer an alternative approach to address these injuries. Scaffolds incorporating aligned structural features can promote expansion of adult tenocytes and mesenchymal stem cells capable of tenogenic differentiation. However, appropriate balance between scaffold bioactivity and mechanical strength of these constructs remains challenging. The high porosity required to facilitate cell infiltration, nutrient and oxygen biotransport within three-dimensional constructs typically results in insufficient biomechanical strength. Here we describe the use of three-dimensional printing techniques to create customizable arrays of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) fibers that can be incorporated into a collagen scaffold under development for tendon repair. Notably, mechanical performance of scaffold-fiber composites (elastic modulus, peak stress, strain at peak stress, and toughness) can be selectively manipulated by varying fiber-reinforcement geometry without affecting the native bioactivity of the collagen scaffold. Further, we report an approach to functionalize ABS fibers with activity-inducing growth factors via sequential oxygen plasma and carbodiimide crosslinking treatments. Together, we report an adaptable approach to control both mechanical strength and presence of biomolecular cues in a manner orthogonal to the architecture of the collagen scaffold itself. Tendon injuries account for more than 32 million injuries each year in the US alone. Current techniques use allografts to mitigate poor functional outcomes, but are not ideal platforms to induce functional regeneration following injury. Tissue engineering approaches using biomaterial

  15. BioCarian: search engine for exploratory searches in heterogeneous biological databases.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zaki, Nazar; Tennakoon, Chandana

    2017-10-02

    There are a large number of biological databases publicly available for scientists in the web. Also, there are many private databases generated in the course of research projects. These databases are in a wide variety of formats. Web standards have evolved in the recent times and semantic web technologies are now available to interconnect diverse and heterogeneous sources of data. Therefore, integration and querying of biological databases can be facilitated by techniques used in semantic web. Heterogeneous databases can be converted into Resource Description Format (RDF) and queried using SPARQL language. Searching for exact queries in these databases is trivial. However, exploratory searches need customized solutions, especially when multiple databases are involved. This process is cumbersome and time consuming for those without a sufficient background in computer science. In this context, a search engine facilitating exploratory searches of databases would be of great help to the scientific community. We present BioCarian, an efficient and user-friendly search engine for performing exploratory searches on biological databases. The search engine is an interface for SPARQL queries over RDF databases. We note that many of the databases can be converted to tabular form. We first convert the tabular databases to RDF. The search engine provides a graphical interface based on facets to explore the converted databases. The facet interface is more advanced than conventional facets. It allows complex queries to be constructed, and have additional features like ranking of facet values based on several criteria, visually indicating the relevance of a facet value and presenting the most important facet values when a large number of choices are available. For the advanced users, SPARQL queries can be run directly on the databases. Using this feature, users will be able to incorporate federated searches of SPARQL endpoints. We used the search engine to do an exploratory search

  16. 77 FR 43817 - Notice of Submission for OMB Review; Office of Postsecondary Education; Talent Search (TS) Annual...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-07-26

    ...; Talent Search (TS) Annual Performance Report SUMMARY: The Talent Search program provides Federal... Records Management Services, Office of Management, publishes this notice containing proposed information... records. Title of Collection: Talent Search (TS) Annual Performance Report. OMB Control Number: Pending...

  17. In-depth analysis of protein inference algorithms using multiple search engines and well-defined metrics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Audain, Enrique; Uszkoreit, Julian; Sachsenberg, Timo; Pfeuffer, Julianus; Liang, Xiao; Hermjakob, Henning; Sanchez, Aniel; Eisenacher, Martin; Reinert, Knut; Tabb, David L; Kohlbacher, Oliver; Perez-Riverol, Yasset

    2017-01-06

    In mass spectrometry-based shotgun proteomics, protein identifications are usually the desired result. However, most of the analytical methods are based on the identification of reliable peptides and not the direct identification of intact proteins. Thus, assembling peptides identified from tandem mass spectra into a list of proteins, referred to as protein inference, is a critical step in proteomics research. Currently, different protein inference algorithms and tools are available for the proteomics community. Here, we evaluated five software tools for protein inference (PIA, ProteinProphet, Fido, ProteinLP, MSBayesPro) using three popular database search engines: Mascot, X!Tandem, and MS-GF+. All the algorithms were evaluated using a highly customizable KNIME workflow using four different public datasets with varying complexities (different sample preparation, species and analytical instruments). We defined a set of quality control metrics to evaluate the performance of each combination of search engines, protein inference algorithm, and parameters on each dataset. We show that the results for complex samples vary not only regarding the actual numbers of reported protein groups but also concerning the actual composition of groups. Furthermore, the robustness of reported proteins when using databases of differing complexities is strongly dependant on the applied inference algorithm. Finally, merging the identifications of multiple search engines does not necessarily increase the number of reported proteins, but does increase the number of peptides per protein and thus can generally be recommended. Protein inference is one of the major challenges in MS-based proteomics nowadays. Currently, there are a vast number of protein inference algorithms and implementations available for the proteomics community. Protein assembly impacts in the final results of the research, the quantitation values and the final claims in the research manuscript. Even though protein

  18. Federated query services provided by the Seamless SAR Archive project

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baker, S.; Bryson, G.; Buechler, B.; Meertens, C. M.; Crosby, C. J.; Fielding, E. J.; Nicoll, J.; Youn, C.; Baru, C.

    2013-12-01

    The NASA Advancing Collaborative Connections for Earth System Science (ACCESS) seamless synthetic aperture radar (SAR) archive (SSARA) project is a 2-year collaboration between UNAVCO, the Alaska Satellite Facility (ASF), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and OpenTopography at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) to design and implement a seamless distributed access system for SAR data and derived data products (i.e. interferograms). A major milestone for the first year of the SSARA project was a unified application programming interface (API) for SAR data search and results at ASF and UNAVCO (WInSAR and EarthScope data archives) through the use of simple web services. A federated query service was developed using the unified APIs, providing users a single search interface for both archives (http://www.unavco.org/ws/brokered/ssara/sar/search). A command line client that utilizes this new service is provided as an open source utility for the community on GitHub (https://github.com/bakerunavco/SSARA). Further API development and enhancements added more InSAR specific keywords and quality control parameters (Doppler centroid, faraday rotation, InSAR stack size, and perpendicular baselines). To facilitate InSAR processing, the federated query service incorporated URLs for DEM (from OpenTopography) and tropospheric corrections (from the JPL OSCAR service) in addition to the URLs for SAR data. This federated query service will provide relevant QC metadata for selecting pairs of SAR data for InSAR processing and all the URLs necessary for interferogram generation. Interest from the international community has prompted an effort to incorporate other SAR data archives (the ESA Virtual Archive 4 and the DLR TerraSAR-X_SSC Geohazard Supersites and Natural Laboratories collections) into the federated query service which provide data for researchers outside the US and North America.

  19. MiTAP for SARS Detection

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Damianos, Laurie E; Bayer, Samuel; Chisholm, Michael A; Henderson, John; Hirschman, Lynette; Morgan, William; Ubaldino, Marc; Zarrella, Guido; Wilson, V, James M; Polyak, Marat G

    2006-01-01

    .... Specialized newsgroups and customizable filters or searches on incoming stories allow users to create their own view into the data while a variety of tools summarize, indicate trends, and provide alerts to potentially relevant spikes of activity.

  20. A Customizable Importer for the Clinical Data Warehouses PaDaWaN and I2B2.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fette, Georg; Kaspar, Mathias; Dietrich, Georg; Ertl, Maximilian; Krebs, Jonathan; Stoerk, Stefan; Puppe, Frank

    2017-01-01

    In recent years, clinical data warehouses (CDW) storing routine patient data have become more and more popular to support scientific work in the medical domain. Although CDW systems provide interfaces to import new data, these interfaces have to be used by processing tools that are often not included in the systems themselves. In order to establish an extraction-transformation-load (ETL) workflow, already existing components have to be taken or new components have to be developed to perform the load part of the ETL. We present a customizable importer for the two CDW systems PaDaWaN and I2B2, which is able to import the most common import formats (plain text, CSV and XML files). In order to be run, the importer only needs a configuration file with the user credentials for the target CDW and a list of XML import configuration files, which determine how already exported data is indented to be imported. The importer is provided as a Java program, which has no further software requirements.

  1. The USGS Earthquake Notification Service (ENS): Customizable notifications of earthquakes around the globe

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wald, Lisa A.; Wald, David J.; Schwarz, Stan; Presgrave, Bruce; Earle, Paul S.; Martinez, Eric; Oppenheimer, David

    2008-01-01

    At the beginning of 2006, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earthquake Hazards Program (EHP) introduced a new automated Earthquake Notification Service (ENS) to take the place of the National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) "Bigquake" system and the various other individual EHP e-mail list-servers for separate regions in the United States. These included northern California, southern California, and the central and eastern United States. ENS is a "one-stop shopping" system that allows Internet users to subscribe to flexible and customizable notifications for earthquakes anywhere in the world. The customization capability allows users to define the what (magnitude threshold), the when (day and night thresholds), and the where (specific regions) for their notifications. Customization is achieved by employing a per-user based request profile, allowing the notifications to be tailored for each individual's requirements. Such earthquake-parameter-specific custom delivery was not possible with simple e-mail list-servers. Now that event and user profiles are in a structured query language (SQL) database, additional flexibility is possible. At the time of this writing, ENS had more than 114,000 subscribers, with more than 200,000 separate user profiles. On a typical day, more than 188,000 messages get sent to a variety of widely distributed users for a wide range of earthquake locations and magnitudes. The purpose of this article is to describe how ENS works, highlight the features it offers, and summarize plans for future developments.

  2. Promoting evidence based medicine in preclinical medical students via a federated literature search tool.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keim, Samuel Mark; Howse, David; Bracke, Paul; Mendoza, Kathryn

    2008-01-01

    Medical educators are increasingly faced with directives to teach Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) skills. Because of its nature, integrating fundamental EBM educational content is a challenge in the preclinical years. To analyse preclinical medical student user satisfaction and feedback regarding a clinical EBM search strategy. The authors introduced a custom EBM search option with a self-contained education structure to first-year medical students. The implementation took advantage of a major curricular change towards case-based instruction. Medical student views and experiences were studied regarding the tool's convenience, problems and the degree to which they used it to answer questions raised by case-based instruction. Surveys were completed by 70% of the available first-year students. Student satisfaction and experiences were strongly positive towards the EBM strategy, especially of the tool's convenience and utility for answering issues raised during case-based learning sessions. About 90% of the students responded that the tool was easy to use, productive and accessed for half or more of their search needs. This study provides evidence that the integration of an educational EBM search tool can be positively received by preclinical medical students.

  3. Perception-Link Behavior Model: Supporting a Novel Operator Interface for a Customizable Anthropomorphic Telepresence Robot

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    William Gu

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available A customizable anthropomorphic telepresence robot (CATR is an emerging medium that might have the highest degree of social presence among the existing mediated communication mediums. Unfortunately, there are problems with teleoperating a CATR, and these problems can deteriorate the gesture motion in a CATR. These problems are the disruption during decoupling, discontinuity due to the unstable transmission and jerkiness due to the reactive collision avoidance. From the review, none of the existing interfaces can simultaneously fix all of the problems. Hence, a novel framework with the perception-link behavior model (PLBM was proposed. The PLBM adopts the distributed spatiotemporal representation for all of its input signals. Equipping it with other components, the PLBM can solve the above problems with some limitations. For instance, the PLBM can retrieve missing modalities from its experience during decoupling. Next, the PLBM can handle up to a high level of drop rate in the network connection because it is dealing with gesture style and not pose. For collision prevention, the PLBM can tune the incoming gesture style so that the CATR can deliberately and smoothly avoid a collision. In summary, the framework consists of PLBM being able to increase the user’s presence on a CATR by synthesizing expressive user gestures.

  4. In Search of the Political Value of the Federalism Cooperative

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marcos Silva Marinho

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available This article aims to analyze the constitutional affirmation of cooperative federalism as an organizational model of the Brazilian state and the difficulties of its implementation. To do so, were used the post- positivist theories, that defend the indispensability of moral values for the legitimation of institutional practices, and some sociological theories that, analyzing the consolidation of the nation-state as the archetype of social organization of modernity, were able to distinguish the categories "state" and "nation" as not necessarily complementary elements. Through this distinction, the article tried to discuss the relationship among these categories in the construction of Brazil's social fabric.

  5. Information access in the art history domain. Evaluating a federated search engine for Rembrandt research

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Verberne, S.; Boves, L.W.J.; Bosch, A.P.J. van den

    2016-01-01

    The art history domain is an interesting case for search engines tailored to the digital humanities, because the domain involves different types of sources (primary and secondary; text and images). One example of an art history search engine is RemBench, which provides access to information in four

  6. DataONE: A Data Federation with Provenance Support

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Cao, Yang [University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Jones, Christopher [National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara; Cuevas-Vicenttin, Victor [ Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico; Jones, Matthew B. [National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara; Ludascher, Bertram [University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; McPhillips, Timothy [University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Missier, Paolo [Newcastle University, UK; Schwalm, Christopher [Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC), Massachusetts; Slaughter, Peter [National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara; Vieglais, Dave [University of Kansas; Walker, Lauren [National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara

    2016-01-01

    DataONE is a federated data network focusing on earth and environmental science data. We present the provenance and search features of DataONE by means of an example involving three earth scientists who interact through a DataONE Member Node. DataONE provenance systems enable reproducible research and facilitate proper attribution of scientific results transitively across generations of derived data products.

  7. Anesthesia report card - a customizable tool for performance improvement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peccora, Christian D; Gimlich, Robert; Cornell, Richard P; Vacanti, Charles A; Ehrenfeld, Jesse M; Urman, Richard D

    2014-09-01

    historical information, and information about peers in the department and within each subspecialty group. We demonstrate the creation of an online anesthesia report card that incorporates metrics most likely to engender positive changes in practice and academic responsibilities. This tool provides timely and customized information for each anesthesia practitioner, designed to be easily modifiable to improve the quantity, quality, and substance of metrics being measured. Finally, our tool could serve as a template for a performance measuring tool that can be customizable to a wide variety of practice settings, and upon which both monetary and non-monetary incentives might be based in the future.

  8. Identification of land areas suitable for Fadama farming at Federal ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Fadama farming provides a platform for sustained crop cultivation during dry season. This research was directed towards identifying new land areas within the Federal University of Agriculture with the use of Geographical Information System (GIS). The few existing Fadama sites within the study area were searched and their ...

  9. The Validity of Warrantless Searches under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shanks, Michael D.

    1975-01-01

    One of the most controversial federal acts providing for random administrative searches is the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA). The author reviews the search and seizure law and concludes that abandonment of Fourth Amendment rights should not be predicated on the mere convenience of even a justifiable regulatory scheme. (JT)

  10. A novel customizable modular bioreactor system for whole-heart cultivation under controlled 3D biomechanical stimulation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hülsmann, Jörn; Aubin, Hug; Kranz, Alexander; Godehardt, Erhardt; Munakata, Hiroshi; Kamiya, Hiroyuki; Barth, Mareike; Lichtenberg, Artur; Akhyari, Payam

    2013-09-01

    In the last decade, cardiovascular tissue engineering has made great progress developing new strategies for regenerative medicine applications. However, while tissue engineered heart valves are already entering the clinical routine, tissue engineered myocardial substitutes are still restrained to experimental approaches. In contrast to the heart valves, tissue engineered myocardium cannot be repopulated in vivo because of its biological complexity, requiring elaborate cultivation conditions ex vivo. Although new promising approaches-like the whole-heart decellularization concept-have entered the myocardial tissue engineering field, bioreactor technology needed for the generation of functional myocardial tissue still lags behind in the sense of user-friendly, flexible and low cost systems. Here, we present a novel customizable modular bioreactor system that can be used for whole-heart cultivation. Out of a commercially obtainable original equipment manufacturer platform we constructed a modular bioreactor system specifically aimed at the cultivation of decellularized whole-hearts through perfusion and controlled 3D biomechanical stimulation with a simple but highly flexible operation platform based on LabVIEW. The modular setup not only allows a wide range of variance regarding medium conditioning under controlled 3D myocardial stretching but can also easily be upgraded for e.g. electrophysiological monitoring or stimulation, allowing for a tailor-made low-cost myocardial bioreactor system.

  11. Data federation strategies for ATLAS using XRootD

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gardner, Robert; Campana, Simone; Duckeck, Guenter; Elmsheuser, Johannes; Hanushevsky, Andrew; Hönig, Friedrich G.; Iven, Jan; Legger, Federica; Vukotic, Ilija; Yang, Wei; Atlas Collaboration

    2014-06-01

    In the past year the ATLAS Collaboration accelerated its program to federate data storage resources using an architecture based on XRootD with its attendant redirection and storage integration services. The main goal of the federation is an improvement in the data access experience for the end user while allowing more efficient and intelligent use of computing resources. Along with these advances come integration with existing ATLAS production services (PanDA and its pilot services) and data management services (DQ2, and in the next generation, Rucio). Functional testing of the federation has been integrated into the standard ATLAS and WLCG monitoring frameworks and a dedicated set of tools provides high granularity information on its current and historical usage. We use a federation topology designed to search from the site's local storage outward to its region and to globally distributed storage resources. We describe programmatic testing of various federation access modes including direct access over the wide area network and staging of remote data files to local disk. To support job-brokering decisions, a time-dependent cost-of-data-access matrix is made taking into account network performance and key site performance factors. The system's response to production-scale physics analysis workloads, either from individual end-users or ATLAS analysis services, is discussed.

  12. Evaluation of User Interface of DL + Federated Search Engine from the Perspective of M.A / M.S.C Students in Al-Zahra University in order to Provide Federated Search Engines User Interface Pattern

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amir Ghaebi

    2014-02-01

    The results showed that the major component from graduate students' perspective is guidance and navigation and searched filter components. Results indicate that more than 50 percent of students the importance of 74 criteria of 96 criteria considered high and very high and, (therefore the majority of the criteria in the study from the viewpoints are acceptable. However, findings also showed that among the four components of this study, the search filter, display and record review, consolidation and guidance is a positive relation, and between the views of different faculties is not significant difference about the importance of criterias and components.

  13. Data federation strategies for ATLAS using XRootD

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gardner, Robert; Vukotic, Ilija; Campana, Simone; Iven, Jan; Duckeck, Guenter; Elmsheuser, Johannes; Hönig, Friedrich G; Legger, Federica; Hanushevsky, Andrew; Yang, Wei

    2014-01-01

    In the past year the ATLAS Collaboration accelerated its program to federate data storage resources using an architecture based on XRootD with its attendant redirection and storage integration services. The main goal of the federation is an improvement in the data access experience for the end user while allowing more efficient and intelligent use of computing resources. Along with these advances come integration with existing ATLAS production services (PanDA and its pilot services) and data management services (DQ2, and in the next generation, Rucio). Functional testing of the federation has been integrated into the standard ATLAS and WLCG monitoring frameworks and a dedicated set of tools provides high granularity information on its current and historical usage. We use a federation topology designed to search from the site's local storage outward to its region and to globally distributed storage resources. We describe programmatic testing of various federation access modes including direct access over the wide area network and staging of remote data files to local disk. To support job-brokering decisions, a time-dependent cost-of-data-access matrix is made taking into account network performance and key site performance factors. The system's response to production-scale physics analysis workloads, either from individual end-users or ATLAS analysis services, is discussed.

  14. 電子資源整合查詢系統使用者接受度與使用行為之研究 A Study on User Perceptions and User Behavior of an Online Federated Search System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ching-Yi Lee

    2012-03-01

    Full Text Available 本研究探討使用者對電子資源整合查詢系統的認知情形、系統接受度與使用行為。本研究以科技接受模式為框架,發展適用於評量使用者對整合查詢系統之接受度與使用行為的問卷,繼而以交大圖書館之MetaLib系統為個案,探討該館讀者使用整合查詢系統的接受程度與使用行為,探討影響整合查詢系統使用行為的相關因素,分析本研究所提出之科技接受模式外部變項「教育訓練認知」和該模式之「易用性認知」、「有用性認知」、「態度」、「使用意願」及「使用行為」等變項間的關係。研究結果發現,整合查詢系統有助於使用者找尋所需的資源,使用者對於整合查詢系統功能的認同程度頗高,絕大多數會推薦他人使用該系統,但在系統功能、介面設計與使用者教育訓練方面仍有改善空間。結果證實教育訓練認知、有用性認知、易用性認知、態度、使用意願確實會影響使用者對整合查詢系統之認知情形、系統接受度與使用行為。This study aims at investigating the perceptions, acceptance and usage behavior of users on federated search systems. The research method involved the development of a questionnaire on users’ satisfaction and acceptance of federated search systems based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM. The federated search system implemented in National Chiao Tung University (NCTU was used as a case system. In addition to the six constructs of TAM, i.e. perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, attitude, behavioral intention, and actual use, the construct user training is proposed as the external variable. After the development of the questionnaire was finished, an online survey was conducted. 403 effective responses were collected. Through Pearson-product moment correlation and structural equation modeling, the correlation and causal relationships between factors which influence the

  15. VennDiagramWeb: a web application for the generation of highly customizable Venn and Euler diagrams.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lam, Felix; Lalansingh, Christopher M; Babaran, Holly E; Wang, Zhiyuan; Prokopec, Stephenie D; Fox, Natalie S; Boutros, Paul C

    2016-10-03

    Visualization of data generated by high-throughput, high-dimensionality experiments is rapidly becoming a rate-limiting step in computational biology. There is an ongoing need to quickly develop high-quality visualizations that can be easily customized or incorporated into automated pipelines. This often requires an interface for manual plot modification, rapid cycles of tweaking visualization parameters, and the generation of graphics code. To facilitate this process for the generation of highly-customizable, high-resolution Venn and Euler diagrams, we introduce VennDiagramWeb: a web application for the widely used VennDiagram R package. VennDiagramWeb is hosted at http://venndiagram.res.oicr.on.ca/ . VennDiagramWeb allows real-time modification of Venn and Euler diagrams, with parameter setting through a web interface and immediate visualization of results. It allows customization of essentially all aspects of figures, but also supports integration into computational pipelines via download of R code. Users can upload data and download figures in a range of formats, and there is exhaustive support documentation. VennDiagramWeb allows the easy creation of Venn and Euler diagrams for computational biologists, and indeed many other fields. Its ability to support real-time graphics changes that are linked to downloadable code that can be integrated into automated pipelines will greatly facilitate the improved visualization of complex datasets. For application support please contact Paul.Boutros@oicr.on.ca.

  16. NeuroLOG: sharing neuroimaging data using an ontology-based federated approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gibaud, Bernard; Kassel, Gilles; Dojat, Michel; Batrancourt, Bénédicte; Michel, Franck; Gaignard, Alban; Montagnat, Johan

    2011-01-01

    This paper describes the design of the NeuroLOG middleware data management layer, which provides a platform to share heterogeneous and distributed neuroimaging data using a federated approach. The semantics of shared information is captured through a multi-layer application ontology and a derived Federated Schema used to align the heterogeneous database schemata from different legacy repositories. The system also provides a facility to translate the relational data into a semantic representation that can be queried using a semantic search engine thus enabling the exploitation of knowledge embedded in the ontology. This work shows the relevance of the distributed approach for neurosciences data management. Although more complex than a centralized approach, it is also more realistic when considering the federation of large data sets, and open strong perspectives to implement multi-centric neurosciences studies.

  17. Integration of a Zero-footprint Cloud-based Picture Archiving and Communication System with Customizable Forms for Radiology Research and Education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hostetter, Jason; Khanna, Nishanth; Mandell, Jacob C

    2018-06-01

    The purpose of this study was to integrate web-based forms with a zero-footprint cloud-based Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) to create a tool of potential benefit to radiology research and education. Web-based forms were created with a front-end and back-end architecture utilizing common programming languages including Vue.js, Node.js and MongoDB, and integrated into an existing zero-footprint cloud-based PACS. The web-based forms application can be accessed in any modern internet browser on desktop or mobile devices and allows the creation of customizable forms consisting of a variety of questions types. Each form can be linked to an individual DICOM examination or a collection of DICOM examinations. Several uses are demonstrated through a series of case studies, including implementation of a research platform for multi-reader multi-case (MRMC) studies and other imaging research, and creation of an online Objective Structure Clinical Examination (OSCE) and an educational case file. Copyright © 2018 The Association of University Radiologists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  18. Sources of federal funding in plastic and reconstructive surgery research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Larson, Kelsey E; Gastman, Brian

    2014-05-01

    In the last several years, federal funding has become increasingly difficult to obtain. The purpose of this project was to define the level of federal funding among plastic surgeons in the modern era. The authors evaluated members of the Plastic Surgery Research Council because of their expected invested interested in research. The authors collected information from 1998 to 2012 on funding using curricula vitae and publically available online tools. Data on Plastic Surgery Foundation funding was also collected to determine its role in supporting federally funded investigators. Of 256 individuals, the authors found 41 to be primary investigators on federally funded grants, with the majority receiving one to two awards. Common subtypes of awards included National Institutes of Health R01 (n = 15), K08 (n = 9), and R21 (n = 6). Limited funding from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense was identified. Despite a steady number of available National Institutes of Health awards, plastic surgery recipients have grown in number over the past 15 years. In a review of 20 years of Plastic Surgery Foundation awards, 113 Plastic Surgery Research Council members (44.1 percent) were awardees, averaging 1.8 awards per person. Twenty-nine Plastic Surgery Foundation awardees were also recipients of federal funding; 12 individuals received federal funding without prior Plastic Surgery Foundation funding. A search of plastic surgeons indicates a limited but increasing number of individuals receive federal funding. Plastic Surgery Foundation awards appear to be helpful in supporting investigators as they move to larger federal awards.

  19. Depolymerizable Poly(O-vinyl carbamate-alt-sulfones) as Customizable Macromolecular Scaffolds for Mucosal Drug Delivery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kumar, Kaushlendra; Castaño, Eduard Jimenez; Weidner, Andrew R; Yildirim, Adem; Goodwin, Andrew P

    2016-05-17

    Interest in stimulus responsive materials and polymers has grown over the years, having shown great promise in a diverse set of applications. For drug delivery, stimulus-responsive polymers have been shown to encapsulate therapeutic cargo such as small molecule drugs or proteins, deliver them to specific locations in the body, and release them so that they can induce a therapeutic effect in the patient. Most hydrolytically degradable polymers are synthesized via nucleophilic, anionic, or cationic polymerization, which generally requires protection of nucleophilic or protic side chains prior to polymerization. Here, we report the synthesis of novel, alternating copolymers of sulfur dioxide and O-vinyl carbamate monomers that boast excellent functional group tolerance and pH-dependent instability. Alternating copolymers were synthesized containing pendant functionalities such as alcohol, carboxylic acid, ester, and azide without deprotection or post-polymerization modification. The copolymers were then formulated via nanoprecipitation into polymer nanoparticles capable of encapsulating small molecule dyes. The polymer nanoparticles were found to degrade rapidly at pH > 6 and were stable even in highly acidic conditions. Based on this observation, a proof-of-concept study for mucosal delivery was performed in polymer nanoparticles entrapped in a mucus model. At pH 8 the diffusion of encapsulated dye was found to be similar to free dye, while at pH 5 the diffusion coefficient was an order of magnitude lower. Cell viability was retained at 200 µg/mL particles after 24 h incubation. These polymers thus show promise as highly customizable scaffolds for mucosal drug delivery.

  20. SU-E-T-424: Feasibility of 3D Printed Radiological Equivalent Customizable Tissue Like Materials

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Johnson, D; Ferreira, C; Ahmad, S [University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, Oklahoma City, OK (United States)

    2015-06-15

    Purpose: To investigate the feasibility of 3D printing CT# specific radiological equivalent tissue like materials. Methods: A desktop 3D printer was utilized to create a series of 3 cm x 3 cm x 2 cm PLA plastic blocks of varying fill densities. The fill pattern was selected to be hexagonal (Figure 1). A series of blocks was filled with paraffin and compared to a series filled with air. The blocks were evaluated with a “GE Lightspeed” 16 slice CT scanner and average CT# of the centers of the materials was determined. The attenuation properties of the subsequent blocks were also evaluated through their isocentric irradiation via “TrueBeam” accelerator under six beam energies. Blocks were placed upon plastic-water slabs of 4 cm in thickness assuring electronic equilibrium and data was collected via Sun Nuclear “Edge” diode detector. Relative changes in dose were compared with those predicted by Varian “Eclipse” TPS. Results: The CT# of 3D printed blocks was found to be a controllable variable. The fill material was able to narrow the range of variability in each sample. The attenuation of the block tracked with the density of the total fill structure. Assigned CT values in the TPS were seen to fall within an expected range predicted by the CT scans of the 3D printed blocks. Conclusion: We have demonstrated that it is possible to 3D print materials of varying tissue equivalencies, and that these materials have radiological properties that are customizable and predictable.

  1. SU-E-T-424: Feasibility of 3D Printed Radiological Equivalent Customizable Tissue Like Materials

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Johnson, D; Ferreira, C; Ahmad, S

    2015-01-01

    Purpose: To investigate the feasibility of 3D printing CT# specific radiological equivalent tissue like materials. Methods: A desktop 3D printer was utilized to create a series of 3 cm x 3 cm x 2 cm PLA plastic blocks of varying fill densities. The fill pattern was selected to be hexagonal (Figure 1). A series of blocks was filled with paraffin and compared to a series filled with air. The blocks were evaluated with a “GE Lightspeed” 16 slice CT scanner and average CT# of the centers of the materials was determined. The attenuation properties of the subsequent blocks were also evaluated through their isocentric irradiation via “TrueBeam” accelerator under six beam energies. Blocks were placed upon plastic-water slabs of 4 cm in thickness assuring electronic equilibrium and data was collected via Sun Nuclear “Edge” diode detector. Relative changes in dose were compared with those predicted by Varian “Eclipse” TPS. Results: The CT# of 3D printed blocks was found to be a controllable variable. The fill material was able to narrow the range of variability in each sample. The attenuation of the block tracked with the density of the total fill structure. Assigned CT values in the TPS were seen to fall within an expected range predicted by the CT scans of the 3D printed blocks. Conclusion: We have demonstrated that it is possible to 3D print materials of varying tissue equivalencies, and that these materials have radiological properties that are customizable and predictable

  2. Forensic utilization of familial searches in DNA databases.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gershaw, Cassandra J; Schweighardt, Andrew J; Rourke, Linda C; Wallace, Margaret M

    2011-01-01

    DNA evidence is widely recognized as an invaluable tool in the process of investigation and identification, as well as one of the most sought after types of evidence for presentation to a jury. In the United States, the development of state and federal DNA databases has greatly impacted the forensic community by creating an efficient, searchable system that can be used to eliminate or include suspects in an investigation based on matching DNA profiles - the profile already in the database to the profile of the unknown sample in evidence. Recent changes in legislation have begun to allow for the possibility to expand the parameters of DNA database searches, taking into account the possibility of familial searches. This article discusses prospective positive outcomes of utilizing familial DNA searches and acknowledges potential negative outcomes, thereby presenting both sides of this very complicated, rapidly evolving situation. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. Behavioural and brain responses related to Internet search and memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dong, Guangheng; Potenza, Marc N

    2015-10-01

    The ready availability of data via searches on the Internet has changed how many people seek and perhaps store and recall information, although the brain mechanisms underlying these processes are not well understood. This study investigated brain mechanisms underlying Internet-based vs. non-Internet-based searching. The results showed that Internet searching was associated with lower accuracy in recalling information as compared with traditional book searching. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, Internet searching was associated with less regional brain activation in the left ventral stream, the association area of the temporal-parietal-occipital cortices, and the middle frontal cortex. When comparing novel items with remembered trials, Internet-based searching was associated with higher brain activation in the right orbitofrontal cortex and lower brain activation in the right middle temporal gyrus when facing those novel trials. Brain activations in the middle temporal gyrus were inversely correlated with response times, and brain activations in the orbitofrontal cortex were positively correlated with self-reported search impulses. Taken together, the results suggest that, although Internet-based searching may have facilitated the information-acquisition process, this process may have been performed more hastily and be more prone to difficulties in recollection. In addition, people appear less confident in recalling information learned through Internet searching and that recent Internet searching may promote motivation to use the Internet. © 2015 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  4. Federated Search Tools in Fusion Centers: Bridging Databases in the Information Sharing Environment

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-09-01

    Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative ODNI Office of the Director of National Intelligence OSINT Open Source Intelligence PERF Police Executive...Fusion centers are encouraged to explore all available information sources to enhance the intelligence analysis process. It follows then that fusion...WSIC also utilizes ACCURINT, a web-based, subscription service. ACCURINT searches open source information and is able to collect and collate

  5. Mountain Search and Rescue with Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Silvagni, Mario; Tonoli, Andrea; Zenerino, Enrico; Chiaberge, Marcello

    2016-04-01

    devices for Mountain Safety and shows the design, construction and testing of a multipurpose RPAS to be used in mountain operations. The flying, multi-rotors based, platform and its embedded avionics is designed to meet environmental requirements such as temperature, altitude and wind, assuring the capability of carrying different payloads (separately or together) aimed to: • Avalanche Beacon search with automatic signal recognition and path following algorithms for quick buried identification. • Visual (visible and InfraRed) search and rescue for identifying missing persons on snow and woods even during night. • Customizable payload deployment to drop emergency kits or specific explosive cartridge for controlled avalanche detachment. The resulting small (less than 5kg) RPA is capable of full autonomous flight (including take-off and landing) on a pre-programmed, or easily configurable, custom mission. Furthermore, the embedded autopilot manages the sensors measurements (i.e. beacons or cameras) to update the flying mission. Specific features such as laser altimeter for terrain following have been developed and implemented. Remote control of the RPA from a ground station is available and a possible infrastructure, based on cloud/on-line architecture, for the real application is presented.

