Bridging context management systems for different types of pervasive computing environments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hesselman, C.E.W.; Benz, Hartmut; Benz, H.P.; Pawar, P.; Liu, F.; Wegdam, M.; Wibbels, Martin; Broens, T.H.F.; Brok, Jacco

2008-01-01

A context management system is a distributed system that enables applications to obtain context information about (mobile) users and forms a key component of any pervasive computing environment. Context management systems are however very environment-specific (e.g., specific for home environments)

Product Line Enabled Intelligent Mobile Middleware

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Weishan; Kunz, Thomas; Hansen, Klaus Marius

2007-01-01

research project called PLIMM that focuses on user-centered application scenarios. PLIMM is designed based on software product line ideas which make it possible for specialized customization and optimization for different purposes and hardware/software platforms. To enable intelligence, the middleware...... needs access to a range of context models. We model these contexts with OWL, focusing on user-centered concepts. The basic building block of PLIMM is the enhanced BDI agent where OWL context ontology logic reasoning will add indirect beliefs to the belief sets. Our approach also addresses the handling...

The Pervasive Interface; Tracing the Magic Circle

OpenAIRE

Nieuwdorp, Eva

2005-01-01

Walking the Line: The Interface in Limbo Investigating the Interface in Pervasive Games Eva Nieuwdorp, graduate student Utrecht University ** Changing Views: Worlds in Play ** June 16-20, 2005 Vancouver BC, Canada Paper proposal Categories Theoretical Perspectives: Redefining the concept of the interface in formal digital game theory; by researching the existing discourse surrounding interface theory, the applicability of this term to the area of digital games will be tested by looking at the...

Cusps enable line attractors for neural computation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xiao, Zhuocheng; Zhang, Jiwei; Sornborger, Andrew T.; Tao, Louis

2017-01-01

Here, line attractors in neuronal networks have been suggested to be the basis of many brain functions, such as working memory, oculomotor control, head movement, locomotion, and sensory processing. In this paper, we make the connection between line attractors and pulse gating in feed-forward neuronal networks. In this context, because of their neutral stability along a one-dimensional manifold, line attractors are associated with a time-translational invariance that allows graded information to be propagated from one neuronal population to the next. To understand how pulse-gating manifests itself in a high-dimensional, nonlinear, feedforward integrate-and-fire network, we use a Fokker-Planck approach to analyze system dynamics. We make a connection between pulse-gated propagation in the Fokker-Planck and population-averaged mean-field (firing rate) models, and then identify an approximate line attractor in state space as the essential structure underlying graded information propagation. An analysis of the line attractor shows that it consists of three fixed points: a central saddle with an unstable manifold along the line and stable manifolds orthogonal to the line, which is surrounded on either side by stable fixed points. Along the manifold defined by the fixed points, slow dynamics give rise to a ghost. We show that this line attractor arises at a cusp catastrophe, where a fold bifurcation develops as a function of synaptic noise; and that the ghost dynamics near the fold of the cusp underly the robustness of the line attractor. Understanding the dynamical aspects of this cusp catastrophe allows us to show how line attractors can persist in biologically realistic neuronal networks and how the interplay of pulse gating, synaptic coupling, and neuronal stochasticity can be used to enable attracting one-dimensional manifolds and, thus, dynamically control the processing of graded information.

Cusps enable line attractors for neural computation

Science.gov (United States)

Xiao, Zhuocheng; Zhang, Jiwei; Sornborger, Andrew T.; Tao, Louis

2017-11-01

Line attractors in neuronal networks have been suggested to be the basis of many brain functions, such as working memory, oculomotor control, head movement, locomotion, and sensory processing. In this paper, we make the connection between line attractors and pulse gating in feed-forward neuronal networks. In this context, because of their neutral stability along a one-dimensional manifold, line attractors are associated with a time-translational invariance that allows graded information to be propagated from one neuronal population to the next. To understand how pulse-gating manifests itself in a high-dimensional, nonlinear, feedforward integrate-and-fire network, we use a Fokker-Planck approach to analyze system dynamics. We make a connection between pulse-gated propagation in the Fokker-Planck and population-averaged mean-field (firing rate) models, and then identify an approximate line attractor in state space as the essential structure underlying graded information propagation. An analysis of the line attractor shows that it consists of three fixed points: a central saddle with an unstable manifold along the line and stable manifolds orthogonal to the line, which is surrounded on either side by stable fixed points. Along the manifold defined by the fixed points, slow dynamics give rise to a ghost. We show that this line attractor arises at a cusp catastrophe, where a fold bifurcation develops as a function of synaptic noise; and that the ghost dynamics near the fold of the cusp underly the robustness of the line attractor. Understanding the dynamical aspects of this cusp catastrophe allows us to show how line attractors can persist in biologically realistic neuronal networks and how the interplay of pulse gating, synaptic coupling, and neuronal stochasticity can be used to enable attracting one-dimensional manifolds and, thus, dynamically control the processing of graded information.

Pervasive e-learning

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hundebøl, Jesper; Helms, Niels Henrik

2009-01-01

This article falls within planning, production and delivery of innovative learning resources. The establishment of pervasive learning environments is based on the successful combination and re-configuration of inter-connected sets of learning objects, databases and data-streams. The text presents...... a definition of Pervasive Learning Environments and discusses the pedagogical potentials and challenges in developing such environments with emphasis on context, new didactics, content and affordances....

Pervasive displays understanding the future of digital signage

CERN Document Server

Davies, Nigel; Alt, Florian

2014-01-01

Fueled by falling display hardware costs and rising demand, digital signage and pervasive displays are becoming ever more ubiquitous. Such systems have traditionally been used for advertising and information dissemination, with digital signage commonplace in shopping malls, airports and public spaces. While advertising and broadcasting announcements remain important applications, developments in sensing and interaction technologies are enabling entirely new classes of display applications that tailor content to the situation and audience of the display. As a result, signage systems are beginni

Maintaining Privacy in Pervasive Computing - Enabling Acceptance of Sensor-based Services

Science.gov (United States)

Soppera, A.; Burbridge, T.

During the 1980s, Mark Weiser [1] predicted a world in which computing was so pervasive that devices embedded in the environment could sense their relationship to us and to each other. These tiny ubiquitous devices would continually feed information from the physical world into the information world. Twenty years ago, this vision was the exclusive territory of academic computer scientists and science fiction writers. Today this subject has become of interest to business, government, and society. Governmental authorities exercise their power through the networked environment. Credit card databases maintain our credit history and decide whether we are allowed to rent a house or obtain a loan. Mobile telephones can locate us in real time so that we do not miss calls. Within another 10 years, all sorts of devices will be connected through the network. Our fridge, our food, together with our health information, may all be networked for the purpose of maintaining diet and well-being. The Internet will move from being an infrastructure to connect computers, to being an infrastructure to connect everything [2, 3].

Virtual Video Prototyping of Pervasive Healthcare Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bardram, Jakob Eyvind; Bossen, Claus; Madsen, Kim Halskov

2002-01-01

Virtual studio technology enables the mixing of physical and digital 3D objects and thus expands the way of representing design ideas in terms of virtual video prototypes, which offers new possibilities for designers by combining elements of prototypes, mock-ups, scenarios, and conventional video....... In this article we report our initial experience in the domain of pervasive healthcare with producing virtual video prototypes and using them in a design workshop. Our experience has been predominantly favourable. The production of a virtual video prototype forces the designers to decide very concrete design...... issues, since one cannot avoid paying attention to the physical, real-world constraints and to details in the usage-interaction between users and technology. From the users' perspective, during our evaluation of the virtual video prototype, we experienced how it enabled users to relate...

Toward genome-enabled mycology.

Science.gov (United States)

Hibbett, David S; Stajich, Jason E; Spatafora, Joseph W

2013-01-01

Genome-enabled mycology is a rapidly expanding field that is characterized by the pervasive use of genome-scale data and associated computational tools in all aspects of fungal biology. Genome-enabled mycology is integrative and often requires teams of researchers with diverse skills in organismal mycology, bioinformatics and molecular biology. This issue of Mycologia presents the first complete fungal genomes in the history of the journal, reflecting the ongoing transformation of mycology into a genome-enabled science. Here, we consider the prospects for genome-enabled mycology and the technical and social challenges that will need to be overcome to grow the database of complete fungal genomes and enable all fungal biologists to make use of the new data.

Pervasive Electricity Distribution System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muhammad Usman Tahir

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Now a days a country cannot become economically strong until and unless it has enough electrical power to fulfil industrial and domestic needs. Electrical power being the pillar of any country’s economy, needs to be used in an efficient way. The same step is taken here by proposing a new system for energy distribution from substation to consumer houses, also it monitors the consumer consumption and record data. Unlike traditional manual Electrical systems, pervasive electricity distribution system (PEDS introduces a fresh perspective to monitor the feeder line status at distribution and consumer level. In this system an effort is taken to address the issues of electricity theft, manual billing, online monitoring of electrical distribution system and automatic control of electrical distribution points. The project is designed using microcontroller and different sensors, its GUI is designed in Labview software.

Service Composition issues in Pervasive Computing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brønsted, Jeppe Rørbæk; Hansen, Klaus Marius; Ingstrup, Mads

2010-01-01

Providing new services by combining existing ones—or service composition—is an idea pervading pervasive computing. Pervasive computing technologies seek to concurrently exhibit context awareness, manage contingencies, leverage device heterogeneity, and empower users. These four goals prompt service......-composition-mechanism design requirements that are unique to pervasive computing. This article catalogs service composition mechanisms and describes their variation points, which indicate how well the resulting compositions meet the four goals....

Explaining Management Innovation Pervasiveness

OpenAIRE

Harder, Mie

2011-01-01

Management innovation is the introduction of new management practices, processes, techniques or organizational structures that significantly alter the way the work of management is performed. This paper examines a particular characteristic of management innovation: i.e. pervasiveness. Based on the behavioral theory of the firm, the determinants of firms’ adoption of pervasive management innovations are explored. I find that performance shortfalls have a direct positive effect on t...

[Non-autistic pervasive developmental disorders: Rett syndrome, disintegrative disorder and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mercadante, M.T.; Gaag, R.J. van der; Schwartzman, J.S.

2006-01-01

The category "Pervasive Developmental Disorders" includes autistic disorder, Asperger's syndrome, Rett's syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder, and a residual category, named pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified. In this review, Rett's syndrome and childhood disintegrative

Pervasive mobile healthcare systems for chronic disease monitoring.

Science.gov (United States)

Huzooree, Geshwaree; Kumar Khedo, Kavi; Joonas, Noorjehan

2017-05-01

Pervasive mobile healthcare system has the potential to improve healthcare and the quality of life of chronic disease patients through continuous monitoring. Recently, many articles related to pervasive mobile healthcare system focusing on health monitoring using wireless technologies have been published. The main aim of this review is to evaluate the state-of-the-art pervasive mobile healthcare systems to identify major technical requirements and design challenges associated with the realization of a pervasive mobile healthcare system. A systematic literature review was conducted over IEEE Xplore Digital Library to evaluate 20 pervasive mobile healthcare systems out of 683 articles from 2011 to 2016. The classification of the pervasive mobile healthcare systems and other important factors are discussed. Potential opportunities and challenges are pointed out for the further deployment of effective pervasive mobile healthcare systems. This article helps researchers in health informatics to have a holistic view toward understanding pervasive mobile healthcare systems and points out new technological trends and design challenges that researchers have to consider when designing such systems for better adoption, usability, and seamless integration.

Pervasive Healthcare as a Scientific Discipline

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bardram, Jakob Eyvind

2008-01-01

computing technology can be designed to meet these challenges. The objective of this paper is to discuss ‘pervasive healthcare’ as a research field and tries to establish how novel and distinct it is, compared to related work within biomedical engineering, medical informatics, and ubiquitous computing....... Methods: The paper presents the research questions, approach, technologies, and methods of pervasive healthcare and discusses these in comparison to those of other related scientific disciplines. Results: A set of central research themes are presented; monitoring and body sensor networks; pervasive......-aware technologies for hospitals. Both projects approach the healthcare challenges in a new way, apply a new type of research method, and come up with new kinds of technological solutions. ‘Clinical proof-of-concept’ is recommended as a new method for pervasive healthcare research; the method helps design and test...

On Developing of Smart Home with Pervasive Approach

OpenAIRE

Ramli, Kalamullah; Alayderous, Abdurrahman; Salman, Muhammad

2009-01-01

The paper describes our study and development of smart home by taken into account the concept of pervasive technology. The system integrates pervasive concept into the design of its hardware and software architecture, functionalities and system configuration. Pervasive technology is aimed at giving users access to information sources anywhere, anytime and on -demand. Pervasive access to and from the smart home can be done simultaneously via remote control, sms, web-camera and web-based Intern...

SmartShadow models and methods for pervasive computing

CERN Document Server

Wu, Zhaohui

2013-01-01

SmartShadow: Models and Methods for Pervasive Computing offers a new perspective on pervasive computing with SmartShadow, which is designed to model a user as a personality ""shadow"" and to model pervasive computing environments as user-centric dynamic virtual personal spaces. Just like human beings' shadows in the physical world, it follows people wherever they go, providing them with pervasive services. The model, methods, and software infrastructure for SmartShadow are presented and an application for smart cars is also introduced.  The book can serve as a valuable reference work for resea

Pervasive Learning

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Helms, Niels Henrik; Larsen, Lasse Juel

2009-01-01

, it is not a specific place where you can access scarce information. Pervasive or ubiquitous communication opens up for taking the organizing and design of learning landscapes a step further. Furthermore it calls for theoretical developments, which can open up for a deeper understanding of the relationship between...... emerging contexts, design of contexts and learning....

Is the intercloud medium pervasive

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Heiles, C.

1980-01-01

We consider the pervasiveness of the ''not strongly absorbing'' (NSA) H I gas, which is the intercloud medium in steady state theories of the interstellar medium. We study the question by analyzing wide emission components in nearby gas, and the absence of absorption components in distant gas. We conclude that the NSA material is deficient in the immediately local solar vicinity. In nearby regions it contains 38% of the interstellar H I; it is generally pervasive and often has internal motions which greatly increase its velocity dispersion above the 5 km s -1 minimum value. It contains large holes, perhaps ranging up to 400 pc diameter, which probably occupy 10--20% of the volume. In distant regions the NSA material seems to be pervasive outside 8 kpc galactic radius. For galactic radii between 8 and 10 kpc its thickness agrees with previous determinations of 370 pc for nearby regions. Outside 10 kpc the thickness increases dramatically. Inside 8 kpc there are no data

Subwavelength grating enabled on-chip ultra-compact optical true time delay line.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Junjia; Ashrafi, Reza; Adams, Rhys; Glesk, Ivan; Gasulla, Ivana; Capmany, José; Chen, Lawrence R

2016-07-26

An optical true time delay line (OTTDL) is a basic photonic building block that enables many microwave photonic and optical processing operations. The conventional design for an integrated OTTDL that is based on spatial diversity uses a length-variable waveguide array to create the optical time delays, which can introduce complexities in the integrated circuit design. Here we report the first ever demonstration of an integrated index-variable OTTDL that exploits spatial diversity in an equal length waveguide array. The approach uses subwavelength grating waveguides in silicon-on-insulator (SOI), which enables the realization of OTTDLs having a simple geometry and that occupy a compact chip area. Moreover, compared to conventional wavelength-variable delay lines with a few THz operation bandwidth, our index-variable OTTDL has an extremely broad operation bandwidth practically exceeding several tens of THz, which supports operation for various input optical signals with broad ranges of central wavelength and bandwidth.

New tricks with old sensors: Pervasive Technologies for Novel Applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Merrett, Geoff

2013-01-01

Sensors are interleaved into society, instrumenting considerable aspects of our lives without our comprehension. Sensors such as the MEMS accelerometer have transitioned from their original domains to applications that they were never conceived for: from games controllers to contextually rotating the screen on your smartphone. Further advances in technologies such as pervasive computing and networked embedded sensing are enabling new applications and smart devices which utilise sensors in new ways. In this presentation I will highlight new trends, applications and research in these fields, and show how ''simple'' sensors are being used in larger connected systems – from assistive technologies to distributed monitoring.

Analysis of pervasive mobile ad hoc routing protocols

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Qadri, N.N.; Liotta, A.; Hassanien, A.E.; Abawajy, J.H.; Abraham, A.; Hagras, H.

2009-01-01

Pervasive computing (also referred to as ubiquitous computing or ambient intelligence) aims to create environments where computers are invisibly and seamlessly integrated and connected into our everyday environment. Pervasive computing and intelligent multimedia technologies are becoming

Performing Workflows in Pervasive Environments Based on Context Specifications

OpenAIRE

Xiping Liu; Jianxin Chen

2010-01-01

The workflow performance consists of the performance of activities and transitions between activities. Along with the fast development of varied computing devices, activities in workflows and transitions between activities could be performed in pervasive ways, whichcauses that the workflow performance need to migrate from traditional computing environments to pervasive environments. To perform workflows in pervasive environments needs to take account of the context information which affects b...

7 CFR 25.102 - Pervasive poverty, unemployment and general distress.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Pervasive poverty, unemployment and general distress... ENTERPRISE COMMUNITIES Area Requirements § 25.102 Pervasive poverty, unemployment and general distress. (a) Pervasive poverty. Conditions of poverty must be reasonably distributed throughout the entire nominated area...

Examining the Criterion-Related Validity of the Pervasive Developmental Disorder Behavior Inventory

Science.gov (United States)

McMorris, Carly A.; Perry, Adrienne

2015-01-01

The Pervasive Developmental Disorder Behavior Inventory is a questionnaire designed to aid in the diagnosis of pervasive developmental disorders or autism spectrum disorders. The Pervasive Developmental Disorder Behavior Inventory assesses adaptive and maladaptive behaviors associated with pervasive developmental disorders and provides an…

Explaining Management Innovation Pervasiveness

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Harder, Mie

Management innovation is the introduction of new management practices, processes, techniques or organizational structures that significantly alter the way the work of management is performed. This paper examines a particular characteristic of management innovation: i.e. pervasiveness. Based on th...

The Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia enables predictive modelling of anticancer drug sensitivity.

Science.gov (United States)

Barretina, Jordi; Caponigro, Giordano; Stransky, Nicolas; Venkatesan, Kavitha; Margolin, Adam A; Kim, Sungjoon; Wilson, Christopher J; Lehár, Joseph; Kryukov, Gregory V; Sonkin, Dmitriy; Reddy, Anupama; Liu, Manway; Murray, Lauren; Berger, Michael F; Monahan, John E; Morais, Paula; Meltzer, Jodi; Korejwa, Adam; Jané-Valbuena, Judit; Mapa, Felipa A; Thibault, Joseph; Bric-Furlong, Eva; Raman, Pichai; Shipway, Aaron; Engels, Ingo H; Cheng, Jill; Yu, Guoying K; Yu, Jianjun; Aspesi, Peter; de Silva, Melanie; Jagtap, Kalpana; Jones, Michael D; Wang, Li; Hatton, Charles; Palescandolo, Emanuele; Gupta, Supriya; Mahan, Scott; Sougnez, Carrie; Onofrio, Robert C; Liefeld, Ted; MacConaill, Laura; Winckler, Wendy; Reich, Michael; Li, Nanxin; Mesirov, Jill P; Gabriel, Stacey B; Getz, Gad; Ardlie, Kristin; Chan, Vivien; Myer, Vic E; Weber, Barbara L; Porter, Jeff; Warmuth, Markus; Finan, Peter; Harris, Jennifer L; Meyerson, Matthew; Golub, Todd R; Morrissey, Michael P; Sellers, William R; Schlegel, Robert; Garraway, Levi A

2012-03-28

The systematic translation of cancer genomic data into knowledge of tumour biology and therapeutic possibilities remains challenging. Such efforts should be greatly aided by robust preclinical model systems that reflect the genomic diversity of human cancers and for which detailed genetic and pharmacological annotation is available. Here we describe the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE): a compilation of gene expression, chromosomal copy number and massively parallel sequencing data from 947 human cancer cell lines. When coupled with pharmacological profiles for 24 anticancer drugs across 479 of the cell lines, this collection allowed identification of genetic, lineage, and gene-expression-based predictors of drug sensitivity. In addition to known predictors, we found that plasma cell lineage correlated with sensitivity to IGF1 receptor inhibitors; AHR expression was associated with MEK inhibitor efficacy in NRAS-mutant lines; and SLFN11 expression predicted sensitivity to topoisomerase inhibitors. Together, our results indicate that large, annotated cell-line collections may help to enable preclinical stratification schemata for anticancer agents. The generation of genetic predictions of drug response in the preclinical setting and their incorporation into cancer clinical trial design could speed the emergence of 'personalized' therapeutic regimens.

The Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia enables predictive modeling of anticancer drug sensitivity

Science.gov (United States)

Barretina, Jordi; Caponigro, Giordano; Stransky, Nicolas; Venkatesan, Kavitha; Margolin, Adam A.; Kim, Sungjoon; Wilson, Christopher J.; Lehár, Joseph; Kryukov, Gregory V.; Sonkin, Dmitriy; Reddy, Anupama; Liu, Manway; Murray, Lauren; Berger, Michael F.; Monahan, John E.; Morais, Paula; Meltzer, Jodi; Korejwa, Adam; Jané-Valbuena, Judit; Mapa, Felipa A.; Thibault, Joseph; Bric-Furlong, Eva; Raman, Pichai; Shipway, Aaron; Engels, Ingo H.; Cheng, Jill; Yu, Guoying K.; Yu, Jianjun; Aspesi, Peter; de Silva, Melanie; Jagtap, Kalpana; Jones, Michael D.; Wang, Li; Hatton, Charles; Palescandolo, Emanuele; Gupta, Supriya; Mahan, Scott; Sougnez, Carrie; Onofrio, Robert C.; Liefeld, Ted; MacConaill, Laura; Winckler, Wendy; Reich, Michael; Li, Nanxin; Mesirov, Jill P.; Gabriel, Stacey B.; Getz, Gad; Ardlie, Kristin; Chan, Vivien; Myer, Vic E.; Weber, Barbara L.; Porter, Jeff; Warmuth, Markus; Finan, Peter; Harris, Jennifer L.; Meyerson, Matthew; Golub, Todd R.; Morrissey, Michael P.; Sellers, William R.; Schlegel, Robert; Garraway, Levi A.

2012-01-01

The systematic translation of cancer genomic data into knowledge of tumor biology and therapeutic avenues remains challenging. Such efforts should be greatly aided by robust preclinical model systems that reflect the genomic diversity of human cancers and for which detailed genetic and pharmacologic annotation is available1. Here we describe the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE): a compilation of gene expression, chromosomal copy number, and massively parallel sequencing data from 947 human cancer cell lines. When coupled with pharmacologic profiles for 24 anticancer drugs across 479 of the lines, this collection allowed identification of genetic, lineage, and gene expression-based predictors of drug sensitivity. In addition to known predictors, we found that plasma cell lineage correlated with sensitivity to IGF1 receptor inhibitors; AHR expression was associated with MEK inhibitor efficacy in NRAS-mutant lines; and SLFN11 expression predicted sensitivity to topoisomerase inhibitors. Altogether, our results suggest that large, annotated cell line collections may help to enable preclinical stratification schemata for anticancer agents. The generation of genetic predictions of drug response in the preclinical setting and their incorporation into cancer clinical trial design could speed the emergence of “personalized” therapeutic regimens2. PMID:22460905

Pervasive Sensing: Addressing the Heterogeneity Problem

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

O'Grady, Michael J; Murdoch, Olga; Kroon, Barnard; Lillis, David; Carr, Dominic; Collier, Rem W; O'Hare, Gregory M P

2013-01-01

Pervasive sensing is characterized by heterogeneity across a number of dimensions. This raises significant problems for those designing, implementing and deploying sensor networks, irrespective of application domain. Such problems include for example, issues of data provenance and integrity, security, and privacy amongst others. Thus engineering a network that is fit-for-purpose represents a significant challenge. In this paper, the issue of heterogeneity is explored from the perspective of those who seek to harness a pervasive sensing element in their applications. A initial solution is proposed based on the middleware construct.

Dissecting the Security and Protection Issues in Pervasive Computing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qaisar Javaid

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Human beings reflect nomadic behaviour as they keep on travelling place to place whole day for personal or organizational purposes. The inception of modern networking technologies and the advent of wide range of applications in terms of services and resources have facilitated the users in many ways. The advancements in numerous areas such as embedded systems, WN (Wireless Networks, mobile and context-aware computing, anticipated pervasive computing dominated the human communication at large. Pervasive computing refers to the environment where information is accessible anywhere and anytime while existing system is invisible to the user. On the other hand, the invisibility of pervasive computing is also a problem in its adoption as users are unaware when and what devices collect their personal data and how it is being used. It has caused new security chaos as the more information about user is collected the more privacy and security concerns it raises, thus, the pervasive computing applications became key concern for user. This paper is aimed at analyzing the security and protection issues that arise while traveling from place to place connected with wireless mobile networks. The paper reviews many existing systems that offer possible security to pervasive users. An easy, precise and relative analysis and evaluation of surveyed pervasive systems are presented and some future directions are highlighted.

Analysis of Pervasive Mobile Ad Hoc Routing Protocols

Science.gov (United States)

Qadri, Nadia N.; Liotta, Antonio

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are a fundamental element of pervasive networks and therefore, of pervasive systems that truly support pervasive computing, where user can communicate anywhere, anytime and on-the-fly. In fact, future advances in pervasive computing rely on advancements in mobile communication, which includes both infrastructure-based wireless networks and non-infrastructure-based MANETs. MANETs introduce a new communication paradigm, which does not require a fixed infrastructure - they rely on wireless terminals for routing and transport services. Due to highly dynamic topology, absence of established infrastructure for centralized administration, bandwidth constrained wireless links, and limited resources in MANETs, it is challenging to design an efficient and reliable routing protocol. This chapter reviews the key studies carried out so far on the performance of mobile ad hoc routing protocols. We discuss performance issues and metrics required for the evaluation of ad hoc routing protocols. This leads to a survey of existing work, which captures the performance of ad hoc routing algorithms and their behaviour from different perspectives and highlights avenues for future research.

Application Requirements for Middleware for Mobile and Pervasive Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christensen, Henrik Bærbak; Raatikainen, Kimmo; Nakajim, Tatsuo

2002-01-01

In this paper, we examine the requirements for future middleware to support mobile and pervasive applications and identify key research areas. We illustrate the research areas with requirements identified in two specific research projects concerning pervasive healthcare and home entertainment....

A survey of characteristic engine features for technology-sustained pervasive games

CERN Document Server

Nevelsteen, Kim JL

2015-01-01

This book scrutinizes pervasive games from a technological perspective, focusing on the sub-domain of games that satisfy the criteria that they make use of virtual game elements. In the computer game industry, the use of a game engine to build games is common, but current game engines do not support pervasive games. Since the computer game industry is already rich with game engines, this book investigates: (i) if a game engine can be repurposed to stage pervasive games; (ii) if features describing a would-be pervasive game engine can be identified; (iii) using those features, if an architectu

Using Context Awareness for Self Management in Pervasive Service Middleware

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Weishan; Hansen, Klaus Marius

2011-01-01

Context-awareness is an important feature in Ambient Intelligence environments including in pervasive middleware. In addition, there is a growing trend and demand on self-management capabilities for a pervasive middleware in order to provide high-level dependability for services. In this chapter......, we propose to make use of context-awareness features to facilitate self-management. To achieve self-management, dynamic contexts for example device and service statuses, are critical to take self-management actions. Therefore, we consider dynamic contexts in context modeling, specifically as a set...... of OWL/SWRL ontologies, called the Self-Management for Pervasive Services (SeMaPS) ontologies. Self-management rules can be developed based on the SeMaPS ontologies to achieve self-management goals. Our approach is demonstrated within the LinkSmart pervasive middleware. Finally, our experiments...

On enabling secure applications through off-line biometric identification

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Davida, G.I. [Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI (United States); Frankel, Y. [CertCo LLC, New York, NY (United States); Matt, B.J. [Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)

1998-04-01

In developing secure applications and systems, the designers often must incorporate secure user identification in the design specification. In this paper, the authors study secure off line authenticated user identification schemes based on a biometric system that can measure a user`s biometric accurately (up to some Hamming distance). The schemes presented here enhance identification and authorization in secure applications by binding a biometric template with authorization information on a token such as a magnetic strip. Also developed here are schemes specifically designed to minimize the compromise of a user`s private biometrics data, encapsulated in the authorization information, without requiring secure hardware tokens. In this paper the authors furthermore study the feasibility of biometrics performing as an enabling technology for secure system and application design. The authors investigate a new technology which allows a user`s biometrics to facilitate cryptographic mechanisms.

On enabling secure applications through off-line biometric identification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Davida, G.I.; Frankel, Y.; Matt, B.J.

1998-04-01

In developing secure applications and systems, the designers often must incorporate secure user identification in the design specification. In this paper, the authors study secure off line authenticated user identification schemes based on a biometric system that can measure a user's biometric accurately (up to some Hamming distance). The schemes presented here enhance identification and authorization in secure applications by binding a biometric template with authorization information on a token such as a magnetic strip. Also developed here are schemes specifically designed to minimize the compromise of a user's private biometrics data, encapsulated in the authorization information, without requiring secure hardware tokens. In this paper the authors furthermore study the feasibility of biometrics performing as an enabling technology for secure system and application design. The authors investigate a new technology which allows a user's biometrics to facilitate cryptographic mechanisms

Requirements Engineering for Pervasive Services

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kolos, L.; Poulisse, Gert-Jan; van Eck, Pascal; Videira lopes, C.; Schaefer, S.; Clarke, S.; Elrad, T.; Jahnke, J.

2005-01-01

Developing pervasive mobile services for a mass market of end customers entails large up-front investments and therefore a good understanding of customer requirements is of paramount importance. This paper presents an approach for developing requirements engineering method that takes distinguishing

Can pervasive sensing address current challenges in global healthcare?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Louis Atallah

2012-03-01

Full Text Available Important challenges facing global healthcare include the increase in the number of people affected by escalating healthcare costs, chronic and infectious diseases, the need for better and more affordable elderly care and expanding urbanisation combined with air and water pollution. Recent advances in pervasive sensing technologies have led to miniaturised sensor networks that can be worn or integrated within the living environment without affecting a person’s daily patterns. These sensors promise to change healthcare from snapshot measurements of physiological parameters to continuous monitoring enabling clinicians to provide guidance on a daily basis. This article surveys several of the solutions provided by these sensor platforms from elderly care to neonatal monitoring and environmental mapping. Some of the opportunities available and the challenges facing the adoption of such technologies in large-scale epidemiological studies are also discussed.

The Implications of Pervasive Computing on Network Design

Science.gov (United States)

Briscoe, R.

Mark Weiser's late-1980s vision of an age of calm technology with pervasive computing disappearing into the fabric of the world [1] has been tempered by an industry-driven vision with more of a feel of conspicuous consumption. In the modified version, everyone carries around consumer electronics to provide natural, seamless interactions both with other people and with the information world, particularly for eCommerce, but still through a pervasive computing fabric.

Minimizing the Pervasiveness of Women's Personal Experiences of Gender Discrimination

Science.gov (United States)

Foster, Mindi D.; Jackson, Lydia C.; Hartmann, Ryan; Woulfe, Shannon

2004-01-01

Given the Rejection-Identification Model (Branscombe, Schmitt, & Harvey, 1999), which shows that perceiving discrimination to be pervasive is a negative experience, it was suggested that there would be conditions under which women would instead minimize the pervasiveness of discrimination. Study 1 (N= 91) showed that when women envisioned…

A Secure Framework for Location Verification in Pervasive Computing

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Dawei; Lee, Moon-Chuen; Wu, Dan

The way people use computing devices has been changed in some way by the relatively new pervasive computing paradigm. For example, a person can use a mobile device to obtain its location information at anytime and anywhere. There are several security issues concerning whether this information is reliable in a pervasive environment. For example, a malicious user may disable the localization system by broadcasting a forged location, and it may impersonate other users by eavesdropping their locations. In this paper, we address the verification of location information in a secure manner. We first present the design challenges for location verification, and then propose a two-layer framework VerPer for secure location verification in a pervasive computing environment. Real world GPS-based wireless sensor network experiments confirm the effectiveness of the proposed framework.

Pervasive faint Fe XIX emission from a solar active region observed with EUNIS-13: Evidence for nanoflare heating

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brosius, Jeffrey W.; Daw, Adrian N.; Rabin, D. M.

2014-01-01

We present spatially resolved EUV spectroscopic measurements of pervasive, faint Fe XIX 592.2 Å line emission in an active region observed during the 2013 April 23 flight of the Extreme Ultraviolet Normal Incidence Spectrograph (EUNIS-13) sounding rocket instrument. With cooled detectors, high sensitivity, and high spectral resolution, EUNIS-13 resolves the lines of Fe XIX at 592.2 Å (formed at temperature T ≈ 8.9 MK) and Fe XII at 592.6 Å (T ≈ 1.6 MK). The Fe XIX line emission, observed over an area in excess of 4920 arcsec 2 (2.58 × 10 9 km 2 , more than 60% of the active region), provides strong evidence for the nanoflare heating model of the solar corona. No GOES events occurred in the region less than 2 hr before the rocket flight, but a microflare was observed north and east of the region with RHESSI and EUNIS during the flight. The absence of significant upward velocities anywhere in the region, particularly the microflare, indicates that the pervasive Fe XIX emission is not propelled outward from the microflare site, but is most likely attributed to localized heating (not necessarily due to reconnection) consistent with the nanoflare heating model of the solar corona. Assuming ionization equilibrium we estimate Fe XIX/Fe XII emission measure ratios of ∼0.076 just outside the AR core and ∼0.59 in the core.

Pervasive faint Fe XIX emission from a solar active region observed with EUNIS-13: Evidence for nanoflare heating

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brosius, Jeffrey W. [Catholic University of America at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Solar Physics Laboratory, Code 671, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States); Daw, Adrian N. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Solar Physics Laboratory, Code 671, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States); Rabin, D. M., E-mail: Jeffrey.W.Brosius@nasa.gov [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Heliophysics Science Division, Code 670, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)

2014-08-01

We present spatially resolved EUV spectroscopic measurements of pervasive, faint Fe XIX 592.2 Å line emission in an active region observed during the 2013 April 23 flight of the Extreme Ultraviolet Normal Incidence Spectrograph (EUNIS-13) sounding rocket instrument. With cooled detectors, high sensitivity, and high spectral resolution, EUNIS-13 resolves the lines of Fe XIX at 592.2 Å (formed at temperature T ≈ 8.9 MK) and Fe XII at 592.6 Å (T ≈ 1.6 MK). The Fe XIX line emission, observed over an area in excess of 4920 arcsec{sup 2} (2.58 × 10{sup 9} km{sup 2}, more than 60% of the active region), provides strong evidence for the nanoflare heating model of the solar corona. No GOES events occurred in the region less than 2 hr before the rocket flight, but a microflare was observed north and east of the region with RHESSI and EUNIS during the flight. The absence of significant upward velocities anywhere in the region, particularly the microflare, indicates that the pervasive Fe XIX emission is not propelled outward from the microflare site, but is most likely attributed to localized heating (not necessarily due to reconnection) consistent with the nanoflare heating model of the solar corona. Assuming ionization equilibrium we estimate Fe XIX/Fe XII emission measure ratios of ∼0.076 just outside the AR core and ∼0.59 in the core.

A systemic domain model for ambient pervasive persuasive games

OpenAIRE

Eglin, Roger; Eyles, Mark; Dansey, Neil

2008-01-01

By the development of the system domain model it is hoped that a greater conceptual and theoretical clarity may be brought to understanding the complex and multifaceted nature of pervasive and ambient computer games. This paper presents a conceptual model, the system domain model, to illustrate domain areas that exist in a console, pervasive or ambient game. It is implicit that the regions that the systemic domain model describes are contextually dependent. By developing this model it is poss...

Children with pervasive refusal.

OpenAIRE

Lask, B; Britten, C; Kroll, L; Magagna, J; Tranter, M

1991-01-01

Four children are described with a potentially life threatening condition manifested by profound and pervasive refusal to eat, drink, walk, talk, or care for themselves in any way over a period of several months. The multiplicity and severity of the symptoms in these children do not fit comfortably into any existing diagnostic category. Long term and highly skilled nursing and psychiatric care is required to help these children to recover. The possible causes of this syndrome are discussed.

Infrastructure Support for Collaborative Pervasive Computing Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vestergaard Mogensen, Martin

Collaborative Pervasive Computing Systems (CPCS) are currently being deployed to support areas such as clinical work, emergency situations, education, ad-hoc meetings, and other areas involving information sharing and collaboration.These systems allow the users to work together synchronously......, but from different places, by sharing information and coordinating activities. Several researchers have shown the value of such distributed collaborative systems. However, building these systems is by no means a trivial task and introduces a lot of yet unanswered questions. The aforementioned areas......, are all characterized by unstable, volatile environments, either due to the underlying components changing or the nomadic work habits of users. A major challenge, for the creators of collaborative pervasive computing systems, is the construction of infrastructures supporting the system. The complexity...

Autism Spectrum Disorders (Pervasive Developmental Disorders)

Science.gov (United States)

Strock, Margaret

2007-01-01

This booklet focuses on classic autism, pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), and Asperger syndrome, with brief descriptions of Rett syndrome and childhood disintegrative disorder. The booklet describes possible indicators of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), their diagnosis, available aids, treatment options, adults…

Ubiquitous and pervasive commerce new frontiers for electronic business

CERN Document Server

Roussos, George

2006-01-01

The new capabilities of ubiquitous and pervasive computing imply that products, locations, consumers and employees create rich streams of information about themselves, their immediate environment and their use. This book brings together technological and business aspects of conducting commerce using ubiquitous and pervasive computing techniques and also examines its implications for society at large. Individual chapters examine in detail the core technologies that make ubiquitous computing possible, the business standards that must be established to support the envisioned global infrastructure

Pervasive Application Rights Management Architecture

OpenAIRE

Dusparic, Ivana

2005-01-01

This dissertation describes an application rights management architecture that combines license management with digital rights management to provide an integrated platform for the specification, generation, delivery and management of application usage rights for pervasive computing environments. A new rights expression language is developed, extended from the existing language, ODRL, which allows the expression of mobile application usage rights and supports fine-grained usage ...

Mobile and pervasive media for personalized learning

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kalz, Marco

2013-01-01

Kalz, M. (2013, 18 April). Mobile and pervasive media for personalized learning. Presentation provided during a workshop for visitors from Lithuania, Learning Media Lab, Heerlen, The Netherlands: Open Universiteit in the Netherlands.

Towards Self-managed Pervasive Middleware using OWL/SWRL ontologies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Weishan; Hansen, Klaus Marius

2008-01-01

Self-management for pervasive middleware is important to realize the Ambient Intelligence vision. In this paper, we present an OWL/SWRL context ontologies based self-management approach for pervasive middleware where OWL ontology is used as means for context modeling. The context ontologies....../SWRL context ontologies based self-management approach with the self-diagnosis in Hydra middleware, using device state machine and other dynamic context information, for example web service calls. The evaluations in terms of extensibility, performance and scalability show that this approach is effective...

Epidemic Protocols for Pervasive Computing Systems - Moving Focus from Architecture to Protocol

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mogensen, Martin

2009-01-01

Pervasive computing systems are inherently running on unstable networks and devices, subject to constant topology changes, network failures, and high churn. For this reason, pervasive computing infrastructures need to handle these issues as part of their design. This is, however, not feasible, si...

Architectural Techniques to Enable Reliable and Scalable Memory Systems

OpenAIRE

Nair, Prashant J.

2017-01-01

High capacity and scalable memory systems play a vital role in enabling our desktops, smartphones, and pervasive technologies like Internet of Things (IoT). Unfortunately, memory systems are becoming increasingly prone to faults. This is because we rely on technology scaling to improve memory density, and at small feature sizes, memory cells tend to break easily. Today, memory reliability is seen as the key impediment towards using high-density devices, adopting new technologies, and even bui...

24 CFR 597.102 - Tests of pervasive poverty, unemployment and general distress.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

..., unemployment and general distress. 597.102 Section 597.102 Housing and Urban Development Regulations Relating..., unemployment and general distress. (a) Pervasive poverty. Pervasive poverty shall be demonstrated by the... component areas of an affluent character. (b) Unemployment. Unemployment shall be demonstrated by: (1) Data...

Pervasive Developmental Disorder with Age?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Balfe

2011-01-01

Full Text Available A survey was undertaken to investigate the prevalence of high-functioning pervasive developmental disorder (HFPDD in a community sample of teenagers and adults aged 13 and above in the city of Sheffield, UK. 112 possible and definite cases were found, of whom 65 (57% had a previous diagnosis. The detected prevalence of possible or definite HFPDD was found to be 0.24 per 1000 of the population of Sheffield city aged 13 or over, but the prevalence by year of age fell from a maximum of 1.1 per 1000 in the group aged 13 to 14 years old (1 young adult in every 900 in this age group to 0.03 per 1000 in the over 60s (1 person in every 38500 in this age group. The results of this study are preliminary and need follow-up investigation in larger studies. We suggest several explanations for the findings, including reduced willingness to participate in a study as people get older, increased ascertainment in younger people, and increased mortality. Another contributory factor might be that the prevalence of high-functioning pervasive development disorder may decline with age. This raises the possibility that AS symptoms might become subclinical in adulthood in a proportion of people with HFPDD.

Architecture and pervasive Computing when buildings and design artifacts become popular interfaces

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Krogh, Peter Gall; Grønbæk, Kaj

2001-01-01

One of the main areas of architecture is buildings design, and we will focus on the impact of pervasive computing in this area. The breakthrough of the Internet has triggered a significant increase in what is often called intelligent buildings 1  in recent years. Due to development in pervasive c...

Pervasive within-Mitochondrion Single-Nucleotide Variant Heteroplasmy as Revealed by Single-Mitochondrion Sequencing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jacqueline Morris

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Summary: A number of mitochondrial diseases arise from single-nucleotide variant (SNV accumulation in multiple mitochondria. Here, we present a method for identification of variants present at the single-mitochondrion level in individual mouse and human neuronal cells, allowing for extremely high-resolution study of mitochondrial mutation dynamics. We identified extensive heteroplasmy between individual mitochondrion, along with three high-confidence variants in mouse and one in human that were present in multiple mitochondria across cells. The pattern of variation revealed by single-mitochondrion data shows surprisingly pervasive levels of heteroplasmy in inbred mice. Distribution of SNV loci suggests inheritance of variants across generations, resulting in Poisson jackpot lines with large SNV load. Comparison of human and mouse variants suggests that the two species might employ distinct modes of somatic segregation. Single-mitochondrion resolution revealed mitochondria mutational dynamics that we hypothesize to affect risk probabilities for mutations reaching disease thresholds. : Morris et al. use independent sequencing of multiple individual mitochondria from mouse and human brain cells to show high pervasiveness of mutations. The mutations are heteroplasmic within single mitochondria and within and between cells. These findings suggest mechanisms by which mutations accumulate over time, resulting in mitochondrial dysfunction and disease. Keywords: single mitochondrion, single cell, human neuron, mouse neuron, single-nucleotide variation

Development of an Ethernet enabled microcontroller based module for Superconducting Cyclotron ECR beam line control

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chatterjee, M.; Koley, D.; Nabhiraj, P.Y.

2012-01-01

An Ethernet enabled control and data acquisition module is developed for remote control and monitoring of the ECR beam line equipment of the Superconducting Cyclotron. The PIC microcontroller based module supports multiple general purpose analog and digital inputs and outputs for interfacing with various equipments and an embedded web server. The remote monitoring and control of the equipment are achieved through the web based user interface. The user authenticated access to control parameters and module configuration parameters ensures the operational safety of the equipment under control. This module is installed in Superconducting Cyclotron ECR beam line for the control and monitoring of vacuum pumping modules, comprising of pumps, gate valves and dual vacuum gauges. The installation of these modules results in a distributed control with localised field cabling and hence better fault diagnosis. (author)

A Pervasive Approach to EEG-Based Depression Detection

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hanshu Cai

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Nowadays, depression is the world’s major health concern and economic burden worldwide. However, due to the limitations of current methods for depression diagnosis, a pervasive and objective approach is essential. In the present study, a psychophysiological database, containing 213 (92 depressed patients and 121 normal controls subjects, was constructed. The electroencephalogram (EEG signals of all participants under resting state and sound stimulation were collected using a pervasive prefrontal-lobe three-electrode EEG system at Fp1, Fp2, and Fpz electrode sites. After denoising using the Finite Impulse Response filter combining the Kalman derivation formula, Discrete Wavelet Transformation, and an Adaptive Predictor Filter, a total of 270 linear and nonlinear features were extracted. Then, the minimal-redundancy-maximal-relevance feature selection technique reduced the dimensionality of the feature space. Four classification methods (Support Vector Machine, K-Nearest Neighbor, Classification Trees, and Artificial Neural Network distinguished the depressed participants from normal controls. The classifiers’ performances were evaluated using 10-fold cross-validation. The results showed that K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN had the highest accuracy of 79.27%. The result also suggested that the absolute power of the theta wave might be a valid characteristic for discriminating depression. This study proves the feasibility of a pervasive three-electrode EEG acquisition system for depression diagnosis.

Adaptive Process Management in Highly Dynamic and Pervasive Scenarios

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Massimiliano de Leoni

2009-06-01

Full Text Available Process Management Systems (PMSs are currently more and more used as a supporting tool for cooperative processes in pervasive and highly dynamic situations, such as emergency situations, pervasive healthcare or domotics/home automation. But in all such situations, designed processes can be easily invalidated since the execution environment may change continuously due to frequent unforeseeable events. This paper aims at illustrating the theoretical framework and the concrete implementation of SmartPM, a PMS that features a set of sound and complete techniques to automatically cope with unplanned exceptions. PMS SmartPM is based on a general framework which adopts the Situation Calculus and Indigolog.

ICT and the future of healthcare: Aspects of pervasive health monitoring.

Science.gov (United States)

Haluza, Daniela; Jungwirth, David

2018-01-01

Along with the digital revolution, information and communication technology applications are currently transforming the delivery of health and social care services. This paper investigates prevailing opinions toward future technology-based healthcare solutions among Austrian healthcare professionals. During a biphasic online Delphi survey, panelists rated expected outcomes of two future scenarios describing pervasive health monitoring applications. Experts perceived that the scenarios were highly innovative, but only moderately desirable, and that their implementation could especially improve patients' knowledge, quality of healthcare, and living standard. Contrarily, monetary aspects, technical prerequisites, and data security were identified as key obstacles. We further compared the impact of professional affiliation. Clearly, opinions toward pervasive healthcare differed between the interest groups, medical professionals, patient advocates, and administrative personnel. These data suggest closer collaborations between stakeholder groups to harmonize differences in expectations regarding pervasive health monitoring.

Didaktisk design af et pervasive learning game

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Oldenskov, Joakim; Westergren, Jens; Frank, Anders Bredahl

2010-01-01

Projektet er et studie i det teoretiske grundlag for, og en empirisk undersøgelse, af en prototype for et didaktisk design af et pervasive learning game. Der arbejdes overordnet med udviklingen af et didaktisk design af et læringsspil som kombinerer mobile teknologier, det fysiske rum og eleverne...... game med en analyse af legen og motivationen iboende spillet. I det læringsteoretiske felt inddrages og diskuteres forskellige tilgange til læring og pervasive games, som alle repræsenterer et socialkonstruktivistisk syn på læring. Det didaktiske design danner grundlag for et prototypedesign af et...... funktionalitet som en del af undervisningen. Det er afgørende at teknologien er pålidelig og er let at gå til, da det er kernefunktionen i denne type af spil. Legens rolle er vigtig for motivationen, men må ikke overtage de formelle krav til den undervisning, som spillet er del af. Det var entydigt omkring...

Ribosome Profiling Reveals Pervasive Translation Outside of Annotated Protein-Coding Genes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicholas T. Ingolia

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Ribosome profiling suggests that ribosomes occupy many regions of the transcriptome thought to be noncoding, including 5′ UTRs and long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs. Apparent ribosome footprints outside of protein-coding regions raise the possibility of artifacts unrelated to translation, particularly when they occupy multiple, overlapping open reading frames (ORFs. Here, we show hallmarks of translation in these footprints: copurification with the large ribosomal subunit, response to drugs targeting elongation, trinucleotide periodicity, and initiation at early AUGs. We develop a metric for distinguishing between 80S footprints and nonribosomal sources using footprint size distributions, which validates the vast majority of footprints outside of coding regions. We present evidence for polypeptide production beyond annotated genes, including the induction of immune responses following human cytomegalovirus (HCMV infection. Translation is pervasive on cytosolic transcripts outside of conserved reading frames, and direct detection of this expanded universe of translated products enables efforts at understanding how cells manage and exploit its consequences.

Towards pervasive computing in health care - a literature review.

Science.gov (United States)

Orwat, Carsten; Graefe, Andreas; Faulwasser, Timm

2008-06-19

The evolving concepts of pervasive computing, ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence are increasingly influencing health care and medicine. Summarizing published research, this literature review provides an overview of recent developments and implementations of pervasive computing systems in health care. It also highlights some of the experiences reported in deployment processes. There is no clear definition of pervasive computing in the current literature. Thus specific inclusion criteria for selecting articles about relevant systems were developed. Searches were conducted in four scientific databases alongside manual journal searches for the period of 2002 to 2006. Articles included present prototypes, case studies and pilot studies, clinical trials and systems that are already in routine use. The searches identified 69 articles describing 67 different systems. In a quantitative analysis, these systems were categorized into project status, health care settings, user groups, improvement aims, and systems features (i.e., component types, data gathering, data transmission, systems functions). The focus is on the types of systems implemented, their frequency of occurrence and their characteristics. Qualitative analyses were performed of deployment issues, such as organizational and personnel issues, privacy and security issues, and financial issues. This paper provides a comprehensive access to the literature of the emerging field by addressing specific topics of application settings, systems features, and deployment experiences. Both an overview and an analysis of the literature on a broad and heterogeneous range of systems are provided. Most systems are described in their prototype stages. Deployment issues, such as implications on organization or personnel, privacy concerns, or financial issues are mentioned rarely, though their solution is regarded as decisive in transferring promising systems to a stage of regular operation. There is a need for further

Needs Elicitation for Novel Pervasive Healthcare Technology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Thorpe, Julia Rosemary; Forchhammer, B. H.; Maier, Anja

2016-01-01

for pervasive healthcare technology, in which established methods for engaging users to elicit their needs can be difficult or even impossible to apply. In this paper we document our needs elicitation process in a relevant example as a method story, and present our findings and reflections on this as the key...

Application coordination in pervasive systems

CERN Document Server

Majuntke, Verena Elisabeth

2013-01-01

Pervasive applications are designed to support users in their daily life. For this purpose, applications interact with their environment, i.e. their context. They are able to adapt themselves to context changes or to explicitly change the context via actuators. If multiple applications are executed in the same context, interferences are likely to occur. To manage interferences, a coordination framework is presented in this thesis. Interferences are detected using a context model and information about applications' interaction with the context. The resolution of interference is achieved through

Requirements Engineering for a Pervasive Health Care System

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, Jens Bæk; Bossen, Claus

2003-01-01

We describe requirements engineering for a new pervasive health care system for hospitals in Denmark. The chosen requirements engineering approach composes iterative prototyping and explicit environment description in terms of workflow modelling. New work processes and their proposed computer...

The All-or-Nothing Anti-Theft Policy - Theft Protection for Pervasive Computing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, Michael Østergaard; Pagter, Jakob Illeborg

2007-01-01

In many application scenarios for pervasive computing, theft is a serious security threat. In this paper we present the All-Or-Nothing anti-theft policy aimed at providing theft protection for pervasive computing. The overall idea behind the All-Or-Nothing anti-theft policy is to chain devices...... together in friendly networks so that any device will only work when it can see all of its friends. Thus a thief will have to keep the network of friendly devices together even if he only desires to steal one of the devices. Otherwise the device will not work. We provide a detailed security policy, present...... the required cryptographic protocols, provide three different applications, and finally we document that the policy is suitable for implementation on typical pervasive computing devices....