  6. Rod-based Fabrication of Customizable Soft Robotic Pneumatic Gripper Devices for Delicate Tissue Manipulation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Low, Jin-Huat; Yeow, Chen-Hua

    2016-08-02

    Soft compliant gripping is essential in delicate surgical manipulation for minimizing the risk of tissue grip damage caused by high stress concentrations at the point of contact. It can be achieved by complementing traditional rigid grippers with soft robotic pneumatic gripper devices. This manuscript describes a rod-based approach that combined both 3D-printing and a modified soft lithography technique to fabricate the soft pneumatic gripper. In brief, the pneumatic featureless mold with chamber component is 3D-printed and the rods were used to create the pneumatic channels that connect to the chamber. This protocol eliminates the risk of channels occluding during the sealing process and the need for external air source or related control circuit. The soft gripper consists of a chamber filled with air, and one or more gripper arms with a pneumatic channel in each arm connected to the chamber. The pneumatic channel is positioned close to the outer wall to create different stiffness in the gripper arm. Upon compression of the chamber which generates pressure on the pneumatic channel, the gripper arm will bend inward to form a close grip posture because the outer wall area is more compliant. The soft gripper can be inserted into a 3D-printed handling tool with two different control modes for chamber compression: manual gripper mode with a movable piston, and robotic gripper mode with a linear actuator. The double-arm gripper with two actuatable arms was able to pick up objects of sizes up to 2 mm and yet generate lower compressive forces as compared to elastomer-coated and non-coated rigid grippers. The feasibility of having other designs, such as single-arm or hook gripper, was also demonstrated, which further highlighted the customizability of the soft gripper device, and it's potential to be used in delicate surgical manipulation to reduce the risk of tissue grip damage.

  7. Merit pay: the Federal Government's pay-for-performance experience.

    OpenAIRE

    Holliman, Sherry Diane.

    1983-01-01

    Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited For many years, businesses in private industry have been utilizing and experimenting with various forms of performance-based pay. These innovations have been part of a continuing search by organizations for better approaches to administering pay. With the passing of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, the Federal Government began its form of this concept entitled, 'Merit Pay'. Although many studies have examined uses in the areas of ...

  8. HashDist: Reproducible, Relocatable, Customizable, Cross-Platform Software Stacks for Open Hydrological Science

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahmadia, A. J.; Kees, C. E.

    2014-12-01

    Developing scientific software is a continuous balance between not reinventing the wheel and getting fragile codes to interoperate with one another. Binary software distributions such as Anaconda provide a robust starting point for many scientific software packages, but this solution alone is insufficient for many scientific software developers. HashDist provides a critical component of the development workflow, enabling highly customizable, source-driven, and reproducible builds for scientific software stacks, available from both the IPython Notebook and the command line. To address these issues, the Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory at the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center has funded the development of HashDist in collaboration with Simula Research Laboratories and the University of Texas at Austin. HashDist is motivated by a functional approach to package build management, and features intelligent caching of sources and builds, parametrized build specifications, and the ability to interoperate with system compilers and packages. HashDist enables the easy specification of "software stacks", which allow both the novice user to install a default environment and the advanced user to configure every aspect of their build in a modular fashion. As an advanced feature, HashDist builds can be made relocatable, allowing the easy redistribution of binaries on all three major operating systems as well as cloud, and supercomputing platforms. As a final benefit, all HashDist builds are reproducible, with a build hash specifying exactly how each component of the software stack was installed. This talk discusses the role of HashDist in the hydrological sciences, including its use by the Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory in the development and deployment of the Proteus Toolkit as well as the Rapid Operational Access and Maneuver Support project. We demonstrate HashDist in action, and show how it can effectively support development, deployment, teaching, and

  9. GeoSearch: A lightweight broking middleware for geospatial resources discovery

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gui, Z.; Yang, C.; Liu, K.; Xia, J.

    2012-12-01

    With petabytes of geodata, thousands of geospatial web services available over the Internet, it is critical to support geoscience research and applications by finding the best-fit geospatial resources from the massive and heterogeneous resources. Past decades' developments witnessed the operation of many service components to facilitate geospatial resource management and discovery. However, efficient and accurate geospatial resource discovery is still a big challenge due to the following reasons: 1)The entry barriers (also called "learning curves") hinder the usability of discovery services to end users. Different portals and catalogues always adopt various access protocols, metadata formats and GUI styles to organize, present and publish metadata. It is hard for end users to learn all these technical details and differences. 2)The cost for federating heterogeneous services is high. To provide sufficient resources and facilitate data discovery, many registries adopt periodic harvesting mechanism to retrieve metadata from other federated catalogues. These time-consuming processes lead to network and storage burdens, data redundancy, and also the overhead of maintaining data consistency. 3)The heterogeneous semantics issues in data discovery. Since the keyword matching is still the primary search method in many operational discovery services, the search accuracy (precision and recall) is hard to guarantee. Semantic technologies (such as semantic reasoning and similarity evaluation) offer a solution to solve these issues. However, integrating semantic technologies with existing service is challenging due to the expandability limitations on the service frameworks and metadata templates. 4)The capabilities to help users make final selection are inadequate. Most of the existing search portals lack intuitive and diverse information visualization methods and functions (sort, filter) to present, explore and analyze search results. Furthermore, the presentation of the value

  10. A Customizable Flow Injection System for Automated, High Throughput, and Time Sensitive Ion Mobility Spectrometry and Mass Spectrometry Measurements

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Orton, Daniel J. [Biological Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, United States; Tfaily, Malak M. [Biological Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, United States; Moore, Ronald J. [Biological Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, United States; LaMarche, Brian L. [Biological Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, United States; Zheng, Xueyun [Biological Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, United States; Fillmore, Thomas L. [Biological Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, United States; Chu, Rosalie K. [Biological Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, United States; Weitz, Karl K. [Biological Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, United States; Monroe, Matthew E. [Biological Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, United States; Kelly, Ryan T. [Biological Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, United States; Smith, Richard D. [Biological Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, United States; Baker, Erin S. [Biological Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, United States

    2017-12-13

    To better understand disease conditions and environmental perturbations, multi-omic studies (i.e. proteomic, lipidomic, metabolomic, etc. analyses) are vastly increasing in popularity. In a multi-omic study, a single sample is typically extracted in multiple ways and numerous analyses are performed using different instruments. Thus, one sample becomes many analyses, making high throughput and reproducible evaluations a necessity. One way to address the numerous samples and varying instrumental conditions is to utilize a flow injection analysis (FIA) system for rapid sample injection. While some FIA systems have been created to address these challenges, many have limitations such as high consumable costs, low pressure capabilities, limited pressure monitoring and fixed flow rates. To address these limitations, we created an automated, customizable FIA system capable of operating at diverse flow rates (~50 nL/min to 500 µL/min) to accommodate low- and high-flow instrument sources. This system can also operate at varying analytical throughputs from 24 to 1200 samples per day to enable different MS analysis approaches. Applications ranging from native protein analyses to molecular library construction were performed using the FIA system. The results from these studies showed a highly robust platform, providing consistent performance over many days without carryover as long as washing buffers specific to each molecular analysis were utilized.

  11. PingFederate

    Data.gov (United States)

    US Agency for International Development — PingFederate Server provides Identity Federation and Single Sign On Capabilities. Federated identity management (or identity federation) enables enterprises to...

  12. 77 FR 66087 - Federal Perkins Loan Program, Federal Family Education Loan Program, and William D. Ford Federal...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-11-01

    ..., and 685 Federal Perkins Loan Program, Federal Family Education Loan Program, and William D. Ford... 685 RIN 1840-AD05 [Docket ID ED-2012-OPE-0010] Federal Perkins Loan Program, Federal Family Education... (Perkins Loan) program, Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program, and William D. Ford Federal Direct...

  13. Metadata Creation, Management and Search System for your Scientific Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Devarakonda, R.; Palanisamy, G.

    2012-12-01

    Mercury Search Systems is a set of tools for creating, searching, and retrieving of biogeochemical metadata. Mercury toolset provides orders of magnitude improvements in search speed, support for any metadata format, integration with Google Maps for spatial queries, multi-facetted type search, search suggestions, support for RSS (Really Simple Syndication) delivery of search results, and enhanced customization to meet the needs of the multiple projects that use Mercury. Mercury's metadata editor provides a easy way for creating metadata and Mercury's search interface provides a single portal to search for data and information contained in disparate data management systems, each of which may use any metadata format including FGDC, ISO-19115, Dublin-Core, Darwin-Core, DIF, ECHO, and EML. Mercury harvests metadata and key data from contributing project servers distributed around the world and builds a centralized index. The search interfaces then allow the users to perform a variety of fielded, spatial, and temporal searches across these metadata sources. This centralized repository of metadata with distributed data sources provides extremely fast search results to the user, while allowing data providers to advertise the availability of their data and maintain complete control and ownership of that data. Mercury is being used more than 14 different projects across 4 federal agencies. It was originally developed for NASA, with continuing development funded by NASA, USGS, and DOE for a consortium of projects. Mercury search won the NASA's Earth Science Data Systems Software Reuse Award in 2008. References: R. Devarakonda, G. Palanisamy, B.E. Wilson, and J.M. Green, "Mercury: reusable metadata management data discovery and access system", Earth Science Informatics, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 87-94, May 2010. R. Devarakonda, G. Palanisamy, J.M. Green, B.E. Wilson, "Data sharing and retrieval using OAI-PMH", Earth Science Informatics DOI: 10.1007/s12145-010-0073-0, (2010);

  14. Proposal plan of classification faceted for federal universities

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Renata Santos Brandão

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available This study aims to present a faceted classification plan for the archival management of documents in the federal universities of Brazil. For this, was done a literature review on the archival management in Brazil, the types of classification plans and the theory of the Ranganathan faceted classification, through searches in databases in the areas of Librarianship and Archivology. It was identified the classification plan used in the Federal Institutions of Higher Education to represent the functional facet and created the structural classification plan to represent the structural facet. The two classification plans were inserted into a digital repository management system to give rise to the faceted classification plan. The system used was Tainacan, free software wordpress-based used in digital document management. The developed faceted classification plan allows the user to choose and even combine the way to look for the information that guarantees agreater efficiency in the information retrieval.

  15. AIE-doped poly(ionic liquid) photonic spheres: a single sphere-based customizable sensing platform for the discrimination of multi-analytes† †Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Synthesis and characterization of the AIE luminogen, experimental details, response profiles and results of the multivariate analysis. See DOI: 10.1039/c7sc02409f Click here for additional data file.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Wanlin; Gao, Ning; Cui, Jiecheng; Wang, Chen; Wang, Shiqiang; Zhang, Guanxin; Dong, Xiaobiao

    2017-01-01

    By simultaneously exploiting the unique properties of ionic liquids and aggregation-induced emission (AIE) luminogens, as well as photonic structures, a novel customizable sensing system for multi-analytes was developed based on a single AIE-doped poly(ionic liquid) photonic sphere. It was found that due to the extraordinary multiple intermolecular interactions involved in the ionic liquid units, one single sphere could differentially interact with broader classes of analytes, thus generating response patterns with remarkable diversity. Moreover, the optical properties of both the AIE luminogen and photonic structure integrated in the poly(ionic liquid) sphere provide multidimensional signal channels for transducing the involved recognition process in a complementary manner and the acquisition of abundant and sufficient sensing information could be easily achieved on only one sphere sensor element. More importantly, the sensing performance of our poly(ionic liquid) photonic sphere is designable and customizable through a simple ion-exchange reaction and target-oriented multi-analyte sensing can be conveniently realized using a selective receptor species, such as counterions, showing great flexibility and extendibility. The power of our single sphere-based customizable sensing system was exemplified by the successful on-demand detection and discrimination of four multi-analyte challenge systems: all 20 natural amino acids, nine important phosphate derivatives, ten metal ions and three pairs of enantiomers. To further demonstrate the potential of our spheres for real-life application, 20 amino acids in human urine and their 26 unprecedented complex mixtures were also discriminated between by the single sphere-based array. PMID:28989662

  16. An integrated biomedical knowledge extraction and analysis platform: using federated search and document clustering technology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taylor, Donald P

    2007-01-01

    High content screening (HCS) requires time-consuming and often complex iterative information retrieval and assessment approaches to optimally conduct drug discovery programs and biomedical research. Pre- and post-HCS experimentation both require the retrieval of information from public as well as proprietary literature in addition to structured information assets such as compound libraries and projects databases. Unfortunately, this information is typically scattered across a plethora of proprietary bioinformatics tools and databases and public domain sources. Consequently, single search requests must be presented to each information repository, forcing the results to be manually integrated for a meaningful result set. Furthermore, these bioinformatics tools and data repositories are becoming increasingly complex to use; typically they fail to allow for more natural query interfaces. Vivisimo has developed an enterprise software platform to bridge disparate silos of information. The platform automatically categorizes search results into descriptive folders without the use of taxonomies to drive the categorization. A new approach to information retrieval for HCS experimentation is proposed.

  17. A Customizable Flow Injection System for Automated, High Throughput, and Time Sensitive Ion Mobility Spectrometry and Mass Spectrometry Measurements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Orton, Daniel J; Tfaily, Malak M; Moore, Ronald J; LaMarche, Brian L; Zheng, Xueyun; Fillmore, Thomas L; Chu, Rosalie K; Weitz, Karl K; Monroe, Matthew E; Kelly, Ryan T; Smith, Richard D; Baker, Erin S

    2018-01-02

    To better understand disease conditions and environmental perturbations, multiomic studies combining proteomic, lipidomic, and metabolomic analyses are vastly increasing in popularity. In a multiomic study, a single sample is typically extracted in multiple ways, and various analyses are performed using different instruments, most often based upon mass spectrometry (MS). Thus, one sample becomes many measurements, making high throughput and reproducible evaluations a necessity. One way to address the numerous samples and varying instrumental conditions is to utilize a flow injection analysis (FIA) system for rapid sample injections. While some FIA systems have been created to address these challenges, many have limitations such as costly consumables, low pressure capabilities, limited pressure monitoring, and fixed flow rates. To address these limitations, we created an automated, customizable FIA system capable of operating at a range of flow rates (∼50 nL/min to 500 μL/min) to accommodate both low- and high-flow MS ionization sources. This system also functions at varying analytical throughputs from 24 to 1200 samples per day to enable different MS analysis approaches. Applications ranging from native protein analyses to molecular library construction were performed using the FIA system, and results showed a highly robust and reproducible platform capable of providing consistent performance over many days without carryover, as long as washing buffers specific to each molecular analysis were utilized.

  18. Twist on protein microarrays: layering wax-patterned nitrocellulose to create customizable and separable arrays of multiplexed affinity columns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    de Lange, Victoria; Vörös, János

    2014-05-06

    We developed the simple and inexpensive FoRe microarray to simultaneously test several 1 μL samples for multiple proteins. By combining forward and reverse phase microarrays into an innovative three-dimensional format, the FoRe array exploits the advantages and eliminates several drawbacks of the traditional approaches (i.e., large sample volumes, protein loss, and cross-reactivity between detection antibodies). Samples are pipetted into an array of separable, multiplexed affinity columns. Several nitrocellulose membranes, each functionalized with a different capture antibody, are stacked to create a customizable affinity column. The nitrocellulose is patterned with wax to form 25 isolated microspots on each layer, allowing us to analyze multiple samples in parallel. After running the immunoassay, the stacks are quickly disassembled, revealing 2D microarrays of different fractions from multiple samples. By combining the stack-and-separate technique with wax patterning, we keep the arrays low cost and easily tailored to a variety of applications. We successfully performed 3D multiplexing using a model system with mouse and rabbit IgG. Binding proved to be independent of the position in the stack, and the limit of detection for a mouse IgG sandwich assay was 7.3 pM in BSA and 15 pM in human plasma. The FoRe microarray makes it possible to identify protein expression patterns across several minute volume samples; for example, it could be used to analyze cell lysate in drug response studies or pricks of blood from small animal studies.

  19. Provider Use of a Novel EHR display in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Large Customizable Interactive Monitor (LCIM).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Asan, Onur; Holden, Richard J; Flynn, Kathryn E; Yang, Yushi; Azam, Laila; Scanlon, Matthew C

    2016-07-20

    The purpose of this study was to explore providers' perspectives on the use of a novel technology, "Large Customizable Interactive Monitor" (LCIM), a novel application of the electronic health record system implemented in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. We employed a qualitative approach to collect and analyze data from pediatric intensive care physicians, pediatric nurse practitioners, and acute care specialists. Using semi-structured interviews, we collected data from January to April, 2015. The research team analyzed the transcripts using an iterative coding method to identify common themes. Study results highlight contextual data on providers' use routines of the LCIM. Findings from thirty six interviews were classified into three groups: 1) providers' familiarity with the LCIM; 2) providers' use routines (i.e. when and how they use it); and 3) reasons why they use or do not use it. It is important to conduct baseline studies of the use of novel technologies. The importance of training and orientation affects the adoption and use patterns of this new technology. This study is notable for being the first to investigate a LCIM system, a next generation system implemented in the pediatric critical care setting. Our study revealed this next generation HIT might have great potential for family-centered rounds, team education during rounds, and family education/engagement in their child's health in the patient room. This study also highlights the effect of training and orientation on the adoption patterns of new technology.

  20. Federalism, Agenda Setting, and the Dynamics of Federal Education Policy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Manna, Paul

    This paper is part of a larger project on agenda setting in the U.S. federal system and the development of the federal education agenda since 1965. Two questions motivate the paper, one theoretical and the other empirical: (1) how does federalism affect the federal agenda?; and (2) what explains the development of federal involvement in K-12…

  1. Wound research funding from alternative sources of federal funds in 2012.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baquerizo Nole, Katherine L; Yim, Elizabeth; Van Driessche, Freya; Davidson, Jeffrey M; Martins-Green, Manuela; Sen, Chandan K; Tomic-Canic, Marjana; Kirsner, Robert S

    2014-01-01

    Chronic wounds represent a major healthcare burden, costing $25 billion annually, and are associated with high mortality. We previously reported that cutaneous wound healing represented only 0.1% ($29.8 million) of the National Institutes of Health budget. This current study focuses on quantifying the contribution by federal agencies other than the National Institutes of Health for fiscal year 2012. Federal databases including USA Spending, Veterans Affairs, Tracking Accountability in Government Grants Systems, Health Services Research Projects in Progress, and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, were searched for individual projects addressing wound healing. Twenty-seven projects were identified, totaling funding of $16,588,623 (median: $349,856). Four sponsor institutions accounted for 74% of awarded funds: Department of the Army, National Science Foundation, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality. Research projects and cooperative agreements comprised 44% and 37% of awarded grants. New applications and continuing projects represented 52% and 37%. Wound healing represented 0.15% of total medical research funded by the non-National Institutes of Health federal sector. Compared with potential impact on US public health, federal investment in wound research is exiguous. This analysis will draw attention to a disproportionately low investment in wound research and its perils to American public health. © 2014 by the Wound Healing Society.

  2. Federal Holidays

    Data.gov (United States)

    Office of Personnel Management — Federal law (5 U.S.C. 6103) establishes the following public holidays for Federal employees. Please note that most Federal employees work on a Monday through Friday...

  3. How to Implement a New Search System and Make Friends While Doing It!

    Science.gov (United States)

    Powers, Michelle M.; Contreras, Rhonda

    2013-01-01

    What could bring more change to an online library than going from a federated to a discovery search system? Not much! This paper will share what was learned about initiating and implementing an important change that ultimately impacts a variety of stakeholders, and the importance of collaboration between library personnel at all levels of an…

  4. Understanding Federalism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hickok, Eugene W., Jr.

    1990-01-01

    Urges returning to the original federalist debates to understand contemporary federalism. Reviews "The Federalist Papers," how federalism has evolved, and the centralization of the national government through acts of Congress and Supreme Court decisions. Recommends teaching about federalism as part of teaching about U.S. government…

  5. Vehicle access and search training manual. Report for Oct 77-sep 79

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Obermiller, J.E.; Wait, H.J.

    1979-11-01

    This Vehicle Access and Search Training Manual is intended to assist NRC-licensed organizations and their security personnel in developing vehicle access, control and search operations necessary at nuclear fuel cycle facilities and at reactor facilities. The manual is based on security requirements prescribed by The Nuclear Regulatory Commission as contained in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 73, 'Physical Protection of Plants and Materials.' As a condition of the licensing agreement, the licensee is required to maintain a physical protection system which includes a training program for security personnel. The manual includes lesson plans in (1) controlling vehicle entry and exit, (2) searching for contraband, and (3) protecting the facility from sabotage and/or theft of special nuclear materials. These training guidelines provide information and instruction for self-study, discussion and hands-on training. A job knowledge test reviews the entire training program

  6. Development of a novel and customizable two-solution mixing type spray nozzle for one-step preparation of nanoparticle-containing microparticles.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ozeki, Tetsuya; Akiyama, Yusuke; Takahashi, Norimitsu; Tagami, Tatsuaki; Tanaka, Toshiyuki; Fujii, Masashi; Okada, Hiroaki

    2012-01-01

    Production of drug nanoparticles is an effective strategy to enhance solubility and oral absorption of water-insoluble drugs. The handling of drug nanoparticles has been an important issue in drug formulation because nanoparticles easily aggregate each other and redispersion of these particles is very difficult. In the present study, we developed a unique two-solution mixing type spray nozzle that can prepare drug nanoparticles in microparticles in one step without any common solvent and surfactant, and then, the prepared formulation were evaluated. Ethylcellulose (EC) and mannitol (MAN) were used as a model polymer of water-insoluble compound and a water-soluble carrier, respectively. We characterized the EC/MAN microparticles produced by the novel spray nozzle when customizing the nozzle parts to mix EC and MAN solution. Relatively smaller EC nanoparticles (customizable parts in the nozzle. In addition, the core of EC nanoparticles (<50 nm) was also observed by atomic force microscopy. We also found that the mixing time in the nozzle parts affected the size and the standard deviation of EC nanoparticles. These results suggest that the size of EC nanoparticles in MAN microparticles is controllable by using this unique nozzle. After all, we could prepare MAN microparticles containing EC nanoparticles in one step by using the novel nozzle. The drug/MAN microparticles formulation produced by the nozzle may be useful for the handling of drug nanoparticles.

  7. One step generation of customizable gRNA vectors for multiplex CRISPR approaches through string assembly gRNA cloning (STAgR).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Breunig, Christopher T; Durovic, Tamara; Neuner, Andrea M; Baumann, Valentin; Wiesbeck, Maximilian F; Köferle, Anna; Götz, Magdalena; Ninkovic, Jovica; Stricker, Stefan H

    2018-01-01

    Novel applications based on the bacterial CRISPR system make genetic, genomic, transcriptional and epigenomic engineering widely accessible for the first time. A significant advantage of CRISPR over previous methods is its tremendous adaptability due to its bipartite nature. Cas9 or its engineered variants define the molecular effect, while short gRNAs determine the targeting sites. A majority of CRISPR approaches depend on the simultaneous delivery of multiple gRNAs into single cells, either as an essential precondition, to increase responsive cell populations or to enhance phenotypic outcomes. Despite these requirements, methods allowing the efficient generation and delivery of multiple gRNA expression units into single cells are still sparse. Here we present STAgR (String assembly gRNA cloning), a single step gRNA multiplexing system, that obtains its advantages by employing the N20 targeting sequences as necessary homologies for Gibson assembly. We show that STAgR allows reliable and cost-effective generation of vectors with high numbers of gRNAs enabling multiplexed CRISPR approaches. Moreover, STAgR is easily customizable, as vector backbones as well as gRNA structures, numbers and promoters can be freely chosen and combined. Finally, we demonstrate STAgR's widespread functionality, its efficiency in multi-targeting approaches, using it for both, genome and transcriptome editing, as well as applying it in vitro and in vivo.

  8. The Search Performance Evaluation and Prediction in Exploratory Search

    OpenAIRE

    LIU, FEI

    2016-01-01

    The exploratory search for complex search tasks requires an effective search behavior model to evaluate and predict user search performance. Few studies have investigated the relationship between user search behavior and search performance in exploratory search. This research adopts a mixed approach combining search system development, user search experiment, search query log analysis, and multivariate regression analysis to resolve the knowledge gap. Through this study, it is shown that expl...

  9. One visual search, many memory searches: An eye-tracking investigation of hybrid search.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Drew, Trafton; Boettcher, Sage E P; Wolfe, Jeremy M

    2017-09-01

    Suppose you go to the supermarket with a shopping list of 10 items held in memory. Your shopping expedition can be seen as a combination of visual search and memory search. This is known as "hybrid search." There is a growing interest in understanding how hybrid search tasks are accomplished. We used eye tracking to examine how manipulating the number of possible targets (the memory set size [MSS]) changes how observers (Os) search. We found that dwell time on each distractor increased with MSS, suggesting a memory search was being executed each time a new distractor was fixated. Meanwhile, although the rate of refixation increased with MSS, it was not nearly enough to suggest a strategy that involves repeatedly searching visual space for subgroups of the target set. These data provide a clear demonstration that hybrid search tasks are carried out via a "one visual search, many memory searches" heuristic in which Os examine items in the visual array once with a very low rate of refixations. For each item selected, Os activate a memory search that produces logarithmic response time increases with increased MSS. Furthermore, the percentage of distractors fixated was strongly modulated by the MSS: More items in the MSS led to a higher percentage of fixated distractors. Searching for more potential targets appears to significantly alter how Os approach the task, ultimately resulting in more eye movements and longer response times.

  10. Modifying the strength and strain concentration profile within collagen scaffolds using customizable arrays of poly-lactic acid fibers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mozdzen, Laura C; Vucetic, Alan; Harley, Brendan A C

    2017-02-01

    The tendon-to-bone junction is a highly specialized tissue which dissipates stress concentrations between mechanically dissimilar tendon and bone. Upon injury, the local heterogeneities across this insertion are not regenerated, leading to poor functional outcomes such as formation of scar tissue at the insertion and re-failure rates exceeding 90%. Although current tissue engineering methods are moving towards the development of spatially-graded biomaterials to begin to address these injuries, significant opportunities remain to engineer the often complex local mechanical behavior of such biomaterials to enhance their bioactivity. Here, we describe the use of three-dimensional printing techniques to create customizable arrays of poly-lactic acid (PLA) fibers that can be incorporated into a collagen scaffold under development for tendon bone junction repair. Notably, we use additive manufacturing concepts to generate arrays of spatially-graded fibers from biodegradable PLA that are incorporated into collagen scaffolds to create a collagen-PLA composite. We demonstrate the ability to tune the mechanical performance of the fiber-scaffold composite at the bulk scale. We also demonstrate the incorporation of spatially-heterogeneous fiber designs to establish non-uniform local mechanical performance of the composite biomaterial under tensile load, a critical element in the design of multi-compartment biomaterials for tendon-to-bone regeneration applications. Together, this work highlights the capacity to use multi-scale composite biomaterials to control local and bulk mechanical properties, and provides key insights into design elements under consideration for mechanically competent, multi-tissue regeneration platforms. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  11. 41 CFR 102-79.40 - Can Federal agencies allot space in Federal buildings to Federal credit unions?

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... Federal credit unions without charge for rent or services if— (a) At least 95 percent of the membership of... presently Federal employees or were Federal employees at the time of admission into the credit union, and...

  12. Leveraging Health Information Technology to Improve Quality in Federal Healthcare.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weigel, Fred K; Switaj, Timothy L; Hamilton, Jessica

    2015-01-01

    Healthcare delivery in America is extremely complex because it is comprised of a fragmented and nonsystematic mix of stakeholders, components, and processes. Within the US healthcare structure, the federal healthcare system is poised to lead American medicine in leveraging health information technology to improve the quality of healthcare. We posit that through developing, adopting, and refining health information technology, the federal healthcare system has the potential to transform federal healthcare quality by managing the complexities associated with healthcare delivery. Although federal mandates have spurred the widespread use of electronic health records, other beneficial technologies have yet to be adopted in federal healthcare settings. The use of health information technology is fundamental in providing the highest quality, safest healthcare possible. In addition, health information technology is valuable in achieving the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's implementation goals. We conducted a comprehensive literature search using the Google Scholar, PubMed, and Cochrane databases to identify an initial list of articles. Through a thorough review of the titles and abstracts, we identified 42 articles as having relevance to health information technology and quality. Through our exclusion criteria of currency of the article, citation frequency, applicability to the federal health system, and quality of research supporting conclusions, we refined the list to 11 references from which we performed our analysis. The literature shows that the use of computerized physician order entry has significantly increased accurate medication dosage and decreased medication errors. The use of clinical decision support systems have significantly increased physician adherence to guidelines, although there is little evidence that indicates any significant correlation to patient outcomes. Research shows that interoperability and usability are continuing challenges for

  13. Project GRACE A grid based search tool for the global digital library

    CERN Document Server

    Scholze, Frank; Vigen, Jens; Prazak, Petra; The Seventh International Conference on Electronic Theses and Dissertations

    2004-01-01

    The paper will report on the progress of an ongoing EU project called GRACE - Grid Search and Categorization Engine (http://www.grace-ist.org). The project participants are CERN, Sheffield Hallam University, Stockholm University, Stuttgart University, GL 2006 and Telecom Italia. The project started in 2002 and will finish in 2005, resulting in a Grid based search engine that will search across a variety of content sources including a number of electronic thesis and dissertation repositories. The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) is expanding and is clearly an interesting movement for a community advocating open access to ETD. However, the OAI approach alone may not be sufficiently scalable to achieve a truly global ETD Digital Library. Many universities simply offer their collections to the world via their local web services without being part of any federated system for archiving and even those dissertations that are provided with OAI compliant metadata will not necessarily be picked up by a centralized OAI Ser...

  14. Federated repositories of X-ray diffraction images.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Androulakis, Steve; Schmidberger, Jason; Bate, Mark A; DeGori, Ross; Beitz, Anthony; Keong, Cyrus; Cameron, Bob; McGowan, Sheena; Porter, Corrine J; Harrison, Andrew; Hunter, Jane; Martin, Jennifer L; Kobe, Bostjan; Dobson, Renwick C J; Parker, Michael W; Whisstock, James C; Gray, Joan; Treloar, Andrew; Groenewegen, David; Dickson, Neil; Buckle, Ashley M

    2008-07-01

    There is a pressing need for the archiving and curation of raw X-ray diffraction data. This information is critical for validation, methods development and improvement of archived structures. However, the relatively large size of these data sets has presented challenges for storage in a single worldwide repository such as the Protein Data Bank archive. This problem can be avoided by using a federated approach, where each institution utilizes its institutional repository for storage, with a discovery service overlaid. Institutional repositories are relatively stable and adequately funded, ensuring persistence. Here, a simple repository solution is described, utilizing Fedora open-source database software and data-annotation and deposition tools that can be deployed at any site cheaply and easily. Data sets and associated metadata from federated repositories are given a unique and persistent handle, providing a simple mechanism for search and retrieval via web interfaces. In addition to ensuring that valuable data is not lost, the provision of raw data has several uses for the crystallographic community. Most importantly, structure determination can only be truly repeated or verified when the raw data are available. Moreover, the availability of raw data is extremely useful for the development of improved methods of image analysis and data processing.