An architecture for self-organization in pervasive systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Syed, Aly; Lukkien, J.J.; Frunza, Roxana

2010-01-01

Pervasive computing environments consist of many independent collaborating electronic devices, including sensors and actuators. Ad-Hoc extendibility of such systems is desirable but the current network technologies use the concept of a central coordinator device in the network or define application

Mobile Autonomous Sensing Unit (MASU: A Framework That Supports Distributed Pervasive Data Sensing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Esunly Medina

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Pervasive data sensing is a major issue that transverses various research areas and application domains. It allows identifying people’s behaviour and patterns without overwhelming the monitored persons. Although there are many pervasive data sensing applications, they are typically focused on addressing specific problems in a single application domain, making them difficult to generalize or reuse. On the other hand, the platforms for supporting pervasive data sensing impose restrictions to the devices and operational environments that make them unsuitable for monitoring loosely-coupled or fully distributed work. In order to help address this challenge this paper present a framework that supports distributed pervasive data sensing in a generic way. Developers can use this framework to facilitate the implementations of their applications, thus reducing complexity and effort in such an activity. The framework was evaluated using simulations and also through an empirical test, and the obtained results indicate that it is useful to support such a sensing activity in loosely-coupled or fully distributed work scenarios.

Human Work Interaction Design for Pervasive and Smart Workplaces

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Campos, Pedro F.; Lopes, Arminda; Clemmensen, Torkil

2014-01-01

' experience and outputs? This workshop focuses on answering this question to support professionals, academia, national labs, and industry engaged in human work analysis and interaction design for the workplace. Conversely, tools, procedures, and professional competences for designing human......Pervasive and smart technologies have pushed workplace configuration beyond linear logic and physical boundaries. As a result, workers' experience of and access to technology is increasingly pervasive, and their agency constantly reconfigured. While this in certain areas of work is not new (e.......g., technology mediation and decision support in air traffic control), more recent developments in other domains such as healthcare (e.g., Augmented Reality in Computer Aided Surgery) have raised challenging issues for HCI researchers and practitioners. The question now is: how to improve the quality of workers...

Pervasive Computing and Communication Technologies for U-Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Young C.

2014-01-01

The development of digital information transfer, storage and communication methods influences a significant effect on education. The assimilation of pervasive computing and communication technologies marks another great step forward, with Ubiquitous Learning (U-learning) emerging for next generation learners. In the evolutionary view the 5G (or…

Pervasive and Mobile Sensing and Computing for Healthcare Technological and Social Issues

CERN Document Server

Postolache, Octavian

2013-01-01

The pervasive healthcare system focus towards achieving two specific goals: the availability of eHealth applications and medical information anywhere and anytime and the invisibility of computing. Furthermore, pervasive health system encompasses new types of sensing and communication of health information as well as new type of interactions among health providers and people, among patients, among patients and researchers and patients and corporations. This book aims at promoting the discussion on current trends in technologies and concepts that help integrate health monitoring and healthcare more seamlessly to our everyday lives, regardless of space and time, but also present cutting edge perspectives and visions to highlight future development. The book presents not only the state of the art technologies and solutions to tackle the critical challenges faced by the building and development of the pervasive health system but also potential impact on society at social, medical and technological level.   

An architecture for message exchange in pervasive healthcare based on the use of intelligent agents

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cavalini, L.T.; Cardoso de Moraes, J.L.; Lopes de Souza, Wanderley; Ferreira Pires, Luis; Cavalini, Luciana Tricai; do Prado, Antonio Francisco

2013-01-01

Aims: This paper proposes an architecture for the exchange of context-aware messages in Pervasive Healthcare environments. Materials and methods: In Pervasive Healthcare, novel information and communication technologies are applied to support the provision of health services anywhere, at anytime,

Pervasive Computing Support for Hospitals: An Overview of the Activity-Based Computing Project

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christensen, Henrik Bærbak; Bardram, Jakob E

2007-01-01

The activity-based computing project researched pervasive computing support for clinical hospital work. Such technologies have potential for supporting the mobile, collaborative, and disruptive use of heterogeneous embedded devices in a hospital......The activity-based computing project researched pervasive computing support for clinical hospital work. Such technologies have potential for supporting the mobile, collaborative, and disruptive use of heterogeneous embedded devices in a hospital...

Is the world a just place? Countering the negative consequences of pervasive discrimination by affirming the world as just

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Stroebe, Katherine; Dovidio, John F.; Barreto, Manuela; Ellemers, Naomi; John, Melissa-Sue

Two studies (a) explored the role of pervasiveness of discrimination (pervasive vs. rare) in determining targets' responses to discrimination, and (b) examined the extent to which threats to participants' worldview can account, in part, for detrimental effects of pervasive discrimination. As

Basic information processing in children with Pervasive Developmental Disorders

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Madsen, Gitte

Background: Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) is a diagnostic term covering a group of neuropsychiatric disorders marked by a core triad of impairments consisting of qualitative disturbances in social interaction and communication, and by stereotypical behaviour. Some children diagnosed...

A Divided Attention Experiment with Pervasively Hyperactive Children.

Science.gov (United States)

van der Meere, Jaap; Sergeant, Joseph

1987-01-01

Task performance of 12 pervasive hyperactives and controls (ages 8-13) was studied in a divided attention reaction time experiment. Hyperactives were slower than controls, had more variable reaction times, and made more frequent errors. Task inefficiency in hyperactives could not be explained by a divided attention deficiency or impulsive…

Using Logic Programming to Detect Activities in Pervasive Healthcare

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christensen, Henrik Bærbak

2002-01-01

activities an activity-driven computing infrastructure provides computational assistance to healthcare staff on mobile-and pervasive computing equipment. Assistance range from simple activities like fast log-in into the electronic patient medical record system to complex activities like signing for medicine...

Intelligent Device Discovery in the Internet of Things - Enabling the Robot Society

OpenAIRE

Sunthonlap, James; Nguyen, Phuoc; Ye, Zilong

2017-01-01

The Internet of Things (IoT) is continuously growing to connect billions of smart devices anywhere and anytime in an Internet-like structure, which enables a variety of applications, services and interactions between human and objects. In the future, the smart devices are supposed to be able to autonomously discover a target device with desired features and generate a set of entirely new services and applications that are not supervised or even imagined by human beings. The pervasiveness of s...

Designing Pervasive Computing Technology - In a Nomadic Work Perspective

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kristensen, Jannie Friis

2002-01-01

In my thesis work I am investigating how the design of pervasive/ubiquitous computing technology, relate to the flexible and individual work practice of nomadic workers. Through empirical studies and with an experimental systems development approach, the work is focused on: a) Supporting...

Pervasive sensing

Science.gov (United States)

Nagel, David J.

2000-11-01

The coordinated exploitation of modern communication, micro- sensor and computer technologies makes it possible to give global reach to our senses. Web-cameras for vision, web- microphones for hearing and web-'noses' for smelling, plus the abilities to sense many factors we cannot ordinarily perceive, are either available or will be soon. Applications include (1) determination of weather and environmental conditions on dense grids or over large areas, (2) monitoring of energy usage in buildings, (3) sensing the condition of hardware in electrical power distribution and information systems, (4) improving process control and other manufacturing, (5) development of intelligent terrestrial, marine, aeronautical and space transportation systems, (6) managing the continuum of routine security monitoring, diverse crises and military actions, and (7) medicine, notably the monitoring of the physiology and living conditions of individuals. Some of the emerging capabilities, such as the ability to measure remotely the conditions inside of people in real time, raise interesting social concerns centered on privacy issues. Methods for sensor data fusion and designs for human-computer interfaces are both crucial for the full realization of the potential of pervasive sensing. Computer-generated virtual reality, augmented with real-time sensor data, should be an effective means for presenting information from distributed sensors.

Pervasive Computing, Privacy and Distribution of the Self

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Soraj Hongladarom

2011-05-01

Full Text Available The emergence of what is commonly known as “ambient intelligence” or “ubiquitous computing” means that our conception of privacy and trust needs to be reconsidered. Many have voiced their concerns about the threat to privacy and the more prominent role of trust that have been brought about by emerging technologies. In this paper, I will present an investigation of what this means for the self and identity in our ambient intelligence environment. Since information about oneself can be actively distributed and processed, it is proposed that in a significant sense it is the self itself that is distributed throughout a pervasive or ubiquitous computing network when information pertaining to the self of the individual travels through the network. Hence privacy protection needs to be extended to all types of information distributed. It is also recommended that appropriately strong legislation on privacy and data protection regarding this pervasive network is necessary, but at present not sufficient, to ensure public trust. What is needed is a campaign on public awareness and positive perception of the technology.

An Adaptive Sensor Mining Framework for Pervasive Computing Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Rashidi, Parisa; Cook, Diane J.

Analyzing sensor data in pervasive computing applications brings unique challenges to the KDD community. The challenge is heightened when the underlying data source is dynamic and the patterns change. We introduce a new adaptive mining framework that detects patterns in sensor data, and more importantly, adapts to the changes in the underlying model. In our framework, the frequent and periodic patterns of data are first discovered by the Frequent and Periodic Pattern Miner (FPPM) algorithm; and then any changes in the discovered patterns over the lifetime of the system are discovered by the Pattern Adaptation Miner (PAM) algorithm, in order to adapt to the changing environment. This framework also captures vital context information present in pervasive computing applications, such as the startup triggers and temporal information. In this paper, we present a description of our mining framework and validate the approach using data collected in the CASAS smart home testbed.

Mobile, ubiquitous, and pervasive learning fundaments, applications, and trends

CERN Document Server

2016-01-01

This book is concerned with the mobile, ubiquitous, and pervasive learning arena. It present a collection of works corresponding to four categories: reviews, studies, conceptual proposals, and approaches. As a result of the submission and revision processes eight manuscripts were accepted and organized into the aforementioned four parts as follows: ·Review: a couple of chapters offer a survey of related works. One concerns with the diversity of mobile, ubiquitous, and pervasive labor, where interested findings are unveiled based on correlations. Other focuses on adaptive and adaptable architectures that are suitable to implement ubiquitous learning sceneries, whose contribution represents a model of a domain specific architecture. ·Studies: two chapters explore issues related to the effect of question styles made through smartphones and tablets, and the disposition of teachers to exploit mobile devices at classroom. ·Conceptual: a pair of chapters offer a given proposal, the first to develop adaptive mobil...

Pervasive Mobile and Ambient Wireless Communications COST Action 2100

CERN Document Server

Zanella, Alberto

2012-01-01

Pervasive Mobile and Ambient Wireless Communications reports the findings of COST 2100, a project of the European intergovernmental COST framework addressing various topics currently emerging in mobile and wireless communications. Drawing on experience developed in this and earlier COST projects, the text represents the final outcome of collaborative work involving more than 500 researchers in 140 institutions and 30 countries (including outside Europe). The book’s subject matter includes: • transmission techniques; • signal processing; • radio channel modelling and measurement; • radio network issues; and • recent paradigms including ultra-wideband, cooperative, vehicle-to-vehicle and body communications. The research reported comes from a variety of backgrounds: academic, equipment-manufacturing and operational. The information contained in this book will bring the study reported to a wider audience from all those spheres of work. Pervasive Mobile and Ambient Wireless Communications will be of i...

Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge (A2K)in the ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

Pervasive networked communication technologies are transforming the way in ... These Third World mass-marketing commercial technology players have been ... The A2K movement advocates a commons approach to cyberspace, media ...

Behavioral Reference Model for Pervasive Healthcare Systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Tahmasbi, Arezoo; Adabi, Sahar; Rezaee, Ali

2016-12-01

The emergence of mobile healthcare systems is an important outcome of application of pervasive computing concepts for medical care purposes. These systems provide the facilities and infrastructure required for automatic and ubiquitous sharing of medical information. Healthcare systems have a dynamic structure and configuration, therefore having an architecture is essential for future development of these systems. The need for increased response rate, problem limited storage, accelerated processing and etc. the tendency toward creating a new generation of healthcare system architecture highlight the need for further focus on cloud-based solutions for transfer data and data processing challenges. Integrity and reliability of healthcare systems are of critical importance, as even the slightest error may put the patients' lives in danger; therefore acquiring a behavioral model for these systems and developing the tools required to model their behaviors are of significant importance. The high-level designs may contain some flaws, therefor the system must be fully examined for different scenarios and conditions. This paper presents a software architecture for development of healthcare systems based on pervasive computing concepts, and then models the behavior of described system. A set of solutions are then proposed to improve the design's qualitative characteristics including, availability, interoperability and performance.

The fission yeast CENP-B protein Abp1 prevents pervasive transcription of repetitive DNA elements.

Science.gov (United States)

Daulny, Anne; Mejía-Ramírez, Eva; Reina, Oscar; Rosado-Lugo, Jesus; Aguilar-Arnal, Lorena; Auer, Herbert; Zaratiegui, Mikel; Azorin, Fernando

2016-10-01

It is well established that eukaryotic genomes are pervasively transcribed producing cryptic unstable transcripts (CUTs). However, the mechanisms regulating pervasive transcription are not well understood. Here, we report that the fission yeast CENP-B homolog Abp1 plays an important role in preventing pervasive transcription. We show that loss of abp1 results in the accumulation of CUTs, which are targeted for degradation by the exosome pathway. These CUTs originate from different types of genomic features, but the highest increase corresponds to Tf2 retrotransposons and rDNA repeats, where they map along the entire elements. In the absence of abp1, increased RNAPII-Ser5P occupancy is observed throughout the Tf2 coding region and, unexpectedly, RNAPII-Ser5P is enriched at rDNA repeats. Loss of abp1 also results in Tf2 derepression and increased nucleolus size. Altogether these results suggest that Abp1 prevents pervasive RNAPII transcription of repetitive DNA elements (i.e., Tf2 and rDNA repeats) from internal cryptic sites. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A novel approach to developing applications in the pervasive healthcare environment through the use of archetypes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cardoso de Moraes, J.L.; Lopes de Souza, Wanderley; Ferreira Pires, Luis; Tricai Cavalini, Luciana; do Prado, Antonio Francisco; Murgante, B.; Misra, S.; Carlini, M.; Torre, C.M.; Nguyen, H.Q.; Taniar, D.; Apduhan, B.O.; Gervasi, O.

Pervasive Healthcare focuses on the use of new technologies, tools, and services, to help patients to play a more active role in the treatment of their conditions. Pervasive Healthcare environments demand a huge amount of information exchange, and specific technologies has been proposed to provide

Is long-term prognosis for pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified different from prognosis for autistic disorder? Findings from a 30-year follow-up study.

Science.gov (United States)

Mordre, Marianne; Groholt, Berit; Knudsen, Ann Kristin; Sponheim, Eili; Mykletun, Arnstein; Myhre, Anne Margrethe

2012-06-01

We followed 74 children with autistic disorder (AD) and 39 children with pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD NOS) for 17-38 years in a record linkage study. Rates of disability pension award, marital status, criminality and mortality were compared between groups. Disability pension award was the only outcome measure that differed significantly between the AD and PDD NOS groups (89% vs. 72%, p spectrum disorder, in line with proposed DSM-V revision.

Teaching Pervasive Computing to CS Freshmen: A Multidisciplinary Approach

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Silvis-Cividjian, Natalia

2015-01-01

Pervasive Computing is a growing area in research and commercial reality. Despite this extensive growth, there is no clear consensus on how and when to teach it to students. We report on an innovative attempt to teach this subject to first year Computer Science students. Our course combines computer

An Architecture for Health Information Exchange in Pervasive Healthcare Environment

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cardoso de Moraes, J.L.; Lopes de Souza, Wanderley; Ferreira Pires, Luis; Francisco do Prado, Antonio; Hammoudi, S.; Cordeiro, J.; Maciaszek, L.A.; Filipe, J.

2014-01-01

This paper presents an architecture for health information exchange in pervasive healthcare environments meant to be generally applicable to different applications in the healthcare domain. Our architecture has been designed for message exchange by integrating ubiquitous computing technologies,

Executable Design Models for a Pervasive Healthcare Middleware System

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, Jens Bæk; Christensen, Søren

2002-01-01

 UML is applied in the design of a pervasive healthcare middleware system for the hospitals in Aarhus County, Denmark. It works well for the modelling of static aspects of the system, but with respect to describing the behaviour, UML is not sufficient. This paper explains why and, as a remedy, su...

An Ubiquitous and Non Intrusive System for Pervasive Advertising using NFC and Geolocation Technologies and Air Hand Gestures

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Francisco M. Borrego-Jaraba

2014-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper we present a pervasive proposal for advertising using mobile phones, Near Field Communication, geolocation and air hand gestures. Advertising post built by users in public/private spaces can store multiple ads containing any kind of textual, graphic or multimedia information. Ads are automatically shows in the mobile phone of the users using a notification based process considering relative user location between the posts and the user preferences. Moreover, ads can be stored and retrieved from the post using hand gestures and Near Field Communication technology. Secure management of information about users, posts, and notifications and the use of instant messaging enable the development of systems to extend the current advertising strategies based on Web, large displays or digital signage.

Ethical and regulatory challenges of research using pervasive sensing and other emerging technologies: IRB perspectives.

Science.gov (United States)

Nebeker, Camille; Harlow, John; Espinoza Giacinto, Rebeca; Orozco-Linares, Rubi; Bloss, Cinnamon S; Weibel, Nadir

2017-01-01

Vast quantities of personal health information and private identifiable information are being created through mobile apps, wearable sensors, and social networks. While new strategies and tools for obtaining health data have expanded researchers' abilities to design and test personalized and adaptive health interventions, the deployment of pervasive sensing and computational techniques to gather research data is raising ethical challenges for Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) charged with protecting research participants. To explore experiences with, and perceptions about, technology-enabled research, and identify solutions for promoting responsible conduct of this research we conducted focus groups with human research protection program and IRB affiliates. Our findings outline the need for increased collaboration across stakeholders in terms of: (1) shared and dynamic resources that improve awareness of technologies and decrease potential threats to participant privacy and data confidentiality, and (2) development of appropriate and dynamic standards through collaboration with stakeholders in the research ethics community.

Pervasion of what? : techno–human ecologies and their ubiquitous spirits.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Coeckelbergh, Mark

2012-01-01

Are the robots coming? Is the singularity near? Will we be dominated by technology? The usual response to ethical issues raised by pervasive and ubiquitous technologies assumes a philosophical anthropology centered on existential autonomy and agency, a dualistic ontology separating humans from

Requirements for an evaluation infrastructure for reliable pervasive healthcare research

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wagner, Stefan Rahr; Toftegaard, Thomas Skjødeberg; Bertelsen, Olav W.

2012-01-01

The need for a non-intrusive evaluation infrastructure platform to support research on reliable pervasive healthcare in the unsupervised setting is analyzed and challenges and possibilities are identified. A list of requirements is presented and a solution is suggested that would allow researchers...

The MADE reference information model for interoperable pervasive telemedicine systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fung, L.S.N.; Jones, Valerie M.; Hermens, Hermanus J.

2017-01-01

Objectives: The main objective is to develop and validate a reference information model (RIM) to support semantic interoperability of pervasive telemedicine systems. The RIM is one component within a larger, computer-interpretable "MADE language" developed by the authors in the context of the

Towards a reusable architecture for message exchange in pervasive healthcare

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cardoso de Moraes, J.L.; Lopes de Souza, Wanderley; Ferreira Pires, Luis; do Prado, Antonio Francisco; Hammoudi, S.; Maciaszek, L.A.; Cordeiro, J.; Dietz, J.L.G.

The main objective of this paper is to present a reusable architecture for message exchange in pervasive healthcare environments meant to be generally applicable to different applications in the healthcare domain. This architecture has been designed by integrating different concepts and technologies

DMPD: A pervasive role of ubiquitin conjugation in activation and termination ofIkappaB kinase pathways. [Dynamic Macrophage Pathway CSML Database

Lifescience Database Archive (English)

Full Text Available 15809659 A pervasive role of ubiquitin conjugation in activation and termination of...csml) Show A pervasive role of ubiquitin conjugation in activation and termination ofIkappaB kinase pathways.... PubmedID 15809659 Title A pervasive role of ubiquitin conjugation in activation and termina

When do high and low status group members support confrontation? The role of perceived pervasiveness of prejudice.

Science.gov (United States)

Kahn, Kimberly Barsamian; Barreto, Manuela; Kaiser, Cheryl R; Rego, Marco Silva

2016-03-01

This paper examines how perceived pervasiveness of prejudice differentially affects high and low status group members' support for a low status group member who confronts. In Experiment 1 (N = 228), men and women read a text describing sexism as rare or as pervasive and subsequently indicated their support for a woman who confronted or did not confront a sexist remark. Experiment 2 (N = 324) specified the underlying process using a self-affirmation manipulation. Results show that men were more supportive of confrontation when sexism was perceived to be rare than when it was pervasive. By contrast, women tended to prefer confrontation when sexism was pervasive relative to when it was rare. Personal self-affirmation decreased men's and increased women's support for confrontation when prejudice was rare, suggesting that men's and women's support for confrontation when prejudice is rare is driven by personal impression management considerations. Implications for understanding how members of low and high status groups respond to prejudice are discussed. © 2015 The British Psychological Society.

Recommending Ads from Trustworthy Relationships in Pervasive Environments

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Francisco Martinez-Pabon

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The use of pervasive computing technologies for advertising purposes is an interesting emergent field for large, medium, and small companies. Although recommender systems have been a traditional solution to decrease users’ cognitive effort to find good and personalized items, the classic collaborative filtering needs to include contextual information to be more effective. The inclusion of users’ social context information in the recommendation algorithm, specifically trust in other users, may be a mechanism for obtaining ads’ influence from other users in their closest social circle. However, there is no consensus about the variables to use during the trust inference process, and its integration into a classic collaborative filtering recommender system deserves a deeper research. On the other hand, the pervasive advertising domain demands a recommender system evaluation from a novelty/precision perspective. The improvement of the precision/novelty balance is not only a matter related to the recommendation algorithm itself but also a better recommendations’ display strategy. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for a collaborative filtering recommender system based on trust, which was tested throughout a digital signage prototype using a multiscreen scheme for recommendations delivery to evaluate our proposal using a novelty/precision approach.

Intelligent Buildings and pervasive computing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Grønbæk, Kaj; Kyng, Morten; Krogh, Peter Gall

2001-01-01

computers are everywhere, for everyone, at all times. Where IT becomes a still more integrated part of our environments with processors, sensors, and actuators connected via high-speed networks and combined with new visualiza-tion devices ranging from projections directly in the eye to large panorama......Intelligent Buildings have been the subject of research and commercial interest for more than two decades. The different perspectives range from monitoring and controlling energy consumption over interactive rooms supporting work in offices and leisure in the home, to buildings providing...... information to by-passers in plazas and urban environments. This paper puts forward the hypothesis that the coming decade will witness a dramatic increase in both quality and quantity of intelligent buildings due to the emerging field of pervasive computing: the next generation computing environments where...

Pervasive Computing and Prosopopoietic Modelling

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Michelsen, Anders Ib

2011-01-01

the mid-20th century of a paradoxical distinction/complicity between the technical organisation of computed function and the human Being, in the sense of creative action upon such function. This paradoxical distinction/complicity promotes a chiastic (Merleau-Ponty) relationship of extension of one......This article treats the philosophical underpinnings of the notions of ubiquity and pervasive computing from a historical perspective. The current focus on these notions reflects the ever increasing impact of new media and the underlying complexity of computed function in the broad sense of ICT...... that have spread vertiginiously since Mark Weiser coined the term ‘pervasive’, e.g., digitalised sensoring, monitoring, effectuation, intelligence, and display. Whereas Weiser’s original perspective may seem fulfilled since computing is everywhere, in his and Seely Brown’s (1997) terms, ‘invisible...

Pervasive assistive technology for people with dementia: a UCD case

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Thorpe, Julia Rosemary; Rønn-Andersen, Kristoffer; Bien, Paulina

2016-01-01

a user-centred approach to developing and testing AT based on off-the-shelf pervasive technologies. A prototype is created by combining a smartphone, smartwatch and various applications to offer six support features. This is tested among five end-users (PwD) and their caregivers. Controlled usability...

Middleware Support for Quality of Context in Pervasive Context-Aware Systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sheikh, K.; Wegdam, M.; van Sinderen, Marten J.

Middleware support for pervasive context-aware systems relieves context-aware applications from dealing with the complexity of context-specific operations such as context acquisition, aggregation, reasoning and distribution. The middleware decouples applications from the underlying heterogeneous

Privacy in pervasive systems : legal framework and regulatory challenges (Chapter 12)

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Liotta, A.; Liotta, A.; Malatras, A.

2011-01-01

Data protection legislation has developed in a digital communication context that is changing dramatically. Infrastructure-based, networked systems are increasingly interconnecting and interoperating with infrastructure-less or even spontaneous networks, which are important elements of pervasive

Simulating the pervasive fracture and fragmentation of materials and structures using randomly close-packed Voronoi tessellations.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bishop, Joseph E.

2008-09-01

Under extreme loading conditions most often the extent of material and structural fracture is pervasive in the sense that a multitude of cracks are nucleating, propagating in arbitrary directions, coalescing, and branching. Pervasive fracture is a highly nonlinear process involving complex material constitutive behavior, material softening, localization, surface generation, and ubiquitous contact. Two primary applications in which pervasive fracture is encountered are (1) weapons effects on structures and (2) geomechanics of highly jointed and faulted reservoirs. A pure Lagrangian computational method based on randomly close-packed Voronoi tessellations is proposed as a rational approach for simulating the pervasive fracture of materials and structures. Each Voronoi cell is formulated as a finite element using the reproducing kernel method. Fracture surfaces are allowed to nucleate only at the intercell faces. The randomly seeded Voronoi cells provide an unbiased network for representing cracks. In this initial study two approaches for allowing the new surfaces to initiate are studied: (1) dynamic mesh connectivity and the instantaneous insertion of a cohesive traction when localization is detected, and (2) a discontinuous Galerkin approach in which the interelement tractions are an integral part of the variational formulation, but only become active once localization is detected. Pervasive fracture problems are extremely sensitive to initial conditions and system parameters. Dynamic problems exhibit a form of transient chaos. The primary numerical challenge for this class of problems is the demonstration of model objectivity and, in particular, the identification and demonstration of a measure of convergence for engineering quantities of interest.

Spatial Air Index Based on Largest Empty Rectangles for Non-Flat Wireless Broadcast in Pervasive Computing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jun-Hong Shen

2016-11-01

Full Text Available In pervasive computing, location-based services (LBSs are valuable for mobile clients based on their current locations. LBSs use spatial window queries to enable useful applications for mobile clients. Based on skewed access patterns of mobile clients, non-flat wireless broadcast has been shown to efficiently disseminate spatial objects to mobile clients. In this paper, we consider a scenario in which spatial objects are broadcast to mobile clients over a wireless channel in a non-flat broadcast manner to process window queries. For such a scenario, we propose an efficient spatial air index method to handle window query access in non-flat wireless broadcast environments. The concept of largest empty rectangles is used to avoid unnecessary examination of the broadcast content, thus reducing the processing time for window queries. Simulation results show that the proposed spatial air index method outperforms the existing methods under various settings.

Pervasive Visual Interfaces to Change Energy Consumption Behaviour at the Workplace

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Börner, Dirk; Kalz, Marco; Ternier, Stefaan; Specht, Marcus

2014-01-01

This position paper introduces pervasive interventions at a university campus to increase the pro-environmental awareness, consciousness, and learning of employees making use of different visual interfaces. We briefly present the design of three intervention iterations. While in the first

Moving out of the Laboratory: Deploying Pervasive Technologies in a Hospital

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Thomas Riisgaard; Bardram, Jakob; Søgaard, Mads

2006-01-01

The authors deployed a distributed system containing a location-tracking system, a context-awareness system, wall-sized displays, and mobile phones in a Danish hospital's operating ward. This article presents the lessons they learned from deploying these pervasive computing technologies...

[Review of assessment methods used to evaluate feeding for children with pervasive developmental disorder].

Science.gov (United States)

Nadon, G; Ehrmann Feldman, D; Gisel, E

2008-08-01

Current evaluations used by occupational therapists to assess and treat feeding problems derive mainly from the domain of dysphagia. The purpose of this article is to familiarize the reader with tools used, in research, for children with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) and to determine if any of these meet the needs of occupational therapists. The following data bases were searched: Medline, CINAHL, HAPI and PsyINFO, using the terms pervasive developmental disorder, autism, Asperger syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified, eating behavior, eating disorder, food preference, food selectivity, feeding disorders, picky eater and child. All articles published between 1980 and 2006 (n=27) were reviewed. A total of 20 studies met our selection criteria. Assessment methods are compared using the Disability Creation Model (DCP). The DCP is the Quebec alternative to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). None of the evaluation tools reviewed met all factors that may influence eating in children with PDD. Implications for research and practice in occupational therapy are discussed.

Modeling of RFID-Enabled Real-Time Manufacturing Execution System in Mixed-Model Assembly Lines

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhixin Yang

2015-01-01

Full Text Available To quickly respond to the diverse product demands, mixed-model assembly lines are well adopted in discrete manufacturing industries. Besides the complexity in material distribution, mixed-model assembly involves a variety of components, different process plans and fast production changes, which greatly increase the difficulty for agile production management. Aiming at breaking through the bottlenecks in existing production management, a novel RFID-enabled manufacturing execution system (MES, which is featured with real-time and wireless information interaction capability, is proposed to identify various manufacturing objects including WIPs, tools, and operators, etc., and to trace their movements throughout the production processes. However, being subject to the constraints in terms of safety stock, machine assignment, setup, and scheduling requirements, the optimization of RFID-enabled MES model for production planning and scheduling issues is a NP-hard problem. A new heuristical generalized Lagrangian decomposition approach has been proposed for model optimization, which decomposes the model into three subproblems: computation of optimal configuration of RFID senor networks, optimization of production planning subjected to machine setup cost and safety stock constraints, and optimization of scheduling for minimized overtime. RFID signal processing methods that could solve unreliable, redundant, and missing tag events are also described in detail. The model validity is discussed through algorithm analysis and verified through numerical simulation. The proposed design scheme has important reference value for the applications of RFID in multiple manufacturing fields, and also lays a vital research foundation to leverage digital and networked manufacturing system towards intelligence.

Synergy between Software Product Line and Intelligent Pervasive Middleware-a PLIPerM Approach

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Weishan

2008-01-01

with OWL ontology reasoning enhanced BDI (Belief-Desire-Intention) agents, which are the basic building blocks of PLIPerM. Besides the advantages of a software product line, our approachcan handle ontology evolution and keep all related assets in a consistent state. Other advantages include the ability...... to configure Jadex BDI agents for different purpose and to enhance agent intelligence by adding logic reasoning capabilities indirectly to agent beliefs....

A Learning Outcome-Oriented Approach towards Classifying Pervasive Games for Learning Using Game Design Patterns and Contextual Information

Science.gov (United States)

Schmitz, Birgit; Klemke, Roland; Specht, Marcus

2013-01-01

Mobile and in particular pervasive games are a strong component of future scenarios for teaching and learning. Based on results from a previous review of practical papers, this work explores the educational potential of pervasive games for learning by analysing underlying game mechanisms. In order to determine and classify cognitive and affective…

An Open-Label Trial of Escitalopram in Pervasive Developmental Disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Owley, Thomas; Walton, Laura; Salt, Jeff; Guter, Stephen J., Jr.; Winnega, Marrea; Leventhal, Bennett L.; Cook, Edwin H., Jr.

2005-01-01

Objective: To assess the effect of escitalopram in the treatment of pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs). Method: This 10-week study had a forced titration, open-label design. Twenty-eight subjects (mean age 125.1 [+ or -] 33.5 months) with a PDD received escitalopram at a dose that increased weekly to a maximum dose of 20 mg as tolerated. The…

Symbolization Levels in Communicative Behaviors of Children Showing Pervasive Developmental Disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Atlas, Jeffrey A.; Lapidus, Leah Blumberg

1988-01-01

A total of 48 children (aged 4-14) with severe pervasive developmental disturbance, exhibiting mutism, echolalia, or nonecholalic speech, were observed in their communicative behaviors across modalities. Levels of symbolization in gesture, play, and drawing were significantly intercorrelated and were most strongly correlated with the criterion…

Emerging Needs for Pervasive Passive Wireless Sensor Networks on Aerospace Vehicles

Science.gov (United States)

Wilson, William C.; Juarez, Peter D.

2014-01-01

NASA is investigating passive wireless sensor technology to reduce instrumentation mass and volume in ground testing, air flight, and space exploration applications. Vehicle health monitoring systems (VHMS) are desired on all aerospace programs to ensure the safety of the crew and the vehicles. Pervasive passive wireless sensor networks facilitate VHMS on aerospace vehicles. Future wireless sensor networks on board aerospace vehicles will be heterogeneous and will require active and passive network systems. Since much has been published on active wireless sensor networks, this work will focus on the need for passive wireless sensor networks on aerospace vehicles. Several passive wireless technologies such as microelectromechanical systems MEMS, SAW, backscatter, and chipless RFID techniques, have all shown potential to meet the pervasive sensing needs for aerospace VHMS applications. A SAW VHMS application will be presented. In addition, application areas including ground testing, hypersonic aircraft and spacecraft will be explored along with some of the harsh environments found in aerospace applications.

Lightweight UDP Pervasive Protocol in Smart Home Environment Based on Labview

Science.gov (United States)

Kurniawan, Wijaya; Hannats Hanafi Ichsan, Mochammad; Rizqika Akbar, Sabriansyah; Arwani, Issa

2017-04-01

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) technology in a reliable environment was not a problem, but not in an environment where the entire Smart Home network connected locally. Currently employing pervasive protocols using TCP technology, when data transmission is sent, it would be slower because they have to perform handshaking process in advance and could not broadcast the data. On smart home environment, it does not need large size and complex data transmission between monitoring site and monitoring center required in Smart home strain monitoring system. UDP (User Datagram Protocol) technology is quick and simple on data transmission process. UDP can broadcast messages because the UDP did not require handshaking and with more efficient memory usage. LabVIEW is a programming language software for processing and visualization of data in the field of data acquisition. This paper proposes to examine Pervasive UDP protocol implementations in smart home environment based on LabVIEW. UDP coded in LabVIEW and experiments were performed on a PC and can work properly.

Targeting Social Skills Deficits in an Adolescent with Pervasive Developmental Disorder

Science.gov (United States)

Hagopian, Louis P.; Kuhn, David E.; Strother, Geri E.

2009-01-01

Social skills deficits are a defining feature of individuals diagnosed with autism and other pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), which can impair functioning and put the individual at higher risk for developing problem behavior (e.g., self-injury, aggression). In the current study, an adolescent with PDD displayed inappropriate social…

Withdrawal Study of Memantine in Pediatric Patients With Autism, Asperger's Disorder, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified Previously Treated With Memantine

Science.gov (United States)

2013-10-31

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD); Autism; Autistic Disorder; Asperger's Disorder; Asperger's; Pediatric Autism; Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS); Pervasive Child Development Disorder

Adaptive User Profiles in Pervasive Advertising Environments

Science.gov (United States)

Alt, Florian; Balz, Moritz; Kristes, Stefanie; Shirazi, Alireza Sahami; Mennenöh, Julian; Schmidt, Albrecht; Schröder, Hendrik; Goedicke, Michael

Nowadays modern advertising environments try to provide more efficient ads by targeting costumers based on their interests. Various approaches exist today as to how information about the users' interests can be gathered. Users can deliberately and explicitly provide this information or user's shopping behaviors can be analyzed implicitly. We implemented an advertising platform to simulate an advertising environment and present adaptive profiles, which let users setup profiles based on a self-assessment, and enhance those profiles with information about their real shopping behavior as well as about their activity intensity. Additionally, we explain how pervasive technologies such as Bluetooth can be used to create a profile anonymously and unobtrusively.

Power-Hop: A Pervasive Observation for Real Complex Networks

Science.gov (United States)

2016-03-14

e.g., power grid, the Internet and the web-graph), social (e.g., friendship networks — Facebook , Gowalla—and co- authorship networks ), urban (e.g...Mislove A., Cha M. and Gummadi K.P. On the evolution of user interaction in Facebook . In Proc. Workshop on Online Social Networks 2009. doi...scale-free distribution is pervasive and describes a large variety of networks , ranging from social and urban to technological and biological networks

QoS-aware self-adaptation of communication protocols in a pervasive service middleware

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Weishan; Hansen, Klaus Marius; Fernandes, João

2010-01-01

Pervasive computing is characterized by heterogeneous devices that usually have scarce resources requiring optimized usage. These devices may use different communication protocols which can be switched at runtime. As different communication protocols have different quality of service (Qo......S) properties, this motivates optimized self-adaption of protocols for devices, e.g., considering power consumption and other QoS requirements, e.g. round trip time (RTT) for service invocations, throughput, and reliability. In this paper, we present an extensible approach for self-adaptation of communication...... protocols for pervasive web services, where protocols are designed as reusable connectors and our middleware infrastructure can hide the complexity of using different communication protocols to upper layers. We also propose to use Genetic Algorithms (GAs) to find optimized configurations at runtime...

Brief Report: Representational Momentum for Dynamic Facial Expressions in Pervasive Developmental Disorder

Science.gov (United States)

Uono, Shota; Sato, Wataru; Toichi, Motomi

2010-01-01

Individuals with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) have difficulty with social communication via emotional facial expressions, but behavioral studies involving static images have reported inconsistent findings about emotion recognition. We investigated whether dynamic presentation of facial expression would enhance subjective perception of…

Pervasive Knowledge, Social Networks, and Cloud Computing: E-Learning 2.0

Science.gov (United States)

Anshari, Muhammad; Alas, Yabit; Guan, Lim Sei

2015-01-01

Embedding Web 2.0 in learning processes has extended learning from traditional based learning-centred to a collaborative based learning-centred institution that emphasises learning anywhere and anytime. While deploying Semantic Web into e-learning offers a broader spectrum of pervasive knowledge acquisition to enrich users' experience in learning.…

Sleep Correlates of Pervasive Developmental Disorders: A Review of the Literature

Science.gov (United States)

Hollway, Jill A.; Aman, Michael G.

2011-01-01

Sleep disturbance is a significant problem in the general pediatric population, and it occurs even more frequently in children with pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs). Much time and energy have been spent examining the characteristics that predispose children to insomnia and it is likely that equivalent factors influence sleep in PDDs.…

Supporting Pervasive Computing Applications with Active Context Fusion and Semantic Context Delivery

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Roy, Nirmalya; Gu, Tao; Das, Sajal

2010-01-01

Future pervasive computing applications are envisioned to adapt the applications’ behaviors by utilizing various contexts of an environment and its users. Such context information may often be ambiguous and also heterogeneous, which make the delivery of unambiguous context information to real app...

Pervasive technology in the classroom

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, Lasse Juel; Majgaard, Gunver

2010-01-01

This paper discusses learning potentials of pervasive technology when used in the classroom setting. Explicitly this paper uses the research and development project “Octopus” as its point of departure and as the foundation for reflections on how learning takes place in intelligent contexts. We...... propose that pervasive and tangible media like the Octopus reshapes learning not only by utilizing the body as the epicenter for experiences, but also by changing the traditional temporal and vertical learning design (vertical refers to temporal gab between learned knowledge and applied knowledge......) normally associated with the traditional school system. Initial analyses on the research project “Octopus” indicate that the temporal and vertical learning patterns are replaced by spatial and simultaneous learning design. We suggest that this change signals a fundamental approach and at the same time...

The game mechanics of pervasive applications: visiting the uncanny

Science.gov (United States)

Gentès, Annie; Jutant, Camille

2012-03-01

"When I use a word", Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." "The question is", said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things". "The question is", said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all". [Carroll 2007 (1865)] In pervasive games, a virtual layer with its own logic is added to the everyday, common meaning of objects, places, and people. The departure of the signifier ("things") from the signified (what they mean on the virtual level) is the semiotic process that allows for a double reading of the environment. Such a divorce has been explored in other cultural products (books, movies). It has been qualified as the "uncanny mode". This article analyzes how pervasive games use their own brand of uncanny. In particular, it shows how mobility becomes the way to uncover the hidden layers of the environment and serves as a tool to experience and eventually reduce or augment the uncanny. Finally, we can point to a typology of four main types of storytelling related to different types of mobility: games that use mimetic narrative strategies veering towards "realism"; games based on the "absurd"; "aloof" games that remain independent from places; games that present a specific play on this double reading of the world and develop the "Uncanny" as a genre.

Deriving Requirements for Pervasive Well-Being Technology From Work Stress and Intervention Theory: Framework and Case Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Koldijk, Saskia; Kraaij, Wessel; Neerincx, Mark A

2016-07-05

Stress in office environments is a big concern, often leading to burn-out. New technologies are emerging, such as easily available sensors, contextual reasoning, and electronic coaching (e-coaching) apps. In the Smart Reasoning for Well-being at Home and at Work (SWELL) project, we explore the potential of using such new pervasive technologies to provide support for the self-management of well-being, with a focus on individuals' stress-coping. Ideally, these new pervasive systems should be grounded in existing work stress and intervention theory. However, there is a large diversity of theories and they hardly provide explicit directions for technology design. The aim of this paper is to present a comprehensive and concise framework that can be used to design pervasive technologies that support knowledge workers to decrease stress. Based on a literature study we identify concepts relevant to well-being at work and select different work stress models to find causes of work stress that can be addressed. From a technical perspective, we then describe how sensors can be used to infer stress and the context in which it appears, and use intervention theory to further specify interventions that can be provided by means of pervasive technology. The resulting general framework relates several relevant theories: we relate "engagement and burn-out" to "stress", and describe how relevant aspects can be quantified by means of sensors. We also outline underlying causes of work stress and how these can be addressed with interventions, in particular utilizing new technologies integrating behavioral change theory. Based upon this framework we were able to derive requirements for our case study, the pervasive SWELL system, and we implemented two prototypes. Small-scale user studies proved the value of the derived technology-supported interventions. The presented framework can be used to systematically develop theory-based technology-supported interventions to address work stress. In

24 CFR 598.110 - Tests of pervasive poverty, unemployment and general distress.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

..., unemployment and general distress. 598.110 Section 598.110 Housing and Urban Development Regulations Relating... TWO AND THREE DESIGNATIONS Eligibility Requirements § 598.110 Tests of pervasive poverty, unemployment...) Unemployment. Unemployment is demonstrated by: (1) The most recent data available indicating that the annual...

Mindergie: A pervasive learning game for pro-environmental behaviour at the workplace

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kalz, Marco; Börner, Dirk; Ternier, Stefaan; Specht, Marcus

2014-01-01

This chapter reports about a pervasive learning game to increase the environmental awareness and pro-environmental behaviour at the workplace. Based on a discussion of the theoretical background and related work we introduce the game design and game elements. Results of a formative evaluation study

Face recognition in children with a pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Serra, M; Althaus, M; de Sonneville, LMJ; Stant, AD; Jackson, AE; Minderaa, RB

This study investigates the accuracy and speed of face recognition in children with a Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDDNOS; DSM-IV, American Psychiatric Association [APA], 1994). The study includes a clinical group of 26 nonretarded 7- to 10-year-old children with PDDNOS

The Pervasive Power of PowerPoint

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schoeneborn, Dennis

2013-01-01

This paper examines the pervasive role of Microsoft’s presentation software PowerPoint as a genre of professional and organizational communication. Frequently, PowerPoint is not only used for the primary function it was initially designed for, i.e., facilitating live presentations, but also...... for alternative purposes such as project documentation. Its application in a neighboring domain, however, poses a functional dilemma: does the PowerPoint genre preserve the features of its primary function, i.e., presentation, or rather adapt to the new function, i.e., documentation? By drawing on a communication......-centered perspective, this paper examines PowerPoint’s role in the domain of project documentation as a clash between the constitutive affordances of professional and of organizational communication. To investigate this issue empirically, I conducted a case study at a multinational business consulting firm. The study...

Digital health and digital biomarkers – enabling value chains on health data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Meister Sven

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Smart Devices, IoT and Co. are changing healthcare. The possibilities for pervasive sensing and analysis are fast increasing and new therapy concepts as well as business models are arising, related to the term “Digital Health”. The paper will give a brief overview on the history and ask, whether Digital Health is more than Telemedicine 4.0. Furthermore, we will ask for the prospective currency to participate in new preventive offer. Data is the new oil – Digital Biomarkers enable new value chains on health data and allow for the personalization of healthcare. We will present ongoing work of Fraunhofer ISST on a Digital Biomarker called beHealthy Health Score.

From Operating-System Correctness to Pervasively Verified Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Daum, Matthias; Schirmer, Norbert W.; Schmidt, Mareike

Though program verification is known and has been used for decades, the verification of a complete computer system still remains a grand challenge. Part of this challenge is the interaction of application programs with the operating system, which is usually entrusted with retrieving input data from and transferring output data to peripheral devices. In this scenario, the correct operation of the applications inherently relies on operating-system correctness. Based on the formal correctness of our real-time operating system Olos, this paper describes an approach to pervasively verify applications running on top of the operating system.

A Novel Biometric Approach for Authentication In Pervasive Computing Environments

OpenAIRE

Rachappa,; Divyajyothi M G; D H Rao

2016-01-01

The paradigm of embedding computing devices in our surrounding environment has gained more interest in recent days. Along with contemporary technology comes challenges, the most important being the security and privacy aspect. Keeping the aspect of compactness and memory constraints of pervasive devices in mind, the biometric techniques proposed for identification should be robust and dynamic. In this work, we propose an emerging scheme that is based on few exclusive human traits and characte...

Pervasive Developmental Disorder: Client-Centered Approach. A Guide for Parents and Teachers.

Science.gov (United States)

Stewart, Bonnie C.

This guide to pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) or autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) first provides a review of the literature on defining characteristics of PDD/ASD, causes of PDD, and diagnosis of PDD. Review of intervention and treatment comprises the major portion of the paper. After briefly considering parent education, this section…

Brief Report: Prevalence of Pervasive Developmental Disorder in Brazil--A Pilot Study

Science.gov (United States)

Paula, Cristiane S.; Ribeiro, Sabrina H.; Fombonne, Eric; Mercadante, Marcos T.

2011-01-01

This pilot study presents preliminary results concerning the prevalence of Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) in South America. It was a three-phase study conducted in a typical town in Southeast Brazil. Case definition was based in a combination of standardized instruments and clinical evaluations by experts. The prevalence of PDD was…

Pervasive antibiotic misuse in the Cambodian community: antibiotic-seeking behaviour with unrestricted access

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chhorvoin Om

2017-03-01

. Conclusions Pervasive antibiotic misuse was driven by a habitual supplier-seeking behaviour that was enabled by unrestricted access and misconceptions about antibiotics for mild illnesses. Unofficial suppliers must be stopped by supporting existing regulations with tough new laws aimed at outlawing supplies outside registered pharmacies and fining registered pharmacist/owners of these pharmacies for supplying antibiotics without a prescription. Community primary healthcare centres must be strengthened to become the frontline antibiotic prescribers in the community thereby enabling the community’s access to inexpensive and appropriate healthcare. Community-based education program should target appropriate health-seeking pathways and the serious consequences of antibiotic misuse.

Creating Innovative Solutions for Future Hotel Rooms with Intelligent Multimedia and Pervasive Computing

Science.gov (United States)

Sharda, Nalin K.

Pervasive computing and intelligent multimedia technologies are becoming increasingly important to the modern way of living. However, many of their potential applications have not been fully realized yet. This chapter explores how innovative applications can be developed to meet the needs of the next generation hotels. Futuristic hotel rooms aim to be more than “home-away-from-home,” and as a consequence, offer tremendous opportunities for developing innovative applications of pervasive computing and intelligent multimedia. Next generation hotels will make increased use of technology products to attract new customers. High end TV screens, changeable room ambiance, biometric guest recognition, and electronic check-in facilities are some of the features already being implemented by some hotels. Entirely futuristic hotels in the sea, the stratosphere or the outer space, are also being proposed. All of these provide many novel opportunities for developing innovative solutions using intelligent multimedia and ubiquitous computing.

Using Collaborative Learning Exercises to Transfer Pervasive Skills: Some South African Evidence

Science.gov (United States)

Strauss-Keevy, Monique

2015-01-01

The Competency Framework, introduced by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) details technical competencies, but also places emphasis on the pervasive skills that need to be attained by candidates for them to qualify as chartered accountants (CAs). Thus, an additional onus has been placed on academics to ensure that they…

Termination factor Rho: From the control of pervasive transcription to cell fate determination in Bacillus subtilis

Science.gov (United States)

Nicolas, Pierre; Repoila, Francis; Bardowski, Jacek; Aymerich, Stéphane

2017-01-01

In eukaryotes, RNA species originating from pervasive transcription are regulators of various cellular processes, from the expression of individual genes to the control of cellular development and oncogenesis. In prokaryotes, the function of pervasive transcription and its output on cell physiology is still unknown. Most bacteria possess termination factor Rho, which represses pervasive, mostly antisense, transcription. Here, we investigate the biological significance of Rho-controlled transcription in the Gram-positive model bacterium Bacillus subtilis. Rho inactivation strongly affected gene expression in B. subtilis, as assessed by transcriptome and proteome analysis of a rho–null mutant during exponential growth in rich medium. Subsequent physiological analyses demonstrated that a considerable part of Rho-controlled transcription is connected to balanced regulation of three mutually exclusive differentiation programs: cell motility, biofilm formation, and sporulation. In the absence of Rho, several up-regulated sense and antisense transcripts affect key structural and regulatory elements of these differentiation programs, thereby suppressing motility and biofilm formation and stimulating sporulation. We dissected how Rho is involved in the activity of the cell fate decision-making network, centered on the master regulator Spo0A. We also revealed a novel regulatory mechanism of Spo0A activation through Rho-dependent intragenic transcription termination of the protein kinase kinB gene. Altogether, our findings indicate that distinct Rho-controlled transcripts are functional and constitute a previously unknown built-in module for the control of cell differentiation in B. subtilis. In a broader context, our results highlight the recruitment of the termination factor Rho, for which the conserved biological role is probably to repress pervasive transcription, in highly integrated, bacterium-specific, regulatory networks. PMID:28723971

User Adaptive and Context-Aware Smart Home Using Pervasive and Semantic Technologies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aggeliki Vlachostergiou

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Ubiquitous Computing is moving the interaction away from the human-computer paradigm and towards the creation of smart environments that users and things, from the IoT perspective, interact with. User modeling and adaptation is consistently present having the human user as a constant but pervasive interaction introduces the need for context incorporation towards context-aware smart environments. The current article discusses both aspects of the user modeling and adaptation as well as context awareness and incorporation into the smart home domain. Users are modeled as fuzzy personas and these models are semantically related. Context information is collected via sensors and corresponds to various aspects of the pervasive interaction such as temperature and humidity, but also smart city sensors and services. This context information enhances the smart home environment via the incorporation of user defined home rules. Semantic Web technologies support the knowledge representation of this ecosystem while the overall architecture has been experimentally verified using input from the SmartSantander smart city and applying it to the SandS smart home within FIRE and FIWARE frameworks.

Context-Aware Middleware for Pervasive Elderly Homecare

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pung, Hung Keng; Gu, Tao; Xue, Wenwei

2009-01-01

The growing aging population faces a number of challenges, including rising medical cost, inadequate number of medical doctors and healthcare professionals, as well as higher incidence of misdiagnosis. There is an increasing demand for a better healthcare support for the elderly and one promising......-aware service management. It can be used to support the development and deployment of various homecare services for the elderly such as patient monitoring, location-based emergency response, anomalous daily activity detection, pervasive access to medical data and social networking. We have developed a prototype...... of the middleware and demonstrated the concept of providing a continuing-care to an elderly with the collaborative interactions spanning multiple physical spaces: person, home, office and clinic. The results of the prototype show that our middleware approach achieves good efficiency of context query processing...