  15. Open meta-search with OpenSearch: a case study

    OpenAIRE

    O'Riordan, Adrian P.

    2007-01-01

    The goal of this project was to demonstrate the possibilities of open source search engine and aggregation technology in a Web environment by building a meta-search engine which employs free open search engines and open protocols. In contrast many meta-search engines on the Internet use proprietary search systems. The search engines employed in this case study are all based on the OpenSearch protocol. OpenSearch-compliant systems support XML technologies such as RSS and Atom for aggregation a...

  16. Searching for truth: internet search patterns as a method of investigating online responses to a Russian illicit drug policy debate.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zheluk, Andrey; Gillespie, James A; Quinn, Casey

    2012-12-13

    ,403 for "Khimki" in Yandex. We found Google potentially provides timely search results, whereas Yandex provides more accurate geographic localization. The correlation was moderate to strong between search terms representing the Bychkov episode and terms representing salient drug issues in Yandex-"illicit drug treatment" (r(s) = .90, P < .001), "illicit drugs" (r(s) = .76, P < .001), and "drug addiction" (r(s) = .74, P < .001). Google correlations were weaker or absent-"illicit drug treatment" (r(s) = .12, P = .58), "illicit drugs " (r(s) = -0.29, P = .17), and "drug addiction" (r(s) = .68, P < .001). This study contributes to the methodological literature on the analysis of search patterns for public health. This paper investigated the relationship between Google and Yandex, and contributed to the broader methods literature by highlighting both the potential and limitations of these two search providers. We believe that Yandex Wordstat is a potentially valuable, and underused data source for researchers working on Russian-related illicit drug policy and other public health problems. The Russian Federation, with its large, geographically dispersed, and politically engaged online population presents unique opportunities for studying the evolving influence of the Internet on politics and policy, using low cost methods resilient against potential increases in censorship.

  17. Federated Identity Management

    OpenAIRE

    Chadwick, David W.

    2009-01-01

    Abstract. This paper addresses the topic of federated identity management. It discusses in detail the following topics: what is digital identity, what is identity management, what is federated identity management, Kim Camerons 7 Laws of Identity, how can we protect the users privacy in a federated environment, levels of assurance, some past and present federated identity management systems, and some current research in FIM.

  18. New Tools for New Research in Psychiatry: A Scalable and Customizable Platform to Empower Data Driven Smartphone Research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Torous, John; Kiang, Mathew V; Lorme, Jeanette; Onnela, Jukka-Pekka

    2016-05-05

    A longstanding barrier to progress in psychiatry, both in clinical settings and research trials, has been the persistent difficulty of accurately and reliably quantifying disease phenotypes. Mobile phone technology combined with data science has the potential to offer medicine a wealth of additional information on disease phenotypes, but the large majority of existing smartphone apps are not intended for use as biomedical research platforms and, as such, do not generate research-quality data. Our aim is not the creation of yet another app per se but rather the establishment of a platform to collect research-quality smartphone raw sensor and usage pattern data. Our ultimate goal is to develop statistical, mathematical, and computational methodology to enable us and others to extract biomedical and clinical insights from smartphone data. We report on the development and early testing of Beiwe, a research platform featuring a study portal, smartphone app, database, and data modeling and analysis tools designed and developed specifically for transparent, customizable, and reproducible biomedical research use, in particular for the study of psychiatric and neurological disorders. We also outline a proposed study using the platform for patients with schizophrenia. We demonstrate the passive data capabilities of the Beiwe platform and early results of its analytical capabilities. Smartphone sensors and phone usage patterns, when coupled with appropriate statistical learning tools, are able to capture various social and behavioral manifestations of illnesses, in naturalistic settings, as lived and experienced by patients. The ubiquity of smartphones makes this type of moment-by-moment quantification of disease phenotypes highly scalable and, when integrated within a transparent research platform, presents tremendous opportunities for research, discovery, and patient health.

  19. Google Search Queries About Neurosurgical Topics: Are They a Suitable Guide for Neurosurgeons?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lawson McLean, Anna C; Lawson McLean, Aaron; Kalff, Rolf; Walter, Jan

    2016-06-01

    Google is the most popular search engine, with about 100 billion searches per month. Google Trends is an integrated tool that allows users to obtain Google's search popularity statistics from the last decade. Our aim was to evaluate whether Google Trends is a useful tool to assess the public's interest in specific neurosurgical topics. We evaluated Google Trends statistics for the neurosurgical search topic areas "hydrocephalus," "spinal stenosis," "concussion," "vestibular schwannoma," and "cerebral arteriovenous malformation." We compared these with bibliometric data from PubMed and epidemiologic data from the German Federal Monitoring Agency. In addition, we assessed Google users' search behavior for the search terms "glioblastoma" and "meningioma." Over the last 10 years, there has been an increasing interest in the topic "concussion" from Internet users in general and scientists. "Spinal stenosis," "concussion," and "vestibular schwannoma" are topics that are of special interest in high-income countries (eg, Germany), whereas "hydrocephalus" is a popular topic in low- and middle-income countries. The Google-defined top searches within these topic areas revealed more detail about people's interests (eg, "normal pressure hydrocephalus" or "football concussion" ranked among the most popular search queries within the corresponding topics). There was a similar volume of queries for "glioblastoma" and "meningioma." Google Trends is a useful source to elicit information about general trends in peoples' health interests and the role of different diseases across the world. The Internet presence of neurosurgical units and surgeons can be guided by online users' interests to achieve high-quality, professional-endorsed patient education. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  20. 78 FR 45617 - Student Assistance General Provisions, Federal Perkins Loan Program, Federal Family Education...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-07-29

    ..., et al. Student Assistance General Provisions, Federal Perkins Loan Program, Federal Family Education... General Provisions, Federal Perkins Loan Program, Federal Family Education Loan Program, and William D... General Provisions, Federal Perkins Loan (Perkins Loan) Program, Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL...

  1. Search Patterns

    CERN Document Server

    Morville, Peter

    2010-01-01

    What people are saying about Search Patterns "Search Patterns is a delight to read -- very thoughtful and thought provoking. It's the most comprehensive survey of designing effective search experiences I've seen." --Irene Au, Director of User Experience, Google "I love this book! Thanks to Peter and Jeffery, I now know that search (yes, boring old yucky who cares search) is one of the coolest ways around of looking at the world." --Dan Roam, author, The Back of the Napkin (Portfolio Hardcover) "Search Patterns is a playful guide to the practical concerns of search interface design. It cont

  2. Personalized Search

    CERN Document Server

    AUTHOR|(SzGeCERN)749939

    2015-01-01

    As the volume of electronically available information grows, relevant items become harder to find. This work presents an approach to personalizing search results in scientific publication databases. This work focuses on re-ranking search results from existing search engines like Solr or ElasticSearch. This work also includes the development of Obelix, a new recommendation system used to re-rank search results. The project was proposed and performed at CERN, using the scientific publications available on the CERN Document Server (CDS). This work experiments with re-ranking using offline and online evaluation of users and documents in CDS. The experiments conclude that the personalized search result outperform both latest first and word similarity in terms of click position in the search result for global search in CDS.

  3. Mastering Search Analytics Measuring SEO, SEM and Site Search

    CERN Document Server

    Chaters, Brent

    2011-01-01

    Many companies still approach Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and paid search as separate initiatives. This in-depth guide shows you how to use these programs as part of a comprehensive strategy-not just to improve your site's search rankings, but to attract the right people and increase your conversion rate. Learn how to measure, test, analyze, and interpret all of your search data with a wide array of analytic tools. Gain the knowledge you need to determine the strategy's return on investment. Ideal for search specialists, webmasters, and search marketing managers, Mastering Search Analyt

  4. Search Help

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guidance and search help resource listing examples of common queries that can be used in the Google Search Appliance search request, including examples of special characters, or query term seperators that Google Search Appliance recognizes.

  5. Searching for Truth: Internet Search Patterns as a Method of Investigating Online Responses to a Russian Illicit Drug Policy Debate

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gillespie, James A; Quinn, Casey

    2012-01-01

    48,084 for “Egor Bychkov”, compared to 53,403 for “Khimki” in Yandex. We found Google potentially provides timely search results, whereas Yandex provides more accurate geographic localization. The correlation was moderate to strong between search terms representing the Bychkov episode and terms representing salient drug issues in Yandex–“illicit drug treatment” (r s = .90, P < .001), "illicit drugs" (r s = .76, P < .001), and "drug addiction" (r s = .74, P < .001). Google correlations were weaker or absent–"illicit drug treatment" (r s = .12, P = .58), “illicit drugs ” (r s = -0.29, P = .17), and "drug addiction" (r s = .68, P < .001). Conclusions This study contributes to the methodological literature on the analysis of search patterns for public health. This paper investigated the relationship between Google and Yandex, and contributed to the broader methods literature by highlighting both the potential and limitations of these two search providers. We believe that Yandex Wordstat is a potentially valuable, and underused data source for researchers working on Russian-related illicit drug policy and other public health problems. The Russian Federation, with its large, geographically dispersed, and politically engaged online population presents unique opportunities for studying the evolving influence of the Internet on politics and policy, using low cost methods resilient against potential increases in censorship. PMID:23238600

  6. Tales from the Field: Search Strategies Applied in Web Searching

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Soohyung Joo

    2010-08-01

    Full Text Available In their web search processes users apply multiple types of search strategies, which consist of different search tactics. This paper identifies eight types of information search strategies with associated cases based on sequences of search tactics during the information search process. Thirty-one participants representing the general public were recruited for this study. Search logs and verbal protocols offered rich data for the identification of different types of search strategies. Based on the findings, the authors further discuss how to enhance web-based information retrieval (IR systems to support each type of search strategy.

  7. Federalism Lives.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Howard, A. E. Dick

    1987-01-01

    Examines the concept of federalism in terms of its past history and its encouraging future. Calls for a revival of concern for federalism not simply as a convenient administrative arrangement but as a fundamental constitutional value. (BSR)

  8. NOAA's Data Catalog and the Federal Open Data Policy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wengren, M. J.; de la Beaujardiere, J.

    2014-12-01

    The 2013 Open Data Policy Presidential Directive requires Federal agencies to create and maintain a 'public data listing' that includes all agency data that is currently or will be made publicly-available in the future. The directive requires the use of machine-readable and open formats that make use of 'common core' and extensible metadata formats according to the best practices published in an online repository called 'Project Open Data', to use open licenses where possible, and to adhere to existing metadata and other technology standards to promote interoperability. In order to meet the requirements of the Open Data Policy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has implemented an online data catalog that combines metadata from all subsidiary NOAA metadata catalogs into a single master inventory. The NOAA Data Catalog is available to the public for search and discovery, providing access to the NOAA master data inventory through multiple means, including web-based text search, OGC CS-W endpoint, as well as a native Application Programming Interface (API) for programmatic query. It generates on a daily basis the Project Open Data JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) file required for compliance with the Presidential directive. The Data Catalog is based on the open source Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN) software and runs on the Amazon Federal GeoCloud. This presentation will cover topics including mappings of existing metadata in standard formats (FGDC-CSDGM and ISO 19115 XML ) to the Project Open Data JSON metadata schema, representation of metadata elements within the catalog, and compatible metadata sources used to feed the catalog to include Web Accessible Folder (WAF), Catalog Services for the Web (CS-W), and Esri ArcGIS.com. It will also discuss related open source technologies that can be used together to build a spatial data infrastructure compliant with the Open Data Policy.

  9. Internet Search Engines

    OpenAIRE

    Fatmaa El Zahraa Mohamed Abdou

    2004-01-01

    A general study about the internet search engines, the study deals main 7 points; the differance between search engines and search directories, components of search engines, the percentage of sites covered by search engines, cataloging of sites, the needed time for sites appearance in search engines, search capabilities, and types of search engines.

  10. The Earth System Grid Federation : an Open Infrastructure for Access to Distributed Geospatial Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cinquini, Luca; Crichton, Daniel; Mattmann, Chris; Harney, John; Shipman, Galen; Wang, Feiyi; Ananthakrishnan, Rachana; Miller, Neill; Denvil, Sebastian; Morgan, Mark; hide

    2012-01-01

    The Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) is a multi-agency, international collaboration that aims at developing the software infrastructure needed to facilitate and empower the study of climate change on a global scale. The ESGF's architecture employs a system of geographically distributed peer nodes, which are independently administered yet united by the adoption of common federation protocols and application programming interfaces (APIs). The cornerstones of its interoperability are the peer-to-peer messaging that is continuously exchanged among all nodes in the federation; a shared architecture and API for search and discovery; and a security infrastructure based on industry standards (OpenID, SSL, GSI and SAML). The ESGF software is developed collaboratively across institutional boundaries and made available to the community as open source. It has now been adopted by multiple Earth science projects and allows access to petabytes of geophysical data, including the entire model output used for the next international assessment report on climate change (IPCC-AR5) and a suite of satellite observations (obs4MIPs) and reanalysis data sets (ANA4MIPs).

  11. University Students' Online Information Searching Strategies in Different Search Contexts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tsai, Meng-Jung; Liang, Jyh-Chong; Hou, Huei-Tse; Tsai, Chin-Chung

    2012-01-01

    This study investigates the role of search context played in university students' online information searching strategies. A total of 304 university students in Taiwan were surveyed with questionnaires in which two search contexts were defined as searching for learning, and searching for daily life information. Students' online search strategies…

  12. Framing Canadian federalism

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Saywell, John; Anastakis, Dimitry; Bryden, Penny E

    2009-01-01

    ... the pervasive effects that federalism has on Canadian politics, economics, culture, and history, and provide a detailed framework in which to understand contemporary federalism. Written in honour of John T. Saywell's half-century of accomplished and influential scholarly work and teaching, Framing Canadian Federalism is a timely and fitting t...

  13. Nuclear supervision - Administration by the federal states on behalf of the Federal Government or direct federal administration for optimum achievement

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Renneberg, W.

    2005-01-01

    One year ago, Federal Minister for the Environment Juergen Trittin expressed doubt about the long-term viability of the federal states' acting on behalf of the federal government in the field of atomic energy law administration. An alternative to this type of administration was mentioned, namely direct execution by the feral government, and a thorough examination was announced. This was to show which type of administration would achieve maximum safety for the residual operating lives of nuclear power plants. Kienbaum Management Consultants were commissioned to evaluate the current status and potential alternative structures. That study was performed within the framework of one of the key projects in reactor safety of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety (BMU), namely the reform of nuclear administration. Further steps to be taken by the BMU by the end of this parliamentary term are presented. The federal state are to be approached in an attempt to conduct an unbiased discussion of the pros and cons of the alternatives to administration by the federal states on behalf of the federal government. Questions will be clarified which need to be examined in depth before direct administration by the federal government can be introduced. These include constitutional matters and matters of costing in financing the higher-level federal authority as well as specific questions about the organization of that authority. The purpose is to elaborate, by the end of this parliamentary term, a workable concept of introducing direct federal administration of nuclear safety. (orig.)

  14. Guidance for Federal Agencies on Executive Order 13693 - Federal Fleet Management

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    None, None

    2017-01-02

    Document contains guidance on the federal fleet requirements of Executive Order 13693: Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade and helps federal agencies subject to the executive order develop an overall approach for reducing total fleet greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and fleet-wide per-mile GHG emissions.

  15. INTERFACING GOOGLE SEARCH ENGINE TO CAPTURE USER WEB SEARCH BEHAVIOR

    OpenAIRE

    Fadhilah Mat Yamin; T. Ramayah

    2013-01-01

    The behaviour of the searcher when using the search engine especially during the query formulation is crucial. Search engines capture users’ activities in the search log, which is stored at the search engine server. Due to the difficulty of obtaining this search log, this paper proposed and develops an interface framework to interface a Google search engine. This interface will capture users’ queries before redirect them to Google. The analysis of the search log will show that users are utili...

  16. Multicenter Validation of a Customizable Scoring Tool for Selection of Trainees for a Residency or Fellowship Program. The EAST-IST Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bosslet, Gabriel T; Carlos, W Graham; Tybor, David J; McCallister, Jennifer; Huebert, Candace; Henderson, Ashley; Miles, Matthew C; Twigg, Homer; Sears, Catherine R; Brown, Cynthia; Farber, Mark O; Lahm, Tim; Buckley, John D

    2017-04-01

    Few data have been published regarding scoring tools for selection of postgraduate medical trainee candidates that have wide applicability. The authors present a novel scoring tool developed to assist postgraduate programs in generating an institution-specific rank list derived from selected elements of the U.S. Electronic Residency Application System (ERAS) application. The authors developed and validated an ERAS and interview day scoring tool at five pulmonary and critical care fellowship programs: the ERAS Application Scoring Tool-Interview Scoring Tool. This scoring tool was then tested for intrarater correlation versus subjective rankings of ERAS applications. The process for development of the tool was performed at four other institutions, and it was performed alongside and compared with the "traditional" ranking methods at the five programs and compared with the submitted National Residency Match Program rank list. The ERAS Application Scoring Tool correlated highly with subjective faculty rankings at the primary institution (average Spearman's r = 0.77). The ERAS Application Scoring Tool-Interview Scoring Tool method correlated well with traditional ranking methodology at all five institutions (Spearman's r = 0.54, 0.65, 0.72, 0.77, and 0.84). This study validates a process for selecting and weighting components of the ERAS application and interview day to create a customizable, institution-specific tool for ranking candidates to postgraduate medical education programs. This scoring system can be used in future studies to compare the outcomes of fellowship training.

  17. Teaching about American Federal Democracy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schechter, Stephen L., Ed.

    Ten essays discuss federal democracy, the form of government of the United States. The first essay discusses the origins of American federalism. The second examines why we have a federal system, the functions federalism serves, and the consequences of federalism for the American political system. Federalism in the Constitution and constitutional…

  18. [Advanced online search techniques and dedicated search engines for physicians].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nahum, Yoav

    2008-02-01

    In recent years search engines have become an essential tool in the work of physicians. This article will review advanced search techniques from the world of information specialists, as well as some advanced search engine operators that may help physicians improve their online search capabilities, and maximize the yield of their searches. This article also reviews popular dedicated scientific and biomedical literature search engines.

  19. Federal Student Loan Programs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Federal Student Aid, US Department of Education, 2014

    2014-01-01

    For those needing a loan to attend college, think federal aid first. Federal student loans usually offer borrowers lower interest rates and have more flexible repayment terms and options than private student loans. This brief report answers the following questions about federal aid: (1) What is a federal student loan?; (2) What is a private…

  20. Children's Search Engines from an Information Search Process Perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Broch, Elana

    2000-01-01

    Describes cognitive and affective characteristics of children and teenagers that may affect their Web searching behavior. Reviews literature on children's searching in online public access catalogs (OPACs) and using digital libraries. Profiles two Web search engines. Discusses some of the difficulties children have searching the Web, in the…

  1. How Users Search the Library from a Single Search Box

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lown, Cory; Sierra, Tito; Boyer, Josh

    2013-01-01

    Academic libraries are turning increasingly to unified search solutions to simplify search and discovery of library resources. Unfortunately, very little research has been published on library user search behavior in single search box environments. This study examines how users search a large public university library using a prominent, single…

  2. Federal Personnel: Federal/Private Sector Pay Comparisons

    Science.gov (United States)

    1994-12-01

    Choices of Both Government and Union Status," Journal of Labor Economics , Vol. 6 (1988), pp. 229-53; Alan B. Krueger, "Are Public Sector Workers Paid...Differential in the United States," Journal of Labor Economics , Vol. 38, No. 2 (1990), pp. 270-293. 5A discussion of these explanations can be found in...federal earnings, one can obtain an estimate of the pay gap that is attributable to federal employment In labor economics research, both methods are

  3. Random searching

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shlesinger, Michael F

    2009-01-01

    There are a wide variety of searching problems from molecules seeking receptor sites to predators seeking prey. The optimal search strategy can depend on constraints on time, energy, supplies or other variables. We discuss a number of cases and especially remark on the usefulness of Levy walk search patterns when the targets of the search are scarce.

  4. USING PRECEDENTS FOR REDUCTION OF DECISION TREE BY GRAPH SEARCH

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    I. A. Bessmertny

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available The paper considers the problem of mutual payment organization between business entities by means of clearing that is solved by search of graph paths. To reduce the decision tree complexity a method of precedents is proposed that consists in saving the intermediate solution during the moving along decision tree. An algorithm and example are presented demonstrating solution complexity coming close to a linear one. The tests carried out in civil aviation settlement system demonstrate approximately 30 percent shortage of real money transfer. The proposed algorithm is planned to be implemented also in other clearing organizations of the Russian Federation.

  5. Ronald Reagan's "New Federalism."

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parker, Joseph B.

    1982-01-01

    Describes how changes in federal fiscal policies affect the federal government's relationship to state and local government. Franklin D. Roosevelt's and Ronald Reagan's formulas for "New Federalism" are compared. (AM)

  6. Federal Investment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Campbell, Sheila; Tawil, Natalie

    2013-01-01

    The federal government pays for a wide range of goods and services that are expected to be useful some years in the future. Those purchases, called investment, fall into three categories: physical capital, research and development (R&D), and education and training. There are several economic rationales for federal investment. It can provide…

  7. Search times and probability of detection in time-limited search

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilson, David; Devitt, Nicole; Maurer, Tana

    2005-05-01

    When modeling the search and target acquisition process, probability of detection as a function of time is important to war games and physical entity simulations. Recent US Army RDECOM CERDEC Night Vision and Electronics Sensor Directorate modeling of search and detection has focused on time-limited search. Developing the relationship between detection probability and time of search as a differential equation is explored. One of the parameters in the current formula for probability of detection in time-limited search corresponds to the mean time to detect in time-unlimited search. However, the mean time to detect in time-limited search is shorter than the mean time to detect in time-unlimited search and the relationship between them is a mathematical relationship between these two mean times. This simple relationship is derived.

  8. Refinancing of the search for a repository and of the repository for heat generating radioactive waste. Pt. 1

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Moench, Christoph

    2013-01-01

    The final disposal of radioactive waste is a state task that is assigned to the Federal Government pursuant to section 9a (3) sentence 1 of the Atomic Energy Act (AtG). Since the early 1970's, the Federal Government has been actively searching for and exploring final disposal sites for radioactive waste. In a proceeding accompanied by the intensive participation of technical experts and the public, the Gorleben salt dome (Salzstock) has emerged as a presumably suitable disposal site from a mining standpoint (eignungshoeffig) according to the current status of the exploration. The cost of these exploratory measures - and the subsequent construction - will be financed by the waste producers, in particular the utility companies, by means of advance payments on their contributions. Part I of this article will evaluate the selection and exploration of the Gorleben salt dome to date and examine the provisions on the pre-financing burden from the point of view of constitutional law. Constitutional objections can also be raised against the regulation in section 21b (4) AtG that was introduced in 1998, which excludes a refunding of the pre-financing contributions even if the repository is never erected or operated. Part II of this article, which will appear in the next issue, will take up the question of whether a search for an alternative repository site, as the Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMU) envisions in the working draft of an 'Act on the search for and selection of a site for a repository for heat generating radioactive waste' (Gesetz zur Suche und Auswahl eines Standortes fuer ein Endlager fuer waermeentwickelnde radioaktive Abfaelle), is likewise to be refinanced as a contribution by the parties obliged to make advance payments. (orig.)

  9. Search Parameter Optimization for Discrete, Bayesian, and Continuous Search Algorithms

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-09-01

    NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA THESIS SEARCH PARAMETER OPTIMIZATION FOR DISCRETE , BAYESIAN, AND CONTINUOUS SEARCH ALGORITHMS by...to 09-22-2017 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE SEARCH PARAMETER OPTIMIZATION FOR DISCRETE , BAYESIAN, AND CON- TINUOUS SEARCH ALGORITHMS 5. FUNDING NUMBERS 6...simple search and rescue acts to prosecuting aerial/surface/submersible targets on mission. This research looks at varying the known discrete and

  10. Comparative federal health care policy: evidence of collaborative federalism in Pakistan and Venezuela.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baracskay, Daniel

    2013-01-01

    Collaborative federalism has provided an effective analytical foundation for understanding how complex public policies are implemented in federal systems through intergovernmental and intersectoral alignments. This has particularly been the case in issue areas like public health policy where diseases are detected and treated at the local level. While past studies on collaborative federalism and health care policy have focused on federal systems that are largely democratic, little research has been conducted to examine the extent of collaboration in authoritarian structures. This article applies the collaborative federalism approach to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Evidence suggests that while both nations have exhibited authoritarian governing structures, there have been discernible policy areas where collaborative federalism is embraced to facilitate the implementation process. Further, while not an innate aspect of their federal structures, Pakistan and Venezuela can potentially expand their use of the collaborative approach to successfully implement health care policy and the epidemiological surveillance and intervention functions. Yet, as argued, this would necessitate further development of their structures on a sustained basis to create an environment conducive for collaborative federalism to flourish, and possibly expand to other policy areas as well.

  11. 78 FR 65767 - Student Assistance General Provisions, Federal Perkins Loan Program, Federal Family Education...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-11-01

    ... Assistance General Provisions, Federal Perkins Loan Program, Federal Family Education Loan Program, and... Provisions, Federal Perkins Loan (Perkins Loan) Program, Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program, and... Vol. 78 Friday, No. 212 November 1, 2013 Part II Department of Education 34 CFR Parts 668, 674...

  12. Federal Fleet Report

    Data.gov (United States)

    General Services Administration — Annual report of Federal agencies' motor vehicle fleet data collected in the Federal Automotive Statistical Tool (FAST), a web-based reporting tool cosponsored by...

  13. Clinician search behaviors may be influenced by search engine design.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lau, Annie Y S; Coiera, Enrico; Zrimec, Tatjana; Compton, Paul

    2010-06-30

    Searching the Web for documents using information retrieval systems plays an important part in clinicians' practice of evidence-based medicine. While much research focuses on the design of methods to retrieve documents, there has been little examination of the way different search engine capabilities influence clinician search behaviors. Previous studies have shown that use of task-based search engines allows for faster searches with no loss of decision accuracy compared with resource-based engines. We hypothesized that changes in search behaviors may explain these differences. In all, 75 clinicians (44 doctors and 31 clinical nurse consultants) were randomized to use either a resource-based or a task-based version of a clinical information retrieval system to answer questions about 8 clinical scenarios in a controlled setting in a university computer laboratory. Clinicians using the resource-based system could select 1 of 6 resources, such as PubMed; clinicians using the task-based system could select 1 of 6 clinical tasks, such as diagnosis. Clinicians in both systems could reformulate search queries. System logs unobtrusively capturing clinicians' interactions with the systems were coded and analyzed for clinicians' search actions and query reformulation strategies. The most frequent search action of clinicians using the resource-based system was to explore a new resource with the same query, that is, these clinicians exhibited a "breadth-first" search behaviour. Of 1398 search actions, clinicians using the resource-based system conducted 401 (28.7%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 26.37-31.11) in this way. In contrast, the majority of clinicians using the task-based system exhibited a "depth-first" search behavior in which they reformulated query keywords while keeping to the same task profiles. Of 585 search actions conducted by clinicians using the task-based system, 379 (64.8%, 95% CI 60.83-68.55) were conducted in this way. This study provides evidence that

  14. Cube search, revisited

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Xuetao; Huang, Jie; Yigit-Elliott, Serap; Rosenholtz, Ruth

    2015-01-01

    Observers can quickly search among shaded cubes for one lit from a unique direction. However, replace the cubes with similar 2-D patterns that do not appear to have a 3-D shape, and search difficulty increases. These results have challenged models of visual search and attention. We demonstrate that cube search displays differ from those with “equivalent” 2-D search items in terms of the informativeness of fairly low-level image statistics. This informativeness predicts peripheral discriminability of target-present from target-absent patches, which in turn predicts visual search performance, across a wide range of conditions. Comparing model performance on a number of classic search tasks, cube search does not appear unexpectedly easy. Easy cube search, per se, does not provide evidence for preattentive computation of 3-D scene properties. However, search asymmetries derived from rotating and/or flipping the cube search displays cannot be explained by the information in our current set of image statistics. This may merely suggest a need to modify the model's set of 2-D image statistics. Alternatively, it may be difficult cube search that provides evidence for preattentive computation of 3-D scene properties. By attributing 2-D luminance variations to a shaded 3-D shape, 3-D scene understanding may slow search for 2-D features of the target. PMID:25780063

  15. Searching the ASRS Database Using QUORUM Keyword Search, Phrase Search, Phrase Generation, and Phrase Discovery

    Science.gov (United States)

    McGreevy, Michael W.; Connors, Mary M. (Technical Monitor)

    2001-01-01

    To support Search Requests and Quick Responses at the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), four new QUORUM methods have been developed: keyword search, phrase search, phrase generation, and phrase discovery. These methods build upon the core QUORUM methods of text analysis, modeling, and relevance-ranking. QUORUM keyword search retrieves ASRS incident narratives that contain one or more user-specified keywords in typical or selected contexts, and ranks the narratives on their relevance to the keywords in context. QUORUM phrase search retrieves narratives that contain one or more user-specified phrases, and ranks the narratives on their relevance to the phrases. QUORUM phrase generation produces a list of phrases from the ASRS database that contain a user-specified word or phrase. QUORUM phrase discovery finds phrases that are related to topics of interest. Phrase generation and phrase discovery are particularly useful for finding query phrases for input to QUORUM phrase search. The presentation of the new QUORUM methods includes: a brief review of the underlying core QUORUM methods; an overview of the new methods; numerous, concrete examples of ASRS database searches using the new methods; discussion of related methods; and, in the appendices, detailed descriptions of the new methods.

  16. A hybrid search algorithm for swarm robots searching in an unknown environment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Shoutao; Li, Lina; Lee, Gordon; Zhang, Hao

    2014-01-01

    This paper proposes a novel method to improve the efficiency of a swarm of robots searching in an unknown environment. The approach focuses on the process of feeding and individual coordination characteristics inspired by the foraging behavior in nature. A predatory strategy was used for searching; hence, this hybrid approach integrated a random search technique with a dynamic particle swarm optimization (DPSO) search algorithm. If a search robot could not find any target information, it used a random search algorithm for a global search. If the robot found any target information in a region, the DPSO search algorithm was used for a local search. This particle swarm optimization search algorithm is dynamic as all the parameters in the algorithm are refreshed synchronously through a communication mechanism until the robots find the target position, after which, the robots fall back to a random searching mode. Thus, in this searching strategy, the robots alternated between two searching algorithms until the whole area was covered. During the searching process, the robots used a local communication mechanism to share map information and DPSO parameters to reduce the communication burden and overcome hardware limitations. If the search area is very large, search efficiency may be greatly reduced if only one robot searches an entire region given the limited resources available and time constraints. In this research we divided the entire search area into several subregions, selected a target utility function to determine which subregion should be initially searched and thereby reduced the residence time of the target to improve search efficiency.

  17. 78 FR 27968 - Federal Management Regulation; Redesignations of Federal Buildings

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-05-13

    ... Management Regulation; Redesignations of Federal Buildings AGENCY: Public Buildings Service (PBS), General... designation and redesignation of six Federal buildings. DATES: Expiration Date: This bulletin announcement expires July 30, 2013. The building designations and redesignations remains in effect until canceled or...

  18. Top-k Keyword Search Over Graphs Based On Backward Search

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zeng Jia-Hui

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Keyword search is one of the most friendly and intuitive information retrieval methods. Using the keyword search to get the connected subgraph has a lot of application in the graph-based cognitive computation, and it is a basic technology. This paper focuses on the top-k keyword searching over graphs. We implemented a keyword search algorithm which applies the backward search idea. The algorithm locates the keyword vertices firstly, and then applies backward search to find rooted trees that contain query keywords. The experiment shows that query time is affected by the iteration number of the algorithm.

  19. People searching for people: analysis of a people search engine log

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Weerkamp, W.; Berendsen, R.; Kovachev, B.; Meij, E.; Balog, K.; de Rijke, M.