Strategies for Power Line Communications Smart Metering Network Deployment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alberto Sendin

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Smart Grids are becoming a reality all over the world. Nowadays, the research efforts for the introduction and deployment of these grids are mainly focused on the development of the field of Smart Metering. This emerging application requires the use of technologies to access the significant number of points of supply (PoS existing in the grid, covering the Low Voltage (LV segment with the lowest possible costs. Power Line Communications (PLC have been extensively used in electricity grids for a variety of purposes and, of late, have been the focus of renewed interest. PLC are really well suited for quick and inexpensive pervasive deployments. However, no LV grid is the same in any electricity company (utility, and the particularities of each grid evolution, architecture, circumstances and materials, makes it a challenge to deploy Smart Metering networks with PLC technologies, with the Smart Grid as an ultimate goal. This paper covers the evolution of Smart Metering networks, together with the evolution of PLC technologies until both worlds have converged to project PLC-enabled Smart Metering networks towards Smart Grid. This paper develops guidelines over a set of strategic aspects of PLC Smart Metering network deployment based on the knowledge gathered on real field; and introduces the future challenges of these networks in their evolution towards the Smart Grid.

A Genetic Algorithms-based Approach for Optimized Self-protection in a Pervasive Service Middleware

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Weishan; Ingstrup, Mads; Hansen, Klaus Marius

2009-01-01

With increasingly complex and heterogeneous systems in pervasive service computing, it becomes more and more important to provide self-protected services to end users. In order to achieve self-protection, the corresponding security should be provided in an optimized manner considering...... the constraints of heterogeneous devices and networks. In this paper, we present a Genetic Algorithms-based approach for obtaining optimized security configurations at run time, supported by a set of security OWL ontologies and an event-driven framework. This approach has been realized as a prototype for self-protection...... in the Hydra middleware, and is integrated with a framework for enforcing the computed solution at run time using security obligations. The experiments with the prototype on configuring security strategies for a pervasive service middleware show that this approach has acceptable performance, and could be used...

Pervasive developmental disorders and criminal behaviour - A case control study

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mouridsen, S.E.; Rich, B.; Isager, T.

2008-01-01

The prevalence and pattern of criminal behaviour in a population of 313 former child psychiatric in-patients with pervasive developmental disorders were studied. The patients were divided into three subgroups and compared with 933 matched controls from the general population. Age at follow.......1% and 18.4%, respectively. The corresponding rate of convictions in the comparison groups was 18.9%, 14.7%, and 19.6% respectively. Particular attention is given to arson in Asperger's syndrome (P = .0009) Udgivelsesdato: 2008/4...

Parent Perceptions of Time Spent Meaningfully by Young Adults with Pervasive Support Needs

Science.gov (United States)

Rossetti, Zachary; Lehr, Donna; Lederer, Leslie; Pelerin, Dana; Huang, Shuoxi

2015-01-01

This article describes a qualitative study that examined how 23 young adults with pervasive support needs and limited functional communication spent their time and how their parents (n = 23) and direct support professionals (DSPs; n = 2) defined meaningfulness in relation to the young adults' experiences. Data were collected through…

Smartphone as a personal, pervasive health informatics services platform: literature review.

Science.gov (United States)

Wac, K

2012-01-01

The article provides an overview of current trends in personal sensor, signal and imaging informatics, that are based on emerging mobile computing and communications technologies enclosed in a smartphone and enabling the provision of personal, pervasive health informatics services. The article reviews examples of these trends from the PubMed and Google scholar literature search engines, which, by no means claim to be complete, as the field is evolving and some recent advances may not be documented yet. There exist critical technological advances in the surveyed smartphone technologies, employed in provision and improvement of diagnosis, acute and chronic treatment and rehabilitation health services, as well as in education and training of healthcare practitioners. However, the most emerging trend relates to a routine application of these technologies in a prevention/wellness sector, helping its users in self-care to stay healthy. Smartphone-based personal health informatics services exist, but still have a long way to go to become an everyday, personalized healthcare-provisioning tool in the medical field and in a clinical practice. Key main challenge for their widespread adoption involve lack of user acceptance striving from variable credibility and reliability of applications and solutions as they a) lack evidence- based approach; b) have low levels of medical professional involvement in their design and content; c) are provided in an unreliable way, influencing negatively its usability; and, in some cases, d) being industry-driven, hence exposing bias in information provided, for example towards particular types of treatment or intervention procedures.

Curiosity, Interest and Engagement in Technology-Pervasive Learning Environments: A New Research Agenda

Science.gov (United States)

Arnone, Marilyn P.; Small, Ruth V.; Chauncey, Sarah A.; McKenna, H. Patricia

2011-01-01

This paper identifies the need for developing new ways to study curiosity in the context of today's pervasive technologies and unprecedented information access. Curiosity is defined in this paper in a way which incorporates the concomitant constructs of interest and engagement. A theoretical model for curiosity, interest and engagement in new…

Pervasive Vulnerabilities: Sexual Harassment in School. Adolescent Cultures, School, and Society. Volume 54

Science.gov (United States)

Rahimi, Regina; Liston, Delores D.

2012-01-01

"Pervasive Vulnerabilities" explores the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of adolescent girls and boys and female teachers in order to expose the continuing persistence of sexual harassment in the United States. The book addresses the sexual double standard that continues to hold girls and women accountable for male sexual aggression, and…

Self-Organizing Units in an Interdisciplinary Course for Pervasive Computing Design

OpenAIRE

McNair, Lisa; Newswander, Chad; Coupey, Eloise; Dorsa, Ed; Martin, Tom; Paretti, Marie

2009-01-01

We conducted a case study of a design course that focused on bringing together students from engineering, industrial design, and marketing to use pervasive computing technologies to design, coordinate, and build a “smart” dorm room for disabled individuals. The class was loosely structured to encourage innovation, critical thinking and interdisciplinarity. In this environment, teams were created, disassembled, and re-created in a self-organizing fashion. With few norms, teams were expected to...

Using Virtual Reality Environment to Improve Joint Attention Associated with Pervasive Developmental Disorder

Science.gov (United States)

Cheng, Yufang; Huang, Ruowen

2012-01-01

The focus of this study is using data glove to practice Joint attention skill in virtual reality environment for people with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD). The virtual reality environment provides a safe environment for PDD people. Especially, when they made errors during practice in virtual reality environment, there is no suffering or…

The Co-Occurrence of Nonaffective Psychosis and the Pervasive Developmental Disorders: A Systematic Review

Science.gov (United States)

Padgett, Fiona E.; Miltsiou, Eleni; Tiffin, Paul A.

2010-01-01

Background: Pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs) were originally conceptualised as a form of ("infantile") psychosis. Recently, the disorders have been viewed as separate constructs. However, there is evidence of overlapping psychopathology, pathophysiology, and occurrence of the two syndromes. Methods: A historical overview is provided. A…

Primary-context model and ontology: a combined approach for pervasive transportation services

OpenAIRE

Lee, Deirdre; Meier, Rene

2007-01-01

peer-reviewed Advanced pervasive transportation services aim to improve the safety and efficiency of public and private transportation facilities, while reducing operating costs and improving the travel experience for drivers, passengers and other travellers. In order to achieve these goals, such services require access to context information from a myriad of distributed, heterogeneous Intelligent Transportation Systems. A context management scheme that models information in a standa...

Primary-Context Model and Ontology: A Combined Approach for Pervasive Transportation Services

OpenAIRE

MEIER, RENE

2007-01-01

PUBLISHED Advanced pervasive transportation services aim to improve the safety and efficiency of public and private transportation facilities, while reducing operating costs and improving the travel experience for drivers, passengers and other travellers. In order to achieve these goals, such services require access to context information from a myriad of distributed, heterogeneous Intelligent Transportation Systems. A context management scheme that models information in a standard fashion...

Using Cluster Ensemble and Validation to Identify Subtypes of Pervasive Developmental Disorders

OpenAIRE

Shen, Jess J.; Lee, Phil Hyoun; Holden, Jeanette J.A.; Shatkay, Hagit

2007-01-01

Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) are neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by impairments in social interaction, communication and behavior.1 Given the diversity and varying severity of PDD, diagnostic tools attempt to identify homogeneous subtypes within PDD. Identifying subtypes can lead to targeted etiology studies and to effective type-specific intervention. Cluster analysis can suggest coherent subsets in data; however, different methods and assumptions lead to different resu...

Pervasive negative effects of rewards on intrinsic motivation: The myth continues

OpenAIRE

Cameron, Judy; Banko, Katherine M.; Pierce, W. David

2001-01-01

A major concern in psychology and education is that rewards decrease intrinsic motivation to perform activities. Over the past 30 years, more than 100 experimental studies have been conducted on this topic. In 1994, Cameron and Pierce conducted a meta-analysis of this literature and concluded that negative effects of reward were limited and could be easily prevented in applied settings. A more recent meta-analysis of the literature by Deci, Koestner, and Ryan (1999) shows pervasive negative e...

EMOTIONAL ROLE-TAKING ABILITIES OF CHILDREN WITH A PERVASIVE DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDER NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Serra, M.; Minderaa, R.B; Van Geert, P. L. C.; Jackson, A.E.; Althaus, M.; Til, R.

Seven to 12-year-old children with a Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDDNOS) were compared with normal, healthy children of the same age and sex on three different emotional role-taking tasks. In these tasks, children had to use person-specific information to make an

The Art of Gamification; Teaching Sustainability and System Thinking by Pervasive Game Development

Science.gov (United States)

Nordby, Anders; Øygardslia, Kristine; Sverdrup, Ulrik; Sverdrup, Harald

2016-01-01

In 2013 Hedmark University College conducted a research project where students from a game development project/study program developed and tested a Pervasive Game for learning as part of a class in System Thinking. The overall game goal was to teach Sustainability through System Thinking, and to give the students a real world experience with their…

Spotting Separator Points at Line Terminals in Compressed Document Images for Text-line Segmentation

OpenAIRE

R, Amarnath; Nagabhushan, P.

2017-01-01

Line separators are used to segregate text-lines from one another in document image analysis. Finding the separator points at every line terminal in a document image would enable text-line segmentation. In particular, identifying the separators in handwritten text could be a thrilling exercise. Obviously it would be challenging to perform this in the compressed version of a document image and that is the proposed objective in this research. Such an effort would prevent the computational burde...

Pervasive negative effects of rewards on intrinsic motivation: The myth continues.

Science.gov (United States)

Cameron, J; Banko, K M; Pierce, W D

2001-01-01

A major concern in psychology and education is that rewards decrease intrinsic motivation to perform activities. Over the past 30 years, more than 100 experimental studies have been conducted on this topic. In 1994, Cameron and Pierce conducted a meta-analysis of this literature and concluded that negative effects of reward were limited and could be easily prevented in applied settings. A more recent meta-analysis of the literature by Deci, Koestner, and Ryan (1999) shows pervasive negative effects of reward. The purpose of the present article is to resolve differences in previous meta-analytic findings and to provide a meta-analysis of rewards and intrinsic motivation that permits tests of competing theoretical explanations. Our results suggest that in general, rewards are not harmful to motivation to perform a task. Rewards given for low-interest tasks enhance free-choice intrinsic motivation. On high-interest tasks, verbal rewards produce positive effects on free-choice motivation and self-reported task interest. Negative effects are found on high-interest tasks when the rewards are tangible, expected (offered beforehand), and loosely tied to level of performance. When rewards are linked to level of performance, measures of intrinsic motivation increase or do not differ from a nonrewarded control group. Overall, the pattern of results indicates that reward contingencies do not have pervasive negative effects on intrinsic motivation. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are addressed.

'Ethos' Enabling Organisational Knowledge Creation

Science.gov (United States)

Matsudaira, Yoshito

This paper examines knowledge creation in relation to improvements on the production line in the manufacturing department of Nissan Motor Company and aims to clarify embodied knowledge observed in the actions of organisational members who enable knowledge creation will be clarified. For that purpose, this study adopts an approach that adds a first, second, and third-person's viewpoint to the theory of knowledge creation. Embodied knowledge, observed in the actions of organisational members who enable knowledge creation, is the continued practice of 'ethos' (in Greek) founded in Nissan Production Way as an ethical basis. Ethos is knowledge (intangible) assets for knowledge creating companies. Substantiated analysis classifies ethos into three categories: the individual, team and organisation. This indicates the precise actions of the organisational members in each category during the knowledge creation process. This research will be successful in its role of showing the indispensability of ethos - the new concept of knowledge assets, which enables knowledge creation -for future knowledge-based management in the knowledge society.

Enabling Routes as Context in Mobile Services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brilingaite, Agne; Jensen, Christian Søndergaard; Zokaite, Nora

2004-01-01

With the continuing advances in wireless communications, geo-positioning, and portable electronics, an infrastructure is emerging that enables the delivery of on-line, location-enabled services to very large numbers of mobile users. A typical usage situation for mobile services is one characterized...... by a small screen and no keyboard, and by the service being only a secondary focus of the user. It is therefore particularly important to deliver the "right" information and service at the right time, with as little user interaction as possible. This may be achieved by making services context aware.Mobile...

Hemispheric Processing of Idioms and Irony in Adults with and without Pervasive Developmental Disorder

Science.gov (United States)

Saban-Bezalel, Ronit; Mashal, Nira

2015-01-01

Previous studies on individuals with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) have pointed to difficulties in comprehension of figurative language. Using the divided visual field paradigm, the present study examined hemispheric processing of idioms and irony in 23 adults with PDD and in 24 typically developing (TD) adults. The results show that…

Pervasive brain monitoring and data sharing based on multi-tier distributed computing and linked data technology.

Science.gov (United States)

Zao, John K; Gan, Tchin-Tze; You, Chun-Kai; Chung, Cheng-En; Wang, Yu-Te; Rodríguez Méndez, Sergio José; Mullen, Tim; Yu, Chieh; Kothe, Christian; Hsiao, Ching-Teng; Chu, San-Liang; Shieh, Ce-Kuen; Jung, Tzyy-Ping

2014-01-01

EEG-based Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) are facing basic challenges in real-world applications. The technical difficulties in developing truly wearable BCI systems that are capable of making reliable real-time prediction of users' cognitive states in dynamic real-life situations may seem almost insurmountable at times. Fortunately, recent advances in miniature sensors, wireless communication and distributed computing technologies offered promising ways to bridge these chasms. In this paper, we report an attempt to develop a pervasive on-line EEG-BCI system using state-of-art technologies including multi-tier Fog and Cloud Computing, semantic Linked Data search, and adaptive prediction/classification models. To verify our approach, we implement a pilot system by employing wireless dry-electrode EEG headsets and MEMS motion sensors as the front-end devices, Android mobile phones as the personal user interfaces, compact personal computers as the near-end Fog Servers and the computer clusters hosted by the Taiwan National Center for High-performance Computing (NCHC) as the far-end Cloud Servers. We succeeded in conducting synchronous multi-modal global data streaming in March and then running a multi-player on-line EEG-BCI game in September, 2013. We are currently working with the ARL Translational Neuroscience Branch to use our system in real-life personal stress monitoring and the UCSD Movement Disorder Center to conduct in-home Parkinson's disease patient monitoring experiments. We shall proceed to develop the necessary BCI ontology and introduce automatic semantic annotation and progressive model refinement capability to our system.

Pervasive Brain Monitoring and Data Sharing based on Multi-tier Distributed Computing and Linked Data Technology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

John Kar-Kin Zao

2014-06-01

Full Text Available EEG-based Brain-computer interfaces (BCI are facing grant challenges in their real-world applications. The technical difficulties in developing truly wearable multi-modal BCI systems that are capable of making reliable real-time prediction of users’ cognitive states under dynamic real-life situations may appear at times almost insurmountable. Fortunately, recent advances in miniature sensors, wireless communication and distributed computing technologies offered promising ways to bridge these chasms. In this paper, we report our attempt to develop a pervasive on-line BCI system by employing state-of-art technologies such as multi-tier fog and cloud computing, semantic Linked Data search and adaptive prediction/classification models. To verify our approach, we implement a pilot system using wireless dry-electrode EEG headsets and MEMS motion sensors as the front-end devices, Android mobile phones as the personal user interfaces, compact personal computers as the near-end fog servers and the computer clusters hosted by the Taiwan National Center for High-performance Computing (NCHC as the far-end cloud servers. We succeeded in conducting synchronous multi-modal global data streaming in March and then running a multi-player on-line BCI game in September, 2013. We are currently working with the ARL Translational Neuroscience Branch and the UCSD Movement Disorder Center to use our system in real-life personal stress and in-home Parkinson’s disease patient monitoring experiments. We shall proceed to develop a necessary BCI ontology and add automatic semantic annotation and progressive model refinement capability to our system.

Pervasive brain monitoring and data sharing based on multi-tier distributed computing and linked data technology

Science.gov (United States)

Zao, John K.; Gan, Tchin-Tze; You, Chun-Kai; Chung, Cheng-En; Wang, Yu-Te; Rodríguez Méndez, Sergio José; Mullen, Tim; Yu, Chieh; Kothe, Christian; Hsiao, Ching-Teng; Chu, San-Liang; Shieh, Ce-Kuen; Jung, Tzyy-Ping

2014-01-01

EEG-based Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) are facing basic challenges in real-world applications. The technical difficulties in developing truly wearable BCI systems that are capable of making reliable real-time prediction of users' cognitive states in dynamic real-life situations may seem almost insurmountable at times. Fortunately, recent advances in miniature sensors, wireless communication and distributed computing technologies offered promising ways to bridge these chasms. In this paper, we report an attempt to develop a pervasive on-line EEG-BCI system using state-of-art technologies including multi-tier Fog and Cloud Computing, semantic Linked Data search, and adaptive prediction/classification models. To verify our approach, we implement a pilot system by employing wireless dry-electrode EEG headsets and MEMS motion sensors as the front-end devices, Android mobile phones as the personal user interfaces, compact personal computers as the near-end Fog Servers and the computer clusters hosted by the Taiwan National Center for High-performance Computing (NCHC) as the far-end Cloud Servers. We succeeded in conducting synchronous multi-modal global data streaming in March and then running a multi-player on-line EEG-BCI game in September, 2013. We are currently working with the ARL Translational Neuroscience Branch to use our system in real-life personal stress monitoring and the UCSD Movement Disorder Center to conduct in-home Parkinson's disease patient monitoring experiments. We shall proceed to develop the necessary BCI ontology and introduce automatic semantic annotation and progressive model refinement capability to our system. PMID:24917804

A case of pervasive refusal syndrome: a diagnostic conundrum.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

McNicholas, Fiona

2013-01-01

A case is presented of an 11-year-old girl with pervasive refusal syndrome (PRS) who ultimately recovered acutely and completely after an 18-month paediatric hospitalisation. There was an apparent absence of previously proposed important aetiological factors in PRS, such as family pathology and markedly traumatic or abusive experiences, and her recovery was sudden and complete. The authors consider the differential diagnoses of PRS paying particular attention to the possibility of a conversion disorder or catatonia, given the absence of PRS in the North American literature. Consideration of catatonia is important as it has a diagnostic test and responds rapidly to appropriate treatment, in contrast to conventional treatment for PRS and conversion disorder.

Pervasive, hard-wired and male: Qualitative study of how UK adolescents view alcohol-related aggression.

Science.gov (United States)

Whitaker, Lydia; Brown, Stephen L; Young, Bridget; Fereday, Richard; Coyne, Sarah M; Qualter, Pamela

2018-01-01

Laboratory studies of alcohol-inexperienced adolescents show that aggression can be primed by alcohol-related stimuli, suggesting that alcohol-related aggression is partly socially learned. Script theory proposes that alcohol-related aggression 'scripts' for social behaviors are culturally-available and learned by individuals. The purpose of the study was to understand the content and origins of alcohol-related aggression scripts learned by adolescents. This qualitative focus group study of 40 adolescents (ages 14-16 years) examined alcohol-related aggression scripts. Participants believed aggression and severe injury to be pervasive when young people drink. Viewed through a biological lens, participants described aggression as an 'instinctive' and 'hard-wired' male trait facilitated by intoxication. As such, alcohol-related aggression was not seen as intended or personally controllable and participants did not see it in moral terms. Females were largely viewed as either bystanders of inter-male aggression or potential victims of male sexual aggression. Participants attributed their views on the frequency and nature of alcohol-related aggression to current affairs and reality television, which they felt portrayed a reality of which they had little experience. The origins of the explicitly biological frameworks that participants used seemed to lie in pre-existing beliefs about the nature of gender differences. Perceptions of the pervasiveness of male alcohol-related aggression, and the consequent failure to view alcohol-related aggression in moral terms, could dispose some young people to alcohol-related aggression. Interventions could target (1) the beliefs that alcohol-related aggression is pervasive and uncontrollable in males, and (2) participants' dysfunctional views of masculinity that underpin those beliefs.

Abnormalities on the Neurological Examination and EEG in Young Children with Pervasive Developmental Disorders

Science.gov (United States)

Akshoomoff, Natacha; Farid, Nikdokht; Courchesne, Eric; Haas, Richard

2007-01-01

This study examined the nature and frequency of neurological and EEG abnormalities in 60 young children (ages 2-6 years) with pervasive developmental disorders. A number of standard neurological functions could not be adequately assessed due to the young age of the children and/or limited comprehension and cooperation. The most common neurological…

The pervasive nature of unconscious social information processing in executive control

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ranjani ePrabhakaran

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Humans not only have impressive executive abilities, but we are also fundamentally social creatures. In the cognitive neuroscience literature, it has long been assumed that executive control mechanisms, which play a critical role in guiding goal-directed behavior, operate on consciously processed information. Although more recent evidence suggests that unconsciously processed information can also influence executive control, most of this literature has focused on visual masked priming paradigms. However, the social psychological literature has demonstrated that unconscious influences are pervasive, and social information can unintentionally influence a wide variety of behaviors, including some that are likely to require executive abilities. For example, social information can unconsciously influence attention processes, such that simply instructing participants to describe a previous situation in which they had power over someone or someone else had power over them has been shown to unconsciously influence their attentional focus abilities, a key aspect of executive control. In the current review, we consider behavioral and neural findings from a variety of paradigms, including priming of goals and social hierarchical roles, as well as interpersonal interactions, in order to highlight the pervasive nature of social influences on executive control. These findings suggest that social information can play a critical role in executive control, and that this influence often occurs in an unconscious fashion. We conclude by suggesting further avenues of research for investigation of the interplay between social factors and executive control.

[Obsessive-compulsive symptoms, tics, stereotypic movements or need for absolute consistency? The occurrence of repetitive activities in patients with pervasive developmental disorders--case studies].

Science.gov (United States)

Bryńska, Anita; Lipińska, Elzbieta; Matelska, Monika

2011-01-01

Repetitive and stereotyped behaviours in the form of stereotyped interests or specific routine activities are one ofthe diagnostic criteria in pervasive developmental disorders. The occurrence of repetitive behaviours in patients with pervasive developmental disorders is a starting point for questions about the type and classification criteria of such behaviours. The aim of the article is to present case studies of patients with pervasive developmental disorders and co-morbid symptoms in the form of routine activities, tics, obsessive-compulsive symptoms or stereotyped behaviours. The first case study describes a patient with Asperger's syndrome and obsessive compulsive symptoms. The diagnostic problems regarding complex motor tics are discussed in the second case study which describes a patient with Asperger's syndrome and Gilles de la Tourette syndrome. The third and fourth case study describes mono-zygotic twins with so called High Functioning Autism whose repetitive activities point to either obsessive compulsive symptoms, stereotypic movements, need for absolute consistency or echopraxia. The possible comorbidity of pervasive developmental disorders and symptoms in the form of repetitive behaviours, possible interactions as well as diagnostic challenges is discussed in the article.

Pervasive developmental disorder behavior in adolescents with intellectual disability and co-occurring somatic chronic diseases

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Oeseburg, B.; Groothoff, J. W.; Dijkstra, G. J.; Reijneveld, S. A.; Jansen, D. E. M. C.

2010-01-01

Evidence on the association between somatic chronic diseases in ID-adolescents and the full range of pervasive developmental disorder behavior (PDD behavior) is scarce. The aim of the present study is to assess the association between somatic chronic diseases in ID-adolescents and mild PDD behavior.

Applying mobile and pervasive computer technology to enhance coordination of work in a surgical ward

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Thomas Riisgaard; Bardram, Jakob Eyvind

2007-01-01

, and unnecessary stress. To accommodate this situation and to increase the quality of work in operating wards, we have designed a set of pervasive computer systems which supports what we call context-mediated communication and awareness. These systems use large interactive displays, video streaming from key...

A novel architecture for message exchange in pervasive healthcare based on the use of intelligent agents

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cardoso de Moraes, J.L.; Lopes de Souza, Wanderley; Ferreira Pires, Luis; Cavalini, Luciana; do Prado, Antonio Francisco

In Pervasive Healthcare, novel information and communication technologies are applied to support the provision of health services anywhere, at anytime, and to anyone. Ubiquitous Computing technologies allow efficient and safe information exchange amongst caregivers and their patients in communities,

Emerging pervasive information and communication technologies (PICT) ethical challenges, opportunities and safeguards

CERN Document Server

Pimple, Kenneth D

2013-01-01

This book provides a wide and deep perspective on the ethical issues raised by pervasive information and communication technology (PICT) - small, powerful, and often inexpensive Internet-connected computing devices and systems. It describes complex and unfamiliar technologies and their implications, including the transformative potential of augmented reality, the power of location-linked information, and the uses of ""big data,"" and explains potential threats, including privacy invaded, security violated, and independence compromised, often through widespread and lucrative manipulation.PICT i

Pervasive developmental disorder, behavior problems, and psychotropic drug use in children and adolescents with mental retardation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Bildt, Annelies; Mulder, Erik J.; Scheers, Tom; Minderaa, Ruud B.; Tobi, Hilde

2006-01-01

OBJECTIVE. This study investigated the interrelationship between psychopharmaco-therapy in general and the use of specific psychotropic drugs and pervasive developmental disorder and other behavior problems in children and adolescents with mental retardation. METHODS. A total of 862 participants 4

End-User Perception Towards Pervasive Cardiac Healthcare Services: Benefits, Acceptance, Adoption, Risks, Security, Privacy and Trust

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dhukaram, Anandhi Vivek; Baber, Chris; Elloumi, Lamia; van Beijnum, Bernhard J.F.; De Stefanis, Paolo

This study examined patient and caregiver’s perception regarding pervasive healthcare technology using five focus groups and a 31-item questionnaire. To further develop an understanding of the benefits and functionalities that prospective patients deem as either desirable, undesirable, inadequate or

Atomoxetine for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms in children with pervasive developmental disorders: a pilot study.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Troost, P.W.; Steenhuis, M.P.; Tuynman-Qua, H.G.; Kalverdijk, L.J.; Buitelaar, J.K.; Minderaa, R.B.; Hoekstra, P.J.

2006-01-01

OBJECTIVE: This pilot study examined the effects of atomoxetine on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and autistic features in children with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD). METHOD: Twelve children (aged 6-14 years) with PDD accompanied by ADHD symptoms entered a

Atomoxetine for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms in children with pervasive developmental disorders : A pilot study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Troost, Pieter W.; Steenhuis, Mark-Peter; Tuynman-Qua, Hanneke G.; Kalverdijk, Luuk J.; Buitelaar, Jan K.; Minderaa, Ruud B.; Hoekstra, Pieter J.

2006-01-01

Objective: This pilot study examined the effects of atomoxetine on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and autistic features in children with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD). Method: Twelve children (aged 6-14 years) with PDD accompanied by ADHD symptoms entered a

Pervasive developmental disorder, behavior problems, and psychotropic drug use in children and adolescents with mental retardation.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bildt, de A.; Mulder, E.J.; Scheers, T.; Minderaa, R.B.; Tobi, H.

2006-01-01

OBJECTIVE. This study investigated the interrelationship between psychopharmacotherapy in general and the use of specific psychotropic drugs and pervasive developmental disorder and other behavior problems in children and adolescents with mental retardation. METHODS. A total of 862 participants 4 to

Developing Online Learning Resources: Big Data, Social Networks, and Cloud Computing to Support Pervasive Knowledge

Science.gov (United States)

Anshari, Muhammad; Alas, Yabit; Guan, Lim Sei

2016-01-01

Utilizing online learning resources (OLR) from multi channels in learning activities promise extended benefits from traditional based learning-centred to a collaborative based learning-centred that emphasises pervasive learning anywhere and anytime. While compiling big data, cloud computing, and semantic web into OLR offer a broader spectrum of…

An exploration of person perception abilities in children with a pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Serra, M.; Minderaa, R.B; Van Geert, P. L. C.; Jackson, A.E.

1995-01-01

This explorative study investigates differences in person perception abilities between a group of children diagnosed as having a Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDDNOS) and a group of normal children of the same age and sex. Person perception, a social-cognitive skill,

The semiotics of smart appliances and pervasive computing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Peter Bøgh; Brynskov, Martin

2007-01-01

on the linguistic theory of semantic roles; on the other hand, it focuses on signs, their referents, and their mode of signifying. After an introductory discussion of smart technology and networks of stupidity, we present our framework which consists of a set of theoretical concepts supplemented by diagrams...... for representing semi-formal models. We then give a short overview of selected theories of play and gaming and apply the framework to an implemented simple pervasive game. Finally, we put it all together by using the framework in a constructive manner to produce a concrete design of a new game. The result...... is discussed and compared to other approaches. The main points in this comparison are: (a) The framework provides a description of action dependencies that is relatable to organizational concepts like qualifications and norms, (b) it can describe communicative as well as material acts plus the way they hang...

Structural health monitoring of pipelines rehabilitated with lining technology

Science.gov (United States)

Farhidzadeh, Alireza; Dehghan-Niri, Ehsan; Salamone, Salvatore

2014-03-01

Damage detection of pipeline systems is a tedious and time consuming job due to digging requirement, accessibility, interference with other facilities, and being extremely wide spread in metropolitans. Therefore, a real-time and automated monitoring system can pervasively reduce labor work, time, and expenditures. This paper presents the results of an experimental study aimed at monitoring the performance of full scale pipe lining systems, subjected to static and dynamic (seismic) loading, using Acoustic Emission (AE) technique and Guided Ultrasonic Waves (GUWs). Particularly, two damage mechanisms are investigated: 1) delamination between pipeline and liner as the early indicator of damage, and 2) onset of nonlinearity and incipient failure of the liner as critical damage state.

Transmission Line Ampacity Improvements of AltaLink Wind Plant Overhead Tie-Lines Using Weather-Based Dynamic Line Rating

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bhattarai, Bishnu P.; Gentle, Jake P.; Hill, Porter; McJunkin, Tim; Myers, Kurt S.; Abbound, Alex; Renwick, Rodger; Hengst, David

2017-07-01

Abstract—Overhead transmission lines (TLs) are conventionally given seasonal ratings based on conservative environmental assumptions. Such an approach often results in underutilization of the line ampacity as the worst conditions prevail only for a short period over a year/season. We presents dynamic line rating (DLR) as an enabling smart grid technology that adaptively computes ratings of TLs based on local weather conditions to utilize additional headroom of existing lines. In particular, general line ampacity state solver utilizes measured weather data for computing the real-time thermal rating of the TLs. The performance of the presented method is demonstrated from a field study of DLR technology implementation on four TL segments at AltaLink, Canada. The performance is evaluated and quantified by comparing the existing static and proposed dynamic line ratings, and the potential benefits of DLR for enhanced transmission assets utilization. For the given line segments, the proposed DLR results in real-time ratings above the seasonal static ratings for most of the time; up to 95.1% of the time, with a mean increase of 72% over static rating.

Intelligent Buildings and pervasive computing - research perspectives and discussions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Grønbæk, Kaj; Krogh, Peter Gall; Kyng, Morten

2001-01-01

computers are everywhere, for everyone, at all times. Where IT becomes a still more integrated part of our environments with processors, sensors, and actuators connected via high-speed networks and combined with new visualization devices ranging from projections directly in the eye to large panorama......Intelligent Buildings have been the subject of research and commercial interest for more than two decades. The different perspectives range from monitoring and controlling energy consumption over interactive rooms supporting work in offices and leisure in the home, to buildings providing...... information to by-passers in plazas and urban environments. This paper puts forward the hypothesis that the coming decade will witness a dramatic increase in both quality and quantity of intelligent buildings due to the emerging field of pervasive computing: the next generation computing environments where...

Pervasive Developmental Disorder Behavior in Adolescents with Intellectual Disability and Co-Occurring Somatic Chronic Diseases

Science.gov (United States)

Oeseburg, B.; Groothoff, J. W.; Dijkstra, G. J.; Reijneveld, S. A.; Jansen, D. E. M. C.

2010-01-01

Evidence on the association between somatic chronic diseases in ID-adolescents and the full range of pervasive developmental disorder behavior (PDD behavior) is scarce. The aim of the present study is to assess the association between somatic chronic diseases in ID-adolescents and mild PDD behavior. We obtained data on 1044 ID-adolescents, aged…

Designing an architectural style for Pervasive Healthcare systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Rafe, Vahid; Hajvali, Masoumeh

2013-04-01

Nowadays, the Pervasive Healthcare (PH) systems are considered as an important research area. These systems have a dynamic structure and configuration. Therefore, an appropriate method for designing such systems is necessary. The Publish/Subscribe Architecture (pub/sub) is one of the convenient architectures to support such systems. PH systems are safety critical; hence, errors can bring disastrous results. To prevent such problems, a powerful analytical tool is required. So using a proper formal language like graph transformation systems for developing of these systems seems necessary. But even if software engineers use such high level methodologies, errors may occur in the system under design. Hence, it should be investigated automatically and formally that whether this model of system satisfies all their requirements or not. In this paper, a dynamic architectural style for developing PH systems is presented. Then, the behavior of these systems is modeled and evaluated using GROOVE toolset. The results of the analysis show its high reliability.

Advanced excimer laser technologies enable green semiconductor manufacturing

Science.gov (United States)

Fukuda, Hitomi; Yoo, Youngsun; Minegishi, Yuji; Hisanaga, Naoto; Enami, Tatsuo

2014-03-01

"Green" has fast become an important and pervasive topic throughout many industries worldwide. Many companies, especially in the manufacturing industries, have taken steps to integrate green initiatives into their high-level corporate strategies. Governments have also been active in implementing various initiatives designed to increase corporate responsibility and accountability towards environmental issues. In the semiconductor manufacturing industry, there are growing concerns over future environmental impact as enormous fabs expand and new generation of equipments become larger and more powerful. To address these concerns, Gigaphoton has implemented various green initiatives for many years under the EcoPhoton™ program. The objective of this program is to drive innovations in technology and services that enable manufacturers to significantly reduce both the financial and environmental "green cost" of laser operations in high-volume manufacturing environment (HVM) - primarily focusing on electricity, gas and heat management costs. One example of such innovation is Gigaphoton's Injection-Lock system, which reduces electricity and gas utilization costs of the laser by up to 50%. Furthermore, to support the industry's transition from 300mm to the next generation 450mm wafers, technologies are being developed to create lasers that offer double the output power from 60W to 120W, but reducing electricity and gas consumption by another 50%. This means that the efficiency of lasers can be improve by up to 4 times in 450mm wafer production environments. Other future innovations include the introduction of totally Heliumfree Excimer lasers that utilize Nitrogen gas as its replacement for optical module purging. This paper discusses these and other innovations by Gigaphoton to enable green manufacturing.

Investigating the Prevalence of Pervasive Developmental Disorders According to Sex in a Sample of Iranian Children Referred to Medical-Rehabilitation Centers and Psychiatrics Clinics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. Khushabi

2006-04-01

Full Text Available Introduction & Objective: According to significance of pervasive developmental disorders (PDD in children and the increasing rate of its prevalence in referred patients to clinic in recent years and due to absence of any report about the rate of PPD in our country, this study was carried out. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of PPD in a sample of Iranian children who referred to medical and rehabilitation centers.Materials & Methods: 248 children who referred to three medical-rehabilitation centers were participated in the research. Accessible sampling with diagnosis of PDD based on DSM-IV criteria was chosen. The obtained data were analyzed using descriptive statistics methods such as percent and frequency distribution. Results: Autistics disorder was most prevalent among pervasive developmental disorders. In this research Autistic disorder (proportion 4/1 to 1, Asperger disorder (proportion 3 to 1 and childhood disintegrative disease were more prevalent in boys than girls. Ret disorders was observed only in girls and pervasive developmental disease (NOS was seen in both sexes. Conclusion: The results showed that pervasive developmental disorders are 4 times more prevalent in boys than girls and the findings of this research were consistent with those of previous studies.

Body mass index in male and female children with pervasive developmental disorders

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mouridsen, S.E.; Rich, B.; Isager, Torben

2008-01-01

Background: The aim of the present study was to evaluate body mass index (BMI) of children with a pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) attending two university clinics during the 1960-84 period. Methods: BMI derived from medical records of 83 consecutively admitted children with atypical autism...... and 115 children with Asperger syndrome were compared with the corresponding BMI percentiles in an age- and sex-matched reference population. Results: The BMI distribution of the boys, but not the girls, in both diagnostic categories was significantly lower than those of the age-matched reference...

US line-ups outperform UK line-ups

OpenAIRE

Seale-Carlisle, Travis M.; Mickes, Laura

2016-01-01

In the USA and the UK, many thousands of police suspects are identified by eyewitnesses every year. Unfortunately, many of those suspects are innocent, which becomes evident when they are exonerated by DNA testing, often after having been imprisoned for years. It is, therefore, imperative to use identification procedures that best enable eyewitnesses to discriminate innocent from guilty suspects. Although police investigators in both countries often administer line-up procedures, the details ...

From black box to toolbox: Outlining device functionality, engagement activities, and the pervasive information architecture of mHealth interventions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brian G. Danaher

2015-03-01

Full Text Available mHealth interventions that deliver content via mobile phones represent a burgeoning area of health behavior change. The current paper examines two themes that can inform the underlying design of mHealth interventions: (1 mobile device functionality, which represents the technological toolbox available to intervention developers; and (2 the pervasive information architecture of mHealth interventions, which determines how intervention content can be delivered concurrently using mobile phones, personal computers, and other devices. We posit that developers of mHealth interventions will be able to better achieve the promise of this burgeoning arena by leveraging the toolbox and functionality of mobile devices in order to engage participants and encourage meaningful behavior change within the context of a carefully designed pervasive information architecture.

From black box to toolbox: Outlining device functionality, engagement activities, and the pervasive information architecture of mHealth interventions.

Science.gov (United States)

Danaher, Brian G; Brendryen, Håvar; Seeley, John R; Tyler, Milagra S; Woolley, Tim

2015-03-01

mHealth interventions that deliver content via mobile phones represent a burgeoning area of health behavior change. The current paper examines two themes that can inform the underlying design of mHealth interventions: (1) mobile device functionality, which represents the technological toolbox available to intervention developers; and (2) the pervasive information architecture of mHealth interventions, which determines how intervention content can be delivered concurrently using mobile phones, personal computers, and other devices. We posit that developers of mHealth interventions will be better able to achieve the promise of this burgeoning arena by leveraging the toolbox and functionality of mobile devices in order to engage participants and encourage meaningful behavior change within the context of a carefully designed pervasive information architecture.

Use of drawings in children with pervasive developmental disorder during hospitalization: a developmental perspective.

Science.gov (United States)

Stefanatou, Athena

2008-12-01

The level and nature of emotional upheaval and relationship to developmental stage was studied in children with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) hospitalized for head injury. The sample consisted of 25 hospitalized children aged 5-12 years. Children were asked to make the drawing of a ;person in hospital'. The drawings were evaluated by Koppitz's emotional indicators. Punishment and persecution were the main cognitive constructs of children in order to explain hospitalization.

Donepezil in the Treatment of ADHD-Like Symptoms in Youths with Pervasive Developmental Disorder: A Case Series

Science.gov (United States)

Doyle, Robert L.; Frazier, Jean; Spencer, Thomas J.; Geller, Daniel; Biederman, Joseph; Wilens, Timothy

2006-01-01

Background: Recent studies reported ADHD-like symptoms and cognitive deficits in pervasive developmental disorder (PDD). Because work in dementia documents improvement in executive function deficits with the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor donepezil, the authors reason that similar benefits could be obtained in PDD. Method: The authors describe…

Transition from Pervasive Developmental Disorders to Autism Spectrum Disorder: Proposed Changes for the Upcoming DSM-5

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Banu Tortamis Ozkaya

2013-06-01

Full Text Available American Psychiatry Assosiation has scheduled to release The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5 in May 2013. According to the main changes being proposed about autism, there will be one unified Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis in the DSM-5 classification. This unified diagnosis will eliminate the distinct diagnostic categories under Pervasive Developmental Disorders in the DSM-IV-TR, namely autistic disorder, asperger syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified, and childhood disintegrative disorder. Rett syndrome will be excluded from autism spectrum disorder due to its genetic basis. In addition, severity of symptoms will be measured among individuals with autism spectrum disorder based on the support level required due to the impairment in their lives. The basic rationale behind this revision is that it is better to conceptualize autism as a spectrum including various individuals whose symptoms in different developmental areas range from mild to severe. It is aimed to increase the specificity of autism diagnosis by using one single diagnostic category with its specified severity rather than differentiating several subtypes. The major concern raised over the DSM-5 proposal has been the possibility that some of the individuals who were diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder according to the DSM-IV-TR might not get a diagnosis in this new system. After the DSM-5 is released, clinical, legal, and educational rearrengements regarding the use of new autism spectrum disorder diagnostic criteria are expected to accelerate worldwide and in Turkey. This paper aims to review briefly the upcoming autism spectrum disorder diagnosis planned to appear in the DSM-5, the rationale of the proposed revision, main critics to the DSM-5 draft that has been publicized, and some of the regulations expected to occur in practice after the changes.

Empirically Based Phenotypic Profiles of Children with Pervasive Developmental Disorders : Interpretation in the Light of the DSM-5

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Greaves-Lord, Kirstin; Eussen, Mart L. J. M.; Verhulst, Frank C.; Minderaa, Ruud B.; Mandy, William; Hudziak, James J.; Steenhuis, Mark Peter; de Nijs, Pieter F.; Hartman, Catharina A.

This study aimed to contribute to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) debates on the conceptualization of autism by investigating (1) whether empirically based distinct phenotypic profiles could be distinguished within a sample of mainly cognitively able children with pervasive developmental

An Evaluation of the NSGA-II and MOCell Genetic Algorithms for Self-management Planning in a Pervasive Service Middleware

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Weishan; Hansen, Klaus Marius

2009-01-01

Planning (for example choosing most suitable servicesfor self-configuration) is one important task in selfmanagement for pervasive service computing, and can bereduced to the problem of multi-objective services selectionwith constraints. Genetic algorithms (GAs) are effectivein solving such multi......-objective optimization problems, andare one of the most successful computational intelligenceapproaches currently available. GAs are beginning to beused in planning for self-management, but there is a lack ofcomprehensive work that evaluates GAs performance andsolution quality, and guides the setting of GAs’ parameters.......This situation makes the application of GAs difficultin the pervasive service computing domain in which performance may be critical and the settings of parameters may have big consequences for performance. In this paper, wewill present our evaluations of two GAs, namely NSGA-IIand MOCell, in the GA framework...

Automatically augmenting lifelog events using pervasively generated content from millions of people.

Science.gov (United States)

Doherty, Aiden R; Smeaton, Alan F

2010-01-01

In sensor research we take advantage of additional contextual sensor information to disambiguate potentially erroneous sensor readings or to make better informed decisions on a single sensor's output. This use of additional information reinforces, validates, semantically enriches, and augments sensed data. Lifelog data is challenging to augment, as it tracks one's life with many images including the places they go, making it non-trivial to find associated sources of information. We investigate realising the goal of pervasive user-generated content based on sensors, by augmenting passive visual lifelogs with "Web 2.0" content collected by millions of other individuals.

Statistical-Synoptic Analysis of the Atmosphere Thickness Pattern of Iran’s Pervasive Frosts

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Iman Rousta

2016-08-01

Full Text Available The present study aimed at analyzing the synoptic pattern of atmospheric thickness of winter pervasive frosts in Iran. To this end, the data related to the daily minimum temperature of a 50-year period (1961–2010 were gathered from 451 synoptic and climatology stations. Then, the instances in which the temperature was below 0 °C for at least two consecutive days and this phenomenon covered at least 50% of the entirety of Iran were selected. Subsequently, the atmosphere thickness pattern was extracted for these days, with the representative day being identified and analyzed through cluster analysis. The results showed that the Siberian high pressure plays a significant role in the occurrence of pervasive frosts in Iran. In some other cases, the northeast–southwest direction of this pattern leads to its combination with the East Europe high pressure, causing widespread frosts in Iran. Furthermore, the interaction between counter clockwise currents in this system and the clockwise currents in the Azores high pressure tongue directs cold weather from northern parts of Europe toward Iran. The formation of blocking systems leads to the stagnation of cold weather over Iran, a phenomenon that results in significant reduction of temperature and severe frosts in these areas. In addition, the omega pattern (the fifth pattern and Deep Eastern European trough and polar low pressure pattern (the fourth pattern were the most dominant and severe frost patterns in Iran respectively.

Qualitative Evaluation of the Design Variables of a Teaching Intervention to Expose Accounting Students to Pervasive Skills

Science.gov (United States)

Viviers, Herman Albertus

2016-01-01

The primary objective of this article is to evaluate the design variables of a newly developed teaching intervention, "The Amazing Tax Race". It comprises a race against time in which accounting students participate within teams in multiple tax-related activities so that they are exposed to pervasive skills. The findings provide…

Animated construction of line drawings

KAUST Repository

Fu, Hongbo; Zhou, Shizhe; Liu, Ligang; Mitra, Niloy J.

2011-01-01

Revealing the sketching sequence of a line drawing can be visually intriguing and used for video-based storytelling. Typically this is enabled based on tedious recording of artists' drawing process. We demonstrate that it is often possible

Functional Testing of Wireless Sensor Node Designs

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Virk, Kashif M.; Madsen, Jan

2007-01-01

Wireless sensor networks are networked embedded computer systems with stringent power, performance, cost and form-factor requirements along with numerous other constraints related to their pervasiveness and ubiquitousness. Therefore, only a systematic design methdology coupled with an efficient...... test approach can enable their conformance to design and deployment specifications. We discuss off-line, hierarchical, functional testing of complete wireless sensor nodes containing configurable logic through a combination of FPGA-based board test and Software-Based Self-Test (SBST) techniques...

THE PERVASIVENESS OF METAPHOR IN THE LANGUAGE OF ECONOMICS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gabriela Telibașa

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Nowadays, metaphors can be seen in a totally new light, exceeding their primary function of being used only as ornamental tropes and becoming powerful instruments of expressiveness. They are active in the development of a conceptual framework for representing new ideas, as well as in providing new meaning. With their help, readers gain a more precise understanding of the terminology and scientific concepts and therefore, contribute to a greater accuracy in the use of language. Given their pervasiveness, language becomes less abstract and more manageable in concretising, objectivising or even humanising concepts. Economy related topics are part of our everyday’s language. Having a close relationship with human beings and human society, the field of Economics becomes a rich linguistic domain which, if explored, proves to be very productive in offering semantic extension. Applying conceptual terminology to corpus material we shall try to identify, classify and gather information with specific interest in metaphors that belong to the field of Economics.

CountMeIn: Evaluating Social Presence in a Collaborative Pervasive Mobile Game Using NFC and Touchscreen Interaction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wolbert, M.; El Ali, A.; Nack, F.

2014-01-01

This paper presents the motivation, design and evaluation of CountMeIn, a mobile collaborative pervasive memory game to revive social interactions in public places (e.g. a train station or bus stop). Two versions of CountMeIn were tested; an NFC-based and a touchscreen version. In a 2×1

Providing pervasive Learning eXperiences by Combining Internet of Things and e-Learning standards

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aroua TAAMALLAH

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Nowadays, learning is more and more taking place anywhere and anytime. This implies that e-learning environments are expanded from only virtual learning environments to both virtual and physical ones. Thanks to the evolution of Internet, ICT (Information and Communication Technology and Internet of Things, new learning scenarios could be experienced by learners either individually or collaboratively. These learning scenarios are Pervasive in such a way that they allow to mix virtual and physical learning environments as well. They are therefore characterized by possible interactions of the learner with the physical environment, the Learner's contextual data detection as well as the adaptation of pedagogical strategies and services according to this context. This paper aims to take advantage of this trend and keep up also with existing e-Learning standards such as IMS LD and LOM. The solution proposed is therefore to extend these standards models with that of Internet of Things and to provide an adaptation approach of learning activities based on learner's context and her/his track using the eXperience API. In this context and in order to allow both reasoning capabilities and interoperability between the proposed models Ontological representations and implementation are therefore proposed. Moreover a technical architecture highlighting the required software components and their interactions is provided. And finally, a relevant pervasive learning scenario is implemented and experimented.

Identification of rat Rosa26 locus enables generation of knock-in rat lines ubiquitously expressing tdTomato.

Science.gov (United States)

Kobayashi, Toshihiro; Kato-Itoh, Megumi; Yamaguchi, Tomoyuki; Tamura, Chihiro; Sanbo, Makoto; Hirabayashi, Masumi; Nakauchi, Hiromitsu

2012-11-01

Recent discovery of a method for derivation and culture of germline-competent rat pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) enables generation of transgenic rats or knock-out rats via genetic modification of such PSCs. This opens the way to use rats, as is routine in mice, for analyses of gene functions or physiological features. In mouse or human, one widely used technique to express a gene of interest stably and ubiquitously is to insert that gene into the Rosa26 locus via gene targeting of PSCs. Rosa26 knock-in mice conditionally expressing a reporter or a toxin gene have contributed to tracing or ablation of specific cell lineages. We successfully identified a rat orthologue of the mouse Rosa26 locus. Insertion of tdTomato, a variant of red fluorescent protein, into the Rosa26 locus of PSCs of various rat strains allows ubiquitous expression of tdTomato. Through germline transmission of one Rosa26-tdTomato knock-in embryonic stem cell line, we also obtained tdTomato knock-in rats. These expressed tdTomato ubiquitously throughout their bodies, which indicates that the rat Rosa26 locus conserves functions of its orthologues in mouse and human. The new tools described here (targeting vectors, knock-in PSCs, and rats) should be useful for a variety of research using rats.

Common and Unique Impairments in Facial-Expression Recognition in Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified and Asperger's Disorder

Science.gov (United States)

Uono, Shota; Sato, Wataru; Toichi, Motomi

2013-01-01

This study was designed to identify specific difficulties and associated features related to the problems with social interaction experienced by individuals with pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) using an emotion-recognition task. We compared individuals with PDD-NOS or Asperger's disorder (ASP) and typically…

Automatically Augmenting Lifelog Events Using Pervasively Generated Content from Millions of People

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Alan F. Smeaton

2010-02-01

Full Text Available In sensor research we take advantage of additional contextual sensor information to disambiguate potentially erroneous sensor readings or to make better informed decisions on a single sensor’s output. This use of additional information reinforces, validates, semantically enriches, and augments sensed data. Lifelog data is challenging to augment, as it tracks one’s life with many images including the places they go, making it non-trivial to find associated sources of information. We investigate realising the goal of pervasive user-generated content based on sensors, by augmenting passive visual lifelogs with “Web 2.0” content collected by millions of other individuals.

Empirically Based Phenotypic Profiles of Children with Pervasive Developmental Disorders: Interpretation in the Light of the DSM-5

Science.gov (United States)

Greaves-Lord, Kirstin; Eussen, Mart L. J. M.; Verhulst, Frank C.; Minderaa, Ruud B.; Mandy, William; Hudziak, James J.; Steenhuis, Mark Peter; de Nijs, Pieter F.; Hartman, Catharina A.

2013-01-01

This study aimed to contribute to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) debates on the conceptualization of autism by investigating (1) whether empirically based distinct phenotypic profiles could be distinguished within a sample of mainly cognitively able children with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), and (2) how profiles related to…

Pervasive, Genome-Wide Transcription in the Organelle Genomes of Diverse Plastid-Bearing Protists

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Matheus Sanitá Lima

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Organelle genomes are among the most sequenced kinds of chromosome. This is largely because they are small and widely used in molecular studies, but also because next-generation sequencing technologies made sequencing easier, faster, and cheaper. However, studies of organelle RNA have not kept pace with those of DNA, despite huge amounts of freely available eukaryotic RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq data. Little is known about organelle transcription in nonmodel species, and most of the available eukaryotic RNA-seq data have not been mined for organelle transcripts. Here, we use publicly available RNA-seq experiments to investigate organelle transcription in 30 diverse plastid-bearing protists with varying organelle genomic architectures. Mapping RNA-seq data to organelle genomes revealed pervasive, genome-wide transcription, regardless of the taxonomic grouping, gene organization, or noncoding content. For every species analyzed, transcripts covered ≥85% of the mitochondrial and/or plastid genomes (all of which were ≤105 kb, indicating that most of the organelle DNA—coding and noncoding—is transcriptionally active. These results follow earlier studies of model species showing that organellar transcription is coupled and ubiquitous across the genome, requiring significant downstream processing of polycistronic transcripts. Our findings suggest that noncoding organelle DNA can be transcriptionally active, raising questions about the underlying function of these transcripts and underscoring the utility of publicly available RNA-seq data for recovering complete genome sequences. If pervasive transcription is also found in bigger organelle genomes (>105 kb and across a broader range of eukaryotes, this could indicate that noncoding organelle RNAs are regulating fundamental processes within eukaryotic cells.

Microswitch- and VOCA-Assisted Programs for Two Post-Coma Persons with Minimally Conscious State and Pervasive Motor Disabilities

Science.gov (United States)

Lancioni, Giulio E.; Singh, Nirbhay N.; O'Reilly, Mark F.; Sigafoos, Jeff; Buonocunto, Francesca; Sacco, Valentina; Colonna, Fabio; Navarro, Jorge; Oliva, Doretta; Signorino, Mario; Megna, Gianfranco

2009-01-01

Intervention programs, based on learning principles and assistive technology, were assessed in two studies with two post-coma men with minimally conscious state and pervasive motor disabilities. Study I assessed a program that included (a) an optic microswitch, activated via double blinking, which allowed a man direct access to brief music…

FCJ-131 Pervasive Computing and Prosopopoietic Modelling – Notes on computed function and creative action

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Anders Michelsen

2011-12-01

Full Text Available This article treats the philosophical underpinnings of the notions of ubiquity and pervasive computing from a historical perspective. The current focus on these notions reflects the ever increasing impact of new media and the underlying complexity of computed function in the broad sense of ICT that have spread vertiginiously since Mark Weiser coined the term ‘pervasive’, e.g., digitalised sensoring, monitoring, effectuation, intelligence, and display. Whereas Weiser’s original perspective may seem fulfilled since computing is everywhere, in his and Seely Brown’s (1997 terms, ‘invisible’, on the horizon, ’calm’, it also points to a much more important and slightly different perspective: that of creative action upon novel forms of artifice. Most importantly for this article, ubiquity and pervasive computing is seen to point to the continuous existence throughout the computational heritage since the mid-20th century of a paradoxical distinction/complicity between the technical organisation of computed function and the human Being, in the sense of creative action upon such function. This paradoxical distinction/complicity promotes a chiastic (Merleau-Ponty relationship of extension of one into the other. It also indicates a generative creation that itself points to important issues of ontology with methodological implications for the design of computing. In this article these implications will be conceptualised as prosopopoietic modeling on the basis of Bernward Joerges introduction of the classical rhetoric term of ’prosopopoeia’ into the debate on large technological systems. First, the paper introduces the paradoxical distinction/complicity by debating Gilbert Simondon’s notion of a ‘margin of indeterminacy’ vis-a-vis computing. Second, it debates the idea of prosopopoietic modeling, pointing to a principal role of the paradoxical distinction/complicity within the computational heritage in three cases: a. Prosopopoietic

Introduction to the first international workshop on process management for highly dynamic and pervasive scenarios (PM4HDPS 2008)

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Leoni, de M.; Dustdar, S.; Hofstede, ter A.H.M.; Ardagna, D.; Mecella, M.; Yang, J.

2009-01-01

Nowadays, process management systems (PMSs) are widely used in many business scenarios, e.g. by government agencies, by insurance companies, and by banks. Despite this widespread usage, the typical application of such systems is predominantly in the context of static scenarios, instead of pervasive

Enabling Routes as Context in Mobile Services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brilingaite, Agne; Jensen, Christian Søndergaard; Zokaite, Nora

With the continuing advances in wireless communications, geo-positioning, and portable electronics, an infrastructure is emerging that enables the delivery of on-line, location-enabled services to very large numbers of mobile users. A typical usage situation for mobile services is one characteriz...... and accumulates the routes of a user along with their usage patterns and that makes the routes available to services. Experiences from using the component on logs of GPS positions acquired from vehicles traveling within a real road network are reported....... by a small screen and no keyboard, and by the service being only a secondary focus of the user. Under such circumstances, it is particularly important to deliver the "right" information and service at the right time, with as little user interaction as possible. This may be achieved by making services context...

Who gets caught for corruption when corruption is pervasive? Evidence from China's anti-bribery blacklist

OpenAIRE

Zhou, Liming; Jin, Zhangfeng; Wang, Zheng

2016-01-01

Original Open Access Repository: https://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:13057 This article empirically investigates why in a corruption-pervasive country only a minority of the firms get caught for bribery while the majority get away with it. By matching manufacturing firms to a blacklist of bribers in the healthcare sector of a province in China, we show that the government-led blacklisting is selective: while economically more visible firms are slightly more likely to be blacklisted, st...

Grant credit lines for energy efficiency

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gramatikov, P.; Iliev, I.

2010-01-01

The European Commission established a mechanism of credit lines to integrate more quickly the Bulgarian economy to the open international markets. Thereby it was enabled certain Bulgarian banks to provide grant loans to private companies in the industrial sector for projects of improvement of the energy efficiency of their production. The Bulgarian experience in using of two European credit lines and their role in the current economic crisis is presented in this paper. (authors)

Portfolio analysis of a destination's tourism "product line"

Science.gov (United States)

Harold Daniel

2007-01-01

If we think of a tourist destination as a platform from which a variety of tourist experiences can be delivered, we could conceptualize these experiences as the "product line" offered by or associated with the tourist destination. That conceptualization enables the manager of the destination to employ the logic and discipline associated with product line...

Harnessing natural product assembly lines: structure, promiscuity, and engineering.

Science.gov (United States)

Ladner, Christopher C; Williams, Gavin J

2016-03-01

Many therapeutically relevant natural products are biosynthesized by the action of giant mega-enzyme assembly lines. By leveraging the specificity, promiscuity, and modularity of assembly lines, a variety of strategies has been developed that enables the biosynthesis of modified natural products. This review briefly summarizes recent structural advances related to natural product assembly lines, discusses chemical approaches to probing assembly line structures in the absence of traditional biophysical data, and surveys efforts that harness the inherent or engineered promiscuity of assembly lines for the synthesis of non-natural polyketides and non-ribosomal peptide analogues.

Pervasive, disruptive, seductive, enabling : designing technologies for learning and social innovation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Marti, P.

2015-01-01

“There are no technological revolutions without cultural transformations.” This is a quote from the book “The Internet Galaxy: Refl ections on the Internet, Business, and Society” by Manuel Castells (2003), in which the author explores the complexity of the social problems generated by the spread of

Pervasive, Genome-Wide Transcription in the Organelle Genomes of Diverse Plastid-Bearing Protists.

Science.gov (United States)

Sanitá Lima, Matheus; Smith, David Roy

2017-11-06

Organelle genomes are among the most sequenced kinds of chromosome. This is largely because they are small and widely used in molecular studies, but also because next-generation sequencing technologies made sequencing easier, faster, and cheaper. However, studies of organelle RNA have not kept pace with those of DNA, despite huge amounts of freely available eukaryotic RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) data. Little is known about organelle transcription in nonmodel species, and most of the available eukaryotic RNA-seq data have not been mined for organelle transcripts. Here, we use publicly available RNA-seq experiments to investigate organelle transcription in 30 diverse plastid-bearing protists with varying organelle genomic architectures. Mapping RNA-seq data to organelle genomes revealed pervasive, genome-wide transcription, regardless of the taxonomic grouping, gene organization, or noncoding content. For every species analyzed, transcripts covered ≥85% of the mitochondrial and/or plastid genomes (all of which were ≤105 kb), indicating that most of the organelle DNA-coding and noncoding-is transcriptionally active. These results follow earlier studies of model species showing that organellar transcription is coupled and ubiquitous across the genome, requiring significant downstream processing of polycistronic transcripts. Our findings suggest that noncoding organelle DNA can be transcriptionally active, raising questions about the underlying function of these transcripts and underscoring the utility of publicly available RNA-seq data for recovering complete genome sequences. If pervasive transcription is also found in bigger organelle genomes (>105 kb) and across a broader range of eukaryotes, this could indicate that noncoding organelle RNAs are regulating fundamental processes within eukaryotic cells. Copyright © 2017 Sanitá Lima and Smith.

Advances in Grid and Pervasive Computing: 5th International Conference, GPC 2010, Hualien, Taiwan, May 10-13, 2010: Proceedings

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bellavista, P.; Chang, R.-S.; Chao, H.-C.; Lin, S.-F.; Sloot, P.M.A.

2010-01-01

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 5th international conference, CPC 2010, held in Hualien, Taiwan in May 2010. The 67 full papers are selected from 184 submissions and focus on topics such as cloud and Grid computing, peer-to-peer and pervasive computing, sensor and mobile networks,

Natural regeneration on seismic lines influences movement behaviour of wolves and grizzly bears.

Science.gov (United States)

Finnegan, Laura; Pigeon, Karine E; Cranston, Jerome; Hebblewhite, Mark; Musiani, Marco; Neufeld, Lalenia; Schmiegelow, Fiona; Duval, Julie; Stenhouse, Gordon B

2018-01-01

Across the boreal forest of Canada, habitat disturbance is the ultimate cause of caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) declines. Habitat restoration is a focus of caribou recovery efforts, with a goal to finding ways to reduce predator use of disturbances, and caribou-predator encounters. One of the most pervasive disturbances within caribou ranges in Alberta, Canada are seismic lines cleared for energy exploration. Seismic lines facilitate predator movement, and although vegetation on some seismic lines is regenerating, it remains unknown whether vegetation regrowth is sufficient to alter predator response. We used Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data, and GPS locations, to understand how vegetation and other attributes of seismic lines influence movements of two predators, wolves (Canis lupus) and grizzly bears (Ursus arctos). During winter, wolves moved towards seismic lines regardless of vegetation height, while during spring wolves moved towards seismic lines with higher vegetation. During summer, wolves moved towards seismic lines with lower vegetation and also moved faster near seismic lines with vegetation grizzly bears during spring and summer, but there was no relationship between vegetation height and grizzly bear movement rates. These results suggest that wolves use seismic lines for travel during summer, but during winter wolf movements relative to seismic lines could be influenced by factors additional to movement efficiency; potentially enhanced access to areas frequented by ungulate prey. Grizzly bears may be using seismic lines for movement, but could also be using seismic lines as a source of vegetative food or ungulate prey. To reduce wolf movement rate, restoration could focus on seismic lines with vegetation <1 m in height. However our results revealed that seismic lines continue to influence wolf movement behaviour decades after they were built, and even at later stages of regeneration. Therefore it remains unknown at what stage of natural

An accelerated line-by-line option for MODTRAN combining on-the-fly generation of line center absorption within 0.1 cm-1 bins and pre-computed line tails

Science.gov (United States)

Berk, Alexander; Conforti, Patrick; Hawes, Fred

2015-05-01

A Line-By-Line (LBL) option is being developed for MODTRAN6. The motivation for this development is two-fold. Firstly, when MODTRAN is validated against an independent LBL model, it is difficult to isolate the source of discrepancies. One must verify consistency between pressure, temperature and density profiles, between column density calculations, between continuum and particulate data, between spectral convolution methods, and more. Introducing a LBL option directly within MODTRAN will insure common elements for all calculations other than those used to compute molecular transmittances. The second motivation for the LBL upgrade is that it will enable users to compute high spectral resolution transmittances and radiances for the full range of current MODTRAN applications. In particular, introducing the LBL feature into MODTRAN will enable first-principle calculations of scattered radiances, an option that is often not readily available with LBL models. MODTRAN will compute LBL transmittances within one 0.1 cm-1 spectral bin at a time, marching through the full requested band pass. The LBL algorithm will use the highly accurate, pressure- and temperature-dependent MODTRAN Padé approximant fits of the contribution from line tails to define the absorption from all molecular transitions centered more than 0.05 cm-1 from each 0.1 cm-1 spectral bin. The beauty of this approach is that the on-the-fly computations for each 0.1 cm-1 bin will only require explicit LBL summing of transitions centered within a 0.2 cm-1 spectral region. That is, the contribution from the more distant lines will be pre-computed via the Padé approximants. The status of the LBL effort will be presented. This will include initial thermal and solar radiance calculations, validation calculations, and self-validations of the MODTRAN band model against its own LBL calculations.

Cognitive Spectrum Sharing: An Enabling Wireless Communication Technology for a Wide Use of Smart Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Romano Fantacci

2016-05-01

Full Text Available A smart city is an environment where a pervasive, multi-service network is employed to provide citizens improved living conditions as well as better public safety and security. Advanced communication technologies are essential to achieve this goal. In particular, an efficient and reliable communication network plays a crucial role in providing continue, ubiquitous, and reliable interconnections among users, smart devices, and applications. As a consequence, wireless networking appears as the principal enabling communication technology despite the necessity to face severe challenges to satisfy the needs arising from a smart environment, such as explosive data volume, heterogeneous data traffic, and support of quality of service constraints. An interesting approach for meeting the growing data demand due to smart city applications is to adopt suitable methodologies to improve the usage of all potential spectrum resources. Towards this goal, a very promising solution is represented by the Cognitive Radio technology that enables context-aware capability in order to pursue an efficient use of the available communication resources according to the surrounding environment conditions. In this paper we provide a review of the characteristics, challenges, and solutions of a smart city communication architecture, based on the Cognitive Radio technology, by focusing on two new network paradigms—namely, Heterogeneous Network and Machines-to-Machines communications—that are of special interest to efficiently support smart city applications and services.

Wireless Adaptive Therapeutic TeleGaming in a Pervasive Computing Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Peters, James F.; Szturm, Tony; Borkowski, Maciej; Lockery, Dan; Ramanna, Sheela; Shay, Barbara

This chapter introduces a wireless, pervasive computing approach to adaptive therapeutic telegaming considered in the context of near set theory. Near set theory provides a formal basis for observation, comparison and classification of perceptual granules. A perceptual granule is defined by a collection of objects that are graspable by the senses or by the mind. In the proposed pervasive computing approach to telegaming, a handicapped person (e.g., stroke patient with limited hand, finger, arm function) plays a video game by interacting with familiar instrumented objects such as cups, cutlery, soccer balls, nozzles, screw top-lids, spoons, so that the technology that makes therapeutic exercise game-playing possible is largely invisible (Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 89:2213-2217, 2008). The basic approach to adaptive learning (AL) in the proposed telegaming environment is ethology-inspired and is quite different from the traditional approach to reinforcement learning. In biologically-inspired learning, organisms learn to achieve some goal by durable modification of behaviours in response to signals from the environment resulting from specific experiences (Animal Behavior, 1995). The term adaptive is used here in an ethological sense, where learning by an organism results from modifying behaviour in response to perceived changes in the environment. To instill adaptivity in a video game, it is assumed that learning by a video game is episodic. During an episode, the behaviour of a player is measured indirectly by tracking the occurrence of gaming events such as a hit or a miss of a target (e.g., hitting a moving ball with a game paddle). An ethogram provides a record of behaviour feature values that provide a basis a functional registry for handicapped players for gaming adaptivity. An important practical application of adaptive gaming is therapeutic rehabilitation exercise carried out in parallel with playing action video games. Enjoyable and

An Examination of Specific Child Behavior Problems as Predictors of Parenting Stress among Families of Children with Pervasive Developmental Disorders

Science.gov (United States)

Davis, Allyson L.; Neece, Cameron L.

2017-01-01

Introduction: Studies have shown that parents of children with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) exhibit higher levels of stress than parents of typically developing children or children with other types of developmental delays (DD). This relationship appears to be mediated by elevated levels of behavior problems observed in children with…

Efficacy of Atomoxetine for the Treatment of ADHD Symptoms in Patients with Pervasive Developmental Disorders: A Prospective, Open-Label Study

Science.gov (United States)

Fernandez-Jaen, Alberto; Fernandez-Mayoralas, Daniel Martin; Calleja-Perez, Beatriz; Munoz-Jareno, Nuria; Campos Diaz, Maria del Rosario; Lopez-Arribas, Sonia

2013-01-01

Objective: Atomoxetine's tolerance and efficacy were studied in 24 patients with pervasive developmental disorder and symptoms of ADHD. Method: Prospective, open-label, 16-week study was performed, using the variables of the Clinical Global Impression Scale and the Conners' Scale, among others. Results: A significant difference was found between…

Children's cognitive representation of the mathematical number line.

Science.gov (United States)

Rouder, Jeffrey N; Geary, David C

2014-07-01

Learning of the mathematical number line has been hypothesized to be dependent on an inherent sense of approximate quantity. Children's number line placements are predicted to conform to the underlying properties of this system; specifically, placements are exaggerated for small numerals and compressed for larger ones. Alternative hypotheses are based on proportional reasoning; specifically, numerals are placed relative to set anchors such as end points on the line. Traditional testing of these alternatives involves fitting group medians to corresponding regression models which assumes homogenous residuals and thus does not capture useful information from between- and within-child variation in placements across the number line. To more fully assess differential predictions, we developed a novel set of hierarchical statistical models that enable the simultaneous estimation of mean levels of and variation in performance, as well as developmental transitions. Using these techniques we fitted the number line placements of 224 children longitudinally assessed from first to fifth grade, inclusive. The compression pattern was evident in mean performance in first grade, but was the best fit for only 20% of first graders when the full range of variation in the data are modeled. Most first graders' placements suggested use of end points, consistent with proportional reasoning. Developmental transition involved incorporation of a mid-point anchor, consistent with a modified proportional reasoning strategy. The methodology introduced here enables a more nuanced assessment of children's number line representation and learning than any previous approaches and indicates that developmental improvement largely results from midpoint segmentation of the line. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Historical introgression drives pervasive mitochondrial admixture between two species of pelagic sharks.

Science.gov (United States)

Corrigan, Shannon; Maisano Delser, Pierpaolo; Eddy, Corey; Duffy, Clinton; Yang, Lei; Li, Chenhong; Bazinet, Adam L; Mona, Stefano; Naylor, Gavin J P

2017-05-01

We use a genomic sampling of both nuclear and mitochondrial DNA markers to examine a pattern of genetic admixture between Carcharhinus galapagensis (Galapagos sharks) and Carcharhinus obscurus (dusky sharks), two well-known and closely related sharks that have been recognized as valid species for more than 100years. We describe widespread mitochondrial-nuclear discordance in which these species are readily distinguishable based on 2152 nuclear single nucleotide polymorphisms from 910 independent autosomal regions, but show pervasive mitochondrial admixture. The species are superficially morphologically cryptic as adults but show marked differences in internal anatomy, as well as niche separation. There was no indication of ongoing hybridization between the species. We conclude that the observed mitochondrial-nuclear discordance is likely due to historical mitochondrial introgression following a range expansion. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Pervasive Sound Sensing: A Weakly Supervised Training Approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Kelly, Daniel; Caulfield, Brian

2016-01-01

Modern smartphones present an ideal device for pervasive sensing of human behavior. Microphones have the potential to reveal key information about a person's behavior. However, they have been utilized to a significantly lesser extent than other smartphone sensors in the context of human behavior sensing. We postulate that, in order for microphones to be useful in behavior sensing applications, the analysis techniques must be flexible and allow easy modification of the types of sounds to be sensed. A simplification of the training data collection process could allow a more flexible sound classification framework. We hypothesize that detailed training, a prerequisite for the majority of sound sensing techniques, is not necessary and that a significantly less detailed and time consuming data collection process can be carried out, allowing even a nonexpert to conduct the collection, labeling, and training process. To test this hypothesis, we implement a diverse density-based multiple instance learning framework, to identify a target sound, and a bag trimming algorithm, which, using the target sound, automatically segments weakly labeled sound clips to construct an accurate training set. Experiments reveal that our hypothesis is a valid one and results show that classifiers, trained using the automatically segmented training sets, were able to accurately classify unseen sound samples with accuracies comparable to supervised classifiers, achieving an average F -measure of 0.969 and 0.87 for two weakly supervised datasets.

Construction of chromosome segment substitution lines enables QTL mapping for flowering and morphological traits in Brassica rapa

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiaonan eLi

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Chromosome segment substitution lines (CSSLs represent a powerful method for precise quantitative trait loci (QTL detection of complex agronomical traits in plants. In this study, we used a marker-assisted backcrossing strategy to develop a population consisting of 63 CSSLs, derived from backcrossing of the F1 generated from a cross between two Brassica rapa subspecies: ‘Chiifu’ (ssp. pekinensis, the Brassica A genome-represented line used as the donor, and ‘49caixin’ (ssp. parachinensis, a non-heading cultivar used as the recipient. The 63 CSSLs covered 87.95% of the B. rapa genome. Among them, 39 lines carried a single segment; 15 lines, two segments; and nine lines, three or more segments of the donor parent chromosomes. To verify the potential advantage of these CSSL lines, we used them to locate QTL for six morphology-related traits. A total of 58 QTL were located on eight chromosomes for all six traits: 17 for flowering time, 14 each for bolting time and plant height, 6 for plant diameter, 2 for leaf width, and 5 for flowering stalk diameter. Co-localized QTL were mainly distributed on eight genomic regions in A01, A02, A05, A06, A08, A09, and A10, present in the corresponding CSSLs. Moreover, new chromosomal fragments that harbored QTL were identified using the findings of previous studies. The CSSL population constructed in our study paves the way for fine mapping and cloning of candidate genes involved in late bolting, flowering, and plant architecture-related traits in B. rapa. Furthermore, it has great potential for future marker-aided gene/QTL pyramiding of other interesting traits in B. rapa breeding.

Enabling Routes of Road Network Constrained Movements as Mobile Service Context

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Christian Søndergaard

2007-01-01

With the continuing advances in wireless communications, geo-positioning, and portable electronics, an infrastructure is emerging that enables the delivery of on-line, location-enabled services to very large numbers of mobile users. A typical usage situation for mobile services is one characteriz...... vehicles traveling within a real road network are reported...... by a small screen and no keyboard, and by the service being only a secondary focus of the user. Under such circumstances, it is particularly important to deliver the "right" information and service at the right time, with as little user interaction as possible. This may be achieved by making services context...

Capacitive Coupling in Double-Circuit Transmission Lines

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zdenka Benesova

2004-01-01

Full Text Available The paper describes an algorithm for calculation of capacitances and charges on conductors in systems with earth wires and in double-circuit overhead lines with respect to phase arrangement. A balanced voltage system is considered. A suitable transposition of individual conductors enables to reduce the electric and magnetic fields in vicinity of overhead lines and to limit the inductive and capacitive linkage. The procedure is illustrated on examples the results of which lead to particular recommendations for designers.

Not just fear and sadness: meta-analytic evidence of pervasive emotion recognition deficits for facial and vocal expressions in psychopathy.

Science.gov (United States)

Dawel, Amy; O'Kearney, Richard; McKone, Elinor; Palermo, Romina

2012-11-01

The present meta-analysis aimed to clarify whether deficits in emotion recognition in psychopathy are restricted to certain emotions and modalities or whether they are more pervasive. We also attempted to assess the influence of other important variables: age, and the affective factor of psychopathy. A systematic search of electronic databases and a subsequent manual search identified 26 studies that included 29 experiments (N = 1376) involving six emotion categories (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise) across three modalities (facial, vocal, postural). Meta-analyses found evidence of pervasive impairments across modalities (facial and vocal) with significant deficits evident for several emotions (i.e., not only fear and sadness) in both adults and children/adolescents. These results are consistent with recent theorizing that the amygdala, which is believed to be dysfunctional in psychopathy, has a broad role in emotion processing. We discuss limitations of the available data that restrict the ability of meta-analysis to consider the influence of age and separate the sub-factors of psychopathy, highlighting important directions for future research. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Mining Emerging Patterns for Recognizing Activities of Multiple Users in Pervasive Computing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gu, Tao; Wu, Zhanqing; Wang, Liang

2009-01-01

Understanding and recognizing human activities from sensor readings is an important task in pervasive computing. Existing work on activity recognition mainly focuses on recognizing activities for a single user in a smart home environment. However, in real life, there are often multiple inhabitants...... activity models, and propose an Emerging Pattern based Multi-user Activity Recognizer (epMAR) to recognize both single-user and multiuser activities. We conduct our empirical studies by collecting real-world activity traces done by two volunteers over a period of two weeks in a smart home environment...... sensor readings in a home environment, and propose a novel pattern mining approach to recognize both single-user and multi-user activities in a unified solution. We exploit Emerging Pattern – a type of knowledge pattern that describes significant changes between classes of data – for constructing our...

Animated construction of line drawings

KAUST Repository

Fu, Hongbo

2011-12-01

Revealing the sketching sequence of a line drawing can be visually intriguing and used for video-based storytelling. Typically this is enabled based on tedious recording of artists\\' drawing process. We demonstrate that it is often possible to estimate a reasonable drawing order from a static line drawing with clearly defined shape geometry, which looks plausible to a human viewer. We map the key principles of drawing order from drawing cognition to computational procedures in our framework. Our system produces plausible animated constructions of input line drawings, with no or little user intervention. We test our algorithm on a range of input sketches, with varying degree of complexity and structure, and evaluate the results via a user study. We also present applications to gesture drawing synthesis and drawing animation creation especially in the context of video scribing.

Animated construction of line drawings

KAUST Repository

Fu, Hongbo

2011-12-01

Revealing the sketching sequence of a line drawing can be visually intriguing and used for video-based storytelling. Typically this is enabled based on tedious recording of artists\\' drawing process. We demonstrate that it is often possible to estimate a reasonable drawing order from a static line drawing with clearly defined shape geometry, which looks plausible to a human viewer. We map the key principles of drawing order from drawing cognition to computational procedures in our framework. Our system produces plausible animated constructions of input line drawings, with no or little user intervention. We test our algorithm on a range of input sketches, with varying degree of complexity and structure, and evaluate the results via a user study. We also present applications to gesture drawing synthesis and drawing animation creation especially in the context of video scribing. © 2011 ACM.

Global Prevalence of Autism and Other Pervasive Developmental Disorders

Science.gov (United States)

Elsabbagh, Mayada; Divan, Gauri; Koh, Yun-Joo; Kim, Young Shin; Kauchali, Shuaib; Marcín, Carlos; Montiel-Nava, Cecilia; Patel, Vikram; Paula, Cristiane S; Wang, Chongying; Yasamy, Mohammad Taghi; Fombonne, Eric

2012-01-01

We provide a systematic review of epidemiological surveys of autistic disorder and pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs) worldwide. A secondary aim was to consider the possible impact of geographic, cultural/ethnic, and socioeconomic factors on prevalence estimates and on clinical presentation of PDD. Based on the evidence reviewed, the median of prevalence estimates of autism spectrum disorders was 62/10 000. While existing estimates are variable, the evidence reviewed does not support differences in PDD prevalence by geographic region nor of a strong impact of ethnic/cultural or socioeconomic factors. However, power to detect such effects is seriously limited in existing data sets, particularly in low-income countries. While it is clear that prevalence estimates have increased over time and these vary in different neighboring and distant regions, these findings most likely represent broadening of the diagnostic concets, diagnostic switching from other developmental disabilities to PDD, service availability, and awareness of autistic spectrum disorders in both the lay and professional public. The lack of evidence from the majority of the world's population suggests a critical need for further research and capacity building in low- and middle-income countries. Autism Res 2012, 5: 160–179. © 2012 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. PMID:22495912

Pervasive refusal syndrome. Three German cases provide further illustration.

Science.gov (United States)

Jans, Thomas; Ball, Juliane; Preiss, Maike; Haberhausen, Michael; Warnke, Andreas; Renner, Tobias J

2011-09-01

Pervasive refusal syndrome (PRS) has been proposed as a new diagnostic entity among child and adolescent psychiatric disorders. It is characterized by a cluster of life-threatening symptoms including refusal of hood intake, decreased or complete lack of mobilization, and lack of communication as well as retreat from normal life activities. Active refusal to accept help as well as neglect of personal care have been core features of PRS in the limited number of cases reported in the last decade. There have, however; been cases with predominantly passive resistance, indicating the possibility that there may be a continuum from active refusal to passive resistance within PRS. Postulating this continuum allows for the integration of "depressive devitalization" -- a refusal syndrome mainly characterized by passive resistance -- into the concept of PRS. Here, three case vignettes of adolescent patients with PRS are presented. The patients' symptomatology can be allocated on this continuum of PRS. PRS and dissociative disorders are compared in greater detail and contrasted within this discussion of differential diagnoses at the poles of such a continuum. PRS is a useful diagnosis for cases involving symptoms of predominating refusal and retreat which cannot satisfactorily be classified by existing diagnostic categories, and which can mostly clearly be separated from dissociative disorder.

Artificial lateral line with biomimetic neuromasts to emulate fish sensing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yang Yingchen; Chen Nannan; Tucker, Craig; Hu Huan; Liu Chang; Nguyen, Nam; Lockwood, Michael; Jones, Douglas L; Bleckmann, Horst

2010-01-01

Hydrodynamic imaging using the lateral line plays a critical role in fish behavior. To engineer such a biologically inspired sensing system, we developed an artificial lateral line using MEMS (microelectromechanical system) technology and explored its localization capability. Arrays of biomimetic neuromasts constituted an artificial lateral line wrapped around a cylinder. A beamforming algorithm further enabled the artificial lateral line to image real-world hydrodynamic events in a 3D domain. We demonstrate that the artificial lateral line system can accurately localize an artificial dipole source and a natural tail-flicking crayfish under various conditions. The artificial lateral line provides a new sense to man-made underwater vehicles and marine robots so that they can sense like fish.

Synergy between Software Product Line and Intelligent Mobile Middleware

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Weishan; Hansen, Klaus Marius

2007-01-01

with OWL ontology reasoning enhanced BDI (belief-desire-intention) agents in an ongoing research project called PLIMM (product line enabled intelligent mobile middleware), in which Frame based software product line techniques are applied. Besides the advantages of a software product line, our approach can...... handle ontology evolution and keep all related assets in a consistent state. Ontology evolution is a problem that has not been addressed by current mobile middleware. Another advantage is the ability to configure Jadex BDI agents for different purpose and enhance agent intelligence by adding logic...

A Pervasive Parallel Processing Framework for Data Visualization and Analysis at Extreme Scale

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ma, Kwan-Liu [Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States)

2017-02-01

Most of today’s visualization libraries and applications are based off of what is known today as the visualization pipeline. In the visualization pipeline model, algorithms are encapsulated as “filtering” components with inputs and outputs. These components can be combined by connecting the outputs of one filter to the inputs of another filter. The visualization pipeline model is popular because it provides a convenient abstraction that allows users to combine algorithms in powerful ways. Unfortunately, the visualization pipeline cannot run effectively on exascale computers. Experts agree that the exascale machine will comprise processors that contain many cores. Furthermore, physical limitations will prevent data movement in and out of the chip (that is, between main memory and the processing cores) from keeping pace with improvements in overall compute performance. To use these processors to their fullest capability, it is essential to carefully consider memory access. This is where the visualization pipeline fails. Each filtering component in the visualization library is expected to take a data set in its entirety, perform some computation across all of the elements, and output the complete results. The process of iterating over all elements must be repeated in each filter, which is one of the worst possible ways to traverse memory when trying to maximize the number of executions per memory access. This project investigates a new type of visualization framework that exhibits a pervasive parallelism necessary to run on exascale machines. Our framework achieves this by defining algorithms in terms of functors, which are localized, stateless operations. Functors can be composited in much the same way as filters in the visualization pipeline. But, functors’ design allows them to be concurrently running on massive amounts of lightweight threads. Only with such fine-grained parallelism can we hope to fill the billions of threads we expect will be necessary for

Transtornos invasivos do desenvolvimento não-autísticos: síndrome de Rett, transtorno desintegrativo da infância e transtornos invasivos do desenvolvimento sem outra especificação Non-autistic pervasive developmental disorders: Rett syndrome, disintegrative disorder and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marcos T Mercadante

2006-05-01

Full Text Available A categoria "transtorno invasivos do desenvolvimento" inclui o autismo, a síndrome de Asperger, a síndrome de Rett, o transtorno desintegrativo da infância e uma categoria residual denominada transtornos invasivos do desenvolvimento sem outra especificação. Nesta revisão, a síndrome de Rett e o transtorno desintegrativo da infância, que são categorias bem definidas, serão discutidas, assim como as categorias não tão bem definidas que foram incluídas no grupo transtornos invasivos do desenvolvimento sem outra especificação. Diferentes propostas de categorização têm sido feitas, algumas baseadas em abordagem fenomenológica descritiva, outras baseadas em outras perspectivas teóricas, tais como a neuropsicologia. As propostas atuais são apresentadas e discutidas, seguidas por avaliações críticas sobre as vantagens e desvantagens desses conceitos.The category "Pervasive Developmental Disorders" includes autistic disorder, Asperger's syndrome, Rett's syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder, and a residual category, named pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified. In this review, Rett's syndrome and childhood disintegrative disorder, which are well-defined categories, will be discussed, as well as the not well defined categories that have been included in the Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified group. Different proposals of categorization have been created, some of which based on descriptive phenomenological approach, and others based upon other theoretical perspectives, such as neuropsychology. Current proposals are presented and discussed, followed by critical appraisals on the clinical advantages and disadvantages of these concepts.

Flexible Generation of Pervasive Web Services using OSGi Declarative Services and OWL Ontologies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Klaus Marius; Zhang, Weishan; Fernandes, Joao

2008-01-01

There is a growing trend to deploy web services in pervasive computing environments. Implementing web services on networked, embedded devices leads to a set of challenges, including productivity of development, efficiency of web services, and handling of variability and dependencies of hardware...... and software platforms. To address these challenges, we developed a web service compiler called Limbo, in which Web Ontology Language (OWL) ontologies are used to make the Limbo compiler aware of its compilation context such as device hardware and software details, platform dependencies, and resource....../power consumption. The ontologies are used to configure Limbo for generating resource-efficient web service code. The architecture of Limbo follows the Blackboard architectural style and Limbo is implemented using the OSGi Declarative Services component model. The component model provides high flexibility...

Orbifold line topology and the cosmic microwave background

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rathaus, Ben; Ben-David, Assaf; Itzhaki, Nissan, E-mail: ben.rathaus@gmail.com, E-mail: bd.assaf@gmail.com, E-mail: nitzhaki@post.tau.ac.il [Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv, 69978 (Israel)

2013-10-01

We extend our study of a universe with a non-classical stringy topology, and consider an orbifold line topology, R × R{sup 2}/Z{sub p}. This topology has a fixed line and identifies each point in space with p−1 other points. An observable imprint of an orbifold line on the CMB is the appearance of up to (p−1)/2 pairs of matching circles. Searching the WMAP data for matching circles, we can rule out an orbifold line topology with p up to 10, except for p = 8. While the significance of the peak at p = 8 varies between data releases of WMAP, it does not appear in Planck data, enabling us to rule out p = 8 as well.

Pretty Easy Pervasive Positioning

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Rene; Wind, Rico; Jensen, Christian Søndergaard

2009-01-01

With the increasing availability of positioning based on GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular technologies and the proliferation of mobile devices with GPS, Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity, ubiquitous positioning is becoming a reality. While offerings by companies such as Google, Skyhook, and Spotigo render...... positioning possible in outdoor settings, including urban environments with limited GPS coverage, they remain unable to offer accurate indoor positioning. We will demonstrate a software infrastructure that makes it easy for anybody to build support for accurate Wi-Fi based positioning in buildings. All...... that is needed is a building with Wi-Fi coverage, access to the building, a floor plan of the building, and a Wi-Fi enabled device. Specifically, we will explain the software infrastructure and the steps that must be completed to obtain support for positioning. And we will demonstrate the positioning obtained...

MGDS: Free, on-line, cutting-edge tools to enable the democratisation of geoscience data

Science.gov (United States)

Goodwillie, A. M.; Ryan, W. B.; O'Hara, S.; Ferrini, V.; Arko, R. A.; Coplan, J.; Chan, S.; Carbotte, S. M.; Nitsche, F. O.; Bonczkowski, J.; Morton, J. J.; Weissel, R.; Leung, A.

2010-12-01

The availability of user-friendly, effective cyber-information resources for accessing and manipulating geoscience data has grown rapidly in recent years. Based at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory the MGDS group has developed a number of free tools that have wide application across the geosciences for both educators and researchers. A simple web page (http://www.marine-geo.org/) allows users to search for and download many types of data by key word, geographical region, or published citation. The popular Create Maps and Grids function and the downloadable Google Earth-compatible KML files appeal to a wide user base. MGDS MediaBank galleries (http://media.marine-geo.org/) enable users to view and download compelling images that are purposefully selected for their educational value from NSF-funded field programs. GeoMapApp (http://www.geomapapp.org), a free map-based interactive tool that works on any machine, is increasingly being adopted across a broad suite of users from middle school students to university researchers. GeoMapApp allows users to plot, manipulate and present data in an intuitive geographical reference frame. GeoMapApp offers a convenient way to explore the wide range of built-in data sets, to quickly generate maps and images that aid visualisation and, when importing their own gridded and tabular data sets, to access the same rich built-in functionality. A user guide, short multi-media tutorials, and webinar are available on-line. The regularly-updated Global Multi-Resolution Topography (GMRT) Synthesis is used as the default GeoMapApp base map and is an increasingly popular means to rapidly create location maps. Additionally, the layer manager offers a fast way to overlay and compare multiple data sets and is augmented by the ability to alter layer transparency so that underlying layers become visible. Examples of GeoMapApp built-in data sets include high-resolution land topography and ocean floor bathymetry derived from satellite and multi

Diagnostic boundaries of autism disorder vs pervasive developmental disorder nos comparative observational study and literature review.

Science.gov (United States)

Carigi, Tiziana; Muratori, Filippo; Termine, Cristiano; Veggiotti, Pierangelo; Derhemi, Ledhina; Di Nardo, Roberta; Rossi, Giorgio; Balottin, Umberto

2014-01-01

Diagnosis of pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs), and above all diagnosis of the different PDD subtypes, is an ongoing challenge in psychopathology. Application of categorical criteria is complex and problematic in the clinical field where the boundaries dividing some of the PDD entities are blurred, creating particular problems for the clinician. A dimensional clinical approach, considering autistic symptom severity, level of functioning, developmental characteristics and symptoms other than the ones typically observed in autism, may be a more suitable approach in the clinical field and could provide the clinician treating these disorders with empirical guidance. To identify the clinical features that might differentiate the PDD subtypes, we conducted a comparative study in a clinical sample of children affected by autism disorder (AD) or pervasive developmental disorders not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) and a mini critical review of the available literature addressing clinical and psychopathological differences between the two subtypes. The results of both our study and our literature review seem to show little support for the current PDD subtypes. In such a framework, the most significant element in clinical practice appears to be a deep knowledge of the characteristics of the individual in question. By adopting a broad and multi-faceted perspective, it becomes possible to define the most effective rehabilitation treatment. This applies particularly to the pharmacological treatment, since, to date, no specific therapies for PDDs are known and the choice of pharmacotherapy can be decided only on the basis of the patient's general profile and specific features.

Uma Abordagem Para o Desenvolvimento de Aplicações no Cuidado de Saúde Pervasivo Através do Uso de Arquétipos (An Approach to Developing Applications in the Pervasive Healthcare Environment through the use of Archetypes)

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cardoso de Moraes, J.L.; Lopes de Souza, Wanderley; Ferreira Pires, Luis; Cavalini, Luciana Tricai; do Prado, Antonio Francisco

2013-01-01

This paper proposes an approach to develop applications in the Pervasive Healthcare environment, through the use of Archetypes. Materials and methods: Pervasive Healthcare focuses on the use of new technologies, tools, and services, to help patients to play a more active role in the treatment of

Laser cutting system in bridge fabricating line; Kyoryo seisaku line ni okeru laser no setsudan system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kitaguchi, Y.; Yokotani, K. [Hitachi Zosen Corp., Osaka (Japan)

1994-11-01

This paper describes the laser cutting system established at a new advanced plant that was constructed by Hitachi Shipbuilding and Engineering Co., Ltd. in 1993. At the plant, the cutting line consists of four NC cutting lines: the plasma cutting machine, gas cutting machine, frame planer, and laser cutting machine. The laser cutting machine is used to cut complex shapes of relatively thin (6 - 16 mm) materials with high accuracy. The machine consists of a 3 kW CO2 laser oscillator mounted gantry type NC cutter and a slat conveyor of about 30 m long, with the maximum cutting width of 3.6 m. The NC cutting machine is provided with the automatic printing function using NC data, marking function, scheduled operation function, steel plate detector, and coordinate rotation function, etc. These functions enable unattended operation of the machine to cut multiple materials. This NC laser cutting line has the same performance data collection function for data during the operating time as other production lines. Therefore, the NC laser cutting line can be subjected to the realtime centralized control together with the other lines. All these technologies have provided high accuracy and efficiency for production as well as an environment in which many female operators can successfully work. 10 figs., 4 tabs.

Pervasive Radio Mapping of Industrial Environments Using a Virtual Reality Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Nedelcu, Adrian-Valentin; Machedon-Pisu, Mihai; Talaba, Doru

2015-01-01

Wireless communications in industrial environments are seriously affected by reliability and performance issues, due to the multipath nature of obstacles within such environments. Special attention needs to be given to planning a wireless industrial network, so as to find the optimum spatial position for each of the nodes within the network, and especially for key nodes such as gateways or cluster heads. The aim of this paper is to present a pervasive radio mapping system which captures (senses) data regarding the radio spectrum, using low-cost wireless sensor nodes. This data is the input of radio mapping algorithms that generate electromagnetic propagation profiles. Such profiles are used for identifying obstacles within the environment and optimum propagation pathways. With the purpose of further optimizing the radio planning process, the authors propose a novel human-network interaction (HNI) paradigm that uses 3D virtual environments in order to display the radio maps in a natural, easy-to-perceive manner. The results of this approach illustrate its added value to the field of radio resource planning of industrial communication systems. PMID:26167533

Pervasive Radio Mapping of Industrial Environments Using a Virtual Reality Approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Nedelcu, Adrian-Valentin; Machedon-Pisu, Mihai; Duguleana, Mihai; Talaba, Doru

2015-01-01

Wireless communications in industrial environments are seriously affected by reliability and performance issues, due to the multipath nature of obstacles within such environments. Special attention needs to be given to planning a wireless industrial network, so as to find the optimum spatial position for each of the nodes within the network, and especially for key nodes such as gateways or cluster heads. The aim of this paper is to present a pervasive radio mapping system which captures (senses) data regarding the radio spectrum, using low-cost wireless sensor nodes. This data is the input of radio mapping algorithms that generate electromagnetic propagation profiles. Such profiles are used for identifying obstacles within the environment and optimum propagation pathways. With the purpose of further optimizing the radio planning process, the authors propose a novel human-network interaction (HNI) paradigm that uses 3D virtual environments in order to display the radio maps in a natural, easy-to-perceive manner. The results of this approach illustrate its added value to the field of radio resource planning of industrial communication systems.

Pervasive Radio Mapping of Industrial Environments Using a Virtual Reality Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adrian-Valentin Nedelcu

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Wireless communications in industrial environments are seriously affected by reliability and performance issues, due to the multipath nature of obstacles within such environments. Special attention needs to be given to planning a wireless industrial network, so as to find the optimum spatial position for each of the nodes within the network, and especially for key nodes such as gateways or cluster heads. The aim of this paper is to present a pervasive radio mapping system which captures (senses data regarding the radio spectrum, using low-cost wireless sensor nodes. This data is the input of radio mapping algorithms that generate electromagnetic propagation profiles. Such profiles are used for identifying obstacles within the environment and optimum propagation pathways. With the purpose of further optimizing the radio planning process, the authors propose a novel human-network interaction (HNI paradigm that uses 3D virtual environments in order to display the radio maps in a natural, easy-to-perceive manner. The results of this approach illustrate its added value to the field of radio resource planning of industrial communication systems.

Propagation stability of self-reconstructing Bessel beams enables contrast-enhanced imaging in thick media.

Science.gov (United States)

Fahrbach, Florian O; Rohrbach, Alexander

2012-01-17

Laser beams that can self-reconstruct their initial beam profile even in the presence of massive phase perturbations are able to propagate deeper into inhomogeneous media. This ability has crucial advantages for light sheet-based microscopy in thick media, such as cell clusters, embryos, skin or brain tissue or plants, as well as scattering synthetic materials. A ring system around the central intensity maximum of a Bessel beam enables its self-reconstruction, but at the same time illuminates out-of-focus regions and deteriorates image contrast. Here we present a detection method that minimizes the negative effect of the ring system. The beam's propagation stability along one straight line enables the use of a confocal line principle, resulting in a significant increase in image contrast. The axial resolution could be improved by nearly 100% relative to the standard light-sheet techniques using scanned Gaussian beams, while demonstrating self-reconstruction also for high propagation depths.

A Sense of Security in Pervasive Computing—Is the Light on When the Refrigerator Door Is Closed?

Science.gov (United States)

Pagter, Jakob Illeborg; Petersen, Marianne Graves

In this paper, we investigate how existing theoretical contributions on usable security can serve to guide the design of a specific system. We illustrate how going through this theoretically informed, concrete design process, also provides the basis for complementing existing theoretical contributions. The system we have designed is a system taking advantage of pervasive computing technology to offer hotel guests access to their personal, digital materials while in a hotel room. The design is based on two ideas novel to usable security, namely falsification and the singleton invariant..

A Technology-Assisted Learning Setup as Assessment Supplement for Three Persons with a Diagnosis of Post-Coma Vegetative State and Pervasive Motor Impairment

Science.gov (United States)

Lancioni, Giulio E.; Singh, Nirbhay N.; O'Reilly, Mark F.; Sigafoos, Jeff; Buonocunto, Francesca; Sacco, Valentina; Colonna, Fabio; Navarro, Jorge; Lanzilotti, Crocifissa; Bosco, Andrea; Megna, Gianfranco; De Tommaso, Marina

2009-01-01

Post-coma persons in an apparent condition of vegetative state and pervasive motor impairment pose serious problems in terms of assessment and intervention options. A technology-based learning assessment procedure might serve for them as a diagnostic supplement with possible implications for rehabilitation intervention. The learning assessment…

Pervasive phosphorus limitation of tree species but not communities in tropical forests

Science.gov (United States)

Turner, Benjamin L.; Brenes-Arguedas, Tania; Condit, Richard

2018-03-01

Phosphorus availability is widely assumed to limit primary productivity in tropical forests, but support for this paradigm is equivocal. Although biogeochemical theory predicts that phosphorus limitation should be prevalent on old, strongly weathered soils, experimental manipulations have failed to detect a consistent response to phosphorus addition in species-rich lowland tropical forests. Here we show, by quantifying the growth of 541 tropical tree species across a steep natural phosphorus gradient in Panama, that phosphorus limitation is widespread at the level of individual species and strengthens markedly below a threshold of two parts per million exchangeable soil phosphate. However, this pervasive species-specific phosphorus limitation does not translate into a community-wide response, because some species grow rapidly on infertile soils despite extremely low phosphorus availability. These results redefine our understanding of nutrient limitation in diverse plant communities and have important implications for attempts to predict the response of tropical forests to environmental change.

Cognitive Profiles of Adults with Asperger's Disorder, High-Functioning Autism, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified Based on the WAIS-III

Science.gov (United States)

Kanai, Chieko; Tani, Masayuki; Hashimoto, Ryuichiro; Yamada, Takashi; Ota, Haruhisa; Watanabe, Hiromi; Iwanami, Akira; Kato, Nobumasa

2012-01-01

Little is known about the cognitive profiles of high-functioning Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) in adults based on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale III (WAIS-III). We examined cognitive profiles of adults with no intellectual disability (IQ greater than 70), and in adults with Asperger's disorder (AS; n = 47), high-functioning autism (HFA;…

Modeling and interpretation of line observations*

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kamp Inga

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Models for the interpretation of line observations from protoplanetary disks are summarized. The spectrum ranges from 1D LTE slab models to 2D thermo-chemical radiative transfer models and their use depends largely on the type/nature of observational data that is analyzed. I discuss the various types of observational data and their interpretation in the context of disk physical and chemical properties. The most simple spatially and spectral unresolved data are line fluxes, which can be interpreted using so-called Boltzmann diagrams. The interpretation is often tricky due to optical depth and non-LTE effects and requires care. Line profiles contain kinematic information and thus indirectly the spatial origin of the emission. Using series of line profiles, we can for example deduce radial temperature gradients in disks (CO pure rotational ladder. Spectro-astrometry of e.g. CO ro-vibrational line profiles probes the disk structure in the 1–30 AU region, where planet formation through core accretion should be most efficient. Spatially and spectrally resolved line images from (submm interferometers are the richest datasets we have to date and they enable us to unravel exciting details of the radial and vertical disk structure such as winds and asymmetries.

The Stability of Comorbid Psychiatric Disorders: A 7 Year Follow Up of Children with Pervasive Developmental Disorder--Not Otherwise Specified

Science.gov (United States)

Verheij, C.; Louwerse, A.; van der Ende, J.; Eussen, M. L. J. M.; Van Gool, A. R.; Verheij, F.; Verhulst, F. C.; Greaves-Lord, K.

2015-01-01

The current study was a 7-year follow-up of 74 6-12 year old children with Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified. We examined the rates and 7 year stability of comorbid psychiatric diagnoses as ascertained with the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children: Parent version at ages 6-12 and again at ages 12-20. Also, we examined…

Distributed Leadership And The Visibility/invisibility Paradox In On-line Communities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jill Jameson

2011-01-01

Full Text Available This paper analyzes the role of distributed leadership in three on-line communities, reflecting on an observed visibility/invisibility paradox in leadership within these communities. Leaders who downplay their seniority and assume a degree of invisibility, allocating discretionary powers to subordinate levels in an organizational hierarchy, may facilitate the emergence of distributed leadership. Yet, simultaneously, leader-led relations are enabled by high leadership visibility. This paradox—that leaders need to be both highly visible and also invisible, or hands-off, when the occasion requires it—was derived from prior research into e-learning communities and tested in the analysis of discussions from on-line communities using a case study pattern-matching process. The operation of both visibility and invisibility in leadership is a key issue for enabling effective collaborations in distributed leadership situations based on trust. Such collaboration fosters positive group interaction and participative decision making in a consensus facilitated through leadership distribution amongst on-line community members.

Resilient organizations: matrix model and service line management.

Science.gov (United States)

Westphal, Judith A

2005-09-01

Resilient organizations modify structures to meet the demands of the marketplace. The author describes a structure that enables multihospital organizations to innovate and rapidly adapt to changes. Service line management within a matrix model is an evolving organizational structure for complex systems in which nurses are pivotal members.