    2011-01-01

    Recent years show an increasing interest in vertical search: searching within a particular type of information. Understanding what people search for in these "verticals" gives direction to research and provides pointers for the search engines themselves. In this paper we analyze the search logs of

  20. 49 CFR 268.7 - Federal/State share and restrictions on the uses of Federal Maglev Funds.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... of Federal Maglev Funds. 268.7 Section 268.7 Transportation Other Regulations Relating to... Federal Maglev Funds. (a) Federal share. The Federal share of Full Projects Costs shall be not more than 2...) Restrictions on the uses of Federal Maglev Funds. (1) Federal Maglev Funds may be applied only to Eligible...

  1. I-SG : Interactive Search Grouping - Search result grouping using Independent Component Analysis

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lauritsen, Thomas; Kolenda, Thomas

    2002-01-01

    We present a computational simple and efficient approach to unsupervised grouping the search result from any search engine. Along with each group a set of keywords are found to annotate the contents. This approach leads to an interactive search trough a hierarchial structure that is build online....... It is the users task to improve the search, trough expanding the search query using the topic keywords representing the desired groups. In doing so the search engine limits the space of possible search results, virtually moving down in the search hierarchy, and so refines the search....

  2. Market Dominance and Search Quality in the Search Engine Market

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Lianos, I.; Motchenkova, E.I.

    2013-01-01

    We analyze a search engine market from a law and economics perspective and incorporate the choice of quality-improving innovations by a search engine platform in a two-sided model of Internet search engine. In the proposed framework, we first discuss the legal issues the search engine market raises

  3. Federal Buildings Supplemental Survey 1993

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    1995-11-01

    The Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy (DOE) is mandated by Congress to be the agency that collects, analyzes, and disseminates impartial, comprehensive data about energy including the volume consumed, its customers, and the purposes for which it is used. The Federal Buildings Supplemental Survey (FBSS) was conducted by EIA in conjunction with DOE`s Office of Federal Energy Management Programs (OFEMP) to gain a better understanding of how Federal buildings use energy. This report presents the data from 881 completed telephone interviews with Federal buildings in three Federal regions. These buildings were systematically selected using OFEMP`s specifications; therefore, these data do not statistically represent all Federal buildings in the country. The purpose of the FBSS was threefold: (1) to understand the characteristics of Federal buildings and their energy use; (2) to provide a baseline in these three Federal regions to measure future energy use in Federal buildings as required in EPACT; and (3) to compare building characteristics and energy use with the data collected in the CBECS.

  4. Large Neighborhood Search

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pisinger, David; Røpke, Stefan

    2010-01-01

    Heuristics based on large neighborhood search have recently shown outstanding results in solving various transportation and scheduling problems. Large neighborhood search methods explore a complex neighborhood by use of heuristics. Using large neighborhoods makes it possible to find better...... candidate solutions in each iteration and hence traverse a more promising search path. Starting from the large neighborhood search method,we give an overview of very large scale neighborhood search methods and discuss recent variants and extensions like variable depth search and adaptive large neighborhood...

  5. Dyniqx: a novel meta-search engine for metadata based cross search

    OpenAIRE

    Zhu, Jianhan; Song, Dawei; Eisenstadt, Marc; Barladeanu, Cristi; Rüger, Stefan

    2008-01-01

    The effect of metadata in collection fusion has not been sufficiently studied. In response to this, we present a novel meta-search engine called Dyniqx for metadata based cross search. Dyniqx exploits the availability of metadata in academic search services such as PubMed and Google Scholar etc for fusing search results from heterogeneous search engines. In addition, metadata from these search engines are used for generating dynamic query controls such as sliders and tick boxes etc which are ...

  6. Legal and Administrative Feasibility of a Federal Junk Food and Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax to Improve Diet.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pomeranz, Jennifer L; Wilde, Parke; Huang, Yue; Micha, Renata; Mozaffarian, Dariush

    2018-02-01

    To evaluate legal and administrative feasibility of a federal "junk" food (including sugar-sweetened beverages [SSBs]) tax to improve diet. To assess food definitions and administration models, we systematically searched (1) PubMed (through May 15, 2017) for articles defining foods subject to taxes, and legal and legislative databases as well as online for (2) US federal, state, and tribal junk food tax bills and laws (January 1, 2012-February 28, 2017); SSB taxes (January 1, 2014-February 28, 2017); and international junk food tax laws (as of February 28, 2017); and (3) federal taxing mechanisms and administrative methods (as of February 28, 2017). Articles recommend taxing foods by product category, broad nutrient criteria, specific nutrients or calories, or a combination. US junk food tax bills (n = 6) and laws (n = 3), international junk food laws (n = 2), and US SSB taxes (n = 10) support taxing foods using category-based (n = 8), nutrient-based (n = 1), or combination (n = 12) approaches. Federal taxing mechanisms (particularly manufacturer excise taxes on alcohol) and administrative methods provide informative models. From legal and administrative perspectives, a federal junk food tax appears feasible based on product categories or combination category-plus-nutrient approaches, using a manufacturer excise tax, with additional support for sugar and graduated tax strategies.

  7. Semantic technologies improving the recall and precision of the Mercury metadata search engine

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pouchard, L. C.; Cook, R. B.; Green, J.; Palanisamy, G.; Noy, N.

    2011-12-01

    The Mercury federated metadata system [1] was developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center (ORNL DAAC), a NASA-sponsored effort holding datasets about biogeochemical dynamics, ecological data, and environmental processes. Mercury currently indexes over 100,000 records from several data providers conforming to community standards, e.g. EML, FGDC, FGDC Biological Profile, ISO 19115 and DIF. With the breadth of sciences represented in Mercury, the potential exists to address some key interdisciplinary scientific challenges related to climate change, its environmental and ecological impacts, and mitigation of these impacts. However, this wealth of metadata also hinders pinpointing datasets relevant to a particular inquiry. We implemented a semantic solution after concluding that traditional search approaches cannot improve the accuracy of the search results in this domain because: a) unlike everyday queries, scientific queries seek to return specific datasets with numerous parameters that may or may not be exposed to search (Deep Web queries); b) the relevance of a dataset cannot be judged by its popularity, as each scientific inquiry tends to be unique; and c)each domain science has its own terminology, more or less curated, consensual, and standardized depending on the domain. The same terms may refer to different concepts across domains (homonyms), but different terms mean the same thing (synonyms). Interdisciplinary research is arduous because an expert in a domain must become fluent in the language of another, just to find relevant datasets. Thus, we decided to use scientific ontologies because they can provide a context for a free-text search, in a way that string-based keywords never will. With added context, relevant datasets are more easily discoverable. To enable search and programmatic access to ontology entities in Mercury, we are using an instance of the BioPortal ontology repository. Mercury accesses ontology entities

  8. Federal environmental inspections handbook

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1991-10-01

    This Federal Environmental Inspection Handbook has been prepared by the Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Environmental Guidance, RCRA/CERCLA Division (EH-231). It is designed to provide DOE personnel with an easily accessible compilation of the environmental inspection requirements under Federal environmental statutes which may impact DOE operations and activities. DOE personnel are reminded that this Handbook is intended to be used in concert with, and not as a substitute for, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Federal Register (FR), and other applicable regulatory documents

  9. Meta Search Engines.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garman, Nancy

    1999-01-01

    Describes common options and features to consider in evaluating which meta search engine will best meet a searcher's needs. Discusses number and names of engines searched; other sources and specialty engines; search queries; other search options; and results options. (AEF)

  10. 77 FR 1107 - Self-Regulatory Organizations; Options Clearing Corporation; Notice of Filing of Proposed Rule...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-01-09

    ... Options Exchange have six customizable terms: (1) underlying index, (2) put or call, (3) expiration date..., and because the customizable terms of these OTC options are relatively limited and the range of values that customizable terms may be given is limited, OCC does not believe that valuation and risk...

  11. Nuclear supervision - Administration by the federal states on behalf of the Federal Government or direct federal administration? Evaluation from a practical point of view

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cloosters, W.

    2005-01-01

    The organization of supervisory authorities under the Atomic Energy Act is not a new issue. In fact, it was discussed vehemently in the Federal Republic of Germany as far back as in the early fifties. Federal legislation in late 1959 decided to have the Atomic Energy Act executed in part under direct federal responsibility and, as far as the important supervision of the nuclear power plants operated in the Federal Republic of Germany was concerned, by the federal states on behalf of the federal government. Federal Minister for the Environment Trittin reopened the debate about the organization of nuclear administration by announcing his intention to transfer the supervision of nuclear power plants to direct federal administration. This announcement not only raises the question of legal permissibility of transferring nuclear power plant oversight to federal administration, but also requires a critical review, as presented in this article, of practical regulatory supervision to ensure safe operation of nuclear facilities. In this connection, both the actual content of supervisory activities and the way in which they are carried out must be examined in an effort to find an answer based on solid premises to the question raised above. For reasons explained in the contribution, oversight of nuclear power plants cannot be carried out as a centralized function. Instead, the legislative decision of 1959 in favor of the federal states exercising supervision on behalf of the federal government continues to be correct at the present stage also in the light of the steps initiated to opt out of the peaceful uses of nuclear power. (orig.)

  12. 77 FR 47374 - Notice of Proposed Information Collection Requests; Federal Student Aid; William D. Ford Federal...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-08-08

    ...; William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) Program/ Federal Family Loan (FFEL) Program: Deferment... which borrowers in the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) and Federal Family Education... considered public records. Title of Collection: William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) Program...

  13. Faceted Search

    CERN Document Server

    Tunkelang, Daniel

    2009-01-01

    We live in an information age that requires us, more than ever, to represent, access, and use information. Over the last several decades, we have developed a modern science and technology for information retrieval, relentlessly pursuing the vision of a "memex" that Vannevar Bush proposed in his seminal article, "As We May Think." Faceted search plays a key role in this program. Faceted search addresses weaknesses of conventional search approaches and has emerged as a foundation for interactive information retrieval. User studies demonstrate that faceted search provides more

  14. Beyond the search surface: visual search and attentional engagement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duncan, J; Humphreys, G

    1992-05-01

    Treisman (1991) described a series of visual search studies testing feature integration theory against an alternative (Duncan & Humphreys, 1989) in which feature and conjunction search are basically similar. Here the latter account is noted to have 2 distinct levels: (a) a summary of search findings in terms of stimulus similarities, and (b) a theory of how visual attention is brought to bear on relevant objects. Working at the 1st level, Treisman found that even when similarities were calibrated and controlled, conjunction search was much harder than feature search. The theory, however, can only really be tested at the 2nd level, because the 1st is an approximation. An account of the findings is developed at the 2nd level, based on the 2 processes of input-template matching and spreading suppression. New data show that, when both of these factors are controlled, feature and conjunction search are equally difficult. Possibilities for unification of the alternative views are considered.

  15. Federal-state partnership: An overview of the Clean Air Act through the 1980s

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Anon.

    1991-01-01

    This chapter examines the experience with Clean Air Act regulation over the past two decades as a means of understanding the multiple layers of regulatory requirements that now exist since the enactment of the 1990 Amendments to the Act. The efforts of Congress and the EPA to deal with the complexities of clean air regulation suggest several themes for the 1990s: more federal oversight, more complex regulatory issues, an emphasis on alternatives to traditional rulemaking proceedings, and a search for innovative ways to control the escalating costs of clean air regulation

  16. Search costs and efficiency : Do unemployed workers search enough?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gautier, Pieter A.; Moraga González, José; Wolthoff, Ronald P.

    Many labor market policies affect the marginal benefits and costs of job search. The impact and desirability of such policies depend on the distribution of search costs. In this paper, we provide an equilibrium framework for identifying the distribution of search costs and we apply it to the Dutch

  17. Concept of assistance of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection with regard to prevention of serious cases of nuclear hazards

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Becker, D.E. [Federal Office for Radiation Protection, Salzgitter (Germany)

    2000-05-01

    For the defence against the threats caused by radioactive substances, a general concept was elaborated under the overall control of the Federal Government. A number of competent organisations are involved in this, for example the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation, the Federal Armed Forces, and the Federal Office for Radiation Protection. In Germany, the 16 Federal States are responsible for the prevention of nuclear hazards. In the case of hazards caused by radioactive material, experts from the competent radiation protection authorities are consulted. For the prevention of serious cases of nuclear hazards (nuclear fuels, criticality, danger of dispersion), the Federal Office for Radiation Protection - a subordinate authority of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety responsible for radiation protection, nuclear safety, and waste management - was given order to elaborate a concept for assistance to those Federal States. The field of prevention of nuclear hazards ranges from combatting illegal trade with radioactive test sources up to the defence of nuclear fuels with the possibility to construct critical assemblies or the threatening by the distribution of airborne material which might enter the lungs. The latter are considered as serious cases of nuclear hazards. Since the expenditures for devices and personal to be trained would be inadequately high, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) is prepared to support the Federal States if it becomes necessary. The concept includes a stand-by service, the search for radioactive material by helicopter or a ground team, analysis of the activity and the type of nuclides, risk assessment, and also measures to steam the risk. This concept will be presented. (author)

  18. Concept of assistance of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection with regard to prevention of serious cases of nuclear hazards

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Becker, D.E.

    2000-01-01

    For the defence against the threats caused by radioactive substances, a general concept was elaborated under the overall control of the Federal Government. A number of competent organisations are involved in this, for example the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation, the Federal Armed Forces, and the Federal Office for Radiation Protection. In Germany, the 16 Federal States are responsible for the prevention of nuclear hazards. In the case of hazards caused by radioactive material, experts from the competent radiation protection authorities are consulted. For the prevention of serious cases of nuclear hazards (nuclear fuels, criticality, danger of dispersion), the Federal Office for Radiation Protection - a subordinate authority of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety responsible for radiation protection, nuclear safety, and waste management - was given order to elaborate a concept for assistance to those Federal States. The field of prevention of nuclear hazards ranges from combatting illegal trade with radioactive test sources up to the defence of nuclear fuels with the possibility to construct critical assemblies or the threatening by the distribution of airborne material which might enter the lungs. The latter are considered as serious cases of nuclear hazards. Since the expenditures for devices and personal to be trained would be inadequately high, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) is prepared to support the Federal States if it becomes necessary. The concept includes a stand-by service, the search for radioactive material by helicopter or a ground team, analysis of the activity and the type of nuclides, risk assessment, and also measures to steam the risk. This concept will be presented. (author)

  19. Comparison of Four Search Engines and their efficacy With Emphasis on Literature Research in Addiction (Prevention and Treatment).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Samadzadeh, Gholam Reza; Rigi, Tahereh; Ganjali, Ali Reza

    2013-01-01

    Surveying valuable and most recent information from internet, has become vital for researchers and scholars, because every day, thousands and perhaps millions of scientific works are brought out as digital resources which represented by internet and researchers can't ignore this great resource to find related documents for their literature search, which may not be found in any library. With regard to variety of documents presented on the internet, search engines are one of the most effective search tools for finding information. The aim of this study is to evaluate the three criteria, recall, preciseness and importance of the four search engines which are PubMed, Science Direct, Google Scholar and federated search of Iranian National Medical Digital Library in addiction (prevention and treatment) to select the most effective search engine for offering the best literature research. This research was a cross-sectional study by which four popular search engines in medical sciences were evaluated. To select keywords, medical subject heading (Mesh) was used. We entered given keywords in the search engines and after searching, 10 first entries were evaluated. Direct observation was used as a mean for data collection and they were analyzed by descriptive statistics (number, percent number and mean) and inferential statistics, One way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post hoc Tukey in Spss. 15 statistical software. P Value search engines had different operations with regard to the evaluated criteria. Since P Value was 0.004 search engines. PubMed, Science Direct and Google Scholar were the best in recall, preciseness and importance respectively. As literature research is one of the most important stages of research, it's better for researchers, especially Substance-Related Disorders scholars to use different search engines with the best recall, preciseness and importance in that subject field to reach desirable results while searching and they don't depend on just one

  20. FEDERAL AND REGIONAL CLUSTER POLICY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Markov L. S.

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The article reviews the history of cluster policy in Russia at the federal and regional levels. The federal cluster policy is realized in three directions, studying which allowed us to outline the main features of a formalized cluster that claims state support. The trend of reorientation of the cluster policy from supporting clusters and their infrastructure to cluster projects is revealed. Systematization and comparative analysis of the cluster policy in the regions of the country leading in terms of cluster development is carried out. It is established that the regional cluster policy is at a nascent stage and is a projection of the federal programs. At the regional level, there is no institutional basis for the cluster policy in Russia. The regional cluster policy is characterized by homogeneity of organizational structures.

  1. How doctors search

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lykke, Marianne; Price, Susan; Delcambre, Lois

    2012-01-01

    Professional, workplace searching is different from general searching, because it is typically limited to specific facets and targeted to a single answer. We have developed the semantic component (SC) model, which is a search feature that allows searchers to structure and specify the search to co...

  2. Web Search Engines

    OpenAIRE

    Rajashekar, TB

    1998-01-01

    The World Wide Web is emerging as an all-in-one information source. Tools for searching Web-based information include search engines, subject directories and meta search tools. We take a look at key features of these tools and suggest practical hints for effective Web searching.

  3. Richard Weaver's Untraditional Case for Federalism

    OpenAIRE

    Jeremy David Bailey

    2004-01-01

    Although Richard M. Weaver's political writings do not offer a systematic examination of federalism, they include a defense of federalist arrangements. Because Weaver's federalism is central to his conservatism, and because his argument for federalism differs from more common conservative defenses of federalism offered in the twentieth century, his writings allow students of federalism to examine possible connections between federalism and conservative political thought. Copyright 2004, Oxfor...

  4. Ordered Consumer Search

    OpenAIRE

    Armstrong, Mark

    2016-01-01

    The paper discusses situations in which consumers search through their options in a deliberate order, in contrast to more familiar models with random search. Topics include: network effects (consumers may be better off following the same search order as other consumers); the use of price and non-price advertising to direct search; the impact of consumers starting a new search with their previous supplier; the incentive sellers have to merge or co-locate with other sellers; and the incentive a...

  5. Is searching full text more effective than searching abstracts?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Jimmy

    2009-02-03

    With the growing availability of full-text articles online, scientists and other consumers of the life sciences literature now have the ability to go beyond searching bibliographic records (title, abstract, metadata) to directly access full-text content. Motivated by this emerging trend, I posed the following question: is searching full text more effective than searching abstracts? This question is answered by comparing text retrieval algorithms on MEDLINE abstracts, full-text articles, and spans (paragraphs) within full-text articles using data from the TREC 2007 genomics track evaluation. Two retrieval models are examined: bm25 and the ranking algorithm implemented in the open-source Lucene search engine. Experiments show that treating an entire article as an indexing unit does not consistently yield higher effectiveness compared to abstract-only search. However, retrieval based on spans, or paragraphs-sized segments of full-text articles, consistently outperforms abstract-only search. Results suggest that highest overall effectiveness may be achieved by combining evidence from spans and full articles. Users searching full text are more likely to find relevant articles than searching only abstracts. This finding affirms the value of full text collections for text retrieval and provides a starting point for future work in exploring algorithms that take advantage of rapidly-growing digital archives. Experimental results also highlight the need to develop distributed text retrieval algorithms, since full-text articles are significantly longer than abstracts and may require the computational resources of multiple machines in a cluster. The MapReduce programming model provides a convenient framework for organizing such computations.

  6. Is searching full text more effective than searching abstracts?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lin Jimmy

    2009-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background With the growing availability of full-text articles online, scientists and other consumers of the life sciences literature now have the ability to go beyond searching bibliographic records (title, abstract, metadata to directly access full-text content. Motivated by this emerging trend, I posed the following question: is searching full text more effective than searching abstracts? This question is answered by comparing text retrieval algorithms on MEDLINE® abstracts, full-text articles, and spans (paragraphs within full-text articles using data from the TREC 2007 genomics track evaluation. Two retrieval models are examined: bm25 and the ranking algorithm implemented in the open-source Lucene search engine. Results Experiments show that treating an entire article as an indexing unit does not consistently yield higher effectiveness compared to abstract-only search. However, retrieval based on spans, or paragraphs-sized segments of full-text articles, consistently outperforms abstract-only search. Results suggest that highest overall effectiveness may be achieved by combining evidence from spans and full articles. Conclusion Users searching full text are more likely to find relevant articles than searching only abstracts. This finding affirms the value of full text collections for text retrieval and provides a starting point for future work in exploring algorithms that take advantage of rapidly-growing digital archives. Experimental results also highlight the need to develop distributed text retrieval algorithms, since full-text articles are significantly longer than abstracts and may require the computational resources of multiple machines in a cluster. The MapReduce programming model provides a convenient framework for organizing such computations.

  7. Protein structure determination by exhaustive search of Protein Data Bank derived databases.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stokes-Rees, Ian; Sliz, Piotr

    2010-12-14

    Parallel sequence and structure alignment tools have become ubiquitous and invaluable at all levels in the study of biological systems. We demonstrate the application and utility of this same parallel search paradigm to the process of protein structure determination, benefitting from the large and growing corpus of known structures. Such searches were previously computationally intractable. Through the method of Wide Search Molecular Replacement, developed here, they can be completed in a few hours with the aide of national-scale federated cyberinfrastructure. By dramatically expanding the range of models considered for structure determination, we show that small (less than 12% structural coverage) and low sequence identity (less than 20% identity) template structures can be identified through multidimensional template scoring metrics and used for structure determination. Many new macromolecular complexes can benefit significantly from such a technique due to the lack of known homologous protein folds or sequences. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the method by determining the structure of a full-length p97 homologue from Trichoplusia ni. Example cases with the MHC/T-cell receptor complex and the EmoB protein provide systematic estimates of minimum sequence identity, structure coverage, and structural similarity required for this method to succeed. We describe how this structure-search approach and other novel computationally intensive workflows are made tractable through integration with the US national computational cyberinfrastructure, allowing, for example, rapid processing of the entire Structural Classification of Proteins protein fragment database.

  8. 77 FR 66482 - Federal-State Unemployment Compensation Program: Certifications for 2012 Under the Federal...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-11-05

    ... DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Employment and Training Administration Federal-State Unemployment Compensation Program: Certifications for 2012 Under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act AGENCY: Employment and Training... Federal Unemployment Tax Act, 26 U.S.C. 3301 et seq., thereby enabling employers who make contributions to...

  9. 75 FR 68001 - Federal-State Unemployment Compensation Program: Certifications for 2010 under the Federal...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-11-04

    ... DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Employment and Training Administration Federal-State Unemployment Compensation Program: Certifications for 2010 under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act AGENCY: Employment and Training... Federal Unemployment Tax Act, 26 U.S.C. 3301 et seq., thereby enabling employers who make contributions to...

  10. 78 FR 67200 - Federal-State Unemployment Compensation Program: Certifications for 2013 Under the Federal...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-11-08

    ... DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Employment and Training Administration Federal-State Unemployment Compensation Program: Certifications for 2013 Under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act AGENCY: Employment and Training... Federal Unemployment Tax Act, 26 U.S.C. 3301 et seq., thereby enabling employers who make contributions to...

  11. 76 FR 68790 - Federal-State Unemployment Compensation Program: Certifications for 2011 Under the Federal...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-11-07

    ... DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Employment and Training Administration Federal-State Unemployment Compensation Program: Certifications for 2011 Under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act AGENCY: Employment and Training... Federal Unemployment Tax Act, 26 U.S.C. 3301 et seq., thereby enabling employers who make contributions to...

  12. Information Asymmetry in Federations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexander Mikhailovich Libman

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available The paper investigates the problems of information transmission between levels of government in a federal state. The central government in a federation typically faces serious difficulties while collecting information on economic and political situation in the regions. There are two types of problems: lack of incentives for the regions to accurately collect information and strategic manipulation of information, which are discussed in the paper along with possible solutions. In particular, overcoming information asymmetry would require the development of national parties or informal coalitions of bureaucrats and politicians of the center and of the regions, creating incentives for regional politicians to back the successful functioning of the federal level. Furthermore, the paper discusses the issue of «informal decentralization», which emerges as a result of information asymmetry, and its consequences for the functioning of a federal state, including both advantages and disadvantages. We conclude that under information asymmetry the organization of the federation will inevitably turn into an issue of permanent negotiations and bargaining between the center and the regions, which functions as the information acquisition tool for optimal allocation of authorities in a federation

  13. Meta-Search Utilizing Evolitionary Recommendation: A Web Search Architecture Proposal

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Húsek, Dušan; Keyhanipour, A.; Krömer, P.; Moshiri, B.; Owais, S.; Snášel, V.

    2008-01-01

    Roč. 33, - (2008), s. 189-200 ISSN 1870-4069 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z10300504 Keywords : web search * meta-search engine * intelligent re-ranking * ordered weighted averaging * Boolean search queries optimizing Subject RIV: IN - Informatics, Computer Science

  14. 11 CFR 102.5 - Organizations financing political activity in connection with Federal and non-Federal elections...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ...: Accounts and accounting. 102.5 Section 102.5 Federal Elections FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION GENERAL... connection with non-Federal elections. Administrative expenses for State, district, and local party... 11 Federal Elections 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Organizations financing political activity in...

  15. Does linear separability really matter? Complex visual search is explained by simple search

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vighneshvel, T.; Arun, S. P.

    2013-01-01

    Visual search in real life involves complex displays with a target among multiple types of distracters, but in the laboratory, it is often tested using simple displays with identical distracters. Can complex search be understood in terms of simple searches? This link may not be straightforward if complex search has emergent properties. One such property is linear separability, whereby search is hard when a target cannot be separated from its distracters using a single linear boundary. However, evidence in favor of linear separability is based on testing stimulus configurations in an external parametric space that need not be related to their true perceptual representation. We therefore set out to assess whether linear separability influences complex search at all. Our null hypothesis was that complex search performance depends only on classical factors such as target-distracter similarity and distracter homogeneity, which we measured using simple searches. Across three experiments involving a variety of artificial and natural objects, differences between linearly separable and nonseparable searches were explained using target-distracter similarity and distracter heterogeneity. Further, simple searches accurately predicted complex search regardless of linear separability (r = 0.91). Our results show that complex search is explained by simple search, refuting the widely held belief that linear separability influences visual search. PMID:24029822

  16. Natural Language Search Interfaces: Health Data Needs Single-Field Variable Search.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jay, Caroline; Harper, Simon; Dunlop, Ian; Smith, Sam; Sufi, Shoaib; Goble, Carole; Buchan, Iain

    2016-01-14

    Data discovery, particularly the discovery of key variables and their inter-relationships, is key to secondary data analysis, and in-turn, the evolving field of data science. Interface designers have presumed that their users are domain experts, and so they have provided complex interfaces to support these "experts." Such interfaces hark back to a time when searches needed to be accurate first time as there was a high computational cost associated with each search. Our work is part of a governmental research initiative between the medical and social research funding bodies to improve the use of social data in medical research. The cross-disciplinary nature of data science can make no assumptions regarding the domain expertise of a particular scientist, whose interests may intersect multiple domains. Here we consider the common requirement for scientists to seek archived data for secondary analysis. This has more in common with search needs of the "Google generation" than with their single-domain, single-tool forebears. Our study compares a Google-like interface with traditional ways of searching for noncomplex health data in a data archive. Two user interfaces are evaluated for the same set of tasks in extracting data from surveys stored in the UK Data Archive (UKDA). One interface, Web search, is "Google-like," enabling users to browse, search for, and view metadata about study variables, whereas the other, traditional search, has standard multioption user interface. Using a comprehensive set of tasks with 20 volunteers, we found that the Web search interface met data discovery needs and expectations better than the traditional search. A task × interface repeated measures analysis showed a main effect indicating that answers found through the Web search interface were more likely to be correct (F1,19=37.3, Pnatural language search interfaces for variable search supporting in particular: query reformulation; data browsing; faceted search; surrogates; relevance

  17. Visual Representation Determines Search Difficulty: Explaining Visual Search Asymmetries

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Neil eBruce

    2011-07-01

    Full Text Available In visual search experiments there exist a variety of experimental paradigms in which a symmetric set of experimental conditions yields asymmetric corresponding task performance. There are a variety of examples of this that currently lack a satisfactory explanation. In this paper, we demonstrate that distinct classes of asymmetries may be explained by virtue of a few simple conditions that are consistent with current thinking surrounding computational modeling of visual search and coding in the primate brain. This includes a detailed look at the role that stimulus familiarity plays in the determination of search performance. Overall, we demonstrate that all of these asymmetries have a common origin, namely, they are a consequence of the encoding that appears in the visual cortex. The analysis associated with these cases yields insight into the problem of visual search in general and predictions of novel search asymmetries.

  18. evaluating search effectiveness of some selected search engines

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Precision, relative recall and response time were considered for this ... a total of 24 search queries were sampled based on information queries, .... searching process and results, although there are other ... Q3.2 Software prototype model.

  19. Natural Language Search Interfaces: Health Data Needs Single-Field Variable Search

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Sam; Sufi, Shoaib; Goble, Carole; Buchan, Iain

    2016-01-01

    Background Data discovery, particularly the discovery of key variables and their inter-relationships, is key to secondary data analysis, and in-turn, the evolving field of data science. Interface designers have presumed that their users are domain experts, and so they have provided complex interfaces to support these “experts.” Such interfaces hark back to a time when searches needed to be accurate first time as there was a high computational cost associated with each search. Our work is part of a governmental research initiative between the medical and social research funding bodies to improve the use of social data in medical research. Objective The cross-disciplinary nature of data science can make no assumptions regarding the domain expertise of a particular scientist, whose interests may intersect multiple domains. Here we consider the common requirement for scientists to seek archived data for secondary analysis. This has more in common with search needs of the “Google generation” than with their single-domain, single-tool forebears. Our study compares a Google-like interface with traditional ways of searching for noncomplex health data in a data archive. Methods Two user interfaces are evaluated for the same set of tasks in extracting data from surveys stored in the UK Data Archive (UKDA). One interface, Web search, is “Google-like,” enabling users to browse, search for, and view metadata about study variables, whereas the other, traditional search, has standard multioption user interface. Results Using a comprehensive set of tasks with 20 volunteers, we found that the Web search interface met data discovery needs and expectations better than the traditional search. A task × interface repeated measures analysis showed a main effect indicating that answers found through the Web search interface were more likely to be correct (F 1,19=37.3, Peffect of task (F 3,57=6.3, Pinterface (F 1,19=18.0, Peffect of task (F 2,38=4.1, P=.025, Greenhouse

  20. Federal structures and associated behavioural interventions in prevention of cigarette smoking

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Willich, Stefan N.

    2008-10-01

    Full Text Available Objectives: The recently published HTA-report “Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of behavioural strategies in the prevention of cigarette smoking” detects a lack of high-quality publications considering the national prevention structures. Included publications do not give any information regarding current interventions in Germany. The goal of this addendum is to give an overview of the federal prevention system and associated measures for behavioural smoking prevention. Methods: Firstly, relevant tobacco prevention structures with associated tasks and activities were identified. Further, a survey of available project information was conducted in December 2007. This procedure based on systematic analysis in PrevNet-network as well as on manual search on the web sites of primary network centres (PrevNet-Knotenpunkte or other relevant federal state organisations. A written, postal questionnaire was conducted among network centres, federal state organisations and selected health insurance funds. Results: Interventions regarding primary prevention of smoking cover a variety of activities and campaigns issued by the Federal Government, several national organisations, federal and local authorities as well as health insurance funds. Institutions such as the German Ministry of Health, the Federal Centre for Health Education (BZGA, the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ contribute to smoking prevention on national level. Diverse professional associations, workshops or authorities set up the organisational framework for coordination and planning of tobacco prevention on federal state level. Even on communal level institutional structures in terms of local professional departments and committees are established. The health insurance companies and their associations also play a major role in prevention of smoking uptake. “Rauchfrei”, “Be smart, don´ t start”, “Klasse 2000”, “ALF” or “Just be smokefree” are among the most well

  1. Federal Energy Resources Modernization Coordinating Committee

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Parker, G. B.

    1992-07-01

    This report summarizes the broad range of activities supported by Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) and other federal agencies focused on meeting the President's Executive Order on Federal Energy Management promulgated to meet energy savings goals and encourage more efficient management of all federal energy resources. These activities are reported semiannually under the auspices of the FERM Coordinating Committee, and as such include activities undertaken from October 1, 1991, through March 31, 1992. The activities reported are classified into four major categories: (1) technology-base support, which includes development of processes, software, metering and monitoring equipment and strategies, and other tools for the federal energy manager to better understand and characterize their energy resources; (2) federal energy systems testing and monitoring; (3) federal energy systems modernization projects at federal installations in cooperation with the utilities serving the sites; and (4) energy supply, distribution and end-use conservation assessment for federal agencies and/or facilities.