Semantic Brokering of Multimedia Contents for Smart Delivery of Ubiquitous Services in Pervasive Environments

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alba Amato

2012-12-01

Full Text Available With the proliferation of modern mobile devices having the capability to interact each other and with the environment in a transparent manner, there is an increase in the development of those applications that are specifically designed for pervasive and ubiquitous environments. Those applications are able to provide a service of interest for the user that depends on context information, such as the user's position, his preferences, the capability of the device and its available resources. Services have to respond in a rational way in manydifferent situations choosing the actions with the best expected result by the user, so making environment not only more connected and efficient, but smarter. Here we present a semantic framework that provides the technology for the development of intelligent, context aware service.

On Discovery of Gathering Patterns from Trajectories

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zheng, Kai; Zheng, Yu; Yuan, Jing

2013-01-01

The increasing pervasiveness of location-acquisition technologies has enabled collection of huge amount of trajectories for almost any kind of moving objects. Discovering useful patterns from their movement behaviours can convey valuable knowledge to a variety of critical applications. In this li......The increasing pervasiveness of location-acquisition technologies has enabled collection of huge amount of trajectories for almost any kind of moving objects. Discovering useful patterns from their movement behaviours can convey valuable knowledge to a variety of critical applications...

The Activity-Based Computing Project - A Software Architecture for Pervasive Computing Final Report

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bardram, Jakob Eyvind

. Special attention should be drawn to publication [25], which gives an overview of the ABC project to the IEEE Pervasive Computing community; the ACM CHI 2006 [19] paper that documents the implementation of the ABC technology; and the ACM ToCHI paper [12], which is the main publication of the project......, documenting all of the project’s four objectives. All of these publication venues are top-tier journals and conferences within computer science. From a business perspective, the project had the objective of incorporating relevant parts of the ABC technology into the products of Medical Insight, which has been...... done. Moreover, partly based on the research done in the ABC project, the company Cetrea A/S has been founded, which incorporate ABC concepts and technologies in its products. The concepts of activity-based computing have also been researched in cooperation with IBM Research, and the ABC project has...

THE ASSESSMENT OF INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES BETWEEN YOUNG-CHILDREN WITH A PERVASIVE DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDER BY MEANS OF BEHAVIOR SCALES WHICH ARE DERIVED FROM DIRECT OBSERVATION

NARCIS (Netherlands)

ALTHAUS, M; MINDERAA, RB; DIENSKE, H

Data obtained by direct observation of 112 3-6-year-old normal children and 31 children with a pervasive developmental disorder aged 3-6 were used to construct behaviour scales by means of simultaneous component analysis. This is a technique for finding behaviour clusters (components) common to

Wireless Sensor Network for Electric Transmission Line Monitoring

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Alphenaar, Bruce

2009-06-30

Generally, federal agencies tasked to oversee power grid reliability are dependent on data from grid infrastructure owners and operators in order to obtain a basic level of situational awareness. Since there are many owners and operators involved in the day-to-day functioning of the power grid, the task of accessing, aggregating and analyzing grid information from these sources is not a trivial one. Seemingly basic tasks such as synchronizing data timestamps between many different data providers and sources can be difficult as evidenced during the post-event analysis of the August 2003 blackout. In this project we investigate the efficacy and cost effectiveness of deploying a network of wireless power line monitoring devices as a method of independently monitoring key parts of the power grid as a complement to the data which is currently available to federal agencies from grid system operators. Such a network is modeled on proprietary power line monitoring technologies and networks invented, developed and deployed by Genscape, a Louisville, Kentucky based real-time energy information provider. Genscape measures transmission line power flow using measurements of electromagnetic fields under overhead high voltage transmission power lines in the United States and Europe. Opportunities for optimization of the commercial power line monitoring technology were investigated in this project to enable lower power consumption, lower cost and improvements to measurement methodologies. These optimizations were performed in order to better enable the use of wireless transmission line monitors in large network deployments (perhaps covering several thousand power lines) for federal situational awareness needs. Power consumption and cost reduction were addressed by developing a power line monitor using a low power, low cost wireless telemetry platform known as the ''Mote''. Motes were first developed as smart sensor nodes in wireless mesh networking applications

Imitation and communication skills development in children with pervasive developmental disorders

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrea De Giacomo

2009-06-01

Full Text Available Andrea De Giacomo1, Claudia Portoghese1, Domenico Martinelli2, Isabella Fanizza1, Luciano L’Abate3, Lucia Margari11Child Neurological and Psychiatric Unit, Department of Neurological and Psychiatric sciences, University of Bari, Italy; 2Department of Biomedical science and Oncology, University of Bari, Italy; 3Department of Psychology, Georgia State University Abstract: This study evaluates the correlation between failure to develop spontaneous imitation and language skills in pervasive developmental disorders. Sixty-four children between the age of 3 and 8 years were assessed using the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R, the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS, and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS, as well as direct observation of imitation. The sample was subdivided into a verbal and a nonverbal group. Analysis of mean scores on the CARS “imitation” items and of ADI-R “spontaneous imitation” and “pointing to express interest” revealed a statistically significant difference between verbal and nonverbal groups, with more severe impairment/higher scores in the nonverbal than the verbal group. These results suggest that nonverbal children have specifically impaired imitation and pointing skills.Keywords: autism, imitation, communication, language, pointing

Prevalence of pervasive developmental disorders in preschool children in the UAE.

Science.gov (United States)

Eapen, Valsamma; Mabrouk, Abdul Azim; Zoubeidi, Taoufik; Yunis, Feisal

2007-06-01

Available evidence from the literature suggests that the prevalence of autistic disorder may be on the rise world wide, but no prevalence studies have been carried out till date in the Arabian Gulf region. A representative random sample of 694 three-year-old United Arab Emirates national children was evaluated in a two-stage study in the community. In the first stage, using Autism Screening Questionnaire, 58 per 10,000 children were noted to have autistic features. In the second stage using clinical interview, the weighted prevalence was estimated to be 29 per 10,000 for a DSM-IV diagnosis of pervasive developmental disorder (PDD). However, none of these children had been diagnosed prior to the study. Presence of autistic features was associated with male gender, presence of behavioural problems and a family history of developmental delay. The rate of PDD observed in the UAE is comparable with that reported from western countries. However, the lack of recognition of these disorders suggests the need for a comprehensive screening program, as early diagnosis can open the door for early intervention which in turn may improve the prognosis.

 A Sense of Security in Pervasive Computing - is the light on when the refrigerator door is closed?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petersen, Marianne Graves; Pagter, Jakob Illeborg

2007-01-01

contributions. The system we have designed in a system taking advantage of pervasive computing technology to offer hotel guests acces to their personal, digital materials while in a hotel room. The design is based on two ideas novel to usable security, namely falsification and the singleton invariant.......In this paper, we investigate how existing theoretical contributions on usable security can serve to guide the design of a specific system. We illustrate how going through this theoretically informed, concrete design process, also provides the basis for complementing existing theoretical...

Service architecting and dynamic composition in pervasive smart ecosystems for the Internet of things based on sensor network technology

OpenAIRE

Familiar Cabero, Miguel Santos

2014-01-01

Why pervasive awareness and Ambient Intelligence are perceived by a great part of the academia and industry as a massive revolution in the short-term? In our best knowledge, a cornerstone of this thought is based on the fact that the ultimate nature of the smart environment paradigm is not in the technology itself, but on a people-centered approach. Perhaps, is in this apparently simple conception where precisely lies the boldness of this promising vision, which has been consolidated in recen...

Moving contact lines on vibrating surfaces

Science.gov (United States)

Solomenko, Zlatko; Spelt, Peter; Scott, Julian

2017-11-01

Large-scale simulations of flows with moving contact lines for realistic conditions generally requires a subgrid scale model (analyses based on matched asymptotics) to account for the unresolved part of the flow, given the large range of length scales involved near contact lines. Existing models for the interface shape in the contact-line region are primarily for steady flows on homogeneous substrates, with encouraging results in 3D simulations. Introduction of complexities would require further investigation of the contact-line region, however. Here we study flows with moving contact lines on planar substrates subject to vibrations, with applications in controlling wetting/dewetting. The challenge here is to determine the change in interface shape near contact lines due to vibrations. To develop further insight, 2D direct numerical simulations (wherein the flow is resolved down to an imposed slip length) have been performed to enable comparison with asymptotic theory, which is also developed further. Perspectives will also be presented on the final objective of the work, which is to develop a subgrid scale model that can be utilized in large-scale simulations. The authors gratefully acknowledge the ANR for financial support (ANR-15-CE08-0031) and the meso-centre FLMSN for use of computational resources. This work was Granted access to the HPC resources of CINES under the allocation A0012B06893 made by GENCI.

Pervasive developmental disorder in the children of immigrant parents: comparison of different assessment instruments

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Milena Pereira Ponde

2013-11-01

Full Text Available The objective of this study was to describe how the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS behaves in relation to the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS and to clinical diagnosis based on the criteria defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4 th Edition (DSM-IV for children of immigrant parents. Forty-nine children of parents who had immigrated to Canada were evaluated. In this sample, the ADOS and the DSM-IV showed complete agreement. Using the standard cut-off point of 30, the CARS showed high specificity and poor sensitivity. The study proposes a cut-off point for the CARS that would include pervasive developmental disorder – not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS. Reducing the cut-off point to 20/21 increased the specificity of the instrument for this group of children without significantly reducing its sensitivity.

[Gender dysphoria in pervasive developmental disorders].

Science.gov (United States)

Tateno, Masaru; Ikeda, Hiroshi; Saito, Toshikazu

2011-01-01

Pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) are characterized by two essential symptoms: impairment in social interaction, and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities. PDD include autistic disorder, Asperger's disorder, and PDD-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS). These three disorders are sometimes termed autism spectrum disorders. A recent epidemiological survey demonstrated that the rate of PDD may be almost 1% and that many PDD cases might not be diagnosed properly in childhood. Erik Erikson described eight stages of psychosocial development through which a normally developing human should pass from infancy to adulthood. In the theory, an adolescent shows 'Identity vs. Role Confusion'. It has been reported that individuals with PDD often have identity crises which sometimes include gender dysphoria. This phenomenon might be related to the so-called identity diffusion in youth. When they reach their young youth, it has been said that subjects with PDD realize their uniqueness and differences compared to others, and, as a result, they may develop confusion of identity which could be exhibited as gender identity disorder. A recent study demonstrated that, amongst 204 children and adolescents who visited a GID clinic in the Netherlands, 7.8% were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders after a careful diagnostic procedure by a multi-disciplinary team. Taken together, PDD and GID seem closely related to each other. In this paper, we present four PDD cases with gender dysphoria and related symptoms: 1) a girl with PDD who repeatedly asserted gender identity disorder (GID) symptoms in response to social isolation at school, 2) a junior high school boy with PDD and transvestism, 3) a boy diagnosed with Asperger's disorder who developed a disturbance of sexual orientation, and 4) a boy with Asperger's disorder and comorbid childhood GID. Many of the clinical symptoms related to gender dysphoria might be explained by the

The process of patient enablement in general practice nurse consultations: a grounded theory study.

Science.gov (United States)

Desborough, Jane; Banfield, Michelle; Phillips, Christine; Mills, Jane

2017-05-01

The aim of this study was to gain insight into the process of patient enablement in general practice nursing consultations. Enhanced roles for general practice nurses may benefit patients through a range of mechanisms, one of which may be increasing patient enablement. In studies with general practitioners enhanced patient enablement has been associated with increases in self-efficacy and skill development. This study used a constructivist grounded theory design. In-depth interviews were conducted with 16 general practice nurses and 23 patients from 21 general practices between September 2013 - March 2014. Data generation and analysis were conducted concurrently using constant comparative analysis and theoretical sampling focussing on the process and outcomes of patient enablement. Use of the storyline technique supported theoretical coding and integration of the data into a theoretical model. A clearly defined social process that fostered and optimised patient enablement was constructed. The theory of 'developing enabling healthcare partnerships between nurses and patients in general practice' incorporates three stages: triggering enabling healthcare partnerships, tailoring care and the manifestation of patient enablement. Patient enablement was evidenced through: 1. Patients' understanding of their unique healthcare requirements informing their health seeking behaviours and choices; 2. Patients taking an increased lead in their partnership with a nurse and seeking choices in their care and 3. Patients getting health care that reflected their needs, preferences and goals. This theoretical model is in line with a patient-centred model of health care and is particularly suited to patients with chronic disease. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Nonadaptive radiation: Pervasive diet specialization by drift in scale insects?

Science.gov (United States)

Hardy, Nate B; Peterson, Daniel A; Normark, Benjamin B

2016-10-01

At least half of metazoan species are herbivorous insects. Why are they so diverse? Most herbivorous insects feed on few plant species, and adaptive host specialization is often invoked to explain their diversification. Nevertheless, it is possible that the narrow host ranges of many herbivorous insects are nonadaptive. Here, we test predictions of this hypothesis with comparative phylogenetic analyses of scale insects, a group for which there appear to be few host-use trade-offs that would select against polyphagy, and for which passive wind-dispersal should make host specificity costly. We infer a strong positive relationship between host range and diversification rate, and a marked asymmetry in cladogenetic changes in diet breadth. These results are consonant with a system of pervasive nonadaptive host specialization in which small, drift- and extinction-prone populations are frequently isolated from persistent and polyphagous source populations. They also contrast with the negative relationship between diet breadth and taxonomic diversification that has been estimated in butterflies, a disparity that likely stems from differences in the average costs and benefits of host specificity and generalism in scale insects versus butterflies. Our results indicate the potential for nonadaptive processes to be important to diet-breadth evolution and taxonomic diversification across herbivorous insects. © 2016 The Author(s). Evolution © 2016 The Society for the Study of Evolution.

Play in two societies: pervasiveness of process, specificity of structure.

Science.gov (United States)

Bornstein, M H; Haynes, O M; Pascual, L; Painter, K M; Galperín, C

1999-01-01

The present study compared Argentine (N = 39) and U.S. (N = 43) children and their mothers on exploratory, symbolic, and social play and interaction when children were 20 months of age. Patterns of cultural similarity and difference emerged. In both cultures, boys engaged in more exploratory play than girls, and girls engaged in more symbolic play than boys; mothers of boys engaged in more exploratory play than mothers of girls, and mothers of girls engaged in more symbolic play than mothers of boys. Moreover, in both cultures, individual variation in children's exploratory and symbolic play was specifically associated with individual variation in mothers' exploratory and symbolic play, respectively. Between cultures, U.S. children and their mothers engaged in more exploratory play, whereas Argentine children and their mothers engaged in more symbolic play. Moreover, Argentine mothers exceeded U.S. mothers in social play and verbal praise of their children. During an early period of mental and social growth, general developmental processes in play may be pervasive, but dyadic and cultural structures are apparently specific. Overall, Argentine and U.S. dyads utilized different modes of exploration, representation, and interaction--emphasizing "other-directed" acts of pretense versus "functional" and "combinatorial" exploration, for example--and these individual and dyadic allocentric versus idiocentric stresses accord with larger cultural concerns of collectivism versus individualism in the two societies.

On-line moisture analysis

CERN Document Server

Cutmore, N G

2002-01-01

Measurement of the moisture content of iron ore has become a key issue for controlling moisture additions for dust suppression. In most cases moisture content is still determined by manual or automatic sampling of the ore stream, followed by conventional laboratory analysis by oven drying. Although this procedure enables the moisture content to be routinely monitored, it is too slow for control purposes. This has generated renewed interest in on-line techniques for the accurate and rapid measurement of moisture in iron ore on conveyors. Microwave transmission techniques have emerged over the past 40 years as the dominant technology for on-line measurement of moisture in bulk materials, including iron ores. Alternative technologies have their limitations. Infra-red analysers are used in a variety of process industries, but rely on the measurement of absorption by moisture in a very thin surface layer. Consequently such probes may be compromised by particle size effects and biased presentation of the bulk mater...

Anchoring device enabling relaxation of a multi-strand prestressing cable

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1979-01-01

Anchoring device, in a concrete structure, for a multi-strand prestressing cable, enabling the cable to be stressed or relaxed, comprising: (a) an axisymmetrical block, fitted with channels to enable the cable strands to be stressed and anchored through this block, (b) a duct with its opening splayed to a diameter greater than that of the block over a length corresponding to the stretching of the cable when being stressed, (c) a round bearing plate on the concrete around the expanded hole of the duct and (d) at least one intermediate removable bearing piece coming between the edge of the block and the internal edge of the plate. The removable parts are crown sectors of which the opposite bearing faces of each are slanted with respect to the centre line of the block and orientated in the same direction so as to transmit the cable stress at an angle from the block to the edge of the bearing plate [fr

Hard Times for HRD, Lean Times for Learning?: Workplace Participatory Practices as Enablers of Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Warhurst, Russell

2013-01-01

Purpose: This article aims to show how in times of austerity when formal HRD activity is curtailed and yet the need for learning is greatest, non-formal learning methods such as workplace involvement and participation initiated by line managers can compensate by enabling the required learning and change. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative…

EnableATIS strategy assessment.

Science.gov (United States)

2014-02-01

Enabling Advanced Traveler Information Systems (EnableATIS) is the traveler information component of the Dynamic Mobility Application (DMA) program. The objective of : the EnableATIS effort is to foster transformative traveler information application...

Generation of genome-modified Drosophila cell lines using SwAP.

Science.gov (United States)

Franz, Alexandra; Brunner, Erich; Basler, Konrad

2017-10-02

The ease of generating genetically modified animals and cell lines has been markedly increased by the recent development of the versatile CRISPR/Cas9 tool. However, while the isolation of isogenic cell populations is usually straightforward for mammalian cell lines, the generation of clonal Drosophila cell lines has remained a longstanding challenge, hampered by the difficulty of getting Drosophila cells to grow at low densities. Here, we describe a highly efficient workflow to generate clonal Cas9-engineered Drosophila cell lines using a combination of cell pools, limiting dilution in conditioned medium and PCR with allele-specific primers, enabling the efficient selection of a clonal cell line with a suitable mutation profile. We validate the protocol by documenting the isolation, selection and verification of eight independently Cas9-edited armadillo mutant Drosophila cell lines. Our method provides a powerful and simple workflow that improves the utility of Drosophila cells for genetic studies with CRISPR/Cas9.

[The effect of parent training program on children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders and/or pervasive developmental disorders].

Science.gov (United States)

Motoyama, Kazunori; Matsuzaka, Tetsuo; Nagaoka, Tamao; Matsuo, Mitsuhiro

2012-07-01

Mothers of 18 children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders (AD/HD) and 6 with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) underwent a parent training (PT) program. After the program, the Beck Depression Inventory- II (BDI - II) score, which indicates parenting stress, significantly decreased from 15 to 8 (p=0.036). A total of 22 mothers had increased parenting self-esteem, and better parent-child relationships were noted in these cases. An analysis of children's behavior by using Achenbach's Child Behavior Checklist showed that introversion tendency, physical failure, aggressive behavior, and extroversion score improved significantly after PT (pparenting skills of mothers and adaptive behaviors of children.

Infancy predictors of hyperkinetic and pervasive developmental disorders at ages 5-7 years

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Elberling, Hanne; Linneberg, Allan; Olsen, Else Marie

2014-01-01

of autism spectrum disorders were problems of oral-motor development OR 5.02 (95% CI: 1.63-15.42) and overall development OR 4.24 (95% CI: 1.35-13.33). A deviant pattern of activity and interests were predictive of autism spectrum disorder, OR 5.34 (95% CI 1.45-19.70) and hyperkinetic disorder, OR 4.71 (95......% CI: 1.28-17.39). Hyperkinetic disorder was furthermore predicted by mother-infant relationship problems, OR 8.07 (95% CI: 2.90-22.47). The significant associations between infant developmental problems and autism spectrum disorders persisted in multiple logistic regression analyses controlled.......20 (95% CI: 1.55-17.47). No significant infancy predictors were found regarding emotional and behavioural disorders at age 5-7 years. CONCLUSION: Predictors of autism spectrum/pervasive developmental disorders and hyperkinetic disorders at child age 5-7 years were identified between birth and child age...

Coiled transmission line pulse generators

Science.gov (United States)

McDonald, Kenneth Fox

2010-11-09

Methods and apparatus are provided for fabricating and constructing solid dielectric "Coiled Transmission Line" pulse generators in radial or axial coiled geometries. The pour and cure fabrication process enables a wide variety of geometries and form factors. The volume between the conductors is filled with liquid blends of monomers, polymers, oligomers, and/or cross-linkers and dielectric powders; and then cured to form high field strength and high dielectric constant solid dielectric transmission lines that intrinsically produce ideal rectangular high voltage pulses when charged and switched into matched impedance loads. Voltage levels may be increased by Marx and/or Blumlein principles incorporating spark gap or, preferentially, solid state switches (such as optically triggered thyristors) which produce reliable, high repetition rate operation. Moreover, these Marxed pulse generators can be DC charged and do not require additional pulse forming circuitry, pulse forming lines, transformers, or an a high voltage spark gap output switch. The apparatus accommodates a wide range of voltages, impedances, pulse durations, pulse repetition rates, and duty cycles. The resulting mobile or flight platform friendly cylindrical geometric configuration is much more compact, light-weight, and robust than conventional linear geometries, or pulse generators constructed from conventional components. Installing additional circuitry may accommodate optional pulse shape improvements. The Coiled Transmission Lines can also be connected in parallel to decrease the impedance, or in series to increase the pulse length.

An Algorithm to Compress Line-transition Data for Radiative-transfer Calculations

Science.gov (United States)

Cubillos, Patricio E.

2017-11-01

Molecular line-transition lists are an essential ingredient for radiative-transfer calculations. With recent databases now surpassing the billion-line mark, handling them has become computationally prohibitive, due to both the required processing power and memory. Here I present a temperature-dependent algorithm to separate strong from weak line transitions, reformatting the large majority of the weaker lines into a cross-section data file, and retaining the detailed line-by-line information of the fewer strong lines. For any given molecule over the 0.3-30 μm range, this algorithm reduces the number of lines to a few million, enabling faster radiative-transfer computations without a significant loss of information. The final compression rate depends on how densely populated the spectrum is. I validate this algorithm by comparing Exomol’s HCN extinction-coefficient spectra between the complete (65 million line transitions) and compressed (7.7 million) line lists. Over the 0.6-33 μm range, the average difference between extinction-coefficient values is less than 1%. A Python/C implementation of this algorithm is open-source and available at https://github.com/pcubillos/repack. So far, this code handles the Exomol and HITRAN line-transition format.

The high throughput virtual slit enables compact, inexpensive Raman spectral imagers

Science.gov (United States)

Gooding, Edward; Deutsch, Erik R.; Huehnerhoff, Joseph; Hajian, Arsen R.

2018-02-01

Raman spectral imaging is increasingly becoming the tool of choice for field-based applications such as threat, narcotics and hazmat detection; air, soil and water quality monitoring; and material ID. Conventional fiber-coupled point source Raman spectrometers effectively interrogate a small sample area and identify bulk samples via spectral library matching. However, these devices are very slow at mapping over macroscopic areas. In addition, the spatial averaging performed by instruments that collect binned spectra, particularly when used in combination with orbital raster scanning, tends to dilute the spectra of trace particles in a mixture. Our design, employing free space line illumination combined with area imaging, reveals both the spectral and spatial content of heterogeneous mixtures. This approach is well suited to applications such as detecting explosives and narcotics trace particle detection in fingerprints. The patented High Throughput Virtual Slit1 is an innovative optical design that enables compact, inexpensive handheld Raman spectral imagers. HTVS-based instruments achieve significantly higher spectral resolution than can be obtained with conventional designs of the same size. Alternatively, they can be used to build instruments with comparable resolution to large spectrometers, but substantially smaller size, weight and unit cost, all while maintaining high sensitivity. When used in combination with laser line imaging, this design eliminates sample photobleaching and unwanted photochemistry while greatly enhancing mapping speed, all with high selectivity and sensitivity. We will present spectral image data and discuss applications that are made possible by low cost HTVS-enabled instruments.

The Fishery Performance Indicators: A Management Tool for Triple Bottom Line Outcomes

Science.gov (United States)

Anderson, James L.; Anderson, Christopher M.; Chu, Jingjie; Meredith, Jennifer; Asche, Frank; Sylvia, Gil; Smith, Martin D.; Anggraeni, Dessy; Arthur, Robert; Guttormsen, Atle; McCluney, Jessica K.; Ward, Tim; Akpalu, Wisdom; Eggert, Håkan; Flores, Jimely; Freeman, Matthew A.; Holland, Daniel S.; Knapp, Gunnar; Kobayashi, Mimako; Larkin, Sherry; MacLauchlin, Kari; Schnier, Kurt; Soboil, Mark; Tveteras, Sigbjorn; Uchida, Hirotsugu; Valderrama, Diego

2015-01-01

Pursuit of the triple bottom line of economic, community and ecological sustainability has increased the complexity of fishery management; fisheries assessments require new types of data and analysis to guide science-based policy in addition to traditional biological information and modeling. We introduce the Fishery Performance Indicators (FPIs), a broadly applicable and flexible tool for assessing performance in individual fisheries, and for establishing cross-sectional links between enabling conditions, management strategies and triple bottom line outcomes. Conceptually separating measures of performance, the FPIs use 68 individual outcome metrics—coded on a 1 to 5 scale based on expert assessment to facilitate application to data poor fisheries and sectors—that can be partitioned into sector-based or triple-bottom-line sustainability-based interpretative indicators. Variation among outcomes is explained with 54 similarly structured metrics of inputs, management approaches and enabling conditions. Using 61 initial fishery case studies drawn from industrial and developing countries around the world, we demonstrate the inferential importance of tracking economic and community outcomes, in addition to resource status. PMID:25946194

Understanding broadband over power line

CERN Document Server

Held, Gilbert

2006-01-01

Understanding Broadband over Power Line explores all aspects of the emerging technology that enables electric utilities to provide support for high-speed data communications via their power infrastructure. This book examines the two methods used to connect consumers and businesses to the Internet through the utility infrastructure: the existing electrical wiring of a home or office; and a wireless local area network (WLAN) access point.Written in a practical style that can be understood by network engineers and non-technologists alike, this volume offers tutorials on electric utility infrastru

PhenoLines: Phenotype Comparison Visualizations for Disease Subtyping via Topic Models.

Science.gov (United States)

Glueck, Michael; Naeini, Mahdi Pakdaman; Doshi-Velez, Finale; Chevalier, Fanny; Khan, Azam; Wigdor, Daniel; Brudno, Michael

2018-01-01

PhenoLines is a visual analysis tool for the interpretation of disease subtypes, derived from the application of topic models to clinical data. Topic models enable one to mine cross-sectional patient comorbidity data (e.g., electronic health records) and construct disease subtypes-each with its own temporally evolving prevalence and co-occurrence of phenotypes-without requiring aligned longitudinal phenotype data for all patients. However, the dimensionality of topic models makes interpretation challenging, and de facto analyses provide little intuition regarding phenotype relevance or phenotype interrelationships. PhenoLines enables one to compare phenotype prevalence within and across disease subtype topics, thus supporting subtype characterization, a task that involves identifying a proposed subtype's dominant phenotypes, ages of effect, and clinical validity. We contribute a data transformation workflow that employs the Human Phenotype Ontology to hierarchically organize phenotypes and aggregate the evolving probabilities produced by topic models. We introduce a novel measure of phenotype relevance that can be used to simplify the resulting topology. The design of PhenoLines was motivated by formative interviews with machine learning and clinical experts. We describe the collaborative design process, distill high-level tasks, and report on initial evaluations with machine learning experts and a medical domain expert. These results suggest that PhenoLines demonstrates promising approaches to support the characterization and optimization of topic models.

Cooperative Cloudlet for Pervasive Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tauseef Jamal

2017-05-01

Full Text Available The notion of cooperation in wireless communication has got significant attention from both academia and industrial persons towards to address the performance drawbacks of wireless sensor network due to reason of user’s high mobility and lack of resources of network. The future wireless systems should be highly heterogeneous and interconnected because motivating cooperative relaying has to apply on the future mobile network for efficient results and future demand. As currently the mobile computing is facing latency and battery drainage issues which need to address and solve hence in this work we are proposed mobile - centric and opportunistic communication architecture. In this work mobile devices which are in the range of Wi - Fi of each other can create cluste r with each other and can create an ad - hoc cooperative cloud using Relay Spot[1 - 4]. The Collaboration between these devices can enable them to resourcefully use the augmentation without any infrastructure.

Galaxy emission line classification using three-dimensional line ratio diagrams

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Vogt, Frédéric P. A.; Dopita, Michael A.; Kewley, Lisa J.; Sutherland, Ralph S. [Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2611 (Australia); Scharwächter, Julia [Observatoire de Paris, LERMA (CNRS: UMR8112), 61 Av. de l' Observatoire, F-75014 Paris (France); Basurah, Hassan M.; Ali, Alaa; Amer, Morsi A., E-mail: frederic.vogt@anu.edu.au [Astronomy Department, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80203, Jeddah (Saudi Arabia)

2014-10-01

Two-dimensional (2D) line ratio diagnostic diagrams have become a key tool in understanding the excitation mechanisms of galaxies. The curves used to separate the different regions—H II-like or excited by an active galactic nucleus (AGN)—have been refined over time but the core technique has not evolved significantly. However, the classification of galaxies based on their emission line ratios really is a multi-dimensional problem. Here we exploit recent software developments to explore the potential of three-dimensional (3D) line ratio diagnostic diagrams. We introduce the ZQE diagrams, which are a specific set of 3D diagrams that separate the oxygen abundance and the ionization parameter of H II region-like spectra and also enable us to probe the excitation mechanism of the gas. By examining these new 3D spaces interactively, we define the ZE diagnostics, a new set of 2D diagnostics that can provide the metallicity of objects excited by hot young stars and that cleanly separate H II region-like objects from the different classes of AGNs. We show that these ZE diagnostics are consistent with the key log [N II]/Hα versus log [O III]/Hβ diagnostic currently used by the community. They also have the advantage of attaching a probability that a given object belongs to one class or the other. Finally, we discuss briefly why ZQE diagrams can provide a new way to differentiate and study the different classes of AGNs in anticipation of a dedicated follow-up study.

Information processing and aspects of visual attention in children with the DSM-III-R diagnosis ''pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified'' (PDDNOS) .1. Focused and divided attention

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Althaus, M; deSonneville, LMJ; Minderaa, RB; Hensen, LGN; Til, RB

A sample of 8-to 12-year-old nonhyperactive children of normal intelligence with the DSM-III-R diagnosis of pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDDNOS) completed two selective attention tasks. Following a linear stage model of information processing, it was demonstrated that

Tracing overhead transmission line corridors with regard to environmental and spatial qualities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alenka Cof

2005-01-01

Full Text Available The article deals with possibilities for running the proposed overhead transmission line Okroglo-Italian border. The Slovene and Italian methods are shown as methods enabling consideration of environmental and spatial impact within the process of planning overhead transmission line corridors. The Slovene method consists of analyses of attractiveness and vulnerability, whereby the first considers those functional and economic factors that affect spatial attractiveness for overhead transmission lines. Thus we can assess the level of economic and functional suitability of alternative routes of the proposed 400 kilovolt overhead transmission line from transformation station Okroglo (Slovenia to Srednje, Golo Brdo and Vrtojba, three potential contact points on the Slovene–Italian border. In accordance with stipulations of the Law on spatial management vulnerability models were prepared, which were used to simulate the development’s potential negative environmental effects and to analyse suitability, which implies harmonisation of development and protection demands. Their result is a possible corridor that can be developed without significant conflicts. The Italian procedure was developed to trace the transmission line corridor from the Slovenian border to the transformation station in Udine. It was also applied on the Slovenian side. Three groups of factors were considered in the procedure: exclusion, repulsion, and attraction. The much simpler procedure enables comparisons, since it uses the same or at least similar spatial data. In conclusion a short commentary is added about the corridor concept as a planning tool.

Utilizing Smart Textiles-Enabled Sensorized Toy and Playful Interactions for Assessment of Psychomotor Development on Children

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mario Vega-Barbas

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Emerging pervasive technologies like smart textiles make it possible to develop new and more accessible healthcare services for patients independently of their location or time. However, none of these new e-health solutions guarantee a complete user acceptance, especially in cases requiring extensive interaction between the user and the solution. So far, researchers have focused their efforts on new interactions techniques to improve the perception of privacy and confidence of the people using e-health services. In this way, the use of smart everyday objects arises as an interesting approach to facilitate the required interaction and increase user acceptance. Such Smart Daily Objects together with smart textiles provide researchers with a novel way to introduce sophisticated sensor technology in the daily life of people. This work presents a sensorized smart toy for assessment of psychomotor development in early childhood. The aim of this work is to design, develop, and evaluate the usability and playfulness of a smart textile-enabled sensorized toy that facilitates the user engagement in a personalized monitoring healthcare activity. To achieve this objective the monitoring is based on a smart textile sensorized toy as catalyzer of acceptance and multimodal sensing sources to monitor psychomotor development activities during playtime.

Improved Line Tracking System for Autonomous Navigation of High-Speed Vehicle

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yahya Zare Khafri

2012-07-01

Full Text Available Line tracking navigation is one of the most widely techniques used in the robot navigation. In this paper, a customized line tracking system is proposed for autonomous navigation of high speed vehicles. In the presented system, auxiliary information -in addition to the road path- is added to the tracking lines such as locations of turn and intersections in the real roads. Moreover, the geometric position of line sensors is re-designed enables the high rate sensing with higher reliability. Finally, a light-weight navigation algorithm is proposed allow the high-speed movement using a reasonable processing power. This system is implemented on a MIPS-based embedded processor and experimental results with this embedded system show more than 98% accuracy at 200km/h with a 1GHz processor is viable.

A pervasive health monitoring service system based on ubiquitous network technology.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Chung-Chih; Lee, Ren-Guey; Hsiao, Chun-Chieh

2008-07-01

The phenomenon of aging society has derived problems such as shortage of medical resources and reduction of quality in healthcare services. This paper presents a system infrastructure for pervasive and long-term healthcare applications, i.e. a ubiquitous network composed of wireless local area network (WLAN) and cable television (CATV) network serving as a platform for monitoring physiological signals. Users can record vital signs including heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature anytime either at home or at frequently visited public places in order to create a personal health file. The whole system was formally implemented in December 2004. Analysis of 2000 questionnaires indicates that 85% of users were satisfied with the provided community-wide healthcare services. Among the services provided by our system, health consultation services offered by family doctors was rated the most important service by 17.9% of respondents, and was followed by control of one's own health condition (16.4% of respondents). Convenience of data access was rated most important by roughly 14.3% of respondents. We proposed and implemented a long-term healthcare system integrating WLAN and CATV networks in the form of a ubiquitous network providing a service platform for physiological monitoring. This system can classify the health levels of the resident according to the variation tendency of his or her physiological signal for important reference of health management.

Lithography for enabling advances in integrated circuits and devices.

Science.gov (United States)

Garner, C Michael

2012-08-28

Because the transistor was fabricated in volume, lithography has enabled the increase in density of devices and integrated circuits. With the invention of the integrated circuit, lithography enabled the integration of higher densities of field-effect transistors through evolutionary applications of optical lithography. In 1994, the semiconductor industry determined that continuing the increase in density transistors was increasingly difficult and required coordinated development of lithography and process capabilities. It established the US National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors and this was expanded in 1999 to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors to align multiple industries to provide the complex capabilities to continue increasing the density of integrated circuits to nanometre scales. Since the 1960s, lithography has become increasingly complex with the evolution from contact printers, to steppers, pattern reduction technology at i-line, 248 nm and 193 nm wavelengths, which required dramatic improvements of mask-making technology, photolithography printing and alignment capabilities and photoresist capabilities. At the same time, pattern transfer has evolved from wet etching of features, to plasma etch and more complex etching capabilities to fabricate features that are currently 32 nm in high-volume production. To continue increasing the density of devices and interconnects, new pattern transfer technologies will be needed with options for the future including extreme ultraviolet lithography, imprint technology and directed self-assembly. While complementary metal oxide semiconductors will continue to be extended for many years, these advanced pattern transfer technologies may enable development of novel memory and logic technologies based on different physical phenomena in the future to enhance and extend information processing.

Pervasive surveillance-agent system based on wireless sensor networks: design and deployment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Martínez, José F; Bravo, Sury; García, Ana B; Corredor, Iván; Familiar, Miguel S; López, Lourdes; Hernández, Vicente; Da Silva, Antonio

2010-01-01

Nowadays, proliferation of embedded systems is enhancing the possibilities of gathering information by using wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Flexibility and ease of installation make these kinds of pervasive networks suitable for security and surveillance environments. Moreover, the risk for humans to be exposed to these functions is minimized when using these networks. In this paper, a virtual perimeter surveillance agent, which has been designed to detect any person crossing an invisible barrier around a marked perimeter and send an alarm notification to the security staff, is presented. This agent works in a state of 'low power consumption' until there is a crossing on the perimeter. In our approach, the 'intelligence' of the agent has been distributed by using mobile nodes in order to discern the cause of the event of presence. This feature contributes to saving both processing resources and power consumption since the required code that detects presence is the only system installed. The research work described in this paper illustrates our experience in the development of a surveillance system using WNSs for a practical application as well as its evaluation in real-world deployments. This mechanism plays an important role in providing confidence in ensuring safety to our environment

Simulation of wind turbine wakes using the actuator line technique

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Jens Nørkær; Mikkelsen, Robert Flemming; Henningson, Dan S.

2015-01-01

The actuator line technique was introduced as a numerical tool to be employed in combination with large eddy simulations to enable the study of wakes and wake interaction in wind farms. The technique is today largely used for studying basic features of wakes as well as for making performance...... predictions of wind farms. In this paper, we give a short introduction to the wake problem and the actuator line methodology and present a study in which the technique is employed to determine the near-wake properties of wind turbines. The presented results include a comparison of experimental results...

Evidence of Persistent and Pervasive Workplace Discrimination Against LGBT People: The Need for Federal Legislation Prohibiting Discrimination and Providing for Equal Employment Benefits

OpenAIRE

Pizer, Jennifer; Mallory, Christy; Sears, Brad; Hunter, Nan

2012-01-01

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people have experienced a long and pervasive history of employment discrimination. Today, more than eight million people in the American workforce identify as LGBT, but there still is no federal law that explicitly prohibits sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination against them.This Article begins by surveying the social science research and other evidence illustrating the nature and scope of the discrimination against LGBT workers a...

Line-scanning confocal microscopy for high-resolution imaging of upconverting rare-earth-based contrast agents

Science.gov (United States)

Higgins, Laura M.; Zevon, Margot; Ganapathy, Vidya; Sheng, Yang; Tan, Mei Chee; Riman, Richard E.; Roth, Charles M.; Moghe, Prabhas V.; Pierce, Mark C.

2015-01-01

Abstract. Rare-earth (RE) doped nanocomposites emit visible luminescence when illuminated with continuous wave near-infrared light, making them appealing candidates for use as contrast agents in biomedical imaging. However, the emission lifetime of these materials is much longer than the pixel dwell times used in scanning intravital microscopy. To overcome this limitation, we have developed a line-scanning confocal microscope for high-resolution, optically sectioned imaging of samples labeled with RE-based nanomaterials. Instrument performance is quantified using calibrated test objects. NaYF4:Er,Yb nanocomposites are imaged in vitro, and in ex vivo tissue specimens, with direct comparison to point-scanning confocal microscopy. We demonstrate that the extended pixel dwell time of line-scanning confocal microscopy enables subcellular-level imaging of these nanomaterials while maintaining optical sectioning. The line-scanning approach thus enables microscopic imaging of this emerging class of contrast agents for preclinical studies, with the potential to be adapted for real-time in vivo imaging in the clinic. PMID:26603495

Enabling Spatial OLAP Over Environmental and Farming Data with QB4SOLAP

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gur, Nurefsan; Hose, Katja; Pedersen, Torben Bach

2016-01-01

Governmental organizations and agencies have been making large amounts of spatial data available on the Semantic Web (SW). However, we still lack efficient techniques for analyzing such large amounts of data as we know them from relational database systems, e.g., multidimensional (MD) data...... warehouses and On-line Analytical Processing (OLAP). A basic prerequisite to enable such advanced analytics is a well-defined schema, which can be defined using the QB4SOLAP vocabulary that provides sufficient context for spatial OLAP (SOLAP). In this paper, we address the challenging problem of MD querying...

Towards reference architectures as an enabler for software ecosystems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Knodel, Jens; Manikas, Konstantinos

2016-01-01

Software ecosystems - a topic with increasingly growing interest in academia and industry in the past decade - arguably revolutionized many aspects of industrial software engineering (business models, architectures, platforms, project executions, collaboration models, distribution of assets......, to name a few). Software ecosystems enable the contribution of external actors with distinct center a common technology and the potential distribution of the actor contributions to an existing user set. Reference architectures have been proven successful and beneficial for software product lines...... and traditional software development within distinct domains. They arguably come with a set of benefits that severely counterweights the additional effort of design and implementation. But what is the role of reference architectures in an ecosystem setting? In this position paper, we argue for the use...

Home-based Self-care: Understanding and Designing Pervasive Technology to Support Care Management Work at Home

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Verdezoto, Nervo

the self-care management work at home. People need to know which care activities to perform, when to perform them, how to proceed and why these are important. While at home, an active lifestyle and comorbidity not only challenge self-care activities but also the use of self-care technologies in non...... that fit into people’s everyday life. Through a design research approach applying user-centered design methods and prototyping, the main focus of this dissertation is on exploring and providing a holistic understanding of the self-care work practices in non-clinical settings. Several home-based care...... practices are investigated to (a) further understand the self-care management work in nonclinical settings, and (b) inform future design of pervasive healthcare technology that accounts for people’s perspectives on self-care and everyday life. First, we explore two selfcare practices of medication...

Installation of the LHC transfer lines begins

CERN Multimedia

Patrice Loïez

2003-01-01

The first of 700 magnets has been installed in one of the two transfer tunnels built to transfer the SPS beam into the LHC. The start of this first installation phase of the LHC transfer lines provides the opportunity to launch a new and highly original modular system for transporting and installing all kinds of magnets in very narrow tunnels. The system is based on very compact bogies, up to four of which can be coupled together to form a convoy. The wheels are fitted with individual motors enabling them to swivel through an angle of 90° and the convoy to move laterally. The first installation phase will continue until mid-April. In addition to the magnets, a beam dump facility also has to be installed. The second installation phase will take place later this year and should be completed in 2004, when the TI 8 transfer line is due to be tested. The second transfer line, in tunnel TI 2, should be ready in April 2007, once the LHC magnets have been transported through the downstream section of this tunnel.Pho...

Installation of the LHC transfer lines begins

CERN Multimedia

Patrice Loïez

2003-01-01

The first of 700 magnets has been installed in one of the two transfer tunnels built to transfer the SPS beam into the LHC. The start of this first installation phase of the LHC transfer lines provides the opportunity to launch a new and highly original modular system for transporting and installing all kinds of magnets in very narrow tunnels. The system is based on very compact bogies, up to four of which can be coupled together to form a convoy. The wheels are fitted with individual motors enabling them to swivel through an angle of 90° and the convoy to move laterally. In this way the magnet is delivered directly to its installation point, but beneath the beamline. It is then raised into its final position in the beamline using air cushions, which form an integrated part of the transport system.Photo 01: Pictured with the newly installed magnet and transport system in the transfer line tunnel are (left to right) Volker Mertens, responsible for the LHC injection and transfer lines; personnel involved in tr...

Installation of the LHC transfer lines begins

CERN Multimedia

Patrice Loïez

2003-01-01

The first of 700 magnets has been installed in one of the two transfer tunnels built to transfer the SPS beam into the LHC. The start of this first installation phase of the LHC transfer lines provides the opportunity to launch a new and highly original modular system for transporting and installing all kinds of magnets in very narrow tunnels. The system is based on very compact bogies, up to four of which can be coupled together to form a convoy. The wheels are fitted with individual motors enabling them to swivel through an angle of 90° and the convoy to move laterally. The first installation phase will continue until mid-April. In addition to the magnets, a beam dump facility also has to be installed. The second installation phase will take place later this year and should be completed in 2004, when the TI 8 transfer line is due to be tested. The second transfer line, in tunnel TI 2, should be ready in April 2007, once the LHC magnets have been transported through the downstream section of this tunnel. Th...

Installation of the LHC transfer lines begins

CERN Multimedia

Patrice Loïez

2003-01-01

The first of 700 magnets has been installed in one of the two transfer tunnels built to transfer the SPS beam into the LHC. The start of this first installation phase of the LHC transfer lines provides the opportunity to launch a new and highly original modular system for transporting and installing all kinds of magnets in very narrow tunnels. The system is based on very compact bogies, up to four of which can be coupled together to form a convoy. The wheels are fitted with individual motors enabling them to swivel through an angle of 90° and the convoy to move laterally. The first installation phase will continue until mid-April. In addition to the magnets, a beam dump facility also has to be installed. The second installation phase will take place later this year and should be completed in 2004, when the TI 8 transfer line is due to be tested. The second transfer line, in tunnel TI 2, should be ready in April 2007, once the LHC magnets have been transported through the downstream section of this tunnel. We...

Ontology Enabled Generation of Embedded Web Services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Klaus Marius; Zhang, Weishan; Soares, Goncalo Teofilo Afonso Pinheiro

2008-01-01

Web services are increasingly adopted as a service provision mechanism in pervasive computing environments. Implementing web services on networked, embedded devices raises a number of challenges, for example efficiency of web services, handling of variability and dependencies of hardware...... and software platforms, and of devices state and context changes. To address these challenges, we developed a Web service compiler, Limbo, in which Web Ontology Language (OWL) ontologies are used to make the Limbo compiler aware of its compilation context, such as targeted hardware and software. At the same...... time, knowledge on device details, platform dependencies, and resource/power consumption is built into the supporting ontologies, which are used to configure Limbo for generating resource efficient web service code. A state machine ontology is used to generate stub code to facilitate handling of state...

Message generation facilities for interoperability in pervasive healthcare environments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cardoso de Moraes, J.L.; Lopes de Souza, Wanderley; Ferreira Pires, Luis; do Prado, Antonio Francisco

Novel information and communication technologies enable the construction of systems that allow the provision of new healthcare services anywhere, at any time, and to anyone. Since these healthcare systems may offer their healthcare records in different electronic formats, the openEHR foundation

A Value-Based Business Approach to Product Line Software Engineering

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Raman K. Agrawalla

2009-08-01

Full Text Available The present conceptual paper is an attempt to provide a Value-Based Business Approach (VBBA to product line software engineering. It argues that Product line software engineering should be seen as a system and considered as a means towards the end of appropriating more and more value for the business firm; contingent upon the fact that it provides value to customer and customer's customers operating its value creating system with agility, speed, economy and innovation; getting governed by the positive sum value creation outlook and guided by value- based management. With our value-based business triad, the product line engineering process can hope to achieve simultaneously value, variety and volume, product differentiation and cost leadership enabling the business firm to land on the virtuous value spiral.

Guidelines for the use of cell lines in biomedical research.

Science.gov (United States)

Geraghty, R J; Capes-Davis, A; Davis, J M; Downward, J; Freshney, R I; Knezevic, I; Lovell-Badge, R; Masters, J R W; Meredith, J; Stacey, G N; Thraves, P; Vias, M

2014-09-09

Cell-line misidentification and contamination with microorganisms, such as mycoplasma, together with instability, both genetic and phenotypic, are among the problems that continue to affect cell culture. Many of these problems are avoidable with the necessary foresight, and these Guidelines have been prepared to provide those new to the field and others engaged in teaching and instruction with the information necessary to increase their awareness of the problems and to enable them to deal with them effectively. The Guidelines cover areas such as development, acquisition, authentication, cryopreservation, transfer of cell lines between laboratories, microbial contamination, characterisation, instability and misidentification. Advice is also given on complying with current legal and ethical requirements when deriving cell lines from human and animal tissues, the selection and maintenance of equipment and how to deal with problems that may arise.

Radio recombination lines from H II regions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Silverglate, P.R.

1978-01-01

Radio recombination lines have been observed from forty-six H II regions. The Arecibo 1000-foot radio telescope was used to provide high sensitivity and high angular resolution at 1400 MHz (gain approx. 7.7 0 K/Jy, HPBW = 3:2) and 2372 MHZ (gain approx. 6.3 0 K/Jy, HPBW = 2'). Observations were made at 1400 MHz in the frequency switching mode, and at 2372 MHz in the total power mode. Gaussians were fit to be observed lines to derive velocities, line widths, and line temperatures. From the velocities kinematic distances were derived. For eleven sources H I absorption measurements were also made. The absorption spectra enabled the kinematic distance ambiguity to be resolved for some sources. The absorption spectra themselves were found to have extremely sharp, non-gaussian edges. One explanation for these is a model where the interstellar medium contains many H I cloudlets with T/sub s/less than or equal to 100 0 K and turbulent velocities less than or equal to 3 km/s. The H I absorption spectrum is then a superposition of many narrow gaussian profiles. It was also found from a comparison of H I absorption velocities with radio recombination line velocities that peculiar motions exist in the interstellar medium with velocities of up to 10 km/s. Using the measured line temperatures and continuum temperatures, estimates were desired of emission measures, electron temperatures, and electron densities, using a non-LTE analysis. Non-LTE effects were important only for the hottest and densest H II regions. The non-LTE calculations were checked through a comparison derivation of electron temperatures using hydrogen beta lines

Straight-Line Target Tracking for Unmanned Surface Vehicles

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Morten Breivik

2008-10-01

Full Text Available This paper considers the subject of straight-line target tracking for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs. Target-tracking represents motion control scenarios where no information about the target behavior is known in advance, i.e., the path that the target traverses is not defined apriori. Specifically, this work presents the design of a motion control system which enables an underactuated USV to track a target that moves in a straight line at high speed. The motion control system employs a guidance principle originally developed for interceptor missiles, as well as a novel velocity controller inspired by maneuverability and agility concepts found in fighter aircraft literature. The performance of the suggested design is illustrated through full-scale USV experiments in the Trondheimsfjord.

Pervasive nanoscale deformation twinning as a catalyst for efficient energy dissipation in a bioceramic armour

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Ling; Ortiz, Christine

2014-05-01

Hierarchical composite materials design in biological exoskeletons achieves penetration resistance through a variety of energy-dissipating mechanisms while simultaneously balancing the need for damage localization to avoid compromising the mechanical integrity of the entire structure and to maintain multi-hit capability. Here, we show that the shell of the bivalve Placuna placenta (~99 wt% calcite), which possesses the unique optical property of ~80% total transmission of visible light, simultaneously achieves penetration resistance and deformation localization via increasing energy dissipation density (0.290 ± 0.072 nJ μm-3) by approximately an order of magnitude relative to single-crystal geological calcite (0.034 ± 0.013 nJ μm-3). P. placenta, which is composed of a layered assembly of elongated diamond-shaped calcite crystals, undergoes pervasive nanoscale deformation twinning (width ~50 nm) surrounding the penetration zone, which catalyses a series of additional inelastic energy dissipating mechanisms such as interfacial and intracrystalline nanocracking, viscoplastic stretching of interfacial organic material, and nanograin formation and reorientation.

A New Advanced Backcross Tomato Population Enables High Resolution Leaf QTL Mapping and Gene Identification

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniel Fulop

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL mapping is a powerful technique for dissecting the genetic basis of traits and species differences. Established tomato mapping populations between domesticated tomato (Solanum lycopersicum and its more distant interfertile relatives typically follow a near isogenic line (NIL design, such as the S. pennellii Introgression Line (IL population, with a single wild introgression per line in an otherwise domesticated genetic background. Here, we report on a new advanced backcross QTL mapping resource for tomato, derived from a cross between the M82 tomato cultivar and S. pennellii. This so-called Backcrossed Inbred Line (BIL population is comprised of a mix of BC2 and BC3 lines, with domesticated tomato as the recurrent parent. The BIL population is complementary to the existing S. pennellii IL population, with which it shares parents. Using the BILs, we mapped traits for leaf complexity, leaflet shape, and flowering time. We demonstrate the utility of the BILs for fine-mapping QTL, particularly QTL initially mapped in the ILs, by fine-mapping several QTL to single or few candidate genes. Moreover, we confirm the value of a backcrossed population with multiple introgressions per line, such as the BILs, for epistatic QTL mapping. Our work was further enabled by the development of our own statistical inference and visualization tools, namely a heterogeneous hidden Markov model for genotyping the lines, and by using state-of-the-art sparse regression techniques for QTL mapping.

Why does public transport not arrive on time? The pervasiveness of equal headway instability.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carlos Gershenson

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The equal headway instability phenomenon is pervasive in public transport systems. This instability is characterized by an aggregation of vehicles that causes inefficient service. While equal headway instability is common, it has not been studied independently of a particular scenario. However, the phenomenon is apparent in many transport systems and can be modeled and rectified in abstraction. METHODOLOGY: We present a multi-agent simulation where a default method with no restrictions always leads to unstable headways. We discuss two methods that attempt to achieve equal headways, called minimum and maximum. Since one parameter of the methods depends on the passenger density, adaptive versions--where the relevant parameter is adjusted automatically--are also put forward. Our results show that the adaptive maximum method improves significantly over the default method. The model and simulation give insights of the interplay between transport design and passenger behavior. Finally, we provide technological and social suggestions for engineers and passengers to help achieve equal headways and thus reduce delays. CONCLUSIONS: The equal headway instability phenomenon can be avoided with the suggested technological and social measures.

On-Line Fringe Tracking and Prediction at IOTA

Science.gov (United States)

Wilson, Edward; Mah, Robert; Lau, Sonie (Technical Monitor)

1999-01-01

The Infrared/Optical Telescope Array (IOTA) is a multi-aperture Michelson interferometer located on Mt. Hopkins near Tucson, Arizona. To enable viewing of fainter targets, an on-line fringe tracking system is presently under development at NASA Ames Research Center. The system has been developed off-line using actual data from IOTA, and is presently undergoing on-line implementation at IOTA. The system has two parts: (1) a fringe tracking system that identifies the center of a fringe packet by fitting a parametric model to the data; and (2) a fringe packet motion prediction system that uses characteristics of past fringe packets to predict fringe packet motion. Combined, this information will be used to optimize on-line the scanning trajectory, resulting in improved visibility of faint targets. Fringe packet identification is highly accurate and robust (99% of the 4000 fringe packets were identified correctly, the remaining 1% were either out of the scan range or too noisy to be seen) and is performed in 30-90 milliseconds on a Pentium II-based computer. Fringe packet prediction, currently performed using an adaptive linear predictor, delivers a 10% improvement over the baseline of predicting no motion.

Trastornos generalizados del desarrollo: Aspectos clínicos y genéticos Pervasive developmental disorders: Clinical and genetics aspects

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Víctor Ruggieri

2007-01-01

Full Text Available Los Trastornos Generalizados del Desarrollo se expresan con compromiso en la socialización, trastorno en el desarrollo del lenguaje (verbal y no verbal e intereses restringidos con conductas repetitivas. La frecuencia estimada en la población general es de 27.5/10.000. En nuestro trabajo analizamos los aspectos clínicos y genéticos de los TGD: Autismo, Síndrome de Asperger, TGD no Especificado, Síndrome de Rett y Trastorno desintegrativo de la niñez. Desde el punto de vista clínico jerarquizamos los aspectos conductuales para su reconocimiento. En los aspectos genéticos puntualizamos diversas entidades con las que se asocian consistentemente estos trastornos, denominados cuadros sindrómicos, (aproximadamente el 20% de los casos y las bases genéticas actualmente propuestas para el 80% restante o formas no sindrómicas. El reconocimiento temprano de estos trastornos del desarrollo y el diagnóstico de una entidad específica asociada permiten un temprano y adecuado abordaje terapéutico, un correcto asesoramiento genético y un control evolutivo específico previendo posibles complicaciones relacionadas a la entidad de base. Finalmente, si bien las bases genéticas del autismo no están identificadas se han propuesto diversos genes candidatos ubicados en los cromosomas: 15q, 2q, 17q, 7q, 12q, y los relacionados al X, entre otros, los que son analizados en este trabajo y permitirán en un futuro cercano comprender mejor estos trastornos.Pervasive developmental disorders (PDD encompass a heterogeneous group of children with deficits of verbal and non-verbal language, social communication, and with a restricted repertoire of activities or repetitive behaviours. The frequency in general population is considered 27.5/10,000. In this study, we analyzed the clinical and genetic aspects of Autism, Asperger Syndrome, PDD Not Otherwise Specified, Rett Syndrome and Childhood Disintegrative Disorder. We analyzed clinical, behavioural and

Exploration of BEOL line-space patterning options at 12 nm half-pitch and below

Science.gov (United States)

Decoster, S.; Lazzarino, F.; Petersen Barbosa Lima, L.; Li, W.; Versluijs, J.; Halder, S.; Mallik, A.; Murdoch, G.

2018-03-01

While the semiconductor industry is almost ready for high-volume manufacturing of the 7 nm technology node, research centers are defining and troubleshooting the patterning options for the 5 nm technology node (N5) and below. The target dimension for imec's N5 BEOL applications is 20-24 nm Metal Pitch (MP), which requires Self-Aligned multiple (Double/Quadruple/Octuple) Patterning approaches (SAxP) in combination with EUV or immersion lithography at 193 nm. There are numerous technical challenges to enable gratings at the hard mask level such as good uniformity across wafer, low line edge/width roughness (LER/LWR), large process window, and all of this at low cost. An even greater challenge is to transfer these gratings into the dielectric material at such critical dimensions, where increased line edge roughness, line wiggling and even pattern collapse can be expected for materials with small mechanical stability such as highly porous low-k dielectrics. In this work we first compare three different patterning options for 12 nm half-pitch gratings at the hard mask level: EUV-based SADP and 193i-based SAQP and SAOP. This comparison will be based on process window, line edge/width roughness and cost. Next, the transfer of 12 nm line/space gratings in the dielectric material is discussed and presented. The LER of the dielectric lines is investigated as a function of the dielectric material, the trench depth, and the stress in the sacrificial hard mask. Finally, we elaborate on the different options to enable scaling down from 24 nm MP to 16 nm MP, and demonstrate 8 nm line/space gratings with 193i-based SAOP.

Stochastic Synapses Enable Efficient Brain-Inspired Learning Machines

Science.gov (United States)

Neftci, Emre O.; Pedroni, Bruno U.; Joshi, Siddharth; Al-Shedivat, Maruan; Cauwenberghs, Gert

2016-01-01

Recent studies have shown that synaptic unreliability is a robust and sufficient mechanism for inducing the stochasticity observed in cortex. Here, we introduce Synaptic Sampling Machines (S2Ms), a class of neural network models that uses synaptic stochasticity as a means to Monte Carlo sampling and unsupervised learning. Similar to the original formulation of Boltzmann machines, these models can be viewed as a stochastic counterpart of Hopfield networks, but where stochasticity is induced by a random mask over the connections. Synaptic stochasticity plays the dual role of an efficient mechanism for sampling, and a regularizer during learning akin to DropConnect. A local synaptic plasticity rule implementing an event-driven form of contrastive divergence enables the learning of generative models in an on-line fashion. S2Ms perform equally well using discrete-timed artificial units (as in Hopfield networks) or continuous-timed leaky integrate and fire neurons. The learned representations are remarkably sparse and robust to reductions in bit precision and synapse pruning: removal of more than 75% of the weakest connections followed by cursory re-learning causes a negligible performance loss on benchmark classification tasks. The spiking neuron-based S2Ms outperform existing spike-based unsupervised learners, while potentially offering substantial advantages in terms of power and complexity, and are thus promising models for on-line learning in brain-inspired hardware. PMID:27445650

Tuning of JET transmission line/antenna system during ICRH

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oeberg, J.

1993-05-01

The launched toroidal wave spectrum for ICRH and ICRH current drive is controlled by the phasing of the antenna currents. This causes imbalance in the transmission lines, which makes it more difficult to use the full power of the ICRH generators. Further, the generators are sensitive to the amount of reflected power. To reduce the amount of reflected power the transmission lines have to be constantly tuned. To study the tuning three models of the antenna are developed and compared with experimental results. A method is suggested which enables better usage of the generated power using a power correction unit to evenly distribute the power load between the generators. 4 refs, 24 figs

Integrated Glass Coating Manufacturing Line

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brophy, Brenor [Enki Technology Inc., San Jose, CA (United States)

2015-09-30

This project aims to enable US module manufacturers to coat glass with Enki’s state of the art tunable functionalized AR coatings at the lowest possible cost and highest possible performance by encapsulating Enki’s coating process in an integrated tool that facilitates effective process improvement through metrology and data analysis for greater quality and performance while reducing footprint, operating and capital costs. The Phase 1 objective was a fully designed manufacturing line, including fully specified equipment ready for issue of purchase requisitions; a detailed economic justification based on market prices at the end of Phase 1 and projected manufacturing costs and a detailed deployment plan for the equipment.

18F-Fluorocholine PET–CT enables minimal invasive parathyroidectomy in patients with negative sestamibi SPECT–CT and ultrasound: A case report

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wouter P. Kluijfhout

2015-01-01

Conclusion: 18F-Fluorocholine PET–CT is a promising new imaging modality for localizing parathyroid adenomas and enabling minimal invasive parathyroidectomy when conventional imaging fails to do. Clinicians should consider its use as a second line modality for optimal patient care.

Web-enabling technologies for the factory floor: a web-enabling strategy for emanufacturing

Science.gov (United States)

Velez, Ricardo; Lastra, Jose L. M.; Tuokko, Reijo O.

2001-10-01

This paper is intended to address the different technologies available for Web-enabling of the factory floor. It will give an overview of the importance of Web-enabling of the factory floor, in the application of the concepts of flexible and intelligent manufacturing, in conjunction with e-commerce. As a last section, it will try to define a Web-enabling strategy for the application in eManufacturing. This is made under the scope of the electronics manufacturing industry, so every application, technology or related matter is presented under such scope.

Geo-Enabled, Mobile Services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Christian Søndergaard

2006-01-01

We are witnessing the emergence of a global infrastructure that enables the widespread deployment of geo-enabled, mobile services in practice. At the same time, the research community has also paid increasing attention to data management aspects of mobile services. This paper offers me...

The Nordic Housing Enabler

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Helle, T.; Nygren, C.; Slaug, B.

2014-01-01

This study addresses development of a content-valid cross-Nordic version of the Housing Enabler and investigation of its inter-rater reliability when used in occupational therapy rating situations, involving occupational therapists, clients, and their home environments. The instrument was transla......This study addresses development of a content-valid cross-Nordic version of the Housing Enabler and investigation of its inter-rater reliability when used in occupational therapy rating situations, involving occupational therapists, clients, and their home environments. The instrument...... was translated from the original Swedish version of the Housing Enabler, and adapted according to accessibility norms and guidelines for housing design in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland. This iterative process involved occupational therapists, architects, building engineers, and professional translators......, resulting in the Nordic Housing Enabler. For reliability testing, the sampling strategy and data collection procedures used were the same in all countries. Twenty voluntary occupational therapists, pair-wise but independently of each other, collected data from 106 cases by means of the Nordic Housing...

Genomic-Enabled Prediction Kernel Models with Random Intercepts for Multi-environment Trials

Science.gov (United States)

Cuevas, Jaime; Granato, Italo; Fritsche-Neto, Roberto; Montesinos-Lopez, Osval A.; Burgueño, Juan; Bandeira e Sousa, Massaine; Crossa, José

2018-01-01

In this study, we compared the prediction accuracy of the main genotypic effect model (MM) without G×E interactions, the multi-environment single variance G×E deviation model (MDs), and the multi-environment environment-specific variance G×E deviation model (MDe) where the random genetic effects of the lines are modeled with the markers (or pedigree). With the objective of further modeling the genetic residual of the lines, we incorporated the random intercepts of the lines (l) and generated another three models. Each of these 6 models were fitted with a linear kernel method (Genomic Best Linear Unbiased Predictor, GB) and a Gaussian Kernel (GK) method. We compared these 12 model-method combinations with another two multi-environment G×E interactions models with unstructured variance-covariances (MUC) using GB and GK kernels (4 model-method). Thus, we compared the genomic-enabled prediction accuracy of a total of 16 model-method combinations on two maize data sets with positive phenotypic correlations among environments, and on two wheat data sets with complex G×E that includes some negative and close to zero phenotypic correlations among environments. The two models (MDs and MDE with the random intercept of the lines and the GK method) were computationally efficient and gave high prediction accuracy in the two maize data sets. Regarding the more complex G×E wheat data sets, the prediction accuracy of the model-method combination with G×E, MDs and MDe, including the random intercepts of the lines with GK method had important savings in computing time as compared with the G×E interaction multi-environment models with unstructured variance-covariances but with lower genomic prediction accuracy. PMID:29476023

Cholesterol homeostasis in two commonly used human prostate cancer cell-lines, LNCaP and PC-3.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

James Robert Krycer

2009-12-01

Full Text Available Recently, there has been renewed interest in the link between cholesterol and prostate cancer. It has been previously reported that in vitro, prostate cancer cells lack sterol-mediated feedback regulation of the major transcription factor in cholesterol homeostasis, sterol-regulatory element binding protein 2 (SREBP-2. This could explain the accumulation of cholesterol observed in clinical prostate cancers. Consequently, perturbed feedback regulation to increased sterol levels has become a pervasive concept in the prostate cancer setting. Here, we aimed to explore this in greater depth.After altering the cellular cholesterol status in LNCaP and PC-3 prostate cancer cells, we examined SREBP-2 processing, downstream effects on promoter activity and expression of SREBP-2 target genes, and functional activity (low-density lipoprotein uptake, cholesterol synthesis. In doing so, we observed that LNCaP and PC-3 cells were sensitive to increased sterol levels. In contrast, lowering cholesterol levels via statin treatment generated a greater response in LNCaP cells than PC-3 cells. This highlighted an important difference between these cell-lines: basal SREBP-2 activity appeared to be higher in PC-3 cells, reducing sensitivity to decreased cholesterol levels.Thus, prostate cancer cells are sensitive to changing sterol levels in vitro, but the extent of this regulation differs between prostate cancer cell-lines. These results shed new light on the regulation of cholesterol metabolism in two commonly used prostate cancer cell-lines, and emphasize the importance of establishing whether or not cholesterol homeostasis is perturbed in prostate cancer in vivo.

A line beam electron gun for rapid thermal processing

Science.gov (United States)

Pauli, M.; Müller, J.; Hartkopf, K.; Barth, T.

1992-04-01

A line beam electron gun based on the Pierce gun type was developed. The line cathode was realized by a directly heated tungsten rod. The temperature distribution along the tungsten rod was simulated numerically. The simulation shows a flat temperature across 2/3 of the cathode length and it agrees with appropriate measurable parameters. The beam profiles of the electron gun perpendicular to the line direction were examined as a function of electrical and geometrical parameters: The space-charge distribution in front of the cathode was found to be responsible for the shape of the beam profile. The shape of the beam profile is weakly influenced by the acceleration to the anode. The heating current induced voltage drop along the cathode was found to be responsible for the nonuniform emission in line direction. A model for the emission behavior of the line beam electron gun was developed. The model is based on the results of the measurements and on a numerical simulation of the potential distribution in the area between Pierce reflectors and anode. The emission model shows a solution to homogenize the emission by a suitable variation of geometrical parameters in line direction. A linear variation was realized in experiment which enables a uniform emission across 2/3 of the cathode length. The beam profile is adjustable by a bias voltage between the cathode and the Pierce reflectors.

Note: Electrical detection and quantification of spin rectification effect enabled by shorted microstrip transmission line technique

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Soh, Wee Tee; Ong, C. K.; Peng, Bin; Chai, Guozhi

2014-01-01

We describe a shorted microstrip method for the sensitive quantification of Spin Rectification Effect (SRE). SRE for a Permalloy (Ni 80 Fe 20 ) thin film strip sputtered onto SiO 2 substrate is demonstrated. Our method obviates the need for simultaneous lithographic patterning of the sample and transmission line, therefore greatly simplifying the SRE measurement process. Such a shorted microstrip method can allow different contributions to SRE (anisotropic magnetoresistance, Hall effect, and anomalous Hall effect) to be simultaneously determined. Furthermore, SRE signals from unpatterned 50 nm thick Permalloy films of area dimensions 5 mm × 10 mm can even be detected

Novel pervasive scenarios for home management: the Butlers architecture.

Science.gov (United States)

Denti, Enrico

2014-01-01

Many efforts today aim to energy saving, promoting the user's awareness and virtuous behavior in a sustainability perspective. Our houses, appliances, energy meters and devices are becoming smarter and connected, domotics is increasing possibilities in house automation and control, and ambient intelligence and assisted living are bringing attention onto people's needs from different viewpoints. Our assumption is that considering these aspects together allows for novel intriguing possibilities. To this end, in this paper we combine home energy management with domotics, coordination technologies, intelligent agents, ambient intelligence, ubiquitous technologies and gamification to devise novel scenarios, where energy monitoring and management is just the basic brick of a much wider and comprehensive home management system. The aim is to control home appliances well beyond energy consumption, combining home comfort, appliance scheduling, safety constraints, etc. with dynamically-changeable users' preferences, goals and priorities. At the same time, usability and attractiveness are seen as key success factors: so, the intriguing technologies available in most houses and smart devices are exploited to make the system configuration and use simpler, entertaining and attractive for users. These aspects are also integrated with ubiquitous and pervasive technologies, geo-localization, social networks and communities to provide enhanced functionalities and support smarter application scenarios, hereby further strengthening technology acceptation and diffusion. Accordingly, we first analyse the system requirements and define a reference multi-layer architectural model - the Butlers architecture - that specifies seven layers of functionalities, correlating the requirements, the corresponding technologies and the consequent value-added for users in each layer. Then, we outline a set of notable scenarios of increasing functionalities and complexity, discuss the structure of the

Detecting Weak Spectral Lines in Interferometric Data through Matched Filtering

Science.gov (United States)

Loomis, Ryan A.; Öberg, Karin I.; Andrews, Sean M.; Walsh, Catherine; Czekala, Ian; Huang, Jane; Rosenfeld, Katherine A.

2018-04-01

Modern radio interferometers enable observations of spectral lines with unprecedented spatial resolution and sensitivity. In spite of these technical advances, many lines of interest are still at best weakly detected and therefore necessitate detection and analysis techniques specialized for the low signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) regime. Matched filters can leverage knowledge of the source structure and kinematics to increase sensitivity of spectral line observations. Application of the filter in the native Fourier domain improves S/N while simultaneously avoiding the computational cost and ambiguities associated with imaging, making matched filtering a fast and robust method for weak spectral line detection. We demonstrate how an approximate matched filter can be constructed from a previously observed line or from a model of the source, and we show how this filter can be used to robustly infer a detection significance for weak spectral lines. When applied to ALMA Cycle 2 observations of CH3OH in the protoplanetary disk around TW Hya, the technique yields a ≈53% S/N boost over aperture-based spectral extraction methods, and we show that an even higher boost will be achieved for observations at higher spatial resolution. A Python-based open-source implementation of this technique is available under the MIT license at http://github.com/AstroChem/VISIBLE.

Organising to Enable Innovation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brink, Tove

2016-01-01

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to reveal how organising can enable innovation across organisational layers and organisational units. This approach calls for a cross-disciplinary literature review. The aim is to provide an integrated understanding of innovation in an organisational approach....... The findings reveal a continous organising process between individual/ team creativity and organisational structures/control to enable innovation at firm level. Organising provides a dynamic approach and contains the integrated reconstruction of creativity, structures and boundaries for enhanced balance...... of explorative and exploitative learning in uncertain environments. Shedding light on the cross-disciplinary theories to organise innovation provides a contribution at the firm level to enable innovation....

Architecting Cloud-Enabled Systems: A Systematic Survey of Challenges and Solutions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chauhan, Aufeef; Babar, Muhammad Ali; Benatallah, Boualem

2016-01-01

architectures for cloud-based systems. Our key conclusions are that a large number of primary studies focus on middleware services aimed at achieving scalability, performance, response time and efficient resource optimization. Architecting cloud-based systems presents unique challenges as the systems...... to be designed range from pervasive embedded systems and enterprise applications to smart devices with Internet of Things (IoTs). We also conclude that there is a huge potential of research on architecting cloud-based systems in areas related to green computing, energy efficient systems, mobile cloud computing...

New magnet transport system for the LHC beam transfer lines

CERN Multimedia

Patrice Loïez

2003-01-01

The first of 700 magnets has been installed in one of the two transfer tunnels built to transfer the SPS beam into the LHC. The start of this first installation phase of the LHC transfer lines provides the opportunity to launch a new and highly original modular system for transporting and installing all kinds of magnets in very narrow tunnels. The system (pictured here in one of the tunnels) is based on very compact bogies, up to four of which can be coupled together to form a convoy. The wheels are fitted with individual motors enabling them to swivel through an angle of 90° and the convoy to move laterally. The lead vehicle is powered by an electric rail set into the roof of the tunnel. The system is backed up by electrical batteries that enable it to operate in the absence of an outside power source or in the event of power failure. Last but not least, for the long-distance transport of magnets, it can be optically guided by a line traced on the tunnel floor. The convoy moves through the particularly narr...

Spectral line polarimetry with a channeled polarimeter.

Science.gov (United States)

van Harten, Gerard; Snik, Frans; Rietjens, Jeroen H H; Martijn Smit, J; Keller, Christoph U

2014-07-01

Channeled spectropolarimetry or spectral polarization modulation is an accurate technique for measuring the continuum polarization in one shot with no moving parts. We show how a dual-beam implementation also enables spectral line polarimetry at the intrinsic resolution, as in a classic beam-splitting polarimeter. Recording redundant polarization information in the two spectrally modulated beams of a polarizing beam-splitter even provides the possibility to perform a postfacto differential transmission correction that improves the accuracy of the spectral line polarimetry. We perform an error analysis to compare the accuracy of spectral line polarimetry to continuum polarimetry, degraded by a residual dark signal and differential transmission, as well as to quantify the impact of the transmission correction. We demonstrate the new techniques with a blue sky polarization measurement around the oxygen A absorption band using the groundSPEX instrument, yielding a polarization in the deepest part of the band of 0.160±0.010, significantly different from the polarization in the continuum of 0.2284±0.0004. The presented methods are applicable to any dual-beam channeled polarimeter, including implementations for snapshot imaging polarimetry.

Constrained Convolutional Sparse Coding for Parametric Based Reconstruction of Line Drawings

KAUST Repository

Shaheen, Sara

2017-12-25

Convolutional sparse coding (CSC) plays an essential role in many computer vision applications ranging from image compression to deep learning. In this work, we spot the light on a new application where CSC can effectively serve, namely line drawing analysis. The process of drawing a line drawing can be approximated as the sparse spatial localization of a number of typical basic strokes, which in turn can be cast as a non-standard CSC model that considers the line drawing formation process from parametric curves. These curves are learned to optimize the fit between the model and a specific set of line drawings. Parametric representation of sketches is vital in enabling automatic sketch analysis, synthesis and manipulation. A couple of sketch manipulation examples are demonstrated in this work. Consequently, our novel method is expected to provide a reliable and automatic method for parametric sketch description. Through experiments, we empirically validate the convergence of our method to a feasible solution.

SpF: Enabling Petascale Performance for Pseudospectral Dynamo Models

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, W.; Clune, T.; Vriesema, J.; Gutmann, G.

2013-12-01

Pseudospectral (PS) methods possess a number of characteristics (e.g., efficiency, accuracy, natural boundary conditions) that are extremely desirable for dynamo models. Unfortunately, dynamo models based upon PS methods face a number of daunting challenges, which include exposing additional parallelism, leveraging hardware accelerators, exploiting hybrid parallelism, and improving the scalability of global memory transposes. Although these issues are a concern for most models, solutions for PS methods tend to require far more pervasive changes to underlying data and control structures. Further, improvements in performance in one model are difficult to transfer to other models, resulting in significant duplication of effort across the research community. We have developed an extensible software framework for pseudospectral methods called SpF that is intended to enable extreme scalability and optimal performance. High-level abstractions provided by SpF unburden applications of the responsibility of managing domain decomposition and load balance while reducing the changes in code required to adapt to new computing architectures. The key design concept in SpF is that each phase of the numerical calculation is partitioned into disjoint numerical 'kernels' that can be performed entirely in-processor. The granularity of domain-decomposition provided by SpF is only constrained by the data-locality requirements of these kernels. SpF builds on top of optimized vendor libraries for common numerical operations such as transforms, matrix solvers, etc., but can also be configured to use open source alternatives for portability. SpF includes several alternative schemes for global data redistribution and is expected to serve as an ideal testbed for further research into optimal approaches for different network architectures. In this presentation, we will describe the basic architecture of SpF as well as preliminary performance data and experience with adapting legacy dynamo codes

Privacy as Invisibility: Pervasive Surveillance and the Privatization of Peer-to-Peer Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Francesca Musiani

2011-06-01

Full Text Available This article addresses the ongoing, increasing privatization of peer-to-peer (P2P file sharing systems – the emergence of systems that users may only join by personal, friend-to-friend invitation. It argues that, within P2P systems, privacy is increasingly coinciding with “mere” invisibility vis-à-vis the rest of the Internet ecosystem because of a trend that has shaped the recent history of P2P technology: The alternation between forms of pervasive surveillance of such systems, and reactions by developers and users to such restrictive measures. Yet, it also suggests that the richness of today’s landscape of P2P technology development and use, mainly in the field of Internet-based services, opens up new dimensions to the conceptualization of privacy, and may give room to a more articulate definition of the concept as related to P2P technology; one that includes not only the need of protection from external attacks, and the temporary outcomes of the competition between surveillance and counter-surveillance measures, but also issues such as user empowerment through better control over personal information, reconfiguration of data management practices, and removal of intermediaries in sharing and communication activities.

Pervasiveness of the IQ rise: a cross-temporal meta-analysis.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jakob Pietschnig

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Generational IQ gains in the general population (termed the Flynn effect show an erratic pattern across different nations as well as across different domains of intelligence (fluid vs crystallized. Gains of fluid intelligence in different countries have been subject to extensive research, but less attention was directed towards gains of crystallized intelligence, probably due to evidence from the Anglo-American sphere suggesting only slight gains on this measure. In the present study, development of crystallized intelligence in the German speaking general population is assessed. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To investigate whether IQ gains for crystallized intelligence are in progress in German-speaking countries, two independent meta-analyses were performed. By means of a cited reference search in ISI Web of Science, all studies citing test manuals and review articles of two widely-used salient measures of crystallized intelligence were obtained. Additionally, the electronic database for German academic theses was searched to identify unpublished studies employing these tests. All studies reporting participants mean IQ or raw scores of at least one of the two measures were included in the present analyses, yielding over 500 studies (>1,000 samples; >45,000 individuals. We found a significant positive association between years of test performance and intelligence (1971-2007 amounting to about 3.5 IQ points per decade. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This study clearly demonstrates that crystallized IQ gains are substantial and of comparable strength as Flynn effects typically observed for measures of fluid intelligence in Central Europe. Since mean IQ was assessed in a large number of small, non-representative samples, our evidence suggests a remarkable robustness of these gains. Moreover, in both meta-analyses strength of gains was virtually identical. On the whole, results of the present study demonstrate a pervasive and generalizing

Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM): Enabling Civilian Low-Altitude Airspace and Unmanned Aerial System Operations

Science.gov (United States)

Kopardekar, Parimal Hemchandra

2016-01-01

Just a year ago we laid out the UTM challenges and NASA's proposed solutions. During the past year NASA's goal continues to be to conduct research, development and testing to identify airspace operations requirements to enable large-scale visual and beyond visual line-of-sight UAS operations in the low-altitude airspace. Significant progress has been made, and NASA is continuing to move forward.

Synthesis method based on solution regions for planar four bar straight line linkages

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lai Rong, Yin; Cong, Mao; Jian you, Han; Tong, Yang; Juan, Huang

2012-01-01

An analytical method for synthesizing and selecting desired four-bar straight line mechanisms based on solution regions is presented. Given two fixed pivots, the point position and direction of the target straight line, an infinite number of mechanism solutions can be produced by employing this method, both in the general case and all three special cases. Unifying the straight line direction and the displacement from the given point to the instant center into the same form with different angles as parameters, infinite mechanism solutions can be expressed with different solution region charts. The mechanism property graphs have been computed to enable the designers to find out the involved mechanism information more intuitively and avoid aimlessness in selecting optimal mechanisms

800 kW transmission line research at Leatherhead

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

1964-05-29

The experimental transmission line was installed at Leatherhead to enable the Central Electricity Research Laboratories to study the insulators, fittings, and conductors likely to be needed for ac power transmission at voltages up to the equivalent of 800 kV three-phase. Continuous recording will be made of corona power loss and radio and television interference. For this purpose C.E.R.L. has developed a statistical radio-interference recorder. The instrumentation also includes an automatic corona-loss bridge and data logger.

Caenorhabditis briggsae recombinant inbred line genotypes reveal inter-strain incompatibility and the evolution of recombination.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joseph A Ross

2011-07-01

Full Text Available The nematode Caenorhabditis briggsae is an emerging model organism that allows evolutionary comparisons with C. elegans and exploration of its own unique biological attributes. To produce a high-resolution C. briggsae recombination map, recombinant inbred lines were generated from reciprocal crosses between two strains and genotyped at over 1,000 loci. A second set of recombinant inbred lines involving a third strain was also genotyped at lower resolution. The resulting recombination maps exhibit discrete domains of high and low recombination, as in C. elegans, indicating these are a general feature of Caenorhabditis species. The proportion of a chromosome's physical size occupied by the central, low-recombination domain is highly correlated between species. However, the C. briggsae intra-species comparison reveals striking variation in the distribution of recombination between domains. Hybrid lines made with the more divergent pair of strains also exhibit pervasive marker transmission ratio distortion, evidence of selection acting on hybrid genotypes. The strongest effect, on chromosome III, is explained by a developmental delay phenotype exhibited by some hybrid F2 animals. In addition, on chromosomes IV and V, cross direction-specific biases towards one parental genotype suggest the existence of cytonuclear epistatic interactions. These interactions are discussed in relation to surprising mitochondrial genome polymorphism in C. briggsae, evidence that the two strains diverged in allopatry, the potential for local adaptation, and the evolution of Dobzhansky-Muller incompatibilities. The genetic and genomic resources resulting from this work will support future efforts to understand inter-strain divergence as well as facilitate studies of gene function, natural variation, and the evolution of recombination in Caenorhabditis nematodes.

A double-blind, placebo-controlled study of risperidone in adults with autistic disorder and other pervasive developmental disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

McDougle, C J; Holmes, J P; Carlson, D C; Pelton, G H; Cohen, D J; Price, L H

1998-07-01

Neurobiological research has implicated the dopamine and serotonin systems in the pathogenesis of autism. Open-label reports suggest that the serotonin2A-dopamine D2 antagonist risperidone may be safe and effective in reducing the interfering symptoms of patients with autism. Thirty-one adults (age [mean+/-SD], 28.1+/-7.3 years) with autistic disorder (n=17) or pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (n=14) participated in a 12-week double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of risperidone. Patients treated with placebo subsequently received a 12-week open-label trial of risperidone. For persons completing the study, 8 (57%) of 14 patients treated with risperidone were categorized as responders (daily dose [mean+/-SD], 2.9+/-1.4 mg) compared with none of 16 in the placebo group (Pautism (Pautism in adults.

Construction of a pulsed MeV positron beam line

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Masuno, Shin-ichi; Okada, Sohei; Kawasuso, Atsuo [Japan Atomic Energy Research Inst., Takasaki, Gunma (Japan). Takasaki Radiation Chemistry Research Establishment

1997-03-01

To develop a fast (1 MeV) and short pulsed (100 ps) positron beam which enables defect behavior analysis of bulk states of materials even at high temperatures where a usual positron source would melt, we have been performing design study and construction of the beam line in a three-year program since 1994. This report describes the components, design study results and experimental results of the completed parts until now. (author)

Flow cytometric analysis of microbial contamination in food industry technological lines--initial study.

Science.gov (United States)

Józwa, Wojciech; Czaczyk, Katarzyna

2012-04-02

Flow cytometry constitutes an alternative for traditional methods of microorganisms identification and analysis, including methods requiring cultivation step. It enables the detection of pathogens and other microorganisms contaminants without the need to culture microbial cells meaning that the sample (water, waste or food e.g. milk, wine, beer) may be analysed directly. This leads to a significant reduction of time required for analysis allowing monitoring of production processes and immediate reaction in case of contamination or any disruption occurs. Apart from the analysis of raw materials or products on different stages of manufacturing process, the flow cytometry seems to constitute an ideal tool for the assessment of microbial contamination on the surface of technological lines. In the present work samples comprising smears from 3 different surfaces of technological lines from fruit and vegetable processing company from Greater Poland were analysed directly with flow cytometer. The measured parameters were forward and side scatter of laser light signals allowing the estimation of microbial cell contents in each sample. Flow cytometric analysis of the surface of food industry production lines enable the preliminary evaluation of microbial contamination within few minutes from the moment of sample arrival without the need of sample pretreatment. The presented method of fl ow cytometric initial evaluation of microbial state of food industry technological lines demonstrated its potential for developing a robust, routine method for the rapid and labor-saving detection of microbial contamination in food industry.

Wall-collision line broadening of molecular oxygen within nanoporous materials

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Xu, Can T.; Lewander, Maerta; Andersson-Engels, Stefan; Svensson, Tomas; Svanberg, Sune [Department of Physics, Lund University, P. O. Box 118, SE-221 00 Lund (Sweden); Adolfsson, Erik [Ceramic Materials, SWEREA IVF, Box 104, SE-431 22 Moelndal (Sweden)

2011-10-15

Wall-collision broadening of near-infrared absorption lines of molecular oxygen confined in nanoporous zirconia is studied by employing high-resolution diode-laser spectroscopy. The broadening is studied for pores of different sizes under a range of pressures, providing new insights on how wall collisions and intermolecular collisions influence the total spectroscopic line profile. The pressure series show that wall-collision broadening is relatively more prominent under reduced pressures, enabling sensitive means to probe pore sizes of porous materials. In addition, we show that the total wall-collision-broadened profile strongly deviates from a Voigt profile and that wall-collision broadening exhibits an additive-like behavior to the pressure and Doppler broadening.

Smart Grid Enabled L2 EVSE for the Commercial Market

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Weeks, John [Eaton Corporation, Arden, NC (United States); Pugh, Jerry [Eaton Corporation, Arden, NC (United States)

2015-03-31

In 2011, the DOE issued Funding Opportunity DE-FOA-0000554 as a means of addressing two major task areas identified by the Grid Integration Tech Team (GITT) that would help transition Electric vehicles from a market driven by early adopters and environmental supporters to a market with mainstream volumes. Per DE-FOA-0000554, these tasks were: To reduce the cost of Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE), thereby increasing the likelihood of the build out of EV charging infrastructure. The goal of increasing the number of EVSE available was to ease concerns over range anxiety, and promote the adoption of electric vehicles: To allow EV loads to be managed via the smart grid, thereby maintaining power quality, reliability and affordability, while protecting installed distribution equipment. In December of that year, the DOE awarded one of the two contracts targeted toward commercial EVSE to Eaton, and in early 2012, we began in earnest the process of developing a Smart Grid Enable L2 EVSE for the Commercial Market (hereafter known as the DOE Charger). The design of the Smart Grid Enabled L2 EVSE was based primarily on the FOA requirements along with input from the Electric Transportation Infrastructure product line (hereafter ETI) marketing team who aided in development of the customer requirements.

Water-Enabled Healing of Conducting Polymer Films.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Shiming; Cicoira, Fabio

2017-10-01

The conducting polymer polyethylenedioxythiophene doped with polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) has become one of the most successful organic conductive materials due to its high air stability, high electrical conductivity, and biocompatibility. In recent years, a great deal of attention has been paid to its fundamental physicochemical properties, but its healability has not been explored in depth. This communication reports the first observation of mechanical and electrical healability of PEDOT:PSS thin films. Upon reaching a certain thickness (about 1 µm), PEDOT:PSS thin films damaged with a sharp blade can be electrically healed by simply wetting the damaged area with water. The process is rapid, with a response time on the order of 150 ms. Significantly, after being wetted the films are transformed into autonomic self-healing materials without the need of external stimulation. This work reveals a new property of PEDOT:PSS and enables its immediate use in flexible and biocompatible electronics, such as electronic skin and bioimplanted electronics, placing conducting polymers on the front line for healing applications in electronics. © 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Transgenic Xenopus laevis Line for In Vivo Labeling of Nephrons within the Kidney

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mark E. Corkins

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Xenopus laevis embryos are an established model for studying kidney development. The nephron structure and genetic pathways that regulate nephrogenesis are conserved between Xenopus and humans, allowing for the study of human disease-causing genes. Xenopus embryos are also amenable to large-scale screening, but studies of kidney disease-related genes have been impeded because assessment of kidney development has largely been limited to examining fixed embryos. To overcome this problem, we have generated a transgenic line that labels the kidney. We characterize this cdh17:eGFP line, showing green fluorescent protein (GFP expression in the pronephric and mesonephric kidneys and colocalization with known kidney markers. We also demonstrate the feasibility of live imaging of embryonic kidney development and the use of cdh17:eGFP as a kidney marker for secretion assays. Additionally, we develop a new methodology to isolate and identify kidney cells for primary culture. We also use morpholino knockdown of essential kidney development genes to establish that GFP expression enables observation of phenotypes, previously only described in fixed embryos. Taken together, this transgenic line will enable primary kidney cell culture and live imaging of pronephric and mesonephric kidney development. It will also provide a simple means for high-throughput screening of putative human kidney disease-causing genes.

Aspect-Oriented Model-Driven Software Product Line Engineering

Science.gov (United States)

Groher, Iris; Voelter, Markus

Software product line engineering aims to reduce development time, effort, cost, and complexity by taking advantage of the commonality within a portfolio of similar products. The effectiveness of a software product line approach directly depends on how well feature variability within the portfolio is implemented and managed throughout the development lifecycle, from early analysis through maintenance and evolution. This article presents an approach that facilitates variability implementation, management, and tracing by integrating model-driven and aspect-oriented software development. Features are separated in models and composed of aspect-oriented composition techniques on model level. Model transformations support the transition from problem to solution space models. Aspect-oriented techniques enable the explicit expression and modularization of variability on model, template, and code level. The presented concepts are illustrated with a case study of a home automation system.

The Nordic Housing Enabler

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Helle, Tina; Slaug, Bjørn; Brandt, Åse

2010-01-01

This study addresses development of a content valid cross-Nordic version of the Housing Enabler and investigation of its inter-rater reliability when used in occupational therapy rating situations, involving occupational therapists, clients and their home environments. The instrument was translated...... from the original Swedish version of the Housing Enabler, and adapted according to accessibility norms and guidelines for housing design in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland. This iterative process involved occupational therapists, architects, building engineers and professional translators......, resulting in the Nordic Housing Enabler. For reliability testing, the sampling strategy and data collection procedures used were the same in all countries. Twenty voluntary occupational therapists, pair-wise but independently from each other, collected data from 106 cases by means of the Nordic Housing...

The future of distributed gaming : technical advantages and user-centred design

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Martins, M.; Nap, H.H.; Gajadhar, B.J.; Oosting, W.; Jurgelionis, A.; Carmichael, R.; Silva, L.; Milagaia, F.; Bellotti, F.; Gloria, de A.; Freeman, J.; David, H.

2010-01-01

There is a potential demand for networked interactive media solutions that enable the rendering of PC games on set-top boxes, PDAs or low-cost CE devices. The Games@Large (GaL) project has been developing such a solution that would enable pervasive accessibility of interactive media from low-end

The future of distributed gaming : technical advantages and user-centred design

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Martins, M.; Silva, L.; Milagaia, F.; Nap, H.H.; Gajadhar, B.J.; Oosting, W.; Jurgelionis, A.; Beliotti, F.; Gloria, de A.; Carmichael, R.; Freeman, J.; David, H.

2010-01-01

There is a potential demand for networked interactive media solutions that enable the rendering of PC games on set-top boxes, PDAs or low-cost CE devices. The ames@Large (G@L) project has been developing such a solution that would enable pervasive accessibility of interactive media from low-end

[Doctor-nurse delegation of the insertion of central venous lines].

Science.gov (United States)

Cellupica, Mary

2015-01-01

The Léon Bérard Cancer Centre treats the disease in all its complexity with numerous disciplines such as surgery, medicine, radiotherapy, palliative care, home care, etc. The insertion of a central venous line is an essential part of cancer care and the nursing profession. It enables patients to have their treatment administered in the best possible conditions and without risk. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Staying the course: Examining enablers and barriers to student success within undergraduate nursing programmes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Victoria Boyd

2012-01-01

Full Text Available In line with current trends towards a positive and enhancement-led perspective, this account of a research project carried out in a Scottish university considers the student nurse experience as a lens for examining retention enablers. Two phases of interviews with final year students from a diverse cohort, many of whom were adult learners, informed the development of a series of themes and recommendations for better understanding factors which encourage persistence. A combination of grounded theory thematic analysis and narrative interpretation was used in this research to encourage a rich biographical component.

ASTERIA: Arcsecond Space Telescope Enabling Research in Astrophysics

Science.gov (United States)

Knapp, M.; Seager, S.; Smith, M. W.; Pong, C. M.

2017-12-01

ASTERIA (Arcsecond Space Telescope Enabling Research in Astrophysics) is a technology demonstration and opportunistic science mission to advance the state of the art in CubeSat capabilities for astrophysical measurements. The goal of ASTERIA is to achieve arcsecond-level line of sight pointing error and highly stable focal plane temperature control. These technologies will enable precision photometry, i.e. the careful measurement of stellar brightness over time. This in turn provides a way to study stellar activity, transiting exoplanets, and other astrophysical phenomena, both during the ASTERIA mission and in future CubeSat constellations. ASTERIA is a 6U CubeSat (roughly 10 x 20 x 30 cm, 12 kg) that will operate in low-Earth orbit. The payload consists of a lens and baffle assembly, a CMOS imager, and a two-axis piezoelectric positioning stage on which the focal plane is mounted. A set of commercial reaction wheels provides coarse attitude control. Fine pointing control is achieved by tracking a set of guide stars on the CMOS sensor and moving the piezoelectric stage to compensate for residual pointing errors. Precision thermal control is achieved by isolating the payload from the spacecraft bus, passively cooling the detector, and using trim heaters to perform small temperature corrections over the course of an observation. The ASTERIA project is a collaboration with MIT and is funded at JPL through the Phaeton Program for training early career employees. Flight hardware was delivered in June 2017, with launch expected in August 2017 and deployment targeted for October 2017.

The U-line line balancing problem

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Miltenburg, G.J.; Wijngaard, J.

1994-01-01

The traditional line balancing (LB) problem considers a production line in which stations are arranged consecutively in a line. A balance is determined by grouping tasks into stations while moving forward (or backward) through a precedence network. Recently many production lines are being arranged

Impairment of quality of life in parents of children and adolescents with pervasive developmental disorder

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

D'Arrigo Valentina

2007-04-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Little is known about the Quality of Life (QOL in parents of children with developmental diseases as compared to other severe neurological or psychiatric disorders. Aims of the present study were: to evaluate QOL in parents of children affected by Pervasive Development Disorder (PDDs, Cerebral Palsy (CP or Mental Retardation (MR as compared to a control group (CG; to evaluate QOL of parents of patients with different types of PDDs, namely Autistic Disorder (AD, High Function Autism/Asperger Syndromes (HFA/AS and Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PPD-NOS; and to compare the level of impairment in QOL of mothers and fathers within PDDs, CP, MR groups and between AD, HFA/AS, PDD-NOS sub-groups. Methods The sample consisted of 212 parents (115 mothers and 97 fathers of 135 children or adolescents affected by PDDs, MR or CP. An additional sample of 77 parents (42 mothers and 35 fathers of 48 healthy children was also included and used as a control group. QOL was assessed by the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire. Results Compared with parents of healthy children, parents in the PDDs group reported impairment in physical activity (p = 0.0001 and social relationships (p = 0.0001 and worse overall perception of their QOL (p = 0.0001 and health (p = 0.005. Scores in the physical (p = 0.0001, psychological (p = 0.0001 and social relationships domains (p = 0.0001 and in the physical (p = 0.0001 and social relationships (p = 0.0001 domains were lower compared to the MR group CP group respectively. Little differences were observed between MR, CP and control groups. The level of impairment of physical (p = 0.001 and psychological (p = 0.03 well-being were higher in mothers than in fathers in the PDDs and CP groups respectively; in the other groups, and across all the other domains of QQL impairment was similar. There were no statistically significant differences in the scores between the AD, HFA/AS and PDD-NOS sub

Development of a tilting system for electric multiple unit to speed up on conventional lines

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Seo, Sung Il; Kim, Nam Po; Lee, Soo Gil; Kim, Seok Won

2008-01-01

An advanced tilting system for KTT (Korean Tilting Train) was developed and a performance test of the system has been completed. KTT has been constructed to speed up and promise a significant enhancement in service quality on a conventional line. KTT is an electric multiple unit composed of 6 cars running at the design speed of 200 km/h. The tilting system is the core technology of KTT and combined with the conventional bogie system. It has a self-steering mechanism and a swing link. The self-steering mechanism of Z-bar type is free to rotate on the curve and stable to run on a straight line. The swing link mechanism of the bolster enables the carbody to tilt up to 8 .deg.. A tilting control system detects a curve with sensors and commands the electro-mechanical actuators to move the bolster through the computer network system. GPS collaborates with the tilting system to perceive the curve previously and enables gradual tilting so as not to violate passenger comfort. The performance of the tilting system has been verified by a trial test running of KTT on a commercial conventional line. The tilting system is ready for commercial use

Enabling Sustainable Agro-Food Futures: Exploring Fault Lines and Synergies Between the Integrated Territorial Paradigm, Rural Eco-Economy and Circular Economy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kristensen, Dan Kristian; Kjeldsen, Chris; Thorsøe, Martin Hvarregaard

2016-01-01

What kind of futures does agro-food imaginaries enable and who can get involved in the making of agro-food futures? In this respect, what can the increasingly influential idea of circular economy potentially offer in terms of enabling more sustainable agrofood futures? We approach this task...... important contributions in relation to studies of alternative food networks and the “quality” turn. These research agendas have challenged the current logic of the food system in terms of offering alternative visions of future development. We highlight two examples from the literature—the eco......-economy and the integrated territorial agri-food paradigm—that develop broader frameworks for rethinking the future of the agro-food system and which have distinguished themselves in contrast to the industrialized and globalized conventional food system. We find that with respect to reorienting and reconfiguring economic...

[NEII] Line Velocity Structure of Ultracompact HII Regions

Science.gov (United States)

Okamoto, Yoshiko K.; Kataza, Hirokazu; Yamashita, Takuya; Miyata, Takashi; Sako, Shigeyuki; Honda, Mitsuhiko; Onaka, Takashi; Fujiyoshi, Takuya

Newly formed massive stars are embedded in their natal molecular clouds and are observed as ultracompact HII regions. They emit strong ionic lines such as [NeII] 12.8 micron. Since Ne is ionized by UV photons of E>21.6eV which is higher than the ionization energy of hydrogen atoms the line probes the ionized gas near the ionizing stars. This enables to probe gas motion in the vicinity of recently-formed massive stars. High angular and spectral resolution observations of the [NeII] line will thus provide siginificant information on structures (e.g. disks and outflows) generated through massive star formation. We made [NeII] spectroscopy of ultracompact HII regions using the Cooled Mid-Infrared Camera and Spectrometer (COMICS) on the 8.2m Subaru Telescope in July 2002. Spatial and spectral resolutions were 0.5"" and 10000 respectively. Among the targets G45.12+0.13 shows the largest spatial variation in velocity. The brightest area of G45.12+0.13 has the largest line width in the object. The total velocity deviation amounts to 50km/s (peak to peak value) in the observed area. We report the velocity structure of [NeII] emission of G45.12+0.13 and discuss the gas motion near the ionizing star.

The 12th 735-kV transmission line project: Hydro-Quebec network

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1992-01-01

Hydro-Quebec is proposing to construct a 735-kV transmission line from the Chissibi station near the LG3 hydroelectric power plant to the Jacques-Cartier station near Quebec City. The width of the right-of-way will generally be 90 m and it is intended to install the line in two stages. The Chissibi-Chibougamau section should enter service in 1993 and the Chibougamau-Cartier section in 1994. The cost of the line is estimated at $1.21 billion, of which $900 million is for line construction and $310 million for station equipment. Prospective corridors for the line route have been selected, portions of which enable twinning with Hydro-Quebec's existing 9th 735-kV line. A series of hearings on the environmental and other impacts of the power line project was held by the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement and results are summarized along with the views of the Bureau. The summary describes the justification for the project, the choice of the transmission line route, the evaluation of the impacts of the project on the natural and human environments, health effects due to magnetic fields, and effects on the economic development of northern Quebec. Recommendations are given for mitigating the impacts of the project. 13 refs., 8 figs., 2 tabs

Design and Evaluation of a Pervasive Coaching and Gamification Platform for Young Diabetes Patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Klaassen, Randy; Bul, Kim C M; Op den Akker, Rieks; van der Burg, Gert Jan; Kato, Pamela M; Di Bitonto, Pierpaolo

2018-01-30

Self monitoring, personal goal-setting and coaching, education and social support are strategies to help patients with chronic conditions in their daily care. Various tools have been developed, e.g., mobile digital coaching systems connected with wearable sensors, serious games and patient web portals to personal health records, that aim to support patients with chronic conditions and their caregivers in realizing the ideal of self-management. We describe a platform that integrates these tools to support young patients in diabetes self-management through educational game playing, monitoring and motivational feedback. We describe the design of the platform referring to principles from healthcare, persuasive system design and serious game design. The virtual coach is a game guide that can also provide personalized feedback about the user's daily care related activities which have value for making progress in the game world. User evaluations with patients under pediatric supervision revealed that the use of mobile technology in combination with web-based elements is feasible but some assumptions made about how users would connect to the platform were not satisfied in reality, resulting in less than optimal user experiences. We discuss challenges with suggestions for further development of integrated pervasive coaching and gamification platforms in medical practice.

Design and Evaluation of a Pervasive Coaching and Gamification Platform for Young Diabetes Patients

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Randy Klaassen

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Self monitoring, personal goal-setting and coaching, education and social support are strategies to help patients with chronic conditions in their daily care. Various tools have been developed, e.g., mobile digital coaching systems connected with wearable sensors, serious games and patient web portals to personal health records, that aim to support patients with chronic conditions and their caregivers in realizing the ideal of self-management. We describe a platform that integrates these tools to support young patients in diabetes self-management through educational game playing, monitoring and motivational feedback. We describe the design of the platform referring to principles from healthcare, persuasive system design and serious game design. The virtual coach is a game guide that can also provide personalized feedback about the user’s daily care related activities which have value for making progress in the game world. User evaluations with patients under pediatric supervision revealed that the use of mobile technology in combination with web-based elements is feasible but some assumptions made about how users would connect to the platform were not satisfied in reality, resulting in less than optimal user experiences. We discuss challenges with suggestions for further development of integrated pervasive coaching and gamification platforms in medical practice.

Analysis of the Aedes albopictus C6/36 genome provides insight into cell line utility for viral propagation.