  2. Public hospital quality report awareness: evidence from National and Californian Internet searches and social media mentions, 2012.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huesch, Marco D; Currid-Halkett, Elizabeth; Doctor, Jason N

    2014-03-11

    Publicly available hospital quality reports seek to inform consumers of important healthcare quality and affordability attributes, and may inform consumer decision-making. To understand how much consumers search for such information online on one Internet search engine, whether they mention such information in social media and how positively they view this information. A leading Internet search engine (Google) was the main focus of the study. Google Trends and Google Adwords keyword analyses were performed for national and Californian searches between 1 August 2012 and 31 July 2013 for keywords related to 'top hospital', best hospital', and 'hospital quality', as well as for six specific hospital quality reports. Separately, a proprietary social media monitoring tool was used to investigate blog, forum, social media and traditional media mentions of, and sentiment towards, major public reports of hospital quality in California in 2012. (1) Counts of searches for keywords performed on Google; (2) counts of and (3) sentiment of mentions of public reports on social media. National Google search volume for 75 hospital quality-related terms averaged 610 700 searches per month with strong variation by keyword and by state. A commercial report (Healthgrades) was more commonly searched for nationally on Google than the federal government's Hospital Compare, which otherwise dominated quality-related search terms. Social media references in California to quality reports were generally few, and commercially produced hospital quality reports were more widely mentioned than state (Office of Statewide Healthcare Planning and Development (OSHPD)), or non-profit (CalHospitalCompare) reports. Consumers are somewhat aware of hospital quality based on Internet search activity and social media disclosures. Public stakeholders may be able to broaden their quality dissemination initiatives by advertising on Google or Twitter and using social media interactively with consumers looking

  3. Public hospital quality report awareness: evidence from National and Californian Internet searches and social media mentions, 2012

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huesch, Marco D; Currid-Halkett, Elizabeth; Doctor, Jason N

    2014-01-01

    Objectives Publicly available hospital quality reports seek to inform consumers of important healthcare quality and affordability attributes, and may inform consumer decision-making. To understand how much consumers search for such information online on one Internet search engine, whether they mention such information in social media and how positively they view this information. Setting and design A leading Internet search engine (Google) was the main focus of the study. Google Trends and Google Adwords keyword analyses were performed for national and Californian searches between 1 August 2012 and 31 July 2013 for keywords related to ‘top hospital’, best hospital’, and ‘hospital quality’, as well as for six specific hospital quality reports. Separately, a proprietary social media monitoring tool was used to investigate blog, forum, social media and traditional media mentions of, and sentiment towards, major public reports of hospital quality in California in 2012. Primary outcome measures (1) Counts of searches for keywords performed on Google; (2) counts of and (3) sentiment of mentions of public reports on social media. Results National Google search volume for 75 hospital quality-related terms averaged 610 700 searches per month with strong variation by keyword and by state. A commercial report (Healthgrades) was more commonly searched for nationally on Google than the federal government's Hospital Compare, which otherwise dominated quality-related search terms. Social media references in California to quality reports were generally few, and commercially produced hospital quality reports were more widely mentioned than state (Office of Statewide Healthcare Planning and Development (OSHPD)), or non-profit (CalHospitalCompare) reports. Conclusions Consumers are somewhat aware of hospital quality based on Internet search activity and social media disclosures. Public stakeholders may be able to broaden their quality dissemination initiatives by

  4. 78 FR 9771 - Federal Highway Administration

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-02-11

    ... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Highway Administration Notice of Final Federal Agency Action on Proposed Transportation Project in Illinois and Indiana AGENCY: Federal Highway Administration...., Acting Division Administrator, Federal Highway Administration, 3250 Executive Park Drive, Springfield...

  5. Search Advertising

    OpenAIRE

    Cornière (de), Alexandre

    2016-01-01

    Search engines enable advertisers to target consumers based on the query they have entered. In a framework with horizontal product differentiation, imperfect product information and in which consumers incur search costs, I study a game in which advertisers have to choose a price and a set of relevant keywords. The targeting mechanism brings about three kinds of efficiency gains, namely lower search costs, better matching, and more intense product market price-competition. A monopolistic searc...

  6. Inventory of Federal Energy-Related Environment and Safety Research for FY 1978. Volume III, interactive terminal users guide

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Miller, C. E.; Barker, Janice F.

    1979-12-01

    This users' guide was prepared to provide interested persons access to, via computer terminals, federally funded energy-related environmental and safety research projects for FY 1978. Although this information is also available in hardbound volumes, this on-line searching capability is expected to reduce the time required to answer ad hoc questions and, at the same time, produce meaningful reports. The data contained in this data base are not exhaustive and represent research reported by the following agencies: Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Department of the Interior, Department of Transportation, Federal Energy Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Science Foundation, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Tennessee Valley Authority, U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

  7. Tax incentives in fiscal federalism

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kelders, Christian; Köthenbürger, Marko

    2010-01-01

    Models of fiscal federalism rarely account for the efficiency implications of intergovernmental fiscal ties for federal tax policy. This paper shows that fiscal institutions such that federal tax deductibility, vertical revenue-sharing, and fiscal equalization (being common features of existing...

  8. Role of Ecological Cultural Synthesis in Enhancement of Importance and Competitive Ability of Polytechnic Education in the Southern Far East of the Russian Federation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Petukhov, V. I.; Golikov, S. Yu; Maiorov, I. S.

    2017-11-01

    The regional features of polytechnic education development under present-day conditions are considered. The enhanced role of ecological cultural synthesis is proved to be necessary in order to enhance the importance and competitive ability of the polytechnic education in the southern Far East of the Russian Federation. Ecological cultural synthesis is the major condition to turn natural management into the ecologically sparing management of natural resources; it is also a method of a person to learn nature and the mutual relations with nature. It should become a basis for educational programs in the higher schools of the Russian Federation (that may be used with the practical purposes not only in the Russian Federation), and it may promote the search of the national idea, ideological core, and basic principles of further education development in Russia.

  9. 76 FR 31393 - Federal Acquisition Regulation; Federal Acquisition Circular 2005-52; Introduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-05-31

    ... 2010-017 Robinson. Ethics Programs. VI Technical Amendments... SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Summaries for... interim rule amends the FAR to implement Executive Order 13514, Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance, and Executive Order 13423, Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy...

  10. Beyond MEDLINE for literature searches.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Conn, Vicki S; Isaramalai, Sang-arun; Rath, Sabyasachi; Jantarakupt, Peeranuch; Wadhawan, Rohini; Dash, Yashodhara

    2003-01-01

    To describe strategies for a comprehensive literature search. MEDLINE searches result in limited numbers of studies that are often biased toward statistically significant findings. Diversified search strategies are needed. Empirical evidence about the recall and precision of diverse search strategies is presented. Challenges and strengths of each search strategy are identified. Search strategies vary in recall and precision. Often sensitivity and specificity are inversely related. Valuable search strategies include examination of multiple diverse computerized databases, ancestry searches, citation index searches, examination of research registries, journal hand searching, contact with the "invisible college," examination of abstracts, Internet searches, and contact with sources of synthesized information. Extending searches beyond MEDLINE enables researchers to conduct more systematic comprehensive searches.

  11. Supporting Book Search

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bogers, Toine; Petras, Vivien

    2017-01-01

    of information needs. In this paper, we present a large-scale empirical comparison of the effectiveness of book metadata elements for searching complex information needs. Using a test collection of over 2 million book records and over 330 real-world book search requests, we perform a highly controlled and in......-depth analysis of topical metadata, comparing controlled vocabularies with social tags. Tags perform better overall in this setting, but controlled vocabulary terms provide complementary information, which will improve a search. We analyze potential underlying factors that contribute to search performance......, such as the relevance aspect(s) mentioned in a request or the type of book. In addition, we investigate the possible causes of search failure. We conclude that neither tags nor controlled vocabularies are wholly suited to handling the complex information needs in book search, which means that different approaches...

  12. Needle Custom Search: Recall-oriented search on the Web using semantic annotations

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kaptein, Rianne; Koot, Gijs; Huis in 't Veld, Mirjam A.A.; van den Broek, Egon; de Rijke, Maarten; Kenter, Tom; de Vries, A.P.; Zhai, Chen Xiang; de Jong, Franciska M.G.; Radinsky, Kira; Hofmann, Katja

    Web search engines are optimized for early precision, which makes it difficult to perform recall-oriented tasks using these search engines. In this article, we present our tool Needle Custom Search. This tool exploits semantic annotations of Web search results and, thereby, increase the efficiency

  13. Needle Custom Search : Recall-oriented search on the web using semantic annotations

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kaptein, Rianne; Koot, Gijs; Huis in 't Veld, Mirjam A.A.; van den Broek, Egon L.

    2014-01-01

    Web search engines are optimized for early precision, which makes it difficult to perform recall-oriented tasks using these search engines. In this article, we present our tool Needle Custom Search. This tool exploits semantic annotations of Web search results and, thereby, increase the efficiency

  14. Compendium of federal and state radioactive materials transportation laws and regulations: Transportation Legislative Database (TLDB)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1989-10-01

    The Transportation Legislative Database (TLDB) is an on-line information service containing detailed information on legislation and regulations regarding the transportation of radioactive materials in the United States. The system is dedicated to serving the legislative and regulatory information needs of the US Department of Energy and other federal agencies; state, tribal, and local governments; the hazardous materials transportation industry; and interested members of the general public. In addition to the on-line information service, quarterly and annual Legal Developments Reports are produced using information from the TLDB. These reports summarize important changes in federal and state legislation, regulations, administrative agency rulings, and judicial decisions over the reporting period. Information on significant legal developments at the tribal and local levels is also included on an as-available basis. Battelle's Office of Transportation Systems and Planning (OTSP) will also perform customized searches of the TLDB and produce formatted printouts in response to specific information requests

  15. 77 FR 43084 - Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings; Federal Buildings Personnel Training Act...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-07-23

    ... Federal High-Performance Green Buildings; Federal Buildings Personnel Training Act; Notification of... High- Performance Green Buildings, Office of Governmentwide Policy, General Services Administration... download from the Office of Federal High-Performance Green Building Web site Library at-- http://www.gsa...

  16. Federal Register in XML

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Archives and Records Administration — The Federal Register is the official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of Federal agencies and organizations, as well as executive orders and...

  17. Do two heads search better than one? Effects of student collaboration on web search behavior and search outcomes.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Lazonder, Adrianus W.

    2005-01-01

    This study compared Pairs of students with Single students in web search tasks. The underlying hypothesis was that peer-to-peer collaboration encourages students to articulate their thoughts, which in turn has a facilitative effect on the regulation of the search process as well as search outcomes.

  18. Health care reform and federalism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Greer, Scott L; Jacobson, Peter D

    2010-04-01

    Health policy debates are replete with discussions of federalism, most often when advocates of reform put their hopes in states. But health policy literature is remarkably silent on the question of allocation of authority, rarely asking which levels of government ought to lead. We draw on the larger literatures about federalism, found mostly in political science and law, to develop a set of criteria for allocating health policy authority between states and the federal government. They are social justice, procedural democracy, compatibility with value pluralism, institutional capability, and economic sustainability. Of them, only procedural democracy and compatibility with value pluralism point to state leadership. In examining these criteria, we conclude that American policy debates often get federalism backward, putting the burden of health care coverage policy on states that cannot enact or sustain it, while increasing the federal role in issues where the arguments for state leadership are compelling. We suggest that the federal government should lead present and future financing of health care coverage, since it would require major changes in American intergovernmental relations to make innovative state health care financing sustainable outside a strong federal framework.

  19. 11 CFR 106.7 - Allocation of expenses between Federal and non-Federal accounts by party committees, other than...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... Federal Elections FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION GENERAL ALLOCATIONS OF CANDIDATE AND COMMITTEE ACTIVITIES... Federal election activities. State, district, and local party committees that choose to allocate expenses... 11 Federal Elections 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Allocation of expenses between Federal and non...

  20. When is a search not a search? A comparison of searching the AMED complementary health database via EBSCOhost, OVID and DIALOG.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Younger, Paula; Boddy, Kate

    2009-06-01

    The researchers involved in this study work at Exeter Health library and at the Complementary Medicine Unit, Peninsula School of Medicine and Dentistry (PCMD). Within this collaborative environment it is possible to access the electronic resources of three institutions. This includes access to AMED and other databases using different interfaces. The aim of this study was to investigate whether searching different interfaces to the AMED allied health and complementary medicine database produced the same results when using identical search terms. The following Internet-based AMED interfaces were searched: DIALOG DataStar; EBSCOhost and OVID SP_UI01.00.02. Search results from all three databases were saved in an endnote database to facilitate analysis. A checklist was also compiled comparing interface features. In our initial search, DIALOG returned 29 hits, OVID 14 and Ebsco 8. If we assume that DIALOG returned 100% of potential hits, OVID initially returned only 48% of hits and EBSCOhost only 28%. In our search, a researcher using the Ebsco interface to carry out a simple search on AMED would miss over 70% of possible search hits. Subsequent EBSCOhost searches on different subjects failed to find between 21 and 86% of the hits retrieved using the same keywords via DIALOG DataStar. In two cases, the simple EBSCOhost search failed to find any of the results found via DIALOG DataStar. Depending on the interface, the number of hits retrieved from the same database with the same simple search can vary dramatically. Some simple searches fail to retrieve a substantial percentage of citations. This may result in an uninformed literature review, research funding application or treatment intervention. In addition to ensuring that keywords, spelling and medical subject headings (MeSH) accurately reflect the nature of the search, database users should include wildcards and truncation and adapt their search strategy substantially to retrieve the maximum number of appropriate

  1. Federal Technology Alert: Ground-Source Heat Pumps Applied to Federal Facilities-Second Edition; FINAL

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hadley, Donald L

    2001-01-01

    This Federal Technology Alert, which was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Federal Energy Management Programs, provides the detailed information and procedures that a Federal energy manager needs to evaluate most ground-source heat pump applications. This report updates an earlier report on ground-source heat pumps that was published in September 1995. In the current report, general benefits of this technology to the Federal sector are described, as are ground-source heat pump operation, system types, design variations, energy savings, and other benefits. In addition, information on current manufacturers, technology users, and references for further reading are provided

  2. Usability Testing of a Large, Multidisciplinary Library Database: Basic Search and Visual Search

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jody Condit Fagan

    2006-09-01

    Full Text Available Visual search interfaces have been shown by researchers to assist users with information search and retrieval. Recently, several major library vendors have added visual search interfaces or functions to their products. For public service librarians, perhaps the most critical area of interest is the extent to which visual search interfaces and text-based search interfaces support research. This study presents the results of eight full-scale usability tests of both the EBSCOhost Basic Search and Visual Search in the context of a large liberal arts university.

  3. New directions in federal energy management

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ginsberg, M.

    1993-01-01

    The fuel embargo of 1973, followed by the oil disruption of 1979 heightened national security concerns over the availability and price of foreign oil to sustain all sectors of the U.S. economy. As a result of our growing dependence on foreign oil and diminishing resources at home, the Federal government has worked since 1974 to identify and implement a variety of measures to reduce energy consumption in Federal buildings and operations. Federal energy expenditures peaked at almost $14 billion in 1982 but has now been reduced to approximately $10 billion a year. However, much more needs to be done. Since the 1973 oil embargo, a series of legislative initiatives and Presidential authorities established the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) and then expanded it to address a broad range of energy-related issues affecting the Federal sector. Administered by the U.S. Department of Energy, FEMP coordinates the design and implementation of energy-saving programs for Federal buildings and operations. This includes working with other Federal agencies through interagency committees to interpret and implement Federal policy, to provide technical assistance to other Federal agencies, and to collect and report Federal energy consumption data to Congress. In addition, with the passage of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, concerns over global climate change and a range of man-made and natural pollutants, environmental issues now play a critical role in our nation's energy policy. As a major consumer of energy, the Federal sector can serve as an important model for other sectors of the economy as a result of some of the innovative and cost-effective measures planned or currently underway. My talk today will focus on the Federal government's plans to ensure the energy efficient design and operation of Federal facilities, with an emphasis on life-cycle cost analyses

  4. Social Work Literature Searching: Current Issues with Databases and Online Search Engines

    Science.gov (United States)

    McGinn, Tony; Taylor, Brian; McColgan, Mary; McQuilkan, Janice

    2016-01-01

    Objectives: To compare the performance of a range of search facilities; and to illustrate the execution of a comprehensive literature search for qualitative evidence in social work. Context: Developments in literature search methods and comparisons of search facilities help facilitate access to the best available evidence for social workers.…

  5. Natural gas: federal versus state competence; Competencia federal versus competencia estadual

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Fonseca, Rodrigo Garcia da; Correia, Andre de Luizi [Wald Associados Advogados, Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil)

    2008-07-01

    This article highlights the difficulties in regulating the natural gas sector in Brazil, which has hindered the development of the full potential of this industry. It analyzes the partition of competencies between the federative entities according to the Federal Constitution, the 'Law of oil' and the project of the 'Law of gas'.

  6. Interest in Anesthesia as Reflected by Keyword Searches using Common Search Engines.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Renyu; García, Paul S; Fleisher, Lee A

    2012-01-23

    Since current general interest in anesthesia is unknown, we analyzed internet keyword searches to gauge general interest in anesthesia in comparison with surgery and pain. The trend of keyword searches from 2004 to 2010 related to anesthesia and anaesthesia was investigated using Google Insights for Search. The trend of number of peer reviewed articles on anesthesia cited on PubMed and Medline from 2004 to 2010 was investigated. The average cost on advertising on anesthesia, surgery and pain was estimated using Google AdWords. Searching results in other common search engines were also analyzed. Correlation between year and relative number of searches was determined with psearch engines may provide different total number of searching results (available posts), the ratios of searching results between some common keywords related to perioperative care are comparable, indicating similar trend. The peer reviewed manuscripts on "anesthesia" and the proportion of papers on "anesthesia and outcome" are trending up. Estimates for spending of advertising dollars are less for anesthesia-related terms when compared to that for pain or surgery due to relative smaller number of searching traffic. General interest in anesthesia (anaesthesia) as measured by internet searches appears to be decreasing. Pain, preanesthesia evaluation, anesthesia and outcome and side effects of anesthesia are the critical areas that anesthesiologists should focus on to address the increasing concerns.

  7. The FY2011 Federal Budget

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-08-04

    long been the largest source of federal revenues, followed by social insurance (payroll) taxes. Federal individual and corporate income tax revenues...915 billion (6.4% of GDP). Corporate income tax revenues fell from $304 billion in FY2008 to $138 billion in FY2009. Federal revenues from other

  8. 77 FR 42914 - Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-07-20

    ... Federal Flexible Benefits Plan: Pre-Tax Payment of Health Benefits Premiums AGENCY: Office of Personnel... this proposed rule; and (4) update the Federal Flexible Benefits Plan: Pre-Tax Payment of Health...--FEDERAL FLEXIBLE BENEFITS PLAN: PRE-TAX PAYMENTS OF HEALTH BENEFITS PREMIUMS PROGRAM 8. The authority...

  9. The Federal Air Pollution Program.

    Science.gov (United States)

    National Air Pollution Control Administration (DHEW), Washington, DC.

    Described is the Federal air pollution program as it was in 1967. The booklet is divided into these major topics: History of the Federal Program; Research; Assistance to State and Local Governments; Abatement and Prevention of Air Pollution; Control of Motor Vehicle Pollution; Information and Education; and Conclusion. Federal legislation has…

  10. Search for neutral leptons

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Perl, M.L.

    1984-12-01

    At present we know of three kinds of neutral leptons: the electron neutrino, the muon neutrino, and the tau neutrino. This paper reviews the search for additional neutral leptons. The method and significance of a search depends upon the model used for the neutral lepton being sought. Some models for the properties and decay modes of proposed neutral leptons are described. Past and present searches are reviewed. The limits obtained by some completed searches are given, and the methods of searches in progress are described. Future searches are discussed. 41 references

  11. Nurse-midwives in federally funded health centers: understanding federal program requirements and benefits.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carter, Martha

    2012-01-01

    Midwives are working in federally funded health centers in increasing numbers. Health centers provide primary and preventive health care to almost 20 million people and are located in every US state and territory. While health centers serve the entire community, they also serve as a safety net for low-income and uninsured individuals. In 2010, 93% of health center patients had incomes below 200% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines, and 38% were uninsured. Health centers, including community health centers, migrant health centers, health care for the homeless programs, and public housing primary care programs, receive grant funding and enjoy other benefits due to status as federal grantees and designation as federally qualified health centers. Clinicians working in health centers are also eligible for financial and professional benefits because of their willingness to serve vulnerable populations and work in underserved areas. Midwives, midwifery students, and faculty working in, or interacting with, health centers need to be aware of the regulations that health centers must comply with in order to qualify for and maintain federal funding. This article provides an overview of health center regulations and policies affecting midwives, including health center program requirements, scope of project policy, provider credentialing and privileging, Federal Tort Claims Act malpractice coverage, the 340B Drug Pricing Program, and National Health Service Corps scholarship and loan repayment programs. © 2012 by the American College of Nurse-Midwives.

  12. Ringed Seal Search for Global Optimization via a Sensitive Search Model.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Younes Saadi

    Full Text Available The efficiency of a metaheuristic algorithm for global optimization is based on its ability to search and find the global optimum. However, a good search often requires to be balanced between exploration and exploitation of the search space. In this paper, a new metaheuristic algorithm called Ringed Seal Search (RSS is introduced. It is inspired by the natural behavior of the seal pup. This algorithm mimics the seal pup movement behavior and its ability to search and choose the best lair to escape predators. The scenario starts once the seal mother gives birth to a new pup in a birthing lair that is constructed for this purpose. The seal pup strategy consists of searching and selecting the best lair by performing a random walk to find a new lair. Affected by the sensitive nature of seals against external noise emitted by predators, the random walk of the seal pup takes two different search states, normal state and urgent state. In the normal state, the pup performs an intensive search between closely adjacent lairs; this movement is modeled via a Brownian walk. In an urgent state, the pup leaves the proximity area and performs an extensive search to find a new lair from sparse targets; this movement is modeled via a Levy walk. The switch between these two states is realized by the random noise emitted by predators. The algorithm keeps switching between normal and urgent states until the global optimum is reached. Tests and validations were performed using fifteen benchmark test functions to compare the performance of RSS with other baseline algorithms. The results show that RSS is more efficient than Genetic Algorithm, Particles Swarm Optimization and Cuckoo Search in terms of convergence rate to the global optimum. The RSS shows an improvement in terms of balance between exploration (extensive and exploitation (intensive of the search space. The RSS can efficiently mimic seal pups behavior to find best lair and provide a new algorithm to be

  13. Assessment and Comparison of Search capabilities of Web-based Meta-Search Engines: A Checklist Approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alireza Isfandiyari Moghadam

    2010-03-01

    Full Text Available   The present investigation concerns evaluation, comparison and analysis of search options existing within web-based meta-search engines. 64 meta-search engines were identified. 19 meta-search engines that were free, accessible and compatible with the objectives of the present study were selected. An author’s constructed check list was used for data collection. Findings indicated that all meta-search engines studied used the AND operator, phrase search, number of results displayed setting, previous search query storage and help tutorials. Nevertheless, none of them demonstrated any search options for hypertext searching and displaying the size of the pages searched. 94.7% support features such as truncation, keywords in title and URL search and text summary display. The checklist used in the study could serve as a model for investigating search options in search engines, digital libraries and other internet search tools.

  14. 49 CFR 1325.3 - Federal office.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 49 Transportation 9 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Federal office. 1325.3 Section 1325.3... FEDERAL OFFICE OR THEIR REPRESENTATIVES § 1325.3 Federal office. For the purposes of this section, Federal office means the office of President or Vice President of the United States; or of Senator or...

  15. Online Information Search Performance and Search Strategies in a Health Problem-Solving Scenario.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sharit, Joseph; Taha, Jessica; Berkowsky, Ronald W; Profita, Halley; Czaja, Sara J

    2015-01-01

    Although access to Internet health information can be beneficial, solving complex health-related problems online is challenging for many individuals. In this study, we investigated the performance of a sample of 60 adults ages 18 to 85 years in using the Internet to resolve a relatively complex health information problem. The impact of age, Internet experience, and cognitive abilities on measures of search time, amount of search, and search accuracy was examined, and a model of Internet information seeking was developed to guide the characterization of participants' search strategies. Internet experience was found to have no impact on performance measures. Older participants exhibited longer search times and lower amounts of search but similar search accuracy performance as their younger counterparts. Overall, greater search accuracy was related to an increased amount of search but not to increased search duration and was primarily attributable to higher cognitive abilities, such as processing speed, reasoning ability, and executive function. There was a tendency for those who were younger, had greater Internet experience, and had higher cognitive abilities to use a bottom-up (i.e., analytic) search strategy, although use of a top-down (i.e., browsing) strategy was not necessarily unsuccessful. Implications of the findings for future studies and design interventions are discussed.

  16. 24 CFR 58.14 - Interaction with State, Federal and non-Federal entities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 24 Housing and Urban Development 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Interaction with State, Federal and non-Federal entities. 58.14 Section 58.14 Housing and Urban Development Office of the Secretary... ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES General Policy: Responsibilities of Responsible Entities § 58.14 Interaction with...

  17. Querying on Federated Sensor Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zuhal Can

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available A Federated Sensor Network (FSN is a network of geographically distributed Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs called islands. For querying on an FSN, we introduce the Layered Federated Sensor Network (L-FSN Protocol. For layered management, L-FSN provides communication among islands by its inter-island querying protocol by which a query packet routing path is determined according to some path selection policies. L-FSN allows autonomous management of each island by island-specific intra-island querying protocols that can be selected according to island properties. We evaluate the applicability of L-FSN and compare the L-FSN protocol with various querying protocols running on the flat federation model. Flat federation is a method to federate islands by running a single querying protocol on an entire FSN without distinguishing communication among and within islands. For flat federation, we select a querying protocol from geometrical, hierarchical cluster-based, hash-based, and tree-based WSN querying protocol categories. We found that a layered federation of islands by L-FSN increases the querying performance with respect to energy-efficiency, query resolving distance, and query resolving latency. Moreover, L-FSN’s flexibility of choosing intra-island querying protocols regarding the island size brings advantages on energy-efficiency and query resolving latency.

  18. Subject search study. Final report

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Todeschini, C.

    1995-01-01

    The study gathered information on how users search the database of the International Nuclear Information System (INIS), using indicators such as Subject categories, Controlled terms, Subject headings, Free-text words, combinations of the above. Users participated from the Australian, French, Russian and Spanish INIS Centres, that have different national languages. Participants, both intermediaries and end users, replied to a questionnaire and executed search queries. The INIS Secretariat at the IAEA also participated. A protocol of all search strategies used in actual searches in the database was kept. The thought process for Russian and Spanish users is predominantly non-English and also the actual initial search formulation is predominantly non-English among Russian and Spanish users while it tends to be more in English among French users. A total of 1002 searches were executed by the five INIS centres including the IAEA. The search protocols indicate the following search behaviour: 1) free text words represent about 40% of search points on an average query; 2) descriptors used as search keys have the widest range as percentage of search points, from a low of 25% to a high of 48%; 3) search keys consisting of free text that coincides with a descriptor account for about 15% of search points; 4) Subject Categories are not used in many searches; 5) free text words are present as search points in about 80% of all searches; 6) controlled terms (descriptors) are used very extensively and appear in about 90% of all searches; 7) Subject Headings were used in only a few percent of searches. From the results of the study one can conclude that there is a greater reluctance on the part of non-native English speakers in initiating their searches by using free text word searches. Also: Subject Categories are little used in searching the database; both free text terms and controlled terms are the predominant types of search keys used, whereby the controlled terms are used more

  19. Search features of digital libraries

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alastair G. Smith

    2000-01-01

    Full Text Available Traditional on-line search services such as Dialog, DataStar and Lexis provide a wide range of search features (boolean and proximity operators, truncation, etc. This paper discusses the use of these features for effective searching, and argues that these features are required, regardless of advances in search engine technology. The literature on on-line searching is reviewed, identifying features that searchers find desirable for effective searching. A selective survey of current digital libraries available on the Web was undertaken, identifying which search features are present. The survey indicates that current digital libraries do not implement a wide range of search features. For instance: under half of the examples included controlled vocabulary, under half had proximity searching, only one enabled browsing of term indexes, and none of the digital libraries enable searchers to refine an initial search. Suggestions are made for enhancing the search effectiveness of digital libraries, for instance by: providing a full range of search operators, enabling browsing of search terms, enhancement of records with controlled vocabulary, enabling the refining of initial searches, etc.

  20. The Information Search

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doraiswamy, Uma

    2011-01-01

    This paper in the form of story discusses a college student's information search process. In this story we see Kuhlthau's information search process: initiation, selection, exploration, formulation, collection, and presentation. Katie is a student who goes in search of information for her class research paper. Katie's class readings, her interest…

  1. Google Power Search

    CERN Document Server

    Spencer, Stephan

    2011-01-01

    Behind Google's deceptively simple interface is immense power for both market and competitive research-if you know how to use it well. Sure, basic searches are easy, but complex searches require specialized skills. This concise book takes you through the full range of Google's powerful search-refinement features, so you can quickly find the specific information you need. Learn techniques ranging from simple Boolean logic to URL parameters and other advanced tools, and see how they're applied to real-world market research examples. Incorporate advanced search operators such as filetype:, intit

  2. Searching for Suicide Information on Web Search Engines in Chinese

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yen-Feng Lee

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: Recently, suicide prevention has been an important public health issue. However, with the growing access to information in cyberspace, the harmful information is easily accessible online. To investigate the accessibility of potentially harmful suicide-related information on the internet, we discuss the following issue about searching suicide information on the internet to draw attention to it. Methods: We use five search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yam, and Sina and four suicide-related search queries (suicide, how to suicide, suicide methods, and want to die in traditional Chinese in April 2016. We classified the first thirty linkages of the search results on each search engine by a psychiatric doctor into suicide prevention, pro-suicide, neutral, unrelated to suicide, or error websites. Results: Among the total 352 unique websites generated, the suicide prevention websites were the most frequent among the search results (37.8%, followed by websites unrelated to suicide (25.9% and neutral websites (23.0%. However, pro-suicide websites were still easily accessible (9.7%. Besides, compared with the USA and China, the search engine originating in Taiwan had the lowest accessibility to pro-suicide information. The results of ANOVA showed a significant difference between the groups, F = 8.772, P < 0.001. Conclusions: This study results suggest a need for further restrictions and regulations of pro-suicide information on the internet. Providing more supportive information online may be an effective plan for suicidal prevention.

  3. Self-learning search engines

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Schuth, A.

    2015-01-01

    How does a search engine such as Google know which search results to display? There are many competing algorithms that generate search results, but which one works best? We developed a new probabilistic method for quickly comparing large numbers of search algorithms by examining the results users

  4. Sound Search Engine Concept

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    2006-01-01

    Sound search is provided by the major search engines, however, indexing is text based, not sound based. We will establish a dedicated sound search services with based on sound feature indexing. The current demo shows the concept of the sound search engine. The first engine will be realased June...

  5. Searching Life, the Universe and Everything? The Implementation of Summon at the University of Huddersfield

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Graham Stone

    2010-08-01

    Full Text Available A review of the recent literature suggests that users prefer simple search interfaces such as Google. The implication here is that libraries often fail to make their resources discoverable and that this may in turn affect the perceived value of the library. Against the background of the ongoing national debate about user expectations, a project group at the University of Huddersfield was asked to investigate the current provision for electronic resources and to look at a solution which would ‘provide ease of searching and access for the user, whilst reducing the workload for systems and technical services and remaining within current budget levels’. As a direct result of this review, the University of Huddersfield was the first UK commercial adopter of Summon in the summer of 2009. The Summon web-scale discovery service from Serials Solutions provides a simple single-search box to the breadth of the library's collection, swiftly delivering simultaneous information and results from the local catalogue and remote electronic resources offering a real alternative to the traditional federated search. This paper will provide a case study of the implementation, evaluation and launch of this radical new service to users at the University of Huddersfield, by detailing the approaches used and lessons learned throughout the implementation period and making recommendations for future enhancements.