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, Jason R; Koren, Sergey; Dilley, Kari A; Puri, Vinita; Brown, David M; Harkins, Derek M; Thibaud-Nissen, Françoise; Rosen, Benjamin; Chen, Xiao-Guang; Tu, Zhijian; Sharakhov, Igor V; Sharakhova, Maria V; Sebra, Robert; Stockwell, Timothy B; Bergman, Nicholas H; Sutton, Granger G; Phillippy, Adam M; Piermarini, Peter M; Shabman, Reed S

2018-03-01

The 50-year-old Aedes albopictus C6/36 cell line is a resource for the detection, amplification, and analysis of mosquito-borne viruses including Zika, dengue, and chikungunya. The cell line is derived from an unknown number of larvae from an unspecified strain of Aedes albopictus mosquitoes. Toward improved utility of the cell line for research in virus transmission, we present an annotated assembly of the C6/36 genome. The C6/36 genome assembly has the largest contig N50 (3.3 Mbp) of any mosquito assembly, presents the sequences of both haplotypes for most of the diploid genome, reveals independent null mutations in both alleles of the Dicer locus, and indicates a male-specific genome. Gene annotation was computed with publicly available mosquito transcript sequences. Gene expression data from cell line RNA sequence identified enrichment of growth-related pathways and conspicuous deficiency in aquaporins and inward rectifier K+ channels. As a test of utility, RNA sequence data from Zika-infected cells were mapped to the C6/36 genome and transcriptome assemblies. Host subtraction reduced the data set by 89%, enabling faster characterization of nonhost reads. The C6/36 genome sequence and annotation should enable additional uses of the cell line to study arbovirus vector interactions and interventions aimed at restricting the spread of human disease.

Characterization and analysis of weld lines on micro-injection moulded parts using atomic force microscopy (AFM)

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tosello, Guido; Gava, Alberto; Hansen, Hans Nørgaard

2009-01-01

In recent years plastic moulding techniques, such as injection moulding, have been developed to fulfil the needs of micro-components fabrication. Micro-injection moulding (SLIM) is the process which enables the mass production of polymer micro-systems such as micro-mechanical parts, micro...... the two original flows will generate and a weld line is formed on the surface of the micro-moulded part. This phenomenon has to be avoided or at least reduced, since in the weld line area the mechanical properties are poorer than in the bulk part, creating strength problems on the final part. Although...... injection moulding parameters on the weld lines' dimensions is presented, using an atomic force microscope (AFM). Depth and width of weld lines were chosen as parameters to be optimized....

A Pervasive Promotion Model for Personalized Promotion Systems on Using WLAN Localization and NFC Techniques

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kam-Yiu Lam

2015-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we propose a novel pervasive business model for sales promotion in retail chain stores utilizing WLAN localization and near field communication (NFC technologies. The objectives of the model are to increase the customers’ flow of the stores and their incentives in purchasing. In the proposed model, the NFC technology is used as the first mean to motivate customers to come to the stores. Then, with the use of WLAN, the movements of the customers, who are carrying smartphones, within the stores are captured and maintained in the movement database. By interpreting the movements of customers as indicators of their interests to the displayed items, personalized promotion strategies can be formulated to increase their incentives for purchasing future items. Various issues in the application of the adopted localization scheme for locating customers in a store are discussed. To facilitate the item management and space utilization in displaying the items, we propose an enhanced R-tree for indexing the data items maintained in the movement database. Experimental results have demonstrated the effectiveness of the adopted localization scheme in supporting the proposed model.

Agronomic performance and stability of andean common bean lines with white grains in Brazil

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Helton Santos Pereira

2014-06-01

Full Text Available This work evaluated the effect of genotype by environment interaction in Andean common bean lines with white grains, in Central Southern Brazil, to identify lines with high agronomic performance, stability and adaptability, aiming to meet domestic demand and to increase the Brazilian participation in the foreign market of common bean. Nineteen trials with twelve Andean lines were conducted in 2007, 2008 and 2009, in Central Southern Brazil. Grain yield and other agronomic traits were evaluated. Data were subjected to analysis of variance and of adaptability/stability using Annicchiarico and modified AMMI methods. Significant differences were found between lines for all traits evaluated. Genotype by environment interaction was important for lines with Andean origin and white seed. The utilization of weighted mean of absolute scores and yield with the AMMI results enabled the identification of the most stable and adapted lines. Lines Poroto Alubia, CNFB 16211, Ouro Branco and WAF 160 were stable and adapted, using both methods. CNFB 16211 line presented high agronomic performance, stability and adaptability and therefore this line may be a new cultivar. USWA 70 and WAF 75 lines presented grain size similar to that required by the foreign market and superior to the Brazilian cultivars, besides favorable agronomic traits, and thus these lines may be indicated as new cultivars.

Pervasive Computing Technologies to Continuously Assess Alzheimer's Disease Progression and Intervention Efficacy.

Science.gov (United States)

Lyons, Bayard E; Austin, Daniel; Seelye, Adriana; Petersen, Johanna; Yeargers, Jonathan; Riley, Thomas; Sharma, Nicole; Mattek, Nora; Wild, Katherine; Dodge, Hiroko; Kaye, Jeffrey A

2015-01-01

Traditionally, assessment of functional and cognitive status of individuals with dementia occurs in brief clinic visits during which time clinicians extract a snapshot of recent changes in individuals' health. Conventionally, this is done using various clinical assessment tools applied at the point of care and relies on patients' and caregivers' ability to accurately recall daily activity and trends in personal health. These practices suffer from the infrequency and generally short durations of visits. Since 2004, researchers at the Oregon Center for Aging and Technology (ORCATECH) at the Oregon Health and Science University have been working on developing technologies to transform this model. ORCATECH researchers have developed a system of continuous in-home monitoring using pervasive computing technologies that make it possible to more accurately track activities and behaviors and measure relevant intra-individual changes. We have installed a system of strategically placed sensors in over 480 homes and have been collecting data for up to 8 years. Using this continuous in-home monitoring system, ORCATECH researchers have collected data on multiple behaviors such as gait and mobility, sleep and activity patterns, medication adherence, and computer use. Patterns of intra-individual variation detected in each of these areas are used to predict outcomes such as low mood, loneliness, and cognitive function. These methods have the potential to improve the quality of patient health data and in turn patient care especially related to cognitive decline. Furthermore, the continuous real-world nature of the data may improve the efficiency and ecological validity of clinical intervention studies.

Initial analyses of surface spectral radiance between observations and Line-By-Line calculations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brown, P.D.; Clough, S.A. [Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc., Cambridge, MA (United States); Miller, N.E.; Shippert, T.R.; Turner, D.D. [Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (United States)] [and others

1996-04-01

The evaluation an improvement of radiative transfer calculations are essential to attain improved performance of general circulation models (GCMs) for climate change applications. A Quality Measurement Experiment (QME) is being conducted to analyze the spectral residuals between the downwelling longwave radiance measured by the University of Wisconsin Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI) and spectral radiance calculated by the Line-By-Line Radiative Transfer Model (LBLRTM). The three critical components of this study are (1) the assessment of the quality of the high resolution AERI measurements, (2) the assessment of the ability to define the atmospheric state in the radiating column, and (3) the evaluation of the capability of LBLRTM. Validations have been performed on spectral radiance data, obtained from April 1994 through July 1994, through the analysis of the spectral interval and physical process. The results are archived as a function of time, enabling the retrieval of specific data and facilitating investigations and diurnal effects, seasonal effects, and longer-term trends. While the initial focus is restricted to clear-sky analyses, efforts are under way to include the effects of clouds and aerosols. Plans are well formulated for the extension of the current approach to the shortwave. An overview of the concept of the QME is described by Miller et al. (1994), and a detailed description of this study is provided by Clough et al. (1994).

Nordic Housing Enabler

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Helle, Tina; Brandt, Åse

Development and reliability testing of the Nordic Housing Enabler – an instrument for accessibility assessment of the physical housing. Tina Helle & Åse Brandt University of Lund, Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine (SE) and University College Northern Jutland, Occupational Therapy department (DK......). Danish Centre for Assistive Technology. Abstract. For decades, accessibility to the physical housing environment for people with functional limitations has been of interest politically, professionally and for the users. Guidelines and norms on accessible housing design have gradually been developed......, however, the built environment shows serious deficits when it comes to accessibility. This study addresses development of a content valid cross-Nordic version of the Housing Enabler and investigation of inter-rater reliability, when used in occupational therapy practice. The instrument was translated from...

Forward Genetics by Sequencing EMS Variation-Induced Inbred Lines

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Charles Addo-Quaye

2017-02-01

Full Text Available In order to leverage novel sequencing techniques for cloning genes in eukaryotic organisms with complex genomes, the false positive rate of variant discovery must be controlled for by experimental design and informatics. We sequenced five lines from three pedigrees of ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS-mutagenized Sorghum bicolor, including a pedigree segregating a recessive dwarf mutant. Comparing the sequences of the lines, we were able to identify and eliminate error-prone positions. One genomic region contained EMS mutant alleles in dwarfs that were homozygous reference sequences in wild-type siblings and heterozygous in segregating families. This region contained a single nonsynonymous change that cosegregated with dwarfism in a validation population and caused a premature stop codon in the Sorghum ortholog encoding the gibberellic acid (GA biosynthetic enzyme ent-kaurene oxidase. Application of exogenous GA rescued the mutant phenotype. Our method for mapping did not require outcrossing and introduced no segregation variance. This enables work when line crossing is complicated by life history, permitting gene discovery outside of genetic models. This inverts the historical approach of first using recombination to define a locus and then sequencing genes. Our formally identical approach first sequences all the genes and then seeks cosegregation with the trait. Mutagenized lines lacking obvious phenotypic alterations are available for an extension of this approach: mapping with a known marker set in a line that is phenotypically identical to starting material for EMS mutant generation.

Development and design of a line imaging spectrometer sampler (LISS) - A user manual

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, R.N.; Rasmussen, P.

2002-01-01

The objective of this report is to develop and describe the software for a Line Imaging Spectrometer Sampler (LISS) to perform measurements of spectra combined with a digital RGB photo of a measurant. Secondly this report should enable users to performmeasurements with the system. The measuring...... are developed as a Graphical User Interfaced (GUI) hosted by Matlab Release 12 from Mathworks. This GUI enables the operator to perform measurements from alldevices simultaneously together with notes specific for the measurant and store all the data in one Matlab data structure. The software includes dynamic...... exposure of the two CCD cameras ensuring optimal use of 16 bit range under unstable illuminationconditions. A routine, handling dark frame subtraction in a robust manner minimising the effect of hot pixels is also included. This report enables a novice user to perform measurements with LISS relatively easy...

Robust and accurate vectorization of line drawings.

Science.gov (United States)

Hilaire, Xavier; Tombre, Karl

2006-06-01

This paper presents a method for vectorizing the graphical parts of paper-based line drawings. The method consists of separating the input binary image into layers of homogeneous thickness, skeletonizing each layer, segmenting the skeleton by a method based on random sampling, and simplifying the result. The segmentation method is robust with a best bound of 50 percent noise reached for indefinitely long primitives. Accurate estimation of the recognized vector's parameters is enabled by explicitly computing their feasibility domains. Theoretical performance analysis and expression of the complexity of the segmentation method are derived. Experimental results and comparisons with other vectorization systems are also provided.

Installation of the LHC transfer lines begins

CERN Multimedia

Patrice Loïez

2003-01-01

The first of 700 magnets has been installed in one of the two transfer tunnels built to transfer the SPS beam into the LHC. The start of this first installation phase of the LHC transfer lines provides the opportunity to launch a new and highly original modular system for transporting and installing all kinds of magnets in very narrow tunnels. The system is based on very compact bogies, up to four of which can be coupled together to form a convoy. The wheels are fitted with individual motors enabling them to swivel through an angle of 90° and the convoy to move laterally. In this way the magnet is delivered directly to its installation point, but beneath the beamline. It is then raised into its final position in the beamline using air cushions, which form an integrated part of the transport system.Photos 01, 02: Pictured with the newly installed magnet and transport system in the transfer line tunnel are LHC project leader Lyn Evans (second left, white helmet); Volker Mertens, responsible for the LHC injecti...

Pilot project as enabler?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Neisig, Margit; Glimø, Helle; Holm, Catrine Granzow

This article deals with a systemic perspective on transition. The field of study addressed is a pilot project as enabler of transition in a highly complex polycentric context. From a Luhmannian systemic approach, a framework is created to understand and address barriers of change occurred using...... pilot projects as enabler of transition. Aspects of how to create trust and deal with distrust during a transition are addressed. The transition in focus is the concept of New Public Management and how it is applied in the management of the Employment Service in Denmark. The transition regards...

Electron temperature measurements by the plasma line technique at the French incoherent scatter radar facilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kofman, W.; Lejeune, G.; Hagfors, T.; Bauer, P.

1981-01-01

The results of experiments aimed at the determination of the electron temperature by a plasma line technique are presented. Using the multistatic capabilities of the French incoherent scatter radar, the plasma line frequencies were simultaneously measured at two receiving stations (Mende and Nancay) at the altitude corresponding to the maximum of the F layer. Different plasma line frequencies are measued because of different effective k vectors that appear in the thermal term of the plasma dispersion relation. We derive and apply two data analysis procedures that enable us to determine this frequency difference. Comparison of this measured frequency difference to that calculated using the ion component electron temperature demonstrates that the plasma lines could indeed be used to determine the electron temperature. A strong dependence of the power in the plasma line as a function of the angle between k vector and magnetic field is observed in agreement with the theory. The future developments of this technique with the EISCAT radar facilities are discussed

Pervasiveness of Entrepreneurial Orientation: Do Engagement and Voice Behavior Matter?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Belousova, Olga; Groen, Aard J; Gailly, Benoit

2014-01-01

A long-standing line of research proves a positive relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance of firms. Still, it is surprising, how little we know about the way entrepreneurial orientation is shaped, fostered, developed and maintained within organizations. Wales, Monsen, and

Thermoelectric energy harvesting system for demonstrating autonomous operation of a wireless sensor node enabled by a multipurpose interface

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Leicht, Joachim; Heilmann, Peter; Maurath, Dominic; Moranz, Christian; Manoli, Yiannos; Hehn, Thorsten; Li, Xiaoming; Thewes, Marcell; Scholl, Gerd

2013-01-01

This paper demonstrates the autonomous operation of a wireless sensor node exclusively powered by thermoelectric energy harvesting. Active operation of a wireless sensor system is demonstrated successfully by means of an on-line programmable emulation kit that enables various thermoelectric energy harvesting scenarios. Moreover, this emulation kit accomplishes autonomous wireless sensor node operation by interfacing a small-scaled thermogenerator via a CMOS integrated autonomous multipurpose energy harvesting interface circuit performing maximum power point tracking

Line identification studies using traditional techniques and wavelength coincidence statistics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cowley, C.R.; Adelman, S.J.

1990-01-01

Traditional line identification techniques result in the assignment of individual lines to an atomic or ionic species. These methods may be supplemented by wavelength coincidence statistics (WCS). The strength and weakness of these methods are discussed using spectra of a number of normal and peculiar B and A stars that have been studied independently by both methods. The present results support the overall findings of some earlier studies. WCS would be most useful in a first survey, before traditional methods have been applied. WCS can quickly make a global search for all species and in this way may enable identifications of an unexpected spectrum that could easily be omitted entirely from a traditional study. This is illustrated by O I. WCS is a subject to well known weakness of any statistical technique, for example, a predictable number of spurious results are to be expected. The danger of small number statistics are illustrated. WCS is at its best relative to traditional methods in finding a line-rich atomic species that is only weakly present in a complicated stellar spectrum

Line roughness improvements on self-aligned quadruple patterning by wafer stress engineering

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Eric; Ko, Akiteru; Biolsi, Peter; Chae, Soo Doo; Hsieh, Chia-Yun; Kagaya, Munehito; Lee, Choongman; Moriya, Tsuyoshi; Tsujikawa, Shimpei; Suzuki, Yusuke; Okubo, Kazuya; Imai, Kiyotaka

2018-04-01

In integrated circuit and memory devices, size shrinkage has been the most effective method to reduce production cost and enable the steady increment of the number of transistors per unit area over the past few decades. In order to reduce the die size and feature size, it is necessary to minimize pattern formation in the advance node development. In the node of sub-10nm, extreme ultra violet lithography (EUV) and multi-patterning solutions based on 193nm immersionlithography are the two most common options to achieve the size requirement. In such small features of line and space pattern, line width roughness (LWR) and line edge roughness (LER) contribute significant amount of process variation that impacts both physical and electrical performances. In this paper, we focus on optimizing the line roughness performance by using wafer stress engineering on 30nm pitch line and space pattern. This pattern is generated by a self-aligned quadruple patterning (SAQP) technique for the potential application of fin formation. Our investigation starts by comparing film materials and stress levels in various processing steps and material selection on SAQP integration scheme. From the cross-matrix comparison, we are able to determine the best stack of film selection and stress combination in order to achieve the lowest line roughness performance while obtaining pattern validity after fin etch. This stack is also used to study the step-by-step line roughness performance from SAQP to fin etch. Finally, we will show a successful patterning of 30nm pitch line and space pattern SAQP scheme with 1nm line roughness performance.

A theoretical model of rain–wind–induced in-plane galloping on overhead transmission tower-lines system

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chao Zhou

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Rain–wind–induced galloping phenomenon often occurs on overhead transmission tower-lines system, just as icing galloping and vortex-excited vibration; this kind of instability oscillation can cause power-line breakage or tower failure. However, the existing theoretical models of rain–wind–induced galloping are mainly based on the hypothesis of the overhead power-lines with fixed ends, which is inconsistent with the actual operation situation. Therefore, this article thus presents a preliminary theoretical study and proposes a new theoretical model taking into account the effect of tower excitations on the in-plane galloping of the overhead power-line and on the motion of the upper rain-line. The theoretical model is solved by Galerkin method and verified by the comparison with the test data obtained in the available literature involved with the overhead power-lines with fixed towers or moving towers. It turns out that the tower excitations may intensify the in-plane galloping amplitude of the overhead power-line within a certain range of frequency ratio and enable better comprehension of rain–wind–induced galloping mechanism.

On-line charge breeding using ECRIS and EBIS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Vondrasek, Richard, E-mail: Vondrasek@anl.gov

2016-06-01

The efficient and rapid production of a high-quality, pure beam of highly charged ions is at the heart of any radioactive ion beam facility. Whether an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source or an electron beam ion source (EBIS) is used to produce these highly charged ions, their operating characteristics will set the boundaries on the range of experiments which can be performed. In addition, time structure and duty cycle have to be considered when defining the operating parameters of the accelerator system as a whole. At Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), an ECR charge breeder was developed as part of the Californium Rare Ion Breeder Upgrade (CARIBU) program. The charge breeding efficiency and high charge state production of the source is at the forefront of ECR charge breeders, but its overall performance as part of the accelerator system is limited by pervasive background and relatively long breeding times. As such, an EBIS charge breeder has been developed and is running in an off-line configuration. It has already demonstrated good breeding efficiencies, shorter residence times, and reduced background and is scheduled to replace the ECR charge breeder in late 2015. The resultant change in duty cycle and time structure necessitates changes to the overall operation of the facility. The experiences with these breeders, as well as from several other facilities which already utilize an ECR or EBIS for charge breeding, help to define the operational characteristics of each technology – their strengths, their weaknesses, and the possible paths to improvement.

LongLine: Visual Analytics System for Large-scale Audit Logs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seunghoon Yoo

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Audit logs are different from other software logs in that they record the most primitive events (i.e., system calls in modern operating systems. Audit logs contain a detailed trace of an operating system, and thus have received great attention from security experts and system administrators. However, the complexity and size of audit logs, which increase in real time, have hindered analysts from understanding and analyzing them. In this paper, we present a novel visual analytics system, LongLine, which enables interactive visual analyses of large-scale audit logs. LongLine lowers the interpretation barrier of audit logs by employing human-understandable representations (e.g., file paths and commands instead of abstract indicators of operating systems (e.g., file descriptors as well as revealing the temporal patterns of the logs in a multi-scale fashion with meaningful granularity of time in mind (e.g., hourly, daily, and weekly. LongLine also streamlines comparative analysis between interesting subsets of logs, which is essential in detecting anomalous behaviors of systems. In addition, LongLine allows analysts to monitor the system state in a streaming fashion, keeping the latency between log creation and visualization less than one minute. Finally, we evaluate our system through a case study and a scenario analysis with security experts.

Effective Online Group Discovery in Trajectory Databases

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Li, Xiaohui; Ceikute, Vaida; Jensen, Christian S.

2013-01-01

GPS-enabled devices are pervasive nowadays. Finding movement patterns in trajectory data stream is gaining in importance. We propose a group discovery framework that aims to efficiently support the online discovery of moving objects that travel together. The framework adopts a sampling-independen......GPS-enabled devices are pervasive nowadays. Finding movement patterns in trajectory data stream is gaining in importance. We propose a group discovery framework that aims to efficiently support the online discovery of moving objects that travel together. The framework adopts a sampling......-independent approach that makes no assumptions about when positions are sampled, gives no special importance to sampling points, and naturally supports the use of approximate trajectories. The framework's algorithms exploit state-of-the-art, density-based clustering (DBScan) to identify groups. The groups are scored...

Dynamics, thermodynamics and structure of liquids and supercritical fluids: crossover at the Frenkel line

Science.gov (United States)

Fomin, Yu D.; Ryzhov, V. N.; Tsiok, E. N.; Proctor, J. E.; Prescher, C.; Prakapenka, V. B.; Trachenko, K.; Brazhkin, V. V.

2018-04-01

We review recent work aimed at understanding dynamical and thermodynamic properties of liquids and supercritical fluids. The focus of our discussion is on solid-like transverse collective modes, whose evolution in the supercritical fluids enables one to discuss the main properties of the Frenkel line separating rigid liquid-like and non-rigid gas-like supercritical states. We subsequently present recent experimental evidence of the Frenkel line showing that structural and dynamical crossovers are seen at a pressure and temperature corresponding to the line as predicted by theory and modelling. Finally, we link dynamical and thermodynamic properties of liquids and supercritical fluids by the new calculation of liquid energy governed by the evolution of solid-like transverse modes. The disappearance of those modes at high temperature results in the observed decrease of heat capacity.

Evaluating Complex Interventions and Health Technologies Using Normalization Process Theory: Development of a Simplified Approach and Web-Enabled Toolkit

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

May, Carl R

2011-09-30

Abstract Background Normalization Process Theory (NPT) can be used to explain implementation processes in health care relating to new technologies and complex interventions. This paper describes the processes by which we developed a simplified version of NPT for use by clinicians, managers, and policy makers, and which could be embedded in a web-enabled toolkit and on-line users manual. Methods Between 2006 and 2010 we undertook four tasks. (i) We presented NPT to potential and actual users in multiple workshops, seminars, and presentations. (ii) Using what we discovered from these meetings, we decided to create a simplified set of statements and explanations expressing core constructs of the theory (iii) We circulated these statements to a criterion sample of 60 researchers, clinicians and others, using SurveyMonkey to collect qualitative textual data about their criticisms of the statements. (iv) We then reconstructed the statements and explanations to meet users\\' criticisms, embedded them in a web-enabled toolkit, and beta tested this \\'in the wild\\'. Results On-line data collection was effective: over a four week period 50\\/60 participants responded using SurveyMonkey (40\\/60) or direct phone and email contact (10\\/60). An additional nine responses were received from people who had been sent the SurveyMonkey form by other respondents. Beta testing of the web enabled toolkit produced 13 responses, from 327 visits to http:\\/\\/www.normalizationprocess.org. Qualitative analysis of both sets of responses showed a high level of support for the statements but also showed that some statements poorly expressed their underlying constructs or overlapped with others. These were rewritten to take account of users\\' criticisms and then embedded in a web-enabled toolkit. As a result we were able translate the core constructs into a simplified set of statements that could be utilized by non-experts. Conclusion Normalization Process Theory has been developed through

Evaluating complex interventions and health technologies using normalization process theory: development of a simplified approach and web-enabled toolkit

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Murray Elizabeth

2011-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Normalization Process Theory (NPT can be used to explain implementation processes in health care relating to new technologies and complex interventions. This paper describes the processes by which we developed a simplified version of NPT for use by clinicians, managers, and policy makers, and which could be embedded in a web-enabled toolkit and on-line users manual. Methods Between 2006 and 2010 we undertook four tasks. (i We presented NPT to potential and actual users in multiple workshops, seminars, and presentations. (ii Using what we discovered from these meetings, we decided to create a simplified set of statements and explanations expressing core constructs of the theory (iii We circulated these statements to a criterion sample of 60 researchers, clinicians and others, using SurveyMonkey to collect qualitative textual data about their criticisms of the statements. (iv We then reconstructed the statements and explanations to meet users' criticisms, embedded them in a web-enabled toolkit, and beta tested this 'in the wild'. Results On-line data collection was effective: over a four week period 50/60 participants responded using SurveyMonkey (40/60 or direct phone and email contact (10/60. An additional nine responses were received from people who had been sent the SurveyMonkey form by other respondents. Beta testing of the web enabled toolkit produced 13 responses, from 327 visits to http://www.normalizationprocess.org. Qualitative analysis of both sets of responses showed a high level of support for the statements but also showed that some statements poorly expressed their underlying constructs or overlapped with others. These were rewritten to take account of users' criticisms and then embedded in a web-enabled toolkit. As a result we were able translate the core constructs into a simplified set of statements that could be utilized by non-experts. Conclusion Normalization Process Theory has been developed through

Pervasive Monitoring—An Intelligent Sensor Pod Approach for Standardised Measurement Infrastructures

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael Lippautz

2010-12-01

Full Text Available Geo-sensor networks have traditionally been built up in closed monolithic systems, thus limiting trans-domain usage of real-time measurements. This paper presents the technical infrastructure of a standardised embedded sensing device, which has been developed in the course of the Live Geography approach. The sensor pod implements data provision standards of the Sensor Web Enablement initiative, including an event-based alerting mechanism and location-aware Complex Event Processing functionality for detection of threshold transgression and quality assurance. The goal of this research is that the resultant highly flexible sensing architecture will bring sensor network applications one step further towards the realisation of the vision of a “digital skin for planet earth”. The developed infrastructure can potentially have far-reaching impacts on sensor-based monitoring systems through the deployment of ubiquitous and fine-grained sensor networks. This in turn allows for the straight-forward use of live sensor data in existing spatial decision support systems to enable better-informed decision-making.

OGC® Sensor Web Enablement Standards

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

George Percivall

2006-09-01

Full Text Available This article provides a high-level overview of and architecture for the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC standards activities that focus on sensors, sensor networks, and a concept called the “Sensor Web”. This OGC work area is known as Sensor Web Enablement (SWE. This article has been condensed from "OGC® Sensor Web Enablement: Overview And High Level Architecture," an OGC White Paper by Mike Botts, PhD, George Percivall, Carl Reed, PhD, and John Davidson which can be downloaded from http://www.opengeospatial.org/pt/15540. Readers interested in greater technical and architecture detail can download and read the OGC SWE Architecture Discussion Paper titled “The OGC Sensor Web Enablement Architecture” (OGC document 06-021r1, http://www.opengeospatial.org/pt/14140.

Design and Evaluation of a Pervasive Coaching and Gamification Platform for Young Diabetes Patients †

Science.gov (United States)

Klaassen, Randy; Bul, Kim C. M.; op den Akker, Rieks; van der Burg, Gert Jan; Di Bitonto, Pierpaolo

2018-01-01

Self monitoring, personal goal-setting and coaching, education and social support are strategies to help patients with chronic conditions in their daily care. Various tools have been developed, e.g., mobile digital coaching systems connected with wearable sensors, serious games and patient web portals to personal health records, that aim to support patients with chronic conditions and their caregivers in realizing the ideal of self-management. We describe a platform that integrates these tools to support young patients in diabetes self-management through educational game playing, monitoring and motivational feedback. We describe the design of the platform referring to principles from healthcare, persuasive system design and serious game design. The virtual coach is a game guide that can also provide personalized feedback about the user’s daily care related activities which have value for making progress in the game world. User evaluations with patients under pediatric supervision revealed that the use of mobile technology in combination with web-based elements is feasible but some assumptions made about how users would connect to the platform were not satisfied in reality, resulting in less than optimal user experiences. We discuss challenges with suggestions for further development of integrated pervasive coaching and gamification platforms in medical practice. PMID:29385750

Enabling Open Innovation: Lessons from Haier

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Arie Y.Lewin; Liisa V(a)likangas; Jin Chen

2017-01-01

Open innovation has become a dominant innovation paradigm.However,the actual adoption of open innovation organizational designs and practices remains elusive,and ongoing examples of large companies practicing open innovation in mature industries or beyond R&D activities are rare.Despite the continuing interest in open innovation and the surging research on the topic,not much is documented about how,in particular,large companies interpret and implement open innovation or develop and sustain an innovation-enabling culture.This paper reports on a study of Haier's adoption of six radical innovations as it implements an open innovation organization over a period of seven years.The study is unique in that the cases reveal how open innovation is enabled by the socially enabling mechanisms developed under Chairman Ruimin Zhang's leadership.These varied enabling mechanisms open the organization to serendipity at every level,from the bottom up to suppliers.Most importantly,the mechanisms imprint and sustain an open innovation culture recognized as important-yet often left unarticulated in terms of how it is practiced-in the prior literature.The paper contributes to and highlights the centrality of socially enabling mechanisms underlying an organization's innovation absorptive capacity.

Establishment and Characterization of New Canine and Feline Osteosarcoma Primary Cell Lines

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Florian R. L. Meyer

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Osteosarcomas are the most abundant form of bone malignancies in multiple species. Canine osteosarcomas are considered a valuable model for human osteosarcomas because of their similar features. Feline osteosarcomas, on the other hand, are rarely studied but have interesting characteristics, such as a better survival prognosis than dogs or humans, and less likelihood of metastasis. To enable experimental approaches to study these differences we have established five new canine osteosarcoma cell lines out of three tumors, COS_1186h, COS_1186w, COS_1189, and COS_1220, one osteosarcoma-derived lung metastasis, COS_1033, and two new feline osteosarcoma cell lines, FOS_1077 and FOS_1140. Their osteogenic and neoplastic origin, as well as their potential to produce calcified structures, was determined by the markers osteocalcin, osteonectin, tissue unspecific alkaline phosphatase, p53, cytokeratin, vimentin, and alizarin red. The newly developed cell lines retained most of their markers in vitro but only spontaneously formed spheroids produced by COS_1189 showed calcification in vitro.

On Line Service Composition in the Integrated Clinical Environment for eHealth and Medical Systems.

Science.gov (United States)

García-Valls, Marisol; Touahria, Imad Eddine

2017-06-08

Medical and eHealth systems are progressively realized in the context of standardized architectures that support safety and ease the integration of the heterogeneous (and often proprietary) medical devices and sensors. The Integrated Clinical Environment (ICE) architecture appeared recently with the goal of becoming a common framework for defining the structure of the medical applications as concerns the safe integration of medical devices and sensors. ICE is simply a high level architecture that defines the functional blocks that should be part of a medical system to support interoperability. As a result, the underlying communication backbone is broadly undefined as concerns the enabling software technology (including the middleware) and associated algorithms that meet the ICE requirements of the flexible integration of medical devices and services. Supporting the on line composition of services in a medical system is also not part of ICE; however, supporting this behavior would enable flexible orchestration of functions (e.g., addition and/or removal of services and medical equipment) on the fly. iLandis one of the few software technologies that supports on line service composition and reconfiguration, ensuring time-bounded transitions across different service orchestrations; it supports the design, deployment and on line reconfiguration of applications, which this paper applies to service-based eHealth domains. This paper designs the integration between ICE architecture and iLand middleware to enhance the capabilities of ICE with on line service composition and the time-bounded reconfiguration of medical systems based on distributed services. A prototype implementation of a service-based eHealth system for the remote monitoring of patients is described; it validates the enhanced capacity of ICE to support dynamic reconfiguration of the application services. Results show that the temporal cost of the on line reconfiguration of the eHealth application is bounded

Line facilities outline

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1998-08-01

This book deals with line facilities. The contents of this book are outline line of wire telecommunication ; development of line, classification of section of line and theory of transmission of line, cable line ; structure of line, line of cable in town, line out of town, domestic cable and other lines, Optical communication ; line of optical cable, transmission method, measurement of optical communication and cable of the sea bottom, Equipment of telecommunication line ; telecommunication line facilities and telecommunication of public works, construction of cable line and maintenance and Regulation of line equipment ; regulation on technique, construction and maintenance.

On-line filtering at the CERN-ISR

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Frehse, H.

1981-01-01

During the last years it has become quite evident that one should aim at trigger systems with high selectivity in order to improve the purity of data and simultaneously remove load from the off-line processing. At the CERN ISR typical pp interaction rates are in the order of 1-3 MHz. Therefore experiments studying low cross section processes need trigger systems which provide reduction factors in the order of 10 5 to avoid dead time losses. The use of programmable devices, allowing for flexible and sophisticated decision schemes, enables experiments to gain a decisive factor in rejection after pre-triggering with more conventional devices. An overview of the different methods employed and their performance is given. (orig.)

The Far Infrared Lines of OH as Molecular Cloud Diagnostics

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Howard A.

2004-01-01

Future IR missions should give some priority to high resolution spectroscopic observations of the set of far-IR transitions of OH. There are 15 far-IR lines arising between the lowest eight rotational levels of OH, and ISO detected nine of them. Furthermore, ISO found the OH lines, sometimes in emission and sometimes in absorption, in a wide variety of galactic and extragalactic objects ranging from AGB stars to molecular clouds to active galactic nuclei and ultra-luminous IR galaxies. The ISO/LWS Fabry-Perot resolved the 119 m doublet line in a few of the strong sources. This set of OH lines provides a uniquely important diagnostic for many reasons: the lines span a wide wavelength range (28.9 m to 163.2 m); the transitions have fast radiative rates; the abundance of the species is relatively high; the IR continuum plays an important role as a pump; the contribution from shocks is relatively minor; and, not least, the powerful centimeter-wave radiation from OH allows comparison with radio and VLBI datasets. The problem is that the large number of sensitive free parameters, and the large optical depths of the strongest lines, make modeling the full set a difficult job. The SWAS montecarlo radiative transfer code has been used to analyze the ISO/LWS spectra of a number of objects with good success, including in both the lines and the FIR continuum; the DUSTY radiative transfer code was used to insure a self-consistent continuum. Other far IR lines including those from H2O, CO, and [OI] are also in the code. The OH lines all show features which future FIR spectrometers should be able to resolve, and which will enable further refinements in the details of each cloud's structure. Some examples are given, including the case of S140, for which independent SWAS data found evidence for bulk flows.

Mechanical Implementation and Simulation of MoboLab, A Mobile Robot for Inspection of Power Transmission Lines

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mahmud Saadat Foumani

2008-11-01

Full Text Available This paper describes the first phase in development of a mobile robot that can navigate aerial power transmission lines completely unattended by human operator. Its ultimate purpose is to automate inspection of power transmission lines and their equipments. The authors have developed a scaled functional model of such a mobile robot with a preliminary simple computer based on-off controller. MoboLab (Mobile Laboratory navigates a power transmission line between two strain towers. It can maneuver over obstructions created by line equipments such as insulators, warning spheres, dampers, and spacer dampers. It can also easily negotiate the towers by its three flexible arms. MoboLab has an internal main screw which enables the robot to move itself or its two front and rear arms independently through changing gripped points. When the front arm gets close to an obstacle, the arm detaches from the line and goes down, the robot moves forward, the arm passes the obstacle and grippes the line again. In a same way another arms pass the obstacle.

A Pervasive Parallel Processing Framework for Data Visualization and Analysis at Extreme Scale

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Moreland, Kenneth [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Geveci, Berk [Kitware, Inc., Clifton Park, NY (United States)

2014-11-01

The evolution of the computing world from teraflop to petaflop has been relatively effortless, with several of the existing programming models scaling effectively to the petascale. The migration to exascale, however, poses considerable challenges. All industry trends infer that the exascale machine will be built using processors containing hundreds to thousands of cores per chip. It can be inferred that efficient concurrency on exascale machines requires a massive amount of concurrent threads, each performing many operations on a localized piece of data. Currently, visualization libraries and applications are based off what is known as the visualization pipeline. In the pipeline model, algorithms are encapsulated as filters with inputs and outputs. These filters are connected by setting the output of one component to the input of another. Parallelism in the visualization pipeline is achieved by replicating the pipeline for each processing thread. This works well for today’s distributed memory parallel computers but cannot be sustained when operating on processors with thousands of cores. Our project investigates a new visualization framework designed to exhibit the pervasive parallelism necessary for extreme scale machines. Our framework achieves this by defining algorithms in terms of worklets, which are localized stateless operations. Worklets are atomic operations that execute when invoked unlike filters, which execute when a pipeline request occurs. The worklet design allows execution on a massive amount of lightweight threads with minimal overhead. Only with such fine-grained parallelism can we hope to fill the billions of threads we expect will be necessary for efficient computation on an exascale machine.

Using virtual reality environment to improve joint attention associated with pervasive developmental disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Cheng, Yufang; Huang, Ruowen

2012-01-01

The focus of this study is using data glove to practice Joint attention skill in virtual reality environment for people with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD). The virtual reality environment provides a safe environment for PDD people. Especially, when they made errors during practice in virtual reality environment, there is no suffering or dangerous consequences to deal with. Joint attention is a critical skill in the disorder characteristics of children with PDD. The absence of joint attention is a deficit frequently affects their social relationship in daily life. Therefore, this study designed the Joint Attention Skills Learning (JASL) systems with data glove tool to help children with PDD to practice joint attention behavior skills. The JASL specifically focus the skills of pointing, showing, sharing things and behavior interaction with other children with PDD. The system is designed in playroom-scene and presented in the first-person perspectives for users. The functions contain pointing and showing, moving virtual objects, 3D animation, text, speaking sounds, and feedback. The method was employed single subject multiple-probe design across subjects' designs, and analysis of visual inspection in this study. It took 3 months to finish the experimental section. Surprisingly, the experiment results reveal that the participants have further extension in improving the joint attention skills in their daily life after using the JASL system. The significant potential in this particular treatment of joint attention for each participant will be discussed in details in this paper. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

iPSCORE: A Resource of 222 iPSC Lines Enabling Functional Characterization of Genetic Variation across a Variety of Cell Types

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Athanasia D. Panopoulos

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Summary: Large-scale collections of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs could serve as powerful model systems for examining how genetic variation affects biology and disease. Here we describe the iPSCORE resource: a collection of systematically derived and characterized iPSC lines from 222 ethnically diverse individuals that allows for both familial and association-based genetic studies. iPSCORE lines are pluripotent with high genomic integrity (no or low numbers of somatic copy-number variants as determined using high-throughput RNA-sequencing and genotyping arrays, respectively. Using iPSCs from a family of individuals, we show that iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes demonstrate gene expression patterns that cluster by genetic background, and can be used to examine variants associated with physiological and disease phenotypes. The iPSCORE collection contains representative individuals for risk and non-risk alleles for 95% of SNPs associated with human phenotypes through genome-wide association studies. Our study demonstrates the utility of iPSCORE for examining how genetic variants influence molecular and physiological traits in iPSCs and derived cell lines. : Working as part of the NHLBI NextGen consortium, Panopoulos and colleagues report the derivation and characterization of 222 publicly available iPSCs from ethnically diverse individuals with corresponding genomic data including SNP arrays, RNA-seq, and whole-genome sequencing. This collection provides a powerful resource to investigate the function of genetic variants. Keywords: iPSCORE, iPSC, GWAS, molecular traits, physiological traits, cardiac disease, NHLBI Next Gen, LQT2, KCNH2, iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes

On-line system for investigation of atomic structure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Amus'ya, M.Ya.; Chernysheva, L.V.

1983-01-01

A description of the on-line ATOM system is presented that enables to investigate the structure of atomic electron shells and their interactions with different scattering particles-electrons, positronse photons, mesons - with the use of computerized numerical solutions. The problem is stated along with mathematical description of atomic properties including theoretical and numerical models for each investigated physical process. The ATOM system structure is considered. The Hartree-Fock method is used to determine the wave functions of the ground and excited atomic states. The programs are written in the ALGOL langauge. Different atomic characteristics were possible to be calculated for the first time with an accuracy exceeding an experimental one

Similarity law for Widom lines and coexistence lines.

Science.gov (United States)

Banuti, D T; Raju, M; Ihme, M

2017-05-01

The coexistence line of a fluid separates liquid and gaseous states at subcritical pressures, ending at the critical point. Only recently, it became clear that the supercritical state space can likewise be divided into regions with liquidlike and gaslike properties, separated by an extension to the coexistence line. This crossover line is commonly referred to as the Widom line, and is characterized by large changes in density or enthalpy, manifesting as maxima in the thermodynamic response functions. Thus, a reliable representation of the coexistence line and the Widom line is important for sub- and supercritical applications that depend on an accurate prediction of fluid properties. While it is known for subcritical pressures that nondimensionalization with the respective species critical pressures p_{cr} and temperatures T_{cr} only collapses coexistence line data for simple fluids, this approach is used for Widom lines of all fluids. However, we show here that the Widom line does not adhere to the corresponding states principle, but instead to the extended corresponding states principle. We resolve this problem in two steps. First, we propose a Widom line functional based on the Clapeyron equation and derive an analytical, species specific expression for the only parameter from the Soave-Redlich-Kwong equation of state. This parameter is a function of the acentric factor ω and compares well with experimental data. Second, we introduce the scaled reduced pressure p_{r}^{*} to replace the previously used reduced pressure p_{r}=p/p_{cr}. We show that p_{r}^{*} is a function of the acentric factor only and can thus be readily determined from fluid property tables. It collapses both subcritical coexistence line and supercritical Widom line data over a wide range of species with acentric factors ranging from -0.38 (helium) to 0.34 (water), including alkanes up to n-hexane. By using p_{r}^{*}, the extended corresponding states principle can be applied within

Walk Like an Egyptian: A Serious, Pervasive Mobile Game for Tourism

Science.gov (United States)

Gabr, Fatema Mohsen; Abdennadher, Slim

2015-01-01

Walk like An Egyptian is a location-based, mobile native game developed for tourists. The game provides information for tourists about the touristic places, motivates nationals to visit their historical sights and increase their cultural heritage awareness enabling them to explore the past and connect with it. At the same time, the game allows to…

An Internet enabled impact limiter material database

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wix, S.; Kanipe, F.; McMurtry, W.

1998-09-01

This paper presents a detailed explanation of the construction of an interest enabled database, also known as a database driven web site. The data contained in the internet enabled database are impact limiter material and seal properties. The technique used in constructing the internet enabled database presented in this paper are applicable when information that is changing in content needs to be disseminated to a wide audience.

An Internet enabled impact limiter material database

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wix, S.; Kanipe, F.; McMurtry, W.

1998-01-01

This paper presents a detailed explanation of the construction of an interest enabled database, also known as a database driven web site. The data contained in the internet enabled database are impact limiter material and seal properties. The technique used in constructing the internet enabled database presented in this paper are applicable when information that is changing in content needs to be disseminated to a wide audience

Molecular characterization of breast cancer cell lines through multiple omic approaches.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Shari E; Mellor, Paul; Ward, Alison K; Kendall, Stephanie; McDonald, Megan; Vizeacoumar, Frederick S; Vizeacoumar, Franco J; Napper, Scott; Anderson, Deborah H

2017-06-05

Breast cancer cell lines are frequently used as model systems to study the cellular properties and biology of breast cancer. Our objective was to characterize a large, commonly employed panel of breast cancer cell lines obtained from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC 30-4500 K) to enable researchers to make more informed decisions in selecting cell lines for specific studies. Information about these cell lines was obtained from a wide variety of sources. In addition, new information about cellular pathways that are activated within each cell line was generated. We determined key protein expression data using immunoblot analyses. In addition, two analyses on serum-starved cells were carried out to identify cellular proteins and pathways that are activated in these cells. These analyses were performed using a commercial PathScan array and a novel and more extensive phosphopeptide-based kinome analysis that queries 1290 phosphorylation events in major signaling pathways. Data about this panel of breast cancer cell lines was also accessed from several online sources, compiled and summarized for the following areas: molecular classification, mRNA expression, mutational status of key proteins and other possible cancer-associated mutations, and the tumorigenic and metastatic capacity in mouse xenograft models of breast cancer. The cell lines that were characterized included 10 estrogen receptor (ER)-positive, 12 human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-amplified and 18 triple negative breast cancer cell lines, in addition to 4 non-tumorigenic breast cell lines. Within each subtype, there was significant genetic heterogeneity that could impact both the selection of model cell lines and the interpretation of the results obtained. To capture the net activation of key signaling pathways as a result of these mutational combinations, profiled pathway activation status was examined. This provided further clarity for which cell lines were particularly deregulated

Functionalized Graphene Enables Highly Efficient Solar Thermal Steam Generation.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Junlong; Pang, Yunsong; Huang, Weixin; Shaw, Scott K; Schiffbauer, Jarrod; Pillers, Michelle Anne; Mu, Xin; Luo, Shirui; Zhang, Teng; Huang, Yajiang; Li, Guangxian; Ptasinska, Sylwia; Lieberman, Marya; Luo, Tengfei

2017-06-27

The ability to efficiently utilize solar thermal energy to enable liquid-to-vapor phase transition has great technological implications for a wide variety of applications, such as water treatment and chemical fractionation. Here, we demonstrate that functionalizing graphene using hydrophilic groups can greatly enhance the solar thermal steam generation efficiency. Our results show that specially functionalized graphene can improve the overall solar-to-vapor efficiency from 38% to 48% at one sun conditions compared to chemically reduced graphene oxide. Our experiments show that such an improvement is a surface effect mainly attributed to the more hydrophilic feature of functionalized graphene, which influences the water meniscus profile at the vapor-liquid interface due to capillary effect. This will lead to thinner water films close to the three-phase contact line, where the water surface temperature is higher since the resistance of thinner water film is smaller, leading to more efficient evaporation. This strategy of functionalizing graphene to make it more hydrophilic can be potentially integrated with the existing macroscopic heat isolation strategies to further improve the overall solar-to-vapor conversion efficiency.

Distributed power-line outage detection based on wide area measurement system.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Liang; Song, Wen-Zhan

2014-07-21

In modern power grids, the fast and reliable detection of power-line outages is an important functionality, which prevents cascading failures and facilitates an accurate state estimation to monitor the real-time conditions of the grids. However, most of the existing approaches for outage detection suffer from two drawbacks, namely: (i) high computational complexity; and (ii) relying on a centralized means of implementation. The high computational complexity limits the practical usage of outage detection only for the case of single-line or double-line outages. Meanwhile, the centralized means of implementation raises security and privacy issues. Considering these drawbacks, the present paper proposes a distributed framework, which carries out in-network information processing and only shares estimates on boundaries with the neighboring control areas. This novel framework relies on a convex-relaxed formulation of the line outage detection problem and leverages the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) for its distributed solution. The proposed framework invokes a low computational complexity, requiring only linear and simple matrix-vector operations. We also extend this framework to incorporate the sparse property of the measurement matrix and employ the LSQRalgorithm to enable a warm start, which further accelerates the algorithm. Analysis and simulation tests validate the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed approaches.

A MODEL FOR TYPE 2 CORONAL LINE FOREST (CLiF) AGNs

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Glidden, Ana [Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139 (United States); Rose, Marvin; Elvis, Martin; McDowell, Jonathan [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)

2016-06-10

We present a model for the classification of Coronal Line Forest Active Galactic Nuclei (CLiF AGNs). CLiF AGNs are of special interest due to their remarkably large number of emission lines, especially forbidden high-ionization lines (FHILs). Rose et al. suggest that their emission is dominated by reflection from the inner wall of the obscuring region rather than direct emission from the accretion disk. This makes CLiF AGNs laboratories to test AGN-torus models. Modeling an AGN as an accreting supermassive black hole surrounded by a cylinder of dust and gas, we show a relationship between the viewing angle and the revealed area of the inner wall. From the revealed area, we can determine the amount of FHIL emission at various angles. We calculate the strength of [Fe vii] λ 6087 emission for a number of intermediate angles (30°, 40°, and 50°) and compare the results with the luminosity of the observed emission line from six known CLiF AGNs. We find that there is good agreement between our model and the observational results. The model also enables us to determine the relationship between the type 2:type 1 AGN fraction vs the ratio of torus height to radius, h / r .

Spreadsheets, Graphing Calculators and the Line of Best Fit

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bernie O'Sullivan

2003-07-01

One technique that can now be done, almost mindlessly, is the line of best fit. Both the graphing calculator and the Excel spreadsheet produce models for collected data that appear to be very good fits, but upon closer scrutiny, are revealed to be quite poor. This article will examine one such case. I will couch the paper within the framework of a very good classroom investigation that will help generate students’ understanding of the basic principles of curve fitting and will enable them to produce a very accurate model of collected data by combining the technology of the graphing calculator and the spreadsheet.

Characterization of stem-like cells in a new astroblastoma cell line

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Coban, Esra Aydemir; Kasikci, Ezgi [Department of Genetics and Bioengineering, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Yeditepe University, Istanbul (Turkey); Karatas, Omer Faruk [Molecular Biology and Genetics Department, Erzurum Technical University, Erzurum (Turkey); Suakar, Oznur; Kuskucu, Aysegul [Department of Medical Genetics, Yeditepe University Medical School and Yeditepe University Hospital, Istanbul (Turkey); Altunbek, Mine [Department of Genetics and Bioengineering, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Yeditepe University, Istanbul (Turkey); Türe, Uğur [Department of Neurosurgery, Yeditepe University School of Medicine, Istanbul (Turkey); Sahin, Fikrettin [Department of Genetics and Bioengineering, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Yeditepe University, Istanbul (Turkey); Bayrak, Omer Faruk, E-mail: ofbayrak@yeditepe.edu.tr [Department of Medical Genetics, Yeditepe University Medical School and Yeditepe University Hospital, Istanbul (Turkey)

2017-03-15

Cell lines established from tumors are the most commonly used models in cancer research, and their use in recent years has enabled a greater understanding of the biology of cancer and the means to develop effective treatment strategies. Astroblastomas are uncommon neuroepithelial tumors of glial origin, predominantly affecting young people, mainly teenagers and children, predominantly females. To date, only a single study has reported that astroblastomas contain a large number of neural stem-like cells, which had only a partial proliferation capacity and differentiation. Our objective was to establish an astroblastoma cell line to investigate the presence of astroblastic cells and cancer stem-like cells. The migratory and invasion abilities of the cells were quantified with invasion and migration assays and compared to a glioblastoma cell line. The presence of stem cells was detected with surface-marker analysis by using flow cytometry, and measuring the differentiation ability with a differentiation assay and the self-renewal capacity with a sphere-forming assay. These characteristics may determine whether this novel cell line is a model for astroblastomas that may have stem-cell characteristics. With this novel cell line, scientists can investigate the molecular pathways underlying astroblastomas and develop new therapeutic strategies for patients with these tumors. - Highlights: • An establishment of a novel astroblastoma cell line was proposed. • The presence of astroblastic cells and cancer stem-like cells was investigated. • The molecular pathways underlying astroblastomas may be investigated. • New therapeutic strategies for patients with astroblastoma may be developed.

5G-Enabled Tactile Internet

OpenAIRE

Simsek, Meryem; Aijaz, Adnan; Dohler, Mischa; Sachs, Joachim; Fettweis, Gerhard

2016-01-01

The long-term ambition of the Tactile Internet is to enable a democratization of skill, and how it is being delivered globally. An integral part of this is to be able to transmit touch in perceived real-time, which is enabled by suitable robotics and haptics equipment at the edges, along with an unprecedented communications network. The fifth generation (5G) mobile communications systems will underpin this emerging Internet at the wireless edge. This paper presents the most important technolo...

An internet enabled impact limiter material database

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wix, S.; Kanipe, F.; McMurtry, W. [Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)

1998-07-01

This paper presents a detailed explanation of the construction of an internet enabled database, also known as a database driven web site. The data contained in the internet enabled database are impact limiter material and seal properties. The techniques used in constructing the internet enabled database presented in this paper are applicable when information that is changing in content needs to be disseminated to a wide audience. (authors)

An internet enabled impact limiter material database

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wix, S.; Kanipe, F.; McMurtry, W.