  6. Federal and European Union Policy Making

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dosenrode, Søren

    By using the policy cycle approach, this paper compares the policy-process in a number of Anglo-Saxon type federations with the policy-process in continental-European style federations from within the European Union (EU) area.  The comparison would reveal: a) distinct different styles of policy...... making in European style federations in relation with the Anglo-Saxon ones. b) that the policy-process in the EU resembles that of the European style federations, and c) the Constitutional Treaty (CT) or a possible CT-light would strengthen the federal policy-making characteristics already present...

  7. Myanmar Language Search Engine

    OpenAIRE

    Pann Yu Mon; Yoshiki Mikami

    2011-01-01

    With the enormous growth of the World Wide Web, search engines play a critical role in retrieving information from the borderless Web. Although many search engines are available for the major languages, but they are not much proficient for the less computerized languages including Myanmar. The main reason is that those search engines are not considering the specific features of those languages. A search engine which capable of searching the Web documents written in those languages is highly n...

  8. Dimensions of Modern Federalism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, Robert F.; And Others

    1995-01-01

    Encapsulates a series of brief essays exploring different aspects of modern federalism. Issues include further protection of individual rights extended through state constitutions and federalism and the world economy. Authors include Robert F. Williams, Earl H. Fry, and Daniel J. Elazar. (MJP)

  9. Federal laboratories for the 21st century

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gover, J. [Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States); Huray, P.G. [Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia, SC (United States)

    1998-04-01

    Federal laboratories have successfully filled many roles for the public; however, as the 21st Century nears it is time to rethink and reevaluate how Federal laboratories can better support the public and identify new roles for this class of publicly-owned institutions. The productivity of the Federal laboratory system can be increased by making use of public outcome metrics, by benchmarking laboratories, by deploying innovative new governance models, by partnerships of Federal laboratories with universities and companies, and by accelerating the transition of federal laboratories and the agencies that own them into learning organizations. The authors must learn how government-owned laboratories in other countries serve their public. Taiwan`s government laboratory, Industrial Technology Research Institute, has been particularly successful in promoting economic growth. It is time to stop operating Federal laboratories as monopoly institutions; therefore, competition between Federal laboratories must be promoted. Additionally, Federal laboratories capable of addressing emerging 21st century public problems must be identified and given the challenge of serving the public in innovative new ways. Increased investment in case studies of particular programs at Federal laboratories and research on the public utility of a system of Federal laboratories could lead to increased productivity of laboratories. Elimination of risk-averse Federal laboratory and agency bureaucracies would also have dramatic impact on the productivity of the Federal laboratory system. Appropriately used, the US Federal laboratory system offers the US an innovative advantage over other nations.

  10. Searching and Archiving : Exploring Online Search Behaviors of Researchers

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Vyas, Dhaval; de Groot, S.; van der Veer, Gerrit C.; Dainoff, Marvin J.

    2007-01-01

    Searching for relevant peer-reviewed material is an integral part of corporate and academic researchers. Researchers collect huge amount of information over the years and sometimes struggle organizing it. Based on a study with 30 academic researchers, we explore, in combination, different searching

  11. Organizational Search Strategy: An Examination of Interdependencies, Locus and Temporality of Search

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ebrahim, Mahdi

    2017-01-01

    Notwithstanding the ample research on organizational search and its performance implications, the factors that shape the organizations’ search strategy is fairly under-explored. This study investigates how problems’ characteristics influence the managerial decision of searching jointly or

  12. 75 FR 67433 - Federal Fiscal Year 2011 Annual List of Certifications and Assurances for Federal Transit...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-11-02

    ... or exceeds $25,000, (b) is for audit services, or (3) requires the consent of a Federal official, as... of Certifications and Assurances for Federal Transit Administration Grants and Cooperative Agreements... is authorized to consolidate the certifications and assurances required by Federal law or regulations...

  13. 77 FR 43276 - Notice of Proposed Information Collection Requests; Federal Student Aid; William D. Ford Federal...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-07-24

    ...; William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program General Forbearance Request SUMMARY: Borrowers who receive loans through the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program will use this form to request forbearance... considered public records. Title of Collection: William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program General...

  14. Social Search: A Taxonomy of, and a User-Centred Approach to, Social Web Search

    Science.gov (United States)

    McDonnell, Michael; Shiri, Ali

    2011-01-01

    Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce the notion of social search as a new concept, drawing upon the patterns of web search behaviour. It aims to: define social search; present a taxonomy of social search; and propose a user-centred social search method. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed method approach was adopted to investigate…

  15. 77 FR 29988 - Notice of Submission for OMB Review; Federal Student Aid; William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-05-21

    ... DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Notice of Submission for OMB Review; Federal Student Aid; William D. Ford... borrowers in the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) and Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL... of Collection: William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program Deferment Request Forms. OMB Control...

  16. "Our federalism" moves indoors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ruger, Theodore W

    2013-04-01

    A great deal of the US Supreme Court's federalism jurisprudence over the past two decades has focused on the outer limits of federal power, suggesting a mutually exclusive division of jurisdiction between the states and the federal government, where subjects are regulated by one sovereign or the other but not both. This is not an accurate picture of American governance as it has operated over the past half century - most important areas of American life are regulated concurrently by both the federal government and the states. The Supreme Court's June 2012 decision clearing the way for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to move forward thus should not be regarded as an affront to state sovereignty but as a realistic embrace of state power in its active, modern form. The PPACA is infused with multiple major roles for the states, and as the statute goes into operation over the next few years, states retain, and are already exercising, substantial policy discretion.

  17. Keyword Search in Databases

    CERN Document Server

    Yu, Jeffrey Xu; Chang, Lijun

    2009-01-01

    It has become highly desirable to provide users with flexible ways to query/search information over databases as simple as keyword search like Google search. This book surveys the recent developments on keyword search over databases, and focuses on finding structural information among objects in a database using a set of keywords. Such structural information to be returned can be either trees or subgraphs representing how the objects, that contain the required keywords, are interconnected in a relational database or in an XML database. The structural keyword search is completely different from

  18. Intermittent search strategies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bénichou, O.; Loverdo, C.; Moreau, M.; Voituriez, R.

    2011-01-01

    This review examines intermittent target search strategies, which combine phases of slow motion, allowing the searcher to detect the target, and phases of fast motion during which targets cannot be detected. It is first shown that intermittent search strategies are actually widely observed at various scales. At the macroscopic scale, this is, for example, the case of animals looking for food; at the microscopic scale, intermittent transport patterns are involved in a reaction pathway of DNA-binding proteins as well as in intracellular transport. Second, generic stochastic models are introduced, which show that intermittent strategies are efficient strategies that enable the minimization of search time. This suggests that the intrinsic efficiency of intermittent search strategies could justify their frequent observation in nature. Last, beyond these modeling aspects, it is proposed that intermittent strategies could also be used in a broader context to design and accelerate search processes.

  19. Google Searches for "Cheap Cigarettes" Spike at Tax Increases: Evidence from an Algorithm to Detect Spikes in Time Series Data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Caputi, Theodore L

    2018-05-03

    Online cigarette dealers have lower prices than brick-and-mortar retailers and advertise tax-free status.1-8 Previous studies show smokers search out these online alternatives at the time of a cigarette tax increase.9,10 However, these studies rely upon researchers' decision to consider a specific date and preclude the possibility that researchers focus on the wrong date. The purpose of this study is to introduce an unbiased methodology to the field of observing search patterns and to use this methodology to determine whether smokers search Google for "cheap cigarettes" at cigarette tax increases and, if so, whether the increased level of searches persists. Publicly available data from Google Trends is used to observe standardized search volumes for the term, "cheap cigarettes". Seasonal Hybrid Extreme Studentized Deviate and E-Divisive with Means tests were performed to observe spikes and mean level shifts in search volume. Of the twelve cigarette tax increases studied, ten showed spikes in searches for "cheap cigarettes" within two weeks of the tax increase. However, the mean level shifts did not occur for any cigarette tax increase. Searches for "cheap cigarettes" spike around the time of a cigarette tax increase, but the mean level of searches does not shift in response to a tax increase. The SHESD and EDM tests are unbiased methodologies that can be used to identify spikes and mean level shifts in time series data without an a priori date to be studied. SHESD and EDM affirm spikes in interest are related to tax increases. • Applies improved statistical techniques (SHESD and EDM) to Google search data related to cigarettes, reducing bias and increasing power • Contributes to the body of evidence that state and federal tax increases are associated with spikes in searches for cheap cigarettes and may be good dates for increased online health messaging related to tobacco.

  20. Delaying information search

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yaniv Shani

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available In three studies, we examined factors that may temporarily attenuate information search. People are generally curious and dislike uncertainty, which typically encourages them to look for relevant information. Despite these strong forces that promote information search, people sometimes deliberately delay obtaining valuable information. We find they may do so when they are concerned that the information might interfere with future pleasurable activities. Interestingly, the decision to search or to postpone searching for information is influenced not only by the value and importance of the information itself but also by well-being maintenance goals related to possible detrimental effects that negative knowledge may have on unrelated future plans.

  1. submitter Searches at LEP

    CERN Document Server

    Kawagoe, Kiyotomo

    2001-01-01

    Searches for new particles and new physics were extensively performed at LEP. Although no evidence for new particle/physics was discovered, the null results set very stringent limits to theories beyond the standard model. In this paper, searches at LEP and anomalies observed in the searches are presented. Future prospect of searches at the new energy frontier machines is also discussed.

  2. SEARCHES FOR SUPERSYMMETRY IN ATLAS

    CERN Document Server

    Xu, Da; The ATLAS collaboration

    2017-01-01

    A wide range of supersymmetric searches are presented. All searches are based on the proton- proton collision dataset collected by the ATLAS experiment during the 2015 and 2016 (before summer) run with a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated lumi- nosity of 36.1 (36.7) fb-1. The searches are categorized into inclusive gluino and squark search, third generation search, electroweak search, prompt RPV search and long-lived par- ticle search. No evidence of new physics is observed. The results are intepreted in various models and expressed in terms of limits on the masses of new particles.

  3. ElasticSearch cookbook

    CERN Document Server

    Paro, Alberto

    2013-01-01

    Written in an engaging, easy-to-follow style, the recipes will help you to extend the capabilities of ElasticSearch to manage your data effectively.If you are a developer who implements ElasticSearch in your web applications, manage data, or have decided to start using ElasticSearch, this book is ideal for you. This book assumes that you've got working knowledge of JSON and Java

  4. 76 FR 78966 - Federal Aviation Administration

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-12-20

    ... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Aviation Administration Approval of Noise Compatibility Program for Kona International Airport at Keahole, Keahole, North Kona, HI AGENCY: Federal Aviation Administration, DOT. ACTION: Notice. SUMMARY: The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announces its findings on...

  5. 75 FR 6433 - Federal Aviation Administration

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-02-09

    ... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Aviation Administration Notice of Availability of a Draft... 9, West Chicago, IL AGENCY: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. ACTION: Notice of... Surveillance Radar, Model 9, West Chicago, Illinois. SUMMARY: The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA...

  6. 75 FR 12809 - Federal Aviation Administration

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-03-17

    ... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Aviation Administration Notice of Intent To Rule on Request...: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. ACTION: Notice of Request to Release Airport Property. SUMMARY... Nicely, Manager, Federal Aviation Administration, Southwest Region, Airports Division, Texas Airports...

  7. 75 FR 18014 - Federal Highway Administration

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-08

    ... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Highway Administration AGENCY: Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), DOT. ACTION: Notice of Availability regarding a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI): U.S.... FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Federal Highway Administration, Kentucky Division: Mr. Greg Rawlings...

  8. Software-Enabled Distributed Network Governance: The PopMedNet Experience.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davies, Melanie; Erickson, Kyle; Wyner, Zachary; Malenfant, Jessica; Rosen, Rob; Brown, Jeffrey

    2016-01-01

    The expanded availability of electronic health information has led to increased interest in distributed health data research networks. The distributed research network model leaves data with and under the control of the data holder. Data holders, network coordinating centers, and researchers have distinct needs and challenges within this model. The concerns of network stakeholders are addressed in the design and governance models of the PopMedNet software platform. PopMedNet features include distributed querying, customizable workflows, and auditing and search capabilities. Its flexible role-based access control system enables the enforcement of varying governance policies. Four case studies describe how PopMedNet is used to enforce network governance models. Trust is an essential component of a distributed research network and must be built before data partners may be willing to participate further. The complexity of the PopMedNet system must be managed as networks grow and new data, analytic methods, and querying approaches are developed. The PopMedNet software platform supports a variety of network structures, governance models, and research activities through customizable features designed to meet the needs of network stakeholders.

  9. Satisfaction in motion: Subsequent search misses are more likely in moving search displays.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stothart, Cary; Clement, Andrew; Brockmole, James R

    2018-02-01

    People often conduct visual searches in which multiple targets are possible (e.g., medical X-rays can contain multiple abnormalities). In this type of search, observers are more likely to miss a second target after having found a first one (a subsequent search miss). Recent evidence has suggested that this effect may be due to a depletion of cognitive resources from tracking the identities and locations of found targets. Given that tracking moving objects is resource-demanding, would finding a moving target further increase the chances of missing a subsequent one? To address this question, we had participants search for one or more targets hidden among distractors. Subsequent search misses were more likely when the targets and distractors moved throughout the display than when they remained stationary. However, when the found targets were highlighted in a unique color, subsequent search misses were no more likely in moving displays. Together, these results suggest that the effect of movement is likely due to the increased cognitive demands of tracking moving targets. Overall, our findings reveal that activities that involve searching for moving targets (e.g., driving) are more susceptible to subsequent search misses than are those that involve searching for stationary targets (e.g., baggage screening).

  10. Skewed Binary Search Trees

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Brodal, Gerth Stølting; Moruz, Gabriel

    2006-01-01

    It is well-known that to minimize the number of comparisons a binary search tree should be perfectly balanced. Previous work has shown that a dominating factor over the running time for a search is the number of cache faults performed, and that an appropriate memory layout of a binary search tree...... can reduce the number of cache faults by several hundred percent. Motivated by the fact that during a search branching to the left or right at a node does not necessarily have the same cost, e.g. because of branch prediction schemes, we in this paper study the class of skewed binary search trees....... For all nodes in a skewed binary search tree the ratio between the size of the left subtree and the size of the tree is a fixed constant (a ratio of 1/2 gives perfect balanced trees). In this paper we present an experimental study of various memory layouts of static skewed binary search trees, where each...

  11. 78 FR 25524 - Federal Aviation Administration

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-05-01

    ... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Aviation Administration Notice of Request To Release Airport Property AGENCY: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. ACTION: Notice of Intent to Rule on Request to... address: Lynn D. Martin, Airports Compliance Specialist, Federal Aviation Administration, Airports...

  12. Promoting cooperative federalism through state shared savings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weil, Alan

    2013-08-01

    The Affordable Care Act is transforming American federalism and creating strain between the states and the federal government. By expanding the scale of intergovernmental health programs, creating new state requirements, and setting the stage for increased federal fiscal oversight, the act has disturbed an uneasy truce in American federalism. This article outlines a policy proposal designed to harness cooperative federalism, based on the shared state and federal desire to control health care cost growth. The proposal, which borrows features of the Medicare Shared Savings Program, would provide states with an incentive in the form of an increased share of the savings they generate in programs that have federal financial participation, as long as they meet defined performance standards.

  13. Searching Harvard Business Review Online. . . Lessons in Searching a Full Text Database.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tenopir, Carol

    1985-01-01

    This article examines the Harvard Business Review Online (HBRO) database (bibliographic description fields, abstracts, extracted information, full text, subject descriptors) and reports on 31 sample HBRO searches conducted in Bibliographic Retrieval Services to test differences between searching full text and searching bibliographic record. Sample…

  14. 77 FR 64837 - Federal Aviation Administration

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-10-23

    ... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Aviation Administration Fourth Meeting: RTCA Special Committee 227, Standards of Navigation Performance AGENCY: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), U.S... Operations Group, Federal Aviation Administration. [FR Doc. 2012-26034 Filed 10-22-12; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE...

  15. 78 FR 41183 - Federal Aviation Administration

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-07-09

    ... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Aviation Administration Meeting: RTCA Program Management Committee AGENCY: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). ACTION... Operations Group, Federal Aviation Administration. [FR Doc. 2013-16464 Filed 7-8-13; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE...

  16. 78 FR 13395 - Federal Aviation Administration

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-02-27

    ... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Aviation Administration Notice of Availability of Draft...: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. ACTION: Notice of availability and request for comments... 4. U.S. Mail: Leslie Grey--AAL-614, Federal Aviation Administration, Airports Division, 222 West 7th...

  17. Planejamento orçamentário: as práticas da Universidade Federal de Lavras

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Patrícia Maria Silva

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available The present paper presents an approach about the budget planning carried out at Federal University of Lavras (UFLA, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Having a plan is a helpful tool of institutions management, which must possess a planning vision both about the present and the future. Decision making and future actions in any kind of economic activity or public interest, must be planned. The brazilian public institutions planning depends on the Government long-term planning which must be executed to meet the gools set by the Federal Government. This University, UFLA, has its budget based on the allocation model of budget resources led by Department of Higher Education (SESu of MEC (Education an Culture Minister together with National Association of Directors of Federal Institutions of Higher Education (ANDIFES. In searching an efficient management of the public resources, through improving the management using management activities, and to rise the use of those resources, a part of UFLA resource is applied in a decentralized way, which is called “Matrix of decentralization of UFLA resources” (Matrix-UFLA. From the setting of UFLA Matrix, was a management advance, mainly in the way of planning and expenses control of the Occ- others cost and capital. It was possible allocate resources in a balanced way, recognizind confrontation for a “fair slice” of resources.

  18. Teknik Perangkingan Meta-search Engine

    OpenAIRE

    Puspitaningrum, Diyah

    2014-01-01

    Meta-search engine mengorganisasikan penyatuan hasil dari berbagai search engine dengan tujuan untuk meningkatkan presisi hasil pencarian dokumen web. Pada survei teknik perangkingan meta-search engine ini akan didiskusikan isu-isu pra-pemrosesan, rangking, dan berbagai teknik penggabungan hasil pencarian dari search engine yang berbeda-beda (multi-kombinasi). Isu-isu implementasi penggabungan 2 search engine dan 3 search engine juga menjadi sorotan. Pada makalah ini juga dibahas arahan penel...

  19. BIOMedical Search Engine Framework: Lightweight and customized implementation of domain-specific biomedical search engines.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jácome, Alberto G; Fdez-Riverola, Florentino; Lourenço, Anália

    2016-07-01

    Text mining and semantic analysis approaches can be applied to the construction of biomedical domain-specific search engines and provide an attractive alternative to create personalized and enhanced search experiences. Therefore, this work introduces the new open-source BIOMedical Search Engine Framework for the fast and lightweight development of domain-specific search engines. The rationale behind this framework is to incorporate core features typically available in search engine frameworks with flexible and extensible technologies to retrieve biomedical documents, annotate meaningful domain concepts, and develop highly customized Web search interfaces. The BIOMedical Search Engine Framework integrates taggers for major biomedical concepts, such as diseases, drugs, genes, proteins, compounds and organisms, and enables the use of domain-specific controlled vocabulary. Technologies from the Typesafe Reactive Platform, the AngularJS JavaScript framework and the Bootstrap HTML/CSS framework support the customization of the domain-oriented search application. Moreover, the RESTful API of the BIOMedical Search Engine Framework allows the integration of the search engine into existing systems or a complete web interface personalization. The construction of the Smart Drug Search is described as proof-of-concept of the BIOMedical Search Engine Framework. This public search engine catalogs scientific literature about antimicrobial resistance, microbial virulence and topics alike. The keyword-based queries of the users are transformed into concepts and search results are presented and ranked accordingly. The semantic graph view portraits all the concepts found in the results, and the researcher may look into the relevance of different concepts, the strength of direct relations, and non-trivial, indirect relations. The number of occurrences of the concept shows its importance to the query, and the frequency of concept co-occurrence is indicative of biological relations

  20. Adaptive Large Neighbourhood Search

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Røpke, Stefan

    Large neighborhood search is a metaheuristic that has gained popularity in recent years. The heuristic repeatedly moves from solution to solution by first partially destroying the solution and then repairing it. The best solution observed during this search is presented as the final solution....... This tutorial introduces the large neighborhood search metaheuristic and the variant adaptive large neighborhood search that dynamically tunes parameters of the heuristic while it is running. Both heuristics belong to a broader class of heuristics that are searching a solution space using very large...... neighborhoods. The tutorial also present applications of the adaptive large neighborhood search, mostly related to vehicle routing problems for which the heuristic has been extremely successful. We discuss how the heuristic can be parallelized and thereby take advantage of modern desktop computers...

  1. Search Tips: MedlinePlus

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... of this page: https://medlineplus.gov/searchtips.html Search Tips To use the sharing features on this page, please enable JavaScript. How do I search MedlinePlus? The search box appears at the top ...

  2. Reward association facilitates distractor suppression in human visual search.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gong, Mengyuan; Yang, Feitong; Li, Sheng

    2016-04-01

    Although valuable objects are attractive in nature, people often encounter situations where they would prefer to avoid such distraction while focusing on the task goal. Contrary to the typical effect of attentional capture by a reward-associated item, we provide evidence for a facilitation effect derived from the active suppression of a high reward-associated stimulus when cuing its identity as distractor before the display of search arrays. Selection of the target is shown to be significantly faster when the distractors were in high reward-associated colour than those in low reward-associated or non-rewarded colours. This behavioural reward effect was associated with two neural signatures before the onset of the search display: the increased frontal theta oscillation and the strengthened top-down modulation from frontal to anterior temporal regions. The former suggests an enhanced working memory representation for the reward-associated stimulus and the increased need for cognitive control to override Pavlovian bias, whereas the latter indicates that the boost of inhibitory control is realized through a frontal top-down mechanism. These results suggest a mechanism in which the enhanced working memory representation of a reward-associated feature is integrated with task demands to modify attentional priority during active distractor suppression and benefit behavioural performance. © 2016 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  3. Advanced Search

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Search tips: Search terms are case-insensitive; Common words are ignored; By default only articles containing all terms in the query are returned (i.e., AND is implied); Combine multiple words with OR to find articles containing either term; e.g., education OR research; Use parentheses to create more complex queries; e.g., ...

  4. A Federated Network for Translational Cancer Research Using Clinical Data and Biospecimens.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jacobson, Rebecca S; Becich, Michael J; Bollag, Roni J; Chavan, Girish; Corrigan, Julia; Dhir, Rajiv; Feldman, Michael D; Gaudioso, Carmelo; Legowski, Elizabeth; Maihle, Nita J; Mitchell, Kevin; Murphy, Monica; Sakthivel, Mayurapriyan; Tseytlin, Eugene; Weaver, JoEllen

    2015-12-15

    Advances in cancer research and personalized medicine will require significant new bridging infrastructures, including more robust biorepositories that link human tissue to clinical phenotypes and outcomes. In order to meet that challenge, four cancer centers formed the Text Information Extraction System (TIES) Cancer Research Network, a federated network that facilitates data and biospecimen sharing among member institutions. Member sites can access pathology data that are de-identified and processed with the TIES natural language processing system, which creates a repository of rich phenotype data linked to clinical biospecimens. TIES incorporates multiple security and privacy best practices that, combined with legal agreements, network policies, and procedures, enable regulatory compliance. The TIES Cancer Research Network now provides integrated access to investigators at all member institutions, where multiple investigator-driven pilot projects are underway. Examples of federated search across the network illustrate the potential impact on translational research, particularly for studies involving rare cancers, rare phenotypes, and specific biologic behaviors. The network satisfies several key desiderata including local control of data and credentialing, inclusion of rich phenotype information, and applicability to diverse research objectives. The TIES Cancer Research Network presents a model for a national data and biospecimen network. ©2015 American Association for Cancer Research.

  5. Perfil e expectativas dos acadêmicos de Engenharia de Produção de uma universidade federal

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mario Fernando Mello

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Knowing the profile and expectations of young students is important for both the university and its professors. In this study, the aim was to learn and analyze the expectations of production engineering students of a federal university and to show the characteristics of a professional’s performance in this area. A survey was conducted using an on-line form through the ‘Google Drive’ platform, which was made available by email and by online social networks to all students enrolled in the production engineering program of a federal university in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul state, totaling 201 volunteers. A questionnaire was developed with ten objective questions and alternative semi-directed answers, involving questions of the students’ profiles and expectations. The results highlighted the importance for the university of knowing the profile and expectations of the students, enabling the search for solutions, in balance with the marketplace, for constant improvements of the program.

  6. 75 FR 61552 - Federal Railroad Administration

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-05

    ... DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Federal Railroad Administration Notice of Informational Filing In accordance with Section 236.913 of Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), notice is hereby given that the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has received an informational filing from the Northeast...

  7. Search and Disrupt

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ørding Olsen, Anders

    . However, incumbent sources engaged in capability reconfiguration to accommodate disruption improve search efforts in disruptive technologies. The paper concludes that the value of external sources is contingent on more than their knowledge. Specifically, interdependence of sources in search gives rise...... to influence from individual strategic interests on the outcomes. More generally, this points to the need for understanding the two-way influence of sources, rather than viewing external search as one-way knowledge accessing....

  8. Using Google Search Appliance (GSA) to search digital library collections: A Case Study of the INIS Collection Search

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Savic, Dobrica

    2014-01-01

    Google Search has established a new standard for information retrieval which did not exist with previous generations of library search facilities. The INIS hosts one of the world’s largest collections of published information on the peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology. It offers on-line access to a unique collection of 3.6 million bibliographic records and 483,000 full texts of non-conventional (grey) literature. This large digital library collection suffered from most of the well-known shortcomings of the classic library catalogue. Searching was complex and complicated, it required training in Boolean logic, full-text searching was not an option, and response time was slow. An opportune moment to improve the system came with the retirement of the previous catalogue software and the adoption of GSA as an organization-wide search engine standard. INIS was quick to realize the potential of using such a well-known application to replace its on-line catalogue. This paper presents the advantages and disadvantages encountered during three years of GSA use. Based on specific INIS-based practice and experience, this paper also offers some guidelines on ways to improve classic collections of millions of bibliographic and full-text documents, while reaping multiple benefits, such as increased use, accessibility, usability, expandability and improving user search and retrieval experiences. (author)

  9. Short-term Internet search using makes people rely on search engines when facing unknown issues.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Yifan; Wu, Lingdan; Luo, Liang; Zhang, Yifen; Dong, Guangheng

    2017-01-01

    The Internet search engines, which have powerful search/sort functions and ease of use features, have become an indispensable tool for many individuals. The current study is to test whether the short-term Internet search training can make people more dependent on it. Thirty-one subjects out of forty subjects completed the search training study which included a pre-test, a six-day's training of Internet search, and a post-test. During the pre- and post- tests, subjects were asked to search online the answers to 40 unusual questions, remember the answers and recall them in the scanner. Un-learned questions were randomly presented at the recalling stage in order to elicited search impulse. Comparing to the pre-test, subjects in the post-test reported higher impulse to use search engines to answer un-learned questions. Consistently, subjects showed higher brain activations in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex in the post-test than in the pre-test. In addition, there were significant positive correlations self-reported search impulse and brain responses in the frontal areas. The results suggest that a simple six-day's Internet search training can make people dependent on the search tools when facing unknown issues. People are easily dependent on the Internet search engines.

  10. Short-term Internet search using makes people rely on search engines when facing unknown issues.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yifan Wang

    Full Text Available The Internet search engines, which have powerful search/sort functions and ease of use features, have become an indispensable tool for many individuals. The current study is to test whether the short-term Internet search training can make people more dependent on it. Thirty-one subjects out of forty subjects completed the search training study which included a pre-test, a six-day's training of Internet search, and a post-test. During the pre- and post- tests, subjects were asked to search online the answers to 40 unusual questions, remember the answers and recall them in the scanner. Un-learned questions were randomly presented at the recalling stage in order to elicited search impulse. Comparing to the pre-test, subjects in the post-test reported higher impulse to use search engines to answer un-learned questions. Consistently, subjects showed higher brain activations in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex in the post-test than in the pre-test. In addition, there were significant positive correlations self-reported search impulse and brain responses in the frontal areas. The results suggest that a simple six-day's Internet search training can make people dependent on the search tools when facing unknown issues. People are easily dependent on the Internet search engines.

  11. Generalised Adaptive Harmony Search: A Comparative Analysis of Modern Harmony Search

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jaco Fourie

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Harmony search (HS was introduced in 2001 as a heuristic population-based optimisation algorithm. Since then HS has become a popular alternative to other heuristic algorithms like simulated annealing and particle swarm optimisation. However, some flaws, like the need for parameter tuning, were identified and have been a topic of study for much research over the last 10 years. Many variants of HS were developed to address some of these flaws, and most of them have made substantial improvements. In this paper we compare the performance of three recent HS variants: exploratory harmony search, self-adaptive harmony search, and dynamic local-best harmony search. We compare the accuracy of these algorithms, using a set of well-known optimisation benchmark functions that include both unimodal and multimodal problems. Observations from this comparison led us to design a novel hybrid that combines the best attributes of these modern variants into a single optimiser called generalised adaptive harmony search.

  12. FEATURES OF PERFECT AND IMPERFECT RESERVES AND RESERVE FUNDS WITHIN THE FEDERAL BUDGET OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tatyana P. Lomakina

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available During the past two years (2016–2017, the mass media was engaged in tense discussion about the status and flow of funds within the two reserves – the Reserve Fund of the Russian Federation and the National Welfare Fund. The Reserve Fund of the Russian Federation aroused especial worries among the experts. Its funds rapidly declined and by December 2017 they were fully used to cover the deficit of the domestic budget. In accordance with the law “On Amendments to the Budget Code of the Russian Federation in the Use of Oil and Gas Revenues of the Federal Budget,” from February 1, 2018, the Reserve Fund of the Russian Federation will cease to exist. For financial theory, this fact can serve as an illustration of the process of forming the foundations of budgetary financial security, their change over time, circumstances and options the government can take to modify them. At the same time, there are other types of financial resources within the federal budget. Their diversity necessitates their classification in order to identify groups and types with similar characteristics. However, in financial theory, many types of reserves are not described in detail, and some are not described at all. This article introduces the concepts of “perfect” and “imperfect” reserves, for their characterization as part of the federal budget. The Russian Reserve Fund and the National Welfare Fund (Sovereign Funds are the examples of perfect financial reserves. Imperfect reserves comprise a large group of reserve funds that are included in the federal budget, for example, the Reserve Fund of the President of the Russian Federation and the Reserve Fund of the Government of the Russian Federation, the Reserve Fund of the Government of the Russian Federation for the prevention and control of emergencies and impact of natural disasters. The introduction of new typological features largely clarifies the situation with increased attention to one type of reserves

  13. Electronic Code of Federal Regulations

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Archives and Records Administration — The Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (e-CFR) is the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the executive...

  14. Knowing How Good Our Searches Are: An Approach Derived from Search Filter Development Methodology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sarah Hayman

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Objective – Effective literature searching is of paramount importance in supporting evidence based practice, research, and policy. Missed references can have adverse effects on outcomes. This paper reports on the development and evaluation of an online learning resource, designed for librarians and other interested searchers, presenting an evidence based approach to enhancing and testing literature searches. Methods – We developed and evaluated the set of free online learning modules for librarians called Smart Searching, suggesting the use of techniques derived from search filter development undertaken by the CareSearch Palliative Care Knowledge Network and its associated project Flinders Filters. The searching module content has been informed by the processes and principles used in search filter development. The self-paced modules are intended to help librarians and other interested searchers test the effectiveness of their literature searches, provide evidence of search performance that can be used to improve searches, as well as to evaluate and promote searching expertise. Each module covers one of four techniques, or core principles, employed in search filter development: (1 collaboration with subject experts; (2 use of a reference sample set; (3 term identification through frequency analysis; and (4 iterative testing. Evaluation of the resource comprised ongoing monitoring of web analytics to determine factors such as numbers of users and geographic origin; a user survey conducted online elicited qualitative information about the usefulness of the resource. Results – The resource was launched in May 2014. Web analytics show over 6,000 unique users from 101 countries (at 9 August 2015. Responses to the survey (n=50 indicated that 80% would recommend the resource to a colleague. Conclusions – An evidence based approach to searching, derived from search filter development methodology, has been shown to have value as an online learning

  15. Nuclear supervision - Administration by the federal states on behalf of the Federal Government or direct federal administration for optimum achievement; Atomaufsicht - Bundesautragsverwaltung oder Bundeseigenverwaltung aus der Sicht optimaler Aufgabenerfuellung

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Renneberg, W. [Bundesministerium fuer Umwelt, Naturschutz und Reaktorsicherheit, Bonn (Germany)

    2005-01-01

    One year ago, Federal Minister for the Environment Juergen Trittin expressed doubt about the long-term viability of the federal states' acting on behalf of the federal government in the field of atomic energy law administration. An alternative to this type of administration was mentioned, namely direct execution by the feral government, and a thorough examination was announced. This was to show which type of administration would achieve maximum safety for the residual operating lives of nuclear power plants. Kienbaum Management Consultants were commissioned to evaluate the current status and potential alternative structures. That study was performed within the framework of one of the key projects in reactor safety of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety (BMU), namely the reform of nuclear administration. Further steps to be taken by the BMU by the end of this parliamentary term are presented. The federal state are to be approached in an attempt to conduct an unbiased discussion of the pros and cons of the alternatives to administration by the federal states on behalf of the federal government. Questions will be clarified which need to be examined in depth before direct administration by the federal government can be introduced. These include constitutional matters and matters of costing in financing the higher-level federal authority as well as specific questions about the organization of that authority. The purpose is to elaborate, by the end of this parliamentary term, a workable concept of introducing direct federal administration of nuclear safety. (orig.)

  16. Automated Patent Searching in the EPO: From Online Searching to Document Delivery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nuyts, Annemie; Jonckheere, Charles

    The European Patent Office (EPO) has recently implemented the last part of its ambitious automation project aimed at creating an automated search environment for approximately 1200 EPO patent search examiners. The examiners now have at their disposal an integrated set of tools offering a full range of functionalities from online searching, via…

  17. Providing trust and interoperability to federate distributed biobanks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lablans, Martin; Bartholomäus, Sebastian; Uckert, Frank

    2011-01-01

    Biomedical research requires large numbers of well annotated, quality-assessed samples which often cannot be provided by a single biobank. Connecting biobanks, researchers and service providers raises numerous challenges including trust among partners and towards the infrastructure as well as interoperability problems. Therefore we develop a holistic, open-source and easy-to-use IT infrastructure. Our federated approach allows partners to reflect their organizational structures and protect their data sovereignty. The search service and the contact arrangement processes increase data sovereignty without stigmatizing for rejecting a specific cooperation. The infrastructure supports daily processes with an integrated basic sample manager and user-definable electronic case report forms. Interfaces for existing IT systems avoid re-entering of data. Moreover, resource virtualization is supported to make underutilized resources of some partners accessible to those with insufficient equipment for mutual benefit. The functionality of the resulting infrastructure is outlined in a use-case to demonstrate collaboration within a translational research network. Compared to other existing or upcoming infrastructures, our approach has ultimately the same goals, but relies on gentle incentives rather than top-down imposed progress.

  18. 48 CFR Appendix - Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Index

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Index Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION CONTRACT... (IFMS) Contract clause. FAR Index Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Index Editorial Note: This...

  19. Mastering ElasticSearch

    CERN Document Server

    Kuc, Rafal

    2013-01-01

    A practical tutorial that covers the difficult design, implementation, and management of search solutions.Mastering ElasticSearch is aimed at to intermediate users who want to extend their knowledge about ElasticSearch. The topics that are described in the book are detailed, but we assume that you already know the basics, like the query DSL or data indexing. Advanced users will also find this book useful, as the examples are getting deep into the internals where it is needed.

  20. Search engine optimization

    OpenAIRE

    Marolt, Klemen

    2013-01-01

    Search engine optimization techniques, often shortened to “SEO,” should lead to first positions in organic search results. Some optimization techniques do not change over time, yet still form the basis for SEO. However, as the Internet and web design evolves dynamically, new optimization techniques flourish and flop. Thus, we looked at the most important factors that can help to improve positioning in search results. It is important to emphasize that none of the techniques can guarantee high ...

  1. Custom Search Engines: Tools & Tips

    Science.gov (United States)

    Notess, Greg R.

    2008-01-01

    Few have the resources to build a Google or Yahoo! from scratch. Yet anyone can build a search engine based on a subset of the large search engines' databases. Use Google Custom Search Engine or Yahoo! Search Builder or any of the other similar programs to create a vertical search engine targeting sites of interest to users. The basic steps to…

  2. Mapping online consumer search

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bronnenberg, B.J.; Kim, J.; Albuquerque, P.

    2011-01-01

    The authors propose a new method to visualize browsing behavior in so-called product search maps. Manufacturers can use these maps to understand how consumers search for competing products before choice, including how information acquisition and product search are organized along brands, product

  3. The Domino Effects of Federal Research Funding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lanahan, Lauren; Graddy-Reed, Alexandra; Feldman, Maryann P

    2016-01-01

    The extent to which federal investment in research crowds out or decreases incentives for investment from other funding sources remains an open question. Scholarship on research funding has focused on the relationship between federal and industry or, more comprehensively, non-federal funding without disentangling the other sources of research support that include nonprofit organizations and state and local governments. This paper extends our understanding of academic research support by considering the relationships between federal and non-federal funding sources provided by the National Science Foundation Higher Education Research and Development Survey. We examine whether federal research investment serves as a complement or substitute for state and local government, nonprofit, and industry research investment using the population of research-active academic science fields at U.S. doctoral granting institutions. We use a system of two equations that instruments with prior levels of both federal and non-federal funding sources and accounts for time-invariant academic institution-field effects through first differencing. We estimate that a 1% increase in federal research funding is associated with a 0.411% increase in nonprofit research funding, a 0.217% increase in state and local research funding, and a 0.468% increase in industry research funding, respectively. Results indicate that federal funding plays a fundamental role in inducing complementary investments from other funding sources, with impacts varying across academic division, research capacity, and institutional control.

  4. Search on Rugged Landscapes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Billinger, Stephan; Stieglitz, Nils; Schumacher, Terry

    2014-01-01

    This paper presents findings from a laboratory experiment on human decision-making in a complex combinatorial task. We find strong evidence for a behavioral model of adaptive search. Success narrows down search to the neighborhood of the status quo, while failure promotes gradually more explorative...... for local improvements too early. We derive stylized decision rules that generate the search behavior observed in the experiment and discuss the implications of our findings for individual decision-making and organizational search....

  5. Application of an automated natural language processing (NLP) workflow to enable federated search of external biomedical content in drug discovery and development.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McEntire, Robin; Szalkowski, Debbie; Butler, James; Kuo, Michelle S; Chang, Meiping; Chang, Man; Freeman, Darren; McQuay, Sarah; Patel, Jagruti; McGlashen, Michael; Cornell, Wendy D; Xu, Jinghai James

    2016-05-01

    External content sources such as MEDLINE(®), National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants and conference websites provide access to the latest breaking biomedical information, which can inform pharmaceutical and biotechnology company pipeline decisions. The value of the sites for industry, however, is limited by the use of the public internet, the limited synonyms, the rarity of batch searching capability and the disconnected nature of the sites. Fortunately, many sites now offer their content for download and we have developed an automated internal workflow that uses text mining and tailored ontologies for programmatic search and knowledge extraction. We believe such an efficient and secure approach provides a competitive advantage to companies needing access to the latest information for a range of use cases and complements manually curated commercial sources. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  6. Federal Aid and State Library Agencies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shavit, David

    1985-01-01

    Considers role of states as middlemen between federal government and local public libraries in administration of Library Services and Construction Act funds. An audit of Illinois state library agencies, 1970 federal mandates, state control of federal funds, and state library agencies' use of funds are discussed. Eight references are cited. (EJS)

  7. How to improve your PubMed/MEDLINE searches: 3. advanced searching, MeSH and My NCBI.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fatehi, Farhad; Gray, Leonard C; Wootton, Richard

    2014-03-01

    Although the basic PubMed search is often helpful, the results may sometimes be non-specific. For more control over the search process you can use the Advanced Search Builder interface. This allows a targeted search in specific fields, with the convenience of being able to select the intended search field from a list. It also provides a history of your previous searches. The search history is useful to develop a complex search query by combining several previous searches using Boolean operators. For indexing the articles in MEDLINE, the NLM uses a controlled vocabulary system called MeSH. This standardised vocabulary solves the problem of authors, researchers and librarians who may use different terms for the same concept. To be efficient in a PubMed search, you should start by identifying the most appropriate MeSH terms and use them in your search where possible. My NCBI is a personal workspace facility available through PubMed and makes it possible to customise the PubMed interface. It provides various capabilities that can enhance your search performance.

  8. Employed and unemployed job search methods: Australian evidence on search duration, wages and job stability

    OpenAIRE

    Colin Green

    2012-01-01

    This paper examines the use and impact of job search methods of both unemployed and employed job seekers. Informal job search methods are associated with relativel high level of job exit and shorter search duration. Job exists through the public employment agency (PEA) display positive duration dependence for the unemployed. This may suggest that the PEA is used as a job search method of last resort. Informal job search methods have lower associated duration in search and higher wages than th...

  9. Comparison tomography relocation hypocenter grid search and guided grid search method in Java island

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nurdian, S. W.; Adu, N.; Palupi, I. R.; Raharjo, W.

    2016-01-01

    The main data in this research is earthquake data recorded from 1952 to 2012 with 9162 P wave and 2426 events are recorded by 30 stations located around Java island. Relocation hypocenter processed using grid search and guidded grid search method. Then the result of relocation hypocenter become input for tomography pseudo bending inversion process. It can be used to identification the velocity distribution in subsurface. The result of relocation hypocenter by grid search and guided grid search method after tomography process shown in locally and globally. In locally area grid search method result is better than guided grid search according to geological reseach area. But in globally area the result of guided grid search method is better for a broad area because the velocity variation is more diverse than the other one and in accordance with local geological research conditions. (paper)

  10. 2010 Northwest Federal Market Assessment Report

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Scanlon, Tim; Sandusky, William F.

    2011-09-01

    The primary intent of this market assessment is to provide insights on the effectiveness of current energy efficiency and renewable energy program offerings available to Federal sites in the region. The level of detail, quality and currency of the data used in this market assessment varies significantly by Federal agency and energy efficiency service provider. Limited access to some Federal sites, limited availability of key points of contact, time/resource constraints, and other considerations limited the total number of Federal agencies and energy efficiency service providers participating in the survey.

  11. Citation searches are more sensitive than keyword searches to identify studies using specific measurement instruments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Linder, Suzanne K; Kamath, Geetanjali R; Pratt, Gregory F; Saraykar, Smita S; Volk, Robert J

    2015-04-01

    To compare the effectiveness of two search methods in identifying studies that used the Control Preferences Scale (CPS), a health care decision-making instrument commonly used in clinical settings. We searched the literature using two methods: (1) keyword searching using variations of "Control Preferences Scale" and (2) cited reference searching using two seminal CPS publications. We searched three bibliographic databases [PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science (WOS)] and one full-text database (Google Scholar). We report precision and sensitivity as measures of effectiveness. Keyword searches in bibliographic databases yielded high average precision (90%) but low average sensitivity (16%). PubMed was the most precise, followed closely by Scopus and WOS. The Google Scholar keyword search had low precision (54%) but provided the highest sensitivity (70%). Cited reference searches in all databases yielded moderate sensitivity (45-54%), but precision ranged from 35% to 75% with Scopus being the most precise. Cited reference searches were more sensitive than keyword searches, making it a more comprehensive strategy to identify all studies that use a particular instrument. Keyword searches provide a quick way of finding some but not all relevant articles. Goals, time, and resources should dictate the combination of which methods and databases are used. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  12. 41 CFR 102-74.185 - What heating and cooling policy must Federal agencies follow in Federal facilities?

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 41 Public Contracts and Property Management 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false What heating and cooling... heating and cooling policy must Federal agencies follow in Federal facilities? Within the limitations of the building systems, Federal agencies must— (a) Operate heating and cooling systems in the most...

  13. 40 CFR 58.60 - Federal monitoring.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 40 Protection of Environment 5 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Federal monitoring. 58.60 Section 58.60... QUALITY SURVEILLANCE Federal Monitoring § 58.60 Federal monitoring. The Administrator may locate and operate an ambient air monitoring site if the State or local agency fails to locate, or schedule to be...

  14. Russian Federation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    In the Russian Federation (RF), management of radioactive wastes will be carried out within the framework of the Federal Target Program for management of radioactive wastes and used nuclear materials for the period 1996-2005. The agency within the RF responsible for this program is the Ministry of Russian Federation on Atomic Energy. Current radioactive waste disposal activities are focused on creating regional repositories for wastes generated by radiochemical production, nuclear reactors, science centers, and from other sources outside of the nuclear-fuel cycle (the latter wastes are managed by Scientific and Industrial Association, 'RADON'). Wastes of these types are in temporary storage, with the exception of non-fuel cycle wastes which are in long term storage managed by SAI 'RADON'. The criteria for segregating between underground or near-surface disposal of radioactive waste are based on the radiation fields and radionuclide composition of the wastes. The most progress in creating regional repositories has been made in the Northwest region of Russia. However, development of a detailed design has begun for a test facility in the Northeast for disposal of radioactive wastes generated in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk provinces. The feasibility study for construction of this facility is being evaluated by state monitoring organizations, the heads of administrations of the Arkhangelsk and Murmansk provinces, and Minatom of Russia

  15. Site study plan for borehole search and characterization, Deaf Smith County Site, Texas: Revision 1

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1987-01-01

    This site study plan describes the Borehole Search and Characterization field activities to be conducted during the early stages of Site Characterization at the Deaf Smith County site, Texas. The field program has been designed to provide data useful in addressing information/data needs resulting from Federal/State/Local regulatory requirements and repository program requirements. Air and ground surveys, an extensive literature search, and landowner interviews will be conducted to locate wells within and adjacent to the proposed nuclear waste repository site in Deaf Smith County. Initially, the study will center around the planned Exploratory Shaft Facilities location and will expand outward from that location. Findings from this study may lead to preparation of a new site study plan to search suspected borehole locations, and excavate or reenter known boreholes for additional characterization or remedial action. The Salt Repository Project (SRP) Networks specify the schedule under which the program will operate. The Technical Field Services Contractor (TFSC) is responsible for conducting the field program. Data will be handled and reported in accordance with established SRP procedures. A quality assurance program will be utilized to assure that activities affecting quality are performed correctly and that appropriate documentation is maintained. 13 refs., 6 figs., 3 tabs

  16. Searching while loaded: Visual working memory does not interfere with hybrid search efficiency but hybrid search uses working memory capacity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Drew, Trafton; Boettcher, Sage E P; Wolfe, Jeremy M

    2016-02-01

    In "hybrid search" tasks, such as finding items on a grocery list, one must search the scene for targets while also searching the list in memory. How is the representation of a visual item compared with the representations of items in the memory set? Predominant theories would propose a role for visual working memory (VWM) either as the site of the comparison or as a conduit between visual and memory systems. In seven experiments, we loaded VWM in different ways and found little or no effect on hybrid search performance. However, the presence of a hybrid search task did reduce the measured capacity of VWM by a constant amount regardless of the size of the memory or visual sets. These data are broadly consistent with an account in which VWM must dedicate a fixed amount of its capacity to passing visual representations to long-term memory for comparison to the items in the memory set. The data cast doubt on models in which the search template resides in VWM or where memory set item representations are moved from LTM through VWM to earlier areas for comparison to visual items.

  17. Searches at LEP

    CERN Document Server

    Junk, Tom

    2000-01-01

    Searches have been conducted for a broad range of new phenomena by the four experiments ALEPH, DELPHI, L3, and OPAL, at LEP2. Each experiment contributes approximately 150 pb-1 of e+e- annihilation data with a mean sqrt(s) of 205.9 GeV in 2000 to these searches (data prepared for the September 5 LEPC meeting). The statistical procedure for setting limits and evaluating the significance of excesses observed in the data is reviewed. Search results are presented for the Standard Model Higgs boson, the neutral Higgs bosons in the MSSM, charged Higgs bosons, invisibly decaying Higgs bosons produced by Higgs-strahlung, and fermiophobic Higgs bosons. Search results are briefly summarized for gauginos, stops, and staus. The photon recoil spectrum is checked for hints of new physics.

  18. LA GLOBALITZACIÓ I ELS SISTEMES FEDERALS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xavier Arbós Marín

    2005-10-01

    Full Text Available This article is a revised analysis ofthe work by Lazar, Telford andWatts (2003 The Impact of Globaland Regional Integration on FederalSystems. A ComparativeAnalysis, Harvey Lazar, HamishTelford and Ronald L. Watts (eds.:The Impact of Global and RegionalIntegration on Federal Systems.A Comparative Analysis,Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003.The article’s starting point is thebook’s mainthesis, that is, an analysisof the consequences that suchdifferent integration processescan have both on the institutionalstructures and on the collectiveidentities of federal systems; inthis sense and in the light of thesechanging pressures on the natureof federalism, the article raises aquestion: to what extent federalismand federal arrangementswould remain a reference for carryingout institutional reforms aswell as for a politically and sociallypracticable system.

  19. Online Patent Searching: The Realities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaback, Stuart M.

    1983-01-01

    Considers patent subject searching capabilities of major online databases, noting patent claims, "deep-indexed" files, test searches, retrieval of related references, multi-database searching, improvements needed in indexing of chemical structures, full text searching, improvements needed in handling numerical data, and augmenting a…

  20. The Evolution of Web Searching.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Green, David

    2000-01-01

    Explores the interrelation between Web publishing and information retrieval technologies and lists new approaches to Web indexing and searching. Highlights include Web directories; search engines; portalisation; Internet service providers; browser providers; meta search engines; popularity based analysis; natural language searching; links-based…

  1. Panoramic Search: The Interaction of Memory and Vision in Search through a Familiar Scene

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oliva, Aude; Wolfe, Jeremy M. Arsenio, Helga C.

    2004-01-01

    How do observers search through familiar scenes? A novel panoramic search method is used to study the interaction of memory and vision in natural search behavior. In panoramic search, observers see part of an unchanging scene larger than their current field of view. A target object can be visible, present in the display but hidden from view, or…

  2. Evaluation of Potential Locations for Siting Small Modular Reactors near Federal Energy Clusters to Support Federal Clean Energy Goals

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Belles, Randy J. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Omitaomu, Olufemi A. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

    2014-09-01

    Geographic information systems (GIS) technology was applied to analyze federal energy demand across the contiguous US. Several federal energy clusters were previously identified, including Hampton Roads, Virginia, which was subsequently studied in detail. This study provides an analysis of three additional diverse federal energy clusters. The analysis shows that there are potential sites in various federal energy clusters that could be evaluated further for placement of an integral pressurized-water reactor (iPWR) to support meeting federal clean energy goals.

  3. Can electronic search engines optimize screening of search results in systematic reviews: an empirical study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sampson, Margaret; Barrowman, Nicholas J; Moher, David; Clifford, Tammy J; Platt, Robert W; Morrison, Andra; Klassen, Terry P; Zhang, Li

    2006-02-24

    Most electronic search efforts directed at identifying primary studies for inclusion in systematic reviews rely on the optimal Boolean search features of search interfaces such as DIALOG and Ovid. Our objective is to test the ability of an Ultraseek search engine to rank MEDLINE records of the included studies of Cochrane reviews within the top half of all the records retrieved by the Boolean MEDLINE search used by the reviewers. Collections were created using the MEDLINE bibliographic records of included and excluded studies listed in the review and all records retrieved by the MEDLINE search. Records were converted to individual HTML files. Collections of records were indexed and searched through a statistical search engine, Ultraseek, using review-specific search terms. Our data sources, systematic reviews published in the Cochrane library, were included if they reported using at least one phase of the Cochrane Highly Sensitive Search Strategy (HSSS), provided citations for both included and excluded studies and conducted a meta-analysis using a binary outcome measure. Reviews were selected if they yielded between 1000-6000 records when the MEDLINE search strategy was replicated. Nine Cochrane reviews were included. Included studies within the Cochrane reviews were found within the first 500 retrieved studies more often than would be expected by chance. Across all reviews, recall of included studies into the top 500 was 0.70. There was no statistically significant difference in ranking when comparing included studies with just the subset of excluded studies listed as excluded in the published review. The relevance ranking provided by the search engine was better than expected by chance and shows promise for the preliminary evaluation of large results from Boolean searches. A statistical search engine does not appear to be able to make fine discriminations concerning the relevance of bibliographic records that have been pre-screened by systematic reviewers.

  4. Web-based information search and retrieval: effects of strategy use and age on search success.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stronge, Aideen J; Rogers, Wendy A; Fisk, Arthur D

    2006-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between strategy use and search success on the World Wide Web (i.e., the Web) for experienced Web users. An additional goal was to extend understanding of how the age of the searcher may influence strategy use. Current investigations of information search and retrieval on the Web have provided an incomplete picture of Web strategy use because participants have not been given the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of Web strategies while also searching for information on the Web. Using both behavioral and knowledge-engineering methods, we investigated searching behavior and system knowledge for 16 younger adults (M = 20.88 years of age) and 16 older adults (M = 67.88 years). Older adults were less successful than younger adults in finding correct answers to the search tasks. Knowledge engineering revealed that the age-related effect resulted from ineffective search strategies and amount of Web experience rather than age per se. Our analysis led to the development of a decision-action diagram representing search behavior for both age groups. Older adults had more difficulty than younger adults when searching for information on the Web. However, this difficulty was related to the selection of inefficient search strategies, which may have been attributable to a lack of knowledge about available Web search strategies. Actual or potential applications of this research include training Web users to search more effectively and suggestions to improve the design of search engines.

  5. PIE the search: searching PubMed literature for protein interaction information.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Sun; Kwon, Dongseop; Shin, Soo-Yong; Wilbur, W John

    2012-02-15

    Finding protein-protein interaction (PPI) information from literature is challenging but an important issue. However, keyword search in PubMed(®) is often time consuming because it requires a series of actions that refine keywords and browse search results until it reaches a goal. Due to the rapid growth of biomedical literature, it has become more difficult for biologists and curators to locate PPI information quickly. Therefore, a tool for prioritizing PPI informative articles can be a useful assistant for finding this PPI-relevant information. PIE (Protein Interaction information Extraction) the search is a web service implementing a competition-winning approach utilizing word and syntactic analyses by machine learning techniques. For easy user access, PIE the search provides a PubMed-like search environment, but the output is the list of articles prioritized by PPI confidence scores. By obtaining PPI-related articles at high rank, researchers can more easily find the up-to-date PPI information, which cannot be found in manually curated PPI databases. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/IRET/PIE/.

  6. Target-nontarget similarity decreases search efficiency and increases stimulus-driven control in visual search.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barras, Caroline; Kerzel, Dirk

    2017-10-01

    Some points of criticism against the idea that attentional selection is controlled by bottom-up processing were dispelled by the attentional window account. The attentional window account claims that saliency computations during visual search are only performed for stimuli inside the attentional window. Therefore, a small attentional window may avoid attentional capture by salient distractors because it is likely that the salient distractor is located outside the window. In contrast, a large attentional window increases the chances of attentional capture by a salient distractor. Large and small attentional windows have been associated with efficient (parallel) and inefficient (serial) search, respectively. We compared the effect of a salient color singleton on visual search for a shape singleton during efficient and inefficient search. To vary search efficiency, the nontarget shapes were either similar or dissimilar with respect to the shape singleton. We found that interference from the color singleton was larger with inefficient than efficient search, which contradicts the attentional window account. While inconsistent with the attentional window account, our results are predicted by computational models of visual search. Because of target-nontarget similarity, the target was less salient with inefficient than efficient search. Consequently, the relative saliency of the color distractor was higher with inefficient than with efficient search. Accordingly, stronger attentional capture resulted. Overall, the present results show that bottom-up control by stimulus saliency is stronger when search is difficult, which is inconsistent with the attentional window account.

  7. Prices and heterogeneous search costs

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Luis Moraga-Gonzalez, Jose; Sandor, Zsolt; Wildenbeest, Matthijs R.

    2017-01-01

    We study price formation in a model of consumer search for differentiated products in which consumers have heterogeneous search costs. We provide conditions under which a pure-strategy symmetric Nash equilibrium exists and is unique. Search costs affect two margins-the intensive search margin (or

  8. Search Analytics for Your Site

    CERN Document Server

    Rosenfeld, Louis

    2011-01-01

    Any organization that has a searchable web site or intranet is sitting on top of hugely valuable and usually under-exploited data: logs that capture what users are searching for, how often each query was searched, and how many results each query retrieved. Search queries are gold: they are real data that show us exactly what users are searching for in their own words. This book shows you how to use search analytics to carry on a conversation with your customers: listen to and understand their needs, and improve your content, navigation and search performance to meet those needs.

  9. ElasticSearch server

    CERN Document Server

    Rogozinski, Marek

    2014-01-01

    This book is a detailed, practical, hands-on guide packed with real-life scenarios and examples which will show you how to implement an ElasticSearch search engine on your own websites.If you are a web developer or a user who wants to learn more about ElasticSearch, then this is the book for you. You do not need to know anything about ElastiSeach, Java, or Apache Lucene in order to use this book, though basic knowledge about databases and queries is required.

  10. Federal databases

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Welch, M.J.; Welles, B.W.

    1988-01-01

    Accident statistics on all modes of transportation are available as risk assessment analytical tools through several federal agencies. This paper reports on the examination of the accident databases by personal contact with the federal staff responsible for administration of the database programs. This activity, sponsored by the Department of Energy through Sandia National Laboratories, is an overview of the national accident data on highway, rail, air, and marine shipping. For each mode, the definition or reporting requirements of an accident are determined and the method of entering the accident data into the database is established. Availability of the database to others, ease of access, costs, and who to contact were prime questions to each of the database program managers. Additionally, how the agency uses the accident data was of major interest

  11. Complete local search with memory

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ghosh, D.; Sierksma, G.

    2000-01-01

    Neighborhood search heuristics like local search and its variants are some of the most popular approaches to solve discrete optimization problems of moderate to large size. Apart from tabu search, most of these heuristics are memoryless. In this paper we introduce a new neighborhood search heuristic

  12. Using search query surveillance to monitor tax avoidance and smoking cessation following the United States' 2009 "SCHIP" cigarette tax increase.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ayers, John W; Ribisl, Kurt; Brownstein, John S

    2011-03-16

    Smokers can use the web to continue or quit their habit. Online vendors sell reduced or tax-free cigarettes lowering smoking costs, while health advocates use the web to promote cessation. We examined how smokers' tax avoidance and smoking cessation Internet search queries were motivated by the United States' (US) 2009 State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) federal cigarette excise tax increase and two other state specific tax increases. Google keyword searches among residents in a taxed geography (US or US state) were compared to an untaxed geography (Canada) for two years around each tax increase. Search data were normalized to a relative search volume (RSV) scale, where the highest search proportion was labeled 100 with lesser proportions scaled by how they relatively compared to the highest proportion. Changes in RSV were estimated by comparing means during and after the tax increase to means before the tax increase, across taxed and untaxed geographies. The SCHIP tax was associated with an 11.8% (95% confidence interval [95%CI], 5.7 to 17.9; ptax levels in Canada during the months after the tax. Tax avoidance searches increased 27.9% (95%CI, 15.9 to 39.9; ptax compared to Canada, respectively, suggesting avoidance is the more pronounced and durable response. Trends were similar for state-specific tax increases but suggest strong interactive processes across taxes. When the SCHIP tax followed Florida's tax, versus not, it promoted more cessation and avoidance searches. Efforts to combat tax avoidance and increase cessation may be enhanced by using interventions targeted and tailored to smokers' searches. Search query surveillance is a valuable real-time, free and public method, that may be generalized to other behavioral, biological, informational or psychological outcomes manifested online.

  13. Health Care in the Russian Federation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Younger, David S

    2016-11-01

    The Russian Federation health system has its roots in the country's complex political history. The Ministry of Health and Social Development and its associated federal services are the principal Russian institutions subserving the Russian Federation. Funding for the health system goes through 2 channels: the general revenue budget managed by federal, regional, and local health authorities, and the Mandatory Health Insurance Fund. Although the Soviet Union was the first country in the world to guarantee free medical care as a constitutional right to all its citizens, quality and accessibility are in question. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  14. Federal Lands

    Data.gov (United States)

    Department of Homeland Security — This map layer consists of federally owned or administered lands of theUnited States, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Only areas of 640 acres or more are...

  15. A journey to Semantic Web query federation in the life sciences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cheung, Kei-Hoi; Frost, H Robert; Marshall, M Scott; Prud'hommeaux, Eric; Samwald, Matthias; Zhao, Jun; Paschke, Adrian

    2009-10-01

    As interest in adopting the Semantic Web in the biomedical domain continues to grow, Semantic Web technology has been evolving and maturing. A variety of technological approaches including triplestore technologies, SPARQL endpoints, Linked Data, and Vocabulary of Interlinked Datasets have emerged in recent years. In addition to the data warehouse construction, these technological approaches can be used to support dynamic query federation. As a community effort, the BioRDF task force, within the Semantic Web for Health Care and Life Sciences Interest Group, is exploring how these emerging approaches can be utilized to execute distributed queries across different neuroscience data sources. We have created two health care and life science knowledge bases. We have explored a variety of Semantic Web approaches to describe, map, and dynamically query multiple datasets. We have demonstrated several federation approaches that integrate diverse types of information about neurons and receptors that play an important role in basic, clinical, and translational neuroscience research. Particularly, we have created a prototype receptor explorer which uses OWL mappings to provide an integrated list of receptors and executes individual queries against different SPARQL endpoints. We have also employed the AIDA Toolkit, which is directed at groups of knowledge workers who cooperatively search, annotate, interpret, and enrich large collections of heterogeneous documents from diverse locations. We have explored a tool called "FeDeRate", which enables a global SPARQL query to be decomposed into subqueries against the remote databases offering either SPARQL or SQL query interfaces. Finally, we have explored how to use the vocabulary of interlinked Datasets (voiD) to create metadata for describing datasets exposed as Linked Data URIs or SPARQL endpoints. We have demonstrated the use of a set of novel and state-of-the-art Semantic Web technologies in support of a neuroscience query

  16. Environmental policy in the 8th Deutscher Bundestag (Federal Parliament) and Bundesrat (Federal Council) (1976-1980)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1982-01-01

    This description of environmental policy is the follow-up to Vol 49 of the ''Materialien'' (material) (Environmental policy in the 7th Federal Parliament). It also covers the main dealings in the Bundesrat (Federal Council). References to terms especially when speeches are quoted, are related to the subject index of the ''Verhandlungen des Dt. Bundestages und Bundesrates'' (''Negotiations of the German Federal Parliament and Federal Council) which are the basis for the booklet mentioned above. Contents: general fundamentals, aspects of structural policy, scientific, technical and organisational fundamentals; international and bilateral cooperation, emission control, waste management, environmental chemicals, protection of nature and landscape, coastal and deep sea waters, nuclear energy. (orig./HP) [de

  17. Federal supervisory powers in administrative action on behalf of the Federal Government. Bundesaufsicht in der Bundesauftragsverwaltung

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Tschentscher, T

    1992-01-01

    The Federal Government's authority to give instructions in matters of public administration pursuant to Art. 85 III GG has been gaining in significance over the last few years in the course of federal disputes about the licenses issued to the NUKEM company under atomic energy law, or about the licensing of the Kalkar fast breeder reactor. Proceeding from the above federal controversy about issues relating to atomic energy law, the author extends his study to the general constitutional level, investigating the provisions of the German constitution relating to the supervisory power and the authority to give instructions on the part of the Federal Government, and the rights and means of the Laender governments to defend their administrative rights. (orig.).

  18. The search for the top quark

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Barbaro-Galtieri, A.

    1989-03-01

    This paper discusses the following topics: top search in the near future, general remarks, top search at HERA, searching for the top quarks at the Z 0 machines, finding the top at Lep II, top search in UA2, top search in UA1, and top search at CDF. 58 refs., 38 figs

  19. Indirect search for New Physics: complementarity to direct searches

    CERN Document Server

    Mahmoudi, F

    2013-01-01

    We present an overview on the interplay between direct searches for new physics at the LHC and indirect constraints from the flavour sector, with an emphasis on the implications of the recent LHCb results. The complementarity with the Higgs search results will also be addressed. We show the correlation and complementarity between the different sectors in the context of a few specific examples in supersymmetry.