1998-01-01

This paper presents a detailed explanation of the construction of an internet enabled database, also known as a database driven web site. The data contained in the internet enabled database are impact limiter material and seal properties. The techniques used in constructing the internet enabled database presented in this paper are applicable when information that is changing in content needs to be disseminated to a wide audience. (authors)

Unsplit bipolar pulse forming line

Science.gov (United States)

Rhodes, Mark A [Pleasanton, CA

2011-05-24

A bipolar pulse forming transmission line module and system for linear induction accelerators having first, second, third, and fourth planar conductors which form a sequentially arranged interleaved stack having opposing first and second ends, with dielectric layers between the conductors. The first and second planar conductors are connected to each other at the first end, and the first and fourth planar conductors are connected to each other at the second end via a shorting plate. The third planar conductor is electrically connectable to a high voltage source, and an internal switch functions to short at the first end a high voltage from the third planar conductor to the fourth planar conductor to produce a bipolar pulse at the acceleration axis with a zero net time integral. Improved access to the switch is enabled by an aperture through the shorting plate and the proximity of the aperture to the switch.

A new mathematical formulation of the line-by-line method in case of weak line overlapping

Science.gov (United States)

Ishov, Alexander G.; Krymova, Natalie V.

1994-01-01

A rigorous mathematical proof is presented for multiline representation on the equivalent width of a molecular band which consists in the general case of n overlapping spectral lines. The multiline representation includes a principal term and terms of minor significance. The principal term is the equivalent width of the molecular band consisting of the same n nonoverlapping spectral lines. The terms of minor significance take into consideration the overlapping of two, three and more spectral lines. They are small in case of the weak overlapping of spectral lines in the molecular band. The multiline representation can be easily generalized for optically inhomogeneous gas media and holds true for combinations of molecular bands. If the band lines overlap weakly the standard formulation of line-by-line method becomes too labor-consuming. In this case the multiline representation permits line-by-line calculations to be performed more effectively. Other useful properties of the multiline representation are pointed out.

Applications of geographic information systems (GIS) for highway traffic noise analysis : case studies of select transportation agencies

Science.gov (United States)

2012-11-30

Noise from highway traffic can be pervasive in areas near roadways. How and to what extent noise travels is strongly influenced by geospatial features such as terrain and elevation. Thus geographic information systems (GIS), which enable users to mor...

76 FR 51367 - China Shipping Container Lines Co., Ltd.; COSCO Container Lines Company Limited; Evergreen Line A...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-08-18

... FEDERAL MARITIME COMMISSION [Docket No. 11-12] China Shipping Container Lines Co., Ltd.; COSCO Container Lines Company Limited; Evergreen Line A Joint Service Agreement; Hanjin Shipping Co., Ltd... Maritime Commission (Commission) by China Shipping Container Lines Co., Ltd.; COSCO Container Lines Company...

Drawing the line on the sand

Science.gov (United States)

Ranasinghe, R.; Jongejan, R.; Wainwright, D.; Callaghan, D. P.

2016-02-01

Up to 70% of the world's sandy coastlines are eroding, resulting in gradual and continuous coastline recession. The rate of coastline recession is likely to increase due to the projected impacts of climate change on mean sea levels, offshore wave climate and storm surges. At the same time, rapid development in the world's coastal zones continues to increase potential damages, while often reducing the resilience of coastal systems. The risks associated with coastline recession are thus likely to increase over the coming decades, unless effective risk management plans are put in place. Land-use restrictions are a key component of coastal zone risk management plans. These involve the use of coastal setback lines which are mainly established by linearly adding the impacts of storms, recession due to sea level rise, and ambient long term trends in shoreline evolution. This approach does not differentiate between uncertainties that develop differently over time, nor takes into account the value and lifetime of property developments. Both shortcomings could entail considerable social cost. For balancing risk and reward, probabilistic estimates of coastline recession are a pre-requisite. Yet the presently adopted deterministic methods for establishing setback lines are unable to provide such estimates. Here, we present a quantitative risk analysis (QRA) model, underpinned by a multi-scale, physics based coastal recession model capable of providing time-dependent risk estimates. The modelling approach presented enables the determination of setback lines in terms of exceedance probabilities, a quantity that directly feeds into risk evaluations and economic optimizations. As a demonstration, the risk-informed approach is applied to Narrabeen beach, Sydney, Australia.

A four-detector spectrometer for e--γ PAC on-line with the ISOLDE-CERN isotope separator

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marques, J.G.; Correia, J.G.; Melo, A.A.; Silva, M.F. da; Soares, J.C.

1995-01-01

A four-detector e - -γ spectrometer has been installed on-line with the ISOLDE isotope separator. The spectrometer consists of two magnetic lenses for detection of conversion electrons, and two BaF 2 scintillators for γ-ray detection. The spectrometer has been equipped with a 20 kV pre-acceleration system which enables detection of conversion electrons down to 2 keV. Implantation and measurement can be performed simultaneously on a large temperature range by heating or cooling the sample holder. The advantages of using the e - -γ PAC technique on-line at ISOLDE are discussed. (orig.)

Microfluidic electrochemical sensor for on-line monitoring of aerosol oxidative activity.

Science.gov (United States)

Sameenoi, Yupaporn; Koehler, Kirsten; Shapiro, Jeff; Boonsong, Kanokporn; Sun, Yele; Collett, Jeffrey; Volckens, John; Henry, Charles S

2012-06-27

Particulate matter (PM) air pollution has a significant impact on human morbidity and mortality; however, the mechanisms of PM-induced toxicity are poorly defined. A leading hypothesis states that airborne PM induces harm by generating reactive oxygen species in and around human tissues, leading to oxidative stress. We report here a system employing a microfluidic electrochemical sensor coupled directly to a particle-into-liquid sampler (PILS) system to measure aerosol oxidative activity in an on-line format. The oxidative activity measurement is based on the dithiothreitol (DTT) assay, where, after being oxidized by PM, the remaining reduced DTT is analyzed by the microfluidic sensor. The sensor consists of an array of working, reference, and auxiliary electrodes fabricated in a poly(dimethylsiloxane)-based microfluidic device. Cobalt(II) phthalocyanine-modified carbon paste was used as the working electrode material, allowing selective detection of reduced DTT. The electrochemical sensor was validated off-line against the traditional DTT assay using filter samples taken from urban environments and biomass burning events. After off-line characterization, the sensor was coupled to a PILS to enable on-line sampling/analysis of aerosol oxidative activity. Urban dust and industrial incinerator ash samples were aerosolized in an aerosol chamber and analyzed for their oxidative activity. The on-line sensor reported DTT consumption rates (oxidative activity) in good correlation with aerosol concentration (R(2) from 0.86 to 0.97) with a time resolution of approximately 3 min.

A New Window into Escaping Exoplanet Atmospheres: 10830 Å Line of Helium

Science.gov (United States)

Oklopčić, Antonija; Hirata, Christopher M.

2018-03-01

Observational evidence for escaping exoplanet atmospheres has been obtained for a few exoplanets to date. It comes from strong transit signals detected in the ultraviolet, most notably in the wings of the hydrogen Lyα (Lyα) line. However, the core of the Lyα line is often heavily affected by interstellar absorption and geocoronal emission, limiting the information about the atmosphere that can be extracted from that part of the spectrum. Transit observations in atomic lines that are (a) sensitive enough to trace the rarefied gas in the planetary wind and (b) do not suffer from significant extinction by the interstellar medium could enable more detailed observations, and thus provide better constraints on theoretical models of escaping atmospheres. The absorption line of a metastable state of helium at 10830 Å could satisfy both of these conditions for some exoplanets. We develop a simple 1D model of escaping planetary atmospheres containing hydrogen and helium. We use it to calculate the density profile of helium in the 23S metastable excited state and the expected in-transit absorption at 10830 Å for two exoplanets known to have escaping atmospheres. Our results indicate that exoplanets similar to GJ 436b and HD 209458b should exhibit enhanced transit depths at 10830 Å, with ∼8% and ∼2% excess absorption in the line core, respectively.

Development of at-line assay to monitor charge variants of MAbs during production.

Science.gov (United States)

St Amand, M M; Ogunnaike, B A; Robinson, A S

2014-01-01

One major challenge currently facing the biopharmaceutical industry is to understand how MAb microheterogeneity affects therapeutic efficacy, potency, immunogenicity, and clearance. MAb micro-heterogeneity can result from post-translational modifications such as sialylation, galactosylation, C-terminal lysine cleavage, glycine amidation, and tryptophan oxidation, each of which can generate MAb charge variants; such heterogeneity can affect pharmacokinetics (PK) considerably. Implementation of appropriate on-line quality control strategies may help to regulate bioprocesses, thus enabling more homogenous material with desired post-translational modifications and PK behavior. However, one major restriction to implementation of quality control strategies is the availability of techniques for obtaining on-line or at-line measurements of these attributes. In this work, we describe the development of an at-line assay to separate MAb charge variants in near real-time, which could ultimately be used to implement on-line quality control strategies for MAb production. The assay consists of a 2D-HPLC method with sequential in-line Protein A and WCX-10 HPLC column steps. To perform the 2D-HPLC assay at-line, the two columns steps were integrated into a single method using a novel system configuration that allowed parallel flow over column 1 or column 2 or sequential flow from column 1 to column 2. A bioreactor system was also developed such that media samples could be removed automatically from bioreactor vessels during production and delivered to the 2D-HPLC for analysis. With this at-line HPLC assay, we have demonstrated that MAb microheterogeneity occurs throughout the cell cycle whether the host cell line is grown under different or the same nominal culture conditions. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

The impact of sensor errors and building structures on particle filter-based inertial positioning

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Toftkjær, Thomas; Kjærgaard, Mikkel Baun

2012-01-01

Positioning systems that do not depend on in-building infrastructures are critical for enabling a range of applications within pervasive computing. Particle filter-based inertial positioning promises infrastructure-less positioning, but previous research has not provided an understanding of how t...

Computer assisted extraction, merging and correlation of identities with Tracks Inspector

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hofste, Jop; Henseler, Hans; van Keulen, Maurice

With the pervasiveness of computers and mobile devices, digital forensics becomes more important in law enforcement. Detectives increasingly depend on the scarce support of digital specialists which impedes efficiency of criminal investigations. Tracks Inspector is a commercial solution that enables

FuturICT – The road towards ethical ICT

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Van den Hoven, M.J.; Helbing, D.; Pedreschi, D.; Domingo-Ferrer, J.; Gianotti, F.; Christen, M.

2012-01-01

The pervasive use of information and communication technology (ICT) in modern societies enables countless opportunities for individuals, institutions, businesses and scientists, but also raises difficult ethical and social problems. In particular, ICT helped to make societies more complex and thus

The enabling approach for housing supply

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ghada Farouk Hassan

2011-12-01

The paper attempts to highlight prerequisites needed to improve the success of the enabling approach in achieving adequate housing provision. Then the paper revisits the Egyptian experiences in the application of the enabling approach from 2005 till 2010. Finally, the paper highlights the main drops and lessons must be considered as promising approach after the revolution.

Instrument to screen cases of pervasive developmental disorder: a preliminary indication of validity Instrumento para rastreamento dos casos de transtorno invasivo do desenvolvimento: estudo preliminar de validação

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fábio Pinato Sato

2009-03-01

Full Text Available OBJECTIVE: To translate into Portuguese, back-translate, culturally adapt and validate a screening instrument for pervasive developmental disorder, the Autism Screening Questionnaire, for use in Brazil. METHOD: A sample of 120 patients was selected based on three groups of 40: patients with a clinical diagnosis of pervasive developmental disorder, Down syndrome, or other psychiatric disorders. The self-administered questionnaire was applied to the patients' legal guardians. Psychometric measures of the final version of the translated questionnaire were tested. RESULTS: The score of 15 had sensitivity of 92.5% and specificity of 95.5% as a cut-off point for the diagnosis of pervasive developmental disorder. Internal validity for a total of 40 questions was 0.895 for alpha and 0.896 for KR-20, ranging from 0.6 to 0.8 for both coefficients. Test and retest reliability values showed strong agreement for most questions. CONCLUSIONS: The final version of this instrument, translated into Portuguese and adapted to the Brazilian culture, had satisfactory measurement properties, suggesting preliminary validation proprieties. It was an easy-to-apply, useful tool for the diagnostic screening of individuals with pervasive developmental disorder.OBJETIVO: Tradução, retro-versão, adaptação cultural e validação do Autism Screening Questionnaire para a língua portuguesa e para o seu uso no Brasil. MÉTODO: Foi selecionada uma amostra inicial de 120 pacientes, encaminhados de duas clínicas privadas e uma pública, divida em três grupos de 40 pacientes distintos: pacientes com diagnóstico clínico de transtornos globais do desenvolvimento ou transtornos invasivos do desenvolvimento; de síndrome de Down e de outros transtornos psiquiátricos. O questionário foi aplicado aos responsáveis legais dos pacientes seguindo os padrões de um questionário auto-aplicável. As medidas psicométricas do questionário traduzido, na sua versão final, foram

Autismo e doenças invasivas de desenvolvimento Autism and pervasive developmental disorders

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carlos A. Gadia

2004-04-01

Full Text Available OBJETIVO: Revisar os aspectos neurobiológicos do autismo e das doenças invasivas de desenvolvimento. Oferecer ao pediatra informações atualizadas sobre diagnóstico e tratamento. FONTES DOS DADOS: Revisão bibliográfica, abordando o tema por meio do sistema MEDLINE e procura direta. SÍNTESE DOS DADOS: Conforme dados da literatura, o autismo é a terceira mais comum desordem no desenvolvimento, ocorrendo em 40 a 130 casos por 100.000. O diagnóstico é clínico, baseado nos critérios do DSM-IV. Os exames de neuroimagem e neurofetologia e os estudos genéticos contribuem para o melhor entendimento da neurobiologia do autismo. CONCLUSÃO: O pediatra é o primeiro médico a entrar em contato com o paciente autista e deve estar apto para reconhecer os desvios do desenvolvimento e orientar a investigação e o tratamento multidisciplinar.OBJECTIVE: To review the current knowledge on neurobiological aspects of autism and pervasive developmental disorders, as well as to provide pediatricians with up to date information on diagnosis and treatment of autism. SOURCES OF DATA: Review of MEDLINE and Internet. SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS: Autism is the 3rd developmental disorder, with an incidence of 40 to 130/100,000 individuals. Diagnosis is based on clinical findings, following DSM IV criteria. Neuroimaging, investigation of fetal neurological status, and genetic investigation contribute towards a better understanding of the neurobiology of autism. CONCLUSION: Pediatricians are the first health professional to come in contact with patients with autism. Thus, they should be able to diagnose and to coordinate the multidisciplinary treatment of these patients.

A SOFTWARE PRODUCT LINE FOR ENERGY-EFFICIENT CONTROL OF SUPPLEMENTARY LIGHTING IN GREENHOUSES

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mærsk-Møller, Hans Martin; Jørgensen, Bo Nørregaard

2011-01-01

of 2009 – 2010 showed 25 percent savings with no negative effect on plant quality. To accelerate the impact of our approach, we chose to use Software Product Line Engineering, as it enables a greater variety of related software tools to be created faster. We have created a web-based analysis tool, Dyna...... preserving production quality. This paper presents a novel approach addressing this issue. We use weather forecasts and electricity prices to compute cost- and energy-efficient supplementary light plans that achieve the required plant growth defined by the grower. Experiments performed during the winter...... of these two tools is described together with the lessons learned from using Software Product Line Engineering in the domain of greenhouse software development....

Micro-Injection Moulding In-Line Quality Assurance Based on Product and Process Fingerprints

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Baruffi, Federico; Calaon, Matteo; Tosello, Guido

2018-01-01

significant dimensional features of the micro part were measured using a focus variation microscope. Their dependency on the variation of µIM process parameters was studied with a Design of Experiments (DoE) statistical approach. A correlation study allowed the identification of the product fingerprint, i...... of the study showed that the dimensional quality of the micro component could be effectively controlled in-line by combining the two fingerprints, thus opening the door for future µIM in-line process optimization and quality assessment.......Micro-injection moulding (μIM) is a replication-based process enabling the cost-effective production of complex and net-shaped miniaturized plastic components. The micro-scaled size of such parts poses great challenges in assessing their dimensional quality and often leads to time...

A Network Enabled Platform for Canadian Space Science Data

Science.gov (United States)

Rankin, R.; Boteler, D. R.; Jayachandran, T. P.; Mann, I. R.; Sofko, G.; Yau, A. W.

2008-12-01

The internet is an example of a pervasive disruptive technology that has transformed society on a global scale. The term "cyberinfrastructure" refers to technology underpinning the collaborative aspect of large science projects and is synonymous with terms such as e-Science, intelligent infrastructure, and/or e- infrastructure. In the context of space science, a significant challenge is to exploit the internet and cyberinfrastructure to form effective virtual organizations (VOs) of scientists that have common or agreed- upon objectives. A typical VO is likely to include universities and government agencies specializing in types of instrumentation (ground and/or space based), which in deployment produce large quantities of space data. Such data is most effectively described by metadata, which if defined in a standard way, facilitates discovery and retrieval of data over the internet by intelligent interfaces and cyberinfrastructure. One recent and significant approach is SPASE, which is being developed by NASA as a data-standard for its Virtual Observatories (VxOs) programs. The space science community in Canada has recently formed a VO designed to complement the e-POP microsatellite mission, and new ground-based observatories (GBOs) that collect data over a large fraction of the Canadian land-mass. The VO includes members of the CGSM community (www.cgsm.ca), which is funded operationally by the Canadian Space Agency. It also includes the UCLA VMO team, and scientists in the NASA THEMIS mission. CANARIE (www.canarie.ca), the federal agency responsible for management, design and operation of Canada's research internet, has recently recognized the value of cyberinfrastucture through the creation of a Network-Enabled-Platforms (NEPs) program. An NEP for space science was funded by CANARIE in its first competition. When fully implemented, the Space Science NEP will consist of a front-end portal providing access to CGSM data. It will utilize an adaptation of the SPASE

MOLECULAR LINE OBSERVATIONS OF THE CARBON-RICH CIRCUMSTELLAR ENVELOPE CIT 6 AT 7 mm WAVELENGTHS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chau, Wayne; Zhang Yong; Nakashima, Jun-ichi; Kwok, Sun [Department of Physics, University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong); Deguchi, Shuji [Nobeyama Radio Observatory, National Astronomical Observatory, Minamimaki, Minamisaku, Nagano 384-1305 (Japan)

2012-11-20

We present a {lambda}7 mm spectral line survey of the carbon-rich circumstellar envelope (CSE) CIT 6 using the 45 m telescope at the Nobeyama Radio Observatory. A total of 25 spectral features belonging to five molecular species (HC{sub 3}N, HC{sub 5}N, HC{sub 7}N, SiO, and CS) are detected, enabling us to investigate the chemistry of cyanopolyyne chains. The line strengths are compared with those of the proto-typical carbon-rich CSE IRC+10216. The results show that the cyanopolyyne molecules are enhanced in CIT 6, suggesting that it is more evolved than IRC+10216. In order to investigate the structure of CIT 6, we have constructed a three-dimensional spatiokinematic model. By comparing the observed line profiles with the models, we conclude that this envelope is asymmetric and is composed of several incomplete shells.

Miniature in vivo MEMS-based line-scanned dual-axis confocal microscope for point-of-care pathology

Science.gov (United States)

Yin, C.; Glaser, A.K.; Leigh, S. Y.; Chen, Y.; Wei, L.; Pillai, P. C. S.; Rosenberg, M. C.; Abeytunge, S.; Peterson, G.; Glazowski, C.; Sanai, N.; Mandella, M. J.; Rajadhyaksha, M.; Liu, J. T. C.

2016-01-01

There is a need for miniature optical-sectioning microscopes to enable in vivo interrogation of tissues as a real-time and noninvasive alternative to gold-standard histopathology. Such devices could have a transformative impact for the early detection of cancer as well as for guiding tumor-resection procedures. Miniature confocal microscopes have been developed by various researchers and corporations to enable optical sectioning of highly scattering tissues, all of which have necessitated various trade-offs in size, speed, depth selectivity, field of view, resolution, image contrast, and sensitivity. In this study, a miniature line-scanned (LS) dual-axis confocal (DAC) microscope, with a 12-mm diameter distal tip, has been developed for clinical point-of-care pathology. The dual-axis architecture has demonstrated an advantage over the conventional single-axis confocal configuration for reducing background noise from out-of-focus and multiply scattered light. The use of line scanning enables fast frame rates (16 frames/sec is demonstrated here, but faster rates are possible), which mitigates motion artifacts of a hand-held device during clinical use. We have developed a method to actively align the illumination and collection beams in a DAC microscope through the use of a pair of rotatable alignment mirrors. Incorporation of a custom objective lens, with a small form factor for in vivo clinical use, enables our device to achieve an optical-sectioning thickness and lateral resolution of 2.0 and 1.1 microns respectively. Validation measurements with reflective targets, as well as in vivo and ex vivo images of tissues, demonstrate the clinical potential of this high-speed optical-sectioning microscopy device. PMID:26977337

The HI/OH/Recombination line survey of the inner Milky Way (THOR). Survey overview and data release 1

Science.gov (United States)

Beuther, H.; Bihr, S.; Rugel, M.; Johnston, K.; Wang, Y.; Walter, F.; Brunthaler, A.; Walsh, A. J.; Ott, J.; Stil, J.; Henning, Th.; Schierhuber, T.; Kainulainen, J.; Heyer, M.; Goldsmith, P. F.; Anderson, L. D.; Longmore, S. N.; Klessen, R. S.; Glover, S. C. O.; Urquhart, J. S.; Plume, R.; Ragan, S. E.; Schneider, N.; McClure-Griffiths, N. M.; Menten, K. M.; Smith, R.; Roy, N.; Shanahan, R.; Nguyen-Luong, Q.; Bigiel, F.

2016-10-01

Context. The past decade has witnessed a large number of Galactic plane surveys at angular resolutions below 20''. However, no comparable high-resolution survey exists at long radio wavelengths around 21 cm in line and continuum emission. Aims: We remedy this situation by studying the northern Galactic plane at 20'' resolution in emission of atomic, molecular, and ionized gas. Methods: Employing the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in the C-array configuration and a large program, we observe the HI 21 cm line, four OH lines, nineteen Hnα radio recombination lines as well as the continuum emission from 1 to 2 GHz in full polarization over a large part of the first Galactic quadrant. Results: Covering Galactic longitudes from 14.5 to 67.4 deg and latitudes between ± 1.25 deg, we image all of these lines and the continuum at 20'' resolution. These data allow us to study the various components of the interstellar medium (ISM): from the atomic phase, traced by the HI line, to the molecular phase, observed by the OH transitions, to the ionized medium, revealed by the cm continuum and the Hnα radio recombination lines. Furthermore, the polarized continuum emission enables magnetic field studies. In this overview paper, we discuss the survey outline and present the first data release as well as early results from the different datasets. We now release the first half of the survey; the second half will follow later after the ongoing data processing has been completed. The data in fits format (continuum images and line data cubes) can be accessed through the project web-page. Conclusions: The HI/OH/Recombination line survey of the Milky Way (THOR) opens a new window to the different parts of the ISM. It enables detailed studies of molecular cloud formation, conversion of atomic to molecular gas, and feedback from Hii regions as well as the magnetic field in the Milky Way. It is highly complementary to other surveys of our Galaxy, and comparing the different datasets

Spatially enabled land administration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Enemark, Stig

2006-01-01

enabling of land administration systems managing tenure, valuation, planning, and development will allow the information generated by these activities to be much more useful. Also, the services available to private and public sectors and to community organisations should commensurably improve. Knowledge....... In other words: Good governance and sustainable development is not attainable without sound land administration or - more broadly – sound land management. The paper presents a land management vision that incorporates the benefits of ICT enabled land administration functions. The idea is that spatial...... the communication between administrative systems and also establish more reliable data due to the use the original data instead of copies. In Denmark, such governmental guidelines for a service-oriented ITarchitecture in support of e-government are recently adopted. Finally, the paper presents the role of FIG...

INTEGRAL/SPI γ-ray line spectroscopy. Response and background characteristics

Science.gov (United States)

Diehl, Roland; Siegert, Thomas; Greiner, Jochen; Krause, Martin; Kretschmer, Karsten; Lang, Michael; Pleintinger, Moritz; Strong, Andrew W.; Weinberger, Christoph; Zhang, Xiaoling

2018-03-01

Context. The space based γ-ray observatory INTEGRAL of the European Space Agency (ESA) includes the spectrometer instrument "SPI". This is a coded mask telescope featuring a 19-element Germanium detector array for high-resolution γ-ray spectroscopy, encapsulated in a scintillation detector assembly that provides a veto for background from charged particles. In space, cosmic rays irradiate spacecraft and instruments, which, in spite of the vetoing detectors, results in a large instrumental background from activation of those materials, and leads to deterioration of the charge collection properties of the Ge detectors. Aim. We aim to determine the measurement characteristics of our detectors and their evolution with time, that is, their spectral response and instrumental background. These incur systematic variations in the SPI signal from celestial photons, hence their determination from a broad empirical database enables a reduction of underlying systematics in data analysis. For this, we explore compromises balancing temporal and spectral resolution within statistical limitations. Our goal is to enable modelling of background applicable to spectroscopic studies of the sky, accounting separately for changes of the spectral response and of instrumental background. Methods: We use 13.5 years of INTEGRAL/SPI data, which consist of spectra for each detector and for each pointing of the satellite. Spectral fits to each such spectrum, with independent but coherent treatment of continuum and line backgrounds, provides us with details about separated background components. From the strongest background lines, we first determine how the spectral response changes with time. Applying symmetry and long-term stability tests, we eliminate degeneracies and reduce statistical fluctuations of background parameters, with the aim of providing a self-consistent description of the spectral response for each individual detector. Accounting for this, we then determine how the

ATYPICAL ANTIPSYCHOTICS USE IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nataša Potočnik-Dajčman

2002-06-01

Full Text Available Background. Classical antipsychotics – neuroleptics are one of the most frequently prescribed psychotropic drugs in child psychiatry. Atypical antipsychotics are used for the same indications – psychotic (schizophrenia as well as unpsychotic disorders (pervasive developmental disorders, mood disorders, conduct disorders and tics disorders. It is surprising that the studies on their use with regard to this age group are rather rare. They are carried out on a small number of samples and only exceptionally double blind. This article summarizes published clinical experience with atypical antipsychotics in children and adolescents. A short overview of pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics and side effects is given. Schizophrenia and pervasive developmental disorders are major indications for use of atypical antipsychotics in children and adolescents, but they have also been successfully used for other disorders such as aggressive behaviour, tics and anorexia nervosa.Conclusions. With better side-effect profile, some of the atypical antipsychotics are expected to be doctrinally recognised as the first-line treatment for childhood schizophrenia and pervasive developmental disorders. However, more long-term studies carried out on a larger sample are needed. Atypical antipsychotics are already used in everyday practice as first-line treatment of childhood and adolescents schizophrenia.

Security in Distributed Collaborative Environments: Limitations and Solutions

Science.gov (United States)

Saadi, Rachid; Pierson, Jean-Marc; Brunie, Lionel

The main goal of establishing collaboration between heterogeneous environment is to create such as Pervasive context which provide nomadic users with ubiquitous access to digital information and surrounding resources. However, the constraints of mobility and heterogeneity arise a number of crucial issues related to security, especially authentication access control and privacy. First of all, in this chapter we explore the trust paradigm, specially the transitive capability to enable a trust peer to peer collaboration. In this manner, when each organization sets its own security policy to recognize (authenticate) users members of a trusted community and provide them a local access (access control), the trust transitivity between peers will allows users to gain a broad, larger and controlled access inside the pervasive environment. Next, we study the problem of user's privacy. In fact in pervasive and ubiquitous environments, nomadic users gather and exchange certificates or credential which providing them rights to access by transitivity unknown and trusted environments. These signed documents embeds increasing number of attribute that require to be filtered according to such contextual situation. In this chapter, we propose a new morph signature enabling each certificate owner to preserve his privacy by discloses or blinds some sensitive attributes according to faced situation.

Simulation of wind turbine wakes using the actuator line technique.

Science.gov (United States)

Sørensen, Jens N; Mikkelsen, Robert F; Henningson, Dan S; Ivanell, Stefan; Sarmast, Sasan; Andersen, Søren J

2015-02-28

The actuator line technique was introduced as a numerical tool to be employed in combination with large eddy simulations to enable the study of wakes and wake interaction in wind farms. The technique is today largely used for studying basic features of wakes as well as for making performance predictions of wind farms. In this paper, we give a short introduction to the wake problem and the actuator line methodology and present a study in which the technique is employed to determine the near-wake properties of wind turbines. The presented results include a comparison of experimental results of the wake characteristics of the flow around a three-bladed model wind turbine, the development of a simple analytical formula for determining the near-wake length behind a wind turbine and a detailed investigation of wake structures based on proper orthogonal decomposition analysis of numerically generated snapshots of the wake. © 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Bipolar pulse forming line

Science.gov (United States)

Rhodes, Mark A.

2008-10-21

A bipolar pulse forming transmission line module for linear induction accelerators having first, second, third, fourth, and fifth planar conductors which form an interleaved stack with dielectric layers between the conductors. Each conductor has a first end, and a second end adjacent an acceleration axis. The first and second planar conductors are connected to each other at the second ends, the fourth and fifth planar conductors are connected to each other at the second ends, and the first and fifth planar conductors are connected to each other at the first ends via a shorting plate adjacent the first ends. The third planar conductor is electrically connectable to a high voltage source, and an internal switch functions to short a high voltage from the first end of the third planar conductor to the first end of the fourth planar conductor to produce a bipolar pulse at the acceleration axis with a zero net time integral. Improved access to the switch is enabled by an aperture through the shorting plate and the proximity of the aperture to the switch.

From Off-line to On-line Handwriting Recognition

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lallican, P.; Viard-Gaudin, C.; Knerr, S.

2004-01-01

On-line handwriting includes more information on time order of the writing signal and on the dynamics of the writing process than off-line handwriting. Therefore, on-line recognition systems achieve higher recognition rates. This can be concluded from results reported in the literature, and has been

VT Digital Line Graph Miscellaneous Transmission Lines

Data.gov (United States)

Vermont Center for Geographic Information — (Link to Metadata) This datalayer is comprised of Miscellaineous Transmission Lines. Digital line graph (DLG) data are digital representations of cartographic...

Calling line managers in employee continuous professional development in South East Asia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anubama Ramachandra

2011-11-01

Full Text Available Purpose: The paper aims to study the relationship of Line Managers’ (LMs Human Resource (HR role and its facets within employee’s Continuous Professional Development (CPD.Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative approach using 100 questionnaires were distributed to line managers in a South East Asia with a response rate of 87%.Findings: Results depict that LMs are actively involved in Strategic Partner, Employee Champion, and Change Agent roles. Study also shows that these three HR roles correlate with employee CPD. LMs’ are neither involved in Administrative Expert role, nor it correlates with employee Continuous Professional Development.Research limitations: Inability of the line managers to be fully involved with the four HR roles constraints the process of line manager deployment of HR roles specifically to employee CPD.Practical implications: Argues that the importance of strategic partner, employee champion, and change agent roles are the most important barrier and enabler of employee CPD, thus indirectly promoting organizational success and productivity.Social implications: Highlights the difficulties of managing organisations by getting the line managers directly involve in the development of employee CPD. Many line managers have to be made and given opportunities to develop their capabilities on this platform. Contends that HR can help an organization to succeed, provided that all line managers understand their roles, work together and take responsibility for their contribution. In addition is the adoption of the HR roles for the smooth delivery of HR functions which aligns with the overall organizational success.Originality/value: Specific HR roles are significant importance to the development of employee CPD within the setting of this South East Asian organization.

Fast and sensitive medical diagnostic protocol based on integrating circular current lines for magnetic washing and optical detection of fluorescent magnetic nanobeads

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jaiyam Sharma

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs are increasingly being used as ‘magnetic labels’ in medical diagnostics. Practical applications of MNPs necessitate reducing their non-specific interactions with sensor surfaces that result in noise in measurements. Here we describe the design and implementation of a sensing platform that incorporates circular shaped current lines that reduce non-specific binding by enabling the “magnetic washing” of loosely attached MNPs attached to the senor surface. Generating magnetic fields by passing electrical currents through the circular shaped current lines enabled the capture and collection of fluorescent MNPs that was more efficient and effective than straight current lines reported to-date. The use of fluorescent MNPs allows their optical detection rather than with widely used magnetoresistive sensors. As a result our approach is not affected by magnetic noise due to the flow of currents. Our design is expected to improve the speed, accuracy, and sensitivity of MNPs based medical diagnostics. Keywords: Biosensors, Magnetic beads, Fluorescent magnetic nanoparticles, Lab on chip, Point of care testing

Clinical Benefit of Second-Line Palliative Chemotherapy in Advanced Soft-Tissue Sarcoma

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anna Minchom

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Background. This paper aimed to assess the utility of second-line chemotherapy in patients with advanced soft-tissue sarcoma. Materials and Methods. A retrospective search of a prospectively maintained database identified patients treated between 1991 and 2005. Patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumours, small round cell tumours, and Ewing's sarcoma were excluded. Response was assessed using WHO and RECIST. Patients who achieved stable disease for 6 months or more were classified as having disease control. Results. Three hundred and seventy-nine patients received second-line chemotherapy. Eighty-six (22.7% achieved disease control. Median duration of response was 11 months (95% CI: 9–13. On multivariate analysis, pathological subtype, absence of lung metastases, and the use of combination chemotherapy were independent predictors of disease control. Twenty-eight (16.1% patients who failed to respond to first-line therapy achieved disease control. Eight (2.1% patients had sufficient downstaging to enable complete surgical resection. Progression-free survival was 23% at 6 months. Median overall survival was 8 months (95% CI: 7–10 months. On multivariate analysis, synovial histology and absence of lung metastases were associated with improved survival. Conclusion. Second-line chemotherapy can provide clinical benefit in over 20% of soft-tissue sarcoma patients.

Discovering the game in auctions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kaisers, M.; Tuyls, K.P.; Thuijsman, F.; Parsons, S.; Nijholt, A.; Pantic, M.

2008-01-01

Auctions are pervasive in today’s society. They provide a variety of markets, ranging from consumer-toconsumer online auctions to government-to-business auctions for telecommunications spectrum licenses. Starting from a set of trading strategies, this article enables a strategic choice by

Rapid Assessment of Protected area Pressures and Threats in ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Regular evaluation of protected area operations can enable policy makers develop strategic responses to pervasive management problems. Pressures and threats in seven National Parks of the National Park Service (NPS) were therefore assessed using the Rapid Assessment and Prioritization of Protected Area ...

Effects of personal characteristics on susceptibility to decision bias : a literature study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Toet, A.; Brouwer, A.M.; Bosch, K. van den; Korteling, J.E.

2016-01-01

Cognitive biases and heuristics are pervasive simplifications and distortions in judgement and reasoning that systematically affect human decision making. Knowledge in this area may enable us to foresee and reduce detrimental effects of biases or to influence others more effectively. We therefore

Transgenic mice produced by retroviral transduction of male germ-line stem cells

OpenAIRE

Nagano, Makoto; Brinster, Clayton J.; Orwig, Kyle E.; Ryu, Buom-Yong; Avarbock, Mary R.; Brinster, Ralph L.

2001-01-01

Male germ-line stem cells are the only cell type in postnatal mammals that have the capability to self-renew and to contribute genes to the next generation. Genetic modification of these cells would provide an opportunity to study the biology of their complex self-renewal and differentiation processes, as well as enable the generation of transgenic animals in a wide range of species. Although retroviral vectors have been used as an efficient method to introduce genes into a variety of cell ty...

On-line system for monitoring of boiling in nuclear reactor fuel assemblies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tuerkcan, E.; Kozma, R.; Verhoef, J.P.; Nabeshima, K.

1996-01-01

An important goal of nuclear reactor instrumentation is the continuous monitoring of the state of the reactor and the detection of deviations from the normal behaviour at an early stage. Early detection of anomalies enables one to make the necessary steps in order to prevent further damage of nuclear fuel. In the present paper, an on-line core monitoring system is described by means of which boiling anomaly in nuclear reactor fuel assemblies can be detected. (author). 9 refs, 7 figs

Efficient algorithm for generating spectra using line-by-line methods

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sonnad, V.; Iglesias, C.A.

2011-01-01

A method is presented for efficient generation of spectra using line-by-line approaches. The only approximation is replacing the line shape function with an interpolation procedure, which makes the method independent of the line profile functional form. The resulting computational savings for large number of lines is proportional to the number of frequency points in the spectral range. Therefore, for large-scale problems the method can provide speedups of two orders of magnitude or more. A method was presented to generate line-by-line spectra efficiently. The first step was to replace the explicit calculation of the profile by the Newton divided-differences interpolating polynomial. The second step is to accumulate the lines effectively reducing their number to the number of frequency points. The final step is recognizing the resulting expression as a convolution and amenable to FFT methods. The reduction in computational effort for a configuration-to-configuration transition array with large number of lines is proportional to the number of frequency points. The method involves no approximations except for replacing the explicit profile evaluation by interpolation. Specifically, the line accumulation and convolution are exact given the interpolation procedure. Furthermore, the interpolation makes the method independent of the line profile functional form contrary to other schemes using FFT methods to generate line-by-line spectra but relying on the analytic form of the profile Fourier transform. Finally, the method relies on a uniform frequency mesh. For non-uniform frequency meshes, however, the method can be applied by using a suitable temporary uniform mesh and the results interpolated onto the final mesh with little additional cost.

Enabling distributed collaborative science

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hudson, T.; Sonnenwald, Diane H.; Maglaughlin, K.

2000-01-01

To enable collaboration over distance, a collaborative environment that uses a specialized scientific instrument called a nanoManipulator is evaluated. The nanoManipulator incorporates visualization and force feedback technology to allow scientists to see, feel, and modify biological samples bein...

Analysis of aneuploid lines of bread wheat to map chromosomal locations of genes controlling root hair length.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Miao; Rathjen, Tina; Weligama, Kumara; Forrest, Kerrie; Hayden, Matthew; Delhaize, Emmanuel

2017-06-01

Long root hairs enable the efficient uptake of poorly mobile nutrients such as phosphorus. Mapping the chromosomal locations of genes that control root hair length can help exploit the natural variation within crops to develop improved cultivars. Genetic stocks of the wheat cultivar 'Chinese Spring' were used to map genes that control root hair length. Aneuploid stocks of 'Chinese Spring' were screened using a rapid method based on rhizosheath size and then selected lines were assayed for root hair length to identify chromosomes harbouring genes controlling root hair length. A series of lines with various fractional deletions of candidate chromosomes were then screened to map the root hair loci more accurately. A line with a deletion in chromosome 5A was analysed with a 90 000 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array. The phosphorus acquisition efficiency (PAE) of one deletion line was compared with that of euploid 'Chinese Spring' by growing the seedlings in pots at low and luxury phosphorus supplies. Chromosomes 1A, 1D and 5A were found to harbour genes controlling root hair length. The 90 000 SNP array identified two candidate genes controlling root hair length located on chromosome 5A. The line with a deletion in chromosome 5A had root hairs that were approx. 20 % shorter than euploid 'Chinese Spring', but this was insufficient to reduce its PAE. A rapid screen for rhizosheath size enabled chromosomal regions controlling root hair length to be mapped in the wheat cultivar 'Chinese Spring' and subsequent analysis with an SNP array identified candidate genes controlling root hair length. The difference in root hair length between euploid 'Chinese Spring' and a deletion line identified in the rapid screen was still apparent, albeit attenuated, when the seedlings were grown on a fully fertilized soil. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com

Analysis of some coplanar transmission lines: coplanar coupled lines, coplanar coupled striplines, and coplanar coupled lines with rectangular microshield

Science.gov (United States)

Yuan, Naichang; He, Jianguo; Yao, Demiao; Dai, Qin; Lin, Weigan

1995-06-01

Two types of coplanar transmission lines, rectangular microshield coplanar coupled lines (RMCCL) and coplanar coupled rectangular microshield lines (CCRML), are proposed for MMIC applications. These are developed from coplanar coupled lines (CCL) and coplanar coupled strip lines (CCS). Analytic formulas are presented for calculating the quasistatic TEM parameters of these coupled lines by means of exact conformal mapping techniques. Numerical results are also presented to illustrate the properties of these coplanar transmission lines.

A Closed-Form Error Model of Straight Lines for Improved Data Association and Sensor Fusing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Volker Sommer

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Linear regression is a basic tool in mobile robotics, since it enables accurate estimation of straight lines from range-bearing scans or in digital images, which is a prerequisite for reliable data association and sensor fusing in the context of feature-based SLAM. This paper discusses, extends and compares existing algorithms for line fitting applicable also in the case of strong covariances between the coordinates at each single data point, which must not be neglected if range-bearing sensors are used. Besides, in particular, the determination of the covariance matrix is considered, which is required for stochastic modeling. The main contribution is a new error model of straight lines in closed form for calculating quickly and reliably the covariance matrix dependent on just a few comprehensible and easily-obtainable parameters. The model can be applied widely in any case when a line is fitted from a number of distinct points also without a priori knowledge of the specific measurement noise. By means of extensive simulations, the performance and robustness of the new model in comparison to existing approaches is shown.

Architecture of a service-enabled sensing platform for the environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Kotsev, Alexander; Pantisano, Francesco; Schade, Sven; Jirka, Simon

2015-02-13

Recent technological advancements have led to the production of arrays of miniaturized sensors, often embedded in existing multitasking devices (e.g., smartphones, tablets) and using a wide range of radio standards (e.g., Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 4G cellular networks). Altogether, these technological evolutions coupled with the diffusion of ubiquitous Internet connectivity provide the base-line technology for the Internet of Things (IoT). The rapid increase of IoT devices is enabling the definition of new paradigms of data collection and introduces the concept of mobile crowd-sensing. In this respect, new sensing methodologies promise to extend the current understanding of the environment and social behaviors by leveraging citizen-contributed data for a wide range of applications. Environmental sensing can however only be successful if all the heterogeneous technologies and infrastructures work smoothly together. As a result, the interconnection and orchestration of devices is one of the central issues of the IoT paradigm. With this in mind, we propose an approach for improving the accessibility of observation data, based on interoperable standards and on-device web services.

Architecture of a Service-Enabled Sensing Platform for the Environment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexander Kotsev

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Recent technological advancements have led to the production of arrays of miniaturized sensors, often embedded in existing multitasking devices (e.g., smartphones, tablets and using a wide range of radio standards (e.g., Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 4G cellular networks. Altogether, these technological evolutions coupled with the diffusion of ubiquitous Internet connectivity provide the base-line technology for the Internet of Things (IoT. The rapid increase of IoT devices is enabling the definition of new paradigms of data collection and introduces the concept of mobile crowd-sensing. In this respect, new sensing methodologies promise to extend the current understanding of the environment and social behaviors by leveraging citizen-contributed data for a wide range of applications. Environmental sensing can however only be successful if all the heterogeneous technologies and infrastructures work smoothly together. As a result, the interconnection and orchestration of devices is one of the central issues of the IoT paradigm. With this in mind, we propose an approach for improving the accessibility of observation data, based on interoperable standards and on-device web services.

Second Line of Defense Spares Program Assessment

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Henderson, Dale L.; Muller, George; Mercier, Theresa M.; Brigantic, Robert T.; Perkins, Casey J.; Cooley, Scott K.

2012-11-20

The Office of the Second Line of Defense (SLD) is part of the Department of Energy‘s (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The SLD Program accomplishes its critical global security mission by forming cooperative relationships with partner countries to install passive radiation detection systems that augment traditional inspection and law enforcement measures by alerting border officials to the presence of special nuclear or other radiological materials in cross-border traffic. An important tenet of the program is to work collaboratively with these countries to establish the necessary processes, procedures, infrastructure and conditions that will enable them to fully assume the financial and technical responsibilities for operating the equipment. As the number of operational deployments grows, the SLD Program faces an increasingly complex logistics process to promote the timely and efficient supply of spare parts.

Social-ecological enabling conditions for payments for ecosystem services

OpenAIRE

Heidi R. Huber-Stearns; Drew E. Bennett; Stephen Posner; Ryan C. Richards; Jenn Hoyle. Fair; Stella J. M. Cousins; Chelsie L. Romulo

2017-01-01

The concept of "enabling conditions" centers on conditions that facilitate approaches to addressing social and ecological challenges. Although multiple fields have independently addressed the concept of enabling conditions, the literature lacks a shared understanding or integration of concepts. We propose a more synthesized understanding of enabling conditions beyond disciplinary boundaries by focusing on the enabling conditions that influence the implementation of a range of environmental p...

Nanomaterial-Enabled Wearable Sensors for Healthcare.

Science.gov (United States)

Yao, Shanshan; Swetha, Puchakayala; Zhu, Yong

2018-01-01

Highly sensitive wearable sensors that can be conformably attached to human skin or integrated with textiles to monitor the physiological parameters of human body or the surrounding environment have garnered tremendous interest. Owing to the large surface area and outstanding material properties, nanomaterials are promising building blocks for wearable sensors. Recent advances in the nanomaterial-enabled wearable sensors including temperature, electrophysiological, strain, tactile, electrochemical, and environmental sensors are presented in this review. Integration of multiple sensors for multimodal sensing and integration with other components into wearable systems are summarized. Representative applications of nanomaterial-enabled wearable sensors for healthcare, including continuous health monitoring, daily and sports activity tracking, and multifunctional electronic skin are highlighted. Finally, challenges, opportunities, and future perspectives in the field of nanomaterial-enabled wearable sensors are discussed. © 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Interactive effects of three pervasive marine stressors in a post-disturbance coral reef

Science.gov (United States)

Gil, Michael A.; Goldenberg, Silvan U.; Ly Thai Bach, Anne; Mills, Suzanne C.; Claudet, Joachim

2016-12-01

Ecosystems are commonly affected by natural, episodic disturbances that can abruptly and drastically alter communities. Although it has been shown that resilient ecosystems can eventually recover to pre-disturbed states, the extent to which communities in early stages of recovery could be affected by multiple anthropogenic stressors is poorly understood. Pervasive and rising anthropogenic stressors in coastal marine systems that could interactively affect the recovery of these systems following natural disturbances include high sedimentation, nutrient enrichment, and overfishing. Using a 6-month field experiment, we examined the effects of all combinations of these three stressors on key functional groups in the benthic community growing on simulated, post-disturbance reef patches within a system recovering from large-scale natural disturbances (corallivorous seastar outbreak and cyclone). Our study revealed that sedimentation, nutrient enrichment, and overfishing (simulated using exclusion cages) interactively affected coral survival and algal growth, with taxon-specific effects at multiple scales. First, our treatments affected corals and algae differently, with sedimentation being more detrimental to macroalgal growth but less detrimental to coral ( Porites rus) survival in caged plots, driving significant interactions between sedimentation and caging for both taxa. We also observed distinct responses between coral species and between algal functional groups, with the most extensive responses from algal turf biomass, for which sedimentation suppressed the synergistic (positive) combined effect of nutrient enrichment and caging. Our findings suggest that different combinations of ubiquitous anthropogenic stressors, related to either sea- or land-based activities, interactively influence community recovery from disturbance and may alter species compositions in the resulting community. Our findings further suggest that anthropogenic stressors could promote further

On the security of SSL/TLS-enabled applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Manik Lal Das

2014-01-01

Full Text Available SSL/TLS (Secure Socket Layer/Transport Layer Security-enabled web applications aim to provide public key certificate based authentication, secure session key establishment, and symmetric key based traffic confidentiality. A large number of electronic commerce applications, such as stock trading, banking, shopping, and gaming rely on the security strength of the SSL/TLS protocol. In recent times, a potential threat, known as main-in-the-middle (MITM attack, has been exploited by attackers of SSL/TLS-enabled web applications, particularly when naive users want to connect to an SSL/TLS-enabled web server. In this paper, we discuss about the MITM threat to SSL/TLS-enabled web applications. We review the existing space of solutions to counter the MITM attack on SSL/TLS-enabled applications, and then, we provide an effective solution which can resist the MITM attack on SSL/TLS-enabled applications. The proposed solution uses a soft-token based approach for user authentication on top of the SSL/TLS’s security features. We show that the proposed solution is secure, efficient and user friendly in comparison to other similar approaches.

Integrated Photonics Enabled by Slow Light

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mørk, Jesper; Chen, Yuntian; Ek, Sara

2012-01-01

In this talk we will discuss the physics of slow light in semiconductor materials and in particular the possibilities offered for integrated photonics. This includes ultra-compact slow light enabled optical amplifiers, lasers and pulse sources.......In this talk we will discuss the physics of slow light in semiconductor materials and in particular the possibilities offered for integrated photonics. This includes ultra-compact slow light enabled optical amplifiers, lasers and pulse sources....

Enabling UAV Navigation with Sensor and Environmental Uncertainty in Cluttered and GPS-Denied Environments

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fernando Vanegas

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV can navigate with low risk in obstacle-free environments using ground control stations that plan a series of GPS waypoints as a path to follow. This GPS waypoint navigation does however become dangerous in environments where the GPS signal is faulty or is only present in some places and when the airspace is filled with obstacles. UAV navigation then becomes challenging because the UAV uses other sensors, which in turn generate uncertainty about its localisation and motion systems, especially if the UAV is a low cost platform. Additional uncertainty affects the mission when the UAV goal location is only partially known and can only be discovered by exploring and detecting a target. This navigation problem is established in this research as a Partially-Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP, so as to produce a policy that maps a set of motion commands to belief states and observations. The policy is calculated and updated on-line while flying with a newly-developed system for UAV Uncertainty-Based Navigation (UBNAV, to navigate in cluttered and GPS-denied environments using observations and executing motion commands instead of waypoints. Experimental results in both simulation and real flight tests show that the UAV finds a path on-line to a region where it can explore and detect a target without colliding with obstacles. UBNAV provides a new method and an enabling technology for scientists to implement and test UAV navigation missions with uncertainty where targets must be detected using on-line POMDP in real flight scenarios.

Enabling UAV Navigation with Sensor and Environmental Uncertainty in Cluttered and GPS-Denied Environments.

Science.gov (United States)

Vanegas, Fernando; Gonzalez, Felipe

2016-05-10

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) can navigate with low risk in obstacle-free environments using ground control stations that plan a series of GPS waypoints as a path to follow. This GPS waypoint navigation does however become dangerous in environments where the GPS signal is faulty or is only present in some places and when the airspace is filled with obstacles. UAV navigation then becomes challenging because the UAV uses other sensors, which in turn generate uncertainty about its localisation and motion systems, especially if the UAV is a low cost platform. Additional uncertainty affects the mission when the UAV goal location is only partially known and can only be discovered by exploring and detecting a target. This navigation problem is established in this research as a Partially-Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP), so as to produce a policy that maps a set of motion commands to belief states and observations. The policy is calculated and updated on-line while flying with a newly-developed system for UAV Uncertainty-Based Navigation (UBNAV), to navigate in cluttered and GPS-denied environments using observations and executing motion commands instead of waypoints. Experimental results in both simulation and real flight tests show that the UAV finds a path on-line to a region where it can explore and detect a target without colliding with obstacles. UBNAV provides a new method and an enabling technology for scientists to implement and test UAV navigation missions with uncertainty where targets must be detected using on-line POMDP in real flight scenarios.

Online Social Media in Crisis Events

Science.gov (United States)

Palen, Leysia

2008-01-01

As social media--which includes blogs, social networking environments, person-to-person and broadcast messaging, and other Web 2.0 applications--becomes more pervasive, their use has significant implications for emergency management practice and policy. Information and communication technology (ICT) enables people--disaster survivors, curious…