  20. Federalism and Health Care

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    G. Alan Tarr

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available President Barack Obama proposed a major overhaul of the American healthsystem, and in 2010 the U.S. Congress enacted his proposal, the PatientProtection and Affordable Care Act. Opponents of the Act challenged itsconstitutionality in federal court, claiming that it exceeds the powers grantedto the federal government under the Commerce Clause and the NecessaryProper Clause of the federal Constitution. Some courts have upheldthe law, but others have agreed with the critics, in particular ruling thatthe provision requiring citizens to buy health insurance is unconstitutional.Eventually the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on the issue. This article tracesthe controversy, surveys the interpretation of pertinent constitutional provisionsin past cases, analyzes the constitutional arguments presented byproponents and opponents of the Act, and concludes that the Act is constitutional.

  1. Environmental federalism and US climate change policy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jaeger, L.M.

    2004-01-01

    Environmental disputes involving states over the proper state and federal roles have grown in number and magnitude over the last several years, with many disputes engaging dozens of states. States with competing views are fully engaged in the ongoing debate over climate change, a textbook case for testing the contours of environmental federalism. The issue has all the necessary components: transboundary environmental impacts; competing state economic and environmental interests; state self-interest; disagreement on first principles including what is the proper role of the states; and a somewhat ill-defined federal role. With those qualities, one would expect the federal government to step in and regulate. Instead, the federal government has declined to regulate, inviting a national discourse on whether and how to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As of Spring 2004, twenty-eight states have launched or are planning initiatives, some of which will directly regulate sources of GHG emissions. As these programs take root, pressure will build for a greater federal role. This paper will advance the position that even with this building momentum, the federal government is not likely to emulate state programs that mandate CO 2 emission reductions. In the face of high national cost, uncertain environmental benefits, and a history of federal non-regulatory action, federal regulation at this time appears to be a remote possibility. State efforts to address global climate change add value to the debate, but they do not create the cocoon of consensus the federal government seeks before launching mandatory programs of this magnitude. The more likely scenario is that the federal government will continue on its present course, funding research and development, investing in energy efficient technologies, and supporting voluntary measures. Under this scenario, states and the private sector would continue to function as the 'laboratories' to develop new ideas to improve energy

  2. Empire vs. Federation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Gravier, Magali

    2011-01-01

    The article discusses the concepts of federation and empire in the context of the European Union (EU). Even if these two concepts are not usually contrasted to one another, the article shows that they refer to related type of polities. Furthermore, they can be used at a time because they shed light...... on different and complementary aspects of the European integration process. The article concludes that the EU is at the crossroads between federation and empire and may remain an ‘imperial federation’ for several decades. This could mean that the EU is on the verge of transforming itself to another type...

  3. A Literature Review of Indexing and Searching Techniques Implementation in Educational Search Engines

    Science.gov (United States)

    El Guemmat, Kamal; Ouahabi, Sara

    2018-01-01

    The objective of this article is to analyze the searching and indexing techniques of educational search engines' implementation while treating future challenges. Educational search engines could greatly help in the effectiveness of e-learning if used correctly. However, these engines have several gaps which influence the performance of e-learning…

  4. 77 FR 40358 - Federal Management Regulation; FMR Bulletin PBS-2012-03; Redesignations of Federal Buildings...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-07-09

    ... Management Regulation; FMR Bulletin PBS-2012-03; Redesignations of Federal Buildings: Correction AGENCY: Public Buildings Service (PBS), General Services Administration (GSA). ACTION: Notice of a bulletin..., 2012, a bulletin announcing the designation and redesignation of three Federal buildings. Inadvertently...

  5. 29 CFR 4050.4 - Diligent search.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 29 Labor 9 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Diligent search. 4050.4 Section 4050.4 Labor Regulations... § 4050.4 Diligent search. (a) Search required. A diligent search must be made for each missing... § 4050.6. (b) Diligence. A search is a diligent search only if the search— (1) Begins not more than 6...

  6. Standardization of Keyword Search Mode

    Science.gov (United States)

    Su, Di

    2010-01-01

    In spite of its popularity, keyword search mode has not been standardized. Though information professionals are quick to adapt to various presentations of keyword search mode, novice end-users may find keyword search confusing. This article compares keyword search mode in some major reference databases and calls for standardization. (Contains 3…

  7. Measuring Personalization of Web Search

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hannak, Aniko; Sapiezynski, Piotr; Kakhki, Arash Molavi

    2013-01-01

    are simply unable to access information that the search engines’ algorithm decidesis irrelevant. Despitetheseconcerns, there has been little quantification of the extent of personalization in Web search today, or the user attributes that cause it. In light of this situation, we make three contributions...... as a result of searching with a logged in account and the IP address of the searching user. Our results are a first step towards understanding the extent and effects of personalization on Web search engines today....

  8. Policy implications for familial searching.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Joyce; Mammo, Danny; Siegel, Marni B; Katsanis, Sara H

    2011-11-01

    In the United States, several states have made policy decisions regarding whether and how to use familial searching of the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database in criminal investigations. Familial searching pushes DNA typing beyond merely identifying individuals to detecting genetic relatedness, an application previously reserved for missing persons identifications and custody battles. The intentional search of CODIS for partial matches to an item of evidence offers law enforcement agencies a powerful tool for developing investigative leads, apprehending criminals, revitalizing cold cases and exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals. As familial searching involves a range of logistical, social, ethical and legal considerations, states are now grappling with policy options for implementing familial searching to balance crime fighting with its potential impact on society. When developing policies for familial searching, legislators should take into account the impact of familial searching on select populations and the need to minimize personal intrusion on relatives of individuals in the DNA database. This review describes the approaches used to narrow a suspect pool from a partial match search of CODIS and summarizes the economic, ethical, logistical and political challenges of implementing familial searching. We examine particular US state policies and the policy options adopted to address these issues. The aim of this review is to provide objective background information on the controversial approach of familial searching to inform policy decisions in this area. Herein we highlight key policy options and recommendations regarding effective utilization of familial searching that minimize harm to and afford maximum protection of US citizens.

  9. The impact of PICO as a search strategy tool on literature search quality

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Eriksen, Mette Brandt; Frandsen, Tove Faber

    2018-01-01

    Objective: This review aimed to determine, if the use of the PICO model (Patient Intervention Comparison Outcome) as a search strategy tool affects the quality of the literature search. Methods: A comprehensive literature search was conducted in: PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, PsycInfo, Cochrane Library...... and three studies were included, data was extracted, risk of bias was assessed and a qualitative analysis was conducted. The included studies compared PICO to PIC or link to related articles in PubMed; PICOS and SPIDER. One study compared PICO to unguided searching. Due to differences in intervention...

  10. 77 FR 35393 - Federal Management Regulation; FMR Bulletin PBS-2012-03; Redesignations of Federal Buildings

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-06-13

    ... Management Regulation; FMR Bulletin PBS-2012-03; Redesignations of Federal Buildings AGENCY: Public Buildings... bulletin announces the designation and redesignation of three Federal buildings. Expiration Date: This bulletin announcement expires October 31, 2012. The building designation and redesignations remains in...

  11. Search strategies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oliver, B. M.

    Attention is given to the approaches which would provide the greatest chance of success in attempts related to the discovery of extraterrestrial advanced cultures in the Galaxy, taking into account the principle of least energy expenditure. The energetics of interstellar contact are explored, giving attention to the use of manned spacecraft, automatic probes, and beacons. The least expensive approach to a search for other civilizations involves a listening program which attempts to detect signals emitted by such civilizations. The optimum part of the spectrum for the considered search is found to be in the range from 1 to 2 GHz. Antenna and transmission formulas are discussed along with the employment of matched gates and filters, the probable characteristics of the signals to be detected, the filter-signal mismatch loss, surveys of the radio sky, the conduction of targeted searches.

  12. 5th Conference of the International Federation of Classification Societies

    CERN Document Server

    Yajima, Keiji; Bock, Hans-Hermann; Ohsumi, Noboru; Tanaka, Yutaka; Baba, Yasumasa

    1998-01-01

    This volume, Data Science, Classification, and Related Methods, contains a selection of papers presented at the Fifth Conference of the International Federation of Oassification Societies (IFCS-96), which was held in Kobe, Japan, from March 27 to 30,1996. The volume covers a wide range of topics and perspectives in the growing field of data science, including theoretical and methodological advances in domains relating to data gathering, classification and clustering, exploratory and multivariate data analysis, and knowledge discovery and seeking. It gives a broad view of the state of the art and is intended for those in the scientific community who either develop new data analysis methods or gather data and use search tools for analyzing and interpreting large and complex data sets. Presenting a wide field of applications, this book is of interest not only to data analysts, mathematicians, and statisticians but also to scientists from many areas and disciplines concerned with complex data: medicine, biology, ...

  13. SU-E-T-596: P3DVHStats - a Novel, Automatic, Institution Customizable Program to Compute and Report DVH Quantities On Philips Pinnacle TPS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wu, C

    2015-01-01

    Purpose: To implement a novel, automatic, institutional customizable DVH quantities evaluation and PDF report tool on Philips Pinnacle treatment planning system (TPS) Methods: An add-on program (P3DVHStats) is developed by us to enable automatic DVH quantities evaluation (including both volume and dose based quantities, such as V98, V100, D2), and automatic PDF format report generation, for EMR convenience. The implementation is based on a combination of Philips Pinnacle scripting tool and Java language pre-installed on each Pinnacle Sun Solaris workstation. A single Pinnacle script provide user a convenient access to the program when needed. The activated script will first export DVH data for user selected ROIs from current Pinnacle plan trial; a Java program then provides a simple GUI interface, utilizes the data to compute any user requested DVH quantities, compare with preset institutional DVH planning goals; if accepted by users, the program will also generate a PDF report of the results and export it from Pinnacle to EMR import folder via FTP. Results: The program was tested thoroughly and has been released for clinical use at our institution (Pinnacle Enterprise server with both thin clients and P3PC access), for all dosimetry and physics staff, with excellent feedback. It used to take a few minutes to use MS-Excel worksheet to calculate these DVH quantities for IMRT/VMAT plans, and manually save them as PDF report; with the new program, it literally takes a few mouse clicks in less than 30 seconds to complete the same tasks. Conclusion: A Pinnacle scripting and Java language based program is successfully implemented, customized to our institutional needs. It is shown to dramatically reduce time and effort needed for DVH quantities computing and EMR reporting

  14. SU-E-T-596: P3DVHStats - a Novel, Automatic, Institution Customizable Program to Compute and Report DVH Quantities On Philips Pinnacle TPS

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wu, C [Sutter Medical Foundation, Roseville, CA (United States)

    2015-06-15

    Purpose: To implement a novel, automatic, institutional customizable DVH quantities evaluation and PDF report tool on Philips Pinnacle treatment planning system (TPS) Methods: An add-on program (P3DVHStats) is developed by us to enable automatic DVH quantities evaluation (including both volume and dose based quantities, such as V98, V100, D2), and automatic PDF format report generation, for EMR convenience. The implementation is based on a combination of Philips Pinnacle scripting tool and Java language pre-installed on each Pinnacle Sun Solaris workstation. A single Pinnacle script provide user a convenient access to the program when needed. The activated script will first export DVH data for user selected ROIs from current Pinnacle plan trial; a Java program then provides a simple GUI interface, utilizes the data to compute any user requested DVH quantities, compare with preset institutional DVH planning goals; if accepted by users, the program will also generate a PDF report of the results and export it from Pinnacle to EMR import folder via FTP. Results: The program was tested thoroughly and has been released for clinical use at our institution (Pinnacle Enterprise server with both thin clients and P3PC access), for all dosimetry and physics staff, with excellent feedback. It used to take a few minutes to use MS-Excel worksheet to calculate these DVH quantities for IMRT/VMAT plans, and manually save them as PDF report; with the new program, it literally takes a few mouse clicks in less than 30 seconds to complete the same tasks. Conclusion: A Pinnacle scripting and Java language based program is successfully implemented, customized to our institutional needs. It is shown to dramatically reduce time and effort needed for DVH quantities computing and EMR reporting.

  15. 77 FR 58819 - Notice of Submission for OMB Review; Federal Student Aid; William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-09-24

    ... DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Notice of Submission for OMB Review; Federal Student Aid; William D. Ford... William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program will use this form to request forbearance on their loans when... of Collection: William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program General Forbearance Request. OMB Control...

  16. Rethinking Federalism for More Effective Governance

    OpenAIRE

    Alice M. Rivlin

    2012-01-01

    For common reasons the federal government and most state governments face rising structural deficits even as the economy recovers. An aging population requires retirement income and increasingly expensive health care, while a prosperous economy requires public investment in skills, technology, and infrastructure. However, stressed federal and state tax systems are increasingly inadequate. The author revisits proposals, made twenty years ago, for substantial changes in fiscal federalism design...

  17. Fiscal Federalism in Monetary Unions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dreyer, Johannes Kabderian; A. Schmid, Peter

    2015-01-01

    Net fiscal transfers are commonly seen as a possible means to ensure the wellfunctioning of a currency area. We show that U.S. net fiscal transfers, measured as the difference between gross federal revenues and federal expenditures per state, are enormous. Moreover, we run panel regressions...... a system of fiscal federalism which raises the question whether it should be established in the medium- and long-run. If so, which should be the magnitude of net fiscal transfers? We calculate these transfers hypothetically for 1999-2010, using a relative volume comparable to the one in the USA....

  18. Quantifying federal funding and scholarly output related to the academic emergency medicine consensus conferences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nishijima, Daniel K; Dinh, Tu; May, Larissa; Yadav, Kabir; Gaddis, Gary M; Cone, David C

    2014-01-01

    Every year since 2000, Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM) has presented a one-day consensus conference to generate a research agenda for advancement of a scientific topic. One of the 12 annual issues of AEM is reserved for the proceedings of these conferences. The purpose of this study was to measure academic productivity of these conferences by evaluating subsequent federal research funding received by authors of conference manuscripts and calculating citation counts of conference papers. This was a cross-sectional study. In 2012, the NIH RePORTER system was searched to identify subsequent federal funding obtained by authors of the consensus conference issues from 2000 to 2010. Funded projects were coded as related or unrelated to conference topic. Citation counts for all conference manuscripts were quantified using Scopus and Google Scholar. Simple descriptive statistics were reported. Eight hundred fifty-two individual authors contributed to 280 papers published in the 11 consensus conference issues. One hundred thirty-seven authors (16%) obtained funding for 318 projects. A median of 22 topic-related projects per conference (range 10-97) accounted for a median of $20,488,331 per conference (range $7,779,512 to $122,918,205). The average (± SD) number of citations per paper was 15.7 ± 20.5 in Scopus and 23.7 ± 32.6 in Google Scholar. The authors of consensus conference manuscripts obtained significant federal grant support for follow-up research related to conference themes. In addition, the manuscripts generated by these conferences were frequently cited. Conferences devoted to research agenda development appear to be an academically worthwhile endeavor.

  19. Surface-Assisted Dynamic Search Processes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shin, Jaeoh; Kolomeisky, Anatoly B

    2018-03-01

    Many chemical and biological systems exhibit intermittent search phenomena when participating particles alternate between dynamic regimes with different dimensionalities. Here we investigate theoretically a dynamic search process of finding a small target on a two-dimensional surface starting from a bulk solution, which is an example of such an intermittent search process. Both continuum and discrete-state stochastic descriptions are developed. It is found that depending on the scanning length λ, which describes the area visited by the reacting molecule during one search cycle, the system can exhibit three different search regimes: (i) For small λ values, the reactant finds the target mostly via three-dimensional bulk diffusion; (ii) for large λ values, the reactant molecule associates to the target mostly via surface diffusion; and (iii) for intermediate λ values, the reactant reaches the target via a combination of three-dimensional and two-dimensional search cycles. Our analysis also shows that the mean search times have different scalings as a function of the size of the surface segment depending on the nature of the dynamic search regime. Search dynamics are also sensitive to the position of the target for large scanning lengths. In addition, it is argued that the continuum description underestimates mean search times and does not always correctly describe the most optimal conditions for the surface-assisted dynamic processes. The importance of our findings for real natural systems is discussed.

  20. FEDERAL BALANCING IN NIGERIA: A PARADIGM FOR ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    user

    between the central government and the regional or state governments and the ... government within a federation has its defined duties and it is confined to ...... Osadolor, O.B., 'The Development of the Federal Idea and the Federal. Framework ...

  1. A powerful search for EDMS 6

    CERN Multimedia

    2015-01-01

    Since the end of May, EDMS 6 has featured a brand new search solution. You might have already noticed the changes if you have run the search recently. We have integrated EDMS with the central CERN Search service, allowing EDMS to benefit from the central engine for queries and CERN search from EDMS public data, which can now be found directly via the CERN Search portal. The integration is a result of a very successful collaboration between the EDMS and the CERN Search teams.   What’s new in EDMS search The most important advantage of the new search is enabling searches in the files. While in the old search you could query only the document metadata, now the search also scans the content of the files attached to the documents. This allows for more relevant results, as the hit may be found both in the metadata or in the file. The result is displayed in the Documents & Files tab and the small icon indicates whether the object in which the queried terms were found is a file or a docume...

  2. The development of organized visual search

    Science.gov (United States)

    Woods, Adam J.; Goksun, Tilbe; Chatterjee, Anjan; Zelonis, Sarah; Mehta, Anika; Smith, Sabrina E.

    2013-01-01

    Visual search plays an important role in guiding behavior. Children have more difficulty performing conjunction search tasks than adults. The present research evaluates whether developmental differences in children's ability to organize serial visual search (i.e., search organization skills) contribute to performance limitations in a typical conjunction search task. We evaluated 134 children between the ages of 2 and 17 on separate tasks measuring search for targets defined by a conjunction of features or by distinct features. Our results demonstrated that children organize their visual search better as they get older. As children's skills at organizing visual search improve they become more accurate at locating targets with conjunction of features amongst distractors, but not for targets with distinct features. Developmental limitations in children's abilities to organize their visual search of the environment are an important component of poor conjunction search in young children. In addition, our findings provide preliminary evidence that, like other visuospatial tasks, exposure to reading may influence children's spatial orientation to the visual environment when performing a visual search. PMID:23584560

  3. Heuristic Search Theory and Applications

    CERN Document Server

    Edelkamp, Stefan

    2011-01-01

    Search has been vital to artificial intelligence from the very beginning as a core technique in problem solving. The authors present a thorough overview of heuristic search with a balance of discussion between theoretical analysis and efficient implementation and application to real-world problems. Current developments in search such as pattern databases and search with efficient use of external memory and parallel processing units on main boards and graphics cards are detailed. Heuristic search as a problem solving tool is demonstrated in applications for puzzle solving, game playing, constra

  4. CMS Use of a Data Federation

    CERN Document Server

    Bloom, Kenneth Arthur

    2014-01-01

    CMS is in the process of deploying an Xrootd based infrastructure to facilitate a global data federation. The services of the federation are available to export data from half the physical capacity and the majority of sites are configured to read data over the federation as a back-up. CMS began with a relatively modest set of use-cases for recovery of failed local file opens, debugging and visualization. CMS is finding that the data federation can be used to support small scale analysis and load balancing. Looking forward we see potential in using the federation to provide more flexibility in the location workflows are executed as the differenced between local access and wide area access are diminished by optimization and improved networking. In this presentation we will discuss the application development work and the facility deployment work, the use-cases currently in production, and the potential for the technology moving forward.

  5. 78 FR 53433 - Annual Notice of Interest Rates of Federal Student Loans Made Under the Federal Family Education...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-08-29

    ... Notice of Interest Rates of Federal Student Loans Made Under the Federal Family Education Loan Program... Federal Student Aid announces the interest rates for the period July 1, 2013, through June 30, 2014, for..., 2010. The Chief Operating Officer takes this action to give notice of FFEL Program loan interest rates...

  6. Federal Energy Efficiency through Utility Partnerships: Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) Program Overview Fact Sheet

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Beattie, D.; Wolfson, M.

    2001-01-01

    This Utility Program Overview describes how the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) utility program assists Federal energy managers. The document identifies both a utility financing mechanism and FEMP technical assistance available to support agencies' implementation of energy and water efficiency methods and renewable energy projects

  7. Using Search Query Surveillance to Monitor Tax Avoidance and Smoking Cessation following the United States' 2009 “SCHIP” Cigarette Tax Increase

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ayers, John W.; Ribisl, Kurt; Brownstein, John S.

    2011-01-01

    Smokers can use the web to continue or quit their habit. Online vendors sell reduced or tax-free cigarettes lowering smoking costs, while health advocates use the web to promote cessation. We examined how smokers' tax avoidance and smoking cessation Internet search queries were motivated by the United States' (US) 2009 State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) federal cigarette excise tax increase and two other state specific tax increases. Google keyword searches among residents in a taxed geography (US or US state) were compared to an untaxed geography (Canada) for two years around each tax increase. Search data were normalized to a relative search volume (RSV) scale, where the highest search proportion was labeled 100 with lesser proportions scaled by how they relatively compared to the highest proportion. Changes in RSV were estimated by comparing means during and after the tax increase to means before the tax increase, across taxed and untaxed geographies. The SCHIP tax was associated with an 11.8% (95% confidence interval [95%CI], 5.7 to 17.9; ptax levels in Canada during the months after the tax. Tax avoidance searches increased 27.9% (95%CI, 15.9 to 39.9; ptax compared to Canada, respectively, suggesting avoidance is the more pronounced and durable response. Trends were similar for state-specific tax increases but suggest strong interactive processes across taxes. When the SCHIP tax followed Florida's tax, versus not, it promoted more cessation and avoidance searches. Efforts to combat tax avoidance and increase cessation may be enhanced by using interventions targeted and tailored to smokers' searches. Search query surveillance is a valuable real-time, free and public method, that may be generalized to other behavioral, biological, informational or psychological outcomes manifested online. PMID:21436883

  8. Human memory search

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Davelaar, E.J.; Raaijmakers, J.G.W.; Hills, T.T.; Robbins, T.W.; Todd, P.M.

    2012-01-01

    The importance of understanding human memory search is hard to exaggerate: we build and live our lives based on what whe remember. This chapter explores the characteristics of memory search, with special emphasis on the use of retrieval cues. We introduce the dependent measures that are obtained

  9. Environmental federalism and US climate change policy

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Jaeger, L.M. [Bracewell and Patterson, LLP (United States)

    2004-07-01

    Environmental disputes involving states over the proper state and federal roles have grown in number and magnitude over the last several years, with many disputes engaging dozens of states. States with competing views are fully engaged in the ongoing debate over climate change, a textbook case for testing the contours of environmental federalism. The issue has all the necessary components: transboundary environmental impacts; competing state economic and environmental interests; state self-interest; disagreement on first principles including what is the proper role of the states; and a somewhat ill-defined federal role. With those qualities, one would expect the federal government to step in and regulate. Instead, the federal government has declined to regulate, inviting a national discourse on whether and how to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As of Spring 2004, twenty-eight states have launched or are planning initiatives, some of which will directly regulate sources of GHG emissions. As these programs take root, pressure will build for a greater federal role. This paper will advance the position that even with this building momentum, the federal government is not likely to emulate state programs that mandate CO{sub 2} emission reductions. In the face of high national cost, uncertain environmental benefits, and a history of federal non-regulatory action, federal regulation at this time appears to be a remote possibility. State efforts to address global climate change add value to the debate, but they do not create the cocoon of consensus the federal government seeks before launching mandatory programs of this magnitude. The more likely scenario is that the federal government will continue on its present course, funding research and development, investing in energy efficient technologies, and supporting voluntary measures. Under this scenario, states and the private sector would continue to function as the 'laboratories' to develop new ideas to

  10. Spatial search by quantum walk

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Childs, Andrew M.; Goldstone, Jeffrey

    2004-01-01

    Grover's quantum search algorithm provides a way to speed up combinatorial search, but is not directly applicable to searching a physical database. Nevertheless, Aaronson and Ambainis showed that a database of N items laid out in d spatial dimensions can be searched in time of order √(N) for d>2, and in time of order √(N) poly(log N) for d=2. We consider an alternative search algorithm based on a continuous-time quantum walk on a graph. The case of the complete graph gives the continuous-time search algorithm of Farhi and Gutmann, and other previously known results can be used to show that √(N) speedup can also be achieved on the hypercube. We show that full √(N) speedup can be achieved on a d-dimensional periodic lattice for d>4. In d=4, the quantum walk search algorithm takes time of order √(N) poly(log N), and in d<4, the algorithm does not provide substantial speedup

  11. 78 FR 63143 - VA Dental Insurance Program-Federalism

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-10-23

    ...--Federalism AGENCY: Department of Veterans Affairs. ACTION: Proposed rule. SUMMARY: The Department of Veterans... that they are submitted in response to ``RIN 2900-AO86-VA Dental Insurance Program-- Federalism... Order 13132, Federalism Section 6(c) of Executive Order 13132 (entitled ``Federalism'') requires an...

  12. 75 FR 55257 - Definition of Federal Election Activity

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-09-10

    ..., Assistant General Counsel, or Attorney Mr. David C. Adkins or Attorney Mr. Neven F. Stipanovic, 999 E Street... FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION 11 CFR Part 100 [Notice 2010-18] Definition of Federal Election Activity AGENCY: Federal Election Commission. ACTION: Final rules. SUMMARY: The Federal Election Commission...

  13. Enforcement, Integration, and the Future of Immigration Federalism

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cristina Rodriguez

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available The federal government has a monopoly over the terms of immigration law, and it superintends the nation’s singular immigration enforcement bureaucracy. But our federalism nonetheless provides a vital playing field for sharp debates over the status of immigrants in American life. The forms of state and local involvement in immigration policy are varied, but they fall into two basic categories of mutually dependent and re-enforcing policies: enforcement federalism and integration federalism. Whereas enforcement federalism concerns the extent to which localities should assist or resist federal removal policies, integration federalism encompasses measures designed to assist immigrants, regardless of status, to plant roots and acculturate to life in the United States. Both forms of immigration federalism take shape through a wide variety of intergovernmental relations, not only between the federal government on the one hand and states and localities on the other, but also between states and the cities within them — an increasingly important dimension of immigration federalism today. These relations have important legal characteristics, and constitutional and statutory law bring them into being and mediate them. But the nature of any given intergovernmental dynamic will be shaped just as much by a combination of ideology and institutional imperatives. These elements can either unite the center and the periphery in common cause or produce the sort of conflict that has made immigration federalism a high-profile issue for decades. Given the density of the intergovernmental dynamics that shape the country’s immigration policy, developing a comprehensive strategy for immigration federalism requires more than a predilection toward or away from centralization of government authority. It requires a clear view on the appropriate metes and bounds of immigration enforcement, as well as a set of beliefs about the proper place in the social order of

  14. Axion Searches, Old and New

    CERN Multimedia

    CERN. Geneva

    2005-01-01

    Outline of the lecture: Constraints from laboratory searches and astrophysics, axion cosmology, the cavity detector of dark matter axions, solar axion searches, laser experiments, a telescope search, macroscopic forces mediated by axions.

  15. Cooperative mobile agents search using beehive partitioned structure and Tabu Random search algorithm

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramazani, Saba; Jackson, Delvin L.; Selmic, Rastko R.

    2013-05-01

    In search and surveillance operations, deploying a team of mobile agents provides a robust solution that has multiple advantages over using a single agent in efficiency and minimizing exploration time. This paper addresses the challenge of identifying a target in a given environment when using a team of mobile agents by proposing a novel method of mapping and movement of agent teams in a cooperative manner. The approach consists of two parts. First, the region is partitioned into a hexagonal beehive structure in order to provide equidistant movements in every direction and to allow for more natural and flexible environment mapping. Additionally, in search environments that are partitioned into hexagons, mobile agents have an efficient travel path while performing searches due to this partitioning approach. Second, we use a team of mobile agents that move in a cooperative manner and utilize the Tabu Random algorithm to search for the target. Due to the ever-increasing use of robotics and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) platforms, the field of cooperative multi-agent search has developed many applications recently that would benefit from the use of the approach presented in this work, including: search and rescue operations, surveillance, data collection, and border patrol. In this paper, the increased efficiency of the Tabu Random Search algorithm method in combination with hexagonal partitioning is simulated, analyzed, and advantages of this approach are presented and discussed.

  16. Nuclear waste management: a challenge to Federalism

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lucas, P.

    1979-01-01

    The controversy over state/Federal authority over waste disposal has already had a significant effect regardless of the choice Congress ultimately makes between an informal deference to state will and a statutory authorization of state control over Federal repositories. The highly emotional issue of local disposal of nuclear waste and the assertions of state control over waste disposal have made the nation and the Federal bureaucracy more aware of the status of the waste management program. State resistance to Federal siting efforts and the passage of state waste disposal legislation has compelled the Federal government to provide the states with a larger role in waste management. State power to exclude Federal repositories would give states additional political leverage. Ideally, public attention and effective state veto power will contribute to a more successful program, without impeding progress toward the immediate goal of siting and developing permanent repositories

  17. A ASSISTÊNCIA EDUCACIONAL NO SISTEMA PENITENCIÁRIO FEDERAL – A PENITENCIÁRIA FEDERAL EM PORTO VELHO/RO. EDUCATIONAL ASSISTANCE IN FEDERAL PRISON SYSTEM – A FEDERAL PRISON IN PORTO VELHO/RO, BRAZIL

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stephane Silva de Araujo.

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available No Brasil, a educação é um direito de todos. Assim, a Lei de Execução Penal Brasileira determina a obrigatoriedade de o Estado garantir este direito também às pessoas privadas de liberdade. A fim de executar a política educacional e providenciar o cumprimento de outros preceitos legais, em 2009, o Sistema Penitenciário Federal lotou Pedagogos com formação de nível superior em seu quadro funcional. Considerando os instrumentos normativos existentes, os mencionados profissionais constituíram parcerias com instituições educacionais para que o direito à educação de qualidade fosse efetivado no interior das Penitenciárias Federais. Este artigo apresenta um relato de experiência acerca da Assistência Educacional desenvolvida na Penitenciária Federal em Porto Velho/Rondônia, com alguns dos presos considerados mais perigosos do país. Tem-se como objetivo focalizar a inserção da Educação no interior de uma Penitenciária Federal, através de parcerias que vêm sendo executadas e alcançam atualmente índices diversos das demais prisões brasileiras, proporcionando assim, gradual inserção social dos apenados.In Brazil, education is a right for all. Thus, the Brazilian criminal law determines the obligation of the State to guarantee this right also to people who are deprived of freedom. To implement educational policy and provide compliance with other law principles, in 2009, the Federal Prison System brought educators with top-level training to its staff. Considering the existing rules, the aforementioned professionals formed partnerships with educational institutions so that the right for quality education was guaranteed within Federal Prisons. This article presents an experience report about the work of Educational Assistance developed at the federal prison of Porto Velho, Rondônia, Brazil, where some of the inmates are considered the most dangerous in the country. The aim is to focus on the insertion of Education within a

  18. 76 FR 68044 - Federal Acquisition Regulation; Federal Acquisition Circular 2005-54; Small Entity Compliance Guide

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-11-02

    ... Acquisition Circular 2005-54; Small Entity Compliance Guide AGENCY: Department of Defense (DoD), General... Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2005-54, which amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR... (FAR Case 2009-006) This final rule amends the FAR to implement Executive Order (E.O.) 13494, Economy...

  19. 75 FR 19179 - Federal Acquisition Regulation; Federal Acquisition Circular 2005-41; Small Entity Compliance Guide

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-13

    ... Acquisition Circular 2005-41; Small Entity Compliance Guide AGENCIES: Department of Defense (DoD), General... Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2005-41 which amends the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR... projects where the total cost to the Government is $25 million or more in order to promote economy and...

  20. 76 FR 29147 - Federal Home Loan Bank Investments

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-05-20

    ...-AA32 Federal Home Loan Bank Investments AGENCY: Federal Housing Finance Agency; Federal Housing Finance...-adopting existing investment regulations that apply to the Federal Home Loan Banks (Banks) and that were...' investment in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and certain asset-backed securities (ABS) that were previously...